[INTRODUCTION.]
In offering these pages to the public, my object has been confined to imparting such advice, in matters connected with coaching, as has been suggested by long experience; whilst, in order to dissipate as much as possible the “dryness” of being told “what to do” and “how to do it,” I have mingled the instruction with illustrative anecdotes and incidents, which may afford amusement to the general reader. If whilst my bars are “whistling” up the hill, and rattling down, I have been able to combine some useful hints with the amusement often to be discovered in what I have termed “Scrapings of the Road,” my desire will be amply gratified.
[CONTENTS.]
| [CHAPTER I.] | PAGE |
| The revival—Magazine magnificence—Death of coaching—Resurrection—Avoid powder—Does the post pull?—Summering hunters—The “Lawyer’s Daughter”—An unexpected guest | 1 |
| [CHAPTER II.] | |
| Young coachmen—Save your horses—The ribbons—The whip—A professional Jehu—An amateur—Paralysed fingers | 20 |
| [CHAPTER III.] | |
| Anecdotes: Coachmen (friends and enemies)—Roadside burial—Old John’s holiday—How the mail was robbed—Another method—A visit from a well-known character—A wild-beast attack—Carrier’s fear of the supernatural—Classical teams—Early practice with the pickaxe—Catechism capsized | 34 |
| [CHAPTER IV.] | |
| Opposition—A quick change—How to do it—Accident to the Yeovil mail—A gallop for our lives—Unconscious passengers—Western whips—Parliamentary obstruction | 51 |
| [CHAPTER V.] | |
| The “Warwick Crown Prince”—“Spicy Jack”—Poor old Lal!—“Go it, you cripples!”—A model horsekeeper—The coach dines here—Coroner’s inquest—The haunted glen—Lal’s funeral | 65 |
| [CHAPTER VI.] | |
| Commercial-room—The bagman’s tale—Yes—Strange company | 90 |
| [CHAPTER VII.] | |
| Draught horses—The old “fly-waggon”—Weight and pace—Sagacity of mules—Hanging on by a wheel—The Refuge—Hot fighting in the Alps—Suffocation—Over at last—Railway to Paris | 104 |
| [CHAPTER VIII.] | |
| Right as the mail—Proprietors and contractors—Guards and coachmen—A cold foot-bath—A lawyer nonsuited—Old Mac—The Spectre Squire—An unsolved mystery | 126 |
| [CHAPTER IX.] | |
| Public and private conveyances in Austria and Hungary—An English dragsman posed—The Vienna race-meeting—Gentleman “Jocks”—A moral exemplified | 145 |
| [CHAPTER X.] | |
| North-country fairs—An untrained foxhunter—Tempted again—Extraordinary memory of the horse—Satisfactory results from a Latch-key | 154 |
| [CHAPTER XI.] | |
| The Coach and Horses (sign of)—Beware of bog spirits—Tell that to the Marines—An early breakfast—Salmon poaching with lights—Am I the man? or, the day of judgment—Acquittal! | 168 |
| [CHAPTER XII.] | |
| Coaches in Ireland fifty years ago—Warm welcome—Still-hunting—Another blank day—Talent and temper—The Avoca coach | 182 |
| [CHAPTER XIII.] | |
| Virtue and vice—Sowing wild oats—They can all jump—Drive down Box Hill—A gig across country | 195 |
[ROAD SCRAPINGS.]
Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum
Collegisse juvat.