238 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



Who does not remember all these things ? Who has 

 not read them again and again ? I declare that I think 

 this second chapter of A Tale of Two Cities a picture of 

 the old coaching days more perfect than any that has 

 been painted. Every detail is there in three pages. 

 Every colour, every suggestion, from " the mildewy inside 

 of the old Mail, with its damp and dirty straw, its dis- 

 agreeable smell, and its obscurity," to the guard's arm- 

 chest where the blunderbuss lay recondite ; to that smaller 

 chest too in which there were a few smith's tools, a couple 

 of torches, and a tinder-box. " For he was furnished 

 with such completeness that if the coach lamps had been 

 blown and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, 

 he had only to shut himself up inside, keep the flint and 

 steel sparks well off the straw, and get a light with toler- 

 able safety and ease (if he were lucky) in five minutes." 

 I can see the passengers hiding their watches and purses 

 in their boots (still fearful that the messenger who had 

 stopped the Mail was a highwayman), their hearts beat- 

 ing loud enough to be heard, and the panting of the 

 horses communicating a tremulous motion to the coach 

 — as if it too were in a state of agitation. Which fancied 

 peril passed — if we had been in the Dover Mail on that 

 memorable night with Mr. Jarvis Lorry — we should have 

 probably taken our watches gradually out of our boots 

 as we passed Welling, Bexley Heath, and Crayford, in 

 order that on arrival at the Bull Inn at Dartford, we might 

 walk to the bar comfortably to take a drink. 



And the Bull at Dartford looks, at the present time of 

 speaking, much as it must have done to the passengers 

 by the Dover Mail in 1775. It is indeed one of the finest 

 inns on the Dover Road. Here at the Bull at Dartford 

 we have a galleried courtyard (not however rendered 

 more interesting to artistic eyes by the addition of a 

 glass roof, under which local corndealers try to get the 

 best of a bargain). We have also the low archway 

 decorated with game suspended, the kitchen on one side, 

 the bar on the other, and a general atmosphere of de- 



