University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
THE STAGE-DRIVER.

We promised to say something more of Winkle; and this
is the chapter to do it; and what we would say is, there
was no such man. This statement is quite true, and quite
false. Such is the nature of human language. The truth
will be understood by Winkle's friends. Is it convertible in
the Tartar tongue? Let us explain. We suppose, and the
calculation is based on an unanimous popular sentiment,
that if all the Stage-drivers on the North American Continent
were recast and made into one, that one would not be
equal to Winkle. Or thus, — if the essence of all good stage-driverism
on the aforesaid territory were extracted, it would
not compare with what could be got out of the smallest fragment
of Winkle.

In the first place, Winkle knew everybody, and everything;
and every body and thing knew Winkle. He knew
all the girls, and the school-children, and the old men, and
the young men; and bowed to them all, as he rode by, and
they bowed to him. For forty miles, he knew where everybody
lived, and who everybody was that lived anywhere.
He knew the tall, white house on the hill, and the large
house, with pillars in front, among the trees, and the little
black house over in the field; and there was always somebody
standing by all the houses, to whom he bowed. Sometimes
he bowed to the well-sweep that happened to move in
the wind; sometimes to a dog that sat on the door-steps.
How many smiling favors he got from the girls, who, after

dinner, and after dressing for the afternoon, sat by the open
front windows! how many from the children that swarmed
about the school-houses! In fact, everybody smiled and
bowed when he passed, — black and hard-favored men;
muggy and obstinate men; coarse and awkward men.
Every day he had a sort of President's tour.

Then, he pointed out the tree where a man hung himself,
and the woods where a bear was shot, and the barn that
was struck by lightning, and the stream where a man was
drowned.

And this, in the second place: because of his unbounded
good-nature. He did errands for all those people; he ran
a sort of express to the city; an express, too, from one neighborhood
to another. Then, he did his errands so correctly,
so promptly, and so genially. If those for whom he
acted were poor, he charged but little. He knew every
place in Woodylin, and could execute any order, from getting
iron castings to purchasing gimp, and matching paper
hangings, and delivering billet-doux. Furthermore — and
herein the beauty of Winkle was seen — he ran express between
Hearts. Nothing pleased him better than to have a
love-case in hand between two persons on different parts of
his route; there was such a carrying of little notes, and little
remember-me's, and little nods and signs; and then he could
drop a big bundle of tenderness in a single look, as he passed
the sweetheart, hanging out the washing of a Monday
morning. Then of the widow's son, whom he carried to
the city some five years before, and who had been all this
time at sea, he got the first intelligence; and as he walked
his horses up a long hill, and the mother sat rocking and
knitting by the roadside, he told her that her boy had been
spoken off the Cape of Good Hope, or that his ship had been
reported from Rio. When anybody was sick along the road

he bore the daily intelligence to friends, who stood at their
doors waiting for it; by what divination it was communicated
nobody could tell, but the effect was instantaneous; so,
by an invisible, and, as it were, omnipotent hand, he dropped
smiles and tears, joy and sorrow, wherever he went; and
his own heart was so much in it all, none could help loving
him. In addition, and notwithstanding Mr. St. John, he
gave little gratuitous rides; he let the boys hang on behind;
and in the winter we have heard of his taking up half a
dozen school children with their mistress, and helping them
through snow-drifts. Then he carried the mail, which is itself
a small universe in a leather bag; — here sweet spring to
some bleak and ice-bound soul, — at the next turn a black
thunder-storm on some tranquil household; — now singing at
one corner of its mouth, as if it was full of Jenny Linds, —
anon tromboning out its melancholy intelligence; and, like a
Leyden jar on wheels, giving everybody a shock as it passes,
making some laugh and others scream. Winkle carried
this, and it was as if Winkle himself was it; and some people,
notwithstanding they loved him so, hardly dare see him,
or have him open his mouth; they did n't know, any more
than Aunt Grint, what had happened, or what might happen.
In addition, he brought people home; and as he drove
on, he got the first sight of the old roof and chimneys; he got
the first sight of the rose-bushes and the lilacs in the yard;
he saw, too, from the quietness about the house, that a
surprise was on hand; he knew perfectly well that the
daughter whom he was bringing was not expected, — that
she meant to surprise the old folks. He did not hurry his
horses; he did not make any sign. He landed the young
lady at the gate, and was taking off the baggage, when he
heard a scream in the door. He had expected it all, and
looked so sober, as he pulled at the strap, with one foot on
the wheel, and his back bent to the ground. “Naughty,
naughty Winkle!” cried the mother; “why did n't you
tell us Susan was coming? You have almost killed me.”
Winkle loved to kill people so.

