THE TEAM GATHERED.
I was once talking on this subject to Charles Tustin, with whose name I have already taken liberties, when he remarked that a coachman should take up his reins at the beginning of a stage, and never have to alter them in his left hand till he throws them down at the end of it. Some drivers I have seen appear to think it a sign of a light hand to be constantly fiddling with the reins. I believe it is more a sign of a fidgeting hand, and I am quite sure, from experience, that hot-tempered horses settle down much better without it. The less their mouths are meddled with the better.
There is one use, however, to which the right hand may sometimes be applied, which is to take hold of the near lead rein and loop it up under the left thumb upon turning a sharp corner to the left, and also if a near wheel horse throws himself against the pole in going down hill or pulling up, to do the same with his rein. From the position a horse in this posture has placed his pad territs in, the rein will naturally become slack and useless, and by shortening it in the way I have described, the left arm resumes its power, and, what is of nearly as much importance, the right is free to use the whip, which will probably be wanted at such a crisis.
One hint may not be out of place here as it may not have occurred to some, and that is, when bringing up the right hand to take hold of the off-side reins, not to reach forward with it, but to bring it up just touching the left, and to seize the reins immediately below that hand. The right hand can then be passed along the reins as far as is necessary, placing a finger to separate the lead and wheel, when either can be pulled separately as may be required.
This may seem to some so small a thing, as not to be worth bothering about, but it is by attending to minutiæ that the accomplished coachman is made; neither is it of such very small importance, as I have known a coach upset for want of its being attended to, and it is especially necessary at night when everything is done by feel.
Old Griffie Williams, as honest a fellow as ever lived, but not the most accomplished of coachmen, who for many summers partly horsed and drove the "Tourist" coach between Aberystwith and Dolgelly, when descending a hill on his up journey, wanted to pull his horses out of the near side of the road, and, reaching forward too far with his right hand, he took up the near wheel rein together with the off-side ones. Of course, the more he pulled at the reins the harder he pulled the near wheeler towards the near side of the road, and it ended in the wheels running up the hedge bank, and putting the coach on its side into the road.
Fortunately he was, as usual, going slowly, and very little harm was done to anyone. Upon my asking him afterwards how he came to scatter his passengers, he replied, "Inteed, I was put them down as nice as was go to bed."
Young coachmen may possibly mistake the weight inseparable from four-horse reins from having got them too tight, but upon looking they may see that the curb-chains are slack, and if that is the case the reins are not too tight. It is not desirable to hold horses too hard, but if a lot of slack is out a coachman is helpless if a horse falls or anything else goes wrong. Moreover, horses generally go better for being well held together. A coachman driving a coach, such as they used to be, who loosed his horses' heads, was generally soon brought to the use of his whip, whilst the same horses, well held together, would be fresh at the end of their stage.
I can now call to mind an instance of this. About half a century ago it was a common lounge in Shrewsbury for those whose time was not fully occupied, to collect at the top of the Wyle Cop, where the "Lion Hotel" was situated, to see the "Hirondelle" and "Hibernia," Liverpool and Cheltenham coaches, come up the hill, and perhaps sometimes a bet might be made as to which would be first, for they did a good deal of racing. Of course, I never let the opportunity slip when I was in that ancient borough of forming one of this number.