open on every side; an instantaneous tumult
and agitation in a sleepful house. Once the
dread solitary letter, sent express from Surrey,
was for a young student dwelling at the house
opposite our own, who was leaning through his
window, when he heard his own name shouted
by the messenger, and answered it by a wild
and bitter cry, which long rang in our ears, as he
was thus called up from his deep sleep to receive
the message of death from home. On another
occasion, the express came with a letter to be
forwarded at one o'clock in the morning, and as
no mounted messenger could be procured at that
untimely hour, the postmaster was compelled to
start with it himself, and walk several miles to
the nearest main road, in the hope of a night-coach
overtaking him, and carrying him on to the next
post-office. For the purpose of conveying
government despatches to Dublin, expresses were
kept always in readiness for instant departure
at all the posting-houses between London and
Holyhead. At this moment I have a vivid
vision of that bit of the old Holyhead road
running along the narrow strip of coast which lies
between the once sea-swept rocks of Caernarvon,
and the tides of the Irish sea. As I saw it last
summer, when walking from Conway to
Penmaenmaur, it was romantic, and beautiful,
and exquisitely pleasurable; a long, lone,
deserted high road, leading beside great
mountains and under overhanging precipices, with so
narrow a compass from the sea, that while we
trod upon the spur of the hills on our left hand,
the waves boomed sullenly against the rugged
foundations of the wall upon our right. Pleasant
enough for us in the summer sunshine to
lean idly over the wall, and look down upon the
play of the foam upon the crags below, and
listen, spell-bound, to the liquid splashing of the
water. But what of the dreadful darkness of
an utterly unlighted night; of the furious raging
of the invisible ocean—invisible, or seen only by
the gleam of its storm-tossed surge; of the
ghostly roar of the wind tearing through the
black ravines of the hills, and rushing down
them with the fierce strength of a wrestler; of
the biting rain and sleet, pelting piteously upon
the blinded eyes, and uncovered face, and
benumbed limbs, which could not be sheltered
during the furious riding? Fancy all these;
and the express braving and daring them all, as
he flies through the storm and the darkness!

A few weeks since I had to describe to a
circle of wondering children what a mail-coach
was like—that glory of my own childhood. I see
again the quiet drowsy street of twenty years
ago; the old-fashioned shops; the tinman's
cellar, echoing noisily with the jingling of the
sonorous metal; the half-timbered inn, with its
creaking sign, and Pickford's cumbrous waggon
standing at the door; and this rider for whom
we are watching, Sam the post-boy, trotting
leisurely up the street on his slow pony, with
our letter-bags, only four in number, and very
little ones, slung across his saddle, like
panniers. Our town lies about a mile from the great
arterial Roman road, the Watling-street; and
the mails in their dignity of importance and
haste, as they speed on to Holyhead or London,
cannot be delayed by deviating from their straight
course to run through our insignificant streets.
But at times when a letter has been forgotten,
or an important packet arrives too late, a band
of us, boys and girls—and I have often
wondered since how much of this world's work is
done, and made play of, by children like
ourselves—scamper joyously along the moonlit
lanes, to meet the ten o'clock mail to London,
and see if there be still time to open the bag,
and re-seal it with the government seal, which
we carry with us as the badge of our authority.
How we pause together under the broad, smooth,
bare arms of the beeches, while Lancaster—dear,
dead Lancaster—whose brain is filled with
Indian devices, lays his ear to the ground to
listen. Beside us is the flashing of flitting
lights in the posting-house; the pawing of
expectant horses; and the laughter and talk of
the ostlers in the stable-yard. The sound we
hear—a very faint, fitful rolling sound—is the
rattle of the wheels upon the frost-bound road
three miles away; the mail is still a quarter of
an hour distant, and while our authorised clerk
executes her commission, we children stand
aside, hearkening breathlessly to this
ever-growing pace, which stirs our young hearts uneasily,
with a thrill as of some terrible and inevitable
fate, sweeping irresistibly towards us. A quarter
of a mile away, and there are the sharp piercing
notes of a bugle, " setting the wild echoes
flying;" and at the signal the house starts into
quicker life. The pawing horses are brought out,
beautiful in their eagerness and impatience; the
lanterns of the ostlers form a galaxy of flitting
lights, and perhaps a traveller, uncertain whether
he can proceed on his journey, for this is a
roadside posting-house, watches anxiously for the
red glare of the lamps under the arching boughs
of the beeches. The coachman condescends to
take some little interest in the three passengers
allowed to him; but the guard looks down with
the composure of a felt superiority. Those great
bags piled upon the roof, which have accumulated
on the long route from Holyhead; his
locked and solitary seat, into the recesses of
which he carelessly drops our little addition to
the load; the shining holster of the blunderbuss,
ready to his hand, as if he might want it
at any moment; these are the cares and
responsibilities which give an extraordinary sense of
dignity to his isolation from common duties.
But when the mail dashes on furiously, as if
frantic with the short delay of eighty seconds,
and there is no slackening of its headlong pace
up the hill under the vicarage walls, we are
amazed at the mingled nonchalance and
sensibility with which he sends ringing through the
frosty air the melody of " The Green Hills of
Tyrol;" no ranting, vulgar, worn-out street
tunes for him; there is music, and the romance
of music in his soul. "Ah! what difference
'twixt now and then!" When the railway was
first opened we used to run down to the station
to see the mail-train come in; more especially