284 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



chestnuts' heads — the four horses spring up to their 

 collars — the guard performs " Oh, dear, what can the 

 matter be ? " on his bugle in a manner which would elicit 

 an enthusiastic encoi^e at an evening concert, and we are 

 out of the coachyard almost before we know it, stealing 

 down Holborn Hill with that " fine fluent motion " which 

 De Ouincey described as characteristic of the Bristol 

 Mail — but which indeed could be experienced on any 

 crack coach which was finely driven. 



And Tom Hennesy is a master of his art. His manner 

 on the box — all great artists are mannerists — is so calm, 

 so quiet — as to be almost supercilious. But he has to 

 keep a sharp look-out, for he is driving through Egyptian 

 darkness. The weather indeed reminds us of Homer's 

 Hell ; and as for the cold, it would make a snipe shiver 

 in an Irish bog. Up Cow Lane we steal, through Smith- 

 field. The wheelers appear like phantom chestnuts ; the 

 leaders are hardly seen ; the houses on each side of the 

 way loom grim and ghostly. And through the gloom the 

 Stamford Regent steals along, like some ghost of a coach 

 itself. We on the box seat feel like unembodied joys. 

 We have already lost the use of our hands and feet. 

 Deep draughts of yellow fog complete our discomfiture. 



Suddenly shouts are heard ahead, and large herds of 

 cattle throng the streets ; they seem to spring out of the 

 foul air as everything does besides, but they come from 

 Smithfield of course, or are going there. Drovers — 

 looming phantom-like, like everything else, prove by a 

 graceful flow of expletives that they are after all but men. 

 Our near side leader now mistakes a strayed bullock for 

 some monster of mythology and swerves on one side 

 after the manner of Balaam's ass, upon which our coach- 

 man, who has up to now sat perfectly upright with hands 

 still, the very statue of an accomplished charioteer, im- 

 mobile as fate, turns his wrist under, and lets his thong 

 " go " in such a way that the near side leader's hind leg is 

 nearly severed from his body. Which duty done Tom 

 Hennesy remarks " that there are some of 'em as never 



