During very wet weather and on low-lying roads, it was most unpleasant to drive through deep water; while, to add one misfortune to another, the trace might break or something else give way; and the mishap must be mended before we could get on to dry land. The writer has heard of the water over the axle-trees; and on one occasion it ran into the coach, and all but set afloat two old ladies who were inside. Their dismay may be easily imagined, and their supplications to the coachman to stop were quite affecting. Those on the outside were nearly as much to be pitied; for it had rained without ceasing all day—that kind of pitiless rain which comes down straight in solid stripes, like the water from a shower-bath, which in nautical language goes by the appellation of ‘raining marlin-spikes with their points downwards.’ The only difference between the outsiders and the old ladies being, that while they got it from below, the outsiders got it from above. A good story has been told of four young undergraduates who had taken the four inside seats of the Oxford coach ‘Defiance.’ Just as the coach was about to start, a very pretty girl came up, attended by her grandfather, and asked if she could have an inside seat. As all the seats were occupied, the guard was unable to grant her request; but the young gentlemen inside vowed they would bear any amount of crushing and discomfort for her sake. The fare was paid, and she gently handed in her grandfather, saying: ‘Mind you thank the young gentlemen, grandpa!’ The feelings of the young gallants can be better imagined than described; but the coach drove off amid a general chorus of anger and dismay.