Brave Tom; Or, The Battle That Won, Edward Sylvester Ellis [best classic romance novels TXT] 📗

"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 gratitude. 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 flustered 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 eyeglasses 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 anticipation, 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 entitled 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 anticipation.

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 circumstances, 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 associating 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 identity. Mrs. Warmore was so frantic in mind that she did not think of the noble rescuer until he was gone. Then she made inquiries, but no one seemed to know anything about him."

"It distressed me," added the lady; "for I felt he must think we were ungrateful. We advertised in the papers, but it was useless. I do not suppose we shall ever know who he was."

"He may have been some poor boy in need of help," added Mr. Warmore; "but so brave a lad as that is sure to get along."

"I presume you remember the incident?" remarked Tom, turning toward the daughter.

"How can I ever forget it?" she asked in reply, with a shiver. "I can feel that icy water even now, as it closed round me that wintry night. It was too dark to see my rescuer's face plainly, but I would know him if I met him fifty years from now. He was remarkably handsome."

"A boy of that age changes very much in a few years."

"He could never change so as to grow out of my recollection," said Jennie with a positiveness that made Tom Gordon smile.

"And of all the strange things that were ever done by a child," said Mrs. Warmore, "none ever equalled what Jennie did while floating in the water."

"Indeed, what could that be?"

"Tell him yourself, daughter."

The young lady blushed and laughed.

"I don't know what possessed me to do it. I hardly think I was conscious of matters or responsible for all I did. When the lad was fighting his way through the icy waters, I remember snatching a chain and locket containing my likeness from my neck, and twisting the chain about a button on his coat. I had a feeling of wishing to do something that should help him to remember me. After that I became wholly unconscious."

"It seems to me the little fellow was rewarded by securing the chain and locket," remarked Tom with a significant smile.

"That was but a trifle compared to what he ought to have received," replied Jennie.

"You forget that it contained your picture."

The compliment was so neatly put that all laughed, and the face of the young lady became rosier than ever.

"Pardon me," Tom hastened to say; "of course the little fellow has preserved those mementoes, and I should not he surprised if he turns up some day when least expected."

"I hope so," was the fervent response of Jennie, in which sentiment her parents joined.

It is not necessary to dwell upon the evening, which was a red letter one in Tom Gordon's life. No more delightful hours were ever spent by him; and when, without tarrying too late, he left, he could make no mistake as to the sentiments of the three, and especially the youngest, toward him. He had made an impression there, and it would be his own fault if it failed to ripen into something serious.

But, as he walked homeward in the silvery moonlight, he felt a respect for himself which, it is safe to say, would have come to few placed as he was. He had not given the first hint that he was the boy who, at the risk of his own life, had leaped into the wintry waters and rescued little Jennie Warmore from death.

Who would have held back the secret in his situation? Would you or I? Doubtful, if when smitten with love for a fair, sweet girl, we had felt that its telling would have riveted the bonds which, at the most, were only partly formed, and might dissolve into nothingness if not thus strengthened.

It was the youth's fine-grained sense of honor that restrained him.

"She holds a good opinion of me now. If it should ever happen that that feeling grows into love (and Heaven grant it may!), it must be for me alone, and not for any accident in the past. Suppose I had not done her a good turn to-day,--she might have discarded Catherwood for his baseness, but what would have caused her to transfer her regard to me? No, she shall never know the whole truth until--until"--

He dared not finish the thrilling sentence, the blissful hope, the wild dream, that set his nerves dancing. Unto us all can