Tales of the Trains

Steam has invented something besides fast travelling; and if it has supplied a new method of getting through the world, it has also suggested about twenty new ways of going out of it. Now, it’s the old story of the down train and the up, both bent on keeping the same line of rails, and courageously resolving to see which is the “better man,” a point which must always remain questionable, as the umpires never survive. Again, it is the engine itself, that, sick of straight lines, catches a fancy for the waving ones of beauty, and sets out, full speed, over a fine grass country, taking the fences as coolly as Allan M’Donough himself, and caring just as little for what “comes behind:” these incidents being occasionally varied by the train taking the sea or taking fire, either of which has its own inconveniences, more likely to be imagined than described.

I remember once hearing this subject fully discussed in a railroad carriage, where certainly the individuals seemed amateurs in accidents, every man having some story to relate or some adventure to recount, of the grievous dangers of “The Rail.” I could not help questioning to myself the policy of such revelations, so long as we journeyed within the range of similar calamities; but somehow self-tormenting is a very human practice, and we all indulged in it to the utmost. The narratives themselves had their chief interest from some peculiarity in the mode of telling, or in the look and manner of the recounter; all save one, which really had features of horror all its own, and which were considerably heightened by the simple but powerful style of him who told it. I feel how totally incapable I am of conveying even the most distant imitation of his manner; but the story, albeit neither complicated nor involved, I must repeat, were it only as a reminiscence of a most agreeable fellow-traveller, Count Henri de Beulivitz, the Saxon envoy at Vienna.

“I was,” says the Count – for so far I must imitate him, and speak in the first person – “I was appointed special envoy to the Austrian court about a year and a half since, under circumstances which required the utmost despatch, and was obliged to set out the very day after receiving my appointment. The new line of railroad from Dresden to Vienna was only in progress, but a little below Prague the line was open, and by travelling thither en poste, I should reach the Austrian capital without loss of time. This I resolved on; and by the forenoon of the day after, arrived at Trübau, where I placed my carriage on a truck, and comfortably composed myself to rest, under the impression that I need never stir till within the walls of Vienna.

“If you have ever travelled in this part of Europe, I need not remind you of the sad change of prospect which ensues after you pass the Bohemian frontier. Saxony, rich in picturesque beauty; the valley of the Elbe, in many respects finer than the Rhine itself; the proud summit of the Bastey; the rock-crowned fortress of Koenigstein, – are all succeeded by monotonous tracts of dark forest, or still more dreary plains, disfigured, not enlivened by villages of wretched hovels, poor, I have heard, as the dwellings of the Irish peasant. What a contrast, too! the people, the haggard faces and sallow cheeks of the swarthy Bohemian, with the blue eye and ruddy looks of the Saxon! ‘Das Sachsenland wo die hübsche mädchen auf die Baüme wachsen.’ Proud as I felt at the superiority of my native country, I could not resist the depression, suggested by the monotony of the scene before me, its dull uniformity, its hopeless poverty; and as I sunk into a sleep, my dreams took the gloomy aspect of my waking thoughts, gloomier, perhaps, because unrelieved by all effort of volition, – a dark river unruffled by a single breeze.

