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"Well, I dessay it would be amoosin'; yes, I'll go, Bob, if father's better." Accordingly, much to Will Garvie's disappointment it was arranged that Mrs Marrot was to accompany him and Bob to the great railway "Works" on the following day.
Whenever Mrs Marrot said anything with unusual emphasis, baby Marrot entertained the unalterable conviction that he was being scolded; no sooner, therefore, did he observe the well-known look, and hear the familiar tones, than he opened wide his mouth and howled with injured feeling.
As for Mrs Marrot, she was too happy to have her husband at home for a whole day to care much about trifles, nevertheless she felt it her duty to reprove him, lest the children should learn a bad lesson. "There now, John, I knew you'd do it at last. You're much too violent, and you shouldn't ought to risk the baby's neck in that way. Such a mess!
Elsewhere Mrs Marrot and Bob beheld a frame full of gigantic saws cut a large log into half a dozen planks, all in one sweep, in a few minutes work which would have drawn the sweat from the brows of two saw-pit men for several hours. One thing that attracted the attention of Bob very strongly was the simple process of hole-boring.
There was a momentary deep silence, as if every one had received a shock; then Mrs Marrot exclaimed "What say 'ee, boy?" At the same time her husband demanded sternly, "Who said that?" "I don't know, father. I was passing through the shed at the time and didn't see who spoke, I only heerd 'im."
This tongue, Will Garvie assured his companion, was the hammer. "No, no, Willum," said Mrs Marrot, with a smile, "you mustn't expect me for to believe that. I may believe that the moon is made of green cheese, but I won't believe that that's a 'ammer." "No: but is it, Bill?" asked Bob, whose eyes gleamed with suppressed excitement. "Indeed it is; you shall see presently."
He sternly handed her to the bystanders, and went on powerfully but carefully removing the broken timbers and planks, until he succeeded in releasing his wife. Then he raised her in his arms, staggered with her to the neighbouring bank and laid her down. Poor Mrs Marrot was crushed and bruised terribly.
Being carefully hedged in, as we have shown, with strict rules and regulations, backed by fines in case of the slightest inattention, and the certainty of prompt dismissal in case of gross neglect or disobedience, with the possibility of criminal prosecution besides looming in the far distance, our friend, John Marrot, knowing his duties well, and feeling perfect confidence in himself and his superiors, consulted his chronometer for the last time, said, "Now, then, Bill!" and mounted his noble steed.
The real object of the visit however, was to ask Mrs Marrot to beg of her husband to take a special interest in Mrs Durby on her journey, as that excellent nurse had made up her mind to go by the train which he drove, feeling assured that if safety by rail was attainable at all, it must be by having a friend at court a good and true man at the helm, so to speak.
"H'm!" said Mr Sharp, as he and young Gurwood entered a carriage together, after having seen John Marrot placed on a pile of rugs on the floor of a first-class carriage; "there's been work brewin' up for me to-night." "How? What do you mean?" asked Edwin.
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