196 



DRIVING. 



generation of coachmen how to get on comfortably and avoid 

 accidents, from which I myself had the good fortune to be 

 totally exempt from 1833 to 1887, some fifty-four years. 



THE OLD NORTH ROAD. 



What pleasant nights and days I have passed on the old 

 North Road, when going to shoot on the Moors in Yorkshire 

 or in Scotland ! 



Over the moors. 



Two or three friends and myself used to secure the whole 

 of the Edinburgh mail about a week previously ; we went in 

 hackney-coaches with our servants and luggage to Sherman's 

 Bull and Mouth Inn, opposite the New Post Office, and here 

 was a grand sight about eight o'clock in the evening, as the 

 yard was filled with mails and stage-coaches with enormous 

 loads, starting for the North ; teams of magnificent horses, mail- 

 guards and coachmen in their liveries of scarlet and gold lace ; 

 horse-keepers busy with the horses, porters helping to load the 

 heavy night-coaches, some of which carried from two to three 

 tons of luggage, as besides the roof and the two boots there 

 was a scrole from behind the back seat, on which was often 

 placed a heavy trunk, and occasionally a sack of oats. Some 



