← catalogue

The Iron Horse

by R. M. Ballantyne · English · Gutenberg #21740 · 533,981 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Iron Horse
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Iron Horse

Author: R. M. Ballantyne


        
Release date: June 7, 2007 [eBook #21740]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21740

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRON HORSE ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




THE IRON HORSE, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.



CHAPTER ONE.

TREATS OF THE ENGINE-DRIVER'S HOUSE AND HOUSEHOLD.

Talk of earthquakes! not all the earthquakes that have rumbled in
Ecuador or toppled over the spires and dwellings of Peru could compare,
in the matter of dogged pertinacity, with that earthquake which
diurnally and hourly shocked little Gertie's dwelling, quivered the
white dimity curtains of little Gertie's bed and shook little Gertie's
frame.  A graceful, rounded little frame it was; yet strong, and firmly
knit--perhaps in consequence of its having been from infancy so
constantly and so well shaken together.

Her neat little body was surmounted by a head which no sculptor in
search of an antique model would have chosen.  Gertie's profile was not
Grecian; her features were not classic--but they were comely, and rosy,
and so sweet that most people wanted to kiss them, and many people did.
Gertie did not object.  Probably, being only six, she imagined that this
was the ordinary and natural method of salutation.  Yet it was
observable that the child did not reciprocate kisses except in one or
two special cases.  She had evidently a mind of her own, a fact which
was displayed most strikingly, in the passionate manner in which she
reciprocated the embraces of John Marrot, her father, when that large
hairy individual came in of an evening, and, catching her in his long
arms, pressed her little body to his damp pilot-cloth-coated breast and
her chubby face to his oily, smoke-and-soot begrimed countenance,
forgetful for the moment of the remonstrance from his wife that was sure
to follow:--

"Now then, John, there you go again.  You ain't got no more power of
subjewin' your feelings than one of your own ingines, w'ich is the
schreechin'ist, fizzin'ist, crashin'ist, bustin' things I ever 'ad the
misfortune to 'ave to do with.  There's a clean frock just put on this
mornin' only fit for the wash-tub now?"

But John was an easy-going man.  He was mild, kind, sedate,
undemonstrative by nature, and looked upon slight matrimonial breezes as
being good for the health.  It was only Gertie who could draw him into
demonstrations of feeling such as we have described, and, as we have
said, she always reciprocated them violently, increasing thereby the
wash-tub necessity tenfold.

It would have been strange indeed if John Marrot could have been much
put about by a small matrimonial breeze, seeing that his life was spent
in riding on an iron monster with white-hot lungs and boiling bowels
which carried him through space day and night at the rate of fifty miles
an hour!  This, by the way, brings us back to our text--earthquakes.

Gertie's house--or Gertie's father's house, if you prefer it--stood
close to the embankment of one of our great arterial railways--which of
them, for reasons best known to ourself, we don't intend to tell, but,
for the reader's comfort, we shall call it the Grand National Trunk
Railway.  So close did the house stand to the embankment that timid
female passengers were known occasionally to scream as they approached
it, under the impression that the train had left the rails and was about
to dash into it--an impression which was enhanced and somewhat justified
by the circumstance that the house stood with one of its corners;
instead of its side, front, or back; towards the line; thereby inducing
a sudden sensation of wrongness in the breasts of the twenty thousand
passengers who swept past it daily.  The extreme edge of its most
protruding stone was exactly three yards four inches--by measurement--
from the left rail of the down line.

Need we say more to account for the perpetual state of earthquakedom, in
which that house was involved?

But the tremors and shocks to which it was exposed--by night and by
day--was not all it had to bear.  In certain directions of the wind it
was intermittently enveloped in clouds of mingled soot and steam, and,
being situated at a curve on the line where signalling became imminently
needful, it was exposed to all the varied horrors of the whistle from
the sharp screech of interrogation to the successive bursts of
exasperation, or the prolonged and deadly yell of intimidation, with all
the intermediate modulations--so that, what with the tremors, and
shocks, and crashes, and shrieks, and thunderous roar of trains,
Gertie's father's house maintained an upright front in circumstances
that might have been equalled but could not have been surpassed by those
of the Eddystone Lighthouse in the wildest of winter storms, while it
excelled that celebrated building in this, that it faced a storm which
knew no calm, but raged furiously all the year round.

John Marrot was an engine-driver on the Grand National Trunk Railway.
This is equivalent to saying that he was a steady, sober, trustworthy
man.  None but men of the best character are nowadays put in so
responsible a position.  Nearly all the drivers on the line were of this
kind--some better than others, no doubt, but all good.  Of course there
are exceptions to every rule.  As in the best regulated families
accidents will happen, so, on the best conducted lines, an occasional
black sheep will get among the drivers, but this is the exception that
proves the rule.  The rule in the Grand National Trunk Railway was--get
the best drivers and pay them well.  The same may be said of the
firemen, whose ambition was ultimately to drive the iron chargers which
they fed.  Besides being all that we have said, John was a big, burly,
soft-hearted, hard-headed man, who knew that two and two in ordinary
circumstances made four, and who didn't require to be told that his left
foot was not his right one.

It was generally supposed that John Marrot had no nerves, and that his
muscles had imbibed some of the iron of which his engine was composed.
This was a mistake, though there was some truth in both suppositions.

John's family consisted of himself when at home, which, although often,
was never for long; his wife--fat and fair, capable of being roused,
but, on the whole, a good, sensible, loving woman; his eldest daughter,
Lucy or Loo--nineteen, dark, pretty, and amiable; his youngest daughter,
Gertrude, _alias_ Gertie--six, sunny and serious, at least as serious as
was possible for one so young, so innocent, so healthy, and so happy as
she; his son Bob, aged twelve, who was a lamp-boy at the great station
not far off, and of whom it may be briefly said that he was "no better
than he should be," and, lastly, the baby--not yet at the walking period
of life, with a round head, round body, round eyes, and a round dozen at
least--if not more--of hairs standing straight up on the top of his bald
pate, suggesting the idea that he must at some period of his life have
been singed by a passing locomotive--an event not by any means beyond
the bounds of possibility, for it may be written, with more truth of
this, than of any other infant, that he had been born and nurtured amid
thunder, smoke, and blazes.

As might have been expected in the circumstances, he was a powerful
baby.  We cannot afford space for a full description, but it would be
wrong to omit mention of the strength of his lungs.  The imitative
tendency of children is proverbial.  Clearly the locomotive was baby
Marrot's pattern in many things.  No infant that ever drew breath
equalled this one at a yell.  There was absolutely a touch of sublimity
in the sound of the duet--frequently heard--when baby chanced to be
performing a solo and his father's engine went shrieking past with a
running accompaniment!  It is a disputed point to this day which of the
two beat the other; and it is an admitted fact that nothing else could
equal either.

There were two other inmates of John Marrot's house--not members of the
family.  One was his fireman, William Garvie, who lodged with him, the
other a small servant or maid-of-all-work who led a rugged existence,
but appeared to enjoy it, although it kept her thin.  Her name was Ann
Stocks, familiarly known as Nanny.

We are thus particular in describing the engine-driver's household
because, apart from other reasons, a group of human beings who could
live, and thrive, and eat, and sleep, and love, and learn, and so forth,
in such circumstances is noteworthy.

It was quite a treat--believe it, reader--to see little Gertie and the
baby slumber while the engines were apparently having "a night of it"
outside!  Come with us and behold.  It is 10:30 p.m.  Father is crossing
country on the limited mail at any pace you choose between fifty and
eighty miles an hour, time having been lost at the last station, owing
to the unaccountable disappearance of a first-class passenger, and time
having to be made up by fair means or otherwise.  His mate stands beside
him.  In the family mansion pretty Loo sleeps like a "good angel," as
she is, in a small room farthest from the corner next the line, but with
her we have nothing to do at present.  Nanny, also sound asleep, lies in
some place of profound obscurity among the coals in the lower regions of
the house, laying in that store of health and vigour which will enable
her to face the rugged features of the following day.  We dismiss her,
also, with the hope that she may survive the coal-dust and the lack of
oxygen, and turn to the chief room of the house--the kitchen, parlour,
dining-room, drawing-room, nursery, and family bedroom all in one.
Engine-drivers are not always so badly off for space in their domiciles,
but circumstances which are not worth mentioning have led John Marrot to
put up with little.  In this apartment, which is wonderfully clean and
neat, there are two box-beds and a sort of crib.  Baby sleeps--as only
babies can--in perfect bliss in the crib; Gertie slumbers with her
upturned sweet little face shaded by the white dimity curtains in one
bed; Mrs Molly Marrot snores like a grampus in the other.  It is a wide
bed, let deep into the wall, as it were, and Mrs M's red countenance
looms over the counterpane like the setting sun over a winter fog-bank.

Hark?  A rumble in the far distance--ominous and low at first, but
rapidly increasing to the tones of distant thunder.  It is the night
express for the North--going at fifty miles an hour.  At such a rate of
speed it might go right round the world in twenty-one days!  While yet
distant the whistle is heard, shrill, threatening, and prolonged.
Louder and louder; it is nearing the curve now and the earth trembles--
the house trembles too, but Gertie's parted lips breathe as softly as
before; baby's eyes are as tight and his entire frame as still as when
he first fell asleep.  Mrs Marrot, too, maintains the monotony of her
snore.  Round the curve it comes at last, hammer and tongs, thundering
like Olympus, and yelling like an iron fiend.  The earthquake is "on!"
The embankment shudders; the house quivers; the doors, windows, cups,
saucers, and pans rattle.  Outside, all the sledge-hammers and anvils in
Vulcan's smithy are banging an _obbligato_ accompaniment to the hissing
of all the serpents that Saint Patrick drove out of Ireland as the
express comes up; still Gertie's rest is unbroken.  She does indeed give
a slight smile and turn her head on the other side, as if she had heard
a pleasant whisper, but nothing more.  Baby, too, vents a prolonged sigh
before plunging into a profounder depth of repose.  Mrs Marrot gives a
deprecatory grunt between snores, but it is merely a complimentary
"Hallo! 's that you?" sort of question which requires no answer.

As the rushing storm goes by a timid and wakeful passenger happens to
lower the window and look out.  He sees the house.  "It's all over?" are
his last words as he falls back in his seat and covers his face with his
hands.  He soon breathes more freely on finding that it is not all over,
but fifteen or twenty miles lie between him and the house he expected to
annihilate, before his nervous system has quite recovered its tone.

This, reader, is a mere sample of the visitations by which that family
was perpetually affected, though not afflicted.  Sometimes the rushing
masses were heavy goods trains, which produced less fuss, but more of
earthquake.  At other times red lights, intimating equally danger and
delay, brought trains to a stand close to the house, and kept them
hissing and yelling there as if querulously impatient to get on.  The
uproar reached its culminating point about 12:45, on the night of which
we write, when two trains from opposite directions were signalled to
wait, which they did precisely opposite John Marrot's windows, and there
kept up such a riot of sound as feeble language is impotent to convey.
To the accustomed ears the whistle and clank of a checked and angry
pilot-engine might have been discerned amid the hullabaloo; but to one
whose experience in such matters was small, it might have seemed as
though six or seven mad engines were sitting up on end, like monster
rabbits on a bank, pawing the air and screaming out their hearts in the
wild delirium of unlimited power and ungovernable fury.  Still, although
they moved a little, the sleepers did not awake--so potent is the force
of habit!  However, it did not last long.  The red lights removed their
ban, the white lights said "Come on," the monster rabbits gave a final
snort of satisfaction and went away--each with its tail of live-stock,
or minerals, or goods, or human beings, trailing behind it.

The temporary silence round the house was very intense, as may well be
believed--so much so that the heavy foot-fall of a man in the bypath
that led to it sounded quite intrusive.

He was a tall broad-shouldered man in a large pilot coat, cap and boots,
and appeared to walk somewhat lame as he approached the door.  He tried
the handle.  It was locked, of course.

"I thought so," he muttered in a low bass voice; "so much for a bad
memory."

He rapped twice on the door, loudly, with his knuckles and then kicked
it with his boot.  Vain hope!  If a burglar with a sledge-hammer had
driven the door in, he would have failed to tickle the drum of any ear
there.  The man evidently was aware of this, for, changing his plan, he
went round to a back window on the ground-floor, and opened it at the
top with some difficulty.  Peeping in he gazed for some time intently,
and then exclaimed under his breath, "Ha! it's open by good luck."
Gathering a handful of gravel, he threw it into the house with
considerable force.

The result proved that he had not aimed at random, for the shower
entered the open door of Nanny's sleeping-cellar and fell smartly on her
face.

It is well-known that sailors, although capable of slumbering through
loud and continuous noises, can be awakened by the slightest touch, so
likewise Nanny.  On receiving the shower of gravel she incontinently
buried her head in the blankets, drew an empty coal-scuttle over her
shoulders and began to shout thieves! and murder! at the top of her
voice.  Having taken such pains to muffle it, of course no one heard her
cries.  The man, if a burglar, had evidently a patient philosophical
turn of mind, for he calmly waited till the damsel was exhausted, and
when she at length peeped out to observe the effect of her heroic
efforts at self-preservation he said quietly, "Nanny, lass, don't be a
fool!  It's me; open the door; I've gone an' forgot my latch-key."

"Oh la! master, it ain't you, is it?  It ain't thieves and robbers, is
it?"

"No, no.  Open the door like a good girl."

"And it ain't an accident, is it?" continued Nanny partially dressing in
haste.  "Oh, I knows it's a accident, Missus always prophesied as a
accident would come to pass some day, which has come true.  You're not
maimed, master?"

"No, no; be quick, girl!"

"Nor Willum ain't maimed, is he?  He ain't dead?  Oh _don't_ say Willum
is--"

"Bill Garvie's all right," said the engine-driver, as he brushed past
the girl and went up-stairs.

Now, although Mrs Marrot's ears were totally deaf to locomotives they
were alert enough to the sound of her husband's voice.  When, therefore,
he entered the kitchen, he found her standing on the floor with an ample
shawl thrown round her.

"Nothing wrong?" she inquired anxiously.

"Nothing, Molly, my dear, only I got a slight bruise on the leg in the
engine-shed to-day, and I had to go up an' show it to the doctor, d'ye
see, before comin' home, which has made me later than usual."

"Are you _sure_ it's not a back hurt, father?" asked Loo, coming in at
the moment--also enveloped in a shawl, and looking anxious.

"Sure? ay, I'm sure enough; it's only a scratch.  See here."

Saying this he removed one of his boots, and pulling up his trousers
displayed a bandaged leg.

"Well, but we can't see through the bandages, you know," said Mrs
Marrot.

"Let me take them off, father, and I'll replace--"

"Take 'em off!" exclaimed John, pulling down the leg of his trouser and
rising with a laugh.  "No, no, Loo; why, it's only just bin done up all
snug by the doctor, who'd kick up a pretty shindy if he found I had
undid it.  There's one good will come of it anyhow, I shall have a day
or two in the house with you all; for the doctor said I must give it a
short rest.  So, off to bed again, Loo.  This is not an hour for a
respectable young woman to be wanderin' about in her night-dress.  Away
with you!"

"Was any one else hurt, father?" said Loo.  She asked the question
anxiously, but there was a slight flush on her cheek and a peculiar
smile which betrayed some hidden feeling.

"No one else," returned her father.  "I tell 'ee it wasn't an accident
at all--it was only a engine that brushed up agin me as I was comin' out
o' the shed.  That's all; so I just came home and left Will Garvie to
look after our engine.  There, run away."

Loo smiled, nodded and disappeared, followed by Mrs Marrot, who went,
like a sensible woman, to see that her alarmed domestic was all right.
While she was away John went to the crib and kissed the rosy cheek of
his sleeping boy.  Then he bent over the bed with the white dimity
curtains to Miss Gertie's forehead, for which purpose he had to remove a
mass of curly hair with his big brown hand.

"Bless you, my darling," he said in silent speech, "you came near bein'
fatherless this night--nearer than you ever was before."  He kissed her
again tenderly, and a fervent "thank the Lord!" rose from his heart to
heaven.

In less than half-an-hour after this the engine-driver's family sank
into profound repose, serenaded by the music of a mineral train from the
black country, which rushed laboriously past their dwelling like an
over-weighted thunderbolt.



CHAPTER TWO.

THE DRIVER VISITS A LITTLE ELDERLY GENTLEWOMAN AND PREPARES THE IRON
HORSE FOR ACTION.

Next day John Marrot spent the brief period of repose accorded by the
doctor to his leg in romping about the house with the baby in his arms.
Being a large man, accustomed to much elbow-room and rapid motion, and
the house being small, John may be said to have been a dangerous
character in the family on such occasions.  Apart from baby, no elephant
was ever more sluggish in his motions; but when coupled--professionally
speaking--to his own tender infant, John knew no bounds, his wife knew
no rest and his baby knew no higher earthly bliss.

Sometimes it was on his shoulder, sometimes on his head and often on his
foot, riding with railway speed to "Banbury Cross."  Again it was on its
back in the crib or on the bed being tickled into fits of laughter,
which bid fair at times to merge into fits of convulsion, to the horror
of little Gertie, who came in for a large share of that delightful
holiday's enjoyment, but whose spirit was frequently harrowed with alarm
at the riotous conduct of her invalid father.  In his glee the man might
have been compared to a locomotive with a bad driver, who was constantly
shutting off the steam and clapping on the brakes too soon or too late,
thus either falling short of or overshooting his mark.  What between the
door and the dresser, the fire, the crib, the window, and the furniture,
John showed himself a dreadfully bad pilot and was constantly running
into or backing out of difficulties.  At last towards the afternoon of
that day, while performing a furious charge round the room with baby on
his head, he overturned the wash-tub, which filled the baby with
delirious joy, and Gertie with pleasurable alarm.

As for Mrs Marrot, she was too happy to have her husband at home for a
whole day to care much about trifles, nevertheless she felt it her duty
to reprove him, lest the children should learn a bad lesson.

"There now, John, I knew you'd do it at last.  You're much too violent,
and you shouldn't ought to risk the baby's neck in that way.  Such a
mess!  How _can_ you expect me to keep things tidy if you go on so?"

John was very penitent.  He did not reply at first, but putting baby
into the crib--where it instantly drowned with a great yell the shriek
of a passing train--he went down on his knees and began to "swab" up the
water with a jack-towel.  Loo ran laughingly from the corner where she
had been sewing, and insisted on doing it for him.

"You'll hurt your leg, father, if you bend it so, and I'm sure it must
be swelled and pained enough already with so much romping."

"Not a bit, Loo," objected John.  "It was me as caused the mess, an'
justice requires that I should swab it up.  There, go sew that sentiment
into a sampler an' hang it up over yer bed."

But Loo would not give in.  While they were still engaged in the
controversy the door opened, and young Bob Marrot stood before them with
his eyes wide open and his hair straight up on end, as if he had
recently seen a ghost.  This aspect, however, was no sign of alarm,
being his normal condition.

"Ha! seems to me, somehow, that somebody's bin up to somethin'."

"Right Bob," replied his father, rising from his knees and throwing the
jack-towel at him.

The lad easily evaded the shot, being well accustomed to elude much more
deadly missiles, and, picking up the towel, quietly set to work to
perform the duty in dispute.

"You're wanted," he said, looking up at his father while he wrung the
towel over a tin basin.

"Eh!  Where?"

"Up at the shed."

"I'm on sick leave," said John.

"Can't help that.  The 6:30 p.m. passenger train must be drove, and
there's nobody left but you to drive it.  Jones is away with a goods
train owin' to Maxwell having sprained his ankle, and Long Thompson is
down with small-pox, so you'll have to do it.  I offered 'em my
services, but the manager he said that intelligent lads couldn't be
spared for such menial work, and told me to go and fetch you."

"Maxwell had no business to sprain his ankle," said John Marrot.
"Hows'ever," he added cheerfully, "I've had a rare good holiday, an' the
leg's all but right again, so, Molly, let's have an early tea; I'll give
it a good rest for another half-hour and then be ready for the 6:30
p.m-ers.  Cut off your steam, will you?"

This last observation was made to the baby, and was accompanied by a
shake and a toss towards the ceiling which caused him to obey instantly,
under the impression, no doubt that the fun was to be renewed.  Being,
however, consigned to the care of Gertie he again let on the steam and
kept it up during the whole time the family were at tea--which meal they
enjoyed thoroughly, quite regardless of the storm.

He was asleep when his father rose at last and buttoned his heavy coat
up to the chin, while Mrs Marrot stood on tiptoe to arrange more
carefully the woollen shawl round his neck.

"Now, don't stand more than you can help on your hurt leg, John."

"Certainly not, duckie," said John, stooping to kiss the upturned face;
"I'll sit on the rail as much as I can, like a 'Merican racoon.  By the
way," he added, turning suddenly to Loo, "you delivered that note from
young Mr Tipps to his mother?"

"Yes, immediately after I got it from you; and I waited to see if there
was an answer, but she said there wasn't.  It must have contained bad
news, I fear, for she turned pale while she read it."

