POOR HUGH.
Could Hugh have known the feelings with which Alice Johnson already
regarded him, and the opinion she had expressed to Muggins, it would
perhaps have stilled the fierce throbbings of his heart, which sent the
hot blood so swiftly through his veins, and made him from the first
delirious. They had found him in the quiet court just after the sun
setting, and his uncovered head was already wet with the falling dew,
and the profuse perspiration induced by his long, heavy sleep. He was
well known at the hotel, and measures were immediately taken for
apprising his family of the sudden illness, and for removing him to
Spring Bank as soon as possible.
Breakfast was not yet over at Spring Bank, and Aunt Eunice was wondering
what could have become of Hugh, when from her position near the window
she discovered a horseman riding across the lawn at a rate which
betokened some important errand. Alice spied him too, and the same
thought flashed over both herself and Aunt Eunice. “Something had
befallen Hugh.”
Alice was the first upon the piazza, where she stood waiting till the
rider came up,
“Are you Miss Worthington?” he asked, doffing his soil hat, and feeling
a thrill of wonder at sight of her marvellous beauty.
“Miss Worthington is not at home,” she said, going down the steps and
advancing closer to him, “but I can take your message. Is any thing the
matter with Mr. Worthington?”
Aunt Eunice had now joined her, and listened breathlessly while the
young man told of Hugh’s illness, which threatened to be the prevailing
fever.
“They were bringing him home,” he said—“were now on the way, and he had
ridden in advance to prepare them for his coming.”
Aunt Eunice seemed literally stunned and wholly incapable of action,
while the negroes howled dismally for Mas’r Hugh, who, Chloe said, was
sure to die.
Alice alone was calm and capable of acting. A room must be prepared, and
somebody must direct, but to find the somebody was a most difficult
matter. Chloe couldn’t, Hannah couldn’t, Aunt Eunice couldn’t, and
consequently it all devolved upon herself. Throwing aside the feelings
of a stranger she summoned Densie to her aid, and then went quietly to
work. By dint of questioning Muggins, who hovered near her constantly,
she ascertained which was Hugh’s sleeping room, and entered it to
reconnoiter.
It was the most uncomfortable room in the house, for during two thirds
of the day the hot sun poured down upon the low roof, heating the walls
like an oven, and rendering it wholly unfit for a sick man. Hugh must
not be put there, and after satisfying herself that her own chamber was
the coolest and most convenient in the house, Alice came to a decision,
and regardless of her own personal comfort, set to work to remove, with
Densie’s help, her various articles of luggage.
By this time Aunt Eunice had rallied a little, and hearing what Alice
was doing, offered a faint remonstrance. Hugh would never be reconciled
to taking Miss Johnson’s room, she said, but Alice silenced every
objection, and Aunt Eunice yielded the point, feeling intuitively that
the sceptre had passed from her hand into a far more efficient one. The
pleasant chamber, in which only yesterday morning Hugh himself had been
so interested, was ready at last. The wide north windows were open, and
the soft summer air came stealing in, lifting the muslin curtains which
Alice had looped back, blowing across the snowy pillows which Alice’s
hands had arranged, and kissing the half withered flowers which Hugh had
picked for Alice.
“I’ll done get some fresher ones. Mas’r Hugh love the posies,” Muggins
said, as she saw Alice bending over the vase.
“Poor Hugh!” Alice sighed, as Muggins ran off for the flowers, which she
brought to Miss Johnson, who arranged them into beautiful bouquets for
the sick man now just at the gate. Alice saw the carriage as it stopped,
and saw the tall form which the men were helping up the walk; and that
was all she saw, so busily was she occupied in hushing the outcries of
the excitable negroes, while Hugh was carried to the room designated by
Densie, and into which he went unwillingly. “It was not his den,” he
said, drawing back with a bewildered look; “his was hot, and close, and
dingy, while this was nice and cool—a room such as women had; there must
be a mistake,” and he begged of them to take him away.
“No, ho, my poor boy. This is right; Miss Johnson said you must come
here just because it is cool and nice. You’ll get well so must faster,”
and Aunt Eunice’s tears dropped on Hugh’s flushed face.
