BAD HUGH
or,
The Diamond in the Rough
by
MARY J. HOLMES
Author of "Lena Rivers", "Tempest and Sunshine", "Meadow Brook",
"The English Orphans", etc., etc.
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
1900
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Spring Bank
II. What Rover Found
III. Hugh's Soliloquy
IV. Terrace Hill
V. Anna and John
VI. Alice Johnson
VII. Riverside Cottage
VIII. Mr. Liston and the Doctor
IX. Matters in Kentucky
X. Lina's Purchase and Hugh's
XI. Sam and Adah
XII. What Followed
XIII. How Hugh Paid His Debts
XIV. Mrs. Johnson's Letter
XV. Saratoga
XVI. The Columbian
XVII. Hugh
XVIII. Meeting of Alice and Hugh
XIX. Alice and Muggins
XX. Poor Hugh
XXI. Alice and Adah
XXII. Waking to Consciousness
XXIII. Lina's Letter
XXIV. Foreshadowings
XXV. Talking with Hugh
XXVI. The Day of the Sale
XXVII. The Sale
XXVIII. The Ride
XXIX. Hugh and Alice
XXX. Adah's Journey
XXXI. The Convict
XXXII. Adah at Terrace Hill
XXXIII. Anna and Adah
XXXIV. Rose Markham
XXXV. The Result
XXXVI. Excitement
XXXVII. Matters at Spring Bank
XXXVIII. The Day of the Wedding
XXXIX. The Convict's Story
XL. Poor 'Lina
XLI. Tidings
XLII. Irving Stanley
XLIII. Letters from Hugh and Irving Stanley
XLIV. The Deserter
XLV. The Second Battle of Bull Run
XLVI. How Sam Came There
XLVII. Finding Hugh
XLVIII. Going Home
XLIX. Conclusion
BAD HUGH
CHAPTER I
SPRING BANK
A large, old-fashioned, weird-looking wooden building, with strangely
shaped bay windows and stranger gables projecting here and there from
the slanting roof, where the green moss clung in patches to the moldy
shingles, or formed a groundwork for the nests the swallows built year
after year beneath the decaying eaves. Long, winding piazzas, turning
sharp, sudden angles, and low, square porches, where the summer sunshine
held many a fantastic dance, and where the winter storm piled up its
drifts of snow, whistling merrily as it worked, and shaking the loosened
casement as it went whirling by. Huge trees of oak and maple, whose
topmost limbs had borne and cast the leaf for nearly a century of years,
tall evergreens, among whose boughs the autumn wind ploughed mournfully,
making sad music for those who cared to listen, and adding to the
loneliness which, during many years, had invested the old place. A wide
spreading grassy lawn, with the carriage road winding through it, over
the running brook, and onward 'neath graceful forest trees, until it
reached the main highway, a distance of nearly half a mile. A spacious
garden in the rear, with bordered walks and fanciful mounds, with
climbing roses and creeping vines showing that somewhere there was a
taste, a ruling hand, which, while neglecting the somber building and
suffering it to decay, lavished due care upon the grounds, and not on
these alone, but also on the well-kept barns, and the whitewashed
dwellings in front, where numerous, happy, well-fed negroes lived and
lounged, for ours is a Kentucky scene, and Spring Bank a Kentucky home.
As we have described it so it was on a drear December night, when a
fearful storm, for that latitude, was raging, and the snow lay heaped
against the fences, or sweeping-down from the bending trees, drifted
against the doors, and beat against the windows, whence a cheerful light
was gleaming, telling of life and possible happiness within. There were
no flowing curtains before the windows, no drapery sweeping to the
floor, nothing save blinds without and simple shades within, neither of
which were doing service now, for the master of the house would have it
so in spite of his sister's remonstrances.
Some one might lose their way on that terrible night, he said, and the
blaze of the fire on the hearth, which could be seen from afar, would be
to them a beacon light to guide them on their way. Nobody would look in
upon them, as Adaline, or 'Lina as she chose to be called, and as all
did call her except himself, seemed to think there might, and even if
they did, why need she care? To be sure she was not quite as fixey as
she was on pleasant days when there was a possibility of visitors, and
her cheeks were not quite so red, but she was looking well enough, and
she'd undone all those little tags or braids which disfigured her so
shockingly in the morning, but which, when brushed and carefully
arranged, did give her hair that waving appearance she so much desired.
