Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850.

"I soon discovered two things, that made me feel more for him than all the rest. One, that he was an extremely well-informed boy, and had received a home education of a very superior order; and the other, that he was most unfortunate, and that his misfortunes had one peculiar ingredient of bitterness in them, namely, that they were of a nature to excite the scorn and contempt of the vulgar herd that surrounded him, rather than to move their rude hearts to sympathy and pity.

"The propensity to good in rough, vulgar, thoughtless human beings, is very apt to show itself in this way – in a sort of contemptuous disgust against vice and folly, and an alienation from those connected with it, however innocent We must accept it, upon reflection, I suppose, as a rude form of good inclination; but I was too young for reflection – too young to make allowances, too young to be equitable. Such conduct appeared to me the most glaring and barbarous injustice, and excited in me a passion ate indignation.

"Never did I hear St. Leger taunted, as he often was, with the frailties of his mother or the errors of his father, but my heart was all in a flame – my fist clinched – my cheek burning. Many a fellow have I laid prostrate upon the earth with a sudden blow who dared, in my presence, to chase the color from St. Leger's cheek by alluding to the subject. There was this remarkable in St. Leger, by the way, that he never colored when his mother's shame or his father's end was alluded to, but went deadly pale.

"The history was a melancholy one of human frailty, and is soon told. His mother had been extremely beautiful, his father the possessor of a small independent fortune. They had lived happily together many years, and she had brought him five children; four girls and this boy. I have heard that the father doted with no common passion – in a husband, Catherine – upon the beautiful creature, who was moreover accomplished and clever. She seemed devoted to her children, and had given no common attention to her boy in his early years. Hence his mental accomplishments. The husband was, I suspect, rather her inferior in intellect; and scarcely her equal in refinement and manner, but it's no matter, it would have been probably the same whatever he had been. She who will run astray under one set of circumstances, would probably have run astray under any. She was very vain of her beauty and talents, and had been spoiled by the idolatry and flattery of all who surrounded her.

"I will not pain you by entering into any particulars; in brief, she disgraced herself, and was ruined.

"The rage, the passionate despair, the blind fury of the injured husband, it was said, exceeded all bounds. There was of course every sort of public scandal. Legal proceedings and the necessary consequences – a divorce. The wretched history did not even end here. She suffered horribly from shame and despair I have been told, but the shame and despair, had not the effect it ought to have produced. She fell from bad to worse, and was utterly lost. The husband did the same. Wild with the stings of wounded affection, blinded with suffering, he flew for refuge to any excitement which would for a moment assuage his agonies; the gaming-table, and excess in drinking, soon finished the dismal story. He shot himself in a paroxysm of delirium tremens, after having lost almost every penny he possessed at Faro.

"You tremble Catherine. Your hand in mine is cold. Oh the pernicious woman! Oh the depths of the misery – if I were indeed to tell you all I have met with and known – which are entailed upon the race by the vanity, the folly, and the vice of women. Angels! yes, angels you are. Sweet Saint – sweet Catherine, and men fall down and worship you – but woe for them when she they worship, proves a fiend.

"Dear Miss Arnold, you are shedding tears – but you would have this dismal story. You had better hear no more of it, let me stop now."

"Go on – pray go on, Edgar. Tell us about the poor boy and the girls, you said there were four of them."

"The boy and his sisters were taken by some relations. It was about a year after these events that I met him at this school. They had sent him here, thinking the army the best place for him. To get him shot off, poor fellow, perhaps, if they could. His four sisters were all then living, and how tenderly, poor lad, he used to talk to me about them. How he would grieve over the treatment they were receiving, with the best intentions he acknowledged, but too hardening and severe he thought for girls so delicate. They wanted a mother's fostering, a father's protection, poor things, but he never alluded in the remotest way to either father or mother. Adam, when he sprung from the earth, was not more parentless than he seemed to consider himself. But he used to talk of future for his sisters, and sometimes in his more cheerful moods, would picture to himself what he would do when he should be a man, and able to shelter them in a home, however humble, of his own. His whole soul was wrapped up in these girls."

"Did you ever hear what became of them?"

"Three died of consumption, I have been told, just as they were opening into the bloom of early womanhood, almost the loveliest creatures that ever were seen."

"And the fourth."

"She was the most beautiful of all – a fine, high-spirited, dashing creature. Her brother's secret terror and darling."

"Well!"

"She followed her mother's example, and died miserably at the age of two-and-twenty."

"What can we do for this man?" cried Catherine, when she had recovered voice a little. "Edgar, what can we do for this man?"

"Your first question, dear girl – always your first question – what can be done?" Ever, my love, may you preserve that precious habit. My Catherine never sits down lamenting, and wringing her hands helplessly about other people's sorrows. The first thing she asks, is, "what can be done."

CHAPTER IX

Strongest minds
Are often those of whom the noisy world
Hears least; else surely this man had not left
His graces unrevealed and unproclaimed.

    Wordsworth.
The first thing to be done, it was obvious to all parties, was for Edgar to go and call upon Mr. St. Leger, which he did.

He found him occupying one very small room, which served him for bed and sitting room, in a small cottage upon the outskirts of the little secluded town of Briarwood. He looked extremely ill; his beautiful countenance was preternaturally pale; his large eyes far too bright and large; his form attenuated; and his voice so faint, husky, and low that it was with difficulty he could make himself heard, at least for any length of time together.

The expression of his countenance, however, was rather grave than sad; resigned than melancholy. He was serious but perfectly composed; nay, there was even a chastened cheerfulness in his manner. He looked like one who had accepted the cup presented to him; had already exhausted most of the bitter potion, and was calmly prepared to drain it to the dregs.

And so it had been.

