'ON THE BOX: 221 



likely the Devonport mail, but of this I am not sure. This 

 same mail, or I might say two of them, had a very narrow escape 

 from collision on Hartford Bridge Flat. The down-mail was 

 nearing this spot, when the coachman turned round to his 

 guard with the remark, ' Bill seems to be in a hurry to-night ' 

 (referring to the coachman of the up-mail). ' I can hear the 

 pebbles flying, and he must be over a mile off.' It was a lovely 

 still moonlight summer's night, or rather early morning. Pre- 

 sently the coachman exclaimed, ' Why, there's not a soul on 

 the coach !' and immediately pulled as much into the heather 

 on the flat as he could, in order that the other might pass him 

 without accident. Their hearts went up into their mouths, 

 when suddenly the off-leader of the runaway coach put his ears 

 back and came at them. The coachman hit his off-wheel horse, 

 and that just saved them ; for at that pace it would be the work of 

 an instant, and the two boxes of the off- wheels of both coaches 

 just clinked together sufficiently to be heard, but not to shake 

 them. A lucky escape ! There was one passenger, a French- 

 man, inside the flying up-mail. The coachman and other 

 passengers had gone in for a cup of tea or ' hot stoppings ; ' the 

 horsekeeper had been left at the wheel-horses' heads, and was 

 holding the leaders' reins as usual, when some one called him, 

 and, very wrongly, he left his charges and ran into the house. 

 Hartford Bridge was a flat galloping stage both ways, 5^ miles 

 from Hartley Row to Blackwater, and the horses starting off 

 broke as usual into a gallop. When they got to their place of 

 changing at Blackwater, not having a coachman to steady them, 

 they kept on at their full pace and stopped suddenly at the door, 

 so suddenly that they all four slipped up. The Frenchman, 

 who had quietly sat it out, opened the door when they stopped, 

 jumped out, and rushing at the off-wheel horse, kicked him 

 violently three or four times as he lay on the ground, saying, 



' Ah ! you d n beast ! I see your white legs ' he was a 



chestnut with white legs 'going all de way/ 



Old Jack Adams was many years on the Oxford Defiance, 

 and a very first-rate coachman ; a big strong steady man with 



