The poor nurse was in a pitiable state of mind. A railway journey had always been to her a thing of horror. The reader may therefore form some conception of what it was to her to have been thus suddenly called away from quiet suburban life to undertake not only a railway journey, but to be shut up with a gang of would-be murderers and encounter a sort of accident in addition! By the time she had reached London she had become quite incapable of connected thought. Even the precious parcel, which at first had been an object of the deepest solicitude, was forgotten; and although she had hugged it to her breast not two minutes before, she suffered it to drop under the seat as she was led from the train to the cab.
“Drive to the Clarendon,” said Captain Lee, as he and Gurwood followed the nurse into the cab; “we will take care of her,” he added to Edwin, “till she is better able to take care of herself.”
Mrs Durby gave vent to a hysterical sob of gratitude.
Arrived at the Clarendon they alighted, the captain paid the fare, and the cab was dismissed. Just at that moment Mrs Durby became a temporary maniac. She shrieked, “Oh! my parcel!” and rushed towards the door.
The captain and waiter restrained her.
“It’s in the cab!” she yelled with a fervour there was no resisting.
Edwin, comprehending the case, dashed down the steps and followed the cab; but he might as well have followed the proverbial needle in the haystack. Hundreds of cabs, carts, busses, and waggons were passing the Clarendon. He assaulted and stopped four wrong cabs, endured a deal of chaff, and finally returned to the hotel discomfited.
Thus suddenly was Mrs Durby bereft of her treasure and thrown into abject despair. While in this condition she partially unbosomed herself to Captain Lee, and, contrary to strict orders, revealed all she knew about the embarrassments of Mrs Tipps, carefully concealing, however, the nature of the contents of her lost parcel, and the real object of her journey to London.
One more paragraph in regard to this eventful trip of the “Flying Dutchman” ere we have done with the subject.
Having finished his journey, John Marrot took his iron steed to the stable. Usually his day’s work terminated at Clatterby; but, owing to the horse being in need of extra rest he had to stop in London that night. And no wonder that the Lightning was sometimes fatigued, for even an ordinary express engine on the Grand National Trunk Railway was wont to run over 270 miles of ground in a day, at the rate of about forty-five miles an hour, and with a dead weight of 120 tons, more or less, at her tail. This she did regularly, with two “shed-days,” or days of rest, in the week for cleansing and slight repairs. Such an engine was considered to do good service if it ran 250 days in the year. But the engine of the “Flying Dutchman” was more highly favoured than other engines—probably on the ground of the principle taught by the proverb, “It is the pace that kills.” Its regular run was 1,544 miles in the day, and assuredly it stood in need of repose and refreshment quite as much as ordinary horses do. Its joints had become relaxed with severe labour, its bolts had been loosened, its rubbing surfaces, despite the oil poured so liberally on them by Will Garvie, had become heated. Some of them, unequally expanded, strained and twisted; its grate-bars and fire-box had become choked with “clinkers,” and its tubes charged with coke.