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At last Mrs Marrot left the "works," declaring that her brain was "whirling worser than was the wheels and machinery they had just left," while Bob asseverated stoutly that his appetite for the stupendous had only been whetted. In this frame of mind the former went home to nurse her husband, and the latter was handed over to his future master, the locomotive superintendent of the line.
This altered the case so much that Mrs Marrot expressed herself quite ready to allow Gertie to undergo that amount of education, and hoped it would do her good, though, for her part she did not believe in education herself, seeing that she had got on in life perfectly well without it. She also expressed some curiosity to know who was so good as to take such an interest in her child.
No doubt in this last operation he felt that he was paying off old scores, for many a severe beating on the back had Mrs Marrot given him in the stormy days of his babyhood. The baby of whom Nanny Stocks was now the guardian was baby Gurwood, and a strong resemblance it bore to the old baby in the matters of health, strength, fatness, and self-will.
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.
But all this afforded no gratification to Mrs Marrot, whose sensitive mind dwelt uneasily on the humiliated locomotive, until she suddenly came on a row of new first-class carriages, where a number of people were employed stuffing cushions. "Well, I declare," she exclaimed, "if here ain't cushion-stuffing going on! I expect we shall come to coat-and-shift-making for porters and guards, next!"
Never since John Marrot had driven it had the Lightning so nearly resembled its namesake. The pace was increased to seventy-five and eighty miles an hour. It was awful. Objects flew past with flashing speed. The clatter of the engine was deafening. A stern chase is proverbially a long one; but in this case, at such a speed, it was short.
Mrs Marrot was then directed to observe the rim of the wheel, where she saw a small chisel cutting iron curls off it just as easily, to all appearance, as a turner cuts shavings off wood and these iron curls were not delicate; they were thick, solid, unpliant ringlets, that would have formed a suitable decoration for the fair brow of a locomotive, or, perhaps, a chignon supposing that any locomotive could have been prevailed on to adopt such a wild monstrosity!
"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.
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." There was there, also, a tall, slim, good-looking youth, who seemed to be on very intimate terms with Bob Marrot.
If any man in the world needed a cool clear head and a quick steady hand, with ample nightly as well as Sabbath rest, that man was John Marrot, the engine-driver. When we think of the constant pressure of responsibility that lay on him, and the numbers in the kingdom of the class to which he belonged, it seems to us almost a standing miracle that railways are so safe and accidents so very rare.
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