Jack Ainslie and his Gretna-Green Tactics. 45 



and the four came back that evening in two post- 

 chaises, with white favours, and dined together in 

 great peace. 



It was said of the first Duke of Cleveland, who 

 loved life in a post-chaise, and his orders to the post- 

 boys were always, " Now, drive like the devil ! " If 

 he gave them the word at Catterick Bridge, Mr. Fer- 

 guson, the landlord, was wont to say out loud, and 

 with much apparent feeling, "Now, lads, you'll attend 

 to his graces orders,' and then under his breath, to the 

 lads, " Don't overboil the eggs." It would have been 

 no use for Mrs. Holmes to give any such second orders, 

 if a runaway pair dashed up to the Bush and it hap- 

 pened to be Jack Ainslie's turn for " Horses on." Jack 

 was a sworn foe to parents and guardians at such 

 seasons, and believed with Mr. Toots's " Chicken," 

 that, if everything else failed, doubling them up with 

 a dig in the waistcoat was a move in the right direc- 

 tion. He would have recommended precisely the 

 same treatment in the case of a Lord Chancellor, if 

 he had come, 



" Racing and chasing on Cannobie lea," 



after some fair ward of his high court. Jack was per- 

 petually signing his name as witness to marriages, 

 and was in fact quite a consulting counsel to lovelorn 

 knights and damsels. To have him, in his yellow 

 cord jacket on the near wheeler, was worth as many 

 points to them as it was to an attorney for the plain- 

 tiff to retain Garrow or Follett. If he was pushed 

 hard, Jack knew of cunning bye lanes and woods to 

 hide them in, and had lines of gates across farms, and 

 all that sort of geography, in his eye, for an emer- 

 gency. 



On one occasion, he quite "outdid his own out- 

 doings." He had driven a couple, who had forgotten 

 to " ask mamma," early in the day to Longtown, and 

 as he thought they were taking it rather easily, he 



