280 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



According to the faculty, early rising is a healthy 

 thing, yet I have known it bring strong men to their 

 bier ; and besides, however enjoyable, though perilous, 

 it may be in summer, I think that few of us care to leap 

 from our beds at half-past five on a raw January morning. 



Yet this is what our ancestors had to do who wanted 

 to catch one of the crack northern coaches. 



Shall we follow them in the spirit on one of these 

 ghastly expeditions ? 



Our coach — we will take the Regent for choice — 

 starts at 6.30 from the George and Blue Boar, but we 

 are not there yet. We are in bed in Berkeley Square, 

 Marylebone Lane, or where you please. 



Our sleep has been fevered with grim visions of the 

 coming strife. It is broken by a loud knocking at the 

 outer door, as in Macbeth. 



Our servant, who has overslept himself according to 

 immemorial receipt, now comes to tell us that it is half- 

 past five, and that the hackney coach ordered overnight 

 to take us to the coach-office is already at the door. 



Unless on these occasions you ordered a hackney coach 

 overnight, you were utterly undone. 



We now use strange words, and ask what sort of a 

 morn it is. We are told that it is foggy, and we soon 

 see that it is yellow. We have thoughts of not going to 

 York, but we recollect that we have already bought our 

 ticket. At the same time knocking from the hackney 

 coachman below tells us that time flies. 



We now fly into our boots and hat and other things. 

 A horrible attempt at preparing breakfast has been made 

 in the interval by the penitent valet ; an impromptu 

 effort in the way of a dingy table-cloth, a tea-urn, a loaf 

 and a pat of butter, which causes us to shy on one side, 

 as a thoroughbred shies at a traction engine. We seize 

 our portmanteau, and hurry out into the eager morning- 

 air. The eager morning air is yellow, and in it the 

 hackney coachman, his horse, his coach, our servant, who 

 helps us in, all look supereminently the same colour. 



