Coachhouse

“ The very term, stage-coach, suggests to our minds a spanking four-in-hand, in brass-mounted harness, attached to a gayly-decorated conveyance. We picture them dashing through a village under the crack of the coachman's whip. Away they go, rattling over the bridge, down the turnpike, and with a shrill blast of the guard's horn, they haul up at the wayside inn, where a fat and smiling landlord escorts the passengers in to a hot dinner. ”

“ One after another was wending his way homeward, when a coach—no common spectacle in those days—drove slowly into the street. It was an old-fashioned equipage, hanging close to the ground, with arms on the panels, a footman behind, and a grave, corpulent coachman seated high in front—the whole giving an idea of solemn state and dignity. There was something awful, in the heavy rumbling of the wheels. The coach rolled down the street, till, coming to the gateway of the deserted mansion, it drew up, and the footman sprang to the ground. ”

“ The coachman spends his Sabbath hours in the pious occupation of cracking his whip at the little boys who are playing marbles on the side-walk, reading the Sunday papers, and saying hard words at the flies which make his horses shake their nettings off—while the genteel footman goes to sleep in the carriage, with his boots out of the window, and only arouses from his slumber in time to open the door for my lady, as she comes from her courtly devotions. ”

“ A solemn-looking man, whose nose is preternaturally red, holds carefully a silver-mounted whip. Passengers arrive, and climb to the roof of the coach, before and behind, until we are "full outside." Then the guard comes with a list, carefully checks off all our names, and retires to the booking office, from which a minute later he returns. He is this time accompanied by the coachman, who is a handsome, roguish-looking man. He wears a white hat, his boots are brilliantly polished, his drab great-coat is faultlessly clean, and the dark blue neckerchief is daintily tied. ”

“ The coach was one of the vehicles of the new fashion—the fashion of public conveyances driven, for the entertainment of themselves and of the public, by gentlemen of leisure. On the Derby day all the coaches that start from the classic headquarters—the "White Horse," in Piccadilly—and stretch away from London toward a dozen different and well-selected goals, had been dedicated to the Epsom road. The body of the vehicle is empty, as no one thinks of occupying any but one of the thirteen places on the top. ”

“ The waterman darts from the pump, seizes the horses by their respective bridles, and drags them, and the coach too, round to the house, shouting all the time for the coachman at the very top, or rather very bottom of his voice, for it is a deep bass growl. A response is heard from the tap-room; the coachman, in his wooden-soled shoes, makes the street echo again as he runs across it; and then there is such a struggling, and backing, and grating of the kennel, to get the coach-door opposite the house-door, that the children are in perfect ecstasies of delight. ”

“ The poor coachman drove on till he came to the foresaid inn, where he alighted and opened the door to let out his passenger; but seeing the coach empty, and a great hole in the backside of it, he cried out, he believed he had had the devil in the coach, and that he had taken away the backside of it with him. The people of the inn came all flocking about to see what was done, and then perceiving the lines on the inside of the coach, which the bishop came and read himself, they all concluded it to be done by George, but could make nothing of it ”

“ For these men, and for the amateur coachees who during the Regency had occupied the box-seats of the foremost stages, this last period of coaching represented everything that was healthful and manly, and when the last wheel had turned, and the ultimate blast from the guard’s bugle had sounded; when the roadside inn and its well-filled stables became deserted; and when the few remaining coachmen, post-boys, and ostlers had either accepted situations with the railway companies or had gone into the workhouse, a glamour clothed the by-gone dispensation that has lost nothing with the lapse of time. ”

“ The coachman throws down the reins and gets down himself, and the other outside passengers drop down also, except those who have no great confidence in their ability to get up again, and they remain where they are, and stamp their feet against the coach to warm them; looking with longing eyes and red noses at the bright fire in the inn bar, and the sprigs of holly with red berries which ornament the window. ”

“ The crowd that spread itself over this immense expanse was as rich representation of human life off its guard as one need see. One’s first fate after arriving, if one is perched upon a coach, is to see the coach guided, by means best known to the coachman himself, through the tremendous press of vehicles and pedestrians, introduced into a precinct roped off and guarded from intrusion save under payment of a fee, and then drawn up alongside of the course, as nearly as possible opposite the grand stand and the winning post. ”

“ I inherited the love of driving from my father, who was a very good coachman; and in early days would frequently hang on a single leader to his carriage, making a “pickaxe” team, merely for the sake of initiating me in the manipulation of four reins. The promotion from donkies to ponies rather interrupted my practice; as, though we could always borrow mokes to make up a four-in-hand, it was not so easy to do so with ponies.
A real stage-coach passed our gates twice each day; and for the convenience of the contractor who horsed it, a stable was built upon my father’s premises. ”

“ Squoire drives a coach, and often on Saturday afternoons he will pull up in the very middle of our one street and shout, "Any one for the town?" And sure enough, three or four eager damsels and matrons bustle out of their cottages, are packed in as inside passengers, and away goes the coach to distant "Ziren," where country folk can see the shops and make their purchases, Squoire bringing them and their bundles home in the evening again, and never a penny to pay for carriage hire. ”

“ I fancied our American coach-drivers as glorious likewise, though with a lesser refulgence; and I distinctly recall my disappointment at the reality of the first coachman of my first coach-ride from Charlestown, New Hampshire. A man, even on a day of Indian Summer, all in hide and fur: moth-eaten fur gloves, worn fur cap with vast ear-flaps and visor, and half-bare buffalo-hide coat, and out of all these ancient skins but one visible feature, a great, shining, bulbous nose. But even the paling days of stage-coaches were then long past ”

