The street lamps were already lighted on the following afternoon--when
Ruth, with Peter and Miss Felicia, alighted at the small station of
Corklesville. All through the day she had gone over in her mind the
words of the despatch:
Explosion in tunnel. MacFarlane hurt--serious--will recover. Break news
gently to daughter.
Bolton Asst. Engineer
Other despatches had met the party on the way down; one saying, “No
change,” signed by the trained nurse, and a second one from Bolton
in answer to one of Peter's: “Three men killed--others escaped.
MacFarlane's operation successful. Explosion premature.”
Their anxiety only increased: Why hadn't Jack telegraphed? Why leave it
to Bolton? Why was there no word of him,--and yet how could Bolton have
known that Peter was with Ruth, except from young Breen. In this mortal
terror Peter had wired from Albany: “Is Breen hurt?” but no answer had
been received at Poughkeepsie. There had not been time for it, perhaps,
but still there was no answer, nor had his name been mentioned in any of
the other telegrams. That in itself was ominous.
This same question Ruth had asked herself a dozen times. Jack was to
have had charge of the battery--he had told her so. Was he one of the
killed?--why didn't somebody tell her?--why hadn't Mr. Bolton said
something?--why--why--Then the picture of her father's mangled body
would rise before her and all thought of Jack pass out of her mind.
As the train rolled into the grimy station she was the first to spring
from the car; she knew the way best, and the short cut from the station
to where her father lay. Her face was drawn; her eyes bloodshot from
restrained tears--all the color gone from her cheeks.
“You bring Aunt Felicia, Uncle Peter,--and the bags;--I will go ahead,”
she said, tying her veil so as to shield her face. “No, I won't wait for
anything.”
News of Ruth's expected arrival had reached the village, and the crowd
at the station had increased. On its inner circle, close to a gate
leading from the platform, stood a young man in a slouch hat, with his
left wrist bandaged. The arm had hung in a sling until the train rolled
in, then the silk support had been slipped and hidden in his pocket.
Under the slouch hat, the white edge of a bandage was visible which
the wearer vainly tried to conceal by pulling the hat further on
his head,--this subterfuge also concealed a dark scar on his temple.
Whenever the young man pressed closer to the gate, the crowd would fall
back as if to give him room. Now and then one would come up, grab his
well hand and pat his shoulder approvingly. He seemed to be as much an
object of interest as the daughter of the injured boss.
When Ruth gained the gate the wounded man laid his fingers on her gloved
wrist. The girl started back, peered into his face, and uttered a cry of
relief.
“Mr. Breen!” For one wild moment a spirit of overwhelming joy welled up
in her heart and shone out of her eyes. Thank God he was not dead!
“Yes, Miss Ruth,--what is left of me. I wanted to see you as soon as you
reached here. You must not be alarmed about your father.” The voice did
not sound like Jack's.
“Is he worse? Tell me quick!” she exclaimed, the old fear confronting
her.
“No. He is all right,” he wheezed, “and is going to get well. His left
arm is broken and his head badly cut, but he is out of danger. The
doctor told me so an hour ago.”
“And you?” she pleaded, clinging to his proffered hand.
“Oh! I am all right, too. The smoke got into my throat so I croak, but
that is nothing. Why, Mr. Grayson,--and Miss Felicia! I am so glad, Miss
Ruth, that you did not have to come alone! This way, everybody.”
Without other words they hurried into the carriage, driving like mad for
the cottage, a mile away; all the worn look gone from Ruth's face.
“And you're not hurt, my boy?” asked Peter in a trembling voice--Jack's
well hand in his own.
“No, only a few scratches, sir; that's all. Bolton's hand's in a bad
way, though; lose two of his fingers, I'm afraid.”
“And how did you escape?”
“I don't know. I got out the best way I could. First thing I knew I was
lying on the grass and some one was pouring water over my head; then
they got me home and put me to bed.”
“And MacFarlane?”
“Oh, he came along with me. I had to help him some.”
Peter heaved a sigh of relief, then he asked:
“How did it happen?”
“Nobody knows. One of the shanty men might have dropped a box of
fulminates. Poor fellow,--he never knew; they could find nothing of
him,” Jack whispered behind his hand so Ruth would not hear.
“But when did you get out of bed?” continued Peter. He was less anxious
now.
Jack looked at Ruth and again lowered his voice; the sound of the
carriage preventing its hoarse notes from reaching her ears.
