The Iron Horse

We would not prolong a painful description which may, perhaps, be thought too long already—yet within certain limits it is right that men should know what their fellows suffer. After all the passengers had been removed to the special train—the dead into vans and horse-boxes and the living into carriages—the surface-men set to work to clear the line.

Poor Mrs Tipps was among the rescued, and, along with the others, was sent on to the Clatterby station by the special train.

While the people were being placed in this train, John Marrot observed Edwin Gurwood in the crowd. He chanced to be at Clatterby when the telegram of the accident arrived, and ran down in the special train to render assistance.

“I’m glad to see you, sir,” he said in a low, earnest voice. “My mate, Bill Garvie, must be badly hurt, for he’s nowhere to be found. He must be under the wreck somewheres. I wouldn’t leave the spot till I found him in or’nary circumstances; but my Mary—”

He stopped abruptly.

“I hope Mrs Marrot is not hurt?” said Edwin anxiously.

John could not reply at first. He shook his head and pointed to a carriage near at hand.

“She’s there, sir, with Gertie.”

“Gertie!” exclaimed Edwin.

“Ay, poor thing, Gertie is all right, thank the good Lord for that; but—”

Again he stopped, then with an effort continued—

“I couldn’t quit them, you know, till I’ve got ’em safe home. But my mind will be easy, Mr Gurwood, if you’ll look after Bill. We was both throw’d a good way from the ingine, but I couldn’t rightly say where. You’ll not refuse—”

“My dear Marrot,” said Edwin, interrupting him, and grasping his hand, “you may rely on me. I shall not leave the ground until he is found and cared for.”

“Thank ’ee, sir, thank ’ee,” said John, in something of his wonted hearty tone, as he returned Edwin’s squeeze of the hand, and hastened to the train, which was just ready to start.

Edwin went at once to the spot where the surface-men were toiling at the wreck in the fitful light of the fires, which flared wildly in the storm and, as they had by that time gathered intense heat, bid defiance to the rain. There were several passengers, who had just been extricated, lying on the ground, some motionless, as if dead, others talking incoherently. These he looked at in passing, but Garvie was not among them. Leaving them under the care of the surgeons, who did all that was possible in the circumstances for their relief, he ran and joined the surface-men in removing the broken timbers of a carriage, from beneath which groans were heard. With some difficulty a woman was extricated and laid tenderly on the bank. Just then Edwin observed a guard, with whom he was acquainted, and asked him if the fireman had yet been found.

“Not yet sir, I believe,” said the man. “They say that he and the driver were flung to one side of the line.”

Edwin went towards the engine, and, judging the probable direction and distance to which a man might be thrown in such an accident, went to a certain spot and sought carefully around it in all directions. For some time he sought in vain, and was on the point of giving up in despair, when he observed a cap lying on the ground. Going up to it, he saw the form of a man half-concealed by a mass of rubbish. He stooped, and, raising the head a little, tried to make out the features, but the light of the fires did not penetrate to the spot. He laid him gently down again, and was about to hasten away for assistance when the man groaned and said faintly, “Is that you, Jack?”

“No, my poor fellow,” said Edwin, stooping down. “Are you badly hurt? I am just going to fetch help to—”

“Mr Gurwood,” said the man, interrupting, “you don’t seem to know me! I’m Garvie, the fireman. Where am I? Surely there is something wrong with my left arm. Oh! I remember now. Is Jack safe? And the Missis and Gertie? Are they—”

“Don’t exert yourself,” interrupted Edwin, as Will attempted to rise. “You must keep quiet until I fetch a doctor. Perhaps you’re not much hurt, but it is well to be careful. Will you promise me to be still?”

“All right sir,” said Will, promptly.

Edwin hastened for assistance, and in a short time the fireman was carried to a place of comparative shelter and his wounds examined.

Almost immediately after the examination Edwin knelt at his side, and signed to those around him to retire.

“Garvie,” he said, in a low kind voice, “I’m sorry to tell you that the doctors say you must lose your left arm.”

Will looked intently in Edwin’s face.

“Is there no chance of savin’ it?” he asked earnestly; “it might never be much to speak of, sir, but I’d rather run some risk than lose it.”

