THE IIOLVIIICAI) ROAD 



3^'5 



were defying the tliiinder — but they soon saw that he 

 knew what he was doing, and could do it. 



Of quite a different type was one Winterbotham — 

 who drove the Holyhead Mail four stages out of Holy- 

 head and who on one occasion when Mr. l^irch Reynard- 

 son — the great authority in this part of the world — 

 approached the coach, was described to him by the guard 

 as being " amazing fresh." " Amazing fresh " is not only 

 good in my eyes : it is delicious. And how when 



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The Falcon and the Bear, Chester. 



Winterbotham presently put in an appearance did he 

 answer to this poetic description ? Why, amazingly. 

 " He approached rolling about like a seventy-four in a 

 calm ; or as if he were walking with a couple of soda- 

 water bottles tied under his feet." The peculiarity of 

 this gait, which might have been much appreciated on 

 the Metropolitan boards as an eccentric dancer's new 

 departure, did not appeal to the teller of this tale as 

 prophetic of safety from the box-seat of a crack coach. 

 So Winterbotham in all the meridian of his freshness was 



