Yes; a man of importance—the father of a family, the man whose patient toil produced, Saturday night by Saturday night, the sum of money that should keep respectably his wife and six little ones;—the man who had no rest on Sundays; but seven days a week—hail, rain, sunshine, or bitter frost—goes on his monotonous journeys for fourteen, fifteen, sixteen hours per day, with hardly time allowed him to supply the wants of nature—a rough-looking, weather-stained, hoarse-voiced, ignorant man; but a true, faithful husband, a loving father, and a patient toiler—the sole prop, stay, support of the weeping ones at home.
A man of importance called away from this busy, competitive, stirring world—somebody of importance dead, gainsay it who will.
So I found from my driver, who, after being exceedingly gruff and distant for a time, gradually seemed to thaw, and, as I asked question after question, became quite loquacious, as he made the black crape butterfly flit from side to side in the act of caressing his horses with the whip. I did not see him lash them once; and at last he spoke out as if he had known me for years.
“Seems a sort of mark of respect for the poor chap, and we generally do it. Worth nothing, of course, for a kind thought and an honest tear in memory of an old friend’s worth, to my way of thinking, all the crape and black feathers and velvet palls, and hearses and mourning coaches, in the world. Don’t say I’m right, ma’am; and though I talk of tears I don’t say that I drop em. I leave that for the women to do, but I’ve had a few thoughts about poor Sam, who got off his box come Sunday three weeks dead beat, poor chap.”
No, my driver did not seem at all the man given to tears, but in consequence of the cutting wind blowing right into our faces, there was a slight humidity in his eyes, and he sniffed twice very loudly, and then put his whip in the hand that held the reins, took off his hat, and fished out a red cotton handkerchief, with which he blew his nose loudly.
“Strange bad colds we ketches up on the box here sometimes,” he said apologetically. “It’s enough to kill anybody—the hours are so long; but then, it’s no use to grumble—not a bit. If you don’t like it you can go, and there’s hundreds of men who can handle the ribbons ready to pop into your seat. It’s a precious sight easier to get out of collar than it is to get in again, I can tell you; so I don’t grumble, but keep on.
“Look healthy? well, pr’aps I do; but all this red colour in one’s face ain’t fresh air and weather. One’s drops have something to do with it, for some chaps may stand it, I dare say, but I can’t, and I find a drop of beer with some gin in it warms you better than most things. I like temperance as well as any man, but I really can’t do without a drop in the bitter weather, and those who can must be made of different stuff to me.
“Now, take one of our London winter days—which you like—a regular keen frost, or a yaller fog, or a soaking rain, or one of those cold, mizzly, clinging, go-through-your-very-marrow sort of days. Get your breakfast in a hurry, and be off to the yard and get on the box. All’s ready for us, for we don’t clean horses or ’busses; there’s men on purpose to do that. Well, I’m well wrapped up, and I get on my box at eight o’clock in the morning, and begin my City journey. There we are all times; we mustn’t go no faster, nor we mustn’t go no slower; time’s time, and we have to keep it if we can, but sometimes we can’t, and do what we will, we’re late—with extra passengers, or a block, or something wrong with a horse, or one thing or another; and then, if it happens to be near dinner time, we have to start back as usual, and often and often, I haven’t got off the box, but swallowed a mouthful of something where I sat, and been off again.
“Drive, drive, and pull up, all the afternoon, with about five or six minutes for my tea, and then up and at it again, hour after hour, till the last journey’s done, and then I’ve got off the box hardly able to stand, I’ve been so cramped; while scarcely ever before eleven, and generally twelve, I’ve got home, worn out, to my bit of supper. Fifteen or sixteen hours, Sunday and weekday, is too much of a good thing, ain’t it? And on such days as I’ve been talking about, when you can’t feel your feet, and your hands won’t hardly hold rein or whip, and the cold goes through and through you, don’t you think as one wants something to comfort one a bit? because if you don’t, I should like them as grumbles to try it on for a month and see.
“Coats, of course, keeps out a deal, but the coat ain’t been made that will keep out all the cold and wet. Oilskins and macintoshes always acts on me rheumatically, and gives me pains all over in the jynts; so I puts on as many reg’lar coats and weskits as I can get on one above another, and wraps up my legs. But in all that long time, it’s no use, the cold creeps in somewhere like the thin edge of a wedge, and lets in ever so much more, and though we mostly gets a shilling or so a day more than the conductors, I don’t know but what I’d rather have their life, on account of the jumping up and down.