in an instant into all its dark mysteries of "fanning," "springing," "pointing," "chopping" and "towelling." I went through snowdrifts, I drank rums and milk; hairbreadth escapes in imminent deadly floods were momentary occurrences; I alighted at galleried inns; waiters. all subservient showed me to "Concords" in all quarters of the empire. I revelled in the full glories of the coaching age in short in a moment! For had I not touched hands with its oldest, its most revered representative?

THERE were two main roads to York in the old coaching days. The first of these was measured from Shoreditch, and went by way of Ware, Tottenham, and Waltham; Hatfield and Stevenage; the second was measured from Hicks's Hall, and went by way of Barnet. At the Wheatsheaf Inn at Alconbury Hill, down in Huntingdonshire, these two roads to York became one and the same road; but the Ware route was four miles one furlong the shorter of the two.

When we want to go to York now we breakfast at half-past eight, if we are wise, and catch the ten o'clock Scotch express from King's Cross. Our grandfathers did not breakfast at all; not because they had no appetite at half-past eight, but because they had to start from High Holborn at half-past six.

According to the faculty, early rising is a healthy thing, yet I have known it bring strong men to their bier; and besides, however enjoyable, though perilous, it may be in summer, I think that few of us care to leap from our beds at half-past five on a raw January morning.

Yet this is what our ancestors had to do who wanted to catch one of the crack northern coaches.

Shall we follow them in the spirit on one of these ghastly expeditions?

Our coach-we will take the Regent for choicestarts at 6.30 from the George and Blue Boar, but we are not there yet. We are in bed in Berkeley Square, Marylebone Lane, or where you please.

Our sleep has been fevered with grim visions of the coming strife. It is broken by a loud knocking at the outer door, as in Macbeth.

Our servant, who has overslept himself according to immemorial receipt, now comes to tell us that it is halfpast five, and that the hackney coach ordered overnight to take us to the coach-office is already at the door.

Unless on these occasions you ordered a hackney coach overnight, you were utterly undone.

We now use strange words, and ask what sort of a morn it is. We are told that it is foggy, and we soon see that it is yellow. We have thoughts of not going to York, but we recollect that we have already bought our ticket. At the same time knocking from the hackney coachman below tells us that time flies.

We now fly into our boots and hat and other things. A horrible attempt at preparing breakfast has been made in the interval by the penitent valet; an impromptu effort in the way of a dingy table-cloth, a tea-urn, a loaf and a pat of butter, which causes us to shy on one side, as a thoroughbred shies at a traction engine. We seize our portmanteau, and hurry out into the eager morning air. The eager morning air is yellow, and in it the hackney coachman, his horse, his coach, our servant, who helps us in, all look supereminently the same colour.

In the fulness of time we arrive at the George and Blue Boar, Holborn. On his legal fare being tendered to the hackney coachman, he throws down his hat and offers to fight us for five shillings. We decline the stirring invitation and hurry into the inn yard. All here is bustle and animation in a sort of half gloom.

The Stamford Regent stands ready for her flight; four chestnuts with a good deal of blood about them seem anxious to be off; ostlers making noises after the manner of engines letting off steam in underground stations, are giving the finishing touches to the toilet. Afar off in a dim doorway the celebrated Tom Hennesy draws on his gloves, and says sweet nothings to a pretty housemaid, with her black hair out of curl. Ostlers are thrusting luggage into the boot. The boot seems to have an insatiable appetite for luggage. It swallows everything that is thrown at it, and makes no sign. The two inside passengers now appear upon the scene. One of them is an Anglo-Indian, who has whiskers brushed as if by a whirlwind, a voice like a bull, and a complexion in harmony with his surroundings. A sort of Jos Sedley going to York. The other is a lady of uncertain age, who wears her hair in curl papers, and pretends to a rooted antipathy to travelling alone with a man. This antipathy she communicates to the guard in a faded whisper. The guard grinning all over his face communicates this faded whisper to the Bengal Civil Servant. He receives it with matutinal curses.

"Confound it, sir," he roars, then let her ride out

side."

With which he hurls himself into the coach. From this point of vantage he shakes his fist at a wretched native in a turban, who, safely out of distance, salaams till his head almost touches the coach court-yard, and confesses that he has indeed omitted to provide the Sahib with his umbrella.

While a terrific volley of objurgations in Bengalese pours from one door of the coach, the lady with the faded

manner enters it by the other. At the same time the incomparable Tom Hennesy languidly mounts on to his box. He chews a piece of sweet lavender given by the

pretty housemaid-assumes the whip as a marshal does his bâton, and darts a deathly glance over his left shoulder at the lingering fair. "Let 'em go," he says, "and look out for yourselves." The ostlers fly from the