BY A. BIRD.

A STAGE-COACH RACE.

Poor Macadam! his honoured dust will soon be forgotten! In cities it is buried, or soon will be, in wood; and few of the millions who glide and slide over the wooden pavement, will think of the "Colossus of Roads," whose dust it covers like a coffin. Our course is no longer "o'er hills and dales, through woods and vales," which the many-handed Macadam made smooth and easy. Our carriage, placed like the toy of a child, goes without horses. The beautiful country—the cheerful "public," with its porch, its honeysuckle and roses—the sign which bade the "weary traveller rest" on the seat beneath the spreading elm;—these are no more!—This is the iron age—fire and steam are as the breath of our nostrils—we speak by the flash of lightning—we have given life to emptiness, and fly upon the wings of a vacuum—our path is through the blasted rock, the cold dark dreary tunnel—through cheerless banks, which shut us from the world like a living grave—on—on—on—we speed! The dying must die! The burning must burn! There is no appeal—no tarrying by the way. Like the whirlwind we are hurried to our end. The screech of women in despair is drowned by the clash, the din, the screech of the "blatant beast," the mad monster which man has laid his finger on, and tamed to his uses.

This is all very fine, and, doubtless, il faut marcher avec son siÈcle, if we do not wish to be left behind in the race that is before us. Doubtless, too, our children, like calves born by the side of a railroad, will look on these things as a matter of course, and let them pass with high-bred indifference. And if, as most assuredly will be the case, some of these children should become mothers in due course of time, we can fancy them so philosophized by force of habit, so inured to the wholesale smashing and crashing of the human form divine, that, should a door fly open and let an infant drop, the mama will sit quiet till the next station cries Halt! and then merely request that a man and basket be despatched to pick up the pieces left some seven miles off![15]

"Chi lo sa!" as the Neapolitans say in cases of extreme doubt and difficulty; "chi lo sa," say I; and having been born before the earth was swaddled up in iron, or the sea danced over by iron ships, I confess a sneaking fondness for the highways, and byways, and old ways of old England; and, when not pressed for time, I delight in honouring the remains of poor old Macadam.

A fortnight ago, having occasion to visit Somerset, I found myself en route, at Cheltenham—a place, by the way, which always reminds me of miscellaneous articles stored in a second-hand shop; it is sure to come into use once in seven years. There I was for the night, luxuriously lodged in this Anglo-foreign town, this self-styled "queen of watering-places," this city of salt—or salts, as some malicious pluralists will have it—there I was, and long ere morning broke, I had decided upon cutting the rail and coaching it to Bristol; in other words, as time was not an object, I would not go some fifty miles round to save it.

I was soon seated by my old friend, "coachee." Coachee was a character sui generis, of a race which will soon be extinct; I had known him in the "palmy days" of the road, and remembered the time when he, with his pair, was selected to tease and oppose the prettiest four-in-hand that ever trotted fourteen miles an hour.

It was, if I'm not mistaken, in 1832, that "The Exquisite" first started from Exeter to Cheltenham, and weighing the coach, the cattle and coachman together, never was a turn-out more worthy of the title. To oppose this with a pair was a bold conception, but "coachee" was an old stager; "what man dared do" he dared, and did it well. "Strange changes, Mr. Coachee, since you and I first knew each other," said I to my right hand friend, as soon as we had cleared the rattle of the stones. Coachee turned his head slowly round, and looked me full in the face; he drew in such a sigh, and put on such a look of miserable scorn, that I felt for the silent sufferer. Yet was I dumbfounded by his silence; I had looked for the jibes and jests which were wont to put us outsides in a roar,—but to see "coachee" turned into a man of mute sorrow, was a character so new and unnatural, that—extremes will meet—I burst into a hearty fit of laughter.

Coachee attempted to preserve the penseroso, and with ill-feigned gravity tried to reprove me, by saying,—"You may laugh, sir, but it's no joke for us as loses." With what tact I could bring to bear, I revived the memory of former days, the coachman's golden age! I spoke of "the Exquisite," and asked if he did not once beat it with his pair.

