Gaylord and others. During this period Austen was more than once assailed
by the temptation to return to the free life of Pepper County, Mr.
Blodgett having completely recovered now, and only desiring vengeance of
a corporal nature. But a bargain was a bargain, and Austen Vane stuck to
his end of it, although he had now begun to realize many aspects of a
situation which he had not before suspected. He had long foreseen,
however, that the time was coming when a serious disagreement with his
father was inevitable. In addition to the difference in temperament,
Hilary Vane belonged to one generation and Austen to another.

It happened, as do so many incidents which tend to shape a life, by a
seeming chance. It was a Tune evening, and there had been a church
sociable and basket picnic during the day in a grove in the town of
Mercer, some ten miles south of Ripton. The grove was bounded on one side
by the railroad track, and merged into a thick clump of second growth and
alders where there was a diagonal grade crossing. The picnic was over and
the people preparing to go home when they were startled by a crash,
followed by the screaming of brakes as a big engine flew past the grove
and brought a heavy train to a halt some distance down the grade. The
women shrieked and dropped the dishes they were washing, and the men left
their horses standing and ran to the crossing and then stood for the
moment helpless, in horror at the scene which met their eyes. The wagon
of one--of their own congregation was in splinters, a man (a farmer of
the neighbourhood) lying among the alders with what seemed a mortal
injury. Amid the lamentations and cries for some one to go to Mercer
Village for the doctor a young man drove up rapidly and sprang out of a
buggy, trusting to some one to catch his horse, pushed, through the ring
of people, and bent over the wounded farmer. In an instant he had whipped
out a knife, cut a stick from one of the alders, knotted his handkerchief
around the man's leg, ran the stick through the knot, and twisted the