“INSIDE or out, Ma’am?” asked the coachman, as he stood civilly with the door in his hand.

“If you please, I’ll try in first,” answered the woman, poking in an umbrella before her, and then a pair of pattens—“I’m not used to coaching, and don’t think I could keep myself on the top.”

In she came, and after some floundering, having first tried two gentlemen’s laps, she found herself in the centre of the front seat, where she composed herself, with something of the air of a Catherine Hayes, getting into a sledge for a trip to Tyburn. Except for her fear, which literally made a fright of her, I should have called her a pretty-looking woman,—but the faces she pulled were horrible. As the cad enclosed her luggage in the hind-boot with a smart slam, her features underwent an actual spasm; and I heard her whisper to herself, “somethink broke.” As she spoke thus, she started on her feet, and the horses doing the same thing at the same moment, the timid female found herself suddenly hugging the strange gentleman opposite, for which she excused herself by saying, “she wasn’t accustomed to be so carried away.”

Down she plumped again in her old place, but her physiognomy didn’t improve. She seemed in torture, as if broken, not upon one wheel, but upon four. Her eyes rolled, her eyebrows worked up and down, as if trying to pump out tears that wouldn’t come,—her lips kept going like a rabbit’s, though she had nothing to eat, and I fancied I could hear her grinding her teeth. Her hands, meanwhile, convulsively grasped a bundle on her lap, till something like orange-juice squeezed out between her fingers. When the coach went on one side, she clutched the arm of whichever of her neighbours sat highest, and at a pinch she laid hold of both. At last she suddenly turned pale, and somewhat hastily I suggested that she perhaps did not prefer to ride backwards.

“If it’s all the same to you, Sir, I should really be glad to change seats.”

The removal was effected, not without some difficulty, for she contrived to tread on all our feet, and hang on all our necks, before she could subside. It was managed, however, and there we sat again, vis-a-vis, if such a phrase may be used where one visage was opposed to visages innumerable; for if her face was her fortune, she screwed as much out of it as she could. She hardly needed to speak, but she did so after a short interval.

“I hope you’ll excuse, but I can’t ride forrards neither.”

“The air’s what you wan’t Ma’am,” said a stout gentleman in the corner.

“Yes, I think that would revive me,” said the female, with what the musicians call a veiled voice, through her handkerchief.

“Let the lady out!” squealed a little man, who sat on her left, whilst a stout gentleman on her right, after looking in vain for a check-string, gave a pull at the corner of the skirt of a great-coat that hung over the window, almost pulling the owner off the roof. The Chronometer stopped.

“It’s the lady,” said the little man to the coachman, as the latter appeared at the door; “she wants to be inside out.”

“It’s as the gentleman says,” added the female; “I an’t quite myself, but I don’t want to affect the fare. You shan’t be any loser, for I’ll discharge in full.”

“There’s the whole dicky to yourself, Ma’am,” said the coachman, with something like a wink, and after some scuffling and scrambling, we felt her seating herself on the “backgammon board” as if she never meant to be taken up.

“It seems ungallant,” said the little man, as we got into motion again; “but I think women oughtn’t to travel, particularly in what are called short stages, for they’re certain to make them long ones. First of all, they have been told to make sure of the right coach, and they spell it all over, from ‘Horne and Co.’ and ‘licensed to carry,’ to No. nine thousand, fourteen hundred and nine. Then they never believe the cads. If one cries ‘Hackney,’ they say ‘that means Camberwell, and I’ve had enough of getting into wrong stages.’ Then they have to ascertain it’s the first coach, and when it will start exactly, and when they’re sure of both points, they’re to be hunted for in a pastry-cook’s shop, and out of that into a fruiterer’s. At last you think you have ’em—but no such thing. All the luggage is to be put in under their own eyes—there’s a wrangle, of course, about that,—and when they’re all ready, with one foot on the step, they’ve been told to make their bargain with the coachman before they get in.”

“My own mother to a T,” exclaimed the fat man; “she agreed with a fly-man, at Brighton, to convey her to the Devil’s Dyke for twelve shillings; but when it came to setting off, she couldn’t resist the spirit of haggling. Says she, ‘What’ll you take me to the Devil for, without the Dyke?’”

A loud scream interrupted any further illustration of female travelling, and again the Chronometer stopped, losing at the rate of ten miles in the hour. We all had a shrewd guess at the cause, but the little man nevertheless thought proper to pop his little head out of the window, and enquire with a big voice “What the plague we were stopping for?”

“It’s the lady agin, Sir,” said the coachman, in a dissatisfied tone. “She says the dicky shakes so, she’s sure it will come off: but it’s all right now—I’ve got her in front.”

“It’s very well,” said the little man, “but if I travel with a woman again in a stage——”

“Poo! poo!—consider your own wife,” said the stout man; “women can’t be stuck in garden-pots and tied to sticks; they must come up to London now and then. She’ll be very comfortable in front.”