“ I've just got off the top of the Liverpool coach, and, I can assure you, it's very cold riding outside a coach all day long—however, I always say that it's better than being inside, though, indeed, it's very little that I trouble coaches at all in the course of the year—generally travel in my own carriage, only my family have it with them in Bristol now, where I'm going to join them; but I'm well used to the elements, hunting, shooting, and fishing, as I do constantly. ”

“ I went there with an old coachman of my mother's and a lackey to put my people off the scent. There was a little moonlight. Maisons in a small carriage awaited me. We soon met. He mounted into my coach. I never could comprehend the mystery of this meeting. There was nothing on his part but advances, compliments, protestations, allusions to the former interview of our fathers; only such things, in fact, as a man of cleverness and breeding says when he wishes to form a close intimacy with any one. ”

“ Tired as the horses are after the long, hard pull; tired as the coachman must be, he cracks his whip, and we gallop up the shady lane to the dear old door as briskly as though we were fresh from the stable. Long before we are fully there, and the steps of the nine-passenger coach can be lowered; long before the boys can jump off the top, a host of dear faces, both white and black, is assembled to greet us. ”

“ The same person, and his serious young companion, tricked us out of a good bed we happened to get at the inn.
The greatest peculiarity attending a mail-coach arises from its travelling at night. The gradual decline of talk, the incipient snore, the rustling and shifting of legs and nightcaps, the cessation of other noises on the road—the sound of the wind or rain, of the moist circuit of the wheels, and of the time-beating tread of the horses—all dispose the traveller, who cannot sleep, to a double sense of the little that is left him to observe. ”

“ The thin young woman is got upon the roof by dint of a great deal of pulling and pushing, and helping and trouble; and she repays it by expressing her solemn conviction that she will never be able to get down again.
“‘All right!’ sings out the guard at last,332 jumping up as the coach starts, and blowing his horn directly afterwards, in proof of the soundness of his wind. ‘Let ’em go, Harry; give ’em their heads!’ cries the coachman—and off we start as briskly as if the morning were ‘all right,’ as well as the coach.” ”

“ There you must get down, send the carriage away, after enjoining silence on the coachman, and come in. After the ball you will undress in the same house, and then go home in sedan-chairs. Thus we shall be able to baffle the inquisitive, who will be pretty numerous, I warn you."
"My friend the marquis will see to all that," said he, "and I promise you he will do it well, for he is longing to make your acquaintance."
"I shall expect you, then, at seven o'clock to-morrow.
"Warn your friend that it is important the coachman should not be known, and do not let anybody bring a servant." ”

“ Weller are all right behind, and the coachman is all right in front, and the old gentleman inside, who has kept the window down full two inches all this time, has pulled it up again, and the cloths are off, and they are all ready for starting, except the “two stout gentlemen,” whom the coachman inquires after with some impatience. Hereupon the coachman, and the guard, and Sam Weller, and Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, and all the hostlers, and every one of the idlers, who are more in number than all the others put together, shout for the missing gentlemen as loud as they can bawl. ”

“ He flung his cloak hastily from his shoulders and shouted to his coachman in an unnatural voice, "Home at full speed!" The coachman, hearing the tone which is generally employed at critical moments, and even accompanied by something much more tangible, drew his head down between his shoulders in case of an emergency, flourished his whip, and flew on like an arrow. In a little more than six minutes the prominent personage was at the entrance of his own house. ”

“ You have not time to go back, there is no place open to go into, and you have, therefore, no resource but to go forward, which you do, feeling remarkably satisfied with yourself and everything about you. You arrive at the office, and look wistfully up the yard for the Birmingham Highflier, which,330 for aught you can see, may have flown away altogether, for no preparations appear to be on foot for the departure of any vehicle in the shape of a coach. ”

“ As the coach rattles through the village, every one runs to the window, and you have glances on every side of fresh country faces, and blooming giggling girls. At the corners are assembled juntas of village idlers and wise men, who take their stations there for the important purpose of seeing company pass; but the sagest knot is generally at the blacksmith's, to whom the passing of the coach is an event fruitful of much speculation. ”

“ The private coachman varied in those days, as he has always done, according to the position of the master or mistress whom he served; and Mercier, writing at a later period, indicates a sufficient variety of cochers of this class. “You can clearly distinguish the coachman of a courtesan,” he says, “from that of a president; the coachman of a duke from that of a financier; but, at the exit from the theatre, would you like to know where such and such a vehicle is going? Listen to the order which the master gives to the lackey, or rather which the latter transmits to the coachman. ”

“ Life's traveller takes th' uncertain stage.
The sketch in this suggestive plate introduces us to the court-yard of the Dolphin Inn, a famous posting-house. The life to be found in these coach-yards was attractive material to our artist, and he has delineated with rare skill all the bustle and preparation of a departure. The coach is 'braced' up, the horses are put-to, the guard and his 'helps' are busied in loading luggage on the roof, and stowing parcels in the boot and under the box-seat. ”

“ Coachmen were of somewhat similar opinions. “Lord! sir,” said Hine, coach-proprietor and coachman on the Brighton Road, in 1831, who was, much against his will, obliged to accelerate his coaches in order to keep pace with newcomers, but did not relish the necessity, “we don’t travel half so comfortably now as we used to do. It is all hurry and bustle nowadays, sir—no time even for a pipe and glass of grog.” Not comfortable for the coachmen, who sadly missed their wayside, and often wholly unauthorised, halts. ”

“ The coachman flanks his leaders, who break into a gallop; the guard sounds his triumphant bugle; the coach bounds over the noble bridge that spans a stream covered with craft; public buildings, guildhalls, and county gaols rise on each side. ”