In the third place, there is magic in the calling of a
Stage-driver. Everybody knows and aspires to know the
Stage-driver; everybody is known by, and is proud to be
known by, the Stage-driver. The little boys remember it a
month, if the Stage-driver speaks to them. There is a particular
satisfaction to be able to distinguish, among drivers,
and say, it was Winkle, or it was Nason, or it was Mitchell.
The Stage-driver is Prince of a peculiar realm; and
that realm consists of the yellow coach he drives, and the
high seat he occupies, and his four mettlesome horses, and
forty miles of country road, and the heart of several principal
roads, not to speak of ten thousand little matters of
interest and pleasure, business and profit, news and gossip,
with which he is connected. Hence, he, like a Prince, is
held in reverence by the populace. Of all the people on the
earth, he is the one who rolls by in a gilded coach; he is
the one who sweeps it high and dry over the world; he is
the one who rides through his immense estate with the most
lordly and consequential air, and all the rest of us seem
to be but poor tenants, and gaping boors. It is something
to speak to a Stage-driver; it is a great thing to be
able to joke with him. It is a sign of a great man, to be
recognized by the Stage-driver. To be perchance known by
one who knows nobody, is nothing. To be known, to be
pointed out, to have your name whispered in a bystander's
ear, by one who knows everybody, affects you as if Omniscience
were speaking about you. The Stage-driver differs
from a Steamboat captain, in that the latter is not seen to
be so immediately connected with his craft as the former.

We meet the Captain at the breakfast-table: he is nobody;
he is no more than we; we can eat as well as he can. But
who dare touch the Stage-driver's ribbons? Who dare swing
his whip?

How rapidly and securely he drives down one hill and up
the next, — and that, with fifteen passengers and half a ton
of baggage! Then how majestically he rounds to, at the
door of the Tavern! What delicate pomp in the movement
of the four handsome horses! In what style the cloud of dust,
that has served as an outrider all the way, passes off when
the coach stops! How the villagers — the blacksmith, the
shoemaker, the thoughtful politician, and the boozy loafers,
that fill the stoop — grin and stare, and make their criticism!

How he flings the reins and the tired horses to the stable-boy,
who presently returns with a splendid relay! How he
accepts these from the boy with that sort of air with which
a king might be supposed to take his crown from the hands
of a valet! There are his gloves, withal; — he always
wears gloves, as much as a Saratoga fine-lady, and would
no sooner touch anything without gloves than such a lady
would a glass of Congress water.

There is, moreover, a mystery attaching to the Stage-driver,
— a mystery deeper than the question, Why the carcasses
of elephants are found imbedded in the ice-mountains
of the Arctics? — even this, Why the Stage-driver is not
frozen to death in our winters? His punctuality has something
preternatural in it; — how, in the coldest weather,
in the severest storm, in fogs, in sleet, in hail, in lightning,
in mud, when nobody else is abroad, when Madam Dennington
hardly dare look out of her windows, when even Helskill
expects no customers, — then the Stage-driver appears,
rounding the corner, just as regular and just as quiet as the
old clock in the kitchen.

It is no wonder that the height of the ambition of multitudes
of young men is to be a Stage-driver. This was
for one month Simon's ambition; but it was clearly seen he
had not the necessary genius, and he gave it up, and went
on singing as abstractedly as ever, “O, the break down! O,
the break down!” The wonder is, that in this world of
uncertainty, and deception, and sin, where the temptations
to wrong are so frequent, and the impulse to it so easily
aroused, so good a driver as Winkle should be found.

Shall we say that Richard had all these thoughts about
Stage-drivers, and Winkle in particular? He had many of
them; — he could not help having many of them, for there
he sat on the box with Winkle, and saw whatever transpired
relating thereto.

They drove on through a well-cultivated, deep-soiled,
gently undulating country. The landscape did not mount
to the sublime, nor was it remarkable for boldness; the sky-line
was agreeably scolloped, — quite subordinate dome-shaped
hills ever and anon arose into view. They crossed frequent
ravines. The road was skirted with Ponds, — those beautiful
collections of water, that singly or in groups challenge
the regard of the traveller in every portion of the country.
Winkle, as he knew the inhabitants, so also knew the hills,
the ponds, and the streams.

