THE SALE.
Col. Tiffton could not pay the $10,000 note which he had foolishly
endorsed, and as Harney knew no mercy where his interest was concerned.
Mosside must be sold; and the day of the sale had come. There was a
crowd of people out and they waited anxiously for the shrill voice and
hammer of the auctioneer, a portly little man, who felt more for the
family than his appearance would indicate.
There had been a long talk that morning between him self and a young
lady, whose beauty had thrilled his heart just as it did every heart
beating beneath a male’s attire. The lady had seemed a little nervous,
as she talked, casting anxious glances up the Lexington turnpike, and
asking several times when the Lexington cars were due.
“It shan’t make no difference. I’ll take your word,” the auctioneer had
said in reply to some doubts expressed by her. “I’d trust your face for
a million,” and with a profound bow by way of emphasising his
compliment, the well meaning Skinner went out to the group assembled in
the yard, while the lady returned to the upper chamber where Mrs.
Tiffton and Ellen were weeping bitterly and refusing to be comforted.
From Ellen’s chamber a small glass door opened out upon an open balcony,
where the Colonel sat leaning on his cane, and watching the movements in
the yard below. To this balcony, and the glass door communicating with
it, many eyes were directed, for it was known the family were in that
vicinity, and it was also whispered that Miss Johnson, the beautiful
young lady from Spring Bank was there, and great was the anxiety of some
for a sight of her. But neither Ellen nor Alice were visible for the
first hour, and only the white-haired colonel kept watch while one after
another of his household goods were sold.
The crowd grew weary at last—they must have brisker sport, if they would
keep warm in that chilly November wind, and cries for the “horses” were
heard.
“Your crack ones, too. I’m tired of this,” growled Harney, and Ellen’s
riding pony was led out, the one she loved and petted almost as much as
Hugh had petted Rocket. The Colonel saw the playful animal, and with a
moan tottered to Ellen’s chamber, saying,
“They are going to sell Beauty, Nell. Poor Nellie, don’t cry,” and the
old man laid his hand on his weeping daughter’s head.
“Colonel Tiffton, this way please,” and Alice spoke in a whisper. “I
want Beauty, and I expected—I thought—” here she glanced again up the
turnpike, but seeing no one continued, “Couldn’t you bid for me, bid all
you would be willing to give if you were bidding for Ellen?”
The colonel looked at her in a kind of dazed, bewildered way, as if not
fully comprehending her, till she repeated her request; then
mechanically he went back to his post on the balcony, and just as
Harney’s last bid was about to receive the final _gone_, he raised it
twenty dollars and ere Harney had time to recover his astonishment,
Beauty was disposed of, and the Colonel’s servant Ham led her in triumph
back to the stable.
With a fierce scowl of defiance Harney called for Rocket. He had not
forgotten that knock-down months before, when Hugh resented the insult
offered to Adah Hastings. He had hated him ever since—had sworn to have
revenge, and as one mode of taking it, he would secure Rocket at all
hazards. Even that morning as he rode past Spring Bank, he had thought
with a fiendish exultation, how he would seek the opportunity to provoke
to restlessness and then cowhide Rocket in Hugh’s presence as a means of
repaying the knock-down! And this was the savage, who, with eager,
expectant look upon his visage, stood waiting for Rocket.
Suspecting something wrong the animal refused to come out, and planting
his fore feet firmly upon the floor of his stable, kept them all at bay.
With a fierce oath, the brutal Harney gave him a stinging blow, which
made the tender flesh quiver with pain, but the fiery gleam in the
animal’s eye warned him not to repeat it. Suddenly among the excited
group of dusky faces he spied that of _Claib_, and bade him lead out the
horse.
“I can’t. Oh, mars’r, for the dear ——” Claib began, but Harney’s riding
whip silenced him and he went submissively in to Rocket, who became as
gentle beneath his touch as a lamb.
Loud were the cries of admiration which hailed his appearance; and Alice
would have known that something important was pending without the
colonel’s groan,
“Oh, Rocket! Poor Hugh! It hurts me for the boy more than anything
else!”
With one last despairing glance up the still lonely ‘pike Alice hurried
to the door, and looked out upon the eager throng. Gathered in a knot
around Rocket were all the noted horse-dealers of the country, and
conspicuous among them was Harney, his face wearing a most disagreeable
expression, as in reply to some remark of one of his companions he said,
by way of depreciating Rocket, and thus preventing bids.
“Yes, quite a fancy piece, but ain’t worth a row of pins. Been fed with
sugar plums too much. Why, it will take all the gads in Kentucky to
break him in.”
The bids were very rapid, for Rocket was popular, but Harney bided his
time, standing silently by, with a look on his face of cool contempt for
those who presumed to think they could be the fortunate ones. He was
prepared to give more than any one else. Nobody would go above his
figure, he had set it so high—higher even than Rocket was really worth.
Five hundred and fifty, if necessary. No one would rise above that,
Harney was sure, and he quietly waited until the bids were far between,
and the auctioneer still dwelling upon the last, seemed waiting
expectantly for something.
“I believe my soul the fellow knows I mean to have that horse,” thought
Harney, and with an air which said, “that settles it,” he called out in
loud, clear tones, “Four Hundred,” thus adding fifty at one bid.
There was a slight movement then in the upper balcony, an opening of the
glass door, and a suppressed whisper ran through the crowd, as _Alice_
came out and stood by the colonel’s side.
The bidding went on briskly now, each bidder raising a few dollars, till
$450 were reached, and then there came a pause, broken at last by a
silvery half-tremulous voice, which passed like an electric shock
through the eager crowd, and roused Harney to a perfect fury.