“Miss Johnson!” and the wild eyes looked up eagerly at her. “Who is she?
Oh, yes, I know, I know,” and a moan came from his lips as he whispered,
“Does she know I’ve come? Does it make her hate me worse to see me in
such a plight? Ho, Aunt Eunice, put your ear down close while I tell you
something. Ad said—you know Ad—she said I was—I was—I can’t tell you
what she said for this buzzing in my head. Am I very sick, Aunt Eunice?”
and about the chin there was a quivering motion, which betokened a ray
of consciousness, as the brown eyes scanned the kind, motherly face
bending over him.
“Yes, Hugh, you are very sick,” and Aunt Eunice’s tears dropped upon the
face of her boy, so fearfully changed since yesterday.
He wiped them away himself, and looked inquiringly at her.
“Am I so sick that it makes you cry? Is it the fever I’ve got?”
“Yes, Hugh, the fever,” and Aunt Eunice bowed her face upon his burning
hands.
For a moment he lay unconscious, then raising himself up, he fixed his
eyes piercingly upon her, and whispered hoarsely,
“Aunt Eunice, I shall die! I have never been sick in my life; and the
fever goes hard with such. I shall surely die. It’s been days in coming
on, and I thought to fight it off, I don’t want to die. I’m not
prepared,” and in the once strong man’s voice there was a note of fear,
such as only the dread of death could have wrung from him. “Aunt
Eunice,” and the voice was now a kind of sob, “tell Adah and Sam to
pray. I shall lose my senses soon, they go and come so fast; and tell
Miss Johnson, (I’ve heard that she too prays) tell her when she watches
by me, as perhaps she will, tell her to pray, though I do not hear it,
pray that I need not die, not yet, not yet. Oh if I had prayed sooner,
prayed before,” and the white lips moved as if uttering now the
petitions too long left unsaid.
Then the mind wandered again, and Hugh talked of Alice and Golden Hair,
not as one and the same, but as two distinct individuals, and then he
spoke of his mother.
“You’ll send for her; and if I’m dead when she comes, tell her I tried
to be a dutiful son, and was always sorry when I failed. Tell her I love
my mother more than she ever dreamed; and tell _Ad_——” Here he paused,
and the forehead knit itself into great wrinkles, so intense were his
thoughts. “Tell Ad—no, not tell her anything. She’ll be glad when I’m
dead, and trip back from my grave so gaily!”
He was growing terribly excited now, and Aunt Eunice hailed the coming
of the doctor with delight. Hugh knew him, offering his pulse and
putting out his tongue of his own accord. The doctor counted the rapid
pulse, numbering even then 130 per minute, noted the rolling eyeballs
and the dilation of the pupils, felt the fierce throbbing of the swollen
veins upon the temple, and then shook his head. Half conscious, half
delirious, Hugh watched him nervously, until the great fear at his heart
found utterance in words,
“Must I die?”
“We hope not. We’ll do what we can to save you. Don’t think of dying, my
boy,” was the physician’s reply, as he turned to Aunt Eunice, and gave
out the medicine, which must be most carefully administered.
Too much agitated to know just what he said, Aunt Eunice listened as one
who heard not, noticing which the doctor said,
“You are not the right one to take these directions. Is there nobody
here less nervous than yourself? Who was that young lady standing by the
door when I came in. The one in white, I mean, with such a quantity of
curls.”
“Miss Johnson—our visitor. She can’t do anything,” Aunt Eunice replied,
trying to compose herself enough to know what she was doing.
But the doctor thought differently. Something of a physiognomist, he had
been struck with the expression of Alice’s face, and felt sure that she
would be a more efficient aid than Aunt Eunice herself. “I’ll speak to
her,” he said, stepping to the hall. But Alice was gone. She had stood
by the sick room door long enough to hear Hugh’s impassioned words
concerning his probable death—long enough to hear him ask that she might
pray for him; and then she stole away to where no ear, save that of God,
could hear the earnest prayer that Hugh Worthington might live—or that
dying, there might be given him a space in which to grasp the faith,
without which the grave is dark and terrible indeed.
“I’m glad I came here now,” she whispered, as she rose from her knees.
