The dinner on this occasion was of the most substantial description, and, for want of a better, Rob Hadley was put in the chair, a distinction his modesty would have induced him to decline; but the voices of the company were unanimous, and on mounting his perch he returned thanks on his bugle in the favourite hunting air of “Old Towler”; which, as “on that day,” or a few days before, a stag was supposed to have died, was considered extremely appropriate, and was applauded accordingly. Whether a stag had died or not seemed subsequently to have become a matter of doubt, for the chairman, after carving the “noble haunch,” and coming to the foot, which was enclosed with a profusion of curled writing-paper, was not a little surprised to find the hoof, instead of being cloven, to be entire. A noted farrier present swore it was the hoof of a young donkey! This the landlord positively denied, but upon a jury being summoned to decide the question, the hoof was found to have mysteriously disappeared, and the point remained for ever unsettled; although it was freely hinted that the guard of the “Emerald,” jealous at being shut out from the feast, had conveyed the haunch away and substituted for it the hind-quarter of a deceased “Neddy” he had imported from Wolverhampton.
One of the most daring deeds ever related of a guard was that well-nigh incredible one told of the guard of the famous “Tantivy”:—
“We had just entered Oxford from Woodstock,” says Lord William Lennox, “when suddenly the horses started off at an awful pace. What made matters worse was that we saw at a distance some men employed in removing a large tree that had fallen during the storm of the previous night across the road near St. John’s College. The coachman shook his head, looking very nervous, while the guard, a most powerful man, stood up, prepared for any emergency. On we went, the coachman trying in vain to check the galloping steeds, and we had got within a few yards of the critical spot when the guard, crawling over the roof, managed, somehow or another, to get on the footboard, when, with a spring, he threw himself on the near wheeler, and with a giant’s clasp checked the horses at the very moment the leaders were about to charge the tree. Down they came, but the guard never yielded an inch, and, with the assistance of the country people near at hand, the leaders regained their legs, without the slightest damage to man, horse, coach, or harness. A subscription for our gallant preserver was got up on the spot.”
The last twenty years of the coaching era were remarkable for the development of musical ability on the part of the guards, both of the mail- and stage-coaches, who, relieved from their old-time anxieties and fears of highwaymen, kept their blunderbusses safely stowed away, and, turning their attention, like so many scarlet-coated Strephons, to the ballad-music of the moment, became expert practitioners on the key-bugle. That instrument came over from Germany in 1818, and for a time pretty thoroughly displaced the old “yard of tin” the earlier guards had blown so lustily. The new generation developed a passion for this strident kind of minstrelsy. Like the hero (or is it heroine?) of the “Lost Chord,” their “fingers wandered idly over the sounding keys,” and although many were expert players and, unlike the organist in that song, did know what they were playing, the jolting of the coaches must often have discomposed their harmony to some extent, so that the passengers could not always boast the same knowledge.
Piccadilly, one of the chief starting-points in London, was in this manner a highly musical thoroughfare at the period now under review. Ten guards, blowing ten different tunes at once, produced, we are told—and can well believe—a wonderful effect; and the roads became excruciatingly lively when every gay young blood of a guard learned to play “Cherry Ripe,” the “Huntsman’s Chorus,” “Oh! Nanny, wilt Thou gang wi’ Me?” and half a hundred others. The passengers, like that famous young lady “with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,” had music wherever they went. Let us hope they appreciated their good fortune to the full.
The Post Office looked with a cold glance upon these proceedings, and forbade mail-guards to play the key-bugle. Those officials therefore purchased them secretly, and snatched a fearful joy by producing them when clear of London streets, and playing, loud and long, such airs as “The Days when we went Gipsying, a Long Time Ago,” and “Sally in our Alley,” to the great admiration of the country joskins. The performances of expert players were said to be delightful, and no doubt they quickly reaped in tips a harvest from what they had expended on their instruments.
It is on record that a guard on the Chester Mail, with the fear of God or public opinion before him, always used to honour the Sabbath Day by playing the “Old Hundredth” as the coach passed through town and village, reserving his secular tunes for the secluded highway.
Cornets-à-piston began to rival the key-bugle in the last years of coaching, and the hurly-burly grew terrific. To what lengths this progressive din would have been carried had not the coaching age itself come to an end let us not seek to inquire; but when the coaching revival of 1863 and succeeding years brought back some of the old sights and sounds of the road, key-bugles and their like were very properly voted bad form, and the older coach-horn regained and still retains its ancient ascendency. Those other instruments and all their possibilities are left to modern beanfeasters and Bank-holiday merrymakers, who, as the suburban Londoner knows only too well, do not fail to take full advantage of them.
What became of the stage-coach guards? Some of them were killed, and thus never experienced the bitterness of finding their occupation gone. There is an inscription in the churchyard at Great Driffield, Yorkshire, to one who ended thus:—
TO THE MEMORY OF
THOMAS RUSSELL,Guard of the “Wellington,” who lost his life by
the Coach being unfortunately overturned at
Nafferton, September 9th, 1825.Aged 36 years.
Praises on Tomb Stones are but vainly spent;
A Man’s Good Name is his best Monument.This Stone was erected by his Companions in Friendship.