As soon as Mrs. Richards learned that Mrs. Worthington and Alice were in town, she insisted upon their coming to Terrace Hill. There were the pleasant chambers fitted up for ’Lina, they had never been occupied, and Mrs. Worthington could have them as well as not; or better yet—could take Anna’s old chamber, with the little room adjoining, where Adah used to sleep. Mrs. Worthington preferred the latter, and removed with Alice to Terrace Hill, while at Anna’s request Densie went to Riverside Cottage, where she used to live, and where she was much happier than she would have been with strangers.
Not long however could Mrs. Worthington remain contentedly at Snowdon, and after a time Alice started with her and Lulu for Washington, taking with them Sam, who seemed a perfect child in his delight at the prospect of seeing “Massah Hugh.” From a soldier returning home on furlough they heard that he was with his Regiment but to see him was not so easy a matter. Indeed, he seemed farther off at Washington than he had done at Spring Bank, and Alice sometimes questioned the propriety of having left Kentucky at all. They were not very comfortable at Washington, and as Mrs. Worthington pined for the pure country air, Alice managed at last to procure board at the house of a friend whose acquaintance she had made at the time of her visits to Virginia. It was some distance from Washington, and so near to Bull Run that when at last the second battle was fought in that vicinity, the roar of the artillery was distinctly heard, and they who listened to the noise of that bloody conflict knew just when the battle ceased, and thought with tearful anguish of the poor, maimed, suffering wretches left to bleed and die alone. They knew Hugh must have been in the battle, and Mrs. Worthington’s anxiety amounted almost to insanity, while Alice, with blanched cheek and compressed lip, could only pray silently that he might be spared. Only Sam thought of acting.
“Now is my time,” he said to Alice, as they stood talking together of Hugh, and wondering if he were safe. “Something tell me Massah Hugh is hurted somewhar, and I’se gwine to find him. I knows all de way, an’ every tree round dat place. I can hide from de ’Federacy. Dem Rebels let ole white-har’d nigger look for young massah, and I’se gwine. P’raps I not find him, but I does somebody some good. I helps somebody’s Massah Hugh.”
It seemed a crazy project, letting that old man start off on so strange an errand, but Sam was determined.
“He had a ’sentiment,” as he said, “that Hugh was wounded, and he must go to him.”
In his presentiment Alice had no faith; but she did not oppose him, and at parting she said to him hesitatingly,
“Sam,—did you,—do you,—has it ever occurred to you that your master cared particularly for me;—that is,—cared,—you know how,” and Alice blushed scarlet while Sam replied eagerly, “Yes, Miss, Sam got mizzable memory, but he knows dat ar, and it passes him what Massah Hugh done jine de army for, when he might stay home and haved Miss Ellis just as Sam pray he might so long. Massah Hugh and Miss Ellis make good span. I tell Massah. Shall I?”
“Not unless you find him wounded and believe him dying, then, you may tell him,—tell him—that I said—I loved him; and had he ever come back, I would have been his wife.”
“I tells him,” was Sam’s reply, as he departed on his errand of mercy, which proved not to be a fruitless one, for he did find his master, and falling on his knees beside him, uttered the joyful words we have before repeated.
To the faint, half-dying Hugh that familiar voice from home and that dusky form bending over him so pityingly, seemed more like a dream than a reality. He could not comprehend how Sam came there, or what he was saying to him. Something he heard of ole Miss and Snow-down, and Washington; but nothing was real until he caught the name of Alice, and thought Sam said she was there.