EDINBURGH AND ABERDEEN 'DEFIANCE.' 383 



The Captain once drove the Edinburgh mail 

 throughout to London, being 397 miles, in forty-five 

 hours and a half. 



A gentleman who regularly drove this coach 

 for some time, having been put on by Mr. Eamsay, 

 gives a melancholy account of his visit to the locality 

 some years after the coach had been taken off the 

 road. 



He says : ' There were no smart mails coming up 

 Leith Street, with Mclntyre or McLeod or Aldersen 

 clearing the way with his yard of tin for the turn 

 at the trot opposite the Waterloo. No " Defiance " 

 with Cook's bright bugle, or Glasgow coach with 

 Eory O'More's cornet, to wake the echoes. Sadly 

 I turned and hobbled down a lot of steps, and took 

 the train to Queensferry. Shade of Eamsay ! shade 

 of Jemmy Lambert ! think of that ! The little place 

 had lost none of its beauty, though what will it 

 be when the Forth is spanned by a suspension bridge 

 with two spans, each of 1,600 feet? The nice hotel 

 was there, as nice as ever. I looked at the old 

 stables and the old coach-houses. There, indeed, 

 was the change. No well-mounted harness of Sheriff 

 and Fulton's hanging at the doors ; no strapper 

 washing a mud-splashed coach ; no horsekeeper 

 putting a " point " on to some best whip kept for the 

 "Edinburgh end." Some half-dozen bicycles leaning 



