" MacGeorge was
guard of the mail-coach, a fine, determined man, an old soldier, one
imbued with abnormally strong sense of duty. Once before, for some quite
unavoidable delay, the Post-Office authorities had "quarrelled" him (as
he expressed it), and this undeserved blame rankled in the old soldier's
heart. It should not be said of him a second time that he had failed to
get his mails through on time. So it came to pass that, in spite of
rising gale and fiercer driving snow, in spite of earnest remonstrance
from innkeepers and spectators, with "toot-toot" of horn away into the
white smother, spectral-like, glided the silent coach. A mile from the
inn she was blocked by a huge drift. That safely won through, a couple
of miles farther she plodded on, slowly and ever more slow; and finally,
in a mighty wreath, stuck fast; "all the King's horses" might not have
brought her through that. MacGeorge was urged to turn now, to make the
best of a bad business and to go back to Moffat. The delay was
unavoidable; no one could cast blame on him, for the worst part of the
road was yet to come, and no power on earth could get the mails through
that. But no! It was his duty to go on, and go he would.
The horses were taken out of the coach.
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