40 THE DOVER ROAD 



wondered if their purses and watches were quite safe 

 which were lying snugly perdu in their boots. 



" Tst ! Joe ! " calls the coachman, from his box, 

 warningly to the guard. 



" What do you say, Tom ? " 



" I say a horse at a canter coming up," replies Tom. 



" I say a horse at a gallop, Tom," rejoins the guard, 

 entrenching himself behind his seat, and cocking his 

 blunderbuss, calling out to the passengers at the same 

 time, " Gentlemen, in the King's name, all of you ! " 



The mail stopped. The hearts of the passengers 

 within thumped audibly, and if one could not see how 

 they blenched, it was only owing to the obscurity 

 of the mildewy inside of the old Mail. There they sat, 

 in anxious expectancy, amid the disagreeable smell 

 arising from the damp and dirty straw, and the relief 

 they experienced when it was not a highwayman 

 who rode up to them, but only a messenger for 

 Mr. Jarvis Lorry, who sat shivering among the rest, 

 may (in the words of a certain class of novelists) 

 '' be better imagined than described." 



There is but one criticism I have to make cf this ; 

 but it is a serious point. There was no Dover Mail 

 coach in 1775, for the earliest of all mail coaches, that 

 between Bristol and London, was not established 

 before 1784. The mails until then were carried by 

 post-boys on horse-back. 



Of Severndroog Castle, built on the crest of Shooter's 

 Hill during the last century, I shall say nothing, 

 because, for one thing, it is of little interest, and, 

 for another, whatever has to be said about it belongs 

 to the province of the Guide Books, upon whose 

 territory I do not propose to infringe. I want to 

 give a modicum of information with the maximum 

 of amusement, with which declaration of policy I will 

 proceed along the road to Dover. 



Directly one comes to the crest of the hill there 

 opens a wide view over the Kentish Weald. Reaches 

 of the Thames are seen, peeping through foliage ; 



