Indeed, I could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle
and importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side,
and had a large bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the buttonhole of
his coat. He is always a personage full of mighty care and business,
but he is particularly so during this season, having so many
commissions to execute in consequence of the great interchange of
presents. And here, perhaps, it may not be unacceptable to my
untravelled readers, to have a sketch that may serve as a general
representation of this very numerous and important class of
functionaries, who have a dress, a manner, a language, an air,
peculiar to themselves, and prevalent throughout the fraternity; so
that, wherever an English stage coachman may be seen, he cannot be
mistaken for one of any other craft or mystery.
He has commonly a broad, full face, curiously mottled with red, as
if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every vessel of
the skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent potations of
malt liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a
multiplicity of coats, in which he is buried like a cauliflower, the
upper one reaching to his heels. He wears a broad-brimmed, low-crowned
hat; a huge roll of colored handkerchief about his neck, knowingly
knotted and tucked in at the bosom; and has in summer time a large
bouquet of flowers in his button-hole; the present, most probably,
of some enamored country lass.
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