Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland. Joseph Tatlow
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