The Iron Horse. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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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