“I know my work in part, and may God give me strength to do it.”
“Is you talkin’ to God, Miss Alice?” said a little voice, and Mug’s
round black face looked cautiously in.
“Yes, Muggins, I was talking to God.”
“I’d mighty well like to know what you done say,” was Mug’s next remark,
as she ventured across the threshold.
“I asked him to make your Master Hugh well again, or else take him to
heaven,” was Alice’s reply; whereupon the great tears gathered in the
eyes of the awe-struck child, who continued,
“I wish I could ax God, too. Would he hear a black nigger like me?”
“Yes, Muggins, God hears everybody, black as well as white.”
“Then I jest go down in the woods whar Claib can’t see me, and ax Him to
cure Mas’r Hugh, not take him to heaven. I don’t like dat ar.”
It was in vain that Alice tried to explain. Muggins’ mind grasped but
one idea. Master Hugh must live; and she started to leave the room,
turning back to ask, “if God could hear all the same if she got down by
the brook where the bushes were so thick that Claib nor nobody could
find her if they tried.” Assured that he would, she stole from the
house, and seeking out the hiding place kneeled down upon the tall, rank
grass, and with her face hidden in the roots of the alder bushes, she
asked in her peculiar way, that “God would not take Mas’r Hugh to
heaven, but give him a heap of doctor’s stuff, and make him well again,”
promising, if he did, that “She would not steal any more jam from the
jars in the cellar, or any more sugar from the bowl in the closet.” She
could not remember for whose sake Alice had bidden her pray, so she
said, “for the sake of him what miss done tell me,” adding quickly,
“Miss Alice, I mean, not Miss ’Lina! Bah!”
Muggins intended no irreverence, nor did she dream that she was guilty
of any. She only felt that she had done her best, and into her childish
heart there crept a trusting faith that God had surely heard, and Mas’r
Hugh would live.
And who shall say that He did not hear and answer Muggin’s prayer, made
by the running brook, where none but Him could hear?
Meantime, the Hugh for whom the prayer was made had fallen into a heavy
sleep, and Aunt Eunice noiselessly left the room, meeting in the hall
with Alice, who asked permission to go in and sit by him until he awoke.
Aunt Eunice consented, and with noiseless footsteps Alice advanced into
the darkened room, and after standing still for a moment to assure
herself that Hugh was really sleeping, stole softly to his bedside and
bent down to look at him, starting quickly at the resemblance to
somebody seen before. Who was it? Where was it? she asked herself, her
brain a labyrinth of bewilderment as she tried in vain to recall the
time or place a face like this reposing upon the pillow had met her
view. But her efforts were all in vain to bring the past to mind, and
thinking she was mistaken in supposing she had ever seen him before, she
sat softly down beside him.
How disappointed Alice was in him, asking herself if it could be the
dreaded Hugh. There was surely nothing to be dreaded from him now, and
as if she had been his sister she wiped the sweat drops from his face.
There was a tremulous motion of the lids, a contracting of the muscles
about the mouth, and then the eyes opened for a moment, but the stare he
gave to Alice was wholly meaningless. He evidently had no thought of her
presence, though he murmured the name “Golden Hair,” and then fell away
again into the heavy stupor which continued all the day. Alice would not
leave him. She had heard him say, “When she watches by me as perhaps she
will, though I may not know her,” and that was sufficient to keep her at
his side. She was accustomed to sickness, she said, and in spite of Aunt
Eunice’s entreaties, she sat by his pillow, bathing his burning hands,
holding the cooling ice upon his head, putting it to his lips, and doing
those thousand little acts which only a kind womanly heart can prompt,
and silently praying almost constantly as Hugh had said she must.
There were others than Alice praying for Hugh that summer afternoon, for
Muggins had gone from the brook to the cornfield, startling Adah with
the story of Hugh’s sickness, and then launching out into a glowing
description of the new miss, “with her white gownd and curls as long as
Rocket’s tail.”
“She talked with God, too,” she said, “like what you does, Miss Adah.
She axes him to make Mas’r Hugh well, and He will, won’t He?”
