sketches on the road.

the check-string.

those who have travelled much, as inside passengers in a long stage-coach, whilst they admired the facility of starting off

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with one, must have occasionally remarked the difficulty of stopping with it, just at the point where it would be convenient to be set down. an ailing man may not have voice enough to lock all the four wheels at once; and should he be, as is probable, a nervous man besides, he will not without some hesitation make up his mind to request of some stentorian neighbour the loan of a set of lungs. in a six-inside coach, the timid occupier of a middle seat has no chance whatever, unless to take advantage of the first casual halt, or an upset. even in the four-inside vehicle, a weakly, shy traveller’s case is equally hopeless, supposing the passengers on the roof to have properly tucked up the skirts of their great and little coats. to a bold, brassy fellow even, with a tongue like a trumpet, it is anything but an easy affair to say woh! with any effect to a dart that is flying at twelve miles within the hour. the coachman, who ought to hear, will not: the horses hear but do not understand: the coach cannot hear: the outsiders admire the pace too much to hear anything but the patter of the hoofs. at last, when he has succeeded, the stout gentleman with the big voice, who wants to run home, finds generally that he has a good hundred yards or two allowed him of law, measured, as the irish always mete it out, backwards.

it was after a more serious dilemma,—for a little nervous bashful man with a little squeaking voice like punch’s, though he was not so fond of exhibiting it, after suffering himself to be carried two miles beyond his house, had at last fractured the small bone of his leg, by opening the door in despair and jumping out,—that a discussion ensued in the brighton “age” as to the best means of being let out to order. many different methods had been proposed before the little florid plump gentleman in black delivered his opinion, with his back to the horses.

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“for my own part, ratiocinating on hackney-coaches, i should hypothetically propose check-strings.”

“lord forbid!” exclaimed a voice from the other seat, on the same side. nobody remembered to have heard that voice before, from london to crawley common.

the friend to check-strings seemed thunderstruck by the explosion. he screwed himself round to take a look at his neighbour—didn’t like him at all—turned back again—stole another look—liked him worse than before—then looked for the third time, and hated him. his seat became uneasy—he had found a choke-pear, very like a hedgehog, and very like a bull terrier, he could neither kill it nor let it alone. it clung to him like a burr which you pull off your hat that it may stick on your right-hand glove, thence to be transferred to the left-hand one, and so on alternately till you finally get rid of it on your pantaloons. the “lord forbid,” like macbeth’s “amen,” stuck in his throat—it buzzed in his head like a fly in a horse’s ear. however, he held his uncomfortable peace till silence itself became insupportable. at last he broke out:

“humph! doubtful as i am whether common coach conversation ought to be tied by strict rules of logic, still i cannot suppress the remark, that when one gentleman syllogistically brings forward a proposition of check-strings, for another gentleman to cry ‘lord forbid,’ does not appear to my mind to be following a regular line of argument. but perhaps the forbidding gentleman will have the goodness to explain the colloquial anomaly.”

the forbidding gentleman thus appealed to, good-humouredly apologised. it was a mere slip of the tongue, he said: the words escaped from him involuntarily; but his fellow-traveller would probably excuse him, in consideration of the fact, that on account of a check-string he had lost the only hope of affluence he ever had in his life.

“indeed, sir! why then i excuse the colloquial irregularity with all my heart,” said the warm man, putting both his hands

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into his pockets; “but, upon my life, sir, it must have been a very extraordinary consequence.”