CALIFORNIA

J

ARMINELL

#

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

In the Roar of the Sea

The Queen of Love

Cheap Jack Zita

Mrs. Curgenven of Curgenven

Arminell

Jacquetta

Urith

Kitty Alone

Margery of Quether

NOEMI

The Broom-Squire
Dartmoor Idylls
GuAVAs THE Tinner

ARMINELL

A SOCIAL ROMANCE

BY

S. RARING- GOULD

FOURTH EDITION

•t^

METHUEN & CO.

36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.

LONDON

1896

Digitized by'the Internet Arciiive

fn 2007 witii funding from

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ARMINELL.

CHAPTER I.

SUNDAY SCHOOL.

Sunday-school on the ground floor of the keeper's cottage
that stood against the churchyard, in a piece nibbled out
of holy ground. Some old folks said this cottage had been
the church-house where in ancient days the people who
came to divine service stayed between morning prayer and
evensong, ate their mid-day meal and gave out and received
their hebdomadal quotient of gossip. But such days were
long over, the house had been used as a keeper's lodge for
at least a hundred years. The basement consisted of one
low hall exactly six feet one inch from the floor to rafters.
There was no ceiling between it and the upper house — only
a flooring laid on the rafters. In the pre-traditional days
the men had sat and eaten and drunk in the room above,
and the women in that below, between services, and their
horses had been stabled where now the keeper had his kennel.
The basement chamber was paved with slabs of slate.
Rats infested the lodge, they came after the bones and
biscuits left by the dogs. The pheasants' food was kept
there, the keeper's wife dropped her dripping, and the

(.f 426

2 ARMINELL.

children were not scrupulous about finishing their crusts.
The rats undermined the slates, making runs beneath the
pavement to get at the box of dog biscuits, and the sacks
of buckwheat, and the parcels of peppercorns; conse-
quently the slates were not firm to walk on. Moreover, in
the floor \vas a sunless secret cellar, of but eighteen inches
in depth, for the reception of lirjuor, or laces or silks that
had not paid the excise. The slates over this place, long
disused, were infirm and inclined to let whoever stepped on
them down.

During the week the keeper's wife washed in the base-
ment and slopped soapy water about, that ran between the
slates and formed puddles, lurking under corners, and when,
on Sunday, the incautious foot rested on an angle of slate,
the slab tilted and squirted forth the stale unsavoury water.

The room, as already said, was unceiled. The rafters
were of solid oak ; the boards above were of deal, and had
shrunk in places, and in places dropped out the core of
their knots. The keeper's children found a pleasure in
poking sticks and fingers through, and in lying flat on the
floor with an eye on the knot-hole, surveying through it
the proceedings in the Sunday-school below.

About the floor in unsystematic arrangement spraddled
forms of deal, rubbed by boys' trousers to a polish. Some
of these forms were high in the leg, others short. No two
were on a level, and no two were of the same length.
They were rudely set about the floor in rhomboidal shapes,
or rather in trapeziums, which according to Euclid have no
defined shapes at all.

There was a large open fireplrc:; at one end of the room,
in which in winter a fire of wood burned. When it burned
the door had to be left wide open, because of the smoke,
consequently Sunday-school was held in winter in a draught.
At the extremity of the room, opposite the fireplace, stood
Moses and Aaron — not in the flesh, nor even in spirit, but

ARMINELL. 3

in " counterfeit presentment " as large as life, rudely
painted on board. They had originally adorned the east
end of the chancel ; when, however, the fashion of restor-
ing churches set in, Orleigh Church had been done up.
and Moses and Aaron had been supplanted to make
room for a horrible reredos of glazed tiles. One of the
Sunday school scholars, a wag, had scribbled mottoes from
their mouths, on scrolls, and had made Aaron observe
to Moses, " Let us cut off our noses ; " to which the
meekest of men was made to rejoin, " It is the fashion to
wear 'em." But through orthographical weakness, fashion
had been spelled fashum, and wear 'em had been rendered
warum.

iJut why was the Sunday school held in the basement of
the keeper's cottage ? For the best of good reasons. There
was no other room conveniently near the church in which
it could be held.

Lady Lamerton could not live in peace without a Sun-
day school. To her, the obUgation to keep the ten com-
mandments was second to the obligation to keep Sunday
school. How could the ten commandments be taught,
unless there was a Sunday school in which to teach them ?
How could a Sunday school be held without some teachers
to hold it? And who more suitable, more certainly
marked out by Providence as the manager of Sunday
school than herself? There was, it was true, the Rector's
wife, the Reverend Mrs. Cribbage, but the Reverend Mrs.
Cribbage was — well to put it mildly, not cut out by
nature to be a successful organiser, though she might
be an excellent woman. The Reverend Mrs. Cribbage was
willing to keep Sunday StStfeol, if her ladyship did not, and
that would lead to untold mischief, for that reverend
lady had a gift for setting everyone by the ears, for stirring,
and stirring till she had stirred up strife, where all before
was peace.

4 ARM I NELL.

The buildings of the national school were two- miles
distant, near the village. The church stood in the grounds
of Orleigh Park, and its satellite, the Sunday school, most
certainly ought to be near it.

There had been some difficulty about a habitat for the
Sunday school. Lady Lcimerton had tried to hold it in
the laundry of the great house, but the children in muddy
weather had brought in so much diiLthat no laundry-
work could be done in the room on Monday till it
had been scoured out. Besides — a fearful discovery
had been made, better left to the imagination than parti-
cularised. Suffice it to say that after this discovery the
children were banished the laundry. It must have come
from them. From whom else could it have been de-*
rived? The laundry-maids were Aphrodites, foam, or
rather soapsud-born, and it could not proceed from such
as they. Some said — but nonsense — there is no such a
thing as spontaneous generation. Pasteur has exploded
that. So all the pupils, with their prayer-books and
Ancient-and-Moderns under their arms, made an exodus,
and went for a while into an outhouse in the stable-yard.
There they did not remain long, for the boys hid be-
hind doors instead of coming in to lessons, and then
dived into the stables to see the horses. One of them
nearly died from drinking embrocation for spavin,
thinking it was cherry- brandy, and another scratched his
ignoble name on the panel of one of my lord's carriages,
with a pin.

So, on the complaint of the coachman, ray lord spoke
out, and the Sunday scholars again tucked their prayer-
books and hymnals under their arms, and, under the
guidance of Lady Lamerton, migrated to a settled habita-
tion in the basement of the keeper's cottage. The place
was hardly commodious, but it had its advantages — it was
near the church.

ARMINELL. 5

Lady Lamerton, who presided over the Sunday-school
and collected the Sunday scholars' club-pence, and distri-
buted that dreary brown-paper-covered literature that
constituted the Sunday-school lending library, was a middle-
aged lady with a thin face and very transparent skin,
through which every vein showed. There was not much
character in her face, but it possessed a certain delicacy
and purity that redeemed it from being uninteresting. She
was — it could be read in every feature — a scrupulously
conscientious woman, a woman strong in doing her duty,
and in that only ; one whose head might be and generally
was in a profound muddle as to what she believed, but who
never for a moment doubted as to what she should do.
She would be torn by wild horses rather than not keep
Sunday-school, and yet did not know what to teach the
children in the school she mustered.

Lady Lamerton, seated on a green garden chair from
which the paint was much rubbed away, had about her on
three sides of an irregular square the eldest girls of the
school. The next class to hers was taken by the Honour-
able Arminell Inglett, her step-daughter, only child of Lord
Lamerton by his first wife.

Miss Inglett was very different in type from her step-
mother ; a tall, handsome girl, with dark hair cut short, like
a boy's, and eyes of violet blue. She had a skin of the
purest olive, no rose whatever in her cheeks, as transparent
as Lady Lamerton's, but of a warmer tone, like the mellow
of an old painting, whereas that of her step-mother had the
freshness and crudeness of a picture from the easel sent to
the Royal Academy on the first of May.

Arminell differed from Lady Lamerton in expression as
completely as in type of feature and colour. She had an
unusual breadth of brow, whereas Lady Lamerton's fore-
head was narrow. Her eyes had not that patient gentleness
that filled the dark blue orbs of her ladyship, they were

6 ARMINELL.

quick and sparkling. Her lips, somewhat prominent, were
full, warm, and contemptuous. She held her head erect,
with a curl of the mouth, and a contraction of the brows,
that expressed impatience to the task on which she was
engaged.

On the left side of Miss Inglett sat Captain Tubb, en-
gaged on the illumination of the souls of the senior boys.
Captain Tubb held no commission in the army or navy,
not even in the volunteers. He was, in fact, only the
manager of a lime-quarry in the parish, on the estate of Lord
Lamerton, but such heads over gangs of quarry and mining
men bear among the people the courtesy-title of captain.

Mr. Tubb was a short, pale man with shiny face much
polished, and with sandy moustache and beard. When he
was in perplexity, he put his hand to his mouth, and stroked
his moustache, or his beard under the chin, turned it up,
and nibbled at the ends.

Some folk said that the captain taught in school so as to
stand well with her ladyship, who would speak a word for
him to my lord ; but the rector thought, more charitably,
he did it for his soul's and conscience sake. Captain Tubb
was a simple man, except in his business, and in that he
was sharp enough. Perhaps he taught a class from mixed
motives, and thought it would help him on a bit in both worlds.

" Yes," said Lady Lamerton, ** yes, Fanny White, go on.
As the list of the canonical books is known to you all, I
require you to learn the names of those books which, as the
sixth article says, are read for example of life and instruc-
tion of manners ; but yet are not applied to establish any
doctrine. After that we will proceed to learn by heart the
names of the Homilies, twenty-one in all, given in the
thirty-fifth article, which are the more important, because
they aie not even read and hardly any one has a copy of
them. Go on with the uncanonical books. Third Book
of Esdras, Fourth Book of Esdras."

ARMINELL. 7

** Tobit," whispered the timid P'anny White, and curtsied.

"Quite right, Tobit — go on. It is most important for
your soul's health that you should know what books are
not canonical, and in their sequence. What comes after
Tobit ? "

*' Judith," faltered Fanny.

" Then a portion of Esther, not found in Hebrew. What
next?"

" Wisdom," shouted the next girl, Polly Woodley.

"True, but do not be so forward, Polly; I am asking
Fanny White."

" Ecclesiasticks," in a timid, doubtful sigh from Fanny,
who raised her eyes to the boards above, detected an eye
inspecting her through a knot-hole, laughed, and then
turned crimson.

" Not sticks," said Lady Lamerton, sweetly, " you must
say — cus."

A dead silence and great doubt fell on the class.

"Yes, go on — cus."

Then faintly from Fanny, " Please, my lady, mother says
I b'aint to swear."

" I don't mind," exclaimed the irrepressible Polly Wood-
ley, starting up, and thrusting her hand forward into Lady
Lamerton's face. " Darn it."

Her ladyship fell back in her chair ; the eye was with-
drawn from the hole in the floor, and a laugh exploded up-
stairs.

" I — I didn't mean that," explained the lady, " I meant,
not Ecclesiastics, nor Ecclesiastes, which is canonical, but
Ecclesiasti — cus, which is not."

Just then a loud, rolling, grinding sound made itself
heard through the school-room, drowning the voices of the
teachers and covering the asides of the taught.

" Dear me," said Lady Lamerton, " there is the keeper's
wife rocking the cradle again. One of you run upstairs

8 ARMINELL.

and ask her very kindly to desist. It is impossible for any
one to hear what is going on below with that thunder roll-
ing above."

" Please, my lady," said Polly, peeping up through the
nearest knot in the superjacent plank, "it b'aint Mrs.
Crooks, it be Bessie as is rocking of the baby. Wicked
creetur not to be at school."

" It does not matter who rocks the cradle," said her
ladyship, *' nor are we justified in judging others. One of
you — not all at once — you, Polly Woodley, ask Bessie to
leave the cradle alone till later."

The whole school listened breathlessly as the girl went
out, tramped up the outside slate steps to the floor occupied
by the keeper's family above, and heard her say : —

" Now, then, Bessie ! What be you a-making that racket
for ? My lady says she'll pull your nose unless you stop at
once. My lady's doing her best to teach us to cuss down-
stairs, and her can't hear her own voice wit'out screeching
like a magpie."

Then up rose Lady Lamerton in great agitation.

" That girl is intolerable. She shall not have a ticket for
good conduct to-day. I will go — no, you run, Joan Ball,
and make her return. I will have a proper school-room
built. This shall not occur again."

Then Captain Tubb rose to his full height, stood on a
stool, put his mouth to the orifice in the plank, placed his
hands about his mouth and roared through the hole : " Her
ladyship saith Come down."

Presently with unabashed self-satisfaction Polly Woodley
reappeared.

" When I send you on an errand," said Lady Lamerton
severely, " deliver it as given. I am much displeased."

" Yes, my lady, thank you," answered Polly with cheerful
face, and resumed her seat in class.

" Now, boys," said Captain Tubb to his class, which was

ARMINELL. 9

composed of the senior male scholars, including Tom
Metters, the rascal who had put the inscriptions in the
mouths of Moses and Aaron. "Now, boys, attention. The
cradle and Polly Woodley are nothing to you. We will
proceed with what we were about."

" Please, sir," said Tom Metters, thrusting forth his hand
as a semaphore, " what do Quinquagesima, Septuagesima
and the lot of they rummy names mean ? "

" Rummy," reproved Captain Tubb, " is an improper
term to employ. Say, remarkable. Quinquagesima" — he
stroked his moustache, then brightened — " it is the name
of a Sunday."

" I know, sir, but why is it so called ? "

" Why are you called Tom Metters ? " asked the captain
as a feeble effort to turn the tables.

"I be called Tom after my uncle, and Metters is my
father's name — but Quinquagesima ? "

" Quin-qua-gess-im-a ! " mused the captain, and looked
furtively towards my lady for help, but she was engrossed
in teaching her class what books were not to be employed for
the establishment of doctrine, and did not notice the appeal.

"Yes, sir," persisted Metters, holding him as a ferret
holds the throat of a rabbit, " Quinquagesima."

"I think," said Tubb, eagerly, "we were engaged on
David's mighty men. Go on with the mighty men."

" But, please sir, I do want to know about Quinqua-
gesima, cruel bad."

*' Quin-qua-gess-ima," sighed Captain Tubb, nibbling the
ends of his beard ; then again in a lower sigh, " Quin-qua-
gess-ima?" He looked at Arminell for enlightenment,
but in vain. She was listening amused and scornful.

" Gessima — gessiraa ! " said Mr. 1 ubb ; then falteringly :
" It's a sort of creeper, over veranders."

He saw a flash in Arminell's eye, and took it as en-
couragement. Then, with confidence, he advanced.

lO ARMINELL.

" Yes, Matters, it means that this is the Sunday or week
whereabouts the yaller jessamine — or in Latin, gessima —
do begin to bloom."

" Thank you, sir — and Septuagesima ? "

"That," answered the captain with great promptitude,
" that is when the white 'un flowers."

" But, sir, there's another Sunday collick, Sexagesima.
There's no red or blue jessamine, be there ? "

" Red, or blue ! " The teacher looked hopelessly at
Arminell, who with compressed Hps observed him and shook
her head.

"Sex — sex — sex," repeated Mr. Tubb, with his mouth
full of beard, " always means females. That means the
female jessamine."

"Be there any, sir? There's a petticoat narcissus, and
a lady's smock, and a marygold, but I never heard of a she-
jessamine."

"There are none here," answered Tubb, "but in the
Holy Land— lots."

" Really, Arminell," said Lady Lamerton, " your class is
doing nothing but play and disturb mine."

"I am on the stool of the learner," sneered the girl.

At that moment, through the ceiling, or rather boards
above, dropped a black-handled kitchen fork within a hair's
breadth of Arminell's head. She drew back, startled.

" What is it ? What is the matter ? " exclaimed Lady
Lamerton. " Run up, Polly Woodley ! — no, not you this
time ; you, Fanny White, and see what they are about
upstairs."

" Please, my lady," said Polly, peering into the higher
regions through the hole, " Bessie have given the baby the
knives and forks to play with, 'cause you wont let her rock
the cradle and to keep 'un from crying. He's a shoving
'em through the floor."

Then, down through the knot-hole descended a shower

ARMINELL. 1 1

of comfits. The child had been given a cornet by its
mother, and had eagerly opened it, over the hole where it
had poked the fork.

The school floor was overspread with a pink and white
hail-shower. In a moment, all order was over. The classes
broke up into individual units, all on the floor, kicking,
scratching, elbowing, grabbing after the scattered comfits,
thrusting fingers into eyes, into soapy water ; getting them
trodden on, nipped between slates, a wriggling, contending,
greedy, noisy tangle of small humanity, and above it stood
my lady protesting, and Captain Tubb nibbling the ends of
his sandy beard, and looking dazed ; and Arminell Inglett,
half angry, half amused, altogether contemptuous.

" There ! " exclaimed Lady Lamerton, " the bells are
going for divine service. In places at once — Let us pray ! "

CHAPTER TI.

A FOLLOWER.

The church bells were ringing, the Sunday school had at
last been reduced to order, arranged in line, and wriggled,
sinuous, worm-like, along the road and up the avenue to the
church porch. Lady Lamerton, brandishing her sunshade
as a field-marshal's baton, kept the children in place, and
directed the head of the procession.

But with v.'hat heart-burnings, what envies, what excited
passions did that train sweep on its way. Some of the
children had got more comfits than others, and despised
those less favoured by luck, and others comfitless envied
the more successful. Polly Woodley had secured more
comfits than the rest, and had them screwed in the corner
of her pocket handkerchief, and she thrust it exultantly
under the eyes of Fanny White, who had come off with one
only.

Some sobbed because they had crumpled their gowns,
one boy howled because in stooping he had ruptured his
nether garments, Joan Ball had broken the feather in her
hat, and revenged herself on her neighbour by a stab of
pin. One child strewed its tongue with comfits, and when
Lady Lamerton did not observe, exposed its tongue to the
rest of the children to excite their envy. Another was
engaged in wiping out of its eyes the soapy water that in
the scuffle had been squirted into them.

Captain Tubb dropped away at the church gates to shake

ARMINELL.

13

hands with, and talk to, some of the villagers, the inn-
keeper to the Lamerton Arms, the churchwarden, the
guardian of the poor, and the miller, men who constituted
the middle crumb of the parochial loaf.

Lady Lamerton likewise deserted her charges at the
porch, and having consigned them to the clerk, returned on
her course, entered the drive, and proceeded to meet his
lordship, that they might make their solemn entrance into
church together. Arminell had disappeared.

" Where is the girl ? " asked her ladyship when she took
my lord's arm.

** Haven't seen her, my dear."

" Really, Lamerton," said my lady, ** she frightens me.
She is so impulsive and self-willed. She flares up when
opposed, and has no more taste for Sunday-school than I
have for oysters. I do my best to influence her for good,
but I might as well try to influence a cocoa-nut. By
the way, Lamerton, you really must build us a Sunday-
school, the inconveniences to which we are subjected are
intolerable."

" Have you seen Legassick, my dear ? "

" I believe he is standing by the steps."

" I must speak to him about the road, it has been stoned
recently. Monstrous ! It should have been metalled in
the winter, then the stones would have worked in, now
they will be loose all the summer to throw down the horses."

" And you will build us a Sunday-school ? "

" I will see about it. Won't the keeper's lodge do ?
The woman does not wash downstairs on a Sunday."

" I wish you kept school there one Sabbath day. You
would discover how great are the discomforts. Now we
are at the church gates and must compose our minds."

"Certainly, my dear. The lord-lieutenant is going to
make Gammon sheriff."

"Why Gammon?"

14 ARMIXELL,

" Because he can afford to pay for the honour. The old
squirearchy can't bear the expense."

" Hush, we are close to the church, and must withdraw
our minds from the world."

" So I will, dear. Eggin's pigs have been in the garden
again."

" There'll be the exhortation to-day, Lamerton, and you
must stand up for it Next Sunday is Sacrament Sunday."

"To be sure. I'll have a lower line of wire round the
fences. Those pigs go where a hare will run."

" Have you brought your hymnal with you ? "

Lord Lamerton fumbled in his pocket, and produced his
yellow silk kerchief and a book together.

"That," said his wife, "is no good; it is the old edition."

" It doesn't matter. I will open the book, and no one
will be the wiser."

" But you will be thinking during the hymn of Eggin's
pigs and Gammon's sheriffalty."

" I'll do better next Sunday. The gardener tells me they
have turned up your single dahlias."

