1 6 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



into his right boot. When on Hounslow Heath, 

 Finchley Common, Hartford Bridge Flats, or where 

 not, the customary highwayman appeared, presenting 

 pistols through the coach-window, and demanding of 

 the lady her money or her life. She, protesting 

 poverty, promptly advised inspection of the gentle- 

 man's right boot. As a consequence, the highwayman 

 rode off ten guineas the richer. Upbraidings within 

 the coach no doubt followed. 



Next day, at the inn, the lady, then in safety, 

 explained her strateg}^ She had had a thousand 

 pounds in her pocket, which she saved by her read}^ 

 wit, and out of it handsomely presented the gentleman 

 with a hundred pounds, in compensation for his loss 

 and mortification. 



The guards were well armed, but whether firearms 

 were ever actually used in repelling an attack on the 

 mail I cannot say, although in Lombard Street days 

 they were, no doubt, so used now and then. That 

 the display of arms has. warded oft' an attack more 

 than once is certainl}' the case. Mr. Thomas Doughall. 

 now living at Carlisle, was one of the last mail-coach 

 guards appointed. He entered the service in 1839, 

 at nineteen years of age. His defensive equipment, 

 when on duty, consisted of a blunderbuss and a 

 pair of pistols. Once a party of sailors commenced 

 stoning the coach, and then attacked it ; but when 

 the guard, having produced his artillery, was pre- 

 paring to fire, they caught sight of his warlike para- 

 j)hernalia and decamped. 



