After  this  careful  attention  to  detail,  the  verdict  was  in  favour
of  the  Windmill.  There  were  a  couple  of  halts  on  the  way
down  to  Salt  Hill,  a  distance  of  24  miles  from  London.  The
club  lunched  at  the  Packhorse,  Turnham  Green,  on  the  right
of  the  road,  and  took  further  refreshment  at  the  Magpies,
Hounslow  Heath ;  thence  they  ran  to  their  destination,  and
back  the  next  day,  'without,'  as  Nimrod  says,  'the  horses  being
taken  out  of  their  harness.'

Scarcely,  however,  had  the  Four-Horse  Club  been  fairly
started  ere  a  charge  of  furious  driving  was  formulated  against
some  of  the  members  :  '  an  ungovernable  phrensy,'  it  was  stated,
took  possession  '  of  these  youths,  who  fancied,  no  doubt,  that
they  were  in  the  act  of  directing  Roman  chariots  in  the  field  of
Mars,  by  their  declared  hostility  to  everything  that  came  in
their  way.'  For  this,  they  '  received  permission  to  resign,' and
there  was  some  talk  of  starting  a  new  club,  the  Defiance,  to  be
composed  partly  of  '  new  hands  and  partly  of  the  members
who  were  lately  permitted  to  retire  from  tlie  Buxton  and
Peyton  Association.'  The  intending  founder  of  the  club  was
a  gentleman  whose  name  cannot  be  discovered  ;  but  he  was  a
coachman  of  repute,  and  likewise  a  personage  with  science
enough  to  '  design  many  of  the  improvements  in  the  new-
fangled machines.'     Preliminaries  were  carried  as  far  as  de-


DRIVING   CLUBS,    OLD  AND  NEW.  255

•Glaring  that  the  key-bugle  should  be  substituted  for  the  straight
horn,  that  the  coats  should  be  of  Yorkshire  drab,  and  the
waistcoats  of  'white  silk  shag.'  Arrangements,  however,  fell
through,  and  the  club  never  existed.
