My particular friends have always rather erred on the side of foolhardiness, and I shall never forget my intense surprise at the rashness displayed by a large party at a house where I was staying two years ago. Our host, being the possessor of a very nice team, had promised to drive us over to an Agricultural Show about to be held in an adjacent town on a certain Wednesday. We were all looking forward to our outing with great glee, and nothing occurred to agitate our minds until the very day of the anticipated treat, when early that morning a pencil scrawl was brought me from my host saying he had been suddenly called away to attend some important function at the opposite end of the country; he therefore could not come to the show, but if I cared to take his place and drive his team they should be ready at eleven o'clock.
I immediately thought—the question was not so much would I like to drive the party, as would they like to be driven by me?
However, after most anxious and searching inquirings on my part as to whether they were all insured, to my amazement they bravely asserted they would in any case risk it and come!
So round came the coach. I must confess to a slight misgiving on beholding that the usual near wheeler had been put off leader for a change, and in his stead they had given me an ancient and ill-favoured roan mare, who, I knew, had never been driven in a team before.
No sign of apprehension escaped me, however, as I clambered sternly on to the box. The start was a little sketchy, as the roan mare began by making a series of low curtseys, instead of progressing in the ordinary way, while the ex-wheeler was a little out of his element too, as a leader. By the mercy of Providence I succeeded in landing my coach-load safely through the narrow gateway, and on to the field (filled as it was by a stupid Scotch crowd) and I pulled up in triumph by the barrier of the show-ring.
I am afraid I must in honesty confess that I did run both my chariot and horses into one wire fence on the way—but the leaders would think, and the horses were all so determined, that they knew the way better than I did, that they had borne us half-way past the corner before I could get hold of them to turn down the way I wished to go. There was no harm done, luckily, and I managed to haul them out again undamaged, and proceeded without further misadventure.
There are not many things much more calculated to annoy, than a horse who always "thinks," the stupid beast who will stop at every shop passing through his own village on a Sunday, when he must surely see that all the shops are shut, or the animals who turn eagerly down every lane and corner that they come to, albeit they have passed by that road a thousand times before and have never been called upon to turn either to right-hand or to the left. And yet a horse who wont think is almost equally exasperating. Such a beast seems glad enough to lame himself or stamp on one's toes without thinking even for a moment whether it might be inconvenient or otherwise distasteful to his employers.
One thing I have forgotten to put down, is what to do in the event of a wheeler lying on the pole (which of course shoves it to one side, and the coach must needs follow in its train). Supposing, then, your off wheeler happens to be performing this antic and is pushing the whole coach by his weight to the left side. You should pull your leaders to the right, and, by so doing, make them pull the pole across until you get the concern straight again.
The only upset my father ever had with a team was caused by his omitting to do this, and that is why he told me never to forget it.
I have been implicated in many other strange drives, notably two with tandems and one with three horses abreast.