Chapter 22

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_ Chapter XXII

It was a surprise to every employee of Mr. Warmore. To Tom Gordon it was also a keen disappointment. He had never doubted that the plum would fall to him. He did not dream that the dudish young man would ever demean himself by manual labor; but Mr. Warmore departed from his usual reticence, to the extent of taking Tom aside and explaining matters.

"Mr. Catherwood is the son of an old college friend of mine. His father was wealthy, and, at his death some years ago, left everything to him. Mr. Catherwood has traveled a good deal, but is disposed now to settle down in life and become a business man. He has made an offer to put a large sum of money in our business, and I have accepted it--that is, conditionally," added the merchant with a slight hesitation.

Tom bowed.

"I presume he has some thought of marriage, and has awakened to the fact that the life of an idler is a worthless one. So he contemplates becoming a merchant. With his help we shall be able to expand our business and thus benefit both. I said I accepted his offer conditionally."

Noticing the hesitation of his employer, Tom interposed:--

"Mr. Warmore, there is no call for you to make this explanation. No man could have been kinder to me than you have been. I will not deny that I was disappointed, when I found myself checked on the next to the highest round of the ladder, but not a word of complaint can ever be heard from me. I should be an ingrate to utter it. I shall give you the best service of which I am capable, as I have done in the past. My gratitude you shall have always."

"Those manly word have decided me to say two things: From the beginning of the year your salary shall be the same as that of Mr. Martin who has left. The condition upon which I have agreed to accept Mr. Catherwood as a partner is that he shall devote one year's hard work to the business. He thinks he can acquire the necessary knowledge best by becoming a bookkeeper, since he could hardly be expected to begin where you and the rest did."

Repeating his thanks to his employer for the goodness he had always shown toward him, Tom Gordon bowed himself out.

Sure enough, the next day Mr. Catherwood took his place at the bookkeeper's desk. Mr. Martin agreed to stay a week in order to explain everything necessary to him; and none could have applied himself more assidiously than the young man, whose whole thoughts seemed to have been centered on that of dress and the other sex.

Tom Gordon soon discovered the cause of Mr. Pitcairn's remark to the effect that Catherwood was not such a bad fellow when you came to know him. He wrote an excellent hand, understood the theory of bookkeeping, and mastered that branch of the business so quickly that Mr. Martin was dismissed with thanks at the end of three days.

True, he wore eyeglasses, parted his hair in the middle, and was an exquisite in his dress. When he chose he could be courteous to those around him. Most of the clerks were pleasantly disappointed by his manner.

Tom Gordon, as in duty bound, yielded full respect to the one who was not only his superior in position, but who was likely, in the course of time, to become his sole employer. But the young man was sensitive, and soon became convinced that Mr. Catherwood did not feel especially friendly toward him. It was not in anything he said or did, but rather in his manner. It made Tom uncomfortable; but he resolved to make the best of it, and, if he could not force Mr. Catherwood to like him, he could at least compel his respect.

"He must have seen me laughing at him on the steamboat, when he missed his chair; possibly he suspects I had something to do with his mishap. It is natural that he should feel resentful toward me, but I hope it will wear off."

In the dusk of early evening, some months later, Tom was sauntering homeward, musing over the past, with an uncomfortable feeling that despite the long service he had given Mr. Warmore, and the many times he had expressed his satisfaction with him, the association was not likely to continue much longer.

There could be no mistaking the hearty dislike which Catherwood felt for the young man. Tom would have cared little for that had not the discouraging conviction forced itself upon him that Mr. Warmore was beginning to share his future partner's distrust. It seemed to be an unconscious absorption on his part of the views of another.

This was hard to bear; but it rasped the young man's sense of manhood, for it was an injustice which he did not expect.

"If Mr. Warmore is weak enough to let that fellow turn him against me, he is a different man from what I suspected. His store is not the only one in the world, and at the first unfair act on his part, I shall leave--hello!"

Coming down the road, on a swift gallop, with the reins flying, was a spirited horse, dragging a fashionable dog-cart, which, as it swayed from side to side, showed that it contained a single person,--a lady, who had lost control of the animal.

"That looks bad," muttered Tom, his heart leaping with natural excitement. "She is likely to be killed."

It looked as if the young man was to be given one of the stereotyped opportunities to prove his heroism,--that of rescuing a beautiful young lady whose horse was running away. He did not think of that, however, for it would have been the same had a bitter enemy been in peril.

The steed was coming like the whirlwind. The clamp of his hoofs, his snorting nostrils, his flying mane, and dangling reins, the frail vehicle bounding from side to side and often on the point of overturning, the glimpses of the lady bravely holding on and uttering no scream,--all these made up the most startling picture on which Tom Gordon had looked for many a day.

Stationing himself in the middle of the road, he swung his hat and arms, and shouted to the mad animal in the hope of making him slacken his speed sufficiently to allow the occupant to leap out. The horse saw him, shied a little, moderated his pace a trifle, and then plunged forward on a run.

Clearly he was not to be checked by that means. Tom Gordon braced himself for the shock of the supreme effort he had formed.

In a twinkling his strong grip had closed about the strap of the bit, and he threw his whole weight against the brute, who reared, plunged, struggled, struck with his fore feet, and strove to shake the incubus loose, but in vain. Tom held on like grim death, though in imminent danger of being struck down and trampled upon. No animal is quicker to recognize the hand of a master than a horse, and in less time than would be supposed possible the mad runaway was under control.

Then a gentle patting, a few soothing words, and he became more quiet, though still trembling in every nerve.

"I hope, Miss Warmore, you have not been injured."

"Not in the least, thanks to your bravery," replied the young lady, displaying wonderful coolness. "I have had a pretty rapid ride and a bad shock, but that is all."

Tom had caught up the reins and held them in hand, while he stood at the side of the vehicle near the daughter of his employer.

"Perhaps, Miss Warmore, it will be safer for me to drive home with you. The horse is nervous and liable to take fright again."

"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 lustrous 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 passed 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 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 come that radiant, soulful, all-absorbing emotion but once in our life, and it is too sacred to be trifled with; for once destroyed, once crushed, once dead, and the holy thing vanishes forever.

Two noticeable truths became manifest to Tom Gordon on the morrow. G. Field Catherwood's dislike of him was intensified. The young man had felt from the first that the head clerk was not only more attractive than he in looks, but was far brighter intellectually. Added now to this was the feeling of jealousy. He had received from Jennie Warmore a too pointed expression of her contempt for him to have any possible room for misunderstanding it. When he ventured to hint at their engagement, which had been discussed, but never formally made, she shook her head decisively, and his heart collapsed.

He had strolled by the house early in the evening, having fully recovered from the injuries resulting from the runaway, and was on the point of passing through the gate, when he observed a figure ahead of him. One quick glance disclosed that it was young Gordon, on his way to pass the evening there. That knowledge caused the dude to wheel about and go to the hotel, where he made his home. And as he strode along the highway, his heart overflowed with the bitterness of gall and wormwood.

He made no attempt to conceal his feelings on the following day, when he and Gordon came in contact at the store. Tom avoided him as much as possible; but, of necessity, they occasionally came together, and the repulsion was mutual. This unpleasantness was fully offset not only by the consciousness of the regard of Miss Warmore, but by the cordial manner of her father. Those signs of distrust which he had shown during the past week were gone, and his kindness and consideration for the young man were so marked as to attract the attention of all. It was clear that the mists between them had vanished. _

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