“I trust so,” Adah answered, her own heart going silently up to the
Giver of life and health, asking, if it were possible, that her noble
friend might be spared.
Old Sam, too, with streaming eyes stole out to his bethel by the spring,
and prayed for the dear “Massah Hugh” lying so still at Spring Bank, and
insensible to all the prayers going up in his behalf.
How terrible that deathlike stupor was, and the physician, when later in
the afternoon he came again, shook his head sadly.
“I’d rather see him rave till it took ten men to hold him,” he said,
feeling the wiry pulse which were now beyond his count.
“Is there nothing that will rouse him?” Alice asked, “no name of one he
loves more than another?”
The doctor answered “no; love for woman-kind, save as he feels it for
his mother or his sister, is unknown to Hugh Worthington.”
But Alice did not think so. The only words he had whispered since she
sat there, together with Muggins’ story of the Bible and the curl, would
indicate that far down in Hugh’s heart, where the world had never seen,
there was hidden a mighty, undying love for some one. How she wished
they were alone, that she might whisper, that name in his ear, but with
the doctor there, and Aunt Eunice and Densie close at hand, she dared
not, lest she should betray the secret she had no right to possess.
“I’ll speak to him of his mother,” she said, and moistening with ice the
lips which were now of a purple hue she said to him softly,
“Mr. Worthington.”
“Call him Hugh,” Aunt Eunice whispered, and Alice continued,
“Hugh, do you know I’m speaking to you?”
She bent so low that her breath lifted the rings of hair from his
forehead, and her auburn curls swept his cheek. There was a quivering of
the lids, a scarcely perceptible moan, and thus encouraged, Alice
continued,
“Hugh, shall I write to your mother? She’s gone, you know, with ’Lina.”
To this there was no response, and taking advantage of something outside
which had suddenly attracted her three auditors to the window, Alice
said again softly, lest she should be heard,
“Hugh, shall I call _Golden Haired_?”
“Yes, yes, oh yes,” and the heavy lids unclosed at once, while the eyes,
in which there was no ray of consciousness, looked wistfully at Alice.
“Are you the Golden Haired?” and he laid his hand caressingly over the
shining tresses just within his reach.
Alice was about to reply, when an exclamation from those near the
window, and the heavy tramp of horse’s feet, arrested her attention, and
drew her also to the window, just as a beautiful grey, saddled but
riderless, came dashing over the gate, and tearing across the yard until
he stood panting at the door. _Rocket_ had come home for the first time
since his master had lead him away!
Hearing of Hugh’s illness, the old colonel had ridden over to inquire
how he was, and fearing lest it might be difficult to get Rocket away if
once he stood in the familiar yard, he had dismounted in the woods, and
fastening him to a tree, walked the remaining distance. But Rocket was
not thus to be cheated. Ever since turning into the well-remembered lane
he had seemed like a new creature, pricking up his ears, and dancing and
curvetting daintily along, as he had been wont to do on public occasions
when Hugh was his rider instead of the fat colonel. In this state of
feeling it was quite natural that he should resent being tied to a tree,
and as if divining why it was done, he broke his halter the moment the
colonel was out of sight, and went galloping through the woods like
lightning, never for an instant slackening his speed until he stood at
Spring Bank door, calling, as well as he could call, for Hugh, who heard
and recognized that call.
Throwing his arms wildly over his head, he raised himself in bed, and
exclaimed joyfully,
“That’s he! that’s Rocket! I knew he’d come. I’ve only been waiting for
him to start on that long journey. Ho! Aunt Eunice! Pack my clothes. I’m
going away where I shan’t mortify _Ad_ any more. Hurry up. Rocket is
growing impatient. Don’t you hear him pawing the turf? I’m coming, my
boy, I’m coming!” and he attempted to leap upon the floor, but the
doctor’s strong arm held him down, while Alice, whose voice alone he
heeded, strove to quiet him.
“I wouldn’t go away to-day,” she said soothingly. “Some other time will
do as well, and Rocket can wait.”
“Will you stay with me?” Hugh asked.
“Yes, I’ll stay,” was Alice’s reply.
