ons, as circumstances might
require: they are nevertheless, generally, good drivers, and, uniformly,
sober steady fellows.

Mr. Tolly, however, one might see at a glance--despite the disadvantages
of his toggery, plant, and all his other appointments--was born to look
over four pair of lively ears; and had Fortune only dropped him in any
stable-loft between London and York, there would not have been a cooler
hand or a neater whip on the North road.

About a mile from the city we came upon the country turnpike; and of
this, as I now viewed it for the first time, any comprehensible
description is out of the question, since I am possessed of no means of
illustrating its condition to English senses;--a Cumberland fell,
ploughed up at the end of a very wet November, would be the Bath road
compared with this the only turnpike leading from one of the chief
sea-board cities to the capital of the Union.

I looked along the river of mud with despair. Mr. Tolly will pronounce
this impracticable after the night's rain, thinks I; but I was mightily
mistaken in my man: without pausing to pick or choose, he cheered his
leaders, planted his feet firmly, and charged gallantly into it.

The team was a capital one, and stuck to their dirty work like terriers.
Some of the holes we scrambled safely by would, I seriously think, have
swallowed coach and all up: the wheels were frequently buried up to the
centre; and more than once we had three of our cattle down together all
of-a-heap, but with whip and voice Mr. Tolly always managed to pick them
out and put them on their legs again; indeed, as he said, if he could
only see his leaders' heads well up, he felt "pretty certain the coach
must come through, slick as soap."

Mr. Tolly and myself very soon grew exceedingly intimate; a false
reading of his having at starting inspired him with a high opinion of my
judgment, and stirred his blood and mettle, both of which were decidedly
game.

Whilst smoking my cigar, and holding on by his side with as unconcerned
an air as I could assume, I, in one of our pauses for breath, after a
series of unusually heavy lurches, chanced to observe, by way of
expressing my admiration, "This is a real _varmint_ team you've got hold
on, Mr. Tolly."

"How did you find that out, sir?" cries Tolly, biting off about a couple
of ounces of 'baccy.

"Why, it's not hard to tell so much, after taking a good look at them, I
guess," replied I.

"Well, that's rum an