Post Haste | Page 4

click. Nevertheless
this young woman, whose name was May Maylands, played on them
with a constancy and a deft rapidity worthy of a great, if not a musical,
cause. From dawn to dusk, and day by day, did she keep those three
keys clicking and clittering, as if her life depended on the result; and so
in truth it did, to some extent, for her bread and butter depended on her
performances on that very meagre piano.
Although an artless and innocent young girl, fresh from the western
shores of Erin, May had a peculiar, and, in one of her age and sex,
almost pert way of putting questions, to which she often received
quaint and curious replies.
For instance one afternoon she addressed to a learned doctor the
following query:--
"Can you send copy last prescription? Lost it. Face red as a carrot. In
agonies! What shall I do? Help!"
To which the learned doctor gave the matter-of-fact but inelegant
reply:--
"Stick your feet in hot water. Go to bed at once. Prescription sent by
post. Take it every hour."
But May Maylands did not stick her feet in hot water; neither did she
go to bed, or take any physic. Indeed there was no occasion to do so,
for a clear complexion and pink cheeks told of robust health.
On another occasion she asked an Irish farmer if he could send her
twenty casks of finest butter to cost not more than 6 pence per pound.
To which the farmer was rude enough to answer--"Not by no manner of
means."

In short May's conduct was such that we must hasten to free her from
premature condemnation by explaining that she was a female
telegraphist in what we may call the literary lungs of London--the
General Post-Office at St. Martin's-le-Grand.
On that chill December afternoon, during a brief lull in her portion of
the telegraphic communication of the kingdom, May leaned her little
head on her hand, and sent her mind to the little cottage by the sea,
already described as lying on the west coast of Ireland, with greater
speed than ever she flashed those electric sparks which it was her
business to scatter broadcast over the land. The hamlet, near which the
cottage stood, nestled under the shelter of a cliff as if in expectation and
dread of being riven from its foundations by the howling winds, or
whelmed in the surging waves. The cottage itself was on the outskirts
of the hamlet, farther to the south. The mind of May entered through its
closed door,--for mind, like electricity, laughs at bolts and bars.
There was a buzz of subdued sound from more than twelve hundred
telegraphists, male and female, in that mighty telegraph-hall of Saint
Martin's-le-Grand, but May heard it not. Dozens upon dozens of tables,
each with its busy occupants--tables to right of her, tables to left of her,
tables in rear of her, tables in front of her,--swept away from her in
bewildering perspective, but May saw them not. The clicking of six or
seven hundred instruments broke upon her ear as they flashed the news
of the world over the length and breadth of the land, pulsating joy and
sorrow, surprise, fear, hope, despair, and gladness to thousands of
anxious hearts, but May regarded it not. She heard only the booming of
the great sea, and saw her mother seated by the fire darning socks, with
Madge engaged in household work, and Phil tumbling with
baby-brother on the floor, making new holes and rents for fresh darns
and patches.
Mrs Maylands was a student and lover of the Bible. Her children,
though a good deal wilder, were sweet-tempered like herself. It is
needless to add that in spite of adverse circumstances they were all
moderately happy. The fair telegraphist smiled, almost laughed, as her
mind hovered over the home circle.

From the contemplation of this pleasant and romantic picture she was
roused by a familiar rustle at her elbow. Recalling her mind from the
west of Ireland, she fixed it on a mass of telegrams which had just
arrived from various parts of the city.
They had been sucked through several pneumatic tubes--varying from a
few yards to two miles in length--had been checked, assorted,
registered, and distributed by boys to the various telegraphists to whose
lot they fell. May Maylands chanced, by a strange coincidence, to
command the instrument in direct connection with Cork. The telegrams
just laid beside her were those destined for that city, and the regions to
which it was a centre of redistribution. Among others her own village
was in connection with it, and many a time had she yearned to touch
her keys with a message of love to her mother, but the rules of the
office sternly forbade