Edwin shook his head. “No,” he said sadly, “they tell me amputation must be immediate, else your life may be sacrificed. I said I would like to break it to you, but it is necessary, my poor fellow, that you should make up your mind at once.”

“God’s will be done,” said Will in a low voice; “I’m ready, sir.”

The circumstances did not admit of delay. In a few minutes the fireman’s left arm was amputated above the elbow, the stump dressed, and himself laid in as sheltered a position as possible to await the return of the train that was to convey the dead and wounded, more recently extricated, to Clatterby.

When that train arrived at the station it was touching to witness the pale anxious faces that crowded the platform as the doors were opened and the dead and sufferers carried out; and to hear the cries of agony when the dead were recognised, and the cries of grief, strangely, almost unnaturally, mingled with joy, when some who were supposed to have been killed were carried out alive. Some were seen almost fondling the dead with a mixture of tender love and abject despair. Others bent over them with a strange stare of apparent insensibility, or looked round on the pitying bystanders inquiringly, as if they would say, “Surely, surely, this cannot be true.” The sensibilities of some were stunned, so that they moved calmly about and gave directions in a quiet solemn voice, as if the great agony of grief were long past, though it was painfully evident that it had not yet begun, because the truth had not yet been realised.

Among those who were calm and collected, though heart-stricken and deadly pale, was Loo Marrot. She had been sent to the station by her father to await the arrival of the train, with orders to bring Will Garvie home. When Will was carried out and laid on the platform alive, an irresistible gush of feeling overpowered her. She did not give way to noisy demonstration, as too many did, but knelt hastily down, raised his head on her knee, and kissed his face passionately.

“Bless you, my darling,” said Will, in a low thrilling voice, in which intense feeling struggled with the desire to make light of his misfortune; “God has sent a cordial that the doctors haven’t got to give.”

“O William!” exclaimed Loo, removing the hair from his forehead—but Loo could say no more.

“Tell me, darling,” said Garvie, in an anxious tone, “is father safe, and mother, and Gertie?”

“Father is safe, thank God,” replied Loo, with a choking voice, “and Gertie also, but mother—”

“She is not dead?” exclaimed the fireman.

“No, not dead, but very very much hurt. The doctors fear she may not survive it, Will.”

No more was said, for at that moment four porters came up with a stretcher and placed Garvie gently upon it. Loo covered him with her shawl, a piece of tarpaulin was thrown over all, and thus he was slowly borne away to John Marrot’s home.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Results of the Accident

Years passed away—as years inevitably must—and many important changes took place in the circumstances and the management of the Grand National Trunk Railway, but the results of that terrible accident did not quickly pass away. As we have said, it cost Will Garvie an arm, and nearly cost Mrs Marrot her life. We have much pleasure, however, in recording, that it did not make the full charge in this matter. A small, a very small modicum of life was left in that estimable woman, and on the strength of that, with her wonted vigour of character and invincibility of purpose, she set to work to draw out, as it were, a new lease of life. She succeeded to admiration, so much so, in fact, that but for one or two scars on her countenance, no one could have known that she had come by an accident at all. Bob Marrot was wont to say of her, in after years, that, “if it had bin his mother who had lost an arm instead of Will Garvie, he was convinced that her firmness, amountin’ a’most to obstinacy, of purpose, would have enabled her to grow on a noo arm as good as the old ’un, if not better.” We need scarcely add that Bob was an irreverent scamp!

Poor Will Garvie! his was a sad loss, yet, strange to say, he rejoiced over it. “W’y, you see,” he used to say to Bob Marrot—Bob and he being great and confidential friends—“you see, Bob, if it hadn’t bin for that accident, I never would have bin laid up and brought so low—so very nigh to the grave—and I would never have know’d what it was to be nursed by your sister too; and so my eyes might have never bin opened to half her goodness an’ tenderness, d’ye see? No, Bob, I don’t grudge havin’ had my eyes opened by the loss of an arm; it was done cheap at the price. Of course I know Loo pretty well by this time, for a few years of married life is apt to clear a good deal of dust out of one’s eyes, but I do assure you, Bob, that I never could have know’d her properly but for that accident, which was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me; an’ then, don’t ’ee see, I’m just as able to work these there points with one arm as with two.”

