Chapter 3

A melancholy result followed upon a worthy endeavour to carry the mails through the snow on the 1st February 1831. The Dumfries coach had reached Moffat, where it became snowed up. The driver and guard procured saddle-horses, and proceeded; but they had not gone far when they found the roads impracticable for horses, and these were sent back to Moffat. The two men then continued on foot; but they did not get beyond a few miles on the road when they succumbed, and some days afterwards their dead bodies were found on the high ground near the "Deil's Beef-Tub," the bags being found attached to a post at the roadside, and not far from where the men fell. They perished in a noble attempt to perform their humble duties. The incident recalls the lines of Thomson:--

"And down he sinks Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots Through the wrung bosom of the dying man. His wife, his children, and his friends unseen. On every nerve The deadly winter seizes; shuts up sense; And o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold Lays him along the snows, a stiffened corse, Stretched out, and bleaching in the northern blast."

We have little conception of the labour that had to be expended, during periods of snow, in the endeavour to keep the roads open. In places the snow would be found lying thirty or forty feet deep, and the road trustees were obliged to spend large sums of money in clearing it away. Hundreds of the military were called out in certain places to assist, and snow-ploughs were set to work in order to force a passage.

The inconvenience to the country caused by such interruptions is well described in the _Annual Register_ of the 15th February 1795: "My letter of two days ago is still here; for, though I have made an effort twice, I have been obliged to return, not having reached half the first stage. Two mails are due from London, three from Glasgow, and four from Edinburgh. Neither the last guard that went hence for Glasgow on Thursday, nor he that went on Wednesday, have since been heard of; this country was never so completely blocked up in the memory of the oldest person, or that they ever heard of. I understand the road is ten feet deep with snow from this to Hamilton. I have had it cut through once, but this third fall makes an attempt impossible. Heaven only knows when the road will be open, nothing but a thaw can do it--it is now an intense frost."

But the guards and coachmen were put upon their mettle on other occasions than when snow made further progress impossible.

The following incident, showing the courage and devotion to duty of a mail guard and coachman, is related by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart., in his account of the floods which devastated the province of Moray in August 1829. Referring to the state of things in the town of Banff, Sir Thomas proceeds: "The mail-coach had found it impracticable to proceed south in the morning by its usual route, and had gone round by the Bridge of Alva. It was therefore supposed that the mail for Inverness, which reaches Banff in the afternoon, would take the same road. But what was the astonishment of the assembled population when the coach appeared, within a few minutes of the usual time, at the further end of the Bridge of Banff. The people who were standing there urged both the guard and coachman not to attempt to pass where their danger was so certain. On hearing this the passengers left the coach; but the guard and coachman, scouting the idea of danger in the very streets of Banff, disregarded the advice they received, and drove straight along the bridge. As they turned the corner of the butcher-market, signals were made, and loud cries were uttered from the nearest houses to warn them of the danger of advancing; yet still they kept urging the horses onwards. But no sooner had they reached the place where the wall had burst, than coach and horses were at once borne away together by the raging current, and the vehicle was dashed violently against the corner of Gillan's Inn. The whole four horses immediately disappeared, but rose and plunged again, and dashed and struggled hard for their lives. Loud were the shrieks of those who witnessed this spectacle. A boat came almost instantaneously to the spot, but as the rowers pushed up to try to disengage the horses, the poor animals, as they alternately reached the surface, made desperate exertions to get into the boat, so that extreme caution was necessary in approaching them. They did succeed in liberating one of them, which immediately swam along the streets, amidst the cheering of the population; but the other three sank to rise no more. By this time the coach, with the coachman and guard, had been thrown on the pavement, where the depth of water was less; and there the guard was seen clinging to the top, and the coachman hanging by his hands to a lamp-post, with his toes occasionally touching the box. In this perilous state they remained till another boat came and relieved them, when the guard and the mails were landed in safety. Great indignation was displayed against the obstinacy which had produced this accident. But much is to be said in defence of the servants of the Royal Mail, who are expected to persevere in their endeavours to forward the public post in defiance of risk, though in this case their zeal was unfortunately proved to have been mistaken."[3]

Although, as already stated, robberies were frequent from the mail-coaches, and the guard carried formidable weapons of defence, it does not appear that the coaches were often openly attacked. At any rate there do not seem to be many records of such incidents referring to the later days of the mail-coach service.

