DOWN HILL.
A SUDDEN EMERGENCY.
It is from driving with a bent arm that one hears people say they cannot work their own brakes. If I had been in that form on the occasion I have mentioned, I must first of all have used the right hand to shorten the reins through the left, before I could have employed it to put on the brake. As it was, the wheelers landed the coach down the hill without serious difficulty, though one of them was only four years old, and by no means a strong holder.
I cannot understand how any coachman can like to have his brake worked for him. The want of it differs so much from day to day, depending upon the load, the state of the road and other causes, that nothing but his own left hand can tell him how to work it. I am sure I should have been impossible to please. It is a most invaluable thing when properly used, but is very liable to be abused. Few things are more aggravating than to see it so applied as to cause horses to draw down hill, as I have often witnessed. The change from drawing to holding back, brings fresh muscles into play, and must therefore be a great relief to horses, as we know the change from up hill to down, and vice versa, is to us when walking.
Before leaving the subject of reins, which may be called the "key of the position," I would venture to raise my voice against what is too often done, which is to pass the right hand across to pull the near side reins. Hands across is very proper in a country dance, but a little of it goes a long way in driving. It is more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
If the team is well "put together" and the reins are properly held in the left hand, the wrist should be sufficiently supple to lift a near wheel horse nearly off his legs.
It is a good test that all is as it should be if, upon pulling up to unskid, the wheelers will back the coach off the skid-pan without any difficulty. Of course, the right hand must be used to the off-side reins, which itself is a help to the left, but no shortening of the reins through the fingers of the left hand should be wanted, and to reach the right hand out to grasp the reins in front of the left, as I have seen done, is absolutely insufferable.
THE TEAM EXTENDED.