Chapter VIII: After the Accident

It was a strange train-full which left the scene of the disaster. It consisted of but three passenger waggons, a cattle-truck, a coal-truck, and the guard's van; for it was but a little station from which relief had come, and all its resources amounted to no more than this. Into the passenger waggons were stored the dead and wounded--an awful cargo! The dead, being dead, were placed as close together as was possible; the injured, being still alive, required more space, and the major portion of the carriages was occupied by them. This was necessarily a work of time, in so many cases care and the most delicate handling were essential. A surgeon, hurriedly procured, had come down with the rescuers; and he, feeling himself in a certain sense responsible for all, was here, there, and everywhere, seeing after everything--an energetic and a kindly man, well used to pain and suffering, so used indeed as to be in sympathy with every sufferer.

Meanwhile Penharden, who had ere this concluded that he was not dead, nor as yet particularly inclined that way, and Pollyon had fallen in with Marmaduke. He was with a group of busy workers who were anxiously endeavouring to extricate from the ruins of a shattered carriage such victims as might be within. To the best of his ability he was lending them his aid--aid which was so effectual that they did not notice in their excitement that it was given by a boy. Pollyon was the first to notice him.

"Holloa!" said Lionel, as they approached the group, "there is Duke Tregowan. He doesn't look as though he were dead;" for, as was but natural, up to now they had been in doubt as to whether that was or was not the case. Then, with a sneer, "I should think his temper is improved by now--come down from his stilts a little perhaps. I daresay he'll condescend to notice us if we intrude upon his company."

"Notice us!" snuffed Noel, suddenly brought to a recollection of the past; "I should think he would indeed. When I am conscious of any difference between Marmaduke Tregowan and myself in station, in age, or in intellect, sufficient to warrant him in refusing me his notice"----

"Oh, shut up!" unceremoniously interposed his friend, perceiving that Noel in recovering his limbs had also recovered his own particular vocabulary as well. "Who's talking of any difference? Do you think he doesn't know that we're as good as he? He's not an idiot, like some I know." And he pushed forward shouting "Tregowan! Duke, old man!"

"Now then, you boys," was the only answer which he got, and this from one of the workers, who fancied that they had thrust themselves in the way for the sake of getting in the way, as boys are apt to do. "We've got enough to do without you blocking up the road. You'd better get to the fire and warm yourselves a bit."

He was a broad-shouldered fellow, stripped to the shirt-sleeves, yet warm in spite of it; but Lionel, nothing daunted by his size, or heat, or manner, stood his ground.

"When I want warming I'll let you know," he said; "and when this ground is yours, perhaps you'll let me know how much you bought it for. In the meantime, if you let me alone I'll be obliged to you."

"I don't want any of your sauce," the man was just beginning, when Duke fancying it was a familiar voice he heard, turned and caught sight of them. In an instant he ceased his efforts and came rushing up to them.

"Pollyon! Noel!" he said, as if astonished at the sight of them; "I thought that you were dead.",

"Oh, I daresay you did," replied Lionel, his hands in his pockets with the mixture of bitterness and sarcasm which was peculiar to him; "just the sort of thing you would think of a fellow. You make it a rule to think the worse of every one, even of old friends."

"It's not your fault if I am not," volunteered Penharden; "my internal economy is dislocated, my mental faculties are severely strained"----

"Your mental faculties! You never had any to strain," struck in Pollyon. "Why will you talk such utter rubbish?"

"Look here, Pollyon. I don't know if you want to quarrel with me the very instant after we have been snatched from the mouth of a yawning grave"----

"I don't want to quarrel with you, but why can't you keep still, and not be always acting like a lunatic?"

"If you suppose that I am to be trodden on like this"----

"Let's have no more of this," said Tregowan, interposing in his turn; "let's be sensible from now. I've been thinking you were dead; it's such good news to find that you're alive--not even hurt"----

"Not hurt!" groaned Noel, and rubbed himself; he felt it hard that he could get no one to believe that he was injured.

