Hugh Worthington

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.