Hugh Worthington

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.