His deliverance was so quick and sudden that for a day or two he was
almost as dazed as the Africans after the hurricane. One day Hugh Knox
sent him out a copy of the St. Christopher newspaper which had published
his description of the storm. With some pride in his first-born, he read
it aloud to his aunt. Before he was halfway down the first column she
was on the sofa with her smelling-salts, vowing she was more terrified
than when she had expected to be killed every minute. When he had
finished she upbraided him for torturing people unnecessarily, but
remarked that he was even cleverer than she had thought him. The next
morning she asked him to read it again; then read it herself. On the
following day Hugh Knox rode out.
Alexander was at one of the mills. Knox told Mrs. Mitchell that he had
sent a copy of the newspaper to the Governor of St. Croix, who had
called upon him an hour later and insisted upon knowing the name of the
writer. Knox not only had told him, but had expanded upon Alexander's
abilities and ambitions to such an extent that the Governor at that
moment was with Peter Lytton, endeavouring to persuade him to open his
purse-strings and send the boy to college.
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