THE OLD STAGE COACH.

Otago Witness, Issue 3018, 17 January 1912, Page 106

THE OLD STAGE COACH.

By the Rev. W. M. Statham.

[All Rights Resehved.] In the days when I was a boy the 4>ld stage coaches of England were just being improved off the road. Some of my readers may doubt the propriety of the word "improved"; for, just as some people like the old melodies, and are fond of ditty, "Sing me one of the old songs," so there are persons existing now ■who love to recall the old coach days. They enjoyed the rattle of the stage coach over the stones of the old town up to the White Hart, or the Red Lion, or the King's Arms. There groups of loungers stood waiting for the smoking team to gave place to the four glossy while the polished brass on the harness sparkled like burnished gold in the sunshine. Then the coachman swung his lost weight off the box with a Wellerlike dignity, for which only practice could bring perfection. Certainly there was more "humanity" in the picture than in ugly trains and ■unadorned railway stations, and tunnels, end general crush and confusion. The old coaches were picturesque enough in the landscape, ?nd the old inns were as unlike modern gin-palaces as can possibly be- conceived ! They were generally kept, too, by staid and respectabe members of society, who stood well with the vicar and the general respectabilities of the place. They went to church with considerable regularity, and frowned on im--s>roprieties inside or outside the bar paronr. There were exceptions, of course, but in the main this is a true statement of the case. However, their time was over, and the old coaches passed away with great dignity, and with no revolutionary hubbub. They continued in many places "to run for a time to quiet out-of-the-way places; whilst those at first afraid of trains, and those who had protested they would never travel by them, had time to eat their own words in a quliet and unstartling sort of way. .But in tiie course of a few years these subsidiary coaches also succumbed to necessity, and were drafted off for holiday purposes, or quietly shunted away into roomy old* stables, where they might earn a crust now and then in summer excursions, or gently prepare themselves for disintegration. One such old coach I well remember in a rare roomy old stable of a village in my boyhood „ days. I befieve the ostler used "the inside" for a sort of bedroom for a fellow-ostler " out of luck " now and then; but in the main it served as a

playt-Mng for juveniles not above a game , at hido-and-seek, or even so little advanced as to seek for the amusement of sham coachmanship on the crazy old box. That old coach, like a broken-down oid gentleman, had strange tales to tell of past history and adventures, and communicated Borne of these to me in after years, when I went to nay him a visit at Christmas time, in the old stable, when bovhood

Lad merged into manhood. Of course, he had a wheezy voice, considering all the dust from hay and chaff that had gathered into his Jungs: hut for all that I heard his eld tales pretty clearly. I cannot tell you how many grand names the fine old fellow repeated —marquises, baronets, clukes, he mentioned by dozens—and I uelieve "that he said King George IV, when he was Prince Regent, had honoured the front seat with his presence. " Nobody quarrels about me now," said the old coach. " hut there were plenty of hot words then about who should have the honour of the box seat; and. look Tiere, Willie (for the old coach was very familiar with me, having known me as a boy).' I own I was a little ' lifted up ' just then, and used to cxj)ect all the old market-carts and waggons and one-horse shays to get out of my way; but I had to learn, as you will have to learn, sir,

that honour doesn't last very long in this world. Many an old woman have I passed in after years that all the Oxford men once gazed after with admiration when she jvaa young and fair. One comes to market still, I believe, and people call her old Mother Todgers. Little, do folk knownowadays what a ' belle' she once was, and what a compliment it was to get a emile from her. I remember one night, which was very wet, we took her up coming home from market, and a swell on the box said he would see her from the coach road to the village. ' No, thank you, sir,' she said at once, ' Roger (that was her carpenter lover) will be at the cross roads to meet me, and if he doesn't, your station and mine don't agree, so we had better go our own ways.' Sure enough, when we came to the Chalfont turning, there was Roger, as is dead now, but as fine and hearty a fellow as ever sawed timber, and it did me good to see them trudge off arm in arm under the same umbrella. ' There's mettle there,' Bays I, and couldn't help laughing inwardly at how quiet 'the box' was after that/our parson couldn't have preached a better sarmon than that about ' your station and mine !' But I have had strange company in my day. Lawyers hurrying down to make the will of some old client that was dying, and bride and bridegroom sorrv that "they couldn't have the 'inside' to themselves, tipping my coachman uncommon liberal, while he was soft-sawdcr-ing the old attorney as to the beautiful prospect outside, which in two senses he didn't ' see.'

