FRIENDSHIP
Delicate health, as I have said, was my lot from childhood. After about
eighteen months of office work I had a long and serious illness and was
away from duty for nearly half a year. The latter part of the time I
spent in the Erewash Valley, at the house of an uncle who lived near Pye
Bridge. I was then under eighteen, growing fast, and when convalescing
the country life and country air did me lasting good. Though a colliery
district the valley is not devoid of rural beauty; to me it was pleasant
and attractive and I wandered about at will.
One day I had a curious experience. In my walk I came across the
Cromford Canal where it enters a tunnel that burrows beneath coal mines.
At the entrance to the tunnel a canal barge lay. The bargees asked would
I like to go through with them? "How long is it?" said I, and "how long
will it take?" "Not long," said bargee, "come on!" "Right!" said I. The
tunnel just fitted the barge, scarcely an inch to spare; the roof was so
low that a man lying on his back on a plank placed athwart the vessel,
with his feet against the roof, propelled the boat along. This was the
only means of transit and our progress was slow and dreary. It was a
journey of Cimmerian darkness; along a stream fit for Charon's boat.
About halfway a halt was made for dinner, but I had none. Although I was
cold and hungry the bargees' hospitality did not include a share of their
bread and cheese but they gave me a drink of their beer. The tunnel is
two miles long, and was drippingly wet. Several hours passed before we
emerged, not into sunshine but into the open, under a clouded sky and
heavy rain which had succeeded a bright forenoon. I was nearly five
miles from my uncle's house, lightly clad, hungry and tired. To my
friends ever since I have not failed to recommend the passage of the
Butterley tunnel as a desirable pleasure excursion.
When I returned to work my health was greatly improved and a small
advancement in my position in the office made the rest of my time at
Derby more agreeable, though, to tell the truth, I often jibbed at the
drudgery of the desk and the monotony of writing pencilled-out letters
which was now my daily task. Set tasks, dull routine, monotonous duty I
ever hated.
About this time shorthand was introduced into the railway. A public
teacher of Pitman's phonography had established himself in Derby, and the
Midland engaged him to conduct classes for the junior clerks. It was not
compulsory to attend the classes, but inducements to do so were held out.
A special increase of salary was promised to those who attained a certain
proficiency, and a further reward was offered; the two clerks who earned
most marks and, in the teacher's opinion, reached the highest
proficiency, were to be appointed assistants to the teacher and paid
eight shillings weekly during future shorthand sessions, in addition to
the special increase of salary. It was a great prize and keen was the
contest. I had the good fortune to be one of the two; and the praise I
got, and the benefit of the money made me contented for a time. My
companion in this success, I am glad to know, is to-day alive and well,
and like myself, a superannuated member of society. In his day he was a
notable athlete, at one time bicycling champion of the Midland counties;
and his prowess was won on the obsolete velocipede, with its one great
wheel in front and a very small wheel behind.
A shorthand writer, my work was now to take down letters from dictation,
a remove only for the better from the old way of writing from pencilled
drafts.
Now it was that I made my first sincere and lasting friendship, a
friendship true and deep, but which was destined to last for only ten
short years. Tom was never robust and Death's cold hand closed all too
soon a loveable and useful life. Our friendship was close and intimate,
such as is formed in the warmth of youth and which the grave alone
dissolves. To me, during those short years, it lent brightness and
gaiety to existence; and, in the days that have followed, its memory has
been, and is now, a rich possession.
With both Tom and me it was friendship at first sight, and nothing until
the final severance came ever disturbed its course. He came from Lincoln
and joined the office I was in. He was two years my senior and had the
advantage of several years' experience in station work which I had not.
We were much alike in our tastes and habits, yet there was enough of
difference between us to impart a relish to our friendship. Indifferent
health, for he was delicate too, was one of the bonds between us. We
were both fond of reading, of quiet walks and talks, and we hated crowds.
He was a good musician, played the piano; but the guitar was the
favourite accompaniment to his voice, a clear sweet tenor, and he sang
well. I was not so susceptible to the "concord of sweet sounds" as he
was, but could draw a little, paint a little, string rhymes together; and
so we never failed to amuse and interest each other. He was impulsive,
clever, quick of temper, ingenuous, and indignant at any want of truth or
candour in others; generous to a fault and tender hearted as a woman. I
was more patient than he, slower in wrath, yet we sometimes quarrelled
over trifles but, like lovers, were quickly reconciled; and after these
little explosions always better friends than ever.
At Derby, for three years or so, we were inseparable. What walks we had,
what talks, "what larks, Pip!" Dickens we adored. How we talked of him
and his books! How we longed to hear him read, but his public readings
had ended, his voice for ever become mute and a nation mourned the loss
of one who had moved it to laughter and to tears. Tom had a wonderful
memory. He would recite page after page from _Pickwick, David
Copperfield, Barnaby Rudge_ or _Great Expectations_, as well as from
_Shakespeare_ and our favourite poets. He was fond of the pathetic, but
the humorous moved him most, and his lively gifts were welcome wherever
we went.
