The following afternoon, David set out according to his promise.  Before his return, the wind, which had been threatening to wake all day, had risen rapidly, and now blew a snowstorm of its own.  When Hugh opened the door to take his usual walk to the cottage, just as darkness was beginning to fall, the sight he saw made his young strong heart dance with delight.  The snow that fell made but a small part of the wild, confused turmoil and uproar of the ten-fold storm.  For the wind, raving over the surface of the snow, which, as I have already explained, lay nearly as loose as dry sand, swept it in thick fierce clouds along with it, tearing it up and casting it down again no one could tell where—­for the whole air was filled with drift, as they call the snow when thus driven.  A few hours of this would alter the face of the whole country, leaving some parts bare, and others buried beneath heaps on heaps of snow, called here snaw-wreaths.  For the word snow-wreaths does not mean the lovely garlands hung upon every tree and bush in its feathery fall; but awful mounds of drifted snow, that may be the smooth, soft, white sepulchres of dead men, smothered in the lapping folds of the almost solid wind.  Path or way was none before him.  He could see nothing but the surface of a sea of froth and foam, as it appeared to him, with the spray torn from it, whirled in all shapes and contortions, and driven in every direction; but chiefly, in the main direction of the wind, in long sloping spires of misty whiteness, swift as arrows, and as keen upon the face of him who dared to oppose them.

Hugh plunged into it with a wild sense of life and joy.  In the course of his short walk, however, if walk it could be called, which was one chain of plungings and emergings, struggles with the snow, and wrestles with the wind, he felt that it needed not a stout heart only, but sound lungs and strong limbs as well, to battle with the storm, even for such a distance.  When he reached the cottage, he found Janet in considerable anxiety, not only about David, who had not yet returned, but about Margaret as well, whom she had not seen for some time, and who must be out somewhere in the storm—­“the wull hizzie.”  Hugh suggested that she might have gone to meet her father.

“The Lord forbid!” ejaculated Janet.  “The road lies ower the tap o’ the Halshach, as eerie and bare a place as ever was hill-moss, wi’ never a scoug or bield in’t, frae the tae side to the tither.  The win’ there jist gangs clean wud a’thegither.  An’ there’s mony a well-ee forbye, that gin ye fell intill’t, ye wud never come at the boddom o’t.  The Lord preserve’s!  I wis’ Dawvid was hame.”

“How could you let him go, Janet?”

“Lat him gang, laddie!  It’s a strang tow ‘at wad haud or bin’ Dawvid, whan he considers he bud to gang, an’ ’twere intill a deil’s byke.  But I’m no that feared aboot him.  I maist believe he’s under special protection, if ever man was or oucht to be; an’ he’s no more feared at the storm, nor gin the snaw was angels’ feathers flauchterin’ oot o’ their wings a’ aboot him.  But I’m no easy i’ my min’ aboot Maggy—­the wull hizzie!  Gin she be meetin’ her father, an’ chance to miss him, the Lord kens what may come o’ her.”