The Foundling

by Georgette Heyer

The Highflyer, upon which he was to travel, had been dragged into the yard, and was being loaded with all manner of baggage. All the heavy cases were hoisted on to the roof, and the Duke’s eyes widened as corded trunk after corded trunk was piled up, until it seemed as though the coach could scarcely escape an overturn at the first bend in the road, so top-heavy had it become. While this was going forward, several persons were assisting the guard to stow into the boot all manner of smaller packages, including the Duke’s valise. When this was full, all the articles which still littered the yard, such as a basket of fish, several bandboxes, and some parcels done up in paper, were lashed to the hind axle-tree, or to the lamp-irons.

Meanwhile, the coachman, a burly gentleman in a multiplicity of coats, and with an enormous nosegay in his buttonhole, stood at one of the doors leading into the inn enjoying a flirtation with a housemaid. He paid no heed to the equipage he was about to drive until the ostlers led out from the stables a team of chestnuts, when he ran his eye critically over them, and delivered himself of various scraps of advice and instruction, which included an alarming command to take care not to let the near-wheeler touch the roller-bolt. The passengers were most of them engaged in arguments with the guard, and in fretfully waving away half the street-criers of London, who, for reasons which the Duke was unable to fathom, had assembled in the yard for the purpose of offering travellers every imaginable comfort upon their journey, from Holland socks, at only four shillings the pair, to hot spiced gingerbread. He had himself been obliged several times to refuse a rat-trap, a bag of oranges, and a paper of pins. One or two of the travellers, notably a thin man, muffled in a greatcoat, muffler, and a plaid shawl, seemed inclined to be querulous; and two elderly ladies were fast driving the guard to distraction by their repeated and shrill enquiries as to the exact location of a number of bandboxes and string-bags. Two of the gentlemen proposing to travel had not found the time to shave; and another was engaged in an acrimonious altercation with the jarvey who had driven him to the inn in a hackney.

The horses having been poled up, the coachman took a regretful leave of the housemaid, and rolled into the centre of the yard, casting an indulgent eye over his way-bill. The Duke thrust a silver coin into the shoe-black’s hand, and mounted on to his seat on the roof; the thin man besought the coachman to assure him that the near-wheeler was not an arrant kicker; the two elderly ladies were cast into a flutter of agitation; and the guard warned everyone to make haste, as they were about to be off, and the Highflyer didn’t wait for no one.

The coachman, having cast an experienced eye over his cattle, and warned an ostler in corduroy breeches and a greasy plush waistcoat not to take off the twitch from the young ’oss’s nose until he gave him the word, crammed the way-bill into his pocket, and mounted ponderously on to his very uncomfortable box-seat, and gathered up the reins. He was apparently contemptuous of the passengers, for, having taken his whip in his hand, he commanded the ostlers to let ’em go, without troubling himself to cast more than a casual glance behind. A brief recommendation to the passengers to look out for themselves was all the notice he deigned to bestow upon them; and it was left to the guard to warn them to mind their heads as the coach passed under the archway into the narrow street. The morning was damp and misty, and the Duke was rather sorry that he had not had the forethought to provide himself with a rug. But the coachman, who, after a sidelong scrutiny, had decided that he would be good for half a guinea, assured him genially that the day was going to be a rare fine one by the time they reached Islington Green.

While the coach wended its way through the London streets, the coachman was too much taken up with avoiding collision with market-carts, and occasional droves of cattle that were still coming into town, to have leisure for conversation, but when they began to draw out of the Metropolis, he responded to the incessant fire of nervous questions from the thin man, who was seated just, behind the Duke, saying with great good-humour that he had worked a coach for thirty years, and never had an upset. The thin man said severely that if he should attempt to race any other coach encountered upon the road he should report him to his proprietor; and informed the company at large that it was his usual practice to travel upon the Mail, in which excellent service armed guards were provided, and the dragsmen very strictly watched for any infringement of the rules. The coachman favoured the Duke with a wink, and began to tell a number of hair-raising stories about the terrible accidents met with by mail-coachmen, all of whom, he asserted, raced one another with an utter indifference to the safety or comfort of their passengers. And as for the guards provided by the Post Office, why, he could tell the thin man that time was when not a highwayman upon the road as was a highwayman would have faded to have had a touch at the mails.

The first advertised stage on the road was Barnet, where those passengers who had not yet breakfasted would be allowed fifteen minutes in which to eat and drink what they could; but when the turnpike at Islington was passed, and the tall elms on the green came into sight, the coachman reined in. From the number of coaches standing outside the Peacock Inn, or pulling away from it, it seemed that this halt was customary. An ostler shouted out the name of the coach as it drew up; a man came hurrying out of the inn, buttoning up his coat, and clutching a carpet-bag in one hand; and a woman with a shawl drawn over her head entered into negotiations with the guard for the delivery of two ducks at some point further along the road. The thin man said suspiciously that he dared say the man with the carpet-bag was not on the way-bill; but his neighbour, a more tolerant man, retorted that a bit of shouldering hurt nobody. This led the coachman into a bitter dissertation on the ways of informers, who, if he was to be believed, lurked at every point on the road, spying on honest coachmen, and trying to snatch the bread from their mouths. The Duke responded sympathetically, and the business with the beshawled woman being by this time concluded the coach set off again, passing the village pound, where a solitary cow lowed, and a small shop which offered in large lettering to beaver old hats.

The Holloway road was soon reached, and gave the coachman the opportunity of curdling the thin man’s blood with a series of reminiscences of all the desperate characters who had ever frequented it.

“Was it not on this stretch that Grimaldi was once robbed?” asked the Duke, who, as a small boy, had been regaled with all these stories.

“Ah, that it was!” nodded the coachman approvingly. “And only ten or so years ago! But ven they took his vatch, d’ye see, it had his phiz drawed on it, a-singing of ‘Me and my Neddy’, and they gave it to him back again, because he was werry well-liked.”

“I saw him once,” the Duke said. “At Sadler’s Wells, I think it was; I remember he made me laugh very much.”