But some of the joys of a mail-guard’s life are recounted in the old verses:—
At each inn on the road I a welcome could find;
At the Fleece I’d my skin full of ale;
The Two Jolly Brewers were just to my mind;
At the Dolphin I drank like a whale.
Tom Tun at the Hogshead sold pretty good stuff;
They’d capital flip at the Boar;
And when at the Angel I’d tippled enough,
I went to the Devil for more.
There I’d always a sweetheart so snug in the bar;
At the Rose I’d a lily so white;
Few planets could equal sweet Nan at the Star,
No eyes ever twinkled so bright.
I’ve had many a hug at the sign of the Bear;
In the Sun courted morning and noon;
And when night put an end to my happiness there,
I’d a sweet little girl in the Moon.
To sweethearts and ale I at length bid adieu,
Of wedlock to set up the sign;
Hand-in-Hand the Good Woman I look for in you,
And the Horns I hope ne’er will be mine.
Once guard to the Mail, I’m now guard to the fair,
But though my commission’s laid down,
Yet while the King’s Arms I’m permitted to bear,
Like a Lion I’ll fight for the Crown.
Something of the old mail-guard’s welcome is reflected in those lines. That he was, in the eyes of the country folk a highly important personage admits of no doubt, and that, even among the upper classes, he was a trusted emissary and purveyor of news is equally sure. He was, in fact, news embodied. Winged Mercury might, in the ancient world, and may be now, the personification of intelligence, hot and hot; but from 1784 until the first railways began to outstrip the mail-coaches, the mail-guards were the better type. They brought the first rumours of joy or sorrow, of victory or defeat, down with them on the Royal Mail; and as we were warring almost incessantly all over the world during the mail-coach era, few were those occasions when the advent of these official carriers was not awaited with bated breath. The tale has often been told how the mail-coaches, carrying down with them the news of Trafalgar, of Vittoria, and—culminating victory—of Waterloo, went down into the country wreathed with laurel and flying jubilant flags, and how the guards, hoarse at last and inaudible from continual shouting, resorted to the expedient of chalking the words “Glorious Victory” in large letters on the dickey, for the villagers to read as they dashed along the roads. Often, under these circumstances, a mail-guard was journalist as well, for when he could string sentences together with a fair approach to grammar, his contributions to the provincial press were welcomed and well paid for.
The duty of a mail-guard, besides the primary one of protecting the mails, for which he was provided with a blunderbuss, a pair of pistols, and a cutlass carried in a case, was to see that time was kept according to the official time-bill handed to him. For the purpose of checking speed on the road, and of keeping to that time-table, the Post Office furnished every one of its guards with an official time-piece enclosed in a wooden box in such a way that it was impossible for any one to tamper with it, or to alter the hands, without being discovered. These clocks were regulated to gain or lose so many minutes in twenty-four hours, according to the direction in which the coach travelled, in order that local time might be kept. The timepiece was invariably carried in the leather pouch with a circular hole cut in it that all mail-guards wore, so that the time could instantly be seen.
To every guard the superintendent supplied a list of instructions comprising twenty-six items. Prominent among these was the obligation to date and sign the time-bill correctly at every place, or to see it signed and dated by the postmasters on the way. How this was always accomplished in snow and wind and rain, with numbed fingers, is not easily understood. Often the time-bills must have been reduced to something like pulp by the time the trip was ended.