Robert Michael Ballantyne - The Iron Horse

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.