"H'm, well," said John, putting on his cap, "don't know nothin' about
what was in it, so it's no bizzness o' mine."

With a hearty good-evening to all, and a special embrace to Gertie, the
engine-driver left his home, accompanied by Bob his hopeful son.

"Mr Sharp," said Bob, as they walked along, "has bin makin' oncommon
partikler inquiries among us about some o' the porters.  I raither think
they're a bad lot."

"Not at all," replied his father severely.  "They're no more a bad lot
than the drivers, or, for the matter of that, than the clerks or the
directors, or the lamp-boys.  You ought to be gittin' old enough by this
time, Bob, to know that every lot o' fish in this world, however good,
has got a few bad uns among 'em.  As a rule railway directors and
railway clerks, and railway porters and railway officials of all sorts
are good--more or less--the same may be said of banks an' insurances,
an' all sorts of things--but, do what ye may, a black sheep or two
_will_ git in among 'em, and, of course, the bigger the consarn, the
more numerous the black sheep.  Even the clergy ain't free from that
uniwersal law of natur.  But what's Mr Sharp bin inquiring arter?"

"Ah--wot indeed!" replied Bob; "'ow should I know?  Mr Sharp ain't the
man to go about the line with a ticket on his back tellin' wot he's
arter.  By no means.  P'lice superintendents ain't usually given to
that; but he's arter _somethin'_ partickler."

"Well, that ain't no bizzness of ours, Bob, so we don't need to trouble
our heads about it.  There's nothin' like mindin' yer own bizzness.
Same time," added John after a short pause, "that's no reason why, as a
sea-farin' friend o' mine used to say, a man shouldn't keep his
weather-eye open, d'ye see?"

Bob intimated that he did see, by winking with the eye that chanced to
be next his parent; but further converse between father and son was
interrupted at a turn in the road, where they were joined by a stout,
broad-shouldered young man, whose green velveteen jacket vest, and
trousers bespoke him a railway porter.

"Evenin', Sam," said our driver with a friendly nod; "goin' on night
dooty, eh?"

"Yes, worse luck," replied Sam, thrusting his powerful hands into his
pockets.

"Why so, Sam, you ain't used to mind night dooty?"

"No more I do," said Sam testily, "but my missus is took bad, and
there's no one to look after her properly--for that old 'ooman we got
ain't to be trusted.  'Tis a hard thing to have to go on night dooty
when a higher dooty bids me stay at home."

There was a touch of deep feeling in the tone in which the latter part
of Sam Natly's remark was uttered.  His young wife, to whom he had been
only a year married, had fallen into bad health, and latterly the
doctors had given him little encouragement to hope for her recovery.

"Sam," said John Marrot stopping, "I'll go an' send a friend, as I knows
of, to look after yer wife."

"A friend?" said Sam; "you can't mean any o' your own family, John, for
you haven't got time to go back that length now, and--"

"Well, never mind, I've got time to go where I'm agoin'.  You run on to
the shed, Bob, and tell Garvie that I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

The engine-driver turned off abruptly, and, increasing his pace to a
smart walk, soon stood before the door of one of those uncommonly small
neat suburban villas which the irrigating influence of the Grand
National Trunk Railway had caused to spring up like mushrooms around the
noisy, smoky, bustling town of Clatterby--to the unspeakable advantage
of that class of gentlefolk who possess extremely limited incomes, but
who, nevertheless, prefer fresh air to smoke.

"Is your missus at 'ome?" he inquired of the stout elderly woman who
answered to his modest summons--for although John was wont to clatter
and bang through the greater part of his daily and nightly career, he
was tender of touch and act when out of his usual professional beat.

"Yes; do you wish to see her?"

"I does, my dear.  Sorry I 'aven't got a card with me, but if you'll
just say that it's John Marrot, the engine-driver, I dessay that'll do
for a free pass."

The elderly woman went off with a smile, but returned quickly with an
anxious look, and bade the man follow her.  He was ushered into a small
and poorly furnished but extremely neat and clean parlour, where sat a
thin little old lady in an easy-chair, looking very pale.

"Ev'nin', ma'am," said John, bowing and looking rougher and bigger than
usual in such a small apartment.

"You--you--don't bring bad news, I hope!--my son Joseph--"

"Oh no, Mrs Tipps, not by no means," said Marrot, hasting to relieve
the timid old lady's feelings, "Mr Joseph is all right--nothing wotiver
wrong with him--nor likely to be, ma'am.  Leastwise he wos all right
w'en I seed 'im last."

"And when might that be?" asked the timid old lady with a sigh of relief
as she clasped her hands tightly together.

"W'y, let me see," said John, touching his forehead, "it was yesterday
evenin' w'en I came up with the northern express."

"But many accidents might have happened since yesterday evening," said
Mrs Tipps, still in an anxious tone.

"That's true, ma'am.  All the engines on the Grand Trunk from the
Pentland Firth to the Channel might have bu'sted their bilers since that
time--but it ain't likely," replied John, with a bland smile.

"And--and what was my son doing when you passed him?  Did you speak to
him?"

"Speak to him!  Bless your heart, ma'am," said John, with another
benignant smile, "I went past Langrye station at sixty mile an hour, so
we hadn't much chance to speak to each other.  It would have been as
much as we could have managed, if we'd tried it, to exchange winks."

"Dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs Tipps in a low tone.  "Is that the usual rate
of travelling on your railway?"

"Oh dear no, ma'am.  It's only _my_ express train as goes at that rate.
Other expresses run between forty and fifty miles, an' or'nary trains
average about thirty miles an hour--goods, they go at about twenty, more
or less; but they varies a good deal.  The train I drives is about the
fastest in the kingdom, w'ich is pretty much the same as sayin' it's the
fastest in the world, ma'am.  Sometimes I'm obleeged to go as high as
nigh seventy miles an hour to make up time."

"The fastest mail-coaches in _my_ young days," said Mrs Tipps, "used to
go at the rate of ten miles an hour, I believe."

"Pretty much so," said John.  "They did manage a mile or two more, I'm
told, but that was their average of crawlin' with full steam on."

"And _you_ sometimes drive at sixty or seventy miles an hour?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"With people in the carriages?"

"Cer'nly, ma'am."

"How I _wish_ that I had lived a hundred years ago!" sighed poor Mrs
Tipps.

"You'd have bin a pretty old girl by this time if you had," thought the
engine-driver, but he was too polite to give utterance to the thought.

"And what was my son doing when you passed him at that frightful speed--
you could _see_ him, I suppose?"

"Oh yes, ma'am, I could see him well enough.  He was talkin' an'
laughin', as far as I could make out, with an uncommon pretty girl."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs Tipps, flushing slightly--for she was extremely
sensitive,--and evidently much relieved by this information.  "Well, my
good man, what do you wish me to do for you? anything that is in my
power to--"

"Thankee, ma'am, but I don't want you to do nothin' for _me_."

"Then what have you to say to me?" added the old lady with a little
smile that was clearly indicative of a kind little heart.

"I've come to take the liberty, ma'am, of askin' you to do one of my
mates a favour."

"Most willingly," said Mrs Tipps with animation.  "I shall never forget
that you saved my dear Joseph's life by pulling him off the line when
one of your dreadful engines was going straight over him.  Anything that
I am capable of doing for you or your friends will be but a poor return
for what you have done for me.  I have often asked you to allow me to
make me some such return, Mr Marrot, and have been grieved at your
constant refusal.  I am delighted that you come to me now."

"You're very good to say so, ma'am.  The fact is that one o' my friends,
a porter on the line, named Sam Natly, has a young wife who is, I fear,
far gone wi' consumption; she's worse to-night an' poor Sam's obliged to
go on night dooty, so he can't look arter her, an' the old 'ooman
they've got ain't worth nothin'.  So I thought I'd make bold, ma'am, to
ask you to send yer servant to git a proper nurse to take charge of her
to-night, it would be--"

"I'll go myself!" exclaimed Mrs Tipps, interrupting, and starting up
with a degree of alacrity that astonished the engine-driver.  "Here,
write down the address on that piece of paper--you can write, I
suppose?"

"Yes, ma'am," replied John, modestly, as he bent down and wrote the
address in a bold flowing hand, "I raither think I _can_ write.  I write
notes, on a paper I've got to fill up daily, on the engine; an' w'en a
man's trained to do that, ma'am, it's my opinion he's fit to write in
any circumstances whatsomedever.  Why, you'd hardly believe it, ma'am,
but I do assure you, that I wrote my fust an' last love-letter to my
missus on the engine.  I was drivin' the Lightenin' at the time--that's
the name o' my engine, ma'am, an' they calls me Jack Blazes in
consikence--well, I'd bin courtin' Molly, off-an'-on, for about three
months.  She b'longed to Pinchley station, you must know, where we used
to stop to give her a drink--"

"What! to give Molly a drink?"

"No, ma'am," replied John, with a slight smile, "to give the ingine a
drink.  Well, she met me nigh every day 'xcept Sundays at that station,
and as we'd a pretty long time there--about five minutes--we used to
spend it beside the pump, an' made the most of it.  But somehow I took
it into my head that Molly was playin' fast an' loose with me, an' I was
raither cool on her for a time.  Hows'ever, her father bein' a
pointsman, she wos shifted along with him to Langrye station--that's
where your son is, ma'am--an' as we don't stop there we was obleeged to
confine our courtship to a nod an' a wave of a handkerchief.  Leastwise
she shook out a white handkerchief an' I flourished a lump o'
cotton-waste.  Well, one day as we was close upon Langrye station--about
two miles--I suddenly takes it into my head that I'd bring the thing to
a pint, so I sings out to my mate--that was my fireman, ma'am--says I,
`look out Jim,' an' I draws out my pencil an' bends my legs--you must
always bend your legs a little, ma'am, w'en you writes on a locomotive,
it makes springs of 'em, so to speak--an' I writes on the back of a
blank time-bill, `Molly, my dear, no more shilly-shallyin' with _me_.
Time's up.  If you'll be tender, I'll be locomotive.  Only say the word
and we're coupled for life in three weeks.  A white handkerchief means
yes, a red 'un, no.  If red, you'll see a noo driver on the 10:15 a.m.
express day after to-morrow.  John Marrot.'  I was just in time to pitch
the paper crumpled up right into her bosom," continued the driver,
wiping his forehead as if the deep anxiety of that eventful period still
affected him, "an' let me tell you, ma'am, it requires a deal o' nice
calculation to pitch a piece o' crumpled paper true off a locomotive
goin' between fifty and sixty miles an hour; but it went all straight--I
could see that before we was gone."

"And what was the result?" asked the little old lady as earnestly as if
that result were still pending.

"W'y, the result wos as it should be!  My letter was a short 'un, but it
turned out to be a powerful brake.  Brought her up sharp--an' we was
coupled in less than six weeks."

"Amazing phase of human life!" observed Mrs Tipps, gazing in admiration
at the stalwart giant who stood deferentially before her.

"Well, it _was_ a raither coorious kind o' proposal," said Marrot with a
smile, "but it worked uncommon well.  I've never wanted to uncouple
since then."

"Pardon _me_, Mr Marrot," said Mrs Tipps, with little hysterical
laugh--knowing that she was about to perpetrate a joke--"may I ask if
there are any--any _little_ tenders?"

"Oh, lots of 'em," replied John, "quite a train of 'em; four livin' an'
three gone dead.  The last was coupled on only a short time ago.  You'll
excuse me now, ma'am," he added, pulling out and consulting the
ponderous chronometer with which the company supplied him, "I must go
now, havin' to take charge o' the 6:30 p.m. train,--it ain't my usual
train, but I'm obleeged to take it to-night owin' to one of our drivers
havin' come by an accident.  Evenin', ma'am."

John bowed, and retired so promptly that poor Mrs Tipps had no time to
make further inquiry into the accident referred to--at the very mention
of which her former alarm came back in full force.  However, she wisely
got the better of her own anxieties by throwing herself into those of
others.  Putting on her bonnet she sallied forth on her errand of mercy.

Meanwhile John Marrot proceeded to the engine-shed to prepare his iron
horse for action.  Here he found that his fireman, Will Garvie, and his
cleaner, had been attending faithfully to their duty.  The huge
locomotive, which looked all the more gigantic for being under cover,
was already quivering with that tremendous energy--that artificial
life--which rendered it at once so useful and so powerful a servant of
man.  Its brasses shone with golden lustre, its iron rods and bars,
cranks and pistons glittered with silvery sheen, and its heavier parts
and body were gay with a new coat of green paint.  Every nut and screw
and lever and joint had been screwed up, and oiled, examined, tested,
and otherwise attended to, while the oblong pit over which it stood when
in the shed--and into which its ashes were periodically emptied--glowed
with the light of its intense furnace.  Ever and anon a little puff
issued from its safety-valve, proving to John Marrot that there was life
within his fiery steed sufficient to have blown the shed to wreck with
all its brother engines, of which there were at the time two or three
dozen standing--some disgorging their fire and water after a journey,
and preparing to rest for the night; some letting off steam with a
fiendish yell unbearably prolonged; others undergoing trifling repairs
preparatory to starting next day, and a few, like that of our
engine-driver, ready for instant action and snorting with impatience
like war-horses "scenting the battle from afar."  The begrimed warriors,
whose destiny it was to ride these iron chargers, were also variously
circumstanced.  Some in their shirt sleeves busy with hammer and file at
benches hard by; others raking out fire-boxes, or oiling machinery; all
busy as bees, save the few, who, having completed their preparations,
were buttoning up their jackets and awaiting the signal to charge.

At last that signal came to John Marrot--not in a loud shout of command
or a trumpet-blast, but by the silent hand of Time, as indicated on his
chronometer.

"But how," it may be asked, "does John Marrot know precisely the hour at
which he has to start, the stations he has to stop at, the various
little acts of coupling on and dropping off carriages and trucks, and
returning with trains or with `empties' within fixed periods so
punctually, that he shall not interfere with, run into, or delay, the
operations of the hundreds of drivers whose duties are as complex, nice,
important, and swift as his own."

Reader, we reply that John knows it all in consequence of the perfection
of _system_ attained in railway management.  Without this, our trains
and rails all over the kingdom would long ago have been smashed up into
what Irishmen expressively name smithereens.

The duty of arranging the details of the system devolves on the
superintendents of departments on the line, namely, the passenger,
goods, and locomotive superintendents, each of whom reigns independently
and supreme in his own department, but of course, like the members of a
well-ordered family, they have to consult together in order that their
trains may be properly horsed, and the time of running so arranged that
there shall be no clashing in their distinct though united interests.
When the number of trains and time of running have been fixed, and
finally published by the passenger superintendent--who is also sometimes
the "Out-door superintendent," and who has duties to perform that demand
very considerable powers of generalship,--it is the duty of the
locomotive superintendent to supply the requisite engines.  This
officer, besides caring for all the "plant" or rolling-stock, new and
old, draws out periodically a schedule, in which is detailed to a nicety
every minute act that has to be done by drivers--the hour at which each
engine is to leave the shed on each day of the week, the number of each
engine, its driver and fireman, and the duties to be performed; and this
sheet contains complete _daily_ (nay, almost hourly) directions for
passenger, goods, and pilot-engines.

In order to secure attention to these regulations, each engineman is
fined one shilling for every minute he is behind time in leaving the
shed.  The difficulty of making these runnings of trains dovetail into
each other on lines where the traffic is great and constant, may well be
understood to be considerable, particularly when it is remembered that
ordinary regular traffic is interfered with constantly by numerous
excursion, special, and other irregular trains, in the midst of which,
also, time must be provided for the repair and renewal of the line
itself, the turning of old rails, laying down of new ones, raising
depressed sleepers, renewing broken chairs, etcetera,--all which is
constantly going on, and that, too, at parts of the line over which
hundreds of trains pass in the course of the twenty-four hours.

Besides the arrangements for the regular traffic, which are made
monthly, a printed sheet detailing the special traffic, repairs of
lines, new and altered signals, working arrangements, etcetera, is
issued weekly to every member of the staff; particularly to
engine-drivers and guards.  We chance to possess one of these private
sheets, issued by one of our principal railways.  Let us peep behind the
scenes for a moment and observe how such matters are managed.

The vacation has come to an end, and the boys of Rapscallion College
will, on a certain day, pour down on the railway in shoals with money in
hand and a confident demand for accommodation.  This invading army must
be prepared for.  Ordinary trains are not sufficient for it.  Delay is
dangerous on railways; it must not be permitted; therefore the watchful
superintendent writes an order which we find recorded as follows:--

  "_Wednesday, 26th April_,--Accommodation must be provided on this day
  in the 3:10 and 6:25 p.m. Up, and 2:25 and 6:10 p.m. Down Trains, for
  the Cadets returning to Rapscallion College.  By the Trains named,
  Rapscallion College tickets will be collected at Whitewater on the
  Down journey, and at Smokingham on the Up journey.  Oldershot to send
  a man to Whitewater to assist in the collection of these tickets."

Again--a "Relief Train" has to be utilised.  It won't "pay" to run empty
trains on the line unnecessarily, therefore the superintendent has his
eye on it, and writes:--

  "_April_ 23rd.--An Empty Train will leave Whiteheath for Woolhitch at
  about 8:10 p.m., to work up from Woolhitch at 9:05 p.m., calling at
  Woolhitch Dockyard and Curlton, and forming the 9:15 p.m. Up Ordinary
  Train from Whiteheath.  Greatgun Street to provide Engines and Guards
  for this service."

This is but a slight specimen of the providing, dovetailing, timing, and
guarding that has to be done on all the lines in the kingdom.  In the
same sheet from which the above is quoted, we find notes, cautions, and
intimations as to such various matters as the holding of the levers of
facing points when trains are passing through junctions; the attention
required of drivers to new signals; the improper use of telegraph bells;
the making search for lost "passes;" the more careful loading of goods
waggons; the changes in regard to particular trains; the necessity of
watchfulness on the part of station-masters, robberies having been
committed on the line; the intimation of dates when and places where
ballast trains are to be working on the line; the times and, places when
and where repairs to line are to take place during the brief intervals
between trains of the ordinary traffic; and many other matters, which
naturally lead one to the belief that superintendents of railways must
possess the eyes of Argus, the generalship of Wellington, and the
patience of Job.

Being carefully hedged in, as we have shown, with strict rules and
regulations, backed by fines in case of the slightest inattention, and
the certainty of prompt dismissal in case of gross neglect or
disobedience, with the possibility of criminal prosecution besides
looming in the far distance, our friend, John Marrot, knowing his duties
well, and feeling perfect confidence in himself and his superiors,
consulted his chronometer for the last time, said, "Now, then, Bill!"
and mounted his noble steed.

Will Garvie, who was putting a finishing drop of oil into some part of
the machinery, took his station beside his mate and eased off the brake.
John let off two sharp whistles (an imperative duty on the part of
every driver before starting an engine) and let on the steam.  The first
was a very soft pulsation--a mere puff--but it was enough to move the
ponderous engine as if it had been a cork, though its actual weight with
tender was fifty-three tons.  Another puff, and slowly the iron horse
moved out of its stable.  There was a gentle, oily, gliding, effect
connected with its first movements that might have won the confidence
even of timid Mrs Captain Tipps.  Another puff of greater strength shot
the engine forward with a sudden grandeur of action that would certainly
have sent that lady's heart into her throat.  In a few seconds it
reached and passed the place where the siding was connected with the
main line, and where a pointsman stood ready to shift the points.  Here
the obedient spirit of the powerful steed was finely displayed.  Will
Garvie reversed the action of the engines by a process which, though
beautifully simple and easily done, cannot be easily described.  John
let on a puff of steam, and the engine glided backwards as readily as it
had run forward.  A few seconds afterwards it moved slowly under the
magnificent arch of Clatterby station, and its buffers met those of the
train it was destined to draw as if with a gentle touch of friendly
greeting.

At the station all was bustle and noise; but here we must venture to do
what no human being could accomplish in reality, compel the 6:30 p.m.
train to wait there until it shall be our pleasure to give it the signal
to start!  Meanwhile we shall put back the clock an hour or so, ask the
reader to return to Mrs Tipps' residence and observe what transpired
there while John Marrot was in the shed getting his iron steed ready for
action.



CHAPTER THREE.

IN WHICH THE WIDOW HOLDS CONVERSE WITH A CAPTAIN, MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE
OF A YOUNG MAN, AND RECEIVES A TELEGRAPHIC SHOCK, WHICH ENDS IN A
RAILWAY JOURNEY.

Mrs Captain Tipps was, as we have said, a thin old lady of an
excessively timid temperament.  She was also, as we have shown,
impulsively kind in disposition.  Moreover, she was bird-like in aspect
and action.  We would not have it supposed, however, that her features
were sharp.  On the contrary, they were neat and rounded and well
formed, telling of great beauty in youth, but her little face and mouth
were of such a form that one was led irresistibly to expect to hear her
chirp; she fluttered rather than walked and twittered rather than
talked.  Altogether she was a charming little old lady, with a pair of
bead-like eyes as black as sloes.  Happy that captain--a sea-captain, by
the way, long since dead--round whom she had fluttered in days gone bye,
and happy that son Joseph round whom, when at home, she fluttered now.

