Then a few years later came that memorable storm of 1831, of which men
in Tweedsmuir still speak almost as if it were an event of yesterday. It
was in the days of the old mail coaches, and the event which served to
fix this storm indelibly in the public mind occurred on or near the old
coach road from Dumfries to Edinburgh. The road runs past Moffat and up
something like five miles of very heavy gradient to the Devil's Beef
Tub, ascending in that distance nearly nine hundred feet; from the Tub
it crosses the lonely, desolate watershed which divides Tweed from
Annan, then by easy slope drops past Tweedshaws and Badlieu, and so by
Tweedsmuir and the old Crook Inn--with Broad Law upheaving his massive
shoulder on the right--slips gradually into country less unkind in days
of storm than are those bleak upper regions.
Snow had been falling all day on the 1st of February 1831, and the
morning mail from Dumfries to Edinburgh was already late in reaching
Moffat. Would "she" go on, would "she" risk the terrible drifts that
even now must have formed nearer the bleak moorland summit? And the
little knot of faithful admirers who, according to custom, daily
assembled by one's and two's about the inn door at Moffat to wait the
coming of the coach--their one excitement--agreed that "MacGeorge would
gang on if the de'il himsel' stude across the road.
Pages:
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193