" Hush ! we are in the church. Arminell is not in the
pew. Where can she be ? "

Arminell was not in church. She was, in fact, walking
away from it, and by the time her father had entered his
pew and looked into his hat, had put a distance of half a
mile between herself and the sacred building. A sudden
fit of disgust at the routine of Sunday duties had come over
her, and she resolved to absent herself that morning from
church, and pay a visit to a deserted lime quarry, where she
could spend an hour alone, and her moral and religious
sense, as she put it, could recover tone after the ordeal of
Sunday-school.

" What can induce my lady to take a class every Sun-
day ? " questioned Arminell, in her thought. " It does no
good to the children, and it maddens the teachers. But,

ARMINELL. 1 5

oh ! what a woman mamma is ! Providence must have been
hard up for ideas when it produced my lady. How tire-
some ! "

These last words were addressed to a bramble that had
caught in her skirt. She shook her gown impatiently and
walked on. The bramble still adhered and dragged.

•' What a nuisance," said Arminell, and she whisked her
skirt round and endeavoured to pick off the brier, but in-
effectually.

" Let me assist you," said a voice ; and in a moment a
young man leaped the park wall, stepped on the end of the
bramble, and said, " Now, if you please, walk on, Miss
Inglett."

Arminell took a few steps and was free. She turned,
and with a slight bow said, " I thank you, Mr. Saltren."
1 hen, with a smile, " I wish I could get rid of all tribula-
tions as easily."

" And find them whilst they cling as light. You are per-
haps not aware that * tribulation ' derives from the Latin
tribuJus^ a bramble."

" So well aware was I that I perpetrated the joke which
you have spoiled by threshing it. Why are you not at
church, Mr. Saltren, listening for the rector's pronunciation
of the Greek names of St. Paul's acquaintances, in the
hopes of detecting a false quantity among them ? "

" Because Giles has a cold, and I stay at my lady's desire
to read the psalms and lessons to him."

"I wonder whether schooling Giles is as intolerable as
taking Sunday class ; if it be, you have my grateful sym-
pathy."

" Your sympathy. Miss Inglett, will relieve me of many a
tribulus which adheres to my robe."

" Is Giles a stupid boy and troublesome pupil ? "

"Not at all. My troubles are not connected with my
little pupil."

1 6 ARMINELL.

'* Class-taking in that Sunday-school is a sort of mental
garrotting," said Arminell. " I wonder whether a teacher
always feels as if his brains were being measured for a hat
when he is giving instruction."

" Only when there is non-receptivity in the minds of
those he teaches, or tries to teach. May I ask if you are
going to church. Miss Inglett ? "

" I have done the civil by attending the Sunday-school,
and the articles disapprove of works of supererogation. I
am going to worship under the fresh green leaves, and to
listen to the choir of the birds — blackbird, thrush and ouzel.
I am too ruffled in temper to sit still in church and listen
to the same common-places in the same see-saw voice from
the pulpit. Do you know what it is to be restless, Mr.
Saltren, and not know what makes you ill at ease? To
desire greatly something, and not know what you long
after?"

The young man was walking beside her, a little in the
rear, respectfully, not full abreast. He was a pale man
with an oval face, dark eyes and long dark lashes, and a
slight downy moustache.

" I can in no way conceive that anything can be lacking
to Miss Inglett," he said. " She has everything to make
Hfe happy, an ideally perfect lot, absolutely deficient in
every element that can jar with and disturb tranquillity and
happiness."

"You judge only by exterior circumstances. You might
say the same of the bird in the egg — it fits it as a glove, it
is walled round by a shell against danger, it is warmed by
the breast of the parent, why should it be impatient of its
coiled-up, comatose condition ? Simply because that con-
dition is coiled-up and comatose. Why should the young
sponge ever detach itself from the rock on which it first
developed by the side of the great absorbent old sponge ?
It gets enough to eat, it is securely attached by its foot to

ARMINELL. I7

the rock ; it is in the oceanic level that suits its existence.
Why should it let go all at once and float away, rise to the
surface and cling elsewhere ? Because of the monotony of
its life of absorption and contraction, and of its sedentary
habits. But, there — enough about myself. I did not intend
to speak of myself. You have brambles clinging to you.
Show me them, that I may put my foot on them and free you."

" You know, Miss Inglett, who I am — the son of the
captain of the manganese mine, and that his wife is an old
lady's maid from the park. You know that I was a clever
boy, and that his lordship most generously interested him-
self in me, and when it was thought I was consumptive,
sent me for a couple of winters to Mentone. You know
that he provided for my schooling, and sent me to the
University, and then most kindly took me into Orleigh as
tutor to your half-brother Giles, till I can resolve to enter
the Church, when, no doubt, he will some day give me a
living. All that you know. Do not suppose I am insen-
sible to his lordship's kindness, when I say that all this
goodness shown me has sown my soul full of brambles, and
made me the most miserable of men."

" But how so ? " Miss Inglett looked at him with un-
feigned surprise. " As you said to me, so say I to you, and
excuse the freedom. Mr. Saltren has everything to make
life happy, education, comfortable quarters, kind friends,
an assured future, an ideally perfect lot, absolutely deficient
in disturbing elements."

" Now you judge by the outside. I admit to the full that
Lord Lamerton has done everything he could think of to
do me good, but can one man calculate what will suit
another ? Will a bog plant thrive in loam, or a heath in
clay?"

" You do not think that what has been done for you is
well done ? "

" I am not inclined for the Church, 1 have a positive

£

1 8 ARMINELL.

distaste for the ministry, and yet Lord Lamerton is bent on
my being a parson. If I do not become one, what am I to
be? I cannot go back to the life whence I have been
taken j I cannot endure to be with those who hold their
knives by the middle when eating, and drink their tea out
of their saucers, and take their meals in their shiit sleeves.
Remember I have been translated from the society to which
by birth I belong, to another as different from it as is that
of Brahmins from Esquimaux ; I cannot accommodate my-
self again to what was once my native element. Baron
Munchausen, in one of his voyages, landed on an island
made of cream cheese, and only discovered it by the faint-
ing of a sailor who had a natural antipathy to cream
cheese. I have come ashore on an island the substance
of which is altogether different from the soil where I was
born. I cannot say I have an ineradicable distaste for it,
but that at first I found a difficulty in walking on it. The
specific gravity of cream cheese is other than that of clay.
Now that I have acquired the light and trippant tread that
suits, ir I return to my native land, my paces will be
criticised, and regarded as affected, and myself as super-
cilious, for not al once plodding from my shoulders like a
ploughboy in marl. How was it with poor Persephone
who spent half her time in the realm of darkness and half
in that gf light? She carried to the world of light her
groping tentative walk, and was laughed at, and when in
Hades, she trod boldly as if in day and got bruises and
bloody noses. Even now I am in a state of oscillation
between the two spheres, and am at home in neither,
miserable in both. When I am in the cream-cheese
island I never feel that I can walk with the buoyancy of one
bom on cream cheese. 1 can never quite overcome the
sense of inhaling an atmosphere of cheese, never quite find
the buttermilk squeezed out of it taste like aniseed

ARMINELL. I9

Arminell could not refrain from a laugh. " Really, Mr.
Saltren, you are not complimentary to our island."

" Call it the Isle of Rabat la Koum, Turkish Delight, or
Guava Jelly — anything luscious. One who has eaten salt
pork and supped vinegar cannot at once tutor his palate to
everything saccharine to a syrup."

*' But what really troubles you in the Isle of Guava ? "

" I am not a native but a stranger. Your tongue is by
me acquired. There are even tones and inflexions of voice
in you I cannot attain because my vocal organs got set in
another world. A man like myself taken up and carried
into a different sphere by another hand is inevitably so self-
conscious that his self-consciousness is a perpetual torment
to him. According to the apocryphal tale, an angel caught
Habakkuk by the hair and carried him with a mess of
pottage in his hands through the air, and deposited him in
Daniel's den of lions. Your father has been my angel, who
has taken me up and transported me, and now I am in a
den of lordly beasts who stalk round me and wonder how I
came among them, and turn up their noses at the bowl I
carry in my shaking hands."

" And you want to escape from us lions ? "

" Pardon me — I am equally ill at ease elsewhere, I have
associated with lions till I can only growl."

" And lash yourself raw," laughed Arminell ; "you know
a lion has a nail at the end of his tail, wherewith he goads
himself."

*' I can torture myself^that is true," said Saltren, in a
disquieted tone. " My lord will give me a living and pro-
vide for me if I will enter the Church, but that is precisely
an atmosphere I do not relish — and what am I to do?
I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed."

" Mr. Saltren, you are not at ease in the lion's den, but
suppose you were to crawl out and get into the fields ? "

" I should lose my way, having been carried by the

20 ARMINELL.

angel out of my own country. You see the wretchedness
of my position, I am uncomfortable wherever I am. In my
present situation I imagine slights. Anecdotes told at
table make me wince, jokes fret me. Conversation on
certain subjects halts because I am present. Yet I cannot
revert to my native condition \ that would be deterioration,
now I have acquired polish, and have progressed."

" I should not have supposed, Mr. Saltren, that you were
so full of trouble."

" No, looking on a rose-pip, all smoothness, you do not
reckon on its being full of choke within. And now — Miss
Inglett, you see at once an instance of my lack of tact and
knowledge. I am in doubt whether I have done well to
pour out my pottle of troubles in your ear, or whether I
behaved like a booby."

" I invited you to it."

*' Precisely, but in the language of the Isle of Guava,
words do not mean what they are supposed to mean in the
Land of Bacon. I may have transgressed those invisible
bounds which you recognise by an instinct of which I am
deficient. There are societies which have laws and signs of
fellowship known only to the initiated. You belong to one,
the great Freemasonry of Aristocratic Culture. You all
know one another in it, how — is inconceivable to me,
though I watch and puzzle to find the symbol ; and your
laws, unwritten, I can only guess at, but you all know them,
suck them in with mother's milk. I have been brought up
among you, but I have only an idea of your laws, and as for
your shibboleth — it escapes me altogether. And now — I
do not know whether I have acted rightly or wrongly in
telling you how I am situated. I am in terror lest in taking
you at your word I may not have grossly offended you, and
lest you be now saying in your heart, What an unlicked
cub this is ! how ignorant of tact, how lacking in good
breeding ! He should have passed off my invitation

ARMINELL. 2 1

with a joke about brambles. He bores me, he is insuffer-
able."

" I assure you — Mr. Saltren "

" Excuse my interrup:iiig you. It mayor may not be so.
I daresay I am hypersensitive, over-suspicious."

" And now, Mr. Saltren, I think Giles is waiting for his
psalms and lessons."

" You mean — I have offended you."

" Not at all. I am sorry for you, but I think you are —
excuse the word — morbidly sensitive."

" You cannot understand me because you have never
been in my land. Baron Munchausen says that in the
moon the aristocrats when they want to know about the
people send their heads among them, but their trunks and
hearts remain at home. The heads go everywhere and re-
turn with a report of the wants, thoughts and doings of the
common people. You are the same. You send your
heads to visit us, to enquire about us, to peep at our ways,
and search out our goings, but you do not understand us,
because you have not been heart and body down to finger-
ends and toes among us, and of us— you cannot enter into
our necessities and prejudices and gropings. But I see, I
bore you. In the tongue of the Isle of Guava you say to
me, Giles wants his psalms and lessons. Which being in-
terpreted means. This man is a bramble sticking to my
skirts, following, impeding my movements, a drag, a
nuisance. I must get rid of him. I wish you a good
morning, Miss Inglett ; and holy thoughts under the green-
wood tree i "

CHAPTER III.

IN THE owl's nest.

Arminell Inglett made the best of her way to the old
quarry. She was impatient to be alone, to enjoy the
beautiful weather, the spring sights and sounds, to recover
the elasticity of spirit of which she had been robbed by the
Sunday-school.

But would she recover that elasticity after her conversa-
tion with the young tutor? What he had said was true.
He was a village lad of humble antecedents who had been
taken up by her father because he was intelligent and
pleasing, and commended by the schoolmaster, and de-
licate. Lord and Lady Lamerton were ever ready to do a
kindness to a tenant or inhabitant of Orleigh. When any
of the latter were sick, they received jellies and soups and
the best port wine from the park ; and a deserving child in
school received recognition, and a steady youth was sure of
a helping hand into a good situation.

More than ordinary favour had been shown to this young
man, son of Stephen Saltren, captain of the manganese
mine. He had been lifted out of the station in which he
had been born, and was promoted to be the instructor of
Giles. Arminell had always thought her father's conduct
towards him extraordinarily kind, and now her eyes were
open to see that it had been a cruel kindness, filling the
young man's heart with a bitterness that contended with his
gratitude.

ARMINELL. 23

It would have been more judicious perhaps had Lord
Lamerton sent young Jingles elsewhere.

Jingles, it must be explained, was not the tutor's Christian
name. He had been baptized out of compliment to his
lordship, Giles Inglett, and Giles Inglett Saltren was his
complete name. But in the national school his double
Christian name had been condensed, not without a flavour
of spite, into Jingles, and at Orleigh he would never be
known by any other.

The old lime-quarry lay a mile from the park. It was a
picturesque spot, and would have been perfectly beautiful
but for the heaps of rubbish thrown out of it which took
years to decay, and which till decayed were unsightly.
The process had, however, begun. Indeed, as the quarry
had been worked for a century prior to its abandonment, a
good deal of the '' ramp," as such rubbish heaps are locally
called, was covered with grass and pines.

Lord Lamerton had done his best to disguise the naked-
ness by plantations of Scotch-larch and spruce, which took
readily to the loose soil, the creeping roots grasped the
nodes of stone and crushed them as in a vice, then sucked
out of them" the nutriment desired ; the wild strawberry
rioted over the banks, and the blackberry brambles dropped
their trailers over the slopes, laden in autumn with luscious
fruit, and later, when flowers are scarce, with frost-touched
leaves, carmine, primrose, amber and purple.

At the back of the quarry was an old wood, sloping to
the south and breaking off sharply at the precipice where
the lime rock had been cut away ; this was a wood of oaks
with an undergrowth of bracken and male fern, and huge
hollies. Here and there large venerable Scotch pines rose
above the rounded surface of the oak tops, in some places
singly, elsewhere in dark clumps.

The rock of the hill was slaty. The strata ran down and
made a dip and came to the surface again, and in the lap

24 ARMINELL,

lay the lime-stone. When the quarry-men had deserted the
old workings, water came in and partly filled it, to the
depth of forty feet, with crystalline bottle-green water.
Lord Lamerton had put in trout, and the fish grew there
to^ great size, but were too wary to be caught. The side
of the quarry to the south shelved rapidly into the water,
and the fisherman standing on the slope with his rode was
visible to the trout. They were too cautious to approach,
and too well fed with the midges that hovered over the
water to care to bite.

The north face of the quarry — that is the face that
looked to the sun — was quite precipitous ; it rose to the
same height above the water that it descended beneath it.
Over the edge hung bushes of may that wreathed the gray
rocks in spring with snow as of the past winter, and in
winter with scarlet berries, reminiscences of the fire of lost
summer. Where the may-bushes did not monopolise
the top, there the heath and heather hung their wiry
branches and grew to brakes, and the whortleberry — the
vaccinium — formed a fringe of glossy leafage in June and
July rich with purple berries, and in autumn dotted with
fantastic scarlet, where a capricious leaf had caught a
touch of frost that had spared its fellows.

Down a rocky cranny fell a dribbling stream, the drain-
age of the wood above ; in summer it was but a distillation,
sufficient to moisten the beds of moss and fern that rankly
grew on the hedges beneath it, and in winter never attaining
sufficient volume to dislodge the vegetation it nourished.

To the ledges thus moistened choice ferns had retreated
as to cities of refuge from the rapacity of collectors, who
rive away these delicate creatures regardless what damage is
done them, indifferent whether they kill in the process, con-
sidering only the packing of them off in hampers for sale or
barter, and in many places exterminating the rarest and
most graceful ferns; but here, with a gulf of deep water

ARMINELL. 25

between themselves and their pursuers, the parsley and
maiden-hair ferns throve and tossed their fronds in
security and insolence.

It was marvellous to see how plants luxuriated in this old
abandoned quarry, how they seized on it, as squatters on
no-man's land, and multiplied and grew wanton and revelled
there ; how the hart's tongue grew there to enormous size,
and remained, unbrowned by frost, throughout the winter ;
how the crane's bill bloomed to Christmas, and scented the
air around, and the strawberry fruited out of season and
reason.

By what fatality did the butterflies come there in such
numbers ? Was it that they delighted in dancing over the
placid mirror admiring themselves therein ? After a few
gyrations they inevitably dipped their wings and were lost ;
perhaps they mistook their gay reflections for inviting
flowers, or perhaps, like Narcissus, they fell in love with
their own likenesses, and, stooping to kiss, were caught.

In summer butterflies were always to be found hovering
over or floating on the surface, but they hovered or floated
only for a while, presently a ring was formed in the glassy
surface, a ring that widened and multiplied itself — the
butterfly was gone, and a trout the better for it.

About six feet of soil, in some places more, in others less,
appeared in sections above the quarry-edge, that is to say,
above the rock. It was quite possible to trace the primi-
tive surface of the pre-historic earth, much indented ; but
these indentations had been filled in by accumulations of
humus, so that the upper turf was almost of a level.

Where rock ended and soil began, the jackdaws had
worked for themselves caves and galleries in which they
lived a communal Hfe, and multiplied prodigiously. A pair
of hawks bred there as well, spared by express order of
Lord Lamerton, but viewed with bitter animosity by the
keepers ; also a colony of white owls, all on tolerable term^s,

26 ARMINELL.

keeping their distances, avoiding social intercourse, very
much Hke the classes among mankind. These owls also
would have perished, nailed to the stable doors or the
keeper's wall, had not his lordship extended protection to
them likewise. The kingfishers in the Ore were becoming
fewer, the keepers waged war on them also, because they
interfered with the fish. Lord Lamerton did not know this,
cr he would have held his protecting hand over their
amethystine heads.

The cliif was ribbed horizontally, the harder bands of
stratification standing forth as shelves on which lodged the
crumbling of the more friable beds, and the leaves that
sailed down from the autumn trees above. On these ledges
a few bushes and a stunted Scotch pine grew. The latter
grappled with the rock, holding to it with its red-brown roots
hke the legs of a gigantic spider.

At the west end, on a level with the topmost shelf of
rock, just beneath where the earth buried the surface of
rock, was a cave artificially constructed, at the time when
the lime was worked, as a refuge for the miners when blast-
ing.

Formerly a path had existed leading to this cave, but
now the path was gone — scarce a trace survived. The
owls, calculating on the inaccessibility of the grot to man,
had taken possession of it, and bred there.

" I am glad I came here," said Arminell. " In ttiis
lovely, lonely spot one can worship God better than in a
stuffy church, pervaded with the smell of yellow-soap, of
clean linen, and the bergamot of oiled heads, and the
peppermint the clerk sucks. Here one has the air full of
:he incense of the woods, the pines exuding resin in the
sun, the oak-leaves exhaling their aroma, and the ferns,
fragrant with the sea-like stimulating odour. I am weary of
that hum-drum which constitutes to mamma the law and aim
of life. We may be all — as Jingles says — steeped in syrup.

ARMINELL. 27

but it is the syrup of hum-drum that crystallizes about us,
after having extracted from us and dismissed all individual
flavour, like the candied fruit in a box, where currants,
greengage, apricot, pear — all taste alike. We are so
saturated with the same syrup that we all lead the same
saccharine existences, have the same sweet thoughts, utter
the same sugary words, and have not an individualizing
smack and aroma among us. Mamma is the very incarna-
tion of routine. She talks to her guests on what she thinks
will interest them, got up for the occasion out of magazines
and reviews. These magazines save her and the like of her
a world of trouble. The aristocrats of the moon, according
to Jingles, sent their heads forth in pursuit of knowledge ;
we have other peculiar heads sent to us stuffed with the
forced meat of knowledge, and wrapped in the covers of
magazines. So much for my mother. As for my father,
he neither takes in nor gives vent to ideas. He presents
prizes at schools, opens institutes, attends committees, sits
on boards, presides at banquets ; occasionally votes, but
never speaks in the House ; his whole circle of interests is
made up of highways, asylums and county bridges. In
olden times, witches drew circles and set about them skulls
and daggers, toads and braziers, and within these circles
wrought necromancy. My father's circle is that of hum-
drum, set round with county and parochial institutions, with
the sanitary arrangements carefully considered, and without
the magic circle he works — nothing."

She was standing at the west end of the quarry, looking
along the edge of the precipice, on her left.

" I wonder," she mused, " whether it would be feasible to
reach the owls."

Filled with "this new ambition, she thought no more of
the shortcomings of her father and step-mother.

