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In order to make sense of this you will need to;
Read Part 1 Here!
Waving Flags Part 2
William checked his pocket watch. It was time to leave. He slung the canister over his shoulder and placed the pea free whistle in his waistcoat pocket. Anne wiped invisible dust from his jacket lapels and looked with pride upon her husband as he leant forward to peck her on the cheek. The stove hat fell forward covering William’s eyes, a problem soon remedied by adding paper lining to the hat to fasten it more securely to his head. Wisely, the hat was not put on until he had left the lee of the house.
Accompanied by Lottie and squeaking boot, he began the short walk to work pondering the size of his late father-in-law’s noggin but nevertheless proud of his hat and canister. Neighbours called out wishing him good luck, some with an undercurrent of jealousy that “Tippy Toes Bleasedale” as he was nicknamed, had landed such a coveted position on the Liverpool Manchester Railway.
Children followed down the street in a gaggle of ragged excitement and even Mr. Jellicoe, apron dripping from the slaughter of beasts, came to the doorway of his butcher’s shop to pass on his best wishes.
William smiled and flicked his tongue over the trapped bacon.
“This is as far as you go now Lottie, off home to mother.”
“When can I come to work with you Father?”
“Fret not child, only two years to your eighth birthday and then I’ll get you a job at the Pit.”
“Thanks Father!”
On the Station platform a plume of steam arose from the ominous engine, liveried in bright yellow, that bore the name “Rocket” on a bold brass plate. Stephenson and Locke were fussing around the machine, staring at dials, tapping gauges, polishing brass work. Anything to pass the time. Stephenson looked above to the heavens scanning for rain clouds.
Edmonds the taciturn engine driver, selected for the task because he was taciturn, sat idly on the locomotive’s footplate, oblivious to their discussions, smoking a pipe.
Locke looked up at William as he arrived.
“Fine ‘at William.”
“Aye Sir, was wife’s father’s afore he died. Bin savin’ it for special occasion.”
“And this is a special occasion!” Replied Locke enthusiastically before returning to distract himself with agreeably pointless tasks around the machine.
William retired to the Storeroom, knocking his hat askew as on the lintel. His co-worker Arnold Quilley was brewing tea, something Quilley, another veteran of Waterloo, was apt to be found doing. Brewing tea and talking sedition in the guise of Irish Republicanism were the two favourite pastimes of Arnold Quilley, native of Roscommon on the island of Ireland.
William opened the canister to retrieve the two flags. He practiced waving them in hopefully a stolid and dependable manner. Confident that the waving was up to scratch, he drank the tea Quilley had made. The pair each smoked a pipe.
“Big day,” Quilley said.
“Aye,”
“I could take Wellington with one shot with me musket. One shot to free Ireland from the English yoke.”
“Are you going to?”
“No.”
“Tea?”
“Go on then.”
The heads of people, adorned in caps, bonnets or stove pipe’s, bobbed past the room’s opaque window. The pair heard gasps of astonishment from outside. Even dogs yelped when they first set eyes upon the locomotive beast.
People were accustomed to steam engines and mechanical leviathans producing the wealth that was being spewed out of the factories and mines but to see such a magnificent machine with wheels; a machine that would transport them to Liverpool in less than an hour! Well, the collective mind of the people boggled.
William thanked his luck that Locke had been in the Foundry that day as he waved a flag to inform the smelters to release the pig iron into the ingots. A grand opportunity now lay before him.
The zealot preacher Ezekiel Pardew appeared, berating the ungodly nature of the mechanical beast before them, “The Lord’s fury will by vented upon all railers!” he proclaimed and continued a speck flumed invective against contraptions, motioning machines, traction engines and a broader assault on the scientific notions of mankind before finally desisting and gawping at the activity in front of him.
At something he or no other man has set eyes upon before.
The Rocket spewed steam, cussed and strained to move. The noises were new. Never heard before. Noises created by man. In the forge, in the engine rooms, in the imagination and the art of the possible. Man had conquered nature. Bent it to his will and this is how his triumph sounded.
The mechanised world was imminent.
Part 3 tomorrow!