Robert Michael Ballantyne - The Iron Horse

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.