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REMINISCENCES 
 
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 REMINISCENCES OF A GENTLEMAN COACHlAN 
 
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 L.OKDON;I,QNGMAN^;CR£EN AND C®- 
 
'Down the Road' 
 
 i)R 
 
 REMINISCENCES 
 
 OF 
 
 A GENTLEMAN COACHMAN. 
 
 HY 
 
 C.T. S. BIRCH REYNARDSON 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 1875. 
 
 All riiiliti ri-si'>-7'e(/. 
 
TO THE 
 
 RISING GENERATION OF COACHMEN: 
 
 To THOSE 
 
 'CHIPS OF THE OLD BLOCK' 
 
 WHO ASPIRE TO THE REKINDLING OF 
 
 'THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS:' 
 
 AND WTPH P.EST WISHES FOR THEIR SUCCESS 
 THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 
 
 C. T. S. 1;1RCU REYNARDSO.X. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 In tiip:se days of revived Coaching, when there seems 
 to be a perfect mania amongst the young men of the 
 present clay for a trip ' down the Road,' and when 
 the Park is enHvened by so many ' aspirants to the 
 whip,' with their smart coaches and gaudy-going 
 high-stepping teams, I trust I shall not be thought 
 presumptuous in offering a sketch and a few anec- 
 dotes of old times to the young Coaching British 
 Public. My coaching days are over ; but as the 
 worn-out charger neighs at the sound of the trumpet, 
 as the old huntsman revives at the crack of the whip 
 and the sound of the horn, so do I, when I see or 
 hear of a coach, call back the days when coaches 
 were in their glory. ' The light of other days ' has 
 faded, it is true, but still there are some remaining 
 who can recall with pleasure the ' palmy days of old.' 
 
 V 
 
viii J N TROD L T770X. 
 
 There are few, very few, now remaining, I fear, 
 who have really worked a coach by night and by day, 
 through wind and rain, frost and snow, and who h9,ve 
 really done the thing in rough and smooth. 
 
 If there should be any of the old ones left to read 
 my humble production, they will, I think, bear me 
 out that, pleasant as it was, it was on many occasions 
 hard work, and at times not quite devoid of danger 
 and a considerable amount of responsibility. 
 
 In producing my ' Reminiscences ' I wish to afford 
 amusement to those of the present day, and to tell 
 them how their poor old governors or their poor 
 dear old grandpapas used to see and hear things now 
 for ever past and gone. I wish I had either the pen 
 or wit of a Whyte Melville or of a Wilkie Collins 
 to put all I wish to say into better language, and to 
 describe the incidents of the Road in a more ' juicy ' 
 way. But not having either their pen or their wit, 
 I must ask my readers to be what is termed ' kind 
 readers,' and to be indulgent. I daresay some will 
 take delight in picking ' my work ' to pieces ; but 
 
IX/ROPLC'JJOX. ix 
 
 when they consider that though educated at Eton I 
 did not learn much there but mischief, and that 
 though my education was supposed to be finished at 
 Cambridee I did not learn much there but to drive 
 coaches, they must not expect to get water out of 
 an empty pitcher. 
 
 a 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 Reader, whilst you whisk along- in your cosy first- 
 class carriage to Scotland, by the express, on that 
 best of all lines, the Great Northern, doing your forty 
 miles, or even more, an hour, with your comfortable 
 foot-warmer, the ' Times ' in your hand, and probably 
 your pipe in your mouth, does it ever enter your 
 head that the 400 miles that it takes you ten hours, 
 or even less, to accomplish, were not performed under 
 two days and two nights by your old father, or even 
 in a longer time by * poor dear old grandpapa,' who 
 considered that a railroad was an invention of the 
 devil, and who declared that he would never do any- 
 thing but post if railways were permitted to travel 
 at a greater rate than fifteen miles an hour ? Does 
 it ever occur to you that whilst you are rattling 
 along at such a pace, and feeling so secure and cosy 
 
 a 2 
 
Xll 
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 in your snug corner of the carriage, the pointsman, a 
 mile ahead of yon, may, for some cause or unforeseen 
 accident — possibly from the water in his tea having been 
 too strong— have neglected to attend to his points, and 
 that you are on the high road to the coal-train, which 
 has just shunted to let you pass ; or' ,that you are, 
 without the least possible chance or means of avoiding 
 it, well into the cattle-train, which is making all play 
 to get away from the down express, and for which it 
 ouo-ht to shunt at the next station ? No wonder that 
 your ' poor dear old grandpapa ' should rather post 
 than subject himself to such terrors, the bare thoughts 
 of which are enough to cause him a terrible night- 
 mare. ' Ah ! ' he would sometimes say, * it was very 
 dangerous travelling by a stage-coach, or even by a 
 post-chaise, particularly if there were four horses ; for 
 if the postboys got drunk, which they often did, there 
 was a great danger of being upset. A stage-coach, 
 too, was often very heavily loaded ; and if two coaches 
 were what they used to call "opposition coaches," 
 they used to race one against the other, and gallop 
 
TO THE READER. xiii 
 
 along the road, and swing about in a most dangerous 
 manner ; and when this was the case they sometimes 
 got turned over, and the passengers used to get hurt. 
 There was danger in travehing by a coach, but, after 
 all, nothing to a railway. You got upset in a coach 
 or in a chaise, and there you were. You get upset 
 in a railway, and where are you ? ' so said poor dear 
 old grandpapa. 
 
 But you are very comfortable in your corner. Your 
 * Times ' is, luckily for you, fairly clear as to print this 
 morning, which, by the way, is not an everyday occur- 
 rence ; your pipe draws well, which it very often does 
 not ; your tobacco is good, which it generally is, for 
 it is Simmons' Mixture, of 62, Piccadilly — not quite 
 worth fourteen shillings a pound, I should say ; but 
 that is his price, and good things, they sa)'. always 
 fetch their value. Your thoughts turn to the pace you 
 are going, and how merrily you slip along ; you pass 
 through the country as if you were riding a whirl- 
 wind ; you pass villages, and churches, and houses, 
 and fields, and fences, and can hardl)- distinguish 
 
xiv TO THE READER. 
 
 them ; your only object is to get over the ground ; 
 you are on your way to Edinburgh, and you are in 
 the ' Rusher.' Well, you say to yourself, I wonder 
 how my governor could ever get through his time out- 
 side a coach ; how deuced cold, too, he must have 
 been on such a day as this ; and as to ' poor dear old 
 grandpapa,' I don't wonder that he's used up and done 
 for, if they travelled still slower in his days than they 
 did in the governor's. Such thoughts, perhaps, pass 
 in your mind, and it is to you that I shall offer a few 
 anecdotes of olden times, — tales of old coaching days 
 along the old North Road, the old Holyhead Road, 
 and other roads that in my early clays I have fre- 
 quented, and upon which it has delighted me ' Col- 
 legisse pulverem Olympicum.' 
 
 The anecdotes have all come under my own obser- 
 vation, and therefore I may be thought to be always 
 talking and telling of myself. If I do appear thus 
 egotistical, do not be too hard upon me. What I have 
 noted down are real facts ; and if, when you have 
 finished reading your ' Times,' and have lit another 
 
Ti) THE READER. xv 
 
 pipe 'Reminiscences of a Gentleman Coachman' lu:lp 
 to beguile your time till you come into collision wiih 
 either of the trains I have before named, the little 
 effort I have made to amuse you and the object I 
 have had in view will be fully attained by me. 
 
 There cannot be many in 1874 who have been 
 on a coach so long- since as 1823 or 1824. There 
 may be some ; but, alas ! how few remain to tell 
 the tale. There may be some few remaining, but 
 time has thinned their ranks, and those who do re- 
 main must, according to the rules of ' Anno Domini,' 
 be old men. Fifty, or even forty, years is a long- 
 time to look back upon, it is true ; but in reality 
 the time has flown away with incredible rapidity, and 
 days and weeks and years have, as it were, travelled 
 by an express train. I am one of the ' old ones ' that 
 remain, and from that fact, and the fact of having 
 always had a penchant for ' the Road,' I have seen 
 many things happen during the last fifty )'ears that 
 cannot by any means take place again. ' Tempora 
 mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis,' as the poet has 
 
xvi TO THE READER. 
 
 it. Since those days men are changed, coaches are 
 changed, horses are changed, and the very modus 
 operandi seems changed. There is no real ' Down 
 the Road ' in the present day ; and a real old mail 
 and the real old stage-coach, with its piles of luggage 
 and all other etceteras, should, before every recollec- 
 tion of them is gone, have a place, fully equipped 
 for the Road as in times of old, in the British Mu- 
 seum. It would not be a bad thouoht for some 
 enterprising old ' Down the Road ' to set the thing 
 on foot, and thus hand down to posterity what would 
 be a wonder to behold when the generation to come 
 travel by electricity instead of steam. 
 
 The incidents and anecdotes which will appear in 
 my book were not originally written for publication. 
 For the amusement of those of tenderer years than 
 myself who showed a tendency to follow in the steps 
 of ' a worn-out coachman,' I used sometimes to relate 
 some of my stories, and on many occasions I have 
 had it said to me, ' Why don't you publish them ? 
 They would make a capital book to read on the rail- 
 
TO THE RJ:.U)IiA\ xvii 
 
 road.' I have at length put many httle facts together, 
 
 and, with the wish to afford amusement to others, 
 
 I have tried to describe some of the incidents which 
 
 used to take place in )ears now long past and gone, 
 
 but the memory of which still clings on. 
 
 You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will, 
 But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. 
 
 So says Tom Moore. ' Quo semel est imbuta recens, 
 servabit odorem testa diu,' says our old friend Horace, 
 who is another and a greater authority. It is hard to 
 forget the joyous days of old ; and though I and 
 others of my contemporaries are. like the vase, broken 
 and ruined by ' Anno Domini,' still — 
 
 • Sunt quos curricuk) puherem Ulympicum 
 Collegisse ju\at. 
 
 And to them, with their permission, and asking their 
 kind indulgence, I beg to dedicate 
 
 Down I'lii': Roai) 
 
 OR 
 
 Reminiscences ue a Gentleman Coachman. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I'AGK 
 
 Introduction vji 
 
 To THE Reader xi 
 
 Road Versus Ratl . . . . i 
 
 The Old Mail Horn 8 
 
 Charter House Days lo 
 
 College Days 17 
 
 ' Regent ' Coach 33 
 
 The 'Peacock' at Islington 43 
 
 Wellyn Hill and Old Barker 49 
 
 The Crooked Whip and Tom Hennesy 54 
 
 Tom Hennesy's Accomplishments 60 
 
 The Six Hills at Stevenage 63 
 
 The Road Game 6j 
 
 Tom Hennesy Reduced lo a Pair 67 
 
 The World can't get on without Humbug 7' 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Kites over Moncks Woou 76 
 
 The Louth Mail 78 
 
 I GO TO Live near the Holyhead Road 80 
 
 The Holyhead Mail from London via Shrewsbury . ... 83 
 
 Ogwyn Pool 87 
 
 Holyhead Mail 96 
 
 Three Blind 'uns and a Bolter 102 
 
 The Little Fast Team from the Rising Sun . . . . 109 
 
 Jack Williams' Recommendation of an Inn . . . .112 
 
 Hodgson Won't Read my Parcels 114 
 
 Wheeler without Harness 117 
 
 Dick Vickers 119 
 
 Harry Jones asks me to Drive the 'Bus over the Menai 
 
 Bridge .... 125 
 
 Mail — Chester and Holyhead . . 128 
 
 * Sall I Stamp the Footboard?' 135 
 
 Cruelty to Dump. Animals 138 
 
 The St. Gothard Pass 141 
 
 Moping a Hol' Leader 150 
 
 Nettle Coach 153 
 
 The Pig at Llanvmyneck Toll-lar 155 
 
 'Peier Hiltc^n' and the Strange GentlI'.man .... 160 
 
CONTENTS. xxj 
 
 PACK 
 
 The Reason why Horses go Better at Night . . . . 165 
 
 'The Lodge Hill' 168 
 
 The Stage Coach of Old, and the Load it Used to Carry 179 
 
 Small Hints that may be Useful 183 
 
 The Amateur 'Shooter' 199 
 
 How John Barker Starts a Refractory Team . . .201 
 
 Always go Round your Horses 203 
 
 Mind that the Toll-bar Man don't Shut the Gate in 
 
 your Face 205 
 
 An Old Coachman 208 
 
 Farewell to the Reader 216 
 
 Alas! Alas! Where is it Gone? 219 
 
 Postscript ..... 221 
 
LIST OF PLATES. 
 
 ScKNK ON viiv. Dover Roam .... 
 
 Sunrise 
 
 ' Harry ! Offside Leader'.s Trace unhooked !' 
 
 Tom and I Slic into 'the Bar' 
 
 Tom Hennesy's Crooked Whip. 
 
 'What! Drunk again, you lazy old Beggar?' 
 
 Bickneel's Spicy Team of Greys 
 
 Our Friend in Red keeps his Horn going 
 
 A SiTCKY Lot 
 
 A Stiffish Pitch, but a good Tea.m . 
 
 Xkar-side, Joe, Track gone again ! 
 
 A Cheery Look-out 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 To face p. i 
 
 33 
 56 
 59 
 79 
 95 
 128 
 136 
 
 '38 
 185 
 209 
 

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'DOWN THE road; 
 
 ROAD VERSUS RAIL. 
 
 It has often been a subject of wonder to me that 
 no one has ever written any sort of book relating to 
 Coaching or incidents of the Road in times gone by, and 
 I am well aware that so humble a pen as mine cannot 
 set- forth in a proper way the incidents I should wish 
 to describe. In the present mode of travelling, com- 
 fortable and expeditious as it may be, there is little 
 of the amusement there formeily was on the Road. 
 Everybody now seems to be in a hurry, everybody 
 seems to wish to be first, and everybody does the 
 best he can, and takes the quickest means to get to 
 his journey's end. 
 
 The tea-kettle, with its steam, has taken the place 
 of the four bright bays ; the grimy engine-driver and 
 stoker have taken the place of the coachman ; tlie 
 
'DOIVN THE road: 
 
 guard or conductor In his blue coat and foreign-look- 
 ing cap, has taken the place of the guard in red, with 
 his glazed hat and cockade ; and the long mellow 
 horn of former days is now replaced by a shrill and 
 certainly not to be called mellow whistle. The railway 
 carriage, it is true, is a large, commodious affair, with 
 its comfortable padded seats, windows that fit tight, 
 a lamp in the roof to turn darkness into light in the 
 tunnels through which the train passes as it speeds 
 on its headlong way through the bowels of the earth. 
 A comfortable foot-warmer of tin or zinc filled with 
 hot water warms the feet of the old ladies and gentle- 
 men, and even of young ladies and young gentlemen, 
 and of little boys returning home for their holidays, 
 or with saddened hearts going back to school. How 
 different is all this from former days, when the stage 
 coach, with its four in and twelve out, or the mail, 
 with its four in and three outside, exclusive of the 
 coachman and guard, started upon its journey of per- 
 haps three or four hundred miles at eight o'clock 
 at night, or at, let us say, six o'clock in the morning ! 
 The snow is on the ground, the wind blowing pierc- 
 ingly cold, for it also freezes hard, the stars shining 
 
SIX O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 
 dfrom ILontiou. 
 
 THE PROPRIETOKS OF 
 
 Respectfully inform the public and their friends in par- 
 ticular, that, for their more perfect convenience, and to 
 keep pace with the daily improvements in travelling, the 
 hour of its leaving London will be alttred on Monday the 
 13th of May, (and continued during the summer months,) 
 
 TO SIX O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING, 
 
 Instead of Night. 
 
 The arrangements that are forming in furtherance of 
 this long-desired alteration, will ensure a steady and 
 punctual conveyance of Passengei'S to Stamford by a 
 Quarter before Six o'clock, and to Melton by a Quarter 
 before Nine o'clock in the Evening. 
 
 The hours of leaving Melton and Stamford will NOT 
 be altered. 
 
 The proprietors take this opportunity to acknowledge 
 their sense of the decided patronage shown to the Re- 
 gent Coach under their several regulations, and to re- 
 peat their promise that no exertion shall be wanting to 
 make it one of the most desirable conveyances to and 
 from London. 
 
 Passengers and Parcels booked at Sir. Weldon's, and 
 the Bull and Swan Inn, Stamford ; and at Mr. Sharpe's, 
 Bell Inn, M%\ton.— Stamford, May 1, 1822. 
 
 Drakard. 
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 This Coach leaves London at 
 Six o^ clock in the Morning. 
 
 From the George and Blue Boar, Holborn. 
 
ROAD VERSUS RAIL. 
 
 brighter than the brightest diamonds, and the morn- 
 ing, except for the light of the stars, as dark as pitch. 
 It is six o'clock a.m., as they say in these days, in the 
 month of February 1824, and no chance of reachinir 
 the ' George and Blue Boar,' Holborn, before nine or 
 ten o'clock at night — a pretty look out for the three little 
 boys who are now mounting on to the ' Regent ' coach 
 at Stamford on their way back to school, wrapped in 
 their long drab great-coats. The coach is piled up 
 with luggage till it is loaded like a stage-waggon, and 
 one only wonders how such a heavily loaded convey- 
 ance ever reached its destination without breaking 
 down or being upset. 
 
 The three little fellows have mounted" up to their 
 seats on the roof of the coach, and, though they have 
 been told b)- their anxious parents to be sure and go 
 inside, persist in going, one on the box with the coach- 
 man, and the other two behind him. and declare man- 
 fully that they are not cold and never feel the cold. 
 They have each got some straw ; not new straw, for 
 that is cold stuff, but straw out of the stables which 
 has been a little used and trampled by the horses ; and 
 havinof shoved their little feet into it, instead of on to a 
 
'DOWN THE road: 
 
 hot foot-warmer, as in the present day, feel as cheery 
 as possible. 
 
 The boy of the present day has no idea of what 
 his father, or perhaps I might better say his poor dear 
 old grandpapa, suffered on his journey from six o'clock 
 A.M. till his arrival at nine or ten o'clock p.m. at the 
 ' George and Blue Boar,' Holborn, on such a morning 
 as I have tried to describe, which albeit was a fine 
 morning for the time of year, for there was no snow 
 actually falling, nor was there any rain, as often was 
 the case, to melt the snow and make everything sloppy 
 and miserable — raining down from six in the morning- 
 till the arrival of the coach at nine at night ; raining 
 down without intermission till coats, hats, and one's 
 very flesh were wet through to the bone. 
 
 It was indeed misery, or next door to it ; but still 
 all were kept alive and in something like a merry mood 
 by the incidents on the road. 
 
 The coachman was generally a good-natured kind 
 of fellow, and had his jokes with every one along the 
 road, in spite of either cold or wet. 
 
 The guard too was usually a cheery fellow, and 
 often played the keyed bugle well, or, if on the mail, 
 
ROAD VERSUS RAIL. 
 
 cheered one up with the sound of his ' mellow horn," 
 often called his ' yard of tin,' for in old times it was 
 made of tin, and was about a )'ard long. Such was 
 the travelling in former days. The pace now no doubt 
 is greater, the comfort is greater ; but with all this the 
 fun and interest, as well as the incidents, of the road 
 are gone for ever. 
 
 The three little boys in their long drab great-coats 
 are now old men ; and, according to the traditions of 
 the Pawnee Indian, are awaiting their turn to go to 
 those happy hunting grounds where it is supposed by 
 them that those who deserve to be happy will find 
 ' the light of other days ' unfaded and bright as in days 
 of old. 
 
 The coachmen are dead — the guards are dead. 
 ' Trumpeter unus erat, coatum qui scarlet habebat,' he 
 is dead ; and his Mail Horn's sound is heard no 
 more. 
 
'DOWN THE road: 
 
 THE OLD AfAIL HORN. 
 
 The horn that once upon the mail 
 
 Its soul of music shed, 
 Now hangs all mute against the wall 
 
 And tells of guards long dead ; 
 So sleeps the horn of former years, 
 
 Its stirring sounds are o'er, 
 And toll-bar men and horsekeepers 
 
 Now hear that sound no more. 
 
 No more to roadside inns, alas ! 
 
 The mail horn's music swells \ 
 No more upon the midnight breeze 
 
 The mail's arrival tells ; 
 The drowsy passenger ne'er wakes, 
 
 Roused by that midnight horn ; 
 That sound is dead and never breaks 
 
 The still of the early morn. 
 
 But shall these sounds be quite forgot, 
 
 Though guards are past and gone ? 
 There still remain some hearts that loved 
 
 The sound of that mellow horn ; 
 And though the coachmen of old are dead, 
 
 Though the guards are turned to cla)-, 
 There are those who remember the ' Yard of Tin,' 
 
 And the mail of the olden day. 
 
'THE OLD MA//. HOf^X: 
 
 THE OLD MAIL HORN. 
 
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 Either of the lines may be sounded. Any other notes are wrong, 
 and, indeed, impossible. 
 
 (,: 
 
lo 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 CHARTER HOUSE DAYS. 
 JOHN BARKER. MV FIRST TEAM. 
 
 I WAS a very little fellow when I lirst took the notion 
 that I should like to be able to drive. As far as my 
 memory serves me, it was in the year of grace 1823 
 or 1824, when I was a little chap at that horrible of 
 all horrible places called a ' seat of learning,' the ' Char- 
 ter House.' In those days it was a regular prison, and 
 in the dirtiest part of London, and close to Smithfield. 
 The unfortunate boys never wore hats, went bareheaded, 
 and generally looked as if their fathers must have been 
 chimney-sweeps. In winter, as a general rule, the play- 
 ground was some inches deep in black sludge. Wet 
 through and cold as we often were, such a thing as a 
 change of raiment was unknown. There were always 
 a lot of big bullies who would not let a poor little 
 wretch warm himself at the fire ; and, if they caught 
 you there, the chances were they half roasted you, 
 which was performed by toasting your miserable little 
 
CHARTER HOUSE DAYS. 
 
 'Hinder end' before the fire, till it was too hot for 
 manipulation, and then scraping it down with a Latin 
 or Greek grammar, or with that more important work 
 called a ' Gradus.' After having been bullied and 
 knocked about, roasted and toasted, tossed in a blanket 
 till I touched the ceiling and burst a hole through the 
 blanket, and was nearly killed by coming in contact 
 with the floor of the long bedroom in which some 
 eight or ten of us slept, I was taken home very ill 
 and was supposed to be going to die. 
 
 This, however, I did not do ; and, much to my de- 
 light, was taken away from the horrible prison and sent 
 to that seat of sound learning and religious education 
 called Eton. ' Floreat Etona' is its motto, and I be- 
 lieve no one who was educated there has ever regretted 
 that part of his education. 
 
 As I travelled to and from school I made up my 
 mind that there was nothing like a coach and four 
 horses, and the idea of being some da)' able to drive 
 four horses was the height of my ambition. I believe 
 I used to dream of the coach and horses and the old 
 fat coachman into whose charge I used to be given 
 
 at Stamford, and by whose side I used always to have 
 
 c z 
 
12 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 that dignified situation, ' the box-seat.' He was a 
 good, kind old man, nearly as big as Daniel Lambert ; 
 a good, though not at all a swell coachman, but 
 strong as the ' mighty man of Gath,' and as safe as 
 the bank. 
 
 I well remember it was quite a privilege to be 
 allowed to unbuckle his reins as he got within a few 
 yards of his change. 
 
 He drove the ' Regent ' coach, which ran from Stam- 
 ford to London for many years. He was the first man 
 that ever put reins into my hand, and seemed to take 
 a pride in teaching me the ' gentle art.' I had there- 
 fore a great regard for him. He hurt his foot in getting 
 off the coach one day, and things went wrong with 
 him. After a time mortification set in, and he died, 
 regretted by all who knew him. Poor old John Barker, 
 for that was his name, ' requiescit in pace ' in St. 
 Michael's churchyard at Stamford, from which town 
 he had driven to Huntingdon pretty nearly every day 
 but Sunday for more than twenty years. 
 
 The ' Regent,' though not a fast coach, was always 
 well horsed by Mr. WHiincup of the ' George Hotel ' at 
 Stamford. 
 
A/V FIRST TEAM. 13 
 
 My First Team. 
 
 Well do I remember my tirst attempt to drive, and 
 well do I remember my father's horror at seeing me 
 seated as high as I could pile cushions on the seat of a 
 low two-wheeled sort of gig, which was something more 
 extraordinary in shape than anything I can describe. It 
 was not like a gig ; but still it was a gig, for it had a pair 
 of shafts and two wheels. I might almost say it was like 
 a green garden-chair to hold two. on wheels, or like a 
 very roomy wheelbarrow ; but, as a wheelbarrow has 
 only one wheel, it could not be quite like that article. 
 But it was so curious a looking machine that it might 
 have been a hybrid between a garden-chair and a 
 wheelbarrow. Be that as it may, to this nondescript 
 conveyance, after much ingenuity, I had harnessed two 
 donkeys, tandem fashion, and had constructed a whip 
 from an old gig whip and some old thongs I had found 
 with various other odds and ends in an old drawer of 
 my father's, which abounded with rubbish of all sorts, 
 my father having in his day, like myself in my day, 
 a great propensity for rubbish, feeling, I ciaresay, as 
 I do, that everything or an)thing may come into use 
 
H 'DOWN THE ROAD. 
 
 some day, though one never knows when that day may 
 be. Thus equipped, I started on my first attempt to be 
 a follower of Jehu. I don't know that I exactly wanted 
 to meet my father, who was gone out riding with his old 
 friend, Dr. Willis. 1 felt pretty sure I would rather not 
 meet them, and I also felt pretty certain that I should not 
 meet them. So off I started, if going from one side of 
 the road to the other could be called starting. Never- 
 theless, it was the best start I could make ; and except 
 that my leader persisted in turning round and looking me 
 full in the face, and seemed to threaten to sit beside me, 
 we got on pretty well, considering the sort of team I had 
 to deal with ; for, be it known to all men, ' Balaam ' is by 
 no means a ' canny beast ' if he takes it into his head to 
 be ' iincamiy! 
 
 Well, I felt proud of my performance altogether, 
 and was paying away, first at my wheeler and then 
 at my leader, to the best of my ability ; and the 
 more I payed away the more they seemed to want 
 paying ; and were very like lawyers, who every one 
 knows do nothing without being paid. All of a sudden, 
 who should appear round a corner in the road but 
 my father and his friend ! I was horror-struck ; and 
 
J/ 1' FIRST TEAM. 
 
 SO I suppose was he, for he at once exclaimed : — 
 ' Hallo ! what the deuce have we got here ? why 
 Charles, what are you up to ? surely you don't want 
 to learn to be a coachman ? and trying to drive a 
 tandem, too ! Of all things in the world a tandem is 
 the most dangerous, and the most slang. I never saw 
 a tandem in my life that I did not expect to see the 
 leader turn into a mad-house ! ' This to be sure w^as 
 rather ' talking shop,' as it so happened that Dr. Willis 
 kept a private mad-house, or what is called a ' crazy 
 shop ; ' and I daresay that they both thought that I 
 was a fit subject for bed and board in that then well- 
 known establishment, which was about seven miles 
 from the spot where the rencontre took place. My 
 father, however, was more amused than vexed, said 
 that I was a foolish fellow, and that, though he liked 
 my being fond of riding, he did not care about my 
 learning to be a coachman ; for he had a horror of a 
 gentleman coachman, and thought that every man 
 that drove a coach and four must keep company v/ith 
 coachmen, use slang terms, drink brandy and water, 
 be able to swear like a moss-trooper, and have a 
 tooth knocked out to spit through. Therefore, as I, 
 
i6 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 like every other little cypher, had my own immediate 
 circle of admiring relatives, he naturally did not wish 
 to see his son become a blackguard ; and, as I was his 
 eldest son, he thought the propensity I was showing 
 to become a disciple of Jehu one that might bring 
 disgrace upon his house, which was a house much 
 given to hunting and equitation of all kinds, but not 
 in its remotest time in any way given to the coaching 
 business. My father, himself, was a first-rate man on 
 a horse, a first-rate judge of a horse, had a first-rate 
 seat on a horse, and the best hand on a horse that 
 I ever knew ; but on wheels he was not in his element. 
 He did not care about driving ; he was quite innocent 
 of this 'gentle art;" and, high as my opinion of him 
 was in everything appertaining to horse flesh, I used 
 always to ' see fear ' if he by chance drove me even 
 in a gig ; and as to sitting beside him in anything like 
 a tandem, or with four horses — a performance which 
 there is no tradition of his having ever attempted — I 
 would rather have gone up in a balloon, which is a 
 thing of which I have more horror than anything 
 else. 
 
COLLEGE DAYS. 17 
 
 COLLEGE DAYS. 
 
 Oh I when I was at College, oh ! 
 Oh \ when I was at College, oh ! 
 
 When I was there 
 
 Of leaves quite bare 
 I stript the tree of knowledge, oh ! 
 
 At least so I conclude my anxious parents thought 
 I should. I had, however, no pretensions to the 
 kind of thinof. I never was fond of Greek and Latin ; 
 and, thoucrh I had had a certain amount of it knocked 
 into me at Eton and elsewhere, I never could see the 
 fun of it ; and when I was made aware that my desti- 
 nation was to be Trinity College, Cambridge, I must 
 own I did not quite relish the thoughts of going to 
 school again, for I must make my readers aware 
 that I was intended for quite a different profession, 
 and when I left Eton I was to go into the Guards — 
 a thing that I remember Dr. Keate, of immortal 
 memory, who was in those days the Head Master at 
 Eton, did not at all approve of for me. On ' taking 
 leave ' I slipped into his hand the usual tip of a 
 
 D 
 
i8 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 ten-pound note (a horrid custom and abuse it was), 
 which, by the way, he opened and looked at in 
 my presence, fearing, I suppose, that I might have 
 given him merely a bit of silver paper — a trick 
 once played on him. Wishing me all good luck, 
 he beo;ored to know what I was croinof to do in 
 the way of a profession. On my telling him that I 
 was going * into the Guards,' he said, ' I am very sorry 
 for it ; I am very sorry to hear it ; it's a very bad 
 school ; but I wish you well. Good-bye ! ' Why or 
 wherefore I know not, but the dear, good old man 
 had an intense horror of a soldier, and most par- 
 ticularly of a Guardsman. How he used to 'swish' 
 a fellow if he caught him up at barracks ! what a 
 mortal hatred he had to the very name of barracks ! 
 It was two rods and fourteen cuts, at the very least, 
 if you got reported for being ' up at barracks ; ' and 
 I dare say that there are still those living who have 
 taken the same without flinching, and who will bear 
 me out in what I have said. I have never received 
 it myself, but I have seen it administered more than 
 once, for this heinous offence. It used to be the 
 fashion to say that flogging did not hurt ; but as far 
 
COLLEGE DAYS. 19 
 
 as my experience goes it did hurt most dcucedly. 
 Seven cuts for ordinary offences with a new rod with 
 plenty of buds on it I have often had, and it used 
 to be quite sharp enough to please me ; but double 
 that dose must have been rather hard to swallow 
 without making wry faces. I have, however, often 
 seen a fellow take it with as much ' sang froid ' as if 
 he had been made of leather or gutta-percha. 
 