"Lionel, forgive me for being such a brute to you. Noel, you'll believe I'm sorry."

He stood there, begrimed with snow, smoke, and dirt, his clothes all torn and tattered, yet through it all as pale as death. His right hand was advanced to them, and on his face was that strange intensity of earnestness, that cold heat of passion, which the boys said would be there on the day when he went out alone to fight with thousands--which would mark it should it ever be his lot to lead a forlorn hope to victory or death.

For a time neither made any attempt to take his proffered hand.

"It's all very well to say forgive you," said Pollyon; "a fellow's in a humour for forgiveness after such a shave as this; but it won't do always, Duke Tregowan; there'll come a time when you'll have to ask for it just once too often. No matter how disposed to be friendly a fellow is, when you're that way inclined you treat him as though he were your bitterest enemy. You'll regret it one fine day, my boy." Then he put out his hand and took Tregowan's. "I didn't mean to make it up like this, but it's more than I can do to keep out with you. I believe in you more than in all the rest of the idiots together."

"I am the greatest idiot of them all." They stood locked hand in hand, and though Duke seemed to speak in the same calm voice, there was a ring of passion running through his tone. "The meanest and the most despicable; there is no epithet too bad for me; yet God has let me live!"

"It's not so bad as that," suggested Pollyon, as Duke released his hand; while Noel said--

"I am not quarrelsome; it's not my nature. The man who strains and vitiates his moral faculties, and so warps his intellect as to bring himself down to the level of the brutes who fight for fighting's sake, is unworthy of his calling, is unworthy of his manhood, is unworthy of his fellows. No, I am not such; there is a loftier ideal. I am uncommonly sorry that there should ever have been any cause of disagreement between us."

And he too took Tregowan's hand, Pollyon regarding the proceedings with eyes which would be mildly described as critical; but then Noel and he always were at loggerheads on the question of high-sounding words and phrases.

All this time the conveying of the dead and wounded to the relief train had been actively proceeding; by now it was almost at an end; the uninjured or comparatively uninjured passengers were seeking places on their own account; the engine-driver was getting ready for a start, and would soon be off, it being a matter of importance for the relief men to be as little encumbered as possible in their attempts to clear the line of the ruins of the wrecked train.

"If we want to get aboard that train, I guess we'd better get aboard of her," said Lionel. It was a favourite trick of his to use what he fondly believed were Yankeeisms; for it was his darling ambition to emulate the shrewdness of the proverbial American.

So much was evident; already the guard was shouting out, "All in! all in!" and the last few passengers were rushing to secure seats, or, as was exceedingly probable, if they could not be had, then standing room.

"Are you boys going?" cried the guard, seeing them stand there.

"Yes," said Lionel, "we are. Considering that we have paid our fare, I conclude we are. You have put us here without our asking you, and we shall be obliged if you will take us where we don't want to go, in the same kind manner."

While he was saying this, they walked up to the train; but it was full, and not only full, but crammed to twice its proper capacity; there was not even a square inch of standing room left in the cattle truck; in the guard's van they were packed like herrings in a barrel. The only place where there was room for them was in the coal truck, and even that under ordinary circumstances one would have said was full enough. Exposed to the full fury of the storm, which had never for a moment decreased in violence, without anything of any kind to shelter them--without even so much as a single umbrella--seven or eight passengers were huddled at the bottom of the truck. Among these the lads of necessity got in; and no sooner were they in than the word to start was given, and the driver began slowly to back the train towards the station from which he originally had come.

Dreary work it was. Owing to the fact that the train was being backed, and the driver could therefore only imperfectly see what obstacles might be in front of him, apart from the necessity of not shaking the injured passengers, progress was slow. They crawled along, and the snow fell fast, and the wind blew high, and in the trucks, crouching amid the half-melted snow, cut by the biting blast, covered by the down-falling flakes, which would get into their eyes and faces, they sat and shivered.

