io8 



COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



is timed at eight miles an hour through a 



great 



coach 



extent of country, and has therefore — to borrow an illus- 

 tration from poetry — to make play when she can. This 

 occurs after she has left The Golden Farmer and The 

 White Hart at Blackwater behind her, and entered upon 

 a very dreary and dismal tract of country known as 

 Hartford Bridge Flats. To the lover of scenery this 

 place affords few attractions, but it is as a sweet-smelling 

 savour in the nostrils of old coachmen, being known 



■. "**« 





The White Hart at Blackwater. 



indeed as the best five miles for a coach in all England. 

 The ground being firm, the surface undulating, and 

 the Regulator being timed twenty-three minutes over 

 the five miles, the coachman proceeds to ''spring his 

 cattle." The coach being heavily laden forward, rolls 

 in a manner which it is quite impossible to find a simile 

 for, and Mirabel utterly gives himself up for gone. In 

 the midst of one of its best gallops the Regulator meets 