 There may be some antiquated Etonians, like 
 myself, still remaining, who may read this, and they, 
 like myself, may have ' come under the lash ' of the 
 dear old Dr. Keate. I say ' the dear old Dr. Keate,' 
 because ' Old Keate,' as we used to call him then, 
 was a good, kind old man by nature, quite a character 
 in his way, and withal a most impartial one. He would 
 ' swish ' a lord with quite as much ' gusto ' as he 
 * swished ' a commoner ; and the little, dirty, unwashed, 
 mutton-eating ' tug ' fared, I sometimes used to think, 
 better than the dapper, clean, little embryo lord, or 
 aspirant to a coronet, who stood in the rank of con- 
 demned criminals, ' Metuens pendentis habenae,' in a 
 row of eight or ten, or sometimes even twenty, all 
 ready to answer to their names, and step up to the 
 
 D 2 
 
20 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 block on which they had to kneel, and suffer the 
 penalty of the law, according to their precedence in 
 the school or the heinousness of their crime. Verily 
 it was a goodly sight in those olden days to see ten- 
 or twenty of England's sons standing in a row, with 
 their nether garments down, and a smile on their 
 face, awaiting their doom, and ready to shed their 
 blood in the cause of idleness or mischief, and prepared 
 to take without a sound or murmur whatever the 'dear 
 old Doctor' might be pleased to administer to them. 
 * You Lord A. here again,' he would say, ' for having 
 been seen coming out of barracks by Mr. Oakes! and 
 you R. for having been complained of b}' your Dame 
 for calling her bad names. I shall flog you both very 
 severely ; you are both of you a disgrace to the school, 
 a burden to your parents, and a misery to yourselves.' 
 As our dear friend Horace used to say, ' Pallida 
 Mors ' was no respecter of persons, so it was with 
 poor dear old Keate ; high or low, rich or poor, 
 gentle or simple, it was all the same ; he gave it us 
 all round, whether we deserved it or not, if we w^ere 
 in the black list and found standini^ in that co.n- 
 demned row ; and I verily believe the good little man 
 
COLLEGE DAYS. 21 
 
 rather enjoyed the operation, whatever his patients 
 might have thought of the matter. But I am ahnost 
 ' off the road.' I could not, however, as an old 
 Etonian, refrain from paying a slight tribute of respect 
 to one who was, beyond a doubt, the best Whip of 
 his day — the time I am speaking of being from about 
 1824 to 1828. 
 
 To cut matters short, havinq; met with a bad acci- 
 dent, and having injured my hip, I had to give up all 
 thoughts of soldiering, and, after much not knowincj 
 
 what to do with me, I was sent to Cambridge. When 
 I had limped about on crutches for two or three years. 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, became my destination. 
 On arriving there, I found that the greater part of my 
 Eton contemporaries had left ; they had either taken 
 their degrees, or been plucked, or had left, or had gone 
 somewhere or another ; still there remained a few of 
 the old familiar faces of Eton days to greet me. 
 
 ' Hallo ! old fellow,' said B — hr — d, ' what ! are you 
 come up ? Why, we are all leaving ; you'll know no- 
 body here. I suppose )^ou're not come up to read, are 
 you ? ' ' No ! ' said I, with a decided emphasis ; ' cer- 
 tainly not. How could you ask such a question ? ' lie 
 
'DOWN THE road: 
 
 knew my aversion to anything of the kind, and, having 
 been nearly next to me at Eton for four years, he had 
 no business to ask me. 'Well, then,' said he, ' I'll give 
 you a little bit of very useful advice, if you'll conde- 
 scend to take it. Don't you go to anything till you are 
 told, except to Hall. You must go to Hall to get 
 marked in, or you'll lose your term ; don't go to any- 
 thing else till you're told, or sent for. Some of the 
 dons will soon send for you to ask you why you have 
 not been to lectures and chapels, and so forth ; it will 
 be all in good time for you to go then.' To this piece 
 of advice I religiously adhered, and pleaded ignorance of 
 all the duties expected of me till I was sent for, which, 
 you may suppose, soon came to pass. I really am 
 almost ashamed to tell you, good reader, by what arti- 
 fices I got out of lectures, chapels, and everything I 
 ought to have done ; but I started on my friend's advice, 
 and taking for my motto, ' Vestigia nulla retrorsum,' I 
 went boldly on, and succeeded better than I could pos- 
 sibly have anticipated. To go to chapel on an empty 
 stomach, at seven o'clock in the morning, was what I 
 positively could not do, and, the more I digested the 
 matter, the more I made up my mind I would not do. 
 
COLLEGE DAYS. 23 
 
 Besides, the Stamford and Leicester coach used to start 
 at seven, and I did not see how I could possibly be in 
 chapel and driving the said coach at the same time. It 
 was therefore decided that I could not go to chapel. ■ I 
 was sent for by the Dean, who said that he was very 
 sorry to find that I did not attend chapel, and so forth ; 
 he was really very courteous, and I soon began to find 
 that I had got on the ' soft side ' of him. Of course, 
 I made the best running that I could under such pro- 
 pitious circumstances ; and at last, having used the most 
 persuasive eloquence that I possessed, I got him to 
 agree with me, that being lame, and walking with huo 
 sticks, I might possibly slip and hurt myself on the 
 slippery marble pavement of which the floor of the 
 chapel was composed. I always walked with two sticks 
 when in College ; but I almost fancy that when away 
 from that seat of learning, and when out of the sight 
 of dons and tutors, I managed pretty well with only 
 one. I must not, however, hurt your feelings with the 
 relation of all that took place to enable me to get out 
 of the attendance at chaoel ; it would also be too much 
 for my feelings to be obliged to rake up all the little 
 * ruses ' I was ol^llged to employ for that purpose. Suffice 
 
24 ^nowx THE road: 
 
 it to say, that the Dean most considerately excused me 
 all chapels ; and, though I often went at that time to 
 drive the coach, I used to console myself in reflecting 
 whether I was not quite as well employed in learning 
 so useful a trade, as those who were forced to attend 
 in a sacred place when their hearts were anywhere 
 but there. 
 
 I don't think that there was a vast deal of life on 
 the Stamford coach, which went through Stamford to 
 Leicester ; certainly not so much as on many others. 
 The coachman, John Hennesy, or ' Saddler Jack,' as 
 he used to be called, was not by any means a lively or 
 amusing fellow, and there was nothing particularly lively 
 about the whole turnout ; but it was a convenient 
 coach for a drive down to Stamford and back again 
 in the evening. The Cambridge men made a good 
 deal of use of it to go to some of the meets of 
 the Fitzwilliam Hounds ; and, as one learnt to drive, 
 that was a profitable and useful occupation whilst ' up 
 at Cambridge.' I don't know whether my father thought 
 so when I drove up to the ' George ' Inn door one day 
 when he happened to be in Stamford, from which place 
 he lived about seven miles ; but, as he did not say 
 
COLLEGE DAYS. 
 
 25 
 
 much, I suppose he thought that it was all right, and 
 that it might be part of the education I was going 
 through at the University. 
 
 I remember one day, as I was going through Stam- 
 ford, on my way from home, where I had been for a 
 couple of days on leave, I had brought a whip with 
 me to drive the coach back to Cambridge. I was in 
 a high kind of dog-cart ; and, as I turned the corner of 
 St. Mary's Churchyard, a young sparrow was sitting on 
 a grave-stone within reach of me, fluttering his wings 
 and soliciting grub from his parents. The temptation 
 was too great to be resisted. I opened my thong, gave 
 it a couple of twists round, let drive at him, and cut 
 his head as clean off his shoulders as if it had been 
 done with a pair of scissors. 
 
 The whip with which I performed this feat — rather 
 a cruel one, perhaps — came to a sad and curious end. 
 I had broken the thong, and, being a pet stick, I used 
 it for a time as a gig-whip. It was standing in the 
 socket of my gig at the door of the 'Peacock' Inn, at 
 Boston, in Lincolnshire. My groom was waiting for 
 me near my gig, larking and making insinuating faces 
 at the chambermaid, who was in a room above. He 
 
 E 
 
26 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 cauo-ht sight of me, and as he turned his back she 
 heaved a feather-bed out of the window at him, which, 
 horrible to relate, fell on the top of my whip, and of 
 course you can judge what happened. 
 
 I GO TO ELY CATHEDRAL IN A TANDEM. 
 
 I HAD not much coaching whilst at Cambridge, except 
 on the coach I have before named, running through 
 Stamford to Leicester ; but sometimes I used to drive 
 one of those most dangerous of all turnsout, called 
 a tandem. There is no safety in the turnout unless 
 you take a blunderbuss with you to shoot your leader 
 dead upon the spot the moment he turns round and 
 looks you in the face, which he can do at any moment 
 he likes. The only chance you have, if you are not 
 provided with the firearm I have named, is being very 
 handy with your whip, and cobbing him across the eyes 
 and ears to turn him round again, if possible ; for if your 
 leader does not choose to go straight of his own accord, 
 you might just as well try to drive an eel or the great 
 sea-serpent. However, I was rash enough at times to 
 peril my own life and that of others in that convey- 
 
COLLEGE DAYS. 
 
 ance, and was particularly fond of getting a man who 
 wanted to go somewhere, who would pay half the 
 expenses, and who did not want to drive. I will now 
 describe a drive from Cambridge to Ely to see the 
 Cathedral, and the view from the top of it, with a friend 
 who at the time little dreamt of the fate that awaited 
 him in after years, in what was supposed to be a much 
 safer conveyance — no more or less than the Irish 
 Limited Mail. Poor John Aylmer ! he was burnt to 
 death with Lord Farnham and others in that dire acci- 
 dent near Abergele, on the Holyhead Line, when the 
 train was set on fire by the explosion of some casks 
 of petroleum. The accident is too well known for me 
 to dwell upon it here. 
 
 A kind, good fellow he was in olden days, and 
 often have I thought of his sad and terrible end as 
 I have passed the spot. I had lost sight of him for 
 many years, from my having been much abroad since 
 my College days; but the circumstance of passing the 
 spot where such a scene had happened never failed to 
 bring the old friend of former days to my mind. Poor 
 John Aylmer ! We started together one very fine, 
 bright day from Cambridge to see the view from the 
 
'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 top of Ely Cathedral ; he paid half the expenses of 
 the tandem, and, not caring about driving, I drove, 
 which just suited me ; and I was to stand luncheon 
 at ' the Inn,' as it was called in those days. After 
 much puffing and blowing, I managed to get to the top 
 of the tower of the Cathedral, and was leaning against 
 the wall mopping my head and face, for It was a 
 piping hot day I well remember, when on turning 
 round whom should I meet face to face but the 
 Reverend William Whewell, who was commonly called 
 by us in College ' Billy Whistle.' There was no 
 evading him, and therefore brass and assurance were 
 the only things left. Now, as I never possessed either 
 of these invaluable commodities, you may suppose that 
 I was in a bit of a fix. 'Well, I am surprised to 
 see you here, Mr. Reynardson,' said the worthy Billy. 
 'Indeed, sir,' said I, 'you cannot be more surprised 
 to see me here, than I am to find myself here. I 
 have been over-persuaded by my friend, Mr. Aylmcr, 
 to come and see the view, and with the assistance of 
 my stick and his arm I have managed to get up, but 
 how I shall ever get down again I don't know. The 
 wish to see the fine view has tempted me to do more 
 
COLLEGE DA VS. 29 
 
 than is prudent, I am afraid.' ' Indeed, I think it very 
 praiseworthy of you to make an effort to see such a 
 view,' said he ; ' and when you wish to go down again, 
 I shall be very happy to lend you an arm if it will be 
 of any use to you.' This he did most kindly, and the 
 great ' Billy Whistle ' and I got safely to the bottom, 
 when he congratulated me on my safe descent, and 
 we parted. I never after heard of having been seen 
 at that high elevation, though I was, as before, 
 excused all chapels from being lame. I had as much 
 right to be on the top of Ely Cathedral as my friend 
 Billy, but it was rather an exalted position for a man 
 who could not walk without two sticks when in 
 College ! The reverend dignitary would not have been 
 very much pleased had he understood what was 
 going on ; but, as he did not, he was most kind and 
 affable, which he often was not. If his coat was 
 brushed at all the wrong way, he could be very three- 
 cornered and unpleasant indeed. 
 
30 'DOWN THE ROAD. 
 
 TANDEM DRIVING TO HUNTINGDON, ETC. 
 
 I remember on another occasion havinof driven a 
 friend over to Huntingdon. On our return, rather late 
 in the evening, our lanips went out, and when near the 
 toll-bar, pretty close to Cambridge, where we always 
 took our leader off for fear of being seen and ' nailed ' 
 by any of the authorities, it was so dark that I could 
 see neither horses, nor road, nor anything else. All of 
 a sudden we came to a dead stand. It was as dark 
 as the inside of a railway carriage without a lamp in 
 a tunnel. I could see nothing, and could not imagine 
 what had happened. 'Just nip down, B.,' said I, 'and 
 see if you can make out where we are, and what is up. 
 I almost fancy that we must be off the road alto- 
 gether.' After some little investigation of how matters 
 stood, B. broke out into a laugh, and said, ' No wonder 
 you can't make out where you are ; you're right off the 
 road, and the little Chestnut is sitting in the ditch.' 
 I remember as well as if it were yesterday that my 
 team consisted of two horses belonging to a man of 
 the name of Nun, and went by the names of ' Old 
 
 1^ 
 
COLLEGE DAYS. 31 
 
 Thurnwell ' and * Nun's little Chestnut' The latter, 
 I think, showed great good sense in sitting down, 
 instead of turning the whole affair over into the ditch. 
 
 A real tandem cart, such as I was then driving, 
 is never seen in these clays ; and as perhaps not one 
 in a thousand, if so many there be who read this, has 
 ever dreamt of so dangerous a conveyance, I will 
 try to describe it ; for, dangerous as it was, a really 
 well turned out tandem, painted chocolate and picked 
 out with lake, was a neat and ' varmint '-looking 
 affair, and, as long as all went right, pleasant to ' ride ' 
 upon ; but if anything went wrong, if your wheeler 
 came down, or any such mishap took place, you got 
 such a ' father and mother of a fall ' as it is out of my 
 power to describe. 
 
 The tandem cart was thus, a sort of gig on very 
 high wheels, with a square body and a seat behind, 
 like a mail guard's, or that on a hansom cab of the 
 present day, quite straight shafts and a foot-board 
 well above your wheeler's back, no dashing leather of 
 any kind ; in fact, it was like sitting on the box of a 
 low drag. A mighty dangerous concern, no doubt ; but 
 I suppose there was an extra excitement in driving a 
 
32 'DOWN THE ROAD. 
 
 carriage more likely than any other conveyance I can 
 name to come to crrief and o-q to smash at a moment's 
 notice. So now, good reader, as I have put you on 
 your box, and given you proper caution, remember 
 that you have only two wheels, that you are up 
 pretty high, and that if you do come down ' you'll 
 come down with a run,' and very possibly and very 
 probably, like ' Humpty Dumpty' of great renown, will 
 never get up again. 
 
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'REGENT' COACH. 33 
 
 ' REGENT' COACH. 
 PERILS BY LAND AND WATER. 
 
 Perils by Water. 
 
 There were various modes of being- made nervous on 
 a coach, and I do not think anything made one's 
 heart come into one's mouth much more than havino- 
 to go through water. On the ' Regent ' coach we 
 used to leave the main road, at times, and go round 
 by the St. Neot's paper mills, which were situated 
 on a flat piece of ground, and occasionally, when the 
 weather had been what the Scotchman calls ' varra 
 saft' for any length of time, the river Ouse would 
 take it into its head to overflow its banks, and lay 
 the road for about half a mile under water. Upon 
 those occasions we often had a pair of leaders put on 
 which were ridden by a horsekeeper, not only to 
 keep us in the right track, but to pull us through 
 the mud and silt which made the road extra ' gumni)-.' 
 
 I-' 
 
34 • 'DOIVN THE ROAD: 
 
 I have seen the water over the axle-trees; and on 
 one occasion it fairly ran into the coach, and all but 
 set afloat two old ladies who were inside. Their 
 dismay may be easily imagined, and their suppli- 
 cations to the coachman to stop, as the water was 
 coming into the coach, were quite affecting. They 
 no doubt thought they were going to meet with a 
 ' watery grave,' and I believe they gave themselves up 
 as lost. 
 
 However, nothing so terrible took place ; but I 
 have no doubt from the water having come over their 
 shoes, and from their petticoats getting somewhat 
 wet, they were not quite comfortable for the rest of 
 their journey. We, on the outside, were nearly as 
 much to be pitied, for it had rained without ceasing 
 all day — that kind of pitiless rain which comes down 
 straight, and in solid stripes, like the water from a 
 shower-bath, which, in nautical language, goes by the 
 appellation of ' raining marling-spikes with their points 
 downwards ; ' the only difference between us and the 
 old ladies being that whilst they got it from below 
 we got it from above. It was nevertheless hardly to 
 be called a pleasant state of things, to have water 
 
'REGENT' COACH. 
 
 J3 
 
 above and water below, water on all sides, heaps of 
 stones by the roadside, invisible from the discoloured 
 water, and a deep ditch upon either side, into which 
 had one of our wheels gone, it would have been a 
 case of ' over you go, Jem Peck ; ' and all this with 
 the flood rising, so that it was all but impossible to 
 get on, and would be quite so in a few hours more. 
 
 Perils by Land, 
 
 Having described one little cause for nervousness 
 on a coach by water, I will mention one that oc- 
 curred by land, and might have been another case of 
 'over you go, Jem Peck.' On the arrival of the 
 * Regent' coach at Wansford one fine summer's evening, 
 I remember the ' three little boys in their drab great- 
 coats ' were returning home for their holidays from 
 Eton. We changed, as usual, at the 'Haycock' Inn, 
 kept by Mr, Percival. A very smart team of ' red 
 roans ' was put in ; they were quite fit for any gen- 
 tleman's drag, the)' were such a showy lot. ' Young 
 Percival,' as he was then called, got upon the box, 
 and, as his horses were pretty fresh, tbc)- did not 
 
36 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 Start quite kindly. He, being very full of valour and 
 not quite as full of discretion, ' dropped into them,' 
 which made matters worse, and they would not face 
 the bridge, which every one who knows the ' North 
 Road ' is aware is a very awkward one, being very 
 old and narrow, and anything but a bridge to play 
 tricks upon. Just as we got to the bridge, what 
 possessed the brutes I know not, but they whipped 
 round all of a sudden, and after playing sundry 
 antics — and a most nervous performance it was — 
 we found ourselves at the door of the 'Haycock' 
 Inn, from which we had just started, with our 
 horses' heads pointing to London instead of to 
 Stamford ! How we got there safe, and without 
 being turned over, neither I nor my two brothers, 
 who were also on the coach, could ever make out. 
 After the coach had been turned round again, under 
 the Jehuship of ' Old John Barker,' we again faced 
 the bridge, and arrived safely at Stamford. Never- 
 theless this was a case in which we ought to have 
 been upset according to all the rules of accidents, 
 and I may almost say of common sense. I well 
 remember that ' Young Percival," with most praise- 
 
'REGENT' COACH. 37 
 
 worthy pluck, proposed to ' tackle them ' again ; but 
 'Old John' did not 'seem to see it,' and said, 'Come, 
 come, old friend; come, come, old friend; this will 
 never do ; this will never do ; you'll have us over ; 
 I'm sure you would —I'm sure you'd have us over.' 
 And so after waiting a short time at the door, just to 
 give his horses time to come to their senses — which, 
 to a certain extent, they had lost in the ' skrimmage ' 
 — we started afresh, and under his guidance sur- 
 mounted the obstacle and orot all rieht to our destina- 
 tion. It was a real touch-and-go business, and I only 
 wonder we were not all ' spilt.' 
 
 A yourney with Convicts from Chester Gaol, 
 November 1834. 
 
 It was not very often that one met with dis- 
 agreeable company outside a coach, from the fact 
 that coaches did not usually carry the oX noWol and 
 the class of roughs that sometimes are to be seen in 
 these railroad days, in a third-class carriage, or in an 
 excursion train. The class of people that are now 
 to be seen making excursions everj'where^ from the 
 
38 'DOWN THE ROAD. 
 
 Land's End to Johnny Groat's house, in the good 
 old thiies when ' the only steam came from the kettle, 
 stayed at home, and attended to their business, looked 
 more after their wives and families, and were less 
 inclined to roam than in these go-a-head days, for the 
 simple reason that they could not afford to ' ride,' and 
 therefore if they wanted to go any distance they had 
 to walk, or go by the stage-waggon or carrier's cart, 
 both of which were not only somewhat dearer than 
 walking, but quite as slow. There were, however, at 
 certain times a" certain class of «-entlemen who tra- 
 veiled at His Majesty's expense, and went under the 
 denomination of 'gaol birds.' Having once had the 
 pleasure of enjoying their agreeable society on a 
 coach, some notice of what took place upon this 
 agreeable occasion may not be an uninteresting incident 
 of ' Down" the Road.' I never heard of any other 
 person who had the good fortune to travel with such 
 a set of scoundrels. In fact, on that memorable day, 
 my companions were ' the Chester Gaol Delivery.' 
 
 In or about the month of November 1834, I got 
 upon the ' Albion ' coach, which ran from Birkenhead 
 to London, at Whitchurch in Shropshire. There was 
 
yOUR.XJiV WITH CONVICTS. 39 
 
 no one on the box, so up I got by the side of the 
 coachman. I did not at the moment take mucli 
 notice of the passengers, but I recollect that the da)- 
 was cold, and they looked a ' roughish lot.' I re- 
 member that I wondered why there was no one on 
 the box, which was a very unusual thing, for the box 
 is, and was, and I suppose always will be, the seat 
 par excellence of all seats on a coach. 
 
 ' I suppose you know what kind of a load we've 
 got, sir,' said the coachman. 'No,' I said ; ' they look a 
 queer lot ; what are they ? ' 'Why,' said he, 'they're all 
 gaolbirds.' 'Where are they going?' said I. 'Why, 
 to Botany Bay,' said he; 'and I wish they were there 
 now, for they are inclined to give a little trouble, and 
 would do if they had not got " ruffles " on ; but they're 
 pretty safe, they are all fast to the rail ; ' meaning the 
 rail that went across the coach behind the seat on the 
 roof, to prevent the luggage slipping forward. They had 
 two keepers, or turnkeys, with them, and there was no 
 one else on the coach but these worthies, their attend- 
 ants, and myself, and the coachman and guard of the 
 coach. As it was known all alono;' the road that Cliester 
 Gaol had been ' delivered,' and tliat her children were 
 
40 ' DOIVX THE ROAD: 
 
 going to pass that day on their way to the hulks, many 
 ' birds of the same feather ' were in waiting at the differ- 
 ent places where we changed to say good-bye to their 
 old ' pals ; ' and it was with some difficulty that the 
 keepers could prevent their old acquaintances from 
 plying them with drink and giving them a parting 
 drop to keep their spirits up. Some of them looked 
 cold enough, for it was a real November day, and I 
 remarked they had not much in the shape of great- 
 coats and such little comforts. In spite of all the pre- 
 cautions taken, some of them had had quite enough, 
 and indeed too much, to drink, and they were some- 
 what inclined to be ' uproarious.' It was a comfort 
 to us that they were handcuffed and unable to do 
 mischief, for which they seemed quite ready. I got off 
 the coach at either Shifnall or Wolverhampton, I for- 
 get now which place it was, but I remember it was 
 beginning to be a little dusk, and we lit the lamps. 
 The coachman called my attention to two respectable- 
 looking men — I may say they appeared to be gentle- 
 men — who were getting out of the coach, preceded by 
 a keeper. ' There's two of the same kind,' said he ; 
 ' they've been convicted of forger)% and are goino- to 
 
JOURNEY WITH CONVICTS. \\ 
 
 be transported for life.' It was easy to see, as they 
 got out of the coach, that they were handcuffed, for 
 they were obhged to step out very ' dauitily,' their 
 hands being closely locked together in an ' iron em- 
 brace.' Being the greatest swells of the party, and 
 all the places on the roof being occupied by the other 
 ruffians, they had been allowed what was called ' to 
 ride inside ' with one of the turnkeys. I was delighted 
 not to be going any further, and glad to see the 
 coachman get on his box again and drive off with his 
 precious load. More than one of them was half drunk, 
 and they left, singing ' We're off to Botany Bay ' at the 
 top of their voices. It was, as it happened, a lucky 
 thing for me that I got off when I did, for before 
 reaching Walsall the horses shied at some sparks fly- 
 ing across the road from a blacksmith's shop, bolted, 
 and, running against a lamp-post, upset the coach in 
 the streets of Walsall. No one was killed ; but the 
 coachman never got over the injuries he received, and, 
 I heard, ultimately died of them. 
 
 During the confusion caused by this accident, and 
 whilst another coach and coachman were being got 
 ready to take them on, some of the convicts contrived 
 
 G 
 
'DOWN THE road: 
 
 to get files and other implements from their friends, 
 and in a most artistic way got their handcuffs into 
 such a form that they could get them off when they 
 chose. They had made an agreement that at a cer- 
 tain signal they should set themselves free, and spring 
 upon the keepers. This they did in a long, straight 
 bit of road not far from Dunchurch. They over- 
 powered the keepers, took their spare handcuffs, which 
 they put on them, and paid the same attentions to the 
 coachman and guard. They then cut the traces and 
 let loose the horses, themselves making the best of 
 their way across the fields. The greater part of 
 them were retaken, but the two gentlemen forgers 
 escaped. 
 
THE 'PEACOCK' AT ISLINGTON. 43 
 
 THE 'PEACOCK' AT ISLINGTON. 
 
 Can anyone be alive in the year 1874 who could * lay 
 'is 'and upon 'is 'art ' and swear that he had ever seen 
 a real live ' Charlie ' in his watch-box, with his horn 
 lantern and his rattle ; or had been in a real old hack- 
 ney coach, before anything in the shape of a cab of 
 any kind existed ? Believe me, I have both seen the 
 real old Charlie with his horn lantern in his watch- 
 box, with his rattle stuck in his belt, and have ' ridden ' 
 often in a real old hackney coach, with its pair of 
 worn-out dog horses, smelling of * King Froust,' and 
 sometimes, I fear, of ' subjects ' taken by the * body- 
 snatchers ' from some churchyard to the hospital for 
 dissection, and for the transport of which a hackney 
 coach was just the thing. 
 
 Often too as a boy, at that little-loved place called 
 ' the Charter House,' have I and others let down our 
 nightcaps (for all wore white nightcaps with a tassel 
 to them in those days) to the old Charlie at the corner 
 
 of Wilderness Row, to buy for us tarts, plums, apples, 
 
 G 3 
 
44 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 and Other contraband eatables, which could only be 
 procured by stealth, and by no better means than 
 your nightcap and a string let down from the window 
 with a sixpence in it for the Charlie's trouble. 
 
 But few in these days can call to mind a real foggy 
 morning in London in winter under the influence of 
 such lamplight as there was then. Gas was in its in- 
 fancy, and oil lamps were still burning in most parts. 
 Only fancy oil lamps in a thick London fog in the 
 middle of winter ! and only here and there a Charlie, 
 who was oftener than not asleep in his watch-box, to 
 protect the British public ! * Bobbies ' were not born in 
 those remote days. 
 
 We have chartered a hackney coach overnight, for 
 which, being wanted very early in the morning, we 
 have to pay an extra fare as a matter of course. We 
 will proceed from Harley or Wimpole Street, the most 
 fashionable streets in those days. We make the best 
 of our way to the ' George and Blue Boar,' Holborn, 
 from whence the ' Regent ' coach starts at six o'clock. 
 There is a thick fog ; and, after groping along in nearly 
 outer darkness for an indefinite length of time, we at 
 length turn into the yard, and find the horses ' put to.' 
 
THE 'PEACOCK' AT ISLINGTON. 45 
 
 Piles of luggage are being placed on the top and 
 into the fore and hind boot of the coach. Where the 
 luggage for ' four in and twelve out ' used to go I will 
 leave you to make out, for I never could. But go it 
 did ; and, having stowed our load away, we go out of 
 the yard, down Holborn Hill, to the left up Cow 
 Lane, through Smithfield, and make the best of our 
 way to the 'Peacock' at Islington, meeting droves of 
 bullocks, sheep, and all sorts of conveyances coming 
 from Smithfield. But we have arrived safely, neither 
 upsetting anyone nor being upset ourselves. At this 
 I often wondered, for the steam from the horses, the 
 breath from the horses, the cattle, and the sheep, 
 added to the dimness of the lamps and the dense 
 fog, turned everything into worse than darkness. You 
 might as well have looked inside a stewpan for any- 
 thing that could be seen. ' Darkness in fact w^as 
 visible.' Everything else was invisible through the 
 darkness of early morn and the fog. 
 
 Having achieved the 'Peacock' at Islington, a sight 
 only to be seen there, and in those days, awaits us. 
 A noise, I will call it a 'sonus quadrupedans,' assails 
 your ears, as coach after coach comes up. All coaches 
 
46 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 going- anywhere north called there ; and, as they came 
 up the old hostler, or a man whoever he was, with a 
 horn lantern, called out their names as they arrived on 
 the scene. Up they come through the fog, but our old 
 friend knows them all. Now 'York Highflier,' now 
 'Leeds Union,' now 'York Express,' now 'Rocking- 
 ham,' now ' Stamford Regent,' now ' Truth and Day- 
 light,' and others which I forget, all with their lamps 
 lit, and all smoking and steaming, so that you could 
 hardly see the horses. Off they go. One by one as 
 they get their vacant places filled up, the guard on 
 one playing ' Off she goes ! ' on another, ' Oh, dear, 
 what can the matter be ; ' on another, ' When from 
 great Londonderry ; ' on another, ' The flaxen-headed 
 ploughboy ; ' in fact, all playing different tunes almost 
 at the same time. The coaches rattling over the 
 stones, or rather pavement — for there was little or no 
 macadam in those days ; the horses' feet clattering 
 along to the sound of the merry-keyed bugles, upon 
 which many of the guards played remarkably well, 
 altogether made such a noise as could be heard no- 
 where except at the ' Peacock ' at Islington, at half-past 
 six in the morning. All this it was curious to hear 
 
THE 'PEACOCK' AT ISLINGTON. 47 
 
 and see, though not over pleasant in a dense fog, par- 
 ticularly if it were very cold into the bargain, with 
 heavy rain or snow falling. It was a miserable look- 
 out for those who had to sit it out till they reached 
 York, or some place, perhaps, two or three hundred 
 miles from London. One dares hardly think of such 
 things happening to a friend, en an empty stomach, at 
 six o'clock on a winter's morning. Still, we have gone 
 through it ; and ' here we am again,' as the clown says 
 in the pantomime, not very fresh, it is true, with a 
 good deal of the snow still clinging about the hair and 
 whiskers, but quite as well as can be expected under 
 all circumstances. On we go in the fog, the steam 
 rising from the horses as if one were sitting over one 
 of Barclay and Perkins's largest brewing coppers, till 
 w^e get about to Highgate Archw^ay. Then morn- 
 ing begins to break, and the fog to clear off. On 
 looking round, if }'ou are not too cold and too w^et to 
 do so, you see London about four miles off, below 
 you, in such a yellow fog and smoke as no artist I 
 believe has attempted to paint. At Barnet, the first 
 change, things look a trifle better ; and, pulling up at 
 the inn, Tom Hennesy, of the ' Regent,' and George 
 
48 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 Cartwright, of the ' York Express,' exchange greetings ; 
 and having had a glass of rum-and-milk, off we go again, 
 the ' Regent ' to Stamford, and the ' York Express ' 
 through Stamford to York ; the ' Regent ' being due at 
 Stamford at eight the same evening, and the ' York 
 Express ' due at York about twelve hours afterwards. 
 On a fine day in winter the journey used to be quite 
 long enough, but in rain or snow it was almost too 
 long ; and often have I thanked my stars on arriving 
 at Stamford, wet through, and cold to my very bones, 
 that I had not to go on to York. 
 