But Joseph was not often at home at the time we write of.  He was an
honest soul--a gentle, affectionate man with a handsome face, neat
dapper little frame, something like his mother in many ways, yet not
unmanly.  He was too earnest, simple, unassuming, and unaffected to be
that.  He was a railway clerk, and had recently been appointed to
Langrye station, about fifty miles from Clatterby, which necessitated
his leaving his mother's roof; but Mrs Tipps consoled herself with the
intention of giving up her little villa and going to live at Langrye.

Poverty, after the captain's death, had seized upon the widow, and held
her tightly down during the whole of that period when Joseph and his
only sister Netta were being educated.  But Mrs Tipps did her duty
bravely by them.  She was a practically religious woman, and tried most
earnestly to rule her life in accordance with the blessed Word of God.
She trained up her children "in the way that they should go," in
thorough reliance on the promise that "they would not depart from it
when they were old."  She accepted the command, "owe no man anything but
to love one another," as given to herself as well as to the world at
large--hence she kept out of debt, and was noted for deeds of kindness
wherever she went.

But she was pinched during this period--terribly pinched--no one knew
how severely save her daughter Netta, to whom she had been in the habit
of confiding all her joys and sorrows from the time that the child could
form any conception of what joy or sorrow meant.  But Mrs Tipps did not
weep over her sorrows, neither did she become boisterous over her joys.
She was an equable, well-balanced woman in everything except the little
matter of her nervous system.  Netta was a counterpart of her mother.
As time went on expenses increased, and living on small means became
more difficult, so that Mrs Tipps was compelled to contemplate leaving
the villa, poor and small though it was, and taking a cheaper residence.
At this juncture a certain Captain Lee, an old friend of her late
husband--also a sea-captain, and an extremely gruff one--called upon the
widow, found out her straitened circumstances, and instantly offered her
five hundred pounds, which she politely but firmly refused.

"But madam," said the excitable captain on that memorable occasion, "I
must insist on your taking it.  Excuse me, I have my own reasons,--and
they are extremely good ones,--for saying that it is my duty to give you
this sum and yours to take it.  I owe it to your late husband, who more
than once laid me under obligations to him."

Mrs Tipps shook her little head and smiled.

"You are very kind, Captain Lee, to put it in that way, and I have no
doubt that my dear husband did, as you say, lay you under many
obligations because he was always kind to every one, but I cannot I
assure you--"

"Very well," interrupted the captain, wiping his bald head with his
pocket-handkerchief angrily, "then the money shall go to some charity--
some--some ridiculous asylum or hospital for teaching logarithms to the
Hottentots of the Cape, or something of that sort.  I tell you, madam,"
he added with increased vehemence, seeing that Mrs Tipps still shook
her head, "I tell you that I _robbed_ your husband of five hundred
pounds!"

"Robbed him!" exclaimed Mrs Tipps, somewhat shocked.  "Oh, Captain Lee,
impossible!"

"Yes I did," replied the captain, crossing his arms and nodding his head
firmly, "robbed him.  I laid a bet with him to that extent and won it."

"That is not usually considered robbery, Captain Lee," said Mrs Tipps
with a smile.

"But that ought to be considered robbery," replied the captain, with a
frown.  "Betting is a mean, shabby, contemptible way of obtaining money
for nothing on false pretences.  The man who bets says in his heart, `I
want my friend's money without the trouble of working for it, therefore
I'll offer to bet with him.  In so doing I'll risk an equal sum of my
own money.  That's fair and honourable!'  Is that logic?" demanded the
captain, vehemently, "It is not!  In the first place it is mean to want,
not to speak of accepting, another man's money without working for it,
and it is a false pretence to say that you risk your own money because
it is _not_ your own, it is your wife's and your children's money, who
are brought to poverty, mayhap, because of your betting tendencies, and
it is your baker's and butcher's money, whose bread and meat you devour
(as long as they'll let you) without paying for it, because of your
betting tendencies, and a proportion of it belongs to your church, which
you rob, and to the poor, whom you defraud, because of your betting
tendencies; and if you say that when you win the case is altered, I
reply, yes, it is altered for the worse, because, instead of bringing
all this evil down on your own head you hurl it, not angrily, not
desperately, but, worse, with fiendish _indifference_ on the head of
your friend and his innocent family.  Yes, madam, although many men do
not think it so, betting _is_ a dishonourable thing, and I'm ashamed of
having done it.  I repent, Mrs Tipps, the money burns my fingers, and I
_must_ return it."

"Dear me!" exclaimed the old lady, quite unable to reply at once to such
a gush.  "But Captain Lee, did you not say that it is mean to accept
money without working for it, and yet you want me to accept five hundred
pounds without working for it?"

"Oh! monstrous sophistry," cried the perplexed man, grasping desperately
the few hairs that remained on his polished head, "is there no
difference then between presenting or accepting a gift and betting?  Are
there not circumstances also in which poverty is unavoidable and the
relief of it honourable as well as delightful? not to mention the
courtesies of life, wherein giving and receiving in the right spirit and
within reasonable limits, are expressive of good-will and conducive to
general harmony.  Besides, I do not offer a gift.  I want to repay a
debt; by rights I ought to add compound interest to it for twenty years,
which would make it a thousand pounds.  Now, _do_ accept it, Mrs
Tipps," cried the captain, earnestly.

But Mrs Tipps remained obdurate, and the captain left her, vowing that
he would forthwith devote it as the nucleus of a fund to build a
collegiate institute in Cochin-China for the purpose of teaching
Icelandic to the Japanese.

Captain Lee thought better of it, however, and directed the fund to the
purchase of frequent and valuable gifts to little Joseph and his sister
Netta, who had no scruples whatever in accepting them.  Afterwards, when
Joseph became a stripling, the captain, being a director in the Grand
National Trunk Railway, procured for his protege a situation on the
line.

To return to our story after this long digression:--

We left Mrs Tipps in the last chapter putting on her bonnet and shawl,
on philanthropic missions intent.  She had just opened the door, when a
handsome, gentlemanly youth, apparently about one or two and twenty,
with a very slight swagger in his gait stepped up to it and, lifting his
hat said--

"Mrs Tipps, I presume?  I bring you a letter from Clatterby station.
Another messenger should have brought it, but I undertook the duty
partly for the purpose of introducing myself as your son's friend.  I--
my name is Gurwood."

"What!--Edwin Gurwood, about whom Joseph speaks so frequently, and for
whom he has been trying to obtain a situation on the railway through our
friend Captain Lee?" exclaimed Mrs Tipps.

"Yes," replied the youth, somewhat confused by the earnestness of the
old lady's gaze, "but pray read the letter--the telegram--I fear--"

He stopped, for Mrs Tipps had torn open the envelope, and stood gazing
at it with terrible anxiety depicted on her face.

"There is no cause for immediate fear, I believe," began Edwin, but Mrs
Tipps interrupted him by slowly reading the telegram.

"From Joseph Tipps, Langrye station, to Mrs Tipps, Eden Villa,
Clatterby.  Dear Mother, Netta is not very well--nothing serious, I
hope--don't be alarmed--but you'd better come and nurse her.  She is
comfortably put up in my lodgings."

Mrs Tipps grew deadly pale.  Young Gurwood, knowing what the message
was, having seen it taken down while lounging at the station, had
judiciously placed himself pretty close to the widow.  Observing her
shudder, he placed his strong arm behind her, and adroitly sinking down
on one knee received her on the other, very much after the manner in
which, while at school, he had been wont to act the part of second to
pugilistic companions.

Mrs Tipps recovered almost immediately, sprang up, and hurried into the
house, followed by Gurwood.

"You'll have time to catch the 6.30 train," he said, as Mrs Tipps
fluttered to a cupboard and brought out a black bottle.

"Thank you.  Yes, I'll go by that.  You shall escort me to it.  Please
ring the bell."

The stout elderly female--Netta's nurse--answered.

"Come here, Durby," said the widow quickly; "I want you to take this
bottle of wine to a poor sick woman.  I had intended to have gone
myself, but am called away suddenly and shan't be back to-night.  You
shall hear from me to-morrow.  Lock up the house and stay with the woman
to look after her, if need be--and now, Mr Gurwood."

They were gone beyond recall before Mrs Durby could recover herself.

"I never did see nothink like my poor missus," she muttered, "there
_must_ be somethink wrong in the 'ead.  But she's a good soul."

With this comforting reflection Mrs Durby proceeded to obey her
"missus's" commands.

On reaching the station Mrs Tipps found that she had five minutes to
wait, so she thanked Gurwood for escorting her, bade him good-bye, and
was about to step into a third-class carriage when she observed Captain
Lee close beside her, with his daughter Emma, who, we may remark in
passing, was a tall, dark, beautiful girl, and the bosom friend of Netta
Tipps.

"Oh, there is Captain Lee.  How fortunate," exclaimed Mrs Tipps, "he
will take care of me.  Come, Mr Gurwood, I will introduce you to him
and his daughter."

She turned to Gurwood, but that youth did not hear her remark, having
been forced from her side by a noiseless luggage truck on India-rubber
wheels.  Turning, then, towards the captain she found that he and his
daughter had hastily run to recapture a small valise which was being
borne off to the luggage van instead of going into the carriage along
with them.  At the same moment the guard intervened, and the captain and
his daughter were lost in the crowd.

But Edwin Gurwood, although he did not hear who they were, had obtained
a glance of the couple before they disappeared, and that glance, brief
though it was, had taken deadly effect!  He had been shot straight to
the heart.  Love at first sight and at railway speed, is but a feeble
way of expressing what had occurred.  Poor Edwin Gurwood, up to this
momentous day woman-proof, felt, on beholding Emma, as if the combined
powers of locomotive force and electric telegraphy had smitten him to
the heart's core, and for one moment he stood rooted to the earth, or--
to speak more appropriately--nailed to the platform.  Recovering in a
moment he made a dash into the crowd and spent the three remaining
minutes in a wild search for the lost one!

It was a market-day, and the platform of Clatterby station was densely
crowded.  Sam Natly the porter and his colleagues in office were
besieged by all sorts of persons with all sorts of questions, and it
said much for the tempers of these harassed men, that, in the midst of
their laborious duties, they consented to be stopped with heavy weights
on their shoulders, and, while perspiration streamed down their faces,
answered with perfect civility questions of the most ridiculous and
unanswerable description.

"Where's my wife?" frantically cried an elderly gentleman, seizing Sam
by the jacket.

"I don't know, sir," replied Sam with a benignant smile.

"There she is," shouted the elderly gentleman, rushing past and nearly
overturning Sam.

"What a bo-ar it must be to the poatas to b' wearied so by stoopid
people," observed a tall, stout, superlative fop with sleepy eyes and
long whiskers to another fop in large-check trousers.

"Ya-as," assented the checked trousers.

"Take your seats, gentlemen," said a magnificent guard, over six feet
high, with a bushy beard.

"O-ah!" said the dandies, getting into their compartment.

Meanwhile, Edwin Gurwood had discovered Emma.  He saw her enter a
first-class carriage.  He saw her smile ineffably to her father.  He
heard the guard cry, "Take your seats; take your seats," and knew that
she was about to be torn from him perhaps for ever.  He felt that it was
a last look, because, how could he hope in a populous city to meet with
her again?  Perhaps she did not even belong to that part of the country
at all, and was only passing through.  He did not even know her name!
What _was_ he to do?  He resolved to travel with her, but it instantly
occurred to him that he had no ticket.  He made a stride or two in the
direction of the ticket office, but paused, remembering that he knew not
her destination, and that therefore he could not demand a ticket for any
place in particular.

Doors began to slam, and John Marrot's iron horse let off a little
impatient steam.  Just then the "late passenger" arrived.  There is
always a late passenger at every train.  On this occasion the late
passenger was a short-sighted elderly gentleman in a brown top-coat and
spectacles.  He was accompanied by a friend, who assisted him to push
through the crowd of people who had come to see their friends away, or
were loitering about for pastime.  The late passenger carried a bundle
of wraps; the boots of his hotel followed with his portmanteau.

"All right sir; plenty of time," observed Sam Natly, coming up and
receiving the portmanteau from boots.  "Which class, sir?"

"Eh--oh--third; no, stay, second," cried the short-sighted gentleman,
endeavouring vainly to open his purse to pay boots.  "Here, hold my
wraps, Fred."

His friend Fred chanced at that moment to have been thrust aside by a
fat female in frantic haste and Edwin Gurwood, occupying the exact spot
he had vacated, had the bundle thrust into his hand.  He retained it
mechanically, in utter abstraction of mind.  The bell rang, and the
magnificent guard, whose very whiskers curled with an air of calm
serenity, said, "Now then, take your seats; make haste."  Edwin grew
desperate.  Emma smiled bewitchingly to a doting female friend who had
nodded and smiled bewitchingly to Emma for the last five minutes, under
the impression that the train was just going to start, and who earnestly
wished that it _would_ start, and save her from the necessity of nodding
or smiling any longer.

"Am I to lose sight of her for ever?" muttered Gurwood between his
teeth.

The magnificent guard sounded his whistle and held up his hand.  Edwin
sprang forward, pulled open the carriage door, leaped in and sat down
opposite Emma Lee!  The iron horse gave two sharp responsive whistles,
and sent forth one mighty puff.  The train moved, but not with a jerk;
it is only clumsy drivers who jerk trains; sometimes pulling them up too
soon, and having to make a needless plunge forward again, or overrunning
their stopping points and having to check abruptly, so as to cause in
timorous minds the impression that an accident has happened.  In fact
much more of one's comfort than is generally known depends upon one's
driver being a good one.  John Marrot was known to the regular
travellers on the line as a first-rate driver, and some of them even
took an interest in ascertaining that he was on the engine when they
were about to go on a journey.  It may be truly said of John that he
never "started" his engine at all.  He merely as it were insinuated the
idea of motion to his iron steed, and so glided softly away.

Just as the train moved, the late passenger thrust head and shoulders
out of the window, waved his arms, glared abroad, and shouted, or rather
spluttered--

"My b-b-bundle!--wraps!--rug!--lost!"

A smart burly man, with acute features, stepped on the footboard of the
carriage, and, moving with the train, asked what sort of rug it was.

"Eh! a b-b-blue one, wi-wi--"

"With," interrupted the man, "black outside and noo straps?"

"Ye-ye-yes--yes!"

"All right, sir, you shall have it at the next station," said the
acute-faced man, stepping on the platform and allowing the train to
pass.  As the guard's van came up he leaped after the magnificent guard
into his private apartment and shut the door.

"Hallo!  Davy Blunt, somethin' up?" asked the guard.

"Yes, Joe Turner, there _is_ somethin' up," replied the acute man,
leaning against the brake-wheel.  "You saw that tall good-lookin' feller
wi' the eyeglass and light whiskers?"

"I did.  Seemed to me as if his wits had gone on wi' the last train, an'
he didn't know how to overtake 'em."

"I don't know about his wits," said Blunt, "but it seems to me that he's
gone on in _this_ train with somebody else's luggage."

The guard whistled--not professionally, but orally.

"You don't say so?"

The acute man nodded, and, leaning his elbows on the window-sill, gazed
at the prospect contemplatively.

In a few minutes the 6:30 p.m. train was flying across country at the
rate of thirty-five or forty miles an hour.



CHAPTER FOUR.

A DOUBLE DILEMMA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Meanwhile, the "tall good-looking fellow with the eyeglass and light
whiskers" sat quaking opposite Emma Lee.  The extreme absurdity, not to
say danger, of his position as a traveller to nowhere without a ticket,
flashed upon him when too late, and he would have cheerfully given fifty
pounds, had he possessed such a sum, if the boards under his feet would
have opened and let him drop between the rails.  In fact he felt so
confused and guilty that--albeit not naturally a shy youth--he did not
dare to look at Emma for some time after starting, but sat with downcast
eyes, revolving in his mind how he was to get out of the dilemma; but
the more he revolved the matter the more hopeless did his case appear.
At length he ventured to look at Emma, and their eyes encountered.  Of
course Gurwood looked pointedly out at the window and became fascinated
by the landscape; and of course Emma, looked out at the _other_ window,
and became equally interested in the landscape.  Feeling very unhappy;
Edwin soon after that took out a newspaper and tried to read, but failed
so completely that he gave it up in despair and laid the paper on the
seat beside him.

Just then a happy thought flashed into his mind.  He would go on to
Langrye station, get out there, and make a confidant of his friend
Joseph Tipps, who, of course, could easily get him out of his
difficulty.  He now felt as if a mighty load were lifted off his heart,
and, his natural courage returning, he put up his eyeglass, which had
been forgotten during the period of his humiliation, and gazed at the
prospect with increasing interest--now through the right window, and
then through the left--taking occasion each time to glance with still
greater interest at Emma Lee's beautiful countenance.

The captain, whose disposition was sociable, and who had chatted a good
deal with his daughter while their _vis-a-vis_ was in his agony, soon
took occasion to remark that the scenery was very fine.  Edwin, gazing
at the black walls of a tunnel into which they plunged, and thinking of
Emma's face, replied that it was--extremely.  Emerging from the tunnel,
and observing the least possible approach to a smile on.  Emma's lips,
Edwin remarked to the captain that railway travelling presented rather
abrupt changes and contrasts in scenery.  The captain laughingly agreed
with this, and so, from one thing to another, they went on until the two
got into a lively conversation--Captain Lee thinking his travelling
companion an extremely agreeable young fellow, and Edwin esteeming the
captain one of the jolliest old boys he had ever met!  These are the
very words he used, long after, in commenting on this meeting to his
friend Joseph Tipps.

During a pause in the conversation, Emma asked her father to whom a
certain villa they were passing belonged.

"I don't know," replied the captain; "stay, let me see, I ought to know
most of the places hereabouts--no, I can't remember."

"I rather think it belongs to a Colonel Jones," said Gurwood, for the
first time venturing to address Emma directly.  "A friend of mine who is
connected with this railway knows him, and has often spoken to me about
him.  The colonel has led an extremely adventurous life, I believe."

"Indeed!"

There was not much apparently in that little word, but there must have
been something mysterious in it, for it caused Edwin's heart to leap as
it had never leapt before.  On the strength of it he began to relate
some of Colonel Jones's adventures, addressing himself now partly to the
captain and partly to Emma.  He had a happy knack of telling a story,
and had thoroughly interested his hearers when the train slowed and
stopped, but as this was not the station at which he meant to get out--
Langrye being the next--he took no notice of the stoppage.  Neither did
he pay any regard to a question asked by the acute man, whose face
appeared at the window as soon as the train stopped.

"Is that your bundle, sir?" repeated Mr Blunt a little louder.

"Eh? yes, yes--all right," replied Edwin, annoyed at the interruption,
and thinking only of Emma Lee, to whom he turned, and went on--"Well,
when Colonel Jones had scaled the first wall--"

"Come, sir," said Blunt, entering the carriage, and laying his hand on
Edwin's shoulder, "it's _not_ all right.  This is another man's
property."

The youth turned round indignantly, and, with a flushed countenance,
said, "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you are travelling with another man's property," said
Blunt, quietly pointing to the strapped rug.

"_That_ is not my property," said Edwin, looking at it with a perplexed
air, "I never said it was."

"Didn't you though?" exclaimed Blunt, with an appealing look to the
captain.  "Didn't you say, when I asked you, `Yes, it's all right.'
Moreover, young man, if it's not yours, why did you bring it into the
carriage with you?"

"_I_ did not bring it into the carriage," said Edwin, firmly, and with
increasing indignation.  "I came down to this train with a lady, who is
now in it, and who can vouch for it that I brought no luggage of any
kind with me.  I--"

At this moment the elderly gentleman with brown top-coat and spectacles
bustled up to the carriage, recognised his rug, and claimed it, with a
good deal of fuss and noise.

"Where are you travelling to?" demanded Blunt, with a touch of sarcasm
in his tone.

Poor Gurwood's countenance fell.  He became somewhat pale, and said, in
a much less resolute voice, "You have no right to ask that question; but
since you suspect me, I may tell you that I am going to Langrye."

"Show your ticket," said the guard, looking in at that moment.

A glance showed the unhappy youth that Captain Lee was regarding him
with surprise and Emma with intense pity.  Desperation gave him courage.
He turned abruptly to the captain, and said--

"I regret deeply, sir, that we part with such a foul suspicion hanging
over me.  Come," he added sternly to Blunt, "I will go with you, and
shall soon prove myself innocent."

He leaped to the platform, closely accompanied by Blunt.

"Where do you intend to take me?" he asked, turning to his guardian,
whom he now knew to be a detective.

"Here, step this way," said Blunt, leading his prisoner towards the rear
of the train.

"Such a nice-looking young man, too, who'd 'ave thought it!" whispered
one of the many heads that were thrust out at the carriage-windows to
look at him as he passed.

"Get in here," said Blunt, holding open the door of an empty
second-class compartment of the same train; "we shan't want a ticket for
this part of the journey."

"But the lady I mentioned," said poor Edwin, "she can--"

"You can see her at Langrye, young man; come, get in," said Blunt,
sternly, "the train's just starting."

