Huberts Wife | Page 8

a
fine specimen of the country gentleman. Genial, hospitable, full of wit
and anecdote, he was also a member of the Baptist Church, an
ex-Senator of the United States, and ex-Governor of his own State. His
eldest son was married, his youngest still in college, and his only
daughter, about the age of twenty-two, was still an almost idolized
child beneath her father's roof. The mother of these children had died a
few years previously, and a widow from the city had supplied her place
in the father's home and heart.
Philip St. Leger, black-haired, black-eyed, melancholy and romantic in
look, cityfied and aristocratic in air and manner, attracted much
attention among the simple people of the quiet town of Newberg. He
could not help perceiving that, for the first time in his life, he had
become a veritable lion. The very fact that he was Col. Selby's guest
and relative gave to him importance; another fact, that he was the son
of a wealthy sea captain from a distant city, was all-powerful.
It had indeed crept out somehow that he had been wild and extravagant,
that he had been sent to rusticate among rocks and hills so sterile there
would be little chance for his wild acts to take root; but then, to some
old ladies and young ones too, this rumor lent but additional interest.
"Poor boy! what else could one expect? With such comeliness of
person, endless wealth, unlimited advantages--the only wonder was he

was not completely ruined." And he was compassionated and pitied for
being obliged to remain in so old-fashioned and out-of-the-way country
town as insignificant Newberg.
This pity was quite thrown away. Philip St. Leger was in his element;
he had never been so happy in his life; Newberg was made up of hills,
in the midst of grander mountains; it nestled in the western shadow of
Keansarge; and King's Hill and Sunapee reared loftily around her their
bold bleak fronts. A beautiful lake of the same name lay blue and clear
at Sunapee's foot. "Pleasant Lake" lay in another direction, famous for
its delicious trout and fragrant pond lilies.
Philip, the young scapegrace from city and from college, was in an
ecstacy; he had never beheld skies so blue, lakes so fair, landscapes so
lovely; with every breath he seemed to draw in life, vigor, and a new
sense of beauty. Every morning he was up at sunrise, scouring the
country upon the back of Nellie, a graceful, fleet young mare which
Col. Selby had generously set aside for his use. Maids, matrons, and
small boys stood in gaping amaze, stool in one hand and milk pail in
the other, watching half-fearfully, half-admiringly, the fearless young
equestrian, who shot by like a comet, his long, black hair streaming in
the wind.
It was Philip's delight to create this stare and wonder, to which poor
Nellie was obliged to contribute still more than her young master's
pleasure. If he could leap over some low garden wall, dart over a
famous strawberry bed, or amidst the melon patch, he thought he had
done something splendid. The owner's dismay, not alone at the ruin, but
at the untamed spirit that dared it, gave him peculiar delight.
Those old ladies who found their fattest goose dangling half-dead from
the apple-bough in the early morning, or who looked in vain for patient
cows within the yard, whose bars had mysteriously disappeared, began
less to admire this youthful metropolitan.
Complaints poured in upon Col. Selby. At first he laughed and made
light of them; then he consulted his wife. She was a staid, proper
person, careful of the family's good name and popularity. It would

never do. Philip ought to have some sense of what was due to his host;
since he had not, he must be put in mind of it. She would undertake the
task herself.
This she did, but without effect. Philip had promised sorrow and
amendment with a long face, but inwardly he laughed, and after,
became seven times worse than before.
Complaints multiplied. Not only were geese and cows interfered with,
but dogs and horses were found tied to saplings or shut up in most
unimaginable places. Burdocks and thistles appeared in meeting-house
pews, where they surely had never before been known spontaneously to
spring; teachers in the Sunday school were shocked to learn that they
had distributed dime novels with books and tracts. The minister, one
morning in the pulpit, solemnly opened his Bible, and unexpectedly
beholding a most ludicrous picture, laughed outright, to the great
scandal of every looker-on.
Now this was too much. Mrs. Selby had passed by stories of
green-apple showers falling upon homeward-bound school children's
heads; she had even smilingly held her peace when laughingly assured
that a troop of dogs