“All right, all right. Tell Claib to put up Rocket, till another day,
and then we’ll go together, you and I,” and Hugh sank back upon his
pillow, just as the wheezy colonel come in, greatly alarmed and
surprised to find the young man so ill.
“It beats all,” he said, “how symptoms differ. That buzzing he
complained of wasn’t an atom like my wife’s—beats all;” then turning to
Alice he delivered a message from Ellen who was better, and had
expressed a wish to see Miss Johnson, hoping she might be induced to
return with her father.
But Alice would not leave Hugh, and she declined the colonel’s
invitation.
“That’s right. Stick to him,” the colonel said. “He’s a noble fellow,
odd as Dick’s hat band, but got the right kind of spirit. Poor boy. It
makes me feel to see him some as I felt when my Hal lay ravin’ mad with
the dumb fever in his head. Poor Hal! He is up in the grave-yard now.
Good day to you all. I’ve got a pesky job on hand getting that Rocket
home.”
And the colonel was right, for Rocket stubbornly refused to move,
kicking and biting as he had done once before when any one approached
him. He had taken his stand near by the block where Hugh had been
accustomed to mount him, and there he staid, evidently waiting for his
master, sometimes glancing toward the house and uttering a low whinny.
“I reckon I’ll have to leave him here for a spell,” the colonel said at
last when every stratagem had been resorted to in vain.
“Yes, I ’specs mas’r will,” returned the delighted Claib, who, had let
one or two good opportunities pass for seizing Rocket’s bridle. “I’ll
get Mas’r Tiffton anodder nag,” and with great alacrity the negro
saddled a handsome bay, on which the colonel was soon riding away from
Spring Bank, leaving Rocket standing patiently by the block, and waiting
for the master who might never come to him again.
“I’m glad he’s roused up,” the doctor said of Hugh, “though I don’t like
the way his fever increases,” and Alice knew by the expression of his
face, that there was but little hope, determining not to leave him
during the night.
Aunt Eunice might sleep on the lounge, she said, but the care, the
responsibility should be hers. To this the doctor willingly acceded,
thinking that Hugh was safer with her than any one else. Exchanging the
white wrapper she had worn through the day for one more suitable, Alice,
after an hour’s rest in her own room, returned to Hugh, who had missed
her and who knew the moment she came back to him, even though, he seemed
to be half asleep.
Softly the summer twilight faded and the stars came out one by one,
while the dark night closed over Spring Bank, which held many anxious
hearts. Never had a cloud so black as this fallen upon the household.
There had been noisy, clamorous mourning when John Stanley died, but
amid that storm of grief there was one great comfort still, Hugh was
spared to them, but now he, too, was leaving them they feared, and the
sorrow which at first had manifested itself in loud outcries had settled
down into a grief too deep, too heart-felt for noisy demonstrations. In
the kitchen where a light was burning casting fitful, ghastly glances
over the dusky forms congregated there, old Chloe, as the patriarchess
of the flock, sat with folded arms, talking to those about her of her
master’s probable death, counting the few who had ever survived that
form of fever, and speculating as to who would be their next owner.
Would they be sold at auction? Would they be parted one from the other,
and sent they knew not whither? The Lord only knew, old Chloe said, as
the hot tears rained over her black face,
“Mas’r Hugh won’t die,” and Muggins’ faith came to the rescue, throwing
a ray of hope into the darkness. “Miss Alice axed God to spar him, and
so did I; now he will, won’t he, miss?” and she turned to Adah, who with
Sam, had just come up to Spring Bank, and hearing voices in the kitchen
had entered there first. “Say, Miss Adah, won’t God cure Mas’r Hugh—case
I axed him oncet?”
“You must pray more than once, child; pray many, many times,” was Adah’s
reply; whereupon Mug looked aghast, for the idea of praying a second
time had never entered her brain.
Still, if she must, why, she must, and she stole quietly from the
kitchen. But it was now too dark to go down in the woods by the running
brook, and remembering Alice had said that God was every where, she
first cast around her a timid glance, as if fearful she should see him,
and then kneeling in the grass, wet with the heavy night dew, the little
negro girl prayed again for Master Hugh, starting as she prayed at the
sound which met her ear and which came from the spot where Rocket was
standing by the block, waiting for his master.
