res at more frequent intervals; the driver's hand moves
oftener as he coaxes and encourages the engine along the road, his
slightest gesture betraying the utmost tension of eye and ear; the
stations, instead of echoing a long sullen roar as we go through them,
flash past us with a sudden rattle, and the engine surges down the line,
the train following with hot haste in its wake. We are in a cutting, and
the noise is deafening. Looking ahead, we see an apparently impenetrable
wall before us. Suddenly the whistle is opened, and we are in one of the
longest tunnels in England. The effect produced is the opposite of that
with which we are familiar in a railway carriage, for the change is one
from darkness to light rather than from light to darkness. The front of
the fire-box, foot-plate, and the tender, which had been rather hazily
perceived in the whirl of surrounding objects, now strike sharply on the
eye, lit up by the blaze from the fire, while overhead we see a glorious
canopy of ruddy-glowing steam. The speed is great, and the flames in the
fire-box boil up and form eddies like water at the doors of an opening
lock. Far ahead we see a white speck, which increases in size till the
fierce light from the fire pales, and we are once more in open day. The
weather has lifted, the sky is gray, but there is no longer any
appearance of mist. The hills on the horizon stand out sharply, and seem
to keep pace with us as the miles slip past. The line is clear; but there
is an important junction not far distant, and we slacken speed, to insure
a prompt pull-up should we find an adverse signal. The junction signals
are soon sighted; neither caution nor danger is indicated, and, once
clear of the station, we steam ahead as fast as ever. One peculiarity of
the view of the line ahead strikes us. Looking at a railroad line from a
field or neighboring highway, even where the rails are laid on a steep
incline, the rise and fall of the road is not very strikingly apparent.
Seen through the weather-glass, the track appears to be laid up hill and
down dale, like a path on the downs above high cliffs. Over it all we
advance, the engine laboring and puffing on one or two heavy gradients,
in spite of a full supply of steam, or tearing down the inclines with
hardly any, or none at all and the brake on. And here it may be noted
that, like modern men, modern engines have been put upon diet, and are
not allowed to indulge in so much victual as their f