“The perpetual bang! bang! of the piston has, in its reiterated stroke, something diabolically terrible. It beats upon the heart with an impression irresistibly solemn! I remember how in my dreams the accessories of the train kept flitting round me, and I thought the measured sounds were the clickings of some infernal clock, which meted out time to legions of devils. I fancied them capering to and fro amid flame and smoke, with shrieks, screams, and wild gestures. My brain grew hot with excitement. I essayed to awake, but the very rocking of the train steeped my faculties in a lethargy. At last, by a tremendous effort, I cried out aloud, and the words broke the spell, and I awoke – dare I call it awaking? I rubbed my eyes, pinched my arms, stamped with my feet; alas! it was too true! – the reality announced itself to my senses. I was there, seated in my carriage, amid a darkness blacker than the blackest night. A low rumbling sound, as of far-distant thunder, had succeeded to the louder bang of the engine. A dreadful suspicion flashed on me, – it grew stronger with each second; and, ere a minute more, I saw what had happened. The truck on which my carriage was placed had by some accident become detached from the train; and while the other portion of the train proceeded on its way, there was I, alone, deserted, and forgotten, in the dark tunnel of Trübau, – for such I at once guessed must be the dreary vault, unillumined by one ray of light or the glimmering of a single lamp. Convictions, when the work of instinct rather than reflection, have a stunning effect, that seems to arrest all thought, and produce a very stagnation of the faculties. Mine were in this state. As when, in the shock of battle, some terrible explosion, dealing death to thousands at once, will appall the contending hosts, and make men aghast with horror, so did my ideas become fixed and rooted to one horrible object; and for some time I could neither think of the event nor calculate on its consequences. Happy for me if the stupefaction continued! No sooner, however, had my presence of mind returned, than I began to anticipate every possible fatality that might occur. Death I knew it must be, and what a death! – to be run down by the train for Prague, or smashed by the advancing one from Olmutz. How near my fate might be, I could not guess. I neither knew how long it was since I entered the tunnel, nor at what hours the other trains started. They might be far distant, or they might be near at hand. Near! – what was space when such terrible power existed? – a league was the work of minutes – at that very moment the furious engine might be rushing on! I thought of the stoker stirring the red fire. I fancied I saw the smoke roll forth, thicker and blacker, as the heat increased, and through my ears went the thugging bang of the piston, quicker and quicker; and I screamed aloud in my agony, and called out to them to stop! I must have swooned, for when consciousness again came to me, I was still amid the silence and darkness of the tunnel. I listened, and oh! with what terrible intensity the human ear can strain its powers when the sounds awaited are to announce life or death! The criminal in the dock, whose eyes are riveted in a glazy firmness on him who shall speak his doom, drinks in the words ere they are well uttered, – each syllable falls upon his heart as fatal to hope as is the headsman’s axe to life. The accents are not human sounds; it is the trumpet of eternity that fills his ears, and rings within his brain, – the loud blast of the summoning angel calling him to judgment.

“Terrible as the thunder of coming destruction is, there is yet a sense more fearfully appalling in the unbroken silence of the tomb, – the stillness of death without its lethargy! Dreadful moment! – what fearful images it can call up! – what pictures it can present before the mind! – how fearfully reality may be blended with the fitful forms of fancy, and fact be associated even with the impossible!

“I tried to persuade myself that the bounds of life were already past, and that no dreadful interval of torture was yet before me; but this consolation, miserable though it was, yielded as I touched the side of the carriage, and felt the objects I so well knew. No; it was evident the dreaded moment was yet to come, – the shocking ordeal was still to be passed; and before I should sink into the sleep that knows not waking, there must be endured the torture of a death-struggle, or, mayhap, the lingering agony of protracted suffering.

“As if in a terrible compensation for the shortness of my time on earth, minutes were dragged out to the space of years, – amid the terrors of the present, I thought of the past and the future. The past, with its varied fortune of good and ill, of joy and sorrow, – how did I review it now! With what scrutiny did I pry into my actions, and call upon myself to appear at the bar of my conscience! Had my present mission to Vienna contained anything Machiavelic in its nature, I should have trembled with the superstitious terror that my misfortune was a judgment of Heaven. But no. It was a mere commonplace negotiation, of which time was the only requisite. Even this, poor as it was, had some consolation in it, – I should, at least, meet death without the horror of its being a punishment.

“I had often shuddered at the fearful narratives of people buried alive in a trance, or walled up within the cell of a convent. How willingly would I now have grasped at such an alternative! Such a fate would steal over without the terrible moment of actual suffering, – the crash and the death struggle! I fancied a thousand alleviating circumstances in the dreamy lethargy of gradual dissolution. Then came the thought – and how strange that such a thought should obtrude at such a time! – what will be said of me hereafter? – how will the newspapers relate the occurrence? Will they speculate on the agony of my anticipated doom? – will they expatiate on all that I am now actually enduring? What will the passengers in the train say, when the collision shall have taken place? Will there be enough of me left to make investigation easy? How poor G – will regret me! and I am sure he will never be seen in public till he has invented a bon mot on my destiny.

