AN OLD GUARD.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15127, 18 February 1922, Page 6

AN OLD GUARD.

INTERESTING REMINISCENCES.

CLEAN-SHAVEN PARSONS. “I’ve had some odd experiences in my time,” said a retired railwayguard, who can look back to nearly half a century of “life on the road”; “and one of the strangest of them all was when I was guard on the Midland Railway in the seventies. “My train was just on the point of statring from St. Pancras when a pretty-looking young woman —she was little more than a girl—came hurriedly up to me and said; — “Guard, will you be kind enough to take charge of my little boy and see him safely to Leeds, where he will be met?* “ Certainly, mum,’ I answered; ‘l’ll do it with pleasure; but where is the boy?’ “ ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘l’ve put him in your van. You will take care of him, won’t you?’ she asked, as she slipped a shilling into my hand. “ ‘Oh! I’ll take care of him all right,’ I said, and with a smile and ’Thank you,’ she tripped off. “A few seconds later the train was steaming out, and I swung myself into the van and looked round for the boy. I couldn’t see him anywhere, and I began to think I had been hoaxed, until I heard a sound coming from a pile of luggage in the corner —and what do you think my eyes fell on Why, a bundle of shawls and the sweetest face you ever saw in your life peeping out of it, and cooing and smiling at me. “Here's a go! 1 thought to myself, and I can tell you my heart sank at the prospect of playing the nurse for a couple of hundred miles. I took the little one into my arms, and he began to tug at my beard and stroke my cheeks, and I fell in love with him in a moment. “It would be a long story to tell how I nursed that baby all the way to Leeds, and a lot of chaffing I've had about it since, I can tell you; but I managed it all right, and when he was taken from me at Leeds by a motherly old body, I felt somehow as if I din’t want to part with him. “It was only a few weeks later I had a very different kind of adventure. Just as we were leaving Leicester a gentleman put his head out of a first-class compartment and said; ‘Guard- just give me a look in at Sheffield, will you, and wake me up if I’m asleep?, I want to get out there."

“Well, I did give him a look at Sheffield, and found him, as I thought, fast asleep. I shouted at him and shook him, but he gave no sign of waking up; and, as a matter of fact ,the poor man never woke up again. An empty laudanum bottle by his side explained why; but it was a grim kind of joke to play on me, and it gave me a shock I didn’t get over for a long time. “Another day, just as we were leaving St. Pancras, a well-dressed man rushed on to the platform and asked me to find him an empty firstclass compartment. He me to lock him in and see that no one else entered it, as he wanted to change his clothes so as to be ready for an entertainment he was giving that evening at Bedford. “When we drew up at Bedford I went to release him; but instead of a sporting-looking man with a beard and a paddock-coat, there stepped out a clean-shaven parson with a black overcoat and a soft clerical hat. He slipped half-a-sovereign into my hand and was out of sight before 1 could say ‘Jack Robinson.’

"L couldn’t make heads or tails of it, as they say, until next morning I read a description of an embezzler who was badly wanted l by the police, and who had given them/the Slip; and from the description I knew who my sporting passenger t was and why he had so suddenly turned parson. He was caught, though, and for five years had a wardrobe thajt wouldn’t admit of many changes. “Once I had a runaway couple under my| charge—at least, so the young man told me in confidence; and you may be sure T let no one come near their compartment, not that I approve of runaway matches, but because I couldn’t resist the girl’s pretty, pleading eyes. “Perhaps the oddest passenger I ever had was an old, gentleman who often travelled with me. He took a third-class ticket, thnugh I knew him to be a wealthy man. and always got me to put him into a first-class compartment and lock him in. The old gentleman invariably gave me half-a-sovereign, which was considerably more than the difference in fares between first and third class; and you may be sure I didn’t trouble much to find out the reason of his strange Conduct. “It is a remarkable thing that the most liberal tipper I ever knew was one of the directors of the line, who professed to be severely opposed to the practice of tipping. Many a sovereign I’ve had l from him and half-sovereign, and he always used to say, with a twinkle in his eye. “Just keep this for me, John, till I ask you for it.’ ”