University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
HUGH'S SOLILOQUY.

“One, two, three, yes, as good as four women and a
child,” he began, “to say nothing of the negroes, who all
must eat and drink. A goodly number for one whose
income is hardly as much as some young men spend

every year upon themselves; and the hardest of all is
the having people call me stingy and mean, the seeing
young girls lift their eyebrows and wink when young
Hunks, as Ad says they call me, appears, and the knowing
that this opinion of me is encouraged and kept alive
by the remarks and insinuations of my own sister, for
whom I've denied myself more than one new coat that
she might have the dress she coveted,” and in the red
gleam of the fire-light the bearded chin quivered for a
moment as Hugh thought how unjust 'Lina was to him,
and how hard was the lot imposed upon him.

Soon recovering his composure he continued, “There's
that bill at Harney's, how in the world I'm to pay it when
it comes due is more than I know. These duds,” and he
glanced ruefully at his coarse clothes, “will look a heap
worse than they do now, and shifting the position of his
feet, which had hitherto rested upon the hearth, to a more
comfortable and suggestive one upon the mantel, Hugh
tried to find a spot in which he could economize.

“I needn't have a fire in my room nights,” he said, as a
coal fell into the pan and thus reminded him of its existence,
“and I won't, either. It's nonsense for a great hotblooded
clown like me to be babied with a fire. I've no
tags to braid, no false switches to comb out and hide, only
a few buttons to undo, a shake or so, and I'm all right.
So there's one thing, the fire — quite an item, too, at the
rate coal is selling. Then there's coffee. I can do without
that, I suppose, though it will be perfect torment to smell
it, and Hannah makes such splendid coffee, too; but will
is everything. Fire, coffee — I'm getting on famously.
What else?”

“Tobacco,” something whispered, but Hugh answered
promptly, “No, sir, I shan't! I'll sell my shirts, before
I'll give up my best friend. It's all the comfort I have
when I get a fit of the blues. Oh, you needn't try to come
it!” and Hugh shook his head defiantly at his unseen interlocutor,

urging that 'twas a filthy practice at best, and
productive of no good. “You needn't try for I won't,”
and Hugh deliberately lighted a cigar and resumed his
soliloquy, while he complacently watched the little blue
rings curling so gracefully above his head. “Blamed if
I can think of any thing else, but maybe I shall. I might
sell something, I suppose. There's Harney wants to buy
Bet, but Ad never rides any other horse, and she does ride
uncommonly well, if she is Ad. There's the negroes, more
than I need,” but from this suggestion Hugh turned away
quite as decidedly as from the one touching his tobacco.
“He didn't believe much in negroes any way, surely not
in selling them; besides that, nobody'd want them after
they'd been spoiled as he had spoiled them,” and he laughed
aloud as he fancied a new master trying to break in old
Chloe, who had ruled at Spring Bank so long that she almost
fancied she owned it. No, Hugh wouldn't sell his
servants, and the negroes sleeping so soundly in their cabins
had nothing to fear from him.

Horses were suggested again. “You have other horses
than Bet,” and Hugh was conscious of a pang which wrung
from him a groan, for his horses were his idols, and parting
with them would be like severing a right hand. It was too
terrible to think about, and Hugh dismissed it as an alternative
which might have to be considered another time.
Then hope made her voice heard above the little blue imps
tormenting him so sadly.

“He should get along somehow. Something would turn
up. Ad might marry and go away. He knew it was
wrong, and yet he could not help thinking it would be
nice to come home some day and not find her there, with
her fault-finding, and her sarcastic remarks. What made
her so different from his mother — so different from the
little sister he always remembered with a throb of delight?
He had loved her, and he thought of her now as she used

to look in her dainty white frocks, with the strings of coral
he had bought with nuts picked on the New England hills.

He used to kiss her chubby arms — kiss the rosy cheeks,
and the soft brown hair. But that hair had changed sadly
since the days when its owner had first lisped his name,
and called him “Ugh,” for the bands and braids coiled
around 'Lina's head were black as midnight. Not less
changed than Lina's tresses was 'Lina herself, and Hugh
had often felt like crying for the little baby sister, so lost
and dead to him in her young womanhood. What had
changed Ad so? To be sure he did not care much for
females any way, but if Ad were half way decent, and
would let him, he should love her, he presumed. Other
young men loved their sisters. There was Bob Reynolds
seemed to idolize his, crippled though she was, and he had
mourned so bitterly, when she died, bending over her coffin,
and kissing her white face. Would Hugh do so to
Ad? He thought it very doubtful! though, he supposed,
he should feel sorry and mourn some, but he'd bet he
wouldn't wear a very wide band of crape around his hat;
he couldn't afford it! Still he should remember all the
harsh things he had said to her, and be so sorry.

There was many a tender spot in Hugh Worthington's
heart, and shadow after shadow flitted across his face as
he thought how cheerless was his life, and how little
there was in his surroundings to make him happy. Poor
Hugh! It was a dreary picture he drew as he sat alone
that night, brooding over his troubles, and listening to the
moan of the wintry wind — the only sound he heard, except
the rattling of the shutters and the creaking of the
timbers, as the old house rocked in the December gale.

Suddenly there crept into his mind Adah's words, “I
shall pray for you to-night.” Would she? Had she
prayed for him, and did prayers do any good? Was any
one bettered by them? Golden Hair had thought so, and
he was sure she had talked with God of him, but since

the waters closed over her dear head, no one had remembered
Hugh Worthington in that way, he was sure. But
Adah would, and Hugh's heart grew stronger as he
thought of Adah praying for him. What would she say?
How would she word it? He wished he knew, but prayer
was strange to Hugh. He never prayed, and the Bible
given by Golden Hair had not been opened this many a
day, but he would do so now, and unlocking the trunk
where it was hidden, he took it from its concealment and
opened it reverently, half wondering what he should read
first and if it would have any reference to his present
position.

“Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these ye did it
unto me.”

That was what Hugh read in the dim twilight, that, the
passage on which the lock of hair lay, and the Bible
dropped from his hands as he whispered,

“Golden Hair, are you here? Did you point that out
to me? Does it mean Adah? Is the God you loved on
earth pleased that I should care for her?”

To these queries, there came no answer, save the mournful
wailing of the night wind roaring down the chimney
and past the sleet-covered window, but Hugh was a happier
man for reading that, and had there before existed a
doubt as to his duty toward Adah, this would have swept
it away. Bending closer to the fire, Hugh read the chapter
through, wondering why he should feel so much better,
and why the world looked brighter than it had an hour
before. If it made folks feel so nice to read a little bit in
the Bible, how would they feel to read it through? He
meant to try and see, beginning at Genesis the very next
night, and hiding his treasure away, Hugh sought his pillow
just as the first greyish streak of daylight was beginning
to show in the east.