That same Tom Flynn,-
Working together,

In wind and weather,

Day out and in.

Didn't know Flynn!

Well, that is queer.

Why, it's a sin

To think of Tom Flynn,

Tom with his cheer, Tom without fear,Stranger, look 'yar!

Thar in the drift

Back to the wall
He held the timbers
Ready to fall;

Then in the darkness
I heard him call-

"Run for your life, Jake!
Run for your wife's sake!

Don't wait for me."

And that was all

Heard in the din,

Heard of Tom Flynn,―

Flynn of Virginia.

That's all about

Flynn of Virginia

That lets me out

Here in the damp,

Out of the sun,

That 'ar dern'd lamp

Makes my eyes run,—
Well, there,-I'm done!

But, Sir, when you'll

Hear the next fool

Asking of Flynn,

Flynn of Virginia,-
Just you chip in,

Say you knew Flynn;

Say that you've been 'yar.

BRET HARTE.

IN THE ENGINE SHED.

The air was heavy with greasy vapour;
The wall was like cinders; the floor, of slack:
The engine-driver came to his labour,

A good-humour'd corpulent old coal-sack,

With a thick gold chain where it bulged the most,
And a beard like a brush, and a face like a toast,
And a hat half-eaten by fire and frost,

And a diamond pin in the folded dirt

Of the shawl that served him for collar and shirt
Whenever he harness'd his steed of mettle,

The shovel-fed monster that could not tire,
With limbs of steel and entrails of fire;
Above us it sang, like a big tea-kettle.

Now, I wouldn't have him think I'd note it,
Much less-ever dream that I wrote it,
But he came to his salamander toils

In one of the Devil's cast-off suits,

All charr'd, and discolour'd with rain and oils, And smear'd and sooted from muffler to boots: Some wiping, it struck him, his paws might suffer With a wisp of threads he found on the buffer;

(The improvement, indeed, was not very great).
Then he spat, and pass'd his pipe to his mate.
And his whole face laugh'd with an honest mirth,
As any extant on this grimy earth,

Welcoming me to his murky region;

And had you known him, I tell you this

Though your bright hair shiver and shrink at its roots,

O piano-fingering fellow-collegian—

You would have return'd no cold salutes

To the cheery greeting of hearty Chris,

But ungloved your hand, and lock'd it in his.

The icy sleet-storm shatters and scatters,
And falls on the pane like a pile of fetters;
He flies through it all with the world's love-letters:
The master of mighty leviathan-motions

That make for him storm when the nights are fair,
And cook him with fire and carve him with air,

While we sleep soft in the carriage cushions,
And he keeps watch on the signal red O's.
Often had Chris over England roll'd me;
You shall hear a story he told me

Of tender grace and the dewy meadows:

THE STORY.

We were driving the down express

Will at the steam, I at the coal

Over the valleys and villages!
Over the marshes and coppices!

Over the river, deep and broad!
Through the mountain! under the road!
Flying along! tearing along!
Thunderbolt engine, swift and strong,

Fifty tons she was, whole and sole!

I had been promoted to the express:

I warrant you I was proud and gay.
It was the evening that ended May,
And the sky was a glory of tenderness.
We were thundering down to a midland town-
It makes no matter about the name-

For we never stopp'd there, or anywhere
For a dozen of miles on either side:

So it's all the same

Just there you slide

With your steam shut off, and your brakes in hand,
Down the steepest and longest grade in the land
At a pace that I promise you is grand.
We were just there with the express,
When I caught sight of a muslin dress
On the bank ahead; and as we pass'd-
You have no notion of how fast-

A girl shrank back from our baleful blast.

We were going a mile and a quarter a minute With vans and carriages down the incline,

But I saw her face, and the sunshine in it, I look'd in her eyes, and she look'd in mine As the train went by, like a shot from a mortar, A roaring hell-breath of dust and smoke; And I mused for a minute, and then awoke, And she was behind us-a mile and a quarter.

And the years went on, and the express
Leap'd in her black resistlessness,

Evening by evening, England through.
Will-God rest him!-was found, a mash
Of bleeding rags, in a fearful smash

He made with a Christmas train at Crewe.

It chanced I was ill the night of the mess,
Or I shouldn't now be here alive;
But thereafter the five-o'clock out express
Evening by evening I used to drive.

And I often saw her-that lady I mean
That I spoke of before. She often stood
A-top o' the bank: it was pretty high-
Say twenty feet, and back'd by a wood.

She would pick the daisies out of the green,

To fling down at us as we went by.

We had got to be friends, that girl and I,
Though I was a rugged, stalwart chap,
I'd lift my cap,

And she a lady!

Evening by evening, when I'd spy

That she was there, in the summer air, Watching the sun sink out of the sky.

Oh, I didn't see her every night:
Bless you! no; just now and then,

And not at all for a twelvemonth quite.
Then, one evening, I saw her again,
Alone, as ever, but deadly pale,

And down on the line, on the very rail,

While a light, as of hell, from our wild wheels broke, Tearing down the slope with their devilish clamours

And deafening din, as of giants' hammers

That smote in a whirlwind of dust and smoke All the instant or so that we sped to meet her. Never, O never, had she seem'd sweeter!

I let yell the whistle, reversing the stroke Down that awful incline, and signall'd the guard To put on his brakes at once, and HARD

Though we couldn't have stopp'd. We tatter'd the rail

Into splinters and sparks, but without avail.