THE LIONESS ATTACKING CARRIERS CART.
“Sometimes it is lonesome, but I often meet very useful agreeable people in rambling over the Heath.”
Arrived at Blackheath, the two ladies descended, and, feeling that they had established a sufficient acquaintance with the polite gentleman who had been their fellow-traveller, they invited him to partake of a cup of tea at their residence before proceeding on his journey, which invitation he gratefully accepted.
As the evening wore on, a rubber of whist was proposed, the gentleman taking “dummy.”
After a short lapse of time, looking at his watch as by a sudden impulse, he observed that it was growing late, and he was afraid he was keeping them up.
“I shall now take my leave, deeply impressed by your kind hospitality; but before I make my bow I must trouble you for your watches, chains, money, and any small articles of jewellery which you may have in the house.”
The ladies looked aghast, hardly able to realise the situation. Their guest however remained inflexible, and having, with his own dexterous hands, cleared the tables of all articles sufficiently portable, was proceeding to ascend the stairs, when one of the ladies uttered a piercing scream. On this, he sternly assured them that silence was their only safety, whilst giving any alarm would be attended by instant death. Then, having possessed himself of all the money and valuables he could command, he left the house, telling the ladies with a smile, that they had conferred a most delightful and profitable evening on Mr. Richard Turpin.
There are instances on record of attacks of other descriptions upon the royal mails. History records the strange adventure of the Salisbury mail, on its journey from London to Exeter in the year ——. Whilst passing the neighbourhood of Winterslow Hut, on SalisburyPlain, the coachman’s attention was attracted to what he at first thought was a huge calf cantering alongside of his leaders. The team at once became very fretful, and evinced such fear that the driver had some difficulty in keeping them in the road. Suddenly the creature he had mistaken for a calf made a lightning spring on to the back of one of the leaders, and swinging round so as to catch it by the throat, clung like a leech to the paralysed and terrified animal. The guard displayed great presence of mind, and taking his firearms with him, ran forward and delivered acoup de grâceto the attacking monster, which proved to be a lioness escaped from a travelling menagerie. This was her second exploit of the kind. She had previously pounced upon a horse drawing a carrier’s cart, and killed, but not mutilated, the animal, the driver being far too much bewildered and alarmed to dream of resistance.
“A team well put together is half driven,” was an old and true adage, and of more certain application than many of the same character, as for example: “A bird well marked is half bagged.” Not a bit of it. The bird is awake, and, expecting to be flushed again, gets up much sooner than he is expected and flies awkwardly. “A bottle of physic well shaken is half taken.” I trust my readers have discovered this way of diminishing the dose.
In illustration of the first adage, I may mention that I had an innate love for driving, dating from so early a period as my keeping in my desk at school a well-matched team of cockchafers, until, finding them too slow for my work, I established in their place a very fashionable team of white mice, all bred on the premises. These when harnessed to a “Gradus” as a break were very safe and steady. With a Greek grammar or “Delectus” they could fly.
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. The incentive given to me by the desire to get my dismissal from my tutor in time to see the coach change horses conduced more to my classical acquirements than any other circumstance.
The regularity of coach work is one of its greatest merits, and operates more upon thewell-conditioning of the men, horses, and all concerned, than is usually supposed.
It is a pretty sight to see a team of coach horses at a roadside change prepared and turned round, each one listening anxiously for the horn which proclaims the arrival of the coach, and the commencement for them of a ten-mile stage, which may have to be done perhaps in fifty-two minutes, with a heavy load, woolly roads, and the wind behind.
This does not sound like attraction to create much pleasurable impatience; but such is the fascination of coaching work that all horses, except, of course, those underbred vulgar screws which can take delight in nothing, whatever their antecedents may have been, become so moulded into their work and places (for this is a most important feature in my text) that it perfects them for the work expected of them in every particular. Bad tempers are subdued and become amiable;bad feeders become after a time so ravenous as to be able to entertain a “duck in their mess;” nervous fretful horses become bold and settled. Old Crab, who persistently refused to drink out of a bucket when he came here, or even to allow a stable bucket to be brought near him, has overcome all his scruples, and, to use the horsekeeper’s own words: “He wun’t wait for his turn, but when the bucket is ’ung on to the nose of the pump he’ll go and stick his old nose in it, and begin to neigh and ’oller like anything.”
