The most trying time for the coachmen and guards were the two first hours on the road. After that, few vehicles were moving about, but up to that time a large number of all sorts, many of which were without lights, were in motion, and not only was a very careful look-out by the former necessary, but the latter had often, especially on thick nights, to make a free use of his horn to avoid collisions. The roads for the first ten miles out of town, as far as Barnet to the north and Hounslow to the west, might, when the days were not at their longest, be said to be a blaze of light. Between the down mails leaving London and the day coaches arriving, none with less than three lamps, and many with five, and some even with six, it was a bad look-out for travellers who drove horses that were frightened at lights. Indeed, I have known some persons very nervous on this subject. They seemed to think that because the strong light dazzled them, it must have the same effect upon the coachman's eyes; and, when I have been driving a coach very strongly lighted, I have known men to leave the road and drive into a field to get out of my way. The presence of a number of coaches carrying powerful lights, and going both ways, probably does have the tendency of throwing small carriages without lamps into the shade, and so making it more difficult to see them. An aspiring costermonger, trying to thread his way with his donkey and cart among the numerous other vehicles, might be overlooked without much difficulty among such a brilliant company.
CHAPTER III.
ACCIDENTS.
I have sometimes been asked, when I was driving coaches, whether I had ever had an accident, to which I was able to reply for a good many years, that, though I had been very near several, I had been fortunate enough to steer clear of them. I had experienced different things which might easily have ended in an accident, such as a leader's rein breaking, the bit falling out of a wheel horse's mouth, a fore wheel coming off, and similar things, but had always managed to pull up without coming to grief. The case of the wheel might have been attended with very serious consequences if we had been going fast at the time, but fortunately it occurred just when I had pulled up to go slowly round a corner.
At last, however, it did come, and I think I may say "with a vengeance," though it was not accompanied with any loss of life or limb, or indeed any very serious consequences. It occurred when I was working the Aberystwith and Caernarvon "Snowdonian." A pole chain broke when descending a rather steep fall of ground, which caused the coach to approach the off-side of the road, and, as the lamps threw their light very high, I did not see a large stone, commonly called in the parlance of the road, "a waggoner," until it was close under the roller bolt, and immediately afterwards the fore wheel struck it with such violence that the concussion threw the box passenger and myself off the box. He was thrown clear of the coach, whilst I was pitched over the wheelers' heads, but, alighting upon the leaders' backs, was quietly let down to the ground between them. This, mercifully, laid me what the sailors call "fore and aft," and consequently the coach was able to pass over without touching me, and beyond a broken arm, I was little the worse. The horses galloped on for a few hundred yards, and then ran the off-side wheels up the hedgebank, upsetting the coach into the road.
This was somewhat of a lesson to me, for perhaps I had got the horses into the habit of going rather too fast down the falls of ground, of which there were several in the stage, but if I had not made play there, it would have been impossible to keep time. We were horsed by one of the hotel proprietors in Caernarvon, and it was certainly the worst team I ever drove. Underbred to start with, and, though our pace was not fast, yet from age and other infirmities too slow for it even such as it was.
Nevertheless, time was bound to be kept somehow, as we not unfrequently carried passengers who wanted to proceed from Caernarvon by the up mail train, and there was not much time to spare.
There was one thing I never would do, and that was to call upon good horses, the property of one proprietor, to fetch up time lost by the bad ones belonging to another.
I have previously alluded to being near accidents in consequence of a broken rein, and when I was driving the Aberystwith and Kington "Cambrian" I had a very near shave indeed from that cause. We had just commenced the descent of Radnor forest on the up journey, and I had begun to "shove 'em along a bit," when the near lead rein broke, and, consequently, the leaders got, to use a nautical phrase, athwart the wheelers. Of course, I tightened the brake at once, and was able to bring the coach to a standstill before any harm was done, as the pole held, and the horses were quiet, but another yard or two more and the coach must have gone over, as the leaders were already jammed in between the wheelers and a high hedgebank, with their heads turned the wrong way.
J. Sturgess del. et lith.