"
This injunction, given for the third time, and in a broad
north-country dialect, came from the guard of the York and Newcastle
coach, a strange new thing in England. A wonderful vehicle the York
and Newcastle coach, covering the eighty-six long miles between the
two towns in the space of two-and-thirty hours, and as yet an object
of delight, and almost of awe, to the rustics of the villages and
small towns on that portion of the Great North Road.
It was the darkening of a stinging day in the latter part of December,
in the year 1701--it wanted but forty-eight hours to Christmas
Eve--when the coach pulled up at the principal inn of the then quiet
little country town of Darlington, a place which roused itself from
its general sleepiness only on market and fair days, or now, since the
mail-coach had begun to run, on the arrival or departure of the
marvellous conveyance, whose rattle over the cobble-stones drew every
inhabitant of the main street to the door.
No reply coming from the boy on the roof, the guard went on, "Eh, but
the lad must be frozen stark," and swinging himself up to the top of
the coach, he seized the dilatory passenger by the arm, saying, "Now,
my hearty, come your ways down; we gang na further to-day.
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