Edwin's blood boiled.  He turned to smite the acute-visaged man to the
earth, but encountering the serene gaze of the magnificent guard who
stood close beside him, he changed his mind and sprang into the
carriage.  Blunt followed, the door was banged and locked, the signal
was given and the train moved on.

"Why do you take me to Langrye instead of back to town?" asked Edwin,
after proceeding some distance in silence.

"Because we have an hour to wait for the up train, and it's pleasanter
waiting there than here," replied Blunt; "besides, I have business at
Langrye; I want to see one of my friends there who is looking after
light-fingered gentry."

As this was said significantly Edwin did not deign a reply, but, leaning
back in a corner, gazed out at the window and brooded over his unhappy
fate.  Truly he had something to brood over.  Besides being in the
unpleasant position which we have described, he had quite recently lost
his only relative, a "rich uncle," as he was called, who had brought
Edwin up and had led him to believe that he should be his heir.  It was
found, however, on the examination of the old gentleman's affairs, that
his fortune was a myth, and that his house, furniture, and personal
effects would have to be sold in order to pay his debts.  When all was
settled, Edwin Gurwood found himself cast upon his own resources with
good health, a kind but wayward disposition, a strong handsome frame, a
middling education, and between three and four hundred pounds in his
pocket.  He soon found that this amount of capital melted with alarming
rapidity under the influence of a good appetite and expensive tastes, so
he resolved at once to commence work of some kind.  But what was he to
turn to?  His uncle had allowed him to do as he pleased.  Naturally it
pleased the energetic and enthusiastic boy to learn very little of
anything useful, to read an immense amount of light literature, and to
indulge in much open-air exercise.

Bitterly did he now feel, poor fellow, that this course, although
somewhat pleasing at the time, did not fit him to use and enjoy the more
advanced period of life.  He had disliked and refused to sit still even
for an hour at a time in boyhood; it now began to dawn upon him that he
was doomed for life to the greatest of all his horrors, the top of a
three-legged stool!  He had hated writing and figures, and now visions
of ledgers, cash-books, invoice-books and similar literature with
endless arithmetical calculations began to float before his mental
vision.  With intense regret he reflected that if he had only used
reasonably well the brief period of life which as yet lay behind him, he
might by that time have been done with initial drudgery and have been
entering on a brilliant career in one of the learned professions.  As to
the army and navy, he was too old to get into either, even if he had
possessed interest, which he did not.  Sternly did he reproach his
departed uncle when he brooded over his wrongs, and soliloquised
thus:--"You ought to have known that I was a fool, that I could not be
expected to know the fact, or to guide myself aright in opposition to
and despite of my own folly, and you ought to have forced me to study
when I declined to be led--bah! it's too late to say all this now.
Come, if there is any manhood in me worthy of the name, let me set to
work at once and make the most of what is left to me!"

Edwin reflected with complacency on the fact that one part of what was
left to him was a tall strong frame and broad shoulders, but his
judgment told him that though these were blessings not to be despised,
and for which he had every reason to be thankful, he ought not to plume
himself too much on them, seeing that he shared them in common with
numerous prize-fighters and burglars, besides which they could not prove
of very much value professionally unless he took to mining or
coal-heaving.  He also reflected sadly on the fact that beyond the three
R's, a little Latin and French, and a smattering of literary knowledge,
he was little better than a red Indian.  Being, as we have said, a
resolute fellow, he determined to commence a course of study without
delay, but soon found that the necessity of endeavouring to obtain a
situation and of economising his slender fortune interfered sadly with
his efforts.  However, he persevered.

In the time of his prosperity, young Gurwood had made many friends, but
a touch of pride had induced him to turn aside from these--although many
of them would undoubtedly have been glad to aid him in his aims--to quit
the house of his childhood and betake himself to the flourishing town of
Clatterby, where he knew nobody except one soft amiable little
school-fellow, whom in boyish days he had always deemed a poor,
miserable little creature, but for whom nevertheless he entertained a
strong affection.  We need scarcely say that this was Joseph Tipps, the
clerk at Langrye station.



CHAPTER FIVE.

AN ACCIDENT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Locomotives and telegraphy are mere snails compared to thought.  Let us
therefore use our advantage, reader, stride in advance of the 6:30 p.m.
train (which by the way has now become a 7:45 p.m. train), and see what
little Joseph Tipps is doing.

There he stands--five feet four in his highest-heeled boots--as sterling
and warm-hearted a little man as ever breathed.  He was writing at a
little desk close to a large window, which, owing to the station being a
temporary one and its roof low, was flimsy, and came nearer to the
ground than most windows do.

Mr Tipps wrote somewhat nervously.  He inherited his mother's weakness
in this respect; and, besides, his nerves had been a little shaken, by
the sudden illness, with which his sister had been seized that day, at
his lodgings.

Outside on the platform a few people lounged, waiting the arrival of the
expected train.  Among them was one whose bulky frame and firm
strongly-lined countenance spoke of much power to dare and do.  He was
considerably above the middle height and somewhere about middle age.
His costume was of that quiet unobtrusive kind which seems to court
retirement, and the sharp glance of his eyes seemed to possess something
of the gimblet in their penetrating power.  This was no less a personage
than Mr Sharp, the inspector of police on the Grand National Trunk
Railway.  Mr Inspector Sharp had evidently an eye for the beautiful,
for he stood at the farther extremity of the platform gazing in rapt
attention at the sun, which just then was setting in a flood of golden
light.  But Mr Sharp had also a peculiar faculty for observing several
things at once.  Indeed, some of his friends, referring to this, were
wont to remark that he was a perfect Argus, with eyes in his elbows and
calves and back of his head.  It would seem, indeed, that this, or
something like it, must really have been the case, for he not only
observed and enjoyed the sunset but also paid particular attention to
the conversation of two men who stood not far from him, and at the same
time was cognisant of the fact that behind him, a couple of hundred
yards or more up the line, a goods engine was engaged in shunting
trucks.

This process of shunting, we may explain for the benefit of those who
don't know, consists in detaching trucks from trains of goods and
shoving them into sidings, so that they may be out of the way, until
their time comes to be attached to other trains, which will convey them
to their proper destination, or to have their contents, if need be,
unloaded and distributed among other trucks.  Shunting is sometimes a
tedious process, involving much hauling, pushing, puffing, and
whistling, on the part of the engine, and uncoupling of trucks and
shifting of points on the part of pointsmen and porters.  There is
considerable danger, too, in the process,--or rather there _was_ danger
before the introduction of the "block system," which now, when it is
adopted, renders accidents almost impossible,--of which system more
shall be said hereafter.  The danger lies in this, that shunting has
frequently to be done during intervals between the passing of
passenger-trains, and, on lines where passenger and goods traffic is
very great, these intervals are sometimes extremely brief.  But, strange
to say, this danger is the mother of safety, for the difficulty of
conducting extensive traffic is so great, that a combination of all but
perfect systems of signalling, telegraphing, and organisation is
absolutely needful to prevent constant mishap.  Hence the marvellous
result that, in the midst of danger, we are in safety, and travelling by
railway is really less dangerous than travelling by stage-coach used to
be in days of old.  Yes, timid reader, we assure you that if you travel
daily by rail your chances of coming to grief are very much fewer than
if you were to travel daily by mail coach.  Facts and figures prove this
beyond all doubt, so that we are entitled to take the comfort of it.
The marvel is, not that loss of life is so great, but that it is so
small.

Do you doubt it, reader?  Behold the facts and figures--wonder, be
thankful and doubt no more!  A "Blue Book" (Captain Tyler's General
Report to the Board of Trade on Railway Accidents during the year 1870)
tells us that the number of passengers killed on railways last year was
ninety.  The number of passenger journeys performed was 307 millions,
which gives, in round numbers, one passenger killed for every three and
a half millions that travelled.  In the best mail and stage-coaching
days the yearly number of travellers was about two millions.  The
present railway death-rate applied to this number amounts to a little
more than one-half of a unit!  Will any one out of Bedlam have the
audacity to say that in coaching days only half a passenger was killed
each year?  We leave facts to speak for themselves, and common-sense to
judge whether men were safer then than they are now.

But to return.  When Mr Sharp was looking at the distant waggons that
were being shunted he observed that the engine which conducted the
operation was moved about with so much unnecessary fuss and jerking that
he concluded it must be worked by a new, or at all events a bad, driver.
He shook his head, therefore, pulled out his watch, and muttered to
himself that it seemed to him far too near the time of the arrival of a
train to make it safe to do such work.

The calculations, however, had been made correctly, and the train of
trucks would have been well out of the way, if the driver had been a
smarter man.  Even as things stood, however, there should have been no
danger, because the distant signal was turned to danger, which thus said
to any approaching train, "Stop! for your life."  But here occurred one
of these mistakes, or pieces of carelessness, or thoughtlessness, to
which weak and sinful human nature is, and we suppose always will be,
liable.  Perhaps the signalman thought the goods train had completed its
operation, or fancied that the express was not so near as it proved to
be, or he got confused--we cannot tell; there is no accounting for such
things, but whatever the cause, he turned off the danger-signal half a
minute too soon, and set the line free.

Suddenly the down train came tearing round the curve.  It was at reduced
speed certainly, but not sufficiently reduced to avoid a collision with
the trucks on a part of the line where no trucks should be.

Our friend John Marrot was on the look-out of course, and so was his
mate.  They saw the trucks at once.  Like lightning John shut off the
steam and at the same instant touched his whistle several sharp shrieks,
which was the alarm to the guard to turn on _his_ brakes.  No men could
have been more prompt or cool.  Joe Turner and Will Garvie had on full
brake-power in a second or two.  At the same time John Marrot instantly
reversing the engine, let on full steam--but all in vain.  Fire flew in
showers from the shrieking wheels--the friction on the rails must have
been tremendous, nevertheless the engine dashed into the goods train
like a thunderbolt with a stunning crash and a noise that is quite
indescribable.

The police superintendent, who was all but run over, stood for a few
seconds aghast at the sight and at the action of the engine.  Not
satisfied with sending one of its own carriages into splinters, the iron
horse made three terrific plunges or efforts to advance, and at each
plunge a heavy truck full of goods was, as it were, pawed under its
wheels and driven out behind, under the tender, in the form of a mass of
matchwood--all the goods, hard and soft, as well as the heavy frame of
the truck itself being minced up together in a manner that defies
description.  It seemed as though the monster had been suddenly endued
with intelligence, and was seeking to vent its horrid rage on the thing
that had dared to check its pace.  Three loaded trucks it crushed down,
over-ran, and scattered wide in this way, in three successive plunges,
and then, rushing on a few yards among chaotic _debris_, turned slowly
on its side, and hurled the driver and fireman over the embankment.

The shock received by the people at the station was tremendous.  Poor
Tipps, standing at his desk, was struck--nervously--as if by
electricity.  He made one wild involuntary bolt right through the
window, as if it had been made of tissue paper, and did not cease to run
until he found himself panting in the middle of a turnip-field that lay
at the back of the station.  Turning round, ashamed of himself, he ran
back faster than he had run away, and leaping recklessly among the
_debris_, began to pull broken and jagged timber about, under the
impression that he was rescuing fellow-creatures from destruction!

Strange to say no one was killed on that occasion--no one was even
severely hurt, except the driver.  But of course this was not known at
first and the people who were standing about hurried, with terrible
forebodings, to lend assistance to the passengers.

Mr Sharp seemed to have been smitten with feelings somewhat similar to
those of Tipps, for, without knowing very well how or why, he suddenly
found himself standing up to the armpits in _debris_, heaving might and
main at masses of timber.

"Hallo! lift away this beam, will you?" shouted a half-smothered voice
close beside him.

It came from beneath the carriage that we have described as having been
broken to splinters.

Sharp was a man of action.  He hailed a porter near him and began with
energy and power to tear up and hurl aside the boards.  Presently on
raising part of the broken framework of the carriage a man struggled to
his feet and, wiping away the blood that flowed from a wound in his
forehead, revealed the countenance of Edwin Gurwood to the astonished
Tipps.

"What!  Edwin!" he exclaimed.

"Ay--don't stand there, man.  Your mother is in the train."

Poor Tipps could not speak--he could only gasp the word, "Where?"

"In a third-class, behind--there, it is safe, I see."

His friend at once leaped towards the vehicle pointed out, but Edwin did
not follow, he glanced wildly round in search of another carriage.

"You are hurt--Mr Gurwood, if I mistake not,--lean on me," said Mr
Sharp.

"It's nothing--only a scratch.  Ha! that's the carriage, follow me,"
cried Edwin, struggling towards a first-class carriage, which appeared
considerably damaged, though it had not left the rails.  He wrenched
open the door, and, springing in, found Captain Lee striving in vain to
lift his daughter, who had fainted.  Edwin stooped, raised her in his
arms, and, kicking open the door on the opposite side, leaped down,
followed by the captain.  They quickly made their way to the station,
where they found most of the passengers, hurt and unhurt, already
assembled, with two doctors, who chanced to be in the train, attending
to them.

Edwin laid his light burden tenderly on a couch and one of the doctors
immediately attended to her.  While he was applying restoratives Mr
Blunt touched Edwin on the elbow and requested him to follow him.  With
a feeling of sudden anger Gurwood turned round, but before he could
speak his eye fell on Mrs Tipps, who sat on a bench leaning on her
son's breast, and looking deadly pale but quite composed.

"My dear Mrs Tipps," exclaimed the youth, stepping hastily forward, "I
hope--I trust--"

"Oh, Edwin--thank you, my dear fellow," cried Joseph, grasping his hand
and shaking it.  "She is not hurt, thank God--not even a scratch--only a
little shaken.  Fetch a glass of water, you'll find one in the
booking-office."

Gurwood ran out to fetch it.  As he was returning he met Captain Lee
leading his daughter out of the waiting-room.

"I sincerely hope that your daughter is not hurt," he said, in earnest
tones.  "Perhaps a little water might--"

"No, thank you," said the captain somewhat stiffly.

"The carriage is waiting, sir," said a servant in livery, coming up at
the moment and touching his hat.

Emma looked at Edwin for a second, and, with a slight but perplexed
smile of acknowledgment, passed on.

Next moment the carriage drove away, and she was gone.  Edwin at the
same time became aware of the fact that the pertinacious Blunt was at
his side.  Walking quickly into the waiting-room he presented the glass
of water to Mrs Tipps, but to his surprise that eccentric lady rose
hastily and said,--"Thank you, Mr Gurwood, many thanks, but I am
better.  Come, Joseph--let us hasten to our darling Netta.  Have you
sent for a fly?"

"There is one waiting, mother--take my arm.  Many, many thanks for your
kindness in coming with her, Gurwood," said Tipps.  "I can't ask you to
come with me just now, I--"

The rest of his speech was lost in consequence of the impatient old lady
dragging her son away, but what had been heard of it was sufficient to
fill Mr Blunt with surprise and perplexity.

"Well, Blunt," said Mr Superintendent Sharp, coming up at that moment,
"what has brought you here?"

The detective related his story privately to his superior, and remarked
that he began to fear there must be some mistake.

"Yes, there is a mistake of some sort," said Sharp, with a laugh, "for
I've met him frequently at Clatterby station, and know him to be a
friend of Mr Tipps; but you have done your duty, Blunt, so you can now
leave the gentleman to me," saying which he went up to Edwin and entered
into an under-toned conversation with him, during which it might have
been observed that Edwin looked a little confused at times, and Mr
Sharp seemed not a little amused.

"Well, it's all right," he said at last, "we have telegraphed for a
special train to take on the passengers who wish to proceed, and you can
go back, if you choose, in the up train, which is about due.  It will be
able to get past in the course of half-an-hour.  Fortunately the rails
of the up-line are not damaged and the wreck can soon be cleared."

Just then the dandy with the sleepy eyes and long whiskers sauntered up
to the porter on duty, with an unconcerned and lazy air.  He had
received no further injury than a shaking, and therefore felt that he
could afford to affect a cool and not-easy-to-be-ruffled demeanour.

"Aw--po-taw," said he, twirling his watch-key, "w'en d'you expect anotha
twain to take us on?"

"Don't know, sir, probably half-an-hour."

"Aw!  Dooced awkwad.  My fwend has got the bwidge of his nose damaged,
besides some sort of internal injuway, and won't be able to attend to
business to-night, I fear--dooced awkwad."

"D'you hear that?" whispered Sharp to Gurwood, as the "fwend" in
question--he with the checked trousers--sauntered past holding a
handkerchief to his nose.  "I know by the way in which that was said
that there will be something more heard some day hence of our fop in
checks.  Just come and stand with me in the doorway of the waiting-room,
and listen to what some of the other passengers are saying."

"Very hard," observed a middle-aged man with a sour countenance, who did
not present the appearance of one who had sustained any injury at all,
"very hard this.  I shall miss meeting with a friend, and perhaps lose
doin' a good stroke of business to-night."

"Be thankful you haven't lost your life," said Will Garvie, who
supported the head of his injured mate.

"Mayhap I _have_ lost my life, young man," replied the other sharply.
"Internal injuries from accidents often prove fatal, and don't always
show at first.  I've had a severe shake."

Here the sour-faced man shook himself slightly, partly to illustrate and
partly to prove his point.

"You're quite right, sur," remarked an Irishman, who had a bandage tied
round his head, but who did not appear to be much, if at all, the worse
of the accident.  "It's a disgrace intirely that the railways should be
allowed to trait us in this fashion.  If they'd only go to the trouble
an' expense of havin' proper signals on lines, there would be nothing o'
this kind.  And if Government would make a law to have an arm-chair
fitted up in front of every locomotive and a director made to travel
with sich train, we'd hear of fewer accidents.  But it's meself 'll come
down on 'em for heavy damages for this."

He pointed to his bandaged head, and nodded with a significant glance at
the company.

A gentleman in a blue travelling-cap, who had hitherto said nothing, and
who turned out to have received severer injuries than any other
passenger, here looked up impatiently, and said--

"It appears to me that there is a great deal of unjust and foolish talk
against railway companies, as if they, any more than other companies,
could avoid accidents.  The system of signalling on a great part of this
line is the best that has been discovered up to this date, and it is
being applied to the whole line as fast as circumstances will warrant;
but you can't expect to attain perfection in a day.  What would you
have?  How can you expect to travel at the rate you do, and yet be as
safe as if you were in one of the old mail-coaches?"

"Right, sir; you're right," cried John Marrot energetically, raising
himself a little from the bench on which he lay, "right in sayin' we
shouldn't ought to expect parfection, but wrong in supposin' the old
mail-coaches was safer.  W'y, railways is safer.  They won't stand no
comparison.  Here 'ave I bin drivin' on this 'ere line for the last
eight year an' only to come to grief three times, an' killed no more
than two people.  There ain't a old coach goin', or gone, as could say
as much.  An' w'en you come to consider that in them eight years I've
bin goin' more than two-thirds o' the time at an average o' forty mile
an hour--off an' on--all night a'most as well as all day, an' run
thousands and thousands o' miles, besides carryin' millions of
passengers, more or less, it do seem most rediklous to go for to say
that coaches was safer than railways--the revarse bein' the truth.  Turn
me round a bit, Bill; so, that'll do.  It's the bad leg I come down on,
else I shouldn't have bin so hard-up.  Yes, sir, as you truly remark,
railway companies ain't fairly dealt with, by no means."

At this point the attention of the passengers was attracted by a
remarkably fat woman, who had hitherto lain quietly on a couch breathing
in a somewhat stertorous manner.  One of the medical men had been so
successful in his attention to her as to bring her to a state of
consciousness.  Indeed she had been more or less in this condition for
some time past, but feeling rather comfortable than otherwise, and
dreamy, she had lain still and enjoyed herself.  Being roused, however,
to a state of activity by means of smelling-salts, and hearing the
doctor remark that, except a shaking, she appeared to have sustained no
injury, this stout woman deemed it prudent to go off into hysterics, and
began by uttering a yell that would have put to shame a Comanchee
Indian, and did more damage, perhaps, to the nerves of her sensitive
hearers than the accident itself.  She followed it up by drumming
heavily on the couch with her heels.

Singularly enough her yell was replied to by the whistle of the up
train, that had been due for some time past.  She retorted by a renewed
shriek, and became frantic in her assurances that no power yet
discovered--whether mechanical, moral, or otherwise--could or would,
ever persuade her to set foot again in a railway train!  It was of no
use to assure her that no one meant to exert such a power, even if he
possessed it; that she was free to go where she pleased, and whenever
she felt inclined.  The more that stout woman was implored to compose
herself, the more she discomposed herself, and everybody else; and the
more she was besought to be calm, the more, a great deal, did she fill
the waiting-room with hysterical shrieks and fiendish laughter, until at
last every one was glad to go out of the place and get into the train
that was waiting to take them back to Clatterby.  Then the stout woman
became suddenly calm, and declared to a porter--who must have had a
heart of stone, so indifferent was he to her woes--that she would be,
"glad to proceed to the nearest 'otel if 'e would be good enough to
fetch her a fly."

