“‘Death and the deuce!’ cried he. ‘Your sex protects you, madam; if any man on earth durst tell me so much, I’d send him to hell in an instant.’
“So saying, he fixed his eyes upon me, and asked if I had seen him tremble. I answered, without hesitation, ‘Yes.’
“‘Damme, sir,’ said he, ‘d’ye doubt my courage?’
“I replied, ‘Very much.’
“This declaration quite disconcerted him; he looked blank, and pronounced in a faltering voice, ‘Oh! ’tis very well! I shall find a time.’
“I signified my contempt for him by thrusting my tongue into my cheek, which humbled him so much that he scarce swore another oath aloud during the whole journey.”
These soldiers, or pretended soldiers—for it would not be fair to those who warred under Marlborough to assume that such cowardly ruffians were genuine military men—were found hectoring in every coach in those picturesque times, threatening to run everyone through the vitals, and rarely, it is to be feared, meeting with those modest and self-possessed young demigods who wore all the lackadaisical airs of an Apollo superimposed upon the brawn and biceps of a Hercules, and with those biceps always at the service of the ladies at precisely the psychological moment.
Ladies, strange to say, seem at a very early date to have travelled unaccompanied by friends or relatives. The way was long, the discomforts great, and so the politeness and attentions shown them were proportionately increased. Thoresby, who in 1714 travelled to London by the York stage with some ladies of sorts, speaks of the well-established custom of paying for their refreshments on the road, and mentions, between Grantham and Stamford, that they were “more chargeable with wine and brandy than the former part of the journey, wherein we had neither; but the next day we gave them leave to treat themselves.” So the line was drawn somewhere.
Shergold, who in the coaching era was proprietor of the “Castle Hotel,” Brighton, and had every reason to know what life on the road was like, declared, in a very readable pamphlet he wrote, that “a woman was a creature to be looked at, admired, courted, and beloved in a stage-coach”; but let the rash modern traveller presume to look admiringly at the lady occupant of a railway carriage, and it is not at all unlikely that she will be horribly frightened, and take the next opportunity of changing into another compartment.
An amusing tale, declared to be true, has been told of the possibilities of a coach in the love-making sort. It was about 1780 that a young gentleman, anxious to win the good graces of a lady, and lacking other opportunities, engaged all the remaining inside seats of the coach between Glasgow and Edinburgh by which he knew she would travel. He succeeded so well in his enterprise that the lady consented on the journey to be his bride; but candour compels the admission that the marriage thus romantically agreed upon turned out a particularly unhappy one.