He told Richard the names of many of them, and they
were bad enough to be dismissed in silence; but it is because
they were so bad, Richard could not be silent, neither
shall we be. Many of the places were distinguished by the
name of some man who lived near by; thus, there were
Vail Hill, Squier's Corner, Sills's Mills. Possibly, in a
country where Man is so respectable, any man may dignify
any spot whereto he is neighbor. There is, however, this
difficulty. Man changes, moves away, dies, while the spot

remains, and then it is christened into the next comer. So
it happened that Vail Hill was sometimes called Water's
Hill, and sometimes Wrix's. They passed through “South
Smith,” and “Smith Corner,” and “North Smith.” “Why
was this so called?” asked Richard. “From one of the
Heroes of the War, who shot a man — or a man shot him,
I forget which,” replied Winkle. “What is this?” asked
Richard, as they stopped at a lovely hamlet on the margin
of a pond. “Mouth-of-the-Klaber Road,” answered his
companion. “Old Squire Klaber, some years ago, built the
road; and this was the mouth of it, and it has gone by that
name ever since. And that is Twenty-five-mile Pond.”

A town would sometimes be thus discriminated: La
Fayette, La Fayette Centre, La Fayette Bridge, La Fayette
Ferry. There were “Forks” and Cross Roads. A favorite
classification was “Corners.” One town had eight “Corners,”
— not on its edge, but in its middle.

Consider the effect of this arrangement. In John Gilpin's
race, substitute Stubb's Tavern, or Peacock's, for Bell of Edmonton,
and Cowper would have had a more dolorous time
than his hero. Make some other changes thus: for “Banks
of Air,” read Banks of Teagle's Brook. In the following
passage —

for “Como” introduce “Long Pond,” which is as fairly
bosomed in oaks and beeches, and overhung by as stupendous
hills. How could “Foss's Stream” be wrought into
any stanza like this, “Thou sweet flowing Dee, to thy
waters adieu!” “Think of coming,” says a recent traveller,
“into Eskdale, and Ennisdale, of walking four miles
on the bank of Ullswater, of looking with your living eyes
on Derwent Water, Grassmere, Windermere!” Now,
Richard rode through a beautiful valley belonging to Sam
Jones and Isaac Seymour, and along the margin of a
stream remarkable for its contrasts of thickets and clearing,
wildness and repose, known as “Eight-mile Brook;” and
while the horses were changing, he went upon an elevation
called “Tumble-down-Dick Mountain,” from which was a
view of unequalled tint and variety, rimmed around with
those bright waters, “Spectacle Pond,” “the Matthew
Paxson Pond,” and “Smith Corner Pond!”

But in the midst of these reflections, where was Junia?
She sat on the back seat, with the curtain lifted, leaning on
the side-strap, rapt in her own thoughts. Winkle knew
he was carrying Sorrow that day, and he was graver than
usual. Richard relapsed into frequent reveries. All places,
independent of their names, were beautiful to Junia, —
beautiful, too, was what might be called the Spirit of the
road coming forward to greet Winkle. But this beauty was
shaded with grief. The stage was a teeming News-teller
dropping its items and its bundles of information into hands
that stretched up all along the way to receive them; but it
would bring no news to her. It was carrying her further
and further from the sacred spot of affection; and as often as
it might return over the same ground, it would bring no
word to her of the absent and the loved.

Richard offered her water, but she could not drink; at a
hotel, where they stopped to dine, she could not eat; and
when Richard would have walked with her into the streets
of the town, she could not go.

They reached the terminus of the route about sunset.
The Uncle of Junia lived a few miles distant. Thither,
Richard, taking a horse and wagon belonging to the Company,
drove his friends, and arrived late in the evening.
This family he found very glad to see Junia and her Grandfather,

and in very comfortable circumstances. The man
had indeed married a second wife, but a woman who exhibited
the tenderness, and preserved the recollections, of the
immediate Aunt of Junia, and daughter of the Old Man.
They were certainly open to affectionate appeal, and some
hidden, strong sensibility could alone have prevented Junia's
having recourse to them sooner. Early on the morrow
Richard returned.

Having attended to the business of the route, in a few
days he came back to the city.