Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland Part 2

The chief clerk handed me over to one of his a.s.sistants, who without ceremony seated me on a tall stool at a high desk, and put before me, to my great dismay, a huge pile of formidable doc.u.ments which he called _Way Bills_. He gave me some instructions, but I was too confused to understand them, and too shy to ask questions. I only know that I felt very miserable and hopelessly at sea. Visions of being dismissed as an incompetent rose before me; but soon, to my great relief, it was discovered that the Way Bills were too much for me and that I must begin at more elementary duties.

A few weeks afterwards, when I had found my feet a little, I was promoted from the simple tasks a.s.signed to me in consequence of my first failure and attached to the goods-train-delays clerk, a long-bearded elderly man with a very kind face. He was quite fatherly to me and took a great deal of trouble in teaching me my work. With him I soon felt at ease, and was happy in gaining his approbation. One thing found favour in his eyes; I wrote a good clear hand and at fair speed. In those days penmanship was a fine art. No cramped or sprawling writing pa.s.sed muster. Typewriting was not dreamed of, and, at Derby, shorthand had not appeared on the scene.

One or two other juniors and myself sedulously practised imitating the penmanship of those senior clerks who wrote fine or singular hands. At this I was particularly successful and proud of my skill, until one day the chief clerk detained me after closing time, gave me a good rating, and warned me to stop such a dangerous habit which might lead, he said, to the disgrace of forgery. He spoke so seriously and shook his head so wisely that (to use Theodore Hook's old joke) "I thought there must be something in it," and so, for a long while, I gave up the practice.

Office hours in those days were nominally from nine till six, but for the juniors especially often much longer. In 1868 or 1869, 1 do not remember which, a welcome change took place; the hours were reduced to from nine till five, and arrangements made for avoiding late hours for the juniors.

This early closing was the result of an "appeal unto Caesar." The clerical staff in all the offices had combined and presented a pet.i.tion in the highest quarter. The boon was granted, and I remember the wave of delight that swept over us, and how we enjoyed the long summer evenings.

It was in the summer time the change took place.

Combined action amongst railway employees was not common then, not even in the wage-earning cla.s.s, but Trade Unionism, scarcely yet legalised, was clamouring for recognition. Strikes sometimes occurred but were not frequent.

In 1867 Mr. James Allport was general manager of the Midland Railway, Mr.

Thomas Walklate the goods manager and Mr. William Parker head of the department in which I began my railway life. Ned Farmer was a notable Midland man at that time; notable for his bucolic appearance, his genial personality, and, most of all, for the well-known songs he wrote. He was in charge of the company's horses, bought them, fed them, cared for them.

He was a big-bodied, big-hearted, ruddy-faced, farmerlike man of fifty or so; and the service was proud of him. He had a great sense of humour and used to tell many an amusing story. One morning, he told us, he had been greatly tickled by a letter which he had received from one of his inspectors whose habit it was to conclude every letter and report with the words "to oblige." The letter ran: "Dear Sir, I beg to inform you that Horse No. 99 died last night to oblige Yours truly, John Smith." He wrote the fine poem of "_Little Jim_," which everyone knew, and which almost every boy and girl could recite. His then well-known song, "_My old Wife's a good old cratur_," was very popular and was sung throughout the Midlands. The publication of his poems and songs was attended with great success. His Muse was simple, homely, humorous, pathetic and patriotic, and made a strong appeal to the natural feelings of ordinary folk. Often it was inspired by incidents and experiences in his daily life. His desk was in the same office as that in which I worked, and I was very proud of the notice he took of me, and grateful for many kindnesses he showed to me.

After spending twelve months or so in Mr. Parker's office, I was removed to another department. The office to which I was a.s.signed had about thirty clerks, all of whom, except the chief clerk, occupied tall stools at high desks.

I was one of two a.s.sistants to a senior clerk. This senior was middle- aged, and pa.s.sing rich on eighty pounds a year. A quiet, steady, respectable married man, well dressed, cheerful, contented, he had by care and economy, out of his modest salary, built for himself a snug little double-breasted villa, in a pleasant outskirt of the town, where he spent his spare hours in his garden and enjoyed a comfortable and happy life.

