Kitabı oku: «Hints on Driving», sayfa 5

THE LAST DYING SPEECH OF THE COACHMEN FROM BEAM BRIDGE

The days, nay, the very nights of those who have so long “reined” supreme over the “Nonpareils” and the “Brilliants,” the “Telegraphs” and the “Stars,” the “Magnets” and the “Emeralds,” are nearly at an end, and the final way-bill of the total “Eclipse” is made up. It is positively their last appearance on this stage.

In a few weeks they will be unceremoniously pushed from their boxes by an inanimate thing of vapour and flywheels—by a meddling fellow in a clean white jacket and a face not ditto to match, who, mounted on the engine platform, has for some weeks been flourishing a red hot poker over their heads, in triumph at their discomfiture and downfall; and the turnpike road, shorn of its glories, is left desolate and lone. No more shall the merry rattle of the wheels, as the frisky four-in-hand careers in the morning mist, summon the village beauty from her toilet to the window-pane to catch a passing nod of gallantry; no more shall they loiter by the way to trifle with the pretty coquette in the bar, or light up another kind of flame for the fragrant Havannah fished from amongst the miscellaneous deposits in the depths of the box-coat pockets. True, the race were always a little fond of raillery, and therefore they die by what they love—we speak of course of professional demise—but no doubt they “hold it hard,” after having so often “pulled up” to be thus pulled down from their “high eminences,” and compelled to sink into mere landlords of hotels, farmers, or private gentlemen. Yet so it is. They are “regularly booked.” Their “places are taken” by one who shows no disposition to make room for them; even their coaches are already beginning to crumble into things that have been; and their bodies (we mean their coach bodies) are being seized upon by rural loving folks, for the vulgar purpose of summer-houses. But a few days and they will all vanish—

 
“And like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a trace behind.”
 

No, not even a buckle, or an inch of whipcord; and if, some years hence a petrified whipple tree, or the skeleton of a coachman, should be turned up, they will be hung up side by side with rusty armour and the geological gleanings of our antediluvian ancestors.

We cannot part with our civil, obliging, gentlemanly friends of the road without a feeling of regret, and an expression of gratitude for the benefits they have done us. It was pleasant, after a warm breakfast, to remove our heels from the hob, and ensconce oneself by the side of our modern whip—to establish a partnership in his cosy leathern apron—to see him handling his four spirited bays as though his reins were velvet—and having, with a few familiar words and a friendly cigar, drawn the cork from the bottle of his varied information, to learn, as we slapped along at ten miles an hour, whose park it was, stretching away to the left, to listen to his little anecdotes of horse and flesh, and his elucidation of the points of the last Derby. “Peace to the manes and to the names” of our honest coachmen, one and all of them, and of their horses too—we speak of their whippish names, for in the body we hope they may long tarry, and flourish to boot, in other departments of the living.

AN OLD FRIEND AND A NEW FACE

To the Editor of the “Exeter and Plymouth Gazette.”

Sir,

You will oblige me by inserting the following in your paper, which may be amusing to some of your readers:—

It is a fact well known that when the subscription coaches started, in the year 1812, William Hanning, Esq., a magistrate of the county of Somerset, residing near Ilminster, was a strenuous advocate for their support, and it was in great measure owing to his exertions that they were established. This gentleman, from some motive or other, or perhaps from his known fondness for new speculations, is now the avowed supporter of a new coach, called, above all other names, the “Defiance,” and it is professedly meant as an opposition to the subscription coaches. It started from Exeter for the first time on Sunday, April 13th, 1823. One really would have supposed that under such patronage a name better calculated to keep the peace of his Majesty’s liege subjects, and to preserve harmony and good-will among men, would have been adopted for this coach, and that some other day might have been selected for its first appearance. However, the “Defiance” started on the Sunday afternoon, amidst the shouts and imprecations of guards, coachmen, and ostlers, contending one against the other, and having one ill-looking outside passenger, whose name was Revenge.

An interesting occurrence took place at Ilminster. The new “Defiance” was expected to arrive there, on its way from town, between nine and ten on the Sunday morning, and it was determined to honour it with ringing the church bells. The heroes of the belfry were all assembled, every man at his rope’s end, “their souls on fire, and eager for the fray;” the Squire was stationed about a mile from Ilminster, and seeing the coach, as he thought, coming at a distance, he galloped through the street in triumph, gave the signal, and off went the merry peal. Every eye was soon directed to this new and delightful object, when, guess the consternation that prevailed upon seeing, instead of the new “Defiance,” the poor old Subscription trotting nimbly up to the George Inn door, and Tom Goodman, the guard, playing on the key-bugle, with his usual excellence, “Should auld acquaintance be forgot?” The scene is more easily imagined than described; it would have been a fine subject for Hogarth. The bells were now ordered to cease; the Squire walked off and was seen no more. Honest Tom was not accustomed to this kind of reception; he had enlivened the town with his merry notes a thousand times, but now every one looked on him with disdain, as if they did not know him. He could scarcely suppress his feelings; but after a few minutes’ reflection he mounted his seat again, and, casting a good-tempered look to all around him, went off, playing a tune which the occurrence and the sublimity of the day seemed to dictate to him—“Through all the changing scenes of life.” Some of the good people of Ilminster who were going to church admired Tom’s behaviour, and said it had a very good effect. Tom arrived safe with his coach at Exeter about one o’clock, having started from London one hour and a half after the “Defiance,” and performed the journey in nineteen hours and a half. The “Defiance” arrived about an hour after the Subscription; but the proprietors of the latter did not approve of this system, and gave Tom a reprimand, directing him in future to keep on his regular steady pace,¹ and not to notice the other coach, which he promised to attend to, but said he only wished to show them, on their first journey, the way along. This, under all the circumstances, was admitted as an excuse. Tom went away much pleased with the adventures of his journey, and said he should never meet the Squire again without playing on his bugle “Hark to the merry Christ Church bells.”