46 THE COACHING ERA 



coach changed horses at Dorchester, the country boy 

 in his smock-frock was waiting with two bundles of greens, 

 a splendid fowl, and a piece of home-cured bacon. 



"Ah, that's more like it!" said Jack, giving the lad a 

 shilling. "Tell your master that Mr. Adams is very 

 much obliged to him." 



The coachmen of those days were good trencher men. 

 This, combined with the fact that they took pra6lically 

 no exercise, contributed to their enormous bulk, which 

 indeed passed into a tradition, and Tom Hood aptly 

 hit off the popular conception of them in the ballad 

 beginning: 



"John Day he was the biggest man 

 Of all the coachmen kind, 

 With back too broad to be conceived 

 By any narrow mind." 



The love of good feeding once occasioned rather an 

 unpleasant experience to the coachman and guard on a 

 night coach called the Birmingham Old Fly; a heavy 

 old-fashioned vehicle carrying six inside and seven out. 

 The road it travelled was a lonely one and badly provided 

 with inns, so that between Shipston and Woodstock there 

 was no place where a good meal could be obtained. 

 Such a long fast could not be thought of, so the coach- 

 man arranged with a man who horsed one of the stages 

 to provide a hot supper for him and the guard every 

 night. The plan answered capitally, until one day, com- 

 ing down Long Compton hill, the near-side leader, a 

 five-year-old mare, slipped and fell, injuring herself so 

 badly that she had to be destroyed. 



