than the wheelers, as the wheelers should start the coach. Letting the
leaders start first is very likely to end in disaster. Like buckets in
a well, they jump off with a jerk before the wheelers are ready. Just
as they subside, off go the wheelers. The result is confusion, and
possibly a broken trace.[7] Take up your reins then, to avoid this
calamity, feeling all your horses' mouths, but with the leaders'
accentuated; and, when you are quite ready to start, just drop your
hand and chuckle to them. Never "kiss" at your horses, and never say
"Pull up,"--both are shocking and unpardonable.
[7] One should always go out provided with an extra trace, in
case of accidents.
As to the use of a four-in-hand whip, there is almost as much art in
hitting the leaders as there is in throwing a fishing-fly. You should
always hit your leaders under the bars, and quietly, to avoid startling
the other horses. In driving anything, whether one horse or four, you
should always begin by touching your horse quite gently at first, just
drawing the whip across his shoulder. If this hint is not enough,
repeat it a little harder and a little harder still, so that he
improves his pace gradually, this obviates the uncomfortable jolts and
jerks caused by bad coachmen when using their whips; they make the
mistake of hitting hard the _first_ time, the horse jumps forward and
the passengers nearly dislocate their necks in consequence. Also, you
should always hold them a little tighter when you are going to use the
whip to prevent their starting forward, for many horses will jump at
the first touch, no matter how lightly it is laid across them.
In turning a corner with a team or tandem, take up your leaders' reins
a little and give them the hint which turn to take _before_ you get to
the corner (this is technically called "pointing your leaders"). They
are generally quick enough at taking your hint, and then mind you allow
enough space for the hind wheels of your coach.
Always go quite slow off the top of a hill. Take up your leaders
_before_ you get to it. You can get safely down any hill, no matter how
steep, provided you start slow enough off the top. The pace is bound to
increase the further down you get, so it is wise not to start too fast,
otherwise you end in an uncomfortable sort of gallop, with the coach
overhauling the horses all the way. Sometimes it is a good plan to
increase your pace, supposing there is a hill to be got up just in
front of you; in that case, get your horses into a gallop going _down_
so as to get a run at the next hill, and the impetus will carry you up
much easier if you have a real good swing at it. Of course a long hill
is a different thing, especially if it is off the flat, and in every
case your horses must be considered.
It is important that horses should be brought in cool, therefore one
should do the last mile of the journey slowly and quietly that they may
not be too hot on arriving at their stable.
It is a bad thing to keep horses waiting at the start, they are not
generally gifted with much more patience than we are, and it is worse
to check them once they are on the move, therefore it is best, when all
the passengers are on board, that the last to get up should sing out
"Right," to let the coachman know they are really ready to be off, and
so prevent the risk of being implored to "wait just ONE moment" for the
forgotten coat or umbrella, or the thousand and one things people
always _do_ forget until the very last instant, notwithstanding what is
usually the fact that they have been dawdling about hours before hand,
with nothing else to do but to prepare themselves for the cold and rain
which, in this climate, is about the only thing one can count on.
Once off, try to leave your reins alone as much as possible; it is
irritating to your horses' mouths, and looks bad, to be always
fidgeting and pulling at either one rein or the other. Don't let your
leaders do all or nearly all the work, and going down hill don't let
them do any, but catch hold of them pretty short just before you get to
the brow of the hill and pull them back--a tiny bit on one side to
prevent the wheelers treading on their heels.
In taking up and shortening your reins, many people say you should
always push them from in front with the right-hand, and not draw them
through the fingers from behind, though the latter way often seems the
most natural, and all coachmen do not agree on this point. It looks
better to drive with _one_ hand, the left, and to keep the right for
the whip and an occasional assistance only; but a woman must have
wrists of iron to drive a team with one hand for long, especially as
the wrist should always be bent in driving as well as in riding.