A coach horse, although he has apparently few opportunities of employing his intelligence to his own advantage, whose life is spent in the stable, except when taken to the forge, or to the horsepond, will evince to his employers, in spite of this monotony, some habits and tastes which, if he is indulged in them, will nearly double his value. For instance, every coach horse hasa favourite place in a team, and will go well and do well in that place; and by careful watching it will soon become evident to the coachman and to the horsekeeper which is the place selected by his taste.
Regard to this is most important. The same animal which becomes a “lawyer,” because “he won’t do no more than we pay him for,” and is often forgotten at the near-side wheel, and is always coming back to you if put on the off-side, or, better still, before the bars, will be straight, steady, and cheerful in his work, with a mouth you might control with a thread.
This is when you have found out the place with which he is pleased and satisfied. Try him on the opposite side, and you will find him laying his whole weight upon the pole, his partner on your fingers.
“Everything in its place and a place for everything” was a maxim constantly preached by thehead-master of a certain public school, founded by one Sutton; and the proof of his theory was put to the test by a strange fancy he had taken. He was watching the evolutions of a small Carthusian army, under the command of a colour-sergeant of the Scots Guards, and observed that his first word of command was to “fall in” and “size.” This was quickly done, and the effect so much tickled the doctor, that, on the following Sunday morning, when his catechism class was arranged before him, he thought it would be well to impress a little of the military element into the arrangement of the boys; so he requested the young gentlemen to take their places according to their sizes. Of course they were very obtuse, and could not for the life of them understand his order. Even when he placed them with his own hands, there was a deal of shuffling and confusion to get back to their old places. The doctor, however, had hisway, and M or N, who was a short, thick, rosy-cheeked boy, was supplanted by a tall, overgrown, sickly-looking youth of double his stature, and so on according to height, the lowest being in the centre. No. 2 agreed to his “godfather” and “godmother” having given the name of M or N to No. 1; but he could not tell why No. 3, when asked what his sponsors then did for him, preserved an obstinate silence, and, when much pressed, said they were both dead! In fact, arranged as the class then was, if the doctor had asked the questions in High Dutch and expected the answers in Hebrew, he would have got as much information; whereas, if they had kept their own places there would not have been a word in the answers omitted.
Opposition—A quick change—How to do it—Accident to the Yeovil mail—A gallop for our lives—Unconscious passengers—Western whips—Parliamentary obstruction.
A
Althoughopposition was fierce, certain rules of etiquette and honour were most rigidly observed on the road, which rendered immunity from accidents much more general than would have been supposed. It was an understood thing that no coach should pass another actually in motion unless invited to do so by the coachman driving the leading coach at the time. The race became much more exciting in cases where there was a little diversity in the roads between two points in the destination.
The change in the fast coaches, where the horsekeeper and his mate knew their business, was effected in a minute and a half; and, like everything else connected with the fast coaches, required to be done strictly according to rule.
The man receiving the leader, near or off-side, seizes the rein behind the saddle or pad, and draws it out of the head-terret of the wheeler, then, doubling it several times, he passes of it through the terret, unhooks the coch-eyes the traces, and the leaders are free. Though still coupled they should be accustomed to walk aside a few paces, out of the way of the coach.
The horsekeeper at the heads of the wheelers should first double the rein through the terret, to prevent its being trodden upon and cut; then, by raising the end of the pole, unhook the pole-chain, which will admit of the horse standingback in his work, and enable the traces to be easily lifted off the roller-bolts, the wheelers being uncoupled before he leaves their heads.
The fresh team, when brought out, should be placed behind the spot where the coach pulls up, so that they may walk straight up into their places without having to be turned round, which always entails delay. The fresh team being “in-spanned,” the coachman or guard (or both) assisting in running and buckling the reins, the business is complete.
However quickly the change may be effected, it behoves a coachman to look round before he takes his reins, as a very trifling omission may give rise to serious delay, if not dangerous trouble. I have known the most careful horsekeepers forget to couple the wheel-horses, which, especially in the dark, when it is more likely to happen, is an omission nothing but the greatest judgment and patience on the part of the coachman canrender harmless, since most coach-teams, more frequently than not, jump forward into their work, and are not so easily stopped.
