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John Marrot's garden was a small one so small that the break-van of his own "Flyin' Dutchman" could have contained it easily but it was not too small to present a luxuriance, fertility, and brilliance of colour that was absolutely magnificent!
It was the forge where the heavy work was done, and where the celebrated hammer and terrific pair of scissors performed their stupendous work. At the time the visitors entered this department the various hammers chanced to be at rest, nevertheless even Mrs Marrot's comparatively ignorant mind was impressed by the colossal size and solidity of the iron engines that surrounded her.
As might have been expected in the circumstances, he was a powerful baby. We cannot afford space for a full description, but it would be wrong to omit mention of the strength of his lungs. The imitative tendency of children is proverbial. Clearly the locomotive was baby Marrot's pattern in many things. No infant that ever drew breath equalled this one at a yell.
The child was, however, a resolute little thing, and, having taken up the idea, determined to go and see Sam forthwith, as he was on duty not far from John Marrot's cottage. Sam had recently been advanced from the position of a porter, to the responsible office of a signalman.
Think of that, ye teachers of "penmanship in twelve lessons," and hide your diminished heads. John Marrot's engine, of which we have said much, and of which we mean to say still more, was not only a stupendous, but a complex creation. Its body consisted of above 5,400 pieces, all of which were almost as delicately fashioned, and put together with as much care, as watch-work.
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. 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.
But if Mrs Marrot's surprise at the scissors was great, not less great was it at the punching machine, which punched little buttons the size of a sixpence out of cold iron full half-an-inch thick.
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.
Mrs Marrot exclaimed, almost shrieked, with surprise at the intense light which gushed forth, casting even the modified daylight of the place into the shade. The proceedings of the stalwart men thereafter were in Mrs Marrot's eyes absolutely appalling almost overpowering, but Mrs M was tough both in mind and body. She stood her ground.
This garden owed its origin to Lucy Marrot's love for flowers, and it owed much of its magnificence to Will Garvie's love for Lucy; for that amiable fireman spent much of his small wage in purchasing seed and other things for the improvement of that garden, and spent the very few hours of his life, not claimed by the inexorable iron horse, in assisting to cultivate the same.
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