“Five Hundred.”
There was no mistaking the words, and with a muttered curse Harney
yelled out his price, all he had meant to give. Again that girlish voice
was heard, this time clear and decisive as it added ten to Harney’s five
hundred and fifty. Harney knew now who it was that bid against him, for,
following the eyes of those around him, he saw her where she stood, her
long curls blowing about her fair, flushed face, one little hand resting
on the colonel’s shoulder, the other holding together Ellen Tiffton’s
crimson scarf, which she had thrown over her black dress to shield her
from the cold. There was nothing immodest or unmaidenly in her position,
and no one felt that there was. Profound respect and admiration were the
only feelings she elicited from the spectators, unless we except the
villain Harney, and even he stood gazing at her for a moment, struck
with her marvellous beauty, and the look of quiet resolution upon her
childish face. Had Alice been told six months before that she would one
day mingle conspicuously in a Kentucky horse-sale as the competitor of
such a man as Harney, she would have scoffed at the idea, and even now
she had no distinct consciousness of what she was doing.
Up to the latest possible moment she had watched the distant highway,
and when there was no longer hope, had stolen to the colonel’s side, and
whispered in his ear what he must say.
“It will not do for me,” he replied. “Say it yourself. There’s no
impropriety,” and, almost ere she was aware of it, Alice’s voice joined
itself with the din which ceased as her distinct “Five Hundred” came
ringing through the air.
Harney was mad with rage for he knew well for whom that fair Northern
girl was interested. He had heard that she was rich—how rich he did not
know—but fancied she might possibly be worth a few paltry thousands, and
so, of course she was not prepared to compete with him, who counted his
gold by hundreds of thousands. Five hundred was all she would give for
Rocket. How, then, was he surprised and chagrined when, with a coolness
equal to his own, she kept steadily on, scarcely allowing the auctioneer
to repeat his bid before she increased it and once, womanlike, raising
on her own.
“Fie, Harney! Shame to go against a girl! Better give it up, for don’t
you see she’s resolved to have him? She’s worth half Massachusetts, too,
they say.”
These and like expressions met Harney on every side until at last, as he
paused to answer some of them, growing heated in the altercation, and
for the instant forgetting Rocket, the auctioneer brought the hammer
down with a click which made Harney leap from the ground, for by that
sound he knew that Rocket was sold to Alice Johnson for six hundred
dollars! There was a horrid oath, a fierce scowl at Alice passing from
his view, and then, with the muttered sneer, “I wonder if she intends to
buy the farm and niggers?” Harney tried to hide his discomfiture by
saying, “he was glad on the whole, for he did not really want the horse,
and had only bidden from spite!”
Meantime Alice had sought the friendly shelter of Ellen’s room, where
the tension of nerve endured so long gave way, and sinking upon the sofa
she fainted just as down the Lexington turnpike came the man looked for
so long in the earlier part of the day. Alice had written to Mr. Liston
a few weeks previous to the sale, and indulgent almost to a fault to his
beautiful ward, he had replied that he would surely be at Mosside in
time.
He had kept his word, and it was his familiar voice which brought Alice
back to consciousness; and pressing his hand, she told him what she had
done, and asked if it were unmaidenly. She could not err, in Mr.
Liston’s estimation, and with his assurance that all was right, Alice
grew calm, and in a hurried consultation explained to him more
definitely than her letter had done, what her wishes were—Colonel
Tiffton must not be homeless in his old age. There were 10,000 dollars
lying in the —— Bank in Massachusetts, and she would have Mosside
purchased in her name for Colonel Tiffton, not as a gift, for he would
not accept it, but as a loan, to be paid at his convenience. This was
Alice’s plan, and Mr. Liston acted upon it at once. Taking his place in
the motley assemblage, he bid quietly, steadily, until the whisper ran
round, “Who is that man in that butternut-colored coat?”
None knew who he was though all came to the conclusion that Harney’s
hope of securing Mosside was as futile as had been his hope of getting
Rocket. There were others disappointed, too—the fair matrons who coveted
Mrs. Tiffton’s carpets, mirrors, and cut-glass, all of which passed to
the stranger. When it came to the negroes he winced a little, wondering
what his abolition friends would say to see him bidding off his own
flesh and blood, but the end answered the means, he thought, and so he
kept on until at last Mosside, with its appurtenances, belonged
ostensibly to him, and the half glad, half disappointed people wondered
greatly who _Mr. Jacob Liston_ could be, or from what quarter of the
globe he had suddenly dropped into their midst.
Col. Tiffton knew that nearly every thing had been purchased by him, and
felt glad that a stranger rather than a neighbor was to occupy what had
been so dear to him, and that his servants would not be separated. With
Ellen it was different. A neighbor might allow them to remain there a
time, she said, while a stranger would not, and she was weeping
bitterly, when, as the sound of voices and the tread of feet gradually
died away from the yard below, Alice came to her side, and bending over
her said softly, “Could you bear some good news now;—bear to know who is
to inhabit Mosside?”
“Good news?” and Ellen looked up wonderingly.
“Yes, good news, I think you will call it,” and then as delicately as
possible Alice told what had been done, and that the colonel was still
to occupy his old home. “As my tenant, if you like,” she said to him,
when he began to demur. “You will not find me a hard landlady,” and with
playful raillery she succeeded in bringing a smile to his face, where
tears also were visible.
When at last it was clear to the old man, he laid his hand upon the head
of the young girl and whispered huskily, “I cannot thank you as I would,
or tell you what’s in my heart. God bless you, Alice Johnson. I wish I
too, had found him early as you have, for I know it’s He that put this
into your mind. God bless you, God bless my child.”