Poor little earnest curly-haired Gertie had been so thoroughly reared in
the midst of crashing sounds and dire alarms without any mischance
resulting, that she had come to feel at last as if the idea of danger or
disaster were a mere fiction. It was therefore a new and terrible shock
which she received, when she saw her father carried to his cottage by
four railway porters and tenderly laid in his bed; and it went to her
heart with an unaccountable thrill when she heard her father's usually
loud hearty voice say, in soft, womanly tones, "Thank 'ee, lads; thank
'ee. I'll be all right soon, please God. Good-night and thank 'ee
kindly."
"Good-night--good-night, Jack," they replied in various tones of
cheeriness; for these hard-muscled men had soft hearts, and although
they entertained fears for their friend, they were anxious, by the
hearty tones of their voices, to keep up his spirits.
"You mustn't take on like that, Missis," whispered one of them as they
were leaving the cottage door; "the doctor said for sartin that there
warn't no bones broken, and 'e didn't think there was nothink internal."
"It ain't that I'm afear'd of," whimpered poor Mrs Marrot, "but it does
go to my 'art so, to 'ear my John speak in that voice. I never 'ear'd
him do it except once before, when he was very low with fever, an'
thought himself a-dyin'."
"But 'e ain't agoin' to die _this_ time," returned the kindly porter;
"so cheer up, Missis. Good-night."
Mrs Marrot returned to the room where her husband lay, evidently
suffering severe pain, for he was very pale and his lips were
compressed. He was anxious not to alarm Gertie and Loo who stood at the
bedside. The former could not speak, and the blood had so completely
fled from her face and her small tightly-clasped hands that she
resembled a creature of wax.
"Can I do nothing to relieve the pain, dear father?" said Loo, as she
wiped the perspiration from his brow.
"Nothin', nothin', dear lass," said John, with some of his wonted
heartiness, "except git me a cup o' tea. Mayhap that'll do me good; but
the doctor'll be here soon, and he'll put me all to rights in no time."
The idea of a cup of tea was a deep device on the part of John, who
meant thereby to give Loo some active work to do and thus take her
attention off himself.
"And don't you be uneasy, Molly," he added, turning to his wife, "it
ain't a bad hurt, I'm told, an' it ain't hard for a man to suffer a bit
o' pain now an' agin when it's the Lord's will. Come, that's the
doctor's knock. Don't keep him waitin'. I knew he'd be here soon,
'cause Mr Able said he'd send him without delay."
A prolonged and somewhat painful examination of John's injuries ensued,
during which time little Gertie, with clasped hands, parted lips, and
eager eyes, watched the doctor's countenance intently. After it was
over, the doctor turned to Mrs Marrot, and said--
"I'm happy to tell you, that your husband's injuries, although severe
and painful, are not serious. No bones are broken, but he has been
severely bruised, and will require careful nursing for some time--and,"
he added, turning with a smile to the patient, "no more rushing about
the country at sixty miles an hour for several weeks to come."
Little Gertie began to breathe freely again. Her hands unclasped, and
the colour came slowly back, as she crept quietly to the bedside, and,
taking her father's large horny hand, laid her cheek softly upon it.
"Are you easier _now_, daddy?" she asked.
"Ay, much easier, God bless you, Gertie. The doctor has made things
much more comfortable. They've got a wonderful knack o' puttin' things
right--these doctors have. W'y, it minds me o' my ingine after a
longish run; she looks dirty an' all out o' sorts; but w'en I gits her
into the shed, and gives her an overhaul, you'd scarce know 'er again."
At this moment baby Marrot who had been sleeping when his father was
brought in, became suddenly conscious of internal vacuity, and forthwith
set up a lusty howl, whereupon Mrs Marrot pounced upon and throttled
him--to some extent.
"Don't stop him, Molly, my dear; you--"
The remainder of the sentence was drowned by the night express which
rushed past, joining baby Marrot in a yell, as the latter freed his
throat from his mother's grip.
"Don't stop him, Molly," repeated John; "you don't suppose that after
drivin' a locomotive for eight years I'm agoin' to be disturbed by the
small pipe of our own youngster. Let him yell, Molly; it does him good,
and it don't do me no harm."
It was now arranged that Gertie was to be head nurse on this trying
occasion--not that the appointment was considered appropriate, but it
was unavoidable, seeing that Gertie wanted it intensely, and her father
was pleased to have it so.
Gertie had never before been called upon to do anything in the nursing
way more serious than to look after baby when he had eaten too much or
scalded himself--nevertheless, the way in which she went about her
nursing would have done credit to an hospital training. She evidently
possessed a natural aptitude for the work, and went about it with a
sense of the importance of the trust that was quite charming. She was
at that tender age when such work becomes barely possible, and the
performance of it seems quite miraculous! Her father gazed at her in
bewilderment while she went about gravely smoothing his pillow and
tucking in corners of blankets, and bringing cups, and tumblers, and
spoons, and handkerchiefs, and sundry other articles, to a chair at his
bedside, so as to be within reach of his hand. Molly and Loo, besides
being highly interested, were intensely amused. It is a matter of
dispute even to this day whether baby did not perceive the marvellous
aptitude of Gertie, for he continued for a prolonged period to gaze at
her as if in solemn wonder. Mrs Marrot declared baby's gaze to be one
of admiration, but John held that it was owing to the state of
exhaustion that resulted from an unusually long fit of yelling. While
he stared thus, Gertie, having completed a number of little operations
and put the finishing touches or _pats_ to them, became suddenly aware
that every one was laughing quietly.
