Years went on, during which the glossy coats of Lal's team on a bright December morning--to say nothing of their condition--would have humbled the pride of some of the crack kennel huntsmen of the shires. When asked how he fed his hounds, he was wont to say: "I never feed them at all. They know all the hog-tubs down the road, and it is hard if they can't satisfy themselves with somebody else's leavings." Where they slept was another affair; but it would seem that they went out foraging in couples, as Old Lal declared that there were always two on duty with the waggon.[6] When the poor old man required the use of his hands, it was a matter of some difficulty to keep his perpendicular, his nether being shaped like the fag-end of a farthing rushlight; and he was constantly propped up against a wall to polish the brass fittings of his harness. In this particular his turnout did him infinite credit. Of course his most intimate, and indeed only friend, Dan Sleigh, supplied him with oil and rotten-stone when he quartered at Dunstable; and brass, when once cleaned and kept in daily use, does not require much elbow-grease. Lal's travelling attire was simplicity itself. His wardrobe consisted of nothing but waistcoats, and these garments, having no peg whereon to hang except the poor old man's shoulders, he usually wore five or six, of various hues; the whole topped by a long scarlet livery waistcoat. These, with a spotted shawl round his neck, and an old velvet hunting-cap upon his head, completed his costume. The seat of Lal's waggon was like an inverted beehive. It would have puzzled a man with legs to be the companion of his daily journeys. These generally consisted of an eight-mile stage and back, or, more frequently, two consecutive stages of eight and ten miles. An interval of several years elapsed, during which I did not visit the Great North Road. When at length I did so, I hastened to inquire for my old friends, many of whom I found had disappeared from the scene--coachmen changed, retired, or dead; horsekeepers whom I had known from my boyhood, shifted, discharged, or dead. Under any other circumstances than driving a coach rapidly through the air of a fine brisk autumnal morning, at the rate of eleven miles an hour, including stoppages, the answers to my inquiries would have been most depressing. Dunstable was the extent of my work for that day, which afforded me the opportunity of working back on the following morning. Arrived at The Sugarloaf, gradually slackening my pace and unbuckling my reins, I pulled up within an inch of the place whence I had so often watched every minute particular in the actions of the finished professionals. D---- was the place at which the coach dined, and, being somewhat sharp set, I determined to dine with the coach, though I should have to spend the evening in one of the dullest provincial towns in England.