No man was ever more exquisitely constituted to suffer from circumstances so agonizing than he. But his mind was of a lofty stamp; he had not sunk under his sufferings. He had timely considered the reality of these things. He had learned to connect – really, truly, faithfully – the trials and sorrows of this world with the retributions of another. He had accepted the part allotted to him in the mysterious scheme; had played it as best he could, and was now prepared for its impending close.

It is consoling to know one thing. In his character of minister of the holy word of God he had been allowed the privilege of attending the last illness of both mother and sister, both so deeply, deeply, yet silently beloved, in spite of all; and, through those blessed means, the full value and mercy of which, perhaps such grievous sinners are alone able to entirely estimate, he had reconciled them, as he trusted, with that God "who forgiveth all our iniquities and healeth all our diseases." Having been allowed to do this, he felt as if it would be the basest ingratitude to murmur because his services in the pulpit were suddenly arrested by the disease in his chest, and with it a stop put to further usefulness, and even to the supply of his daily bread.

He was calmly expecting to die in the receipt of parish relief; for he had not a penny beyond his curate's salary; and it was impossible to allow Mr. Thomas, who was a poor man himself, to continue that, now the hope of restoration to usefulness seemed at an end. It was not likely, indeed, that he should, upon the spare hermit's diet which his scanty means allowed, recover from a complaint of which weakness was the foundation.

He had tried to maintain himself by his pen; but the complaint which prevented his preaching was equally against the position when writing. He could do so little in this way that it would not furnish him with a loaf a week. A ray of genuine pleasure, however, shot to his eye, and a faint but beautiful flush mounted to his cheek, when Edgar entered and cordially held out his hand.

He was such a dear warm-hearted fellow, was Edgar. St. Leger had loved him so entirely at school; and those days were not so very long since! The impression old Time had not even yet attempted with his busy fingers to efface.

"I am so glad to have found you out, my dear fellow," Edgar began. "Who would have thought of meeting you, of all people in the world, here, ensconsed in such a quiet nook of this busy island – a place where the noise and bustle and stir of the Great Babylon can not even be heard. But what are you doing in this place? for you look ill, I must say, and you seem to be left to yourself without a human being to look after you."

"Much so. You know I am quite alone in the world."

"A dismal position that, and I am come to put an end to it. My wife insists upon making your acquaintance, and scuttled me off this morning without giving me time to eat my breakfast, though, to own the truth, I was ready enough of myself to set out. The general desired me to bring his card; he is too infirm to go out himself, and he and Mrs. Melwyn request the favor of your company to dinner to-morrow at six o'clock."

"I should be very happy – but – ," and he hesitated a little.

"I'll come and fetch you in the dog-cart about five, and drive you down again in the evening. It's a mere step by Hatherway-lane, which is quite passable at this time of the year, whatever it may be in winter."

St. Leger looked as if he should like very much to come. His was a heart, indeed, formed for society, friendship, and love; not the least of the monk or the hermit was to be found in his composition. And so it was settled.

St. Leger came to dinner, as arranged, Edgar fetching him up in the dog-cart.

Every one was struck with his appearance. There was a gentleness and refinement in his manner which charmed Mrs. Melwyn; united to the ease and politeness of a man of the world, equally acceptable to the general; Catharine was delighted; and Lettice only in a little danger of being too well pleased.

His conversation soon showed him to be a man of a very superior turn of thought, and was full of information. In short, it was some time, with the exception of Edgar, since so agreeable a person had sat down at that dinner-table; for the Hazels lay rather out of the way, and neither the general nor Mrs. Melwyn were of a temper to cultivate society.

Edgar returned home in the evening from an agreeable drive with his friend through the bright glittering starlight night. It was slightly frosty, and he came into the drawing-room rubbing his hands, with his cheeks freshened by the air, looking as if he was prepared very much to enjoy the fire.

He found the whole party sitting up, and very amicably discussing the new acquaintance, who had pleased them all so much. So Edgar sat down between his wife and her mother, and readily joined in the conversation.

The general, who really was much altered for the better under the good influences of Lettice, had been speaking in high terms of their late guest. And when Edgar came in and sat down in the circle, spreading his hands to the fire, and looking very comfortable, the general, in an amicable tone, began:

"Really, Edgar, we have been saying we are quite obliged to you for introducing to us so agreeable a man as this Mr. St. Leger, of yours. He is quite a find in such a stupid neighborhood as ours, where, during the ten years I have lived in it, I have never met one resident" – with an emphasis upon the word, that it might not be supposed to include Edgar himself – "one resident whose company I thought worth a brass farthing."

"I am very glad my friend gives satisfaction, sir," said Edgar cheerfully; "for I believe, poor fellow, he has much more to seek than even yourself, general, in the article of companionship. One can not think that the society of the worthy Mr. Thomas can afford much of interest to a man like St. Leger. But whatever pleasure you may mutually afford each other will soon be at an end, I fear; and I have been beating my brains all the way coming home, to think what must be done."

"Why must the pleasure come so soon to an end, Edgar?" asked Mrs. Melwyn.

"Why, if something can't be done, the poor lad is in a fair way to be starved to death," was the answer.

"Starved to death! How shockingly you do talk, Edgar," cried Mrs. Melwyn. "I wish you would not say such things – you make one quite start. The idea is too horrible – besides, it can not be true. People don't starve to death nowadays – at least not in a sort of case like that."

"I don't know – such things do sound as if they couldn't be true – and yet," said Catherine, "they do come very nearly to the truth at times."

"Indeed do they," said Lettice. "Starved to death," observed the general, "I take to be merely a poetic exaggeration of yours, captain. But do you mean to say that young man is literally in distressed circumstances?"