Brave Tom Or The Battle That Won Part 28

"I can never thank you sufficiently for what you have already done," she said with emotion, moving to one side to make room for him.

"It was not difficult," he remarked lightly, stepping in beside her, and speaking gently to the animal, as he carefully turned him around to drive back. "I had time to prepare myself, and he was easily controlled. May I ask how it happened?"

He was sure he never saw one so beautiful as she. The excitement had brought a glow to her l.u.s.trous eyes, and there was deepening of the pink tinge on the cheeks which made her complexion perfection itself. She was still agitated, though striving hard to bring her feelings under control.

"We were driving at a brisk pace," she replied, "when a piece of paper blew across the road in front of Jack, and he was off like a shot."

Tom noticed her use of the word "we," and knew whom she meant.

"Could not Mr. Catherwood control him?"

He glanced sideways at her when he asked the question, and noticed the scornful expression that came upon her face.

"He might have done so had he a spark of _your_ courage; but the instant Jack made his leap, Mr. Catherwood flung the lines over his back, and with a call to me to jump, he sprang out of the cart and left me alone. If he had given me the lines, I could have managed Jack myself; but he wouldn't allow me even that poor privilege."

"He must have lost his head."

"Small loss to lose _such_ a head," exclaimed Miss Jennie, who evidently held a small opinion of her escort; "it's the last time I shall ever go riding with _him_."

A queer thrill pa.s.sed through Tom Gordon. He was a fervent admirer of the young lady at his side; but he had worshiped her, as may be said, as we worship a fair and brilliant star. It is something so far beyond our reach that we keep our admiration to ourself, and strive to drive the foolish feeling from our heart.

"I have no wish to injure Catherwood," was his thought; "but if he is such a coward as to desert a lady in peril, it is well she should know it before it is too late."

When Mr. Warmore referred to the young man as not only contemplating a partnership in his business, but as intending marriage, Tom Gordon held not the slightest doubt of his full meaning. He was paying court to the merchant's only daughter; and, if they were not already engaged, they expected soon to become so.

The situation of our young friend, therefore, became a most peculiar one.

He had been given an important preliminary advantage, if he chose to aspire to the love of the sweet one at his side; but he thought hard, and did not lose his self-poise or sense of honor.

"It is natural that she should despise his poltroonery and feel grateful to me," was his thought; "but, after all, it isn't likely she holds any emotion other than simple grat.i.tude. It would be base in me to presume upon it. I will not do so."

The drive was comparatively a short one to the handsome residence of the Warmores. As Tom guided the mettlesome pony through the open gate and up the winding roadway to the front of the porch, Mrs. Warmore came out pale with fright. She had just learned of the accident from G. Field Catherwood, who had limped up the steps with a rambling tale of how he had been flung headlong from the vehicle at the moment he was about to seize Jennie and lift her free.

"Thank Heaven!" exclaimed the mother, when she saw her daughter unharmed; "I was sure you were killed."

Catherwood hobbled forward from behind the lady, leaning on his cane.

"I say 'amen' to those sentiments," he added, too much fl.u.s.tered just then to use his affected style of speech. "O Jennie, my heart was broken when I was hurled out before I could save you. Allow me."

"You had better look after your own safety," she said, refusing his help, as she stepped lightly from the cart. "Jack might start again. Mother, Mr.

Gordon here saved my life."

At this moment the groom appeared, and the blushing Tom turned the horse over to him, and, pretending he had not heard the words of Jennie, lifted his hat.

"It has come out all right; I bid you good-evening."

Catherwood quickly rallied from the snub of the lady. He slipped his fingers in his vest-pocket and drew out a bill, which he handed to Tom.

"What's that for?" asked the wondering youth, taking the crumpled paper.

"Aw--that's all right, my deah fellow--you earned it--dooced clevah in you"--

Tom Gordon compressed the paper into a small wad, and placing it between his thumb and forefinger, as though it were a marble, shot it against the eyegla.s.ses of the amazed dude.

"That's my opinion of _you_," he said, turning about and walking off, before the agitated Mrs. Warmore could thank him.

"I suppose I've done it," he mused, when in the highway and walking toward Farmer Pitcairn's. "Catherwood never did like me and now he hates me. If Miss Jennie keeps up her course toward him, he will hate me more than ever. He will not rest till he gets me out of the store. Well, let him go ahead. I am not an old man yet, and the world is broad and big."

