CHAPTER II.
WHO SAVED HER?
The question which heads this chapter was asked by many on that memorable evening, long after it became known that the remedies and prompt measures adopted by the doctors had been successful in restoring Maria St. Clair to consciousness after hours of anxious suspense.
The same question will occur to the reader, to whom, perhaps, the answer may prove a disappointment.
In a street near the most fashionable part of the West End of London, stood a large and well-built house, the lower part of which bore the appearance of a place of business, half-shop, half-office. Above it, in large letters, appeared the words, "Edward Armstrong, Corn Factor."
The handsome, intellectual-looking man who had so courageously distinguished himself on the beach at West Cowes, could boast of no higher position than that of a London tradesman, nor of any ancestors more honourable than England's yeomen. For nearly two hundred years the Armstrongs had been known as farmers in the neighbourhood of Basingstoke. Only one direct branch of the family now remained, an aged farmer still occupying Meadow Farm, and Edward Armstrong, his only child.
The boy early gave evidence that he possessed tastes very different to those required in agricultural pursuits. On this account his mother, who, like many mothers, wished her son to be more educated than his parents, strongly encouraged the proposal that he should be sent to boarding-school. That her boy should become what the country folks call a "fine scholar," was her greatest ambition.
Whether he obtained that title or not, it is certain that at school he quickly developed intellectual tastes, and acquired a certain degree of refinement, which made him quite unfit for association, except in the corn market, with farmers who talked of their "'ay and their whoats, and whate." For a few years, however, he remained at home, and acquired sufficient knowledge of these said "whoats and whate" to be very useful to him in his present position. After awhile, his father consented to his going to London and establishing a business.
Notwithstanding Edward Armstrong's taste for reading and other literary pursuits, he was still a thorough man of business, and had succeeded so well in his London undertaking, that at the age of thirty-three he found himself master of a splendid business, a well-furnished house, known and respected on the Corn Exchange, and still unmarried.
Yet with all his literary and scientific knowledge—which was not a little—with all his industry, energy, and business habits, he had strong prejudices consequent upon early education; peculiar notions on various subjects, and a will, as well as opinions, that would brook no contradiction.