The play was begun and continued with varying fortune: sometimes one side scored, sometimes the other. The match was to consist of thirty-one points; and at one o’clock when a halt was called for refreshments, the scoring was tolerably even. The frost was beginning to shew a slight tendency to give way, but this only nerved the players to further exertions in sweeping up the stones on the somewhat dulled ice. The scene in the forenoon had been a very lively one: but as the afternoon approached and the game was nearing an end, the liveliness was tempered with anxiety, which amounted almost to pain, as shot after shot was ‘put in’ by one side, only to be cleverly ‘taken’ by the other. ‘Soop! soop!’ was the incessant cry of the skips as from their point of vantage they descried a lagging stone; or ‘Haud up! I tell ye; haud up!’ when from that same point they beheld one of their players’ stones approaching with sufficient velocity to do all that was wanted. Anxiety was nearing a crisis. At half-past three the game stood: Broughton thirty, Tweedsmuir twenty-nine. The game was anybody’s. Coats had been cast as needless encumbrances; besoms were clutched with determined firmness: the skips slightly pale with the terrible excitement of the occasion, and the stake that was as it were hanging in the balance: want of nerve on their part to direct, or on the part of any one man to play, might decide the fate of the day. The last end had come to be played, and Broughton having won the previous end, was to lead. The shoemaker’s stone is played, and lies well over the hog-score in good line with the tee, and on the road to promotion. Tweedsmuir’s leading man, the schoolmaster, passes the souter’s stone and lies in ‘the house.’ ‘Well played dominie!’ cries Laird Scott to his lead. And so proceeds the ‘end’ till it comes to our friend the mason’s turn to play; the blacksmith having just played his first stone with but indifferent effect.
‘What do ye see o’ that stane Andrew?’ roars Laird Scott from the tee, pointing at the same time to the winning stone of the other side, which, however, was partially ‘guarded.’
‘I see the half o’ t.’
‘Then,’ says the laird, ‘make sure of it: tak it awa’, and if you rub off the guard there’s no harm done.’
For a moment the mason steadies himself, settles his foot in the crampet, and with a straight delivered shot shaves the guard and wicks out the rival stone, himself lying in close to the tee, and guarded both at the side and in front by stones belonging to his side.
The effect of such a shot as this, at so critical a period of the game, was electric, and is not easily to be described. Enthusiasm on the part of Tweedsmuir, dismay on that of Broughton. But there are yet several stones to come: the order may again be reversed, and Andrew’s deftly played shot may be yet taken. We shall see. The blacksmith, the third player on the Broughton side, follows with his second stone, and though by adhering to the direction of his skip he might have knocked off the guard and so laid open Andrew’s winner, over-anxiety causes him to miss the guard and miss everything. Thus is his second and last stone unfortunately played for Broughton.
The mason has his second stone still to play for Tweedsmuir, and before doing so Laird Scott thus accosts him: ‘Andrew my man, we are lying shot now; we want but another to be game; and for the honour o’ Tweedsmuir I am going to give you the shot that will give it to us: do ye see this port?’ pointing to an open part of the ice (in curling phraseology a port) to the left of the tee, with a stone on each side.
‘I see the port sir.’
‘Well then,’ continued the laird, ‘I want you to fill that port; lay a stone there Andrew, and there’s a lade o’ meal at your door to-morrow morning.’
The stone is raised just for one instant with an easy backward sweep of hand and arm, and delivered with a twist that curls it on and on by degrees towards the spot required. Not just with sufficient strength perhaps, but aligned to the point. In an instant the skip is master of the situation. ‘Soop lads! O soop! soop her up—s-o-o-o-p—there now; let her lie!’ as the stone curls into the ‘port,’ and lies a provoking impediment to the opposite players. The pressure on players of both sides is now too great to admit of many outward demonstrations. Stern rigour of muscle stiffens every face as the two skips themselves now leave the tee and take their places at the other end. The silence bodes a something that no one cares to explain away, so great is the strain of half-hope half-fear that animates every breast.