He was about to sit down to the evening meal, when a servant of Mr.

Warmore arrived with a note, requesting the pleasure of Mr. Gordon's company to dinner that evening. It was not a simple formal invitation, but was so urgent that the young man could not refuse. He returned word through the servant that he accepted with pleasure the invitation and would be soon there.

Can the youth be censured, if, with a fluttering heart, he took extra pains with his personal appearance before leaving the good farmer's home that evening? When at last he stepped forth, in full dress, swinging his light cane, you would have had to hunt a long way to find a handsomer fellow than he.

And yet, with all his delightful antic.i.p.ation, was mingled a feeling of dread. He disliked meeting Catherwood, for between them a great gulf yawned and something unpleasant was certain to occur. Jennie had witnessed his insulting offer of a reward to him for what he had done, and must have appreciated the style in which it was repulsed. She would show her feelings most decisively before the evening was over.

Besides that, he dreaded hearing the family renew their expressions of thankfulness. Tom had unquestionably performed a brave act, but no more so than hundreds of others that were continually being done every day--some of them ent.i.tled to far more credit than was his.

But the fact that he was about to spend an evening in the company of Miss Jennie herself, outweighed all these slight objections. Conscious, too, of her feeling toward him, he could not help viewing the hours just before him with a delightful flutter of antic.i.p.ation.

The first pleasant disappointment which came to Tom, after reaching the fine residence and receiving the cordial welcome of the family, was the discovery that G. Field Catherwood was not present, and would not form one of the little party. That lifted a load of apprehension from his shoulders.

Inasmuch as it had to come, Tom took the thanks of the parents like a hero. He listened with a respectful smile, blushed under the compliments, and blushed still more when Jennie with a straightforward, earnest look said,--

"Mr. Gordon may say it was not much, but it saved my life, and I shall _never_, NEVER forget it. If Mr. Catherwood had shown a hundredth part of his courage"--

"There, there, daughter," protested her father, as they seated themselves at the table, "a truce to all that; let us leave him out of the conversation."

"And, if you please, drop the whole thing," added Tom, who began to feel uncomfortable under it all.

"Since it will be more agreeable to you, we will do so," was the hearty remark of the head of the family, as all began "discussing," as the expression goes, the feast before them. "I will say, however, that Jennie did meet with one experience, in which her rescuer showed possibly more pluck than Mr. Gordon to-day."

The guest looked inquiringly at his host.

"She seems to be destined to be concerned in unpleasant adventures."

"Yes; I hope this is the last of them. What I refer to happened some five or six years ago,--possibly more than that. At any rate, she was a small girl, crossing the ferry at New York with her mother, when in the crowd and crush, by some means which I never could understand, she fell overboard. The river was full of floating ice, and she would have been drowned but for the heroism of a boy, who sprang in after her, and, at the risk of his own life, kept her afloat until both could be drawn on board."

Tom Gordon felt his face turning scarlet. He was so disturbed for the moment that he could not frame any words. He could only look at his employer and listen. In that moment there flashed upon him the explanation of a little mystery which had troubled him for months.

The first time he looked into the face of Jennie Warmore, the suspicion came to him that somewhere and at some time, under far different circ.u.mstances, he had met her. When sitting at her side in the dog-cart that afternoon, this suspicion became a certainty. He strove to account for it on the theory that it was one of those accidental resemblances which all of us have met in our experience; but he could not make himself believe it to be the fact.

Strange that he never thought of a.s.sociating her with that memorable incident in his own life! He had sacredly preserved the chain and likeness; and it was the similarity between the latter and the budding young lady that caused the perplexity in his mind. He wondered that he had not hit upon the explanation before it was flung in his face, as may be said.

By the time Mrs. Warmore had added her account to that of her husband, Tom had regained mastery of himself.

"And who was the lad that did all this?" he asked in the most innocent manner conceivable.

"That is the one feature about the affair that has always troubled me,"

said the merchant. "I have tried to find out, but have never been able to gain the first clew to his ident.i.ty. Mrs. Warmore was so frantic in mind that she did not think of the n.o.ble rescuer until he was gone. Then she made inquiries, but no one seemed to know anything about him."