"The Diary of a Hackney Coachman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ingraham Joseph Holt)

The Diary of a Hackney Coachman
J. H. Ingraham

CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV. The Diary.
CHAPTER V. Diary Continued.
CHAPTER VI. Diary Concluded.

CHAPTER I.
The nookЧThe coach standЧThe Hackney CoachmanЧThe last call, and the mysterious
result.
Opposite my window is a small paved nook just large enough to hold a coach with
a pair of horses harnessed to it. It is overshadowed by a large elm, and a pump
with a trough beneath it close at hand. A better `stand' for a hackney coach,
especially as the street is much traversed and central in its position, could
not be found in town. This advantage did not long escape the eye of one of the
fraternity of `Hackmen;' and one morning on throwing open my blinds I saw that
`the nook' was occupied by a carriage. For what purpose but for this, the
opening had been left, I could never guess; and having in my mind's eye
appropriated it to this very end which I now saw it had attained to, I was not a
little gratified at this fulfilment of the destiny I had mentally designed for
it. It seemed to be the only unappropriated spot of Ground in Boston; and I had
been not a little surprised to find it go from day to day unimproved. When,
therefore, I saw the hack quietly standing there on opening my window in the
morning, I mentally bore tribute to the penetration of the owners and at once
felt a peculiar interest in him and his equipage. The carriage was a very
handsome one with a dark, brown body and hubs and door handle of polished brass.
The box was covered with a rich blue hammer-cloth, fringed and ample in its
folds; the foot board was sheated with a shining piece of oil-cloth, and the
leather of the carriage was new and well oiled and blackened. The horses were
fine bays, with well-kept bodies, and resembling more a span belonging to a
private gentleman, than to a hackman. The coach, also, had that air of gentility
that characterises a private carriage. But the number (288) placed beneath the
door plainly showed that it was a public coach: otherwise I should have had no
hesitation in setting it down as a private equipage. The harness was shining and
new, and glittering with brass plate, and on the blinder a was the ornament of a
stag's head. The same device was neatly painted upon the door panel. In England,
seeing this heralded crest, I should without a doubt have set the coach to the
ownership of a baronet; bnt as I knew in our free country we republicans made
free to make free with any shields and arms that suits our fancy, for coach
panels, it did not mislead me.
The coach and horses having undergone my scrutiny I looked at the coachman. He
was seated in the open door of his carriage with his feet upon the carpeted
steps reading the morning paper. His broad-brimmed white hat hid his face as I
looked down upon him; but I could see that he was well dressed and inclined to
corpulency, as all coachmen should be, for a carriage rolls along easier with
solid weight upon the box. After he had read the news he got up and taking off
his hat placed the penny paper in the top of it. In the act he exposed a large