Before Phemy got to the top of the hill-shoulder, which she had to cross by a path no better than a sheep-track, the wind had turned to the north, and was blowing keen, with gathering strength, from the regions of everlasting ice, bringing with it a cold terrible to be faced by such a slight creature as Phemy; and so rapidly did its force increase that in a few minutes she had to fight for every step she took; so that, when at length she reached the top, which lay bare to the continuous torrent of fierce and fiercer rushes, her strength was already all but exhausted. The wind brought up heavier and heavier snow-clouds, and darkness with them, but before ever the snow began to fall, Phemy was in evil case--in worse case, indeed, than she could know. In a few minutes the tempest had blown all energy out of her, and she sat down where was not a stone to shelter her. When she rose, afraid to sit longer, she could no more see the track through the heather than she could tell without it in which direction to turn. She began to cry, but the wind did not heed her tears; it seemed determined to blow her away. And now came the snow, filling the wind faster and faster, until at length the frightful blasts had in them, perhaps, more bulk of blinding and dizzying snowflakes than of the air which drove them. They threatened between them to fix her there in a pillar of snow. It would have been terrible indeed for Phemy on that waste hillside, but that the cold and the tempest speedily stupefied her. Kirsty always enjoyed the winter heartily. For one thing, it roused her poetic faculty--oh, how different in its outcome from Phemy’s!--far more than the summer. That very afternoon, leaving Steenie with his mother, she paid a visit to the weem, and there, in the heart of the earth, made the following little song, addressed to the sky-soaring lark:-- What gars ye sing sae, birdie, As gien ye war lord o’ the lift? On breid ye’re an unco sma’ lairdie, But in hicht ye’ve a kingly gift! A’ ye hae to coont yersel rich in, ’S a wee mawn o’ glory-motes! The whilk to the throne ye’re aye hitchin Wi’ a lang tow o’ sapphire notes! Ay, yer sang’s the sang o’ an angel For a sinfu’ thrapple no meet, Like the pipes til a heavenly braingel Whaur they dance their herts intil their feet! But though ye canna behaud, birdie, Ye needna gar a’thing wheesht! I’m noucht but a hirplin herdie, But I hae a sang i’ my breist! Len’ me yer throat to sing throuw, Len’ me yer wings to gang hie, And I’ll sing ye a sang a laverock to cow, And for bliss to gar him dee! Long before she had finished writing it, the world was dark outside. She had heard but little heeded the roaring of the wind over her: when at length she put her head up out of the earth, it seized her by the hair as if it would drag it off. It took her more than an hour to get home.