. If he keeps his engine all
right, the coaches behind will be all right, as far as the driver is
concerned. But once I _did_ think of the passengers. My little boy,
Bill, was among them that morning. He was a poor little cripple fellow
that we all loved more nor the others, because he _was_ a cripple, and so
quiet, and wise-like. He was going down to his aunt in the country, who
was to take care of him for a while. We thought the country air would do
him good. I did think there were lives behind me that morning; at least,
I thought hard of one little life that was in my hands. There were
twenty coaches on; my little Bill seemed to me to be in every one of 'em.
My hand trembled as I turned on the steam. I felt my heart thumping as
we drew close to the pointsman's box; as we neared the Junction, I was
all in a cold sweat. At the end of the first fifty miles I was nearly
eleven minutes behind time. 'What's the matter with you this morning?'
my stoker said. 'Did you have a drop too much last night?' 'Don't speak
to me, Fred,' I said, 'till we get to Peterborough; and keep a sharp
look-out, there's a good fellow.' I never was so thankful in my life as
when I shut off steam to enter the station at Peterborough. Little
Bill's aunt was waiting for him, and I saw her lift him out of the
carriage. I called out to her to bring him to me, and I took him upon
the engine and kissed him--ah, twenty times I should think--making him in
such a mess with grease and coal-dust as you never saw.

"I was all right for the rest of the journey. And I do believe, sir, the
passengers were safer after little Bill was gone. It would never do, you
see, for engine-drivers to know too much, or to feel too much."

NO. 3 BRANCH LINE
THE COMPENSATION HOUSE

"There's not a looking-glass in all the house, sir. It's some peculiar
fancy of my master's. There isn't one in any single room in the house."

It was a dark and gloomy-looking building, and had been purchased by this
Company for an enlargement of their Goods Station. The value of the
house had been referred to what was popularly called "a compensation
jury," and the house was called, in consequence, The Compensation House.
It had become the Company's property; but its tenant still remained in
possession, pending the commencement of active building operations. My
attention was originally drawn to this house because it stood directly in
front of a collection of huge pi