"I must be. I can't stand up, I'm so weak," he answered faintly.

"Have ye been drinkin'?" Her eyes snapped as she asked the question.

"I've taken a little, because I'm ill, but-- Heavens, woman! what is the time?" he almost shrieked.

"It's about nine o'clock," she answered.

"Nine," he spoke as if struggling with a failing memory. "The switch is wrong, and there's a gravel train on the sidetrack. G.o.d! Mistress McVeigh, help me to get up." He tottered to his feet, groping for the door like a blind man, and then Nancy caught him in her strong arms and laid him back on the bed.

"Jennie, Mr. Moore's sick. Ye'll attend to him," she called, as she threw a heavy shawl over her head.

If those who doubted Nancy's unselfish heart and courage could have seen her plodding through the darkness, with the rain pelting down upon her, and the mud halfway to her knees, they might have forgiven much that they had believed against her. She knew the turnings of the switches and the different tracks, and it was to save Moore from disgrace, rather than to avert a disaster, that caused her to tax her old bones to their utmost, as she climbed over the fences and ran across the fields. A whistle sounded far over on the town side, and she was conscious of a dull throbbing in the air. Foot by foot she counted her chances, listening to the approaching train and exerting herself to the limit. The headlight of the locomotive was glaring at her as she climbed the sandy embankment of the track, and then, as her hands closed over the lever, the great machine went thundering by over the wrong rails. The engineer evidently had read that the signals were somewhat amiss, for his air brakes were already screaming, and he was leaning far out of his cab with his hand shading his eyes. The sand cars were a short distance up the track, and the moving train struck them with a terrific rending of iron and hissing of escaping steam.

The force of the contact was lessened because of the sudden slowing up of No. 4, but it was sufficient to send two of the pa.s.senger coaches tumbling on to the boggy earth six or eight feet below the track level.

The engine stood still on the rails in a cloud of steam, and the engineer was out of his cab limping towards Nancy before her mind had regained its normal conception of things. His appearance roused her to instant action. She made no explanations, nor were any questions asked of her, but the two of them ran to where the crying of pain-stricken humanity came from the derailed cars. A chaos of confusion reigned.

People who were not hurt were shouting hysterically, others were making efforts to liberate the wounded. Nancy was strangely cool. She sent one to the tavern to summon help, another to the Junction to telegraph into town for doctors, and then she turned to those in the wreckage.

One after another was extricated from the ma.s.s, and as they came before her on the wet gra.s.s, where coats and everything that could be found were used to lay them upon, she examined their hurts, bound up bleeding cuts, and did all that her knowledge could suggest. Soon a crowd from the neighborhood gathered and they joined in the work, and then the doctors came. By this time a second woman was helping by Nancy's side.

The old inn-keeper paused once to see who it was, and nodded in recognition.

"It's a sad business, Miss Piper," she remarked, huskily.

Soon a long procession slowly wound its way across the fields to the tavern, men carrying those unable to walk, and the others who were not so badly hurt leaning on the shoulders of their companions. Nancy and Miss Piper went with the first to prepare beds and other necessaries, and all that night the two women stayed by their grim task.

"You should be a nurse," young Dr. Dodona observed to Sophia Piper, during a moment's respite.

"I would, gladly, if I had that woman to help me," she answered, and they both turned to watch Nancy, who was deftly binding a fresh bandage on the crushed leg of an elderly gentleman who seemed more concerned over the soiling of his clothes than his wound.

"Are you tired, Mrs. McVeigh?" she asked, kindly.

Nancy only smiled back a reply, and bent her grey head over her patient again.

Thirteen slightly injured, three seriously, and no deaths, was the result of the accident, and after a few days everything at the Junction was as it had been always, excepting that Nancy McVeigh's tavern had won a new guest and lost an old one. Moore had recovered from his attack a few hours after his seizure, and was taken into custody by the law to stand his trial for wilful neglect of duty, and Mr. Lawrence Hyden lay in his room with a very impatient temper and a badly crushed leg. The Wednesday of the following week was set as the day for Moore's trial, and Nancy received a summons to appear as a witness.

"I'll do that with pleasure, sure, fer it's meself that's doubtin' the senses of yon pack o' lawyers. It's jist capital they are tryin' to make out o' this affair to injure me in the eyes of the Commissioners, I'm thinkin'," she said, when the blue paper was handed to her.

The scene in the courtroom was highly interesting to her, and she wondered, as she listened to the learned talking, how their charge against Moore could have any foundation. When her name was called she was fully prepared to give them all a piece of her mind.

"Now, Mrs. McVeigh, the whole case against Mr. Moore rests on your testimony. We want to know from you if the accused was addicted to the use of liquor," the presiding counsel asked, in suave tones.

"He was not, yer worship," she answered, promptly.

"But one witness states that liquor was found in the accused man's room, and also that his breath was strongly tainted shortly after the time of the accident," the counsel continued.

The whole truth of the misunderstanding suddenly came home to Nancy, and after some bickering between the lawyers, she was allowed to narrate, in her own homely way, the current of events from the first time she had noticed the illness coming over Mr. Moore, until she had stood by the switch watching the train going to destruction. Every man in the room had heard somewhat of Nancy's peculiar existence, and they listened with doubly aroused interest to her simple tale. Suddenly an interruption came from a very unexpected quarter. Moore was swaying unsteadily, and but for the timely arm of the officer near him, would have collapsed on the floor. The court immediately adjourned whilst a doctor was sent for.