WELLY N HILL AND OLD BARKER. 49 
 
 WELLYN HILL AND OLD BARKER. 
 
 It was in one of my very early coaching days 
 that Tom Hennesy, who was always fond of giving 
 me a lesson in 'waggoning,' and by whose side I was 
 sitting on the box, said, ' Now then, sir, you must 
 take 'em a bit;' and, having changed sides with him, 
 we went on very satisfactorily between Hatfield and 
 Wellyn. Having arrived near to that place, where we 
 changed horses, ' Now then,' said Tom, ' I'd better 
 take them down the hill,' which was a pretty steep 
 one. 'It would never do for old Barker' — who kept 
 the ' White Hart,' at Wellyn, and horsed the coach — 
 ' to see you driving ; he's a three-cornered old beggar, 
 
 and if he saw you "working" he'd kick up a d 1 
 
 of a row.' The words were hardly out of his mouth, 
 when who should appear but the ' three cornered old 
 beggar ' himself, walking up the hill. ' Blessed if 
 there aint old Barker,' said Tom ; ' that's a nice go. 
 Never mind, it can't be helped ; catch 'em fast by the 
 head, and go down steady. Don't look as if you 
 
 H 
 
50 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 seed him ; we'll make the best we can of it.' So 
 down we went to the inn door, where the horses were 
 standing ready to change. By the time we had got 
 the horses out of the coach, old Barker, who had 
 turned round the moment we had passed him, and 
 who looked anything but pleasant, was down upon us. 
 Tom was all ready for action and was all for the first 
 blow. ' Good morning, Mr. Barker, sir. Did you ever 
 see a young gentleman take a coach steadier down 
 a hill ? 'Pon my word, sii*, he could not have done it 
 better. He's a pupil of mine, sir, and I'm blessed if he 
 did not do it capital ; don't you think he did, sir, for 
 you seed him ? ' * Hum,' said old Barker ; ' you know 
 it's all against the laws. Supposing anything happened, 
 what then ? ' ' Well, sir, I did not expect anything 
 zvoidd happen; with such horses as these of yours ; 
 there's no better four horses, sir, betwixt London and 
 Stamford ; and as for those wheelers, why, they'll hold 
 anything.' This, of course, was pouring balm into old 
 Barker's wounds, which seemed to heal pretty quickly, 
 and he put on a pleasanter face, and said, ' Well, 
 Hennesy, you know I don't like "gentlemen coach- 
 men," and, above all things, very yoimg ones. Don't 
 
EXPLANATION OF 'SHOULDERING: 51 
 
 you do it again.' The horses being to, and our friend 
 Tom having- hold of his reins and his foot upon the 
 wheel, he just observed, 'No one going to-day, sir?' 
 and got upon his box. As soon as we were off, ' Well, 
 he was wonderful civil, for ////;/,' said Tom ; ' but, as I 
 said before, he's a cross-grained, three-cornered old 
 beggar, at the best of times, and if I could only catch 
 him lying drunk in the road I'd run over his old neck 
 and kill him, blessed if I wouldn't. What business had 
 he to be walking up the hill ? I suppose he thought he 
 should catch me "shouldering?"' 
 
 EXPLANATION OF ' SHOULDERING.' 
 
 For the editication of those who were never on a 
 coach it may be well to describe what the term 
 ' Shouldering' means. 
 
 ' Shouldering,' or carrying ' shoulder sticks,' was 
 this : ' Thro Passengers,' or any passengers getting on 
 to the coach at any inn, or change, where there was 
 an authorised booking-office, were entered in the ' way 
 bill,' and the proceeds thereof went into the pockets 
 
 II z 
 
52 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 of the proprietors of the coach. It would, however, 
 sometimes happen that some person would meet 
 the coach on the road between the towns, or 
 changes, who wanted ' a ride ' without going through 
 the form of ' booking,' and as he could probably 
 get off for jnuck less by making friends with 
 the coachman than he would In the regular way, 
 this kind of conversation would take place between 
 him and the coachman who pulls up to see If he's 
 worth having : ' Can you give us a ride to-day ? ' 
 ' How far are you going ? ' ' Oh ! only to Biggles- 
 wade, or Huntingdon,' or any other town he might 
 name. ' How much do you want ? ' ' Five shillings,' 
 perhaps the coachman would say, or whatever he 
 thought his passenger, to be, would be likely to give. 
 'Very well, I don't mind giving that' 'Jump up 
 then, I'll pull up before we get into the town, and you 
 can walk through whilst we're changing, but you must 
 mind and not let " Old Crouch," or " Old Barker," or 
 whoever horsed the coach, see you ; but you must 
 look sharp, and get a bit out of the town whilst we 
 are changing. Remember — I'll pull up for you when 
 I catch you up on the other side of the town.' Thus, 
 
EXPLANATION OF 'SHOULDERING: 53 
 
 our friend would again resume his seat, and at the 
 next town or change perform the same ' anticks ' till he 
 arrived at his destination, when the coachman would 
 take the five shillings and what is called 'Stuff the 
 Monkey ' with it, and thus do his little bit of 
 ' Shouldering,' which upon some occasions was not 
 otherwise than a profitable trade. But it required a 
 little caution, as some of the ' shoulder sticks ' were 
 occasionally not ' up to the time of day ' and if 
 they were suspected of such dodges, the innkeeper 
 would be a bit suspicious and be on the look-out. 
 And if an)'thing was found out the coachman was 
 severely handled for ' Shouldering.' 
 
54 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 THE CROOKED WHIP AND TOM HENNESY. 
 
 It's forty years since, at the very least, that, sitting 
 by the side of Tom Hennesy on the ' Regent ' coach, 
 bound for Stamford, we started from the ' George and 
 Bhie Boar,' Holborn. It was a lovely morning, I well 
 remember, in summer ; and as we passed on our way 
 the smoke from the chimneys was rising in endless 
 blue puffs, emitting every now and then a smell of 
 pine wood, or deal, from the little white bundles of 
 kindling so well known to all housemaids in London. 
 The smell of an early breakfast, or of something 
 frying and denoting such a meal, occasionally greeted 
 one's nose as we passed along the streets, and 
 seemed to say that the different shopkeepers and 
 tradesmen were about to fortify their inner man 
 against the toils of the day. We pass along down 
 Holborn Hill, and arrive at ' the Peacock at Islington.' 
 Stopping a few minutes to take up passengers and 
 parcels, we start again, and, passing through Highgate 
 Archway, arrive at our first change at Barnet. The 
 
THE CROOKED WHIP AND TOM J/ENNESY. 55 
 
 view from Highgate Archway on such a morning was 
 beautiful, and a thing to be remembered all one's life. 
 Lookinor over London from the hitjh Q-round at Hioh- 
 gate, on a really clear day, with the smoke curling up 
 from the endless chimneys, and the earl)- morning sun 
 shining out and lighting up all around, was perfectly 
 lovely. There were no great, tall, ugly chimneys in 
 those days pouring out their volumes of black smoke, 
 and making the whole town and country around look 
 like a mining district. Gasworks and Iron foundries 
 were not so common in those days as they are 
 now, and, though there were some to be seen, they 
 were comparatively few and far between. As we trot 
 along merrily, the fresh, early morning air Is most ex- 
 hilarating. The labourer Is plodding his way to his 
 work with his pipe in his mouth. What a fragrant 
 smell is wafted back as we pass him ! The light 
 mornlnof breeze brino^s back the odour of his mornincr 
 pipe. The mixture of shag tobacco and early morn 
 Is too delightful, and puts to shame all other mixtures ; 
 even Mr. Simmons's mixture at fourteen shillings a 
 pound Avould have been nowhere. 
 
 But we have come to our first change at Barnet, 
 
56 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 and our fresh team is standing ready before the door 
 of the ' Green Man.' Whilst the horses are being put 
 into the coach, Tom and I sHp into the bar and get 
 a glass of rum-and-milk, which the pretty barmaid has 
 always ready for Tom, for, though a married man, Tom 
 was always a great favourite with the ladies. You, 
 o-ood reader, may not be aware what rum and-milk 
 is, and the soothing effect it has upon an empty stomach. 
 The composition is simple, soothing, and at the same 
 time exhilarating, and stands thus : A tumbler of quite 
 fresh milk, one fair lump of sugar, two table-spoonfuls 
 of rum, and just a thought of nutmeg grated on to the 
 top of all. 
 
 'Now, then, sir,' says Tom, 'you shall work this 
 stage ; catch hold of them, and don't let the apron touch 
 the old mare, or she'll kick the boot in.' Away we 
 go ; and, just as we had got out of the town, I saw one 
 of the worst croppers I ever saw, or ever wish to see 
 again ; I only wonder that we had not to attend a 
 coroner's inquest. The case was this : — 
 
 An old man was driving a cart, and was sitting on 
 the side rail. It was rather early in the day for him 
 to be asleep ; but he was asleep, and I suppose his 
 
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 ■)-, 
 
 r^ 
 
 ^ 
 
THE CROOKED WHIP AND TOM HENNESV. S7 
 
 reins had slipped out of his hand. As we passed him, 
 * I'll wake him up,' said Tom ; and, suiting the word to 
 the threat, ' Hi !' said Tom, as loud as he could halloa. 
 The poor old fellow pulled sharp at his reins, which 
 beine at the bottom of his cart did not answer to his 
 call, and over he went backwards over the wheel a 
 regular somersault, I don't know why he was not 
 killed on the spot, but he got up and shook himself. 
 I conclude he thought that he had merely tumbled 
 out of bed. He had, however, a slight cut on his 
 head, which he did not seem to think of much con- 
 sequence. It was no fault of mine, nor indeed of any 
 one ; but I gave him half-a-crown, and told him to go 
 and 'get something to drink,' which I believed was 
 the panacea for all things in those days, as it is in 
 these. The old fellow seemed highly delighted, and 
 I have no doubt got very drunk, particularly as, being 
 early in the day, he would have lots of time to do it 
 in, and plenty to do it zui^/i. 
 
 ' Tom,' said I, as I threw my thong lightly under 
 the near side bar, and just reminded my leader that 
 he must do his share of the work, ' where di(i^ you 
 get this stick?' It was a real beaut)', with a crook, 
 
 I 
 
'DOWN THE road: 
 
 or, as they used to call it, a ' dog's leg,' just above the 
 handle, and was one of Joseph and William Ward's 
 make. ' Where did I get it ? A friend of mine gave 
 it me,' said Tom ; ' and there's his name on the handle.' 
 On the brass ferule was the name of ' R. Bonus.' ' Just 
 pull up at that door,' said Tom, as we neared a public- 
 house on the left-hand side of the road, ' and be sure 
 to read the name over the door. Whatever you do, 
 mind and keep your hand over the dog's leg.' ' What's 
 up now ? ' said I. ' Never you mind,' said Tom, ' but 
 just do as I tell you; I'll tell you my reason when we 
 get off again.' As soon as we were fairly off again, 
 ' Well,' said Tom, ' what do you think is up } Did you 
 mind the name over the door, as I bid you ? ' ' Yes,' 
 I said ; ' it's the same name as the name on the whip.' 
 ' Well,' said he, 'that whip belonged to Bonus.' 'And 
 you prigged it from him, I suppose } ' I said. ' No,' 
 said he, 'not exacdy that; but I've got it, and I don't 
 mean him to have it again, if I can help it. Don't 
 you see,' he said, ' I used always to leave one of my 
 whips behind Bonus's door. Now, I cautioned Bonus 
 never to use it, for he was very fond of driving, and 
 used sometimes to drive one of the vans when he 
 
TOM HENNESY'S CROOKED WHIP 
 
THE CROOKED WHfr AND TOM IIENNESY. 59 
 
 could get a chance. Well, one day I took my whip 
 from behind the door, and found that it was broken, 
 I put it back again without his seeing me, and took 
 his ; and if you'll promise me that you'll take it clean 
 out of the country, and never bring it into these parts 
 again, I'll make you a present of it.' On these terms 
 I became the happy possessor of the dog-legged stick ; 
 and, though I have driven hundreds of miles with It 
 on other roads. It has never been a single mile on the 
 London side of Stamford. 
 
 1 2 
 
6o 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 TOM HENNESY'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 
 
 * Tom,' said I one day, as this worthy gave one 
 of his shrillest of whistles, and hit his near-side leader, 
 as he could hit him, clean and neat under the bar — 
 one, two, three, and a draw that made him skip up 
 into his collar, and fairly wakened him up — ' Tom,' I 
 said, ' I think you can whistle louder, hit a horse 
 harder, and tell a bigger lie than any man I ever knew.' 
 ' You're right, sir ; you're right,' said Tom ; ' I can, I 
 can, I believe I can, I think I can, do them all as 
 well and as neat as here and there one. Why, bless 
 you, sir, there's some of 'em as never could hit a horse ; 
 and as for hitting a near-side leader, why they set a 
 picking at 'em as if they were trying to pick a penny 
 out of a pint pot, instead of turning their wrists under 
 and lettine their thono- o-q in this wav ; ' suiting the 
 action to the word, and giving the aforementioned 
 leader a repetition of the dose, and pretty nearly taking 
 his hind lee off. 
 
TOM HENNESY'S ACCOMPLISHMEXTS. 6i 
 
 ' Now, as to lying, though I don't own to being 
 a regular liar, still there's sometimes when you must 
 lie a bit. There's some folks that you can't get on 
 with at all if you can't lie ; and unless you lie well 
 there's no use in lying at all, as I can see ; and unless 
 you can lie pretty well I should like to know who 
 could compass Old Barker of Wellyn, or that long, sour 
 old beggar at Biggleswade.' This was a certain Mr. 
 Crouch, where the up coach always dined, and who 
 kept the inn in those days ; and where on a really 
 cold day in winter the process of dining was carried 
 on under no small amount of difficulty. Your hands 
 were frozen, your feet were frozen, your very mouth 
 felt frozen, and, in fact, you felt frozen all over. Some- 
 times, with all this cold, you -were also wet through, 
 your hat wet through, your coat wet through, the large 
 wrapper that was meant to keep your neck warm and 
 dry wet through, and, in fact, you are wet through 
 yourself to your very bones. Only twenty minutes was 
 allowed for dinner ; and by the time you had got your 
 hands warm enough to be able to untie your neck 
 wrapper, and had got out of your great-coat, which, 
 being wet, clung tenaciously to you, the time for feed- 
 
62 • 'DOUW THE road: 
 
 ing- was half gone. By the time you had got one 
 quarter of what you could have consumed had your 
 mouth been in eating trim, and your hands warm 
 enough to handle your knife and fork, the coachman 
 would put his head in, and say : ' Now, gentlemen, if 
 you please ; the coach is ready.' After this summons, 
 having struggled into your wet great-coat, bound your 
 miserable wet wrapper round your miserable cold 
 throat, having paid your two and sixpence for the 
 dinner that you had the will but not the time, to eat, 
 with sixpence for the waiter, you wished the worthy 
 Mr. Crouch good day, grudged him the half-crown he 
 had pocketed for having dined so miserably, and again 
 mounted your seat, to be rained and snowed upon, 
 and almost frozen to death before you reached London. 
 
THE SIX HILLS AT STEVENAGE. 63 
 
 THE SIX HILLS AT STEVENAGE. 
 
 ' You look cold, sir,' said Tom, as he turned round 
 and spoke to a gentleman who was flapping his 
 hands and trying to warm himself, just as we were 
 nearing Stevenage on the Great North Road. The 
 Six Hills at Stevenage were generally the subject for 
 a bet of a glass of brandy-and-water ; and I suppose 
 he thought that the gentleman in question, being in 
 nowise over warm, would not mind having a bet for 
 a glass of ' something hot/ ' Do you know the Six 
 Hills at Stevenage, sir?' said Tom. 'Well, sir, do you 
 know they are very curious ; they do say that they 
 are old tombs or places where they used to bury 
 people, but the odd thing is that no one can tell 
 which two of them are the furthest apart — ' I'll just 
 pull up as we pass them, sir, and I'll bet you a glass 
 ot brandy-and-water, or rum-and-water, or whatever 
 you like so long as it's hot — for it's precious cold to- 
 day — that you cant tell me which two of them are 
 
64 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 the furthest apart.' There was a shght difference, but 
 not so much as to be very perceptible. 'Well, I'll 
 bet you a glass of brandy-and-water, coachman, that 
 those two',' pointing to two of them, ' are the furthest 
 apart from each other.' ' Well, then, sir,' said Tom, 
 ' you've lost your bet, and we will have a glass each 
 at the next change, which you shall pay for. They 
 may seem so, but the Jii^st and the last are the 
 furthest apart, are they not, sir ? ' ' Why, of course 
 they are,' said the gentleman. ' Then, sir, you owe 
 me a glass of brandy-and-water ; ' which of course 
 was duly accounted for at the next stage. 
 
THE ROAD GAME. 65 
 
 THE ROAD GAME. 
 
 The chances are a hundred to one that in these days 
 the reader never saw or heard of the 'road game,' 
 which was sometimes also called ' road piquette ; ' and 
 when I have informed him what it was, he may pro- 
 bably consider it a slow proceeding, and hardly 
 worth the name of an amusement to pass the time. 
 In these days of rapid movement, when one goes so 
 fast that one can hardly count the telegraph posts 
 or distinguish how many wires there are, the ' road 
 game ' cannot well be played, and with newspapers 
 and books to read in the train it would be a slow 
 proceeding. But on a coach, doing nine, or even ten 
 miles an hour, instead of forty, time sometimes hung 
 rather heavily on hand, and we were glad to have 
 a game of any sort to beguile the hours that were 
 sometimes rather tedious. Though there were gene- 
 rally plenty of incidents along the road, still if inci- 
 dents did not present themselves just when wanted. 
 
66 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 the ' road game ' was sometimes played ; and I have 
 seen as much amusement and joHity over it, and 1 
 may say excitement, as if there had been a pack 
 of cards and whist inside a railway carriage. The 
 coachman, for instance, and the person sitting beside 
 him, would have a game, tossing up for taking choice 
 of which side of the road they would have. A don- 
 key counted seven, a pig one, a black sheep one, a 
 cat five, a cat in a window ten, a dog one, a magpie 
 one, a grey horse five ; and there was one thing by 
 which game . might be got at once, but it was con- 
 nected with what I cannot venture to describe, and it 
 was a very rare occurrence. Once in my life, and 
 only once, I saw this feat performed, and it elicited 
 a shout of 'Game, by Jove!' 
 
TOM HENNESY REDUCED TO A PAIR. 67 
 
 TOM HENNESY REDUCED TO A FAIR. 
 now TO ' FIX THEM.' 
 
 Poor Tom Hennesy, after having for many )cars 
 driven the 'Reirent' coach from HunLnie^don to Lon- 
 don every other day — up on Mondays, Wednesdays, 
 Fridays ; down Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays — 
 was, hke many others, run off the road by the rail, 
 and ' faut de mieux ' took to driving a pair-horse 
 coach from Cambridge to Huntingdon and back. It 
 so happened that I found myself seated by him one 
 morning, from Cambridge to Huntingdon. * Why, 
 Tom,' I said, as we got a little way down the street, 
 ' you've got a pair of real pulling brutes there ; they'll 
 run away with you as soon as you get out of the 
 town.' ' Not they,' said Tom ; 'I'll Jix them as soon 
 as we get past the toll-bar ; they'll go pleasant enough 
 then.' Accordingly, when a short way through the 
 toll-bar, he pulled up, and with a ' Just hold them a 
 
 K 2 
 
68 'DOWN THE ROAD. 
 
 bit, sir, will you ? ' he descended, and from his pocket 
 he pulled out a cord. ' What have you got there ? ' 
 said I. 'Oh! I'm only going to Jix tkcin,' said Tom. 
 He began at once to perform the operation, which 
 consisted in putting a sort of loop into each of their 
 mouths, and slipping another loop over the roller 
 bolts. Having got up again, ' Now then,' says Tom, 
 ' perhaps you'll like to pull the coach by your mouths ; 
 I can tell you you shan't pull my arms off any more. 
 Now, will you believe it, sir,' said he, ' whenever 
 they gets anything that's extra bad, and" as no one 
 else can manage, they sends them to me because 
 they knows as I can y£r them; but they don't know 
 how I fixes them, for I always take this penny cord 
 off and puts it into my pocket again before I gets 
 to Fenny Stanton. There's no use letting every one 
 know how you do business.' Poor old Tom ! he was 
 a roughish fellow, but a good fellow at heart, and 
 could what he called fix than better than any man 
 I ever knew ; he was ' as full of dodges as a tree full 
 of monkeys.' 
 
 I remember once between Buckden and St. Neot's, 
 on the North Road, that a brown mare with a tanned 
 
TOM HENNESY REDUCED TO A PAIR. 69 
 
 muzzle excited his wrath by jibbing and scotching 
 and hanging back, and as she was on a good road, 
 and there was no seeming reason for her doing so, 
 he pitched into her ; at last he said, ' What's the 
 matter with the mare, I wonder ? ' and having got 
 down, he found her off thigh broken and the bone 
 actually protruding through the skin. It is a curious 
 fact, but I once again saw the same accident occur. 
 I was posting with two gentlemen in an open barouche, 
 going to a large county meeting at Sleaford in Lin- 
 colnshire ; all of a sudden the horse which the post- 
 boy had in hand, and which was a big chestnut, fell 
 dead lame, and we came to a standstill. The post- 
 boy got off his horse and we out of the carriage, 
 and having seen the thing before, I said at once the 
 horse had broken his thigh, which proved to be the 
 case. The two gentlemen who saw the accident, and 
 who were with me in the carriage, are still alive, and 
 can vouch for what I say, unless a lapse of forty 
 years has rendered their memories as hazy as the 
 ' soi-disant ' Sir Rooer Tichborne's. The road in both 
 cases was a perfectly smooth turnpike road, without 
 loose stones or ruts, or anything to account for what 
 
•JO 'DOWN THE road: . 
 
 happened. I well remember that on both occasions 
 the day was broiling hot and the dust flying, so that 
 there was no extra draught from the road being bad, 
 nor heavy from rain or wet of any kind. 
 
THE WORLD CAN'T GET ON WITHOUT HUMBUG. 71 
 
 THE WORLD CAN'T GET ON WLTHOUT HUMBUG. 
 
 Stilton cheese cannot have much to do with coaching", 
 you will say, but still it had. For many years the 
 Stilton cheeses sold at Stilton were more in number 
 than in any other place ; and though not one of them 
 was made there, they were supposed to be by those 
 who knew no better. 
 
 Stilton was on the Great North Road, between 
 Huntingdon and Stamford, and there were somewhere 
 about forty- two coaches and mails passing through 
 every twenty-four hours, not to mention the endless 
 carriages posting north and south. As Stilton was so 
 famed for Stilton cheeses, the sale of them was very 
 large ; and many was the passenger by the coaches or 
 mails, or amongst those who were posting, that bought 
 a Stilton cheese of the worthy hostess of the inn where 
 ' the change ' was, a fat, upstanding, portly dame, by 
 name Miss Worthincrton. You mi^ht have thoucrht 
 from her appearance, as she held aloft a Stilton cheese 
 
72 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 on a tray to the passengers on the coach, sayhig, 
 ' Pray, sir, would you not Hke a Stilton cheese to take 
 home with you ? ' that the said Stiltons might have 
 been made at home. 
 
 Mr. Chafe Justice, darlint, now, ' did ye ever see the 
 like of that } ' 
 
 As at present, so then were they made in Leices- 
 tershire, from which county they were sent to Stilton, 
 and were sold in great numbers to those travelling on 
 the Great North Road, which in fact was the road 
 everywhere, and hence they got the name of 'Stilton 
 cheeses.' 
 
 I remember one day, when on the coach with an 
 old uncle of mine, who had lived in Leicestershire a 
 good deal and hired a place for hunting near Melton, 
 that the said Miss Worthington, as was her usual 
 custom, was persecuting him to buy a Stilton cheese. 
 She swore that Stilton cheeses were all made at Stil- 
 ton, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he 
 could persuade her that she was going fast to the 
 
 d 1 for telling lies and sticking to them ; and 
 
 she was a little taken aback when he said, * Why 
 Miss Worthington. you know perfectly well that no 
 
THE WORLD CAN'T GET ON WITHOUT HUMBUG. 73 
 
 Stilton cheese was ever made at Stilton ; they're all 
 made in Leicestershire ; and therefore, as you say 
 your cheeses are made at Stilton, they cannot be 
 good : I won't have one.' No doubt she wondered 
 who he was to be so knowing; everyone knew Miss 
 Worthington of Stilton, though she might not know 
 everyone that knew her, upon the same principle 
 that ' more know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows.' 
 You will say with truth that the Stilton cheese story 
 has not much to do with coaching, but still, as the 
 little incident I have related happened on a coach, it 
 is an Incident of the Road, and may enlighten some, 
 even in these days, as to where Stilton cheeses do come 
 from. I do verily think that a Stilton cheese in 
 1828 was a 'better fellow' than he is in 1S74, unless 
 by mere chance. Hardly anyone, in the days I have 
 named, used to eat Stilton cheese except ' swells.' In 
 those days I suspect that they put less milk in their 
 cream and less water in their milk than they do now, 
 and that from this cause Stiltons were altoeether a 
 better article. Everywhere, now-a-days, one sees Stil- 
 ton cheese, and where one man used to eat it in 1828 
 a thousand eat it in 1874, if )'ou can call the article 
 
 J. 
 
74 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 that one sees in the shape of a Stilton by that name, 
 but which in reahty is, generally speaking, a composi- 
 tion of chalk, lard, flour, and everything to resemble, 
 if possible, the article it ought to be made of, which is 
 simply cream. The real, rich, genuine, old Stilton 
 that used to be on the table at dinner, or rather at 
 ' cheese time,' and was helped by the master of the 
 house with a silver cheese scoop with an ivory handle 
 to it, and the long glass of ale, or the glass of ' old 
 brown crusted port,' which was handed round by the 
 important-looking old butler with his jolly red nose 
 and white waistcoat, is, like the coaches and mails 
 and coachmen and guards, gone. ' Dinner a la Russe ' 
 having become the fashion, Stilton cheese and the glass 
 of good old port are almost things unknown. So 
 much for Stilton cheese and Miss Worthington. 
 
 I had almost forgotten the little anecdote of the 
 good Miss Worthington which follows; and though 
 it has no more to do with actual coachinof than Stil- 
 ton cheese, it may amuse. Two old lady relations of 
 mine, chancing to stop a night at the hotel in .Stilton, 
 on their way from London to Stamford, feeling a little 
 ' rheumaticky ' in the morning, as man)' old ladies are apt 
 
THE WORLD CAN'T GET ON WITHOUT HUMBUG, js 
 
 to do, made up their minds that they had had a damp 
 bed. They forthwith summoned the worthy hostess 
 into their presence as they sat at breakfast, and hinted 
 to her that their bed must have been damp, not know- 
 ing how in any other way to account for their sensa- 
 tions. Miss Worthino;^ton was horror-struck, and was 
 full of indignation at such a thing being thought pos- 
 sible. The ladies stuck to it that such must be the 
 case, and that the rheumatic feeling must be caused 
 by the bed being damp. ' Indeed, ma'am,' said Miss 
 Worthington, * I never heard of such a thing as a 
 damp bed in my house, and I am sure, ma'am, I never 
 was accused of such a thing before.' 'Well,' said one 
 of the ladies, ' I assure you that both my sister and 
 I thought it felt damp when we went to bed, but we 
 did not like to say anything at the time.' ' Well, 
 ma'am,' said Miss Worthington, ' all I can say is, 
 I never heard of a damp bed in Stilton before, and 
 if it was so It must have been from the perspiration 
 of the two people who slept in it the night before 
 last. I cannot account for it in any other way.' 
 
76 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 KITES OVER MONCKS WOOD. 
 
 Within a few miles of Stilton, and between Stilton 
 and Stamford, is a hill called Alconbury Hill. In the 
 days I am writing of, so famous for Miss Worthington 
 and her Stilton cheeses (about the year 1824, and 
 from before that time to 1828 or 1829), there used to 
 be in that part of the country an incredible number of 
 kites — the 'Forked-tail Kyte,' 'Falcon Milvus' Lin. 
 ' Le Milan Royal ' Buff, or what in Scotland were called 
 ' Gleads,' the red feathers of whose forked tail were 
 famous for wincrs of salmon-flies. These birds used 
 to be soaring over the road, and over a wood called 
 Moncks Wood — a wood famed in the Fitzwilliam 
 country ; in almost every direction one used actually 
 to see them sitting in the middle of the road, and on 
 one occasion I remember counting as many as twenty- 
 seven in the air at the same time. The preservation 
 of game, I suppose, has got rid of them, for no such 
 bird is to be seen now ; and it is wonderful to think 
 
KITES OVER MONCKS WOOD. y-j 
 
 how in a few years those birds have become almost 
 extinct throughout England. I have not seen one for 
 at least thirty years, common as they used to be in 
 the days of Stilton cheeses, Miss Worthington, and 
 the old ' Stamford Regent Coach.' 
 
78 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 THE LOUTH MAIL. 
 'what, drunk again, you lazy old beggar.' 
 
 It was during my college days that the following took 
 place. It was on a fine summer's morning, or rather 
 I should say, * in the merry, merry month of May,' 
 that when travelling by the ' Louth Mail,' and coming 
 in sight of our change, our ' Jehu ' turning round on 
 his box, accosted the guard with, ' Now, Jemmy, blow 
 your horn : I don't see any horses out' Jemmy at once 
 responded to the call, and ' gav' em a couple of blasts ' 
 on the ' sweet-toned instrument.' ' Whatever can be 
 up ? ' said Jemmy, as he again put the horn to his 
 mouth and gave a still louder and more impressive 
 blast, which also seemed to have no effect. * Oh ! I 
 see how it is,' said he. * Drunk again last night I'll 
 warrant ; ' and with this we arrived at a little wayside 
 kind of stables, or barn-looking edifice standing all 
 alone by the side of the road. A step-ladder stood 
 against a door in the side of the building and pro- 
 

 
 PC 
 
 < 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 o 
 < 
 
 a 
 
 f— I 
 < 
 
 
 •i;)' 
 
 
THE LOUTH MAIL. 79 
 
 claimed that it led to the hay-loft. No horses were to 
 be seen, and nothing seemed to be alive at such an 
 early time of day except a cock and hen, who were 
 evidently on the look-out for their morning meal. 
 * Brave chanticleer ' was proclaiming the morn, to the 
 best of his ability, and seemed almost to be standing 
 on tiptoes to effect his purpose. Still nothing else 
 showed any signs of life. Jehu got down and be- 
 gan to take out his horses himself, with a ' D — that 
 drunken old rascal ! I'll bet he's asleep in the hay-loft ; 
 just nip up, Jemmy, and pull him down neck and crop, 
 if you can find him.' Whereupon Jemmy sprung up 
 the ladder, found his man fast asleep, and seizing him 
 by the legs, pulled him down * bodily ' into the road, 
 exclaiming, ' What, drunk again last night, were you, 
 you lazy old beggar ! Who do you think is going to do 
 your work for you, I wonder ? ' Accidents will happen 
 in the best regulated families, they say, and this was 
 one of them ' on the Road,' and it was a somewhat 
 unusual one to happen to a mail. 
 
8o DOIVN THE ROAD.' 
 
 I GO TO LIVE NEAR THE HOLYHEAD ROAD. 
 