Claib had offered him food and drink, but both had been refused, and
opening the stable door so that he could go in whenever he chose, Claib
had left him there alone.
Muggins knew that it was Rocket, and stole up to him, whispering as she
laid her hand on his neck,
“Poor Rocket, I’m sory too for Mas’r Hugh, but he won’t die, ’case I’ve
prayed for him. I has prayed twicet, and I knows now he’ll live. If you
could only pray—I wonder if horses can!” and thinking she would ask the
new miss, Mug continued to stroke the horse, who suffered her caress,
and even rubbed his face against her arm, eating the tuft of grass she
plucked for him. Once Mug thought of trying to lead him to the stall,
but he looked so tall and formidable, towering up above her, that she
dared not, and after a few more assurances that Mas’r Hugh would live,
she left him to himself, with the very sensible advice, that if she’s
he, she wouldn’t _ac_ so, but would go to bed, in the stable like a good
boy.
Returning to the house Mug stole up stairs to the door of the sick room,
where Alice was now alone with Hugh.
He was awake, and for an instant seemed to know her, for he attempted to
speak, but the rational words died on his lips, and he only moaned, as
if in distress.
“What is it?” Alice said, bending over him.
“Are you the Golden Haired?” he asked again as her curls swept his face.
“No, I’m not Golden Hair,” she answered, soothingly. “I’m Alice, come to
nurse you. You have heard of Alice Johnson. ’Lina told you of her.”
“_Ad!_” he almost screamed. “Do you know Ad? I am sorry for you. Who are
you?” and as if determined to solve the mystery he raised himself upon
his elbow and stretching out his hand, pushed her flowing curls back
from her sunny face, muttering as he did so, “‘There angels do always
behold his face.’ That’s in her Bible. I’m reading it through. I began
last winter, when Adah came. Have you heard of Adah?”
Alice had heard of Adah and suggested sending for her, asking “if he
would not like to have her come.”
“And you go away?” he said, grasping her hand and holding it fast. “No,
you must not go. There’s something in your face that makes me happy,
something like hers. When I say her or she, I mean Golden Hair. There’s
only one _her_ to me.”
“Who is Golden Hair?” Alice asked, and instantly the great tears
gathered in Hugh’s dark eyes as he replied.
“Don’t say who is she, but who was she. I’ve never told a living being
before. Golden Hair was a bright angel who crossed my path one day, and
then disappeared forever, leaving behind the sweetest memory a mortal
man ever possessed. It’s weak for men to cry, but I have cried many a
night for her, when the clouds were crying, too, and I heard against my
window the rain which I knew was falling upon her little grave.”
He was growing excited, and thinking he had talked too much, Alice was
trying to quiet him, when the door opened softly and Adah herself came
in. Bowing politely to Alice she advanced to Hugh’s bedside, and bending
over him spoke his name. He knew her, and turning to Alice, said, “This
is Adah; you will like each other; I am sure.”
And they did like each other at once, Alice recognizing readily a
refinement of feeling and manner, which showed that however unfortunate
Adah might have been, she was still the true-born lady, while Adah felt
intuitively that in Alice she had found a friend in whom she could
trust. For a few moments they talked together, and then in the hall
without there was a shuffling sound and Adah knew that Sam was coming.
With hobbling steps the old man came in, scarcely noticing either of the
ladies so intent was he upon the figure lying so still and helpless,
before him.
“Massah Hugh, my poor, dear Massah Hugh,” he cried, bending over his
young master.
“You may disturb him,” Adah said, putting from her lap little Willie,
who had come in with Sam, and at whom Alice had looked with wonder,
marvelling at the striking resemblance between him and Hugh.
“Could it be?” and Alice grew dizzy with that dreadful thought. “_Could
it be?_ No, no, oh, no. Adah was too pure, too good, while Hugh was too
honorable,” and Alice felt a pang at this injustice to both.
