220 DRIVING. 



Simpson, a very little light fellow, not over five feet four and 

 weighing about nine stone, was one of the numerous coachmen 

 on the Devonport and London mail, commonly called the 

 Quicksilver, timed throughout at eleven miles an hour, including 

 stoppages and changing horses, forty-five seconds being the time 

 allowed for the latter operation. Here I may interpolate, with 

 reference to Simpson's size and weight, that it used to be said 

 of the very small coachmen, of which there were not a few, 

 that what the big ones did by strength the little ones did by 

 artifice. Well, Simpson was running out of Andover driving 

 the down Quicksilver on a very tempestuous wintry night, 

 with the snow falling in thick flakes and not a soul in or on 

 the mail but himself and the guard. He had set the horses 

 into a gallop, and was rising the hill, after crossing the brook in 

 Abbots Ann Bottom, when suddenly his leaders shied off to the 

 near side, and he found himself pitched off the coach right away 

 in front of the leaders. Whether the snow made it soft falling 

 or why I cannot say, but he was unhurt, and discovered that 

 it was a tilted miller's waggon with the man asleep inside, with 

 two horses abreast in shafts, coming home empty. The lights 

 of the lamps had glanced sufficiently on the waggon and horses 

 for the leaders to see it and clear themselves, but the unfortu- 

 nate off-wheel horse had not seen it, and the shaft entering 

 his chest had killed him. The guard on his perch behind 

 had observed nothing, but suddenly found himself shot through 

 the air and falling on the dead off-wheel horse. The coachman 

 and guard, with the assistance of the miller's man, backed the 

 coach, pulled the dead horse to the side of the road, put one 

 of the leaders at wheel, and started off pickaxe, past the Golden 

 Ball to the Pheasant at Winterslow Hut, where they changed ; 

 and they reached Salisbury only forty-five minutes late. Not 

 bad work on such a night and with so little assistance to set 

 them going again ! 



Writing of Winterslow Hut reminds me that it was there 

 a lioness which had escaped from a travelling menagerie killed 

 one of the leaders in a coach that travelled this road -most 