As for himself, he never meant to do anything of which he was ashamed,
so he did not care how many were watching him through the window, and
stamping his heavy boots upon the rug, for he had just come in from the
storm Hugh Worthington piled fresh fuel upon the fire, and, shaking back
the mass of short brown curls which had fallen upon his forehead, strode
across the room and arranged the shades to his own liking, paying no
heed when his more fastidious sister, with a frown upon her dark,
handsome face, muttered something about the "Stanley taste."
"There, Kelpie, lie there," he continued, returning to the hearth, and,
addressing a small, white, shaggy dog, which, with a human look in its
round, pink eyes, obeyed the voice it knew and loved, and crouched down
in the corner at a safe distance from the young lady, whom it seemed
instinctively to know as an enemy.
"Do, pray, Hugh, let the dirty things stay where they are," 'Lina
exclaimed, as she saw her brother walk toward the dining-room, and
guessed his errand. "Nobody wants a pack of dogs under their feet. I
wonder you don't bring in your pet horse, saddle and all."
"I did want to when I heard how piteously he cried after me as I left
the stable to-night," said Hugh, at the same time opening a door leading
out upon a back piazza, and, uttering a peculiar whistle, which brought
around him at once the pack of dogs which so annoyed his sister.
"I'd be a savage altogether if I were you!" was the sister's angry
remark, to which Hugh paid no heed.
It was his house, his fire, and if he chose to have his dogs there, he
should, for all of Ad, but when the pale, gentle-looking woman, knitting
so quietly in her accustomed chair, looked up and said imploringly:
"Please turn them into the kitchen, they'll surely be comfortable
there," he yielded at once, for that pale, gentle woman, was his mother,
and, to her wishes, Hugh was generally obedient.
The room was cleared of all its canine occupants, save Kelpie, who Hugh
insisted should remain, the mother resumed her knitting, and Adaline her
book, while Hugh sat down before the blazing fire, and, with his hands
crossed above his head, went on into a reverie, the nature of which his
mother, who was watching him, could not guess; and when at last she
asked of what he was thinking so intently, he made her no reply. He
could hardly have told himself, so varied were the thoughts crowding
upon his brain that wintry night. Now they were of the eccentric old
man, who had been to him a father, and from whom he had received Spring
Bank, together with the many peculiar ideas which made him the strange,
odd creature he was, a puzzle and a mystery to his own sex, and a kind
of terror to the female portion of the neighborhood, who looked upon him
as a woman-hater, and avoided or coveted his not altogether disagreeable
society, just as their fancy dictated. For years the old man and the boy
had lived together alone in that great, lonely house, enjoying vastly
the freedom from all restraint, the liberty of turning the parlors into
kennels if they chose, and converting the upper rooms into a hay-loft,
if they would. No white woman was ever seen upon the premises, unless
she came as a beggar, when some new gown, or surplice, or organ, or
chandelier, was needed for the pretty little church, lifting its modest
spire so unobtrusively among the forest trees, not very far from Spring
Bank. John Stanley didn't believe in churches; nor gowns, nor organs,
nor women, but he was proverbially liberal, and so the fair ones of
Glen's Creek neighborhood ventured into his den, finding it much
pleasanter to do so after the handsome, dark-haired boy came to live
with him; for about that frank, outspoken boy there was then something
very attractive to the little girls, while their mothers pitied him,
wondering why he had been permitted to come there, and watching for the
change in him, which was sure to ensue.
Not all at once did Hugh conform to the customs of his uncle's
household, and at first there often came over him a longing for
something different, a yearning for the refinements of his early home
among the Northern hills, and a wish to infuse into Chloe, the colored
housekeeper, some of his mother's neatness. But a few attempts at reform
had taught him how futile was the effort, Aunt Chloe always meeting him
with the argument:
"'Taint no use, Mr. Hugh. A nigger's a nigger; and I spec' ef you're to
talk to me till you was hoarse 'bout your Yankee ways of scrubbin', and
sweepin', and moppin' with a broom, I shouldn't be an atomer
white-folksey than I is now. Besides Mas'r John, wouldn't bar no finery;
he's only happy when the truck is mighty nigh a foot thick, and his
things is lyin' round loose and handy."
