Page:Early Reminiscences.djvu/294

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240 EARLY REMINISCENCES followed, filled with the wives and children, friends and relations of the coachmen and guards ; and the post-boys, sounding their bugles and cracking their whips, brought up the rear. From the commencement of the procession, the bells of various churches rang out merrily, and continued their joyous peals till it arrived at the General Post Office in Lombard Street, from whence they sparkled abroad, to all parts of the Kingdom. Great crowds assembled to witness the cavalcade as it passed through Parliament St., then the Strand, Fleet St., Ludgate Hill, S. Paul's Churchyard and Cheapsidc. The clean and cheerful appearance of the coachmen and guards in their royal scarlet, each.with- a large bouquet of flowers, the beauty of the horses with rosettes on their head-gear, and the general excellence of the equipment, presented a most agreeable spectacle. Mr. Lawless never failed, when able, to be at this gathering. He died, aged 84, on January 2, 1902. Lawless would never allow anyone suspected of, not to say caught, sharping at cards, to harbour under his roof and partake of his cheer. My grandfather was staying at this inn, and was playing cards with a gentleman who sat opposite to him, and was losing a great deal of money. The waiter observed that there was a mirror behind my grandfather's head, and that the gentleman playing with him could see his hand. The waiter went out and told Lawless, then a young man, who caught up a dog-whip, rushed in, laid hold of the man by the collar of his coat, and threatened to whip him till he could not stand, unless he refunded every penny that he had taken from my grandfather. When he had done this, Lawless literally kicked him out of the " White Lion." I heard this story from Pengelly, who had been as a boy with my grandfather, and to whom the aged waiter at the " White Lion " related the circumstance. About this time we were in possession of, or were possessed by, a vehicle drawn by one horse, which vehicle we supposed had been invented by my father. I find, however, from the Lively Recollections of Canon John Shearme, who was for a while a pupil of my uncle at the Rectory—naturally before he became a canon—and whose father lived at Bude, that his parent also possessed a similar conveyance. It ?.s a question in my mind as