HOW HUGH PAID HIS DEBTS.
The perspiration was standing in great drops about Hugh’s quivering
lips, and his face was white as ashes, as, near the close of that
interview, he hoarsely asked,
“Do I understand you, sir, that _Rocket_ will cancel this debt and leave
you my debtor for one hundred dollars?”
“Yes, that was my offer, and a most generous one, too, considering how
little horses are bringing,” and Harney smiled villainously as he
thought within himself, “Easier to manage than I supposed. I believe my
soul I offered too much. I should have made it an even thing.”
He did not know Hugh Worthington, or dream of the volcano pent up
beneath that calm exterior. Hugh had demurred to the fifty-dollar silk
as a mistake, and when convinced that it was not, his wrath had known no
bounds. Forgetting Golden Hair he had sworn so roundly that even Harney
cowered before the storm; but that was over now, and ashamed of his
passion, Hugh was making a strong effort to meet his fate like a man.
Step by step as he knew so well how to do, Harney had reached the point
of which for more than a year he had never lost sight.
“If Mr. Worthington had not the ready money, and, in these hard times,
it was natural to suppose he had not, why then he would, as an
accommodation, take Rocket, paying one hundred dollars extra, and Hugh’s
debt would be cancelled.”
Hugh knew how long this plan had been premeditated, and his blood boiled
madly when he heard it suggested, as if that moment had given it birth.
Still he restrained himself, and asked the question we have recorded,
adding after Harney’s reply,
“And suppose I do not care to part with Rocket?”
Harney winced a little, but answered carelessly,
“Money, of course, is just as good. You know how long I’ve waited. Few
would have done as well.”
Yes, Hugh knew that, but Rocket was as dear to him as his right eye, and
he would almost as soon have plucked out the one as sold the other.
“I have not the money,” he said frankly, “and I cannot part with Rocket.
Is there nothing else? I’ll give a mortgage on Spring Bank.”
Harney did not care for a mortgage, but there was something else, and
the rascally face brightened, as, stepping back, while he made the
proposition, he faintly suggested “Lulu.” He would give a thousand
dollars for her, and Hugh could keep his horse. For a moment the two
young men regarded each other intently, Hugh’s eyes flashing gleams of
fire, and his whole face expressive of the contempt he felt for the
wretch who cowed at last beneath the look, and turned away muttering
that “he saw nothing so very heinous in wishing to purchase a nigger
wench.”
Then, changing his tone to one of defiance, he added,
“You’ll be obliged to part with her yet, Hugh Worthington. I know how
you are straitened and how much you think of her. You may not have
another so good a chance to provide her with a kind master. Surely, you
should be satisfied with that fair-haired New York damsel, and let me
have the nigger.”
Harney tried to smile, but the laugh died on his lips, as, springing to
his feet, Hugh, with one blow, felled him to the floor, exclaiming,
“Thus do I resent the insult offered to Adah Hastings, as pure and true
a woman as your own sister. Villain!” and he shook fiercely his
prostrate foe struggling to rise.
Some men are decidedly better for being knocked down, and Harney was one
of them. Feminine in figure and cowardly in disposition, he knew he was
no match for the broad, athletic Hugh, and shaking down his pants when
permitted to stand upright, he muttered something about “hearing from
him again.” Then, as the sight of the unpaid bill brought back to his
mind the cause of his present unpleasant predicament he returned to the
attack, by saying,
“Since you are not inclined to part with either of your pets, you’ll
oblige me with the money, and before to-morrow night. You understand me,
I presume?”
“I do,” and bowing haughtily, Hugh passed through the open door.
In a kind of desperation he mounted Rocket, and dashed out of town at a
speed which made more than one look after him, wondering what cause
there was for his headlong haste. A few miles from the city he slacked
his speed, and dismounting by a running brook, sat down to think. The
price offered for Lulu would set him free from every pressing debt, and
leave a large surplus, but not for a moment did he hesitate.
“I’d lead her out and shoot her through the heart, before I’d do that,”
he said.
Then turning to the noble animal cropping the grass beside him, he wound
his arms around his neck, and tried to imagine how it would seem to know
the stall at home was empty, and Rocket gone. He could not sell him, he
said, as he looked into the creature’s eyes, meeting there an expression
almost human, as Rocket rubbed his nose against his sleeve, and uttered
a peculiar sound.
