The Iron Horse | Page 8

out, with an uncommon pretty girl."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs Tipps, flushing slightly--for she was
extremely sensitive,--and evidently much relieved by this information.
"Well, my good man, what do you wish me to do for you? anything that
is in my power to--"
"Thankee, ma'am, but I don't want you to do nothin' for me."
"Then what have you to say to me?" added the old lady with a little
smile that was clearly indicative of a kind little heart.

"I've come to take the liberty, ma'am, of askin' you to do one of my
mates a favour."
"Most willingly," said Mrs Tipps with animation. "I shall never forget
that you saved my 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?"