Meanwhile, having made his speech, he had lost no time in making his escape also. Going back to the carriage, Miss Leslie's friend asked him to accompany them home, whence they could return to take the afternoon train, when the bridge would, no doubt, be repaired. Morton, however, declined the invitation, and, having sent two men to catch the horse, with instructions to refer the distressed owner to him, he drove in a farmer's wagon to Steuben. In a few hours, he rejoined Miss Leslie and her friend; and having escorted both safely to town, took leave of the former, that evening, at the door of her father's house.
Several of the newspapers next morning contained the resolutions passed by the passengers, trumpeting Morton's humanity, presence of mind, &c. He himself very well knew that the praise was undeserved, since he had neither thought nor cared for the objects of his supposed humanity, and, far from acting with presence of mind, had scarcely known what he was about.
The bridge had been cut by an Irish mechanic in the employ of the road, who, for some misdemeanor, had been reprimanded and turned out, and who had passed half the night in preparing his demoniac revenge. It afterwards appeared that he had been a state's prison convict in a neighboring state, and that he would have been still in confinement, had not the officious zeal of certain benevolent persons availed to set him loose before his time.
CHAPTER XX.
| For true it is, as in principio, Mulier est hominis confusio; Madam, the meaning of this Latin is, That woman is to man his sovereign bliss. * * * * * A woman's counsel brought us first to woe, And made her man his paradise forego.— These are the words of Chanticleer, not mine; I honor dames, and think their sex divine.—Dryden. |
On the day after their return, Morton visited Miss Leslie to learn if she had suffered from the fatigues and alarms of yesterday; and, in truth, she had the pale face of one whose rest has been short and broken.
"It has been my fate to terrify you," said the anxious Morton.
During his visit, the door bell was most obtrusively busy. Messages, parcels, notes, cards, visitors came in, and expelled all hope of a tête à tête.
Soon after he left the room, Leslie entered.