“I took my place,” he exclaimed with emphasis, “and now you are going to try to squeeze six people into an infernal box that only holds five. I’ll take a post-chaise and bring an action for all the expenses incurred. I’ve paid my fare. It won’t do; I told the clerk when I took my place that it would not do. I know these things have been done. I know they are done every day; but I never was done, and I never will be. Those who know me best know it; crush me.”[237]
The son of Nimshi tried to smooth down matters, but in vain; and the irascible gent went off in high dudgeon; whereat I rejoiced.
Just as we were starting, an old woman approached, and after some chaffering agreed with the driver as to the sum for which he would carry her to the next village, and began to mount. Before she was up the horses started, and she was thrown to the ground and injured so much that she could not come with us. I endeavored to apply some balm by informing her that she had better sue the owner of the stage; for, she, being a passenger as soon as the contract was made, he was liable to her for the negligence of his man.[238]
We had not gone far, after our refreshments, before the sky grew overcast, the wind arose, heavy clouds began to send across the sky, distant mutterings of thunder grew more and more audible, rolling, rumbling, rattling, nearer and nearer, the heavens were wrapt in gloom, through which, ever and anon, the lightning flashed vividly. Quickly the thunderstorm was upon us, the rain descended first in large heavy drops, then in a perfect deluge; the sky seemed on fire with electric flashes, darting hither and thither like fiery, flying serpents. In vain the coachee whipped up his wearied horses and made their very bones to rattle, striving to gain shelter from the pitiless storm. Before protection could be gained we were all drenched to the epidermis, even those within did not escape, for the old stage leaked like a sieve and let in the flood at every part. (My wife declared afterwards that she had read that in the days of Henry II., of France, there were three, and only three, coaches in existence, one belonging to Catherine de Medicis, another to the fair, but frail, Diana of Poictiers, and the third to René de Laval, a noble seigneur, and that she verily believed that this was the one owned by, the fat old René, so weak, so frail, so rickety, was the old antediluvian monster; in fact, she remarked, there was nothing strong about the entire concern except the smell!)
But, after all, it was only a thunderstorm, and ere very long its fury was overpassed, the sun emerged from behind the murky clouds, and we all steamed away beneath its fiery rays like small portable steam-engines. Far worse, however, than being thoroughly damped ourselves, the heavy down-pour had penetrated our trunks and bags, playing the mischief with the things therein, for the carrier had not provided tarpaulins, or cart clothes and such necessary coverings to protect the baggage from the rain, as he was bound to do.[239] The thoughts of the damages which I might recover, alone kept me from pouring forth my ire upon the coachman’s devoted head.
Of course, proprietors of stage-coaches,[240] or mail-coaches,[241] who hold themselves out as carriers of goods, as well as of passengers, are liable as common carriers, and responsible at common law for all damage and loss to goods during the carriage from what cause soever arising, save only the act of God; and this liability extends to the luggage of passengers, as well as to the goods of strangers, although no specific charge be made for the luggage.[242] In England (by the Railway Clauses Act) railways, stage-coach proprietors, and other common carriers of passengers, their baggage and freight, are put upon precisely the same ground, both as to liability and as to any protection, privilege or exemption; and the same rule obtains in the great republic, except, perhaps, that inasmuch as transportation by rail is infinitely more perilous, a proportionate degree of watchfulness is demanded of carriers thereby. Care and diligence are relative terms, and the degree of care and watchfulness is to be increased in proportion to the hazard of the business.[243]
The thorough damping which he had received seemed to have had a mollifying effect upon our knight of the reins, and when I ventured to address him on the subject of his master’s liability for loss or damage to luggage, I found him quite thawed out, in fact, communicative.
“Wal,” said he, “I knows summat about that; but I rather guess you’d find yourself mistook if you thought him liable for all losses, and put a lot of money in your trunk, and didn’t tell on it, and had it lost.”
“Why,” queried I, “what about that?”
“Not much, only this: a chap one time thought so as how he’d come a sharp dodge on a coachman, so he just put $11,250 in his old trunk and said nothing about it; and when they got to their journey’s end the box was nowheres; the man tried to make the owner of the stage pay, but the judge decided he could not.”