THE STAGE-WAGGONS 127 



gentry ought to stay at home and he damned, and 

 not run gossii3ping up and down the country. No 

 turnpikes, no improvements of roads for him. The 

 Scripture for him was Jeremiah vi. 16.* Thus," 

 says the writer, " finding Jack an ill-natured 

 brute and a profane country wag, I left him, 

 dissatisfied." 



We are not to suppose, from this imaginary 

 *' Jack Whipcord," that waggoners were generally 

 of a dour and unpleasant nature. Indeed, the 

 consensus of opinion to be collected from old- 

 world literature shows that, as a class, they 

 w^ere pleasant and light-hearted. M. Samuel de 

 Sorbiere, a distinguished Frenchman who visited 

 England in 1663 and has left a very entertaining 

 account of his travels, paints a charming little 

 cameo portrait of the waggoner who was in charge 

 of the six-horse stage-waggon by which he travelled 

 from Dover to Gravesend. The horses were yoked 

 one before the other, and beside them walked the 

 waggoner, " clothed in black and appointed in all 

 things like another Saint George. He had a brave 

 mounteero on his head, and was a merry fellow, 

 who fancied he made a figure and seemed mightily 

 pleased with himself." "Joey," too, the waggoner 

 already glimpsed in Roderick Eandom, was 

 sprightly and light-hearted; and we have the 

 evidence of that old English ballad, the "Jolly 

 Waggoner," that men of this trade were conven- 



* " Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, 

 where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest 

 for your souls." 



