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Pipes In Arcady
by
“Iss, iss,” he interrupted, with fresh chucklings; “a fair knock-out, wasn’ it? . . . You see, they was blind–poor fellas!”
“Drunk?”
“No, sir–blind–‘pity the pore blind’; three-parts blind, anyways, an’ undergoin’ treatment for it.”
“Nice sort of treatment!”
“Eh? You don’t understand. See’d us from the train, did ‘ee? Which train?”
“The 1.35 ex Millbay.”
“Wish I’d a-knowed you was watchin’ us. I’d ha’ waved my hat as you went by, or maybe blawed ‘ee a kiss–that bein’ properer to the occasion, come to think.”
Joby paused, drew the back of a hand across his laughter-moistened eyes, and pulled himself together, steadying his voice for the story.
“I’ll tell ‘ee what happened, from the beginnin’. A gang of us had been sent down, two days before, to Treba meadow, to repair the culvert there. Soon as we started to work we found the whole masonry fairly rotten, and spent the first afternoon (that was Monday) underpinnin’, while I traced out the extent o’ the damage. The farther I went, the worse I found it; the main mischief bein’ a leak about midway in the culvert, on the down side; whereby the water, perc’latin’ through, was unpackin’ the soil, not only behind the masonry of the culvert, but right away down for twenty yards and more behind the stone-facing where the line runs alongside the pool. All this we were forced to take down, shorein’ as we went, till we cut back pretty close to the rails. The job, you see, had turned out more serious than reported; and havin’ no one to consult, I kept the men at it.
“By Wednesday noon we had cut back so far as we needed, shorein’ very careful as we went, and the men workin’ away cheerful, with the footboards of the expresses whizzin’ by close over their heads, so’s it felt like havin’ your hair brushed by machinery. By the time we knocked off for dinner I felt pretty easy in mind, knowin’ we’d broke the back o’ the job.
“Well, we touched pipe and started again. Bein’ so close to the line I’d posted a fella with a flag–Bill Martin it was–to keep a look out for the down-trains; an’ about three o’clock or a little after he whistled one comin’. I happened to be in the culvert at the time, but stepped out an’ back across the brook, just to fling an eye along the embankment to see that all was clear. Clear it was, an’ therefore it surprised me a bit, as the train hove in sight around the curve, to see that she had her brakes on, hard, and was slowin’ down to stop. My first thought was that Bill Martin must have taken some scare an’ showed her the red flag. But that was a mistake; besides she must have started the brakes before openin’ sight on Bill.”
“Then why on earth was she pulling up?” I asked. “It couldn’t be signals.”
“There ain’t no signal within a mile of Treba meadow, up or down. She was stoppin’ because–but just you let me tell it in my own way. Along she came, draggin’ hard on her brakes an’ whistlin’. I knew her for an excursion, and as she passed I sized it up for a big school-treat. There was five coaches, mostly packed with children, an’ on one o’ the coaches was a board–‘Exeter to Penzance.’ The four front coaches had corridors, the tail one just ord’nary compartments.
“Well, she dragged past us to dead-slow, an’ came to a standstill with her tail coach about thirty yards beyond where I stood, and, as you might say, with its footboard right overhangin’ the pool. You mayn’t remember it, but the line just there curves pretty sharp to the right, and when she pulled up, the tail coach pretty well hid the rest o’ the train from us. Five or six men, hearin’ the brakes, had followed me out of the culvert and stood by me, wonderin’ why the stoppage was. The rest were dotted about along the slope of th’ embankment. And then the curiousest thing happened–about the curiousest thing I seen in all my years on the line. A door of the tail coach opened and a man stepped out. He didn’t jump out, you understand, nor fling hisself out; he just stepped out into air, and with that his arms and legs cast themselves anyways an’ he went down sprawlin’ into the pool. It’s easy to say we ought t’ have run then an’ there an’ rescued him; but for the moment it stuck us up starin’ an’,–Wait a bit! You han’t heard the end.