It is worthy of notice how locomotion in all ages seems to have classified itself into what we now know as passenger and goods train, saloon and steerage. Away back in the 18th century when men were only dreaming of the wonders of the good time coming, when carriages were actually to "travel without horses," the goods train was simply a long line or cavalcade of Pack-horses. This was before the age of "fly waggons," distinguished for carrying goods, and sometimes passengers as well, at the giddy rate of two miles an hour under favourable circumstances! Fine strapping broad-chested Lincolnshire animals were these Pack-horses, bearing on either side their bursting packs of merchandise to the weight of half-a-ton. Twelve or fourteen in a line, they would thus travel the North Road, through Royston, from the North to the Metropolis, to return with other wares of a smarter kind from the London Market for the country people. The arrival of such caravans was the principal event which varied the life of Roystonians in the last century, for was not the Talbot a very caravansarai for Pack-horses! This old inn, kept at the time of which I am writing by Widow Dixon, as the Royston parish books show, then extended along the West side of the High Street, from Mrs. Beale's corner shop to Mr. Abbott's. The Talbot formed a rendez-vous for the Pack-horses known throughout the land, and in its stables at the back of the new Post Office, with an entrance from Melbourn Street, known as the Talbot Back-yard, there was accommodation for about a score of these Pack-horses. {7}