Five-and-thirty years ago the glory had not yet departed from the old coach roads the great roadside inns were still brilliant with well-polished tankards the smiling glances of pretty barmaids and the repartees of jocose hostlers the mail still announced itself by the merry notes of the horn the hedge-cutter or the rick-thatcher might still know the exact hour by the unfailing yet otherwise meteoric apparition of the pea-green Tally-ho or the ye...