"H'm!" said Mr Sharp, as he and young Gurwood entered a carriage
together, after having seen John Marrot placed on a pile of rugs on the
floor of a first-class carriage; "there's been work brewin' up for me
to-night."

"How?  What do you mean?" asked Edwin.

"I mean that, from various indications which I observed this evening, we
are likely to have some little correspondence with the passengers of the
6:30 p.m. train.  However, we're used to it; perhaps we'll get not to
mind it in course of time.  We do all that we can to accommodate the
public--fit up our carriages and stations in the best style compatible
with giving our shareholders a small dividend--carry them to and fro
over the land at little short of lightning speed, every day and all day
and night too, for extremely moderate fares, and with excessive safety
and exceeding comfort; enable them to live in the country and do
business in the city, as well as afford facilities for visiting the very
ends of the earth in a few days; not to mention other innumerable
blessings to which we run them, or which we run _to_ them, and yet no
sooner does a rare accident occur (as it _will_ occur in every human
institution, though it occurs less on railways than in most other
institutions) than down comes this ungrateful public upon us with
indignant cries of `disgraceful!' and, in many cases, unreasonable
demands for compensation."

"Such is life," said Gurwood with a smile.

"On the rail," added Mr Superintendent Sharp with a sigh, as the
whistle sounded and the train moved slowly out of the station.



CHAPTER SIX.

HISTORY OF THE IRON HORSE.

Having gone thus far in our tale, permit us, good reader, to turn aside
for a little to make a somewhat closer inspection of the Iron Horse and
his belongings.

Railways existed long before the Iron Horse was born.  They sprang into
being two centuries ago in the form of tramways, which at first were
nothing more or less than planks or rails of timber laid down between
the Newcastle-on-Tyne collieries and the river, for the purpose of
forming a better "way" over which to run the coal-trucks.  From simple
timber-rails men soon advanced to planks having a strip of iron nailed
on their surface to prevent too rapid tear and wear, but it was not till
the year 1767 that cast-iron rails were introduced.  In order to prevent
the trucks from slipping off the line the rails were cast with an
upright flange or guide at one side, and were laid on wooden or stone
sleepers.

This form of rail being found inconvenient, the flange was transferred
from the rails to the wheels, and this arrangement, under various
modifications has been ever since retained.

These "innocent" railroads--as they have been sometimes and most
appropriately named, seeing that they were guiltless alike of blood and
high speed--were drawn by horses, and confined at first to the
conveyance of coals.  Modest though their pretensions were, however,
they were found to be an immense improvement on the ordinary roads,
insomuch that ten horses were found to be capable of working the traffic
on railroads, which it required 400 horses to perform on a common road.
These iron roads, therefore, began to multiply, and about the beginning
of the present century they were largely employed in the coal-fields and
mineral districts of the kingdom.  About the same time thoughtful men,
seeing the immense advantage of such ways, began to suggest the
formation of railways, or tramways, to run along the side of our
turnpike-roads--a mode of conveyance, by the way, in regard to towns,
which thoughtful men are still, ever at the present day of supposed
enlightenment, endeavouring to urge upon an unbelieving public--a mode
of conveyance which we feel very confident will entirely supersede our
cumbrous and antiquated "'bus" in a very short time.  What, we ask, in
the name of science and art and common-sense, is to prevent a tramway
being laid from Kensington to the Bank, "or elsewhere," which shall be
traversed by a succession of roomy carriages following each other every
five minutes; which tramway might be crossed and recrossed and run upon,
or, in other words, used by all the other vehicles of London except when
the rightful carriages were in the way?  Nothing prevents, save that
same unbelief which has obstructed the development of every good thing
from the time that Noah built the ark!  But we feel assured that the
thing shall be, and those who read this book may perhaps live to see it!

But to return.  Among these thoughtful and far-seeing men was one Dr
James Anderson, who in 1800 proposed the formation of railways by the
roadsides, and he was so correct in his views that the plans which he
suggested of keeping the level, by going round the base of hills, or
forming viaducts, or cutting tunnels, is precisely the method practised
by engineers of the present day.  Two years later a Mr Edgeworth
announced that he had long before, "formed the project of laying iron
railways for baggage waggons on the great roads of England," and, in
order to prevent tear and wear, he proposed, instead of conveying heavy
loads in one huge waggon, to have a train of small waggons.  With the
modesty of true genius, which never over-estimates or forms wildly
sanguine expectations, he thought that each waggon might perhaps carry
one ton and a half!  Edgeworth also suggested that _passengers_ might
travel by such a mode of conveyance.  Bold man!  What a goose many
people of his day must have thought him.  If they had been alive now,
what geese they might have thought themselves.  The Society of Arts,
however, were in advance of their time.  They rewarded Edgeworth with
their gold medal.

This man seems to have been a transcendent genius, because he not only
devised and made (on a small scale) iron railways, but proposed to take
ordinary vehicles, such as mail-coaches and private carriages, on his
trucks, and convey them along his line at the rate of six or eight miles
an hour with one horse.  He also propounded the idea of the employment
of stationary steam-engines (locomotives not having been dreamed of) to
drag the trains up steep inclines.

Another semi-prophetic man of these days was Thomas Gray, of Leeds, who
in 1820 published a work on what he styled a "General Iron Railway, or
Land Steam Conveyance, to supersede the necessity of Horses in all
public vehicles, showing its vast superiority in every respect over the
present pitiful Methods of Conveyance by Turnpike-Roads and Canals."
Gray, whose mind appears to have been unusually comprehensive, proposed
a system of railway communication between all the important cities and
towns in the kingdom, and pointed out the immense advantage that would
be gained to commerce by such a ready and rapid means of conveying fish,
vegetables, and other perishable articles from place to place.  He also
showed that two post deliveries in the day would become possible, and
that fire insurance companies would be able to promote their interests
by keeping railway fire-engines, ready to be transported to scenes of
conflagration without delay.

But Gray was not esteemed a prophet.  His suggestions were not adopted
nor his plans acted on, though unquestionably his wisdom and energy gave
an impulse to railway development, of which we are reaping the benefit
to-day.  His labours were not in vain.

Horse railways soon began to multiply over the country.  The first
authorised by Act of Parliament was the Surrey Railway in 1801.  Twenty
years later twenty lines of railway were in operation.

About this time, too, another man of note and of great scientific and
mechanical sagacity lent his powerful aid to advance the interests of
the railway cause.  This was Charles Maclaren, of Edinburgh, editor of
the _Scotsman_ newspaper for nearly thirty years.  He had long foreseen,
and boldly asserted his belief in, the certain success of steam
locomotion by rail, at a time when opinions such as his were scouted as
wild delusive dreams.  But he did more, he brought his able pen to bear
on the subject, and in December 1825 published a series of articles in
the _Scotsman_ on the subject of railways, which were not only
extensively quoted and republished in this country and in America, but
were deemed worthy of being translated into French and German, and so
disseminated over Europe.  Mr Maclaren was thus among the foremost of
those who gave a telling impulse to the cause at that critical period
when the Iron horse was about to be put on the rail--the right horse in
the right place--for it was not many years afterwards that that
auspicious event took place.  Mr Maclaren not only advocated generally
the adoption of railways, but logically demonstrated the wonderful
powers and capacities of the steam locomotive, arguing, from the
experiments on friction made more than half a century before by Vince
and Colomb, that by the use of steam-power on railroads a much more
rapid and cheaper transit of persons as well as merchandise might be
confidently anticipated.  He leaped far ahead of many of even the most
hopeful advocates of the cause, and with almost prophetic foresight
wrote, "there is scarcely any limit to the rapidity of movement these
iron pathways will enable us to command."  And again,--"We have spoken
of vehicles travelling at twenty miles an hour; but we see no reason for
thinking that, in the progress of improvement, a much higher velocity
might not be found practicable; and in twenty years hence a shopkeeper
or mechanic, on the most ordinary occasion, may probably travel with a
speed that would leave the fleetest courser behind."  Wonderful words
these!  At a first glance we may not deem them so, being so familiar
with the ideas which they convey, but our estimate of them will be more
just if we reflect that when they were penned railways had scarcely
sprung into being, steam locomotives had only just been born, and not
only men in general, but even many learned, scientific and practical men
regarded the statement of all such opinions as being little short of
insanity.  Nevertheless, many deep-thinking men thought differently, and
one contemporary, reviewing this subject in after years, said of Mr
Maclaren's papers, that, "they prepared the way for the success of
railway projectors."

We have said that the steam locomotive--the material transformer of the
world--our Iron Horse, had just been born.  It was not however born on
the rails, but on the common road, and a tremendous baby-giant it was,
tearing up its cradle in such furious fashion that men were terrified by
it, and tried their best to condemn it to inactivity, just as a weak and
foolish father might lock up his unruly boy and restrain him perforce,
instead of training him wisely in the way in which he should go.

But the progenitors of the Iron Horse were, like their Herculean child,
men of mettle.  They fought a gallant fight for their darling's freedom,
and came off victorious!

Of course, many men and many nations were anxious to father this
magnificent infant, and to this day it is impossible to say precisely
who originated him.  He is said by some to have sprung from the brains
of Englishmen, others assert that brains in France and Switzerland begat
him, and we believe that brother Jonathan exercised his prolific brain
on him, before the actual time of his birth.  The first name on record
in connexion with this infant Hercules is that of Dr Robison, who
communicated his ideas to Watt in 1759.  The latter thereupon made a
model locomotive, but entertained doubts as to its safety.  Oliver
Evans, of Philadelphia, patented a "steam waggon" in 1782.  William
Murdoch, the friend and assistant of Watt, made a model in 1787 which
drew a small waggon round a room in his house in Cornwall.  In the same
year Symington exhibited a model locomotive in Edinburgh, and in 1795 he
worked a steam-engine on a turnpike-road in Lanarkshire.  Richard
Trevethick, who had seen Murdoch's model, made and patented a locomotive
in 1802.  It drew on a tramway a load of ten tons at the rate of five
miles an hour.  Trevethick also made a carriage to run on common roads,
and altogether did good service in the cause.

Blenkinsop, of Middleton Colliery, near Leeds, made locomotives in 1811
which hauled coals up steep ascents by means of a toothed rail, with a
toothed propelling wheel working into it.  This unnatural infant,
however, turned out to be not the true child.  It was found that such a
powerful creature did not require teeth at all, that he could "bite"
quite well enough by means of his weight alone,--so the teeth were
plucked out and never allowed to grow again.

After this, in 1813, came Brunton of Butterley, with a curious
contrivance in the form of legs and feet, which were attached to the
rear of his engine and propelled it by a sort of walking motion.  It did
not walk well, however, and very soon walked off the field of
competition altogether.

At last, in the fulness of time there came upon the scene the great
railway king, George Stephenson, who, if he cannot be said to have
begotten the infant, at all events brought him up and effectually
completed his training.

George Stephenson was one of our most celebrated engineers, and the
"father of the railway system."  He may truly be said to have been one
of mankind's greatest benefactors.  He was a self-taught man, was born
near Newcastle in 1781, began life as a pit-engine boy with wages at
two-pence a day, and ultimately rose to fame and fortune as an engineer.

In 1814 he made a locomotive for the Killingworth Colliery Railway.  It
drew thirty tons at the rate of four miles an hour, and was regarded as
a great success.  In 1825 an engine of the same kind was used on the
Stockton and Darlington Railway, of which Stephenson had been made
engineer.

But the great crowning effort of Stephenson, and the grand impulse to
the railway cause, which carried it steadily and swiftly on to its
present amazing degree of prosperity, did not occur till the year 1829.

Previous to that date the Manchester and Liverpool Railway was being
constructed, and so little was known as to the capabilities of railways
and the best mode of working them, that the directors and engineers had
some difficulty in deciding whether the line should be worked by fixed
engines or by locomotives.  It was ultimately decided that the latter
should be used, and a premium of 500 pounds was offered for the best
locomotive that could be produced, in accordance with certain
conditions.  These were--That the chimney should emit no smoke--that the
engine should be on springs--that it should not weigh more than six
tons, or four-and-a-half tons if it had only four wheels--that it should
be able to draw a load of twenty tons at the rate of ten miles an hour,
with a pressure of fifty pounds to the square inch in the boiler, and
should not cost more than 500 pounds.

The Iron Horse was now at last about to assume its right position.  It
was no longer an infant, but a powerful stripling--though still far from
its full growth; as far as six tons is from sixty!

Four iron steeds were entered to compete for the prize.  It was in
October 1829 that this celebrated trial came off, and great was the
interest manifested on the occasion, for not only did the public
entertain doubts as to the capabilities of locomotives, but very few
even of the engineers of the country would admit the possibility of a
locomotive engine attaining a speed greater than ten miles an hour!
First came the "Novelty" of Braithwaite and Ericson; then the "Sans
pareil" of Hawkworth; the "Perseverance" of Burstall; and, lastly, the
"Rocket" of Stephenson.  Of the first three we shall merely say that the
"Novelty," being weak in the wheels, broke down; the "Sans pareil" burst
one of her cylinders; and the "Perseverance" turned out to be too heavy
to comply with the conditions of the trial.

The "Rocket" advanced, and was harnessed to a train of waggons weighing
thirteen tons; the fire was lighted, and the steam got up.  The valves
lifted at the stipulated fifty pounds pressure, and away it went with
its load at an average speed of fifteen, and a maximum speed of
twenty-nine miles an hour!  Thus triumphantly the "Rocket" won the prize
of 500 pounds, and the Iron Horse was fairly and finally married to the
Iron Road.  One of the important elements of Stephenson's success lay in
the introduction of numerous tubes into his boiler, through which the
fire, and heat passed, and thus presented a vast amount of heating
surface to the water.  Another point was his allowing the waste steam to
pass through the chimney, thus increasing the draught and intensifying
the combustion; for heat is the life of the locomotive, and without much
of this, high rates of speed could not be attained.

The difference between the first locomotive and those now in use is very
great--as may be seen any day in London, by any one who chooses to visit
one of our great railway stations, and go thence to the Kensington
Museum, where the "Rocket" is now enshrined--a memorial of Stephenson's
wisdom, and of the beginning of our magnificent railway system.  Yet
though the difference be great it is wonderful how complete the "Rocket"
was, all things considered.  The modern improvements made on locomotives
consist chiefly in clothing the boiler with wood, felt, and other
non-conductors to increase the life-giving heat; in heating the
feed-water, coupling the driving-wheels, working the cylinders
horizontally, economising steam by cutting off the supply at any part of
the stroke that may be required, and economising fuel by using raw coal
instead of coke, and consuming the smoke, besides many other minor
contrivances, but all the great principles affecting the locomotive were
applied by George Stephenson, and illustrated in the "Rocket."

It is no wonder that the first Iron Horse was clumsy in appearance and
somewhat grotesque, owing to the complication of rods, cranks, and other
machinery, which was all exposed to view.  It required years of
experience to enable our engineers to construct the grand, massive,
simple chargers which now run off with our monster-trains as if they
were feathers.  When the iron horse was first made, men were naturally
in haste to ascertain his power and paces.  He was trotted out, so to
speak, in his skeleton, with his heart and lungs and muscles exposed to
view in complex hideosity!  Now-a-days he never appears without his skin
well-groomed and made gay with paint and polished brass and steel.

We have said that the "Rocket" drew thirteen tons at nearly thirty miles
an hour.  Our best engines can now draw hundreds of tons, and they can
run at the rate of above sixty miles an hour at maximum speed.  The more
ordinary speed, however, for passenger-trains is from thirty to
forty-five miles an hour.  The weight of the "Rocket" was six tons.
That of some of our largest engines with tenders is from forty to above
fifty tons.

From the time of the opening of the old Manchester and Liverpool Railway
in 1830 to the present day--a period of little more than forty years--
railway construction has gone forward throughout the land--and we may
add the world--with truly railway speed, insomuch that England has
become covered from end to end with an absolute network of iron roads,
and the benefit to our country has been inconceivably great.  It would
require a large volume to treat of these and correlative subjects, as
they deserve.

Two hundred years ago the course of post between London and Edinburgh
was one month; before an answer could be received two months had to
elapse!  About a hundred years later there was one stage-coach between
the two cities, which did the distance in a fortnight, rendering
communication and reply possible once in each month.  In those days
roads were uncommonly bad.  One writer tells us that, while travelling
in Lancashire, a county now traversed by railways in all directions, he
found one of the principal roads so bad that there were ruts in it,
which he measured, four feet deep, and that the only mending it received
was the tumbling of stones into these holes to fill them up.  The
extremely limited goods traffic of the country was conducted by the slow
means of carts and waggons.  Enterprising men, however, then as now,
were pushing the world forward, though they were by no means so numerous
then as now.  In 1673 it took a week to travel between London and
Exeter, and cost from forty to forty-five shillings.  About the same
period a six-horse coach took six days to perform the journey between
Edinburgh and Glasgow and back.  To accomplish fifty miles or
thereabouts in two days with a six-horse stage-coach, was considered
good work and high speed about the beginning of last century.  Near the
middle of it (1740) travelling by night was for the first time
introduced, and soon after that a coach was started with a wicker-basket
slung behind for outside passengers!  Some years afterwards an
enterprising individual started a "flying coach" drawn by eight horses,
which travelled between London and Dover in a day--the fare being one
guinea.  Even at the beginning of the present century four miles an hour
was deemed a very fair rate of travelling for a stage-coach.

With the improvement of roads by the famous Macadam in 1816, began
improved travelling and increased speed.  The process was rapid.
Mail-coaches began to overrun the country in all directions at the then
remarkable pace of from eight to ten miles an hour,--and, let us remark
in passing, there was a whirl and dash about these stage-coaches which
railway trains, with all their velocity can never hope to attain to,
except when they dash into each other!  Man is but a weak creature in
some senses.  Facts are scarcely facts to him unless they touch his eye
or ear.  The smooth run of a train at twenty or even thirty miles an
hour, with its gradual start and gentle pull up, has but a slight effect
on him now compared with the splendid swing of the well-appointed mail
coach of old as it swept round the bend of a road, and, with red-coated
driver and guard, cracking whip, flying dust and stones, and reeking
foam-flecked horses, dashed into town and pulled up, while at nearly
full speed, amid all the glorious crash and turmoil of arrival!  No
doubt the passing of an express train within a yard of your nose is
something peculiarly awful, and if you ever get permission to ride on
the engine of an express, the _real_ truth regarding speed, weight,
momentum, will make a profound impression on you, but in ordinary
circumstances the arrival of a train cannot for a moment compare with
the dash, the animal spirit, the enthusiasm, the romance of the mail
coach of days gone by.

About the time that the day of slow speed was drawing to a close (1837)
licenses were granted to 3026 stage-coaches, of which 1507 went to and
from London, besides 103 mail-coaches.  And it has been estimated that
the number of passengers carried in the year about that time was two
millions.  In regard to the merchandise traffic of the kingdom, we
cannot give statistics, but we ask the reader to bear in mind that it
was all conducted by means of heavy waggons and slow-going canal barges.

Now, let us contrast this state of things with the condition and
influence of railways up to the present time.  As we have said, the iron
horse began his career in 1830 on the Liverpool and Manchester line--
long since become part of the London and North-Western Railway--at that
time thirty-one miles long.  Eight years later, Liverpool, Manchester,
and Birmingham were completely connected with London by railway.  Then,
as success attended the scheme, new lines were undertaken and opened at
a still more rapid rate until, in 1843--despite the depression caused
for a time by over-speculating--there were nearly 2000 miles of railway
open for traffic.  In 1850 there were above 6000 miles open; in 1860,
above 10,000.  In 1864 the railways of the kingdom employed upwards of
7200 locomotives, 23,470 passenger carriages, and 212,900 goods and
mineral waggons.  In that one year about five million passengers and
goods trains ran 130 millions of miles--a distance that would encircle
the earth 5221 times--the earth being 24,896 miles in circumference.  In
1866 the gross receipts of railways was about forty millions of pounds
sterling.  At the present date (1871) above 14,000 miles of railway are
open in the United Kingdom.  This mileage is divided amongst about 430
companies, but a considerable number of these have been incorporated
with the larger companies, such as the London and North west, the Great
Western, etcetera.

All the lines carried in one year (1870) somewhere about 307 millions of
passengers--in other words, that number of passenger journeys were
performed on them.  The mail and stage-coaches in their best days only
conveyed, as we have said, two millions!  See note at end of chapter.

It is almost overwhelming to consider what a vast change in the
condition and habits of the people of this country is implied in these
figures.  Forty years ago none travelled but the comparatively rich, and
that only to an extent equal to about two-thirds of the present
population of London.  Now-a-days the poorest artisan can, and does,
afford to travel, and the number of journeys performed each year on all
our British railways is equal to more than the entire population of
Europe! which, in Stewart's "Modern Geography," is set down at 285
millions.  From this of course it follows, that as many thousands of
men, women, and children never travel at all, many others must have
undertaken numerous journeys in that year.

