CHAPTER XXIV. 



OLD STABLES ON THE ROADS. 



Various were the places and their aspects as 

 seen by the traveller in the course of a night on the 

 mail or coach. You might come to the large market- 

 town, a scene of bustle and business in the daytime ; 

 but when you arrived there in the middle of the 

 night, the only sound you heard was most probably 

 the guard's horn, waking up the horsekeeper, and 

 apprizing him of the approach of the mail, and that it 

 was time for him to get his horses out into the street, 

 ready for a change, if he had not already got them 

 ■there, as, from the proverbial punctuality of the mails, 

 he might be sure that almost to a minute, unless 

 something had happened to cause a delay, the mail 

 would pull up at the. change. The guard's horn 

 would also be the intimation to the person in charge 

 of the post-office to be ready to take the bags from' 

 him, in exchange for those to go on. It frequently 

 happened that the post-office in a town was some 

 little distance from the change, and then the mail 