It is in cases of this description that so many accidents are prevented, in the present day, by the use of that admirable invention the patent break. We are indebted to the French for this very useful appliance, and although many wheel-horses are spoiled by the too frequent use of it, the number of accidents and broken knees which are averted must be untold.
To pull up a heavily-loaded coach on a descent requires strength of arm, as well as power in the wheelers, to stop it; whereas, after having stopped the coach with a good strong break, the pulling up of the horses is comparatively easy. How different from the days when we had nothing but the old skid (or slipper) and chain, which was very little used except on the heavy coaches and over the most severe pitches,on account of the loss of time occasioned by its adjustment and removal.
Accidents, however, are not always to be avoided by pulling-up, as I shall show by relating an incident which occurred to me many years ago in the West of England, in which nothing could have saved our limbs or necks but my having recourse to the opposite alternative, and keeping the team at the top of their speed for dear life.
I was indulging in my favourite pastime and driving the “Yeovil” mail. We were full inside, and there were two gentlemen besides the professional coachman, Jack Everett, outside. I had a little short-legged quick team, belonging to Mrs. Stevens, of the Halfmoon, from Crewkerne to Chard. They were accustomed to do this ground very fast, but would not stop an ounce down the hills.
The roads being hard and slippery, and,having a load, I took the precaution to put on the shoe to come down Chard Hill. We were swinging along merrily when suddenly the skid chain, in jumping over a stone, parted. This catastrophe allowed the coach to slip uncomfortably and suddenly upon the shoulders and cruppers of the wheelers, and one of them, being a bit of a rogue, evinced his disapprobation by giving several sudden bolting lurches and throwing himself upon the pole.
In one of these evolutions more sudden and violent than the rest the pole snapped off in the futchells!
Here was a predicament! Half-way down one of the ugliest hills in England, with a resolute frightened team and a broken pole. Nothing for it but to put them along and keep them galloping. The broken pole bobbing and dancing along at the end of the chains helped me materially to do this. The leaders finding the bars at theend of the whippletree all gone mad, took the hint and went off as hard as they could lay legs to the ground. My only care was to keep them straight, and the pace so good as to prevent the coach getting upon the lock, in which case we must have gone over.
THE YEOVIL MAIL.
It was a fearful moment, and never in all my coaching experience have I passed through such a crisis.
“Let ’em have it!” cries Jack Everett.
“Nothing but the pace can save us!” cries Fred North, the guard.
She rocked, they galloped, we shouted to encourage them. Fortunately they were very evenly matched in pace. If there had been one shirk it must have been fatal.
Providence protected us on this occasion, and I had the good fortune to keep the pace up till we got upon a level, and then gradually stopped her, and, by way of a finale, we had a rattlinggood kicking match before we could get the wheelers away from the coach.
I have been in many coach accidents, some of which, I regret to say, have been much more serious in their results, but I always consider that our lives were in greater jeopardy for the four or five minutes after that pole snapped than during any other epoch of my life.
Rarely, if ever, has there been a similar accident upon a plain open road. Poles are often snapped by inexperienced coachmen getting upon the lock in attempting to turn without room, and trusting to the strength of the pole to drag the coach across the road.
Not a hundred yards from the place where I pulled up the mail stood the yard and premises of a working wheelwright, who improvised, in a marvellously short time, a temporary pole, and by attaching the main-bar to a chain leading from the foot-bed, and splicing it to the pole, we didnot lose three-quarters of an hour by the wholecontretemps. Moreover, strange to say, until the wheelers began trying to write their names on the front-boot at the bottom of the hill, the four inside passengers were perfectly unconscious that there had been anything wrong! One of the party—a lady—remarked to me that “the mail travelled so delightfully fast that it appeared to have wings instead of wheels.”
When the iron monster had invaded England, and the investment of the principal towns was nearly complete, the last corner which remained to the coaches was the far West, where the business was carried on with great energy and spirit to the very last.
