It is not generally known that the drawings for Old Christmas, one hundred and twelve in number, were all made in 1874; and there is a marked alteration in style during the progress of this book, such as, for example, between the drawing of "The Village Choir" (commenced in March 1874), and the portrait of "Master Simon," placed opposite to each other on pages 96 and 97 of the first edition of Old Christmas.
The humour is more robust, but never in after-work was more delightful, than in his rendering of the typical stage coachman. Until these illustrations came it had been said that Washington Irving's coachman stood out as a unique and matchless description of a character that has passed away.
"In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire," writes Washington Irving, "I rode for a long distance on one of the public coaches on the day preceding Christmas."
Three schoolboys were amongst his fellow-passengers. "They were under the particular guardianship of the coachman to whom, whenever an opportunity presented, they addressed a host of questions, and pronounced him one of the best fellows in the world. Indeed I could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side and had a large bunch of Christmas green stuck in the button-hole of his coat.
"Wherever an English stage coachman may be seen he cannot be mistaken for one of any other craft or mystery. He has commonly a broad full face, curiously mottled with red, as if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every vessel of the skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent potations of malt liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a multiplicity of coats in which he is buried like a cauliflower, the upper one reaching to his heels. He wears a broad-brimmed low-crowned hat; a huge roll of coloured handkerchief about his neck, knowingly knotted and tucked in at the bosom, and has in summer-time a large bouquet of flowers in his button-hole, the present most probably of some enamoured country lass. His waistcoat is commonly of some bright colour, striped; and his small clothes extend far below the knees to meet a pair of jockey-boots which reach about halfway up his legs.
The Stage Coachman.
"All this costume is maintained with much precision; he has a pride in having his clothes of excellent materials; and notwithstanding the seeming grossness of his appearance, there is still discernible that neatness and propriety of person which is almost inherent in an Englishman. He enjoys great consequence and consideration along the road; has frequent conferences with the village housewives, who look upon him as a man of great trust and dependence; and he seems to have a good understanding with every bright-eyed lass. The moment he arrives he throws down the reins with something of an air, and abandons the cattle to the care of the ostler; his duty being merely to drive from one stage to another. When off the box his hands are thrust in the pockets of his greatcoat, and he rolls about the inn yard with an air of the most absolute lordliness. Here he is generally surrounded by an admiring throng of ostlers, stable-boys, shoe-blacks, and those nameless hangers-on that infest inns and taverns and run errands. Every ragamuffin that has a coat to his back thrusts his hands in his pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an embryo 'coachey.'"