“Again, I recurred to the idea of culpability, and asked myself whether there might not be some contravention of the intentions of Providence by this newly invented power of steam, which thus involved me in a fate so dreadful? What right had man to arrogate to himself a prerogative of motion his own physical powers denied him; and why did he dare to penetrate into the very bowels of the earth, when his instinct clearly pointed to avocations on the surface? These reflections were speedily routed; for now, a low, rumbling sound, such as I have heard described as the premonitory sign of a coming earthquake, filled the tunnel. It grew louder and louder; and whether it were the sudden change from the dread stillness, or that, in reality, it were so, it sounded like the booming of the sea within some gigantic cavern. I listened anxiously, and oh, terrible thought! now I could hear the heavy thug! thug! of the piston. It was a train!

“A train coming towards me! Every sob of the straining engine sent a death-pang through me; the wild roar of a lion could not convey more terror to my heart! I thought of leaving the carriage, and clinging to the side of the tunnel; but there was only one line of rails, and the space barely permitted the train to pass! It was now too late for any effort; the thundering clamor of the engine swelled like the report of heavy artillery, and then a red hazy light gleamed amid the darkness, as though an eye of fire was looking into my very soul. It grew into a ghastly brightness, and I thought its flame could almost scorch me. It came nearer and nearer. The dark figures of the drivers passed and re-passed behind it. I screamed and yelled in my agony, and in the frenzy of the moment drew a pistol from my pocket, and fired, – why, or in what direction, I know not. A shrill scream shot through the gloom. Was it a death-cry? I could not tell, for I had fainted.

“The remainder is easily told. The train had, on discovering my being left behind, sent back an engine to fetch me; but from a mistake of the driver, who was given to suppose that I had not entered the tunnel, he had kept the engine at half speed, and without the happy accident of the pistol and the flash of the powder, I should inevitably have been run down; for, even as it was, the collision drove my carriage about fifty yards backwards, an incident of which, happily, I neither was conscious at the time, nor suffered from afterwards.”

“That comes of travelling on a foreign railroad!” muttered a ruddy-faced old gentleman in drab shorts. “Those fellows have no more notion of how to manage an engine – ”

“Than the Pope has of the polka,” chimed in a very Irish accent from the corner of the carriage.

“Very true, sir,” rejoined the former. “English is the only language to speak to the boiler. The moment they try it on with French or German, something goes wrong. You saw how they roasted the people at Versailles, and – ”

“Ah! the devil a bit they know about it at all,” interposed the Emeralder. “The water is never more than lukewarm, and there ‘s more smoke out of the chap’s pipe that stands in front than out of the funnel. They ‘ve generally an engine at each end, and it takes twenty minutes at every station to decide which way they’ll go, – one wanting this way, and the other that.”

“Is it not better in Belgium?” asked I.

“Belgium, is it? – bad luck to it for Belgium: I ought to know something of how they manage. There is n’t a word of truth among them. Were you ever at Antwerp?”

“Yes; I have passed through it several times.”

“Well, how long does it take to go from Antwerp to Brussels?”

“Something more than an hour, if I remember aright.”

“Something more! – on my conscience I think it does. See now, it’s four days and a half travelling the same journey.”

A burst of laughter irrepressible met this speech, for scarcely any one of the party had not had personal experience of the short distance alluded to.

“You may laugh as much as you please, – you’re welcome to your fun; but I went the road myself, and I ‘d like to see which of you would say I did n’t.”

There was no mistaking the tone nor the intention of the speech; it was said without any elevation of voice or any bravado of manner, but with the quiet, easy determination of a man who only asked reasonable grounds for an opportunity to blow some other gentleman’s brains out. Some disclaimed all idea of a contradiction, others apologized for the mirth at the great disparity of the two statements, – one alleging an hour for what another said four days were required; while I, anxious to learn the Irishman’s explanation, timidly hinted a desire to hear more of his travelling experiences.

He acceded to my wish with as much readiness as he would probably have done had I made overtures of battle, and narrated the following short incident, which, for memory’s sake, I have called

“MR. BLAKE IN BELGIUM.”

“I was persuaded,” quoth Mr. Blake, – “I was persuaded by my wife that we ought to go and live abroad for economy, – that there would be no end to the saving we ‘d make by leaving our house in Galway, and taking up our residence in France or Belgium. First, we ‘d let the place for at least six hundred a year, – the garden and orchard we set down for one hundred; then we ‘d send away all the lazy ‘old hangers on,’ as my wife called them, such as the gatekeepers and gardeners and stable boys. These, her sister told her, were ‘eating us up’ entirely; and her sister was a clever one too, – a widow woman that had lived in every part of the globe, and knew all the scandal of every capital in Europe, on less than four hundred a year. She told my wife that Ireland was the lowest place at all; nobody would think of bringing up their family there; no education, no manners, and, worst of all, no men that could afford to marry. This was a home-stroke, for we had five grown-up girls.

