Mug's face, expressive as it was, only reflected the feelings of the
others and Alice's decision was taken. They would protect Hugh's horses.
But how? That was a perplexing question until Mug suggested that they be
brought into the kitchen, which adjoined the house, and was much larger
than Southern kitchens usually are. It was a novel idea, but seemed the
only feasible one, and was acted upon at once. The kitchen, however,
would not accommodate the dozen noble animals, Claib's special pride,
and so the carpet was taken from the dining-room floor, and before the
clock struck ten every horse was stabled in the house, where they stood
as quietly as if they, too, felt the awe, the expectancy of something
terrible brooding over the household.
It was Alice who managed everything, giving directions where each one of
her subordinates was to stay, and what they were to do in case of an
attack. Every door and window was barricaded, every possible precaution
taken, and then, with an unflinching nerve, Alice stole up the stairs,
and unfastening a trapdoor which led out upon the roof, stood there
behind a huge chimney top, scanning wistfully the darkness of the woods,
waiting, watching for a foe, whose very name was in itself sufficient to
blanch a woman's cheek with fear.
"Oh, what would Hugh say, if he could see me now?" she murmured, a tear
starting to her eye as she thought of the dear soldier afar in the
tented field, and wondered if he had forgotten his love for her, as she
sometimes feared, or why, in his many letters, he never breathed a word
of aught save brotherly affection.
She was his mother's amanuensis, and as she could not follow her
epistles, and see how, ere breaking the seal, Hugh's lips were always
pressed to the place where her fingers had traced his name, she did not
guess how precious they were to him, or how her words of counsel and
sympathy kept him often from temptations, and were molding him so fast
into the truly consistent Christian man she so much wished him to be. He
had in one letter, expressed his surprise that she did not go to Europe,
while she had replied to him: "I never thought of going;" and this was
all the allusion either had made to Irving Stanley since the day that
Hugh left Spring Bank. Gradually, however, the conviction had crept over
Hugh that in his jealousy he acted hastily, that Irving Stanley had sued
for Alice's hand in vain, but he would not seek an explanation yet; he
would do his duty as a soldier, and when that duty was done, he might,
perhaps, be more worthy of Alice's love. He would have had no doubt of
it now could he have seen her that summer night, and known her thoughts
as she stood patiently at her post, now starting with a sudden flutter
of fear, as what she had at first taken for the distant trees seemed to
assume a tangible form; and again laughing at her own weakness, as the
bristling bayonets subsided into sleeping shadows beneath the forest
boughs.