With Edge Tools

by H. C. Chatfield-Taylor

"I forgot to tell Helen I had asked you, but it's all right," called Harry Osgood from his high seat.

"Of course it is," replied his wife, "but I wish you wouldn't shock me so again. I thought I had seen a ghost."

"Never mind ghosts, but get the people up," said her husband.

Harry Osgood's char-à-bancs was a vehicle he had had constructed for use over the rough country roads. It was built somewhat like the two boots of a drag put together without the body, and had seats for ten persons, besides the servants, placed in three rows, and all facing forward, while its lightness rendered it very convenient for the purpose for which it was designed. The servants stowed the luggage away and Mrs. Osgood assigned places to the party. The elder Miss Simpson was given the box seat, the next was occupied by Reine Merrit, Waterman, Howard-Jones, and the younger Miss Simpson, while Miss Warner, Van Vort, Duncan and Helen Osgood mounted to the remaining one.

"Let em go," shouted Osgood as he shoved the brake back. The grooms jumped from the horses heads, the wheelers sprang into their collars, and the trap rolled away from the station. "Oakhurst," the Osgood place, was a short four miles distant, and the road, a fairly good one for America, ran, for the most part, through a forest of maples, broken here and there by the country seat of some New Yorker, or an occasional farm. The country was quite rolling, and the road, running as it did over a succession of small hills, made the driving a delight to Harry Osgood. He was a coachman who had learned his trade in England, and having been a subscriber to the Guildford Coach for two seasons, he was able to "sit his bench" like a veteran, and work his team with the smartness of one who has done "out of London roading"; but, with all his experience he was not a careful workman. He invariably made the four miles, from the station to his house, a galloping stage, and it was his pride to do the distance just under the twenty minutes; so, as soon as he turned the corner by the red barn, he sprang his team into a gallop, and they scarcely trotted another step of the way. Up hill and down the horses scampered, while the trap rocked like a ship at sea, now to this side and now to that, and when rounding the corners it often seemed as though the vehicle would certainly be turned over and the entire party landed in a hopeless muddle in the ditch; but nothing worse than a few feminine screams occurred until they reached the place where the road entered the Morristown turnpike.

Here Osgood espied another team coming up the main road, and as both traps were about an equal distance from the fork, he considered it a glorious chance for a race; so, giving his horses their heads, he urged them into a run. The driver of the other four, as ready for sport as Osgood, did the same, and the two traps came furiously on to where the roads met. The men cheered while the women held on to their seats, trembling with fright; and as the two traps came together at the fork, the other coachman tried to crowd in front of Osgood by taking some of the latter's road. There was no time to pull up, and seeing that his only safety from a wicked upset was to beat his rival, Osgood called on his horses for an extra spurt. The leaders were neck and neck, and the stranger had crowded him so far toward the edge of the road that he felt his hind wheel slipping down the embankment. The women shut their eyes and screamed while the men prepared to jump, but Osgood, acting with presence of mind, hit his rival's off-wheeler across the head with his whip, and "toweled" his own wheelers a good stinging cut across the shoulders. The wheel horse of the other trap, frightened at this sudden attack, jumped toward the pole, and, with his weight, swayed the vehicle toward the near side of the road, while Osgood's own wheelers sprang forward under the lashing and drew the trap onto the road before it had time to upset. Osgood darted ahead of his rival, and the party breathed freer as all visions of broken limbs and mangled bodies vanished from their frightened minds.

"Well done, old man," called Howard-Jones, who was himself a coaching man. "I like sport, but such a lubberly bit of work as that ought not to go unpunished."

"A man who will do a trick like that ought not to be trusted with a donkey," replied Osgood, as he pulled his team together after the excitement of the spurt.

"That's the trouble, nowadays," continued Howard-Jones. "After a lesson or two in the park, at team work, chaps set up as experienced coachmen."

"Who is the duffer, anyway?" called Duncan from behind.