174 DRIVING. 



the Wheatsheaf at Atconbury Hill, the Haycock at Wansford, 

 and the George at Grantham. Although I had no driving, I 

 passed three very pleasant years in Peterborough, with five 

 other pupils, at a tutor's. We read six or eight hours on most 

 days ; in summer we hired a four-oar from Cambridge and 

 rowed on the Nene ; we also sailed on Whittlesea Mere, then a 

 lake about fourteen miles round, where we shot snipe, ducks, 

 teal, widgeon, sheldrakes, ruffs and reeves, herons, and other 

 birds. There were some very fine men in the Fens, who lived 

 entirely by the gun, especially one Bate, six feet two. He shot 

 with an old flint and steel gun, worth a few shillings, and for 

 wadding he picked dry sedge as he walked along. I once 

 asked him how it was that he scarcely ever missed a snipe ; he 

 replied, ' I never shoots at them, I always shoots where they're 

 a-going, and then the shot meets them ' this, however, is a 

 digression from coaching. 



In 1833 I went to live in London, where I had such a 

 seven years of coaching as I shall never forget. At that 

 time all the mail coaches assembled once a year on the ist of 

 May, either in Lincoln's Inn Fields or some other roomy place, 

 coachmen and guards all in their new liveries of scarlet and 

 gold, all the horses in ne*r sets of harness All the best 

 horses in or near London belonging to the mails were put in 

 on that day; several gentlemen, lovers of the road, such as 

 Sir Henry Peyton, Sir Lawrence Palk, and several others, also 

 lent their own teams to join in the procession, as the mails 

 were driven through all the principal streets in the West End ; 

 but, before leaving London, all the regular mail teams were 

 put in again. A dinner was always given at Westminster to 

 the mail coachmen and guards ; at this Mr. Chaplin (after- 

 wards member for Salisbury) presided, and he generally gave 

 * shouldering ' as a toast, which was considered a capital joke. 

 As the meaning of the word will be little understood by the 

 present generation, I may explain that it referred to a system 

 in vogue which was rather against the interest of the coach pro- 

 prietors. Coachmen were allowed to pick up * short passengers ' 