" It would be possible, by keeping a cool head," she
said.

28 ARMINELL.

" I should like to see what an owl's nest is like, and in
that cave 1 can pay my Sunday devotions."

The shelf was not broad enough to allow of any one
walking on it unsupported, even with a cool head.

In places, indeed, it broadened, and there lay a cushion
of grass, but immediately it narrowed to a mere indication.
The distance was not great, from w^hence Arminell stood,
to the cave, some twenty-five feet, and a slip would entail a
fall into the water beneath.

As the girl stood considering the possibilities and the
difficulties, she noticed that streamers of ivy hung over the
edge from the surface of the soil. She could not reach
these, however, from where she stood. Were she to lay
hold of them, she might be able to sustain herself w^hilst
stepping along the ledge, just as if she were supported by a
pendent rope.

"I believe it is contrivable," ^e said; "I see where the
ivy springs at the root of an elder tree. I can find or cut a
crooked stick, and thus draw the strands to me. How
angry and indignant mamma would be, were she to see what
I am about."

She speedily discovered a suitable stick, and with its
assistance drew the pendent branches towards her. Then,
laying hold of them, she essayed an advance on the shelf.
The ivy-ropes were tough, and tenacious in their rooting
into the ground. She dragged at them, jerked them, and
they did not yield. She grasped them in her left hand, and
cautiously stepped forward.

At first she had a ledge of four inches in width to rest
her feet on, but the rock, though narrow, was solid, and by
leaning her weight well on the ivy, and advancing on the
tips of her feet, she succeeded, not without a flutter of heart,
in passing to a broad patch of turf, where she was compara-
tively safe, and where, still clinging to the ivy, she drew a
long breath.

ARMINELL. 29

The water, looked down on from above, immediately be-
neath her was blue ; only in the shadows, where it did not
reflect the light, was it bottle-green.

There was not a ripple on it. She had not dislodged a
stone. She turned her eyes up the bank. She had no fear
of the ropes failing her ; they would not be sawn through,
because they swung over friable earth, not jagged rock.

"Allons, avangons," said Arminell, with a laugh. She
was excited, pleased with herself — she had broken out of
the circle of humdrum.

The ledge was wide, where she stood, and she held to
the rope to keep her from giddiness, rather than to sustain
her weight.

After a few further steps, she paused. The shelf failed
altogether for three feet, but beyond the gap was a terrace
matted with cistus and ablaze with flower. Arminell's first
impulse was to abandon her enterprize as hazardous beyond
reason, but her second was to dare the further danger, and
make a spring to the firm ground.

'' This is the diff'erence between me and my lady," said
Arminell. " She — and my lord likewise — will not risk a
leap — moral, social, or religious."

Then with a rush of impetuosity and impatience, she
swung herself across the gap, and landed safely on the bed
of cistus.

" Would Giles ever be permitted the unconventional ? "
asked Arminell. " What a petit-maitre he will turn out."

The Hon. Giles Inglett, her half-brother, aged ten, was,
as already said, the only son of Lord Lamerton and heir-
apparent to the barony.

From the cistus patch she crept, still clinging to the ivy,
along the ledge that now bore indications of the path once
formed on it, and presently, with a sense of defiance of
danger, allowed herself to look down into the still water.

" After all, if I did go down, it would not be very dread-

30 - ARMINELL.

ful — it is a reversed heaven. I would spoil my gown, but
what of that ? I have my allowance, and can spoil as many
gowns as I choose within my margin. I wonder — would a
fall from my social terrace be as easy as one from this — and
lead to such trifling and reparable consequences ? "

Then she reached the platform of the cave, let go the
ivy-streamers, and entered the grotto.

The entrance was just high enough for Arminell to pass
in without stooping. The depth of the cave was not great,
ten feet. The sun shone in, making the nook cheerful and
warm. Again Arminell looked down at the pond.

" How different the water seems according to the position
from which we look at it. Seen from one point it blazes
with reflected light, and laughs with brilliance ; seen from
another it is infinitely sombre, light-absorbing, not light-
reflecting. It is so perhaps with the world, and poor
Jingles contemplates it from an unhappy point."

She seated herself on the floor at the mouth of the cave,
and leaned her back against the side, dangling one foot over
the edge of the precipice.

" The best of churches, the most inspiring shrine for holy
thoughts — O how lucky, I have in my pocket Gaboriau's
' Gilded Clique ! ' "

She wore a pretty pink dress with dark crimson velvet
trimmings, but the brightest point of colour about Arminell
was the blood-coloured cover of the Enghsh version of the
French romance of rascality and crime.

Arminell had lost her mother at an age at which she
could not remember her. The girl had been badly brought
up, by governesses unequal to the task of forming the mind
and directing the conscience of a self-willed intelligent girl.

She had changed her governesses often, and not invari-
ably for the better. One indulged and flattered her, and
set her cap at Lord Lamerton. She had to be dismissed.
Then came a methodical creature, eminently conscientious,

ARMINELL. 3 1

SO completely a piece of animated clockwork, so incapable
of acting or even thinking out of a set routine, that she
drove Arminell into sullen revolt. After her departure, a
young lady from Girton arrived, who walked with long
strides, wore a pince-nez, was primed with slang, and held
her nose on high to keep her pince-nez in place. She was
dismissed because she whistled, but not before her influence,
the most mischievous of all, had left its abiding impress on
the character of the pupil.

This governess laughed at conventionalities, such as are
the safeguards of social life, and sneered at the pruderies of
feminine modesty. Her tone was sarcastic and sceptical.

Then came a lady of good manners, but of an infinitely
feeble mind, who wore a large fringe to conceal a forehead
as retreating as that of the Neanderthal man. Arminell
found her a person of infinite promise and no achievement.
She undertook to teach Greek, algebra, and comparative
anatomy, but could not spell " rhododendron."

When Lord Lamerton had married again, the new wife
shrank from exercising authority over the wayward girl, and
sought to draw her to her by kindness. But Arminell
speedily gauged the abilities of her step-mother, and became
not actively hostile, but indifferent to her. Lady Lamerton
was not a person to provoke hostility.

Thus the girl had grown up with mind unformed, judg-
ment undisciplined, feelings impetuous and under no con-
straint, and with very confused notions of right and wrong.
She possessed by nature a strong will, and this had been
toughened by resistance where it should have been yielded
to, and non-resistance where it ought to have been firmly
opposed.

She had taken a class that Sunday in the school, as well
as on the preceding Sunday, only at Lady Lamerton's
urgent request, because the school-mistress was absent on a
holiday.

32 ARMINELL.

And now Arminell, who had come to the Owl's Nest to
pay her devotions to heaven, performed them by reading
Gaboriau's " Gilded Clique."

CHAPTER IV.

A PRAYER-RAFT.

How long Arminell had been resting in her sunny nook
above the water, reading the record of luxury, misery and
vice, she did not know, for she became engrossed in the
repulsive yet interesting tale, and the time sHpped away,
unperceived.

She was roused from her reading by the thought that
suddenly occurred to her, quite unconnected with the story,
that she had let go the strands of ivy when she reached the
cave, — and in a moment her interest in the " Gilded
Chque" ceased and she became alarmed about her own
situation. In her delight at attaining the object of her
ambition, she had cast aside the streamers without a
thought that she might need them again, and they had
reverted to their original position, beyond her reach. She
could not venture along the strip of turf without their sup-
\ ort, and she had not the crook with her, wherewith to
rake them back within reach of her hand.

What was to be done? The charm of the situation
was gone. Its novelty had ceased to please. Her elation
at her audacity in venturing on the "path perilous" had
subsided. To escape unassisted was impossible, and to
call for assistance useless in a place so rarely visited.

" It does not much matter," said Arminell ; " I shall not
have to spend a night among the owls. My lady when she
misses me will send out a search-party, and Jingles will

34

ArminelL.

direct them whither to go for me. I will return to my
book."

But Arminell could not recover her interest in the story
of the " Gilded Clique." She was annoyed at her lack of
prudence, for it bad not only subjected her to imprison-
ment, but had placed her in a position somewhat ridiculous.
She threw down the book impatiently and bit her lips.

" This is a lesson to me," she said, *'not to make rash
excursions into unknown regions without retaining a clue
which will enable me to retrace my steps to the known.
Caesar may have been a hero when he burnt his ships, but
his heroism was next akin to folly."

She sat with her hands in her lap, with a clouded face,
musing on the chance of her speedy release. Then she
laughed, " Like Jingles, I am in a wrong position, but un-
like him, I am here by my own foolhardiness. He was
carried by my lord into the eagle's nest j like Sinbad, out
of the valley of diamonds. But in the valley of diamonds
there were likewise serpents. My lord swooped do^vn on
poor Jingles, caught him up, and deposited him in his nest
on the heights for the young eagles to pull to pieces."

As she was amusing herself with this fancy, she observed
a man by the waterside at the east or further end of the
quarry, engaged in launching a primitive raft which he
drew out of a bed of alder. The raft consisted of a couple
of hurdles lashed together, on which an old pig-sty or
stable door was laid. Upon this platform the man stationed
himself when the raft was adrift, and with a long oar sculled
himself into the middle of the pond.

What was his object ? Had he seen Arminell and was
he coming to her assistance, concluding that she could be
rescued in no other fashion? On further observation
Arminell convinced herself that he had not seen her and
knew nothing of her predicament and distress.
What was he about to do ? To fish ?

ARMINELL. 35

No — not to fish.

When the raft floated in the middle of the tarn, the man
laid down his oar, knelt on the board and began to pray.

" Why — ! " exclaimed the girl ; " that is Captain Sal-
tren, Jingles' father."

Captain Stephen Saltren, master of the manganese mine,
was a tall man, rather gaunt and thin, and loosely com-
pacted at the joints, with dark hair, high cheek-bones and
large, deeply-sunken eyes. His features were irregular and
ill cut — yet it was impossible to look at his face without
being impressed with the thought that he was no ordinary
man. His hands, though roughened and enlarged by
work, had long fingers, the indication of a nervous tempera-
ment. He had, moreover, one of those flexible voices
which go far towards making a man an orator. He was
unaware of the value of his organ, he was devoid of skill in
using it ; but it was an impressive voice when used in times
of deep emotion, thrilling those who heard it and sweeping
them into sympathy with the speaker. His eyes were those
of a mystic, looking into a far-off" sphere, esteeming the
world of sense as a veil, a painted film, disturbing, imped-
ing distinct vision of the sole realities that existed in the
world beyond.

Thjere was velvety softness in his dark eyes, and gentle-
ness in his flexible mouth, and yet the least observant
person speaking with him could see that fire was ready to
leap out of those soft eyes on provocation, and that the
mouth could set with rigid determination when his pre-
judices were touched.

The forehead of the man was of unusual height. He
had become partly bald, had shed some of the hair above
the brow, and this had given loftiness to his forehead.
There were hollows between his temples and eye-brows ;
his head was lumpy and narrow. Altogether it was an ill-
balanced, but an interesting head.

36 ARMINELL.

The mystic, who at one tiaie was a prominent feature in
religious Hfe, has almost disappeared from among us, gone
utterly out of the cultured classes, gone from among the
practical mercantile classes, going little by little from the
lower beds of life, not expelled by education but by the
materialism that penetrates every realm of human existence.
In time the mystic will have become as extinct as the dodo,
the great auk, and the Caleb Balderstones. But there are
mystics still — especially when there is a strain of Celtic
blood, and of this class of beings was Stephen Saltren.

The captain was in trouble, and whenever he was in
trouble or unhappy he had recourse to prayer, and he
prayed with most disengagement on his raft. He came to
tfle quarry when his mind was disturbed and his heart
agitated, thrust himself out from land, and prayed where he
believed himself to be unobserved and unlikely to be
interrupted.

The cause of his unrest on this occasion was the threat
Lord Lamerton had uttered of closing the manganese
mine. This mine had its adit, crushing mill and washing
floors at but a short distance from the great house. About
fifteen years previous, a mine had been worked on the
estate that yielded so richly, that with the profits, Lord
Lamerton had been able to clear off some mortgages.
That lode was worked out. It had been altogether an
extraordinary one, bunching, as it is termed, into a great
mass of solid manganese, but this bunch, when worked
out, ended without a trace of continuance. Then, as Lord
Lamerton was assured, another came to the surface in the
hill behind the mansion, and as he was in want of money,
he reluctantly permitted the mine to be opened within a
rifle shot of his house. The workings were out of sight,
hidden by a plantation, and manganese mines make no
great heaps of unsightly deposit; nevertheless, the mine
was inconveniently near the place. It did not yield as it

ARMINELL. 37

had promised, or as the experts had pretended it promised,
and Lord Lamerton had lost all hope of making money by
it. The vein was followed, but it never " bunched."
Foreign competition affected the market, English man-
ganese was under-sold, and Wheal Perseverance, as the
mine was called, did not pay for the "working." Lord
Lamerton annually lost money on it. Then he was in-
formed that the lode ran under Orleigh gardens, and
promised freely to "bunch" under the mansion. That is
to say, he was asked to allow his house to be undermined.
This decided his lordship, and he announced that the mine
must be abandoned. Bunch or no bunch, he was not going
to have his old place tunnelled under and brought about
his ears, on the chance — the chimerical chance — of a few
thousand pounds' worth of metal being extracted from the
rock on which it stood.

To Lord Lamerton his determination seemed right and
reasonable. The land was his. The royalties were his ;
the house was his. Every man may do what he will with
his own. If he has a penny in his pocket, he is at liberty
to spend or to hoard it as he deems best.

But this decision of his lordship threatened ruin or
something like ruin to a good many men who had Hved on
the mine, to families whereof the father worked under-
ground, and the children above washing ore on the floors.
The cessation of the mining would throw all these out of
employ. It was known to the miners that manganese mines
were everywhere unprofitable, and were being abandoned.
Where then should they look for employment ?

It was open to bachelors to migrate to America, but what
were the married men to do ? The captain would feel the
stoppage of the mine most of all. He had kept the
accounts of the output, had paid the wages, and sold the
metal. The miners might, indeed, take temporary work on
the new line in course of construction, but that meant a

38 ARMINELL.

change of life from one that was regular, whilst living in
settled homes, to a wandering existence, to makeshift
housing, separation from their families, and to association
with demoralising and lawless companions. The captain,
however, had not this chance within reach. He could not
migrate, because he possessed the little house in which he"
lived, together with an acre of garden ground beside it,
which his father had enclosed and reclaimed. Moreover,
he was not likely to find work which gave him a situation of
authority and superiority. Instead of being a master he
must be content — if he found employ — to work as a
servant. Hitherto, he had engaged and dismissed the
hands, now he must become a hand — and be glad to be
one — liable to dismissal.

It was natural that the men, and especially Saltren, should
feel keenly and resent the closing of the mine. People see
things as they affect themselves, and appreciate them only
as they relate to their own affairs. I knew a man named
Balhatchet who patented a quack medicine which he called
his Heal-all, and this man never could be brought to see
that the Fall of Man was a disaster to humanity, for, he
argued, if there had been no fall, then no sickness, and
therefore no place for Balhatchet's Heal-all.

According to " The Spectator," when the news reached
London that the King of France was dead, " Now we
shall have fish cheaper," was the greeting the tidings
evoked. The miners were angry with the bleachers^ be-
cause they used German manganese instead of that raised
in England, and angry with the shippers for bringing it
across the sea. But above all, at this time, they were inclined
to resent the action of Lord Lamerton in closing the mine,
for by so doing he was, as they put it, snatching the bread
out of their hungry mouths, whilst himself eating cake.
They did not believe that undermining the great house
would disturb its foundations. That was a mere excuse.

ARMINELL. 39

How could his lordship be sure that undermining would
crack his walls till he had tried it ? And — supposing they
did settle, what of that? They might be rebuilt. The
men had been told that his lordship had painted the north
wall with impenetrable, anti-damp preparation, because on
that side of the house the paper in the rooms became
mildewed. If there was oamp, what better means of drying
the house than undermining it? Why should his lordship
send many pounds to London for damp-excluding paint,
when by spending the money in Orleigh he might so drain
the soil through a level under the foundations that no
moisture could possibly rise ?

Lord Lamerton had made a great deal of money out of
the first mine. He had provided good cottages for his
tenants, the workmen, but so much the worse if they were to
be turned out of them.

The mine had been christened Wheal Perseverance, and
what does perseverance mean, but going on with what is
begun ? If his lordship had not intended to carry on the
mine indefinitely, he should not have called it Wheal Per-
severance. When he gave it that name he as much as pro-
mised to keep it going always, and to stop it now was a
breach of faith. Was it endurable that Lord Lamerton
should close the mine ? Who had put the manganese in
the rock ? Was it Lord Lamerton ? What had the metal
been run there for but for the good of mankind, that it
might be extracted and utilized? God had carried the lode
under Orleigh Park before a Lamerton was thought of.
Was it justifiable that one man, through his aristocratic
selfishness, should interfere with the public good, should
contravene the arrangements of the Creator? In the
gospel the man who hid his talent was held up to condem-
nation, but here was a nobleman who sat down upon the
talent belonging to a score of hard-working and necessitous
men, desirous of extracting it, and refused to permit them

40 ARMINELL.

to do what God had commanded. Was there not a fable
about a dog in the manger ? Was not his lordship a very
dog in a manger, neither using the manganese himself, nor
allowing those who desired to dig it out to put a pick into
the ground and disturb it ? Maybe there was a " bunch "
under the state drawing-room large enough to support a
score of families for three years, the men in meat and
broadcloth, the women in velvets and jockey-club essence.
Lord Lamerton and Lady Lamerton begrudged them these
necessaries of life. The laws of the land, no doubt, were
on the side of the nobleman, but the law of God on that of
the labourer. The laws were imposed on the people by a
House of Lords and the Queen, and therefore they would
agitate for the abolition of an hereditary aristocracy and
keep their hats on when next the National Anthem was
played.

There were more mixed up in the matter than his lord-
ship. Lord Lamerton did nothing without consulting the
agent, Mr. Macduff. The abandonment of the mine was
Macduff's doing. The reason was known to every one —
Macduff was under the control of his wife. Mrs. Macduff
was offended because the school children did not curtsey
and touch their caps when she drove through the village in
her victoria.

The rector also had a finger in this particular pie. He
bore a spite against Captain Saltren, because the captain
was not a churchman. Not a word had been said about
stopping the lime-quarry. Oh no ! of course not, for Cap-
tain Tubb taught in the Sunday-school. If Stephen Saltren
had taken a class, nothing would have been said about dis-
continuing the mine. Therefore the miners resolved to join
the Liberation Society and make an outcry for the dis-
establishment of the Church.

So the men argued — we will not say reasoned, and that
is no caricature of their arguments, not reasonings, in similar

ARMINELL. 4 1

cases. The uneducated man is always a suspicious man.
He never believes in the reasons alleged, these are disguises
to hide the true springs of action.

When his lordship was told how incensed the miners
were, he made light of the matter. Pshaw ! fiddlesticks !
He was not going to have his dear old Elizabethan home
in which he was born, and which had belonged to the
Ingletts before they were peers, tumbled about his ears like
a pack of cards, just because there was a chance of finding
three ha'porth of manganese under it. The mine had been
a nuisance for some years. The standing up to their knees
in water had been injurious to the health of the girls, many
of whom had died of decline. Wheal Perseverance was a
bad school of morals, lads and lasses worked together there,
and necessarily in a semi-nude condition. The school-
master and the Government Inspector had complained that
the attendance at school was bad and irregular, for the chil-
dren could earn money on the washing floors, and did not
see the fun of sitting at desks earning nothing.

The miners had been a constant source of annoyance,
they were all of them poachers, and had occasional fights
with the keepers. The presence of the miners entailed the
retention of extra keepers to protect the game, so that in
this way also the mine proved expensive. Besides, the
manganese dirtied the stream that flowed through the
grounds, made it of a hideous tawny red colour, and spoiled
the fishing not only in it, but in the river Ore, into which it
discharged its turbid waters.

The miners were all radicals and dissenters, and he would
be glad to be rid of them.

So every question has its two sides, equally plausible.

