300 THE MAIL COACH. 



any promise that lialf-a-crown in lieu of the bare 

 shiUing was about the " ticket.'^ This, where one was 

 not already known, insured the — " Tom, put them 

 coats right," and brought the horsekeeper with some 

 clean straw for the toe-board. If known as the right 

 sort, all this was done as a matter of course : one, two, 

 three, four, and we were seated. " Are ye right, sir ?" 

 — " All right!" The thong lightly passed over the 

 off-wheeler, and tightening the near leading-rein 

 brought us off the curb -stone. The " Dusky Night," 

 " Old Towler," or " The Mail Coach," from the bugle, 

 told the drowsy world that We were wide awake ; the 

 rattlino; of the swins: bars told us that the leaders had 

 not steadied to their pace. " Who-ho ! " cried the coach- 

 man, and each horse felt his traces. We cleared the 

 town a straight mile of ground before us : no need of 

 " springing' em :" they knew the spot; they were off 

 like four flushed snipes : the coachman's hands gave 

 and took with their determined pull ; away they went 

 snapping playfully at each other, as much as to say 



ten miles in forty-five minutes be : it's only a 



lark to us ! Oh the delight of thus careering across 

 a country, instead of being lugged by the tail of a 

 smoking, hissing, steaming, burning devil, who only 

 appears in his element when plunging into a tunnel 

 dark as his native Erebus. 



Who can look at the print from Herring's painting 

 of the " Mail Change " without a feeling of inspira- 

 tion ? There they stand the beau ideal of what mail 

 horses should be, and but for a few somethings worth 

 a hundred a-piece. Verily, friend Herring, if coach- 

 ing was again in its zenith, thy judgment of the right 

 sort would be worth a thousand a-year to coach- 

 owners. Herring, Henderson, Fores and Co., though 



