NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 329 



whispered David in the iiKjuirer's ear, *' its a horseboot the Captain 

 has gotten in his pocket^ 



It is said no man can be called a coachman, unless he has once floored 

 a coach, forasmuch as until he has done so, he knows not how to get her 

 up again. Up to the time I left Scotland, the Captain had only floored 

 bis once, and his description of the solitary event was capital. '* She 

 fell as easy, as though she had fallen on a feather bed ; and, looking 

 out for a soft place, I alighted comfortably on my feet." Speaking se- 

 riously, however, the Captain is a safe coachman, and to prove his being 

 of opinion that it is never too late to improve, he now and then goes to 

 Cambridge and back with Joe Walton on the Star, for the purpose of 

 having a lesson from that very superior artist. Lord Kintore, indeed, 

 calls the Captain, " Joe Walton secundus!" 



I should much have liked to have been on the Defiance, at the time I 

 am now going to allude to. A snob of a passenger took it into his head to be 

 offended at something the Captain, who was driving, did or said; and at 

 length his ire prompted him to tell him — having mistaken him for one of 

 the coachmen — that if he was on the ground, instead of on the box, he 

 would give him a thump on the head ; adding, most emphatically, the 

 following bravado : " Aye, if you were the great Captain Barclay 

 himself!" The Captain was silent until he alighted at the next change, 

 when his passenger also alighted. " Now, Sir," said the Caplain, " I 

 am the great Captain Barclay himself, ready to receive your thump on 

 the head." The result may be imagined —it was *' no go.*' 



It cannot be a matter of surprise, that the efforts of Captain Barclay, 

 and his coadjutor, Hugh Watson, Esq. of Keillor, in establishing a coach 



2 u 



