The Iron Horse | Page 3

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