go STAGE-COACB AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



steady trot. It is a lonely stretch of country, 

 treeless, flat, melancholy; and the api^earance 

 of EasinsTAVold is welcomed. At the " Rose and 

 Crown " the new team is put in, and off we go 

 again, the ten miles to Thirsk. At Northallerton 

 the horses are changed for a fresh team at tlie 

 " Golden Lion," and the fat coachman, assisted 

 down with almost as much troul)lc as he was 

 hoisted up, resigns the rihhons into the hands of 

 another. 



The usual knot of sightseers of the little town 

 are gathered about the inn to witness the one 

 event of the day, the arrival of the London coach. 

 Among them one perceives the coachman out of 

 a place ; a beggar out at elbows ; three recruits 

 with ribbons in their hats, not quite recovered 

 from last night's drink, and stupidly wondering 

 how the ribbons got there ; the " coachman wot 

 is to take the next stage"; several errand boys 

 wasting their masters' time ; and a horsey youth 

 with small fortune but large expectations, who 

 is the idler of the place — the local man about 

 town. There is al)solute]y nothing else for the 

 inhabitants of Northallerton to do for amusement 

 but to Avatch the coaches, the post-chaises and 

 the chariots as they pass along the one long and 

 empty street. 



Our box-seat passenger leaves us here. Al- 

 thousrh he has, all the wav down, shown himself 

 anxious to be intimate; with the successive coach- 

 men, and has paid pretty heavily for the privilege 

 of occupying that seat of honour, it has been of 