 Such are some remembrances of my younger days, 
 I may say, my 'beardless youth.' As time went on 
 my mode of life changed, and being married I went 
 to live in Shropshire, within a couple of miles of the 
 great Holyhead Road, and between Shrewsbury and 
 Oswestry. I there became acquainted with my old 
 and much esteemed friend, the Honourable Thomas 
 Kenyon, who lived hard by, and who was a well- 
 known good whip. We fraternised a good deal ; and 
 if I wanted a character from any coach proprietor he 
 would always give me one, * for honesty, sobriety, and 
 steadiness,' in proof of which he on more than one 
 occasion trusted me to drive his coach, which was the 
 greatest compliment he could pay any one. He used 
 to drive from his own house to Shrewsbury, from 
 which he lived thirteen miles, every day but Friday, 
 and he kept two teams of short-legged chestnuts to 
 work his coach. I had now got into a part of the 
 
/ GO TO LIVE NEAR THE HOLYHEAD ROAD. Si 
 
 world where the coaches were fast, and where some 
 of them ' ran in opposition.' The Holyhead Mail was 
 very fast, and the ' Oak ' and ' Netde ' coaches from 
 Welchpool to Liverpool ran in opposition, and were 
 often too fast to be quite safe, as I sometimes used to 
 tanc}^ However, whatever was the pace required, I 
 had to do it when I drove, which I did pretty often. 
 Both ran within half a mile of my door when I lived 
 between Oswestry and Llanymyneck ; and, as I had 
 friends living both at Wrexham and Chester, I often 
 used to drive the coach so far. I knew the coach- 
 men on both coaches, but I used generally to drive 
 the ' Nettle.' I remember one day, when I got on the 
 ' Nettle,' Shaw Evans, who was one of the coachmen, 
 said to me, as I got on the coach at Wrexham, ' Have 
 you heard of poor Jack Mathews, sir } ' to which I 
 replied, ' No,' not at all guessing what was the matter. 
 It seems that Jack Mathews, who drove the ' Orik,' 
 took it into his head to go for a day's outing to 
 Liverpool. He got on the railway, which was hardly 
 finished, somewhere near Wrexham, intcmdine to oo 
 as far as Chester. From some mishap the bridge at 
 Chester was insecure, and onl)- a temporary one ; it 
 
82 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 broke down, and poor Jack Mathews and another man 
 were killed dead on the spot. A friend of mine and 
 his son, Mr. W. Wynne, were precipitated in the rail- 
 way carriage into the river Dee. How they were got 
 out I forget ; but as I have seen my friend W. Wynne 
 since, I know he was not killed. Poor Jack Mathews 
 would have been safer driving the ' Oak ' coach, in all 
 probability, for he was as pretty a coachman as ever 
 had four horses in hand, and was altogether a good 
 workman in all respects ; always as ' smart as a new 
 pin.' 
 
THE HOLYHEAD MAIL FROM LONDON. 83 
 
 THE HOLYHEAD MAIL FROM LONDON VIA 
 SHREWSBURY. 
 
 There was no better mode of travelling in my day 
 than by the Holyhead Mail, which passed through 
 Shrewsbury ; and as I lived for some time close to 
 the Holyhead road between Shrewsbury and Oswes- 
 try, and as I was often travelling by it, and had leave 
 from all the proprietors from Shrewsbury to Holyhead 
 to drive their horses, I had a good opportunity of 
 knowing everything about it. It was, perhaps, as fast 
 a mail as any going, except perhaps the Davenport 
 or Quicksilver mail, being rated by the Post Office at 
 rather more than ten miles and a half an hour, in- 
 cluding stoppages. I always considered that we did 
 eleven miles an hour, including stoppages ; but, be that 
 as it may, it was a very fast mail. It was well horsed, 
 of course, as a general rule ; but there were, of course, 
 some 'sticky ones' during the journey. I did not 
 
 know much of this mail on the London side of Shrews- 
 
 M 3 
 
84 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 bury ; but from Shrewsbury to Holyhead I knew every 
 coachman and guard, the horses, horsekeepers, and I 
 might ahnost say every stone on the road. The road, 
 however, was so good, that unless you went to a 
 stone-heap, I don't think you could have found a stone 
 big enough to pelt a robin with ; added to this, it was 
 so beautifully planned that there was not a hill in the 
 whole distance from Shrewsbury to Holyhead that you 
 could not trot up and down, and, as far as my memory 
 serves me, we never had to put on the skid during the 
 whole of the 107 miles from Shrewsbury to Holy- 
 head. The road when it got into Wales ran through 
 some very hilly country, but thanks to the immortal 
 Telford he had overcome all difficulties, and the road 
 throughout was pretty nearly as smooth as one of Mr. 
 Thurston's best billiard tables. I had leave from all 
 the proprietors to drive their teams, either in the 
 Holyhead Mail, or in any other coach horsed by them. 
 Thus I was not putting myself under an obligation 
 to any of the coachmen for allowing me to drive by 
 stealth, and everything was straightforward and above- 
 board in this respect. Whenever I appeared, the 
 thing was a matter of course, and I was coachman for 
 
THE HOLYHEAD ALUL FROM LOXDON. 85 
 
 the day. As the expression was, I * worked the 
 coach.' The road was good, the horses were good, as 
 a rule, the coachmen and guards were good fellows, 
 the pace was good. At that time of day I was 
 young, and my health was good, and what more could 
 a man want ? There was no sitting with your reins 
 in two hands, and your whip stuck up in a socket by 
 your side, looking for all the world like a hazel stick 
 with a woodbine growing round it ; or laid on the 
 roof of the coach, or perhaps held by a friend who is 
 sitting behind you, or by some one on the box beside 
 you. Such things I have actually seen, but not on 
 the mail. Your whip in those days was in one hand, 
 and your reins in the other ; and if you could not use 
 them both, one for your fiddle-strings and the other 
 for your fiddle-stick, you were of no use. If you had 
 a sluggish team (the horses, as I said before, were as a 
 rule good, but sometimes a new wheeler would prove 
 to be 'a bit sticky '), and could not use your whip 
 pretty well, and lift him off the ground and set him 
 down half a mile on the road, as the saying was, you 
 were of little use ; for the pace was good, and as we 
 . had to keep eleven miles an hour, including stoppages, 
 
86 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 the slugs must be made by some means to do the 
 pace with the others. Eleven miles an hour, including 
 stoppages, stands for galloping at least the greater 
 part of the way. The theory of eleven miles an hour 
 and the practice are two different matters. I have 
 done fourteen or fifteen miles in the hour ; but to keep 
 up eleven miles an hour for eighty or ninety miles is 
 a somewhat serious affair, unless your cattle are very 
 good. 
 
OGIVVN POOL. 87 
 
 OGJVVJV POOL. 
 MR. BICKNELL AND HIS HORSES. 
 
 Where is yack Williams ? 
 
 Reader, do you know the London and Holyhead 
 Road ? If you are old enough to have travelled by 
 that capital conveyance, the Holyhead Mail, you must 
 surely remember passing near to Capel Curig, the 
 famous ' Ogwyn Pool,' or lake, as we should say in 
 England. It is a pretty spot in summer, and when 
 the fishing season has commenced ; but in the winter 
 months it is quite the reverse, and with snow on the 
 hills, snow falling, and a cold wind blowing from the 
 north, I know no place much colder or more dreary 
 and desolate, with the pool looking so cold and deep 
 and blue that you would imagine there could be no 
 bottom to it, the rocks above it looking so grey and 
 cheerless, and the mountains, all covered with snow, 
 looking like overgrown wedding-cakes. As you leave 
 
?8 'DOWX THE road: 
 
 the pool to the right going towards Holyhead, you 
 suddenly turn the corner, the wind blowing hard from 
 the north, the snow driving straight up the road 
 through the valley of the Ogwyn, not coming down 
 straight, but drifting up the road, and almost horizon- 
 tally with the road. Woe to the hat of the luckless 
 passenger who does not hold it on as he rounds that 
 corner ! You may ask him ' Who's your hatter ? ' but 
 he will never read the name in the crown again, when 
 he looks into it in church on Sunday, for it is making 
 the best of its way into the valley beneath, having 
 surmounted the wall on the left hand, or with the 
 sudden gust is blown off to the right hand, and is 
 floating on the blue waters of the deep and chilly 
 Ogwyn. It was on such a day that I was driving 
 Her Majesty's Mail, when on nearing Bangor, where 
 we used to change horses at Bicknell's, of the Penryn 
 Arms, I was accosted by Charlie Harper with, ' I 
 think I'd better take them into Bangor, sir, for Mr. 
 Bicknell has given strict orders that no gentleman 
 should drive ; there's been a row with the Post Office 
 because Mr. B — E — ran the mail against a wag- 
 gon in Corwyn, and the mail was damaged and 
 
0Gn']\\ pooj.. 89 
 
 delayed, and was late for the packet at Holyhead.' 
 It so happened that a gentleman did perform this 
 feat, having taken a good deal of some good and 
 strone drink at a friend's house on the road before he 
 got upon the mail. At the best of times he was not 
 much of a coachman, but on the present occasion his 
 Jehuship completely forsook him, and he ran the mail 
 against a heavily-loaded waggon standing in the open 
 street at Corwyn, in the open day, without, as I have 
 heard, the least reason for so doing, except that he 
 had got too much, and could not see straight, thereby 
 damaging the mail frightening the passengers, putting 
 the bodies of more than one of Her Majesty's liege 
 subjects in jeopardy, and causing so much delay that 
 the letters and passengers were late for the boat to 
 Dublin. Thus the fact of the mail being detained 
 throucrh the inebriated movements of Mr. B — E — 
 was reported to the General Post Office, and hence 
 an edict was issued that in future no gentleman 
 should be allowed to drive. This being the case, I 
 most willingly gave up the reins to the authorised 
 Jehu, Charlie Harper. I had driven over sixty miles 
 in wet and wind and snow, and, to tell the honest 
 
 N 
 
90 'DOIVA THE ROAD: 
 
 truth, I was pretty much tired. On arriving at the 
 change at Bangor, I nevertheless expressed my senti- 
 ments to Mr. Bicknell, and endeavoured to make it 
 appear to him that it was hard to give me ' the sack ' 
 for what was the fault of another. Mr. Bicknell re- 
 gretted that so it was, and so it must be, said it was 
 an unfortunate affair altogether, but gave me to under- 
 stand that the law of the Post Office was like the law 
 of certain Medes and Persians, which altered not. 
 
 Where is Jack Williams ? 
 
 Some time after the preceding anecdote headed ' Ogwyn 
 Pool,' I got on the mail at Oswestry to go to see 
 a friend in Anglesey. The jom-ney, though not other- 
 wise than prosperous, was far from pleasant, being, as 
 usual in that latitude, wet and windy, with sleet and 
 snow and every abomination of foul weather that 
 could blow out of a Welsh sky in the month of De- 
 cember. I never shall forget the wind and sleet and 
 snow on turning the aforesaid corner of Ogwyn Pool, 
 as we were doing our eleven miles an hour ; such a 
 day of wind and water I scarcely ever remember ; it 
 
WHERE IS 'CHACK WILLIAMS r 91 
 
 was hardly possible to look from under the brim of 
 one's hat. ' Come, Charlie,' said I, as we got near 
 Bangor, ' catch hold of them ; this is Bicknell's stage, 
 and, as he has issued his orders, I'll not drive his 
 horses and get you into a scrape, which might be 
 the case if anything went wrong.' Whereupon Charlie 
 Harper took the mail into Bangor. Having no par- 
 cels to leave or anything to attend to, and being wet 
 and cold and miserable, off he gets, says a word or 
 two' to one of the horsekeepers, and makes himself 
 scarce by starting off home, never dreaming that he 
 could be wanted any more that day. Hodgson, the 
 guard, as soon as the mail stopped at Bicknell's door, 
 had taken his letter -bags over his shoulder to the 
 Post Office, some little way down the street, and 
 soon appeared again at the corner of the street where 
 the Post Office was, with the Holyhead and Dublin 
 bags slung across his shoulder. But the mail that 
 should take him and his letter-bags up at the corner 
 of the street does not start. The horses are to and 
 all is ready, but there is no coachman ; something 
 must be the matter. 'Where is " Chack Williams".'*' 
 cries one of the horsekeepers. ' Has anyone seen 
 
 N 2 
 
92 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 " Chack Williams"?' says another. No one has seen 
 ' Chack Williams ; ' where can he be ? There stands 
 Hodgson at the corner of the street with his letter- 
 bags. Still the mail don't start ; he evidently begins 
 to be impatient, and, seeing no one on the box, begins 
 to see something is wrong ; at last he calls out : 
 ' Come on ; what on earth are you waiting for ? ' 
 Seeing still no signs of Her Majesty's Mail making 
 any kind of movement, and no appearance of any 
 coachman, up he comes to the mail, and in a more 
 energetic tone cries out : ' What the devil are you 
 waiting for .'^ Wliere is Jack Williams ? ' No one had 
 seen Jack Williams, and no one seemed to know 
 whether he was dead or alive. At last one of the 
 horsekeepers seemed to remember all of a sudden 
 that Jack Williams had been summoned to attend a 
 macristrates' meetinof on the other side of the Menai 
 Bridge, and that Harper was to take the niail over 
 the bridge, and he (Jack Williams) was to get up at 
 the public-house where the worthy beaks who had 
 summoned him were to hold their conclave. ' Yes, 
 Indeed, I remember now; it was summoned to attend 
 the magistrates' meeting ; ' // standing of course for 
 
WHERE IS 'CIIACK WILLIAMS?' 93 
 
 ' Chack Williams.' 'Now then,' said Hodgson, who 
 was growing impatient ; ' we can't wait here all day ; 
 somebody must drive. Mr. Reynardson, will you be 
 so good ? We shall be late for the packet.' ' I don't 
 care,' said I, ' whether you are late or not ; I am 
 thankful to say I am not going to cross such a day 
 as this. Jump up and drive yourself, and I'll sit 
 behind and take charge of your bags, and play you a 
 tune on your " grunting stick " whilst you're going 
 over the bridge. Bicknell has said that I am not to 
 drive his horses, and if you take root here I don't 
 care; I'll not touch them.' 'Well, sir, we shall be 
 late for the packet if you luoii t', said Hodgson. ' I 
 don't care,' said I ; ' I daresay I shall be able to get 
 to where I am going in time for dinner, or at all 
 events before bed-time, so I'll have nothing to do 
 with either the mail or Mr. Bicknell's horses, and if 
 the mail, stays here all night it's nothing to me.' 
 ' Now, Hodgson,' says Mr. Bicknell, who just then 
 appeared at the door, ' what's the mail standing there 
 for ? ' ' That's just what I should like to know,' 
 answered Hodgson ; 'but the mail can't go, sir, without 
 some one to driv^e it. Jack Williams is not to be 
 
94 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 found, Charlie Harper has gone home long ago, and 
 Mr. Reynardson says, you said he was not to drive 
 your horses any more, and he won't have anything 
 to do with them ; so what's to be done I don't know. 
 We shall be late for the packet, and then you know 
 there'll be a row again with the Post Office people.' 
 Things seemed to be in something of a hx, and 
 Hodgson, though in a fuss to be off, I could see, was 
 rather enjoying the joke, which began to be a serious 
 one ; for there seemed to be no chance of anyone to 
 drive. It was blowing great guns, and the Menai 
 Bridge would be rocking about like a cradle, and the 
 team of greys, which I had often driven before, were 
 not the handiest in the world if they had not got up 
 the right way in the morning, and if things went a 
 litde wrong. ' Well,' said Bicknell, ' this won't do. 
 Will you drive them, Mr. Reynardson, till you find 
 Jack Williams on the other side of the bridge } ' 
 ' No,' said I ; ' you may drive them yourself, if you 
 like ; I won't touch them.' Things looked worse and 
 worse, as far as a start was concerned. Bicknell was 
 no coachman himself ; Hodgson said he could not 
 drive them ; I said I would not drive them ; and 
 
'-0 
 
 X 
 -J 
 
 
 CO 
 
WHERE IS 'CHACK WILLIAMSr 
 
 there seemed no one of the horsekeepers competent 
 to perform this feat. So, at last, Mr. Bicknell, putting 
 
 on his most affable face, said : 'Mr. R , sir, will 
 
 you be so kind as to take them across the bridge ? 
 I shall be very much obliged to you if you will.' 
 'Oh! oh!' said I, 'if you are going to be obliged, 
 or anything of that kind, I don't mind obliging you, 
 Mr. Bicknell.' 
 
 It was altogether one of the best scenes I ever 
 saw, and many a time after did we have our little 
 joke at Mr. Bicknell's expense. Well, as soon as 
 Mr. Bicknell had made his wishes known, I took 
 the mail across the Menai Bridge and picked up 
 ' Chack Williams,' who had finished his justicing, and 
 was be^inninof to wonder what had become of the 
 mail. I drove Mr. Bicknell's horses to the half-way 
 house, where my change was, and I got down and 
 went to my friend's house, where I did arrive in time 
 for dinner. Mr. Bicknell never after said anything to 
 me about not driving his horses. No one horsed the 
 mail better than Mr. Bicknell, and ' his ' spicy team 
 of greys ' were not to be surpassed by any on the 
 road. 
 
96 'DOIVN THE ROAD.' 
 
 HOLYHEAD MAIL. 
 MEETING OF TWO OLD ETONIANS. 
 
 On my return home into Shropshire from my friend's 
 house in Anglesey, a rather amusing occurrence took 
 place. On going through Bangor, though we changed 
 horses in the town, we always pulled up at Mr. Bick- 
 nell's hotel, the * Penryn Arms,' for a moment, to sec 
 if there were any passengers going. •' There's a gentle- 
 man to take up at the " Penryn Arms," ' said the book- 
 keeper, as we were starting from the house where we 
 changed horses in the town. A couple of blasts from 
 Hodgson's horn gives notice as we near the hotel that 
 the mail is at hand. ' Now then,' cries Hodgson, as 
 we pull up, and the waiter appears with his white 
 napkin under his arm, ' is the gentleman ready ? 
 Look sharp ; we're rather behind time ; we can't wait.' 
 'Stop a pit — stop a pit ! ' says the Welsh waiter. ' It's 
 coming in a moment ; it's just done its breakfast ; it's 
 coming directly ; it's a nice gentleman, Mr. Hodgson. 
 
HOLYHEAD MAIL. 97 
 
 I know you can wait one minute, if you choose.' In 
 less than half a minute out came some of his luggage, 
 and amongst other things a shako case was put into 
 the front boot. ' Oh ! oh ! soger officer,' said I ; 'let 
 me look at his name,' which was on a brass plate. 
 
 * Major Stock, Regiment.' I knew the name at 
 
 once, and it entered my head that it might be an old 
 schoolfellow ; and I said to myself, I wonder whether 
 it can be the Stock I knew at Eton. Upon his coming 
 out and getting up to take his place beside me on 
 the box, what should I see but the old familiar face 
 that had been almost next to me at Eton for more 
 than four years. There never was such a country for 
 foul weather in winter time, I verily believe, as the 
 country around Bangor ; and, as on former occasions, 
 it was raining, and blowing, and hailing, and snow- 
 ing, and the elements seemed to be vying with each 
 other which could be the most disagreeable ; it was 
 as horrible a day as could be, as was the usual state 
 of things in those latitudes. I was in a thick weather- 
 proof old macintosh, such as coachmen used to wear 
 in those days, and had on a queerish-looking water- 
 proof hat, and looked, I conclude, more like a regular 
 
98 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 son of Jehu than a gentleman who had been educated 
 at that ' seat of rehgious education and sound learn- 
 ing ' where we had both been for so long together. 
 He did not seem to recognise his old schoolfellow in 
 the least ; and as he made himself as snug and water- 
 tight as circumstances would admit of, he said, ' Well 
 coachman, this is a beastly day ; we shall have a foulish 
 time of it, I suspect' ' Yes, sir,' I said ; ' I'm afraid 
 you'll get very wet. Would you not like to go inside ? 
 No one would choose to go outside such a day as this 
 unless they were obliged ; you'd better get inside. 
 You'll be very wet and uncomfortable before )0u get 
 to London, if you're going so far, and it goes on like 
 this.' My friend, however, did not choose to go inside, 
 and away we went through the sleet, and wind, and 
 rain, chatting away, and as merry as crickets. The 
 pace was good, for we kept eleven miles an hour, 
 and he said he had never travelled on a better mail, 
 or had been out on a much more abominable day ; but 
 nevertheless, in spite of the weather, he was very sorry 
 that he could not go all the way to India by so good 
 a conveyance, and was most chatty and agreeable. I 
 own I could hardly keep my countenance at times, and 
 
HOLYHEAD MAIL. 99 
 
 sometimes thought that I should fairly break down, 
 and that he would find me out. I did, however, 
 manage to do it till I had had some fun out of him. 
 Something turned the conversation to other roads and 
 other coaches, and in time we got to talk of Windsor 
 and Eton ; and he informed me of the impositions that 
 were practised on a certain coach that ran from Lon- 
 don to Eton, and driven by one of the proprietors, 
 Bill JMoody, the firm being Thumwood and Moody, 
 who, I well remember, used to stop at a public-house 
 not far from Slough, and draw the unfortunate boys 
 going back to Eton for ' Coachman, please sir,' and 
 any extortionate charge he could make for pretended 
 extra luggage. He informed me of many little mat- 
 ters of the same kind relating to his Eton days. ' I 
 suppose, sir,' said I, ' that you were at Eton College,' 
 hardly able to keep my countenance. ' Oh, yes ; I 
 was there four or five years,' said he ; ' and a jolly 
 place it was, taking it as a school, though for my own 
 part I never could quite make out why school days 
 were thought so happy, and called " happy school 
 days."' 'Well, sir,' said I, looking him as full in the 
 
 face as the sleet, and wind, and rain, and snow, would 
 
 o 2 
 
loo 'DoiF.y THE road: 
 
 permit me to do, ' since you were at Eton, perhaps 
 you can tell me how it used to go. Was it not some- 
 thing in this way ; Lord Lincoln, Spottiswoode Major, 
 Colville Minor, Reynardson Major, Stock, Boteler, 
 Bromhead, Bowie, Tickell, Vyse Major, and so forth ? ' 
 ' Good gracious,' said he, all amazement, ' were you at 
 Eton ? ' ' Yes, sir,' I said ; ' I was.' ' Why,' said he, 
 looking hard at me, ' it surely must be Reynardson 
 Major.' ' Yes, sir,' I said ; ' it is the very man! ' Good 
 heavens, old fellow ! ' he said, holding out his hand ; 
 ' I did not know you in that hat and macintosh, and 
 driving the mail ; but I am very glad to meet you 
 again. Do tell me, how the deuce did you come to 
 this?' Well, this was 'a facer;' but I kept my coun- 
 tenance. * How did I come to this ? Why, you see,' 
 said I, ' we all have our ups and downs in life, I sup- 
 pose, and I have had mine. I have been a bit wildish ; 
 and what with a little betting, a little racing, and a 
 little fastish living, I've got a bit down in the world, 
 do you see, and so I thought it would be better to 
 get an honest livelihood than to steal or do anything 
 worse ; and as I was always fond of a bit of driving, 
 I have taken to this.' 'Well, old fellow,' said he, 'I 
 
HOLYHEAD MAIL. loi 
 
 am glad at any time to meet an old schoolfellow ; but 
 I am sorry to hear all you have been telling me.' 
 
 Well, we went on talking over old times for a 
 long while. At last I could keep my own counsel no 
 longer, and let out to him the real state of things, 
 and that I was only an 'amateur.' I felt sorry after- 
 wards that I had not more presence of mind, for to a 
 certainty I should have drawn him for a sovereign, or 
 something in gold. I got off the mail at Oswestry, 
 near which place I then lived, and he went on his 
 way via London to India, where he may be yet for 
 aught I know ; or he may have laid his bones in that 
 far-off land, for I have never seen or heard of him 
 since. The whip that I drove with that day hangs in 
 front of me, with about twenty others. ' Pristince 
 virtutis inemores' 
 
I02 'DOJFN THE ROAD: 
 
 THREE BLIND ' UNS AND A BOLTER. 
 
 It was on a piercing cold morning, about 8 a.m., as 
 they say in those days, that I arrived at the Cross 
 Keys Inn in Oswestry, in the month of January. A 
 real old-fashioned black frost had made the ground as 
 hard as frost could make it ; every little puddle and 
 every little rut, as I drove from a friend's house where 
 I had been spending a couple of days, sparkled and 
 crackled like driving over glass, as the wheels of my 
 dog-cart passed over them. The good cheer that I 
 had been enjoying for the last two nights at my 
 kind old friend's had warmed my blood, and I cared 
 not a jot for frost, or snow, or wind, or rain. The 
 port wine, which used to be of the best, the claret, 
 which was in no way inferior, and the champagne, 
 which was ' premiere qualite superieure,' to say nothing 
 of sundry and manifold glasses of old brown sherry, 
 real ' old brown glutinous,' that ' moved aright in the 
 glass ; ' not that mixture of quassia, or camomile flowers. 
 
THREE BLIND 'UNS AND A BOLTER. 103 
 
 &c., that goes by the name of Amontillado, Vino de 
 Pasta, or some such mixture which in reality stands 
 for ' cough mixture,' and goes under the name of * pale 
 sherry ; ' all these had the superiority over the frost, 
 and cold, and snow, or rain, or wind, or whatever 
 inclement weather chanced to come, and bade defiance 
 to them all. A lii^ht heart and a warm overcoat left 
 me nothing to wish for as I drove up to the door 
 of the Cross Keys, where the good landlady, Mrs. 
 Lloyd, of that then well known inn, had always a 
 glass of rum-and-milk ready for the coachman and 
 guard, who are even now arriving from Shrewsbury. 
 'Well, Dick,' said I, addressing the coachman, 
 whose name was Dick Vickers, ' what have you got 
 here ? ' as the team was being put to, for I saw that 
 they were fresh to me. ' Why, what I have got 
 here, sir, I expect you'll find out if you're going " to 
 work " this morning ; there's four horses, but they've 
 only got two eyes amongst 'em, and it would be 
 quite as well if that horse had not any, so far as I 
 know, for he makes shockino;- bad use of them, at 
 times, I can tell you, and it's a good job it's daylight, 
 for I'ni blessed if any man could keep his time with 
 
I04 'DOIVX THE ROAD: 
 
 them at night, at the pace we're obhged to go.' This 
 was eleven miles an hour, inckiding stoppages. ' Well, 
 Dick,' said I, 'I'd rather not have anything to do 
 with such brutes ; I shall be upsetting " Her Majesty's 
 paper-cart," or some such thing, and if it is to be 
 done you had better do it than I, I think.' ' Oh no ! 
 get hold of them, sir,' says Dick ; ' you'll fix 'em if 
 you can but get them through the toll-bar.' This bar 
 was three or four hundred yards from the inn, and 
 rather round a corner. This is a nice lot of brutes, 
 thought I to myself as I took hold of the reins and 
 was g'ettino' on the box. ' You must mind what 
 you're at with them,' says Hodgson, the guard, 
 who at that moment made his appearance with his 
 letter-bags thrown over his shoulder ; ' they aren't 
 fit for any stranger to drive, I can tell you.' With 
 this pleasant bit of information up he gets to his seat 
 behind, in go the letter-bags into the boot, ' right ' 
 cries Hodgson, and off we go, if going from one side 
 of the street to the other could be called gfoino-, I 
 soon found that, in addition to having only two eyes 
 amongst them, they had only one mouth, and that 
 was a one-sided one belonging to the off wheeler. 
 
THREE BLIND 'UNS AND A BOLTER. 105 
 
 who was what was called 'swivel-headed,' and when 
 you pulled at him his head seemed to turn on a 
 pivot. Such a set of devils I never had hold of 
 before ; they ran me on to the curbstone twice or 
 three times before I got out of Oswestry ; and fortu- 
 nately, partly by main strength and a good deal of 
 good luck, I pulled them up all of a heap, just as 
 we were on to a heap of stones about fifty or sixty 
 yards from the toll-bar, on to which, had we run, I 
 verily believe I should have upset 'the apple-cart.' 
 ' Well, aren't they rum 'uns ? ' said Dick, who 
 was sitting behind me, and rather enjoying the 
 fun, instead of being in what is called 'a jolly funk.' 
 The orentleman who was beside me on the box did 
 not seem to see things in the same light, as he 
 told me afterwards. ' I telled you they weren't fit 
 for no stranger to drive,' said Hodgson, laughing. 
 ' Catch hold of them, Dick,' said I, ' for I can't drive 
 them, and I don't believe that you will get them 
 through the toll-bar without carrying away one of the 
 posts, and perhaps turning the barrow over.' He did, 
 however, clear everything, and did not carry away 
 the gate-post, as I feared he would do. Awa)" we 
 
 p 
 
io6 ' DOWM THE ROAD.' 
 
 went down the Holyhead Road, too fast to be quite 
 pleasant, considering the kind of team. The road was 
 as hard as iron with the frost, and as smooth as if it 
 had been made by Thurston, of billiard table renown, 
 instead of by Telford. The ' three blind 'uns and 
 the bolter ' were getting warmed up with their exer- 
 tions, and began to pull ; the mail was light, for it 
 was Monday morning, and there were no London 
 letters, and it rattled and bounded after them like a 
 ' bounding brick of Babylon.' Little Dick began to 
 look as if they pulled rather too hard to be pleasant, 
 and I began to think that either the reins would go, 
 or that he would be pulled off the box. He was, 
 however, an uncommonly strong little chap on the 
 box. All of a sudden, on comino- to a lone descent 
 in the road — it could hardly be called a hill — what 
 should appear right a-head of us but a long string of 
 donkeys carrying panniers of coals on the near side 
 of the road, and on the other a gentleman's carriage, 
 a yellow one I remember it was, and four horses, 
 pulled up not quite as near the side of the road as it 
 might have been for safety, and the post-boy was 
 down doing something to his off-side leader's harness. 
 
THREE BLLXD 'UNS AND A BOLTER. 107 
 
 ' Novv's your time, Dick,' said I; 'youTnust be 
 amongst some of them ; keep clear of the carriage if 
 you can ; hang the donkeys.' I coukl see Httle Dick 
 setting his teeth together, for they were pulhng very 
 hard Well, as good luck would have it, we cleared 
 them, except just touching the pannier on one of the 
 donkeys, which sent Balaam reeling against the stone 
 wall by the road side, and against which the lucky 
 animal righted again, instead of being turned over 
 with a hundredweight of coals or more on him. We 
 then proceeded safely down the long incline and up 
 Chirk Hill, to the ' Hand Inn,' in Chirk, where we 
 changed. Having our fresh team in, I again took 
 the helm, and we got safely to Llangollen, where 
 Harry Vyse (a son of the then well-known Mr. Vyse 
 of Wolverhampton, who horsed the mail and many 
 other coaches) was driving for Morris, who was ill, 
 and waiting for the mail coming from Holyhead. ' I 
 say, Harry,' said Dick, ' you'll have a pretty job with 
 those horses from Chirk, if you don't mind what you're 
 up to ; we've had a nice job with them this morning, 
 and have almost run into a gentleman's carriage and 
 killed a lot of donkeys. They're a real rum lot, and 
 
 r 2 
 
io8 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 you must mind what you're at with them.' ' Oh ! ' 
 said Harry Vyse, ' I'll mind them ; I can " fix them," 
 ril be bound.' Nevertheless, as Dick Vickers told 
 me afterwards, he had a real job with them, and, 
 what with one mishap or another, lost nearly half 
 an hour between Chirk and Oswestry. It is curious, 
 but certainly fully twenty years after the incident I 
 have related, I was telling the story to my son, who 
 was with me in an open conveyance with four wheels, 
 going to fish at Bala, and on asking the driver if he 
 had been long in the country, he said he had been a 
 post-boy, and he remembered what I have related well, 
 for he was the post-boy who was down altering the 
 leader's harness at the time when Dick Vickers was 
 so nearly aboard of the gentleman's yellow carriage 
 and the donkeys. 
 