To which Bob would reply,—“You’re a queer fish, Bill; howsever, every man’s got a right to his own opinions.”

Will Garvie was a pointsman now. On recovering from his prolonged illness, during which he had been supported out of the Provident Fund of the railway—to which he and all the other men on the line contributed—he was put to light work at first at the station of Clatterby. By degrees his strength returned, and he displayed so much intelligence, and such calmness of nerve and coolness of courage, that he was made a pointsman at the station, and had a sentry-box sort of erection, with windows all round it, apportioned to his daily use. There he was continually employed in shifting the points for the shunting of trains, none of which dared to move, despite their mighty power and impatience, until Will Garvie gave them leave.

To John Marrot, the accident although not severe at first, had proved more damaging in the long-run. No bones had been broken, or limbs lost, but John had received a shake so bad that he did not resume his duties with the same vigour as heretofore. He continued to stick to his post, however, for several years, and, before giving it up, had the pleasure of training his son Bob in the situation which Garvie had been obliged to resign. Bob’s heart you see, had been all along set on driving the Lightning; he therefore gladly left the “Works” when old enough,—and when the opportunity offered,—to fill the preliminary post of fireman.

During this period Edwin Gurwood rose to a responsible and sufficiently lucrative situation in the Clearing-House. At the same time he employed much of his leisure in cultivating the art of painting, of which he was passionately fond. At first he painted for pleasure, but he soon found, on exhibiting one or two of his works, that picture-dealers were willing to purchase from him. He therefore began to paint for profit, and succeeded so well that he began to save and lay by money, with a view to that wife with the nut-brown hair and the large lustrous eyes, who haunted his dreams by night and became his guiding-star by day.

Seeing him thus wholly immersed in the acquisition of money, and not knowing his motive, his faithful little friend Joe Tipps one day amazed, and half-offended him, by reminding him that he had a soul to be cared for as well as a body. The arrow was tenderly shot, and with a trembling hand, but Joe prayed that it might be sent home, and it was. From that date Edwin could not rest. He reviewed his life. He reflected that everything he possessed, or hoped for, came to him, or was to come, from God; yet as far as he could make out he saw no evidence of the existence of religion in himself save in the one fact that he went regularly to church on Sundays. He resolved to turn over a new leaf. Tried—and failed. He was perplexed, for he had tried honestly.

“Tipps,” he said, one day, “you are the only man I ever could make a confidant of. To say truth I’m not given to being very communicative as to personal matters at any time, but I must tell you that the remark you made about my soul the other day has stuck to me, and I have tried to lead a Christian life, but without much success.”

“Perhaps,” said Tipps, timidly, “it is because you have not yet become a Christian.”

“My dear fellow!” exclaimed Edwin, “is not leading a Christian life becoming a Christian?”

“Don’t you think,” said Tipps, in an apologetic tone, “that leading a Christian life is rather the result of having become a Christian? It seems to me that you have been taking the plan of putting yourself and your doings first, and our Saviour last.”

We need not prolong a conversation referring to the “old, old story,” which ran very much in the usual groove. Suffice it to say that Edwin at last carefully consulted the Bible as to the plan of redemption; and, in believing, found that rest of spirit which he had failed to work out. Thenceforward he had a higher motive for labouring at his daily toil, yet the old motive did not lose but rather gained in power by the change—whereby he realised the truth that, “godliness is profitable for the life that now is as well as that which is to come.”

At last the painting became so successful that Edwin resolved to trust to it alone—said good-bye to the Clearing-House with regret—for he left many a pleasant companion and several intimate friends behind him—and went to Clatterby, in the suburbs of which he took and furnished a small villa.

Then it was that he came to the conclusion that the time had arrived to make a pointed appeal to the nut-brown hair and lustrous eyes. He went off and called at Captain Lee’s house accordingly. The captain was out—Miss Lee was at home. Edwin entered the house, but he left all his native courage and self-possession on the doorstep outside!