Stephen Saltren had been from boyhood shy, silent and
self-contained. His only book of study was the Bible, and
his imagination was fired by its poetry and its apocalyptic
visions. His thouglits were cast in Scriptural forms ; his

42 ARMINELL.

early companions had nick-named him the Methodist Par-
son. But Saltren had never permanently attached him-
self to any denomination. The Church was too ceremoni-
ous, he turned from her in dislike. He rambled from sect
to sect seeking a dwelling-place, and finding only a tempor-
ary lodging. For a while he was all enthusiasm, and
flowed with grace, then the source of unction ran dry, and
he attributed the failure to deficiencies in the community
he had joined, left it to recommence the same round of
experiences and encounter the same disappointments in
another. As a young man he had worked with his father
at the original mine, Wheal Eldorado, and on his father's
death, had continued to live in the house his father had
built on land he had appropriated. He continued to work
at Eldorado, became captain in his father's room, and when
Eldorado was exhausted, directed the works of Wheal Per-
severance. Every one spoke highly of Stephen Saltren, as
a steady, conscientious man, truthful and of unimpeachable
honesty. But no one quite understood Saltren, he made
no friends, he sought none ; and he left on all with whom
he came in contact, the impression that he was a man of
very abnormal character.

Whilst Adam slept, the help-mate was formed and set by
him. When he opened his eyes, it was with a start and
with something like terror that he saw Eve at his side. He
could not but believe he was still a prey to dreams. Ever
since the first meeting love has come as a surprise on the
sons of Adam, has come on them when least prepared to
resist its advance, and has never been regarded in the first
moment as a grave reality.

Thousands of years have rolled their course, and love
has remained unchanged, like the rose and the nightingale,
neither developing forward to some higher form of activity,
nor degenerating to one less generous.

The diseases pass through endless modifications, varying

ARMINELL. 43

in phenomena with every generation, changing their
symptoms, disguising their nature, but the fever of love i^
always one and runs the identical course. Enthusiasts
have sought to stifle it in hair-cloth, and reduce its virulence
by vaccination with foreign matter, but it resists every effort
to subdue it. Society has attempted to discipline it and
turn it to practical ends. But love is a fire which will con-
sume all bonds and snap them, and is only finally ex-
tinguished with a handful of clay, when the breast in which
it has burnt is reduced, ashes to ashes, and dust to
dust.

Unexpectedly, unaccountably, the fever laid hold of
Stephen Saltren. He lost his heart to Marianne Welsh,
who had been servant at the park, a handsome girl, with
refinement of manner beyond her class.

He courted her for a month. She had left the great
house for some unexplained reason ; some folks said she
was a liar, and had been dismissed because found out to be
unreliable ; others said she left because she was so good-
looking that the rest of the maids were jealous of her and
worried her out of her situation.

Whilst courting Marianne, Saltren was a charmed man.
His vision of the spiritual world became clouded, and he
was not sensible of the loss. A new world of unutterable
delight, and of ideal beauty, clothed in rainbow colours and
bathed in brilliant light, had unfurled before him and now
occupied his perspective.

The acquaintanceship led at once to marriage. There
was no delay. There was no occasion for delay. Saltren
possessed his own house and land, and was in receipt of a
good salary. The marriage ensued; and then another
change came over Saltren. The new world of love and
beauty, so real, faded as the mirage of the desert, disclos-
ing desert and dead bones.

Seven months after the marriage, Marianne became the

44 ARMINELL.

mother of a boy, and only Stephen knew that the son was
not his own. A cruel act of treachery had been committed.
Marianne had taken his name, not because she loved him,
but to hide her own dishonour.

When he knew how he had been deceived, a barb
entered Stephen's heart, and he was never after free from its
rankle. A fire was kindled in his veins that smouldered
and gnawed its way outwards, certain eventually to flare
forth in some sudden and unexpected outbreak. He be-
came more reserved, more dreamy, more fantastic than
before his marriage, and more of an enigma to those with
whom he associated.

" Let the babe be christened Giles Inglett," said Mari-
anne, "that has a distinguished sound, none of your vulgar
Jacks, and Harrys, and Bills — besides, it will be taken as a
compliment at the park, and may be of benefit to the little
fellow afterwards."

Saltren shrugged his shoulders.

" It is your child, call it what you will."

The boy was brought up by Stephen as his son, none
doubted the paternity. But Saltren never kissed the infant,
never showed the child love, took no interest in the wel-
fare of the youth. To his wife he was cold, stern and
formal. He allowed her to see that he could never forgive
the wrong that had been done him.

So much for the past of Captain Stephen Saltren. Now,
on this spring Sunday morning, Arminell Inglett watched
the man at his devotions on the raft. She allowed him to
proceed with them undisturbed for some time; but she
could not spend the whole day in the owl's nest. Saltren
must be roused from his spiritual exercises and raptures.
He must assist her — he must surely have ropes at his dis-
posal, and could call men to help in her release.

She called him by name.

Her call was re-echoed from tlie rocky walls of the

ARMINELL. 45

quarry. Saltren looked up, looked about, and remained
expectant, with uplifted hands and eyes.

Then, half impatiently, half angrily, Arminell flung the
crimson covered novel of Gaboriau far out into the air, to
fall on or near Saltren, in the hopes of directing his atten-
tion to her position.

He saw the fluttering book in the air, and stretched
forth his hands to receive it. The book whirled about,
expanded, turned over, shut, and shot down into the pond,
where it floated one moment with its red cover upwards.
Captain Saltren was engrossed in interest to see and to
secure the book ; he sculled towards it, stooped over the
water to grasp it, lost balance, and fell forward, and in his
effort to recover the volume and save himself from immer-
sion, touched it, and the book went under the raft and
disappeared.

The attempt to attract attention to herself had failed, and
Arminell uttered an exclamation of vexation.

CHAPTER V.

INFECTION.

A TOUCH on Arraineirs shoulder made her turn with a start.
She saw behind her an old woman who had approached
along the ledge, unobserved, supporting herself by the
strands of ivy in the same manner as herself. Arminell
had been standing leaning against the rock, her eyes and
attention occupied with Captain Saltren, and so had not
noticed the stealthy progress of the woman.

" See here, miss," said the new arrival, " I have come to
help you in the proper way. Lord love y' what's the good
o' calling to that half mazed man there ? By the road you
came, by that you must return. Here be ivy bands enough
for both. Take half yourself and follow me, or if you'd
rather, go on before. Don't look at your feet, look ahead."

" Who are you ? " asked Arminell in surprise.

" Won't you accept help till you know who she is that
offers it?" asked the woman with a laugh. "Do you
object to lean on a stick till you know the name of the tree
whence it was cut? I'm not ashamed of what I'm called,
I'm Patience Kite, that lives in the thatched cottage under
the wood at the end of the quarry. I saw how you came
to this place, and how you have thrown your book at the
captain, because he looked every way but the right one
when he was called. There's perversity in all things, miss,
as you'll discover when you're a bit older. Them as we call

ARMINELL. 47

to come to us don't look our way, and them as we ain't
thinking about offer us the helping hand."

Arminell took the proffered ivy ropes, and began to re-
trace her steps along the face of the precipice, but was
unable, whilst so doing, to resist the temptation to look and
see if Captain Saltren had as yet observed her, but she saw
that he was still diving his arms into the water after the
sunken volume, and was unconscious that any one watched
him.

" Hold to my gown, it is coarse, but the better to stay
you with," said the woman. " Do not look round, keep
fast with the right hand to the ivy, and clutch me with your
left. What a comical bringing together of them whom God
has put asunder that would be if you and I were to be
found in death grappled together in the quarry pond ! "

Slowly, cautiously, Arminell followed her guide and
finally reached the firm bank.

*' Now then," said Patience, " you can come and rest in
my cottage. It is hard by. I'll wipe a chair for you. As
you wanted to see the owl's nest, perhaps you mayn't object
to visit the house of the white witch."

Arminell hesitated. She was inclined to return home,
but felt that it would seem ungracious to decline the offer
of the woman who had assisted her out of her difficulties.

" Look yonder," mocked Patience, pointing to the water,
" the captain is at his prayers again. I wonder, now, what
he took that book to be you thro wed at him, and your voice
to be that called him ? He'll make a maze o' queer fancies
out of all, I reckon."

" Does Mr. Saltren often come here ? "
"When the shoe pinches."
" I do not understand you, Mrs. Kite."
" No, I'll be bound you do not. How can you under-
stand the pinching and pain o' others, when you've never
felt pinch or pain yourself? Such as lie a-bed in swans'

48 ARMINELL.

down wonder what keeps them awake that couches on
nettles."

" But what has this to do with Captain Saltren and his
prayers ? "

" Everything," answered the woman ; " you don't ask for
apples when your lap is full. Those that suffer and are in
need open their mouths. But whether aught comes to
them for opening their mouths is another matter. The
cuckoo in my clock called, and as none answered, he gave
it up — so did I."

There was a savagery in the woman's tone that startled
Arminell, and withal a strangeness in her manner that
attracted her curiosity.

" I will go with you to the cottage for a moment," she
said.

** This is the way," answered Patience, leading through
the brake of fern under the oaks.

Patience Kite was a tall woman, with black hair just
turning grey, a wrinkled face, and a pointed chin. She had
lost most of her teeth, and mouthed her words, but spoke
distinctly. Her nose was like the beak of a hawk ; her eyes
were grey and wild under heavy dark brows. When she
spoke to Arminell she curtsied, and the curtsey of the gaunt
creature was grotesque. The girl could not read whether it
were intended as respectful, or done in mockery. Her
dress was tidy, but of the poorest materials, much patched.
She wore no cap ; her abundant hair was heaped on her
head, but was less tidy than her clothing ; it was scattered
about her face and shoulders.

Her cottage was close at hand, very small, built of quarry-
stone that corroded rapidly with exposure-r-the air reduced
it to black dust. The chimney threatened to fall ; it was
gnawed into on the south-west side like a bit of mice-eaten
cheese. The thatch was rotten, the rafters were exposed
and decayed. The walls, bulged out by the thrust of the

ARMINELL. 49

bedroom floor-joists, were full of rents and out of the per-
pendicular.

The place looked so ruinous, so unsafe, that Arminell
hesitated to enter.

The door had fallen, because the frame had rotted away.
Patience led her guest over.it into the room. There every
thing was tidy and clean. Tidiness and cleanliness were
strangely combined with ruin and decay. In the window
was a raven in a cage.

"This house is dangerous to live in," said Arminell.
" Does Mr. Macduff not see that repairs are done ? It is
unfit for human habitation."

" Macduff ! " scoffed Mrs. Kite. " Do y' think that this
house belongs to his Lordship ? It is mine, and because it
is mine, they cannot force me to leave it, and to go into the
workhouse."

" But you are in peril of your life here ; the chimney might
fall and bury you any windy night. The roof might crash in."

" So the sanitary officer says. He has condemned the
house."

" Then you are leaving ? "

" No. He has done his duty. But I am not going to
turn out."

" Yet surely, Mrs. Kite, if the place is dangerous you will
not be allowed to remain ? "

" Who can interfere with me ? The board of guardians
have applied to the petty sessions for an order, and it has
been granted and served on me."

"Then, of course, you go?"

" No ; they can order me to go, but they cannot force
me to go. The policeman says they can fine me ten
shillings a day if I remain and defy them. Let them fine
me. They must next get an order to distrain to get the
amount. They may sell my furniture, but they won't be
able to turn me out."

D

50 ARMINELU

"But why remain in peril of your life? You will be
crushed under the ruins some stormy night."

" Why remain here ? Because I've nowhere else to go
to. I will not go into the union, and I will not live in a
house with other folk. I am accustomed to be alone. I
am not afraid. Here I am at liberty, and I will here die
rather than lose my freedom."

" You cannot even shut your door."

" I do not need to. I fear nothing, not the sanitary
officer ; he can do nothing. Not the board of guardians ;
they can do nothing. Not the magistrates ; they cannot
touch me."^

" Have you anything to live on ? "

" I pick up a trifle. I bless bad knees and stop the flow
of blood, and show where stolen goods are hidden, and tell
who has ill-wished any one."

" You receive contributions from the superstitious."

" I get my living ray own way. There is room for all in
the world."

Arminell seated herself in a chair offered her, and looked
at the raven in its cage, picking at the bars.

Silence ensued for a few minutes. Patience folded her
bare brown arms across her bosom, and standing opposite
the girl, studied her from head to foot.

" The Honourable Miss Inglett ! " she said, and laughed.
*' Why are you the honourable, and I the common person ?
Why are you a lady, at ease, well-dressed, and I a poor old

1 The reader may think this an impossible case. At the present
moment an old woman in the author's immediate neighbourhood is
thus defying all the authorities. They have come to a dead lock.
She has resisted orders to leave for three years, and is in hourly peril
of her life. The only person who could expel her is the landlord, who
happens to be poor, and who says that he cannot rebuild the cottage ;
the woman who has it on a lease is bound to deliver it over at the end
of the time in good order, but she u without the means to put the
cottage in order. Next equinoctial gale may see her crushed to death.

ARMINELL. 5 1

creature badgered by sanitary officers and board of guar-
dians, and magistrates, and by my lord, the chairman at
the petty sessions ? "

Arminell looked wonderingly at her, surprised at her
strange address.

" Because the world is governed by injustice. What had
you done as a babe, that you should have the gold spoon
put into your mouth, and why had I the pewter one ? It is
not only sanitary officers and guardians of the poor against
me, bullying me, a poor lone widow. Heaven above has
been dead set against me from the moment I was born.
I've seen the miners truck out ore and cable ; now a truck-
load of metal, then one of refuse ; one to be refined, the
other to be rejected. It is so in life ; we are run out of
the dark mines of nothingness into light, and some of us
are all preciousness and some all dross. But do you know
this, Miss Arminell, they turned out heaps on heaps of
refuse from the copper mines, and now they have abandoned
the copper to work the refuse heaps ? They find them rich
— in what do you suppose ? In arsenic."

" You have had much trouble in your life ? " asked
Arminell, not knowing what to say to this strange, bitter
woman.

** Much trouble ! " Patience curtsied. She unlaced her
arms, and used her hands as she spoke, like a French-
woman. She lacked the words that would express her
thoughts and enforced and supplemented them with gesture.
" Much trouble ! You shall hear how I have been served.
My father worked in this old lime quarry till it was aban-
doned, and when it stopped, then he was out of work for
two months, and he went out poaching, and shot himself
instead of a pheasant. He was not used to a gun.
'Twasn't the fault of the gun. The gun was good enough.
When he was brought home dead, my mother went into
one fainting fit alter another, and I was born ; but she died."

52 ARMINELL.

"The quarry was given up, I suppose, because it was
worked out ? " said Arminell.

" Why did Providence allow it to be worked out so soon?
Why wasn't the lime made to run ten feet deeper, three
feet, one foot would have done it to keep my father alive
over my birth, and so saved my mother's life and made me
a happy woman ? "

" And when your poor mother died ? "

" Then it was bad for poor me. I was left an orphan
child and was brought up by my uncle, who was a local
preacher. He wasn't over-pleased at being saddled wi' me
to keep. He served me bad, and didn't give me enough
to eat. Once he gave me a cruel beating because I
wouldn't say, ' Forgive us our trespasses,' for, said I,
' Heaven has trespassed against me, not I against Heaven.'
Why was there not another foot or eighteen inches more
lime created when it was made, so that my father and
mother might have lived, and I had a home and not been
given over to uncle ? What I said then, I say now " — all
Patience's fierceness rushed into her eyes. " Answer me
Have I been fairly used ? " She extended her arms, and held
her hands open, appealing to Arminell for her judgment.

" And then ? " asked the girl, after a long silence, during
which nothing was heard but the pecking of the raven at
the bars.

"And then my uncle bade me unsay my words, but I
would not Then he swore he would thrash me every day
till I asked forgiveness. So it came about."

" What came about ? "

" That I was sent to prison."

" Not for profanity ! for what ? "

** For setting fire to his house."

"You ?"

"Yes, finish the question. Yes, I did; and so I was
sent to prison."

ARMINELL. 53

Arminell involuntarily shrank from the woman.

" Ah ! I frighten you. But the blame does not attach
to me. Why were there not a few inches more lime created
when the quarry was ordained ? Providence means, I am
told, fore-seeing. When the world was made I reckon
it was foreseen that for lack of a little more Hme my father
would shoot himself, and the shock kill my mother, and
cast me without parents on the hands of a hard uncle, who
treated me so bad that I was forced to set his thatch in a
blaze, and so was sent to prison. Providence saw all that
in the far-off, and held hands and did not lay another hand-
ful of lime."

" Have you ever been married ? " asked Arminell,
startled by the defiance, the rage and revolt in the woman's
heart. She asked the question without consideration, in
the hope of diverting the thoughts of Mrs. Kite into an-
other channel.

Patience was silent for a moment, and looked loweringly
at the young lady, then answered abruptly, " No — a few
inches of lime short stopped that."

"How did that prevent your marriage? The quarry
was stopped before you were born."

'* Right, and because stopped, my father was shot and I
became an orphan, and was took by my uncle, and fired
his house, and was sent to gaol. After that no man cared
to take to wife a woman who put lighted sticks among the
thatch. No respectable man would share his name with
one who had been in prison. But I was a handsome girl
in my day — and— but there — I will tell you no more. The
stopping of the quarry did it. If there had been laid at
bottom a few inches more of lime rock, it would never
have happened. Where lies the blame ? "

"Another quarry was opened," said Arminell, "that
where Mr. Tubb is captain."

" True," answered Patience ; " but between the closing

54 ARMINELL.

of one and the opening of another, my father bought a gun,
and went over a hedge with it on a moonlight night, and
the trigger caught."

Arminell rose.

" I have be^n here for some time," she said, " and I
ought to be on my way home. You will permit me " — she
felt in her pocket for her purse.

"No," said Patience curtly. "You have paid me for
what I did by listening to my story. Eut stay — Have you
heard that if you go to a pixy mound, and take the soil
chereof and put it on your head, you can see the little
people, and hear their voices, and know all they say and
do. You have come here — to this heap of ruin and
wretchedness," she stooped and gathered up some of the
dust off the floor and ashes from the hearth, and threw
them on the head of Anninell. " I am a witcli, they say.
It is well ; now your eyes and ears are opened to see and
know and feel with those you never knew of before this
day — another kind of creatures to yourself — the poor, the
wretched, the lonely."

CHAPTER VI,

CHILLACOT.

Arminell Tnglett walked musingly from the cottage of
Patience Kite. The vehemence of the woman, the sad
picture she had unfolded of a blighted life, the look she
had been given into a heart in revolt against the Divine
government of the world, united to impress and disturb
Arminell.

Questions presented themselves to her which she had
never considered before. Why were the ways of Heaven
unequal ? Why, if God created all men of one flesh, and
breathed into all a common spirit, why were they differently
equipped for life's journey? Why were some sent to
encounter the freezing blast in utter nakedness, and others
muffled in eider-down ? The Norns who spin the threads
of men's lives, spin some of silk and others of tow. The
Parcae who shovel the lots of men out of bushels of gold,
dust, and soot, give to some soot only ; they do not trouble
themselves to mix the ingredients before allotting them.

As Arminell walked on, revolving in her mind the per-
plexing question which has ever remained unsolved and
continues to puzzle and drive to despair those in all ages
who consider it, she came before the house of Captain
Saltren.

The house lay in a narrow glen, so narrow that it was
lighted and warmed by very little sun. A slaty rock rose
above it, and almost projected over it. This rock, called

56 ARMINELL.

the Cleve, was crowned with heather, and ivy scrambled
up it from below. A brook brawled down the glen below
the house.

The coombe had been wild and disregarded, a jungle of
furze and bramble, till Saltren's father settled in it> and no
man objecting, enclosed part of the waste, built a house,
and called it his own. Lord Lamerton owned the manor,
and might have interfered, or claimed ground-rent, but in
a former generation much careless good-nature existed
among landlords, and squatters were suffered to seize on
and appropriate land that was regarded of trifling value.
The former Lord Lamerton perhaps knew nothing of the
appropriation. His agent was an old, gouty, easy-going
man who looked into no matters closely, and so the Sal-
trens became possessed . of Chillacot without having any
title to show for it. By the same process Patience Kite's
father had obtained his cottage, and Patience held her
house on the same tenure as Saltren held Chillacot.
Usually when settlers enclosed land and built houses, they
were charged a trifling ground-rent, and they held their
houses and fields for a term of years or for lives, and the
holders were bound to keep the dwellings in good repair.
But, practically, such houses are not kept up, and when
the leases expire, or the lives fall in the houses fall in also.
A landlord with such dwellings and tenements on his pro-
perty is often glad to buy out the holders to terminate the
disgrace to the place of having in it so many dilapidated
and squalid habitations.

Saltren's house was not in a dilapidated condition ; on
the contrary, it was neat and in excellent repair. Stephen
drew a respectable salary as captain of the manganese mine
and could aff' rd to spend money on the little property of
which he was proud. He had had the house recently re-
roofed with slate instead of thatch, with which it had been
formerly covered. The windows and doors had been

ARMINELL. 57

originally made of home-grown deal, not thoroughly mature,
and it had rotted. Saltren renewed the wood-work through-
out. Moreover, the chimney having been erected of the
same stone as that of Kite's cottage, had decayed in the
same manner. Saltren had it taken down and rebuilt in
brick, which came expensive, as brick had to be carted
from fourteen miles off. But, as the captain said, one
does not mind spending money on a job designed to be
permanent. Saltren had restocked his garden with fruit
trees three or four years ago, and these now gave promise
of bearing.

