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318
The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
·
James Wilson Hyde
55
A
notable
instance
of
the
devotion
to
duty
of
a
coachman
and
mail-guard,
and
one
illustrating
the
dangers
and
hardships
which
Post-office
servants
of
that
class
had
to
encounter,
occurred
in
the
winter
of
1831.
On
Tuesday
the
1st
February
of
that
year,
James
M'George,
mail-guard,
and
John
Goodfellow,
coachman,
set
out
from
Dumfries
for
Edinburgh
at
seven
o'clock
in
the
morning,
and
after
extraordinary
exertions
reached
Moffat,--beyond
which,
however,
they
found
it
impossible
to
proceed
with
the
coach,
owing
to
the
accumulation
of
snow.
They
then
procured
saddle-horses,
and
with
these,
accompanied
by
a
postboy,
they
went
on,
intending
to
continue
their
journey
in
this
way.
They
had
not
proceeded
beyond
Erickstane
Hill,
a
rising
ground
in
close
proximity
to
the
well-known
natural
enclosure
called
the
Deil's
Beef-Tub,
when
it
became
evident
that
the
horses
could
not
make
the
journey,
and
these
were
sent
back
in
charge
of
the
postboy
to
Moffat.
The
guard
and
coachman,
unwilling
to
give
in,
continued
their
journey
on
foot,
having
in
view
to
reach
a
roadside
inn
at
Tweedshaws,
some
two
or
three
miles
farther
on.
The
exact
particulars
of
what
thereafter
happened
will
never
be
known,
beyond
this,
that
the
mail-bags
were
afterwards
found
tied
to
one
of
the
road-posts
set
up
in
like
situations
to
mark
the
line
of
road
on
occasions
of
snowstorms,
and
that
the
two
men
perished
in
the
drift.
The
last
act
performed
by
them,
before
being
quite
overcome
by
exhaustion
and
fatigue,
was
inspired
by
a
sense
of
duty,
their
aim
being
to
leave
the
bags
where
they
would
more
readily
be
found
by
others,
should
they
themselves
not
live
to
recover
them.
Shortly
after
this
the
two
men
appear
to
have
succumbed;
for
their
bodies
were
found
five
days
afterwards
within
a
hundred
yards
of
the
place
where
they
left
the
bags,
and
where
at
the
cost
of
their
lives
they
had
rendered
their
last
service
to
the
Post-office
and
their
country.
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