THE LITTLE FAST TEAM FROM THE ' RLShXG SUN.' 109 
 
 t/lf: little fast team from the ' rlsing sun: 
 
 ' Dick,' said I, addressing Dick Vickers, who was one 
 of the coachmen on the London and Holyhead Mail, 
 as I cast my eye round my team, at a pot-house called 
 the ' Rising Sun,' between Llangollen and Corwen, 
 where we changed horses, just to see that all was 
 right, ' What's the matter with little Robin ? ' Robin 
 ran ofY-side leader, and when I patted him, as I went 
 round, he looked as wild as a hawk. ' Oh ! ' said Dick, 
 ' Mr. Wynne, of Garthmylog, was driving yesterday, 
 and Robin shied at a tinker with one of those wheeled 
 grinding-stones, and he hit him, and Lll be bound he 
 won't forget it for a week.' Robin, however, had no 
 spite against me, and went pleasantly enough. The 
 team consisted of four little brown cats of horses — I 
 might almost say ponies — and were, without any ex 
 ception, the best team I ever sat behind. They did 
 their work more willingly and more evenly than any 
 team I ever saw. It was always a pleasure to drive 
 
no 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 them ; but they would stand no nonsense, and if once 
 put out they could be awkward enough. The distance 
 from the ' Rising Sun ' to Corwen was six miles, and 
 the time allowed was twenty-six minutes, in which 
 time they did it with the greatest ease, and merrily 
 as crickets. They could all but fly. If any one of 
 my readers has a team that will do the six miles in 
 the time — I mean without a touch of the whip — he 
 has a good team. Let him take out his watch, 
 and try what the pace is like. How few there are 
 that are judges of pace ! but this is a matter or know- 
 ledge that is very useful on a fast coach ; and indeed 
 I may say a ' sijie qiui 11011 ' on any coach, whether 
 fast or slow. 
 
 I remember, now some years since, going down to 
 Greenwich with the F. H. D. C, of which I am still 
 a humble member. I had four real hard-mouthed, 
 pulling old horses, who all wished to go first, which 
 is a great nuisance. The coach that was in front of 
 me was spick and span, as was the coachman, and the 
 team was a beautiful one, ' heads and tails up,' and 
 their knees almost hitting their mouths, their action 
 was so fine and gaudy. After dinner, at Greenwich, 
 
THE LITTLE EAST TEAM EROM THE ' RLSIXG SUN: \\\ 
 
 and when, like Jonah of old, we were feeling- ' pretty 
 full of fish,' the subject of pace came up ; and upon 
 ni}- saying, * Well, I wish you'd go down a little faster, 
 for my old horses nearly pulled my arms off,' the 
 owner of the coach, who was in front of me, bristling 
 up a little, said, ' Well, I think we came a very good 
 pace. We came at least thirteen miles an hour." 
 ' Thirteen miles an hour ! ' I said ; ' why, do you know 
 what thirteen miles an hour is ? Those old screws of 
 mine can't do anything like thirteen miles, and it was 
 all I could do to keep them out of your hind boot.' 
 This was a mortal blow to the owner of the high 
 steppers, and I don't think he ever quite forgave me ; 
 but depend upon it, four horses with such gaudy action 
 are not the kind to slip along, and thirteen miles an 
 hour takes some doing with anything on wheels ; and 
 I do not know that I ever saw a team that could do 
 the thirteen miles within the hour without ' breaking.' 
 
112 'DOWN THE ROAD. 
 
 JACK WILLIAMS' RECOMMENDATION OF AN INN 
 
 But I must return to the road, I was on my way to 
 Ireland to fish, and was, as usual, driving the Holy- 
 head Mail ; old Jack Williams, the coachman, Avho 
 drove daily from Holyhead to Bangor and back, was 
 sitting beside me. A gentleman who was sitting be- 
 hind tapped him on the shoulder, and this conversa- 
 tion took place : ' Coachman, do you know Holyhead 
 well?' 'Me know Holyhead ?' said Jack, who spoke 
 with a strong Welsh accent. ' Yes, inteed ; I suppose 
 I to ; at laste I should to ; I've lived there all my 
 life. Yes, inteed ; I was pred and porn there.' ' Then 
 you can tell me, I dare say, what is the best inn 
 there ; for I want to stay a day or two at Holyhead.' 
 ' How should I know the best inn ? ' said Jack. ' Well, 
 if you know Holyhead so well, surely you must know 
 which is the best inn.' ' Well, inteed, I know that 
 there's two inns in Holyhead, but I canna say which 
 it the pest ; I never goes to either of 'em.' * W^ell, 
 
JACk^ WILLIAMS' RECOMMENDATION OF AN INN. 113' 
 
 but you must know which of them Is called the best, 
 and which would be the best for a gentleman to sta)' 
 at.' ' Well, inteed,' said Jack, at last, ' I'll tell you 
 how it is. Should )'Ou wish to get drunk, go to 
 Spencer's. Should you wish to get lousy, go to 
 Moland's.' Spencer's was a good inn, for I have had 
 many a good mutton chop, and so forth, on landing 
 from the steamer. What Moland's was I cannot say ; 
 but I question whether Mr. or Mrs. Moland, or who- 
 ever kept the said inn, would feel very much flattered 
 by Jack Williams' account of what a person going- 
 there was to expect. 
 
114 'DOWN J HE road: 
 
 HODGSON WONT READ MY PARCELS. 
 
 ' Please will you tell me what's this writing ? ' said 
 Jack Jones, as we were coming near to the lodge 
 gates of Pentre Voilas. This was a gentleman's house 
 on the Holyhead Road, between Cernioge and Capel 
 Curig. 'What's this writing, Jack ? ' said I. ' Why, can't 
 you read it as well as I can ? it's plain enough.' ' Yes, 
 inteed, it's plain enough,' said Jack; 'but I canna read 
 it ; it's English, and I canna read English.' ' Then 
 why don't you get Hodgson to read it ? ' I said. ' Well, 
 inteed,' said Jack, ' Hodgson willna read my parcels 
 now. Hodgson and I are not very good friends, and 
 he willna read my parcels ; and inteed I canna get 
 on at all sometimes.' It seems that Hodgson and 
 Jack had had a quarrel, or 'some words,' and that 
 Hodgson had blown Jack up for keeping bad time, at 
 which Jack took offence and blew up Hodgson, which 
 ended in Hodgson's refusing to read his parcels, which 
 was mighty inconvenient to Jack, who was no great 
 
HODGSON WON'T READ MY PARCELS. 115 
 
 scholar in his own Welsh language, and was quite at 
 a loss in English. It might be naturally supposed 
 that part of the guard's duty was to read and attend 
 to the parcels. It was so on a coach, but on a mail 
 it was not ; and though the guard usually used to do 
 it, he was not obliged to do it, and did it out of cour- 
 tesy ; his duty being to sit behind the mail and take 
 charge of the letter-bags, and see that his pair of 
 pistols and blunderbuss were in such a state that they 
 would not go off if called upon. The brace of pistols 
 and the brass blunderbuss were always given to the 
 guard in London with the letter-bags, and were always 
 strapped and buckled up round the locks and trigger- 
 guards in a sort of leather case, very securely, to pre- 
 vent accidents. During the many years I drove, I 
 never heard of one being used ; nor did I ever, to 
 my recollection, see the guard produce them, except 
 to give them up at the Post Office at the end of his 
 journey. I question whether they would have gone 
 off had they been required, or whether the guard 
 would have known how or had the pluck to ' loose them 
 off.' Tradition said they were half-full of powder, and 
 other dangerous matter in the shape ot slugs, or lead 
 
ii6 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 of some kind ; and the fact of their being buckled up 
 in their leather cases would have made it an affair of 
 time to have got them ready to bear upon Dick 
 Turpin, or any other ' gentleman of the road,' had 
 such a gfentleman been in existence in the time I 
 write of. There was a story on the Holyhead Mail 
 that a fresh guard, who did not know much of his 
 road or business either, I should imagine, was per- 
 suaded on his first journey to shoot at a milestone 
 that stood rather high on the bank on the right-hand 
 side of the road between Chirk and Llangollen, and 
 for which purpose the coachman who had gammoned 
 him into believing that there was a highwayman in 
 those parts who had stopped the mail, pulled up one 
 dark evening. However, the said milestone, whether 
 it had been shot at or not, often served as an anec- 
 dote of the Road to credulous passengers. 
 
WHEELER WITHOUT HARXESS. 117 
 
 WHEELER WITHOUT HARNESS. 
 
 ' Go along, sir,' said Hodgson, the guard on the Holy- 
 head Mail, ' if you can but get him off,' as we changed 
 horses at Cernioge Maur, where the offside wheeler 
 had jibbed and plucked, and plucked and jibbed, till 
 he had actually broken nearly every stitch of harness 
 he had on. Both traces were gone and his crupper 
 broken away from the pad. We had, when the other 
 traces broke, put him to with a chain trace, which he 
 had also broken. We lost above ten minutes getting 
 this mended at the blacksmith's shop, close by the 
 roadside. ' If you can but get him off, sir, never mind 
 the harness,' said Hodgson; 'he must go without; 
 we can't wait any longer ; we have lost too much 
 time already.' Accordingly, we made a fresh attempt, 
 and, after sundry plunges and jibs, away went both 
 traces again. We, however, made a start, and I 
 galloped him for six miles without either traces or 
 crupper, and little of any kind of harness on but his 
 
ii8 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 collar and the bit in his mouth. I should hardly dare 
 relate this if a friend of mine, who is still living, and 
 was sitting by my side on the box, would not vouch 
 for the truth of my story. I certainly never before or 
 since saw a horse go six miles, in any kind of convey- 
 ance, with so little harness on him. He was a bay 
 horse that Hodgson had bought for the man who 
 horsed the coach ; he got him in Ireland. It was the 
 first time he had been in the mail. For two or three 
 journeys after he was tethered with a chain like a 
 chain cable ; but start he would not till he chose ; 
 and as they always lost no end of time every day, 
 they were obliged to draft him. Whoever had him 
 must have got a rare bargain, for he was the most 
 stubborn brute I ever saw or drove! 
 
DICK VICKERS. 119 
 
 DICK VICKERS. 
 
 Poor little Dick's was a sad fate. He drove the mail 
 for many years from Shrewsbury to a small village 
 called Tinant. He was a good little fellow, always 
 civil, always sober, always most obliging, and a friend 
 of every one along the Road. He was a very little 
 chap, quite the cut of a dapper little post-boy, which 
 he had been. He was so little that, as the saying is 
 or was, he had to get on to sixpennyworth of half- 
 pence to look on to the top of a Stilton cheese. Be 
 that as it may, he was strong on his box, was careful 
 and steady as old Time, and in every way a good 
 man in his place, and everybody respected ' little Dick 
 Vickers.' He was very fond of fishing ; and when he 
 had done his work, his abode at Tinant beine near a 
 small stream, he generally took his rod and beguiled 
 his time in the 'gentle art.' In an evil and unlucky 
 hour he was either persuaded or took the notion into 
 his own head that he was a bit of a fanner, or would 
 
I20 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 like to be one. Accordingly, he took a small farm ; he 
 got tired of being always by the waterside, and so took 
 to the land. Things seemed to go on well enough 
 for a time, and whilst the farm was a new toy all 
 seemed ' serene.' After a bit the new ploughs and 
 harrows got old and required repairs, his horses got 
 stumped up and old and required to be made into 
 new ones, and though the river flowed along as usual, 
 the money also flowed along in the wrong channel, 
 and poor little Dick got downcast and sighed for the 
 old times when he used to get off the mail, and with 
 a light heart, and whistling for want of thought, hurry 
 down to the little river which ran through his farm, 
 and upon which he had now to spend all his time and 
 money. Poor little fellow! he soon grew melancholy; 
 the once cheery little Dick was no longer the cheery 
 litde Dick who drove the Holyhead Mail. He grew 
 more and more downcast as time went on, and one 
 day, sad to relate, he was found ' sus. per col.' in his 
 barn. The little river still flows on, and the little 
 trout he used to fish for still sport in the bright and 
 rapid stream that passes Tinant. Though the mail 
 he us(xl to drive has long ceased to exist, they do sa)- 
 
DICK VICKERS. 121 
 
 that at times, at dusk of evening, a rumbling' of wheels 
 is heard, and that the distant sound of a mail horn 
 may be heard, and the form of a little man may be 
 seen with a fishing rod and basket wending his way 
 towards the river. 
 
 Poor little Dick, as I said before, had many friends 
 and admirers, and amongst them was the owner of 
 Pradoe, the Honourable Thomas Kenyon, or 'His 
 Honour,' the name he was universally known by in 
 those days, and under which name he was beloved 
 and respected by all who knew him. 'His Honour' 
 admired little Dick because he had once when a post- 
 boy driven him faster than he ever went in his life 
 before. The case was this, as 'His Honour' more 
 than once told me, and he was very fond of relating 
 it : he was posting to London with a friend in a light 
 barouche from his own house, Pradoe, which almost 
 touches the Holyhead Road, between Oswestry and 
 Shrewsbury. When he got to Shrewsbury, and pulled 
 up at the ' Lion ' to change, ' The Wonder,' a well- 
 known fast coach, was just ready to start. ' Dick,' said 
 * His Honour' — for Dick it was who was mounted and 
 ready to start in his blue jacket, smart white cord 
 
122 'DOIVN THE road: 
 
 breeches, and white hat — ' I wonder whether I could 
 beat " The Wonder " into town,' meaning London, ' I 
 should like to do it if I can. So when you get down 
 the hill make the best of your w^ay, and if I can only 
 get changed and off again before " The Wonder " 
 comes up, I think I shall do it.' * Very good, your 
 Honour ; I'll do my best,' said Dick, touching his hat. 
 'Well,' said ' His Honour,' as he pulled up at Haygate, 
 which was the first change, and ten miles from Shrews- 
 bury, ' you have come along, Dick ; I don't think I 
 ever went so fast in my life ; why it's next to fly- 
 ing.' ' Well, we've come pretty well, I believe, sir,' 
 said Dick ; ' but I could have come much faster, 
 only I did not dare let the mare out,' meaning the 
 mare he was riding ; 'as it is, she's been running 
 away with me all the way.' But the fresh horses are 
 in, ' The Wonder ' is just appearing down the road, 
 and ' His Honour ' is off again ; and he did beat ' The 
 Wonder' into London, which was one of the fastest 
 and best-appointed coaches going. It was horsed by 
 Mr. Isaac Taylor, of the ' Lion ' at Shrewsbury, which 
 of itself will speak for the goodness of the teams that 
 he had anything to do with ; and I believe most others 
 
DICK VICKERS. 
 
 were in no way inferior on that road. I never was on 
 the said ' Wonder ' but once, and when I sat by the 
 side of Sam Hayward, from Shiffnal to Shrewsbury, 
 and so long as I Hve I shall never forget my amaze- 
 ment at the way he turned into the 'Lion' yard. It 
 was his usual way of doing business, but it astonished 
 me. The ' Lion ' yard is just on the top of the hill, 
 or, as it is called in Shrewsbury, the Wyle Cop, which 
 is a sharpish pitch ; and with a heavy load the en- 
 trance to the ' Lion ' yard is so placed that it is next 
 to impossible to get in without coming to grief or 
 breaking your pole, or some such disaster. I could 
 not think what his manoeuvre was when he hugged 
 the curbstone on the near side, passed the entrance 
 for a few yards, and turning the coach round in a 
 largish circle, shot into the yard. I thought at the 
 time that he had gone mad, and that that Avas his way 
 of turning us over ; but I soon saw that he M^as ' master 
 of his fiddle,' and I found that he always played the 
 same tune every evening. I own I ' held on by the 
 brim of my hat,' and my eyelids, and everything 
 I could hold on by ; but this was not necessary, as 
 he knew quite well what he was doing. Though it 
 
J 24 'DOlViV THE road: 
 
 was quite a new dodge to me, he was used to the 
 performance. I must say it was very neat, quite a 
 neat thing to do with a heavy load of passengers and 
 luggage, but I believe it was the only way to get into 
 the inn yard if you came up the Wyle Cop. I believe 
 other coaches coming from the London side went in 
 the back way, though they came out at the usual 
 entrance. 
 
DRIVING THE 'BUS OVER MEN A I BRIDGE. 125 
 
 HARRY JONES ASKS ME TO DRIVE THE 'BUS 
 OVER THE MENAI BRIDGE. 
 
 ' Will you drive the 'bus over the bridge, sir ? ' 
 said Harry Jones, as we left the station at Bangor to 
 cross the Menai Bridge and join the train on the 
 other side, the tubular bridge not being as yet open. 
 'Why, thank you, Harry,' said I, 'no; I don't much 
 care about driving a 'bus.' ' Well, sir,' he said, ' it's 
 what we must all come to, you know ; you'd oblige me 
 by driving it across. You seed about the last of the 
 poor old mail, and you won't have a chance of driving 
 the 'bus again ; for the trains will be running through 
 that ere great, long, ugly iron thing,' pointing to the 
 tubular bridge, ' before many days is over, they tell 
 me.' So, to oblige poor Harry, I -drove the 'bus across 
 the Menai Bridge. About four years before I had the 
 honour of driving the 'bus ; on the occasion I have 
 named I was driving the Holyhead Mail, and whilst 
 crossing the bridge I said to Jack Williams, alluding 
 
126 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 to the railroads, ' Well, Jack, they won't manage to 
 get us off here in a hurry, I fancy.' I was on my 
 way from fishing in Ireland, and was soon going 
 abroad, where I stayed nearly four years, and by the 
 time I came home, ' that ere great, long, ugly iron 
 thing,' as Harry Jones called it, was up, and all but 
 in working order. No doubt a mighty work in the 
 way of engineering, and a great convenience to those 
 who frequent the Irish Mail ; but of all monstrous ugly 
 modes of conveyance it is the most monstrously ugly, 
 and has utterly spoilt the fine view that used to pre- 
 sent itself in passing over, or rather approaching, the 
 Menai Bridge. No wonder that poor Harry did not 
 admire it in a coaching point of view, and that he 
 vented his wrath by calling it, what it certainly is, 
 ' that ere great, long, ugly iron thing.' What would 
 ' poor dear old grandpapa' think of it, I wonder, and 
 how would he like the idea of shooting across an arm 
 of the sea, suspended between heaven and earth, with 
 the possibility, I hope not the probability, of the whole 
 thing collapsing some clay or another ? On that very 
 line fire has done its terrible work, as in the appalling 
 accident near Abergele ; who knows but that, some 
 
DRIVING THE 'BUS OVER MENAI BRIDGE. 127 
 
 day or another, water may not have its turn, and that 
 the train and everybody in it may not go down with 
 a sudden crash, and be found in 'the swilHes!' It is 
 too dreadful to think of, but still I always remember 
 it is possible, and when I go that road I never feel 
 ' quite the thing ' till I am safe out again, and into 
 daylight on the Anglesey side of the Straits. 
 
128 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 MAIL— CHESTER AND HOLYHEAD. 
 
 I MUST now take you off the great Holyhead Road 
 and 'the Holyhead Mail,' and introduce you to the 
 ' Chester and Holyhead Mail,' which was a night 
 mail. 
 
 The mail from Chester to Holyhead did not keep 
 the same pace as that from London to Holyhead, 
 through Shrewsbury and along the great Holyhead 
 Road. The pace, however, of nine miles and a half 
 an hour, including stoppages, was, I used to think, 
 quite fast enough for a night mail ; the road was not 
 so good as the old Holyhead Road, and the mail was 
 not so well horsed. The road, generally speaking, was 
 rather narrow, and in many places full of twists and 
 turns, with some sharpish hills, and on a dark night 
 in winter you were obliged to keep your eyes well 
 about you, or rather in front of you, and our friend In 
 red behind had in many places to keep his horn going 
 pretty often to warn the sleepy Welchmen that the 
 

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MAIL— CHESTER AND HOLYHEAD. 129 
 
 toll-gates must be open, and to advise the drowsy- 
 carters lugging coals (for there were several collieries 
 in that part of the world) that the Chester Mail was 
 on its way to Holyhead, and as these coal-carts 
 seemed to ply more by night than by day, it was 
 sometimes ' touch and go ' to avoid spilling the coals 
 or upsetting Her Majesty's paper-cart. 
 
 This mail used to leave the 'Feathers' Inn, at 
 Chester, at eight o'clock ; as they say in these days, 
 ' 8 P.M.' It was in the month of November that I 
 met the mail at Chester, to go and shoot snipes at a 
 friend's in Anglesey. 
 
 The mail was standing at the ' Feathers ' door, 
 horses to, and all ready for a start. ' Are you going 
 with us this evening ? ' said the guard to me. ' Yes,' 
 I said. ' Why } Is it a very extraordinary thing ? ' 
 ' No, sir,' said he, ' but I'm uncommon glad to see 
 you to-night.' 'What on earth makes you so par- 
 ticularly glad to see me to-night ? ' ' Why, sir, to tell 
 you the truth,' said he, • ' Winterbotham's amazing 
 fresh, and I'm sure he's not fit to drive.' 'Where is 
 he ?' said I. ' Oh ! here he comes, sir,' and so he did, 
 rolling about like a seventy-four in a calm, or as if he 
 
/30 'DO J FN THE ROAD: 
 
 was walking with a couple of soda-water bottles tied 
 under his feet. ' I don't know whatever we shall do 
 with him,' said the guard, ' unless we put him inside.' 
 It so happened that there were no inside passengers 
 that evening, so inside we shoved him, and by the 
 time we had got to the change, on Lord Mostyn's 
 Training Ground, a few miles from St. Asaph, he 
 had become pretty fairly rational, and when we 
 looked inside to inquire after his health, though he 
 seemed hardly to know where he was and why he 
 had been inside, he said, 'Well, I think Fd better 
 get outside now ; I aren't used to this. Well, this is 
 travelling like a gentleman, and inside the mail, too, to 
 be sure. Well, I never travelled inside a mail or a 
 coach before, and I daresay I never shall again ; I 
 don't think I like the inside of a coach much, and so 
 I'd better get out now ; it feels wonderful odd, some- 
 how, to be inside the mail, and I really hardly know 
 how I got here.' 
 
 / leave the Lawyer behind. 
 
 Misfortunes never come singly, they say, and in 
 proof of this, now that Mr. Wintcrbotham is pretty 
 
MAIL— CHESTER AXD HOLYHEAD. 131 
 
 nearly himself again, I must go back a stage or two, 
 and relate another little incident that occurred on the 
 same journey. Our first change on leaving Chester 
 was at Hawarden, and there ' a gent ' got up on the 
 mail who in his way was inclined to give some 
 trouble, perhaps it might be called some sport. He 
 had evidently ' dined,' and though not in any way 
 incapacitated, he was a little ' market merry,' or 
 ' market pert,' as it is called in some counties, and 
 very cheery, talkative, and pleasant. I took him to 
 be a bagman. He was well known to Winterbotham 
 and the guard, and was full of his expressions of 
 sorrow to think that his old acquaintance Winter- 
 botham should be drunk and incapable and put down 
 in the hold, instead of being on deck, as he was wont 
 to be. Well, at every place that we stopped he 
 would go in and get something to ' whet his whistle ' 
 with, and talk and chaff with the barmaid, or do 
 something to cause delay. ' Come, sir,' said I, upon 
 one of these occasions, ' if you're coming come, for 
 w^e can't wait here all night.' Well, out he came at 
 last, not looking very well pleased at my remarks, 
 
 and as he was getting up on to the mail I heard 
 
 s 2 
 
132 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 him mutter something about ' gentlemen coachmen,' 
 of which, of course:, I took no notice. ' Upon my 
 word, sir,' I said, ' I should be sorry to leave you 
 behind, but I shall have to do it if you delay us as 
 you have done.' * Leave me behind ! ' said he, ' I 
 think that's more than you dare do.' 'Well, sir,' said 
 I, ' since you fancy that, we'll see, if you delay us 
 again ; and now I promise you that if you try the 
 same game you did at tiie last place I'll leave you 
 behind ; I'd leave you behind though you were Julius 
 Caesar or the Pope of Rome, and since you've dared 
 me to do it I'll do it, by Jove.' Well, at the next 
 change, which was St. Asaph, in goes my friend 
 again. Winterbotham had become quite sane by this 
 time, and said, ' I wish you would leave him, sir; he's 
 always up to this game whenever he goes with us, 
 and we've more trouble with him than enough ; he'll 
 never take advice till he is left.' The horses are to, 
 and all ready for a start. ' Now, sir,' shouted I, 'are 
 you going ? for if you're not, I am. Castles, blow 
 your horn, and if he don't come I'll leave him.' 
 Castles blows. Still our friend don't make his appear- 
 ance, and probably said to himself, ' Blow away, but 
 
MAIL— CHESTER A.\D HOLYHEAD. 133 
 
 I'll be blowed if I come.' 'Tip him another stave, 
 Castles, and I'm off/ said I, and, suiting the action 
 to the word, off we went. * Serve him right,' said 
 Winterbotham ; * but, oh dear ! won't he be in fine 
 taking. Do you know who he is, sir ? ' said friend 
 Winterbotham, who was now as sober as a judge, 
 and sitting beside me. ' No,' said I, ' nor do I care 
 who he is ; some bagman, I suppose.' ' Oh ! dear no, 
 sir,' said he; 'he's no bagman ; he's a Mr. Griffith 
 Jones, an attorney of Carnarvon.' Well, poor Mr. 
 Griffith Jones was left behind, and away we went 
 without him. We arrived at Abergele and chang^ed 
 horses, and then on to our next change at Conway. 
 Just as we were starting again, who should arrive in 
 a car but the worthy attorney, having made the best 
 of his way to catch us up. As soon as he found out 
 the dull reality that he was really left behind he 
 was in a tremendous fume, as may be supposed. He 
 got upon the mail once more in anything but a plea- 
 sant mood ; he assured me that I should not play 
 such tricks upon him with impunity ; that I must be 
 well aware that ' gentlemen coachmen ' were against 
 the law, and that he would have the ' law a-top of 
 
134 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 me ; ' that he was a sohcitor at Carnarvon (which I 
 told him I was fully aware of), and that I might 
 depend upon it I should hear of him again. He 
 was, of course, very sulky all the way to Bangor, 
 where he ofot off to s^o to Carnarvon. Whether he 
 ever arrived there I never heard, nor did I ever 
 hear of him again. He evidently felt that I was right 
 and that he was wrong, and, having heard the old 
 saying that discretion was the better part of valour, 
 he thought it prudent not to show fight, and, putting 
 the affront into his pipe, had a quiet smoke, I con- 
 clude, when he got home. 
 
'SALL I STAMP THE FOOTBOARD?' 135 
 
 ' SALL J STAMP THE FOOTBOARD V 
 
 ' Hit 'em sly,' said old John Scott, as I was using all 
 my art to boil up a trot going up Penmaen Maur ; 
 don't let 'em hear the whip, or you'll never get 'em 
 up at all. I've tried them all manner of ways, and 
 I've found out the way at last.' 'Well, how's that?' 
 said I ; ' if you've found out how to do it, you'd better 
 take hold of them, for I'll be hanged if I can get 
 them along, and we shall lose no end of time.' They 
 were real sticky brutes, and when you hit a leader 
 your wheelers hung back, and so all round till one 
 got fairly tired of pitching into them. 
 
 ' Ah ! wait a pit, wait a pit,' said old John ; ' only 
 let me stamp the footboard.' ' Stamp the footboard,' 
 said I ; 'what will that do?' 'Wait a pit,' said John, 
 ' wait a pit and you sail see ; ' and suiting the action 
 to the word he played a sort of rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, 
 rat-a-tat with both his feet on the footboard. Up to 
 their collars they sprang in a moment, and off we 
 
136 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 went up the hill right merrily. 'Well,' said I, 'that 
 is a curious dodge ; what on earth do they think is 
 coming?' 'Wait a pit,' says John, 'and I'll soon 
 let you see what is a-coming,' and stooping down 
 and putting his hand past my legs into the boot, 
 on the side I was sitting, he produced a most 
 respectable and persuasive-looking ' short tommy.' 
 ' That's what they think's a-coming,' said he. ' I'd a 
 deal of trouble to get them along afore I got this 
 here tommy ; but, now as I've made them used to 
 this, as soon as I stamp the footboard they begin to 
 expect, and if they don't go along they has it pretty 
 sharp, and they knows it, and as soon as I begin 
 to stamp away they goes like fun. Oh ! indeed I 
 never has no trouble with them, now as they are 
 used to it' 
 
 A worthy, good little stout-made fellow was John 
 Scott, a regular little Welchman, whose B was 
 sounded like P, and when he said shall pronounced 
 it 'sail' 
 
 We will now go down Penmaen Maur with him, 
 and you'll see how John used to get his glass of ale 
 and his pipe, with the guard, at the ' Jolly Herring,' 
 
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'SALL I STAMP THE FOOTBOARD?' 137 
 
 at the bottom of Penmaen Maur. 'Send 'em along,' 
 said John, one day. ' They'll go like fun down-hill, 
 and I and Wallace, the guard, will have a glass of 
 ale and a pipe of bacca at the " Jolly Herring ; " 
 they'll go pleasant down-hill without my stamping 
 the footboard.' So away we went, I thought rather 
 too fast for down-hill, but John kept saying ' Send 
 'em along, send 'em along,' and so I did till we 
 arrived at the small road-side inn or pot-house called 
 the ' Jolly Herring.' There we all descended, and 
 John Scott, Wallace, and I sat down regularly to our 
 glass of ale and ' pipes and bacca.' 
 
 The worthy John informed me that he and 
 Wallace did this pretty much as a matter of course 
 if he had a ' light mail/ which meant no passengers. 
 I don't know whether the horses used to see the 
 joke quite in the same light, but on these occasions 
 they always got their mouths washed out, and stood 
 to fjet their breaths for a few minutes. What the 
 authorities at the General Post Office miofht have 
 thought, I suppose, never entered John or the guard's 
 heads. 
 
138 'DOIVX THE ROAD: 
 
 CRUELTY TO DUMB ANIMALS. 
 
 ' Upon my word; said a gentleman who was sitting 
 beside me as I was driving the Chester and Holy- 
 head Mail up St. George's Hill, close to Kinmel Park, 
 between Abergele and St. Asaph; 'upon my word, 
 it's a shame to punish horses so ; it's downright 
 cruelty to flog horses in that manner.' It was what 
 might be called cruelty to dumb animals ; but what 
 was I to do ? I had to keep nine miles and a half 
 an hour, including stoppages, and St. George's Hill 
 was about as steep as a church spire, and a long hill 
 into the bargain. 
 
 My team consisted of a lot of old screws, belong- 
 ing to a Mr. Green of St. Asaph, who horsed the 
 mail, and was famed for horsing it worse than any 
 man on the road ; they were as sticky as treacle and 
 had hides like a rhinoceros, for no amount of double 
 thong, or anything I could offer them, had any more 
 effect upon them than it would have had they been 
 

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CRUELTY ru DUMB ANIMALS. 139 
 
 made of india-rubber. 'It's a shame, by Jove it is,' 
 said the ' gent,' ' and it ought to be reported to the 
 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.' At 
 this remark Charlie Harper, who drove the Chester 
 and Holyhead Mail, and afterwards was on the Lon- 
 don and Holyhead Mail, seemed delighted, and said, 
 ' I wish you would do it, sir ; I wish you'd inform 
 the Society; you'd do a public service. If Mr. Rey- 
 nardson did not lump them, I should have to do it ; 
 so it comes to the same thing. It is a shame ; but 
 what's one to do } The time must be kept by some 
 means ; and the Post Office, I dare say, don't care who 
 lumps . Mr. Green's horses, so long as the mail keeps 
 its time.' Some time after this occurrence the said 
 Mr. Green was informed against. 
 
