Right as the mail—Proprietors and contractors—Guards and coachmen—A cold foot-bath—A lawyer nonsuited—Old Mac—The Spectre squire—An unsolved mystery.

“Right as the mail,” is an expression which even now conveys an impression of perfection; and what indeed could have been more thoroughly adapted to the work for which it was designed than the old English mail? There was an air of solidity and importance about the royal mail to which everything gave way. The origin of the term “Right as the Mail,” arose more from the fact that the guards (Government servants) were supplied with chronometers which were compared daily at the General Post Office, and consequently dictated the correct time to all the clocks and watches down the road.

As some of my younger readers may not have seen a stage-coach, it may be well to describe one. The weight was about one ton. It was painted red, having a royal coat-of-arms on the panel of the door. It was constructed to carry four inside and four out, having a bag or basket for luggage, the roof being reserved for heavy mail-bags. A round seat behind, covered with a skin, was for the guard, pockets for pistols being placed on either side.

Contracts for horsing the mails did not often change hands, though tenders were formally invited every year.

Nelson, Shearman, and Chaplin were amongst the largest contractors. The latter had at one time one thousand seven hundred horses employed in coaching. A story is told of him which proves that, whilst he was a kind and considerate master, he always kept his weather eye open. He used to dine with his coachmen once every year, when one of his toasts was “Success to shouldering!”[10] adding: “But let me catch you at it!”

One great source of profit to a mail was the oil which was allowed by the General Post Office. A mail was always expected to have its lamps lighted after sunset, moonlight or not, consequently the amount of oil “shouldered,” or charged for, though not used, was considerable.

It was a beautiful sight to see the mails on the King’s birthday assembled at the General Post Office—the men all dressed in new liveries, and in most cases with new harness; the horses decorated with bouquets of flowers—making a promenade through the principal streets in the west of London.

This parade did not in any way interfere with the regular work, and nearly all the night mails assembled at the General Post Office at eight o’clock to receive their bags. Some of the Western and Southern mails were met by a mail-cart with their bags at their own booking offices in the West-end. The fastest mail out of London was the “Devonport,” commonly called the “Quicksilver;” and who that ever saw can forget it, with its four chestnuts, driven by Charles Ward, leaving the White Horse Cellars at half-past eight!

How it rattled through Piccadilly! passing all the other mails, eight in number, and arriving first at Hounslow, where they all changed horses.

Ward drove on to Bagshot, returning with the up-mail about three A.M.; sixty miles a-night, and this for seven years.

Another coachman, Bill Harbridge, to whom I have already referred in these pages, drove the “Manchester” mail for two years out of London, performing one hundred miles a-night; fifty miles down and fifty miles up. I have his own authority for saying that he used to take as much as fourteen pounds to sixteen pounds a-week in fees, the Manchester merchants used to pay so well. The General Post Office also allowed him two guineas a-week. He was another instance of the total want of prudence, unfortunately so common to his class, and died in the workhouse.

Although coachmen and guards, when coaching was in its zenith, were in receipt of comfortable incomes, it is very rare that an instance is found of their having provided for a rainy day, and still more rare to find any instance of their having taken service in any railway establishment.

Many of the coaches, when there was not too much opposition, would earn from five pounds to six pounds a-mile per month. If corn and beans were not unusually high, three pounds a mile was said to pay.

The profits of a coach were divided monthly, and all outgoings disbursed—the mails having considerable advantage from their having neither duty nor gates to pay. One of the largest sources of revenue was derived from the booking of parcels, each article being charged twopence. Articles of value were registered, and paid according to the amount insured.

Some years ago I was driving a fast coach in the north of England, when a singular surprise occurred to me.

It was sometimes the custom to give the mail teams a rest, by letting them run over a longer stage, where they were not expected to go so fast as the mail was timed. This change had been made, on the occasion of which I write, from Barnby Moor.

