Royston saw some of the smartest coach-driving on the road. Six or seven coaches and three mails passed through the town up and down every day. Posting business was conducted with great spirit by the two rival inns--the young Bull and the older Red Lion, each having half a score of post horses in their stables, and one pair always standing harnessed ready to take "first turn out." These demands upon the principal inns made it impossible for the coach-horses to be stabled there and they occupied stables at various places in the town, but were brought up generally at the Red Lion or the Bull for the changes.
One of the chief characteristics of the old coaching days was the close association of coaches and coachmen with, and keen interest taken in them by, the inhabitants of the towns through which the principal coach routes passed. Royston had its full share of such associations, the institution coloured all our local life, from the pauper or cripple who begged of the coach passengers, to the local gentry who were expecting their newspaper. There was thus always something exhilarating and stirring about the arrival of the stage coach. It had within it so many possibilities. It might contain some great "Parliament man," runaway lovers, or stealers of bank notes, and it always brought some news. Intimately associated with the life and habits of the townspeople were the coaches travelling between London, Royston and Cambridge, the persons in charge of which, and many of the passengers using them, being known to the townspeople, whilst the names and merits of the rival coaches were known to the smallest boy in the parish.
[Illustration: A CAMBRIDGE ELECTION PARTY.]
It seems strange in these days that there should have been so much interest centred in these flying channels of civilization. I have mentioned the "Safety" and "Tally-ho," two coaches driven through Royston from Cambridge to London and back. These were well-known as rival coaches--rivals in time, for each went up in the morning and back in the evening, and, what is more interesting, they were also rivals in, and between them there was a keen competition for, popular favour; so much so that one might almost describe them as the aristocratic and democratic coaches. There is sufficient reason for making this distinction between them in the fact that the Royston people of those days (1820-25) did, in the absence of anything more exciting to divide their thoughts and preferences in the quiet daily round of their lives, manage to set up a sort of party-distinction, not { 148} exactly on the lines of Whig and Tory, but, strange as it may seem, by the names of "Tally-ho," and "Safety." From the smallest boy to the oldest man in Royston and the district, the inhabitants showed sufficient leanings one way or the other to be classed as "Tally-ho" men or "Safety" men. By these rival coaches men swore, pledged themselves, and regulated their watches--those who had any. But the "Tally-ho" and "Safety" party-cries came out more especially amongst the boys, for when "Tally-ho" and "Safety" boys met, it was a case of "when Greek meets Greek," with frequent fights! The two rival coaches thus became the means of sharply dividing popular sentiment, with many who had never enjoyed a seat on either of the champion coaches!