Dark nights in wild country were fruitful in strange experiences, aided, doubtless, by the potency of the parting glass as well as by the blackness of the night and the ruggedness of the way. The adventures of Jack Creery and Joe Lord, coachman and guard of the pair-horse Lancaster and Kirkby Stephen Mail, one snowy night, form a case in point. They had the coach to themselves, for it was not good travelling weather. Creery, we are told, “felt sleepy”--a pretty way of saying he was intoxicated--and so the guard took the reins. In driving, this worthy, whose condition seems to have been only a shade better than that of his companion, wandered in the snow into a by-lane between Kirkby Stephen and Kirkby Lonsdale, and so lost his way. After floundering about for some time, he aroused Creery, and their united efforts, after alighting many times to read the signposts, brought them in the middle of the night to a village, where they were found by the aroused villagers loudly knocking at the church door, under the impression that it was a public-house. That snowstorm must have been a particularly blinding one, or the brandy at their last house of call unusually strong. [Illustration: THE LIONESS ATTACKING THE EXETER MAIL, OCTOBER 20th, 1816. _After A. Sauerweid._ ] Not often was coaching history marked by such a gruesome incident as that which befell a coach on the Norwich Road. At Ingatestone a lady, who was the only inside passenger, was discovered to have died. Her son, travelling outside, was informed, but after some hesitation it was decided that the coach should proceed to its destination at Colchester. At Chelmsford, however, two ladies presented themselves as would-be passengers. Inside seats only were available, all the outsides being occupied. They were informed of the circumstances, and that they could therefore not be booked; but were so anxious to go by the coach that they overcame their natural scruples, and rode with the dead woman to the journey’s end. Of winter travelling we have already heard something, and shall hear more. How it struck one contemporary with those times we may learn from a reminiscent old traveller, who, having had much experience of old coaching methods, preferred the railway age--at least in winter. Thus he recalls some of his experiences:--