Penelope, Volume I by William Pitt Scargill

Few indeed are the adventures now to be met with in travelling by a stage coach, and few also, comparatively speaking, the accidents. But our travellers were destined to meet both with accident and adventure. The coach, as our observant readers have noticed, must necessarily have travelled all night. The nights in December are long and dark; and not unfrequently, during the long cold silence of a December night, there gently falls upon the dank surface of the earth a protecting and embellishing fleece of flaky snow. And the morning snow as yet untrodden has a brilliant and even cheerful look beneath a blue and brightly frosty sky; and when a wide expanse of country variegated with venerably-aged trees, and new enclosures and old open meadow lands, and adorned with here and there a mansion surrounded with its appurtenances of larch, pine, and poplar, and divided into unequal but gracefully undulating sections by means of a quiet stream -- when a scene like this bursts upon the morning eye of a winter traveller, and shows itself set off and adorned with a mantle of virgin snow, it is indeed a sight well worth looking at. Mr Primrose had not seen snow for sixteen years, and the very sight of it warmed his heart; for it was so much like home. It was one of those natural peculiarities which distinguished the land of his birth from the land of his exile. He expressed to his fellow traveller the delight which he felt at the sight. Mr Kipperson coincided with him that the view was fine, and proposed that, as they were both well clad, and as the scenery was very magnificent, they should by way of a little variety seat themselves on the outside of the coach. The proposal was readily embraced, and they mounted the roof.

The carriage was proceeding at a tolerably rapid pace on high but level ground; and the travellers enjoyed the brightness of the morning, and the beauty of the valley which lay on their left hand. Shortly they arrived at a steep descent which led into the valley beneath, and there was no slacking of pace or locking of wheels, which had been customary in going down hill when Mr Primrose was last in England. He expressed, therefore, his surprise at the boldness or carelessness of the coachman, and hinted that he was fearful lest some accident might happen. But Mr Kipperson immediately dissipated his fears, by telling him that this was the usual practice now, and that the construction of stage-coaches, and the art of driving, were so much improved, that it was now considered a far safer and better plan to proceed in the usual pace down hill as well as upon level ground. Mr Kipperson, in short, had just proved to a demonstration that it was impossible that any accident could happen, when down fell one of the horses, and presently after down fell coach and all its company together.