3o6 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



they had been set spinning, were feehng very low in 

 their minds. And old Barker, safe as the Bank of 

 England, as he always was, quieted the four roans, and 

 negotiated the bridge without further revolution of any- 

 thing, except wheels. 



And here I think that I may leave the coaching side of 

 the York RoaJ. When I leave it, I leave by no means the 

 most important or the most picturesque side of its story. 

 I have still something to say of the York Road's grand 

 inns, as fine specimens of their class of building as are 

 to be found anywhere in England. Witness the great 

 hostelries at Huntingdon, Stamford, Stilton, and Grant- 

 ham. And these fine houses are not only interesting 

 in themselves, picturesque as the quaint towns, of which 

 they are the centre, but they are alive with history, 

 fragrant with memories of those good old times, 

 when the Mail performed the whole 199 miles in t\vo 

 days and three nights, if God permitted, and complaints 

 were made about so extraordinary a velocity, which had 

 caused several intrepid travellers on reaching London to 

 die suddenly of an affection of the brain. 



But before I deal in detail with the York Road's 

 great inns, I think that a ride over the distance will 

 be advisable, if only to give some sort of idea as to how 

 the land lies. And we have been in coaches and Flying- 

 machines so often, that I think that a turn on horse- 

 back may be a welcome change. And so I propose to 

 go to York with Dick Turpin, though he was pronounced 

 by Macaulay to be a myth. 



I find then, on referring to the prophet Ainsworth, 

 that Dick Turpin started for his celebrated ride from 

 the Jack Falstaff at Kilburn — an inn I do not find in 

 my Paterson's Roads. Here, after having regaled a 

 cosmopolitan company with several flash chaunts, gener- 

 ally prefaced by some such remark as " Let me clear 

 my throat first ! And now to resume ! " the gallant 

 Turpin's improm[)tu oratorio was interrupted by the 

 rapid entrance of those who- -'' in point of fact " wanted 



