Mr. Crewe's Career — Complete. Winston Churchill

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СКАЧАТЬ was compelled to spend part of the summer, his bread-earning season, in a hospital, and yet no appeal or word of complaint had crossed his lips.

      “Mr. Meader,” said Austen, “I came over here to tell you that in my opinion you are entitled to heavy damages from the railroad, and to advise you not to accept a compromise. They will send some one to you and offer you a sum far below that which you ought in justice to receive, You ought to fight this case.”

      “How am I going to pay a lawyer, with a mortgage on my farm?” demanded Mr. Meader.

      “I'm a lawyer,” said Austen, “and if you'll take me, I'll defend you without charge.”

      “Ain't you the son of Hilary Vane?”

      “Yes.”

      “I've heard of him a good many times,” said Mr. Meader, as if to ask what man had not. “You're railroad, ain't ye?”

      Mr. Meader gazed long and thoughtfully into the young man's face, and the suspicion gradually faded from the farmer's blue eyes.

      “I like your looks,” he said at last. “I guess you saved my life. I'm—I'm much obliged to you.”

      When Mr. Tooting arrived later in the day, he found Mr. Meader willing to listen, but otherwise strangely non-committal. With native shrewdness, the farmer asked him what office he came from, but did not confide in Mr. Tooting the fact that Mr. Vane's son had volunteered to wring more money from Mr. Vane's client than Mr. Tooting offered him. Considerably bewildered, that gentleman left the hospital to report the affair to the Honourable Hilary, who, at intervals during the afternoon, found himself relapsing into speculation.

      Inside of a somewhat unpromising shell, Mr. Zeb Meader was a human being, and no mean judge of men and motives. As his convalescence progressed, Austen Vane fell into the habit of dropping in from time to time to chat with him, and gradually was rewarded by many vivid character sketches of Mr. Meader's neighbours in Mercer and its vicinity. One afternoon, when Austen came into the ward, he found at Mr. Meader's bedside a basket of fruit which looked too expensive and tempting to have come from any dealer's in Ripton.

      “A lady came with that,” Mr. Meader explained. “I never was popular before I was run over by the cars. She's be'n here twice. When she fetched it to-day, I kind of thought she was up to some, game, and I didn't want to take it.”

      “Up to some game?” repeated Austen.

      “Well, I don't know,” continued Mr. Meader, thoughtfully, “the woman here tells me she comes regular in the summer time to see sick folks, but from the way she made up to me I had an idea that she wanted something. But I don't know. Thought I'd ask you. You see, she's railrud.”

      “Railroad!”

      “She's Flint's daughter.”

      Austen laughed.

      “I shouldn't worry about that,” he said. “If Mr. Flint sent his daughter with fruit to everybody his railroad injures, she wouldn't have time to do anything else. I doubt if Mr. Flint ever heard of your case.”

      Mr. Meader considered this, and calculated there was something in it.

      “She was a nice, common young lady, and cussed if she didn't make me laugh, she has such a funny way of talkin'. She wanted to know all about you.”

      “What did she want to know?” Austen exclaimed, not unnaturally.

      “Well, she wanted to know about the accident, and I told her how you druv up and screwed that thing around my leg and backed the train down. She was a good deal took with that.”

      “I think you are inclined to make too much of it,” said Austen.

      Three days later, as he was about to enter the ward, Mr. Meader being now the only invalid there, he heard a sound which made him pause in the doorway. The sound was feminine laughter of a musical quality that struck pleasantly on Austen's ear. Miss Victoria Flint was sated beside Mr. Meader's bed, and qualified friendship had evidently been replaced by intimacy since Austen's last visit, for Mr. Meader was laughing, too.

      “And now I'm quite sure you have missed your vocation, Mr. Meader,” said Victoria. “You would have made a fortune on the stage.”

      “Me a play-actor!” exclaimed the invalid. “How much wages do they git?”

      “Untold sums,” she declared, “if they can talk like you.”

      “He kind of thought that story funny—same as you,” Mr. Meader ruminated, and glanced up. “Drat me,” he remarked, “if he ain't a-comin' now! I callated he'd run acrost you sometime.”

      Victoria raised her eyes, sparkling with humour, and they met Austen's.

      “We was just talkin' about you,” cried Mr. Meader, cordially; “come right in.” He turned to Victoria. “I want to make you acquainted,” he said, “with Austen Vane.”

      “And won't you tell him who I am, Mr. Meader?” said Victoria.

      “Well,” said Mr. Meader, apologetically, “that was stupid of me—wahn't it? But I callated he'd know. She's the daughter of the railrud president—the 'one that was askin' about you.”

      There was an instant's pause, and the colour stole into Victoria's cheeks. Then she glanced at Austen and bit her lip-and laughed. Her laughter was contagious.

      “I suppose I shall have to confess that you have inspired my curiosity, Mr. Vane,” she said.

      Austen's face was sunburned, but it flushed a more vivid red under the tan. It is needless to pretend that a man of his appearance and qualities had reached the age of thirty-two without having listened to feminine comments of which he was the exclusive subject. In this remark of Victoria's, or rather in the manner in which she made it, he recognized a difference.

      “It is a tribute, then, to the histrionic talents of Mr. Meader, of which you were speaking,” he replied laughingly.

      Victoria glanced at him with interest as he looked down at Mr. Meader.

      “And how is it to-day, Zeb?” he said.

      “It ain't so bad as it might be—with sech folks as her and you araound,” admitted Mr. Meader. “I'd almost agree to get run over again. She was askin' about you, and that's a fact, and I didn't slander you, neither. But I never callated to comprehend wimmen-folks.”

      “Now, Mr. Meader,” said Victoria, reprovingly, but there were little creases about her eyes, “don't be a fraud.”

      “It's true as gospel,” declared the invalid; “they always got the better of me. I had one of 'em after me once, when I was young and prosperin' some.”

      “And yet you have survived triumphant,” she exclaimed.

      “There wahn't none of 'em like you,” said Mr. Meader, “or it might have be'n different.”

      Again her eyes irresistibly sought Austen's—as though to share with him the humour of this remark—and they laughed together. Her colour, СКАЧАТЬ