"Hoo-r-ray!" shouted Cleg Kelly and Cleaver's boy together, till the cook and little Janet of Inverness smiled at their enthusiasm.
"But there's mair," said the engine-driver.
"It canna be better than that!" said Cleg, to whom the tale was good as new potatoes and salt butter.
[182]
"It's better!" said the engine-driver, who knew that nothing holds an audience and sharpens the edge of its appetite better than a carefully cultivated expectancy.
"It was that same day after the Port Andrew train got away, when the cowed drovers were sent to the landing-bank to wait for their cattle train, and the carriage that was coupled on to it for their transport. The driver o' the main line express was Geordie Grierson, an' he was no well-pleased man to be kept waitin' twenty minutes with his whistle yellyhooin' bluefire a' the time. He prided himsel' special on rinnin' to the tick o' the clock. So as soon as the signal dropped to clear he started her raither sharp, and she cam' into the station under a head of steam some deal faster than he had intended. Ye could hae heard the scraichin' o' the auld wood brakes a mile an' mair. But stop her they couldna. And juist as Georgie Grierson's engine was turnin' the curve to come past the facing points to the platform, what should we see but a wee bit ragged laddie, carryin' a bairn, coming staggerin' cross the metals to the near bank. Every single person on the platform cried to him to gang back. But the laddie couldna see Geordie's engine for the way he was carryin' the bairn, and maybe the noise o' the folk cryin' mazed him. So there he stood on the four-foot way, richt between the rails, and the express-engine fair on him.
"It cam' that quick our mouths were hardly shut after crying out, and our hearts had nae time to gang on again, before Muckle Alick, wha was standin' by the side o' the platform, made a spang for the bairns—as far as we could see, richt under the nose o' the engine. He gripped them baith in his airms, but he hadna time to loup clear o' the far rail. So Muckle Alick juist arched a back that was near as braid as the front of the engine [183]itsel', and he gied a kind o' jump to the side. The far buffer o' the engine took him in the broad o' his hinderlands and whammeled him and the bairns in a heap ower on the grass on the far bank.
"He gripped them baith, but he hadna time to loup clear o' the far rail."
"Then there was a sough amang us wi' the drawing in o' sae mony breaths, for, indeed, we never looked for yin o' them ever to stir again. Geordie Grierson managed to stop his train after it had passed maybe twenty yairds. He was leanin' oot o' the engine cubby half his length an' lookin' back, wi' a face like chalk, at Muckle Alick and the weans on the bank.
"But what was oor astonishment to see him rise up wi' the bairns baith in his ae arm, and gie his back a bit dust wi' the back o' the ither as if he had been dustin' flour off it.
"'Is there ocht broken, think ye, Geordie?' Muckle Alick cried anxiously to the engine-driver.
"'Guid life, Alick, are ye no killed?' said the engine-driver. And, loupin' frae his engine, Geordie ran doon, if ye will believe it, greeting like a very bairn. And, 'deed, to tell the truth, so was the maist feck o' us.
"'Killed?' says Alick; 'weel, no that I ken o'!'
"And he stepped across the rails wi' the twa weans laughin' in his airms, for a' bairns are fond o' Alick. And says he, 'I think I'll pit them in the left luggage office till we get the express cleared.' So he did that, and gied them his big turnip watch to play wi'. And syne he took the luggage over and cried the name o' the station, as if he had done nocht that day forbye eat his denner.
"Then there cam' a lassie rinnin' wi' a loaf in her airms, and lookin' every road for something.
"'Did ye see twa bairns? Oh, my wee Hugh, what's come to ye?' she cried.
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"'Ye'll find them in the luggage office, I'm thinkin', lassie,' says Alick."
And here the engine-driver of the goods train rose to depart. But his audience would not permit him.
"And what cam' o' the bairns?" cried Cleg, white with anxiety, "and what was their names, can ye tell me?"
"Na, I never heard their names, if they had ony," said Duncan Urquhart. "They were but tinkler weans, gaun the country. But Alick could tell ye, nae doot. For I saw him gang doon the street wi' the wee boy in his hand, and the lass carryin' the bairn. An' the folk were a' rinnin' oot o' their doors to shake hands wi' Alick, and askin' him if he wasna sair hurt?"
"'Na,' says he; 'I'll maybe a kennin' stiff for a day or twa, but there's nocht serious wrang—except wi' the spring o' the engine buffer! That's gye sair shauchelt!'
"And guid nicht to ye a', an' a guid sleep. That's a' I ken," said Duncan Urquhart from the kitchen door, where he was saying good-bye to the cook in a manner calculated to advance materially the interests of his niece, Janet of Inverness.
"And I'm gaun the morn's mornin' to see Muckle Alick!" cried Cleg. And he went out with the engine-driver.