If there is leisure for looking carefully over each horse before starting, the strain upon the reins, as previously recommended, is not necessary, but when every moment of time is of importance, that is quite impossible, and especially is it so at night, but for all practical purposes it will generally be found sufficient; and to try and point my moral, I will mention what happened to one of the best coachmen I ever saw handle the ribbons.
One evening, after dark, Charles Tustin, with the up Aberystwith and Shrewsbury mail, as he was driving out of Newtown, found when he wanted to turn at the end of the first street, that the near wheel draught rein would not run, and consequently the coach came in collision with the corner shop.
Now if he had taken a pull at his reins, as I have ventured to recommend, and as I have little doubt he usually did, he would have found out that the horsekeeper had carelessly fastened the rein in question between the hame and the collar. He was too good a coachman not to make the least of an accident, and no harm happened to anything except the glass in the shop window.
There is, however, one exception to this rule, which is that some horses are so exceedingly nervous that if they find out when the coachman is mounting his box, they are immediately all over the road, and these must be humoured.
It is very important that the reins should be so arranged in the right hand before leaving the ground that they can be transferred to the left in working order immediately upon placing both feet on the footboard, for some horses will brook no delay; and if the coachman is not at once in a position to say, "Let 'em go, and take care of yourselves," almost before he is seated, there may be a jibbing bout, or a mess of some sort. With some teams it is, or at any rate used to be
"If you will not when you may,
When you will you shall have nay."
I had at one time a leader of so nervous a temperament, though very good tempered, that, having to pull up to take up a passenger in the street just after leaving the inn yard, and where a brass band was playing, he reared so high, that in his descent he fell clean over his partner, but, as he had no vice, no injury was sustained except some slight breakages to the harness.
On being "put to" on one occasion he so alarmed the box passenger that he took only one step from the footboard to "terra firma," and if he had not been nearly as quick in getting back he must have been left behind, as it was my taking up the reins and mounting the box which started the horse off in his capers.
With such horses as these, when the rein is run and the inside trace hooked, it is time to be off, and the horsekeeper must hook the other as best he can, but if the coachman is not smart with his reins he cannot do it.