"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 was now beyond his count.
"Is there nothing that will arouse him?" Alice asked, "no name of one he
loves more than another?"
The doctor answered "no; love for womankind, save as he feels it for his
mother or his sister, is unknown to Hugh Worthington."
Alice said 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 into
the lustrous blue orbs above him.
"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 most beautiful gray, 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 led 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.