Driving with straight wrists is altogether wrong. One thing never to be
forgotten is always to make your wheelers follow your leaders, thereby
you can generally assume an air of nonchalance, and pretend that you
_intended_ the sudden deviation off the middle of the road caused by
the digression of the leaders, if your wheelers immediately follow in
their footsteps. Should it be only a slight digression, a pull at the
two reins between your first and second fingers _both at once_, will
put them right immediately, as that gets at your off leader and near
wheeler at the same time, and is a very quick way of getting the team
straight again. It is better form not to use the break unless it is
absolutely necessary. People bore one so who are always putting their
drags on and off. I do not mean the "shoe," as that, of course, must be
put on, on occasions when the hill is steep to prevent the coach
running on to the horses.
I remember once driving with my father in the Fife country, where the
roads resemble switchback railways more than Christian highways. We had
arrived at the top of a very steep pitch, and the grooms having slipped
on the shoe, we were trundling serenely down, when, just as we reached
the middle of the hill where the whole impetus of the coach was at its
worst, snap went the chain and away rolled the shoe off down the hill
on its own account, of course the sudden release sent the coach with a
great lurch on the top of the wheelers, while we all clung on, craning
our necks to see what was going to happen next. Quick as thought out
flew the whip thong, and in an instant my father had touched the horses
all round and we were flying down the hill at racing pace. We got to
the bottom all safe and had galloped to the top of the next hill before
he took a pull. It was very exciting for the time, and the only thing
to be done under the circumstances to keep the horses going quicker
than the coach, but not an experiment one would care to try with an
inferior coachman.
We have all been mercifully blessed with nerve, and many a time has our
courage been severely put to the test. We had a very near shave one day
some years ago coming back from Ascot. We were driving all the way home
to London after the last day's racing. Our off leader was a very
violent, hot horse, called "The Robber," who kept raking and snatching
at his bridle from morning till night. As we were passing through a
little town--Brentford--we tried to worm our way between the pavement
and a baker's cart, which was proceeding slowly in front and giving us
very little room to pass.
This irritated The Robber, who, making a wild bounce forward, wrenched
the bridle clean off the wheeler's head! (His rein was passed through
the upright terret on the top of the wheeler's bridle, and must have
got caught somehow). The bridle flopped against the pole, which
frightened the whole lot and they started off at a gallop. The baker,
seeing this, thought we were anxious to race him, and set sail too.
Naturally his increasing pace excited our horses more than ever, and
the three with bridles pulled their hardest, while the loose one pegged
along with his head in the air.
The off-horse being bitless, it was only the near-side rein that took
effect on their mouths, so the end was that we edged nearer and nearer
to the pavement, till, at last, the leaders turned and jumped on to it.
At the same moment Captain Carnegy (who, luckily, was just sitting
behind the box) leapt to the ground, and made a grab at the loose
wheeler, catching him by the nose, and so saved us from some trouble.
The leaders, in the meantime, had run straight into a draper's shop,
and were curveting about on the top of four or five school children,
whom they had hustled to the ground.
It looked very nasty for a minute, but they were mercifully extracted
all unhurt, and a few coins soon mollified their gaping parents.
_Apropos_ of having the leaders' reins through the top terret, it is
supposed to look smarter, but that it is not a very good plan is proved
by the aforesaid catastrophe. The rings on the wheelers' throat-lashes
are really much better for ordinary use.
My father used to drive a great deal, and, before he joined the
Four-in-hand Club, he used to drive the Exeter and London mail-coaches
regularly, three or four times a week, fifty years ago, when he was in
the Ninth Lancers. It must have been hardish work, for he drove all
night. He started at seven p.m. after his day's soldiering, and drove
forty-four miles each way, getting back to barracks at seven p.m. next
morning.
He tells me they only took eight passengers with them, four inside and
four out, besides the coachman, and the guard who sat by himself
behind, with his feet resting on the lid of the box in which lay the
mail-bags, and always armed with two pistols and a blunderbuss, besides
the horn.
There is nothing so pretty as hearing a coach-horn really well blown,
and very few indeed can do it properly. It is, unfortunately, a thing
which people have no conscience about attempting, though their
listeners are not left in doubt as to whether they are proficients in
the art from the first moment they seize the instrument. How senseless
of failure they are, too, as they puff out their cheeks in fatal
perseverance, while tears start from their eyes, and the noise!--well,
that once heard, is not easily forgotten. Though it is not within the
province of a coachman, it is well to know how to make "music on three
feet of tin," for it is often very necessary to arouse sleepy carters
and all the other drowsy souls who encumber the earth and the Queen's
highway.