The glen in which Chillacot lay was a " coombe," that is,
it was a short lateral valley running up into hill or moor,
and opening into the main valley through which flows the
arterial stream of the district. It was a sequestered spot,
and as the glen was narrow, it did not get its proper share
of sun. Some said the glen was called Chillacoombe
because it was chilly, but the rector derived the name from
the Celtic word for wood.

We hear much now-a-days about hereditary instincts and
proclivities, and a man's character is thought to be deter-
mined by those of his ancestors. But locality has much to
do with the determination of character. Physical causes
model, develope, or alter physical features ; national char-
acteristics are so shaped, and why not individual characters
also?

The climate of England is responsible to a large extent
for the formation of the representative John Bull. The
blustering winds, the uncertain weather, go to the hardening
of the Englishman's self-reliance, determination, and per-
severance under difficulties. He cannot wait to make hay
till the sun shines, he must make it whether the sun shines
or not. Having to battle with wind and rain, and face the
searching east wind, to confront sleet, and snow, and hail
from childhood, when, with shining face and satchel he goes

58 ARMINELL.

to school, the boy learns to put down his head and defy the
weather. Having learned to put down his head and go
along as a boy, he does the same all through life, not
against weather only, but against everything that opposes,
\vith teeth clenched, and fists rolled up in his breeches
pocket.

The national characteristic affects the very animals bred
in our storm-battered isle. A friend of the author had a
puppy brought out to him on the continent from England,
That little creature sought out, fought, and rolled over
every dog in the city where it was.

" Dat ish not a doug of dish countree ! " said a native
who observed its pugnacity.

" Oh, no, it is an English pup."

" Ach so ! I daught as much, it ist one deevil ! "

Perhaps the gloom of Chillacot, its sunlessness, was one
cause of the gravity that affected Saltren's mind, and made
him silent, fanatical, shadow-haunted. The germs of the
temperament were in him from boyhood, but were not fully
developed till after his marriage and the disappointment
and disillusioning that ensued. He was a man devoid of
humour, a joke hurt and offended him ; if it was not sinful,
it closely fringed on sin, because he could not appreciate it.
He had a tender, affectionate heart, full of soft places, and,
but for his disappointment, would have been a kindly man ;
but he had none to love. The wife had betrayed him, the
child was not his own. The natural instincts of his heart
became perverted, he waxed bitter, suspicious, and ready to
take umbrage at trifles.

When Arminell came in front of the cottage, she saw
Mrs. Saltren leaning over the gate. She was a woman who
still bore the traces of her former beauty, her nose and lips
were delicately moulded, and her eyes were still lovely,
large and soft, somewhat sensuous in their softness. The
face was not that of a woman of decided character, the

ARMINELL. 59

mouth was weak. Her complexion was clear. Jingles had
inherited his good looks from her. As Arniinell approached,
she curtsied, then opened the gate, and asked —

" Miss Inglett, if I may be so bold, I would so much like
to have a word with you."

'• Certainly," answered Arminell.

"Will you honour me, miss, by taking a seat on the
bench?" asked Mrs. Saltren, pointing to a garden bench
near the door.

Arminell declined graciously. She could not stay long,
she had been detained already, and had transgressed the
luncheon hour.

"Ah, Miss Inglett," said the captain's wife, "I did so
admire and love your dear mother, the late lady, she was so
good and kind, and she took — though I say it — a sort of
fancy to me, and was uncommonly gracious to me."

" You were at the park once ? "

"^1 was there before I married, but that was just a few
months before my lord married your mother, the first Lady
Lamerton. I never was in the house with her, but she often
came and saw me. That was a bad day for many of us —
not only for you, miss, but for all of us — when she died.
If she had lived, I don't think we could have fallen into
this trouble."

" What trouble ? " Arminell asked. She was touched by
the reference to her mother, about whom she knew and was
told so little.

"I mean, miss, the mine that is being stopped. Her
dear late ladyship would never have allowed it."

"But it runs under the house."

"Oh, miss, nothing of the sort. That is what Mr.
Macduff says, because he is trying to persuade his lordship
to close the mine. It is not for me to speak against him,
but he is much under the management of Mrs. Macduff,
uho is a very fine lady ; and because the miners don't

6o ARMINELL.

salute her, she gives Macduff no rest, day or night, till he
gets his lordship to disperse the men. My lord listens to
him, and does not see who is speaking through his lips.
My brother James is a comical-minded man, and he said
one day that Mr. Macduff was like the automaton chess-
player that was once exhibited in London. Every one
thought the wax doll played, but there was a young girl hid
in a compartment under the table, and she directed all the
movements of the chess-player."

" I really cannot interfere between my lord and his agent,
or intercept communications between Mr. Chess-player and
Mrs. Prompter."

" Oh, no, miss ; I never meant anything of the sort. I
was only thinking how different it would have been for us
if my lady — I mean my late lady — were here. She was a
good friend to us. Oh, miss, I shall never forget when
I was ill of the typhus, and everyone was afraid to come
near us, how my good lady came here, carrying a sheet to
the window, and tapped, and gave it in, because she
thought we might be short of Hnen for my bed. I've never
forgot that. I keep that sheet to this day, and I shall
not part with it ; it shall serve as my winding sheet. The
dear good lady was so thoughtful for the poor. But times
are changed. It is not for me to cast blame, or to say that
my lady as now is, is not good, but there are different kinds
of goodnesses as there are cabbage roses and Marshal
Neils."

Arminell was interested and touched,

" You knew my dear mother well ? "

" I am but a humble person, and it is unbecoming of me
to say it, though I have a brother who is a gentleman, who
associates with the best in the land, and I am better born
than you may suppose, seeing that I married a captain of a
manganese mine. I beg pardon — I was saying that her
ladyship almost made a friend of me, though I say it who

ARMINELL. 6 1

ought not. Still, 1 had feelings and education above my
station, and that perhaps led her to consult me when she
came here to Orleigh and knew nothing of the place or
of the people, and might have been imposed on, but for
me. After I recovered of the scarlet fever "

" I thought it was typhus ? "

"It began scarlet and ended typhus. Those fevers,
miss, as my brother James says in his droll way, are like
tradesmen, they make jobs for each other, and hand on the
patient."

" How long was that after Mr. Jingles — I mean your son,
Mr. Giles Saltren, was born ? "

*■•' Oh," — Mrs. Saltren looked about her rather vaguely —
" not over long. Will you condescend to step indoors and
see my little parlour, where I think, miss, you have never
been yet, though it is scores and scores of times your dear
mother came there."

" I will come in," said Arminell readily. Her heart
warmed to the woman who had been so valued by her
mother.

The house was tidy, dismal indeed, and small, but what
made it ipost dismal was the strain after grandeur, the gay
table-cover, the carpet with large pattern, the wall paper
black with huge bunclies of red and white roses on it, out
of keeping with the dimensions of the room.

Arminell looked round and felt a rising sense of the
absurdity, the affectation, the incongruity, that at any other
moment would have made her laugh inwardly, though too
well-bred to give external sign that she ridiculed what she
saw.

" Ah, miss ! " said Mrs. Saltren, " you're looking at that
beautiful book on the table, My lady gave it me herself,
and I value it, not because of what it contains, nor for the
handsome binding, but because of her who gave it to me."

Arminell took up the book and opened it.

62 ARMINELL.

"But — "she said, — "the date. It is an annual, pub-
lished three years after my mother's death."

" Oh, I beg your pardon, miss, I did not say my late
lady gave it me. I said, my lady. I know how to distin-
guish between them. If it had been given me by your
dear mother, who is gone, my late lady, do you suppose it
would be lying here ? I would not keep it in the room
where I sit but rarely, but have it in my bed-chamber, where
I could fold my hands over it when I pray."

" I should like," said Arminell, " to see the sheet that
my poor dear mother gave you, and which you cherish so
fondly, to wrap about you in the grave."

" With pleasure," said Mrs, Saltren. " No — I won't say
with pleasure, for it calls up sad recollections, and yet, miss,
there is pleasure in thinking of the goodness of that dear
lady who is gone. Lor ! miss, it did seem dreadful that
my dear lady when on earth didn't take precedency over
the daughter of an earl, but now, in heaven, she ranks
above marchionesses."

Then she asked Arminell to take a chair, and went
slowly upstairs to search for the sheet. While she was
absent the girl looked round her, and now her lips curled
with derision at the grotesque strain after refinement and
luxury which were unattainable as a whole, and only
reached in inharmonious scraps and disconnected patches.

This was the home of Jingles ! What a change for him,
from these mean surroundings, this tasteless affectation, to
the stateliness and smoothness of life at Orleigh Park !
How keenly he must feel the contrast when he returned
home ! Had her father dealt rightly by the young man, in
giving him culture beyond his position ? It is said that a
man has sat in an oven whilst a chop has been done, and
has eaten the chop, without being himself roasted, but then
the temperature of the oven was gradually raised and
gradually lowered. Young Saltren had jumped into the

ARMINELL. ' 63

oven out of a cellar and passed every now and then back
again to the latter. This alteration of temperatures would
kill him.

Some time elapsed before Mrs. Saltren returned. She
descended the stair slowly, sighing, with the sheet over her
arm.

" You need not fear to catch the fever from it, miss," she
said, " it has been washed many times since it was used —
with my tears."

Arminell's heart was full. She took the sheet and
looked at it. How good, how considerate her mother had
been. And what a touch of real feeling this was in the
faithful creature, to cherish the token of her mother's
kindness.

The young are sentimental, and are incapable of distin-
guishing true feeling from false rhodomontade.

" Why ! " exclaimed Arminell, " it has a mark in the
corner S S, — does not that stand for your husband's initials ?"

The woman seemed a httle taken aback, but soon re-
covered herself.

" It may be so. But it comes about like this. I asked
Stephen to mark the sheet with a double L. for Louisa,
Lady Lamerton, and a coronet over, but he was so scrupu-
lous, he said it might be supposed I had carried it away
from the park, and that as the sheet was given to us, we'd
have it marked as our own. My husband is as particular
about his conscience as one must be with the bones in a
herring. It was Bond's marking ink he used," said Mrs.
Saltren, eager to give minute circumstances that might
serve as confirmation of her story, " and there was a
stretcher of wood, a sort of hoop, that strained the linen
whilst it was being written on. If you have any doubt,
miss, about my story, you've only to ask for a bottle of
Bond's marking ink and you will see that they have circular
stretchers — which is a proof that this is the identical sheet

64 ARMINELL.

my lady gave me. Besides, there is a number under the
letters."

" Yes,, seven."

"That was my device. It rhymes with heaven, where
my lady, — I mean my late lady — is now taking precedence
even of marchionesses."

Arminell said nothing. The woman's mind was like her
parlour, full of incongruities.

"Look about you, miss," continued Mrs. Saltren ; "though
I say it, who ought not, this is a pretty and comfortable
house with a certain elegance which I have introduced into
it. My brother, James Welsh, is a gentleman, and writes a
great deal. You may understand how troubled my husband
is at the thought of leaving it."

" But— why leave ? "

" Because, Miss Inglett, he will have no work here. He
will be driven to go to America, and, unfortunately, he has
expended his savings in doing up the house and planting the
garden. I am too delicate to risk the voyage, so I shall be
separated from my husband. My son Giles has already
been taken from me." Then she began to cry.

A pair of clove-pinks glowed in Arminell's cheeks. She
could hardly control her voice. These poor Saltrens were
badly used; her father was to blame. He was the occasion
of their trouble.

" It must not be," said Arminell, starting up, " I will go
at once and speak to his lordship."

CHAPTER VII.

A VISION.

Without another word Arminell left the cottage. As she
did so, she passed Captain Saltren speaking to Captain
Tubb. The former scarce touched his hat, but the latter
saluted her with profound respect.

When she was out of hearing, Saltren, whose dark eyes
had pursued her, said in a low, vibrating tone :

" There she goes — one of the Gilded Clique."

" I think you might have shown her more respect, man,"
said Tubb. " Honour to whom honour is due, and she is
honourable."

"Why should I show respect to her? If she were a poor
girl earning her bread, I would salute her with true rever-
ence, for God hath chosen the poor, rich in faith. But is it
not written that it is easier for a camel to pass through the
eye of a needle, than for the rich to enter into heaven ? "

" You've queer fancies, Cap'n."

" They are not fancies," answered Saltren ; '^ as it is
written, so I speak." Then he hesitated. Something was
working in his mind, and for a moment he doubted
whether to speak to one whom he did not regard as of the
elect.

But Saltren was not a man who could restrain himself
under an over-mastering conviction, and he burst forth in a
torrent of words, and as he spoke his sombre eyes gleamed
with excitement, and sparks lit up and flashed in them.

66 ARMINELL.

Soft they usually were, and dreamy, but now, all at once
they kindled into vehement life.

"I tell you, Tubb, the Lord hath spoken. The last days
are at hand. I read my Bible and I read my newspaper,
and I know that the aristocracy are a scandal and a burden
to the country. Now the long-suffering of heaven will not
tarry. It has been revealed to me that they are doomed to
destruction."

"Revealed to j^z^.'"'

"Yes, to me, an unworthy creature, as none know better
than myself, full of errors and faults and blindness — and
yet — to me. I was wrestling in spirit near the water's edge,
thinking of these things, when, suddenly, I heard a voice
from heaven calling me."

" How — by name ? Did it call you Cap'n ? "

Saltren hesitated. " I can't mind just now whether it
said, Saltren, Saltren ! or whether it said Mister, or whether
Cap'n, or Stephen. I daresay I shall remember by-and-by
when I come to turn it over in my mind. But all has come
on me so freshly, so suddenly, that I am still dazed with
the revelations."

" Go on," said Tubb, shaking his head dubiously.

" And when I looked up, I saw a book come flying down
to me out of heaven, and I held up my hands to receive it,
but it went by me into the water hard by where I was."

" Somebody chucked it at you," exclaimed the practical
Tubb.

" I tell you, it came down out of heaven," said Saltren,
impatiently. "You have no faith. I saw the book, and
before I could lay hold of it, it went under the raft — I
mean, it went down, down ir. the water, and I beheld it no
more."

" What sort of a book was it ? '

" I saw it but for a moment, as it floated with the back
upwards, before it disappeared. There was a head on it

ARMINELL. 6f

and a title. I could not make out whose head, but I read
the title, and the title was clear."

" What was it ? "

" ' The Gilded Clique.' "

" Clique ! what was that ? "

'•A society, a party, and I know what was meant."

" Some one must have chucked the book," again reasoned
the prosaic Tubb.

" It was not chucked, it fell. I was wrong to tell you of
my vision. The revelation is not for such as you. I will
say no more."

" And pray, what do you. make out of this queer tale ? "
asked the captain of the lime quarry, with ill-disguised in-
credulity.

** Is it not plain as the day ? I have had revealed to me
that the doom of the British aristocracy is pronounced, the
House of Lords, the privileged class — in a word, the whole
Gilded Clique?"

Tubb shook his head.

"You'll never satisfy me it weren't chucked," he said.
" But, to change the subject, Saltren. You have read and
studied more than I have. Can you tell me what sort of a
plant Quinquagesima is, and whether it is grown from seed,
or cuttings, or layers ? "

CHAPTER VIII.

ABREAST.

As Arminell left Chillacot she did not observe the scant
courtesy shown her by Captain Saltren. She was brimming
with sympathy for him in his trouble, with tender feeling
for the wife who had so loved her mother, and for the son
who was out of his proper element. It did not occur to
her that possibly she might be regarded by Saltren with
disfavour. She had not gone many paces from the house
before she came on a middle-aged couple, walking in the
sun, abreast, arm in arm, the man smoking a pipe, which
he removed and concealed in the pocket of his old velvet
shooting coat, when he saw Arminell, and then he respect-
fully removed his hat. The two had been at church.
Arminell knew them by sight, but she had not spoken at
any time to either. The man, she had heard, had once
been a gamekeeper on the property, but had been dismissed,
the reason forgotten, probably dishonesty. The woman
was handsome, with bright complexion, and very clear,
crystalline eyes, a boldly cut nose, and well curved lips.
The cast of her features was strong, yet the expression of
the face was timid, patient and pleading.

She had fair, very fair hair, hair that would imperceptibly
become white, so that on a certain day, those who knew her
would exclaim, " Why, Joan ! who would have thought it ?
Your hair is white." But some years must pass before the
bleaching of Joan's head was accomplished. She was only
forty, and was hale and strongly built.

ARMINELL. 69

She unlinked her arm from that of her companion and
came curtseying to Arminell, wlio saw that she wore a
hideous crude green kerchief, and in her bonnet, magenta
bows.

" Do you want me ? " she asked coldly. The unsesthetic
colours offended her.

" Please, my lady ! "

" 1 am not ' my lady.' "

Joan was abashed, and retreated a step.

" I am Miss Inglett. What do you want ? "

" I was going to make so bold, my la — I mean, miss ."

Joan became crimson with shame at so nearly transgressing
again. " This is Samuel Ceely."

Arminell nodded. She was impatient, and wanted to be
at home. She looked at the man whose pale eyes quivered.

" Is he your husband ? " asked Arminell.

"No, miss, not exactly. Us have been keeping com-
pany twenty years — no more. How many years is it since
us first took up wi' each other, Samuel ? "

" Nigh on twenty-two. Twenty-two."

" Go along, Samuel, not so much as that. Well, miss,
us knowed each other when Samuel was a desperate wicked
{i.e. lively) chap. Then Samuel was keeper at the park.
There was some misunderstanding. The head-keeper was
to blame and laid it on Samuel. He's told me so scores o'
times. Then came his first accident. When was that,
Samuel ? "

" When I shooted my hand away ? Nineteen years come
next Michaelmas."

•' Were you keeper, then ? " asked Arminell.

" No, miss, not exactly."

** Then, how came you with the gun ? "

' By accident, quite by accident."

Joan hastily interfered. It would not do to enquire too
closely what he was doing on that occasion.

7© ARMINELL.

" When was your second accident, Samuel ? "

" Fifteen years agone."

" And what was that ? " asked Joan.

" I failed off a waggon."

Arminell interrupted. This was the scene of old Gobbo
and young Gobbo re-enacted. It must be brought to an
end. " Tell thou the tale," she said with an accent of im-
patience in her intonation, addressing Joan. "What is
your name ? "

"Joan Melhuish, miss. Us have been sweethearts a
great many years ; and, miss, the poor old man can't do a
sight of work, because of his leg, and because of his hand.
But, lor-a-mussy, miss, his sweepings is beautiful. You
could eat your dinner, miss, off a stable floor, where Samuel
has swept. Or the dog-kennels, miss, — if Samuel were but
with the dogs, he'd be as if in Paradise. He do love dogs
dearly, do Samuel. He's that conscientious, miss, that if
he was sound asleep, and minded in his dream there was a
bit o' straw lying where he ought to ha' swept clean, or that
the dogs as needed it, hadn't had brimstone put in their
water, he'd get up out o' the warmest bed — not, poor chap,
that he's got a good one to lie on — to give the dog his
brimstone, or pick up thickey (that) straw."

She was so earnest, so sincere, that her story appealed to
Arminell's feelings. Was the dust that the witch. Patience,
had cast on her head, taking effect and opening her eyes to
the sorrows and trials of the underground folk ?

" Please; miss ! It ain't only sweeping he does beauti-
fully. If a dog has fleas, he'll wash him and comb him —
and, miss, he can skin a hare or a rabbit beautiful — beauti-
ful ! I don't mean to deny that Samuel takes time about
it," she assumed an apologetic tone, " but then, miss, which
be best, to be slow and do a thing thorough, or be quick and
half do it ? Now, miss, what I was going to make so bold
as to say was, Samuel do be a-complaining of the rheumatics.

ARMINELL. 7 1

They've a-took'n bad across the loins, and it be bad for him
out in all weathers weeding turnips, and doing them odd
and dirty jobs men won't do now, nor wimen n'other, what
wi' the advance of education, and the franchise, and I did
think it would be wonderful good and kind o' you, miss, if
you'd put in a word for Samuel, just to have the sweeping o'
the back yard, or the pulling of rabbits, or the cleaning up
of dishes ; he'd make a rare kitchen-maid, and could scour
the dogs as well, and keep 'em from scratching over much.
Lord, miss ! what the old man do want is nourishing food
and dryth (dry air) over and about him."

