TWO FOREIGNERS ON COACHING 237 



the pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an embryo 

 Coachey. 



"Perhaps it might be owing to the pleasant serenity 

 that reigned in my own mind, that I fancied I saw 

 cheerfulness in every countenance throughout the 

 journey. A stage-coach, however, carries animation 

 always with it, and puts the world in motion as it 

 whirls along. The horn, sounded at the entrance of a 

 village, produces a general bustle. Some hasten forth 

 to meet friends, some with bundles and bandboxes 

 to secure places, and in the hurry of the moment can 

 hardly take leave of the group that accompanies them. 

 In the meantime the coachman has a world of small 

 commissions to execute. Sometimes he delivers a hare 

 or pheasant; sometimes jerks a small parcel or newspaper 

 to the door of a public-house, and sometimes, with 

 knowing leer and words of sly import, hands to some 

 half-blushing, half-laughing housemaid an odd-shaped 

 billet-doux from some rustic admirer. As the coach 

 rattles through the village, every one runs to the window, 

 and you have glances on every side of fresh country 

 faces and blooming giggling girls. At the corners are 

 assembled juntos of village idlers and wise men, who 

 take their stations there for the important purpose 

 of seeing company pass; but the sagest knot is generally 

 at the blacksmith's, to whom the passing of the coach 

 is an event fruitful of much speculation. The smith, 

 with the horse's heel in his lap, pauses as the vehicle 

 whirls by; the cyclops round the anvil suspend their 

 ringing hammers, and suffer the iron to grow cool; and 

 the sooty speftre in brown paper cap, labouring at the 

 bellows, leans on the handle for a moment, and permits 

 the asthmatic engine to heave a long-drawn sigh, while 

 he glares through the murky smoke and sulphurous 

 gleams of the smithy. 



