The retreat happened to be under the lee of the rock, so that although
it had little depth, he was protected from the violence of the storm;
the relief was great after the fatiguing struggle he had been
undergoing. He managed to strike a match and look at his watch; it was
only six o'clock. Had he to pass the night in that chill and dreary
region?

Gruesome anecdotes rushed tormentingly to memory. It was but last
winter that he had read of the finding of a man's body, stark and cold,
not fifty yards from his own threshold; he had fallen helpless, faint
from incessant struggling through the snow-drifts and too weak to make
his cries for help heard above the rushing of the wind and the swish of
the snow on the window behind which his terrified wife was anxiously
awaiting his coming.

And what of Bonar himself? He might at that instant be miles away from
any human habitation; it might be days before a human being chanced to
pass that way! Would his body confront some wandering shepherd or some
sportsman months hence, when the snows had gone, and, perhaps--horrible
thought, yet possible to be realized!--after carrion birds had made
their onslaught on the foul thing it had become?

Be sure he called himself every kind of idiot for venturing on such a
fool's errand at such a time. But that did not warm his shivering
limbs or infuse patience into his almost despairing heart. The cold
was intense. He was obliged at last to move away from his
shelter--such as it was--and in spite of the thick snow beneath his
feet, and the hurrying flakes still noiselessly but relentlessly
falling, to trample some kind of pathway in which he might pace
backwards and forwards to keep the blood circulating in his veins.