In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire

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In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire, I rode for a long
distance in one of the public coaches, on the day preceding Christmas.
The coach was crowded, both inside and out, with passengers, who, by
their talk, seemed principally bound to the mansions of relations or
friends to eat the Christmas dinner. It was loaded also with hampers of
game, and baskets and boxes of delicacies; and hares hung dangling their
long ears about the coachman’s box,–presents from distant friends for
the impending feast. I had three fine rosy-cheeked schoolboys for my
fellow-passengers inside, full of the buxom health and manly spirit
which I have observed in the children of this country. They were
returning home for the holidays in high glee, and promising themselves a
world of enjoyment. It was delightful to hear the gigantic plans of
pleasure of the little rogues, and the impracticable feats they were to
perform during their six weeks’ emancipation from the abhorred thraldom
of book, birch, and pedagogue. They were full of anticipations of the
meeting with the family and household, down to the very cat and dog; and
of the joy they were to give their little sisters by the presents with
which their pockets were crammed; but the meeting to which they seemed
to look forward with the greatest impatience was with Bantam, which I
found to be a pony, and, according to their talk, possessed of more
virtues than any steed since the days of Bucephalus. How he could trot!
how he could run! and then such leaps as he would take–there was not a
hedge in the whole country that he could not clear.

They were under the particular guardianship of the coachman, to whom,
whenever an opportunity presented, they addressed a host of questions,
and pronounced him one of the best fellows in the whole world. Indeed, I
could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and
importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side, and
had a large bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the button-hole of his
coat. He is always a personage full of mighty care and business, but he
is particularly so during this season, having so many commissions to
execute in consequence of the great interchange of presents. And here,
perhaps, it may not be unacceptable to my untravelled readers, to have a
sketch that may serve as a general representation of this very numerous
and important class of functionaries, who have a dress, a manner, a
language, an air, peculiar to themselves, and prevalent throughout the
fraternity; so that, wherever an English stage-coachman may be seen, he
cannot be mistaken for one of any other craft or mystery.

Washington Irving, Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving