Chapter I: 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.