Chapter XXXIII: The Crash on the Railroad

Meanwhile strange things were happening to Philip Paxton.

He had occasion one day to go to Greenwich upon important business for a client, and as he was anxious to get back just as soon as possible, he resolved to go by the underground railway and return the other way.

As he entered and took his seat in the coach at the station, he found three others in the compartment--a man and woman of very respectable appearance, and with them an exceedingly bright boy of perhaps twelve or thirteen years.

The man was evidently a mechanic of some sort, with an honest, open face, a frank, clear eye, and--what particularly attracted Philip’s attention--was most politely attentive to his wife, who was a delicate, pretty little woman, wearing the happiest smile that he had ever seen.

The boy was full of life and eagerness, intelligent beyond his years, and kept asking questions regarding their trip, which, apparently was one of pleasure, that both interested and amused Philip.

He appeared to take no notice of them, but nothing escaped his observation; he saw everything--the kind little attentions of the husband to his wife, her happy smile as she raised her eyes in mute thanks to his, and the patient, tender replies of both to their son’s eager questioning.

Thus the time passed until they had nearly reached Greenwich, where he found his companions were also going, when there suddenly smote the air, a short, sharp, terrible whistle, then followed a crash which made him feel as if he was being crushed between a couple of thunderbolts, and he knew no more until he felt himself lifted and carried quite a distance, and then laid down upon a board or floor.

Opening his eyes, he found he was stretched upon the platform near the station where they were about to stop, and where the accident had occurred; and as the mist cleared still farther from his brain and sight, he saw a crowd of people, with anxious, scared faces, running to and fro, carrying lanterns, buckets of water and implements for removing the _debris_.

A little way back he could see a great mass lying upon the track, and though but dimly discerning it in the gloom of that underground passage, he knew it was a portion of the train which had brought him hither.

A man came up to him just then and peered curiously into his face.

“Hump!” he said, with an accent of surprise, “yer cum to, be ye? I didn’t think ye ever would when we hauled ye up here--thought ye had kicked the bucket, sure.”

“What has happened?” Philip asked, faintly, and trying to raise his hand to his aching head.

“Switch wor wrong, and there’s ben a smashup.”

“Are there many injured?”

“Thank Heaven, no sir!--though it’s a wonder there weren’t a hundred or more killed. But it’s bad enough at best, sir--a man and woman wor killed outright, and a little boy most done for--that wor all, beside yerself, sir.”

“A man and woman and little boy,” Philip repeated, his mind reverting instantly to his companions in whom he had been so interested. “They must have been in the coach with me.”

“They wor, sir; ye were all snarled in together; we thought ye wor all dead but the boy, and we took care o’ him fust; poor little shaver! It wor a pitiful sight, and he tried to be brave when they pulled him from under the cruel wheel that had crushed his leg to a jelly; the look in his eyes and his bitter moans went through me like a knife, sir, for I’ve a boy at home just his size,” and the man’s voice was tremulous and husky as he told his sorrowful tale.

“Poor little fellow!--where is he now?” Philip asked, striving to lift himself to a sitting posture; but the effort made him faint and sick, while a shower of stars appeared to be hurled directly into his eyes.

“Where is the boy now?” he asked after a moment, his mind still upon the little sufferer.

“In the station yonder, sir.”

“Help me to my feet; I want to go to him,” Philip commanded, and his good-natured attendant assisted him to rise.

Slowly, and not without much pain, he made his way to the station, where on a settee they had laid the poor little fellow, whom accident had made an orphan in a moment of time, and probably, also, a cripple for life.

A crowd was gathered about him, gazing awestruck and pityingly upon him, while they waited for a surgeon, whom some one had gone to summon.

As Philip drew near him, a look of recognition came into his eyes, and he made a spasmodic gesture with his hand as if to beckon him to his side.

He went close to him, and bending over him, took his handkerchief and wiped the moisture from his face.

“My poor boy, I am sorry to see you so badly hurt,” he said.

“Water!” gasped the child.

“Water!” Philip repeated, authoritatively, turning to those behind him.

A glass was instantly handed to him, and raising the sufferer’s head with as much gentleness as an experienced nurse would have done, he held it to his mouth while he drank greedily.

