“‘Afternoon, squire,” says Layfield, as that young sportsman swings into the seat beside him; and they talk guardedly about anything and everything but coaches, until Layfield asks—as though it had just occurred to him—if he would not like to “put ’em along” for a few miles. He accepts, and is just about to take the reins over when the voice of a hitherto silent gentleman is heard from behind.
“I earnestly protest, coachman,” he says, “against your giving the reins into the hands of that young gentleman, and endangering our lives. I appeal to the other passengers to support me,” he continues, glancing round. “We read in the papers every day of the many serious, and some fatal, accidents caused by control of the horses being given to unqualified persons. If you are well advised, young gentleman, you will relinquish the reins into their proper keeping; and you, coachman, ought to know, and do know, that you would be liable to a fine of any amount from £5 to £10, at the discretion of a magistrate, for allowing an unauthorised person to drive.”
The coachman takes back the reins, and sulkily says he didn’t know he had an informer up; to which the gentleman rejoins by saying that, so long as the coachman drives and performs the duty for which he is paid by his proprietors, he himself is not concerned to teach him proper respect; but he cannot refrain from pointing out, to the coachman in especial, and to the passengers generally, that it would have been the policy of an informer to allow the illegal act to be committed and then to lay an information. He was really protecting the coachman as well as the passengers, because it was well known that the road swarmed with informers, and continued infractions of the law could not always hope to go unpunished.
Every one murmurs approval, except the coachman and his friend, and the guard. The guard, as an official, is silent; the amateur coachman has a hot flush upon his face. The coachman, however, clearly sees himself to be in the wrong, and awkwardly apologises. Still, we all feel somewhat constrained, and, passing Croft Spa and coming to Darlington, experience an ungrateful relief when the champion of our necks and limbs leaves us there.
He is no sooner gone than tongues are wagging about him. “Who is he? What is he? Do you know him?”
“Talks like a Hact o’ Parlymint,” says the coachman to his friend.
“And a very good reason, too,” says a man with knowledge: “he is a Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the Bench of Magistrates at Stockton, which holds a higher jurisdiction than your bench, coachman. I think you’ve had a very narrow escape of parting with £10 and costs.”
The guard has a few parcels to take out of the boot at the “King’s Head,” and a few new ones to put in, and then we’re off for Rushyford Bridge, where the coach takes tea, and where we leave the amateur coachee at the “Wheatsheaf.”
Durham and the coal country open out on leaving secluded Rushyford. Durham Cathedral, although itself standing on a height, has the appearance of being in a profound hollow as the coach, with the skid on, slowly creaks and groans down the long hill into the city. Changing at the “Three Tuns,” the new team toils painfully up the atrociously steep streets to Framwellgate Bridge, where the river Wear and the stern grandeur of the Norman Cathedral, with the bold rocks and soft woods around it, blend under the westering sun-rays of a July evening into a lovely mellowed picture.
Chester-le-Street and Gateshead are ill exchanges for the picturesqueness of Durham, but they serve to bring us nearer our journey’s end, and, truth to tell, we are very weary; so that, coming down the breakneck streets of Gateshead in the gathering darkness to the coaly Tyne and dear dirty Newcastle, with the hum of its great population and the hooting of its steamers in our ears, we are filled with a great content. “Give ’em a tune,” says the coachman; and, the guard sounding a fanfare, we are quickly over the old town bridge, along the Side, and at the Turf Hotel, Collingwood Street. It is nearly ten o’clock. The journey is done.