Anthony Trollope, Railway adventures, Irish repartees.

Chapter XIV

Anthony Trollope: his night encounter - A race for life on an engine - Railway adventures - I become Commissioner of Public Works - Some Irish repartees and ready car-drivers - Rail against road - No cause for uneasiness.

I was in Cork I first met Anthony Trollope, who was then an *employé *in. the Post-office Department. He gave me the following account of his first visit to Ireland. He had been ordered to proceed at once to a remote village in the far west, to make inquiries respecting irregularities in the post-office there. After a weary journey, he arrived late in the afternoon at his destination, and had to put up at a small public-house, the only place of entertainment in the village. His bedroom was approached by a flight of steps, half stairs, half ladder, not far from perpendicular. The room was scantily furnished; it contained two beds close together, a table, a chair, and a basin-stand. Weary, after his long journey on the outside of a coach, he retired early, and tried to fasten his door, but found he could not, as it had neither lock nor bolt. When he went to bed it was some time before he slept, as he felt nervous and uncomfortable in this strange, wild place. At last he fell into an uneasy restless sort of sleep, and did not know how long he had been sleeping, when he suddenly woke up and heard a footstep stealthily approaching his bed. Frightened, and but half awake, he sprang from his bed, seized the intruder, and found himself grappling with a powerful man, clad, like himself, only in his shirt, whom he held so tightly by the throat that he could not speak. In their struggle they came to the open door, where his antagonist stumbled and fell down the stairs.

Aroused by the noise of the struggle and fall, the inmates of the house rushed into the room and struck a light. The moment they had done so Trollope heard his landlady cry out -

“Oh, boys, that murderin’ villain upstairs has killed his raverence?”

“We’ll soon settle the b--- sassenach,” said the men rushing to the steps; and but for the intervention of the half-strangled priest who had now come to himself, Trollope would, no doubt have been lynched.

When peace was established, apologies made and accepted, and an explanation given, he found that the man he had assaulted was the parish priest, who, having been kept out at a late call in this remote part of his parish, had come into the public-house to get a bed. Hearing that an English gentleman was occupying the other bed in the room, he went up as noiselessly as possible, undressed, put out his candle, and was creeping to bed as softly as he could, lest he should disturb the sleeping stranger. He was amazed when he was seized by the throat and flung down the stairs. Fortunately he was none the worse for his fall, and he and Trollope became fast friends. After some time, when they met again, they had a hearty laugh over their first acquaintance.

During my residence in Cork, and for many years afterwards, I constantly travelled on engines, and though I never met with any accident worth speaking of, I ran some risks, of which the following are a few examples.

One pitch-dark night I had rather an unpleasant ride from the Limerick junction to Charleville. The line of railway from Dublin to Cork was nearly finished; a single line of rails had just been roughly laid to Charleville, and two engines were employed in ballasting the line and in drawing waggon-loads of rails and sleepers. One of the engines, called “The William Dargan,” after the contractor, was a large and powerful one; the other, much smaller, was named “The Lady MacNeill,” after the wife of Sir John MacNeill, the engineer.

I was staying at Charleville, and had to attend a trial in the town of Tipperary. I told Robert Edwards, the contractor’s engineer - a wild, reckless young fellow he then was

• to have the little engine ready at the junction at eight in the evening, to take me back to Charleville. I was kept later in Tipperary than I had expected, and did not get to the junction till after half-past eight. We got up on the engine and started, Edwards driving at a great pace.

“Better not go so fast, Edwards,” said I; “the road is very rough, and we’ll be off as sure as fate.”

“I know the road is rough,” said he; “but it’s better to run the chance of being killed that way, than to be surely killed the other way if we go slow.”

“What other way?” I asked.

“Why,” he said, “I told the ‘William Dargan’ to start from Charleville, with a rake of empty waggons, exactly at nine o’clock, if we weren’t in before that, and if we don’t run fast she’ll be into us, and send us to glory.”

“Better go back to the junction, and wait till she comes,” I suggested.

