“I earnestly protest, coachman,” he says, “against your giving the reins into the hands of that young gentleman, and endangering our lives. I appeal to the other passengers to support me,” he continues, glancing round. “We read in the papers every day of the many serious, and some fatal, accidents caused by control of the horses being given to unqualified persons. If you are well advised, young gentleman, you will relinquish the reins into their proper keeping; and you, coachman, ought to know, and do know, that you would be liable to a fine of any amount from £5 to £10, at the discretion of a magistrate, for allowing an unauthorised person to drive.” The coachman takes back the reins, and sulkily says he didn’t know he had an informer up; to which the gentleman rejoins by saying that, so long as the coachman drives and performs the duty for which he is paid by his proprietors, he himself is not concerned to teach him proper respect; but he cannot refrain from pointing out, to the coachman in especial, and to the passengers generally, that it would have been the policy of an informer to allow the illegal act to be committed and then to lay an information. He was really protecting the coachman as well as the passengers, because it was well known that the road swarmed with informers, and continued infractions of the law could not always hope to go unpunished. Every one murmurs approval, except the coachman and his friend, and the guard. The guard, as an official, is silent; the amateur coachman has a hot flush upon his face. The coachman, however, clearly sees himself to be in the wrong, and awkwardly apologises. Still, we all feel somewhat constrained, and, passing Croft Spa and coming to Darlington, experience an ungrateful relief when the champion of our necks and limbs leaves us there. He is no sooner gone than tongues are wagging about him. “Who is he? What is he? Do you know him?” “Talks like a Hact o’ Parlymint,” says the coachman to his friend. “And a very good reason, too,” says a man with knowledge: “he is a Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the Bench of Magistrates at Stockton, which holds a higher jurisdiction than your bench, coachman. I think you’ve had a very narrow escape of parting with £10 and costs.” The guard has a few parcels to take out of the boot at the “King’s Head,” and a few new ones to put in, and then we’re off for Rushyford Bridge, where the coach takes tea, and where we leave the amateur coachee at the “Wheatsheaf.”