We rattled along over the eight miles of ground allotted to the mail stage, and here was their natural stop. No remark had been made to me either by the coachman or by the proprietor (who happened to be upon the coach), and who then cautioned me that the horses would want to run up to the place where the mail pulled up to change. I took precautionary measures accordingly, in order to get them by it. I had succeeded (as I thought) admirably, and, having passed the place, was looking round rather with a view of inviting a compliment from the professional coachman who was sitting behind me, when, all at once, as if shot out of a gun, the whole team bolted out of the road, and we found ourselves in the middle of a deep horsepond.

This team was accustomed, when taken out of the mail, to be ridden at once into the pond to be washed. They had run cheerfully past their stable, but the temptation of the horsepond was irresistible, so in they went.

There were two elderly ladies inside the coach, who screamed out loudly for help and a lifeboat.

It was one of those deep roadside ponds, with a white rail round it; plenty of room to get in, but very little room to get out. Here we were planted, water up to the axles, inside full, and the team, in the greatest confusion; although each horse looked satisfied that he had done the right thing, and was in no particular hurry to get out.

After much splashing and pawing we got the leaders off, and, by backing her on the lock, I got the coach safely ashore; not, however, before the old ladies had got a thorough ducking.

I superintended personally the administration of two glasses of hot brandy-and-water to each of the ladies who had been involuntarily subjected to a cold foot-bath.

There was so much opposition, in the days of which I am writing—forty years ago—that coach proprietors were only too anxious to make reparation in the most liberal manner for any little inconvenience to which passengers might be accidentally exposed. In this case the proprietor was present, and would readily have complied with any reasonable wish expressed by the passengers.

Modesty almost forbids me to mention here that, when the coach was ready to start, I was requested by the proprietor to continue to drive; which, to an amateur, and a young amateur, was no small compliment—evidently showing that our immersion in the horsepond had not been caused by any want of skill or experience on my part.

When opposition was at its height in England, every device was resorted to in order to render one coach more popular than another. Advertising was carried to a very great extent, and squibs were unreservedly circulated in order to lower the prestige of the contending parties. As, for instance, notice was given that a certain coach had reduced its rate for carrying pigs and poultry; no charge would be made for children under twelve, provided they sat upon the knees of their parents, or those of some other passenger; great care was taken that “hospital linen” should be stowed inside.

Although opposition between the coaches was carried to great extremes, it never got to quite so high a pitch as amongst the postmasters, amongst whom within the last fifty years the emulation was so rife upon the North Road that the horses of a private carriage would be forcibly taken off and a fresh pair attached at the Red Lion at Barnet, and the next stage to St. Albans (nine miles) performed without charge, in order to prevent the “turn” from going to the White Hart, where the traveller might have partaken of a sandwich and a glass of sherry gratis.

This state of things could not last long, especially as in its next phase it entailed the hiring of a staff of fighting-men to secure the employment of the Red Lion horses.

Matters having arrived at such a pitch as to cause a free fight in the highroad whenever a posting job hove in sight, the local authorities were obliged to interfere, and Messrs. Newman and Bryant, the landlords of the two hotels, were bound over to keep the peace and abide by the regular tariff of one shilling and threepence a mile, and threepence the postboy.

The guard of the mail, apart from his being a certificated newsmonger, was held in great respect by the idlers who collected to see the mail change in every town or village through which he passed. What he said was absolute, there was no time for argument, and the few words which he addressed to the customary group afforded matter for the smoking-room for a whole evening. Many trifling incidents and occurrences, by the time they had passed through a jury of gin-and-water and churchwardens, were distorted into the most terrible and tragic facts.

Every road has its legend, and guards of the coaches make stock-in-trade of the ghosts and supernatural appearances as it suits their opportunity. A tale may be so often repeated that, however sceptical the narrator is at first, he becomes quite ready to vouch for the whole truth of it on more intimate acquaintance.

Some ghosts are more profitable than others, their feats and appearances being varied in character.