"So you've heard tell of that, have you?" And Alexander never chuckled half so much to hear his praises sung, as coachee did at the thoughts of his victory. I told him I had heard of it from others, but never from his own mouth, which was half the battle. There needed but little persuasion to make him tell his own story.

"It's all as true as I am sitting on this here box, and this is how it came to pass. It was one Sunday evening that some of us whips had met to crack a few bottles. 'The Exquisite' had just been put upon the road, and who should be there but Mr. Banks as drove it, and who should be there too but I as was started to oppose it. Well, it so happened I hadn't a single passenger booked inside nor out, for Monday! Well, thinks I, Mr. Banks, if I and my coach can't give you the go-by to-morrow, I don't know inside from out, and so I told him. 'That's your opinion is it, Mr. Bond?' said Mr. Banks, with a smile, and a sniff at a pink in his button-hole. 'Yes, Mr. Banks,' says I; 'and what's more, I'll stick to it, and here's a sovereign to back it.' Will. Meadows, him as used to drive the 'Hi-run-dell,' he thought he'd do me; so he claps down his bit of gold, and the bet was made. There's an end of that, said I, and now, Mr. Banks, let's have a bumper. 'Here's to you, my Exquisite,' says I, as we bobbed and nobbed. 'Here's to you, Mr. H-opposition,' says he, and I hopes you'll tell me the time o' day to-morrow morning.' But he didn't think I should for all that. Well, now, sir, what do you think I should find when I goes the first thing on Monday morning to our office?"

"Your H-opposition coach and a pair of horses?" said I, inquiringly.

"Right enough, so far,—but what think you of finding four ins and eight outs, all booked for Bristol! Well, thinks I, Mr. Banks, this alters the case, and my sovereign felt uncommon light all of a sudden. Howsomever, up I gets, and, says I to my box-companion, you won't mind if I goes a little fast, will you? 'Mind!' said he, 'why, you can't go too fast for me.' He was one of the right sort, d'ye see, and enjoyed the fun as much as me. 'All right?' says I; 'All right,' says Bill, and away we goes. I got the start, for in those days 'the Exquisite' was sure to load like a waggon. Away I went, with such a pair! they stepped as if they hadn't got but four legs between 'em; and, up to Gloucester, Mr. Exquisite's four tits couldn't touch 'em. Now, as ill-luck would have it, it wasn't my day for 'the Bell,' so while I turns out of the line to change at the Booth Hall, up comes 'the Exquisite' and gives us the go-by: there warn't no help for it, but what aggravated me the most was, to see Mr. Banks tip me a nod with his elbow, as much as to say, 'Good bye till to-morrow!' What was worse, two of my ins was booked for Gloucester; and what was worse again, they was both ladies. Now, ladies—bless 'em all for all that!—but ladies and luggage are one, says I, they never goes apart; and such a load of traps I never see'd, with a poll parrot, and a dozen dicky-birds for a clincher! Well, there warn't no help for it.—Come, Jacky, my boy, says I, give a hand with them straps—there—now t'other—all snug?—off with you!—And Jack soon found the wheel warn't meant for a footstool—off he leapt—the ladder fell into the gutter, and away we went at last. We couldn't touch 'em that stage—no wonder neither, for there never was a prettier team before me, and that 'ere Exquisite chap—though I used to call him 'Mr. H-opposition'—handled his ribbons like a man. The dust was light, and I tracked him like a hare in the snow. He never lost an inch that day—there were his two wheel-marks right ahead—straight as an arrow, and looked for all the world as if ruled with a—what do ye call them 'ere rulers that walk after one another?"

I hesitated for a moment, and then hit upon—a parallel ruler—

"Aye, to be sure. Well, his two tracks looked for all the world as if they'd been ruled with a parable ruler; but for all that, we got a sight of him before he changed again. 'Now or never!' thought I, for I could do as I liked in those days, as one man horsed the whole line. 'So,' says I to our ostler, 'you go and clap the harness on the bay-mare, while I tackle these two; I've a heavy load, and wants a little help.' No sooner said, than done. 'Now, my pretty one,' says I to the little mare, 'you must step out for me to-day, and it's in you I know.' So I just let my lash fall like a feather on her haunch, and, for the life and soul of me, I thought she'd have leapt out of the harness. All right, thinks I, I have it now; and bating twelvepence, my sovereign's worth a guinea.

