THE OLD ENGLAND OF COACHLNG DAYS 343 



Speeuhamland, on the Bath Uoacl — that " Peli- 

 can " of whose "enormous bill" some waggish 

 poet had sung at an early period. Mrs. Botham, 

 an awesome figure — like Mrs. Ann Nelson, of the 

 "Bull," Whitechapel, dressed in black satin^ 

 unbent to the youngsters, for whom, indeed, she 

 had always ready a packet of brandy-snaps. 



The earlier travellers were even more wel- 

 comed, not by the innkeepers alone, whose 

 welcome Avas not altogether altruistic, but by 

 the country folk in general. 



The annual reappearance of the early stage- 

 coaches was a much greater event to the villagers 

 and townsfolk of the more remote shires than we 

 moderns might suppose, or feel inclined to believe, 

 without inquiry. But we must consider the winter 

 isolation of such places in those remote times, and 

 then some faint glimmering sense of their aloof- 

 ness from the world will give us an understanding 

 of the relief with which they again saw real 

 strangers from the outer Avorld. In the long 

 winter months, when days Avere short and roads 

 only to be travelled by the most daring horsemen, 

 spurred to the rash deed only by the most urgent 

 necessity, the passing stranger Avas rare, and ex- 

 cited remark, and the company in the inn parlour 

 or by the ingle-nook discussed him, both because 

 of his rarity and by reason of their OAvn raAV 

 material for the making of conversation being 

 run very Ioav indeed. We should be more thankful 

 than Ave generally are that our lot Avas not cast 

 in a seventeenth-century village, for Avinter in such 



