238 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



a whole class lie would fain have you believe in. 

 Were the later coachmen, indeed, moulded in so 

 unvarying a form ? Assuredly not, for character 

 still survived in the individual before the railway 

 age dawned, and nowhere was more marked than 

 on the box-seat. The sole person convicted of 

 brutality in that attack is Borrow himself, con- 

 signing all the objects of his dislike to misery and 

 want. 



Such men might have been found ; but we have 

 only to mention old Thomas Cross, the dreamy, 

 jDoetical, shiftless, other-worldly coachman of the 

 "Lvnn Union," the Wards, and John Thoroi^ood, 

 on the Norwich Road, to see that the road was not 

 handed over entirely to ruffians of the kind Borrow 

 draws. But in all coachmen reigned an autocratic 

 spirit, born of their mastery over four horses. In 

 some this was expressed by contemptuous replies 

 when passengers unqualified for the task en- 

 deavoured to talk about coaching and horsey 

 matters; in others it was manifested by a far- 

 away and unapproachable meditation or contem- 

 plation — or perhaps even vacuity of mind — like 

 that of some Indian fakir dwelling upon the 

 perfections of Buddha; beside which many a 

 box-seat passenger felt a mere worm. 



It was difficult to penetrate this professional 

 reserve. A remarkable character of this type was 

 John Wilson, who drove the " Everlasting " coach 

 between Wolverhampton and Worcester ; a coacli 

 so called because, at a time when all the direct 

 routes were being abandoned to railways, this 



