The Day of the Sale

It was strange Hugh did not improve faster, the old doctor thought.
There was something weighing on his mind, he said, something which kept
him awake, and the kind man set himself to divine the cause. Thinking at
last he had done so, he said to him one day, the last before the sale: "My boy, you don't get on for worrying about something. I don't pretend
to second sight, but I b'lieve I've got on the right track. It's my
pesky bill. I know it's big, for I've been here every day this going on
three months, but I'll cut it down to the last cent, see if I don't; and
if it's an object, I'll wait ten years, so chirk up a bit," and wringing
his hand, the well-meaning doctor hurried off, leaving Hugh alone with
his sad thoughts.

It was not so much the bill which troubled him--it was Rocket, and the
feeling sure that he should never own him again. Heretofore there had at
intervals been a faint hope in his heart that by some means he might
redeem him, but that was over now. The sale of Colonel Tiffton's effects
occurred upon the morrow, and money stood waiting for Rocket, while
Harney, with a fiendish, revengeful disposition, which was determined to
gain its point at last, had been heard to say that "rather than lose the
horse or let it pass back to its former owner, he believed he would give
a thousand dollars."