 And to the delight of Charlie Harper, and all 
 others who had to drive Mr. Green's bad horses, he 
 had to pay something considerable, though I forget 
 what it was, to say nothing of a long reprimand and 
 jobation from the ' Denbighshire Beaks.' 
 
 It must not be supposed from what I have said 
 that all the teams on the Chester and Holyhead Road 
 were equally bad ; there were some good ones, and 
 
 T 2 
 
I40 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 had it not been so we could not have done our nine 
 and a half miles an hour, for there were some stiffish 
 pitches along the road, and some of them so much so 
 that our ' Friend in Red ' would at times take the 
 opportunity of stretching his legs up some of the steepest 
 of them. The road I am speaking of was not like 
 that made by the great ' Telford ' through Shrewsbury, 
 where every yard was trotting ground. There was, 
 however, nothing insurmountable to a good team, who 
 stuck their toes well into the ground, and ' threw^ their 
 hearts ' into the work they had before them. 
 
THE ST. GOTHARD PASS. 141 
 
 THE ST. GOTHARD PASS. 
 
 I MUST ask your indulgence whilst I take you off the 
 Holyhead Road and transport you into Italy and the 
 St. Gothard Pass, where took place a scene so ter- 
 rible, and which might have proved so dreadful, that 
 at this moment I dread to recall the occurrence to my 
 mind. 
 
 Soon after the scene with the Holyhead and 
 Chester Mail, when the gentleman pronounced the 
 treatment of Mr. Green of St. Asaph's horses to be 
 a fitting subject for the attention of the Society for 
 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, I left England, 
 and went via Switzerland to Italy, and got as far as 
 Rome. Before leaving England, being full of visions 
 of driving my own coach all over the world, I bought 
 a large yellow coach, a regular ' drag,' and four-horse 
 harness. I started with my family, meaning most 
 fully to buy horses on the other side of the water. I 
 grew, however, faint-hearted, and my pockets got low. 
 
142 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 and when the wheels required greasing I could not 
 find the wherewith to grease them. So I posted and 
 travelled ' voiturier ' with my great yellow coach, 
 sometimes lugging my harness with me, and some- 
 times sending it by ' roulage,' till I thought I should 
 have gone mad with the bother and trouble I had. 
 Sometimes I lost it altogether, and sometimes the 
 Douaniers at the frontiers detained it, wondering what 
 I could want with harness and no horses. They gave 
 me all sorts of trouble ; still the harness stuck to me, 
 and we got to Milan. From Milan I was persuaded 
 by a friend to go on to Rome, and the harness was 
 again sent by ' roulage ' to Rome, where I was quite 
 determined to get some horses, ' coiite qui cotlte! 
 When I reached Rome no harness had come, and 
 when it did come the idiots — for I can call them nothing- 
 else — would not let it enter the ' Holy City.' It re- 
 mained in the Custom-house for some weeks, and no 
 power would induce the officials to loose their hold 
 of it. It was a ' contraband of war,' and they would 
 not let me pay duty for it, or let me even see it. At 
 last I got an audience of a good-natured old cardinal. 
 Cardinal Tosti, who, upon my giving him the ' word of 
 
THE ST. GOT HARD PASS. 143 
 
 a Britisher ' that I would not sell it, liberated my har- 
 ness. What to do with it when I had it aoain I 
 knew not. I could not find any horses ; and if I had, 
 I had not the cash to pay for them, and so, after 
 much bother and perplexity of mind, I sent the 
 infernal harness all the way back to England ; and 
 when I got home had it made up into two pairs of 
 pair-horse harness, and a dearish two pairs of harness 
 it was to me. Well, off we started from Rome with 
 a voiturier and four of the best little grey ponies, for 
 they were nothing' else, for Milan. With our pile of 
 luggage and ourselves, and our children and servants, 
 we were such a load that our courier insisted upon 
 my buying a fourgon. This I did, and away we 
 went. 
 
 Having arrived at the last village on the Italian 
 side of the St. Gothard, and just before we began to 
 descend the Pass, a German gentleman, who was post- 
 ing with his wife and children in a large open calash, 
 was very anxious to pass us ; but we would not allow 
 him to do this. His postillion kept pressing upon us till 
 we got to the top of the St. Gothard. He was rather 
 annoying to us, and we begged him to desist. The 
 
144 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 courier told him that as we must be in time for the 
 boat at Fkiellyn, which is a village on the Lake of 
 Lucerne, he would also be there in time, without 
 making himself disagreeable. 
 
 When we got to the top of the hill, or Pass, we 
 put the skid on the coach, and also on the fourgon, 
 in which the courier and my children were, and 
 began the descent, the fourgon leading the way. On 
 lookino- round to see where the troublesome carriage 
 was, we saw the owner of it walking down the hill, 
 the lady's maid sitting on the box and holding the 
 reins ; the skid chain had broken, and the postillion 
 or driver went back to pick the skid up. He had to 
 go some little distance, and was coming back with it 
 when the horses moved on. FindinQ^ no one holdinof 
 them, they got into a trot, and, being frightened, got 
 into a gallop, and came down the hill as hard as they 
 could lay legs to the ground. They passed my coach 
 on the off-side within a hair's breadth, but did not 
 touch it. Our voiturier had just time to draw a little 
 on one side as he saw them coming. They passed 
 the fourgon, in which the children and courier were, 
 on the near side, and between it and a wall. On the 
 
THE ST. GOT HARD PASS. 145 
 
 Other side there was a precipice of hundreds of yards 
 in depth. The carriage just shaved the fourgon on 
 the near side, and went on its way headlong, swing- 
 ing from side to side of the road, as if it must turn 
 over at any moment. There seemed to be no mode 
 of escape, nor the shghtest chance for the maid on 
 the box or the ladies and children inside. Their 
 doom seemed certain, and nothing but a miracle, as it 
 seemed, could prevent their going over the precipice 
 and being dashed to pieces. Away they went as hard 
 as their horses' legs could carry them, round a corner, 
 and were lost to our sight. We went on slowly, and 
 made sure that we should see the calash and every- 
 body belonging to it dashed to atoms far below us in 
 the terrible chasm, composed of nothing but solid rock 
 and large stones. To our surprise, when round the 
 corner, we saw the calash at some little distance hang- 
 ing over the precipice. On arriving at the scene of 
 this great and providential escape, we found the poor 
 German lady and her children safe, and the carriage 
 jammed against one of the large stones that were put 
 on the side next the precipice for a kind of protection. 
 The off fore-wheel of the carriage was actually hang- 
 
 u 
 
146 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 ing over the precipice, and in half a foot more the 
 carriage and all would have been over it. The poor 
 maid had been thrown over the wall on the near side, 
 and had hurt her leg, the reins having been entangled 
 round one of them. As soon as I found that the 
 party in the calash were all safe, and that I could do 
 nothing to assist them, except sending a carriage to 
 take them down to the inn at the bottom of the hill, 
 I put the poor maid into my coach and took her to 
 the inn. I put her leg into a bucket of hot water, 
 and did all I could for her till her master and mis- 
 tress arrived. 
 
 I shall never forget that scene — the calash clash- 
 ing with my fourgon, in which my children were, the 
 calash rolling from side to side of the road, the 
 women inside screaming, the poor husband in a 
 frantic state, rushing along the road after his wife and 
 children, with his hands clasped and such a look of 
 despair as I hope never to see again. How the 
 horses had managed to break away from the carriage 
 without upsetting it is a perfect marvel. The shock, 
 at the pace they were going, must have been tremen- ' 
 dous when the wheel came against the stone post 
 
THE ST. GOTHARD PASS. 147 
 
 close to the edge of the precipice, and had torn off 
 the spHnter-bar. This was, no doubt, the salvation of 
 those in the calash, and on looking down the zigzag 
 road the four horses were to be seen more than a 
 mile away, looking no larger than four ants, galloping 
 headlong round the turns in the road, on their way to 
 their stables at the inn at the bottom of the St. 
 Gothard, where we found them. We arrived with the 
 poor lady's maid, with her sprained and badly-bruised 
 leg, which luckily was the extent of the mischief, 
 nothing being broken. The gentleman, I hear, in re- 
 membrance of, and in gratitude for, the miraculous 
 escape of his wife and family, has built a small 
 shrine or chapel on the spot where the scene took 
 place. 
 
 When I and my family and the yellow coach 
 got safely back to England, not without much re- 
 gret, I decided to sell the old yellow companion of 
 my travels. It was a very good coach, and before 
 leaving England had cost me 113 sovereigns. I 
 thought that no end of people would like to buy the 
 article, and I held out stoutly for eighty pounds for 
 
 it. No one seemed, however, to want it. I came 
 
 u 2 
 
148 . 'DOWN THE ROAD. 
 
 down in my price ; still everybody did not run after it, 
 as I had hoped and expected. I advertised it ; I stood 
 it at livery ; I put it in the Pantechnicon for many 
 weeks, at half-a-crown a week ; I put it to stand at 
 Tattersall's for many more weeks to the ' same tune.' 
 At last I grew desperate and reckless, and having 
 consulted Messrs. Tattersall, they advised me to ' sell it 
 for what it would fetch.' Accordingly there appeared 
 an advertisement stating that a yellow four-horse 
 coach, built by Cooke and Rowley, the property of 
 a gentleman who had no further use for it, would be 
 sold without reserve on such a day. I took the pre- 
 caution to take away a very good pair of lamps I had 
 had made for it and put in the old ones, and begged 
 Mr. Tattersall to do his best for me. He used all 
 his persuasive eloquence, which we all know was great, 
 and having brought all bidders to a stand-still, he pro- 
 nounced the following : ' For the last time going for six 
 guineas ; for the last time at six guineas ; it's to be 
 sold. Oh ! gentlemen, you'll surely not let such a 
 coach as that go for six guineas ! Have you all done, 
 gentlemen ? for the last time at six guineas ; going for 
 six guineas, for the last time,' and bang goes the ham- 
 
THE ST. GOTHARD PASS. 149 
 
 men He gave me a cheque for six pounds, keeping 
 the shilHngs, as is usual on such occasions, for the 
 firm of Tattersall and Company. 
 So ended my yellow coach ! 
 
J50 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 MOPING A HOT LEADER. 
 ' SPOT ' AND THE ' NETTLE ' COACH. 
 
 'What have you got here, Shaw?' said I, addressing 
 the coachman of the ' Nettle,' as the fresh team was 
 being put in at Oswestry, the subject of my inquiries 
 being the off-side leader, a thoroughbred, upstanding, 
 wild-looking, dark brown horse, all over white ticks, 
 or flea-bites, with a large piece of leather over his 
 eyes, like half of a black coal-scuttle. ' What on earth 
 have you got that piece of machinery on for ? ' ' Well,' 
 said Shaw, ' he's a very queer sort of a chap that, and 
 if he had not been a real " rum 'un " I reckon we 
 should never have had him in the coach ; he's a good 
 horse, however, for all that ; and now that I know 
 him and he knows me, we never fall out, and are on 
 the best of terms, and I don't know that I ever drove 
 a better leader, I've only had him four or five jour- 
 neys ; he was a bit troublesome at first, and raked and 
 
MOPING A HOT LEADER. 151 
 
 pulled ill style, I can promise you, for he did not seem 
 to like not beinof first. He's done a bit of racing in 
 his time, and ran at Chester last year ; he's full of 
 
 mettle, as hot as the d 1, and as shy as a trout. 
 
 I hear he always was so. He belonged to a bagman 
 who used to travel this road ; but about ten days 
 since he ran away with his trap, kicked it all to pieces, 
 killed the bagman, and galloped along the road half- 
 way to Shrewsbury. He's terribly shy of harness now, 
 and sometimes gives a deal of trouble, and pulls and 
 frets and shies at everything ; so now I find it's 
 always the best plan to " mope him." ' Some time since 
 I saw this in the ' Field ' : ' Can any of your corre- 
 spondents inform me what is meant by " moping a hot 
 leader '^ " ' Thought I to myself, if you had ever driven 
 'Spot' in the 'Nettle' coach you would have known, 
 I can't say he actually ran away with me at the time 
 I mention, because, as I had been ' put up to the time 
 of day ' by Shaw Evans, I was on the look-out, and 
 treated him very ' gingerly ; ' but this I can say, that 
 I could not hold him a yard from Oswestry to Chirk, 
 and he was ready to run away at any moment. It's 
 a horrid bore being run away with, by-the-b)'c. ' Spot ' 
 
152 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 and I, however, became the greatest friends, and after 
 our first drive he never pulled an ounce, and was 
 one of the finest leaders I ever drove, if not the 
 finest. 
 
'XETTLE' COACH. 153 
 
 'NETTLE' COACH. 
 
 GAMMONING TllK WELCHMAN. 
 
 * Dear heart alive ! ' said a respectable-looking old man 
 to me one day as I was driving the ' Nettle ' coach 
 between Chirk and Oswestry, and just coming in sight 
 of the Brythen Hills — ' dear a me ; why, them hills 
 don't seem half so big or so high as they used to be 
 when I was a boy.' ' You seem to know this part 
 of the country, or to have known it in former days,' 
 I said. ' Ah ! indeed, I used to know it well " onste," 
 when I was younger ; but I have seen a deal since I 
 was last in these parts. I've been away in America 
 these thirty years or more, and I suppose I've forgot 
 like that the hills are not so big as I used to think 
 them when I was a little chap and lived in this part 
 of the country. To be sure, I've seen many bigger 
 mountains since I've been away, but I did fancy some- 
 how that them hills used to be bigger. I only landed 
 at Liverpool last night, and I'm going to see my old 
 friends in Welchpool.' 
 
 X 
 
154 'DOWN THE ROAD. 
 
 ' Oh ! sir,' I said, * if you are going to Welchpool 
 your friends there will be able to tell you much more 
 than I can about the Brythen Hills; but I don't won- 
 der at your thinking them smaller than they used to 
 be. The fact is, they are not so high as they used 
 to be before you left these parts, and the people about 
 Welchpool have not been idle since you left the 
 country. You will find many improvements, and 
 amongst others this, that they have taken off the 
 top of the large hill in front of you, and which you 
 justly remark seemed larger ; and they have filled up 
 the valley you may remember on the other side of it, 
 and this will fully account for its looking smaller, and 
 will prove that your memory has been good as to its 
 former size.' Well, my friend the Welchman opened 
 his eyes, taking everything I said for gospel, observ- 
 ing that England was a wonderful place, and that in- 
 dustry and improvements would never cease. I left 
 the coach at Llanymyneck, near which little town 
 I was then living, and he went on his way to Welch- 
 pool, where he would, in all probability, relate his little 
 adventure, and very possibly afford some amusement 
 to his friends. 
 
THE PIG AT LLANYMYNECK TOLL-BAR. 155 
 
 THE PIG AT LLANYMYNECK TOLL-BAR. 
 
 Perhaps more by luck than judgment, I never came 
 
 to any great grief in my coaching days ; I never 
 
 upset a coach, and I never was upset by anyone else ; 
 
 I never killed anyone ; and I never was killed myself, 
 
 which I have often thought a wonderful fact, for I 
 
 have often seen queer things happen, and have had 
 
 various 'touch and goes,' which even now make my 
 
 hair stand on end ; that is to say, the little of it that 
 
 remains. I believe I never killed or ran over any- 
 
 thino- that I ouorht not but once, and then I ran over 
 
 and killed a pig. Poor ' Mr. Wiggins ! ' he was turned 
 
 into pork at a moment's notice in a way he could 
 
 hardly have expected, but which, perhaps, was quite 
 
 as much to his taste and quite as dignified as being 
 
 confined in a sty, and fed up for weeks, and doomed 
 
 at last to undergo the process of being shaved at 
 
 Christmas and turned into pork pies or sausages. 
 
 It happened thus. I was driving the 'Nettle' 
 
 X 2 
 
156 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 coach, which ran from Welchpool to Liverpool. I had 
 a real good load, four in and twelve out, and luggage 
 in proportion, when going through the toll-bar close 
 to Llanymyneck, near which place I had a friend 
 living whose house I was going to look at, with the 
 intention of hiring it. Just as I got my leaders well 
 through the toll-bar, who should pop out but my 
 friend ' Mr. Wiggins ' right under the near wheel of 
 the coach. I shall never forget the sound of the wheel 
 cutting through him ; it was just the sound that would 
 be produced by driving over a washerwoman's wicker 
 clothes-basket, or something like the horrible crunch 
 that is heard in one's head when a double tooth is 
 being wrenched out. I'd half a mind to pull up to 
 see if the poor fellow required any assistance ; but the 
 guard said, ' Never mind him, sir ; he's as dead as 
 mutton.' And as the ' Nettle ' was then running oppo- 
 sition to the ' Royal Oak,' the pace was too good to stop 
 and Inquire after him. It so happened that this took 
 place on a Saturday ; I got off at my friend's house 
 about two miles further on, and on Sunday went with my 
 friend to Llanymyneck Church, and had to pass through 
 the said toll-bar. On our return we went into the toll- 
 
THE riG AT LANYM\\\ECK TOLL-BAR. 157 
 
 bar with an excuse to get a light for a cigar, and 
 
 there, spread out on a clean white tablecloth, were 
 
 evident signs of my acquaintance of yesterday, cut up 
 
 and looking very like very nice pork. ' The deuce 
 
 take it,' said I, 'you surely don't kill pigs on a Sunday 
 
 in this country ! ' ' No, sir,' said the toll-bar keeper ; 
 
 ' it's a pig that met with a little bit of an accident 
 
 yesterday ; the coach went over it and killed it. But 
 
 it will make a very nice bit of pork for all that, and 
 
 I don't see that it will be much the worse, though it 
 
 aren't perhaps quite so fat as it might be to kill in the 
 
 usual way.' 
 
 ' Did the coach really kill the pig } ' said I. 'I sup- 
 pose that it was all the coachman's fault, and that he 
 was driving too fast, or something of that kind.' ' Well, 
 no, sir ; I don't see how anyone was to blame this 
 time,' he said. ' To be sure they do race a bit some- 
 times, the " Oak " and " Nettle " do ; but I don't 
 see that the coachman or anyone was to blame but 
 the pig himself. I'll tell you how it was, sir; my 
 missis oftentimes gives the pig a bit of victuals in- 
 side that rail which you see is broken,' pointing to a 
 part of the garden fence which ran up close to the 
 
158 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 .1 
 
 door, and out of which just enough rails were broken 
 out to admit poor piggy ; ' and just as the coach was 
 going through the gate out he pops right under the 
 wheel, and, to be sure, there was no help for him, 
 and the coach did fairly cut him in two.' Introducing 
 me at the same time to the piece of his ribs that the 
 wheel had gone over, he held it up for my edification. 
 ' Well,' I said, ' it couldn't be helped, I suppose. What 
 might such a pig as that be worth ? ' ' Well, sir, it 
 might be worth a couple of pounds ; it's only a little 
 'un yet, do you see.' ' Well,' I said, ' you're a good 
 fellow for not blaming the coachman ; here's a sovereign 
 for you to get some apple-sauce to eat with him. I 
 was driving, as it so happened, and if you'd blamed 
 the coachman I should have kept my sovereign in 
 my pocket.' 
 
 He seemed astonished and not a little pleased at 
 the transaction. I hired my friend's house for three 
 or four years, and often as I passed the toll-bar I 
 went in and lit my cigar, and had a little chaff about 
 the ' gentleman coachman ' turning pork butcher. I 
 need not say that during the time I lived there we 
 were sworn friends ; and often as I drove the coach 
 
■rilK PIG AT LLANYMYNECK TOLL-BAR. 159 
 
 through the toll-bar, when he touched his hat to me, 
 I acknowledged it by ' Mind your pigs.' Just as 
 I am finishing my story of the pig at Llanym}'ncck 
 toll-bar, I see in the ' Times ' the following : — 
 
 ' Accident on a Railway. — A signalman in the 
 employ of the Cambrian Railway, named John Whit- 
 tington, was cut to pieces by a train near Llanymy- 
 neck station yesterday afternoon.' 
 
 I believe the station is within a few yards of where 
 the pig catastrophe took place, and it is what the 
 Yankees call ' a caution ' that at the time I am writing 
 of the * Nettle ' coach and poor pig I should see the 
 familiar name of Llanymyneck, and read of a much 
 more sad accident on the railroad at the same fatal 
 spot. 
 
i6o 'JJOJV.V THE road: 
 
 'PETER HILTON' AND THE STRANGE 
 GENTLEMAN. 
 
 ' Hallo, Peter! How about that "strange gentle- 
 man ? " ' said a brother coacliman as he pulled up along- 
 side the above-named Peter Hilton, who drove the 
 ' Hirondelle' from Shrewsbury to Birkenhead, from 
 which place the passengers crossed by a ferry-boat 
 to Liverpool. ' All along with that strange gentle- 
 man's driving, eh, Peter!' 'If that is all you've got 
 to say,' said Peter, * you'd better mind your own busi- 
 ness.' This was a mighty sore subject with Peter, 
 who at the best of times was not famed for his 
 affable manners, if anything put him out. He was 
 not very fond of chaff ; and the incident I am about to 
 relate afforded a grand subject for banter on the road 
 and with many of his brother coachmen, who all knew 
 me pretty well. The facts were these : Peter, for 
 some reasons best known to himself, for I could never 
 make them out, was not vastly fond of me. I knew 
 
'PETER HILTON' AND THE STRANGE GENTLEMAN. i6t 
 
 him less than any coachman on the road, and cer- 
 tainly had never given him any cause for either likino- 
 or disliking- me. He never much approved of my 
 drivino-, thouQ-h he knew I was in the habit of driving- 
 any of the coaches out of Shrewsbury and elsewhere 
 in that part of the country. It happened one day 
 that Mr. Isaac Taylor, of the Lion Inn, in Shrews- 
 bury, who horsed most of the coaches, was in the 
 yard when the 'Hirondelle' was about to start. He 
 had given me leave to drive any team of his, and 
 seemed surprised not to see me lay hold of the reins 
 and mount the rostrum. ' Aren't you going to drive, 
 sir ? ' said he ; ' you'll find them a fairish team, I think.' 
 'Well, to tell you the truth,' said I, 'Peter Hilton 
 don't seem much to like my driving.' ' Never mind 
 Peter Hilton,' said Mr. Taylor, 'jump up, sir; I'll 
 make it all right,' calling out at the same time, 
 ' Hilton, Mr. Reynardson is going to work to-day.' 
 ' Very well, sir, if you like it,' said Peter, looking as 
 sulky as he could look, and he could look it to per- 
 fection. Off we started ; a horrid day, I well remem- 
 ber, raining and blowing great guns, so that I could 
 hardl)- keep the horses in the road, the wind dead in 
 
 Y 
 
1 62 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 my teeth, and the rain driving up the road, till reins, 
 whip, and everything else were as wet and soddened 
 as if they had been boiled or were made of tripe. 
 
 Having arrived at Wrexham, where a dog-cart 
 was waiting for me to take me to a friend's house 
 about two miles distant, down I jumped, gave Peter 
 a ' douceur,' which I hoped would make him think 
 better of me for the time to come, and said, ' Good day, 
 Peter; don't look so cross. I'll come and drive for you 
 again some day ere very long,' and with this I 
 jumped into the dog-cart, and was off before the 
 horses were out of the coach. Some time afterwards 
 I met my old friend Mr. Kenyon, or 'His Honour,' as 
 he was always called. ' Hallo, old friend,' said he, 
 much to my surprise ; ' how came you to let Peter 
 Hilton's horses get away from you the other day?' 
 Of course I was all amazement, never having heard of 
 any occurrence that could give rise to the speech. ' I 
 don't know what you mean,' I said. ' I never let 
 Peter Hilton's horses get away, nor did I hear of 
 anything of the kind. I can't make out what you 
 mean.' 'Why,' said his Honour, 'did not you drive 
 the 'Hirondelle' on such a day froni Shrewsbury, and 
 
'PETER HILTON' AND THE STRANGE GENTLEMAN. 163 
 
 did not they run off with the coach from W^rexham ? ' 
 To this I rephed that I had never heard of anything- 
 of the kind having taken place, and stated, as I have 
 before said, that as soon as I got off the coach at 
 Wrexham, being wet and miserable, I got into the dog- 
 cart and made the best of my way to my friend's 
 house, before the horses were even taken out of the 
 coach. * Well, Peter said you did, and it's all over 
 the country ; so, as you did not do it, you will 
 know what to say if any one chaffs you about it.' It 
 would seem that while they were putting the horses 
 to at the Feathers Inn, at Wrexham, my friend Peter 
 and the three or four passengers that were on the 
 coach — for I remember we had only a light load 
 that day — slipped into the inn to ' whet their whistles,' 
 and Wrexham was famous for its good ale in those 
 days. From some cause the horsekeeper left the 
 horses for a moment, and when he returned, to his 
 surprise, he found the coach gone, and, to his greater 
 surprise, friend Peter and his passengers in the bar. 
 The horses had started off first in a walk, then in a 
 trot, then got into a gallop, and away they went with 
 the empty coach at any pace you like to call it. till 
 
 Y 2 
 
1 64 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 they got to the bottom of Marford Hill, about five 
 miles from Wrexham. How they were stopped, why 
 they stopped, whether they were stopped by anyone, 
 or whether they stopped of their own accord, I never 
 heard ; but stop they did, and the coach and horses 
 came to no grief. Will Jones, who was driving the 
 coach from Liverpool to Wrexham, met them about 
 half-way down the hill, and seeing something was 
 wrong, there being no one on the coach, pulled 
 almost out of the road, and avoided being run into. 
 He said they were going a real good pace, and he 
 could not for the life of him make out what could . be 
 up till he got to Wrexham, and found how matters 
 stood. Peter Hilton, to get the blame off his own 
 shoulders and avoid the chaff which he must 2:0 
 throuo-h, and thinkincr that he should never hear anv 
 more of it, laid it to my driving, and said, ' Oh ! it 
 was all along with that strange gentleman driving.' 
 He was soon, however, found out, and the chaff he 
 got was without end. He never passed a coach with- 
 out being reminded of the strange gentleman. ' Plow 
 about that strange gentleman, Peter; have 3AOU seen 
 him lately?' used constantly to be thrown in his face. 
 
THE REASON WHY HORSES GO BETTER AT NIGHT. 165 
 
 THE REASON WHY HORSES GO BETTER 
 
 AT NIGHT. 
 
 It was about this time, but now so long since that 
 I forget the exact year, that I went over to stay a 
 night at 'His Honour's' to meet Sir Henry Peyton — 
 I mean the Sir Henry Peyton of old, with his yellow 
 coach and his greys. He would, in these days, be 
 called one of the Old School, and slow. So he might 
 be ; but he was the picture of a man on the box, and 
 though he never drove very fast no one knew better 
 what he was doing than * Sir Henry.' His horses 
 were always better put together than any other team, 
 and he was all over a workman. lie looked it, and 
 his looks did not belie him. 
 
 We were sitting after dinner discussing a bottle 
 of Raike's port. Sir Henry was a big man and liked 
 the better part of a bottle of port, and Raike's port 
 in that day was ' nulli secundus.' 
 
 * I don't know why it is that horses always seem 
 
i66 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 to go better at night than they do in the day-time,' 
 said I to 'His Honour;' 'but I always fancy they do.' 
 'Don't you know why that is?' said 'His Honour,' 
 ' what say you, Peyton ? I daresay you can give 
 a good reason.' ' No, by Jove, I can't,' said the 
 Baronet. ' I really believe that they do, though. I do 
 think that they always go better at night, but I never 
 could make out a really good reason for it.' ' Well 
 then,' said ' His Honour,' ' I'll tell you, and I never 
 could make It out till Chester Billy told me.' One 
 word 'en passant' about 'Chester Billy.' He was a 
 character in his way, and a sort of tame cat at 'His 
 Honour's,' being an old coachman, and a great ally 
 of mine host's. He used to drive a coach from 
 Shrewsbury to Chester, and did and said pretty much 
 what he liked when at 'His Honour's.' At Chester 
 he was called ' Shrewsbury Billy,' and at Shrewsbury 
 he was called ' Chester Billy,' and was as well known 
 by the two names at the two different towns as the 
 town-clock itself 'Well,' said 'His Honour,' 'I'll 
 tell you. One night after dinner I got on the mail ; 
 the horses seemed to go so well and merrily that I 
 turned to Billy, and said, " Hang me, Billy, if I can 
 
THE REASON WHY HORSES GO BETTER AT NIGHT. 167 
 
 make it out, but horses always seem to go better at 
 night than they do in the day. I've tried to account 
 for it, but I never could satisfactorily." " Why, I am 
 surprised at you," said Billy ; " do you mean that you 
 really don't know that?" "Why, of course I don't," 
 said "His Honour," "or I should not ask you." 
 "Well, then," said Billy, "if you want to know the 
 real reason, it is because you have had your dinner." ' 
 Of course, this must be the reason, and not a bad 
 one either. I remember poor old Sir Henry was 
 mightily pleased at this bit of information. 
 
i68 'DOWN THE ROAD. 
 