“‘My dear,’ said she, ‘you’ll live like the Duchess of Sutherland, abroad, for eight hundred a year; you ‘ll have a beautiful house, see company, keep your carriage and saddle horses, and drink Champagne every day of the week, like small beer; then velvets and lace are to be had for a song; the housemaids wear nothing but silk;’ in fact, from my wife down to little Joe, that heard sugar candy was only a penny an ounce, we were all persuaded there was nothing like going abroad for economy.

“Mrs. Fitzmaurice – that was my sister-in-law’s name – explained to us how there was nothing so expensive as Ireland.

“‘‘T is not, my dear,’ said she, ‘that things are not cheap; but that’s the reason it’s ruinous to live here. There’s old Molly the cook uses more meat in a day than would feed a foreign family for a month. If you want a beefsteak, you must kill a heifer. Now abroad you just get the joint you want, to the very size you wish, – no bone, if you don’t ask for it. And look at the waste. In the stables you keep eight horses, and you never have a pair for the carriage. The boys are mounted; but you and the girls have nothing to drive out with. Besides, what can you do with that overgrown garden? It costs you £50 a year, and you get nothing out of it but crab-apples and cabbages. No, no; the Continent is the place; and as for society, instead of old Darcy, of Ballinamuck, or Father Luke, for company, you ‘ll have Prince this, and Count that, foreign ministers and plenipotentiaries, archdukes, and attachés without end. There will be more stars round your dinner-table than ever you saw in the sky on a frosty night And the girls. I would n’t wonder if the girls, by giving a sly hint that they had a little money, might n’t marry some of the young Coburgs.’

“These were flattering visions, while for me the trap was baited with port, duty free, and strong Burgundy, at one and sixpence a bottle. My son Tom was taught to expect cigars at twopence a dozen; and my second daughter, Mary, was told that, with the least instruction, her Irish jig could be converted into a polka. In fact, it was clear we had only to go abroad to save two-thirds of our income, and become the most accomplished people into the bargain.

“From the hour this notion was mooted amongst us, Ireland became detestable. The very pleasures and pastimes we once liked, grew distasteful; even the society of our friends came associated with ideas of vulgarity that deprived it of all enjoyment.

“‘That miserable satin-turque,’ exclaimed my wife, ‘it is a mere rag, and it cost me five and ninepence a yard. Mrs. Fitz. says that a shop-girl would n’t wear it in Paris.’

“‘Infernal climate!’ cries Tom; ‘nothing but rain above and mud beneath.’

“‘And, dear papa,’ cries Sophy, ‘old Flannigan has no more notion of French than I have of fortification. He calls the man that sells sausages the ‘Marchand de combustibles.’

“If these were not reasons for going abroad, I know nothing of Ireland; and so we advertised ‘Castle Blake’ to be let, and the farming-stock to be sold. The latter wasn’t difficult. My neighbors bought up everything at short bills, to be renewed whenever they became due. As for the house, it was n’t so easy to find a tenant. So I put in the herd to take care of it, and gave him the garden for his pains. I turned in my cattle over the lawn, which, after eating the grass, took to nibbling the young trees and barking the older ones. This was not a very successful commencement of economy; but Mrs. Fitz. always said, —

“‘What matter? you ‘ll save more than double the amount the first year you are abroad.’

“To carry out their economical views, it was determined that Brussels, and not Paris, should be our residence for the first year; and thither my wife and two sons and five daughters repaired, under the special guidance of Mrs. Fitz., who undertook the whole management of our affairs, both domestic and social. I was left behind to arrange certain money matters, and about the payment of interest on some mortgages, which I consoled myself by thinking that a few years of foreign economy would enable me to pay off in full.