" And that there boot of mine," said the old coach—"that is a rare place. I've had, let me see, a pedlar*s jewel?, a lot of bridecakes, a child's coffin, and, on one occasion. «a wounded dog—l (shan't for. get him. Be kind to a dumb animals, my lad; thev are grateful, if Christchuns Isn't. Why, one night a top of Redhill. when you could hardly see a step ahead.

an.ii the horses were panting up the crown of ~A\e hill, I heard a whining cry almost like a child's—a poor little half-starved dog had been run over by some booby or other, and, handing the ribbons to the box, the coachman got down in a twinkling, and lifted up the little crippled terrier, and at the next stage we mended him —that is to say, strapped up lus broken leg, and then gave h:-m a warm nest in the boot. D'ye think he'd leave that boot afterwards? Not for weeks. He barked and snapped at every ostler as tried to lift him out, but was' as gentle as a child to the coachman, and licked his hand, and gave a whine of gladness. After a few weeks he would run about the coach, and would nestle down anywhere, on the boot, in the boot, on the roof, and sometimes, when he had improved into a well-fed handsome terrier, he would now and then condescend to go inside a stage to amuse ' the ladies.' But, my word, he was a protection to that coach, and saved old coachy's cargo. You see, we used to carry the mail-bags, and from time to time had large cash parcels specially forwarded. On one occasion—and 'heaths' was heaths then, wild and desolate—we were a-coming over old Hillingdon Heath. It was dark as pitch, and hailing like PZgypt. We had no outside, and only one fellow inside taking care of the bank parcel, when I heard ' Limper,' for that was the name we gi*ve the dog, barking and jumping all over the top of the old coach. ' Lay down!' says the coachman, but he wouldn't, and then he reaches back with his whip and gives him a crack, and says, ' Hold your nose ! Lay down, Limper !' But he barks worse than ever, and flies to the back of the coach. In a moment, ' Stop !' calks the inside, 'Stop! stop!' and we were just in time —only just, fcr a fellow had burst opon the door at the back of the coach, and was gong to rifle the contents. I heard the rintr of the inside's pistfi • but, the fellow had made off in tie dark|:ies3, nnd we were all right, and off without any loss. But Lin-,per saved the bags that night, and ever afterwards he reemed conscious that he had a right to his home with us.

• - Ah! one story starts another," said the old coach, "and it makes me think ot tlie old Christinas times, this here talk does. We hadn't got to wait for the fares then. There was a rush for places. and such 'booking' weeks before, and orf we went to the nilinute ; Gift the multitude stayed at home, and servants, and clerks, and shop-women couldn't do as they do now, crowd away from town V>r city to visit the dear old homes but they would come, many on 'em,' with little parcels and messages to 'mother," saying, so touching like to the coachman, 'you'll tell her you've seen U 3, Ben.' And Ben, who was a favourite all along the Oxford road, used to drop his reins and descend in the old village amidst crowds of inquiries after Emma and Tom, and Eliz& and Harry."

'■men you do admit," I said to my old friend the old coach, "that these days are better than the days of old?"

"Certainly I do, in some sort," he said "it was very pleasant to take home a crowded, cheerful company, but it was sad to see so many disappointed faces of those who couldn't pay, and those for whom there was no room! Nowadays the railways say, 'the more the menier' and all over England, even the humblest can get a day 'at home.'" But, with a touch of quiet philosophy, the old coach added, "I'm not quite so sure in the long run that railways have done good in one respect. I know they rather break in upon the steady home life of old England, and give people a dissipated sort of everlasting travelling taste, and that isn't over good. After all, my lad," he said, "get a foundation somewhere —don't be like them French, always on their 'Boulyvars,' 1 think they call them • nor like the Americans, always living at big hotels. Hut if you've improved on old coaches and old chimney-corners, mind you keep a love for home. The best of my experience." said the old coach, "is this: that I have never found my travellers so genial, so cheerful, so generous, and so happy, as when they were going home." "You've seen various strange aspects of character," I sa'id to the old coach, "haven't you?" ""Queer, indeed! was the reply. "We had a great lord as used to ride with us, and Mich a 'figger,' no crossing-sweeper would have picked up his hat and certainly no old clo'man would have invested in his great-coat. And he says to my coachman one day, 'Yjju see, Ren, nobody knows me when I'm away, and > everybody knows me when I'm at home!' Yes, queer people in other respects. There was (me gen, who was pretty well off, and insane on only one point—he thought he could diive; and by cleverly bribing the coachman he used to get a turn or two no wand then over the 'commons,' but after wrecking one coach over a donkeycart, and another into half a dozen booths at a country fair, he found the bill of damages too heavy for his means. Rut, lor bless you, drive he must; and the last I saw'of him he was driving a large partv as hadn't no idea of what sort of a driver he was, in a holiday van. Queer people? Yes! And cross people when no scenery could interest and no merriment amuse; and selfish people, who woiild let delicate women be pushed to the edge seats on cold winter nights, as nearly °froze them to death. But, on the whole, human nature showed up pretty well, and I've seen a deal of pity and kind'ne£6, and good-humour, and I had a very good time of it on the whole: especially at "Christmas, with the hard roads, and the rattling teams, and the white fields, and the fine fresh air, and the home-going travellers. Ah! I could write a book, that I could," said the old coach as it wheezed a little in the throat, and looked round at the old corn-bins, and hav-lofts, and other surrounding appurtenances of the old inn stable. "But I know as how there's plenty of them 'book*/ so I must be content to talk on

till they—what's that word, sir, they uses instead of 'burying' ?—till they " "Cremation, you mean." "Yes! till they cremates me for next Christmas fire."