The train rolled back to the station, the distance being only a few rods. Morton got out and leaned against the wall of the house. Men thronged about him with questions, exclamations, thanks, praises. The reaction of his violent emotion produced in him a frame of mind almost childish. He was restless to free himself from the crowd.
"It's nothing; it's nothing," he answered, as fresh praises were showered on him. "I saw the train going to the devil, and did what I could to save it. Any of you, I dare say, would have done as much. Be good enough to let me have a little air."
The crowd gave way, and he walked forward past the corner of the building. Here, standing on the road, close at hand, he suddenly saw an open carriage, and in it, pale as death, sat Miss Leslie, with her friend, and a boy of twelve, her friend's brother. He sprang towards it with an irrepressible impulse.
"My God! Miss Leslie, I thought you were in the train."
"And so we should have been," said the boy, "but the cars came in three minutes before their time."
Edith Leslie did not utter a word.
Some of the passengers were soon about him again. He repeated to them what he knew of the danger, and told them how he had learned it. In a few minutes, several men were seen at a distance on the railroad, running forward with a handkerchief tied to a stick to warn off the train. A few minutes later, a Connecticut pedler, one of the passengers, came up to Morton.
"Mister, they're going to do the handsome thing by you. They're getting up a subscription to give you a piece of silver plate."
"The deuse they are!" was Morton's ungrateful response.
Going into the room where the passengers were met, he found that the pedler had told the truth; on which, for the first and last time in his life, he addressed an assemblage of his fellow-citizens. He told them that he thanked them for their kind intention; but that if he had done them a service, he wished for no other recompense than the knowledge of it, and urged them, if they did any thing in the matter, to devote their efforts to gaining the arrest and punishment of the scoundrel who had attempted the mischief. His oratory was much applauded; many, who had thought themselves in for the subscription, joyfully buttoned their pockets, and, instead of the plate, he received a series of complimentary resolutions, to be published in the newspapers.