“About half an hour ago, sir; they don't know I have gone, but I didn't
want anybody to frighten Miss Ruth. I don't look so bad, do I? I fixed
myself up as well as I could. I have got on Bolton's hat; I couldn't
get mine over the bandages. My wrist is the worst--sprained badly, the
doctor says.”
If Ruth heard she made no answer, nor did she speak during the ride. Now
and then she would gaze out of the window and once her fingers tightened
on Miss Felicia's arm as she passed in full view of the “fill” with the
gaping mouth of the tunnel beyond. Miss Felicia was occupied in watching
Jack. In fact, she had not taken her eyes from him since they entered
the carriage. She saw what neither Peter nor Ruth had seen;--that the
boy was suffering intensely from hidden wounds and that the strain was
so great he was verging on a collapse. No telling what these foolish
Southerners will do, she said to herself, when a woman is to be looked
after,--but she said nothing of all this to Ruth.
When the carriage stopped and Ruth with a spring leaped from her seat
and bounded upstairs to her father's bedside, Miss Felicia holding
Jack's hand, her eyes reading the boy's face, turned and said to Peter:
“Now you take him home where he belongs and put him to bed; and don't
you let him get up until I see him. No--” she continued in a more
decided tone, in answer to Jack's protest--“I won't have it. You go to
bed just as I tell you--you can hardly stand now.”
“Perhaps I had better, Miss Felicia. I am a little shaky,” replied
Jack, in a faint voice, and the carriage kept on its way to Mrs. Hicks's
leaving the good lady on MacFarlane's porch.
MacFarlane was asleep when Ruth, trembling with excitement, reached the
house. Outside the sick room, lighted by a single taper, she met the
nurse whose few hurried words, spoken with authority, calmed her, as
Jack had been unable to do, and reassured her mind. “Compound fracture
of the right arm, Miss,” she whispered, “and badly bruised about the
head, as they all were. Poor Mr. Breen was the worst.”
Ruth looked at her in astonishment. That was why he had not lifted his
hat, she thought to herself, as she tiptoed into the sick room and sank
to her knees beside her father's bed.
The injured man opened his eyes, and his free hand moved slowly till it
rested on his daughter's head.
“I got an awful crack, Ruth, but I am all right now. Too bad to bring
you home. Who came with you?”
“Aunt Felicia and Uncle Peter,” she whispered as she stroked his
uninjured hand.
“Mighty good of them--just like old Peter. Send the old boy up--I want
to see him.”
Ruth made no answer; her heart was too full. That her father was alive
was enough.
“I'm not pretty to look at, am I, child, but I'll pull out; I have been
hurt before--had a leg broken once in the Virginia mountains when you
were a baby. The smoke was the worst; I swallowed a lot of it; and I am
sore now all over my chest. Poor Bolton's badly crippled, I hear--and
Breen--they've told you about Breen, haven't they, daughter?” His voice
rose as he mentioned the boy's name.
Ruth shook her head.
“Well, I wouldn't be here but for him! He's a plucky boy. I will never
forget him for it; you mustn't either,” he continued in a more positive
tone.
The nurse now moved to the bed.
“I would not talk any more, Mr. MacFarlane. Miss Ruth is going to be at
home now right along and she will hear the story.”
“Well, I won't, nurse, if you don't want me to--but they won't be able
to tell her what a fix we were in--I remember everything up to the time
Breen dragged me from under the dirt car. I knew right away what had
happened and what we had to do; I've been there before, but--”
“There,--that will do, Mr. MacFarlane,” interrupted the nurse. “Come,
Miss Ruth, suppose you go to your room for a while.”
The girl rose to her feet.
“You can come back as soon as I fix your father for the night.” She
pointed significantly to the patient's head, whispering, “He must not
get excited.”
“Yes, dear daddy--I will come back just as soon as I can get the dust
out of my hair and get brushed up a little,” cried Ruth bravely, in the
effort to hide her anxiety, “and then Aunt Felicia is downstairs.”
Once outside she drew the nurse, who had followed her, to the window so
as to be out of hearing of the patient and then asked breathlessly:
“What did Mr. Breen do?”
“I don't know exactly, but everybody is talking about him.”
At this moment Miss Felicia arrived at the top of the stairs: she had
heard Ruth's question and had caught the dazed expression on the girl's
face.
“I will tell you, my dear, what he did, for I have heard every word of
it from the servants. The blast went off before he and your father had
reached the opening of the tunnel. They left your father for dead, then
John Breen crawled back on his hands and knees through the dreadful
smoke until he reached him, lifted him up on his shoulders and carried
him out alive. That's what he did; and he is a big, fine, strong, noble
fellow, and I am going to tell him so the moment I get my eyes on him.
