The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Iron Horse, by R.M. Ballantyne

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Title: The Iron Horse

Author: R.M. Ballantyne

Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21740]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRON HORSE ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

THE IRON HORSE, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

TREATS OF THE ENGINE-DRIVER'S HOUSE AND HOUSEHOLD.

Talk of earthquakes! not all the earthquakes that have rumbled in
Ecuador or toppled over the spires and dwellings of Peru could compare,
in the matter of dogged pertinacity, with that earthquake which
diurnally and hourly shocked little Gertie's dwelling, quivered the
white dimity curtains of little Gertie's bed and shook little Gertie's
frame. A graceful, rounded little frame it was; yet strong, and firmly
knit--perhaps in consequence of its having been from infancy so
constantly and so well shaken together.

Her neat little body was surmounted by a head which no sculptor in
search of an antique model would have chosen. Gertie's profile was not
Grecian; her features were not classic--but they were comely, and rosy,
and so sweet that most people wanted to kiss them, and many people did.
Gertie did not object. Probably, being only six, she imagined that this
was the ordinary and natural method of salutation. Yet it was
observable that the child did not reciprocate kisses except in one or
two special cases. She had evidently a mind of her own, a fact which
was displayed most strikingly, in the passionate manner in which she
reciprocated the embraces of John Marrot, her father, when that large
hairy individual came in of an evening, and, catching her in his long
arms, pressed her little body to his damp pilot-cloth-coated breast and
her chubby face to his oily, smoke-and-soot begrimed countenance,
forgetful for the moment of the remonstrance from his wife that was sure
to follow:--

"Now then, John, there you go again. You ain't got no more power of
subjewin' your feelings than one of your own ingines, w'ich is the
schreechin'ist, fizzin'ist, crashin'ist, bustin' things I ever 'ad the
misfortune to 'ave to do with. There's a