Taking the child in her lap while Adah spoke with Sam she smoothed his
soft, brown hair, and scanned his infantile features closely, tracing
now another look than Hugh’s, a look which made her start as if smitten
suddenly. The eyes, the brow, the hair were Hugh’s, but for the rest;
the dedicate mouth, with its dimpled corners, the curve of the lip, the
nose, the whole lower part of the face was like, oh, so like, sweet
_Anna Richards_, and _she_ was like _her brother_. Alice had heard from
’Lina that Adah professed to have had a husband who deserted her and as
she held Willie in her lap, there were all sorts of fancies in her
bewildered brain nor was it until a loud outcry from Sam, fell on her
ear that she roused herself from the castle she was building as to what
might be if Willie were indeed of the Richard’s line. Sam had turned
away from Hugh, and with his usual politeness was about making his
obeisance to Alice, when the words, “Your servant, Miss,” were changed
into a howl of joy, and falling upon his knees, he clutched at Alice’s
dress, exclaiming,
“Now de Lord be praised, I’se found her again. I’se found Miss Ellis,
an’ I feels like singin’ ‘Glory Hallelujah.’ Does ye know me, lady? Does
you ’member shaky ole darkey, way down in Virginny? You teach him de
way, an’ he’s tried to walk dar ever sence. Say, does you know ole Sam?”
and the dim eyes looked eagerly into Alice’s face.
She did remember him, and for a moment seemed speechless with surprise,
then, stooping beside him, she took his shrivelled hand and pressed it
between her own, asking how he came there, and if Hugh had always been
his master.
“You ’splain, Miss Adah. You speaks de dictionary better than Sam,” the
old man said, and thus appealed to, Adah told what she knew of Sam’s
coming into Hugh’s possession.
“He buy me just for kindness, nothing else, for Sam aint wo’th a dime,
but Massa Hugh so good. I prays for him every night, and I asks God to
bring you and him together. Oh, I’se happy chile to-night. I prays wid a
big heart, ’case I sees Miss Ellis again,” and in his great joy Sam
kissed the hem of Alice’s dress, crouching at her feet and regarding her
with a look almost idolatrous.
At sight of his nurse Willie had slid from Alice’s lap and with his arm
around Sam’s neck, was lisping the only words he as yet could speak,
“Up, up, Tam, Willie up,” meaning that he must be taken. Struggling to
his feet Sam took Willie on his shoulder, then with another blessing on
Miss Ellis and a pitying glance at Hugh, he left the room, Willie
looking down from his elevated position triumphant as a young lord, and
crowing in childish glee as he buried his hands in Uncle Sam’s white
wool.
In every move which Willie made there was a decidedly Richards’ air, a
manner such as would have been expected from John Richards’ son playing
in the halls of Terrace Hill.
“Is Willie like his father?” Alice asked as the door closed after Sam.
“Yes,” and a shadow flitted over Adah’s face.
She did not like to talk of Willie’s father and was glad when Hugh at
last claimed their attention. They watched together that night, tending
Hugh so carefully that when the morning broke and the physician came, he
pronounced the symptoms so much better that there was hope, he said, if
the faithful nursing were continued. Still Hugh remained delirious,
lying often in a kind of stupor from which nothing had power to arouse
him unless it were Alice’s voice, whispering in his ear the name of
“Golden Hair,” or the cry of Rocket, who for an entire week waited
patiently by the block, his face turned towards the door whence he
expected his master to appear. During the day he would neither eat nor
drink, but Claib always found the food and drink gone, which was left in
the stall at night, showing that Rocket must have passed the hours of
darkness in his old, accustomed place. With the dawn of day, however, he
returned to his post by the block, and more than one eye filled with
tears at sight of the noble brute waiting so patiently and calling so
pitifully for one who never came. But Rocket grew tired at last, and
they missed him one morning at Spring Bank, while Col. Tiffton on that
same morning was surprised and delighted to find him standing demurely
by the gate and offering no resistance when they led him to the stable
which he never tried to leave again. He seemed to have given Hugh up and
a part of the affection felt for his young master was transferred to the
colonel, who petted and caressed the beautiful animal, sighing the while
as he thought how improbable it was that Hugh ever could redeem him, and
how if he did not, the time was coming soon when Rocket must again
change masters, and when _Harney’s_ long cherished wish to possess him
would undoubtedly be gratified.