Exeter became the great centre. About seventy coaches left the city daily, Sundays excepted—the “Dorchester” and “London,” the “Falmouth,” “Plymouth,” “Bath,” “Launceston,” and “Truro” mails. The “London” mail (direct), commonlycalled the “Quicksilver,” was said to be the fastest mail in England, performing the journey (one hundred and sixty-six miles) in twenty hours, except during fogs or heavy snow. This mail was driven out of London by Charles Ward (now the proprietor of the Paxton Yard, Knightsbridge), who left the White Horse Cellars (now the Bath Hotel), Piccadilly, at eight every evening, until Mr. Chaplin shifted his booking office to the Regent Circus.
The numerous coaches working between Exeter and the west coast were principally horsed by Cockrane, New London Inn; Pratt, Old London (now the Buda), and Stevens, Halfmoon Hotel.
The day and night travelling was kept up until fairly driven off by the common enemy.
During the two or three years before the railway was opened this part of England became the warm corner for coaching; and all the talent of the road, having been elbowed out of otherplaces, flocked to the West. Charles and Henry Ward, Tim Carter, Jack Everett, Bill Harbridge, Bill Williams, and Wood, not forgetting Jack Goodwin, the guard, who was one of the best key-buglers that ever rode behind a coach.
This incursion of talent aroused the energies of some of the Devonshire whips engaged at that time, M. Hervey, Sam Granville, Harry Gillard, Paul Collyns, William Skinner, etc.
There were four Johnsons, all first-class coachmen, sons of a tailor at Marlborough, who were working up to the last days of coaching. Anthony Deane—or Gentleman Deane, as he was commonly called—drove the only mail left after the opening of the rail to Plymouth—the “Cornish” mail to Launceston.
After she was taken off the road he did not long survive, but died at Okehampton. He was a fine coachman, a good nurse, and an admirable timekeeper.
The “Telegraph,” when first put on by Stevens of the Halfmoon, left Exeter at 6.30A.M., breakfasted at Ilminster, dined at the Star at Andover, and reached Hyde Park Corner at 9.30P.M., thus performing a journey of one hundred and sixty-six miles in fifteen hours, including stoppages. There was some encouragement to coaching in those days. A good mail was a real good property. The “Quicksilver” mail and the “Dorchester” mail, alone, paid the rent (twelve hundred pounds per annum) of the New London Inn. The profits of the former were a thousand pounds per annum; and those of the “Dorchester” two hundred pounds; the profits of the first-named being augmented by the fact of the booking office, both ways, being at Exeter. The mails from London on the second of each month were always a little behind time, being so heavily laden with the magazines and periodicals.
In spite of the tremendous pace at which the mails travelled, accidents were very rare. All coaches were heavily laden about Christmas time with parcels and presents. On one occasion, the “Defiance” from Exeter, with an unreasonable top-load, was overtaken by a dense fog, and the coachman (Beavis), getting off the road before he got to Ilminster, was upset and the driver killed upon the spot. An eminent friend and patron of the road, Mr. E. A. Sanders, took the matter in hand, and collected upwards of eight hundred pounds for the widow and children, with which, as the latter grew up, he started them all in life.
There were many fast coaches besides the ordinary six-insider, such as the “Balloon” and “Traveller,” from Pratt’s, New London, the “Defiance,” a fast coach, from the Clarence Hotel, Congleton, the “Favourite” (subscription), and several others.
In the year 1835, all the Exeter and Londoncoaches were stopped by heavy snow, at Mere, on the borders of Salisbury Plain. Amongst the passengers were the late Earl of Devon, the Bishop of Exeter, Mr. Charles Buller, and seven other members of Parliament, all on their way to attend the opening of the session. They were delayed a whole week.
As the London coaches were gradually knocked off by the advance of the rail, the competition upon other roads out of Exeter became more rife, and the opposition warmer.
The “Warwick Crown Prince”—“Spicy Jack”—Poor old Lal!—“Go it, you cripples!”—A model horsekeeper—The coach dines here—Coroner’s inquest—The haunted glen—Lal’s funeral.
T
Thecoach which I have selected by way of exemplifying my remarks was the “Warwick Crown Prince,” and, at the time I adopted it, was driven by Jack Everett, who was reckoned in his day to be as good a nurse, and to have fingers as fine, as anybody in the profession.