Being ushered into the drawing-room he found Emma reading. From that moment—to his own surprise, and according to his own statement—he became an ass! The metamorphosis was complete. Ovid, had he been alive, would have rejoiced in it! He blushed more than a poor boy caught in his first grievous offence. The very straightforwardness of his character helped to make him worse. He felt, in all its importance, the momentous character of the step he was about to take, and he felt in all its strength the love with which his heart was full, and the inestimable value of the prize at which he aimed. No wonder that he was overwhelmed.

The reader will observe that we have not attempted to dilate in this book on the value of that prize. Emma, like many other good people, is only incidental to our subject. We have been obliged to leave her to the reader’s imagination. After all, what better could we have done? Imagination is more powerful in this matter than description. Neither one nor other could, we felt, approach the reality, therefore imagination was best.

“Emma!” he said, sitting down on the sofa beside her, and seizing her hand in both of his.

“Mr Gurwood!” she exclaimed in some alarm.

Beginning, from the mere force of habit, some half-delirious reference to the weather, Edwin suddenly stopped, passed his fingers wildly through his hair, and again said, with deep earnestness,—“Emma.”

Emma looked down, blushed, and said nothing.

“Emma,” he said again, “my good angel, my guiding-star—by night and by day—for years I have—”

At that moment Captain Lee entered the room.

Edwin leaped up and stood erect. Emma buried her face in the sofa cushions.

“Edwin—Mr Gurwood!” exclaimed Captain Lee.

This was the beginning of a conversation which terminated eventually in the transference of the nut-brown hair and lustrous eyes to the artist’s villa in Clatterby. As there was a good garden round the villa, and the wife with nut-brown hair was uncommonly fond of flowers, Edwin looked out for a gardener. It was at this identical time that John Marrot resolved to resign his situation as engine-driver on the Grand National Trunk Railway. Edwin, knowing that he had imbibed a considerable amount of knowledge of gardening from Loo, at once offered to employ him as his gardener; John gladly closed with the offer, and thus it came about that he and his wife removed to the villa and left their old railway-ridden cottage in possession of Will and Loo—or, to be more correct, Mr and Mrs Garvie, and all the young Garvies.

But what of timid Mrs Tipps? The great accident did little for her beyond shaking her nervous system, and confirming her in the belief that railways were unutterably detestable; that she was not quite sure whether or not they were sinful; that, come what might, she never would enter one again; and that she felt convinced she had been born a hundred years too late, in which latter opinion most of her friends agreed with her, although they were glad, considering her loveable disposition, that the mistake had occurred. Netta did not take quite such an extreme view, and Joseph laughed at and quizzed them both, in an amiable sort of fashion, on their views.

Among all the sufferers by that accident few suffered so severely—with the exception: of course, of those who lost their lives—as the Grand National Trunk Railway itself. In the course of the trials that followed, it was clearly shown that the company had run the train much more with the view of gratifying the public than of enriching their coffers, from the fact that the utmost possible sum which they could hope to draw by it was 17 pounds, for which sum they had carried 600 passengers upwards of twenty miles. The accident took place in consequence of circumstances over which the company had no control, and the results were—that twenty persons were killed and about two hundred wounded! that one hundred and sixty claims were made for compensation—one hundred and forty of which, being deemed exorbitant or fraudulent, were defended in court; and that, eventually, the company had to pay from seventy to eighty thousand pounds! out of which the highest sum paid to one individual was 6750 pounds! The risks that are thus run by railway companies will be seen to be excessive, especially when it is considered that excursion trains afford but slight remuneration, while many of them convey enormous numbers of passengers. On the occasion of the first excursion from Oxford to London, in 1851, fifty-two of the broad-gauge carriages of the Great Western were employed, and the excursionists numbered upwards of three thousand five hundred—a very town on wheels! Truly the risks of railway companies are great, and their punishments severe.

Chapter Twenty Five.

The Last

A certain Christmas-day approached. On the morning of the day preceding, Will Garvie—looking as broad and sturdy as ever; a perfect man, but for the empty sleeve—stood at his post near his sentry-box. His duties that day were severe. At that season of the year there is a great increase of traffic on all railways, and you may be sure that the Grand National Trunk Railway had its full share.

On ordinary occasions about three hundred trains passed Will Garvie’s box, out and in, during the twelve hours, but that day there had been nearly double the number of passengers, and a considerable increase in the number of trains that conveyed them, while goods trains had also increased greatly in bulk and in numbers.

