As to the time occupied on the road, every age has its own standard of enterprise and progress. Thus in 1806 a writer in an old {145} magazine breaks out into the following eloquent strain over the smartness of those times:--"Who would have conceived it possible fifty years ago that a coach would regularly travel betwixt London and Edinburgh, near 400 miles, in less than three days!" From our standpoint one is tempted to rejoin "who would have conceived it possible 80 years ago that an express train would travel regularly between London and Edinburgh in 8 1/2 hours!" but perhaps the future may laugh at such a boast! Still, that three days' journey by the old coaches was in reality a great thing, and one to be proud of, and as these "main line" coaches rattled through the pebbled streets of our old town they were looked upon with pride as a part of our national institutions. With regard to what may be called the branch line system of the coaching traffic, we are too apt to think of coaching as a means of through communication by the great routes mentioned to appreciate, at this distance of time, the vast amount of enterprise, and of horse flesh and vehicles brought into the coaching and posting service, to connect places lying off the main routes--places which were served, down to very many of the villages, either by a coach under the management of local persons, or by the system of fly-wagons and van traffic, which brought goods and passengers from distant places at such intervals as could be arranged and worked at a profit. At the end of the reign of George III. the coaches passing through or near Royston were:--"The Royston Mail," "The Cambridge Auxiliary Mail," "The Cambridge New Royal and Patent Mail," "Cambridge Union Coach," "Safety," "Tally-ho"; "Telegraph" and "Lynn Union" (both through Barkway); "Lord Nelson" (Lynn), "Edinburgh and Newcastle Mail," "York and Edinburgh Mail," "The Lord Wellington," "The High Flyer," "The Fakenham Mail," "The Fakenham Patriot," and the "Stamford Coach." The Cambridge coaches changed horses at Royston (or Barkway, according to the route taken) and Buntingford. Mr. Ekin, of Cambridge, horsed the coaches from Cambridge to Royston, and the other distance from Royston to London was horsed by London men. From the foregoing list the reader will see that the old coaching days meant no small amount of life and animation, and, for certain trades, money and business, to towns situated as Royston was. For the palmy days of stage-coaching we must travel a little beyond the era of the Georges, even of the last of them; for at the time when the railway came the coaching traffic of this country had reached a pitch of perfection which was unknown at any previous period in its history, and for smartness and efficiency and for the vast extent of its operations it was an institution of which the English people had every reason to be proud. {146}