Hugh Worthington

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.”