Our favourite walk on Saturday afternoons was to the pleasant village of
Kedleston, some five miles from Derby, and to its fine old inn, which to
us was not simply the _Kedleston Inn_ and nothing more but Dickens'
_Maypole_ and nothing less. We revelled in its resemblance, or its
fancied resemblance to the famous old hostelry kept by old John Willet.
Something in the building itself, though I cannot say that, like the
_Maypole_, it had "more gable ends than a lazy man would like to count on
a sunny day," and something in its situation, and something in the
cronies who gathered in its comfortable bar, and something in the bar
itself combined to form the pleasant illusion in which we indulged. The
bar, like the _Maypole_ bar, was snug and cosy and complete. Its rustic
visitors were not so solemn and slow of speech as old John Willet and Mr.
Cobb and long Phil Parkes and Solomon Daisy, "who would pass two mortal
hours and a half without any of them speaking a single word, and who were
firmly convinced that they were very jovial companions;" but they were as
reticent and stolid and good natured as such simple country gaffers are
wont to be.
I remember in particular one Saturday afternoon in late October. It was
almost the last walk I had with Tom in Derby. The day was perfect; as
clear and bright, as mellow and crisp, as rich in colour, as only an
October day in England can be. We reached the _Maypole_ between five and
six o'clock. No young Joe Willet or gipsy Hugh was there to welcome us,
but we were soon by our two selves in a homely little room, beside a
cheerful fire, at a table spread with tea and ham and eggs and buttered
toast and cakes--our weekly treat.
When this delightful meal was over, a stroll as far as the church and the
stately Hall of the Curzons, back to the inn, an hour or so in the snug
bar with the village worthies, who welcomed our almost weekly visits and
the yarns we brought from Derby town; then back home by the broad
highway, under the star-lit sky--an afternoon and an evening to be ever
remembered.
The _Kedleston Inn_, I am told, no longer exists; no longer greets the
eye of the wayfarer, no longer welcomes him to its pleasant bar. Now it
is a farmhouse. No youthful enthusiast can now be beguiled into calling
it _The Maypole_; and, indeed, in these unromantic days, though it had
remained unchanged, there would be little danger of this I think.
Soon after this memorable day Tom left the service of the Midland for a
more lucrative situation with a mercantile firm in Glasgow, and I was
left widowed and alone. For six months or more we had been living
together in the country, some four miles from Derby, in the house of the
village blacksmith. It was a pretty house, stood a little apart from the
forge, and was called Rock Villa. I wonder if the present Engineer-in-
Chief of the Midland Railway recollects a little incident connected with
it. He (now Chief Engineer then a well grown youth of eighteen or
nineteen) was younger than I, and was preparing for the engineering
profession in which he has succeeded so well. He lived with his parents
very near to Rock Villa, and one day, for some reason or other, we said
we would each of us make a sketch of Rock Villa, afterwards compare them,
and let his sister decide which was the better, so we set to work and did
our best. In the matter of correct drawing his, I am sure, far surpassed
mine, but the young lady decided in my favour, perhaps because my
production looked more picturesque and romantic than his!
When Tom had gone I became dissatisfied with my work, and a
disappointment which I suffered at being passed over in some office
promotions increased that dissatisfaction. I was an expert shorthand
writer and this seemed to be the only reason for keeping me back from
better work, so at least I thought, and I think so still. My sense of
injustice was touched; and I determined I would, like Tom, if the
opportunity served, seek my fortune elsewhere. The chance I longed for
came. I paid a short visit to Tom, and whilst in Glasgow, obtained the
post of private clerk to the Stores Superintendent of the Caledonian
Railway, and on the last day of the year 1872, I left the Midland
Railway, to the service of which I had been as it were born, in which my
father and uncles and cousins served, against the wish of my father, and
to the surprise of my relatives. But I had reached man's estate, and
felt a pride in going my own way, and in seeking, unassisted, my fortune,
whatever it might be.
What had I learned in my first five years of railway work? Not very
much; the next few years were to be far more fruitful; but I had acquired
some business habits; a practical acquaintance with shorthand, which was
yet to stand me in good stead; some knowledge of rates and fares, their
nature and composition, which was also to be useful to me in after life;
some familiarity with the compilation of time-tables and the working of
trains; but of practical knowledge of work at stations I was quite
ignorant.
Thus equipped, without the parental blessing, with little money in my
purse, with health somewhat improved but still delicate, I bade good-bye
to Derby, light-hearted enough, and hopeful enough, and journeyed north
to join my friend Tom, and to make my way as best I could in the
commercial capital of "bonnie Scotland."