As
quite a young man he had worked at the building of the branch line
from Oxford to Wolverhampton, via Worcester, the "O.W. and W.," or
"Old Wusser and Wusser," as it was called, until taken over by the
Great Western Railway. The latter, extending from London to Oxford,
was, I believe, one of Brunell's masterly conceptions, being without a
tunnel the whole way. But the new line had to pierce the Cotswolds
before reaching the Vale of Evesham, and Tom had many yarns about the
construction of the long Mickleton tunnel. Among them was a tradition
of the cost, so great that guineas laid edgeways throughout its length
would not pay for it.
In my time there was a splendid service of express trains running from
London to Worcester without a stop, and coming downhill into the Vale,
through the tunnel and towards Evesham, the speed approximated to a
mile a minute. I was talking to one of my men, a hedger, working near
the line which bounded a portion of my land, when one of the express
trains came dashing along and passed us with a roar in a few seconds.
"My word," said he, "I reckon that's a co-rider." I was puzzled, but
presently it came to me that he meant "corridor"; he had probably seen
the word in the local paper without having heard it pronounced.
It was a treat to watch Tom's magnificent physique when felling a big
tree, stripped to his shirt, with sleeves rolled up, and his gleaming
axe slowly raised and poised for a second above him before it fell
with the gathered impetus of its own weight and his powerful stress.
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