The Iron Horse

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.