98 ANNALS OF THE ROAD. 



tween Hounslow and Staines, a place which from the 

 team being called upon to go at such a high rate of 

 speed, and many lives being thereby lost, earned for 

 itself the name of the hospital ground, the dust almost 

 blinding us from the little light there was, I fancied,' 

 says my friend, relating the story, ' I heard a shout 

 ahead, which I afterwards found I was right in assuming 

 came from the guard of the Bristol mail, just in front of 

 us. One moment more and we came to a sudden stop 

 by our leaders falling, and the main bar unhooking itself. 

 The wheelers passed over the leaders as they lay, and 

 when I picked myself up — for I was half thrown off — I 

 found the leaders under the splinter-bar. A flock of 

 sheep had been frightened by the mail in front of us, 

 and had stood stock still in the middle of the road and 

 we had run into them: there were several lying dead on 

 the ground. Backing the coach, we got our leaders 

 safely out, and the damages being repaired — a matter 

 well understood in those days — we finished our stage 

 and reported cheap mutton for the morrow for them.' 



On this road there were, besides the mail, ' The Regu- 

 lator,' which ran through Devizes, and the ' York House ' 

 of which stage-coach the Duke of Beaufort writes as 

 follows: — 'Jack Sprorson and Jem Adlam drove this 

 coach from London to Marlborough one day, and back 

 the next, meeting near Newbury, about fifty-two or fifty- 

 three miles out of London. Old Edwards, I think this 

 was his name, brought the coach up from Bath in the 

 morning to breakfast at Marlborough, and took it back 

 at night after tea to Bath. It is 107^ miles : 32J from 



