over the Great Northern Railway from Hitchin to King's Cross. The Great
Northern, reluctant to lose the Midland, and fearing their rivalry, had,
a few years previously, offered them running powers in perpetuity. "No,"
said Mr. Allport, "it is impossible that you can reconcile the interests
of these two great companies on the same railway; we are always only
_second-best_." Second-best certainly never suited the ambitious policy
of the Midland, and so the offer was rejected, and their line to London
made. It was at that time thought that the Midland headquarters would be
removed from Derby to London, and I remember how excited the clerical
staff and their wives and sweethearts were at the prospect. The idea was
seriously considered but, for various reasons, abandoned.

The Settle and Carlisle line, perhaps the greatest achievement of the
Midland, was not completed until sometime after I left their service. It
was opened in the year 1875. In 1866 they obtained the Act for its
construction. For some years their eyes had been as eagerly turned
towards Scotland as the eyes of Scotchmen had ever been towards England,
and for the same reason--the hope of gain. The Midland had hitherto been
excluded from any proper share of the Scotch traffic, but now having
secured the right to extend their system to Carlisle, they hoped to join
forces with their allies, the Glasgow and South-Western, and secure a
fair share of it. But "there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip,"
and in 1869 in a fit of timidity--a weakness most unusual with them--they
nearly lost this valuable right. The year 1867 was a time of great
financial anxiety; the Midland was weighted with heavy expenditure on
their London extension, the necessity for further capital became clamant,
the shareholders were seized with alarm, and a shareholders' consultative
committee was appointed, with the result that, in 1869, the company,
badgered and worried beyond endurance, actually applied to Parliament for
power to abandon the Settle and Carlisle line, and for authority to enter