An old mail guard, who had served the Government in that capacity for forty years, and who was in receipt of a pension of eighty pounds per annum, was in the habit of coming to London during the summer season and taking service on one of the “Revival” coaches; he rode behind me for three seasons to Rochester, and two to Brighton, and behind Chandos Pole, upon that road, for many more. His anecdotes were inexhaustible; he recounted the most incredible catalogue of accidents, attacks, delays, impediments to the mails he had been on, in all of which he had played the hero’s part. His quixotic triumphs over every sort of difficulty were most amusing, and not without result, as I know, on one occasion, he declined a Saturday journey behind me to Brighton. He had one ghost only upon this road, whose appearances, however, were so innocent and evident that he was obliged to draw largely upon his imagination, and borrow matter from other goblins, in order to make him sufficiently sensational. I give the naked tale, and leave the garnishing of “Old Mac” to the imagination of my readers.

Upon the side of the highroad to Brighton, not a hundred miles from Handcross, there stands, in its own ornamental grounds, one of those very picturesque residences which is neither a villa nor a mansion, though it combined the modesty of the one with the importance of the other. The house was sufficiently retired from the road to admit of a spacious lawn studded with ornamental trees of considerable size, which gave the whole thing a park-like appearance, and, standing as it did upon an eminence, presented a generally picturesque appearance.

The owner of this property was a gentleman of independent means, and of rather eccentric habits. He resided all the year round at ——, never went into society, and never entertained friends at home.

Many years were passed in the quiet routine of everyday life; nothing remarkable occurred except that the owner was absent daily for several hours, and could not be induced to give any explanation of whither he went, or otherwise account for his absence. When closely questioned by his wife, he used to evade the subject, and implore her not to press her inquiry upon him, as, if he were to disclose the secret, he might never be allowed to return.

Time went on, and the anxiety (to say nothing of the curiosity) of the wife to solve this mysterious absence and the secrecy it involved, induced her to communicate with a private inquiry office to solve it.

This step was no sooner taken than an end was put to all local evidence, by the sudden disappearance of the gentleman, without leaving the slightest clue to his whereabouts. Coverts were searched, ponds dragged, rewards offered, all in vain. No word was ever heard from that day to this of the missing gentleman. The wife continued to live at —— until her death, which occurred several years after the mysterious disappearance of her husband. And, during these years, the room which had been occupied by the gentleman, upon the ground-floor (window opening upon the lawn) was still visited on occasions by an apparition, who frequently changed his hat and gloves, leaving old ones behind, and taking those which were always neatly brushed and laid out for his use.

There is a broad quick-set hedge, cut square upon the top, separating the premises from the highroad, and, walking upon this hedge, may be seen on almost any night the “Spectre Squire.”

The apparition of the squire was not seen only by a few of the neighbours, but sceptics came from long distances, and returned satisfied that they had seen (and some that they had conversed with) the phantom.

An old man who kept a turnpike-gate, not a quarter of a mile from the haunted residence, assured me that he had seen him, night after night, and described it as follows:

“I’d a-come in, and was sitting in the porch doorway, about leben o’clock, as fur as I remember. My old ’oman she kep’ ’ollering out to me: ‘Why don’t you ope’ the gate; there’s a funeral a-coming?’ I thought she was mazed. ‘There’s nobody there,’ says I. Well, whilst I was there I could see nothing, but the gate took and swung open of itself, and come back on the bolt, and this it did four or five times! I took and I got up and put the chain on the gate and locked it. Oh dear, oh dear! Down he come, and he was that angry! He walked backwards and forwards through the gate, right through the middle—that never stopped him a minute!

”Since that I’ve a-seed him scores of times doing the same thing, and he takes no notice of me, only scowling-like.

“I chain and lock the gate o’ nights, but I always find it open in the morning; and I can’t tell how.”

This was one of the best-conducted ghosts I have come across; as, apart from scaring the villagers by his midnight rambles, he bore the best of characters in the neighbourhood.

This house and premises to this day share the fate of others which have fallen into the hands of unexplained tenants, and are subject to visits from supernatural agents.

Strange noises are heard; windows, which were barred and fastened overnight, are found open in the morning. Servants will not remain in the situation, and do not like to explain the cause of their wishing to leave. The turnpike-house is pulled down, as no one could be found to inhabit it.