"What is it?" she asked, relaxing the severity of her brow and
brightening up.
They all laughed still more at this, and Gertie, looking round for an
explanation, encountered baby's glaring eyes, whereupon, supposing that
she had found out the cause, she laughed too. But she quickly dismissed
her levity and recurred to her work with renewed diligence.
It was well for the engine-driver that he had been trained in a rough
school, for his powers of endurance were severely tested that night, by
the attentions of his numerous friends who called to inquire for him,
and in some cases insisted on seeing him.
Among others came one of the directors of the company, who, seeing how
matters stood, with much consideration said that he would not sit down,
but had merely looked in for a moment, to tell John Marrot that an
appointment had been found for his son Robert in the "Works," and that
if he would send him over in the morning he would be introduced to the
locomotive superintendent and initiated into the details of his new
sphere of action.
This was very gratifying to the engine-driver of course, but much more
so to Bob himself, whose highest earthly ambition was to become, as he
styled it, an engineer. When that aspiring youth came home that night
after cleaning his lamps, he wiped his oily hands on a bundle of waste,
and sat down beside his sire to inquire considerately into his state of
body, and to give him, as he expressed it, the noos of the line.
"You see, daddy," he said, "the doctor tells me you're to be kep' quiet,
an' not allowed to talk, so in course you've got nothin' to do but lie
still an' listen while I give 'ee the noos. So 'ere goes. An' don't
you sit too near baby, mother, else you'll wake 'im up, an' we'll have a
yell as'll put talkin' out o' the question. Well then--"
"Bob," said Loo, interrupting her brother as she sat down opposite, and
began to mend one of baby's pinafores--which by the way was already so
mended and patched as to have lost much of its original form and
appearance--"Bob, Mr Able has been here, and--"
"Who's Mr Able?" demanded Bob.
"One of the directors,--don't you know?"
"How should I know?" retorted Bob; "you don't suppose that the d'rectors
is all my partikler friends, do you? There's only two or three of 'em
as has the honer of my acquaintance."
"Well," resumed Loo with a laugh, "you ought to consider Mr Able one of
your particular friends at all events, for he has been here this evening
making kind inquiries after father, and telling him that he has got you
appointed to the works that you've been so long hankering--"
"What!" interrupted Bob in great excitement; "you don't mean that, Loo?"
"Yes, I do."
"To the great Clatterby Works, where the big hammer is?"
"Well, I suppose it is to these works," said Loo.
"Ay, Bob, to the Clatterby Works, lad; so you're a made man if you only
behave yourself and do your dooty," said John Marrot in reply to his
son's look of inquiry.
In the strength of his satisfaction the boy rose, and, taking Loo round
the neck, kissed her pretty mouth heartily, after which he bestowed the
same favour on his mother and little Gertie, and looked as if he meant
to do it to baby too, but he thought better of it.
"Why, mother," he said, resuming his seat at the bedside, "these are the
works where they've got the big hammers--so big, mother; oh! you've no
notion how big they are, and heavy. Why, one of 'em is full five tons
in weight--think o' that! equal to five carts of coals, mother, all
rolled into one."
"Nonsense!" said Mrs Marrot.
"But it's _true_," said Bob, earnestly.
"Nonsense!" repeated Mrs Marrot; "w'y, what would be the use of a
hammer as no one could lift?"
"Steam lifts it, mother," said Bob, "as easy--yes, as easy as you lift
the rollin' pin."
The unbelieving woman still shook her head, smiled, and said,
"Nonsense!"
"Moreover," continued Bob, waxing enthusiastic on his favourite topic,
"I'm told, for I haven't seen 'em yet, that they've got a pair o'
scissors there as can cut cold iron as easy as you can cut paper--they
could cut through," said Bob, pausing and looking round, "they could cut
through the poker and tongs and shovel, all at one go, as easy as if
they was straws."
"Gammon!" said Mrs Marrot.
"Isn't it a fact, daddy?" cried Bob.
"Quite true, Molly, my dear. I must take you over to see the works some
day and convince you," said John with a faint smile. "But what's the
news you were goin' to give us, Bob?" he added.
"The noos?--ah; that _good_ noos drove it all out o' my 'ead. Well, as
I wos agoin' to say, there's a great to-do down at the shed, 'cause it's
said that an awful lot o' thefts has bin goin' on of late at Bingly
station, and it's bin reported that some of the drivers or firemen are
consarned in it. An' d'ee know, father," continued Bob, suddenly
becoming grave and very earnest, "I heard one o' the men say that Will
Garvie is suspected."
There was a momentary deep silence, as if every one had received a
shock; then Mrs Marrot exclaimed "What say 'ee, boy?"