THE RIDE
They had kept it all from Hugh, telling him only that a stranger had
purchased Mosside. He had not asked for Rocket, or even mentioned him,
though his pet was really uppermost in his mind, and when he awoke next
morning from his feverish sleep and remembered Alice's proposal to ride,
he said to himself, "I cannot go, much as I might enjoy it. No other
horse would carry me as gently as Rocket. Oh! Rocket!"
It was a bright, balmy morning, and Hugh, as he walked slowly to the
window and inhaled the fragrant air, felt that it would do him good,
"But I shan't go," he said, and when, after breakfast was over, Alice
came, reminding him of the ride, he began an excuse, but his resolution
quickly gave way before her sprightly arguments, and he finally
assented, saying, however: "You must not expect a gay cavalier, for I am
still too weak, and I have no horse fit to ride with you, at least."
"Yes, I know," and Alice ran gayly to her room and donned her riding
dress, wondering what Hugh would say and how Rocket would act.
He was out in the back yard now, pawing and curvetting, and rubbing his
nose against all who came near him, while Claib was holding him by his
new bridle and talking to him of Mas'r Hugh.
Even an ugly woman is improved by a riding costume, and Alice, beautiful
though she was, looked still more beautiful in her closely-fitting
habit.
"There, I'm ready," she said, running down to Hugh.
At sight of her his face flushed, while a half sigh escaped him as he
thought how proud he would once have been to ride with her; but that was
in the days of Rocket, when rider and horse were called the best in the
county.
"Where's Jim?" Hugh asked, glancing around in quest of the huge animal
he expected to mount, and which he had frequently likened to a stone
wall.
"Claib has your horse. He's coming," and with great apparent unconcern
Alice worked industriously at one of her fairy gantlets.
Suddenly Adah flew to Hugh's side, and said, eagerly:
"Hugh, please whistle once, just as you used to do for Rocket--just
once, and let Miss Johnson hear you."
Hugh felt as if she were mocking him, but he yielded, while like a gleam
of lightning the shadow of a suspicion flitted across his mind. It was a
loud, shrill whistle, penetrating even to the woods, and the instant the
old familiar sound fell on Rocket's ear he went tearing around the
house, answering that call with the neigh he had been wont to give when
summoned by his master. Utterly speechless, Hugh stood gazing at him as
he came up, his neck arched proudly, and his silken mane flowing as
gracefully as on the day when he was led away to Colonel Tiffton's
stall.
"Won't somebody tell me what it means?" Hugh gasped, stretching out his
hands toward Rocket, who even attempted to lick them.
At this point Alice stepped forward, and taking Rocket's bridle, laid it
across Hugh's lap, saying, softly:
"It means that Rocket is yours, purchased by a friend, saved from
Harney, for you. Mount him, and see if he rides as easily as ever. I am
impatient to be off."
But had Hugh's life depended upon it, he could not have mounted Rocket
then. He knew the friend was Alice, and the magnitude of the act
overpowered him.
"Oh, Miss Johnson," he cried, "what made you do it? It must not be. I
cannot suffer it."
"Not to please me?" and Alice's face wore its most winning look. "It's
been my fixed determination ever since I heard of Rocket, and knew how
much you loved him. I was never so happy doing an act in my life, and
now you must not spoil it all by refusing."
"As a loan, then, not as a gift," Hugh whispered. "It shall not be a
gift."
"It need not," Alice rejoined, as a sudden plan for carrying out another
project crossed her mind. "You shall pay for Rocket if you like, and
I'll tell you how on our ride. Shall we go?"
Once out upon the highway, where there were no mud holes to shun, no
gates to open and shut, Hugh broached the subject of Rocket again, when
Alice told him unhesitatingly how he could, if he would, pay for him and
leave her greatly his debtor. The scrap of paper, which Muggins had
saved from the letter thrown by Hugh upon the carpet, had been placed by
the queer little child in an old envelope, which she called her letter
to Miss Alice. Handing it to her that morning with the utmost gravity,
she had asked her to read "Mug's letter," and Alice had read the brief
lines written by 'Lina: "Hugh must send the money, as I told him before.
