CHAPTER II.

A TOUCHING TRIBUTE.

The hero of the incident would have much preferred to have been left by the side of the railroad with the mutilated maple until he could gather sufficient strength to crawl back to the farmhouse, but he was too exhausted to express his wishes, and thus he was obliged to go along with the train.

The next stopping-place was New Haven, the express being due there a little after 7, and during the ride the youth, under the care of the conductor and some of the passengers, recovered sufficiently to tell who he was and where he belonged, as well as how he had discovered the obstruction upon the road. His name, he said, was Clifford Faxon, and his home was with a gentleman known as Squire Talford, who lived near the village of Cedar Hill, or between that place and New Haven.

He appeared to be rather reticent and sensitive about talking of himself, but some gentlemen adroitly drew him out and learned that he was an orphan, and had been bound to the Squire since he was thirteen, or for the last four years, working for his “board and clothes”; that he had attended the academy of the town from September to April of every year, and was hoping to work his way through college when his time was out.

As he came more fully to himself he gave his audience an account of how the maple had fallen across the railroad; how he had realized what the terrible consequences must be unless it was removed and the engineer of the express warned of the danger; how he had been inspired to take his ax and hurry to the scene and work diligently as long as he could to remove the obstruction, and, when he found that would be impossible, he had run forward and waved his red handkerchief to stop the train.

His listeners were thrilled with admiration and gratitude in view of his heroism and the incalculable debt which they owed him. Their sympathies were also enlisted for him, for they saw that he was a fine, manly fellow, and capable of far better things than serving a farmer, as a bound boy, for a mere pittance.

One gentleman, a resident of New Haven, said he knew something of his history, having learned it through the principal of the academy in the town where he lived, and he had never heard anything but good of him, while he was sure he had been under a hard master during the last four years.

The result of this was a proposition to see what could be done in the way of a testimonial to manifest the appreciation of the passengers, who had been rescued from probable death.

Two gentlemen were appointed in every car to see what they could raise toward this end, and they worked so zealously and to such good purpose that a handsome sum had been realized before the train steamed into the New Haven station.

Pretty Mollie Heatherford had listened to the thrilling story with bated breath and gleaming eyes, her cheeks glowing with repressed excitement.

“Why, he is a hero!” she cried, enthusiastically, as she emptied her purse—after reserving simply a carriage-fare, in case no one should meet her in New York—into the hat of the gentleman who told the tale in her hearing. “I want to see him. I want to shake hands with him, and thank him personally,” and she secretly determined that she would do so. When the train stopped at New Haven she was the first one to alight from the coach, eager to catch a glimpse of the young hero.

She pushed her way toward the baggage-car, in which a couch had been extemporized for the youth, and stood close beside the steps as young Faxon came down.

He was still very pale, but was fast recovering his strength, and the girl thought his face—although his features were not as clear-cut or as regular as Philip Wentworth’s—the finest, the manliest she had ever seen.

He was deeply tanned from his summer’s work in the fields. He was clad in a pair of overalls, without coat or vest or hat; and his feet were encased in coarse and clumsy shoes, while, as may be surmised, he was drenched and soiled from his rough work in the field and storm.

But, to admiring little Miss Heatherford, this lack of “purple and fine linen” and other accessories of high life to which she had always been accustomed, made not the slightest difference. It was the spirit of the youth, the character and nobility which were stamped upon his fine, open face, and that alone of which she was conscious.

And almost the first object that young Faxon’s great, dark eyes rested upon as he made his way from the car was the fair, upturned face of the beautiful girl with the eager light of hero-worship in her own blue eyes, the quivering of intense emotion hovering about her red lips.

She made her way close to his side, regardless of the crowd that was gathering to get a look at him, and held out a dainty white hand upon which sparkled rare and costly gems.

“I want to thank you,” she began, with almost breathless eagerness. “You have saved my life—you have saved all our lives, and it is such a wonderful, such a grand thing to have done! I am very grateful to you, for my life is very, very bright. I love to live. Oh, I cannot say half there is in my heart, but I shall never forget you. I shall love you for your heroism of this day always. Here, please take this to remind you that I mean every word I have said. It seems small and mean, in view of what you have done, but when you look at it I want you to remember that there is one grateful heart in the world that will never forget you.”

