They had taken
a smaller house in the next valley, where they attempted to live on
their savings; and had been trying vainly and pitifully to struggle
with all the little habits that had been their life for thirty-five
years, and to adapt them to new quarters. Their faces were weary,
but flushed with expectation. The man kept looking up the line, and
declaring that he heard the rumble of the engine in the distance; and
whenever he said this, his wife pulled the shawl more primly about her
shoulders, straightened her back, and nervously re-arranged her posy.
When at length the whistle screamed out, at the head of the vale, I
thought they were going to tumble off the bench. The woman went white
to the lips, and stole her disengaged hand into her husband's.
"Startlin' at first, hey?" he said, bravely winning back his
composure: "but 'tis wunnerful what control the driver has, they tell
me. They only employ the cleverest men--"
A rattle and roar drowned the rest of his words, and he blinked and
leant back, holding the woman's hand and tapping it softly as the
engine rushed down with a blast of white vapour hissing under its fore
wheels, and the carriages clanked upon each other, and the whole train
came to a standstill before us.
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