He can sell Mug; Harney likes pretty darkies." There was a cold, sick
feeling at Alice's heart, a shrinking with horror from 'Lina
Worthington, and then she came to a decision. Mug should be hers, and
so, as skillfully as she could she brought it around, that having taken
a great fancy both to Lulu and Muggins, she wished to buy them both,
giving whatever Hugh honestly thought they were worth. Rocket, if he
pleased, should be taken as part or whole payment for Mug, and so cease
to be a gift.
"I have no mercenary motives in the matter," she said, "With me they
will be free, and this, I am sure, will be an inducement for you to
consent to my proposal."
A slave master can love his bond servant, and Hugh loved the little Mug
so much that the idea of parting with her as he surely must at some
future time if he assented to Alice's plan, made him hesitate. But he
decided at last, influenced not so much by need of money as by knowing
how much real good the exchange of ownership would be to the two young
girls. In return for Rocket, Alice should have Muggins, while for Lulu
she might give what she liked.
"Heaven knows," he added, "it is not my nature to hold any one in
bondage, and I shall gladly hail the day which sees the negro free. But
our slaves are our property. Take them from us and we are ruined wholly.
Miss Johnson, do you honestly believe that one in forty of those
Northern abolitionists would deliberately give up ten--twenty--fifty
thousand dollars, just because the thing valued at that was man and not
beast? No, indeed. Southern people, born and brought up in the midst of
slavery, can't see it as the North does, and there's where the mischief
lies."
He had wandered from Lulu and Muggins to the subject which then, far
more than the North believed, was agitating the Southern mind. Then they
talked of 'Lina, Hugh telling Alice of her intention to pass the winter
with Mrs. Ellsworth, and speaking also of Irving Stanley.
"By the way, Ad writes that Irving was interested in you, and you in
him," Hugh said, rather abruptly, stealing a glance at Alice, who
answered frankly:
"I can hardly say that I know much of him, though once, long ago--"
She paused here, and Hugh waited anxiously for what she would say next.
But Alice, changing her mind, only added:
"I esteem Mr. Stanley very highly. He is a gentleman, a scholar and a
Christian."
"You like him better for that, I suppose--better for being a Christian,
I mean," Hugh replied, a little bitterly.
"Oh, yes, so much better," and reining her horse closer to Hugh, Alice
rode very slowly, while in earnest tones she urged on Hugh the one great
thing he needed. "You are not offended?" she asked, as he continued
silent.
"No, oh, no. I never had any religious teaching, only once; an angel
flitted across my path, leaving a track of glorious sunshine, but the
clouds have been there since, and the sunshine is most all gone."
Alice knew he referred to the maiden of whose existence Mug had told
her, and she longed to ask him of her. Who was she, and where was she
now? Alas, that she should have been so deceived, or that Hugh, when she
finally did ask, "Who was the angel that crossed his path?" should
answer evasively.
Just before turning into the Spring Bank fields, a horseman came dashing
down the pike, checking his steed a moment as he drew near, and then,
with a savage frown, spurring on his foam-covered horse, muttering
between his teeth a curse on Hugh Worthington.
"That was Harney?" Alice said, stopping a moment outside the gate to
look after him as he went tearing down the pike.
"Yes, that was Harney," Hugh replied. "There's a political meeting of
some kind in Versailles to-day, and I suppose he is going there to raise
his voice with those who are denouncing the Republicans so bitterly, and
threatening vengeance if they succeed."
"The South will hardly be foolish enough to secede. Why, the North would
crush them at once," returned Alice, still looking after Harney, as if
she knew she were gazing after one destined to figure conspicuously in
the fast approaching rebellion, his very name a terror and dread to the
loyal, peace-loving citizens of Kentucky.