156 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



' : Did you ever," somebody or other says in Vivian 

 Grey, " fight a duel ? ' . . " No ? Nor send a challenge 

 either ? " fa very different thing !) " Well, you are fresh 

 indeed ! 'Tis an awkward business indeed, even for the 

 boldest. After an immense deal of negotiation, and 

 giving your opponent even' chance of coming to an 

 honourable understanding, the fatal letter is at length 

 signed, sealed, and sent. You pass your morning at your 

 second's apartments, pacing his drawing-room with a 

 quivering lip and uncertain step. At length he enters 

 with an answer, and while he reads you endeavour to 

 look easy, with a countenance merry with the most 

 melancholy smile. You have no appetite for dinner, but 

 you are too brave not to appear at table ; and you are 

 called out after the second glass by the arrival of your 

 solicitor, who comes to make your will. You pass a 

 restless night, and rise in the morning as bilious as a 

 Bengal general." 



So slept and so rose, and in such a state appeared on 

 Putney Heath, in the history of the Portsmouth Road in 

 1652, Lord Chandos and Colonel Compton, when the 

 latter was run through the body after half-a-dozen 

 passes ; in 1798 Mr. Pitt and George Tierney, M.P. for 

 Southwark ; and in 1809 my Lord Castlereagh and Mr. 

 Canning. 



The passengers in the up mail from Portsmouth must 

 often have passed about this neighbourhood the meaning 

 procession of principals, seconds, and leeches, making 

 with a ghastly ostentation of indifference for the cele- 

 brated heath ; the principals as yellow as Disraeli has 

 described them, the seconds full of the importance of 

 self-security, the leeches sniffing guineas in the morning 

 air. The passengers on the down coaches to Portsmouth 

 may have seen such inspiring spectacles as well — and 

 after having remarked to one another, " another affair," 

 passed on to Kingston (which is eleven miles five furlongs 

 from the Stone's End, Borough), where they breakfasted. 



The old inn at Kingston, which used tc be called 



