As a lad I always, when travelling, got the box seat, if possible, and never took my eyes off the coachman's hands; the consequence was that when I became old enough to be trusted with the ribbons, I naturally fell into the form which I had noticed in them, and then followed the second help, which was the opportunity of driving sixty to eighty miles a day.
"Easy the lesson of the youthful train,
When instinct prompts and when example guides."
It is very difficult to explain clearly the motions of the hands in shooting or fishing, and it is no easier to do so in driving. A few hours of careful observation are of more value to a beginner than a great deal of instruction. If he starts in a bad form it is long odds against his ever getting out of it.
I have heard opinions broached by young men of the present day which would not have found favour fifty years ago, and, though I will not venture to say that no changes have taken place for the better since then, I would call to mind the fact, that as driving was then the real business of life to thousands, and that coachmen at that time had a much more extensive practice than can be obtained now, the presumption is that they were likely to have found out the right way to go to work. Indeed, there were artists in those days—men who would drive any brute that could be harnessed, and could get any load through the country at almost any pace and in all weathers, by night or day.
But before going further on this subject, perhaps it will be better to lay a foundation.
Before horses can be driven satisfactorily they must be properly put together, and to this end everyone who aspires to be a coachman should have a practical knowledge of how his team should be harnessed and "put to the coach." It has been truly remarked that horses well put together are half driven.
Now, first, for a few faults, one of the greatest of which, and one not very uncommon, is to have the pole chains too slack. If they are hooked so that there is no strain upon them when the traces are tight, they are slack enough, and more than that is bad, as it takes away the power of the horses over the coach and of the coachman over the horses, and has oftener than generally supposed been the cause of a kicking bout, as I have endeavoured to show in a previous chapter.
The London "'bus men" do have their pole chains very slack, and they are right, because their horses are continually falling upon the slippery streets, and it gives them room to struggle and get up again with little danger of breaking the pole; but this does not apply to road work, and there, if the pace is very fast, it is dangerous from its tendency to make the coach rock.
I am always puzzled when I see coachmen driving with the present fashion of long coupling reins. What good can they see in them? Here again the 'bus men, who I suppose set the example, have reason on their side. They sometimes require to alter a coupling rein on the journey, and, from being able to reach the buckle from their seat, can do so at any stopping, without help from the conductor, who is engaged with the passengers; but this can never be necessary with a gentleman's drag or a coach. In the one case there is the groom, and in the other, the guard, to do what is required—that is to say, in the latter case, if there is time to do anything at all, for I recollect on one occasion having to drive an eleven mile stage in an hour, when the horsekeeper had carelessly reversed the reins by putting the leading draught one's inside and the coupling reins outside, but the pace was too good to alter. It appears to me that the long coupling reins only add to the weight, which is necessarily considerable, without conferring any benefit, and, indeed, when, as I have seen them, they are so long that the buckle touches the left hand, they can hardly be unattended with danger.