He took the coach from The Swan with Two Necks, in Ladd Lane, to Dunstable, and there split the work with young Johnson, who,though sixty years of age, had three older brothers on the bench. “Spicy Jack” was the beau ideal of a sporting whip. He was always dressed to the letter, though his personal appearance had been very much marred by two coach accidents, in each of which he fractured a leg. The first one having been hurriedly set a little on the bow, he wished to have the other arranged as much like it as possible; the result being that they grew very much in the form of a horse-collar. These “crook’d legs,” as he called them, reduced his stature to about five feet three inches. He had a clean-shaved face, short black hair, sharp intelligent blue eyes, a very florid complexion, rather portly frame, clad in the taste of the period: A blue coat, buttons very widely apart over the region of the kidneys, looking as if they had taken their places to fight a duel, rather than belonging to the same coat. Alarge kersey vest of a horsecloth pattern; a startling blue fogle and breast-pin; drab overalls, tightly fitted to the ankle and instep of a Wellington boot, strapped under the foot with a very narrow tan-coloured strap. The whole surmounted by a drab, napless hat, with rather a brim, producing a “slap-up” effect.
When at the local race-meetings, “Spicy Jack” dashed on to the course in a sporting yellow mail-phaeton, his whip perpendicular, his left hand holding the reins just opposite the third button of his waistcoat from the top. Driving a pair of “tits” which, though they had both chipped their knees against their front teeth, and one of them (a white one) worked in suspicious boots, produced such an impression upon the yokels that no one but “Spicy Jack” could come on to a racecourse in such form.[4]
All this appeared like “cheek,” but it was quite the reverse; for in spite of the familiarity which was universally extended to this “sporting whip,” he never forgot his place with a gentleman, and a more respectful man in his avocation did not exist.
“Well, Jack, what are we backing?” was the salutation of a noble lord who had given him a fiver to invest to the best of his judgment.
“Nothing, my lord; we are not in the robbery.”
“How’s that? we shall lose a race.”
“Well, you see, my lord, it was all squared and the plunder divided before I could get on.”
Nobody knew the ropes at Harpenden, Barnet, and St. Albans, when the platers ran to amuse the public, and the public “greased the ropes,” better than the waggoner of the “Crown Prince.”
This is a rest day and the “spare man” works. Let us take a full load away from Ladd Lane.Ten and four with all their luggage; roof piled, boots chock full, besides a few candle-boxes in the cellar.[5]She groans and creaks her way through the city, carefully, yet boldly driven by our artist, and when she leaves her London team at the Hyde and emerges into an open road, she steals away at her natural pace, which, from the evenness of its character, is very hard to beat.
There was one coach, and only one, which could give these fast stage-coaches ten minutes and beat them over a twelve-mile stage!
It was before the legislature forbade the use of dogs as animals of draught, that there dwelt upon the Great North Road, sometimes in one place, sometimes in another, an old pauper who was born without legs, and, being of a sporting turn of mind, had contrived to get built for himself a small simple carriage, or waggon, very light, havingnothing but a board for the body, but fitted with springs, lamps, and all necessary appliances.
To this cart he harnessed four fox-hounds, though to perform his quickest time he preferred three abreast. He carried nothing, and lived upon the alms of the passengers by the coaches. His team were cleverly harnessed and well matched in size and pace. His speed was terrific, and as he shot by a coach going ten or twelve miles an hour, he would give a slight cheer of encouragement to his team; but this was done in no spirit of insolence or defiance, merely to urge the hounds to their pace. Arriving at the end of the stage, the passengers would find poor “Old Lal” hopping on his hands to the door of the hostelry, whilst his team, having walked out into the road, would throw themselves down to rest and recover their wind. For many years poor Old Lal continued his amateur competition with some of the fastest and best-appointed coaches on the road; hisfavourite ground being upon the North Road, between the Peacock at Islington and the Sugarloaf at Dunstable. The latter place was his favourite haven of rest. He had selected it in consequence of a friendship he had formed with one Daniel Sleigh, a double-ground horsekeeper, and the only human being who was in any way enlightened as to the worldly affairs of this poor legless beggar.
Daniel Sleigh, as the sequel will prove, richly deserved the confidence so unreservedly placed in him—a confidence far exceeding the mutual sympathies of ordinary friendship; and Daniel Sleigh became Old Lal’s banker, sworn to secrecy.
