In vain the shepherd tried to dissuade us from going any further in the failing light: in vain he told us of the dangers we should run. We thanked him, put him off with some excuse about going "a little" further, and turned resolutely on up the "path" he had pointed us to. It was by no means the sort of path we were accustomed to.
On and on and on—I don't know how far we went. But the farther we went the more silent we became. Each knew the other knew that he was getting more and more uneasy at every step. Each knew the other wasn't going to be the first to admit that he was funky.
It grew so awfully cold. It became so awfully dark.
"The moon will be up by-and-by," Smith said.
"Yes," said I; "we shall be all right then. What's this?"
It was too dark to see it, but we felt it in our faces. We put our hands on our sleeves and felt it there.
Snow!
We both gave in then, and funked it without disguise. We turned to go down, to get home. We tried at first to disbelieve it, but it wasn't long before we both gave up the pretence.
"We're lost!" we cried together.
That was just our position. In the cold, dark night, in the midst of a rapidly-rising storm and fast-falling snow, we were lost on the wild Welsh mountains.