"Do you mean to say that you always have to get out and lift him off the line?" I asked, wondering rather at the patience required for the task.
"That's so, sir," he replied slowly, in the same apologetic tones. "It don't take no time you see, sir, that's where it is. P'r'aps you may 'ave thought, like as I did first time, that 'e'd save 'is bacon when the engine come along. Lordy! the cold sweat broke out on me that time. I brought 'er up, sir, with the buffers at the back of 'is 'ed like them things the photographers jiminy you straight with. But 'e ain't that sort, ain't Meditations." Here Craddock asked leave to light his pipe, and in the interval I looked ahead along the narrowing red ribbon with its tinsel edge, thinking how odd it must have been to see it barred by that bronze image.
"No! that ain't his sort," continued Craddock meditatively, "though wot 'is sort may be, sir, is not my part to say. I've ar'st, and ar'st, and ar'st them pundits, but there ain't one of them can really tell, sir, 'cos he ain't got any marks about him. You see, sir, it's by their marks, like cattle, as you tell 'em. Some says he worships bloody Shivers[[6]]--'im 'oos wife you know, sir, they calls Martha Davy[[7]]--a Christian sort o' name, ain't it, sir, for a 'eathin idol?--and some says 'e worships Wishnyou Lucksmi[[8]] an' that lot, an' Holy[[9]] too, though, savin' your presence, sir, it ain't much holiness I see at them times, but mostly drink. It makes me feel quite 'omesick, I do assure you, sir, more as if they was humans like me, likewise."
"And which belief do you incline to?" I asked, for the sake of prolonging the conversation.
He drew his rough hand over his corn-coloured beard, and quite a grave look came to the blue eyes. "I inclines to Shiver," he said decisively, "and I'll tell you why, sir. Shiver's bloody; but 'e's dead on death. They calls 'im the Destroyer. 'E don't care a damn for the body; 'e's all for the spiritooal nater, like old Meditations there. Now Wishnyou Lucksmi an' that lot is the Preservers. They eats an' drinks 'earty, like me. So it stands to reason, sir, don't it? that 'e's a Shiver, and I'm a Wishnyou Lucksmi." He stood up under pretence of giving a wipe round a valve with the oily rag he held, and looked out to the horizon where the sun was setting, like a huge red signal right on the narrowing line. "So," he went on after a pause, "that's why I wouldn't 'ave 'arm come to old Meditations. 'E's a Shiver, I'm a Wishnyou Lucksmi. That's what I am."
His meaning was quite clear, and I am not ashamed to say that it touched me.
"Look here," I said, "take care you don't run over that old chap some day when you are drunk, that's all."
He bent over another valve, burnishing it. "I hope to God I don't," he said in a low voice. "That'd about finish me altogether, I expect."
We returned the next morning before daybreak; but I went on the engine, being determined to see how that bronze image looked on the permanent way when you were steaming up to it.
"You ketch sight of 'im clear this side," said Craddock, "a good two mile or more; ef you had a telescope ten for that matter. It ain't so easy t'other side with the sun a-shining bang inter the eyes. And there ain't no big wave as a signal over there. But Lordy! there ain't no fear of my missin' old Meditations."