Chapter 4

A very great authority on coaching—the famous ‘Nimrod,’ the mainstay of the Sporting Magazine—writing in 1836, compares the exquisite perfection to which coaching had attained at that time with the era{13}
A RIP VAN WINKLE
Image unavailable: THE ‘COMET.’
THE ‘COMET.’

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of the old Exeter ‘Fly,’ and imagines a kind of Rip Van Winkle old gentleman, who had been a traveller by that crazy conveyance in 1742, waking up and journeying by the ‘Comet’ of 1836. Rousing from his long sleep, he determines to go by the ‘Fly’ to Exeter. In the lapse of ninety-four years, however, that vehicle has been relegated to the things that were, and has been utterly forgotten. He waits in Piccadilly. ‘What coach, your honour?’ asks a ruffianly-looking fellow.

‘I wish to go home to Exeter,’ replies the old gentleman.

‘Just in time, your honour, here she comes—them there gray horses; where’s your luggage?’

But the turn-out is so different from those our Rip Van Winkle knew, that he says, ‘Don’t be in a hurry, that’s a gentleman’s carriage.’

‘It ain’t, I tell you,’ replies the cad; ‘it’s the “Comet,” and you must be as quick as lightning.’ Whereupon, vehemently protesting, the ‘cad’ and a fellow ruffian shove him forcibly into the coach, despite his anxiety about his luggage.

The old fellow, impressed by the smartness of the Jehu—a smartness to which coachmen had been entire strangers in his time—asks, ‘What gentleman is going to drive us!’

‘He is no gentleman,’ replies the proprietor of the coach, who happens to be sitting at his side; ‘but he has been on the “Comet” ever since she started, and is a very steady young man.’

‘Pardon my ignorance,’ says our ancient, ‘from the cleanliness of his person, the neatness of his{16} apparel, and the language he made use of, I mistook him for some enthusiastic bachelor of arts, wishing to become a charioteer after the manner of the illustrious ancients.’

‘You must have been long in foreign parts, sir,’ observes the proprietor.

Presently they come to Hyde Park Corner. ‘What!’ exclaims Rip, ‘off the stones already?’

‘You have never been on the stones,’ says a fellow-passenger; ‘no stones in London now, sir.’

The old gentleman is engaged upon digesting this information and does not perceive for some time that the coach is a swift one. When he discovers that fact, and mentions it, he is met with the rejoinder, ‘We never go fast over this stage.’

So they pass through Brentford. ‘Old Brentford still here?’ he exclaims; ‘a national disgrace!’ Then Hounslow, in five minutes under the hour. ‘Wonderful travelling, but much too fast to be safe. However, thank Heaven, we are arrived at a good-looking house; and now, waiter, I hope you have got breakf——’

Before the last syllable, however, of the word can be pronounced, the worthy old gentleman’s head strikes the back of the coach with a jerk, and the waiter, the inn, and indeed Hounslow itself, disappear in the twinkling of an eye. ‘My dear sir,’ exclaims he, in surprise, ‘you told me we were to change horses at Hounslow. Surely they are not so inhuman as to drive those poor animals another stage at this unmerciful rate!’
THE GALLOPING GROUND

‘Change horses, sir!’ says the proprietor; ‘why,{17} we changed them while you were putting on your spectacles and looking at your watch. Only one minute allowed for it at Hounslow, and it is often done in fifty seconds by those nimble-fingered horse-keepers.’

Then the coach goes fast and faster on the way to Staines. ‘We always spring ’em over these six miles,’ says the proprietor, in reply to the old gentleman’s remark that he really does not like to go so fast. ‘Not a pebble as big as a nutmeg on the road, and so even that the equilibrium of a spirit-level could not be disturbed.’

‘Bless me!’ exclaims the old man, ‘what improvements; and the roads!!!’

‘They are at perfection, sir,’ says the proprietor. ‘No horse walks a yard in this coach between London and Exeter—all trotting-ground now.’

‘A little galloping ground, I fear,’ whispers the senior to himself. ‘But who has effected all this improvement in your paving?’

‘An American of the name of M’Adam,’ is the reply; ‘but coachmen call him the Colossus of Roads.’

‘And pray, my good sir, what sort of horses may you have over the next stage?’

‘Oh, sir, no more bo-kickers. It is hilly and severe ground and requires cattle strong and staid. You’ll see four as fine horses put to the coach at Staines as ever you saw in a nobleman’s carriage in your life.’

‘Then we shall have no more galloping—no more springing them as you term it?’

‘Not quite so fast over the next stage,’ replies the{18} proprietor; ‘but he will make good play over some part of it; for example, when he gets three parts down a hill he lets them loose, and cheats them out of half the one they have to ascend from the bottom of it. In short, they are half-way up it before a horse touches his collar; and we must take every advantage with such a fast coach as this, and one that loads so well, or we should never keep our time. We are now to a minute; in fact, the country people no longer look to the sun when they want to set their clocks—they look only to the Comet.’

Determined to see the changing of the team at the next stage, the old gentleman remarks one of the new horses being led to the coach with a twitch fastened tightly to his nose. ‘Holloa, Mr. Horsekeeper!’ he says, ‘you are going to put an unruly horse in.’—‘What! this here ’oss,’ growls the man; ‘the quietest hanimal alive, sir.’ But the good faith of this pronouncement is somewhat discounted by the coachman’s caution, ‘Mind what you are about, Bob; don’t let him touch the roller-bolt.’ Then, ‘Let ’em go, and take care of yourselves,’ his next remark, seems a little alarming. More alarming still the next happening. The near leader rears right on end, the thoroughbred near-wheeler draws himself back to the extent of his pole-chain, and then, darting forward, gives a sudden start to the coach which nearly dislocates the passengers’ necks.

