What I'm looking for is quite specific. Dude shows up in a quaint little village of thatched cottages as quaintly quaint as ever did quaint. He does not have his own horse. For plot reasons, that's not an option. How does he arrive in Quaintington in the mid 1800's? My fingers are dying to just type stagecoach, and it seems intuitive that it would be something along those lines, but my research is stymied by the overwhelming amount of derailing modern use of that term, and though it appears that the stagecoach did not arise in America, I'm left unsure if that's the right word. It's a quick mention, right at the beginning, so I don't need any great deep mythology, just what would have been a common mode of transport where trains likely did not pass through.
Is Little Quaintley in the Marsh anywhere near a canal? He could hitch a lift on a horse-drawn canal boat. Other than that, yes, stagecoaches have been around for a good few hundred years, trains started running in the 1820s, and there were horse-drawn taxis to take punters to the surrounding villages? ETA - BTW I believe that, yes, stagecoach is the right word - they were named after the short journey stages which interlinked, often using inns as nodes, to form a transport hub
Excellent, thank you. Stagecoach it is. I don't know where the Marsh is, but my story takes place somewhere vaguely in a fictitious northerly bit of what was once Northumbria.
I think I'm suffering from lack of familiarity with the context. He's Mr. Williams throughout the whole story. The village of Quaintington (or as @Hammer renamed it, Little Quaintly) actually goes nameless as it's Holcomb House that is the star setting.
Can't tell if serious because of whistling smiley. Phineas Fogg* is the MC of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, a Victorian tale where he set off to prove that transportation technology had improved enough, even in out-of-the-way countries, that he could literally travel around the world in 80 days, using only standard consumer transportation. It might have been from later in the 19th century though. His little partner's name was Passepartout, but I thought Portmanteau was a very fitting and funny substitute, considering the multiple meanings and wordplay. They used things like balloons in addition to the standard methods. * Wow—apparently his name is actually Phileas Fogg (not Phineas as I always thought).
Actually though, after making that 'clever' post, I realized that most of the transport they used ended up being trains, wagons, coaches, and steamers. I think only once they used a hot air balloon.
^ One of those rat-a-tatting along the cobbled pavements under the gas lit street lamps on a foggy winters night. Or if you want to tip your hat to a subtle steam punk flavour then a Railway Steam Bus. They shuffled people from rural areas to the railway.
railways came from 1830 onward - in the early 1800s it was all coach and four, or smaller pony and traps, you could also ride and change horses at posts along the roads which was known as posting, and from which the postal service takes its name, (the roads would have been very bad, just rutted tracks, and there was a highwayman problem) The very rich would have their own coaches, while the poor didn't have much reason to travel and would walk or take wagons if they had to..the stagecoach was the preserve of the well to do parsons, doctors, army officers, naval officers etc and so forth. those of lower means could pay a lower fee to ride on the top or the back rack with the driver and guard
Your best bet might be to attend market at a nearby sizeable town and hitch a ride with someone heading your way.
Are you talking earlier in the century? He could indeed catch a coach that would go in stages, but it seems to me that "stagecoach" is more an American term. I've never heard it used in a British novel. Though since your Mr. Williams is American, he can speak of it that way, and have people look at him funny for it. Unless he can't ride at all, he could also go by post horse, a system where travellers could hire a horse at an inn and change it for another at some other town up the road. And have his luggage sent via cart. After the 1840s or '50s he'd probably get a train to the nearest station or halt. And then a hack or a cart from there. You can make a lot of the carter wondering why on earth anyone would do to a Godforsaken place like Holcomb Manor. BTW, did you say in your other thread that your village is in the northeast? Oh, my, you're getting into Yorkshire or Durham, which is another thing altogether. Eh, oop!
