The country was one
vast drift; the snow-posts by the roadside, where not altogether buried
or so plastered with the driving snow on their weather side as to be
invisible, pushed their black heads through the universal ghostly
shroud; where the road had been, the abandoned coach itself loomed, a
shapeless white mound. On and on Marchbanks toiled, and, far past the
spot where last night he had parted from his comrades, something unusual
hanging to a snow post caught his eye. It was the mail-bags, securely
tied there by hands which too evidently had been bleeding from the cold;
but of guard or coachman there was never a sign. The meagre winter day
was already drawing to a close; with the gathering darkness a rising
wind drove the snow once more before it, and the clouds to windward
piled black and ominous. By himself Marchbanks was powerless to help, if
help were indeed yet possible; he could but return to Moffat and give
the alarm.
That night men with lanterns and snow-poles fought their way to
Tweedshaws, only to learn there what all had feared--neither guard nor
coachman had come through. Therefore, if by remote chance they still
lived, the men must lie buried in the snow, perhaps within very few
yards of the high-road.
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