“If I could pawn him,” he thought, just as the sound of wheels was
heard, and he saw old Colonel Tiffton driving down the turnpike.
Stopping suddenly as he caught sight of Hugh, the colonel called out
cheerily, “How d’ye, young man? What are you doing there by the brook?
Huggin’ your horse, as I live! Well, I don’t wonder. That’s a fine nag
of yours. My Nell is nigh about crazy for me to buy him. What’ll you
take?”
Hugh knew he could trust the colonel, and after a moment’s hesitation
told of his embarrassments, and asked the loan of five hundred dollars,
offering Rocket as security, with the privilege of redeeming him in a
year. Hugh’s chin quivered, and the arm thrown across Rocket’s neck
pressed more tightly as he made this offer. Every change in the
expression of his face was noted by the colonel, and interpreted with
considerable accuracy. He had always liked Hugh. There was something in
his straight-forward manner which pleased him, and when he learned why
he was not at his daughter’s birth-day party, he had raised a most
uncomfortable breeze about the capricious Nellie’s ears, declaring she
should apologize, but forgetting to insist upon it as he at first meant
to do.
“You ask a steep sum,” he said, crossing one fat limb over the other and
snapping his whip at Rocket, who eyed him askance. “Pretty steep sum,
but I take it, you are in a tight spot and don’t know what else to do.
Got too many hangers on. There’s Aunt Eunice—you can’t help her, to be
sure, nor your mother, nor your sister, though I’d break her neck before
I’d let her run me into debt. Your bill at Harney’s, I know, is most all
of her contracting, though you don’t tell me so, and I respect you for
it. She’s your sister—blood kin. But that girl in the snow bank—I’ll be
hanged if that was ever made quite clear to me.”
“It is to me, and that is sufficient,” Hugh answered haughtily, while
the old colonel laughingly replied,
“Good grit, Hugh. I like you for that. In short, I like you for every
thing, and that’s why I was sorry about that New York lady. You see, it
may stand in the way of your getting a wife by and by, that’s all.”
“I shall never marry,” Hugh answered, moodily, kicking at a decaying
stump, and involuntarily thinking of the Golden Haired.
“No?” the colonel replied, interrogatively. “Well there ain’t many good
enough for you, that’s a fact; there ain’t many girls good for any body.
I never saw but one except my Nell, that was worth a picayune, and that
was _Alice Johnson_.”
“_Who? Who_ did you say?” And Hugh grew white as marble, while a strange
light gleamed in the dark eyes fastened so eagerly upon the colonel’s
face.
Fortunately for him the colonel was too much absorbed in dislodging a
_fly_ from the back of his horse to notice his agitation; but he heard
the question and replied, “I said Alice Johnson, twentieth cousin of
mine—blast that fly!—lives in Massachusetts; splendid girl—hang it all,
can’t I hit him?—I was there two years ago. Never saw a girl that made
my mouth water as she did. Most too pious, though, to suit me. Wouldn’t
read a newspaper Sunday, when that’s the very day I take to read
’em—there, I’ve killed him.” And well satisfied with the achievement,
the old colonel put up his whip, never dreaming of the effect that name
had produced on Hugh, whose heart gave one great throb of hope, and then
grew heavy and sad as he thought how impossible it was that the Alice
Johnson the colonel knew, could be the Golden Haired.
“There are fifty by that name, no doubt,” he said, “and if there were
not, she is dead. But oh, if it could be that she were living, that
somewhere I could find her.”
There was a mist before Hugh’s vision, and the arm encircling Rocket’s
neck clung there now for support, so weak and faint he grew. He dared
not question the colonel farther, and was only too glad when the latter
came back to their starting point and said, “If I understand you, I can
have Rocket for five hundred dollars, provided I let you redeem him
within a year. Now that’s equivalent to my lending you five hundred
dollars out and out. I see, but seeing it’s you, I reckon I’ll have to
do it. As luck will have it, I was going down to Frankfort this very day
to put some money in the bank, and if you say so, we’ll clinch the
bargain at once;” and taking out his leathern wallet, the colonel began
to count the required amount.
Alice Johnson was forgotten in that moment of painful indecision, when
Hugh felt as if his very life was dying out.
