nd, as it seems to us, out into the cold dark night; the
guard blows his horn; curtains are drawn on one side as we pass, that,
out of warm rooms, curious eyes may look on us. The pikekeeper bids us,
for him, an unusually cheerful good-night, and by this time some of the
old pilots returning to Southwold, or Lowestoft, or Yarmouth, after
having been with vessels up the Thames, cheered by the contents of
various libations, wake the dull ear of night with songs occasionally
amatory, but chiefly of a nautical character; and if there is a
chorus,--why, we can all join in that; are we not jolly companions, every
one? Does not this beat railway travelling? "I believe you, my boys."
I say the present race of men have no conception of this. Why, look at a
London omnibus; for nine months out of the twelve a cockney can't ride,
even from the Bank to Pimlico, without getting inside. A friend of mine,
one of the good old sort, rides into town winter and summer outside a
distance of about nine miles. "Of course you wear a respirator," said a
young cockney to him. My friend only laughed. When the Royal Yarmouth
Mail ran its gay career, there were no respirators then. What if the
night were cold--what if snow laid heavily on the ground--what if railway
rugs were not; did we not sit close together and keep each other
warm--did we not smoke the most fragrant of weeds--did we not, while the
coach changed horses, jump down, and, rushing into the cosiest of
bar-parlours (forgive us, J. B. Gough), swallow brandy-and-water till our
faces were as scarlet peonies, and we tingled, down to the very soles of
our feet, with an unwonted heat? A coal fire then was a sight to cheer
the cockles of one's heart, to look forward to for one long stage, and to
think of for another. But times change, and we with them. The other day
I met one of our mail-coachmen ingloriously driving a two-pair buss
between the City and Norwood; he looked down at his horses and then up at
us with an expression Robson might have envied. Let me return to coal.
Gentle reader, did you ever go down a coal-pit?--I once did, and I think,
with Sheridan, it is hardly worth while going down one, when you might
just as well say you had been. I was a stranger then to coal-pits and
collieries, rather greener then than I am now, and had on a bran-new suit
of clothes and patent-leather boots, and thus accoutred I was let down
into the bowels of the earth, wandered along little w