For instance, one woollen manufacturer
says that, not five and twenty years ago, he had to rise betimes to set
off on a winter's-morning in order to be at Bradford with the great
waggon-load of goods manufactured by his father; this load was packed
over-night, but in the morning there was a great gathering around it, and
flashing of lanterns, and examination of horses' feet, before the
ponderous waggon got under way; and then some one had to go groping here
and there, on hands and knees, and always sounding with a staff down the
long, steep, slippery brow, to find where the horses might tread safely,
until they reached the comparative easy-going of the deep-rutted main
road. People went on horseback over the upland moors, following the
tracks of the pack-horses that carried the parcels, baggage, or goods
from one town to another, between which there did not happen to be a
highway.
But in winter, all such communication was impossible, by reason of the
snow which lay long and late on the bleak high ground. I have known
people who, travelling by the mail-coach over Blackstone Edge, had been
snowed up for a week or ten days at the little inn near the summit, and
obliged to spend both Christmas and New Year's Day there, till the store
of provisions laid in for the use of the landlord and his family falling
short before the inroads of the unexpected visitors, they had recourse to
the turkeys, geese, and Yorkshire pies with which the coach was laden;
and even these were beginning to fail, when a fortunate thaw released
them from their prison.
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