And that is not all. He got out of bed this afternoon, though he could
hardly stand, and covered up all his bruises and his broken wrist so you
couldn't see them, and then he limped down to the station so you would
get the truth about your father and not be frightened. And now he is in
a dead faint.”
Ruth's eyes flamed and the color left her cheeks. She stretched out both
hands as if to keep from falling.
“Saved daddy!” she gasped--“Carried him out on--Oh! Aunt Felicia!--and I
have been so mean! To think he got up out of bed and--and--” Everything
swam before her eyes.
Miss Felicia sprang forward and caught her in her arms.
“Come!--none of this, Child. Pull yourself together right away. Get
her some water, nurse,--she has stood all she can. There now, dearie--”
Ruth's head was on her breast now. “There--there--Such a poor darling,
and so many things coming all at once. There, darling, put your head on
my shoulder and cry it all out.”
The girl sobbed on, the wrinkled hand patting her cheek.
“Oh, but you don't know, aunty--” she crooned.
“Yes, but I do--you blessed child. I know it all.”
“And won't somebody go and help him? He is all alone, he told me so.”
“Uncle Peter is with him, dearie.'”
“Yes,--but some one who can--” she straightened up--“I will go, aunty--I
will go now.”
“You will do nothing of the kind, you little goose; you will stay just
where you are.”
“Well, won't you go, then? Oh, please--please--aunty.” Peter's bald head
now rose above the edge of the banisters. Miss Felicia motioned him to
go back, but Ruth heard his step and raised her tear-drenched face half
hidden in her dishevelled hair.
“Oh, Uncle Peter, is Jack--is Mr. Breen--”
Miss Felicia's warning face behind Ruth's own, for once reached Peter in
time.
“In his bed and covered up, and his landlady, Mrs. Hicks, sitting beside
him,” responded Peter in his cheeriest tones.
“But he fainted from pain--and--”
“Yes, but that's all over now, my dear,” broke in Miss Felicia.
“But you will go, anyhow--won't you, aunty?” pleaded Ruth.
“Certainly--just as soon as I put you to bed, and that is just where you
have got to go this very minute,” and she led the overwrought trembling
girl into her room and shut the door.
Peter stood for an instant looking about him, his mind taking in the
situation. Ruth was being cared for now, and so was MacFarlane--the
white cap and apron of the noiseless nurse passing in and out of the
room in which he lay, assured him of that. Bolton, too, in the room next
to Jack's, was being looked after by his sister who had just arrived.
He, too, was fairly comfortable, though a couple of his fingers had been
shortened. But there was nobody to look after Jack--no father, mother,
sister--nobody. To send for the boy's uncle, or Corinne, or his aunt,
was out of the question, none of them having had more than a word with
him since his departure. Yet Jack needed attention. The doctor had just
pulled him out of one fainting spell only to have him collapse again
when his coat was taken off, and the bandages were loosened. He was
suffering greatly and was by no means out of danger.
If for the next hour or two there was anything to be done at
MacFarlane's, Peter was ready to do it, but this accomplished, he would
shoulder his bag and camp out for the night beside the boy's bed. He had
come, indeed, to tell Felicia so, and he meant to sleep there whatever
her protests. He was preparing himself for her objections, when she
reentered the room.
“How is young Breen?” Miss Felicia asked in a whisper, closing the door
behind her. She had put Ruth to bed, where she had again given way to an
uncontrollable fit of weeping.
“Pretty weak. The doctor is with him now.”
“What did the fool get up for?” She did not mean to surrender too
quickly about Jack despite his heroism--not to Peter, at any rate. Then,
again, she half suspected that Ruth's tears were equally divided between
the rescuer and the rescued.
“He couldn't help it, I suppose,” answered Peter, with a gleam in his
eyes--“he was born that way.”
“Born! What stuff, Peter--no man of any common-sense would have--”
“I quite agree with you, my dear--no man except a gentleman. There is
no telling what one of that kind might do under such circumstances.” And
with a wave of his hand and a twinkle in his merry scotch-terrier eyes,
the old fellow disappeared below the handrail.
Miss Felicia leaned over the banisters:
“Peter, PETER,” she called after him, “where are you going?”
“To stay all night with Jack.”
“Well, that's the most sensible thing I have heard of yet. Will you take
him a message from me?”
Peter looked up: “Yes, Felicia, what is it?”
“Give him my love.”