"A pretty journey!" said one, a man of whom nothing could be seen but a pair of gleaming eyes and a voluminous nose, on whose tip had lodged several particles of snow. "Decent travelling for a Christian man who earns his money and pays his way, and has a wife and family what looks to him for daily bread!"

"There is one thing we should be thankful for, my friend," went on another, who spoke in a thin, rasping voice, and who was huddled in a corner of the truck; "we have been spared our lives."

"How do you know that?" inquired a third. "How do you know we're not as good as dead already? There's me, suffered from asthma from a boy, had bronchitis regular, subject to neuralgia, my father died from rheumatism. A pretty sort of thing this is for a man like me! What are you going to insure my life for? What are you going to give my wife if I am dead within a week?" And the speaker waxed indignant, raising his voice in a fashion suggestive of anything but weakness.

"What am I going to give your wife? Why, my heartiest congratulations." So cried a fourth speaker; and even through the uncertain light and through the falling snow, one knew who spoke--knew it, if by nothing else, by the clear, crisp, hearty tone in which he spoke; knew it, too, by his gigantic figure, seen dimly through the darkness, and by his mighty beard, which at present was hidden beneath an outer covering of snow. It was the passenger whom the guard had first rescued from the ruined train. "A man who doesn't see something to thank the Lord for at such a time as this isn't half a man. There's a car-full there of folks all dead and dying, and here are we all hale and hearty; and if there's nothing to thank Him for in that, why, we are different, that's all that I can say."

They looked at him--as well, that is to say, as was in their power--all the shivering passengers, who all alike were cold and damp. He had on no coat of any kind, no waistcoat even, but had drawn a scanty piece of tarpaulin over his shoulder, so that it might shield him in some degree from the inclement season; yet he seemed to have no notion that he was undergoing any peculiar discomfort.

"Sanguine nature!" muttered one who crouched close by, and who appeared to be encased not in one overcoat, but in two or three. "Ah! what a thing it is to have a sanguine nature! We're not a sanguine family, no, not one of us. Ah! what a thing it is to be blessed with a lively disposition!"

"Stranger," said the red-bearded passenger, and all the others listened to what he had to say, "I don't know nothing of a sanguine nature, nor a lively disposition, nor nothing of the kind; but I know that with them hands," and he stretched them out in front of him, "this night I've handled more than one who scarce an hour ago looked forward to home and happiness and a merry Christmas time, and who now lie cold, and stiff, and dead, and those who had better perhaps be dead than suffer what they've to suffer now. And here am I, and you, and all of us, hale and hearty, with hardly a scratch between the lot of us; and do you mean to tell me that now, when the wings of Death have hardly left off beating in the air, when the gates of heaven have hardly closed upon the souls of those dead people there, that we have nothing to be thankful for? Well, we differ. It seems to me that we are speaking in the very presence of the Lord, who has saved us from this thing."

The speaker, in his own way, had all at once grown eloquent. Silence followed when he ceased to speak. They were pondering his words--silence which was broken by the same thin, rasping voice, whose owner had been the cause of all the argument.

"It might be opportune, since you are thankfully disposed, if you were to offer up a few words of praise and thanksgiving on behalf of all of us."

"Let each man thank God himself," was the red-bearded passenger's reply, and after that no man said anything.

And through the night slowly the train sped on. What was in their hearts it was for none certainly to say. All heads were bowed, but the persistent snow in such an attitude was better warded from their faces. Whether the attitude of their heads symbolised the bowing of their hearts, One alone could say. It was as though it were a journey which would never know an end. Now they went a few yards on, and then, for caution' sake, and because they could not see with certainty the road, they stopped; then again went on, only again shortly to stop; and thus it was, time after time, while, weary and dispirited, in the open truck they sat, with heads bowed down to ward their faces from the snow.

The three lads had none the best of it. Since they were lads, and because their fellow-passengers were in no mood to forget themselves so as the better to remember others, they were crowded together in one corner, unnoticed by the rest. Soaked to the skin were they, tired and hungry, but not sufficiently depressed to have forgotten how to use their tongues.

