Robert Michael Ballantyne - The Iron Horse

“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.

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-à-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—”