Like catching a whip, it is an impossible thing to explain, beyond
saying that you should begin by putting the tip of your tongue _into_
the mouthpiece, and bring it sharply out again with a little TIP sort
of sound, and without puffing out your cheeks _at all_. The higher the
notes you want to get, the harder you should compress your lips to the
mouthpiece. And after all is said and done, the horn it is that
generally retains the mastery, and blessed indeed is he who achieves
anything beyond the air generally associated with the decrease of our
ancient friend the cow.
The first tandem I ever drove was a long time ago, when I was quite
small, and exceedingly proud I was of my turnout. It was very smart,
all _white_.
It certainly had the merit of being unique, for my wheeler was
a milk-white goat of tender years, while my leader was a
disreputable-looking old bull-dog of equally snowy hue, and the
harness was--well, pocket-handkerchiefs--mostly _other_ people's.
I drove them in a little go-cart on low wheels, and they went very
well, poor little things, though I always had to run in front myself
and call them, if I wanted them to go at all fast.
That tandem came to a very sad and tragic end, for I grieve to say
that, after many months of close friendship, my leader found it in his
heart to devour the wheeler, which black deed brought my tandem to an
abrupt termination.
Some years ago I got a lot of practice driving a scratch team down
from Banffshire to Fife. A long journey, which took three days to
accomplish, and over a very rough road too, for the first stage was
forty miles right across the moors. Splendid wild scenery, but most
horrible going, up hills and down dales, through water courses, and
scrambling along old stage-coach roads, which could hardly be dignified
now by the title of tracks. We scrambled up and down the steepest of
mountains, and altogether felt rather relieved when at length we
deserted the moor and gained the level road quite close to Balmoral.[8]
It is a beautiful road from Balmoral into Braemar, broad and level,
with wide verges of grass on either side, and bordered by fir trees,
lighted up here and there by the silver stems and golden leaves of
graceful birches, while the river Dee dances along over the rocks and
stones by the side of the road, brawling its running accompaniment to
the rattle of the bars and the rhythm of the horses' hoofs. Passing
below the "Lion's Face," and just outside the beautiful "policies" of
Invermark, we trotted cheerily into the little town of Braemar, and
there put up for the night.
[8] Balmoral, with its grey pepperpots and tunnels, standing
out closely against the dark background of pine trees and fir
woods, and overshadowed by the high mountain of Loch-na-gar,
veiled by the soft, blue haze of distance peculiar to the
Highlands.
The second stage was further still, and we guessed it at about sixty
miles on to Perth.
Happily the horses came out looking fresh and fit, having fed and
rested well, and, by ten o'clock, we were once more on the move.
This time the roads were better, but still rather elementary in some
places, and we encountered several of those old hogbacked bridges which
are very trying to the pole, and more than likely to break it as it
jerks up, on the top, when the leaders are going down one side, while
the wheelers are still climbing up the other. We stopped an hour at
Blair Athole on the way, and fed the horses, while we ourselves had
lunch.
The team was pretty well steadied by this time, and as easy to drive as
a single horse; though, of course, it needed judgment to keep them
trotting steadily on for the ten or eleven hours it took to do the
journey.
The last stage, from Perth to Fife, was on the beautiful old north road
all the way, and, as it was only a distance of twenty miles, we did it
leisurely, and turned into our own stable-yard about three hours after
we started.
It was great fun, and, after driving for so long, I felt I could have
gone on for weeks, but for an acute knowledge of where every bone began
and ended in both my arms and back.
