doubly domestic? When the pigeons and the fowls flew down to the bounteous barn-door, and were joined by scores of the fowls of heaven, 'whose pantry doors were locked, and the key lost? When, far and near, the whole landscape lay under a white sheet, on which the black swarm of rooks and starlings looked doubly black, as a momentary clearing of the sky gave you a view abroad? When the lanes and highways were full, with drifts here and there, perhaps twenty feet deep, and tossed by the winds into grand or fantastic features, swelling over hedgetops, and even over trees and rocks; and there were no snow-ploughs, as on the continent, attended by troops of shovel-armed men, going constantly to and fro, to keep all A WINTER'S NIGHT. 19 great roads clear? When therefore the mails were stopped, the carriers' carts, which were anxiously looked for, bringing work and food from the towns, were also frost-bound, and there were dismal stories circulating round all firesides of travellers lost in the great drifts on the wild moorlands, and the wanderers that had perished there or in deep snow-laded woods? "When, anon, the snows ceased, and there came out skies as blue as lapis-lazuli, and the winds began to pipe shrewd and shrill, tossing the light surface of the snow in fine spray, and then binding the whole down in hardness that admitted you to walk on it; then was it a new and wonderful feeling to go over hedge-tops and across deep valleys, now filled and levelled up, the frozen mass crunching under your feet, to find only the rivers showing themselves by their wintry hues, amid the trees and rocks." During such an old-fashioned winter as the above must Burns' tender, loving heart, with its sympathies keenly alive to the suffering of man and beast, have improvised the following lines: Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd, The blood-stain'd roost, and sheep-cote spoil'd, My heart forgets; While, pityless, the tempest wild Sore on you beats. The shepherds of Scotland hand down from father to son the terrors of the "Thirteen Drifty days," a term applied to a period when Scotland was visited by a fearful snowstorm, in the year 1660: indeed, it is said that even now, the mention of this period to an old shepherd, on a stormy winter's night, seldom fails to impress his mind with religious awe, and often sets him on his knees before that Being, who alone can avert such another calamity. For thirteen days and nights the falling and drifting of the snow never abated: the ground was covered with frozen snow when it commenced, and during all the time of its continuance, the sheep were without food. The shepherds had the pain of seeing their poor helpless flocks die off, without having the power to shield them either from cold or from hunger. About the fifth day of the storm, the younger sheep became sleepy and torpid, which was generally followed by death in the course of a few hours; or, if exposed to the cutting wind, they were sometimes deprived of life almost immediately after the torpor commenced. By the tenth day of the storm, so many sheep had died, that the shepherds began to build up large semicircular walls of the frozen dead bodies, in order to afford some sort of shelter for the sheep which still remained alive. But these began by this time to suffer so much from want of food, that they tore one another's wool with their teeth. At the termination of the storm, on the thirteenth day, there were many farms on which not a single sheep was left alive. Misshapen walls of dead bodies, surrounding a central knot of other sheep, also dead, was the sight which in too many instances met the eye of the ruined shepherd or farmer. On those farms, which were situated in the glens between mountains, many of the sheep survived the storm, but their constitutions suffered so severely, that few ultimately recovered. Nine-tenths of all the sheep in the south of Scotland are supposed to have perished by this snowstorm. In the pastoral district of Eskdale Muir, out of twenty thousand sheep, only forty young wethers and five old ewes were preserved. Many of the farms were so utterly ruined, as to become tenantless and valueless for several years. About sixty or seventy years after this event, one single day of snow was so extraordinarily severe, that upwards of twenty thousand sheep, as well as some of the shepherds, were destroyed. An anecdote has been related, in connexion with this storm, which shows the degree of attention with which the Scottish shepherds notice the appearances of the sky. The day in question was the 27th of March; it was Monday, and on the previous day the weather was remarked to be unusually warm. A party of peasants, going home from Yarrow church on Sunday evening, saw a shepherd who had collected all his sheep by the side of a wood. Knowing that he was a religious man, and unaccustomed to collect his sheep in that manner on the Sabbath, they asked him his motive; to which he replied, that he had noticed certain appearances in the sky, which led him to conclude that a snow-storm was approaching. All the villagers laughed at him; but he bore their jokes good-humouredly, and provided for the safety of his sheep. The fatal storm occurred on the following day, and this shepherd was the only one in the vicinity who saved the whole of his sheep. We may remark, in reference to weather-observations such as these, that provided they be kept within reasonable limits, they are exceedingly valuable. Persons who put undivided faith in "weather almanacs," and in the popular omens and prognostics which are so abundant, are liable to be duped and led into repeated errors; but those who pretend to despise the experience of humble observers, and to lay down doctrines relating to the weather from theory only, err almost as much on the other side. Perhaps the most extraordinary snow-storm with which Scotland was ever visited, was that which occurred on the 24th of January, 1794; extraordinary both in relation to the enormous depth to which the snow accumulated in a few hours, and to the devastation which it occasioned. James Hogg, so well known as the "Ettrick Shepherd," was then a young man, and was involved in the consequences of this storm. In the evening of his life he wrote a graphic account of the occurrence, from which we shall borrow so much as will suffice to convey an idea of this remarkable storm. Hogg and a few young friends had formed themselves into a sort of literary society for the reading and criticism of essays and papers. They were all shepherds, and were a accustomed to meet at each other's houses, where they frequently remained together all night. On the evening in question a meeting was to be held at Entertrony, a place distant twenty miles from Hogg's residence, over a wild and rugged country. He had written what he terms " flaming bombastical essay," and set off with it in his pocket, to attend a meeting of his compeers. As he was trudging along on foot, he thought he perceived symptoms of an approaching storm, and that of no ordinary nature. There was a dead calm, accompanied by a slight fall of snow, and a very unusual appearance was presented by the distant hills. He thought of the flock of sheep which was usually under his care, but which was now consigned to the charge of another, and he began to think it would be prudent to retrace his steps. After a long contest between his inclination and his sense of duty, he turned back with a heavy heart, and wended homewards. On his road he called at the house of an elder relative, who told him that the symptoms foreboded a snow-storm during the night, and advised him to hasten homeward with all speed. The old man further stated, as a guide to Hogg, in conducting the sheep to a quarter where they would be best sheltered, that if, during his journey, he should see any opening in the rime or frostfog, he might conclude that the storm would spring up from that quarter. Hogg, however, observed no such opening in the fog, and finally reached home, where he went to bed, intending to rise at a very early hour, and go out to find shelter for his sheep. Just before he retired to rest, he observed a brightness in the north, and remembered his friend's advice; but thought he might postpone acting thereon. About two o'clock in the morning a storm commenced with such suddenness and fury, that he was startled from his bed, and, on putting his arm out into the open air, he found the air so completely overloaded with falling and driving snow, that, but for the force of the wind, he felt as if he had thrust his arm into a wreath of snow. He slept in a kind of outhouse, distant about fourteen yards from the dwelling-house; and, upon going down stairs, he found this place packed with snow, nearly as high as the walls of his house. With great diffieulty he reached the dwelling-house, and found all the |