The Iron Horse | Page 8

dear Joseph's life by pulling him off the line when one of your dreadful engines was going straight over him. Anything that I am capable of doing for you or your friends will be but a poor return for what you have done for me. I have often asked you to allow me to make me some such return, Mr Marrot, and have been grieved at your constant refusal. I am delighted that you come to me now."
"You're very good to say so, ma'am. The fact is that one o' my friends, a porter on the line, named Sam Natly, has a young wife who is, I fear, far gone wi' consumption; she's worse to-night an' poor Sam's obliged to go on night dooty, so he can't look arter her, an' the old 'ooman they've got ain't worth nothin'. So I thought I'd make bold, ma'am, to ask you to send yer servant to git a proper nurse to take charge of her to-night, it would be--"
"I'll go myself!" exclaimed Mrs Tipps, interrupting, and starting up with a degree of alacrity that astonished the engine-driver. "Here, write down the address on that piece of paper--you can write, I suppose?"
"Yes, ma'am," replied John, modestly, as he bent down and wrote the address in a bold flowing hand, "I raither think I can write. I write notes, on a paper I've got to fill up daily, on the engine; an' w'en a man's trained to do that, ma'am, it's my opinion he's fit to write in any circumstances whatsomedever. Why, you'd hardly believe it, ma'am, but I do assure you, that I wrote my fust an' last love-letter to my missus on the engine. I was drivin' the Lightenin' at the time--that's the name o' my engine, ma'am, an' they calls me Jack Blazes in consikence--well, I'd bin courtin' Molly, off-an'-on, for about three months. She b'longed to Pinchley station, you must know, where we used to stop to give her a drink--"
"What! to give Molly a drink?"
"No, ma'am," replied John, with a slight smile, "to give the ingine a drink. Well, she met me nigh every day 'xcept Sundays at that station, and as we'd a pretty long time there--about five minutes--we used to spend it beside the pump, an' made the most of it. But somehow I took it into my head that Molly was playin' fast an' loose with me, an' I was raither cool on her for a time. Hows'ever, her father bein' a pointsman, she wos shifted along with him to Langrye station--that's where your son is, ma'am--an' as we don't stop there we was obleeged to confine our courtship to a nod an' a wave of a handkerchief. Leastwise she shook out a white handkerchief an' I flourished a lump o' cotton-waste. Well, one day as we was close upon Langrye station--about two miles--I suddenly takes it into my head that I'd bring the thing to a pint, so I sings out to my mate--that was my fireman, ma'am--says I, `look out Jim,' an' I draws out my pencil an' bends my legs--you must always bend your legs a little, ma'am, w'en you writes on a locomotive, it makes springs of 'em, so to speak--an' I writes on the back of a blank time-bill, `Molly, my dear, no more shilly-shallyin' with me. Time's up. If you'll be tender, I'll be locomotive. Only say the word and we're coupled for life in three weeks. A white handkerchief means yes, a red 'un, no. If red, you'll see a noo driver on the 10:15 a.m. express day after to-morrow. John Marrot.' I was just in time to pitch the paper crumpled up right into her bosom," continued the driver, wiping his forehead as if the deep anxiety of that eventful period still affected him, "an' let me tell you, ma'am, it requires a deal o' nice calculation to pitch a piece o' crumpled paper true off a locomotive goin' between fifty and sixty miles an hour; but it went all straight--I could see that before we was gone."
"And what was the result?" asked the little old lady as earnestly as if that result were still pending.
"W'y, the result wos as it should be! My letter was a short 'un, but it turned out to be a powerful brake. Brought her up sharp--an' we was coupled in less than six weeks."
"Amazing phase of human life!" observed Mrs Tipps, gazing in admiration at the stalwart giant who stood deferentially before her.
"Well, it was a raither coorious kind o' proposal," said Marrot with a smile, "but it worked uncommon well. I've never wanted to uncouple since then."
"Pardon me, Mr Marrot," said Mrs Tipps, with little hysterical laugh--knowing that she was about to perpetrate a joke--"may I ask if there are any--any