" I'll speak to the housekeeper — no, I will speak to her
ladyship about the matter. I have no doubt something can
be done for Samuel."

Joan curtsied, and her honest face shone with satisfaction.

" Lord A'mighty bless you, miss ! I have been that con-
cerned about the old man — he is but fifty, but looks older,
because of his two accidents. H's shy o' asking for hisself,
because he was dismissed by the late lord ; the upper keeper
laid things on him he'd no right to. He's a man, miss, who
don't set no store on his self, because he has lost a thumb
and two fingers, and got a dislocated thigh. But there's
more in Samuel than folks fancy ; I ought to know best, us
have kept company twenty years."

" Are you ever going to get married ? "

Joan shook her head.

" But how is it," asked Arminell, "that you have not been
married yet, after courting so long ? "

" First the bursted gun spoiled the chance — but Lord,
miss, though he's lost half his hand, he is as cleve" with
what remains as most men with two."

" He was unable to work for his living, I suppose ? "

" And next he were throwed down off a waggon, and he's
been lame ever since. But, Lord, miss ! he do get along
with the bad leg, beautiful, quite beautiful."

72 ARMINELL.

"You are not nearer your marriage than you were
twenty years ago," said Arminell, pitifully.

*' I have been that troubled for Samuel," said Joan, not
replying, but continuing her own train of thought ; '' I've
feared he'd be took off to the union, and then the old man
would ha' died, not having me to walk out with of a Sunday
and bring him a Httle 'baccy. And I— I'd ha' nort in the
world to live for, or to hoard my wages for, wi'out my old
Samuel."

The woman paused, turned round and looked at the
feeble disabled wreck of a man, who put his crippled hand
to his forelock and saluted.

" How came he to fall off the waggon ? " asked Arminell.

" Well, miss, it came of my being on the waggon," ex-
plained Ceely, " I couldn't have failed off otherwise."

" Were you asleep ? Was the waggon in motion ? "

Joan hastily interfered, it w^ould not do for too close an
enquiry to be made into how it came that Samuel was in-
capable of keeping himself firm on the waggon ; any more
than it would do to go too narrowly into the occasion of his
shooting off his hand.

" What was it, miss, you was a-saying ? Nearer our
marriage ? That is as the Lord wills. But — miss — us two
have set our heads on one thing. I don't mind telling you,
as you're so kind as to promise you'd get Samuel a situation
as kitchen-maid."

" 1 did not promise that ! "

" Well, miss, you said you'd speak about it, and I know
well enough that what you speak about will be done."

"What is it you have set your heart on? Can I help
you to that ? "

"You, miss! O no, only the Lord. You see, miss, I
don't earn much, and Samuel next to nothing at all, so our
ever having a home of our own do seem a long way off.
But there's the north side of the church, v^here Samuel's

ARMINELL. « 73

two fingers and thumb be laid, us can go to them. And us
have bespoke to the sexton the place whereabout the fingers
and thumb lie. I ha' planted rosemary there, and know
where it be, and no one else can be laid there, as his fingers
and thumb be resting there. And when Samuel dies, or I
die, whichever goes first is to lie beside the rosemary bush
over his fingers and thumb, and when the t'other follows,
Samuel^ or I will be laid beside the other, with only the
fingers and thumb and rosemary bush between us, — 'cos
us ain't exactly married — and 'twouldn't be respectable
wi'out. 'Twill be no great expense," she added, apologeti-
cally.

When Joan Melhuish had told her all the story, Arminell
no longer saw the crude green kerchief and the magenta
bows. She saw only the face of the poor woman, the
crystal- clear eyes in which light came, and then moisture,
and the trembUng lips that told more by their tremor than
by the words that passed over them, of the deep stirring in
the humble, patient heart.

How often it is with us that, looking at others, who be-
long to an inferior, or only a distinct class, we observe
nothing but verdigris £reen kerchiefs and magenta bows,
something out of taste, jarring with our refinement, ridicu-
lous from our point of view. Then we talk of the whole
class as supremely barbarous, grotesque and separate from
us by leagues of intervening culture, a class that puts verdi-
gris kerchiefs on and magenta bows, as our forefathers before
Christ painted their bodies with woad. And we argue —
these people have no human instincts, no tender emotions,
no delicate feelings — how can they have, wearing as they do
green ties and rnagenta bows ? Have the creatures eyes ?
Surely not when they wear such unaesthetic colours. Hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions ? Not with
emerald-green kerchiefs. If we prick them they do not
bleed. If we tickle they cannot laugh. If we poison them.

74 ARMINELL.

they will not die. If we wrong them — bah ! They wear
magenta bows and are ridiculous.

It needs, may be, a sod taken from their soil, a little dust
from their hearth shaken over our heads to open our eyes to
see that they have like passions andweaknesses with ourselves.

Arminell, without speaking, turned to Samuel, and
looked at him.

What was there in this poor creature to deserve such
faithful love? He was a ruin, and not the ruin of a noble
edifice, but of a commonplace man. There was no beauty
in him, no indication of talent in his face, n3 power in the
moulding of his brow. He looked absurd in his short,
shabby, patched, velveteen coat, his breeches and gaiters
on distorted limbs. His attitudes with the ill-set thigh
were ungainly. And yet — this handsome woman had given
up her Hfe to him.

" He don't seem much to you, perhaps, miss," said
Joan, who eagerly scanned Arminell's face, and with the
instinctive jealousy of love discovered her thoughts. " But,
miss, what saith the Scripture ? Look not on his coun-
tenance or on the height of his stature. You should ha'
seen Samuel before his accidents. Then he was of a
ruddy countenance, and goodly to look on. I always see
him as he was."

She still searched Arminell's face for token of admiration.

" Lord, miss ! tastes differ. Some like apples and others
like onions. For my part, I do like a hand wi' tw^o fingers
on it, it is uncommon, it is properly out o' the way as
hands are. And then, miss, Samuel do seem to me to ha'
laid hold of eternity wi' two fingers and a thumb, having
sent them on before him, and that is more than can be
said of most of us poor sinners here below."

She still studied the girl's countenance, and Arminell
controlled its expression.

"Then," Joan continued, "as for his walk, it is lovely.

ARMINELL. 75

It is ever dancing as he goes along the road. It makes
one feel young — a girl — to have his arm, there be such a
lightness and swing in his walk."

"But — " Arminell began, then hesitated, and then went
on with a rush, " are you not discontented, impatient,
miserable ? '

" Why so, miss ? "

" Because you have loved him so Icng and see no
chance of getting him."

"No, miss. If I get him here, I get him to give me
only half a hand ; if I get him in the other world, I get his
whole hand, thumb and two first fingers as well. I be
content either way."

CHAPTER IX.

TANDEM.

On the edge o'' a moor, at the extreme limits to which man
had driven back savage nature, where were the last
boundary walls of stone piled up without compacting
mortar, was a farm-house called Court. It stood at the
point where granite broke out from under the schistose
beds, and where it had tilted these beds up into a per-
pendicular position. A vast period of time had passed
since the molten granite thus broke forth, and the ragged
edges of upturned rock had been weathered down to mere
stumps, but on these stumps sat the homestead and farm-
house of Court, with a growth of noble sycamores about it.

A stream brawling down from the moor swept half round
this mass of old worn-down rock, a couple of granite slabs
had been cast across it, meeting in the middle on a rude
pier, and this served as a foot-bridge, but carts and waggons
traversed the water, and scrambled up a steep ascent cut
out of the rock by wheels and winter runs.

If Court had been a corn-growing farm, this would have
been inconvenient, but this Court was not. It was a sheep
and cattle rearing farm, and on it was tilled nothing but a
little rye and some turnips.

In an elastic air fresh from the ocean, at a height of a
thousand feet above the sea, the lungs find delight in each
inhalation, and the pulses leap with perennial youth.

ARMINELL. 77

Pecuniary embarrassments cease to oppress, and the
political outlook appears less threatening.

At the bottom of yonder valley three hundred feet above
the sea-level, where a steamy, dreamy atmosphere hangs,
we see that England is going to the dogs ; the end of
English commerce, agriculture, the aristocracy, the church,
the crown, the constitution is at hand — in a word, the
Saturday Review expresses exactly our temper of mind. A
little way up the hill, we think the recuperative power of
the British nation is so great, the national vigour is so
enormous, that it will shake itself free of its troubles in
time — in time, and with patience — in a word, we begin to
see through the spectacles of the Spectator. But when we
have our foot on the heather, and scent the incense of the
gorse, and hear the stonechat and the pewit, and see the
flicker of the silver cotton grass about us, why then — we
feel we are in the best of worlds, and in the best little nook
of the whole world, and that all mankind is pushing its
way, like us, upward with a scramble over obstacles ; it
will, like us, in the end breathe the same sparkling air, and
enjoy the same extensive outlook, and be like us without
care.

From Court what a wonderful prospect was commanded.
The Angel in the Apocalypse stood with one foot on the
land, and the other in the sea ; so Court stood half in the
rich cultivated garden of the Western Paradise, and half in
the utter desolation of treeless moor. To south and west
lay woodlands and pasture, parks and villages, tufts of
Scotch fir, cedars, oak and elm and beech, with rooks
cawing and doves cooing, and the woodpecker hooting
among them ; to the east and north lay the haunt of the
blackcock and hawk and wimbrel, and tracts of heather
flushed with flower, and gorse ablaze with sun, and aro-
matic as incense.

Far away in the north-west, when the sun went down, he

78 ARMINELL.

set in a quiver of gold-leaf, he doubled his size, and expired
like the phoenix in flame. That was when he touched the
ocean, and in touching revealed it.

What a mystery there is in distance ? How the soul is
drawn fortli, step by step, over each rolling hill, down each
half-disclosed valley. How it wonders at every sparkle
where a far-off window reflects the sun, and admires where
the mists gather in wooded clefts, and asks, what is that?
when the sun discloses white specks far away on slopes of
turquoise ; as the Israelites asked when they saw the
Manna. How a curling pillar of smoke stirs up interest,
rising high and dispersing slowly. We watch and are filled
with conjecture.

As the afternoon sun shines sideways on the moor-cheek,
it discloses what it did not reveal at other times, the
faintest trace of furrows where are no fields now, where no
plough has run since the memory of man. Was corn once
grown there ? At that bleak altitude ? Did the climate
permit of its ripening at one time? No one can answer
these questions, but how else account for these furrows
occasionally, only under certain aspects discernible ? And
to Court there was a corn-chamber, a soit of tower standing
on a solid basement of stone six feet above the ground, a
square construction all of granite blocks, floored within
with granite, and with a conical slated roof, and a flight of
stone steps leading up to it. A tower — a fortress built
against rats, who will gnaw through oak and even lead, but
must break their teeth against granite.

The corn-chamber was overhung by a sycamore, and at
its side a rown, or " witch-bean " as it is locally called— a
mountain ash — had taken root, flourished and ripened its
crimson berries.

On the lowest step but one of the flight leading to the
corn-chamber sat Thomasine Kite, the daughter of the
white-witch, Patience. The evening was still and balmy in

ARMINELL. 79

the valleys ; here on the moor-edge airs ever stirred and
were crisp. The bells were ringing for evening service far
away in a belfry that stood on a hill against the western sky,
and their music came in wafts mingled with the hum of
the wind among the heather, and the twitter among the
sycamores.

Aloft, on the highest twig of the tallest tree sat a crow
calling itself in Greek, Korax ! and so pleased with the
sound of its name in Greek that it repeated its name again
and again, and grew giddy with vanity, and nearly over-
balanced itself, and had to spread wings and recover its
poise.

Thomasine was in a bad humour. All the household of
Court were away, master and mistress, men and maids, and
she was left alone like that crow on the tree-tops.

" Tamsin ! " muttered the girl, '^ what a foolish name I
have got. It's like damson, of which they make cheese.
If they'd call me by my proper name of Thomasine, it would
be all right, but Tamsin I hate."

" Korax ! " croaked the crow. " Why was I not born in
Greece to be called Korax ? Crow is vulgar."

" I'm tired of my place," grumbled the girl ; " here I am
a servant maid at Court, out of the world and hard worked.
Nothing going on, nothing to see, no amusements, nothing
to read."

Why was Thomasine restless and impatient for a change?
She did not herself know. She was dissatisfied with what ?
She did not herself properly know. She had vigorous
health ; she had work, but not more than what with her
fresh youth and hearty body she could easily execute. She
had sufficient to eat. The farmer and his wife were not
exacting, nor rough and bad tempered. The workmen and
women on the farm were as workmen and women are, with
good and bad points about them. Elsewhere she would
meet with much the same sort of associates. She knew

8o ARMINELL.

that. Her wage was not high, but it was as much as she
was likely to get in a farm-house, and a small wage there
with freedom was better than a big wage in a gentleman's
family with restraint. She knew that. Yet she was not
content. She wanted something, and she did not know
what. She would give her mistress notice and go elsewhere.
Whither? She did not know. At any rate it would be
elsewhere, a change ; and she craved for a change, for she
had been a twelvemonth in one place. Would she like her
new situation ? She did not know. Would she, when in a
town, look back on the healthy life at Court ? Possibly ;
she did not know. But she could not stay, because as the
passion for roving is in the gipsy blood, so was the fever of
unrest in hers. She was tired of life as it presented itself
to her, uniform, commonplace, unsensational.

There was a period in European history when all was
change, when every people plucked itself out of its ancestral
ground and went a wandering ; when the whole of the con-
tinent was trampled over by races galloping west, like cattle
and wild beasts disturbed by a prairie fire. What was the
cause ? We hardly know, but we know that there was not
a people, a race, a class which was not thus inspired with
the passion for change of domicile. • The Germans entitle
that period the time of the great Folk-wandering. We are
in the midst of such another Folk-wandering, but it is not
now the migration of races and nations, but of classes and
individuals ; the passion for change drives the men and
women out of the country to towns, and the young out of
their situations. It is in the air, it is in their blood.

The evening sun touched the western sea, and flared
up in a spout of fire. Then Thomasine rose to her feet.
Her red hair had fallen, and she bent her arms behind her,
to do it up. Gorgeous that hair was in the evening sun, it
seemed itself to be on fire, to be incandescent in every hair,
and her attitude as she stood on the step was grand, her

ARMINELL. 8 1

vigorous, graceful form, her splendid proportions were shown
in perfection, with bosom expanded, and her hands behind
her head collecting and tying and twisting the fire that
rained off it. The evening sun was full on her, and filled
her eyes that she could see nothing ; but her handsome
face was shown illuminated as a lamp against the cold grey
walls of the corn-chamber. Her shadow was cast up the
steps and agamst the door, a shadow that had no blackness
in it, but the purple of the plum.

** Tamsin ! my word, you are on fire ! "

She started, let go her hair, and it fell about her, envelop-
ing her shoulders and arms in flame. Then she put one
hand above her eyes, and looked to see who addressed her.

" You here, Archelaus ! What has brought you to this
lost corner of the world, this time o' day ? "

" You, of course, Tamsin, what else ? "

" I wish you'd choose a better time than when I'm doing
up my hair."

" I could not wish a better time than when you are in a
blaze of glory."

The young man who spoke was Archelaus Tubb, son of
the captain of the slate quarry. He was a simple, good-
humoured, not clever young man. Strongly built, with
sparkling eyes and a merry laugh, he was just such a fellow
as would have made his way in the world, had he been en-
dowed with wits. He was not absolutely stupid, but he was
muddle-headed. He succeeded in nothing that he under-
took. He had been apprenticed to a carpenter, and at the
expiration of three years was unable even to make a gate.

He-^ tried his hand at gardening, and dug graves for
potatoes, and put in bulbs upside down. He had faculties,
but was incapable of applying them, or was too careless to
call them together and concentrate them on his work.
There seemed small prospect of his earning wage above that
of a day-labourer.

82 ARMINELL.

He had fair hair, an honest face, always on the alert for a
laugh. As he had been unqualified for any trade, his father
had given him work in the quarry, but therein he earned but
a labourer's wage, fourteen shillings a week.

Thomasine reseated herself on the lowest step but one,
and put her feet on the lowest, and crossed her hands on
her lap.

*'Arkie," said she; "I am going away from Court, the
life here is too cull for me. I want to see the world."
" Where are you going, Tamsin ? "

*' Not to bury myself in a place where nothing is doing,
again."

" Nothing doing ! There is plenty of work on a farm."
" Work ! " scorned Thomasine. " Who wants work now ?
not I — I want to go where there are murders and burglaries
and divorces — into a place where there is hfe."

" Queer sort of life that," said Archelaus, casting himself
down on the lowest step.

" I want to be where those things are done and talked
about," said Thomasine; "what do I care about how the corn
looks, and whether the sheep have the foot-rot, and what
per stone is the price of bullocks ? Now — you need not sit
on my feet."

" I will choose a higher step," said the lad ; then he stepped
past her, and seated himself on that above her.

" Upon my word, Tamsin," he said, " you have wonderful
hair. It is like mother's copper kettle new scoured, and
spun into spiders' threads. Some red hair," continued he,
" is coarse as wire, but this," he put his fingers through the

splendid waves, " but this " %

" Is not for you to meddle with," said Thomasine.
" Shall I make my fortune with it in the world ? "

She stood up, and stepped past him, and seated herself
on the step immediately above that he occupied.

" In the w^orld 1 " repeated Archelaus. "What world —

ARMINELL. 83

that where murders and burglaries and divorces are the
great subject of talk ? "

"Aye — in the world where something is doing, where
there is life, not in the world of mangold-wurzel."

" I do not know, Tamsin," said the lad dispiritedly. *' I
hope not."

" Why not ? I am not happy here. I want to be where
something is stirring. "Why," said Thomasine with a flash
of anger in her cheek and eye and the tone of her voice —
"Why am I to be a poor farm girl, and Miss Arminell
Inglett to have all she wishes ? She to be wealthy, and I to
have nothing ? She to be happy, and I wretched ? I sup-
pose I am good-looking, eh, Arkie ? "

" Of course you are," said he ; " but, Tamsin, I cannot
talk to you as you are behind me."

" I do not care to see your face," said the girl, "the back
of your collar and coat are enough for me. Is that your
Sunday wide-awake? "

" Yes — what have you against it ? "

" Only that there is a hole in it, there " — she thrust her
finger through the gap in the crown, and touched his
scalp.

" I know there is, Tamsin ; a coal bounced on to it from
the fire."

" Without bringing light to your brain."

" I shall change my place," said Archelaus ; he stood up,
stepped past the girl, and seated himself above her.

"Now," said he, "I can look down on, and seek for
blemishes in your head."

" You will find none there — eh ! Arkie ? Shall I make
my fortune with my hair? Coin it into gold and^ wear
purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day?
That is what I want and will have, and I don't care how I
get it ; so long as I get it. My head and hair are not for
you."

84 ARMINELL.

Then she stood up, strode past Archelaus, and planted
herself on the step higher than that he occupied.

" This is a queer keeping company, tandem fashion, and
changing the leader," laughed Archelaus.

"We are not keeping company," answered Thomasine.
"Tandem is best as we are, single best of all."

"I don't see why we should not keep company," said
the lad.

"I do," answered Thomasine sharply; "have I not made
it plain to you that I didn't want a life of drudgery, and
that I choose to have a life in which I may amuse myself ? "

" Let us try to sit on the same step," said Archelaus, " and
then we can discuss the matter together, better than as we
are, with one turning the back on the other."

" There is not room, Arkie."

" I'll try it all events," said he, as he got up and seated
himself beside her. " Now we are together, and can keep
steady if one puts an arm round the other."

"I will not be held by you," said she, and mounted to
the step above ; then she burst out laughing, and pointed.
" Do y' look there," she said, " there is a keeping of com-
pany would suit you."

She indicated a pair that approached the farm. The
man was lame, with a bad hip, and his right hand was
furnished with two fingers only — it was Samuel Ceely.
His maimed hand was thrust between the buttons of his
waistcoat, and on his right arm rested the coarse red hand
of Joan Melhuish.

" Do y' look there 1 " exclaimed Thomasine, " are they
not laughable? They have been courting these twenty
years, and no nigher marriage now than when they began ,
it might be the same with us, were I fool enough to listen
and wait for what you offer."

" It is no laughing matter," said the lad, " it is sad."

" It is sad that she should be such a fool ! Will his

ARMINELL. 85

fingers grow again, and his hip right itself? She should
have looked about for another lover twenty years ago, now
it is too late, and I take warning from her. You, Arkie,
are like Samuel Ceely, not in body but in wits, crippled
and limping there."

