ACCIDENTS 207 



were so deep that for several miles men had to go on 

 before and cut a passage for the coach. They did not 

 arrive at Newcastle till two hours after midnight, and 

 Macready had reason to congratulate himself that he 

 had not delayed his journey, for the next day the snow 

 was so deep that the coaches ceased to run, and for 

 six weeks there was no means of communication between 

 Newcastle and Edinburgh. 



People who travelled on a coach in a snow-storm 

 never forgot it; they were not anxious to repeat the 

 experience. One man started on the Regulator from 

 Bath at 6 a.m. on a bitter winter morning. It came 

 on to snow, and snowed without ceasing throughout 

 the day. The six horses harnessed to the coach could 

 hardly draw it, and though due in London at eight at 

 night it was three the following morning before the 

 Regulator laboured up to The White Horse. The 

 traveller attributed the fa61: that he arrived alive, to 

 the stiff glass of brandied coffee he imbibed at every 

 stage. As it was, his hands and feet were so numbed and 

 incapable of motion that he was hauled out of his 

 hammock of snow like a bale of goods. The landlady 

 had him carried into the kitchen, where she thawed 

 him gradually and administered consolation in the 

 shape of hot possets of her own compounding. 



Passengers underwent much discomfort and anxiety 

 at such times, but there is no doubt they were some- 

 times unreasonable. Once when a blinding snow-storm 

 swirled round a coach, and an unhappy coachman and 

 guard wrestled bravely with their own numb fingers 



