Relay House.
That this latter most reprehensible book (from the standard of the Puritan household in which it was found) should have been preserved at all must have been, I think, from the fact that the illustrations were by Cruikshank, and delightful pictures they were. Though this book was so ill-regarded in New England, its career in England was a most brilliant one. It was the most popular work in British literature in the years 1820 to 1850; in fact, to many Englishmen it was the book, the literature, of the period. One claim it has to the consideration of the reading public to-day: it is perhaps the best picture existing of Society, or, as it was termed in the words of the day, of “Life, Fashion, and Frolic,” in the times of George IV. Thackeray tells, in his article on George Cruikshank, of the lingering fondness he had for this old book, but even when he wrote could find no copy either in the British Museum or in London circulating libraries. It was dramatized by several hands, and had long runs on the stage both in England and the United States; and I do not doubt wealthy young men in the large American cities tried to emulate the sports of the London Tom and Jerry. In the peculiar affectations of the bucks and bloods of that day, from the king down, shown in the love of all low sports, in association, even familiarity, with low sportsmen, and in the domination of the horse in sporting life, we see the reason for the high perfection and participation of the rich in coaching in England—a perfection which was aped in some respects in America. Coaching is less talked about than other sports by Jerry and the elegant Corinthian Tom (whose surname is never once given), probably because their dissipations and sprees were those of the city, not of turnpike roads and green lanes. But the life of the day, perhaps the idlest, most aimless era of fashion in English history, the life most thoroughly devoid of any spirituality or intellectuality, yet never exactly unintelligent and never dull, lives forever in Pierce Egan’s pages; and lives for me with the intensity of reality from the eager imprinting on the fresh memory of a little child of unfamiliar scenes and incomprehensible words, knowledge even of whose existence was sternly forbidden.
I obtained from these books a notion of an English coachman, as an idealized being, a combination of Phœbus Apollo, a Roman charioteer, and the Prince Regent. I fancied our American coach-drivers as glorious likewise, though with a lesser refulgence; and I distinctly recall my disappointment at the reality of the first coachman of my first coach-ride from Charlestown, New Hampshire. A man, even on a day of Indian Summer, all in hide and fur: moth-eaten fur gloves, worn fur cap with vast ear-flaps and visor, and half-bare buffalo-hide coat, and out of all these ancient skins but one visible feature, a great, shining, bulbous nose. But even the paling days of stage-coaches were then long past; and the ancient coachman had long been shorn of his glory. In the days of his prime he was a power in the land, though he was not like the English coachman.
From Mr. Miner and others who remember the great days of stage-coach travel, I learn that our American drivers were a dignified and interesting class of men. Imposing in bearskin caps, in vast greatcoats, and with their teams covered with ivory rings, with fine horses and clean coaches, they and their surroundings were pleasant to the eyes. They acquired characteristic modes of speaking, of thinking. They were terse and sententious in expression, had what is termed horse sense. They had prudence and ability and sturdy intelligence. They carried from country to town, from house to house, news of the health of loved ones, or of sickness when weary nurses were too tired to write. A kindly driver would stop his horses or walk them past a lane corner where an anxious mother or sister waited, dreading; and passengers in the coach would hear him call out to her, “John’s better, fever’s all gone.”
They were character-readers, of man and horse alike. They had great influence in the community they called home, and their word was law. They were autocrats in their own special domain, and respected everywhere. No wonder they loved the life. Harrison Bryant, the veteran Yankee whip, inherited a fine farm in Athol. He at once gave up his hard life as a driver, bade good-by to the cold and exposure, the long hours of work, the many hardships, and settled down to an existence of sheltered prosperity. On the third day of his life on the farm he stood at the edge of a field as a stage passed on the road. The driver gave “the Happy Farmer” a salute and snapped his whip. The horses started ahead on the gallop, a passenger on top waved good-by to him; the coach bounded on and disappeared. Farmer Bryant walked sombrely across the field to his new home, packed his old carpet-bag, went to the stage-office in the next town, and two days later he swept down the same road on the same coach, snapping his whip, waving his hand, leaving the miles behind him. He was thus one week off the coach-box, and at the end of his long life had a well-established record of over one hundred and thirty-five thousand miles of stage driving, more than five times round the world.
The Relay.
A letter written by an “old-timer” says:—
“I remember many of the old stage-drivers. What a line was the old ‘accommodation’ put on by Gen. Holman and others! What a prince of drivers was Driver Day! Handsome, dressy, and a perfect lady’s man! How many ladies were attracted to a seat on the box beside him! Then such a team, and with what grace they were guided! How many young men envied his grace as a driver! So, also, what gentlemen were the tavern-keepers of that day! They studied to please the public by their manners, though behind the scenes some of them could spice their conversation with big words.”
A very vivid description of the dress of the old stage-drivers of Haverhill and other New Hampshire towns was given me by Mr. Amos Tarleton, an old inhabitant of the town. He says:—