But the effort cost him untold pain, and he moaned pitifully as he was laid back upon the pile of coats, which had been hastily formed into a pillow for him.

At that moment a brisk, wiry man pushed up to him.

“Go out--go out, every one of you!” he said, turning around and facing the crowd and speaking with quiet decision.

They began to scatter obediently, though reluctantly, for a sort of fascination seemed to possess them to stay and view the ghastly horror.

Philip also would have withdrawn from his position, but the boy clung to his hand, which he had grasped in a sort of terror when the surgeon made his appearance.

“Stay--please stay!” he cried, in a feeble voice.

“Does he belong to you?” the surgeon asked of Philip.

“No,” he returned, “but I was in the same carriage at the time of the accident, and he seems to cling to me.”

“Very well, stay then. Ah, you were hurt, too, eh?” he queried, with a keen glance into his colorless face.

“A trifle; but never mind me--see what you can do for him,” Philip answered, with a feeling of impatience.

But the surgeon had begun his examination almost before he ceased speaking.

With nimble fingers and a pair of sharp, glittering scissors, he cut away the clothing from that injured limb, and nothing but the convulsive clasp of that small hand upon his kept Philip from fainting dead away at the ghastly sight thus revealed.

The surgeon’s own face grew stern and resolute as he looked upon the work before him, though his eye was calm and his hand steady, nor did he make a single false movement as he examined the cruel hurt to ascertain the extent of the injury.

But gentle as was his touch, the ordeal was a fearful one, and the child cringed and screamed with pain, but still clinging through it all to Philip, whom he seemed instinctively to trust.

“I shall have to give him ether--I can never take those arteries up properly with him in this state,” the surgeon said, in a low tone to him.

“It would be a mercy, I think,” Philip answered, with colorless lips.

“You will stay?” pleaded the boy, with a closer grip.

“Yes, I will stay--I will not leave you until you are comfortable,” was the reassuring reply.

He looked relieved, and made no resistance when the surgeon applied the sponge to his nostrils, and he knew nothing more until all was over; which means a great deal, for the bones of his foot and ankle had been so broken and crushed that it was found necessary to remove it just above the joint, while the taking up of the arteries, the placing and sewing of the bruised and torn flesh was in itself no trifling operation.

But is was very quickly and neatly done, and when the poor little fellow recovered consciousness, he was ready to be removed to more comfortable quarters.

“He must go to a hospital immediately,” the surgeon said to Philip, as he held a strengthening mixture to his lips and told him to drink it.

“No--not there,” he cried, feebly, but with a shudder of repulsion.

“But you will be much better cared for there than anywhere else, my boy,” returned the doctor, kindly.

“No, no! Father--mother--home!” he gasped, wildly.

The surgeon looked grave; he had been told the whole story on his way hither.

“But, my child,” he said, after a few moments’ hesitation, “they are both injured, too”--he had not the heart to tell him that they were dead--“and they could not take care of you, if you should go home.”

“Is there any one else in your house?” Philip asked.

He shook his head wearily, a despairing look in his face.

“Is hospital treatment absolutely necessary?” Philip asked, thoughtfully.

“No; not if he had a good home and some one to give him proper care.”

“Then I can supply the first, if you can recommend a good, reliable nurse for him,” Philip returned, adding, after a moment, in a lower tone:

“I feel deeply interested in the boy, and I will be answerable for him until some other provision can be made.”

He took a card from his pocket, wrote his address upon it, and gave it to the surgeon.

“All right, Mr. Paxton,” he said, as he read it. “You are very good, I am sure, to take this upon yourself, and I will see that you have a first-rate nurse. But”--suddenly remembering that he, too, had been injured, and remarking his pallor--“what can I do for you? Where were you hurt?”

“Nowhere particularly. I had an ugly knock on my head which stunned me, but I seem to be getting better of it, and I hope it will not amount to anything.”

“Don’t be too sure,” replied the doctor. “You must look out for yourself. Give your head plenty of water for the next fortnight, and live light. These knocks on the head sometimes prove more harmful than one would imagine.”

Philip said nothing to this, though his head still felt very strangely; but turning to his new charge, who had been watching the two men anxiously, said:

“You cannot go home, my boy, just now, because there is no one there to take care of you, and you do not wish to go to the hospital. Will you go with me, and be taken care of until you are able to go home?”

