"Ah!" cried Catherine, "there is an interesting history here. Do tell it us, Edgar. Of all your charming talks, what I like almost the best are your reminiscences. He has such a memory, Lettice; and so much penetration into the characters of persons: and the connection of things; that nothing is so delightful as when he will tell some old history of his earlier years. Do, dear Edgar, tell us all about this charming young curate of Briarwood."
"Flatterer! Coaxing flatterer! Don't believe a word she says, Miss Arnold. I am as empty-pated a rattle-skull, as ever was turned raw into one of her Majesty's regiments—and that's saying a good deal, I can tell you. But this dear creature here loves a bit of romance in her heart. What's o'clock?"
"Oh!" looking at the tiniest of watches, "a full two hours to dinner; and such a day too for a story—and just look at that spreading oak with the bench under it, and the deer lying crouching there so sweetly, and the wind just lulling the boughs as it were to rest. Here, nurse, bundle the baby away to her nursery. Now, do, there's a darling Edgar."
"Why, my love, you are making awful preparation. It is almost as terrible as reading a manuscript to begin a relation, all sitting solemnly upon a bench under a tree together. There is not much to tell, poor fellow; only I did pity him from my heart of hearts."
Catherine had her way, and they sat down under the green leafy canopy of this majestic oak; and she put her arm in her husband's, and her hand into that of Lettice, and thus sitting between them, loving and beloved, she listened, the happiest, as she was one of the honestest and best, of heaven's creatures.
"We were both together at a large rough sort of preparatory school," began Edgar, "where there might be above a hundred boys or so. They were mostly, if not entirely, intended for the military profession, and came from parents of all sorts of positions and degrees, and of all sorts of principles, characters, and manners. A very omnium gatherum that school was, and the ways of it were as rough as in any school. I should think, they could possibly be. I was a tall, healthy rebel, when I was sent there, as strong as a little Hercules, and excessively proud of my force and prowess. A bold, daring, cheerful, merry lad, as ever left his mother's apron-string; very sorry to quit the dotingest of mothers, and the happiest of homes, and the pleasantest of fathers; but mighty proud to come out of the Gynyseum, and to be a man, as I thought it high time I should, in cloth trowsers and jacket, instead of a black velvet coatee. In I plunged, plump head-foremost amid the vortex, and was soon in a thousand scrapes and quarrels, battling my way with my fists, and my merry eye; for they used to tell me the merry eye did more for me even than my impudence in fighting every thing that would condescend to fight such a youngster. I was soon established, and then I breathed after my victories, and began to look round.
"So long as I had considered the throng about me but in the light of so many adversaries to be beaten by main force, and their rude and insulting ways only as provocatives to the fray, I had cared little for their manners or their proceedings, their coarseness and vulgarity, their brutality and their vices. But now, seated in peace upon the eminence to which I had fought my way, I had time to breathe and to observe. I can not describe to you how shocked, how sickened, how disgusted I became. Par parenthèse, I will say that it has always been an astonishment to me, how parents so tender as mine could send a frank, honest-hearted, well-meaning little fellow into such a place. But the school had a high reputation. I was then a fourth son, and had to make my way as best I could in the profession chosen for me. So here I came. I was about ten or eleven years old, I must add, in excuse for my parents, though I called myself so young, I felt younger, because this was my first school. To resume. When I had vanquished them, it is not in words to describe how I despised and detested the majority of my schoolfellows—for their vulgar pleasures, their offensive habits—their hard, rough, brutal manners—their vicious principles, and their vile, blasphemous impiety. I was a warm lover and a still more ardent hater, and my hatred to most of them exceeded all bounds of reason; but it was just such as a straightforward, warm-tempered fellow, is certain to entertain without mitigation in such a case.
"It is a bad element for a boy to be living in. However, I was saved from becoming an utter young monster, by the presence in the school of this very boy, James St. Leger.
"In the bustle and hurry of my early wars, I had taken little heed of, scarcely observed this boy at all. But when the pause came, I noticed him. I noticed him for many reasons. He was tall for his age, slender, and of extremely delicate make, but with limbs of a symmetry and beauty that reminded one of a fine antique statue. His face, too, was extremely beautiful; and there was something in his large, thoughtful, melancholy eyes, that it was impossible ever to look upon and to forget.
"I no sooner observed him at all, than my whole boyish soul seemed knit to him.