We accomplished that same journey twice that year; the first time in
spring, and again in September we came down after the grouse-shooting
with a different team. That second time was not quite such a success,
as the cold was something frightful, and the hurricanes that swept over
the tops of those moorland hills nearly blew us all away (we had a
brake instead of the coach, as being lighter for the horses and handier
for the luggage, etc.). The whole of the first two days it _poured_
unceasingly, a good, honest, unrelenting deluge, and I never shall
forget our plight on arriving at Blair Athole, soaked to the skin,
while my coat pockets were so full of water that my pocket-handkerchief
was floating about on the surface like a boat on a pond.
We dried ourselves as best we could at the kitchen and laundry fires of
the hotel, but we were just as sopped as ever ten minutes after we had
started again. However, 'tis a poor heart that never rejoices, and we
all revived later in the evening, after we had become dry and warm and
_recurled_ (which is very important to a lady's happiness). _Nothing_
makes one feel so miserable and dejected as the knowledge one is "quite
unbanged," as an American was once heard to exclaim, on catching sight
of her straightened fringe in the looking-glass.
I have always been very fortunate in my cargo, which makes a vast
difference to one's pleasure in driving.
I do not object to my passengers clinging on to the carriage, nor even
to their pinching each other, but people who shiver and squeak, and,
worse than all, make clutches at the reins, ought really to be
condemned to take the air in handcuffs, or else to walk.
My particular friends have always rather erred on the side of
foolhardiness, and I shall never forget my intense surprise at the
rashness displayed by a large party at a house where I was staying two
years ago. Our host, being the possessor of a very nice team, had
promised to drive us over to an Agricultural Show about to be held in
an adjacent town on a certain Wednesday. We were all looking forward to
our outing with great glee, and nothing occurred to agitate our minds
until the very day of the anticipated treat, when early that morning a
pencil scrawl was brought me from my host saying he had been suddenly
called away to attend some important function at the opposite end of
the country; he therefore could not come to the show, but if I cared to
take his place and drive his team they should be ready at eleven
o'clock.
I immediately thought--the question was not so much would I like to
drive the party, as would _they_ like to be driven by _me_?
However, after most anxious and searching inquirings on my part as to
whether they were all insured, to my amazement they bravely asserted
they would in any case risk it and come!
So round came the coach. I must confess to a slight misgiving on
beholding that the usual near wheeler had been put off leader for a
change, and in his stead they had given me an ancient and ill-favoured
roan mare, who, I knew, had never been driven in a team before.
No sign of apprehension escaped me, however, as I clambered sternly on
to the box. The start was a little sketchy, as the roan mare began by
making a series of low curtseys, instead of progressing in the ordinary
way, while the ex-wheeler was a little out of his element too, as a
leader. By the mercy of Providence I succeeded in landing my coach-load
safely through the narrow gateway, and on to the field (filled as it
was by a stupid Scotch crowd) and I pulled up in triumph by the barrier
of the show-ring.
I am afraid I must in honesty confess that I _did_ run both my chariot
and horses into one wire fence on the way--but the leaders would THINK,
and the horses were all so determined, that _they_ knew the way better
than _I_ did, that they had borne us half-way past the corner before I
could get hold of them to turn down the way _I_ wished to go. There was
no harm done, luckily, and I managed to haul them out again undamaged,
and proceeded without further misadventure.
There are not many things much more calculated to annoy, than a horse
who always "_thinks_," the stupid beast who _will_ stop at every shop
passing through his own village on a Sunday, when he must surely see
that all the shops are shut, or the animals who turn eagerly down every
lane and corner that they come to, albeit they have passed by that road
a thousand times before and have never been called upon to turn either
to right-hand or to the left. And yet a horse who _wont_ think is
almost equally exasperating. Such a beast seems glad enough to lame
himself or stamp on one's toes without thinking even for a moment
whether it might be inconvenient or otherwise distasteful to his
employers.
One thing I have forgotten to put down, is what to do in the event of a
wheeler lying on the pole (which of course shoves it to one side, and
the coach must needs follow in its train). Supposing, then, your off
wheeler happens to be performing this antic and is pushing the whole
coach by his weight to the left side. You should pull your leaders to
the _right_, and, by so doing, make them pull the pole across until you
get the concern straight again.
The only upset my father ever had with a team was caused by his
omitting to do this, and that is why he told me never to forget it.
