3^0 HIGH IV AYS AND HORSES. 



encouragement to highway robbery, then to a period 

 of faster travelling on the road, and lastly, to the 

 time when road travellinor ceased altogether owinQ- to 

 the introduction of railways. 



Although I call this chapter, " Past and Present." 

 I do not think we need speak much of the present, 

 since we do not now live in the days of road travellino-. 

 Yet, before concluding this chapter, I will give an 

 extract from Dickens' " Martin Chuzzlewit," in which 

 he speaks of a fast night-coach, and from Washington 

 Irving's "Sketch- Book ; " neither of them were written 

 in the days of highwaymen or indifferent catde, but 

 at a time when the perpetration of a robbery on the 

 King's highway would have been almost as remarkable 

 as it would be now ; and when, so far as regarded four- 

 horse coaches, the w^ord slow- coach had no significance 

 in fact. This description compares favourably with 

 the descriptions of coaching which Dickens wrote 

 during his tour in America. It is as follows : 



" The four greys skimmed along as if they liked it 

 quite as well as Tom did ; the bugle was in as high 

 spirits as the greys ; the coachman chimed in sometimes 

 with his voice ; the wheels hummed cheerfully in unison ; 

 the brass-work on the harness was an orchestra of 

 little bells ; and thus, as they went clinking, jingling, 

 rattling smoothly on, the whole concern, from the 

 buckles of the leaders' coupling-reins to the handle of 

 the hind boot, was one great instrument of music. 



" Yoho ! past hedges, gates, and trees ; past 

 cottages and barns, and people going home from work. 

 Yoho ! past donkey-chaises drawn aside into the ditch, 

 and empty carts with rampant horses, whipped up at a 

 bound upon the little watercourse, and held by struggling 

 carters close to the five-barred gate, until the coach 