Years went on, during which the glossy coats of Lal’s team on a bright December morning—to say nothing of their condition—would have humbled the pride of some of the crack kennel huntsmen of the shires. When asked how he fed his hounds, he was wont to say: “I neverfeed them at all. They know all the hog-tubs down the road, and it is hard if they can’t satisfy themselves with somebody else’s leavings.” Where they slept was another affair; but it would seem that they went out foraging in couples, as Old Lal declared that there were always two on duty with the waggon.[6]
When the poor old man required the use of his hands, it was a matter of some difficulty to keep his perpendicular, his nether being shaped like the fag-end of a farthing rushlight; and he was constantly propped up against a wall to polish the brass fittings of his harness. In this particular his turnout did him infinite credit. Of course his most intimate, and indeed only friend, Dan Sleigh, supplied him with oil and rotten-stone when he quartered at Dunstable; and brass, when once cleaned and kept in daily use, does not require much elbow-grease. Lal’stravelling attire was simplicity itself. His wardrobe consisted of nothing but waistcoats, and these garments, having no peg whereon to hang except the poor old man’s shoulders, he usually wore five or six, of various hues; the whole topped by a long scarlet livery waistcoat. These, with a spotted shawl round his neck, and an old velvet hunting-cap upon his head, completed his costume.
The seat of Lal’s waggon was like an inverted beehive. It would have puzzled a man with legs to be the companion of his daily journeys. These generally consisted of an eight-mile stage and back, or, more frequently, two consecutive stages of eight and ten miles.
An interval of several years elapsed, during which I did not visit the Great North Road. When at length I did so, I hastened to inquire for my old friends, many of whom I found had disappeared from the scene—coachmen changed,retired, or dead; horsekeepers whom I had known from my boyhood, shifted, discharged, or dead.
Under any other circumstances than driving a coach rapidly through the air of a fine brisk autumnal morning, at the rate of eleven miles an hour, including stoppages, the answers to my inquiries would have been most depressing.
Dunstable was the extent of my work for that day, which afforded me the opportunity of working back on the following morning.
Arrived at The Sugarloaf, gradually slackening my pace and unbuckling my reins, I pulled up within an inch of the place whence I had so often watched every minute particular in the actions of the finished professionals.
D—— was the place at which the coach dined, and, being somewhat sharp set, I determined to dine with the coach, though I should have to spend the evening in one of the dullest provincial towns in England.
I had brought a full load down. The coaches dined in those days upon the fat of the land. Always one hot joint (if not two) awaited the arrival of the coach, and the twenty minutes allotted for the refreshment of the inward passenger were thoroughly utilised.
A boiled round of beef, a roast loin of pork, a roast aitchbone of beef, and a boiled hand of pork with peas-pudding and parsnips, a roast goose and a boiled leg of mutton, frequently composed amenuwell calculated to amuse a hungry passenger for the short space allotted him.
The repast concluded and the coach reloaded, I watched her ascend the hill at a steady jog till she became a mere black spot in the road. I then directed my steps to the bottom of the long range of red-brick buildings used as coach-stables, where I found old Daniel Sleigh still busily engaged in what he called “Setting his ’osses fair.”
This implied the washing legs, drying flanks, and rubbing heads and ears of the team I had brought in half-an-hour ago. Although the old man looked after the “in-and-out” horses, he always designated the last arrival as “My ’osses,” and they consequently enjoyed the largest share of Dan’s attention: “Bill the Brewer,” “Betsy Mare,” “Old Giles,” and “The Doctor.”
Dan Sleigh was a specimen of the old-fashioned horsekeeper, a race which has now become obsolete. He had lived with Mrs. Nelson, who was one of the largest coach proprietors of the period, for thirty-nine years, always having charge of a double team. He rarely conversed with anybody but “his ’osses,” with whom, between the h—i—ss—e—s which accompanied every action of his life, he carried on asotto voceconversation, asking questions as to what they did with them, at the otherend, and agreeing with himself as to the iniquitous system of taking them out of the coach and riding them into the horsepond, then leaving them to dry whilst Ben Ball—the other horsekeeper—went round to the tap to have half-a-pint of beer.O tempora! O mores!
Many of his old friends had fallen victims to this cruel treatment. A recent case had occurred in the death of old Blind Sal, who had worked over the same ground for thirteen years, and never required a hand put to her, either from the stable to the coach or from the coach to the stable. She caught a chill in the horsepond, and died of acute inflammation.