An old guard, now retired, but still or quite recently living in Carlisle, relates that only on one occasion did he require to draw his arms for actual defence. This happened at a hamlet called Chance Inn, in the county of Forfar, where the coach had stopped as usual. Both the inside and outside places were occupied by passengers, and no additional travellers could be taken. A number of sailors, however, who were proceeding to join their ship at a seaport, wished to get upon the coach; and though they were told that they could not travel by this means, they plainly showed by their looks and demeanour that they were determined to do so. One of them was overheard to say that, when the proper moment arrived, they would make short work of the guard, who, as it happened, was a youngish man. The passengers too were alarmed at the appearances, and appealed to the guard to keep a sharp eye upon the sailors. Under these conditions the guard directed the coachman, the moment the word was given, to put the horses to a gallop, so as to leave the seamen behind and avoid attack. The start was signalled as arranged, the guard sprang into his place and faced round to the sailors, one of whom was now in the act of preparing to throw a huge stone at his head with both hands. Instantly the guard drew one of his pistols and covered the ringleader, who thereupon dropped on his knees imploring pardon, while his companions, previously so aggressive, scampered off in all directions like a set of scared rabbits.

The apparatus by which in the present day bags of letters are dropped from and taken up by the travelling post-office while the trains are running at high speed had its prototype in the days of the mail-coaches. In the one case as in the other the object was to get rid of stoppages, and so to save time. In the coaching days the apparatus was of a most primitive kind, consisting of a pointed stick rather less than four feet long, whose sharpened end was put in behind the string around the neck of the mail-bag, and on the end of the stick the bag was held up to be clutched by the mail guard as the coach went hurriedly by. We are indebted to the sub-postmaster of Liberton, a village a few miles out of Edinburgh, for a description of the arrangement. He describes how the guards, some fifty years ago, would playfully deal with the youngsters who worked the "apparatus," by not only seizing the bag but also the stick, and causing the young people to run long distances after the coach in order to recover it. The fun was all very well, says the sub-postmaster, in the genial nights of summer; "but when the cold nights of winter came round, it was our turn to play a trick upon the guard, when both he and the driver were numbed with cold and fast asleep, and the four horses going at full speed. It was not easy to arouse the guard to take the bag; and just fancy the rare gift of Christian charity that caused us youngsters to run and roar after the fast-running mail-coach to get quit of the bag. It used to be a weary business waiting the mail-coach coming along from the south when the roads were stormed up with snow or otherwise delayed. It required some tact to hold up the bag, as the glare of the lamps prevented us from seeing the guard as he came up with his red coat and blowing a long tin horn."

Some curious notions were prevalent of the effect of travelling by mail-coach--the rate being about eight or ten miles an hour. Lord Campbell was frequently warned against the danger of journeying this way, and instances were cited to him of passengers dying of apoplexy induced by the rapidity with which the vehicles travelled. In 1791 the Postmaster-General gave directions that the public should be warned against sending any cash by post, partly, as he stated, "from the prejudice it does to the coin by the friction it occasions from the great expedition with which it is conveyed." After all, speed is merely a relative thing.

Although, as previously stated, open attacks were not often made upon the coaches, robberies of the bags conveyed by them were quite common--chiefly at night--and we may assume that they were made possible through the carelessness of the guards. It would be a long story to go fully into this matter. Let a couple of instances suffice. On the last day of February 1810, in the evening, a mail-coach at Barnet was robbed of sixteen bags for provincial towns by the wrenching off the lock while the horses were changing. And on the 19th November of the same year seven bags for London were stolen from the coach at Bedford about nine o'clock in the evening.

The authorities had a good deal of trouble with the mail guards and coachmen, and the records of the period are full of warnings against their irregularities. Now they are admonished for stopping at ale-houses to drink; now the guards are threatened for sleeping upon duty. Then they are cautioned against conveying fish, poultry, etc., on their own account. A guard is fined L5 for suffering a man to ride on the roof of the coach; a driver is fined L5 for losing time; another driver, for intoxication and impertinence to passengers, is fined L10 and costs. The guards are entreated to be attentive to their arms, to see that they are clean, well loaded, and hung handy; they are forbidden to blow their horns when passing through the streets during the hours of divine service on Sundays; they are enjoined to keep a watch upon French prisoners of war attempting to break their parole; and to sum up, an Inspector despairingly writes that "half his time is employed in receiving and answering letters of complaint from passengers respecting the improper conduct and impertinent language of guards." A story is told of a passenger who, being drenched inside a coach by water coming through an opening in the roof, complained of the fact to the guard, but the only answer he got was, "Ay, mony a ane has complained o' that hole," and the guard quietly passed on to other duties.