To a certain extent this was true, for John Stanley would have felt
sadly out of place in any spot where, as Chloe said, "his things were
not lying round loose and handy," and as habit is everything, so Hugh
soon grew accustomed to his surroundings, and became as careless of his
external appearance as his uncle could desire. Only once had there come
to him an awakening--a faint conception of the happiness there might
arise from constant association with the pure and refined, such as his
uncle had labored to make him believe did not exist. He was thinking of
that incident now, and as he thought the veins upon his broad, white
forehead stood out round and full, while the hands clasped above the
head worked nervously together, and it was not strange that he did not
heed his mother when she spoke, for Hugh was far away from Spring Bank,
and the wild storm beating against its walls was to him like the sound
of the waves dashing against the vessel's side, just as they did years
ago on that night he remembered so well, shuddering as he heard again
the murderous hiss of the devouring flames, covering the fatal boat with
one sheet of fire, and driving into the water as a safer friend the
shrieking, frightened wretches who but an hour before had been so full
of life and hope, dancing gayly above the red-tongued demon stealthily
creeping upward from the hold below, where it had taken life. What a
fearful scene that was, and the veins grew larger on Hugh's brow while
his broad chest heaved with something like a stifled sob as he recalled
the little childish form to which he had clung so madly until the cruel
timber struck from him all consciousness, and he let that form go
down--down 'neath the treacherous waters of Lake Erie never to come up
again alive, for so his uncle told when, weeks after the occurrence, he
awoke from the delirious fever which ensued and listened to the
sickening detail.
"Lost, my boy, lost with many others," was what his uncle had said.
He heard the words as plainly now as when they first were spoken,
remembering how his uncle's voice had faltered, and how the thought had
flashed upon his mind that John Stanley's heart was not as hard toward
womenkind as people had supposed. "Lost"--there was a world of meaning
in that word to Hugh more than any one had ever guessed, and, though it
was but a child he lost, yet in the quiet night, when all else around
Spring Bank was locked in sleep, he often lay thinking of that child and
of what he might perhaps have been had she been spared to him. He was
thinking of her now, and as he thought visions of a sweet, pale face,
shadowed with curls of golden hair, came up before his mind, and he saw
again the look of bewildered surprise and pain which shone in the soft,
blue eyes and illumined every feature when in an unguarded moment he
gave vent to the half infidel principles he had learned from his uncle.
Her creed was different from his, and she explained it to him so
earnestly, so tearfully, that he had said to her at last he did but jest
to hear what she would say, and, though she seemed satisfied, he felt
there was a shadow between them--a shadow which was not swept away, even
after he promised to read the little Bible she gave him and see for
himself whether he or she were right. He had that Bible now hidden away
where no curious eye could find it, and carefully folded between its
leaves was a curl of golden hair. It was faded now, and its luster was
almost gone, but as often as he looked upon it, it brought to mind the
bright head it once adorned, and the fearful hour when he became its
owner. That tress and the Bible which inclosed it had made Hugh
Worthington a better man. He did not often read the Bible, it is true,
and his acquaintances were frequently startled with opinions which had
so pained the little girl on board the _St. Helena_, but this was merely
on the surface, for far below the rough exterior there was a world of
goodness, a mine of gems, kept bright by memories of the angel child
which flitted for so brief a span across his pathway and then was lost
forever. He had tried so hard to save her--had clasped her so fondly to
his bosom when with extended arms she came to him for aid. He could save
her, he said--he could swim to the shore with perfect ease and so
without a moment's hesitation she had leaped with him into the surging
waves, and that was about the last he could remember, save that he
clutched frantically at the long, golden hair streaming above the water,
retaining in his firm grasp the lock which no one at Spring Bank had
ever seen, for this one romance of Hugh's seemingly unromantic life was
a secret with himself. No one save his uncle had witnessed his emotions
when told that she was dead; no one else had seen his bitter tears or
heard the vehement exclamation: "You've tried to teach me there was no
hereafter, no heaven for such as she, but I know better now, and I am
glad there is, for she is safe forever."
These were not mere idle words, and the belief then expressed became
with Hugh Worthington a firm, fixed principle, which his skeptical uncle
tried in vain to eradicate. "There was a heaven, and she was there,"
comprised nearly the whole of Hugh's religious creed, if we except a
vague, misty hope, that he, too, would some day find her, how or by what
means he never seriously inquired; only this he knew, it would be
through her influence, which even now followed him everywhere, producing
its good effects. It had checked him many and many a time when his
fierce temper was in the ascendant, forcing back the harsh words he
would otherwise have spoken, and making him as gentle as a child; and
when the temptations to which young men of his age are exposed were
spread out alluringly before him, a single thought of her was sufficient
to lead him from the forbidden ground.