When I interrupted old Dan he was just “hissing” out his final touches, and beginning to sponge the dirt off his harness. He recognised me with a smile—a shilling smile—and the following dialogue ensued.
Daniel Sleigh was a man who, to use his own words, “kep’ ’isself to ’isself.” He never went to “no public ’ouses, nor yet no churches.” He had never altered his time of getting up or going to bed for forty years; and, except when he lay in the “horsepital” six weeks, through a kick from a young horse, he had never been beyond the smithy for eleven years. In any other grade of life he would have been a “recluse.”
His personal appearance was not engaging—high cheek-bones, small gray sunken eyes, a large mouth, and long wiry neck, with broad shoulders, a little curved by theanno domini; clothed always in one style, namely, a long plush vest, which might have been blue once; a pair of drab nethers, well veneered with blacking and harness paste; from which was suspended a pair of black leather leggings, meeting some thin ankle-jacks. This, with a no-coloured string, which had once been a necktie, and a catskin cap, completedhis attire. My attention had been attracted to an old hound—a fox-hound—reclining at full length on his side on the pathway leading to the stables, his slumbers broken by sudden jerks of his body and twitches of his limbs, accompanied by almost inaudible little screams; leading me to suppose that this poor old hound was reviewing in his slumbers some of the scenes of his early life, and dreaming of bygone November days when he had taken part in the pursuit of some good straight-necked fox in the Oakley or the Grafton country.
“What is that hound?” I asked. “He looks like one of poor Old Lal’s team.”
“Ah, that’s thelaston ’em. They are all gone now but poor old Trojan, and he gets very weak and old.”
When I noticed him he slowly rose, and sauntered across the yard towards a large open coachhouse, used as a receptacle for hearses andmourning-coaches. He did not respond to my advances, except by standing still and looking me in the face with the most wobegone expression possible, his deep brow almost concealing his red eyes. He was very poor, his long staring coat barely covering his protruding hips and ribs. There he stood, motionless, as if listening intently to the sad tale Daniel Sleigh was graphically relating.
“And what has become of poor Old Lal?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s left this two years or more.”
“Whither is he gone?”
“I don’t know as he’s gone anywheres; they took him up to the churchyard to be left till called for. You see, sir, he never ’ad no kins nor directors (executors), or anybody as cared whether they ever see him again or not. He was an honest man though a wagrant; which he never robbed nobody, nor ever had any parish relief.What money he had I used to take care of for him; and when he went away he had a matter of sixteen pounds twelve and twopence, which I kep’ for him, only as he wanted now and again tenpence or a shilling to give a treat to his hounds.”
“Where did he die?”
“Ah, that’s what nobody knows nothing about. You see, sir, it was as this: He’d been on the road a-many years; but as he had no house in particular, nobody noticed when he came and when he went; when he laid here o’ nights, he used to sleep in the hay-house. The boys in the town would come down and harness up his team and set him fair for the day. He would go away with one of the up-coaches, and not be here again for a week (perhaps more). Well, there was one time, it was two years agone last March, I hadn’t seen nothing of Lal not for three weeks or a month; the weather was terrible rough, there was snow and hice; and the storm blowed down a-manybig trees, and them as stood used to ’oller and grunt up in the Pine Bottom, so that I’ve heerd folks say that the fir-trees a-rubbing theirselves against one another, made noises a nights like a pack of hounds howling; and people were afraid to go down the Pine Bottom for weeks, and are now, for a matter of that. For they do say as poor Old Lal drives down there very often in the winter nights. Well, one Sunday afternoon I had just four-o’clocked my ’osses, and was a-popping a sack over my shoulders to go down to my cottage; it was sleeting and raining, and piercing cold, when who should I meet but poor old Trojan. He come up, rubbed my hand with his nose, and seemed quite silly with pleasure at seeing me. Now, though I’ve known him on and off this five or six year, I never knew him do the like before. He had a part of his harness on, which set me a thinking that he had cut and run, and perhaps left Old Lal in trouble.
”You see, sir, what a quiet sullen dog he is. Always like that, never moves hisself quickly. Still, when he come to me that Sunday, he was quite different; he kep’ trotting along the road, and stopping a bit, then he’d look round, then come and lay hold of the sack and lead me along by it.
