MAIL-GUARDS 259 



There I'd always a sweetheart so snug in the bar ; 



At the Rose I'd a lily so white ; 

 Few planets could equal sweet Nan at the Star, 



No eyes ever twinkled so bright. 



I've had many a hug at the sign of the Bear ; 



In the Sun courted morning and noon ; 

 And when night put an end to my happiness there, 



I'd a sweet little girl in the Moon. 



To sweethearts and ale I at length bid adieu. 



Of wedlock to set up the sign ; 

 Hand-in-Hand the Good Woman I look for in you, 



And the Horns I hope ne'er will be mine. 



Once guard to the Mail, I'm now guard to the fair, 

 But though my commission's laid down. 



Yet while the King's Arms I'm permitted to bear. 

 Like a Lion I'll fight for the Crown. 



Something of the okl mail-guard's welcome is 

 reflected in those lines. That he was, in the eyes 

 of the country folk a highly important personage 

 admits of no douht, and that, even among the 

 upper classes, he was a trusted emissary and 

 purveyor of news is equally sure. He was, in 

 fact, news embodied. Winged Mercury might, in 

 the ancient Avorld, and may be now, the i^ersoni- 

 fication of intelligence, hot and hot ; but from 

 178 i until the first railways began to outstrij^ the 

 mail-coaches, the mail-guards were the better tyj^e. 

 They brought the first rumours of joy or sorrow, 

 of victory or defeat, down with them on the Royal 

 Mail ; and as we were warring almost incessantly 

 all over the world during the mail-coach era, few 

 were those occasions when the advent of these 

 official carriers was not awaited with bated breath. 



