“LET ME HELP YOU.”
“Blest are the hearts that beat alway
With sympathetic throb--
Hearts that do heal another’s woe
Their own would gladly rob.
Oh, blessings be around each one
(And blest, accomplished hopes)
Who gives a kind fraternal hand
To one who blindly gropes.”--ALLENA OULDLEY.
The long debauch that celebrated the acquittal of Earle Essex lasted
three weeks, and left him in what he denominated a “rather used-up
condition.” One would have thought so to see him wandering through the
streets of Richmond, careless and unkempt, his beard unshaven, his
eyes bloodshot, his face haggard, his clothing soiled and shabby. And,
alas! how few the years that had brought him to this pass! Once he had
been rich and honored, now he was a target for all men’s scorn. Now,
as he roamed the beautiful streets of his native city, meeting only
averted glances, or looks of contemptuous pity, he realized how utterly
he had forfeited his once honorable name and his own self-respect. He
thought, too, of her who bore that dishonored name, of her and of his
child--alas! the drunkard’s wife and child!
He was thinking of her when he stopped absently, and leaned against the
gate of a fine residence in the quiet, aristocratic west end of the
city--whose residence he did not think of as he moodily rested his head
on his arm and tried to banish the accusing voice of conscience that
clamored loudly in his breast.
Presently some one came down the broad marble steps, a man’s firm tread
resounded on the graveled walk, a man’s strong hand laid itself on the
drunkard’s arm, not rudely to drive him away, but in friendly seeming,
while a voice full of kindness broke on the sunset air:
“My friend, you seem in trouble. Can I lend you a helping hand?”
How kind the words, how frank and cheery the tone.
Essex raised his head, and gazed eagerly into the speaker’s face. Then
he started and shrank.
“Verne! is it really you?” he exclaimed.
“It is I, no other,” Doctor Verne answered, then started in his turn.
“Is it possible you are my old college friend, Earle Essex? I failed to
recognize you at first.”
“No wonder. The years have not spared me as they have you,” was the
half-shamed, half-bitter reply.
“So it is really you, Earle? Come into the house, and let us talk
about the years that have not spared you. I want to find out where the
fault of the change lies--with you or old Father Time.”
But Earle Essex drew back from the kindly compelling hand that was
drawing him in, and answered somewhat sarcastically:
“Pardon me, Doctor Verne, but I hesitate, because I am no longer used
to invitations to enter grand houses like this. My fortunes are fallen.”
“Let me help you to build them up again,” Max Verne answered cordially,
and resolutely drew his reluctant guest with him across the threshold
and into the library.
“Sit down, Earle. We will have refreshments here, then a quiet talk. I
think I know a way to help you.”
“I don’t see why you should trouble yourself to want to help me. I
never did you a good turn, did I?” Essex answered sullenly, hating the
handsome open face with its frank eyes and calm brow.
“Why, no, Earle, I don’t think you ever did. Once, indeed, I thought
you had done me an ill turn, and--it was hard to forgive you. But I was
a boy then, with a boy’s impetuous heart. Graver years have brought me
wisdom.”
The entrance of a servant with a tray of refreshments checked the
flow of speech. But Essex had the poor appetite common to immoderate
drinkers. He ate scarcely anything, and pushing back his plate
presently with a weary gesture asked:
“How long since you came home, Doctor Verne?”
“I have been in Richmond almost a month. Been very busy since I came,
getting my bachelor establishment fixed up.”
“For a bride?” Essex inquired, with a curious glance into the handsome
face with its pervading expression of gentle gravity.
“A bride? My dear fellow, I am ages past such a possibility. That is
one of the follies of youth--is it not so? I am the most incorrigible
of bachelors. Why, I have turned my great roomy house into a--Come,
Essex, have you no idea of the sort of a house you are in?”
“No.”
“Then I will tell you. I have converted my bachelor abode into a
hospital for the treatment and cure of men who are suffering from that
terrible disease--intemperance. I receive them here under my care and
that of a brother physician who is associated with me in this good
work. We treat them well, but restrict them to certain rules, while
we pursue in each case a peculiar but approved mode of treatment. We
hope and believe that we shall be able eventually to restore these
poor, fallen men to their friends and to society as saved and reformed
men. This is the Inebriate Asylum, and now shelters a dozen poor
unfortunates who are honestly anxious to be cured of the taste for
liquor and restored to their families.”
He stopped speaking, and looked away kindly in pity for the flush that
swept over the face of Essex as he mentally classed himself with those
“poor unfortunates.”
