Among the regular coachmen, John Reed took a very high place. He was a stout and a very silent man: all for his horses and nothing to his passengers. He drove the Glasgow Mail from Carlisle to Abington, never tasted ale or wine, and never had an accident. This was the more remarkable as Mr. Johnstone of Hallheaths, owner of Charles XII., horsed the Mail along one stage with nothing but thoroughbreds; and, had they “taken off,” not even Reed, strong-wristed though he was, could have held them in. John Bryden was the very reverse of John Reed, and full of jollity and good stories on the box. The two Drydens were even more dashing in their style: one had the art of teaching his horses to trot when most men would have had them on the gallop; the other was a wonderful singer. Whenever the Mail reached a long ascent and he had to slacken speed, he would beguile the way with “She Wore a Wreath of Roses,” or “I Know a Flower within my Garden Growing,” in a rich tenor that would have secured him a good concert-room engagement in these times. Another notable coachman was “Little Isaac Johnson.” He kept on the box for thirty-five years, and never had an accident. He was supreme with a kicking horse, and always took care to make him his near-side leader. When such an one was put there, he could punish him more severely, and liked to hit restive animals inside the thigh. He could “fairly wale them up,” if they continued to rebel. The Telfers were coachmen of the same severe school, and well known over Shap way. Jem Barnes, on the other hand, was fat and lumbersome and lacked fire; so that people _did_ say he had his sleeping-ground as well as his galloping-ground. But, one night, at least, when he was driving north over Shap Fell, there was little chance of sleeping. He had on that occasion not only to gallop at all the snow-drifts, but to put a postboy and a pair on in front. The pole-hook broke in midst of the blinding, snow-wreathed journey, and the hand of his almost namesake, Jem Byrns, the guard, was nearly frozen to the screw-wrench when he brought out a spare pole-hook and fastened it on. The snow was falling in flakes as large as crown-pieces all the while, and the only comic relief was the voice of a “heavy swell” issuing from the box seat, beneath a perfect tortoise-shell covering of capes and furs, “_What are you fellows keeping me here in the cold for, and warming your own hands at the lamp?_” [Sidenote: _PEDIGREE_] George Eade, another of this distinguished company, was very deaf, but with hearing enough to be cognisant of a great many objurgations from Mr. Richardson, of the “Greyhound” at Shap, for taking it out of his horses. One day Richardson came out and was particularly bland—nothing to complain of at all—but George, unable to distinguish anything, and concluding he was on the old subject, had his back up in an instant. “_Hang you!_” said he, “_I’m not before my time; I’ll bet you_ £5 _of it; look at my watch!_”