“Never fear,” he said. “It’s only twenty miles; I’ll do it in time.”

So on we went, the engine jumping, and every minute swaying from side to side; two or three times I was certain we were off the line. I may say we were running for our lives, for when we arrived the big engine had actually whistled, and in half a minute would have started.

A few days later things did not turn out so favourably. Either through some misdirection or the misunderstanding of directions, the two engines did meet on the line. Edwards and an assistant of his, named Mulqueen, with the driver and fireman, were on the small engine - I was not, luckily for me, able to go with them that morning. Just as they came out of a cutting they saw the big engine coming towards them at full speed. “Make your soul, Mulqueen; we’re done,” said Edwards. The driver reversed the engine and put on the break, and just before the “William Dargan” was upon them they jumped off, and all escaped unhurt except Mulqueen, who had his arm broken. The weight of the large engine threw the little “Lady MacNeill” off the line and down an embankment, at the foot of which she lay, much shattered, on her side; the “William Dargan” held its own, and none of those on it were hurt.

One night, near Thurles, some one, either for mischief or for sport, dropped a huge stone from the parapet of a bridge on the engine. It struck the fireman, who fell insensible on the foot-plate. We thought at first that he was killed, but he soon revived; his head was badly cut and his collarbone broken.

Another time, when the line from Waterford to Tramore was just finished, I was riding on the engine, when we saw a boy placing a very large stone, which he could scarcely carry, on the rail. He then stood beside the line watching for the result. We pulled up as quickly as possible, and were going comparatively slow when we reached the stone, which the ironguard in front of the wheel threw off the line. We stopped the engine, jumped off, and gave chase to the boy, whom we very soon captured. He was a small boy about ten years old. We led him back, weeping piteously, and took him up on the engine. He besought us not to kill him. We told him we would not kill him, but that we would bring him into Waterford, where he would be tried, and undoubtedly hanged next morning for trying to kill us. When we had gone about half a mile we stopped and let him off; and didn’t the little chap run! He evidently feared lest we should change our minds again and deliver him up to the hangman.

The railway between Bagnalstown and Kilkenny, of which I was engineer, was a single line. One morning a regiment - I think a battalion of the Rifle Brigade - was to leave Kilkenny for Bagnalstown. Owing to some mistake as to his orders, the station-master started a heavy goods train from the latter town, and telegraphed to the station-master at Kilkenny, “Don’t start the soldiers till the goods train which I have just started arrives.” The reply he got was, “Your goose is cooked; the soldiers have started.” Fortunately the trains came in sight of each other on a long, straight part of the line; but even so the drivers were barely able to pull up in time to prevent a collision. Had they met anywhere else, an accident would have been inevitable.

In 1853 I again took lip my abode in Dublin. I was sorry to leave Cork, where I had spent five happy years amongst some of the kindest and most hospitable people in Ireland, and where I had had plenty of salmon and trout fishing in the Lee and other rivers, and, as I had leave to shoot on all the neighbouring properties, capital snipe shooting too. The next ten years were the busiest of my life. During them I was engineer to many railways and other important works, and so continued, with the additional duties of engineer to the Irish Light Railway Board, till 1863, when 4 was offered the appointment of Commissioner of Public Works in Ireland, which I accepted, having been much pressed to do so by my friends in the Irish Government.

My work as an engineer involved much travelling by coach and car in country and in town, and many a pleasant driver I have met. One old fellow had driven me to my office on a bitterly cold winter’s morning. I arrived in a snowstorm, and never did I see such a picture of cold as the poor old man; his whiskers and his beard stiff with frost and snow, and a miniature icicle depending from his nose. Having paid him his fare, I said to him (a little unfeelingly perhaps), “I hope the midges are not biting you this morning.” “Bedad, they are, your honour,” he answered; “an’ it’s what I think this hate will be for thunder.”