I have been implicated in many other strange drives, notably two with
tandems and one with three horses abreast.
I will begin with the last one first, as it was a very transient
experience.
One very snowy winter we had to take recourse to a sledge to get about
the roads at all, and although it is very delightful at first, when one
hopes that every night will bring a nice thaw (how the frozen-out
fox-hunter prays for that night), after three or four weeks' incessant
frost and snow the novelty of sleighing wears off and one longs for
some new excitement.
We had arrived at these extremes, my father and I, so, struck by a
happy inspiration, we one day determined to "yoke" three ponies abreast
in our sledge and see what would happen. We had not long to wait for
the result, for no sooner were they harnessed and we leapt in, than
away they all went with one accord down the avenue as hard as ever they
could rattle, kicking great hard snow-balls into our faces all the way.
Down the hill and across the grass like mad things. My father put the
whip between his teeth and held on with all his might. I relieved him
of his whip and sat tight, until we reached a big beech tree, with a
sort of mound round its roots. Here the ponies disagreed as to which
side they should go, but, to avoid any jealousy or ill-feeling, they
settled the question by one going to the right, while the other two
elected to take the left-hand side of the tree. This fairly finished
our flight, for the sledge dashed up sideways against the roots and
then turned over like a turtle. Of course we were both precipitated on
to the road and were dragged along some little way by the rugs.
Fortunately there was a gate which happened to be shut a little further
on, and this ended our troubles by stopping the ponies altogether, and
there they all stood with their heads craning over the fence, while we
picked ourselves up and disentangled ourselves from the _débris_.
Luckily the sledge being so very near the ground we were not hurt, and
really, being dragged along by the rugs was rather a pleasant
sensation. Though it is a good thing to remember, when one is being run
away with, under ordinary circumstances in a carriage, to undo the rugs
and keep your legs clear, in case of accidents.
How often have rugs and petticoats caused one to fall headlong in
getting in and out of "machines" (as our Scotch people say). Never
shall I forget one Sunday morning, on our arrival at the church door,
when I proceeded (in all the glory of my Sunday-go-to-meeting apparel)
to climb down from the dog-cart, which was pretty high and fitted out
with the most inhuman arrangements of steps. I tripped jauntily off the
first step towards the second when I became aware that my body was
extended on the cold, cold ground, and my head was resting confidingly
between the horses two hind feet. What had happened? Oh, _only_ my
frock had remained swathed round the top step, that was all. Mercifully
the horse was tame, and made no objection to my unexpected arrival
among his hind legs. I had to crawl out from under the cart, covered
with mud and speechless with fury. Two broken knees, and two scratched
palms, gloves destroyed beyond all hope, and my hat jobbed over one
eye, everybody in fits of laughter, of course, especially my own
family. Why is it, I wonder, that one's own relations always display
such extreme lack of good taste on such occasions? I must say I arose
from that puddle in anything but a Christian-like and Sabbatical frame
of mind.
I fared better, however, than another young friend of mine, who, in
dismounting out of the very same cart, turned a catherine wheel and
alighted on the road with a broken arm.
Be cautious, therefore, and always scramble out of a cart or carriage
backwards, and, if the step be high, see that your dress descends with
you and does not remain at the top.
One of the tandem drives I mentioned happened some two years ago, when
my sister and I were staying with some friends about sixteen miles from
home. We had been out cub-hunting all morning, found an old fox, and
had a capital run, which landed us quite close to our own front door
just in time for luncheon. This, of course, we could not resist, so we
put our horses in and to our joy discovered a dog-cart had
arrived--sent by our kind hostess to convey us back to her house, while
the groom led our horses home. Having sent them off under his charge we
proceeded to put the harness horse into his dog-cart, and were just
about to start when a telegram arrived from my father (who was also
away from home), ordering our groom to take a horse over to K---- for
him to hunt next day.
As "K" happened to be the very place we were starting for, we
determined to take his horse over ourselves. But how? that was the
question.
We did not quite like the idea of tying him on behind, for well we knew
he would be certain to tumble over something during the journey and
contrive to break his knees.