Railway travellers are familiar with an official at the principal through stations whose duty it seems to be to ring a bell and loudly call out "Take your seats!" the moment hungry passengers enter the refreshment-rooms. How far his zeal engenders dyspepsia and heart disease it is impossible to say.

In the mail-coach days similar pressure was put upon passengers; for every effort was made to hurry forward the mails. In a family letter written by Mendelssohn in 1829, he describes a mail-coach journey from Glasgow to Liverpool. Among other things he mentions that the changing of horses was done in about forty seconds. This was not the language of mere hyperbole, for where the stoppage was one for the purpose of changing horses only the official time allowed was one minute.

It is perhaps a pity that we have not fuller records of the scenes enacted at the stopping-places; they would doubtless afford us some amusement. There is the old story of the knowing passenger who, unobserved, placed all the silver spoons in the coffee-pot in order to cool the coffee and delay the coach, while the other passengers, already in their places, were being searched.

There is another story which may be worth repeating. A hungry passenger had just commenced to taste the quality of a stewed fowl when he was peremptorily ordered by the guard to take his place. Unwilling to lose either his meal or his passage, he hastily rolled the fowl in his handkerchief, and mounted the coach. But the landlord, unused to such liberties, was soon after him with the ravished dish. The coach was already on the move, and the only revenge left to the landlord was to call out jeeringly to the passenger, "Won't you have the gravy, sir?" The other passengers had a laugh at the expense of their companion; but we know that a hungry man is a tenacious man, and a man with a full stomach can afford to laugh. At any rate the proverb says, "Who laughs last laughs best."

The differences arising between passengers and the landlords at the stopping-places were sometimes, however, of a much more prosaic and solemn character. Charles Lamb has given us such a scene. "I was travelling," he says, "in a stage-coach with three male Quakers, buttoned up in the straitest nonconformity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, where a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in my way took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my companions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild arguments were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard came in with his usual peremptory notice. The Quakers pulled out their money and formally tendered it--so much for tea--I, in humble situation, tendering mine, for the supper which I had taken. She would not relax in her demand. So they all three quietly put up their silver, as did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and gravest going first, with myself closing up the rear, who thought I could not do better than follow the example of such grave and warrantable personages. We got in. The steps went up. The coach drove off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously pronounced, became after a time inaudible, and now my conscience, which the whimsical scene had for a while suspended, beginning to give some twitches, I waited, in the hope that some justification would be offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice of their conduct. To my surprise, not a syllable was dropped on the subject. They sat as mute as at a meeting. At length the eldest of them broke silence by inquiring of his next neighbour, 'Hast thee heard how indigos go at the India House?' and the question operated as a soporific on my moral feelings as far as Exeter."

A Frenchman was once a traveller by mail-coach, who, although he knew the English language fairly well, was not familiar with the finer shades of meaning attached to set expressions when applied in particular situations. An Englishman, who was his companion inside the coach, had occasion to direct his attention to some object in the passing landscape, and requested him to "look out." This the Frenchman promptly did, putting his head and shoulders out of the window, and the view obtained proved highly pleasing to the stranger. A stage further on in the journey, when the coach was approaching a narrow part of the road bordered and overhung by dense foliage, the driver, as was his custom, called out to the company, "Look out!" to which the Frenchman again quickly responded by thrusting head and shoulders out of the window; but this time with the result that his hat was brushed off, and his face badly scratched from contact with the neighbouring branches. This curious contradiction in the use of the very same words enraged the Frenchman, who said hard things of our language; for he had discovered that when told to "look out" he was to look out, and that again when told to "look out" he was to be careful not to look out.

Mackenzie graphically describes the part mail-coaches took in the distribution of news over the country in the early years of the century. Referring to the news of the battle of Waterloo, he says: "By day and night these coaches rolled along at their pace of seven or eight miles an hour. At all cross roads messengers were waiting to get a newspaper or a word of tidings from the guard. In every little town, as the hour approached for the arrival of the mail, the citizens hovered about their streets waiting restlessly for the expected news. In due time the coach rattled into the market-place, hung with branches, the now familiar token that a great battle had been fought and a victory won. Eager groups gathered. The guard, as he handed out his mail-bags, told of the decisive victory which had crowned and completed our efforts. And then the coachman cracked his whip, the guard's horn gave forth once more its notes of triumph, and the coach rolled away, bearing the thrilling news into other districts."