Except the chief clerk, whose salary was about 160 pounds, I do not believe there was another whose pay exceeded 100 pounds a year. The real head of the office, or _department_ it was called, was not the chief clerk but one who ranked higher still and was styled _Head of Department_, and he received a salary of about 300 pounds. Moderate salaries prevailed, but the sovereign was worth much more then than now, while wants were fewer. Beer was threepence the pint and tobacco threepence the ounce, and beer we drank but never whiskey or wine; and pipes we smoked but not cigars.

This chief clerk was an amiable rather ladylike person, with small hands and feet and well-arranged curly hair. He was quick and clever and work sat lightly upon him. Quiet and good natured, when necessity arose he never failed to a.s.sert his authority. We all respected him. His young wife was pretty and pleasant, which was in his favour too.

The office was by no means altogether composed of steady specimens of clerkdom, but had a large admixture of lively sparks who, though they would never set the Thames on fire, brightened and enlivened our surroundings.

There was one, a literary genius, who had entered the service, I believe by influence, for influence and patronage were in those days not unknown.

He wrote in his spare time the pantomime for a Birmingham theatre; and there constantly fluttered from his desk and circulated through the office, little sc.r.a.ps of paper containing quips and puns and jokes in prose or verse, or acrostics from his prolific pen. One clever acrostic upon the office boy, which has always remained in my memory, I should like for its delicate irony (worthy of Swift himself) to reproduce; but as that promising youth may still be in the service I feel I had better not, as irony sometimes wounds. For some time we had in the office an Apollo--a very Belvidere. He was a glory introduced into railway life by I know not what influence and disappeared after a time I know not where or why. A marvel of manly strength and grace and beauty, thirty years of age or so, and faultlessly dressed. Said to be aristocratically connected, he was the admiration of all and the darling of the young ladies of Derby. He lodged in fashionable apartments, smoked expensive cigars, attended all public amus.e.m.e.nts, was affable and charming, but reticent about himself. Why he ever came amongst us none ever knew; it was a mystery we never fathomed. He left as he came, a mystery still.

There was an oldish clerk whom we nicknamed _Gumpots_. This bore some resemblance to his surname, but there were other reasons which led to the playful designation and which I think justified it.

There was another scribe of quite an elegant sort: a perambulating tailor's dummy; a young man, well under thirty. He was good-looking, as far as regularity of features and a well-formed figure went, but mentally not much to boast of. He lounged about the station platform and the town displaying his faultlessly fitting fashionable clothes. They always looked new, and as his salary was not more than 70 pounds a year, and his parents, with whom he lived, were poor, the story that he was provided gratis by an enterprising tailor in town with these suits, on condition that he exhibited himself constantly in public, and told whenever he could who was his outfitter, received general credence, and I believe was true. He was never known to hurry, mingled little with men and less with women, but moved along in a stiff tailor-dummy fashion with a sort of self-conscious air which seemed to say, "Look at my figure and my clothes, how stylish they are!"

I remember a senior clerk in the office where I first worked to whom there was a general aversion. He was the only clerk who was really disliked, for all the others, old or young, serious or gay, steady or rackety, had each some pleasant quality. This unfortunate fellow had none. He was small, mean, cunning, a sneak and a mischief maker. He carried tales, told lies, and tried to make trouble, for no reason but to gratify his inclinations. He was a dark impish looking fellow, as lean as Ca.s.sius and as crafty and envious as Iago. The chief clerk, to his credit be it said, gave a deaf ear to his tales, and his craft and cunning obtained him little beyond our detestation.

In our own office about half our number were youths and single men and about half were married. Our youngest benedict was not more than eighteen years of age, and his salary only 45 pounds a year. On this modest income for a time the young couple lived. It was a runaway match; on the girl's part an elopement from school. They lived in apartments, kept by an old lady, a widow who, being a woman, loved a bit of romance, and was very kind to them. He was a manly young fellow, a sportsman and renowned at cricket, and she was amiable and pretty, a little blonde beauty. The parents were well to do, and in due time forgave the imprudent match. At this we all rejoiced for he was a general favourite.

