THE LATER COACHMEN 247 



" How many brandy s-and- water docs that make 

 to-day ? " asked a passenger avIio had just stood 

 him one, hot. 



"This is the twentieth," replied Ward. (A 

 ghiss of hrandy-and-water then cost \s.) 



He was not regarded by his contemporaries as 

 an intemperate man, and was never -known to he 

 the worse for drink ; hnt he felt called npon to 

 exj)lain those twenty glasses, and said, " You soon 

 get it blown out of you, crossing Salisbury Plain." 



This was in 1837, and Ward was then only 

 twenty four years of age. " Youthful depravity," 

 some might say, and surmise an early and unhappy 

 end. But facts controvert such views. Harry 

 Ward, who had already, in 1833, driven on the 

 London and Glasgow Mail, and was then the 

 youngest coachman on the road, was also among 

 the steadiest, and owed his transference to the 

 Devonport "Quicksilver" to that already estab- 

 lished reputation. To his last days— he died in 

 1891, in his 81st year — he was proud of the fact 

 that he never had an accident on any road. 



Coachmen seem never to have been averse from 

 loading their coaches to their fullest capacity, 

 except in one particular. Barrels of oysters, kegs 

 of spirits, hampers of game, and such heavy and 

 bulky things, seem never to have roused objec- 

 tions ; but they nursed a grudge against literature, 

 for when the quarterly reviews were published 

 and magazine-time came round, and the fore and 

 hind boots of the night coaches were crammed 

 with the damp sheets just issued from the press, 



