Between Kendal and Penrith, a distance of twenty-six miles, is situated the bleakest and most trying stretch of country in all the distance from London and Glasgow. It is the district of that high-perched table-land, 1,400 feet above sea-level, dreaded by the old coachmen, and the passengers too, as “Shap Fell.” All the weather of Westmoreland is brewed amid the inhospitable altitudes of Stainmoor and Shap Fell, which are, in addition, afflicted with the local phenomenon known as the “Helm Wind.” This, perhaps fortunately for travellers, is not a winter’s gale, but a playful blast that characterises the days of May and June. When the tourist reads that it is strong enough to overturn horses and carriages, and that the noise of it may be heard twenty miles off, like thunder, or the roar of a cataract, he entertains serious thoughts of accomplishing this stage of his journey by rail. The Helm Wind derives its name from the “helm,” or cap, of light clouds that rests immovably for hours in the sky at the time of its blowing. It blows across the fells of Westmoreland and Cumberland, rushing down their steep sides and lashing the waters of the Lakes into furious waves and driven spray.

The ascent to this not very promising region begins by a gentle rise at Mint Bridge, one mile from Kendal. It continues, with increasingly steep gradients, but with two short intervals of down gradient, for nine and a half miles, when the summit is reached. Although Shap Fell has so ugly a name, the rise at no point exceeds 1 in 10. It is rather the long-continued character of the ascent to the exposed summit that makes the road remarkable.

The coaching accidents on this stage were remarkably few. The principal happening of this kind was when a country mail was upset at Kirbythore Bridge, on Hucks Brow, owing to the horses shying at a quite inoffensive water-wheel. The coach fell eight feet, and a horse was killed, but there the damage ended. A stalwart Yorkshire wool-stapler, who was riding outside, was flung off and made to perform a complete somersault, but he alighted safely on his feet, and just in time to catch, at “mid-off,” a parcel which shot with wondrous velocity out of a woman’s arms, and proved on inspection to be a baby. He said, dryly, when they congratulated him on his fielding, that “a stray baby isn’t generally a good catch for a man.”

It was only right and proper that on such a road as this amateur coachmen were few. It would, indeed, have sounded a higher note of propriety had there been none at all. With regard to the mails, the Post Office regulations, not only on this road, but on roads in general, strictly forbade coachmen allowing amateurs to drive, and expected the guards to interpose, to prevent anything of the kind. On one occasion, when young Teather, of Teather & Son, the mail-contractors, had taken the coachman’s place, and was about to drive his own horses, a half-indignant and half-terrified passenger seized the reins because the guard would not veto the arrangement. What would have happened to that guard for not fulfilling his instructions to the letter we do not know, for there happened to be a change of Government at the time, and when the guard somewhat impudently desired to know which of the two Postmasters-General—the in-coming or retiring—he was to address in his defence, the matter was allowed to drop.

One of the few privileged amateurs was Mr. James Parkin, who generally worked on Teather’s ground out of Penrith, towards Carlisle. He was one of those who would drive only the best of teams, and so gave up when the railways encroached and the horses on the shorter journeys became inferior. He was wont to say he did not care to be a “screw-driver.” He was a very steady but slow-going whip: too slow for the Mail, and lacked energy to make his horses slip along over the galloping ground, where really scientific coachmen always made up for lost time. The guard, in fact, was perpetually holding up his watch, admonishing him to “send ’em along.”

Ramsay of Barnton was a good enough whip when the cattle were good, but he liked to choose his ground. Nightingale, the great coursing judge of that day, was the one to “take a coach through the country.” He took the horses as they came,—kickers or jibbers—and, thanks to his fine nerves and delicate handling of the ribbons, kept his time to a second.

Parson Bird was also said to be “well up to his work,” and was so good-hearted a fellow that when the regular coachman from Keswick to Kendal broke his leg, he took his place for six weeks, and collected the fees for him. A story is told of a lady giving the parson-coachman half-a-crown at the end of the journey one afternoon, and being introduced to him at a ball the same evening at Kendal. He at once asked for a dance, but she was highly indignant that a coachman should so presume. However, the matter was explained, and to such satisfaction that not only did she dance, but eventually became Mrs. Bird.