Looking back now it seems to me the office staff was in some ways a curious collection and very different to the clerks of to-day. Many of them had not entered railway life until nearly middle-age and they had not a.s.similated as an office staff does now, when all join as youths and are brought up together. They were original, individual, not to say eccentric. Whilst our office included certain steady married clerks, who worked hard and lived ordinary middle-cla.s.s respectable lives, and some few bachelors of quiet habit, the rest were a lively set indeed, by no means free from inclinations to coa.r.s.e conviviality and many of them spendthrift, reckless and devil-may-care. At pay-day, which occurred monthly, most of these merry wights, after receiving their pay, betook themselves to the _Midland Tap_ or other licensed house and there indulged, for the remainder of the afternoon, in abundant beer, pouring down gla.s.s after gla.s.s; in Charles Lamb's inimitable words: "the second to see where the first has gone, the third to see no harm happens to the second, a fourth to say there is another coming, and a fifth to say he is not sure he is the last." Some of the merriest of them would not return to the office that day but extend their carouse far into the night; to sadly realise next day that it was "the morning after the night before."

I do not think our ladylike chief clerk ever indulged in these orgies, but I never knew more than the mildest remonstrance being made by him or by anyone in authority.

Pay-day was also the time for squaring accounts. "The human species,"

Charles Lamb says, "is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend." This was true of our office, but no equal division prevailed as the borrowers predominated and the lenders, the prudent, were a small minority. A general settlement took place monthly, after which a new period began--by the borrowers with joyous unconcern.

"Take no thought for the morrow" was a maxim dear to the heart of these knights of the pen.

Swearing, as I have said, was not considered low or vulgar or unbecoming a gentleman. There was a senior clerk of some standing and position, a married man of thirty-five or forty years of age, who gloried in it. His expletives were varied, vivid and inexhaustible, and the turbid stream was easily set flowing. Had he lived a century earlier he might have been put in the stocks for his profanity, a punishment which magistrates were then, by Act of Parliament, empowered to inflict. He was a strange individual. _Long Jack_ he was called. He is not in this world now so I may write of him with freedom.

No one's enemy but his own, he was kindly, good-natured, generous to a fault, but devil-may-care and reckless; and, at any one's expense, or at any cost to himself, would have his fling and his joke.

It was from his lankiness and length of limb that he was called "_Long Jack_." He stood about six feet six in his boots. He must have had means of his own, as he lived in a way far beyond the reach of even a senior clerk of the first degree. How he came to be in a railway office, or, being in, retained his place, was a matter of wonder. Sad to tell, he had a little daughter, five or six years of age; his only child, a sweet, blue-eyed golden-haired little fairy, who, never corrected, imitated her father's profanity, and apparently to his great delight. He treated it as a joke, as he treated everything. _Long Jack_ loved to scandalise the town by his eccentricities. He would compound with the butcher, to drive his fast trotting horse and trap and deliver their joints, their steaks and kidneys to astonished customers, or arrange with the milkman to dispense the early morning milk, donning a milkman's smock, and carrying two milk-pails on foot. I remember one _Good Friday_ morning when he perambulated the town with a donkey cart and sold, at an early hour, hot cross buns at the houses of his friends, afterwards gleefully boasting of having made a good profit on the morning's business. In the sixties and early seventies throughout the clerical staff of the Midland Railway were many who had not been brought up as clerks, who, somehow or other had drifted into the service, whose early avocations had been of various kinds, and whose appearance, habits and manners imparted a picturesqueness to office life which does not exist to- day, and among these. _Long Jack_ was a prominent, but despite his joviality, it seems to me a pathetic figure.

CHAPTER VI.

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 Ca.n.a.l where it enters a tunnel that burrows beneath coal mines.

At the entrance to the tunnel a ca.n.a.l 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sage of the b.u.t.terley 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 cla.s.ses for the junior clerks. It was not compulsory to attend the cla.s.ses, 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 a.s.sistants 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!" d.i.c.kens 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 d.i.c.kens'

_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 pa.s.s 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 b.u.t.tered 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 surpa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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, una.s.sisted, 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."