2 COACHES 



Wales and Cornwall, or to the swamps and fens of the 

 opposite side of our island, to follow their vocation, and 

 to seek their subsistence. 



It was then the fate of the author of this narrative to 

 be engaged in driving a coach from one of the seaports 

 on the eastern coast, where the enemy had not yet 

 i^enetrated, but to which he bid fair soon to be a 

 welcome visitor. 



One cold, dark winter morning, a little before day, in 

 the last decade of the first half of this present nineteenth 

 century (my memory will not serve to state the precise 

 year), I was walking leisurely from my lodgings, Avith my 

 great-coat over my left arm, and my four-horse whip in 

 my right hand, to the inn from which the coach daily 

 took its departure. 



On that particular morning some serious thoughts 

 had arisen in my mind ; and a hasty retrospect of my 

 early days, contrasting strongly with the gloomy 

 prospect before me, passed through my brain. 



In London, the half-hour preceding the starting of 

 perhaps five or six coaches from any of the large 

 establishments, was a time of some little excitement. 

 The neat and elegant Telegraph Coach, with its j)olished 

 boot, on the hinder part of which was inscribed, in large 

 characters, " The Times," " The Independent," " The 

 Wonder," or some such appropriate name ; the highly- 

 varnished body, the blazing Golden Cross or the Spread 

 Eagle conspicuous on the door ^^anels ; the motley crowd 

 of people, of both sexes and all ranks, from the peer to the 

 humble mechanic, some anxious to take their seats in or 

 on these delightful conveyances; the well-groomed cattle. 