The facilities afforded by railways are altogether innumerable.  If so
disposed you may sup one night in the south of England and the next
night in the north of Scotland.  Thousands of families dwell in the
country, while the heads thereof go to their business in town by rail
every morning and return home every evening.  Huntsmen, booted and
spurred, are whirled off, horses and all, to distant fields, whence,
after "crossing country" all day, they return to the railway and are
whirled back to town in time for dinner.  Navvys and artisans are
conveyed to their work at a penny a mile, and monster-trains carry
thousands of excursionists to scenes of rural delight that our fathers
never dreamed of in their wildest flights of fancy.

One of the most remarkable and interesting facts in connexion with all
this is, that although mail-coaches have been beaten off the field,
there are actually more horses employed in this country now than there
were in 1837, while canals are doing more business than they ever did,
and are making higher profits too.  In 1865 the carriage of cattle by
railway amounted to between fourteen or fifteen million head of all
kinds.  The consumption of coal, in the same year, by our railways
amounted to four million tons, and the quantity of that and other
minerals carried by rail continually is enormous.

The benefit derived by the post-office also from our railways is
incalculable.  We cannot afford space to enter into details, but it may
be truly said that but for railways the Post-Office Savings Bank system
could not have existed; and of course, also, our frequent deliveries of
letters and rapid as well as cheap communication with all parts of the
kingdom would have been impossible.  The railway service of the
Post-Office is over 60,000 miles a day, and the gross sum paid by the
Post-Office to railways in one year was 570,500 pounds.

These are but a few of the amazing statistics connected with our railway
system, which, if fully enlarged upon, would fill a bulky volume.  If
our readers desire more there are several most interesting and
instructive works on the subject, which are well worthy of perusal.  See
note 2 at the end of the chapter.

Before closing this perhaps too statistical chapter, we shall say a few
words as to the construction of a railway.  No one who has not looked
pretty closely into the subject can form any adequate conception of the
difficulties that beset an engineer-in-chief in the formation of a line
of railway.  We will suppose that all the Parliamentary battles have
been fought, opposition overcome, the heavy expenses connected therewith
paid, and the work begun.

The engineer has walked again and again over the country through which
the railway is to be carried and selected the best route, his assistants
having meanwhile taken for him "flying levels" and "cross levels."  Too
frequently prejudice, ignorance, and selfishness interpose to prevent
the best route being taken, and immense sums that might have been saved
are spent in constructing the line on the next best route.  As soon as
the course of a line is fixed, accurate surveys are made by the
assistant engineers, copies of which are placed, according to Act of
Parliament, with the various clerks of the peace of the counties,
through which the line is to pass, with the Commissioners of Railways
and others, besides which there has to be prepared for each parish its
proportion, and for each landholder a section showing the greatest depth
of cutting or embankment in any of his fields.

As soon as all this has been done, and the Act of Parliament authorising
the line obtained, an accurate plan and section of the whole line is
made, from which the engineer ascertains and lays down its gradients, in
other words its ascents and descents, determines the number and size of
the bridges and viaducts to be made, calculates the quantity of
embankments required to fill up hollows, and the number of cuttings to
level obstructions, in which latter calculations he estimates that the
cutting down of elevations will be made subservient as far as may be, to
the elevation of depressions.  All this involves very nice and exact
calculation as to quantity of material, masonry, etcetera, and the
sinking of "trial shafts" to ascertain the nature of the various strata
to be excavated or tunnelled.  Then the cost of all the works has to be
estimated in detail, apportioned into lengths and advertised for
execution by contract.  To each section of the line thus apportioned--
forty or fifty miles--an experienced engineer is appointed, having under
him "sub-assistants," who superintend from ten to fifteen miles each,
and these again are assisted by "inspectors" of masonry, mining,
earth-work and permanent way, to each of whom a district is assigned.

These managing and guiding men having been appointed, the physical
workers are then called into action, in the form of bands of navvies.
As the steam and mechanism of the locomotive are useless except in
regulated combination, so brain and muscle can achieve nothing without
wise and harmonious union.  If boys and men would reflect more deeply on
this great truth, pride, boasting, and the false separation of classes
would be less rife.  We say _false_, because there is a separation of
classes which is natural and unavoidable.  No one ever complains of
_that_.  If ill-advised or angry navvies were to refuse to work, what
could directors and engineers do?  If, on the other hand, ill-advised or
angry directors and engineers refused to pay, what could navvies do?
Antagonism is an unhealthy condition of things.  There is far too much
of it between employers and employed in this world.  "Agree with thine
adversary quickly" is a command which applies to bodies of men quite as
much as to individuals, and the word is "agree," not coerce or force.
If we cannot agree, let us agree to differ; or, if that won't do in our
peculiar circumstances, then let us agree to separate.  Fighting, save
in self-defence, is only fit for fools.

But to return.  When bone and muscle have been for the time welded to
brain, then the work of construction goes on "full swing."  Difficulties
and obstructions are overcome in a way that appears to the unskilled eye
nothing less than miraculous.  But the work is often hindered and
rendered greatly more expensive by the sudden appearance of evils
against which no amount of human wisdom or foresight could have guarded.

The Kilsby tunnel of the London and North west Railway is a case in
point.  When that tunnel was proposed, it was arranged that it should be
about 3000 yards long, and 160 feet below the surface, with two great
ventilating shafts 60 feet in diameter.  It was a gigantic work.  The
engineer examined the ground in the usual way, with much care, and then
advertised for "tenders."  The various competing contractors also
examined the ground minutely, and the offer of one of them to work it
for 99,000 pounds was accepted.  Forthwith the contractor went to work,
and all went well and busily for some time, until it was suddenly
discovered that a hidden quicksand extended 400 yards into the tunnel,
which the trial shafts had just passed without touching.  This was a
more tremendous blow to the contractor than most readers may at first
thought suppose, for he believed that to solidify a quicksand was
impossible.  The effect on him was so great that he was mentally
prostrated, and although the company generously and justly relieved him
from his engagement, the reprieve came too late, for he died.  It then
came to be a question whether or not the tunnel should be abandoned.
Many advised that it should.  At this juncture Mr Robert Stephenson,
son of the great George, came forward and undertook the work.  He placed
his chief dependence on the steam-engine to keep the water down while
the work was in progress.  At first he was successful, but one day,
while the men were busy laying their bricks in cement one of them drove
into the roof, and a deluge of water burst in on them, and although they
tried to continue their work on a raft the water prevailed and at last
drove them out.  They escaped with difficulty up one of the air-shafts.
The water having put an effectual stop to the work, the directors felt
disposed to give it up, but Stephenson begged for a fortnight more.  It
was granted.  By means of thirteen steam-engines, the amazing quantity
of 1800 gallons of water per _minute_ was pumped out of the quicksand
night and day for eight months.  With the aid of 1250 men and 200 horses
the work was finally completed, having occupied altogether thirty months
from the laying of the first brick.

Two very singular accidents occurred during the course of the
construction of this tunnel.  On one occasion a man who had been working
in it was being hauled up one of the shafts, when his coat caught in an
angular crevice of the partition, that separated the pumps from the
passage for the men, and became so firmly jammed that he was compelled
to let go the rope, and was left there dangling in the air, about a
hundred feet from the bottom, until his horrified comrades went down and
rescued him by cutting away the piece of his coat.  This piece of cloth
was long preserved in the engineer's office as a memorial of the event!
On another occasion some men were at work on a platform, half-way down
the shaft, executing some repairs, when a huge navvy, named Jack
Pierson, fell from the surface, went right through the platform, as if
it had been made of paper, and fell to the bottom.  Fortunately there
was water to receive him there, else he had been killed on the spot.
The men, whom of course he had narrowly missed in his fall, began to
shout for a rope to those above, and they hallooed their advice down the
shaft in reply.  In the midst of the confusion Jack Pierson himself
calmly advised them to make less noise and pull him out, which they very
soon did, and the poor man was carried home and put to bed.  He lay
there for many weeks unable to move, but ultimately recovered.

What we have said of the Kilsby tunnel gives a slight glimpse of some of
the expenses, difficulties, and dangers that occasionally attend the
construction of a railway.

Of course these difficulties and expenses vary according to the nature
of the ground.  In some places the gradients are slight, bridges few,
and cuttings, etcetera, insignificant; but in other places the reverse
is emphatically the case, and costly laborious works have to be
undertaken.

One such work, which occurred at the very opening of our railway system
in 1828, was the bridging of the Chat Moss, on the Liverpool and
Manchester line.  George Stephenson, the constructer of the "Rocket,"
was also the hero of the Chat Moss.  This moss was a great swamp or bog,
four miles in extent, which was so soft that it could not be walked on
with safety, and in some places an iron rod laid on the surface would
sink by its own weight.  Like many other difficulties in this world, the
solidification of the Chat Moss was said to be impossible, but the great
engineer scarce admitted the propriety of allowing the word "impossible"
to cumber our dictionaries.  He began the work at once by forming an
embankment twenty feet high, which he carried some distance across the
treacherous soil, when the whole affair sank down one day and
disappeared!  Undismayed, Stephenson began again, and went on steadily
depositing thousands on thousands of tons of earth, which were greedily
swallowed up, until at last a solid foundation was obtained over the
greater part of the bog.  But there was a particularly soft part of it,
known by the name of the "flow moss," which was insatiable.  Over this
hurdles interwoven with heath were spread, and on these earth and gravel
were laid down.  When this road showed a tendency to sink below the
level, Stephenson loaded the moss beyond the track to balance it; when
water oozed through, he invented a new kind of drain-pipe formed of old
tallow casks, headed into each other, and ballasted to keep them down,
and at last the feat was accomplished--the railway was run over the wet
quaking moss on firm dry land.

It was in the formation of this, the true beginning of railways, that
the British "navvy" was called into being.  To perform the laborious
work, Stephenson employed the men called "inland navigators," in other
words, the canal excavators.  This body of strong "navigators" or
"navvies" formed the nucleus, which gathered recruits from all parts of
the kingdom.  As the work of railway making, which thenceforward grew
fast and furious, was unusually severe, only men who were unusually
powerful were suited for the navvy ranks, so that they became a distinct
class of gigantic men, whose capacity for bread and beef was in
accordance with their muscular development and power to toil.  Splendid
fellows they were, and are; somewhat rugged and untamed, no doubt, with
a tendency to fight occasionally, and a great deal of genuine kindness
and simplicity.  That they are capable of being imbued with refined
feeling, noble sentiment, and love to God, has been shown by the
publications of Miss Marsh, which detail that lady's interesting and
earnest labours to bring the unbelievers among these men to our Saviour.

Another celebrated piece of railway engineering is the _Britannia
Bridge_ over the Menai Straits, which separates Caernarvonshire from the
island of Anglesey.  This was the first bridge ever built on the tubular
principle.  The importance of crossing the strait was very great, as it
lay in the direct route to Holyhead and Ireland.  Telford, the engineer,
daringly resolved to span the strait with a suspension bridge 100 feet
above the water.  He began it in 1818, and on the last day of January
1826 the London mail coach passed over the estuary.  The bridge remains
to this day a vast and beautiful monument of engineering skill.  But
when railways began to play, something more ponderous and powerful
became necessary.  A bridge with arches was talked of, but this was
considered likely to be obstructive to the navigation of the strait,
therefore another plan was demanded.  At this juncture Robert Stephenson
came forward with a plan.  Pounding his opinion on the known fact that
hollow columns are stronger than solid ones; that hollow beams are
better than solid beams, he leaped to the bold conclusion that a hollow
iron beam, or tube, could be made large enough to allow a train to pass
through it!  As usual there sprang up a host of cold-waterers, but
thanks to British enterprise, which can dare anything, there were found
enough of men willing to promote the scheme.  It was no sooner resolved
on than begun.  Massive abutments of stone were raised on each shore to
the height of 100 feet above high-water.  The width of the strait
between these abutments is nearly 500 yards.  Midway across is the
Britannia Rock, just visible at half tide.  The engineer resolved to
found one of his towers on that rock.  It was done; but the distance
being too great for a single span of tube, two other towers were added.
The centre towel rises 35 feet higher than the abutments, thus giving to
the tube a very slight arch, which, however, is barely perceptible.

The tubes were rectangular, with double top and bottom made of plates of
wrought-iron, from three-eighths to three-quarters of an inch thick, and
varying in length according to their position--the whole when put
together forming a single tube about 500 yards long.  The two centre
ones were the largest and most difficult to manage, each having to be
built on shore, floated off on barges, and lifted by hydraulic power a
height of about 100 feet.  Some idea of what this implied may be
gathered from the following fact.  Each tube weighed 1800 tons--the
weight of a goodly-sized ocean steamer!  A perfect army of men worked at
the building of the tubes; cutting, punching, fitting, riveting,
etcetera, and as the place became the temporary abode of so many
artificers and labourers, with their wives and children, a village
sprang up around them, with shops, a school, and a surgery.  Two
fire-engines and large tanks of water were kept in constant readiness in
case of fire, and for many months rivet-making machines, punching
machines, shearing machines, etcetera, were in full work.  There were
two million rivets used altogether, and the quantity of
three-quarter-inch iron rod used in making them measured 126 miles.  The
total weight of iron used was nearly 12,000 tons.  The bridge was
strengthened by eighty-three miles of angle iron.  For many months the
outlay in wages alone was 6000 pounds a week, and the cost for the whole
of the works more than 600,000 pounds.  A curious fact connected with
this enormous mass of iron is, that arrangements had to be made to
permit of shrinkage and expansion.  The tubes were placed on a series of
rollers and iron balls, and it was afterwards found that in the hottest
part of summer they were twelve inches longer than in winter--a
difference which, if not provided for, would have caused the destruction
of the towers by a constant and irresistible pull and thrust!  The Menai
Bridge was begun in 1846 and opened for traffic in March 1850.

Space would fail us were we to attempt even a slight sketch of the great
engineering works that railways have called into being.  We can merely
point to such achievements as the high-level bridges at
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Berwick-on-Tweed, and at Saltash, over the Tamar.
There are viaducts of great height, length, and beauty in all parts of
the kingdom; there are terminal stations so vast and magnificent as to
remind one of the structures of Eastern splendour described in the
_Arabian Nights Entertainments_; and there are hundreds of miles of
tunnelling at the present time in the United Kingdom.

The Metropolitan Railway is the most important and singular of these
tunnels--for it is entitled to be regarded as a gigantic tunnel--which
burrows under the streets of London.

This stupendous work was undertaken in order to relieve the traffic in
the streets of London.  The frequent blocks that used to occur not many
years ago in the main thoroughfares of the Metropolis, had rendered
relief absolutely necessary.  When the increase of railways began to
pour human beings and goods from all parts of the kingdom into London in
a continuous and ever-increasing stream, it became obvious that some new
mode of conveyance must be opened up.  After much deliberation as to the
best method, it was finally resolved that an underground railway should
be made, encircling the Metropolis, so that travellers arriving from all
points of the compass might find a ready and sufficient means of
conveyance into the central parts of the city.  There was opposition to
the scheme, of course; but, through the persevering energy of the
solicitor to the undertaking and others, the work was at length begun,
and the line opened for traffic in January 1863.  Its extraordinary
success soon proved the wisdom of its promoters.

At first it was thought that the chief revenues would be derived from
the conveyance of goods from the west to the eastern districts of
London, but its enormous passenger traffic eventually became the chief
cause of its great prosperity.  In the very first year of its opening
the number of passengers who travelled by it between Farringdon Street
and Bishop's Road, Paddington, amounted to nearly nine and a half
millions of individuals, which is more than three times the entire
population of London--also, let us add, more than three times the entire
population of Scotland!

The number of trains which are constantly following each other in quick
succession (at times every two or three minutes) on this magnificent
railway has rendered a most perfect system of signalling necessary, as
well as a working staff of superior intelligence and activity.  The
drivers are all picked men, and indeed it is obvious to every one who
travels by it that the porters, and guards, and all employed on the line
are unusually smart men.  The engineering difficulties connected with
the Metropolitan railway were very great as may easily be believed,
seeing that it had to be formed under streets whose foundations were
unavoidably shaken, and amongst an infinite ramification of gas and
water-pipes and sewers whose separate action had to be maintained intact
while the process of construction was going on.  Some of the stations
are most ingeniously lighted from the streets above by bright reflecting
tile-work, while others, too deep for such a method, or too much
overtopped with buildings to admit of it, are lit perpetually with gas.
The whole of the works are a singular instance of engineering skill,
reflecting great credit on Mr Fowler, the engineer-in-chief.  Despite
its great length of tunnelling the line is perfectly dry throughout.

At first fears were entertained that human beings could not with safety
travel through such tunnels as were here formed, but experience has
proved those fears, like many others, to have been groundless, and a
very thorough analysis of the atmosphere of the line in all
circumstances, and by the most competent men of the day, has
demonstrated that the air of the Metropolitan railway is not injurious
to health.  The excellent general health of the employes also affords
additional and conclusive testimony to this fact even although it is
unquestionably true that there is at times a somewhat sulphurous smell
there.

This thorough ventilation, of course, could only have been achieved by
ingenious arrangements and a peculiar construction of the engines,
whereby the waste steam and fumes of the furnaces should be prevented
from emitting their foul and sulphurous odours.  The carriages are
brilliantly lighted with gas, contained in long india-rubber bags on
their roofs, and the motion of the trains is much gentler than that of
ordinary railways, although they travel at the rate of from fifteen to
twenty miles an hour, including stoppages,--a rate, be it observed,
which could not have been ventured on at all but for the thorough and
effective system of telegraphic and semaphore signalling employed, to
indicate from station to station the exact state of the line--as to
trains--at all times.  On the whole the Metropolitan Railway has proved
one of the most useful and successful undertakings of modern times.  See
Note 3 at the end of the chapter.

In reference to foreign railways, we have only space to say that there
are works as grand, and as worthy of note, as any of which we can boast;
and it is with much regret that we feel constrained to do no more than
point to such magnificent undertakings as the _Mont Cenis_ Railway,
which ascends and tunnels through the Alps; and that stupendous line,
the Union Pacific Railroad, 3000 miles in length, formed by the daring
and enterprising Americans, by means of which the prairies and the Rocky
Mountains are made of no account and New York is brought within seven
days of San Francisco!  The engineering works on the Sommering Railway,
between Vienna and Trieste; the mighty Victoria Tubular Bridge at
Montreal; the railway bridge over Niagara; the difficulties encountered
and overcome in India; the bold achievements of railway engineers amid
the dizzy heights and solitudes of the Andes--all these subjects must be
passed over in silence, else our readers will, we fear, come to the
conclusion that we have lost command of the Iron Horse altogether,
allowed him to take the bit in his teeth and fairly run away.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1.  Many readers may find it difficult to form an adequate
conception of such a vast number as 307 millions.  It may help one to
some idea of it to know that, if a man were to devote himself to count
it, one by one,--sitting down after breakfast counting at the rate of
one every moment, and working without intermission for eight hours every
day, excepting Sundays,--he would not conclude his task until the
thirty-fifth year.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 2.  We would refer them particularly to Messrs. W. and R. Chambers'
comprehensive and popularly written work on "Railways, Steamer, and
Telegraphs;" Money's "Rambles on Railways," which bristles with figures
and swarms with anecdote; "Stokers and Pokers," by Sir Francis Head, a
capital and very full work, though somewhat old; W.B. Adams' "Roads and
Rails," and Bremrer's "Industries of Scotland."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 3.  We had intended to devote much larger space to this most
interesting line, but the nature of our book forbids it.  We quit the
subject regretfully; referring the reader, who may desire to know more,
to an able notice of the Metropolitan Railway in "The Shops and
Companies of London," edited by Henry Mayhew.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

LITTLE GERTIE COMES OUT IN A NEW LIGHT, AND BOB RECEIVES GOOD NEWS.

Poor little earnest curly-haired Gertie had been so thoroughly reared in
the midst of crashing sounds and dire alarms without any mischance
resulting, that she had come to feel at last as if the idea of danger or
disaster were a mere fiction.  It was therefore a new and terrible shock
which she received, when she saw her father carried to his cottage by
four railway porters and tenderly laid in his bed; and it went to her
heart with an unaccountable thrill when she heard her father's usually
loud hearty voice say, in soft, womanly tones, "Thank 'ee, lads; thank
'ee.  I'll be all right soon, please God.  Good-night and thank 'ee
kindly."

"Good-night--good-night, Jack," they replied in various tones of
cheeriness; for these hard-muscled men had soft hearts, and although
they entertained fears for their friend, they were anxious, by the
hearty tones of their voices, to keep up his spirits.

"You mustn't take on like that, Missis," whispered one of them as they
were leaving the cottage door; "the doctor said for sartin that there
warn't no bones broken, and 'e didn't think there was nothink internal."

"It ain't that I'm afear'd of," whimpered poor Mrs Marrot, "but it does
go to my 'art so, to 'ear my John speak in that voice.  I never 'ear'd
him do it except once before, when he was very low with fever, an'
thought himself a-dyin'."

"But 'e ain't agoin' to die _this_ time," returned the kindly porter;
"so cheer up, Missis.  Good-night."