“Men call me quixotic, Earle, and say I will never succeed in my
undertaking, but it is the fixed purpose of my life to do all the good
I can in the world, and I do not see any better field for my labors
anywhere than in the great army of recruits under King Alcohol. There
is no more prolific source of evil under Heaven than this accursed
thirst. I have myself inherited the thirst for strong drink. I dare
not taste it, dare not tamper with the fatal thing, and my soul yearns
over other men who have gone astray through its fearful influence. I
pity them, love them, long to lift them up again and heal them of their
madness.”
What a light shone in those dark gray eyes, what a noble smile
curved the firm lips! It was plain that he was throwing into his
chosen life-work all the ardent power and enthusiasm of a strong,
well-balanced nature.
“True worth is in _being_--not seeming--
In doing each day that goes by
Some little good--not in the dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There’s nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.”
There were no half measures about Doctor Verne. Strong, earnest,
intense, he carried beneath an almost boyish lightness of manner, like
froth upon the waves, an undercurrent of will and feeling, powerful and
resistless as the rush of some mighty river.
Essex could make no answer to his brave words. He sat still, awed into
silence by a feeling of abject inferiority for which he hated himself,
yet hated Doctor Verne, too; for how seldom can small, debased minds
comprehend and admire the motive power of great ones?
But Max continued:
“Will you pardon me for dwelling a little on your own case, Essex?
Remember, I knew you long ago, and it is natural I should be sorry for
your fall and anxious for your reform. I heard all your sad story long
ago, and am grieved and sorry, and anxious to help you. But, after all,
I can do nothing without your co-operation. The question is, Essex, do
you care to help yourself?”
A lurking spirit of jealousy and hardihood forced a rude “No” from the
drunkard’s lips.
Doctor Verne rose from his seat, and laid his strong, white,
symmetrical hand gently on the shoulder of the other. There was a
magnetic power in that kind, firm pressure.
It forced the sullen inebriate to lift his heavy eyes, reddened and
bleared from long excesses, and meet those clear, frank orbs, deep and
pure as wells of truth, that mutely rebuked his ungraciousness.
“Take it back, Essex,” he said gravely; “I am sure you cannot mean it.
I have heard of your several attempts at reformation, and I know you
cannot have lost the desire to break loose from your chains. All is not
lost yet. Try again.”
“It is too late, too late. I have given over trying to check an
appetite that is stronger than my will, that controls me like a demon,”
moodily.
“You have been relying on your own strength, I see,” comes the cheerful
answer. “Try another plan now--come here and stay with us six weeks,
or longer if need be. We will help you, and we will ask God to help
you, too. Our weak human wills need the help of divine grace to keep us
strong in the midst of temptations.”
“You talk like a parson, Doctor Verne,” sneered the weak, nervous
inebriate.
“No matter. Maybe I feel like one, for I can preach as well as pray
when I get to fighting with the Evil One. But--will you come, Essex?
Or, rather, will you stay, now you are here?”
“No.”
Essex blustered it out abruptly, but the negative was not as strong as
the first one.
That determined will of the physician was subduing with its alert force
even the petty malice and obstinate evil of Earle Essex’s inferior
nature. He would have met any other man’s advances more kindly than
this. But this forgiveness, this nobility from the man he had so deeply
wronged had in it a poisoned dart that stung him into remorse.
“I cannot give you up, Essex. If you won’t do right for your own sake
think of others who suffer by your weakness. Think of Viv--think of
your wife and child. Try again for their dear sakes.”
But his lips grew white as he said it. Poor Max! still keeping the
faithful heart of early youth unchanged by time and grief, sharper than
a sword’s point in his heart was the thought that this degraded man
called his boyhood’s idol wife.
“Don’t speak of them, Verne. It is three weeks since I saw them. I
have been recklessly wandering ever since that terrible night,” he
shuddered, “and I have been ill somewhere or other--actually, I cannot
remember where--with that fearful scourge, _mania a potu_. I have
suffered from it five times in my life. Don’t you see now I am past
saving, past caring for? Let me go out from here, Verne; you cannot
help me, I am past helping.”
He strode through the door, and down the hall, but Doctor Verne kept
close to his side, still pleading:
“Do stay with us, Earle. We could take such care of you, and you need
care. Do you know that you look wretchedly ill, not fit to be out of
your bed?”
They were standing at the door looking in each other’s face, and Doctor
Verne took the shaking hand of the wretched sinner, holding it for a
moment in a strong, friendly grasp as he said:
“Earle, have you forgotten our old college days? We were such good
friends, you, and I, and Charlton.”
Some echoing chord was touched in the man’s hardened heart by those
words. He stepped back over the threshold into the hall.
“Yes, I remember,” he answered, in a low, subdued voice. “I will stay,
and you shall help me up the hill again, Max.”