We will not follow every heart-beat of our old friend on this exciting pilgrimage. He quits the coach at Bagshot, congratulating himself on being still safe and sound, and rings the bell for the waiter.{19}
THE ‘REGULATOR’
Image unavailable: THE ‘REGULATOR’ ON HARTFORD BRIDGE FLATS.
THE ‘REGULATOR’ ON HARTFORD BRIDGE FLATS.

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A well-dressed person appears, whom he takes for the landlord. ‘Pray, sir,’ says he, ‘have you any slow coach down this road to-day?’—‘Why, yes, sir,’ replies the waiter. ‘We shall have the “Regulator” down in an hour.’

He has breakfast, and at the appointed time the ‘Regulator’ appears at the door. It is a strong, well-built drag, painted chocolate colour, bedaubed all over with gilt letters—a Bull’s Head on the doors, a Saracen’s Head on the hind boot, and drawn by four strapping horses; but it wants the neatness of the other. The waiter announces that the ‘Regulator’ is full inside and in front; ‘but,’ he says, ‘you’ll have the gammon-board all to yourself, and your luggage is in the hind boot.’

‘Gammon-board! Pray, what’s that? Do you not mean the basket?’

‘Oh no, sir,’ says John, smiling, ‘no such a thing on the road now. It’s the hind-dickey, as some call it.’

Before ascending to his place, our friend has cast his eye on the team that is about to convey him to Hartford Bridge, the next stage. It consists of four moderate-sized horses, full of power, and still fuller of condition, but with a fair sprinkling of blood; in short, the eye of a judge would have found something about them not very unlike galloping. ‘All right!’ cries the guard, taking his key-bugle in his hand; and they proceed up the village at a steady pace, to the tune of ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,’ and continue at that pace for the first five miles. The old gentleman again congratulates{22} himself, but prematurely, for they are about to enter upon Hartford Bridge Flats, which have the reputation at this time of being the best five miles for a coach in all England. The coachman now ‘springs’ his team and they break into a gallop which does those five miles in twenty-three minutes. Half-way across the Flats they meet the returning coachman of the ‘Comet,’ who has a full view of his quondam passenger—and this is what he saw. He was seated with his back to the horses—his arms extended to each extremity of the guard-irons—his teeth set grim as death—his eyes cast down towards the ground, thinking the less he saw of his danger the better. There was what was called a top-heavy load, perhaps a ton of luggage on the roof, and the horses were of unequal stride; so that the lurches of the ‘Regulator’ were awful.

Strange to say, the coach arrives safely at Hartford Bridge, but the antiquated passenger has had enough of it, and exclaims that he will walk into Devonshire. However, he thinks perhaps he will post down, and asks the waiter, ‘What do you charge per mile, posting?’

‘One and sixpence, sir.’—‘Bless me! just double! Let me see—two hundred miles at two shillings per mile, postboys, turnpikes, etc., ￡20. This will never do. Have you no coach that does not carry luggage on the top?’—‘Oh yes, sir,’ replies the waiter; ‘we shall have one to-night that is not allowed to carry a bandbox on the roof.’—‘That’s the one for me; pray, what do you call it?’—‘The “Quicksilver” Mail, sir; one of the best out of London.’—‘Guarded and{23}
THE ‘QUICKSILVER’ MAIL
Image unavailable: THE ‘QUICKSILVER’ MAIL:—‘STOP, COACHMAN, I HAVE LOST MY HAT AND WIG.’
THE ‘QUICKSILVER’ MAIL:—‘STOP, COACHMAN, I HAVE LOST MY HAT AND WIG.’

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lighted?’—‘Both, sir; blunderbuss and pistols in the sword-case; a lamp each side the coach, and one under the footboard—see to pick up a pin the darkest night of the year.—‘Very fast?’—‘Oh no, sir, just keeps time, and that’s all.’—‘That’s the ‘coach for me, then,’ says our hero.

Unfortunately, the ‘Devonport’ (commonly called the ‘Quicksilver’) mail is half a mile faster in the hour than most in England, and is, indeed, one of the miracles of the road. Let us then picture this unfortunate passenger seated in this mail on a pitch-dark night in November. It is true she has no luggage on the roof, nor much to incommode her elsewhere; but she is a mile in the hour faster than the ‘Comet,’ at least three miles quicker than the ‘Regulator.’ and she performs more than half her journey by lamplight. It is needless to say, then, our senior soon finds out his mistake; but there is no remedy at hand, for it is dead of night, and all the inns are shut up. The climax of his misfortunes then approaches. He sleeps, and awakes on a stage called the fastest on the journey—it is four miles of ground, and twelve minutes is the time. The old gentleman starts from his seat, dreaming the horses are running away. Determined to see if it is so, although the passengers assure him it is ‘all right,’ and assure him he will lose his hat if he looks out of window, he does look out. The next moment he raises his voice in a stentorian shout: ‘Stop, coachman, stop. I have lost my hat and wig!’ The coachman hears him not—and in another second the broad wheels of a road waggon have for ever demolished the lost{26} headgear. And so we leave him, hatless, wigless, to his fate.