END OF THE COACHING AGE 271 



By this time the iron had entered the soul of 

 our 2)oor okl friend, and had rusted there. He 

 who had heeu so smart and gay, with song and 

 joke and always good-humoured, suffered, like the 

 coach, a strange and pitiful metamorphosis. The 

 stringency of the times had thinned the estahlish- 

 ment, and in the absence of ostlers and stablemen 

 he put in the horses himself, badly groomed, and 

 the harness dirty. No one washed or cleaned the 

 coach, and it ran with the mud and dirt of many 

 journeys encrusted on its sides. His coat grew 

 seedv, his o^loves soiled. Instead of the silver- 

 mounted whip he had Avielded for years, he used 

 one of common make. The old one, he said, had 

 gone to be repaired, but somehow or another the 

 job was never completed. At any rate, no one 

 ever saw the old whip again. At the same time his 

 smart white hat disappeared and was replaced by 

 a black one : observant people, however, perceived 

 that it was the identical hat, disguised by process 

 of dyeing. He could sink no deeper, you think. 

 But he could, and did. Even the short journey to 

 which the old " Swallow " had in course of time 

 been reduced by railway extensions came at last to 

 an end ; and then he drove the " Railway Bus " 

 to and from the station, with one horse. His 

 temper, once so high-mettled, liad by now groAvn 

 uncertain. He was like an April day — stormy, 

 dull, gloomy, and with fitful gleams of sunshine, 

 all in turn. No one knew quite how to take 

 him, and every one at last left him very much 

 to himself. He was never a favourite with the 