" Tamsin ! " exclaimed Arkie, " you shall not speak like
that to me." He stood up and stepped to where she was,
and seated himself again beside her. That was on the
highest step, and they were now both with their backs to
the granary door. He tried to take her hand.

" No, Arkie," she said, " I speak seriously, I will not be
your sweetheart. I like you well enough. You are a good-
tempered, nice fellow, very good natured, and always cheer-
ful, but I won't have you. I can't live on fourteen shillings
a week, and I won't live in the country where there is no-
thing going on, but cows calving and turnips growing.
There is no wickedness in either, and wickedness makes
life various and enjoyable. I can read and write and
cypher, and am tired of work accordingly. I want to
enjoy myself. There is mistress ! " she exclaimed, stood
up, stepped aside, missed her footing, and fell to the bottom
of the steps.

'■' Oh, Tamsin, if only you had let me hold you ! " cried
Archelaus, and ran down to raise her. " Then you would
not have fallen." She had sprained her foot and could
only limp.

CHAPTER X.

"SABINA GREEN."

In the four-hundred-and-thirty-first number of the Spectator
is a letter from Sabinn Green, on the disordered appetite
she had acquired by eating improper and innutritious food
at school. " I had not been there above a Month, when
being in the Kitchen, I saw some Oatmeal on the Dresser ;
I put two or three Corns in my Mouth, liked it, stole a
Handful, went into my Chamber, chewed it, and for two
Months after never failed taking Toll of every Pennyworth
of Oatmeal that came into the House. But one Day play-
ing with a Tobacco-pipe between my Teeth, it happened to
break in my Mouth, and the spitting out the Pieces left
such a delicious Roughness on my Tongue, that I could
not be satisfied till I had champed up the remaining Part
of the Pipe. I forsook the Oatmeal, and stuck to the
Pipes three Months, in which time I had disposed of thirty-
seven foul Pipes, all to the Boles. I left off eating of Pipes
and fell to licking of Chalk. Two Months after this, I
lived upon Thunderbolts, a certain long, round, bluish
Stone, which I found among the Gravel in our Garden."

Arminell's mental appetite was as much disordered as
the physical appetite of Sabina Green. Whether Gaboriau's
novels bore any analogy to the foul tobacco-pipes, we do
pretend to say, their record of vice certainly left an agree-
able roughness on her mental palate, but now without any
intermediate licking of chalk, she has clenched her teeth

ARMINELL 87

upon a thunderbolt — a question hard, insoluble, beyond
her powers of mastication. Besides, she was wholly un-
aware that the thunderbolt had been laid in her path ex-
pressly that she might exercise her teeth upon it.

A hundred and fifty years ago, Sabina Green picked
corns, licked chalk and munched tobacco pipes, and the
same thing goes on nowadays. There are tens of thousands
of Sabina Greens with their mouths full, and with no ap-
petite but for tobacco-pipes or thunderbolts. We have
advanced — our pipes are now meerschaum — foam of the
sea.

We have known young ladies who would touch nothing
but meringues, and thereby seriously impair their constitu-
tions and complexions. We have known others who could
touch nothing but literary meringues, novels, and whose
digestion revolted at solid food, but who crunched flum-
mery romance at all times of day and night, till the flum-
mery invaded their brains, filled their mouths, frothed in
their hearts ; and then tired of sweets they look out for
what is pungent or foul — like the old tobacco-pipes.

An unwholesome trick into which German women fall is
that of " naschen," of nibbling comfits and cakes all day
long. They carry cornets of bonbons in their pockets, and
have recourse to them every minute. They suffer much
from disordered digestion, and fall into the green sickness,
because they lack iron in the blood. How can they have
iron in the blood when they eat only sugar ? Our English
girls have a similar infirmity, they nibble at novels, pick at
the unsubstantial, innutritious stuff that constitutes fiction
all day long. Do they lack iron in their moral fibre?
Are their souls bloodless and faint with the green sickness ?
How can it be other on a diet of flummery.

The stomach of the nibbler never hungers, only craves ;
the appetite is supplanted by nausea. The symptoms of
disorder are permanent; languor of interest, debility of

88 ARMINELL.

principle, loss of energy in purpose, a disordered vision, and
creeping moral paralysis.

If Arminell had reached the condition of one of these
novel-nibblers, what she had heard would have produced no
effect upon her heart or brain because neither heart nor
brain would have been left in her. But she had not been
a habitual novel-reader, she had read whatever came to
hand, indiscriminately ; and the flummery of mere fiction
would never have satisfied her, because she possessed, what
the novel-nibblers do not possess, intelligence. No con-
trol had been exercised over her reading, consequently she
had read things that were unsuitable. She had a strong
character, without having found outlets for her energy. A
wise governess would have tested her, and then led her to
pursuits which would have exerted her ambition and occu-
pied her interest ; but her teachers had been either wedded
to routine or intellectually her inferiors. Consequently she
had no special interests, but that inner eagerness and fire
which would impel her to take up and follow with enthu-
siasm any object which excited her interest. Her friends
said of Arminell with unanimity that she was a disagreeable
girl, but none said she was an empty-headed one.

On reaching the house, Arminell found that lunch was
over, and that her father had gone out. He had sauntered
forth, as the day was fine, to look at his cedars and pines
in the plantations, and with his pocket-knife remove the
lateral shoots. Lady Lamerton was taking a nap previous
to the resumption of her self-imposed duties at Sunday-
school.

Arminell was indisposed to go to school and afternoon
service in the church. After a solitary lunch she went up-
stairs to the part of the house where was Giles' school-room.
She had not seen her brother that day, and as the little
fellow was unwell, she thought it incumbent on her to visit
him.

ARMINELL. 89

She found the tutor, Giles Inglett {vulgo^ Jingles) Saltren,
in the room with the boy. Little Giles had a Noah's Ark
on the table, and was trying to make the animals stand on
their infirm legs, in procession, headed by the dove which
was as large as the dog, and half the size of the elephant.

Mr. Saltren sat by the window looking forth discon-
solately. The child had a heavy cold, accompanied by
some fever.

" If you wish to leave the school-room, Mr. Saltren," said
Arminell, " I am prepared to occupy your place with the
captive."

" I thank you. Miss Inglett," answered the tutor. " But
I have strict orders to go through the devotional exercises
with Giles this afternoon, the same as this morning."

^* I will take them for you."

" You are most kind in offering, but having been set my
tale of bricks to make without straw, I am not justified in
sending another into the clayfield, in my room."

" I see — this is a house of' bondage to you, Mr. Saltren.
You hinted this morning that you meditated an in exitu
Israel de Egypio.^''

The young man coloured.

" Vou tread too sharply on the heels of the pied de la
lettre, Miss Inglett."

" But you feel this, though you shrink from the expres-
sion of your thoughts. You told me yourself this forenoon
that you were not happy. If you leave us, whiiher do you
propose going ? "

" A journey in the wilderness for forty years."

*' With what Land of Promise in view ? "

*' I have set none before me."

" None ? I cannot credit that. Every man has his Land
of Promise towards which he turns his face. Why leave
the leeks and onions of Goshen, if you have but a stony
desert in view as your pasture ? I suppose the heart is a

90 ARMINELL.

binnacle with its needle pointing to the pole — though each
man may have a different pole. South of the equator, the
needle points reversedly to what it pointed north of it. An
anchor, an iron link, a nail even may divert the needle, but
to something it must turn."

" Miss Inglett — had Moses any personal hope to reach
and estabUsh himself in the land flowing with milk and
honey, when he led Israel from the brick-kilns ? He was
to die within sight of the land, and not to set foot thereon."

" But, Mr. Saltren ; who are your Israel? Where are the
brick-kilns ? Who are the oppressors ? "

"Can you ask?" The tutor paused and looked at the
girl. *' But I suppose you fail to see that the whole of the
civilised world is an Egypt, in which some are taskmasters
and others slaves; some enjoy and others suffer. Miss
Inglett — you have somehow invited my confidence, and I
cannot withhold it. It is quite impossible that the world
can go on as it has been, with one class drawing to itself all
that life has to offer of happiness, and another class doomed
to toil and hunger and sweat, and have nothing of the light
and laughter of life."

Arminell seated herself.

"Well," she said, "as Giles is playing with his wooden
animals, trotting out the contents of his ark; let us turn
out some of the strange creatures that are stuffed in our
skulls, and marshal them. I have been opening the window
of my ark to-day, and sending forth enquiries, but not a
blade of olive has been brought to me."

" As for the ark of my head," said the tutor, with a bitter
smile, " it is the reverse of that of Noah. He sent forth
raven and dove, and the dove returned, but the raven re-
mained abroad. W^ith me, the dark thoughts fly over the
flood and come hom.e to roost ; the dove-like ones — never."

"I am rather disposed," said Arminell, laughing, "to
liken my head to' a rookery in May. The matured thoughts

ARMINELL. 9 1

are a-wing and wheeling, and the just fledged ones stand
cawing at the edge of their nests, with fluttering wings,
afraid to fly, and afraid to stay and be shot."

" To be shot ?— by whom ? "

"Perhaps, by your wit. Perhaps by my lord's blunderbuss."

" I will not level any of my poor wit at them. Let your
thoughts hop forth boldly that I may have a sight of them."

An exclamation of distress from Giles.

" What is the matter ? " asked Arminell, turning to her
brother.

" The girafle has broken his leg, and I want him to stand
because he has such a long neck."

" If you were manly, Giles, you would not say, the giraffe
has broken his leg, but — I have broken the giraffe's leg."

" But I did not, Armie. He had been packed too tightly
with the other beasts, and his leg was so bent that it broke."

*' Mend it with glue," she advised.

*' I can't — it is wrong to melt glue on Sunday. Mamma
would not like it."

The conversation had been broken along with the giraffe's
leg, and neither Arminell nor young Saltren resumed it for
some time. Presently the girl said, ''Mr. Saltren, do you
know what sort of men Addison called Fribblers? They
are among men what flirts are among women, drawing girls
on and then disappointing them. There are plenty of flirts
and fribblers in other matters. There are flirts and fribblers
with great social and religious questions, who play with
them, trifle with them, hover about them, simulate a lively
interest in them, and then — when you expect of them a
decision and action on that decision, away they fly in
another direction, and shake all interest and inquiry out of
their thoughts. I have no patience with such flirts or
fribblers." She spoke with a little bitterness. She was
thinking of her step-mother. The tutor knew it, but did
not allow her to see that he did.

92 ARMINELL.

''Do you not think," he said, "that they fribble from a
sense of incompetence to grapple with these questions?
The problems interest them up to a certain point. Then
they see that they are too large for them, or they entail
consequences they shrink from accepting, consequences
that will cost them too dear, and they withdraw."

''Like the young man in the Gospel who went away
sorrowful for he had great possessions. He was a fribbler."

"Exactly. He was a fribbler. He was insincere and
unheroic."

" I could not fribble," said Arminell, vehemently. " If
I see that a cause is right, I must pursue it at whatsoever
consequence to myself. It is of the essence of humdrum
to fribble. Do you know, Mr. Saltren, I have had a
puzzling problem set before me to-day, and I shall have no
rest till I have worked it out? Why is there so much
wretchedness, so much inequality in the world ? "

"Why was Giles' giraffe's leg broken ? "

Arminell looked at him with surprise, suspecting that in-
stead of answering her, he was about to turn off the subject
with a joke.

"The world," said Saltren, 'is like Giles' Noah's Ark,
packed full — over full — of creatures of all kinds, and packed
so badly that they impinge on, bruise, and break each other.
Not only is the giraffe's leg broken, but so are the rim of
Noah's hat, and the ear of the sheep, and the tusk of the
elephant. It is a congeries of cripples. We may change
their order, and we only make fresh abrasions. The pro-
boscis of the elephant runs into the side of the lamb, and
Noah's hat has been knocked off by the tail of the raven.
However you may assort the beasts, however carefully you
may pack them, you cannot prevent their doing each other
damage."

Mr. Saltren turned to little Giles and said : —

" Bring us your box of bricks, my boy."

ARMINELL. 93

" It is Sunday," answered the child. " Mamma would
not wish me to play with them."

" I do not wish to make a Sabbath-breaker of you,"
answered the tutor, " nor are your sister and I going to do
other than build Babel with them — which is permissible of
a Sunday."

The little boy slid off his seat, went to his cupboard, and
speedily produced the required box, which he gave to Mr.
Saltren.

The tutor drew forth the lid. The bricks were all in
place compacted in perfect order.

Then he said, with half-sneer, half-laugh, " There are no
gaps between them. The whole assemblage firm as it were
one block. Not a breakage anywhere, not room for a
breakage."

'• No," said Arminell, " of course not. They all fit exactly
because they are all cubes. The bricks," she laughed,
" have no long necks like the giraffe, or legs or horns, or
proboscis, or broad-brimmed hats, liable to be broken. Of
course they fit together."

"If you shake the ark — the least concussion produces a
breakage, one or two beasts suffer. You may toss the box
of bricks about ; and nothing is hurt. Why ? "

Arminell was impatient. "Of course the reason is
plain."

" The reason is plain. The bricks are all equal. If it
were so in the world of men, there would be no jars, no
fractures, no abrasions, but concord, compactness, peace."

Arminell said nothings She closed her eyes and sat
looking at the bricks, then at the animals Giles had arranged.

The tutor said no more, but his eyes, bright and eager,
were on the girl's face.

Presently Arminell had gathered her thoughts together
sufficiently to speak.

"That, then, is the solution you offer to my problem.

94 ARMINELL.

But to me it does not seem solved. There the animals
are. They are animals — and not bricks."

"They are animals, true, but they must be shaken and
shaken t gether, till all their excrescences are rubbed away,
and then they will fit together and find sufficiency of room.
That is how marbles are made. Shapeless masses of stone
are put in a bag and rattled till all their edges and angles
are rattled off."

"What an ark would remain! You complain of some
animals crippHng others, this scheme of yours would involve
a universal mutilation — the animals resolved into undis-
tinguishable, shapeless, uninteresting trunks. The only
creature that would come out scatheless would be the slug.
All the rest would be levelled down to the condition of that
creature — which is a digesting tube, and nothing more."
Then Arminell stood up. " It is time for me to be off,"
she said ; " her ladyship will be back from church, and oh !
Mr. Saltren, I have interfered with the Psalms and
Lessons."

CHAPTER XL

IN THE AVENUE.

According to the classic story, the Sphinx demanded of all
who visited her the solution of an enigma — and that enigma
was Man.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, on a quiet ordinary Sunday
morning, Arminell, a young girl without experience, had
been confronted with the Sphinx, and set the same enigma,
an enigma involving others, like the perforated Chinese
puzzle-balls, an enigma that has been essayed and answered
repeatedly, yet always remains insoluble, that, as it has
assumed fresh aspects, has developed new perplexities.
Arminell had been wearied with the routine and restraint of
social life, its commonplace duties and conventionalities,
and had been fired with that generous though mistaken dis-
like to the insincerities and formalities of civilisation, so
often found among the young — generous, because bred of
truth ; mistaken, because it ignores the fact that the insin-
cerities impose on no one, and the formalities are made of
mutual compromises, such as render life, social life,
possible.

Arminell was in this rebellious mood, when she was
brought face to face with a problem beyond her powers to
unravel. She might as well, with a rudimentary knowledge
of algebraic symbols, have been set to work out Euler's
proof of the Binomial Theorem. She was like Fatima when
she opened Blue-Beard's secret chamber, and saw in it an

g6 ARMINELL.

array of victims. Of these victims disclosed to her, one
was JingleSj another Patience Kite ; then came Captain
Saltren and his wife ; and next hung in the dismal cabinet
of horrors, Samuel Ceely and Joan Melhuish. The world
was indeed a Blue-Beard's room. If you but turned the
key you saw an array of misery and tearful faces, and hearts
with blood distilling from them. It was more than that — it
was a box with a Jack in it. She had touched the spring,
and a monster had flown up in her face, not to be com-
pressed and buttoned down again.

How could the facts of existence be reconciled with the
idea of Divine Justice? On one side were men and women
born to wealth and position and happiness ; on the other,
men and women denied the least of the blessings of life.
Why were some of God's creatures petted and pampered,
and others kicked about and maltreated ? Was the world
of men so made from the beginning, or had things so come
about through man's mismanagement, and if so, where was
the over-ruling Providence which governed the world ?
When the Noah's Ark arrived new from the great toy-shop
whence issue the planets and spheres, were all the figures
round and fitted together, only afterwards in the rearrange-
ment to impinge on and mutilate each other? Or had they
been all alike in the beginning and had developed their
horns and proboscises, their tusks and broad-brimmed hats?
Life is a sort of pantomime, that begins with a fairy tale,
leads to a transformation scene, and ends, perhaps, with
low comedy. In a moment when we least expect it, ensues
a blaze of light, a spectacular arrangement of performers,
and then, away fall the trappings of splendour, and forth,
from under them, leap out harlequin, clown, and pantaloon.
The knights cast off their silver armour, the fairies shed
their gauzy wings, kings and queens depose their crowns
and sceptres, and there are revealed to us ordinary men and
women, with streaks of paint on their faces, and patches of

ARMINELL. 97

powder in their hair, perpetrating dismal jokes, the point of
which we fancy is levelled at ourselves.

To some men and women the transformation scene
arrives late in life, but to all inevitably at some time ; and
then when the scene on the stage before us is changed, a
greater transformation ensues within.

When we were children we believed that everything
glittering was gold, that men were disinterested and women
sincere. The transformation scene came on us, perhaps
with coruscations of light and grouping of colours and
actors, perhaps without, and went by, leaving us mistrustful
of every person, doubtful of everything, sceptical, cynical,
disenchanted. Is not — to take a crucial case — marriage
itself a grand transformation scene that closes the idyl of
youth, and opens the drama of middle age ? We live for a
while in a fairy world, the flowers blaze with the most
brilliant colours, the air is spiced as the breezes of Ceylon,
angels converse with men, and sing aethereal music, manna
floats down from heaven, containing in itself all sweetness ;
sun and moon stand still o'er us, over against each other,
not to witness a conflict, as of old in Ajalon, but to brighten
and prolong the day of glamour. Then the bride appears
before us, as Eve appeared to Adam, unutterably beautiful
and perfect and innocent, and we kneel in a rapture, and
dare not breathe, dare not speak, nor stir; and swoon in an
ecstasy of wonder and adoration.

Then tingle the marriage bells. The transformation
scene is well set with bridesmaids and orange-blossoms, and
a wedding breakfast, postboys with favours, and a shower
of rice, and then — ?

The fairy tale is over. The first part of the pantomime is
over. The colours have lost their brilliancy, the flowers
shrivel, the scents are resolved into smells of everyday life,
broiled bacon, cabbage water, and the light is eclipsed as by a
November fog. The men for the way-rate, the water-rate, and

gS ARMINELL.

the gas-rate are urgent to have a word with us. There descend
on our table at every quarter most bitter bills— those of the
butcher and the green-grocer, the milliner's little account,
and the heavy itemless bill from the doctor. What shall
we say about our Eve, the beautiful, the ail-but divine, the
ideal woman ? The ail-but divine turns out to have a
touchy temper and a twanging tongue, falls out with her
cook, dismisses her, and consequently serves you cold
mutton and underboiled potatoes.

The transformation is complete, and how does it leave
us? In a rage at our folly? Cursing our idealism?
Rasped and irritable ? Withdrawing more and more from
the society of our Eve, and our Eden turned to an espalier
garden, to our club ? So it is in many cases. The trans-
formation scene is a trial, and certain ones there are that
never recover the shock of disenchantment ; but there are
others, on the other hand, who endure, and to them comes
in the end a reward. These continue to sit in their box,
listless, paring their nails, turning the programme face down-
wards. Half contemptuously, wholly void of interest, they
lend a dull ear to w^hat follows, and look on with a wonder-
ing eye, convinced that the rest is farce and buffoonery and
a vexation of spirit, which must however be sat through ;
then, little by little fresh interests arise, tiny new actors
invade the stage, with sweet but feeble voices, saying no-
thing of point, yet full of poetry. The magic begins to
work once more, the little fingers weave a spell that lays
hold of heart and brain, and conjures up a new world of
fantasy. The flowers re-open and flush with colour, the
balmy air fans our jaded faces, again the songs of angels
reach our ears, the clouds dispel, the manna falls. Eve
resumes her beauty, not the old beauty of childlike inno-
cence and freshness, but that of ripened womanhood, of
sweet maternity, of self-command and self-devotion.

We sit hushed with our head in our hands, and look with

ARMINELL. 99

intense eye, and listen with sharpened ear, and the tears
rise and run down our cheeks. We have forgotten the old
Eden with its fantastic imaginations, in the more matured,
the richer, the fuller, and above all the more real paradise
that is now revealed.