Only once had he fallen, and that two years before, when, as if some
demon had possessed him, he shook off all remembrances of the past, and
yielding to the baleful fascinations of one who seemed to sway him at
will, plunged into a tide of dissipation, and lent himself at last to an
act which had since embittered every waking hour. As if all the events
of his life were crowding upon his memory this night, he thought of two
years ago, and the scene which transpired in the suburbs of New York,
whither immediately after his uncle's death he had gone upon a matter of
important business. In the gleaming fire before him there was now
another face than hers, an older, a different, though not less beautiful
face, and Hugh shuddered as he thought how it must have changed ere
this--thought of the anguish which stole into the dark, brown eyes when
first the young girl learned how cruelly she had been betrayed. Why
hadn't he saved her? What had she done to him that he should treat her
so, and where was she now? Possibly she was dead. He almost hoped she
was, for if she were, the two were then together, his golden-haired and
brown, for thus he designated the two.
Larger and fuller grew the veins upon his forehead, as memory kept thus
faithfully at work, and so absorbed was Hugh in his reverie that until
twice repeated he did not hear his mother's anxious inquiry:
"What is that noise? It sounds like some one in distress."
Hugh started at last, and, after listening for a moment he, too, caught
the sound which had so alarmed his mother, and made 'Lina stop her
reading. A moaning cry, as if for help, mingled with an infant's wail,
now here, now there it seemed to be, just as the fierce north wind
shifted its course and drove first at the uncurtained window of the
sitting-room, and then at the ponderous doors of the gloomy hall.
"It is some one in the storm, though I can't imagine why any one should
be abroad to-night," Hugh said, going to the window and peering out into
the darkness.
"Lyd's child, most likely. Negro young ones are always squalling, and I
heard her tell Aunt Chloe at supper time that Tommie had the colic,"
'Lina remarked opening again the book she was reading, and with a slight
shiver drawing nearer to the fire.
"Where are you going, my son?" asked Mrs. Worthington, as Hugh arose to
leave the room.
"Going to Lyd's cabin, for if Tommie is sick enough to make his screams
heard above the storm, she may need some help," was Hugh's reply, and a
moment after he was ploughing his way through the drifts which lay
between the house and the negro quarters.
"How kind and thoughtful he is," the mother said, softly, more to
herself than to her daughter, who nevertheless quickly rejoined:
"Yes, kind to niggers, and horses, and dogs, I'll admit, but let me, or
any other white woman come before him as an object of pity, and the
tables are turned at once. I wonder what does make him hate women so."
"I don't believe he does," Mrs. Worthington replied. "His uncle, you
know, was very unfortunate in his marriage, and had a way of judging
all our sex by his wife. Living with him as long as Hugh did, it's
natural he should imbibe a few of his ideas."
"A few," 'Lina repeated, "better say all, for John Stanley and Hugh
Worthington are as near alike as an old and young man well could be.
What an old codger he was though, and how like a savage he lived here. I
never shall forget how the house looked the day we came, or how
satisfied Hugh seemed when he met us at the gate, and said, 'everything
was in spendid order,'" and closing her book, the young lady laughed
merrily as she recalled the time when she first crossed her brother's
threshold, stepping, as she affirmed, over half a dozen dogs, and as
many squirming kittens, catching her foot in some fishing tackle,
finding tobacco in the china closet, and segars in the knife box, where
they had been put to get them out of the way.
"But Hugh really did his best for us," mildly interposed the mother.
"Don't you remember what the servants said about his cleaning one floor
himself because he knew they were tired!"
"Did it more to save the lazy negroes' steps than from any regard for
our comfort," retorted 'Lina. "At all events he's been mighty careful
since how he gratified my wishes. Sometimes I believe he perfectly hates
me, and wishes I'd never been born," and tears, which arose from anger,
rather than any wounded sisterly feeling, glittered in 'Lina's black
eyes.
"Hugh does not hate any one," said Mrs. Worthington, "much less his
sister, though you must admit that you try him terribly."
"How, I'd like to know?" 'Lina asked, and her mother replied:
"He thinks you proud, and vain, and artificial, and you know he abhors
deceit above all else. Why, he'd cut off his right hand sooner than tell
a lie."
