When the coach came round with "London" blazoned in letters of
gold upon the boot, it gave Tom such a turn, that he was half
disposed to run away. But he didn't do it; for he took his seat
upon the box instead, and looking down upon the four grays felt
as if he were another gray himself, or at all events, a part of
the turn-out; and was quite confused by the novelty and splendor
of his situation.
And really it might have confused a less modest man than Tom to
find himself sitting next to that coachman; for of all the swells
that ever flourished a whip professionally, he might have been
elected Emperor. He didn't handle the gloves like another man,
but put them on--even when he was standing on the pavement, quite
detached from the coach--as if the four grays were, somehow or
other, at the ends of the fingers. It was the same with his hat.
He did things with his hat, which nothing but an unlimited
knowledge of horses and the wildest freedom of the road could
ever have made him perfect in. Valuable little parcels were
brought to him with particular instructions, and he pitched them
into his hat, and stuck it on again, as if the laws of gravity
did not admit of such an event as its being knocked off or blown
off, and nothing like an accident could befall it.
The guard, too! Seventy breezy miles a day were written in his
very whiskers. His manners were a canter; his conversation a
round trot. He was a fast coach upon a downhill turnpike road; he
was all pace. A wagon couldn't have moved slowly, with that guard
and his key bugle on top of it.
These were all foreshadowings of London, Tom thought, as he sat
upon the box and looked about it. Such a coachman, and such a
guard, never could have existed between Salisbury and any other
place. The coach was none of your steady-going yokel coaches, but
a swaggering, rakish London coach; up all night, and lying by all
day, and leading a wild, dissipated life. It cared no more for
Salisbury than if it had been a hamlet.
It rattled noisily through the best streets, defied the
Cathedral, took the worst corners sharpest, went cutting in
everywhere, making everything get out of its way; and spun along
the open country road, blowing a lively defiance out of its key
bugle, as its last glad parting legacy.