I had not been a fortnight
in my new position when I felt myself quite at home, as though Dublin and
the West of Ireland had been my natural habitat. Belfast and the County
Down receded into the past; and shall I confess it? much as I had liked
the north, much as I admired the industry, manliness and energy of its
people, much as I had enjoyed my life there, and highly as I esteemed the
friends I had made, something I found in my new surroundings--easier
manners, more of gaiety, and an admixture of pleasure with work--that
added to life a charm I had hitherto missed, not only in the North of
Ireland but in Glasgow and Derby as well.
The Secretary of the Midland Great Western Railway, George William
Greene, and Martin Atock, the locomotive engineer, were good fellows, and
warm friends of each other. I became and remained the sincere friend of
both until death took them hence. My principal assistant, called
_Assistant Manager_, was John P. Hornsby, now in his 85th year and living
in New Zealand. Robert Morrison, whom I stole for his good sense, manly
worth, and excellent railway ability, from the Belfast and Northern
Counties in October, 1891, succeeded Hornsby as my assistant.
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