Mrs Marrot returned to the room where her husband lay, evidently
suffering severe pain, for he was very pale and his lips were
compressed.  He was anxious not to alarm Gertie and Loo who stood at the
bedside.  The former could not speak, and the blood had so completely
fled from her face and her small tightly-clasped hands that she
resembled a creature of wax.

"Can I do nothing to relieve the pain, dear father?" said Loo, as she
wiped the perspiration from his brow.

"Nothin', nothin', dear lass," said John, with some of his wonted
heartiness, "except git me a cup o' tea.  Mayhap that'll do me good; but
the doctor'll be here soon, and he'll put me all to rights in no time."

The idea of a cup of tea was a deep device on the part of John, who
meant thereby to give Loo some active work to do and thus take her
attention off himself.

"And don't you be uneasy, Molly," he added, turning to his wife, "it
ain't a bad hurt, I'm told, an' it ain't hard for a man to suffer a bit
o' pain now an' agin when it's the Lord's will.  Come, that's the
doctor's knock.  Don't keep him waitin'.  I knew he'd be here soon,
'cause Mr Able said he'd send him without delay."

A prolonged and somewhat painful examination of John's injuries ensued,
during which time little Gertie, with clasped hands, parted lips, and
eager eyes, watched the doctor's countenance intently.  After it was
over, the doctor turned to Mrs Marrot, and said--

"I'm happy to tell you, that your husband's injuries, although severe
and painful, are not serious.  No bones are broken, but he has been
severely bruised, and will require careful nursing for some time--and,"
he added, turning with a smile to the patient, "no more rushing about
the country at sixty miles an hour for several weeks to come."

Little Gertie began to breathe freely again.  Her hands unclasped, and
the colour came slowly back, as she crept quietly to the bedside, and,
taking her father's large horny hand, laid her cheek softly upon it.

"Are you easier _now_, daddy?" she asked.

"Ay, much easier, God bless you, Gertie.  The doctor has made things
much more comfortable.  They've got a wonderful knack o' puttin' things
right--these doctors have.  W'y, it minds me o' my ingine after a
longish run; she looks dirty an' all out o' sorts; but w'en I gits her
into the shed, and gives her an overhaul, you'd scarce know 'er again."

At this moment baby Marrot who had been sleeping when his father was
brought in, became suddenly conscious of internal vacuity, and forthwith
set up a lusty howl, whereupon Mrs Marrot pounced upon and throttled
him--to some extent.

"Don't stop him, Molly, my dear; you--"

The remainder of the sentence was drowned by the night express which
rushed past, joining baby Marrot in a yell, as the latter freed his
throat from his mother's grip.

"Don't stop him, Molly," repeated John; "you don't suppose that after
drivin' a locomotive for eight years I'm agoin' to be disturbed by the
small pipe of our own youngster.  Let him yell, Molly; it does him good,
and it don't do me no harm."

It was now arranged that Gertie was to be head nurse on this trying
occasion--not that the appointment was considered appropriate, but it
was unavoidable, seeing that Gertie wanted it intensely, and her father
was pleased to have it so.

Gertie had never before been called upon to do anything in the nursing
way more serious than to look after baby when he had eaten too much or
scalded himself--nevertheless, the way in which she went about her
nursing would have done credit to an hospital training.  She evidently
possessed a natural aptitude for the work, and went about it with a
sense of the importance of the trust that was quite charming.  She was
at that tender age when such work becomes barely possible, and the
performance of it seems quite miraculous!  Her father gazed at her in
bewilderment while she went about gravely smoothing his pillow and
tucking in corners of blankets, and bringing cups, and tumblers, and
spoons, and handkerchiefs, and sundry other articles, to a chair at his
bedside, so as to be within reach of his hand.  Molly and Loo, besides
being highly interested, were intensely amused.  It is a matter of
dispute even to this day whether baby did not perceive the marvellous
aptitude of Gertie, for he continued for a prolonged period to gaze at
her as if in solemn wonder.  Mrs Marrot declared baby's gaze to be one
of admiration, but John held that it was owing to the state of
exhaustion that resulted from an unusually long fit of yelling.  While
he stared thus, Gertie, having completed a number of little operations
and put the finishing touches or _pats_ to them, became suddenly aware
that every one was laughing quietly.

"What is it?" she asked, relaxing the severity of her brow and
brightening up.

They all laughed still more at this, and Gertie, looking round for an
explanation, encountered baby's glaring eyes, whereupon, supposing that
she had found out the cause, she laughed too.  But she quickly dismissed
her levity and recurred to her work with renewed diligence.

It was well for the engine-driver that he had been trained in a rough
school, for his powers of endurance were severely tested that night, by
the attentions of his numerous friends who called to inquire for him,
and in some cases insisted on seeing him.

Among others came one of the directors of the company, who, seeing how
matters stood, with much consideration said that he would not sit down,
but had merely looked in for a moment, to tell John Marrot that an
appointment had been found for his son Robert in the "Works," and that
if he would send him over in the morning he would be introduced to the
locomotive superintendent and initiated into the details of his new
sphere of action.

This was very gratifying to the engine-driver of course, but much more
so to Bob himself, whose highest earthly ambition was to become, as he
styled it, an engineer.  When that aspiring youth came home that night
after cleaning his lamps, he wiped his oily hands on a bundle of waste,
and sat down beside his sire to inquire considerately into his state of
body, and to give him, as he expressed it, the noos of the line.

"You see, daddy," he said, "the doctor tells me you're to be kep' quiet,
an' not allowed to talk, so in course you've got nothin' to do but lie
still an' listen while I give 'ee the noos.  So 'ere goes.  An' don't
you sit too near baby, mother, else you'll wake 'im up, an' we'll have a
yell as'll put talkin' out o' the question.  Well then--"

"Bob," said Loo, interrupting her brother as she sat down opposite, and
began to mend one of baby's pinafores--which by the way was already so
mended and patched as to have lost much of its original form and
appearance--"Bob, Mr Able has been here, and--"

"Who's Mr Able?" demanded Bob.

"One of the directors,--don't you know?"

"How should I know?" retorted Bob; "you don't suppose that the d'rectors
is all my partikler friends, do you?  There's only two or three of 'em
as has the honer of my acquaintance."

"Well," resumed Loo with a laugh, "you ought to consider Mr Able one of
your particular friends at all events, for he has been here this evening
making kind inquiries after father, and telling him that he has got you
appointed to the works that you've been so long hankering--"

"What!" interrupted Bob in great excitement; "you don't mean that, Loo?"

"Yes, I do."

"To the great Clatterby Works, where the big hammer is?"

"Well, I suppose it is to these works," said Loo.

"Ay, Bob, to the Clatterby Works, lad; so you're a made man if you only
behave yourself and do your dooty," said John Marrot in reply to his
son's look of inquiry.

In the strength of his satisfaction the boy rose, and, taking Loo round
the neck, kissed her pretty mouth heartily, after which he bestowed the
same favour on his mother and little Gertie, and looked as if he meant
to do it to baby too, but he thought better of it.

"Why, mother," he said, resuming his seat at the bedside, "these are the
works where they've got the big hammers--so big, mother; oh! you've no
notion how big they are, and heavy.  Why, one of 'em is full five tons
in weight--think o' that! equal to five carts of coals, mother, all
rolled into one."

"Nonsense!" said Mrs Marrot.

"But it's _true_," said Bob, earnestly.

"Nonsense!" repeated Mrs Marrot; "w'y, what would be the use of a
hammer as no one could lift?"

"Steam lifts it, mother," said Bob, "as easy--yes, as easy as you lift
the rollin' pin."

The unbelieving woman still shook her head, smiled, and said,
"Nonsense!"

"Moreover," continued Bob, waxing enthusiastic on his favourite topic,
"I'm told, for I haven't seen 'em yet, that they've got a pair o'
scissors there as can cut cold iron as easy as you can cut paper--they
could cut through," said Bob, pausing and looking round, "they could cut
through the poker and tongs and shovel, all at one go, as easy as if
they was straws."

"Gammon!" said Mrs Marrot.

"Isn't it a fact, daddy?" cried Bob.

"Quite true, Molly, my dear.  I must take you over to see the works some
day and convince you," said John with a faint smile.  "But what's the
news you were goin' to give us, Bob?" he added.

"The noos?--ah; that _good_ noos drove it all out o' my 'ead.  Well, as
I wos agoin' to say, there's a great to-do down at the shed, 'cause it's
said that an awful lot o' thefts has bin goin' on of late at Bingly
station, and it's bin reported that some of the drivers or firemen are
consarned in it.  An' d'ee know, father," continued Bob, suddenly
becoming grave and very earnest, "I heard one o' the men say that Will
Garvie is suspected."

There was a momentary deep silence, as if every one had received a
shock; then Mrs Marrot exclaimed "What say 'ee, boy?"

At the same time her husband demanded sternly, "Who said that?"

"I don't know, father.  I was passing through the shed at the time and
didn't see who spoke, I only heerd 'im."

"Father," said Leo, over whose face a deep crimson flush had spread,
"_surely_ you don't for a moment believe it?"

"Believe it," replied John, "believe that my mate, Will Garvie, is a
thief?  I'd as soon believe that my Molly was a murderer!"

The energetic driver here struck his fist so violently on the bed as to
cause his wounded side an acute twinge of pain.  It had scarcely passed
away when the door opened and Will Garvie himself entered.

"Well, Jack," he said, going up to his friend's couch and taking his
hand, "how d'you feel now--better?"

The frank open countenance of the young man--albeit begrimed with smoke,
and his clear laughing blue eyes, were such a flat contradiction to the
charge which had been made against him that John looked up in his face
and laughed.

"Well, you _must_ be better, if that's the way you answer me!"

"Oh, I'm all right," said John, quietly; "leastwise I'm on the rails
agin, an' only shunted on to a sidin' to be overhauled and repaired a
bit.  You've heard the noos, I fancy?"

"What of Bob's appointment?" said Will, glancing at Loo; for he knew
that anything that was for Bob's advantage gave her intense delight, and
he liked to watch her countenance in such circumstances--"of course I've
heard of that.  Moreover, I've bin to the locomotive superintendent and
got leave to go over with him to-morrow and show him through the works,
along with any of his family that might want to go.  I made a special
request for this, thinkin' that mayhap--"

He looked pointedly at Loo, and Loo looked pointedly at the pinafore
which suddenly claimed her undivided attention.  Bob, before Will could
finish his sentence, broke in with--

"Now, _ain't_ that a su'cumstance? w'y, we was just talkin' of havin'
mother over to see the works, an' lettin' her be convinced by her own
eyes that there is a hammer there of five ton weight, drove by steam,
an' a pair o' scissors as can cut cold iron an inch thick.  You'll go
mother, won't you?"

"Well, I dessay it would be amoosin'; yes, I'll go, Bob, if father's
better."

Accordingly, much to Will Garvie's disappointment it was arranged that
Mrs Marrot was to accompany him and Bob to the great railway "Works" on
the following day.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

MRS. MARROT AND BOB VISIT THE GREAT CLATTERBY "WORKS."

We cannot presume to say what sort of a smiddy Vulcan's was, but we feel
strongly inclined to think that if that gentleman were to visit the
works of the Grand National Trunk Railway, which are about the finest of
the kind in the kingdom, he would deem his own old shop a very
insignificant affair!

The stupendous nature of the operations performed there; the colossal
grandeur of the machinery employed; the appalling power of the forces
called into action; the startling _chiaro scuro_ of the furnaces; the
Herculean activity of the 3500 "hands;" the dread pyrotechnic displays;
the constant din and clangour--pshaw! the thing is beyond conception.
"Why then," you will say, "attempt description?"  Because, reader, of
two evils we always choose the less.  Description is better than
nothing.  If you cannot go and see and hear for yourself, there is
nothing left for you but to fall back on description.

But of all the sights to be seen there, the most interesting, perhaps,
and the most amusing, was the visage of worthy Mrs Marrot as she
followed Will Garvie and her son, and gazed in rapt amazement at the
operations, and listened to the sounds, sometimes looking all round with
a half-imbecile expression at the rattling machinery, at other times
fixing her eyes intently down on one piece of mechanism in the vain hope
of penetrating its secrets to the core.  Bob was not much less amazed
than his mother, but he had his sharp wits about him, and was keenly
alive to the delight of witnessing his mother's astonishment.

The works covered several acres of ground, and consisted of a group of
huge buildings which were divided into different departments, and in
these the railway company manufactured almost every article used on the
line--from a locomotive engine to a screw-nail.

Here, as we have said, above 3500 men and boys were at work, and all
sorts of trades were represented.  There were draughtsmen to make
designs, and, from these, detailed working drawings.  Smiths to forge
all the wrought-iron-work, with hammermen as assistants.  Pattern-makers
to make wooden patterns for castings.  Moulders, including loam,
dry-sand and green-sand moulders and brass-founders.  Dressers to dress
the rough edges off the castings when brought from the foundry.  Turners
in iron and brass.  Planers and nibblers, and slotters and drillers.
Joiners and sawyers, and coach-builders and painters.  Fitters and
erecters, to do the rougher and heavier part of fitting the engines
together.  Boiler-makers, including platers or fitters, caulkers and
riveters.  Finishers to do the finer part of fitting--details and
polishing.  In short almost every trade in the kingdom concentrated in
one grand whole and working harmoniously, like a vast complex machine,
towards one common end--the supply of railway rolling-stock, or "plant"
to the line.

All these were busy as bees, for they were engaged on the equitable
system of "piece-work,"--which means that each man or boy was paid for
each piece of work done, instead of being paid by time, which of course
induced each to work as hard as he could in order to make much as
possible--a system which suited both masters and men.  Of course there
are some sorts of employment where it would be unjust to pay men by the
amount of work done--as, for instance, in some parts of tin-mines, where
a fathom of rock rich in tin is as difficult to excavate as a fathom of
rock which is poor in tin--but in work such as we are describing the
piece-work system suits best.

Like a wise general, Will Garvie began with the department in which the
less astonishing operations were being performed.  This was the timber
and sawing department.

Here hard wood, in all sizes and forms, was being licked into shape by
machinery in a way and with an amount of facility that was eminently
calculated to astonish those whose ideas on such matters had been
founded on the observation of the laborious work of human carpenters.
The very first thing that struck Bob Marrot was that the tools were so
heavy, thick, and strong that the biggest carpenter he had ever seen
would not have been able to use them.  Bob's idea of a saw had hitherto
been a long sheet of steel with small teeth, that could be easily bent
like a hoop--an implement that went slowly through a plank, and that had
often caused his arm to ache in being made to advance a few inches; but
here he saw circular steel-discs with fangs more than an inch long,
which became invisible when in a state of revolution.

"What _is_ that?" said Mrs Marrot concentrating herself on one of these
implements, after having indulged in a stare of bewildered curiosity
round the long shed.

"That's a circular saw," replied Will Garvie; "one of the large ones,--
about four feet in diameter."

"A saw!" exclaimed Mrs Marrot, in surprise.  "W'y, Will, it's round.
How can a round thing saw?  An' it han't got no 'andle!  How could any
man lay 'old of it to saw?"

"The carpenter here don't require no handles," replied Will.  "He's a
queer fellow is the carpenter of this shop, as well as powerful.  He
works away from morning till night with the power of more than a hundred
horses, an' does exactly what he's bid without ever making any mistakes
or axin' any questions.  He's a steam-carpenter, Missis, but indeed he's
a jack-of-all-trades, and carries 'em on all at the same time.  See,
they're goin' to set him to work now--watch and you shall see."

As he spoke, two men approached the circular saw bearing a thick log of
oak.  One of them fitted it in position, on rollers, with its edge
towards the saw; then he seized a handle, by means of which he connected
the steam-carpenter with the saw, which instantly revolved so fast that
the teeth became invisible; at the same time the plank advanced rapidly
and met the saw.  Instantly there was a loud hissing yet ringing sound,
accompanied by a shower of sawdust, and, long before Mrs Marrot had
recovered from her surprise, the log was cut into two thick substantial
planks.

After two or three more had been cut up in this way in as many minutes,
Will Garvie said--

"Now, let's see what they do with these planks.  Come here."

He led them to a place close beside the saw, where there was a strong
iron machine, to one part of which was attached a very large chisel--it
might have been equal to two or three dozen of the largest ordinary
chisels rolled into one.  This machine was in motion, but apparently it
had been made for a very useless purpose, for it was going vigorously up
and down at the time cutting the atmosphere!

"It's like a lot of people as I knows of," observed Mrs Marrot, "very
busy about nothin'."

"It'll have somethin' to do soon, mother," said Bob, who was already
beginning to think himself very knowing.

Bob was right.  One of the oak-planks had been measured and marked for
mortice-holes in various ways according to pattern, and was now handed
over to the guardian of the machine, who, having had it placed on
rollers, pushed it under the chisel and touched a handle.  Down came the
implement, and cut into the solid wood as if it had been mere putty.  A
dozen cuts or so in one direction, then round it went--for this chisel
could be turned with its face in either direction without stopping it
for the purpose--another dozen cuts were made, and an oblong hole of
three or four inches long by two broad and three deep was made in the
plank in a few seconds.

Even Mrs Marrot had sufficient knowledge of the arts to perceive that
this operation would have cost a human carpenter a very much greater
amount of time and labour, and that therefore there must have been a
considerable saving of expense.  Had she been aware of the fact that
hundreds of such planks were cut, marked, morticed, and turned out of
hands every week all the year round, and every year continuously, she
would have had a still more exalted conception of the saving of time,
labour, and expense thus effected.

The guardian of the chisel having in a few minutes cut the requisite
half dozen or so of holes, guided the plank on rollers towards a
pile, where it was laid, to be afterwards carried off to the
carriage-builders, who would fit it as one side of a carriage-frame to
its appropriate fellow-planks, which had all been prepared in the same
way.

Not far from this machine the visitors were shown another, in which
several circular saws of smaller dimensions than the first were at work
in concert, and laid at different angles to each other, so that when a
plank was given into their clutches it received cuts and slices in
certain parts during its passage through the machine, and came out much
modified and improved in form--all that the attendants had to do merely
being to fit the planks in their places and guide them safely through
the ordeal.  Elsewhere Mrs Marrot and Bob beheld a frame--full of
gigantic saws cut a large log into half a dozen planks, all in one
sweep, in a few minutes--work which would have drawn the sweat from the
brows of two saw-pit men for several hours.  One thing that attracted
the attention of Bob very strongly was the simple process of
hole-boring.  Of course, in forming the massive frames of railway
carriages, it becomes necessary to bore numerous holes for large nails
or bolts.  Often had Bob, at a neighbouring seaport, watched the heavy
work and the slow progress of ship-carpenters as they pierced the planks
of ships with augers; but here he beheld what he called, "augers and
drills gone mad!"--augers small and great whirling furiously, or, as Bob
put it, "like all possessed."  Some acting singly, others acting
together in rows of five or six; and these excited things were
perpetually whirling, whether at work or not, ready for service at a
moment's notice.  While Bob was gazing at one huge drill--probably an
inch and a half broad, if not more--a man came up to it with a plank, on
the surface of which were several dots at various distances.  He put the
plank under the drill, brought it down on a dot, whizz went the drill,
and straightway there was a huge round hole right through almost before
Bob had time to wink,--and Bob was a practised hand at winking.  Several
holes were bored in this way, and then the plank was carried to another
machine, where six lesser holes were drilled at one and the same time by
six furious little augers; and thus the planks passed on from one
machine to another until finished, undergoing, in the course of a few
minutes, treatment that would have cost them hours of torture had they
been manipulated by human hands, in addition to which the work was most
beautifully, and perfectly, and regularly done.

Many other operations did the visitors behold in this department--all
more or less interesting and, to them, surprising--so that Mrs Marrot
was induced at last to exclaim--

"W'y, Willum, it seems to me that if you go on improvin' things at this
rate there won't be no use in a short time for 'uman 'ands at all.
We'll just 'ave to sit still an' let machinery do our work for us, an'
all the trades-people will be throwd out of employment."

"How can you say that, Missis," said Will Garvie, "you bein' old enough
to remember the time w'en there wasn't five joiners' shops in Clatterby,
with p'rhaps fifty men and boys employed, and now there's hundreds of
joiners, and other shops of all kinds in the town, besides these here
railway works which, as you know, keeps about 3500 hands goin' all the
year round?"

"That's so, Willum," assented Mrs Marrot in a meditative tone.

Thus meditating, she was conducted into the smiths' department.

Here about 140 forges and 400 men were at work.  Any one of these forges
would have been a respectable "smiddy" in a country village.  They stood
as close to each other as the space would allow,--so close that their
showers of sparks intermingled, and kept the whole shed more or less in
the condition of a chronic eruption of fireworks.  To Bob's young mind
it conveyed the idea of a perpetual keeping of the Queen's birthday.  To
his mother it was suggestive of singed garments and sudden loss of
sight.  The poor woman was much distressed in this department at first,
but when she found, after five minutes or so, that her garments were
unscathed, and her sight still unimpaired, she became reconciled to it.