 'THE LODGE HILL: 
 
 I MENTIONED ill a former chapter, where I related 
 the anecdote of the kilhng of a pig at Llanymyneck 
 toll-bar, that I had been most fortunate in never 
 having come to serious grief on a coach, and that, 
 with the exception of this little contretemps, having a 
 horse down occasionally, and such trifles, my coaching 
 days had passed off as serenely as one could well 
 expect. I often think that, considering the heavy 
 loads on the coaches and the pace on the mails, this 
 fact was a great subject for congratulation. I very 
 nearly, however, had a real good accident, which may 
 be worth relating. For this purpose I shall ask indul- 
 gence whilst I take you off the regular road for a 
 short time, and relate how on a private drag I might, 
 with others, have come to sad grief, had not every- 
 thing turned up right, and just as it did. I started 
 from a friend's house near Wrexham, in North Wales, 
 on a gentleman's coach, to go a journey of about 
 
THE LODGE HILL.' 169 
 
 forty miles. I was to drive the first half of the road 
 and my friend the other half. We had a good load 
 of passengers, and, as there were ladies, of course a 
 good load of luggage. We got safely down a ver)- 
 steep hill close to the house, and trotted away very 
 comfortably along a flat piece of ground in the park, 
 till we came to within a short distance of a very 
 steep pitch called the Lodge Hill, leading to the Lodge 
 gates. ' By Jove, I must spring them a bit,' I said, 
 ' or we shall never get up the Lodge Hill.' I was 
 just off, when my friend, to whom the horses and 
 whole turnout belonged, said : ' Oh ! dear no ; pray 
 don't-; let them go quiedy ; old Miller has been rather 
 ailing, and was bled yesterday, and you'd better not 
 hurry him,' meaning an old white horse that ran off- 
 side wheeler. The team was a grey team, with a 
 nervous, fidgetty, active little horse, called ' Grimaldi,' 
 tethered to the off-side leader by a check rein. There 
 was no vice about him, but he was a fire-away little 
 fellow, and at times oiven to rake a little, and there- 
 fore my friend usually drove him with a check rein 
 coupled to the off-side horse. According to the 
 orders I had received, we were going up tin; sharp 
 
 z 
 
I70 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 pitch at a dead pull and a foot's pace, when all of a 
 sudden, just as we got under a large spreading oak 
 tree, whose branches hung over the road, so that 
 there was hardly room for our heads without ducking, 
 the off-leader choked and went down banQ" on his 
 head, pulling Grimaldi down with him, broke the 
 check rein, and pulled the tongue of one of the 
 buckles on the coupling rein through the buckle. Up 
 jumped Grimaldi, and being, like the famous clown of 
 that name, very active on his legs, he went up the 
 side of the bank and then down again into the road, 
 then up the bank again, looking as wild as a hawk, 
 and at one time I really thought he was coming to 
 sit beside me on the box. The grooms jumped down, 
 my friend jumped down, and made the best of his 
 way up the bank, and everybody would have jumped 
 down if they could ; but the scrimmage was very 
 quick, and there was no time for anything, and matters 
 were getting serious. The coach was running back, 
 and the brutes of wheelers would not help me, and 
 kept backing. I was under the tree, and, from the 
 branches almost touching my head, I could not use 
 my whip to keep them up ; it was impossible to ad- 
 
'THE LODGE HILL: 171 
 
 minister any persuasion in the double thong hne. All 
 of a sudden the two leaders turned short round, 
 having- got upon their legs again. The bars flew up, 
 caught the pole-hook cross-ways, and pulled it out as 
 straight as a kitchen skewer ; the bars, all three, of 
 course, fell down, and dangled about their heels. 
 They set to kicking, and having no kind of command 
 of them from the coupling reins being broken, I 
 thought it advisable to get rid of them if possible. 
 So I divided my leading reins from my wheelers, and 
 when they made a plunge I dropped the leading 
 reins on to the wheelers' terrets and let them go. I 
 was uncommonly glad to see them free of me and the 
 coach, and galloping away across the meadow with 
 the bars dangling behind them and the reins trailing 
 along on the ground. Had not the pole-hook bent 
 and let the bars go free, I know not what would 
 have become of us ; as it was, all went as well as 
 could be expected under such circumstances. Had 
 the pole-hook behaved otherwise than it did, I con- 
 clude we should have had the pleasure of being run 
 away with across the meadow, and should possibly 
 
 ultimately have found ourselves in the river which ran 
 
 z 2 
 
172 'DOWN THE ROAD? 
 
 hard by ; for from the fact of the coupling- reins being 
 broken, and the tongue having been pulled through 
 the buckle, all the steering power was gone from the 
 ' man at the helm,' Whilst the scrimmage was going 
 on, the wheelers, who had behaved very well on the 
 whole, had backed one wheel against the bank, and 
 there we were, half across the road. It did not, 
 therefore, take much time or trouble to turn round 
 entirely and go to the bottom of the hill, where I 
 pulled up, and having taken the longest breath I ever 
 took in my life, or ever hope to take again, I con- 
 gratulated miyself and the two or three passengers 
 that had remained on the coach that matters were no 
 worse, and that we were ' all alive and kicking.' I think 
 I hear some one say, ' Were you not in a horrid 
 funk ? ' to which I answer, ' Yes, in a horrid funk.' As 
 soon as I had pulled up I was in a horrid funk, but 
 there was no time to funk whilst the scrimmage was 
 actually going on. It was a real 'quick thing,' and 
 no time was allowed for either thinking or funking. 
 The whole affair, though it takes a good while to 
 describe upon paper, was performed in an incredibly 
 short space of time, and so long as I live I shall 
 
'THE LODGE IIILL: 173 
 
 never forget the whole scene. The four horses at 
 one time were so mixed together that they seemed 
 to be tied in a knot. I have many times since 
 thought the affair over, and have asked myself this 
 question : Should such an accident occur again, and, 
 knowing what you do, how would you act ? and I 
 have always come to this conclusion, that under the 
 same circumstances I should do as I then did ; and 
 I don't see what else I could have done. Had I, 
 however, to go through it again, knowing what I do, 
 I should insist upon driving the horses in the way 
 I chose and thoucrht best. I should have run them 
 pretty fast at the hill, which after all was only a 
 sharp pitch, instead of going as slow up it as if we 
 were going to a funeral. Had I sprung them a little, 
 I am persuaded I should have got up without any- 
 thino- ooine wrone: ; but as the coach and horses and 
 everything belonged to my friend, and as he was 
 sitting beside me on the box, and as I was ©nly his 
 ' curate,' I could not help myself. 
 
 Reader, did you ever 'sup off pork,' and have a 
 nightmare in which you fancied you were driving 
 along pleasanths till all of a sudden )'ou came to a 
 
174 ' DOIVN THE ROAD. 
 
 hill, which gradually grew steeper and steeper as you 
 went up it, till your horses struggled to get up it ; and 
 as it grew steeper and steeper, they struggled and 
 struck their toes Into the hill, scrambling and strug- 
 gling till it became so steep that you were hardly able 
 to sit upon your box. Still they scrambled and strug- 
 gled, the hill getting more and more perpendicular, till 
 at last there was nothino- to be seen but the horses 
 above you, and clown they all came with a last struggle 
 and a horrible crash upon you. If you ever have 
 ' supped off pork,' and suffered such an indigestion as 
 to produce such a nightmare ; if you have felt this, this 
 was something like the kind of feeling in going np the 
 Lodge Hill. 
 
 But you will say, perhaps, Why, if you found that 
 the coach was retrograding down the hill, and if, on 
 account of the overhanging oak tree, you were not able 
 to use your whip and keep your wheelers up to their 
 work, why did you not put on your patent break to 
 stop the coach ? To this I answer, In those days there 
 were no such things invented as patent breaks ; and if 
 there had been I could not have found hands to use 
 one. I had only two hands, and upon the occasion I 
 
'THE LODGE If ILL.' 175 
 
 have named the)' were both in great request. Depend 
 upon it, that unless a man has more than one pair of 
 hands, if he gets into a real good scrawl, he has no hand 
 at liberty to use a patent break, A patent break is 
 doubtless a clever invention, and for hilly roads in a 
 country like Scotland, and elsewhere, most useful ; but 
 for ordinary roads I see but little use for it, unless it 
 is put behind the coach, and is used by the guard, or 
 the servant doing duty for the guard, and who, in the 
 ordinary way of things, would attend to the putting on 
 and taking off the skid. It may be useful sometimes, 
 but in most cases where it might be of the greatest use 
 it is utterly useless and out of place ; for I will defy 
 any man, if he gets suddenly into a serious mess, to 
 keep one of his hands at liberty to work his patent 
 break. If the break is behind, the servant can put it 
 on at a moment's notice ; but the coachman in a scrape 
 wants both his hands, and many is the time that I 
 should have been very glad of three, or perhaps four. 
 The handle of a break is an ugly thing sticking up 
 by the side of the box ; it is much in your way when 
 getting up, and when you are up seems always to be 
 in the wrong place. It is a bad practice to be always 
 
176 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 putting on and taking off the break down every little 
 pitch in the road ; it teaches your horses not to hold, 
 than which there cannot be a orreater fault. A cjood 
 pair of wheelers, if taken steadily off the crown of the 
 hill, will hold almost anything in reason ; and unless 
 the hill is very steep, and there is not a bit of gravel 
 or loose stone to run your wheel on, your break is a 
 nuisance, or next to a nuisance, and it in a great degree 
 spoils the look of a coach. Let me not be misunder- 
 stood. I do not say that a patent break is not a 
 useful article at times. The use of it and the abuse 
 of it are two different things. Should your pole-chains 
 by any chance break or come unhooked, going down a 
 hill, a break may be the saving of you. Should a horse 
 come down going down-hill, or going up-hill either, 
 put on your break, if you can find hands for it at such 
 a time, till you can get him on his legs again. It is, I 
 own, a better plan than having to put a stone under 
 your wheel, but your ' shooter ' should . do this ; your 
 man behind, or whoever is acting as guard, should 
 attend to your break. 
 
 Never let anything tempt you to put a piece of 
 brick under your wheel. I once saw this done in a 
 
' THE LoncF. hill: 
 
 \ll 
 
 town where there happened to be a brick close at 
 hand ; the pressure of the wheel and the weight of 
 the coach broke the brick, and we were very nearly 
 having an accident. I think I hear you say, Why, a 
 man must be a born fool to think of putting a brick 
 under a coach wheel. So he may, but I've seen it 
 done ; and what is more, I've seen a lot of coal-trucks 
 on a railway siding and on an incline only scotched 
 by a piece of brick. I mentioned the subject to a 
 porter, and he said it was * all right.' 
 
 Thus I must own that a patent break may be, and 
 is, a useful thing, if used when necessary and with 
 moderation. But to see a man on a coach pumping 
 away at his break-handle, as if he was filling a bucket 
 in a stable yard, whenever there is a little pitch in the 
 road, and his leaders, with their traces as tight as the 
 strings on Bottesini's double-bass fiddle, pulling down- 
 hill as if they were going up, is not workmanlike, and 
 is enough to call the spirits of Sir Henry Peyton and 
 his greys, or 'His Honour ' (the Honourable Thomas 
 Kenyon) and his chestnuts, with their }'ellow coaches, 
 from their resting-places. 
 
 If you will kindly keep )t)ur eyes about )ou, good 
 
 A A 
 
178 ' DOIVX THE ROAD: 
 
 reader, you will perceive that what I have said is a 
 fact ; and that to such a pitch has the patent break 
 come in these days, that many a gentleman's coach- 
 man, not content with using it at every little pitch 
 along the road, positively puts it on when he pulls 
 up at the hall-door on his arrival at home. How he 
 manages it I hardly know, for as he generally has his 
 reins in two hands, he ought to have at least three 
 to do it neatly. I fear that my notions of the patent 
 break may appear rather antiquated to those of the 
 present clay, so I will say no more, but crave their 
 forgiveness and return to the Road. 
 
THE STAGE COACH DF OLD. 179 
 
 THE STAGE COACH OF OLD, AND THE LOAD 
 IT USED TO CARRY. 
 
 Tni<: coachman of the present day has no idea of what a 
 coach-load of former days was ; he could have no idea ot 
 what a coach was doomed to carry, unless he had been 
 there to see. In the first place, there were four inside 
 and twelve out, exclusive of the coachman and guard. 
 The fore-boot was full of small parcels, the hind-boot 
 was the same ; the roof of the coach was piled up as 
 high as it could be to allow of its passing under the 
 archway of the inn ; and boxes and carpet-bags, gun- 
 cases, hampers, and every description of luggage for 
 the sixteen people who were inside and out, were heaped 
 up and hanging over the sides of the roof, which was 
 all covered down with a tarpaulin, and securely strapped 
 down with a broad leather strap. It was wonderful to 
 behold, and wonderful to imagine how it could all be 
 stowed awa)'. 
 
 C^n the very lamp-irons you would often see game 
 
 A A 2 
 
i8o 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 baskets hung, iind hares and pheasants danghng down. 
 Under the coach there was often swung a 'cradle,' 
 Into which various things which could go nowhere else 
 were put ; in fact, the whole packing of a heavy load 
 was marvellous, and what none but a guard of the 
 olden time dare attempt. In spite of all this heavy 
 loading there was seldom a-break-dow^n, and really not 
 often an accident of any kind ; and on an opposition 
 coach this was a wonder, for the pace that on some 
 occasions was kept up was ' no joke.' such galloping 
 was there one against another, such ' corner-creeping,' 
 and such machinations to be first. Many a time have 
 I seen a coach pulled up, and changed, and off again, 
 without the coachman ever getting off his box ; the 
 horsekeeper, or one of them — for there were generally 
 two or three — throwing a rein over the whip as he drew 
 them through the terrets, and the coachman catching 
 hold of them by lifting his whip up to his hand. There 
 was no time for going into the bar, and getting a bit of 
 bread and cheese and a glass of ale, on these fast occa- 
 sions. The barmaid would sometimes have the useful 
 articles on a tray and hand them up to a hungry pas- 
 senger ; but there was no getting down. There was 
 
THE STAGE COACH OE OLD. iSi 
 
 no time to talk to and chaff with the pretty barmaid 
 in the bar ; the change used to be effected in an incred- 
 ibly short space of time, and you had just time to 
 swallow your glass of ale. That was about all the 
 time that you had, and with a ' right ' from the guard 
 you were off again at once, and hael to eat )our bread 
 and cheese as you went along. ' Now, Jack,' or Will, or 
 whatever the guard's name was, the coachman would 
 say, if it was night or early morning, and the lamps 
 were lit, ' Blessed if I did not see their lamps, and 
 they are coming along, I promise you ; just put some- 
 thing over your boot-lamp, and I'll spring them a bit 
 when we get round the turn.' It may seem odd in these 
 days to talk of a lamp to the hind-boot, but on fast 
 coaches it was a wonderfully handy thing for a ^niard. 
 who had often to get small parcels out of the hind-boot ; 
 but it was a regular * tell-tale ' to the coach behind you, 
 if the coachman caught a glimpse of his adversary's hind- 
 boot lamp. Such were some of the dodges used in 
 days gone by to keep first. There was a good deal 
 of excitement in the sort of thing, and, I suspect, a litde 
 danger also. A coach "with a full load, and particularly 
 an ' opposition coach,' required some care and skill lo 
 
1 82 'DOIVX THE road: 
 
 keep it right end upwards ; and I have often wondered 
 that there were not more accidents, for at times, in 
 galloping with a top-heavy load, they would swing a 
 bit, in spite of all you could do to keep them steady. 
 There were, however, as I said before, wonderfully few 
 accidents ; and I am happy to say that, in the many 
 hundreds of miles I have travelled by them and driven 
 them, I never saw a coach turned over. 
 
SMALL HLNTS THAT MAY BE USEFUL. 183 
 
 SMALL HLNTS TIL AT MAY BE USEFUL.. 
 
 There are a few small hints that may seem almost 
 useless, and which many will say ' everybody knows/ 
 but which, however, are not known by half those who 
 have never driven ' down the Road,' and they will, I 
 trust, excuse me for supposing that they do not know 
 them. There are many little dodges which a gentle- 
 man with a well-broken, smart team in Hyde Park 
 has never had, nor probably ever will have, a chance 
 of knowing. 
 
 I will begin with saying, Never get into a mess if 
 you can possibly keep out of one ; but, if you do 
 chance to get into a scrape, take care to get out of it 
 well. ' Discretion is the better part of valour,' I have 
 heard, and I believe it to be true ; there is no ereat 
 art required to get into a mess, but there is sometimes 
 much difficulty in keeping out of one. ^I have more 
 than once seen a fool-hardy fellow, under the influence 
 of something stronger- than toast-and- water, get into 
 
1 84 'DOHW THE ROAD. 
 
 ' a scrawl ' when he might have kept out of it, and 
 then, with all his dash and swagger, cut up as help- 
 less and ignorant of how to get out of it as if he had 
 been ' a born fool,' which very probabl}' was the case 
 with him. A coach is a dangerous thing, if all don't 
 go right ; and though I have seen many men do their 
 best to upset a coach without succeeding, still, when 
 least expected, it's as easily done as upsetting an old 
 woman's apple stall. 
 
 Should you come to grief with one of ^^our horses, 
 should one fall down dead, or oret the staof2rers, or 
 break one of his legs, or from some cause be so full 
 of pain that you can't get him on, and are obliged to 
 take him out of the coach, and drive home or to the 
 end of your stage or journey without him, of course 
 you must leave him on the road, and make an 
 ' unicorn,' or what we used to call a ' pickaxe team.' 
 In case of accident, and for making the said 'pickaxe,' 
 particularly if going a long journey, it is a prudent 
 measure to carry a spare small bar, with the eye or 
 a ring set contrary way to the usual eye on a small 
 bar. The ordinary eye will not let your small bar 
 sit th(^ right way on your pole-hook. As a set of 
 
SMALL HINTS THAT MAY BE USEFUL. 185 
 
 Spare bars are generally carried behind a drag, a bar 
 of the description I name may as well be carried 
 instead of one of the ordinary small bars. You never 
 require more than one of either kind, and the bar I 
 have named is the only useful one in case of the 
 sort of accident I have mentioned. The natural thing 
 to do would be to put your main bar on ; you would, 
 however, find that, from the span being so much 
 wider in the main bar than in the ordinary bar, your 
 traces would not be long enough, and in all proba- 
 bility, if you did get them on, when your leader was 
 in and pulling hard up-hill, the hooks of your main 
 bar would be pulled into all kinds of shapes, and 
 perhaps broken off altogether. This I have seen 
 happen, and though, luckily, one is not often called 
 upon to drive a ' pickaxe,' the wrinkle is worth know- 
 ing before such a mishap takes place. In coaching 
 days of old, a bar such as I have described was gene- 
 rally to be found, amongst other ' arcana,' in the 
 hind boot. 
 
 Always carry a spare trace, or, what is better, a 
 chain trace. It takes but little room in one of your 
 boots, and has more than once stood my friend. It 
 
 W I! 
 
i86 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 is seldom wanted, it is true, but it is there if it 
 should be wanted, and you may sometimes find it a 
 handy thing for other purposes if you are away from 
 home, I have seen a trace go when least expected, 
 and in such a case, if you have not a spare trace of 
 some kind, you're ' in a fix,' and if at night in a 
 ' regular fix.' Therefore, always have a chain trace 
 in your boot, about a foot and a half longer than 
 your ordinary leather trace, with a ring at one end 
 big enough for your chain to drop through, to make 
 a loop to go over your roller-bolt, and a hook at the 
 other end that will go into the links of your chain, 
 that you may take your trace up or let it out as you 
 would do with a leather trace and a buckle. On a 
 gentleman's coach the breaking of a trace is of very 
 rare occurrence, and in Hyde Park, or anywhere near 
 town, a spare trace could be borrowed at almost any 
 moment ; but in the country, and if you go any dis- 
 tance or any excursion, something of the kind in case 
 of accident is a 'sine qua nonl and therefore com- 
 mend me to a ' chain trace,' or you may be left on 
 the road looking as helpless as a pump without a 
 handle. 
 
SMALL in.\TS THAT MAY BE USEFUL. 187 
 
 Don't think me an old muff, if I say don't drive 
 in London and round the Park, where you no doubt 
 wish to look smart, without bearincr reins. I don't 
 mean to say, bear your horses up as if their heads 
 and tails were tied together, but use bearing reins. 
 Your team will look smarter, and you will have more 
 comfort with them than without them. It is very 
 seldom that four horses all carry their heads in the 
 right place, and if one or two of them are inclined to 
 get their heads down, it not only looks bad, but it is 
 a considerable nuisance to the driver to have to carry 
 his horses' heads, to prevent them lolling them 
 against the pole-hook, and perhaps catching their 
 bits in the pole-chains, which I have seen occur more 
 than once. In former days I remember bearing reins 
 on ' the Road.' They were discarded, from the fancy, 
 I suppose, that horses worked freer without them. 
 I think they did ; but if they got a bit tired, or if 
 they were not of a good sort, they often got their 
 heads down and lolled about, and bored till they 
 made your arms ache. 
 
 The principal thing in old coaching days, however, 
 was to get them along and keep your time, and so 
 
1 88 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 long as they did it, it did not much signify whether 
 they carried their heads quite in the right place or 
 not. A great point was to be able to use your whip 
 pretty well, and to be able to ' lift a horse up and 
 set him down again half a mile on the road,' and 
 unless you could do this on some roads it did not 
 signify much about bearing reins or no bearing reins. 
 During the latter part of my coaching I never saw 
 either a bearing rein or a buckle to a rein. Formerly, 
 all reins were buckled. I remember, when a little 
 chap going to school, it was a high honour to be on 
 the box, and to be allowed to unbuckle the reins as 
 you came to the change. Gradually, it became the 
 fashion not to buckle the reins, but to let them 
 hang clown imbuckled ; and then it became the fashion 
 to have no buckles at all on the reins, and for twenty 
 years, and on fast coaches particularly, I never saw 
 such a thing as a buckle. It's a safe plan, never- 
 theless, to buckle your reins ; and with the thin, dandy, 
 new, slippery reins of the present day, it is positively 
 necessary to have them buckled, or they will very 
 easily slip through your fingers. With smart gloves 
 and thin reins, and very often new ones, if a man 
 
SMALL HL\TS THAT MAY BE USEFUL. 189 
 
 has a single horse that pulls a little, his reins must 
 keep slipping through his fingers, and he must keep 
 pulling at his reins as if he was playing the harp, 
 which is inadmissible. Have your reins long enough, 
 have them strong enough, say full an eighth of an 
 inch thick, have them broad enough, not less than a 
 full inch in width, they will then be stiff enough for 
 you to slip them up between your fingers, instead of 
 pulling at them from behind your hand, like Barber 
 pulling the strings of a pigeon trap at a match. In 
 wet weather what a horrible thing are wet reins ; 
 positively they get like a 'yard of tripe.' If thin, 
 they get limp very soon ; even if thick they will get 
 wet through in time. If your gloves get wet through, 
 too, which they must do, your reins slip through 
 your fingers and you feel miserably helpless, and as 
 if you were driving with reins made of soap. How 
 I have yearned, when in such a fix, for the old, thick, 
 well-o-reased reins of the old mail and the old coach 
 of former days. You could hold your horses with 
 such reins, and though they did smell strongly of 
 neatsfoot oil and train oil; and other abominations 
 only known to the horsekeepers, on a wet da\- they 
 
I go 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 were a really great comfort, even if you had not a 
 pair of worsted gloves to put on in case of rain. 
 These never omit to take with you, as on a rainy 
 day they are the only thing through which the reins 
 don't slip, and they are on such an occasion a ' sine 
 qua uofL Always have them about your coach. You 
 may often want them when you least expect it. It 
 is not necessary for a man to walk about with an 
 umbrella on a fine day. But I say, when it's fine, 
 take your umbrella ; when it rains, do as you like 
 about it. 
 
 Horses don't require a whip in these days, but no 
 one can drive without a whip, any more than Pagan ini 
 could play the fiddle without his fiddlestick. It is 
 now seldom required, but when required there are 
 very few that can use it. They ought to be able to 
 use the whip if necessary, but it is lamentable some- 
 times to see what an incumbrance the whip seems to 
 be, and how awkwardly it is handled. 
 
 It is laughable to see the length of whip some- 
 times adopted. This at once denotes a ' muff.' There 
 is no use in having a whip as tall as the monument, 
 with a thong as long as Piccadill)' ; a foot and a half 
 
SMALL in NTS THAT MAY BE USEFUL. 191 
 
 of thong and point together, hanging below )'cur hand, 
 gets entangled with your reins and anything else it 
 comes in contact with. Some may say, ' I can't reach 
 my leaders if it's shorter,' This is not a fact ; you 
 can if you do it 'according to Cocker,' and are not 
 what is called a ' regular gardener.' The correct 
 length for a whip, according to William and Joseph 
 Ward of Newington, who are all dead and gone, was 
 5 ft. i^in. from the end of the butt to the holder, and 
 for the thong 1 2 ft. 5 or 6 in. from the holder to the 
 end of the point ; anything more is superfluous. Rest 
 to their souls ; they are all gone, I trust, with the good 
 niggers. They were the best whipmakers in the 
 world, as was proved by ninety out of a hundred 
 coachmen using their whips on every road in the 
 kingdom. Almost any saddler, however small, in 
 towns where a coach passed through, had them, and 
 I have seen them produced in bundles to choose from. 
 They were not only first-rate, but very cheap, com- 
 pared with the price one pays in these days ; twelve 
 or fourteen shillings would produce quite a swell 
 whip, and I have bought really good ones, with plain 
 leather handles, three for a guinea. These were with- 
 
192 'DOIVN THE ROAD: 
 
 out ferrules of any kind, and, if the stick turned out 
 good, were ferruled afterwards. A whip of the same 
 kind, with brass ferrules used to cost ten shillings ; one 
 with silver ferrules was hardly known, except on 
 the Lord Mayor's coach, or to drive the judge at the 
 assizes. I remember crivino- a swell coachman a swell 
 whip, which cost me half my pocket-money when a 
 youngster, and instead of being very grateful for the 
 little attention, he turned up his nose at it and said, 
 ' Why did you give me such a thing as this ? Why 
 did you not give me one of Ward's ? ' Of course I 
 pocketed the compliment and wished I had, as I 
 should have saved ten or twelve shillings. I never 
 liked the fellow afterwards, and as he had taught me 
 something I profited by his lesson, but I never gave 
 him any more whips. His name was Sam Spiller ; he 
 drove the 'Regent' coach from Huntingdon to Lon- 
 don, down Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays ; up 
 Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Whilst on the 
 subject of whips, let me say a word to those who are 
 ambitious to learn that gentle art. There appeared 
 in ' Land and Water,' some little time since, the 
 followincj- : — 
 
SMALL HLNTS THAT MAY BE USEFUL. 193 
 
 ' Ho7^' to Drive! 
 ' Sir : 
 
 ' My son is jierfectl)^ crazy about driving- four-in- 
 hand. Hang- die expense, he says, &c.. &c.' 
 
 His governor seems full of money, for he goes on 
 to say : ' That I don't mind.' Something like a gover- 
 nor ! But whatever you or your governor may do, 
 do not pretend to drive till you can catch your whip 
 properly. Nothing looks so cocktail and muffish on a 
 coach as to see a man learning to catch his whip, and 
 after many futile efforts taking it upside down for 
 this purpose, and twisting the thong round and round 
 with the point downwards, as if he was stirring 
 porridge for a pack of hounds. 
 
 ' But how is a- fellow to learn to catch his whip ? ' 
 you may say. To this, I reply, ' If you are such an 
 awkward fellow as not to be able to learn to catch it, 
 and almost by instinct, shut yourself up in your room, 
 put a chair upon your table, harness four chairs 
 together, get a stiff top joint of your fishing rod, if 
 you have one, or any light stick that will do duty 
 for one, plait some whipcord, and make a thong 
 
 c e 
 
1 9; 'DOIVN THE ROAD. 
 
 twice as long as your stick, and having seated your- 
 self upon your chair for a box, learn to catch your 
 whip there, and in private, and learn to hit your 
 horses all round ; they cannot run away or upset your 
 coach, if you are careful, Catch up your thong, and 
 hit your wheelers, then untwist it and hit your leaders 
 first on the off-side, it is the easiest to begin with, 
 then on the near side, then first one and then the 
 other, one, two, three, and a draw, and so on the 
 other side. You may in these days never be called 
 upon to hit a horse at all, but you ought to be able 
 to do it, and if you can't do it you are not a coach- 
 man, though you may fancy you are, and may get on 
 pretty well with a fiash team in Hyde Park, where 
 you have nothing to do but hold your reins and 
 steer clear of your friends and neighbours. 
 
 Never divide your reins, if you can possibly avoid 
 it, or you will have to ' club-haul ' them, which is in- 
 admissible. If you divide your reins you will have to 
 get another hand to hold your whip, and another, if you 
 chance to have to go down a pitch, to put on your 
 patent break. The handle of this instrument must 
 be much in your way. It makes your coach look very 
 
SMALL HINTS THAT MAY BE USEFUL. 195 
 
 Ugly, and should be behind, under the control of him 
 who acts as guard or ' shooter.' I don't believe that one 
 man in a thousand knows what a 'shooter' means ; and 
 if he ever heard of such an important personage, I 
 will venture to say he cannot say from whence the 
 term is derived. I have often heard a man say, ' Oh ! 
 I'll be shooter,' which meant to say, I will act as guard, 
 and put on and take off the skid at the bottom of the 
 hills and steep pitches, or, as we used to call them, ' a 
 steep shoot.' This many, no doubt, thought gave the 
 name of ' shooter ' to the guard ; this, however, was not 
 the real ' unde derivatur.' The real derivation was 
 from 'Shooter's Hill,' on the London and Dover Road, 
 which all heavy coaches, and indeed the mails, ^ used 
 to ' skid ' down, and from taking off the skid at the 
 bottom of ' Shooter's Hill,' the guard on a coach used 
 to get the name of the ' shooter.' On a fast coach this 
 was a responsible office, and an office that demanded a 
 great deal of quickness and knack. I have often seen 
 the skid put on without stopping the coach, the pace 
 
 ' I have heard the name of the ' shooter ' accounted for, because 
 
 on a mail the guard carried a blunderbuss and pistols to shoot Dick 
 
 Turpin and such fellows witli, but I believe the other reason is the 
 
 right one. 
 
 c c 2 ^ 
 
196 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 only stayed a little, and the skid slung", as it were, into 
 its place under the wheel, with a ' right.' It is a dan- 
 gerous thing to trust too much to your skid, for if any- 
 thing happens to go, you are worse off than if you had 
 none at all. I, however, remember once nearly coming 
 to i'rief from not having' a skid on. We were Qfoin^- 
 into Henley, and in going down Henley Hill, when 
 more than half down, the horses holding the coach 
 without any skid on, the near wheeler's pole chain by 
 some means came imdone. I was a stranger on that 
 road, and was sitting by the side of the coachman, whose 
 name I forget, or perhaps never knew. A passenger, 
 evidently a Methodist parson, or a lugubrious-looking 
 fellow of some kind, with a white choker and a face 
 as long as a two-foot rule, would from time to time 
 ' discourse ' the coachman, and give him a tract, or 
 something of the kind. This he at once stuffed into his 
 pocket, with a ' Thank you, sir ; I have no time for 
 reading.' No doubt the man was a worthy man in his 
 place ; but out of his place on a coach with one of the 
 pole-chains gone. Of course, as soon as the chain 
 came undone there was nothino- for it but to look out 
 for a piece of gravel to run the wheel on, and keep the 
 
SMALL HLXTS THAT MAY BE USEFUL. 197 
 
 wheelers away from the sphnter-bar. There was, how- 
 ever, no gravel, no loose stones, or any assistance of 
 that kind ; and my friend the coachman had his hands 
 lull to keep the coach from running over his wheelers. 
 A patent drag would have come in well under such cir- 
 cumstances,' but in those days they were not invented. 
 In the midst of this little dilemma what should my 
 friend with the long face and white choker do but 
 offer him another tract. Jehu, however, was intent 
 upon his business, and muttered in not a very pleasant 
 tone, ' Oh dear ! oh dear ! whatever can I do with 
 your papers ; how ever can you be a giving me papers 
 now ; no skid on, pole-chain gone, and never a bit of 
 gravel as I can see to run a wheel on. I don't see 
 as we shan't be over yet ; so if you happens to know 
 anything short, sir, now's your time.' I was sitting 
 beside the coachman, and really at one time began to 
 fear that we should not get safely to the bottom of the 
 hill. He knew his business well, however, and from 
 the fact of having started quietly off the crown of the 
 hill, being very cool and collected, and having a very 
 slight load, only the man in black and me, we did iiot 
 come to grief. There's nothing like a bit of loose 
 
198 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 gravel to run your wheel up:n, and many is the time 
 I have looked out for some loose Q-ravel or fresh 
 broken stones ; they are a wonderful help in times of 
 need. Recollect that if your pole-chains go or get 
 loose going down a hill, and no skid on, it's a some- 
 what serious business. Your ' valour ' will be of use, 
 because it will help you to keep your head cool ; but 
 your ' discretion ' will be found your best friend. As 
 you will have no ' steerage way,' you will have to do 
 the thing ' gingerly,' to keep your coach from running 
 on to your wheeler or over him, and setting him kick- 
 ing, and perhaps finding him altogether in the front 
 boot, or perhaps inside the coach with your lady pas- 
 sengers. On such an occasion look out for the bit of 
 gravel, which is the only thing that can save you from 
 becoming ' mixed biscuits ' before you get to the bottom 
 of the hill. 
 