“The next day there was another of poor Old Lal’s team come to our place (Rocket), and he had part of his breast-collar fastened to him. They were both pretty nigh starved to death. Trojan he went on with these manœuvres, always trying to ’tice me down to the road leading to the Pine Bottom. Word was sent up and down the road by the guards and coachmen to inquire where Old Lal had been last seen. No tidings could be got, and strange tales got abroad. Some said the hounds had killed and eaten him! Some that he had been robbed and murdered! No tidings could be got. Still old Trojan seemedalways to point the same way, and would look pleased and excited if I would only go a little way down the road towards the Pine Bottom with him.
”Many men joined together and agreed to make a search, but nothing could be found in connection with the poor old man; so they gave it up. One morning after my coach had gone, I determined to follow old Trojan. The poor old dog was overjoyed, and led me right down to the Pine Bottom. I followed him pretty near a mile through the trees and that, until at last we come upon poor Old Lal’s waggon. There was his seat, there was part of the harness, and there lay, stone-dead, one of the hounds.
“No trace could be found of the poor old man, and folks were more puzzled than ever about his whereabouts.
”It seemed as though the waggon had got set fast between the trees, and Trojan and Rockethad bitten themselves free, the third, a light-coloured one (a yellow one), had died.
“The finding of the waggon set all the country up to search for poor Old Lal, but it wasn’t for more’n a week after finding the waggon, that Trojan and Rocket pointed out by their action where to go and look for the poor old man. And he was found, but it was a long ways off from his waggon. There he lay, quite comfortable, by the side of a bank. The crowner said the hounds had given chase to something (maybe a fox crossed ’em) and clashed off the road, throw’d the poor old man off—perhaps stunned with the fall—and the hounds had persevered through the wood till the waggon got locked up in the trees. And there the poor things lay and would have died if they had not gnawed themselves out of their harness.”
“And what was the verdict?”
“Oh, there was no verdic’! They never found that.”
“There must have been some opinion given.”
“Jury said he was a pauper wagrant, that he had committed accidental death, and the crowner sentenced him to be buried in the parish in which he was last seen alive.”
“Had he any friends or relatives?”
“No; he said he never had any. He had no name, only Lal. Old Trojan has been with me ever since we followed a short square box up to the churchyard, containing the body of poor Old Lal, where we left it. There was nobody attended the funeral only we two. If the old dog ever wanders away for a day or two, he allers comes back more gloomier like than he looks now.”
The old hound had been standing in the same attitude, apparently a most attentive listener to this sad tale, and when I attempted a pat of sympathy he turned round and threaded his way through the crowd of mourning-coaches; andDaniel Sleigh informed me that the wreck of poor Old Lal’s waggon had been stowed away at the back of this melancholy group. Upon this the old hound usually lay.
“And what about Rocket?”
“He was a younger and more ramblier dog. He never settled nowhere. The last I heerd of him, he had joined a pack of harriers (a trencher pack) at Luton. He was kinder master of them, frequently collecting the whole pack and going a-hunting with them by hisself. He was allers wonderful fond of sport. I mind one time when a lot of boys had bolted a hotter just above the mill, and was a-hunting him with all manner of dogs, Old Lal happened to come along with his waggon. The whole team bolted down to the water’s edge, and just at that moment the hotter gave them a view. The hue-gaze[7]was too muchfor Rocket. He plunged in, taking with him the waggon and the other two hounds. Poor Old Lal bobbed up and down like a fishing-float, always keeping his head up, though before he could be poked out he was as nigh drownded as possible. And this is what makes me think Rocket was the instigator of the poor old man’s death. He must have caught a view of a fox, perhaps, or, at any rate, have crossed a line of scent, and bolted off the road and up through the wood, and after they had throwed the poor old man, continued the chase till the waggon got hung fast to a tree and tied them all up.”
“Was there any wound or fracture about poor Old Lal’s body which might have caused his death?”
“None whatever; no mark, no sign of violence which could have caused his death. They do sayhe is often heerd ’ollering for help o’ nights since he has been buried. There’s a-many people won’t go through the Pine Bottom after dark to save their lives.”
Commercial-room—The bagman’s tale—Yes—Strange company.