"I'll sue the company for this. See if I don't," growled Pollyon, in tones whose hoarseness found its origin partly in cold, partly in indignation. "They'll find they've caught a Tartar before they've done; mark my words for it. I'll bleed 'em well. I'll teach them how to spell 'damages,' and how to shell 'em out into the bargain. I'll make them pay a pretty penny for this little game of theirs. You wait till I get home."

"Money," observed Penharden, in accents which were indistinctly heard, but in words which had the old ring of lofty grandeur, "is no compensation to an injured mind. It is no drug to soothe the anguished brain, and, like great Neptune's flood, which cannot cleanse the stain of blood from off man's hand, is incapable of ministering to a mind diseased."

Lionel made no reply. He possibly found such sentiments beyond his reach. Marmaduke said nothing. It is doubtful even if he heard; at least he gave no signs of it. Like a statue amid the shivering crowd, he sat as one frozen into stone; his face was cold and set; his eyes looked far away, and seemed to bear his thoughts to other scenes. To his surroundings he seemed to be oblivious--to be even unaware if he were hot or cold, wet or dry, hungry or satisfied; but no one heeded him.

And still they journeyed. It was a scene which would be forgotten by them never--one of those hours which mark men's lives but once, and then mark them to the end. They had been half an hour travelling; but the minutes, laden with suspense and suffering, had swollen to unconscionable lengths, until they had lost all count of them entirely. But now they were once more coming into proximity with life and light. Some men came hurrying along the railroad; some with tools over their shoulders; some with lanterns in their hands; all bent on making their way on foot as speedily as possible to the scene of the disaster. As they approached the train now, and words were exchanged on either side, some of them came to the truck.

"How far have we still to go?" asked one of the passengers, with teeth which chattered, so that it was with difficulty he could get out his words.

"Why," said a man, a navvy, with tools over his right shoulder and a lantern in his left hand, "you're a pretty set! Nice and comfortable all of you must be! Why don't you get out and walk? It ain't a couple of hundred yards from here--hotel and all. If I was you, sooner than get frozen there, I'd every one of you get on your legs, and make a run for it."

The suggestion was no sooner made than acted on. First by the lads. In an instant they were on their feet scrambling over the sides of the truck on to the rails. Pollyon was first and Penharden was after him; Tregowan, still with the same set look upon his face, was on their heels, springing with one bound from his place on to the ground. They stood together, looking odd enough amid the crowd of brawny workmen.

"Bravo, you youngsters! you're the sort for me!" exclaimed the navvy who had previously spoken. "Now make a race for it; there's the station right in front of you, with something to feed and warm you too. Go's the word, first in's the winner."

"Much obliged to you; it's very kind of you to start us; we'll send you round a testimonial," said Pollyon; then, losing all his dignity, "Come along, you fellows. What's the good of standing shivering here? Let's make a bolt for it, my boys." And away he tore, the others at his heels.

It was a pretty race was that. Pollyon in front, Penharden next, Tregowan in the rear. But that order was not maintained for long. Lionel, although by no means slow upon his feet, was not to be compared with Marmaduke. Among various other nicknames, the boys called him "The Running Deer." No one in the school could touch him. At his pleasure he could leave any of his comrades in the rear. But it was not only his pace, but his style of going which earned for him his name. None of your heads bent down as though butting like a bull; none of your terrible exertion with arms and chest; none of your stertorious breathing; none of your little tricks and dodges; but a clean, easy, sweeping motion, which made him at once the dread and admiration of his fellows. Exert himself he never seemed to do. Grace was in his every action. Yet he passed across the ground at a pace which rendered it vain, strain every muscle as they might, train themselves as severely as they chose, to attempt to keep him company. Now, on the railroad, in the darkness of the night, through the falling and the fallen snow, with perfect ease he passed in front of them.

