END OF THE COACHING AGE 269 



jerking his elbow and nodding his head towards 

 the pkice where hundreds of navvies were delving 

 in a cutting or tipping an embankment. Then, 

 squirting a stream of saliva from between his 

 front teeth, in the practised manner assiduously 

 cultivated by admiring amateurs, he would lapse 

 into a contemplative silence, quite undisturbed 

 by any suspicion that the railway really Avould 

 run the coaches off. Tlie passengers by coach 

 were nearly all of the same mind. Some thought 

 the railways would l)e useful in carrying goods, 

 but declined to believe that they or any one else 

 would ever travel by them ; and a large pro- 

 portion of the railway directors and proprietors 

 shared the same opinion, being quite convinced 

 that railways would convey heavy articles ancj 

 general merchandise, and that coaches would 

 continue to run as of old. Lovers of the road, 

 coachmen and passengers alike, called the engines 

 "tea-kettles," protested that coaching had nothing 

 to fear, and Avished their heads might never ache 

 until railroads came into fashion. They declared 

 they Avould never — no, nemr — go l)y the railroad ; 

 but at length, when some urgent occasion arose, 

 demanding speed, they trusted their precious 

 persons in a railway train, and, to their surjirise, 

 found it "not so bad after all." The next 

 occasion, such a person going to town would 

 shrink as he encountered the " SwalloAV " coach, 

 by which he had always travelled, and would feel 

 guilty as he shook his head to the coachman's 

 "Coming by me this morning, sir?" Why? 



