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.
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