While she was speaking she had slipped from her finger the exquisitely carved cameo ring which Philip Wentworth had begged her to give him only a few hours previous, and, as she ceased, with tears in her eyes, she thrust it into the brown hand of the youth, and, before he could protest against accepting it, she had glided away, and was lost among the crowd.

The next moment the throng parted, and a gentleman stood before him, claiming his attention.

In a few words of grateful acknowledgment he presented him with what he termed “a slight testimonial” of the appreciation of the passengers for his act of heroism that afternoon, and wished him all success in the future.

The testimonial was in the form of a good-sized wallet, well filled with greenbacks and coins of various denominations. Then he took the boy by the arm, led him down the platform to a carriage, and, putting a five-dollar bill into the coachman’s hand, bade him take him to his home, wherever that might be.

Young Faxon, with tears of emotion in his eyes, sprang into the vehicle, glad to escape from the curious crowd, and was driven away amid the cheers of the grateful passengers of the “limited express,” which, a moment later, was again thundering on its way toward its destination.

The storm was over. The clouds were breaking up and dispersing, revealing patches of cerulean sky between the rifts, while, in the west, brilliant rays from the declining sun streamed in upon the hero of the day through the carriage window as he was driven out of the city toward the home of Squire Talford.

Glancing through the opposite glass he saw a radiant rainbow spanning the eastern sky, its vivid colors reflected in a second and almost as perfect as an arch. His young heart was strangely thrilled by the sight.

Was it a bow of promise to him he asked himself. Did it portend a future that would be brighter than the last four years had been, of release from a hard and cruel task-master, of a broader outlook and the opportunity to indulge the aspirations of a heart that had long been hungering for education, culture, and intellectual advancement?

Yes, he was almost sure of it, for, clasped close in his brown hands, he held the fat wallet which would at least be the stepping-stone toward the achievement of the one great desire of his heart—a college course at Harvard; and his eyes grew bright, the color came back to his cheeks and lips, and his spirits were lighter than they had been for many a long month. Then his eyes fell upon the beautiful cameo, which had been presented to him by “the prettiest girl he had ever seen,” and which he had mechanically slipped upon his little finger. But he laughed outright, as the incongruity between the costly and exquisite jewel and the hard, brown hand it graced, and the mean apparel in which he was clad, flashed upon him.

“I wish I knew her name,” he mused, as he studied the beautiful design. “What lovely eyes she had! What wonderful hair—bright as the gold of this ring. I shall always keep it. It shall be my talisman, my mascot, and sometime, when I have won a worthy position for myself in the world, I will try to find her and tell her what encouragement, what a spur both her words and gift were to me. I shall never forget what she said. Ah! if I might hope to win, by and by, the love of some one as beautiful as she! But, of course, she did not mean anything like that,” he concluded, with a sigh and deprecatory shrug of his shoulders.

When the carriage drove to the door of Squire Talford’s stately mansion, and the proud owner, who was sitting upon the veranda, saw his “bound boy” alight from it, his brow contracted with displeasure, and an angry gleam burned in his cold gray eyes.

“Well, sir, where have you been, and how does it happen that you return in such style?” he demanded, in sharp, curt tones.

Clifford Faxon colored a vivid crimson, more at the sarcastic tone than at the peremptory words. But in a respectful manner he related what had occurred, although he made as light as possible of his own agency in the matter, except in so far as it was necessary to explain that, after his unusual exertions in the hay-field and his almost herculean efforts to remove the fallen tree from the track before the arrival of the express, he was so prostrated that he had to be taken aboard the train and carried to New Haven, when some of the passengers had insisted upon sending him home in the carriage.

“Humph!” ejaculated the squire, as he concluded, and eying him sharply from beneath his heavy brows, “and was that the extent of their gratitude?”

“No, sir,” replied the youth, flushing again and glancing at the wallet in his hand. “They made up a purse for me.”

“Ah-a! how much?” questioned the man eagerly.

“I do not know, sir. I have not counted it yet.”

“Give it to me. I’ll count it, and take care of it for you,” said the squire peremptorily.

“Excuse me, sir, but I prefer to take care of it myself,” said the youth respectfully but firmly.