THE AMATEUR 'SHOOTER: 199 
 
 THE AMATEUR 'SHOOTER: 
 
 ' Patent drags ' have so taken the place of the old 
 ' skid ' that my old friend the ' shooter ' is seldom seen 
 or heard of now. I have in former days seen an amateur 
 ' shooter ' come to sad grief, and like others who try a 
 game they don't understand, ' burn their fingers.' I 
 remember many years ago, that an old friend and school- 
 fellow of mine, and of the other two ' little boys in their 
 long drab great coats,' were on the old ' Regent ' coach, 
 on their way back to Eton. My old school- fellow, who 
 is now a dignitary ot the Church, and lives close to his 
 brother's place, Connington Castle, in Huntingdonshire, 
 would aspire to the dignified post of ' shooter.' The 
 old Stamford ' Regent ' did not carry a guard of any 
 kind. Our amateur guard put the ' skid ' on in a most 
 workmanlike manner at the top of a hill, whose name I 
 at this moment forget, but it was not far from Stilton, 
 of cheese fame — and jumped down to perform the opposite 
 feat at the bottom of the hill. ' Mind what you're at, 
 
200 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 old friend ' (for that was a favourite term of endearment 
 of 'Old John's'), said Old John Barker, as he looked 
 behind the coach ; ' you'll burn your fingers if you don't 
 mind.' But, alas ! he was too late ; the young ' guard ' 
 had seized the ' skid,' which was ' as hot as pepper,' 
 almost red hot, fast by the neck, and with a shriek of 
 agony ' dropped it like a hot potato.' Poor George 
 Heathcote, for he it was, is alive still, and I feel sure 
 cannot have forgotten the circumstance. The pain he 
 suffered all the way to London was intense, with all the 
 skin of his riofht hand scorched and blistered in a 
 terrible way. I can see him even now, in my mind's 
 eye, carrying his unfortunate blistered fingers in a large 
 teacup of brandy which we procured at the first ' dealer 
 in spiritous liquors ' that we came across on the way. 
 He did not act amateur 'shooter' any more Z/^*?/ journey, 
 and thouo^h I used to travel with him on various occa- 
 sions afterwards, I don't remember that he ever again 
 patronized the same trade, and I believe to this day he 
 fancies that everything in the shape of iron vinst be hot. 
 
HOW -yOffN BARKER STARTS A REFRACTORY TEAM. 201 
 
 BOW JOHN BARKER STARTS A REFRACTORY 
 
 TEAM. 
 
 As we are on the subject of fire, and my old friend with 
 his burnt fing-ers, in which ' Old John Barker ' and the 
 Regent coach are again mentioned, an anecdote of how 
 ' Old John ' and a certain ' Bill Jenkins' got a refractory 
 team to start, may amuse. On one memorable occasion 
 he could not get his team to start ; nothing could make 
 them ; no persuasion could prevail. At last ' Old John ' 
 said, ' Bill, get us a couple of wisps of straw and a 
 lantern.' ' Bill,' in obedience to his orders, set some 
 straw on fire under the refractory horses, the effect was 
 electrical, 2i\\A away they went at once, 'as if the devil 
 had kicked them endways.' 
 
 This is something like the story of a gendeman in 
 Ireland. The mare he was ridiuLr hated the sieht of a 
 blacksmith's shop, and on his coming up to one on the 
 road, no earthly power would get her to pass it. The 
 good-hearted blacksmith, like a true Irishman, wished 
 
 I) 1) 
 
202 . 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 to tender his assistance, and going into his smithy 
 brought out a red-hot horseshoe in his tongs or pin- 
 cers, saying ' Lang hfe to your Hanour. The devil a bit 
 will she pass it ; will I clap a warm iron to the mare yer 
 Hanour ? ' 
 
ALIVAYS GO KOUND YOUR HORSES. 203 
 
 ALWAYS GO ROUND YOUR HORSES. 
 
 If you drive out of your own stable-yard, or indeed 
 out of any yard, and particularly at night, if you drive 
 home from Greenwich, feeling ' pretty full of fish,' 
 always go round your horses, and see that all your 
 reins are buckled, and that your coupling reins are 
 crossed. 
 
 I do not doubt that your coachman or groom is 
 a steady fellow, but at times he will eat a good deal 
 of fish as well as his master ; and if he does this, such 
 little accidents may happen. As four eyes are better 
 than two, it is always a safe precaution to go round 
 your horses and see that all is right, your reins buckled, 
 and so forth, before you get on the box. 
 
 Having been caught myself once, I have no hesita- 
 tion in oivinof this little bit of advice. I was drivlnir 
 on the road between Chester and Bangor, and on 
 going round my horses at Abergele I found that my 
 leaders' coupling reins were not crossed, and that the 
 
 D D 2 
 
204 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 fool of a horsekeeper had buckled both reins to the 
 same horse ; what might have happened had we started 
 I do not know. As it was, I saw it in time ; and on 
 my remarking, ' Why, Jack,' or Bill, or whatever his 
 name was, ' you don't expect I'm going to start in this 
 form ? ' he said, ' Well, inteed, it's forgotten to cross the 
 reins, however, this time.' 
 
SEE THAT THE TOLL-llAR GATES ARE OPE.V. 205 
 
 A/nVJ? THAT THE TOLL-BAR MAN DON'T SLLUT 
 THE GATE LN YOUR FACE. 
 
 Should you be driving- on a road, such as from London 
 to Epsom or Ascot, on one of the race days, when all 
 is stir and confusion, and everything and everybody 
 rushing for the toll-bar, and everyone in ' whisky, buggy, 
 dog-cart, gig, chaise, curricle, or tandem,' is trying 
 who can get through first without paying; on such an 
 occasion keep your eyes open, or perhaps, just as you 
 get to the gate, the toll-bar keeper will shut it in your 
 leaders' faces. Then you will either be through the 
 gate or have to pull them all up of a heap, neither of 
 which is quite pleasant ; but on such an occasion one 
 of these feats must be performed ' experto crecie.' It 
 is now some years since, when returning from Ascot, 
 and on a piping hot day, I well remember, on arriving 
 within six or seven miles of London, with hundreds 
 of vehicles of all kinds making the best of their way 
 to get through the toll-bar ; and though my servant held 
 
2o6 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 his ticket out so that the toll-bar keeper could not 
 help seeing it, I felt a sort of presentiment that the 
 scoundrel looked as if he meant to shut the gate upon 
 me. With this little warning, I caught my horses up 
 pretty short, and was ready for anything that might 
 happen. My suspicions were correct, for as I came 
 within ten yards of the gate the vagabond stepped 
 across the road and slammed the gate in my leaders' 
 faces. He then as quickly, seeing that he was in the 
 wrong, pulled the gate open again, and stood looking 
 at me. My whip happened to be caught up in the 
 most approved style. I made a feint at him by just 
 cocking up my elbow ; he made a cluck and put up 
 his arm, thinking I was going to hit him, which was 
 the real state of the case. The day being piping hot, 
 he was in his shirt sleeves. As he ducked, I saw 
 well under his arm, and I gave him such a soaker in 
 the ribs that he fairly squealed again. One of my pas- 
 sengers declared I had broken one of his ribs, and that 
 he heard it go ; but as I never heard of his being taken 
 to St, (reorge's Hospital, I hope it was not the case. 
 Perhaps I was wrong in hitting him ; but I could not 
 help it ; the provocation was too great. M)- whip was 
 
SEE THAT THE TOLL-BAR GATES ARE OPEN. 207 
 
 caught up so beautifully, and his ribs, when he lifted 
 his elbow and ducked, looked so tempting, that if I 
 had known I was to be hanged for it, I don't think I 
 could have thrown away the chance of giving him that 
 one ' soaker.' 
 
2o8 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 AN OLD COACHMAN. 
 
 Reader, should you chance to be an old coachman, 
 one of the olden time, who has seen coaching as it 
 once was, you will know many of the scenes I have 
 attempted to describe ; you will be able to call to mind, 
 I may say, the look of the whole affair itself. You will 
 be able to recall the coachmen and guards, and the very 
 horses you have driven ; the foggy mornings out of 
 London; the 'Peacock' at Islington; the pretty bar- 
 maid who used to give you your glass of rum-and-milk ; 
 the cold, snowy days and nights that you have passed 
 on the mail or coach ; the guard and his yard of tin, on 
 the mail, wakening up the drowsy toll-bar keeper at 
 unheard-of hours at night and early morning. You will 
 remember the cheery keyed bugle of the guard on the 
 coach, upon which he played, ' Oh, dear, what can the 
 matter be?' or some such lively tune, as he passed 
 through the different towns in the middle of the nig^ht, 
 much to the disturbance of some of the quietly snooz- 
 ing population, it is to be feared. You will recollect 
 
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AX OLD COACHMAN. 2oc) 
 
 many a tedious day and night, with snow on the 
 ground and snow falhng all around, when you were 
 obliged to have a pair of leaders to help to pull you 
 through the snow and up the hills, and how, when 
 frosty and slippery, you had to screw your horses from 
 one side of the road to the other to get them up the 
 hill at all. You will have a lively recollection of the 
 bitter cold that pervaded your half-frozen form, and 
 the dire hunger that had taken possession of your 
 inner man, and how it was almost impossible to un- 
 button your great-coat, and get off your ample neck- 
 handkerchief, which was often wet through, before you 
 could eat your dinner, which was announced by the 
 coachman as, 'Now, gentlemen, twenty minutes for 
 dinner ! ' These twenty minutes in reality seemed but 
 five. By the time you had got your hands a little 
 warm and your mouth into eating trim, he would put 
 his head in again and inform you most politely : ' Now, 
 gentlemen, please, the coach is ready ; ' and thus be- 
 tween getting your wet coats, &c., off, and putting 
 your wet coats, &c., on, there was but little eating to 
 be done in the twenty minutes. To the tune of two- 
 and-sixpence a head, and sixpence for the waiter. 
 
 E E 
 
2IO 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 You will, no doubt, remember the look of the streets 
 as you entered London about six o'clock of a winter's 
 morning ; how dimly the oil-lamps used to burn at 
 that time of day, and how seedy the old ' Charlie ' used 
 to look, and how red his old nose used to be with the 
 cold, and the ' goes down of gin ' he had had during 
 ' the night. You will remember the smell of the steam 
 from the horses, as you passed under the arch of the 
 ' Swan and Two Necks,' Lad Lane, or into the yard 
 of the ' Bull and Mouth.' You will remember the 
 look of utter desolation that reigned around as you 
 entered the inns at six o'clock in the morning in 
 winter. All were inns in those days ; there were no 
 hotels : and the ' nothing to be had to eat ' feeling 
 that came over yoiu* hungry stomach when the dirty 
 half-starved housemaid told you that nobody except 
 the bookkeeper was up yet. You will remember all 
 these little circumstances, and many more that I 
 could name. You would remember, no doubt, that a 
 guard's horn on a mail used actually to be made of 
 tin ; and from their being nearly a yard, or in reality 
 about two feet, of that precious metal, it got the name 
 of the ' yard of tin.' You may also remember that in 
 
AN OLD COACUMAX. 211 
 
 olden times it went into a sort of holder, almost like 
 a lamp-iron, on the off-side of the body of the mail, 
 and in later days into a kind of leather socket ; and 
 that the brass horn, in its long wicker basket, was an 
 innovation upon that melodious musical instrument 
 called the ' grunting- stick,' or ' yard of tin,' of former 
 days. You will remember, no doubt, that on a stage 
 coach a long horn was seldom or ever carried — indeed, 
 I may say never ; but that it was always a keyed bugle, 
 slung in a basket on the off-side the back seat, and that 
 there was generally a thick piece of netting stretched 
 across the off-side of the seats behind the coach, to 
 prevent umbrellas, coats, and various things, including 
 old women, from tumbling overboard. The guard on 
 a coach used always to get up and down, as did the 
 passengers, on the near side. In these days one sees 
 the long horn basket, if one is carried at all, anywhere 
 and everywhere but in the right place, and if anyone 
 tries to blow the horn anything but the right musio 
 comes out of it. I saw a coach coming down Picca- 
 dilly some little time since ; a fellow in a red hunting- 
 coat was performing on a long horn, and trying to get 
 out a note that was not on the instrument. There 
 
 E E 2 
 
212 'DOIVN THE road: 
 
 are only two notes, or should not be more ; and as 
 he was using a great deal of exertion to get out three, 
 I was in hopes the horn would burst and blow his 
 brains out ; and I watched the coach for some distance 
 with the hope of seeing this occur, but was disappointed. 
 
 You will remember, if you have ever travelled by 
 the ' Stamford Regent,' and have had Tom Hennesy 
 for coachman, how his shrill whisde, which was nearly 
 as loud as that on the present railway, but more melo- 
 dious, would waken up the horses, and make them 
 skip up into their collars, for fear that he was going 
 to administer it to them all round. You will remember 
 all these litde incidents, and many more. 
 
 You will say and think with me, I dare say, that 
 in spite of wet and cold, frost and snow, and all the 
 variations of temperature that one used to go through 
 on a coach, both by day and night, they were jolly 
 times, * awfully jolly,' as they say in these fast days. 
 You will, as I do, look back upon those days with 
 
 pleasure, and 
 
 ' Though the coachmen of old are dead, 
 Though the guards are turned to clay. 
 You will still remember the "yard of tin," 
 And the mail of the olden day.' 
 
AjY old coachman. 213 
 
 You will look with pleasure upon the rising gene- 
 ration as they come into the Park with their smart 
 coaches and teams, and you will admire them for 
 being ' chips of the old block,' and being fond of 
 coaching ; and though they may not all seem to know 
 their business quite as well as those who have really 
 * been on the Road,' you will make every allowance 
 for what you see amiss, and bestow your praises 
 upon the many that really deserve it ; for many there 
 are who, though they have had no chance of regular 
 road work, look like workmen and handle their horses 
 well. I had the pleasure of seeing the first start 
 of the new blue coats and yellow buttons from the 
 Marble Arch, some time since. I think there were 
 about twenty-four coaches. I fully expected to see 
 a great many muffs, and a great many collisions, and 
 some real good accidents. This, however, was not the 
 case. I saw no collision, and I saw no accident. 
 The space that was supposed to be kept for the 
 coaches was not kept at all. There were carriages 
 and every kind of vehicle all over the place, and the 
 whole arrangements were disgraceful. Yet I saw 
 none of the blue coats get into grief They came up 
 
214 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 to take the places which ought to have been kept 
 clear for them, if not by the police, by the courtesy 
 of those looking on, without any great difficulty, and 
 they threaded through the numerous vehicles like^ 
 workmen. I own I was most agreeably disappointed 
 and surprised to see so creditable a performance, and 
 I felt inclined more than once to take my hat off to 
 them. To say that I did not see ' a muff' at all 
 would not be true ; I did see one or two, and one in 
 particular, who, if he has not learnt his trade better 
 since the day I speak of, will have to listen to the 
 customary compliment, ' Better stay at home,' or, for 
 his own safety and that of the public, ' bring his 
 nurse with him.' To him, whoever he may be, and 
 to any other that may be like him, I give this parting- 
 advice :— 
 
 Do not divide your reins, and sit with them in 
 two hands nearly up to your chin, with your friend 
 holding your whip. Do not carry a long-horn in a 
 wicker basket by the side of the handle of your 
 patent break ; it looks very unworkmanlike. I am sure 
 you cannot find hands or time to use it, and added to 
 this, it is quite the wrong place for a horn, which on 
 a gentleman's drag is rather out of place at an)- time. 
 
^.V OLD COACHMAN. 215 
 
 If you must carry a horn, let it be behind, on the 
 off-side of your coach. No coachman can find time 
 to ' sound his own trumpet.' His hands are required 
 for better purposes. The bare idea of driving and 
 trumpeting at the same time is enough to call up 
 the spirits of defunct coachmen and guards. Always 
 have an apron on your box ; it hides a bad seat and 
 a pair of bent knees better than anything, and you 
 look altogether more coaching with than without one. 
 Added to this, should you carry a ' petticoat on the 
 box,' it is convenient to hide those pretty little feet and 
 ankles which are so much admired in a ball-room, but 
 which should not appear on the outside of a coach. 
 Sit straight on your box, with your elbows close to 
 your side, your hands well down, your shoulders well 
 back, your head erect, and your eyes well in front of 
 you. Do not set your back up like a ' pig in a rage, 
 and don't bend over your footboard as if you were 
 looking after the stump of the cigar you have just 
 dropped. Above all things, do not sit with your knees 
 bent ; sit with them straight, and not curled up to your 
 chin, and as if you were under the influence of a brisk 
 cathartic. 
 
2i6 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 FAREWELL TO THE READER. 
 
 It's hard to say ' farewell,' it's anguish to murmur 
 'adieu ; ' but, as there must be an end to all things, so 
 must I begin to wind up, and come to an end of what 
 I dare hardly flatter myself has been of much interest 
 to you to read. You have, however, kind reader, been 
 most indulgent to have got thus far without pitching 
 my ' little work ' out of window, which perhaps you 
 would have done, had it not in some measure beguiled 
 your idle time. It would give me real pleasure to 
 think that it had helped you to smoke your pipe more 
 comfortably than you would have done had you had 
 nothing else to occupy you but your own thoughts. 
 
 You will, I dare say, have thought many of the 
 anecdotes stupid and uninteresting, and not very full 
 of information, and that things that happened to me 
 many years since do not keep pace with the times we 
 now live in ; and, above all, that I have bored you by 
 talking too much of myself This is all true ; but as 
 
FAREWELL TO TLLE READER. 217 
 
 the little book has been a book of my own doings, 
 reminiscences of the roads on which I loved to travel, 
 and facts which have come within my own notice, you 
 must forgive 'a worn-out coachman' for talking too 
 much of himself, and clinging to old associations, 
 sayings, and doings, coachmen and guards, coaches 
 and horses, which have disappeared from the scene 
 for ever. Yes, reader, I am ' a worn-out coachman,' 
 going down-hill fast ; too fast almost to be able 
 to think of the pace. * Then why don't you put on 
 your break ? ' I think I hear you say. But to this I 
 reply : 'It's of no use ; we're close to the bottom of 
 the hill, and when we get there we shall stop, whether 
 w^e like it or no.' During the many years I drove 
 I always found that I had something to learn, and 
 tlie more I drove, the more I seemed to learn some- 
 thing. Every journey and every stage I went I was 
 sure to get a wrinkle of some kind. 
 
 Though I am well aware that some who may 
 read this may have picked up more wrinkles than 
 I have, I feel quite sure that there are many who 
 have not. In my early days I never was too proud 
 to learn anything ; I could splice a thong or put on 
 
 F V 
 
21 8 'DOWN THE ROAD. 
 
 a point with any man, and I used to fancy I could 
 work a coach as well as most * gentlemen coachmen.' 
 All these, then useful accomplishments, are now of 
 little or no use. The rail and ' Anno Domini ' have 
 got the better of us all. Mails, coaches, coachmen, 
 guards, horns, horses, horsekeepers, and even the toll- 
 bar gates are gone, and few, very few, alas ! of us 
 remain, * Pristince virttitis memores! 
 
ALAS.' ALAS/ WHERE IS IT GONE? 219 
 
 ALAS! ALAS! WHERE IS LT GONE! 
 
 Alas ! alas ! where is it gone, 
 
 That coach with its four bright bays ? 
 
 Alas ! alas ! where is it gone, 
 That spicy team of greys ? 
 
 Where is the coach ? where is the mail ? 
 
 The coachman, where is he? 
 Where is the guard that used to blow 
 
 His horn so cheerily? 
 
 Where is the guard that used to wake 
 
 The still of the early morn, 
 And rouse the sleepy toll-bar man 
 
 With the sound of the ' old mail horn ' ? 
 
 Alas I alas ! where are they gone, 
 The coach and the bays and greys ? 
 
 Alas ! alas ! where is it gone,^ 
 That ' light of other days ' ? 
 
 The sun has set that once shone out 
 
 So bright upon those teams ; 
 The night has come, and all that's past 
 
 Seems but as fleeting dreams. 
 
 'O 
 
 No more the sleepy toll-bar man 
 
 Is roused at early morn. 
 And turns reluctant out of bed 
 
 With a curse on that long tin horn. 
 
 F I'- 2 
 
220 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 No more in his nightshirt, as of old, 
 
 And his nightcap on his pate, 
 Does he hurry across the frozen road 
 
 To open the turnpike gate. 
 
 No more as he's just turned into bed, 
 
 And has just got warm again, 
 Is he doomed to attend to his toll-bar gate, 
 
 And battle with snow and rain. 
 
 He snoozes all night till broad daylight ; 
 
 His slumbers at early dawn 
 Are not disturbed by the old mail coach. 
 
 Nor the sound of the old mail horn. 
 
 The mail, the horn, the coachman, guard, 
 
 Are nowhere to be found ; 
 The four bright bays that used to trot 
 
 With that ' quadrupedante ' sound 
 
 Are dead and gone, the gate is gone ; 
 
 All now is still around ; 
 For the coachman and guard and the four briglit bays 
 
 Lie four foot under the ground. 
 
 Alas ! for the days that are past and gone. 
 
 For those palmy days of old. 
 Alas ! for the joyous hearts that then 
 
 Beat warm, but now are cold ; 
 
 Are cold and silent in the grave, 
 
 With all their jovial sounds : 
 The coachman and guards and their teams are gone 
 
 'J'o the happy hunting grounds. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 221 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Whilst my * Reminiscences of a Gentleman Coach- 
 man ' are in the press, one or two kind friends who 
 are much interested in all proceedings connected with 
 the Road, have suggested to me that ' Down the Road ' 
 will hardly be perfect without some notice being taken 
 of Modern Coaching. Indeed, I am told in the follow- 
 ing words, ' That the book would be most incomplete 
 without the " modern turn-out ; " that a few remarks 
 on the present Coaching Clubs, and of their principal 
 members ; in fact, a few lines of what is going on in 
 the present day, would be a great addition.' 
 
 I sincerely thank those kind friends for their good 
 opinion of my power to describe what I know but 
 little about. I am what is called ' out of the betting ' 
 in these fast days ; and I must leave it to some 
 younger hand and abler pen to speak of the year 
 1874, its smart coaches, and gaudy high-stepping two- 
 hundred-guinea horses, with those ' chips of the old 
 
222 'DOWN THE road: 
 
 block ' behind them, who in so praiseworthy a way 
 aspire to the rekindhng of the ' light of other days.' 
 
 My lot was not cast in the days of smart coaches, 
 and gaudy high-stepping two hundred guinea horses, 
 and I must be content with my ' Reminiscences ' of 
 the past. 
 
 It is seldom that I am to be seen in ' Babylon' 
 now-a days ; that famed city has few charms for me ; 
 but when I do go there, I find myself occasionally in 
 Piccadilly, and gazing at the coaches ; and, as the 
 spider said to the fly, ' You'll see so many curious 
 things you never saw before,' so do /. I see coaches 
 without any luggage on them. Coachmen with their 
 reins in two hands, a kind of erection on the top of 
 the coach, like in shape to what a pot-boy in olden 
 times used to carry pewter-pots full of beer in, but 
 on a much larger scale. This, I am informed, is called 
 a * knifeboad ; ' and upon this passengers desirous 
 of seeing the country, from what I consider a danger- 
 ous elevation, are sitting, not like the sparrow of old, 
 ' alone,' but in a row. This, I have been told, is an 
 improvement ; but in my humble, and perhaps ignorant 
 and superannuated opinion, I do not seem to see it. 
 
rOSTSCJUPT. 223 
 
 Added to this, I have seen a coachman pull up 
 his horses at the far-famed ' White Horse Cellar ' 
 with his reins in two hands, and then put on his 
 ' patent break,' I suppose, to stop his coach, lest his 
 horses should move on, which, in olden days they 
 were not much inclined to do, after they had done 
 their ten miles an hour, with ' twelve out and four 
 in,' and luggage in proportion. 
 
 Such curious things have appeared to my astonished 
 vision ; but I am constrained to suppose that I am ' an 
 old-fashioned Fogy,' and that it must be all right ; and 
 that, as I was informed at ' Hatchett's,' on a certain 
 day, by a certain somebody connected with the afore- 
 said ' knifeboard,' that there were many improvements 
 on the old ' stage-coach.' ' Query ? ' thinks I to 
 myself. 
 
 Times are so changed since I cut my first teeth, 
 and even since I cut my wise teeth (if you can imagine, 
 good reader, that I ever cut them at all), that a 
 thorough coaching-looking ' Jehu ' is not to be seen. 
 The' sons and orandsons of the old-fashioned ' Down 
 the Road,' with the present fashion of beards and 
 moustaches, cannot, do what they will, look like the 
 
224 'Doir.v THE road: 
 
 coachman of the olden clay, who was ' sui generis ' 
 as to look, thought, and deed. He looked differently 
 altogether, he thought differently altogether ; and if 
 by chance you saw him off his ' rostrum,' he walked, 
 carried his whip, and had a different air about him, 
 and a different cut altogether. He seemed to have 
 written on his back, as he passed you, ' I am So- 
 and-so,' and drive the ' Defiance,' * Tally-ho,' ' Regulator,' 
 'The Wonder,' ' The Hirondelle,' or some such noted 
 coach. No ! cfood reader. The race is all but extinct, 
 and I know of no mixture of breed that would 
 produce the like again, 
 
 Alas ! how can it be otherwise, now that all the 
 great roads of former clays are overgrown with 
 weeds, the coaches broken up, or perhaps turned 
 into hen-roosts, and the tea-kettle with its unmelo- 
 dious whistle has taken such full possession of every 
 thing and everybody and everybody's luggage. I do 
 not know of more than two or three men now 
 livinof whom I have ever seen on a coach — a real 
 stage-coach. There may be some others ; but, as they 
 did not frequent the same road as your humble servant, 
 I cannot speak of their merits, except from hearsay. 
 
POSTSCRfPT. 
 
 I was ' wending my weary way ' down that once 
 much patronised lounge, Bond Street, one hot sum- 
 mer's afternoon, whence those who ' took their post- 
 time therein,' in days of yore, got the name of 
 * Bond Street Swells.* It was about 5 p.m., as they 
 now have it, and the gaudy Dowagers, in their 
 gaudy equipages, were passing and repassing, and 
 like a swarm of ants were taking the air, or enjoying 
 the sun, which was fairly ' piping,' and I thought 
 almost capable of roasting me alive. When at the 
 corner of Bond Street and Piccadilly, close to a well- 
 known biscuit-shop, and opposite Christie's, the noted 
 hatter, I recognised a back I thought I ought to 
 know ; and on my laying my hand upon his shoul- 
 der, my old acquaintance turned round. ' I suppose 
 you want to cross,' said I. ' You'll stand a chance of 
 -getting run over if you do ' — for there was a great 
 crush of carriages. ' I don't want to cross,' said he. 
 ' I'm only waiting to see some of these fellows run 
 aeainst each other ! I can't make it out ! How the 
 devil do they manage to get round the corner in 
 such a crowd, without coming to grief, driving, as 
 they do, with their reins in both hands ? ' 
 
226 'DOWN THE ROAD.' 
 
 Sir Richard Bulkley — for he it was — could ' do 
 the trick ' well himself, and was as pretty a coachman 
 as need be, and could ' fan 'em along ' as well as here 
 and there one. No wonder that he should be in- 
 terested in seeing such an edifying performance, which 
 we both agreed was marvellous. Another old coach- 
 ing friend, who has seen ' the light of other days,' and 
 is still holding his own with the present generation, 
 encouraging the ' gentle art ' by every means in his 
 power, must not be forgotten. Those who live in 
 the neiohbourhood of Wrexham and Chester will 
 hardly have forgotten the cheery, good-looking young 
 (guardsman who used at times to drive the ' Oak ' and 
 'Nettle' coaches between the aforesaid towns. 'Cap- 
 tain Stracey,' or ' Tom Stracey,' as he was then called 
 (though his real name was ' Edward'), was a real lover 
 of ' the Road,' It was a pleasant sight to see him, 
 looking all over the workman he was, and still is. 
 Though since those days he has changed his name 
 to that of Colonel Stracey Clitherow, and like myself 
 has become longer in the tooth than he was twenty 
 years ago, like the old huntsman he loves to hear 
 the crack of the whip and the sound of the horn, and 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 227 
 
 is to be found horsing- and driving one of the coaches 
 out of London, which, if he has not forgotten the 
 olden days, he can do as well as anyone. 
 
 Dear old pal ! if any ' vet' were to look into our 
 mouths he would find, I am afraid, that yoit have a 
 considerable advantage over me in that respect. We 
 have, however, been friends together in ' sunshine and 
 in shower ; ' and though parted as regards coaching 
 in these days, you will probably smile when you read 
 this, and say, ' \\^hy, Charlie, you surely have never 
 been such an old fool at your time of life as to get 
 into print ! You'll either get off the road or upset 
 the coach altosfether.' 
 
 It seems but the other day, though 'tis twenty 
 years ago at least, that when I pulled up at the 
 ' Feathers' office at Chester, and inquired of the book- 
 keeper, a certain Mr. Nutt, whether he had seen Cap- 
 tain Stracey lately, ' No, sir,' he replied, ' I have not ; 
 I wish I did see him oftener, bless him ; I do like to 
 see him, he always brings his horses up " so nice," 
 and he do always look so pleasant ! ' 
 
 How many old friends of former coaching days 
 are sjone from amonijst us since the times I have been 
 
 G G 
 
228 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 speaking of, and how few remain to tell the tale of 
 former glory, I dare not think. I could mention some 
 few who I am aware have been ' down the Road,' but 
 never having driven in their company, I am not able 
 to speak of their merits, except by repute. 
 
 Of those who are gone from amongst us, I zuill not 
 speak. ' De mortuis nil nisi bonum, requiescant in pace.' 
 
 Of the rising generation I am not competent to 
 speak ; I have not the pleasure of knowing many of 
 them ; and though I admire their love of ' the Road,' and 
 their smart coaches and smart teams, it would, I feel, be 
 highly unbecoming in me to attempt (as I have been 
 requested to do) to give any opinion of the merits 
 of the ' modern turn-out.' I should get into such hot 
 water as would be past bearing. It has been, no 
 doubt, with a kind intention that I have been asked 
 to insert a chapter or two upon ' Coaching and Coaches 
 of the Present Day;' and I am grateful for the com- 
 pliment paid me by those who suppose I could do so. 
 I cannot, however, presume to criticise, and must leave 
 it to some one who is more conversant with the doings 
 of Anno Domini 1874. If I had the will or the power 
 of describing one turn-out as better than another, in 
 
POS'J'SCRirT. 
 
 these days Avhen everyone is trying to be first, and 
 vieing who can have the 6est and most expe^isive team 
 and so forth, jealousy would put in its hateful nose 
 at once — for it must be well known to all men ' how 
 happy we mortals might be if jealousy did not exist ' 
 - — and that whatever is done by the B's the C's try 
 to do more than equal, whether they have the same 
 means or not. Hence, if any presumptuous writer 
 were to have the audacity to hint that B's leaders 
 were too far from the wheelers, or that C's pole was 
 too long, and that B's was ' about the thing,' would 
 there not be a regular ' shine,' and would not jealousy 
 wink her jaundiced eye at him ? 
 
 Among the very few men remaining that have 
 ever been on a coach, surely there must be some one 
 who can ' hit them all round,' if necessary. There 
 may be some who have never seen a real, thorough- 
 bred coach, and yet who are good coachmen ; to theni 
 I commend the task. I fear that I myself may ' come 
 under the lash,' and stand a good chance of being 
 pulled to pieces for my humble endeavours to de- 
 scribe some of the incidents of coaching days, and 
 deeds long past and gone. 
 
230 'DOWN THE ROAD: 
 
 If I have accomplished what I have attempted, it 
 will be a great satisfaction to think that I have 
 attained my end. My task has been to avoid giving 
 any opinion, humble and worthless as it might be, as 
 to zaho can ' waggon ' and who can not ; whose is the 
 best team and whose is not. I have not presumed to 
 criticise. In fact, my aim has been to 'sing a song 
 of other days ' — to amuse, and not to offend. 
 
 LONDON : I'KINTRD HY 
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