He now found himself descending the hill-side; but whether it was the same side which he had ascended, or some other, he could not conjecture. By this time the snow had accumulated to a considerable depth in the hollows; and he frequently plunged into it up to the middle before he was aware. He pulled out his watch to try if he could ascertain the hour; but he could not. He tried his voice, in the hope that some one might hear him, and come to his assistance; but his feeble cry died away unanswered upon the blast. His situation was a desperate one, and he resolved to make one desperate effort more for existence. He turned his back to the storm, determined to run before it as far as he was able; and, should he perish, if possible to perish upon his feet. He had not proceeded far, however, when he tumbled over a steep bank, and rolled from hillock to hillock till he reached the bottom of the den in a state of insensibility. When he again recovered, he found himself beneath the storm, stretched among the undrifted snow, which was lying about a foot deep around him, while close by his side a brawling stream was dashing over the large stones which, like him, had rolled down the hill, and rested in the bottom of the glen. "Here," thought the stranger, "I have at last found a place where I may die in peace; and it is, perhaps, better to give up the struggle, then again to rush into the tempest only to perish beneath its pitiless pelting." What were his religious feelings in the prospect of death we know not; but his home and his friends, the grief which his early fate would occasion, and the melancholy satisfaction which they would derive from bestowing the last rites upon his lifeless remains, were present to his imagination. And, lest they should be deprived of the performance of these sadly-pleasing duties, by the ignorance of those who found him, he pulled out his pocket-book, and endeavoured to write his own name, with the name of his father's farm, and the name of the parish in which it was situated. While thus engaged, in that "Hopeless certainty of mind Which makes us feel at length resign'd To _that_ which our foreboding years Presents the worst and last of fears," the deep sonorous sound of a well-blown horn fell upon his ears, and roused him to fresh exertions. He had crossed the burn and clambered to the top of the bank before the blast had ceased; and, as he endeavoured to fix the direction of the sound, the horn was again winded. It seemed not to be very distant. Hope invigorated his weary limbs, and he dashed through the opposing wreaths as stoutly as if his toils had been only newly begun. Another blast was blown, and he continued to run upon the sound till it ceased, and it was not again repeated.