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.