THE STAGE-WAGGONS 145 



not changed their pattern, and their dim okl horn 

 hmterns Avere genuine antiques ; tlieir Avheels, as 

 clumsy as ever they had Ijeen, shrieked for grease 

 and racked the ears of the lieges as they had 

 always done ; and the lieges swore at the waggoners 

 and the waggoners cursed hack at them in strange 

 provincial dialects, just as their resjiective ancestors 

 had been wont to do for more generations than one 

 cares to count. The Londoner little imagined — 

 because his imagination on any suljject is small 

 — Avlien he looked dully upon these old convey- 

 ances, and the old inns to which they came, that 

 he was gazing upon a survival of the age of Eliza- 

 beth ; and while he was thus failing to realise the 

 exquisite interest of what he saw, the " common 

 stage waggons," as they Avere technically named 

 by Act of Parliament, ceased altogether off the 

 face of the earth, and nearly all the old galleried 

 inns Avere sAvept aAvay. 



VOL. I. 10 