Garvie’s box abutted on a bridge, and stood in the very midst of a labyrinth of intricate crossing lines, over which trains and pilot-engines were constantly rushing and hissing, backing and whistling viciously, and in the midst of which, Will moved at the continual risk of his life, as cool as a cucumber (so Bob Garvie expressed it), and as safe as the bank.

Although thus situated in the midst of smoke, noise, dust, iron, and steam, Will Garvie managed to indulge his love for flowers. He had a garden on the line—between the very rails! It was not large, to be sure, only about six feet by two—but it was large enough for his limited desires. The garden was in a wooden trough in front of his sentry-box. It contained mignonette, roses, and heart’s-ease among other things, and every time that Will passed out of or into his box in performing the duties connected with the station, he took a look at the flowers and thought of Loo and the innumerable boys, girls, and babies at home. We need not say that this garden was beautifully kept. Whatever Will did he did well—probably because he tended well the garden of his own soul.

While he was standing outside his box during one of the brief intervals between trains, an extremely beautiful girl came on the platform and called across the rails to him.

“Hallo! Gertie—what brings you here?” he asked, with a look of glad surprise.

“To see you,” replied Gertie, with a smile that was nothing short of bewitching.

“How I wish you were a flower, that I might plant you in my garden,” said the gallant William, as he crossed the rails and reached up to shake Gertie’s hand.

“What a greedy man you are!” said Gertie. “Isn’t Loo enough for you?”

“Quite enough,” replied Will, “I might almost say more than enough at times; but come, lass, this ain’t the place for a palaver. You came to speak with me as well as to see me, no doubt.”

“Yes, Will, I came with a message from Mrs Tipps. You know that the railway men are going to present father with a testimonial to-night; well, Mrs Tipps thinks that her drawing-room won’t be large enough, so she sent me to ask you to let the men know that it is to be presented in the schoolroom, where the volunteer rifle band is to perform and make a sort of concert of it.”

“Indeed!” said Will.

“Yes; and Mrs Tipps says that Captain Lee is going to give them what she calls a cold collation, and brother Bob calls a blow-out.”

“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Will.

“Yes, I do; won’t it be delightful?” said Gertie.

“Splendid,” replied Will, “I’ll be sure to be up in good time. But, I say, Gertie, is young Dorkin to be there?”

Gertie blushed, but was spared the necessity of a reply in consequence of a deafening whistle which called Will Garvie to his points. Next moment, a passenger-train intervened, and cut her off from further communication.

According to promise, Will was at the schoolroom in good time that evening, with some thirty or forty of his comrades. Loo was there too, blooming and matronly, with a troop of boys and girls, who seemed to constitute themselves a body-guard round John Marrot and his wife, who were both ignorant at that time of the honour that was about to be done them. John was as grave, sturdy, and amiable as ever, the only alteration in his appearance being the increased number of silver locks that mingled with his black hair. Time had done little to Mrs Marrot, beyond increasing her bulk and the rosiness of her countenance.

It would be tedious to comment on all our old friends who assembled in the schoolroom on that memorable occasion. We can only mention the names of Captain Lee (alias Samuel Tough), and Mr Abel, and Mrs Tipps, and Dr Noble, and Mr Sharp, and David Blunt, and Joe Turner, and Mrs Durby, with all of whom time seemed to have dealt as leniently as with John Marrot and his wife. Sam Natly was also there, with his invalid wife restored to robust health, and supported on either side by a blooming boy and girl. And Edwin Gurwood was there with his wife and son and three daughters; and so was Joseph Tipps, looking as if the world prospered with him, as, indeed, was the case. And, of course, Netta Tipps was there, and the young curate, who, by the way, was much stouter and not nearly so stiff as when we first met him. He was particularly attentive to Netta, and called her “my dear,” in a cool free-and-easy way, that would not have been tolerated for a moment, but for the fact that they had been married for the last three months. Bob Marrot was there also—as strapping a young blade as one could wish to see, with a modest yet fearless look in his eye, that was quite in keeping with his occupation as driver of the “Flying Dutchman.”