300 THE MAIL COACH. 



any promise that half-a-crown in lieu of the bare 

 shilling was about the " ticket." This, where one was 

 not already known, insured the " Tom, put them 

 coats right," and brought the horsekeeper with some 

 clean straw for the toe-board. If known as the right 

 sort, all this was done as a matter of course : one, two, 

 three, four, and we were seated. " Are ye right, sir ?" 

 "All right!" The thong lightly passed over the 

 off-wheeler, and tightening the near leading-rein 

 brought us off the curb-stone. The " Dusky Night," 

 " Old Towler," or " The Mail Coach," from the bugle, 

 .told the drowsy world that we were wide awake ; the 

 rattling of the swing bars told us that the leaders had 

 not steadied to their pace. " Who-ho ! " cried the coach- 

 man, and each horse felt his traces. We cleared the 

 town a straight mile of ground before us : no need of 

 4 ; springing' em :" they knew the spot; they were off 

 like four flushed snipes : the coachman's hands gave 

 and took with their determined pull ; away they went 

 snapping playfully at each other, as much as to say 



ten miles in forty -five minutes be : it's only a 



lark to us ! Oh the delight of thus careering across 

 a country, instead of being lugged by the tail of a 

 smoking, hissing, steaming, burning devil, who only 

 appears in his element when plunging into a tunnel 

 dark as his native Erebus. 



Who can look at the print from Herring's painting 

 of the " Mail Change " without a feeling of inspira- 

 tion ? There they stand the beau ideal of what mail 

 horses should be, and but for a few somethings worth 

 a hundred a- piece. Yerily, friend Herring, if coach- 

 ing was again in its zenith, thy judgment of the right 

 sort would be worth a thousand a-year to coach - 

 owners. Herring, Henderson, Fores and Co., though 



