BOUND FOR THE BORDER 241 



mail-coach. The glorious four-in-hand which went 

 spanking down the street from the Bush in the old 

 days, at ten or eleven miles an hour, now started 

 from the White Hart and the Eoyal, and resolved 

 itself into a three-horse coach as far as Langholm, 

 where it required its fourth horse for the run to 

 Mospaul Inn and The Tower at Hawick. 



The mail-coach held a peaceful monopoly of that 

 section of the road for twelve years, but by November, 

 1861, the line from Carlisle northward had been 

 carried to a point near Scots Dyke (now called Scotch- 

 dyke) toll-bar, and on August 1, 1862, it opened into 

 Hawick, and ran the successor of the fine old coach 

 for ever off the road. 



The Tower Inn (now hotel) is still in sound repair ; 

 but as for Mospaul Inn — a long, long stage south of 

 Hawick, where mercifully the horses which had just 

 come up the hill from Langholm were led smoking 

 to their stable, and the travellers cheered themselves 

 with a nip of the wine of the country before making 

 for the Teviot — as for Mospaul Inn, what is it now but 

 a heap of ruins ? 



There used to be in my youth a train called the 

 Parliamentary train on every railway, which started 

 early in the morning on week-days, and, stopping at 

 each station on the way, carried passengers to their 

 destination in a not over-luxurious nor under-occu- 

 pied vehicle, at the statutory charge of a penny a 

 mile. 



Since the practice has obtained of conveying third- 



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