202 FIELD AND FS11N. 



haven (the scene of the ten-minute breakfast) 

 were kept by it. The horses were generally three- 

 parts bred, and worth from 30 to <40 ; and Mr. 

 Watson, who horsed the thirteen miles from Cupar 

 Angus to Perth in connection with the late Lord Pan- 

 mure, had a couple of sixteen-hand Yorkshire 

 mules as leaders in one of his stages. More confirmed 

 " merry-legs" were not to be found in the whole 

 126 miles. Captain Barclay horsed three stages from. 

 Stonehaven to Northwater Bridge ; and each guard 

 undertook one. Only a minute was allowed 

 for a shift; and the pace was so steady, that when 

 the heir to a peerage, who was going to fight the 

 Elgin burghs, fell asleep at Perth, and missed the 

 coach, he never could sight it again in the eighty- 

 four miles to Aberdeen, although he was turned 

 out very little more than ten minutes behind it 

 with four good posters. Seven o' clock was the -time of 

 starting from Aberdeen, but the Queen's Ferry cut 

 the time to waste, and Edinburgli was not reached 

 before eight. 



The first coaches had blue bodies, and red wheels 

 picked out with straw, and cost 150 each in Lon- 

 don. They were beautifully hung, and so low that 

 they could not be overset ; but the draught was too 

 great, and red ones from Wallace of Perth gradually 

 superseded them. In 1838, the coaches were stopped 

 a whole week by snow, at the time when a couple of 

 wedding-parties as well asDucrow and his troupe were 

 blocked up at a public-house near Bervie; and 