In this place of busy vulcans--each of whom was the beau-ideal of "the
village blacksmith," all the _smaller_ work of the railway was done.  As
a specimen of this smaller work, Will Garvie drew Mrs Marrot's
attention to the fact that two vulcans were engaged in twisting red-hot
iron bolts an inch and a half thick into the form of hooks with as much
apparent ease as if they had been hair-pins.  These, he said, were hooks
for couplings, the hooks by which railway carriages were attached
together, and on the strength and unyielding rigidity of which the lives
of hundreds of travellers might depend.

The bending of them was accomplished by means of a powerful lever.  It
would be an endless business to detail all that was done in this
workshop.  Every piece of comparatively small iron-work used in the
construction of railway engines, carriages, vans, and trucks, from a
door-hinge to a coupling-chain, was forged in that smithy.  Passing
onward, they came to a workshop where iron castings of all kinds were
being made; cylinders, fire-boxes, etcetera,--and a savage-looking place
it was, with numerous holes and pits of various shapes and depths in the
black earthy floor, which were the moulds ready, or in preparation, for
the reception of the molten metal.  Still farther on they passed through
a workroom where every species of brass-work was being made.  And here
Bob Marrot was amazed to find that the workmen turned brass on
turning-lathes with as much facility as if it had been wood.  Some of
the pieces of brazen mechanism were very beautiful and delicate--
especially one piece, a stop-cock for letting water into a boiler, the
various and complex parts of which, when contrasted with the huge
workmanship of the other departments, resembled fine watch-work.

As they passed on, Bob observed a particularly small boy, in whom he
involuntarily took a great and sudden interest--he looked so small, so
thin, so intelligent, and, withal, so busy.

"Ah, you may well look at him," said Will Garvie, observing Bob's gaze.
"That boy is one of the best workers of his age in the shop."

"What is 'e doin'?" inquired Bob.

"He's preparin' nuts for screws," replied Will, "and gets one penny for
every hundred.  Most boys can do from twelve to fourteen hundred a day,
so, you see, they can earn from six to seven shillin's a week; but that
little feller--they call him Tomtit Dorkin--earns a good deal more, I
believe, and he has much need to, for he has got an old granny to
support.  That's the work that you are soon to be set to, lad."

"Is it?" said Bob, quite pleased at the notion of being engaged in the
same employment with Tomtit; "I'm glad to 'ear it.  You see, mother,
when you gits to be old an' 'elpless, you'll not need to mind, 'cause
_I'll_ support you."

The next place they visited was the great point of attraction to Bob.
It was the forge where the heavy work was done, and where the celebrated
hammer and terrific pair of scissors performed their stupendous work.

At the time the visitors entered this department the various hammers
chanced to be at rest, nevertheless even Mrs Marrot's comparatively
ignorant mind was impressed by the colossal size and solidity of the
iron engines that surrounded her.  The roof of the shed in which they
stood had been made unusually high in order to contain them.

"Well, I s'pose the big 'ammer that Bob says is as 'eavy as five carts
of coals must be 'ereabouts?" observed Mrs Marrot looking round.

"Yes, there it is," said Will, pointing in front of him.

"W'ere?  I don't see no 'ammer."

"Why there, that big thing just before you," he said, pointing to a
machine of iron, shaped something like the letter V turned upside down,
with its two limbs on the earth, its stem lost in the obscurity of the
root and having a sort of tongue between the two limbs, which tongue was
a great square block of solid iron, apparently about five feet high and
about three feet broad and deep.  This tongue, Will Garvie assured his
companion, was the hammer.

"No, no, Willum," said Mrs Marrot, with a smile, "you mustn't expect me
for to believe that.  I _may_ believe that the moon is made of green
cheese, but I won't believe that that's a 'ammer."

"No: but _is_ it, Bill?" asked Bob, whose eyes gleamed with suppressed
excitement.

"Indeed it is; you shall see presently."

Several stalwart workmen, with bare brawny arms, who were lounging
before the closed mouth of a furnace, regarded the visitors with some
amusement.  One of these came forward and said--

"You'd better stand a little way back, ma'am."

Mrs Marrot obediently retreated to a safe distance.  Then the stalwart
men threw open the furnace door.  Mrs Marrot exclaimed, almost
shrieked, with surprise at the intense light which gushed forth, casting
even the modified daylight of the place into the shade.  The proceedings
of the stalwart men thereafter were in Mrs Marrot's eyes absolutely
appalling--almost overpowering,--but Mrs M was tough both in mind and
body.  She stood her ground.  Several of the men seized something inside
the furnace with huge pincers, tongs, forceps--whatever you choose to
call them--and drew partly out an immense rudely shaped bar or _log_ of
glowing irons thicker than a man's thigh.  At the same time a great
chain was put underneath it, and a crane of huge proportions thereafter
sustained the weight of the glowing metal.  By means of this crane it
was drawn out of the furnace and swung round until its glowing head or
end came close to the tongue before mentioned.  Then some of the
stalwart men grasped several iron handles, which were affixed to the
cool end of the bar, and prepared themselves to act.  A signal was given
to a man who had not hitherto been noticed, he was so small in
comparison with the machine on which he stood--perhaps it would be
better to say to which he stuck, because he was perched on a little
platform about seven or eight feet from the ground, which was reached by
an iron ladder, and looked down on the men who manipulated the iron bar
below.

On receiving the signal, this man moved a small lever.  It cost him no
effort whatever, nevertheless it raised the iron tongue about six feet
in the air, revealing the fact that it had been resting on another
square block of iron embedded in the earth.  This latter was the anvil.
On the anvil the end of the white-hot bar was immediately laid.  Another
signal was given, and down came the "five-carts-of-coals weight" with a
thud that shook the very earth, caused the bar partially to flatten as
if it had been a bit of putty, and sent a brilliant shower of sparks
over the whole place.  Mrs Marrot clapped both hands on her face, and
capped the event with a scream.  As for Bob, he fairly shouted with
delight.

Blow after blow was given by this engine, and as each blow fell the
stalwart men heaved on the iron handles and turned the bar this way and
that way, until it was pounded nearly square.  By this time Mrs Marrot
had recovered so far as to separate her fingers a little, and venture to
peep from behind that protecting screen.  By degrees the unwieldy mass
of misshapen metal was pounded into a cylindrical form, and Will Garvie
informed his friends that this was the beginning of the driving-axle of
a locomotive.  Pointing to several of those which had been already
forged, each having two enormous iron projections on it which were
afterwards to become the cranks, he said--

"You'll see how these are finished, in another department."

But Mrs Marrot and Bob paid no attention to him.  They were fascinated
by the doings of the big hammer, and especially by the cool quiet way in
which the man with the lever caused it to obey his will.  When he moved
the lever up or down a little, up or down went the hammer a little; when
he moved it a good deal the hammer moved a good deal; when he was
gentle, the hammer was gentle; when he gave a violent push, the hammer
came down with a crash that shook the whole place.  He could cause it to
plunge like lightning to within a hair's-breadth of the anvil and check
it instantaneously so that it should not touch.  He could make it pat
the red metal lovingly, or pound it with the violence of a fiend.
Indeed, so quick and sympathetic were all the movements of that
steam-hammer that it seemed as though it were gifted with intelligence,
and were nervously solicitous to act in prompt obedience to its master's
will.  There were eleven steam-hammers of various sizes in this
building, with a staff of 175 men to attend to them, half of which staff
worked during the day, and half during the night--besides seven smaller
steam-hammers in the smiths' shops and other departments.

With difficulty Will Garvie tore his friends away from the big hammer;
but he could not again chain their attention to anything else, until he
came to the pair of scissors that cut iron.  With this instrument Mrs
Marrot at first expressed herself disappointed.  It was not like a pair
of scissors at all, she said, and in this she was correct, for the
square clumsy-looking blunt-like mass of iron, about five feet high and
broad, which composed a large portion of it, was indeed very unlike a
pair of scissors.

"Why, mother," exclaimed Bob, "you didn't surely expect to see two large
holes in it for a giant's thumb and fingers, did you?"

"Well, but," said Mrs Marrot, "it ain't got no blades that I can see."

"I'll let 'ee see 'em, Missis, in a minute," said a workman who came up
at that moment with a plate of iron more than a quarter of an inch
thick.  "Turn it on, Johnny."

A small boy turned on the steam, the machine moved, and Will Garvie
pointed out to Mrs Marrot the fact that two sharp edges of steel in a
certain part of it crossed each other exactly in the manner of a pair of
scissors.

"Well," remarked Mrs M, after contemplating it for some time, "it don't
look very like scissors, but I'm free to confess that them two bits of
iron _do_ act much in the same way."

"And with the same result, Missus," observed the machine-man, putting
the plate between the clippers, which, closing quietly, snipped off
about a foot of iron as if it had been paper.  There was, however, a
crunching sound which indicated great power, and drew from Mrs Marrot
an exclamation of surprise not altogether unmingled with alarm.

The man then seized a bit of iron about as thick as his own wrist--full
an inch and a half in diameter--which the scissors cut up into lengths
of eighteen inches or so as easily as if it had been a bar of lead or
wood.

"Didn't I say it could cut through the poker, mother?" cried Bob with a
look of triumph.

"The poker, boy! it could cut poker, tongs, shovel, and fender, all at
once!" replied Mrs Marrot--"well, I never! can it do anything else?"

In reply to this the man took up several pieces of hard steel, which it
snipped through as easily as it had cut the iron.

But if Mrs Marrot's surprise at the scissors was great, not less great
was it at the punching machine, which punched little buttons the size of
a sixpence out of cold iron full half-an-inch thick.  This vicious
implement not only punched holes all round boiler-plates so as to permit
of their being riveted together, but it cut patterns out of thick iron
plates by punching rows of such holes so close to each other that they
formed one long cutting, straight or crooked, as might be required.  In
short, the punching machine acted the part of a saw, and cut the iron
plates in any shape that was desired.  Here also they saw the testing of
engine springs--those springs which to most people appear to have no
spring in them whatever--so very powerful are they.  One of these was
laid on an iron table, with its two ends resting against an iron plate.
A man approached and measured it exactly.  Then a hydraulic ram was
applied; and there was something quite impressive in the easy quiet way,
in which the ram shoved a spring, which the weight of a locomotive can
scarcely affect, _quite_ _flat_ against the iron plate, and held it
there a moment or two!  Being released, the spring resumed its proper
form.  It was then re-measured; found not to have expanded a
hair's-breadth, and, therefore,--as Will Garvie took care to explain,--
was passed as a sound well-tempered spring; whereat Bob remarked that it
would need to be a good-tempered spring, to suffer such treatment
without grumbling.

It seemed to Mrs Marrot now as if her capacity for surprise had reached
its limit; but she little knew the wealth of capacity for creating
surprise that lay in these amazing "works" of the Grand National Trunk
Railway.

The next place she was ushered into was a vast apartment where iron in
every shape, size, and form was being planed and turned and cut.  The
ceiling of the building, or rather the place where a ceiling ought in
ordinary circumstances to have been, was alive with moving bands and
whirling wheels.  The first thing she was called on to contemplate was
the turning of the tyre or rim of one of the driving-wheels of a
locomotive.  Often had Mrs Marrot heard her husband talk of tyres and
driving-wheels, and many a time had she seen these wheels whirling,
half-concealed, in their appropriate places, but never till that day had
she seen the iron hoop, eight feet in diameter, elevated in bare
simplicity on a turning-lathe, where its size impressed her so much that
she declared, "she never _could_ 'ave imagined engine-wheels was so
big," and asked, "'ow did they ever manage to get 'em lifted up to w'ere
they was?"

To which an overseer kindly replied by pointing out a neat little crane
fitted on a tail, which, when required, ran along the apartment like a
strong obedient little domestic servant, lifting wheels, etcetera, that
a man could scarcely move, and placing them wherever they were wanted.
Mrs Marrot was then directed to observe the rim of the wheel, where she
saw a small chisel cutting iron curls off it just as easily, to all
appearance, as a turner cuts shavings off wood--and these iron curls
were not delicate; they were thick, solid, unpliant ringlets, that would
have formed a suitable decoration for the fair brow of a locomotive, or,
perhaps, a chignon--supposing that any locomotive could have been
prevailed on to adopt such a wild monstrosity!

This same species of chisel, applied in different ways, reduced masses
of iron in size, planed down flat surfaces, enlarged holes, made
cylinders "true" and smooth inside, besides doing a variety of other
things.

After seeing the large tyre turned, Mrs Marrot could not be induced to
pay much regard to the various carriage and truck wheels which were
being treated in a similar manner in that department, but she was
induced to open her ears, and her eyes too, when the overseer informed
her that the "works" turned out complete no fewer than one hundred and
thirty pairs of locomotive, carriage, and waggon wheels a week.

"How many did you say?" she asked.

"A hundred and thirty pair of wheels in the week," repeated the
overseer.

"Every week?" asked Mrs Marrot.

"Yes; every week.  Sometimes more, sometimes less; but altogether,
pretty well on for 6000 pairs of wheels every year."

"W'y, what _do_ you make of 'em all?"

"Oh, we make good use of 'em," replied the overseer, laughing.  "We wear
them out so fast that it keeps us working at that rate to meet our
necessities.  But that," he continued, "is only a small part of what we
do.  We turn out of the works 156 first-class carriages besides many
seconds and thirds, and about 1560 trucks every year; besides three
engines, new and complete, every fortnight."

"Three noo engines every fortnight!" echoed Mrs Marrot; "how many's
that in the year, Bob?"

"Seventy-eight," replied Bob, promptly.  Bob was a swift mental
calculator, and rather proud of it.

"Where ever do they all go to?" murmured Mrs Marrot.

"Why," replied Will Garvie, "they go to all the stations on the line, of
course; some of 'em go to smash at once in cases of accidents, and all
of 'em goes to destruction, more or less, in about fifteen or twenty
years.  We reckon that to be the life of a locomotive.  See, there's a
drivin' axle, such as you saw forged by the big hammer, being turned
now, and cut to shape and size by the same sort of machine that you saw
cuttin' the tyres."

They passed on, after looking at the axle for a few minutes, until they
came to a part of the building where rails were being forged.  This
also, although not done by hammer, was a striking process.  The place
was so hot owing to the quantity of uncooled metal on the floor, that it
was not possible to remain long; they therefore took a rapid survey.  In
one place several men were in the act of conveying to the steam-hammer a
mass of shapeless white-hot iron, which had just been plucked from a
furnace with a pair of grippers.  They put it below the hammer for a few
minutes, which soon reduced it to a clumsy bar; then they carried it to
a pair of iron rollers driven by steam.  The end of the bar being
presented to these, it was gripped, dragged in between them, and passed
out at the other side, flat and very much lengthened, as well as
thinned.  Having been further reduced by this process, it was finally
passed through a pair of rollers, which gave it shape, and sent it out a
complete rail, ready to be laid down on the line.

Here Garvie took occasion to explain that steel rails, although very
expensive, were now being extensively used in preference to iron rails,
because they lasted much longer.  "For instance," he said, "steel costs
about 12 pounds a ton and iron only costs about 7 pounds; but then, d'ye
see, steel rails will last two years and more, whereas iron rails get
wore out, and have to be renewed every six weeks in places where there's
much traffic."

"Now, I can't stand no more o' this," said Mrs Marrot, down whose face
the perspiration was streaming; "I'm a'most roasted alive, an' don't
understand your explanations one bit, Willum, so come along."

"Oh, mother, _do_ hold on a moment," pleaded Bob, whose mechanical soul
was in a species of paradise.

"You'd better come, Bob," interposed Garvie, "else we won't have time to
see the department where the engines are fitted."

This was sufficient for Bob, who willingly followed.

The fitting shed at that time contained several engines in various
stages of advancement.  In one place men were engaged in fitting
together the iron framework or foundation of a locomotive, with screws,
and bolts, and nuts, and rivets.  Others were employed near them, on an
engine more advanced, in putting on the wheels and placing the boilers
and fire-boxes, while another gang were busy covering the boiler of a
third engine with a coating of wood and felt, literally for the purpose
of keeping it warm, or preventing its heat from escaping.  Farther on,
three beautiful new engines, that had just been made and stood ready for
action, were receiving a few finishing touches from the painters.
Fresh, spotless, and glittering, these were to make their _debut_ on the
morrow, and commence their comparatively brief career of furious
activity--gay things, doomed emphatically to a fast life!  Beyond these
young creatures lay a number of aged and crippled engines, all more or
less disabled and sent there for repair; one to have a burst steam-pipe
removed and replaced, another to have a wheel, or a fire-box or a
cylinder changed; and one, that looked as if it had recently "run
a-muck" against all the other engines on the line, stood sulkily grim in
a corner, evidently awaiting its sentence of condemnation,--the usual
fate of such engines being to be torn, bored, battered, chiselled,
clipt, and otherwise cut to pieces, and cast into the furnaces.

While gazing round this apartment, Mrs Marrot's eyes suddenly became
transfixed.

"Wot's the matter _now_?" demanded Bob, in some alarm.

"I _do_ believe--w'y--there's a locomotive _in the air_!" said Mrs
Marrot in an undertone.

"So it is!" exclaimed Bob.

And, reader, so it was.  In that shed they had a crane which rested on a
framework overhead, and ran on wheels over the entire shop.  It was
capable of lifting above fifty tons' weight and as a large locomotive,
ponderous though it be, is not much over twenty tons, of course this
giant crane made short work of such.  When the men have occasion to
remove a wheel from the iron horse, not being able to make it lift up
its leg, so to speak, to have it taken off, they bring it under the
crane, swing it up as a little boy might swing a toy-cart, and operate
on it at their leisure.

Mrs Marrot felt an unpleasant sensation on beholding this.  As the wife
of an engine-driver, she had long felt the deepest respect, almost
amounting to reverence, for locomotives, in regard to the weight, speed,
and irresistible power of which she had always entertained the most
exalted ideas.  To see one of the race--and that too, of the largest
size--treated in this humiliating fashion was too much for her, she
declared that she had seen enough of the "works," and wouldn't on any
account remain another minute!

"But you won't go without seein' the carriage and truck department,
surely?" said Bob.

"Well, I'll just take a look to please _you_," said the amiable woman.

Accordingly, to the truck and van department they went, and there Bob,
whose mind was sharp as a needle, saw a good many pieces of mechanism,
which formerly he had only seen in a transition state, now applied to
their ultimate uses.  The chiselled, sawn, and drilled planks seen in
the first department, were here being fitted and bolted together in the
form of trucks, while the uses of many strange pieces of iron, which had
puzzled him in the blacksmiths' department, became obvious when fitted
to their appropriate woodwork.  Here, also, he saw the internal
machinery of railway carriages laid bare, especially the position and
shape of the springs that give elasticity to the buffers, which, he
observed, were just the same in shape as ordinary carriage springs,
placed so that the ends of the buffer-rods pressed against them.

But all this afforded no gratification to Mrs Marrot, whose sensitive
mind dwelt uneasily on the humiliated locomotive, until she suddenly
came on a row of new first-class carriages, where a number of people
were employed stuffing cushions.

"Well, I declare," she exclaimed, "if here ain't cushion-stuffing going
on!  I expect we shall come to coat-and-shift-making for porters and
guards, next!"

"No, we haven't got quite that length yet," laughed Will Garvie; "but if
you look along you'll see gilding, and glazing, and painting going on,
at that first-class carriage.  Still farther along, in the direction
we're going, is the infirmary."

"The infirmary, Willum!"

"Ay, the place where old and damaged trucks and carriages are sent for
repair.  They're all in a bad way, you see,--much in need o' the
doctor's sar'vices."

This was true.  Looking at some of these unfortunates, with crushed-in
planks, twisted buffers and general dismemberment, it seemed a wonder
that they had been able to perform their last journey, or crawl to the
hospital.  Some of the trucks especially might have been almost said to
look diseased, they were so dirty, while at the corners, where address
cards were wont to be affixed, they appeared to have broken out in a
sort of small-pox irruption of iron tackets.

At last Mrs Marrot left the "works," declaring that her brain was
"whirling worser than was the wheels and machinery they had just left,"
while Bob asseverated stoutly that his appetite for the stupendous had
only been whetted.  In this frame of mind the former went home to nurse
her husband, and the latter was handed over to his future master, the
locomotive superintendent of the line.

Reader, it is worth your while to visit such works, to learn what can be
done by the men whom you are accustomed to see, only while trooping home
at meal hours, with dirty garments and begrimed hands and faces--to see
the grandeur as well as the delicacy of their operations, while thus
labouring amongst din and dust and fire, to provide _you_ with safe and
luxurious locomotion.  We cannot indeed, introduce you to the particular
"works" we have described; but if you would see something similar, hie
thee to the works of our great arterial railways,--to those of the
London and North-Western, at Crewe; the Great Western, at Swindon; the
South-eastern, at Ashford; the Great Northern, at Doncaster; the North
British, at Cowlairs; the Caledonian, at Glasgow, or any of the many
others that exist throughout the kingdom, for in each and all you will
see, with more or less modification, exactly the same amazing sights
that were witnessed by worthy Mrs Marrot and her hopeful son Bob, on
that never-to-be-forgotten day, when they v

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/21740