was drippingly wet. Several hours passed before we emerged, not into sunshine but into the open, under a clouded sky and heavy rain which had succeeded a bright forenoon. I was nearly five miles from my uncle’s house, lightly clad, hungry and tired. To my friends ever since I have not failed to recommend the passage of the Butterley tunnel as a desirable pleasure excursion.
When I returned to work my health was greatly improved and a small advancement in my position in the office made the rest of my time at Derby more agreeable, though, to tell the truth, I often jibbed at the drudgery of the desk and the monotony of writing pencilled-out letters which was now my daily task. Set tasks, dull routine, monotonous duty I ever hated.
About this time shorthand was introduced into the railway. A public teacher of Pitman’s phonography had established himself in Derby, and the Midland engaged him to conduct classes for the junior clerks. It was not compulsory to attend the classes, but inducements to do so were held out. A special increase of salary was promised to those who attained a certain proficiency, and a further reward was offered; the two clerks who earned most marks and, in the teacher’s opinion, reached the highest proficiency, were to be appointed assistants to the teacher and paid eight shillings weekly during future shorthand sessions, in addition to the special increase of salary. It was a great prize and keen was the contest. I had the good fortune to be one of the two; and the praise I got, and the benefit of the money made me contented for a time. My companion in this success, I am glad to know, is to-day alive and well, and like myself, a superannuated member of society. In his day he was a notable athlete, at one time bicycling champion of the Midland counties; and his prowess was won on the obsolete velocipede, with its one great wheel in front and a very small wheel behind.
A shorthand writer, my work was now to take down letters from dictation, a remove only for the better from the old way of writing from pencilled drafts.
Now it was that I made my first sincere and lasting friendship, a friendship true and deep, but which was destined to last for only ten short years. Tom was never robust and Death’s cold hand closed all too soon a loveable
and useful life. Our friendship was close and intimate, such as is formed in the warmth of youth and which the grave alone dissolves. To me, during those short years, it lent brightness and gaiety to existence; and, in the days that have followed, its memory has been, and is now, a rich possession.
With both Tom and me it was friendship at first sight, and nothing until the final severance came ever disturbed its course. He came from Lincoln and joined the office I was in. He was two years my senior and had the advantage of several years’ experience in station work which I had not. We were much alike in our tastes and habits, yet there was enough of difference between us to impart a relish to our friendship. Indifferent health, for he was delicate too, was one of the bonds between us. We were both fond of reading, of quiet walks and talks, and we hated crowds. He was a good musician, played the piano; but the guitar was the favourite accompaniment to his voice, a clear sweet tenor, and he sang well. I was not so susceptible to the “concord of sweet sounds” as he was, but could draw a little, paint a little, string rhymes together; and so we never failed to amuse and interest each other. He was impulsive, clever, quick of temper, ingenuous, and indignant at any want of truth or candour in others; generous to a fault and tender hearted as a woman. I was more patient than he, slower in wrath, yet we sometimes quarrelled over trifles but, like lovers, were quickly reconciled; and after these little explosions always better friends than ever.
At Derby, for three years or so, we were inseparable. What walks we had, what talks, “what larks, Pip!” Dickens we adored. How we talked of him and his books! How we longed to hear him read, but his public readings had ended, his voice for ever become mute and a nation mourned the loss of one who had moved it to laughter and to tears. Tom had a wonderful memory. He would recite page after page from Pickwick, David Copperfield, Barnaby Rudge or Great Expectations, as well as from Shakespeare and our favourite poets. He was fond of the pathetic, but the humorous moved him most, and his lively gifts were welcome wherever we went.
Our favourite walk on Saturday afternoons was to the pleasant village of Kedleston, some five miles from Derby, and to its fine old inn, which to us
was not simply the Kedleston Inn and nothing more but Dickens’ Maypole and nothing less. We revelled in its resemblance, or its fancied resemblance to the famous old hostelry kept by old John Willet. Something in the building itself, though I cannot say that, like the Maypole, it had “more gable ends than a lazy man would like to count on a sunny day,” and something in its situation, and something in the cronies who gathered in its comfortable bar, and something in the bar itself combined to form the pleasant illusion in which we indulged. The bar, like the Maypole bar, was snug and cosy and complete. Its rustic visitors were not so solemn and slow of speech as old John Willet and Mr. Cobb and long Phil Parkes and Solomon Daisy, “who would pass two mortal hours and a half without any of them speaking a single word, and who were firmly convinced that they were very jovial companions;” but they were as reticent and stolid and good natured as such simple country gaffers are wont to be.