Ballads of Brave Deeds By H. D. Rawnsley. With a Frontispiece and Preface by G. F. Watts |
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Brave Plate-laying |
 | Ballads of Brave Deeds |  |
Brave Plate-laying
In an old Paisley churchyard that slopes down to the railway were laid to rest in the same grave, during the summer of 1874, the remains of two plate-layers, uncle and nephew, Jamieson by name.
They were working with other navvies on the railway between Glasgow and Paisley, and stood back at the approach of an express train, which, after passing them, would have to cross a lofty viaduct. The engine was in sight, when it was seen that a “sleeper” had started, and unless replaced, would wreck the train. Jamieson made a sign to his nephew; the two rushed forward; they fixed the sleeper, saved the train, and were left dead in the six-foot.
An account, by Miss F. Martin, of this heroic deed, appeared in Macmillan's Magazine at the time, and Walter Crane has made it the subject of one of his cartoons in the Red Cross Hall.— Cf. The English Illustrated Magazine, June 1893.
The signal dips! the line is clear!
He scatters dust upon the way,
Too proud to ask if mortal clay
Be cast therewith, while darkened homes
Are fruitage of his mad career.
That Jamieson's eyes were filled with light,
That Jamieson leapt upon the rail,
There in the six-foot drove the nail,
To mend the “sleeper's” deadly flaw,
And bade the younger clinch it tight.
The fiery-footed monster fared
And left a mother's heart to moan,
And left a widow, well-a-day!
To weep for those who died but dared.
From Paisley on to Glasgow town,
But all the way I see a grave
And think of those plate-layers brave
Who fixed the “sleeper” and the “chair,”
And gave for other lives their own.
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