“What! do you defy me?” roared his companion. “Give me that money instantly! Do you forget that you are bound to me; that I am your master?”

The boy’s eyes flashed, and he was silent for a moment. Then, meeting the glance of the infuriated man with a look that never quailed, he replied quietly, but with a reserve force that made itself felt:

“No, sir; I do not forget that I am bound to you for just one month longer. Until September 1st I shall acknowledge and serve you as my ‘master.’ At the expiration of that time my bondage will cease, and I shall be free!”

“You impudent whelp!” exclaimed Squire Talford, in a towering passion, as he sprang to his feet and descended the steps of the driveway, where the youth was standing. “Give me that money this instant, or I will thrash you within an inch of your life; do you hear?”

“Take care, sir!” Clifford returned with an emphasis that caused the man to pause involuntarily, while his dark eyes flashed with a dangerous light.

He stepped back a pace or two and folded his arms tight across his chest, as if to restrain the surging passion within him, which he feared might get the better of him.

“Take care, sir!” he repeated, “you have ‘thrashed me within an inch of my life’ for the last time, and I mean what I say, Squire Talford. I have been your bond-slave for four long, weary years; ever since my mother who, when she was dying and thought she was making a wise provision for me, signed a paper which made you my ‘master’ until I should be seventeen years of age, which, thank God, will be just one month from to-day. I do not need to rehearse to you what that bondage has been. You know as well as I do that my lot has been that of a serf, that I have been made to do the work of a man; yes, and in some instances, like to-day, for example, that of two men, during most of that time. For this I have received my board, lodging, and clothes—such as they are,” he interposed, his scornful glance sweeping over his coarse garment.

“I have served you faithfully, patiently, and you know it,” he resumed, “not because of any personal regard or respect that I have entertained for you, or of fear of your many unjust ‘thrashings,’ but”—his tone softening and faltering slightly—“because my mother taught me to obey, always, the golden rule, to suffer wrong rather than commit a wrong, and, once having made a contract, to abide by it to the letter. This, sir, is the reason why you see yonder hay-field as it is”—with a gesture indicating the white-capped cocks at which he had labored so hard that afternoon. “Much of that hay would have been soaked by the rain had not duty bidden me to do unto my neighbor as I would be done by, and so I did my utmost to save it. Now, sir, having done my best for you to-day and always, I am in no mood to have you lay so much as your finger upon me in anger.”

The man and the youth stood looking straight into each other’s eyes for one long, silent minute, the man noting the broad, square shoulders, the muscular limbs, and dauntless air of the figure before him. Then he stepped back a pace or two with an impatient shrug.

“Well, have you done?” he questioned, with a sneer, but his face, even to his lips, was white with repressed passion.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then be off and attend to your chores,” was the stern command.

“Pat can do the chores to-night, sir. I think I have done enough for one day,” was the quiet but decided response, and the young man turned coolly away, walked around to a side door, entered the house, and mounted to his room.

Throwing himself into a chair he dropped his head upon his table with a sense of weakness and weariness such as he had seldom experienced. The reaction had come, and he realized that the excitement of the last few hours, especially of the last few moments, had taken more out of him than a week of ordinary work would have done.

“The end is near,” he muttered, “and I hail its coming, for I am afraid that I could not much longer keep my promise to my mother and remain in the service of that tyrant.”

He sat thus for, perhaps, fifteen minutes. Then, lighting a candle, he opened the precious wallet and proceeded to count its contents.

His face took on a look of wonder as he laid out, one by one, the various bills and noted their denomination. He had not counted upon such generosity, even though he had realized that the purse was crowded to its utmost capacity.

“Seven hundred and fifty-four dollars!” he exclaimed in astonishment, as he laid the last coin upon the table. “Surely I must be dreaming! But no, these crisp fives, tens, two twenties, three fifties, besides the gold and silver, tell their own story. But oh! it does seem too good to be true! And now my first act must be to put it where it will be safe. Give it to Squire Talford, indeed! Never! It would be the last I should ever see of it. I will take it to Professor Harding. He will advise me what to do with it.”

After replacing the money in an orderly manner in his wallet, he arose and proceeded to change his clothes, dressing himself with great care.