336 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DA YS OF YORE 



stage with some ladies of sorts, speaks of the 

 well-estahlished custom of paying for their re- 

 freshments on the road, and mentions, between 

 Grantham and Stamford, that they were "more 

 chargeable with wine and Ijrandy tlian the 

 former part of the journey, wherein we had 

 neither; but the next day we gave them leave 

 to treat themselves," So the line was drawn 

 somewhere. 



Shergold, who in the coaching era was ^vo- 

 prietor of the " Castle Hotel," Brighton, and 

 had every reason to know what life on the road 

 was like, declared, in a very readable pamphlet 

 he wrote, that " a woman was a creature to be 

 looked at, admired, courted, and beloved in a 

 stage-coach"; but let the rash modern traveller 

 presume to look admiringly at the lady occu- 

 jiant of a railway carriage, and it is not at all 

 unlikely that she will be horribly frightened, 

 and take the next opportunity of changing into 

 another comi^artment. 



An amusing tale, declared to be true, has 

 been told of the possibilities of a coach in the 

 love-making sort. It Avas about 1780 that a 

 young gentleman, anxious to win the good 

 graces of a lady, and lacking other opportunities, 

 engaged all the remaining inside seats of the 

 coach between Glasgow and Edinburgh by which 

 he knew she would travel. He succeeded so 

 well in his enterprise that the lady consented 

 on tlie journey to be his bride ; but candour 

 comj)els the admission that the marriage thus 



