ABSTRACT
As long as I can remember, Frank was called – "Old Frank." He was a little, crabbed-looking man, bent nearly double; had a healthy colouring on his cheek, and a few, very few, grey hairs straying over his bald and shrivelled forehead; with a halt in his walk; and was always either singing or coughing; somewhat "cranky" in his temper, and, in his capacity of coachman (which situation he had filled for a period of forty-two years in our family), exercised despotic sway over horses, dogs, and grooms. He was singularly faithful, and strongly attached to his master and mistress, his horses, and myself; indeed, as to the two last, it was a matter of doubt which he loved best; however "snappish" he might have been to others, he was to me, in my childish days, one of the kindest and firmest of friends; no matter how I tormented him – no matter what pranks I played (and they were not a few), "Miss Maria" was always right, and everybody else was wrong. Having lived so long in the family, he was hardly looked upon as a servant, and neither master nor mistress disputed his dictum; indeed, I do not know why they should, for, wherever his authority extended, matters were well managed. The coats of his carriage-horses shone like French satin, and the carriage, an old lumberiug thing of the last century, could not have existed at all under the care of any other coachman. Frank, the carriage, and horses, had grown old together; they were all of a piece, and cut a remarkable appearance, whenever they walked (for that was their most rapid pace) out in the bright, sunshiny summer. But it was not alone in this, his principal situation, that Frank was entitled to, and treated with, respect. All the perfect and all the embryo sportsmen of the neighbourhood came to consult him on every matter connected with dogs and horses; he was famed, all over the county, for educating pointers on the most approved principles, and was permitted to have three or four constantly in training for the neighbouring gentry, who always remunerated him handsomely for his trouble. He had been an excellent sportsman in his youth, and took much pride in boasting that, except his head, all the bones in his body had been broken; indeed, even his head exhibited a sufficient quantity of bumps to puzzle a phrenologist; the old man still loved sporting, and it was owing to this circumstance that Frank and I were such great friends."