Among the regular coachmen, John Reed took a very high place. He was a stout and a very silent man: all for his horses and nothing to his passengers. He drove the Glasgow Mail from Carlisle to Abington, never tasted ale or wine, and never had an accident. This was the more remarkable as Mr. Johnstone of Hallheaths, owner of Charles XII., horsed the Mail along one stage with nothing but thoroughbreds; and, had they “taken off,” not even Reed, strong-wristed though he was, could have held them in.

John Bryden was the very reverse of John Reed, and full of jollity and good stories on the box. The two Drydens were even more dashing in their style: one had the art of teaching his horses to trot when most men would have had them on the gallop; the other was a wonderful singer. Whenever the Mail reached a long ascent and he had to slacken speed, he would beguile the way with “She Wore a Wreath of Roses,” or “I Know a Flower within my Garden Growing,” in a rich tenor that would have secured him a good concert-room engagement in these times.

Another notable coachman was “Little Isaac Johnson.” He kept on the box for thirty-five years, and never had an accident. He was supreme with a kicking horse, and always took care to make him his near-side leader. When such an one was put there, he could punish him more severely, and liked to hit restive animals inside the thigh. He could “fairly wale them up,” if they continued to rebel.

The Telfers were coachmen of the same severe school, and well known over Shap way. Jem Barnes, on the other hand, was fat and lumbersome and lacked fire; so that people did say he had his sleeping-ground as well as his galloping-ground. But, one night, at least, when he was driving north over Shap Fell, there was little chance of sleeping. He had on that occasion not only to gallop at all the snow-drifts, but to put a postboy and a pair on in front. The pole-hook broke in midst of the blinding, snow-wreathed journey, and the hand of his almost namesake, Jem Byrns, the guard, was nearly frozen to the screw-wrench when he brought out a spare pole-hook and fastened it on. The snow was falling in flakes as large as crown-pieces all the while, and the only comic relief was the voice of a “heavy swell” issuing from the box seat, beneath a perfect tortoise-shell covering of capes and furs, “What are you fellows keeping me here in the cold for, and warming your own hands at the lamp?”

George Eade, another of this distinguished company, was very deaf, but with hearing enough to be cognisant of a great many objurgations from Mr. Richardson, of the “Greyhound” at Shap, for taking it out of his horses. One day Richardson came out and was particularly bland—nothing to complain of at all—but George, unable to distinguish anything, and concluding he was on the old subject, had his back up in an instant. “Hang you!” said he, “I’m not before my time; I’ll bet you £5 of it; look at my watch!”

Jack Pooley was a great character. When he retired from the box, he joined the Yeomanry and entered his horse for a cavalry plate at a race-meeting. Two of the conditions of entry were that it must never have won £50, and also must be half-bred. Some objections being raised, it became necessary to examine him before the committee. To the first question, whether his horse had ever won £50, he replied, “No, indeed! but he’s helped to lose many a fifty—he ran three years in an opposition coach.” The next question was, “What is he by, Mr. Pooley?” “By?” said Jack. “I should say he was by a shorthorn bull, he’s such a devil of a roarer.” The answers, we are told, were considered eminently satisfactory.

The mail-coachmen on the Shap and Penrith stage were for some time afflicted with a mare that stopped with every one of them in turn at the end of two miles. At last they all wearied of her, and orders were issued that if she refused again, she was not to be brought back alive. On this fateful journey she started, and, according to her use and wont, suddenly sulked and sat down on her haunches in the middle of the road, like a dog, with her fore-legs straight out in front. The coachman, armed by the contractor with power of life or death, did not proceed to tragical extremities. He got down, took a rail out of the hedge, and struck her nine times below the knees with the flat side of it. This treatment proved effectual, not only for that journey, but for all time, and she was docile and willing ever after.

How bravely and doggedly the mails and stages battled on winter nights against the howling blasts of Shap and Stainmoor, sometimes contending with snowstorms and drifts in which not only the coachman and guard, but the passengers also, bore a hand at the snow-shovels and dug and delved until hands and feet, previously numbed with cold, glowed again! How anxiously, when that digging and delving seemed almost ineffectual and the drifts impassable, did they strain their vision to catch a glimpse through the murky night, filled with driving snowflakes for the cheerful lights of that roadside inn, the “Welcome into Cumberland,” telling travellers accustomed to this road not only of comfort available at hand, but of a farewell to the terrors of Westmoreland and approach to the sheltered little town of Penrith.