“Where are father and mother?” the boy asked, raising his wistful eyes to Philip’s, with a look that made him shrink with pain.

“I told you that they were hurt, you know. Some people outside are caring for them,” he answered, evasively.

“Are they much hurt?” the child asked, with a sob.

“I have not seen them. I came directly to you as soon as I was able. But what will you do?”

Philip did not dare to tell him the truth, and he longed to get him away as quickly as possible, lest he should overhear something.

“I will go with--you,” he answered, feebly; and they saw he was growing faint from excitement and the exertion of talking.

The surgeon gave him a stimulating draught; then, a carriage having been obtained, he was borne out and laid upon the cushions and driven to Philip’s lodgings, which were in a pleasant street and a quiet locality.

His landlady was very willing to rent an empty room next to Philip’s, and her sympathy being aroused she did her utmost to make the little stranger comfortable in it.

The nurse arrived by noon, and Philip was relieved of his charge and began to think of himself a little, and to wonder if those sharp, shooting pains which made him blind and sick every few moments would never stop.

He showered his head thoroughly with cold water, then binding wet bandages about it, he threw himself upon his bed and was soon in a profound slumber.

When he awoke he felt better, though there was still a queer sensation in his head, and he was yet weak from the shock which his system had sustained at the time of the accident.

He went into the adjoining room to ascertain how his _protege_ was progressing, and found him more comfortable than he had anticipated, and sleeping quietly under the influence of an anodyne.

As he stood looking down upon his pale face, he could not help remarking what a fine little countenance it was. Every feature was clearly cut, and wonderful intelligence was stamped upon it for one so young. It was such a pure, innocent face, too, with its fair, open forehead and straight, symmetrical brows; and Philip sighed as he remembered his own boyhood, with its careless freedom and untrammeled conscience.

Many weeks went by, and the boy still lay upon his bed, too weak and ill to heed much save the administering of medicines and the dressing of his mutilated limb.

But he always greeted Philip when he entered his room with a light in his eyes which told him more plainly than words how welcome he was, while his thin hand would creep languidly into his strong clasp, and he would lie quiet and contented as long as he would sit beside him thus.

His appetite, too, once more asserted itself, and he partook eagerly of the many delicacies with which Philip kept him supplied. He became interested in what was transpiring about him, and then came numerous and difficult questions.

This was the one thing of all others which Philip dreaded most, and he never performed a more difficult task in his life than when he was compelled at last to tell Eddie Winthrope--for that, he learned, was his name--that he was an orphan.

But there was no violent outburst of grief when he made this sad disclosure. The poor boy gave him one wild look of horror, while his face blanched to the hue of death, when he was told of his parents’ sad fate, then he covered his eyes with his hands and shrank beneath the bedclothes, where he lay so long and so still that Philip became alarmed.

“Eddie,” he said, at length, in a husky voice, while he gently uncovered the white face, “it is very, very sad for you, I know, and I have suffered more than I can tell you, knowing that I must relate the circumstances to you; but you must try to bear it as bravely as possible, and try to feel that it was so much better for them to be taken in a moment of time, instead of having to linger, mangled, bruised, and torn, for an indefinite period, and perhaps be rendered useless for the remainder of their lives. They could not have suffered much, for death must have been almost instantaneous, and clasped in each other’s arms, they looked as if they were asleep.”

Then he went on to tell how kind hands had prepared them for their last resting-place--a pleasant spot in a quiet cemetery out of the city, and where the broad branches of a venerable beech tree shaded the new-made graves.

He did not tell him then, that he had attended to all this--purchased this lovely spot, and followed the friendless couple to their last home, and borne all the attendant expenses. But such was the case, and it was one of the grand acts with which he commenced this new era of his life--one of the first fruits testifying to the strength and sincerity of the new purpose within him.

Poor Eddie listened in helpless silence to the sad tale, and when Philip at length concluded, he lifted a pair of pitiful, appealing eyes to his face, and moaned:

“Oh, I know they cannot come back, and heaven must be beautiful to them, to go there together; but what will become of me, without my father or mother, and only one foot to go through the world with?”