HUGH’S SOLILOQUY.
“One, two, three, yes, as good as four women and a child,” he began, “to
say nothing of the negroes, who all must eat and drink. A goodly number
for one whose income is hardly as much as some young men spend every
year upon themselves; and the hardest of all is the having people call
me stingy and mean, the seeing young girls lift their eyebrows and wink
when young Hunks, as Ad says they call me, appears, and the knowing that
this opinion of me is encouraged and kept alive by the remarks and
insinuations of my own sister, for whom I’ve denied myself more than one
new coat that she might have the dress she coveted,” and in the red
gleam of the firelight the bearded chin quivered for a moment as Hugh
thought how unjust ’Lina was to him, and how hard was the lot imposed
upon him.
Soon recovering his composure he continued, “There’s that bill at
Harney’s, how in the world I’m to pay it when it comes due is more than
I know. These duds,” and he glanced ruefully at his coarse clothes,
“will look a heap worse than they do now,” and shifting the position of
his feet, which had hitherto rested upon the hearth, to a more
comfortable and suggestive one upon the mantel, Hugh tried to find a
spot in which he could economize.
“I needn’t have a fire in my room nights,” he said, as a coal fell into
the pan and thus reminded him of its existence, “and I won’t, either.
It’s nonsense for a great hot-blooded clown like me to be babied with a
fire. I’ve no tags to braid, no false switches to comb out and hide,
only a few buttons to undo, a shake or so, and I’m all right. So there’s
one thing, the fire—quite an item, too, at the rate coal is selling.
Then there’s coffee. I can do without that, I suppose, though it will be
perfect torment to smell it, and Hannah makes such splendid coffee, too;
but will is everything. Fire, coffee—I’m getting on famously. What
else?”
“_Tobacco_,” something whispered, but Hugh answered promptly, “No, sir,
I shan’t! I’ll sell my shirts, before I’ll give up my best friend. It’s
all the comfort I have when I get a fit of the blues. Oh, you needn’t
try to come it!” and Hugh shook his head defiantly at his unseen
interlocutor, urging that ’twas a filthy practice at best, and
productive of no good. “You needn’t try for I won’t,” and Hugh
deliberately lighted a cigar and resumed his soliloquy, while he
complacently watched the little blue rings curling so gracefully above
his head. “Blamed if I can think of any thing else, but maybe I shall. I
might sell something, I suppose. There’s Harney wants to buy Bet, but Ad
never rides any other horse, and she does ride uncommonly well, if she
_is_ Ad. There’s the negroes, more than I need,” but from this
suggestion Hugh turned away quite as decidedly as from the one touching
his tobacco. “He didn’t believe much in negroes any way, surely not in
selling them; besides that, nobody’d want them after they’d been spoiled
as he had spoiled them,” and he laughed aloud as he fancied a new master
trying to break in old Chloe, who had ruled at Spring Bank so long that
she almost fancied she owned it. No, Hugh wouldn’t sell his servants,
and the negroes sleeping so soundly in their cabins had nothing to fear
from him.
_Horses_ were suggested again. “You have other horses than Bet,” and
Hugh was conscious of a pang which wrung from him a groan, for his
horses were his idols, and parting with them would be like severing a
right hand. It was too terrible to think about, and Hugh dismissed it as
an alternative which might have to be considered another time. Then hope
made her voice heard above the little blue imps tormenting him so sadly.
He should get along somehow. Something would turn up. Ad might marry and
go away. He knew it was wrong, and yet he could not help thinking it
would be nice to come home some day and not find her there, with her
fault-finding, and her sarcastic remarks. What made her so different
from his mother—so different from the little sister he always remembered
with a throb of delight? He had loved her, and he thought of her now as
she used to look in her dainty white frocks, with the strings of coral
he had bought with nuts picked on the New England hills.
He used to kiss her chubby arms—kiss the rosy cheeks, and the soft brown
hair. But that hair had changed sadly since the days when its owner had
first lisped his name, and called him “Ugh,” for the bands and braids
coiled around ’Lina’s head were black as midnight. Not less changed than
’Lina’s tresses was ’Lina herself, and Hugh had often felt like crying
for the little baby sister, so lost and dead to him in her young
womanhood. What had changed Ad so? To be sure he did not care much for
females any way, but if Ad were half way decent, and would let him, he
should love her, he presumed. Other young men loved their sisters. There
was Bob Reynolds seemed to idolize his, crippled though she was, and he
had mourned so bitterly, when she died, bending over her coffin, and
kissing her white face. Would Hugh do so to Ad? He thought it very
doubtful! though, he supposed, he should feel sorry and mourn some, but
he’d bet he wouldn’t wear a very wide band of crape around his hat; he
couldn’t afford it! Still he should remember all the harsh things he had
said to her, and be so sorry.
There was many a tender spot in Hugh Worthington’s heart, and shadow
after shadow flitted across his face as he thought how cheerless was his
life, and how little there was in his surroundings to make him happy.
Poor Hugh! It was a dreary picture he drew as he sat alone that night,
brooding over his troubles, and listening to the moan of the wintry
wind—the only sound he heard, except the rattling of the shutters and
the creaking of the timbers, as the old house rocked in the December
gale.
Suddenly there crept into his mind Adah’s words, “I shall pray for you
to-night.” Would she? Had she prayed for him, and did prayers do any
good? Was any one bettered by them? Golden Hair had thought so, and he
was sure she had talked with God of him, but since the waters closed
over her dear head, no one had remembered Hugh Worthington in that way,
he was sure. But Adah would, and Hugh’s heart grew stronger as he
thought of Adah praying for him. What would she say? How would she word
it? He wished he knew, but prayer was strange to Hugh. He _never_
prayed, and the Bible given by Golden Hair had not been opened this many
a day, but he would do so now, and unlocking the trunk where it was
hidden, he took it from its concealment and opened it reverently, half
wondering what he should read first and if it would have any reference
to his present position.
“Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these ye did it unto me.”
That was what Hugh read in the dim twilight, that, the passage on which
the lock of hair lay, and the Bible dropped from his hands as he
whispered,
“Golden Hair, are you here? Did you point that out to me? Does it mean
Adah? Is the God you loved on earth pleased that I should care for her?”
To these queries, there came no answer, save the mournful wailing of the
night wind roaring down the chimney and past the sleet-covered window,
but Hugh was a happier man for reading that, and had there before
existed a doubt as to his duty toward Adah, this would have swept it
away. Bending closer to the fire, Hugh read the chapter through,
wondering why he should feel so much better, and why the world looked
brighter than it had an hour before. If it made folks feel so nice to
read a little bit in the Bible, how would they feel to read it through?
He meant to try and see, beginning at Genesis the very next night, and
hiding his treasure away, Hugh sought his pillow just as the first
greyish streak of daylight was beginning to show in the east.