“‘Now, sir, coach is ready—time up; can’t wait,’ roars out the guard. ‘Here, Joe, set the ladder for the lady’; and the passengers are hurried into their places.”
Not so hurried was that gentleman who on one of these quick-change and pantomime-rally occasions remained calmly drinking his tea while his fellow-passengers were jostling each other in their anxiety to regain their seats.
“You’ll miss the coach, sir!” shouted the landlord in his ear, under the impression that he was deaf and had not heard the stampeding feet.
“I want a spoon to stir my tea,” said this last-remaining guest: “why didn’t we have any?”
The landlord glanced hurriedly round—not one spoon of all those that had been on the table remained. He rushed out to the coach to find who among the passengers had stolen them; and by the time he had delayed the coach and insulted everyone, the last passenger, having finished his breakfast at leisure, came out with the information that they had been found in the teapot, where, as will by now have been suspected, he had himself placed them.
There is no generalising on the subject of coach-breakfasts or dinners. Some inns were famous for good fare, others were notorious for bad provisioning and worse service; and all were liable to change from good to ill, or the reverse, according to how they changed hands from time to time. Sidney Smith, who was under no illusions, and lived well into the railway age, did not lament the days when he travelled post from Combe Florey to London—“living for three days on veal-cutlets and waiters”; but, on the other hand, travellers equally familiar with the roads were heard lamenting the good and varied fare they had been used to find, and sought in vain in later days. Lord William Lennox wrote regretfully of the “plain and perfect” English dinners down the road, generally consisting, he said, of mutton-broth, rich in meat and herbs, fresh-water fish in every form, eels—stewed, fried, boiled, baked, spitchcocked, and water-souché; salmon, the purest butter, green gooseberries, the earliest cucumbers, saddle of Southdown mutton, kept to a moment and done to a turn, mutton chops, hot and hot, Irish stews, rump-steaks tender and juicy, chicken and ham, plum-pudding, fruit-tarts, and trifle and gooseberry-fool.
Then the produce of the grape! No thin, washy claret, at 18s. a dozen, no fiery port, one day in bottle, no sherry at 25s. the cask; but fine, sound vintages, fit for any private cellar.
Other travellers tell less roseate tales. Often they had the sole choice between ham and eggs, ill cooked, and nothing at all; or, if the choice was there, the mutton was half-done and stringy, the chops greasy and cold, and the rump-steaks tough and dry, with everything else in accordance. If we like to take Thomas Hughes, in Tom Brown, as an authority, however, the breakfasts were really noble meals; for Tom, going to Rugby, is represented at a table spread with the whitest of cloths, and rich in cold pigeon-pie, a Yorkshire ham, a round of cold boiled beef, and a loaf of household bread. On these the guests made a beginning, but the waiter entered “in an instant” (paragon of waiters!) with kidneys, steak, rashers of bacon, poached eggs, and buttered toast and muffins. Tom fell-to with a will, and put away kidneys and pigeon-pie and coffee until his little skin was as tight as a drum—little pig!
It is a coach-breakfast that is so well pictured by James Pollard in the accompanying illustration. The company, with an indescribable air of having been up all night, are just finishing their meal, and the polite gentleman in the ample overcoat is trying to induce the two ladies under his charge to take a little more. It is quite evident that this has been a more leisured affair than usual, for the yawning travellers by the fireplace have finished their meal long ago, and a stout person is being shaved by a barber in knee-breeches, with legs of a distinctly Lowther-Arcadian type, suggestive of bran and sawdust instead of bone and muscle. The coachman, appearing hat in hand and touching his forehead, has come to the end of his stage: he “goes no further, gents,” and is here to claim his dues. Meanwhile, the guard outside is lustily blowing his horn, and the empty coach is seen waiting.
The scene, in fact, here pictured is the last halt on a long journey; an opportunity seized by the passengers, not only for a meal, but for a shave and a general brush-up preparatory to alighting at their destination. Such scenes were the commonplace incidents to be observed at Highgate, Barnet, Hounslow, and other stages near London in the coaching age.