Our steed did not require pulling up to stop him. Of his own instinct he stopped pretty frequently. I said to the man, “Our horse seems to be short of ‘puff.’” “Yes,” said the gigman; “his wind is touched a little, but nothing to hurt. He will be all right if we can once pull through.” Sometimes we went into the ditches. How deep they were before the snow fell I don’t know. I should think some of them were pretty deep. Thanks to the Almighty, the bottom of our gig would not let us topple over. Many times I began to wonder where we should find a resting-place for the night. I said to my gigman as we went ploughing through the snow in one of the ditches, “In case we get stuck fast, what shall we do next?” “Well,” said the gigman, “we shall have to leave the trap behind and return to Kelso as best we can. We shall both have to get upon the horse’s back, and if he will not carry us we must take turn and turn about. It won’t do to stop on the road to perish.” I began to “pump” my gigman in order to know whether I was in the hands of one who understood his business. I wanted my fears settling upon this point.
I said, “How long have you been a coachman?” “Between twenty and thirty years,” he said. “And have you ever had a ‘spill’ or been stuck fast?” “I have only had one ‘pitch in’ and never a ‘spill.’” This news gave me confidence in my man, and on we kept ploughing away. A strong contrast presented itself to our view close to a cottage just off the roadside. There was a fine dark woman with a bright scarlet hood and cloak on her big body, doing something upon one of the hedges. It struck me that she was bird-liming, for the London markets, the poor linnets that choose to be caged rather than to perish.
The sights along the road were most lively, and I shall never forget it as long as the breath is in my body. The excitement “on the road,” the bubbling sympathy within my breast for the poor perishing rabbits, hares, partridges, and crows upon our path, the dangers of the way, and the magnificent grandeur of the scenery, were of such a nature as to cause me to forget the biting cold at work benumbing my nose, fingers, and toes. The Scotch firs in the dales and vales along our path and on the hillsides never appeared more grand and beautiful. They were artistically touched by the hand of God. The pure white lovely prismatic children of the clouds and cold boundless space had descended softly from heaven, as if loth to leave their pure abode for a resting-place in the mud; but before doing so they appeared anxious to adorn the trees of nature with the beauties of ethereal space, and in such a manner as to cause one’s heart to glow with gratitude towards God, the Giver of all good. The boughs were bent downwards, heavily laden with the angelic snowflakes; the whole trees presenting a spiral sight, leading your eyes and mind upwards toward heaven. At the extreme tips of the branches the snow had formed a kind of white clapperless bells. As I passed under the heavily-laden trees I felt that I should like to have helped them to bear their burden, and also to keep the prismatic children of the clouds and infinitude from settling into their dirty resting-places. Nature seemed to speak through the beautiful snow-adorned trees, and wintry-capped hills and covered valleys with a warm loving tenderness that I had never experienced before.