“I wish she may,” said the little man, rather tartly, “but it’s hard to suit the sex;”—and, as if to confirm the sentence, the coach, after proceeding about a mile, came again to a full stop.

“I’m very sorry, gentlemen,” said the coachman, with a touch of his hat, as be looked in at the window, “but she won’t do in front!”

“Just like ’em!” muttered the little man, “the devil himself can’t please a woman.”

“I should think,” suggested the stout man, “if you were to give her the box seat, with your arm well round her waist.”

“No, I’ve tried that,” said the coachman, shaking his head; “it did pretty well over the level, but we’re coming on a hill, and she can’t face it.”

“Set her down at once, bag and baggage,” said the little man; “I’ve an appointment at one.”

“And for my part,” said a gentleman in black, “if there’s any delay, I give you legal notice I shall hire a chaise at the expense of the coach proprietors.”

“That’s just it, curse her,” said the perplexed coachman, deliberately taking off his hat, that he might have a scratch at his head; “she’s had her pick, outside and in, back and front, and it’s no use of course to propose to her to sit astride on the pole.”

“Oh Eve! Eve! Eve!” exclaimed the little man, who seemed to owe the sex some peculiar grudge.

The man in black looked at his watch.

The coachman pulled out a handful of silver, and began to count out a portion, preparatory to offering to return the woman her fare if she would get down—when a cheering voice hailed him from above.

“It’s all right, Tom—jump up—the lady’s creeping into the boot.”

“She won’t like that, I guess,” muttered Tom to himself, but in a second the money jingled back into his pocket, and he was on his box in the twinkling of an eye. Away went the coach over the brow of the hill, and began to spin down the descent with an impetus increasing at every yard. The wheels rattled—the chains jingled—the horse-shoes clattered—and the maid in the boot shrieked like a maid in Bedlam.

“Poor thing!” ejaculated the stout gentleman.

The little man grinned—villanously like an ape.

The man in black pretended to be asleep.

Meanwhile her screams increased in volume, and ascended in pitch—interrupted only by an occasional “oh Lord!” and equivalent ejaculations. It was piteous to hear her; but there was no help for it. To stop the coach was impossible; it had pressed upon the horses till, in spite of all the coachman’s exertions, they broke into a gallop, and it required his utmost efforts to keep them together. An attempt to pull up would have upset us, as sure as fate; luckily for us all Tom did not make the experiment, and the Chronometer, after running down one hill and half way up another, was stopped without accident.

“How’s the lady?” asked the stout man, anxiously thrusting his head and shoulders out at one window, whilst I acted the same part at the other; and, as the sufferer got down on my side of the coach, my curiosity was first gratified. Never was figure more forlorn: her face was as pale as ashes, and her hair hung about it in all directions through heat and fright—her eyes as crazy as her hair, and her mouth wide open.

“How’s the lady?” repeated the stout gentleman.

As for her straw bonnet, it was like Milton’s Death, of no particular shape at all, flat where it should have been full, square where it ought to have been round, turned up instead of down, and down instead of up—it had as many corners and nubbles about it as a crusty loaf. Her shawl or scarf had twisted round and round her like a snake, and her pelisse showed as ruffled and rumpled and all awry as if she had just rolled down Greenwich Hill.

“How’s the lady? I say,” bellowed the big man.

One of her shoes had preferred to remain with the boot, and as the road was muddy, she stood like a Numidian crane, posturing and balancing on one leg; whilst Tom, hunting after the missing article, which declined to turn up till everything else had been taken out of “the leathern conveniency,” and as it was one of the old-fashioned boots it held plenty of luggage.

“How is the lady?” was shouted again with no better success.

It was evident she had not escaped with the fright merely; her hands wandered from her ribs to the small of her back, and then she rubbed each knee. It was some time before she could fetch her breath freely, but at last she mustered enough for a short exclamation.

“Oh them trunks!”

“How’s the lady?” shouted the fat man for the last time; for finding that it obtained no answer, he opened the door and bolted out, just in time to have the gratification of putting on the woman’s one shoe, whilst she clung with both her arms round his short neck.

“There, my dear,” he said with a finishing slap on the sole. “Bless my heart, though, it’s a distressing situation! Coachman, how far is she from London?”

“A good nine mile,” answered Tom.

“Gracious Heaven!” exclaimed the stout man. “She can’t do it!”

“It’s only nine mile,” said the woman, with a sort of hysterical giggle;—“and I’m fond of walking.”

“Give her her luggage, then, at once,” cried the little man from the coach. The dark man held out his watch. A passenger on the top swore horribly, and threatened to get down, and Tom himself, as well as his horses, were on the fret.

“There is no remedy,” sighed the fat man, as he resumed his old seat in the corner of the coach. The whip smacked—I leaned out for a parting look.

There she stood nursing three bundles, each as big as a baby, and as we rolled off I heard her last words in this soliloquy:

“How ham I to hever to get to York by the mail?”