“Oh, I can’t let Rocket go,” he thought, bowing his face upon the
animal’s graceful neck. Then chiding himself as weak, he lifted up his
head and said: “I’ll take the money. Rocket is yours.”
The last words were like a smothered sob; and the generous old man
hesitated a moment. But Hugh was in earnest. His debts must be paid, and
five hundred dollars would do it.
“I’ll bring him round to-morrow. Will that be time enough?” he asked, as
he rolled up the bills.
“Yes,” the colonel replied, while Hugh continued entreatingly, “and,
colonel, you’ll be kind to Rocket. He’s never been struck a blow since
he was broken to the saddle. He wouldn’t know what it meant.”
“Oh, yes, I see—Rarey’s method. Now I never could make that work. Have
to lick ’em sometimes, but I’ll remember Rocket. Good day,” and
gathering up his reins Col. Tiffton rode slowly away, leaving Hugh in a
maze of bewilderment.
That name still rang in his ears, and he repeated it again and again,
each time assuring himself how impossible it was that it should be
she—the only she to him in all the world. And supposing it were, what
did it matter? What good could her existence do him? She would despise
him now—no position, no name, no money, no Rocket, and here he paused,
for above all thoughts of the Golden Haired towered the terrible one
that Rocket was his no longer—that the evil he most dreaded had come
upon him. “But I’ll meet it like a man,” he said, and springing into his
saddle he rode back to Frankfort and dismounted at Harney’s door.
In dogged silence Harney received the money, gave his receipt, and then,
without a word, watched Hugh as he rode again from town, muttering to
himself, “I shall remember that he knocked me down, and some time I’ll
repay it.”
* * * * *
It was dark when Hugh reach home, his lowering brow and flashing eyes
indicating the fierce storm which was gathering, and which burst the
moment he entered the room where ’Lina was sitting. In tones which made
even her tremble he accused her of her treachery, pouring forth such a
torrent of wrath that his mother urged him to stop, for her sake if no
other. She could always quiet Hugh, and he calmed down at once, hurling
but one more missile at his sister, and that in the shape of Rocket,
who, he said, was sold for her extravagance.
’Lina was proud of Rocket, and the knowledge that he was sold touched
her far more than all Hugh’s angry words. But her tears were of no
avail; the deed was done, and on the morrow Hugh, with an unflinching
hand, led his idol from the stable and rode rapidly across the fields,
leading another horse which was to bring him home.
Gloomily the next morning broke, and at rather a late hour for him,
Hugh, with a heavy sigh, had raised himself upon his elbow, wondering if
it were a dream, or if during the night he had really heard Rocket’s
familiar tramp upon the lawn, when Lulu came running up the stairs;
exclaiming, joyfully,
“He’s done come home, Rocket has. He’s at the kitchen door.”
It was as Lulu said, for the homesick brute, suspecting something wrong,
had broken from his fastenings, and bursting the stable door had come
back to Spring Bank, his halter dangling about his neck, and himself
looking very defiant, as if he were not again to be coaxed away. At
sight of Hugh he uttered a sound of joy, and bounding forward planted
both feet within the door ere Hugh had time to reach it.
“Thar’s the old colonel now,” whispered Claib, just as the colonel
appeared to claim his runaway.
But Rocket kept them all at bay, snapping, striking, and kicking at
every one who ventured to approach him. With compressed lip and moody
face Hugh watched the proceeding for a time, now laughing at the
frightened negroes hiding behind the lye leach to escape the range of
Rocket’s heels, and again groaning mentally as he met the half human
look of Rocket’s eyes turned to him as if for aid. At last rising from
the spot where he had been sitting he gave the whistle which Rocket
always obeyed, and in an instant the sagacious animal was at his side,
trying to lick the hands which would not suffer the caress lest his
courage should give way.
“I’ll take him home myself,” he said to the old colonel, emerging from
his hiding place behind the leach, and bidding Claib follow with another
horse, Hugh went a second time to Colonel Tiffton’s farm.
Leading Rocket into the stable he fastened him to the stall, and then
with his arms around his neck talked to him as if he had been a
refractory, disobedient child. We do not say he was understood, but
after one long, despairing cry, which rang in Hugh’s ears for many a day
and night, Rocket submitted to his fate, and staid quietly with the
colonel, who petted him if possible more than Hugh had done, without,
however, receiving from him the slightest token of affection in return.