Expecting every minute to reach the shelter of a farm I hurried forward, whilst the storm howled and raged behind and about me. It was well for me that the storm was at my back, for my face was entirely unprotected and the sleet was driven past me in straight, almost horizontal lines, which obliterated the landscape in a moment, and stung my neck so that I could have cried with pain. When I had rounded the bend and climbed the stiff ascent my plight was worse. There was no protection of any kind and my face suffered so terribly that I began to be alarmed. To add to my difficulties every landmark had been blotted out, and the road itself was becoming indistinguishable from the low-lying edge of moor over which it wound. Like ten thousand shrouded demons let loose to work destruction the wind hissed and shrieked and roared, and tore across my path with a force I could scarcely resist. Ten minutes after its commencement I was treading ankle-deep in snow, and I could see that drifts were beginning to form where the road had been brought below the level of the rising and lumpy moor. I would have given much to have been sitting by Mother Hubbard's side, listening to the click of the needles, but I was indeed thankful that she had not accompanied me. After the first sensation of alarm and dismay the novelty of the situation began to appeal to me. One can get accustomed even to being thrashed by the genii of the air, and I became conscious of a certain exhilaration which was almost pleasant, even whilst I was ardently longing for the sight of a friendly roof. I know now that I missed the broad road, and took a narrower one which sloped down at an acute angle, but I was unconscious of this at the time, and was only grateful to find some protection from the high wall upon my left. I know also that I had passed two or three farms where I might have been hospitably received, but no fog could have proved a thicker curtain than that impenetrable veil of driven snow, and I never even guessed at their existence. The moor now began to rise steeply upon my right, and as I stumbled forward, holding my hat upon my head with both hands, I suddenly found myself upon hard ground again, with scarcely a trace of snow to be seen, and with a whole row of cottages on one side of the road, in which blazing fires offered me a warm welcome. I could hardly realise that I had found refuge.