"There'll be no case, Mrs. McVeigh. It is clear in my mind that the prisoner is a very sick man and should be sent at once to the hospital.

If I have my way the verdict of this examination will be a testimonial of some substantial nature to be given to a very generous-hearted old lady," the counsel said, shaking her hand warmly.

"An' who are ye blarneyin' now, Judge?" Nancy asked, not the least bit abashed at the learned man's importance.

"A certain Widow McVeigh, of the Monk Road," he answered, laughing.

'Twas a short time after this that ugly rumors of rowdyism were spread over the countryside, and while matters were at white heat the question of cancelling Nancy McVeigh's tavern license was again brought before the Commissioners. Miss Sophia Piper heard of the complaint, and made it her business to interview the stout gentleman on the Board with whom she was on friendly terms.

"You came to me once to urge the abolition of this license, but now you defend the woman," he said to her, in surprise.

"I know that Mrs. McVeigh is honorable and good, and this report is being circulated by parties who wish to secure her rights for their own purposes. If liquor is to be sold on the Monk Road, then, sir, I can speak for the whole temperance people of that section. Let Mrs.

McVeigh have the selling," she answered, pleadingly; and so the license was extended for another year, as usual. But Moore did not receive the appointment as master at the new station of Monk the following spring.

CHAPTER V.

_JENNIE._

Mr. Lawrence Hyden stayed at Nancy McVeigh's tavern on the Monk Road while his leg, which had received a severe crushing in the railroad accident at the Junction, healed sufficiently for him to depart for his home in the city. During his sojourn the widow McVeigh was ofttimes sorely tempted to take him out and stand him on his head in the horse-trough, so cantankerous was he over his enforced idleness. She had plenty and to spare of compa.s.sion for weaklings, who had not physical strength such as hers to carry them through troubles, but this irate old man only annoyed her. She had not been well herself since that long night's work in the rain, when half of the pa.s.senger train had toppled into the ditch, and her patience was correspondingly short-lived. The doctor who attended Mr. Hyden noticed the weary look about her eyes, and offered his advice.

"You should go to bed for at least a fortnight," he suggested.

Nancy smiled as she replied: "'Twould be a merry riot, surely, doctor, if I gave in to my complaints, with noisy customers downstairs and two cranky patients above."

However, she gave over the attendance on the obdurate old gentleman, who from force of necessity was her guest, to Jennie, her adopted daughter.

"If he finds too many faults, Jennie, just leave him a spell without his food. That'll teach him to value the fare with a kinder grace,"

she explained.

Contrary to Nancy's expectations, Jennie wrought a wonderful change for the better in her patient. Mr. Hyden seemed to form an attachment for the girl from the very beginning.

"You remind me of someone," he remarked during the first few hours of her service; and afterwards he would listen to Jennie for a whole evening while she struggled through some reading matter. One evening he told her about a grandchild of his whom he had lost through being over-harsh with the mother, and his words impressed Jennie so much that she retailed them to Mistress McVeigh the very next morning.

"It's no unloike yer own mother's troubles," Nancy observed, critically.

"And will ye tell me of them, Granny?" Jennie asked, eagerly, for it had often been hinted to her that Nancy McVeigh was not her grandmother.

"It's a burden o' sorrow, dear, and not fit for young ears to listen to," Nancy replied, evasively. Jennie, however, was not satisfied, and the next time that Mr. Hyden was in a talkative mood she introduced the subject to him. He seemed deeply interested, and promised that he would endeavor to persuade Mistress McVeigh to divulge her secret.

After Mr. Hyden could hobble from his room to other parts of the house, a photo of Jennie's, taken when she was a very young child, disappeared from the upstairs parlor, and Nancy suspected at once that her guest had taken it. She told Jennie to look for it when she was cleaning up his room, and sure enough, she found it amongst a miscellany of papers and letters which littered his table. This was enough to rouse Nancy's ire to a point where an understanding of all grievances up-to-date was necessary, so she proceeded upstairs, with a sparkle in her eye which boded ill for the victim of her wrath. He was in his room, writing, and without waiting for him to finish, as was her custom, she demanded the lost photo.

"I have it, Mistress McVeigh. I meant to put it back in its place, but it slipped my memory," he stammered, guiltily; and then he asked her, frankly, "May I keep it?"

"Kape the swate child's picture, the only wan I have, barrin' her own silf! Ye have great a.s.surance to ask it!" Nancy exclaimed, though somewhat mollified at his mild explanation.

"My son married beneath him, and I treated his wife very badly. They had one child, a girl, and I have often wished since that I could discover her whereabouts. I have a sort of guilty feeling that I was not exactly honorable in my dealings with my daughter-in-law, and it has so preyed on my mind that I think every strange child may be hers.

I remember seeing the mother two or three times, and her face peers at me now when I am in reverie. A vengeance of fate for a social crime, I expect," he said, laughing nervously. Then he continued: "You may wonder, Mistress McVeigh, why I am telling you this, but your Jennie's face is that of my son's wife. It may be the result of long years of remorse which have created a myth in my brain, but when she comes to wait on me the likeness is very real. I hope you will excuse my action in taking that photo, and perhaps you will sell it." Mr. Hyden spoke seriously, lest Nancy should suspect him of subterfuge.

"Sure, sir, ye think it is like yer own flesh and blood?" Nancy questioned, softly, her eyes filling suddenly.

Mr. Hyden's brow contracted into a frown, and he seemed on the point of regretting the confidences which he had spoken, but Nancy interrupted him.