The writer of the interesting work called _Glasgow, Past and Present_, gives the following realistic account of the arrival of the London mail in Glasgow in war-time:--

"During the time of the French war it was quite exhilarating to observe the arrival of the London mail-coach in Glasgow, when carrying the first intelligence of a great victory, like the battle of the Nile, or the battle of Waterloo. The mail-coach horses were then decorated with laurels, and a red flag floated on the roof of the coach. The guard, dressed in his best scarlet coat and gold ornamented hat, came galloping at a thundering pace along the stones of the Gallowgate, sounding his bugle amidst the echoings of the streets; and when he arrived at the foot of Nelson Street he discharged his blunderbuss in the air. On these occasions a general run was made to the Tontine Coffee-room to hear the great news, and long before the newspapers were delivered the public were advertised by the guard of the particulars of the great victory, which fled from mouth to mouth like wildfire."

The mail-guards, and also the coachmen, were a race of men by themselves, modelled and fashioned by the circumstances of their employment--in fact, receiving character, like all other sets of people, from their peculiar environment. There are now very few of them remaining, and these very old men. These officers of the Post Office mixed with all sorts of people, learned a great deal from the passengers, and were full of romance and anecdote. We remember one guard whose conversation and accounts of funny things were so continuous that his hearers were kept in a constant state of ecstasy whenever he was set agoing. His fund of story seemed inexhaustible, and we can imagine how hilariously would pass away the hours on the outside of a mail-coach with such a companion. The guard of whom we are speaking was a north countryman, possessed of a stalwart frame and iron constitution, a man with whom a highwayman would rather avoid getting into grips. He used to tell of an occasion on which the driver, being drunk, fell from his box, and the horses bolted. He himself was seated in his place at the rear of the coach. The state of things was serious. He however scrambled over the top of the coach, let himself down between the wheelers, stole along the pole of the coach, recovered the reins, and saved the mail from wreck and the passengers from impending death. For this he received a special letter of thanks from the Postmaster-General.

It was the custom of this guard, as no doubt of others of his class, to take charge of parcels of value for conveyance between places on his road. On one occasion he had charge of a parcel of L1500 in bank notes, which was in course of transmission to a bank at headquarters. It happened that the driver had been indulging rather freely, and at one of the stopping-places the coachman started off with the coach leaving the guard behind. The latter did not discover this till the coach was out of sight, and realising the responsibility he was under in respect of the money, which for safety he had placed in a holster below one of his pistols, he was in a great fright. There was nothing for it but to start on foot and endeavour to overtake the coach; but this he did not succeed in doing till he had run a whole stage, at the end of which the perspiration was oozing through his scarlet coat. At the completion of the journey he sponged himself all over with whisky, and did not then feel any ill effects from the great strain he had placed himself under, though later in life he believed his heart had suffered damage from the exertions of that memorable day.

Before leaving this branch of our subject it may be well to note that while the mail guards received but nominal pay--ten and sixpence a week--they earned considerable sums in gratuities from passengers, and for executing small commissions for the public. In certain cases as much as L300 a year was thus received; and the heavy fines that were inflicted upon them were therefore not so severe as might at first sight seem. Unhappily these men were given to take drink, if not wisely, at any rate too often. The weaknesses of the mail guard are very cleverly portrayed in some verses on the _Mail-Coach Guard_, quoted in Larwood and Hotten's work on the _History of Signboards_; and while these frailties are the burden of the song, it will be observed how cleverly the names of inns or alehouses are introduced into the song:--

"At each inn on the road I a welcome could find; At the Fleece I'd my skin full of ale; The Two Jolly Brewers were just to my mind; At the Dolphin I drank like a whale. Tom Tun at the Hogshead sold pretty good stuff; They'd capital flip at the Boar; And when at the Angel I'd tippled enough, I went to the Devil for more. Then I'd always a sweetheart so snug at the Car; At the Rose I'd a lily so white; Few planets could equal sweet Nan at the Star; No eyes ever twinkled so bright. I've had many a hug at the sign of the Bear; In the Sun courted morning and noon; And when night put an end to my happiness there, I'd a sweet little girl in the Moon. To sweethearts and ale I at length bid adieu, Of wedlock to set up the Sign; Hand-in-Hand the Good-Woman I look for in you, And the Horns I hope ne'er will be mine. Once guard to the mail, I'm now guard to the fair, But though my commission's laid down, Yet while the King's Arms I'm permitted to bear, Like a Lion I'll fight for the Crown."

A good loyal subject to the last.