On Knockacuppal Hill, a very steep one on the road from Mallow to Killarney, a small boy clad in only one garment - an old corduroy jacket - used to run after the coach as it went slowly up the hill, asking for pennies. I heard an English lady, who was on the box-seat beside the coachman, say to him, “Isn’t it very sad to see that poor little fellow with nothing on him but that wretched little jacket?” “Ma’am,” said the coachman, “that boy could have clothes enough if he choose.” “And why hasn’t he?” she said. “Well now, ma’am, that boy is so wonderful ticklesome that he never could stand to let a tailor take his measure for a pair of trousers.”

The Rev. Dr. Marshall, a well-known convert to Rome, who was a very large man, about 19 or 20 stone weight, had been attending a meeting at the Rotunda, in Dublin, and took a covered car to go to Drumcondra, where he was staying. Before he got into the car he asked the driver to tell him what the fare was. *

Driver. *“I’ll Pave that to you, your raverence.”

*Dr. Marshall. *“But how much is it?”

*Driver. *“Whatever your raverence plazes.”

*Dr. Marshall. *“That won’t do. I shall not get into the car till you tell me the fare.”

*Driver. *“Get in at once, your raverence, for if the horse turns and gets a sight of you, the divil a step he’ll go at all.”

The late Father O’Dwyer, parish priest of Enniskerry, gave a carman, who had driven him home on a wet day, a glass of whisky. He begged for another glass. Father O’Dwyer, who knew that the man was rather too fond of spirits, refused, and, still holding the decanter in his hand, said, “Every glass of that you drink is a nail in your coffin.” “Why, then, your raverence,” said the man, “as you have the hammer in your hand, you might as well drive another nail into it.”

Another priest having given a glass of whisky to a carman who complained of not feeling well, said to him, “How do you feel now? Didn’t that make another man of you?” “Bedad, it did, your raverence; and the other man would like a glass too.”

An old lady getting into a cab in Grafton Street, in Dublin, was heard to say to the driver, “Help me to get in, my good man, for I’m very old.” “Begorra, ma’am,” said he, “no matter what age you are, you don’t look it.”

But of all the carmen I have met, George Cullen of Bray is my favourite. There is a kindliness and simplicity about him that is quite refreshing. Paul Cullen, I used to call him, after the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Paul Cullen. The carmen at Bray, too, often called him Paul, and, on my arrival from Dublin at the railway station, would call to him, “Paul, here’s the masther waiting for you.- “One windy day his hat was blown off, and one of them said to him, “Begorra, Paul, you were very nearly losing your mitre.” Sometime after I had given up my profession, and become Commissioner of Public Works, I was driving home on his car, when we had the following conversation:- *

Cullen. *“Does your honour get your health as well now as when you would he making them railroads?”

I “Yes-, Paul; thank God, I am as well as ever I was.”

*Cullen. *“Does your honour make as much money?”

I. “No, Paul I am sorry to say I do not.”

*Cullen. *“But I suppose, your honour, the situation is more respectable like?”

Another time he told me of a ghost that was occasionally seen at a well near Bray Commons.

“It was,” he said, “the spirit of a poor man that was run over and his head cut off him by the Waxford Coach.”

“Did you ever see it, Paul?” said I.

“Well now, your honour, I got a sight of it the other night when I was afther laving you and the misthress at home from Judge Crampton’s. It was standing near the well.”

I “What was it like?”

*Cullen. *“Well, it was in the form of a man.”

*I *“Did you speak to it?”

*Cullen. *“The Lord forbid that I’d spake to it.”

*I *“Did it not speak to you, Paul?”

*Cullen. *“It didn’t speak to me, your honour; but it made a terrible buzz out of it, like as if a big bee would be flying a-past you; and away I dhrove home as fast as I could pelt.”

On a wet and warm summer’s day as he drove me home I told him that if we were able to get above the clouds we should find it a lovely bright, cold day, and as we went higher it would grow colder and colder, until, if we got up high enough, we should be frozen to death. “I got a skitch of that the other day, your honour,” said Paul. “There were two gentlemen, tourists I think they wor; I drove them all round by Delgany and the Glin of the Downs, and they were spaking about them’ things - balloons I think they call them - and one of them said he went up in one of them not long since, and first he kem into a hot climate, and then into a cowld climate, and above that again be got into a climate of flies, and overhead, above all, saving your honour’s presence, he said he got up into a stinkin’ climate. That’s the way I got a skitch of it.”

