The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1871-09-28
RIDGWAY, PA, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2S, 1871

afforded it unsought, who yet passed
him by on the other side, or, worse, re-
warded his former m-heartedness
with chilling politeness and affected
courtesy
With Hubert Deverill it was different.
He openly resented covert affronts offered
to his father, and boldly snubbed those
who would have been willing enough to
receive the young artist, almost sure OF
fame, while their best suit of ice was re-
served for his father. Hubert prev in
pride as he decreased in fortune, and
people he would readily enough have
met when heir to the Banefeld estate,
he now made no scruple of turning up
his nose at-as the vernacular has it.
Folks said this was a bad sign in a
young man who had still his fortune to
carve and his way to make. 1t was.
But Hubert had nearly made his way.
He saw to the end of it and, meantime,
he could not endure the artificial money
value with which society must be pleased
to stamp a man before he can pass cur
rent. But he kicked against wall of
flint, against which thousands have
bruised and broken themselves before
time-a wall which may be surmounted
with ladder of gold, but not beaten
down.
Up to the time of the murder, Hubert
Deverilfs demeanor to the Shirlington
folks generally, and to Mr.. Mesturn in
particular, had been Extensively over
bearing. Conscious Of his own power
as an artist, it may be he thought to
discount part of the success that surely
awaited him, and assert it beforehand.
am not aware that he ever spoke to
Mr.. Mesturn after his father was turned
out of Banefeld, but 1 recall walking
down the street with Hubert on one oc-
casion at Shirlington, when we met Mr..
Mesturn. The young man drew long
breath, and set his teeth very close, when
the farmer passed; then turned round
and took long look after the man to
whom he attributed, rightly or wrongly,
his fathers ruin; nothing more. That
he disliked Mr.. Mesturn had no doubt,
but that he should take q public oppor-
tunity of exhibiting uselessly his dislike
was, as l told him, extremely foolish.
He admitted it was 50. He was very
white, and breathing fast, but he did not
recur to the subject.
was not in Shirlington at the time
of the murder, nor did return thither
until month after the trial. l heard
from friends that Hubert was much al
tered that his overbearing humor had
altogether left him that he had become
quiet and retiring, and, when brought
into contact with some of those persons
he had previously made no secret of de-
spising, that his bearing was respectful
even to obsequiousness. He had felt
very severely, they said, the working out
of his own ill-will on Mr. Mesturn by
another person, and it had made him
gentle.
Banefeld Park had for some time past
degenerated into a copse-like wilderness
of matted underwood and tall grass, and
nettles and wild tiowers-more pictur-
esque to an artist than the most neatly
clipped shrubs and shorn hedges could
be. For habitable purposes, however,
the house had dilapidated into ruin,
and the estate into tangle nearly as
involved as the Chancery case represent
ing it. The public used the park as a
thoroughfare, and anticipated that their
descendants might turn it into villas in
some future generation, when the law
yers had done with it.
One still evening in early summer. 1
took quiet stroll through that part of
the park formerly known as "the Will
derness "a title now quite applicable
to the whole-a scene of strange beauty,
in which cultivation mingled with wild
ness and rank growth in rich disorder.
Here, great, heavy chestnut tree, over
spreading sombre shade; Briareus-like,
its hundred hands posing each in its fiat,
leafy, fve-fngered palm a cone of mealy
bloom, balancing it truly in the soft,
swaying evening breeze. There, 1.-THE
silver willows, sweeping the glistening,
oily lake; and laburnums, Canae-like,
arrayed in showers of gold, beneath
which the buttercups looked like drops
from the golden fountain. Gay wild
flowers, Haunting from out great masses
Of dock and thistles, overrun with briars
and intergrown with feathery fern,
crowded every break in the trees. The
setting sun, burning through the tangle,
stained the lake with broken pillar of
red, that waved and glittered, and swal-
lowed up the tree-pictures the sluggish
water mirrored titfully anon.
Enjoying the beauty of the spot,
started at hearing myself called, and,
looking up, saw Hubert Deverill paint
ing in a covert. He beckoned me to
come to him.
Hubert" l said, ".why do you come
to this fatal placer"
81 was drawn here" he returned. al
don't know-it is my old home. wanted
to paint it. Will that do? Look" be
"I think l have fixed that
on the water"
l looked at his sketch, and back again
at him, to see if he were serious. He
to be so. l could not under
stand him.
"Why, Hubert" I said, sit is flaming
red"
"Yes," he returned, shortly" burn
ing red"
"But, my good fellow, you have not
painted it so. Your painting is as cold
and as gray as an iceberg. You are
having joke at my expense: The
drawing is right enough, but 1t is all
cold grays and green and purple. Where
is your red I"
"Great heavens !" he cried, "don't you
see it is Jlood-red I" And he threw the
picture into the lake, gathered up his
painting materials, and, putting his arm
mine, walked home without
saying another word. l thought Mr..
Mesturn's death and the associations of
the spot must have overcome him for the
moment, especially remembering his i'll
will to the deceased, as being to his mind
the willful cause of his fathers ruin.