He braced his feet against the footboard of the mail-coach, and carefully took up the reins to thread them between the fingers of his left hand. Left lead rein over the forefinger. Right lead and left wheel rein between forefinger and middle. Right wheel rein between middle and ring finger. He played with the rein lengths until they felt even.

“Whoa team,” he murmured as the spirited lead-horses danced against the ostlers’ restraining hands.

Gently he felt for the rough blackthorn stock of his whip, and brought it into balance, right hand fingers poised to play the reins that were held, taut as fiddle-strings, in his left. The passengers would already be squeezed inside the coach, or wrapped firmly in their greatcoats on the top, while the precious letters and packages were secure in the boot under the watchful eye of the guard.

“Stand away,” he said to the ostlers.

He had the best team on the road, four matched bay thoroughbreds. The team shoved their weight into the collars and the loaded coach lurched and rumbled forward over the cobbles of the inn yard. One of the ostlers would walk with them to the archway to warn the passers-by as the team pranced out into the street. Eager as they were now, newly out of their stalls, a team could make the turn too fast. Tired at the end of a stage, they would lurch through the change of direction as they scented their feed and rest. You could never drop your vigilance. You had to drive.

He fed the reins through his fingers, precisely yet firmly, letting the leaders sweep round while he opposed the wheelers until his hind wheel-hub cleared the rub-stone at the corner of the wall, cleared it by a good six inches: no feather-edging for this boy! Down the busy street danced the sixteen steel-shod hooves, splashing through the spring mud, the iron-hooped wheels grinding and the guard blowing a brisk, coppery salute to the morning: you didn’t stand in the way of the Royal Mail. Any minute, they’d be clear of the town and out onto the open road, and then he’d open up the team, full tilt for the next ten miles, taking three tons of loaded coach along at their allotted ten miles an hour and prepared to drive over anything that crossed his path. He settled on his box-seat, sure of himself. George Davenport, the coachman of the Quicksilver, the fastest team on the road.

“George!” The voice pierced his concentration and he lifted a shoulder, as though trying to block his ear with the capes of his coat. “GEORGE!”

He sighed. The caped coat vanished, along with the prancing team. He was just a barefoot lad again, in a dirty shirt and ragged trousers that had passed from one older brother to another before they came to him.

“Whoa team,” he murmured regretfully. He secured the knotted string reins over the fence rail, hid the blackthorn stick in the grass by the fence and resigned himself to his mother's wishes.