Plenty of stories are current still of his fame as a four-in-hand
coachman. They say he once drove an Emperor and a King, a Prince
Chancellor and a pair of Field Marshals, and some ladies of the day,
from the metropolis to Richmond Hill in fifty or sixty odd minutes,
having the ground cleared all the way by bell and summons, and only a
donkey-cart and man, and a deaf old woman, to pay for; and went, as you
can imagine, at such a tearing gallop, that those Grand Highnesses had
to hold on for their lives and lost their hats along the road; and a
publican at Kew exhibits one above his bar to the present hour. And
Countess Fanny was up among them, they say. She was equal to it. And
some say, that was the occasion of her meeting the Old Buccaneer.

She met him at Richmond in Surrey we know for certain. It was on
Richmond Hill, where the old King met his Lass. They say Countess Fanny
was parading the hill to behold the splendid view, always admired so much
by foreigners, with their Achs and Hechs! and surrounded by her crowned
courtiers in frogged uniforms and moustachioed like sea-horses, a little
before dinner time, when Kirby passed her, and the Emperor made a remark
on him, for Kirby was a magnificent figure of a man, and used to be
compared to a three-decker entering harbour after a victory. He stood
six feet four, and was broad-shouldered and deep-chested to match, and
walked like a king who has humbled his enemy. You have seen big dogs.
And so Countess Fanny looked round. Kirby was doing the same. But he
had turned right about, and appeared transfixed and like a royal beast
angry, with his wound. If ever there was love at first sight, and a
dreadful love, like a runaway mail-coach in a storm of wind and lightning
at black midnight by the banks of a flooded river, which was formerly our
comparison for terrible situations, it was when those two met.