"Hi! hi!" cried Pollyon, breathing himself in the effort to run and shout as well; "you, Duke! you fellow there! don't leave a fellow in the rear, you--long-legged--beggar--there!"

But though he puffed and puffed, he could not approach Tregowan. Noel in the rear came heavily along. For him the pace was much too hot to last. Soon in trouble--indeed it was no easy ground for running--he announced his woe to all who chose to listen.

"Oh! oh!--I'll burst my lungs! I'd--soon--catch you up--if it weren't--that all my bones--are broken! Oh! I haven't got a leg--to stand upon! You, Pollyon, just--wait a minute--for a fellow. Oh! it will kill me--that's what it is coming to."

But Pollyon, paying no heed, went on in front, and Tregowan in front of him. Never stopping, Marmaduke sped on. He might have been running for his life, or for some mighty prize, judging from his countenance. His cheeks were pale, his lips were firmly set; there was resolution in his eyes. He looked in front of him--far, far in front of him--as though he saw a phantom, which he in all haste pursued. Every moment he increased the distance between himself and Lionel. If he heard, he paid no attention to his request to moderate his pace, but, never faltering, never hesitating, sped swiftly on.

And as he reached his journey's end, he was first into the station, first upon the platform. The little crowd assembled to learn the news and hear what tales there were to tell stared at him, as well they might. They came to him, but, heedless of their inquiring words and looks, he pressed them on one side and went through their midst. They looked at him. One or two, more bold or more curious, went after him, anxious to be the first recipients of news. He found his way to the telegraph office, and despatched a message to the folks at home. It was brief, and to the point.

"From Marmaduke Tregowan.

"To Mrs. Tregowan, Tregowan, Cornwall.

"Accident to train. Pollyon, Penharden, and I all safe. Not injured. Shall be with you to-morrow."

That was all; and when he knew it was despatched, he went back upon the platform and waited for Noel and Lionel to come; but they had met with a disaster on the road, so that his patience had to undergo a further trial. It was nothing less that delayed them than the downfall of Master Lionel. In his haste to be up with Marmaduke, paying no attention to the road over which he travelled, he struck his foot against a stone and fell full length down in the snow. It was fortunate for him that there was snow, and plenty of it, on which to fall, for he came so heavily, that had the road been hard he would certainly have been none the better for his sudden descent from his previous position; as it was, he was sufficiently discomfited.

Fearful lest those behind, not noting his fall, might tread upon him where he lay, he cried, "Take care where you are coming to!" Then, hearing some one approaching panting heavily, "Penharden, is that you?" It was; he proved it easily by putting out his hand and seizing that young gentleman by the foot, and, taken unawares, down came Noel beside him on the snow. No sooner was he down than Lionel, as though Penharden were to blame, commenced favouring him with a frank expression of his opinion.

"Of all the awkward idiots I ever saw, you are about the worst," and he scrambled to his feet. "You can't move half-a-dozen steps without bringing yourself to utter grief."

"Bringing myself to utter grief! Why, you tripped me up!" roared Noel, righteously indignant. "You wait till I get at you!" But Lionel waited for nothing of the kind. Faster than ever he pursued his way, with Noel, burning with wrath, close upon his heels; and in that state they reached the station, never stopping until they ran almost into Tregowan's arms.

"Let me get at him! let me get at him!" puffed and panted Penharden, striving his hardest to reach Pollyon, who dodged behind Tregowan.

"Nonsense! I shall let you do nothing of the kind!" said Marmaduke, perceiving that fresh cause for strife had risen, though ignorant what it might be. "I've sent a telegram to them at home to let them know that we are safe; so the best thing we can do is to go at once to an hotel."

And after a little time spent in pacifying the indignant Noel, Lionel half humorously, half seriously, declaring that he had never meant to pull him down, that they did. It appeared that there was only one building worthy to be called an hotel in all the town, and to that in all haste they hied, conscious that this was pre-eminently a case where the first-comer would be first served; and soon found themselves within the hospitable doors of the "Station Arms."