"Pshaw!" was 'Lina's contemptuous response, then after a moment she
continued: "I wonder how we came to be so different. He must be like his
father, and I like mine--that is, supposing I know who he is. Wouldn't
it be funny if, just to be hateful, he had sent you back the wrong
child?"
"What made you think of that?" Mrs. Worthington asked, quickly, and
'Lina replied:
"Oh, nothing, only the last time Hugh had one of his tantrums, and got
so outrageously angry at me, because I made Mr. Bostwick think my hair
was naturally curly, he said he'd give all he owned if it were so, but
I reckon he'll never have his wish. There's too much of old Sam about me
to admit of a doubt," and half spitefully, half playfully she touched
the spot in the center of her forehead known as her birthmark.
When not excited it could scarcely be discerned at all, but the moment
she was aroused, the delicate network of veins stood out round and full,
forming what seemed to be a tiny hand without the thumb. It showed a
little now in the firelight, and Mrs. Worthington shuddered as she
glanced at what brought so vividly before her the remembrance of other
and wretched days. Adaline observed the shudder and hastened to change
the conversation from herself to Hugh, saying by way of making some
amends for her unkind remarks: "It really is kind in him to give me a
home when I have no particular claim upon him, and I ought to respect
him for that. I am glad, too, that Mr. Stanley made it a condition in
his will that if Hugh ever married, he should forfeit the Spring Bank
property, as that provides against the possibility of an upstart wife
coming here some day and turning us, or at least me, into the street.
Say, mother, are you not glad that Hugh can never marry even if he
wishes to do so, which is not very probable."
"I am not so sure of that," returned Mrs. Worthington, smoothing, with
her small, fat hands the bright worsted cloud she was knitting, a
feminine employment for which she had a weakness. "I am not so sure of
that. Suppose Hugh should fancy a person whose fortune was much larger
than the one left him by Uncle John, do you think he would let it pass
just for the sake of holding Spring Bank?"
"Perhaps not," 'Lina replied; "but there's no possible danger of any
one's fancying Hugh."
"And why not?" quickly interrupted the mother. "He has the kindest heart
in the world, and is certainly fine-looking if he would only dress
decently."
"I'm much obliged for your compliment, mother," Hugh said, laughingly,
as he stepped suddenly into the room and laid his hand caressingly on
his mother's head, thus showing that even he was not insensible to
flattery. "Have you heard that sound again?" he continued. "It wasn't
Tommie, for I found him asleep, and I've been all around the house, but
could discover nothing. The storm is beginning to abate, I think, and
the moon is trying to break through the clouds," and, going again to the
window, Hugh looked out into the yard, where the shrubbery and trees
were just discernible in the grayish light of the December moon. "That's
a big drift by the lower gate," he continued; "and queer shaped, too.
Come see, mother. Isn't that a shawl, or an apron, or something blowing
in the wind?"
Mrs. Worthington arose, and, joining her son, looked in the direction
indicated, where a garment of some kind was certainly fluttering in the
gale.
"It's something from the wash, I guess," she said. "I thought all the
time Hannah had better not hang out the clothes, as some of them were
sure to be lost."
This explanation was quite satisfactory to Mrs. Worthington, but that
strange drift by the gate troubled Hugh, and the signal above it seemed
to him like a signal of distress. Why should the snow drift there more
than elsewhere? He never knew it do so before. He had half a mind to
turn out the dogs, and see what that would do.
"Rover," he called, suddenly, as he advanced to the rear room, where,
among his older pets, was a huge Newfoundland, of great sagacity.
"Rover, Rover, I want you."
In an instant the whole pack were upon him, jumping and fawning, and
licking the hands which had never dealt them aught save kindness. It was
only Rover, however, who was this time wanted, and leading him to the
door, Hugh pointed toward the gate, and bade him see what was there.
Snuffing slightly at the storm, which was not over yet, Rover started
down the walk, while Hugh stood waiting in the door. At first Rover's
steps were slow and uncertain, but as he advanced they increased in
rapidity, until, with a sudden bound and cry, such as dogs are wont to
give when they have caught their destined prey, he sprang upon the
mysterious ridge, and commenced digging it down with his paws.
"Easy, Rover--be careful," Hugh called from the door, and instantly the
half-savage growl which the wind had brought to his ear was changed into
a piteous cry, as if the faithful creature were answering back that
other help than his was needed there.
Rover had found something in that pile of snow.