When the railway between Dublin and Drogheda one of the first in Ireland - was in course of construction, I constantly travelled between these places on the Drogheda Coach, of which old Peter Pentlebury, an Englishman with an Irish wife, was the coachman. He would never bring himself to believe that the line would be finished, so for a time he was -leasant and chatty; but as he saw the works coming towards completion he grew morose, and would scarcely speak a word to any one connected with them.

The day the first engine ran from Drogheda to Dublin, as Sir John MacNeill and I were standing on the foot-plate of the engine, we saw the coachman’s wife on the platform.

“Come along, Mrs. Pentlebury,” said Sir John, “and we’ll give you the fastest drive to Dublin you ever had.”

“But how can I get down again?” said she.

“We’ll bring you in in plenty of time to come home on the coach with your husband.”

“Well, then, I thank you kindly, Sir John, I’ll go,” she said. “Shure it will ever and always be a great thing for me to say I’m the first woman that over drove from Drogheda to Dublin on the rail road.”

We did not get in quite as soon as we expected, and by the time she arrived at the coach-office, in Dorset Street, Peter was already on the box, with the reins in his hand, ready to start. Great was his amazement to see her.

“What the divil brought you here?” he said.

“To go home on the coach with you, Peter dear,” said she.

“How did you come up to town?”

“On the railroad with Sir John and Mr. Le Fanu,” she said.

“Well, go back the way you came,” said Peter, in a rage, “for the divil a step shall you come with me;” and off he drove.

No engine was going back to Drogheda that day, so she hired a car to drive the 30 miles, for which her husband, of course, had to pay; but that wasn’t all, for as Mrs. Pentlebury had a remarkably lively tongue of her own, he got a blowing up that he remembered till the day of his death. So poor Peter had cut off his nose to vex his face.

Some time after the railway from Dublin to Belfast was opened, before the days of smoking-carriages, I got into an empty compartment at Scarva junction, and had just lit my cigar, when an old gentleman got in. I had to ask him whether he had any objection to smoking, and pending his answer I put my hand with my cigar in it out of the window.- I felt the cigar hitting hard against something, and heard a voice crying out, “Well, if you wouldn’t give me anything, you mightn’t go dirtying my hand like that.” If was a porter who had stretched his hand for an expected sixpence, instead of which the lighted end of my cigar was pressed into the palm of his hand.

Ilberry, formerly traffic superintendent of the Great Southern and Western Railway, told me of an incident which he saw occur about the same time. A man was sitting in a carriage next to the open window with his back towards the engine, in one hand a pipe and in the other a match, which he was ready to light, though he was afraid to do so till the train should start, as he saw a porter watching him. Just as the train started he lit the pipe, put it in his mouth, stretched his head out of the window, and putting his thumb, with his fingers extended, to his nose, gave a farewell salute to the porter. He, however, had failed to perceive or reckon with another porter standing on the platform between him and the engine, who deftly plucked the pipe out of his mouth, put it in his own, and with his thumb to his nose, returned the passenger’s salute as the train moved off, leaving him, poor fellow, without his smoke or his pipe.

Father H--- told me that he had got into a second-class carriage one night by the last train leaving Dublin for Bray. Before the train started a woman, whose name he could not remember, but whom he recognized as a parishioner, came to the door and said, “Father James, have you any objection to my coming in here?” “Not the least,” said he. So in she came, and sat on the seat opposite to him. Off went the train at such a pace as he had never known before; it jumped and swayed from side to side. Father H--- was naturally much alarmed. The woman, observing this, said to him, “Don’t be the least unasy, Father James. Sure it’s my Jim that’s driving; and when he has a dhrop taken, it’s him that can make her walk.”

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