Bad Hugh

Bad Hugh

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Bad Hugh, by Mary Jane Holmes
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Title: Bad Hugh
Author: Mary Jane Holmes

Release Date: September 5, 2005 [eBook #16662]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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BAD HUGH
by
MARY J. HOLMES
Author of "Lena Rivers", "Tempest and Sunshine", "Meadow Brook", "The English Orphans", etc., etc.
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
1900

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. Spring Bank 5
II. What Rover Found 15
III. Hugh's Soliloquy 26
IV. Terrace Hill 29
V. Anna and John 37
VI. Alice Johnson 42
VII. Riverside Cottage 50
VIII. Mr. Liston and the Doctor 57
IX. Matters in Kentucky 60
X. Lina's Purchase and Hugh's 71
XI. Sam and Adah 77
XII. What Followed 81
XIII. How Hugh Paid His Debts 84
XIV. Mrs. Johnson's Letter 88
XV. Saratoga 96
XVI. The Columbian 101
XVII. Hugh 108
XVIII. Meeting of Alice and Hugh 111
XIX. Alice and Muggins 116
XX. Poor Hugh 118
XXI. Alice and Adah 126
XXII. Waking to Consciousness 133
XXIII. Lina's Letter. 138
XXIV. Foreshadowings 145
XXV. Talking with Hugh 149
XXVI. The Day of the Sale 153
XXVII. The Sale 161
XXVIII. The Ride 165
XXIX. Hugh and Alice 169
XXX. Adah's Journey 177
XXXI. The Convict 184
XXXII. Adah at Terrace Hill 189
XXXIII. Anna and Adah 196
XXXIV. Rose Markham 204
XXXV. The Result 212
XXXVI. Excitement 223
XXXVII. Matters at Spring Bank 227
XXXVIII. The Day of the Wedding 232
XXXIX. The Convict's Story 238
XL. Poor 'Lina 248
XLI. Tidings 255
XLII. Irving Stanley 259
XLIII. Letters from Hugh and Irving Stanley 268
XLIV. The Deserter 272
XLV. The Second Battle of Bull Run 286
XLVI. How Sam Came There 291
XLVII. Finding Hugh 300
XLVIII. Going Home 304
XLIX. Conclusion 314

BAD HUGH

CHAPTER I
SPRING BANK
A large, old-fashioned, weird-looking wooden building, with strangely shaped bay windows and stranger gables projecting here and there from the slanting roof, where the green moss clung in patches to the moldy shingles, or formed a groundwork for the nests the swallows built year after year beneath the decaying eaves. Long, winding piazzas, turning sharp, sudden angles, and low, square porches, where the summer sunshine held many a fantastic dance, and where the winter storm piled up its drifts of snow, whistling merrily as it worked, and shaking the loosened casement as it went whirling by. Huge trees of oak and maple, whose topmost limbs had borne and cast the leaf for nearly a century of years, tall evergreens, among whose boughs the autumn wind ploughed mournfully, making sad music for those who cared to listen, and adding to the loneliness which, during many years, had invested the old place. A wide spreading grassy lawn, with the carriage road winding through it, over the running brook, and onward 'neath graceful forest trees, until it reached the main highway, a distance of nearly half a mile. A spacious garden in the rear, with bordered walks and fanciful mounds, with climbing roses and creeping vines showing that somewhere there was a taste, a ruling hand, which, while neglecting the somber building and suffering it to decay, lavished due care upon the grounds, and not on these alone, but also on the well-kept barns, and the whitewashed dwellings in front, where numerous, happy, well-fed negroes lived and lounged, for ours is a Kentucky scene, and Spring Bank a Kentucky home.
As we have described it so it was on a drear December night, when a fearful storm, for that latitude, was raging, and the snow lay heaped against the fences, or sweeping-down from the bending trees, drifted against the doors, and beat against the windows, whence a cheerful light was gleaming, telling of life and possible happiness within. There were no flowing curtains before the windows, no drapery sweeping to the floor, nothing save blinds without and simple shades within, neither of which were doing service now, for the master of the house would have it so in spite of his sister's remonstrances.
Some one might lose their way on that terrible night, he said, and the blaze of the fire on the hearth, which could be seen from afar, would be to them a beacon light to guide them on their way. Nobody would look in upon them, as Adaline, or 'Lina as she chose to be called, and as all did call her except himself, seemed to think there might, and even if they did, why need she care? To be sure she was not quite as fixey as she was on pleasant days when there was a possibility of visitors, and her cheeks were