Here the Borrovian fury overreaches itself, and fails to convince the reader of that brutality of a whole class he would fain have you believe in. Were the later coachmen, indeed, moulded in so unvarying a form? Assuredly not, for character still survived in the individual before the railway age dawned, and nowhere was more marked than on the box-seat. The sole person convicted of brutality in that attack is Borrow himself, consigning all the objects of his dislike to misery and want. Such men might have been found; but we have only to mention old Thomas Cross, the dreamy, poetical, shiftless, other-worldly coachman of the “Lynn Union,” the Wards, and John Thorogood, on the Norwich Road, to see that the road was not handed over entirely to ruffians of the kind Borrow draws. But in all coachmen reigned an autocratic spirit, born of their mastery over four horses. In some this was expressed by contemptuous replies when passengers unqualified for the task endeavoured to talk about coaching and horsey matters; in others it was manifested by a faraway and unapproachable meditation or contemplation--or perhaps even vacuity of mind--like that of some Indian fakir dwelling upon the perfections of Buddha; beside which many a box-seat passenger felt a mere worm. It was difficult to penetrate this professional reserve. A remarkable character of this type was John Wilson, who drove the “Everlasting” coach between Wolverhampton and Worcester; a coach so called because, at a time when all the direct routes were being abandoned to railways, this cross-country journey was left open and unchallenged for many years. John, in addition to being a coachman, was host of the “King’s Head,” a minor house in Bell Street, Wolverhampton, but was a taciturn and grumpy individual. He drove only at the jog-trot of eight miles an hour, and so had no excuse on that score for silence. He cherished the greatest dislike to being questioned, and his replies, especially to strangers, were of the briefest and surliest. On the occasion of the British Association visiting Dudley in 1849, a gentleman residing at Worcester, being very anxious to attend the meetings of so learned a body, secured a box-seat on the “Everlasting” to Dudley. John was the coachman on that occasion. The historian of it is the passenger himself:-- “‘A nice mild day, coachman,’ I said, as he mounted and took the ribbons. “‘’Tis, sir.’ “(After a pause of five minutes.) ‘What time do you get to Dudley?’ “‘Eight o’clock.’ “(A quarter of an hour’s pause.) ‘Capital crop of turnips this year, coachman.’ “‘Ees.’ “(A pause of twenty minutes, varied only by some long yawns from the coachman, and some responsive ones from myself.) “‘I say, driver, can you tell me who’s dead at that house?’ “‘Don’t know. ‘Niver inquires about nothing--yaw--haw--a-haw,’ yawning prodigiously.