My name is Leicester; my father, Major General Wyn Leicester, a
distinguished officer of artillery, succumbed five years ago to
a complicated liver complaint acquired in the deadly climate of
India. A year later my only brother, Francis, came home after an
exceptionally brilliant career at the University, and settled down
with the resolution of a hermit to master what has been well called
the great legend of the law. He was a man who seemed to live in utter
indifference to everything that is called pleasure; and though he was
handsomer than most men, and could talk as merrily and wittily as if
he were a mere vagabond, he avoided society, and shut himself up in a
large room at the top of the house to make himself a lawyer. Ten hours
a day of hard reading was at first his allotted portion; from the
first light in the east to the late afternoon he remained shut up with
his books, taking a hasty half-hour's lunch with me as if he grudged
the wasting of the moments, and going out for a short walk when it
began to grow dusk. I thought that such relentless application must be
injurious, and tried to cajole him from the crabbed text-books; but
his ardor seemed to grow rather than diminish, and his daily tale of
hours increased. I spoke to him seriously, suggesting some occasional
relaxation, if it were but an idle afternoon with a harmless novel; but
he laughed, and said that he read about feudal tenures when he felt in
need of amusement, and scoffed at the notion of theatres, or a month's
fresh air. I confessed that he looked well, and seemed not to suffer
from his labors; but I knew that such unnatural toil would take revenge
at last, and I was not mistaken. A look of anxiety began to lurk about
his eyes, and he seemed languid, and at last he avowed that he was no
longer in perfect health; he was troubled, he said, with a sensation
of dizziness, and awoke now and then of nights from fearful dreams,
terrified and cold with icy sweats. "I am taking care of myself,"
he said; "so you must not trouble. I passed the whole of yesterday
afternoon in idleness, leaning back in that comfortable chair you gave
me, and scribbling nonsense on a sheet of paper. No, no; I will not
overdo my work. I shall be well enough in a week or two, depend upon
it."
Yet, in spite of his assurances, I could see that he grew no better, but
rather worse; he would enter the drawing-room with a face all miserably
wrinkled and despondent, and endeavor to look gayly when my eyes fell on
him, and I thought such symptoms of evil omen, and was frightened
sometimes at the nervous irritation of his movements, and at glances
which I could not decipher. Much against his will, I prevailed on him to
have medical advice, and with an ill grace he called in our old doctor.
Dr. Haberden cheered me after his examination of his patient.
"There is nothing really much amiss," he said to me. "No doubt he reads
too hard, and eats hastily, and then goes back again to his books in too
great a hurry; and the natural consequence is some digestive trouble,
and a little mischief in the nervous system. But I think--I do, indeed,
Miss Leicester--that we shall be able to set this all right. I have
written him a prescription which ought to do great things. So you have
no cause for anxiety."
My brother insisted on having the prescription made up by a chemist in
the neighborhood; it was an odd old-fashioned shop, devoid of the
studied coquetry and calculated glitter that make so gay a show on the
counters and shelves of the modern apothecary; but Francis liked the old
chemist, and believed in the scrupulous purity of his drugs. The
medicine was sent in due course, and I saw that my brother took it
regularly after lunch and dinner. It was an innocent-looking white
powder, of which a little was dissolved, in a glass of cold water. I
stirred it in, and it seemed to disappear, leaving the water clear and
colorless. At first Francis seemed to benefit greatly; the weariness
vanished from his face, and he became more cheerful than he had ever
been since the time when he left school; he talked gayly of reforming
himself, and avowed to me that he had wasted his time.
"I have given too many hours to law," he said, laughing; "I think you
have saved me in the nick of time. Come, I shall be Lord Chancellor yet,
but I must not forget life. You and I will have a holiday together
before long; we will go to Paris and enjoy ourselves, and keep away from
the Bibliothèque Nationale."