"We wasn't long a coming up, and when 'Mr. H-opposition' saw my pair with the bay mare a-head, he didn't like it, you may be sure of that. Well, I let's him take the lead that stage. We wasn't long a changing—a wisp o' wet hay to the little mare's nose, and away she went again as fresh as a four-year-old, and 'the Exquisite' couldn't get away from us no more than a dog from his tail.

"'Ah!' says Mr. Banks, as I puts my leader alongside of him, 'is that you, Mr. Bond! have you been coming across the fields? I didn't think to hear the time o' day from you, Mr. Bond.' 'Didn't you?' says I. 'No,' says, he; 'shall I say you're a coming into Bristol?'

"Before I could say yes or no, he gave the prettiest double cut to his leaders with one turn of his hand, that ever I see'd—they sprang like light—whish! whish! went the double thong across the wheelers.—He warn't a second about it all, and while I looked, he was gone like a shot. Though I didn't like it much then, I must say it was the cleanest start I ever clapped eyes upon, and ne'er a whip in England couldn't say it warn't. 'No chance that stage,' said I, growing rather impatient; we warn't far behind for all that—and now, thought I, comes my turn—play or pay's the word—for I knowed my country; leaders down hill ben't no manner of use, quite contrawise; a coachman has enough to do to keep the pole from tickling their tails, and hasn't much time for nothing else. The little mare had done her work, and away we went with such a pair! They'd ha' pulled the wheels off if I'd 'a told them; they know'd I'd got a bet as well as if I'd said so, and away they went the railroad pace."

"What!" asked I, "before railroads were thought of?"

Coachee always had his answer—"What if they war'n't?—no odds for that—we got the start of them that day, and, maybe, they took the hint—worse luck too, say I—but away we went—it was all neck-and-neck—first and second—second and first. If Banks beat, up—Bond beat, down—till at last 'Mr. H-opposition' see'd how the game was going, and that he hadn't a chance; but he wouldn't allow it, not he. So he pulls up and calls to his guard, and tells him to put the tackle to rights, though there war'n't nothing the matter—and lets me go by as if he wasn't beaten. So, as we passes, I pulls out my watch and tells him the time o' day! 'and, Mr. Banks,' says I, 'what shall I order for your supper?'"

As coachee wound up the tale of his by-gone victory, it brought on a fit of laughter, which I began to think would never end; when, on a sudden it ceased, and with horror and consternation painted in his face, he exclaimed, "Well, bless my heart alive, that ever I should live to see such a thing!" "Where! what!" said I looking right and left, and almost expecting to see some wonderful beast pop over the hedge. "Well, now, it hasn't got no outside, and"—after a pause—"no, nor I'm blest if it has any inside!"

I guessed his meaning by this time; but affecting ignorance, I asked, "What is that wonderful animal without any inside?" "Animal!" he exclaimed, "why, don't you see the poor old Exquisite a coming by itself?"

"There is a coachman," said I, as gravely as I could. "Poor Banks!" said coachee, quite touched with compassion, and heedless of my remark. He pulled up, so did the Exquisite.

"Well, now, I'm blest, if this isn't worse than solitary confinement, it makes my stomach ache, Mr. Banks!"

(A poet would have said, "my heart," but depend upon it, coachee meant the same thing.)

"A bad day's work, Mr. Bond, but we can't expect no otherwise now," said he of the once "palmy" Exquisite, yet looking more cheerful than might have been expected.

"A sad change, Mr. Banks. Why, that 'ere near leader looks as if it hadn't strength to draw your hat off."

"You're about right there, Mr. Bond, but,"—and here the flash of humour of brighter days lit up the features of Mr. Banks,—"but do you know what the Tories are going to do with us old coachmen?"

Mr. Bond shook his head, and murmured—"Not I!"

"Well, then, I'll tell you, Mr. Bond: they're agoing to plant us for milestones along the railroad."

Another fit of laughter came on, and it was with difficulty that Mr. Bond could articulate, "Good bye! good bye!" as we drove on our course to Bristol.