“It was nearly six months after their departure from Ireland that I prepared to follow, – not in such good spirits, I confess, as I once hoped would be my companions on the journey. The cheapness of Continental life requires, it would appear, considerable outlay at the first, probably on the principle that a pastry-cook’s apprentice is always surfeited with tarts during the first week, so that he never gets any taste for sweetmeats afterwards. This might account for my wife having drawn about twelve hundred pounds in that short time, and always accompanying every fresh demand for money with an eloquent panegyric on her own economy. To believe her, never was there a household so admirably managed. The housemaid could dress hair; the butler could drive the carriage; the writing-master taught music; the dancing-master gave my eldest daughter a lesson in French without any extra charge. Everything that was expensive was the cheapest in the end. Genoa velvet lasted for ever; real Brussels lace never wore out; it was only the ‘mock things’ that were costly. It was frightful to think how many families were brought to ruin by cheap articles!

“‘I suppose it’s all right,’ said I to myself; ‘and so far as I am concerned I ‘ll not beggar my family by taking to cheap wines. If they have any Burgundy that goes so high as one and eightpence, I will drink two bottles every day.’

“Well, sir, at last came the time that I was to set out to join them; and I sailed from London in the Princess Victoria, with my passport in one pocket, and a written code of directions in the other, for of French I knew not one syllable. It was not that my knowledge was imperfect or doubtful; but I was as ignorant of the language as though it was a dead one.

“‘The place should be cheap,’ thought I, ‘for certainly it has no charms of scenery to recommend it,’ as we slowly wended our way up the sluggish Scheldt, and looked with some astonishment at the land the Dutchmen thought worth fighting for. Arrived at Antwerp, I went through the ordeal of having my trunks ransacked, and my passport examined by some warlike-looking characters, with swords on. They said many things to me; but I made no reply, seeing that we were little likely to benefit by each other’s conversation; and at last, when all my formalities were accomplished, I followed a concourse of people who, I rightly supposed, were on their way to the railroad.

“It is a plaguy kind of thing enough, even for a taciturn man, not to speak the language of those about him; however, I made myself tolerably well understood at this station, by pulling out a handful of silver coin, and repeating the word Brussels, with every variety of accent I could think of. They guessed my intentions, and in acknowledgment of my inability to speak one word of French, pulled and shoved me along till I reached one of the carriages. At last a horn blew, another replied to it, a confused uproar of shouting succeeded, like what occurs on board a merchant ship when getting under weigh, and off jogged the train, at a very honest eight miles an hour; but with such a bumping, shaking, shivering, and rickety motion, it was more like travelling over a Yankee corduroy road than anything else. I don’t know what class of carriage I was in, but the passengers were all white-faced, smoky-looking fellows, with very soiled shirts and dirty hands; with them, of course, I had no manner of intercourse. I was just thinking whether I should n’t take a nap, when the train came to a dead stop, and immediately after, the whole platform was covered with queer-looking fellows, in shovelled hats, and long petticoats like women. These gentry kept bowing and saluting each other in a very droll fashion, and absorbed my attention, when my arm was pulled by one of the guards of the line, while he said something to me in French. What he wanted, the devil himself may know; but the more I protested that I could n’t speak, the louder he replied, and the more frantically he gesticulated, pointing while he did so to a train about to start, hard by.

“‘Oh! that’s it,’ said I to myself, ‘we change coaches here;’ and so I immediately got out, and made the best of my way over to the other train. I had scarcely time to spare, for away it went at about the same lively pace as the last one. After travelling about an hour and a half more, I began to look out for Brussels, and, looking at my code of instructions, I suspected I could not be far off; nor was I much mistaken as to our being nigh a station, for the speed was diminished to a slow trot, and then a walk, after a mile of which we crept up to the outside of a large town. There was no nse in losing time in asking questions; so I seized my carpet-bag, and jumped out, and, resisting all the offers of the idle vagabonds to carry my luggage, I forced my way through the crowd, and set out in search of my family. I soon got into an intricate web of narrow streets, with shops full of wooden shoes, pipes, and blankets of all the colors of the rainbow; and after walking for about three-quarters of an hour, began to doubt whether I was not traversing the same identical streets, – or was it that they were only brothers? ‘Where’s the Boulevard?’ thought I, ‘this beautiful place they have been telling me of, with houses on one side, and trees on the other; I can see nothing like it;’ and so I sat down on my carpet-bag, and began to ruminate on my situation.