TRAGEDY OF THE SNOW
This wild country was the scene of a mail-coach tragedy on February 1st, 1831, when the Dumfries and Edinburgh mail was snowed up at Moffat. Eager to perform their duty, the driver and guard procured saddle-horses and flung the mail-bags across them, but a few minutes’ effort proved that it was impossible to proceed with the horses, and the two undaunted men sent them back to Moffat, and went on by themselves, afoot. It was an enterprise of the most hopeless kind, impossible to be accomplished. They sank down exhausted, near this gorge, and perished in the snow. Their bodies were found, a week later, and the mail-bags they had carefully hung upon a wayside snow-post, hard by.
To-day, in the old kirkyard of Moffat, two stones to the memory of these brave men, “faithful unto death,” may be found, with the inscriptions:
Erected by Subscription in 1835.
Sacred to the Memory of James MacGeorge, Guard of the Dumfries and Edinburgh Royal Mail, who unfortunately perished at the age of 47, near Tweedshaws, after the most strenuous exertions in the performance of his duty, during that memorable snowstorm 1st February 1831,
and
In memory of John Goodfellow, Driver of the Edinburgh Mail Coach, who perished on Errick Stane in a snowstorm on 1st February 1831, in kindly assisting his fellow-sufferer, the Guard, to carry forward the Mail-Bags.
The local Courier newspaper of the time, with more truth than feeling, described the act of these devoted servants of the Post Office as “an exaggerated sense of duty.”
If you go far enough past the Devil’s Beef Tub and Tweedshaws, where the river Tweed rises, you come, along this old road to Edinburgh, to the “Crook” inn, where the poet Campbell had a curious experience. Taking a generous glass of toddy, he went to bed. Presently there came a knock at the door, and there entered the pretty maiden who had given him supper. “Please, sir, could ye tak’ a neebour into your bed?”
“With all my heart,” exclaimed the poet, starting up gaily.