Bad Hugh

There had been a desertion from a regiment on the Potomac. An officer

of inferior rank, but whose position had been such as to make him the

possessor of much valuable information, and whose perfect loyalty had

been for some time suspected, was missing from his command one morning,

and under such circumstances as to leave little doubt that his intention

was to reach the enemy's lines if possible. Long and loud were the

invectives against the traitor, and none were deeper in their

denunciations than Captain Hugh Worthington, as, seated on his fiery war

horse, Rocket, he heard from Irving Stanley the story of Dr. Richards'

disgrace.

"He should be pursued, brought back, and shot!" he said, emphatically,

feeling that he would like much to be one of the pursuers, already on

the track of the treacherous doctor, who skillfully eluded them all, and

just at the close of a warm summer day, when afar, in his New England

home, his Sister Anna was reading, with an aching heart, the story of

his disgrace, he sat in the shadow of the Virginia woods, weary,

footsore and faint with the pain caused from his ankle, sprained by a

recent fall.

He had hunted for Adah until entirely discouraged, and partly as a

panacea for the remorse preying so constantly upon him, and partly in

compliance with Anna's entreaties, he had at last joined the Federal

army, and been sworn in with the full expectation of some lucrative

office. But his unlucky star was in the ascendant. Stories derogatory to

his character were set afloat, and the final result of the whole was

that he found himself enrolled in a company where he knew he was

disliked, and under a captain whom he thoroughly detested, for the fraud

practiced upon himself. In this condition he was sent to the Potomac,

and while on duty as a picket, grew to be on the most friendly terms

with more than one of the enemy, planning at last to desert, and

effecting his escape one stormy night, when the watch were off their

guard. Owing to some mistake, the aid promised by his Rebel friends had

not been extended, and as best he could he was making his way to

Richmond, when, worn out with hunger, watchfulness and fatigue, he sank

down to die, as he believed, at the entrance of some beautiful woods

which skirted the borders of a well-kept farm in Virginia. Before him,

at the distance of nearly a quarter of a mile, a large, handsome house

was visible, and by the wreath of smoke curling from the rear chimney,

he knew it was inhabited, and thought once to go there, and beg for the

food he craved so terribly. But fear kept him back--the people might be

Unionists, and might detain him a prisoner until the officers upon his

track came up. Dr. Richards was cowardly, and so with a groan, he laid

his head upon the grass, and half wished that he had died ere he came to

be the miserable wretch he was. The pain in his ankle was by this time

intolerable, and the limb was swelling so fast that to walk on the

morrow was impossible, and if he found a shelter at all, it must be

found that night.