Hugh Worthington

The New England hills were tinged with that peculiar purplish haze, so common to the Indian summer time, and the warm sunlight of November fell softly upon Snowdon, whose streets were full of eager, expectant people— all hurrying on to the old brick church, and quickening their steps with every stroke of the merry bell, pealing so joyfully from the tall, dark tower. The Richards’ carriage was out, and waiting before the door of the Riverside cottage, for the appearance of Anna, who was this morning to venture out for a short time, leaving her baby Hugh alone. Another, and handsomer carriage, was standing before the hotel, where Hugh and his mother were stopping, and where, in a pleasant private room, Adah Richards helped Alice Johnson make her tasteful toilet, smoothing lovingly the rich folds of greyish colored silk, arranging the snowy cuffs and collar, and then bringing the hat of brown Neapolitan, with its pretty face trimmings of blue, and declaring it a shame to cover up the curls of hair falling so luxuriously about the face and neck of the blushing bride. For it was Alice’s wedding day, and in the room adjoining, Hugh Worthington stood, waiting impatiently the opening of the mysterious door which Adah had shut against him, and wondering if, after all, it were not a dream that the time was coming fast when neither bolts nor locks would have a right to keep him from his wife.

It seemed too great a joy to be true, and by way of reassuring himself he had to look often at the crowds of people hurrying by, and down upon old Sam, who, in full dress, with white cotton gloves drawn awkwardly up on his cramped distorted fingers, stood by the carriage, bowing to all who passed, himself the very personification of perfect bliss.

“Massah Hugh the perfectest massah,” he said, “and Miss Ellis a little more so;” adding that though “Canaan was a mighty nice place, he ’sumed, he’d rather not go thar jist yet, but live a leetle longer to see them ’joy themselves. Thar they comes—dat’s Miss in grey. She knows how’t orange posies and silks and satins is proper for weddin’ nights; but she’s gwine travelin’, and dat’s why she comed out in dat stun-color, Sam’ll be blamed if he fancies.” And having thus explained Alice’s choice of dress, the old negro held the carriage door himself, while Hugh, handing in his mother, sister, and his bride, took his seat beside them, and was driven to the church.

Twenty minutes passed, and then the streets were filled again; but now the people were going home, talking as they went of the beauty of the bride, and of the splendid-looking bridegroom, who looked so fondly at her as she murmured her responses, kissing her first himself when the ceremony was over, and letting his arm rest for a moment around her slender form. No one doubted its being a genuine love-match, and all rejoiced in the happiness of the newly married pair, who, at the village depot were waiting for the train which would take them on their way to Kentucky, for that was their destination.

In the distracted condition of the country Hugh’s presence was needed there; for, taking advantage of his absence, and the thousand rumors afloat touching the Proclamation one of his negroes had already ran away in company with some half-dozen of the Colonel’s, who, in a terrible state of excitement, talked seriously of emigrating to Canada. Hugh’s timely arrival, however, quieted him somewhat, though he listened in sorrow, and almost with tears, to Hugh’s plan of selling the Spring Bank farm and removing with his negroes to some New England town, where Alice, he knew, would be happier than she had been in Kentucky. But a purchaser for Spring Bank was not so easily found in those dark days; and so, doing with his land the best he could, he called about him his negroes, and giving to each his freedom, proposed that they stay quietly where they were until Spring, when he hoped to find them all employment on the farm he was to buy in New England.

Aunt Eunice who understood managing blacks better than his mother or his inexperienced wife, was to be his housekeeper in that new home of his, where the Colonel and his family would always be welcome; and having thus provided for those for whom it was his duty to care, he returned to Snowdon in time to join the Christmas party at Terrace Hill, where Irving Stanley was a guest, and where, in spite of the war clouds darkening our land, and in spite of the sad, haunting memories of the dead, there was much of hilarity and joy—reminding the villagers of the olden time when Terrace Hill was filled with gay revelers. Anna Millbrook was there, more beautiful than in her girlhood, and excessively fond of her missionary Charlie, who she laughingly declared was perfectly incorrigible on the subject of surplice and gown, adding that as “the mountain would not go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain;” and so she was fast becoming an out-and-out Presbyterian of the very bluest stripe.

Sweet Anna! None who looked into her truthful, loving face, or knew the consistency of her daily life, could doubt that whether Presbyterian or Episcopal in sentiment, the heart was right and the feet were treading the narrow path which leadeth unto life eternal.

It was a happy week spent at Terrace Hill; but one heart ached to its very core when, at its close, Irving Stanley went back to where duty called him, trusting that the God who had succored him thus far, would shield him from future harm, and keep him safely till the coming autumn, when, with the first falling of the leaf, he would gather to his embrace his darling beautiful Adah.

On the white walls of a handsome country seat just on the banks of the Connecticut, the light of the April sunset falls, and the soft April wind kisses the fair cheek and lifts the golden curls of the young mistress of Spring Bank—for so, in memory of the olden time, Hugh and Alice have named their new home. Arm in arm they walk up and down the terraced garden, talking softly of the way they have been led, and gratefully ascribing all praise to Him who rules and overrules, but doeth nought save good to those who love Him.

Down in the meadow-land and at the rear of the building, dusky forms are seen—the negroes, who have come to their Northern home, and with them the runaway. Ashamed of his desertion he has returned to his former master, resenting the name of contraband, and denouncing the ultra-abolitionist as humbugs, who deserved putting in the front of every battle. Hugh knows it will be hard accustoming these blacks to Northern usages but as he has their good in view, he feels sure that in time he will succeed, and cares but little for the opinion of those who wonder what he “expects to do with that lazy lot of niggers.”

On a rustic seat, near a rear door, white-haired old Sam is sitting, listening intently, while dusky Mug, reads to him from the book of books, the one he prizes above all else, stopping occasionally to expound, in his own way, some point which he fancies may not be clear to her, likening every good man to “Massah Hugh,” and every bad one to the leader of the “Suddern Federacy,” whose horse he declares he held once in “ole Virginny,” telling Mug, in an aside, “how, if ’twant wicked, not agin de scripter, he should most wish he’d put beech-nuts under Massah Jeffres’ saddle, and so broke his fetch-ed neck, ’fore he raise sich a muss, runnin’ calico so high that Miss Ellis ’clar she couldn’t ’ford it, and axin’ fifteen cents for a paltry spool of cotton.”

In the stable-yard, Claib, his good-humored face all aglow with pride, is exercising Rocket, who arches his neck as proudly as of old, and dances mincingly around, while Lulu leans over the gate, watching not so much him as the individual who holds him. And now that it grows darker, and the ripple of the river sounds more like eventide, lights gleam from the pleasant parlor where Mrs. Worthington and Aunt Eunice are sitting by the cheerful fire, just kindled on the marble hearth. Thither Hugh and Alice repair, while one by one the negroes come quietly in, and kneeling side by side, follow with stammering tongues, but honest hearts, their beloved master as he says first the prayer our Saviour taught, and then with words of thankful praise asks God to bless and keep him and his in the days to come, even as he has blessed and kept them in the days gone by.