Young Marsden waited until the servant had quitted the room, then, meeting his sister’s glance steadily, he replied—
“It does not much signify what he might say, Kate, for I no longer am a member of his establishment.”
“What do you mean? You have surely never been so mad—so ungrateful to Mr. Crane—so cruel to our mother, as to throw up your appointment!”
“Do not add to my misfortunes by upbraiding me, for I am wretched enough as it is; or at all events hear what I have to tell you first,” was the reply.
Kate made a gesture for him to continue; and he immediately began an eager, hurried recital of his troubles and difficulties. It was the old story—poverty and pride, temptation resisted often, yielded to once; and that once effacing in a moment the recollection and results of the repeated resistance. Youth and impetuosity, led astray by high and generous impulses, without judgment to control them; meanness and malevolence profiting thereby to effect the poor boy’s ruin. And as he stood before her, with his fair clustering hair in wild disorder, his bright cheeks glowing with contrition for the past, and real, earnest, good resolutions for the future,—with the tear-drop sparkling in his bright blue eye, suggesting the childhood from which he had so lately emerged, while the compression of the short, stern upper lip, indicated the approach of the full rich manhood into which, if the world will but grant him forbearance for the present, and fair play for the future, he will surely develop,—what wonder that his sister, deeming him more sinned against than sinning, should press him to her warm woman’s heart, as she murmured—
“My poor boy! don’t make yourself so miserable; we must see what can be done to help you.”
When, however, she had in some degree succeeded in calming his emotion, and they came quietly to review his position, the said question of “What could be done to help him?” appeared no easy one to answer.
The son of his late employer, and junior partner in the establishment—a dissipated and unprincipled young man—had, on Fred Marsden’s first arrival, taken, or pretended to take, an extreme fancy to him, introduced him to his sporting acquaintance, and made him his constant companion. The first fruits of this ill-assorted alliance were, that the high-spirited boy, eager to vie with his associates, was led almost unconsciously into expenses, which soon left him first penniless, then in debt.
In debt!—to owe a few shillings, a few pounds, appears a mere trifle—an imprudence, perhaps, but scarcely a sin; or if a sin, a very venial one—a peccadillo, nothing more. Believe it not! the fact of owing that which, if it be required of him, a man cannot pay, is the step across the Rubicon between honesty and dishonesty, between honour and dishonour, between being a free agent or a bond-slave. To be in debt is to forfeit self-respect; to lose self-respect is to lose the practical result of obedience to the guiding principles of religion and morality; a loss too soon followed by a distaste for the holy things thus dishonoured, by a relaxation of all attempts at self-improvement, by a reckless indifference to the opinion of the good and the true:—the stone set rolling, gathers speed from its own impetus; the wedge inserted, the seam widens, and the stoutest oak is riven. Let a young man be once in debt, and no helping hand stretched out to save him from the consequences of his imprudence before the sense of shame has departed, and the dereliction of duty acquired the fatal force of habit, and it does not require any very profound experience of life to prophesy his future career. No one who has witnessed the mean subterfuges—the paltry evasions—the shameless encroachment on kindness—the parasitical cringing to opulence, which the burden of debt forces on natures not originally deficient in generosity and delicacy of feeling, but must dread for those near or dear to him the first downward step towards this abyss of misery, and exert every nerve to restrain them, ere it be too late.
Frederick Marsden, ignorant as a child of the value of money, and imagining his salary calculated to supply his every fancy, had spent it at least three times over, ere the uncomfortable possibility of being in debt occurred to him; and when he did open his eyes to the fact, his pseudo friend soon quieted his scruples by lending him a sum—not indeed sufficient to defray his debts, but to enable him to continue his career of extravagance a little longer. But the delusion was soon rudely dispelled: after a wine-party, at which Marsden had drunk quite as much, and his friend considerably more than was good for him, the latter, returning home, chose to follow and insult an unprotected girl. Fred attempted to restrain him, but in vain; and on his instituting a more vigorous remonstrance, a quarrel ensued, in which, heated by wine and anger, the junior partner struck his subordinate, by whom he was immediately knocked down in return. Becoming from this moment Frederick’s bitter enemy, he commenced a series of petty persecutions, to which the high-spirited boy submitted with unexpected patience, until on one occasion, stung beyond his powers of endurance by some unjust indignity inflicted on him in the presence of several of his fellow-clerks, he gave vent to his anger, and was instantly summoned before the head of the firm, and only saved himself from dismissal by taking the initiative, and resigning his situation.