In the case of Arminell Inglett there was no enchantment
of colour, no setting of tableau, for the transformation
scene ; it came on her suddenly but also quietly. In one
day, on a quiet country Sunday, when she walked out of
the dull and stuffy school, she passed, as it were, through a
veil, out of childland into the realm of Sphinx.

In the evening, after a dull dinner, instead of remaining in
the drawing-room with my lady, who had taken up a
magazine, Arminell put a shawl over her head and shoulders,
went forth into the garden, and thence to the avenue.

The evening was pleasantly warm, the weather beautiful ;
beneath the trees the dew did not fall heavily. A new
moon was shining. The girl thought over what she had
heard and seen that day — over the troubles and wrongs of
Captain Saltren, driven from his occupation, and yet chained
to the house that was his own, and with which he would not
part ; over the defiant scepticism of Patience Kite, at war
in heart with God and man ; over the suffering lives of
Samuel and Joan, united in heart, yet severed by fate, look-
ing to a common grave as the marriage bed, and Arminell
felt almost contempt for these latter, because they accepted
their lot without resentment. She thought over what young
Mr. Saltren had said about his own position, and she was
able to understand that it was one of difficulty and discom-
fort.

Then she turned her mind to the Sunday-school, where,
whilst outside of it, within the narrow confines of Orleigh
parish, there was so much of trouble and perplexity, my
lady was placidly teaching the children to recite as parrots
the names of the books of the Apocrypha, which they were

100 ARMINELL.

not to read for the establishment of doctrine, and Captain
Tubb was enunciating arrant nonsense about the names of
the Sundays preceding Lent.

The avenue was composed of ancient oaks. It was
reached from the garden, which intervened between the
house and it. The avenue was not perfectly in line,
because the lay of the land did not admit of its being
carried at great length without a curve, following the slope
of the hill that rose above it, and fell away below in park-
land to the river.

The walk was gravelled with white spar. It commanded
an exquisite view down the valley of the Ore, over rich
meadow-land and pasture, dotted with clumps of trees,
beech, chestnut, and Scotch pine. A line of alders
marked the course of the river, to where, by means of a
dam, it had been widened into a lake. On the further side
of the river, the ground gently rose in grassy sweeps to the
wooded hills. To the south-west the river wound away
about shoulders of richly-clothed hills, closing in on each
other, fold on fold. The avenue was most delightful in the
evening, when the setting sun gilded the valley with its
slant beams, turned the trunks of the pines scarlet, and cast
the shadows of the park trees a purple blue on the illumin-
ated grass.

Oaks do not readily accommodate themselves to form
avenues, they are contorted, gnarled, consequently oak
avenues are rarely met with. That at Orleigh had the
charm of being uncommon.

The evening was still, the sky was full of light, so much
so that the stars hardly showed. The light spread as a veil
from the north, from behind the Orleigh woods, and
reflected itself in the dew that bathed the grass. Arminell
was attached to this walk, in great measure because she
could at almost all times saunter in it undisturbed.

She had not, however, on this occasion, been in it half

ARMINELL. lOI

an hour, before she saw her father coming to her. He had
left his wine ; there were, as it happened, no guests in the
house, and he and the tutor had not many topics in
common.

" Well, Armie ! " he said, " I have come out to have a
cigar, and lean on you. My lady told me I should find
you here."

" And, papa, I am so glad you have come, for I want to
have a word with you."

" About what, child ? " Lord Lamerton was a direct
man — a man in his position must be direct to get through
all the business that falls to him, business which he cannot
escape from, however much he may desire it.

" Papa," said Arminell, " it is about the Saltrens."

" What about them ? "

" If you give up the manganese — what is Captain Saltren
to do?"

" Stephen will find work somewhere, never fear."

" But he cannot leave his house."

" That he will have to sell ; the railway company want
to cross Chillacombe at that point. He will get a good
price, far beyond the value of the house and plot of land."

" Papa — must the manganese be given up ?"

" Of course it must. I have no intention of allowing
myself to be undermined."

" But it is so cruel to the men who worked on it."

" Manganese no longer pays for working. There has
been a loss on the mine for the last five years. We are
driven out of the market by the Eiffel manganese. The
Germans work at less wage, and our men refuse to have
their wage reduced."

" But what are the miners to do ? "

"They were given warning that the mine would be
closed, as long as five years ago ; and the warning has been
renewed every year since. They have known that they

T02 ARMINELL.

must seek employment elsewhere. They will have to go
after work, work will not come to them — it is the same in
every trade. All businesses are liable to fluctuations, some
to extinction. When the detonating cap was invented, the
old trade of flint chipping on the Sussex downs began to
languish ; with the discovery of the lucifer match it ex-
pired altogether. When adhesive envelopes were intro-
duced, the wafer-makers and sealing-wax makers were
thrown out of work, and the former trade was killed out-
right. I was wont to harvest oak-bark annually, and put
many hundreds of pounds in my pocket. Now the
Americans have superseded tan by some chemical com-
position, and there is no further sale for bark. I am so
many hundreds of pounds the poorer."

** Yes, papa, that is true enough, but you have a resisting
power in you that others have not. You have your rents
and other sources of income to fall back on ; these poor
tradesmen and miners and artizans have none. I have read
that in Manitoba the secret of the magnificent corn crops is
found in this, that the ground is frozen in winter many feet
deep, and remains frozen in the depths all summer, but
gradually thaws and sends up from below the released
w^ater to nourish the roots of the wheat, which are thus fed
by an unfailing subterranean fountain. It is so with you,
you are always heavy in purse and flush in pocket, because
you also have your sources always oozing up under your
roots."

" My dear Armie, my subterranean source — the man-
ganese— is exhausted; for five years instead of being a
source it has been a sink."

"Whereas," continued Arminell, "the poor and the
artizan lie on shelfy rock, with shallow soil above it. A
drought — a week of sun — and they are parched up and
perish."

*' My dear girl, the analogy is false. The difference be-

ARMINELL. I03

tween us is between the rooted and the movable creature.
Do they not live on us, eat us, consume our superfluity ?
We are vegetables — that root in the soil, and the tradesmen
and artizans nibble and browse on us. The richer our leaf,
the more succulent our juices, the more nutriment we supply
to them. When they have eaten us down to the soil, they
move off to other pastures and nibble and browse there.
When we have recovered, and send up fresh shoots, back
they come, munch, munch, munch. If one supply fails,
others open. There is equipoise — I dare say there are
twice as many hands employed in making matches and
adhesive envelopes now, as there were of old chipping flints
and making wafers."

" That may be, but the drying up of one spring before
another opens must cause distress. Where is that other
one, that the necessitous may drink of it ? Ishmael was
dying of thirst in the desert on his mother Hagar's lap,
within a stone's throw of a well of which neither knew till it
was shown them by an angel."

" Of course there is momentary distress, but the means
of locomotion are now so great that every man can go about
in quest of work. Things always right themselves in the
end."

" They do not right themselves without the crushing and
killing of some in the process. Tell me, papa, how is this
to be explained? I have to-day encountered two poor
creatures who have loved each other for twenty years, and
are too abject in their poverty to be able even now to
marry. No fault of either accounts for this. Acdideni-,
misfortune, divide them — such things ought not to be."

" But they are — they cannot be helped."

" They ought not to be — there must be fault somewhere.
Either Providence in ruling destinies rules them crooked,
or the social arrangements brought about by civilization are
to blame."

104 ARMINELL.

" Here, Annie, I cannot follow you. I am content with
the providential ordering of the world."

" Of course you are, papa, on fifty thousand a year."

*' You interrupt me. I say I am content with the social
structure as built up by civilization."

'* I have no doubt about it — you are a peer. But what
I want to know is, how do the providential and social
arrangements look to the Fredericks with the Empty
Pockets, not what aspect they wear to Maximilian and Le
Grand Monarque. Do you suppose that Captain Saltren is
content that his liveHhood should be snatched from him ;
or Patience Kite that her father and mother should have
died, leaving her in infancy a waif; or Samuel Ceely, that
he should have blown off his hand and blown away his life's
happiness with it, and dislocated his hip and put his fortunes
for ever out of joint thereby, so as to be for ever incapaci-
tated from making himself a home, and having a wife and
little children to cling about his neck and call him father ? "

** Old Sam was not all he ought to have been before he
met with his accidents."

" Nor are any of us all we ought to be. Papa, why should it
have fallen to your lot to have two wives, and Samuel
Ceely be denied even one ? "

" Upon my word, Armie, I cannot tell."

" I do not suppose you can see how those are who live on
the north side of the hill always in shade and covered with
mildew, when you bask on the south side always in sun,
where the strawberries ripen early, and the roses bloom to
Christmas."

" I beg your pardon, child, I have had my privations.
We cannot afford to go to town this season. I have had to
make a reduction in my rents of twenty per cent. I get
nothing from my Irish property, cannot sell my bark, lose
by my manganese. Are you satisfied ? "

" No, papa, your privations are loss of luxuries, not of

ARMINELL. I05

necessaries. Those who have been exposed to buffets of
fortune, been scourged by the cynical and cruel caprice
which rules civilized life, will rise up and exact their
portions of life's pleasures and comforts. They will say, —
we will not be exposed to the chance of being full to day
and empty to-morrow, of working without hope — like
Samuel and Joan."

" Sam does not work."

"That is the fault of Providence which blew off his
hand and distorted his leg. I say, the needy and the
workers will ask why we should be well-dressed, well-
housed, well-fed, hear good music, buy good pictures, ride

good horses " her thoughts moved faster than her

words ; she broke off her sentence without finishing it.
** Papa ! why, at a meet, should Giles have his pony and
little Cribbage run on his feet ? "

'^ Upon my soul," answered Lord Lamerton, " I can't
answer in any other way than this — because I keep a pony
and the rector does not for bis little boy."

" But, papa, I think the time must come when you will
have to justify your riding a good hunter and wearing a red
coat; and I for wearing a tailor-made habit, whilst Miss
Jones has but a skirt."

" Look here, Armie," said her father, " how dense, how
like snow the fog is lying on the pasture by the water."

*' Yes, papa, but "

" There is no fog here, on the higher land."

"No, papa."

*' There is frost below when there is none here."

" Yes, papa."

" Why so ? "

" Because that lies low, and this high."

" But why should that lie low, and this high ? "

" Of course, because — it is the configuration of the
land."

Io6 ARMINELL.

" But how unreasonable, how unjust, that there should
be such configuration of the land, as you call it. There
should be no elevations and no depressions anywhere — a
universal flat is the landscape for you."

Arminell winced She saw the drift of her father's
remarks.

" My dear," he said, " there must be inequalities in the
social level, but I am n t sure that these very inequalities
do not give charm and richness to the social picture.
Each level has its special flora. The marigold and the
milkmaid and the forget-me-not love the low moist bottom
where the fog and frost hang, and will not thrive here.
Those ups and downs, those hills and valleys which so
shock your sense of fitness, are the secret of richness, are
the secret of fertility. In equatorial Africa, Dr. Schweinfurth
found a dead level and perennial swamp. In Mid-Asia,
Hue traversed an Alpine plateau absolutely sterile. It is a
very unreasonable thing to some that our moors should
contain so many acres of unprofitable bog, that they should
be sponges receiving, and growing nothing. They say that
we, the wealthy, are these absorbing sponges, unprofitable
bogs of capital. But, my dear child, if the bogs were all
drained, all the water would run off as fast as it fell. They
retain the water and gradually discharge it on the thirsty
Ijwlands. And so is it with us. We spend what we
receive and enrich therewith those beneath. But come — I
shall go in. I am feehng chilled."

" I will take another turn first," said Arminell.

" Don't fret yourself, my dear," said her father, " about
these matters. Take the world as it is."

" Papa — that advice comes too late. I cannot."

CHAPTER XII.

SINTRAM.

Lord Lamerton returned to the house ; he threw away his
cigar-end, and went in at the snuggery door, the door into
the room whither the gentlemen retired for pipes and spirits
and soda-water, a room ornamented with foxes' heads and
brushes, whips, hunting-pictures, and odds and ends of all
sorts. He shut the door and passed through it into that
part of the house in which was the schoolroom, and Giles'
sleeping apartment. As he entered the passage. Lord
Lamerton heard piercing shrieks, as from a child yelling in
terror or pain.

In a moment. Lord Lamerton ran up the stairs towards
the bedroom of his son. The nurse was there already, with
a light, and was sitting on the bed, endeavouring to pacify
the child. Giles sat up in his night-shirt, in the bed clothes,
with his eyes wide open, his fair head disordered, striking
out with his hands in recurring paroxysms of terror.

" What is the matter with him ? " asked the father.

" My lord — he has been dreaming. He has had one or
two of these fits before. Perhaps his fever and cold have
had to do with it." Then hastily to Giles who began to
kick and beat, and went into a fresh fit of cries, " There,
there, my dear, your papa has come to see you. Have you
nothing to say to him ? "

But the little boy was not to be quieted. He was either
still asleep, or, if awake, he saw something that bereft him
of the power of regarding anything else.

To8 ARMINELL.

" There will be no questioning him, my lord, till he is
thoroughly roused," said the nurse.

" Bring me a glass of water."

Whilst the woman went for the tumbler, Lord Lamerton
seated himself on the bedside, and drew the little boy up,
and seated him on his lap.

" Giles, my darling, what is the matter ? "

Then the little fellow clung round his father's neck, and
the tears broke from his eyes, and he began to sob.

" What is the matter, my pet, tell me ? Have you had
bad dreams ? Here, drink this draught of cold water."

'• No, no, take it away," said the child. " I want papa
to stay. Papa, you won't be taken off, will you ? Papa,
you will not leave me, will you ? "

" No, my dear. What have you been thinking about ? " ,

*' I have not been thinking. I saw it."

" Saw what, Giles ? "

Lord Lamerton stroked the boy's hair ; it was wet with
perspiration, and now his cheeks were overflowed with
tears. The shrieks had ceased. He had recovered suffi-
cient consciousness to control himself ; " Papa I was at the
window."

" What, in your night-shirt ? After you had been put to
bed ? That was wrong. With your heavy cold you should
not have left your bed."

The child seemed puzzled.

*'Papa, I do not understand how it was. I would not
have left my bed for the world, if I thought you did not
wish it ; and I do not remember getting out — still, I must
have got out ; for I was at the window."

'* He has not left his bed. He has been dreaming, my
lord," explained the nurse in an undertone; and Lord
Lamerton nodded.

" Papa, dear."

" Yes, my pet."

ARMINELL. I09

" Are you listening to me ? "

*' I am all attention."

" Papa, I was at the window. But I am very sorry that I was
there, if you are annoyed. I will not do it again, dear papa.
And the moon was shining brightly on the drive. You
know how white the gravel is. It was very white with the
moon on it. I did not feel at all cold, papa ; feel me, I am
quite warm."

" Yes, my treasure, go on with your story."

** Then I watched something black come all the way up
the drive, from the lodge-gates, through the park. I could
not at first make out what it was, but I saw that it was
something very, very black, and it came on slowly like a
great beetle. But when it was near, then I saw it was a
coach drawn by four black horses, and there was a man on
the box, driving, and he was in black. There was no silver
nor brass mounting to the harness of the horses, or I should
have seen it sparkle in the moonlight. And, dear papa, the
coach stole on without making any noise. I saw the horses
trotting, and the wheels of the coach turning, but there was
no sound at all on the gravel. Was that not strange ? "

" Very strange indeed, my dear."

"But there was something much stranger. I saw that
the horses had no heads, and also that the coachman had
no head. His hat with the long weeper was on the top of
the carriage. He could not wear it because he was without
a head. Was not that queer ? "

" Very queer," answered Lord Lamerton, and signed to
the nurse to leave the room. His face looked grave, and
he held the little boy to his heart, and kissed his forehead
with lips that somewhat quivered.

" Then, papa, the carriage stopped at the entrance, and I
could see through the window panes to the gravel with the
moon on it, on the other side, and there was no one at all
in the coach. It was quite, quite empty."

no ARMINELL.

" Did you not think it was Dr. Blewett come to see you,
my little man ? "

" No, papa, I did not think anything about whose coach
it was. But when it remained at the door, and no one got
out, I saw it must be staying for some one to enter it."

" And did any one come out of the house ? "

Then the little boy began to sob again, and cling round
his father's neck, and kiss him.

"Well, my dear Giles?"

" Oh, papa ! — you will not go away ! — I saw you come
out of the door, and you went away in the coach — "

" I ! " Lord Lamerton drew a sigh of relief. The dream
of the dear little fellow, associated with his illness, had pro-
duced an uneasy effect on his father's mind — he feared it
might portend the loss of the boy, but if the carriage waited
only for himself — !

*' That, papa, was why I cried, and was frightened. You
will not go ! you must not go !'* The child trembled, clasping
his father, and rubbing his wet cheek against his father's face.

Then Lord Lamerton called the nurse from the next room.
" Master Giles," he said, " is not thoroughly roused. The
current of his thoughts must be diverted. Throw that thick
shawl over him. I will carry him down into the drawing-
room to my lady, and show him a picture-book. Then he
will forget his dream and go to sleep. Come for him in a
quarter of an hour."

The nurse did as required. Then Lord Lamerton stood
up, carrying his son, who laid his head on his father's
shoulders, and so he bore him through the passages and
down the grand staircase to the drawing-room. The little
fair face rested on the shoulder, with the fair hair hanging
down over the father's back, and one hand was clutched in
the collar. Lord Lamerton kissed the little hand. He was
not afraid of making the child's cold worse, the evening was
so warm.

ARMINELL. Ill

Lady Lamerton was sitting on a settee with a reading
lamp on a table at her side, engaged on an article in one of
the contemporary magazines, on Decay of Belief in the
World.

Lady Lamerton was a good woman, who on Sunday
would on no account read a novel, or a book of travels, or
of profane history. Her Sabbatarianism was a habit that
had survived from her childish education, long after she had
come to doubt its obligation or advisability. But, though
she would not read a book of travels, memoirs or history,
she had no scruple in reading religious polemical literature.
On one Sunday she found that miracles were incredible by
intelligent beings, and next Sunday she had her faith in the
miraculous re-established on the massive basis of a maga-
zine article.

For an entire fortnight she laboured under the impression
that Christianity had not a leg to stand on, and then, on
the strength of another article, was sure it stood on as
many as a centipede. For a while she supposed that dog-
mas were the cast cocoons of a living religion, and then,
newly instructed, harboured the belief that it was as impos-
sible to preserve the spirit of religion without them as it is
to keep essences without bottles. At one time she sup-
posed the articles of the creed to be the shackles of faith,
and then that they were the characters by which faith was
decipherable.

The sun was at one time supposed to be a solid incan-
descent ball, but astronomers probed it with their probo-
scises, and found that the body was enveloped in sundry
wraps, which they termed photosphere and chromosphere,
and which acted as jacket and overcoat to the body, which
was declared to be black as that of a Hottentot. Some
fresh proboscis-poking revealed the fact that the blackness
supposed to be the sun-core was in fact an intervening
vapour or rain of ash, and when this was perforated, the

IT2

ARMINELL.

very body of the sun was seen, red as that of an Indian,
sullenly glowing, lifeless, almost lightless, a cinder. More-
over, the spectroscope was brought to analyse the constitu-
ents of the photosphere and to determine the metals in a
state of incandescence composing it.

Lady Lamerton, looking through the telescopes of maga-
zine articles and reviews, was continually seeing deeper into
the great luminous, heat-giving orb of Christianity ; was
shown behind its photosphere, taught to despise its chromo-
sphere, and saw exhibited behind them blackness, exhausted
force, the ash of extinct superstitions. The critical spectro-
scope was, moreover, brought to bear on Christianity, and
to analyse its luminous atmosphere, and resolve it into alien
matter, none distinctively solar, all vulgar, terrestrial, and
fusible.

The astronomer assures us that the fuel of the sun must
fail, and then the world will congeal and life disappear out
of it, and the critic announces the speedy expiring of Chris-
tianity. But, as — indifferent to the fact that the sun like a
worn-out and made-up old beau is tottering to extinction —
Lady Lamerton ordered summer bonnets, and laid out ne\»
azalea beds, just so was it with her rehgion. She continued
to teach in Sunday-school, went to church regularly, read
the Bible to sick people, did her duty in society, ordered
her household, made home very dear to his lordship — in a
word, lived in the light and heat of that same Christianity
which she was assured, and by fits and starts believed, was an
exploded superstition. As Lord Lamerton brought little
Giles in his arms into the drawing-room, he whispered in
his ear, "Not a word about the coach to mamma," and
Giles nodded.

Lady Lamerton put her book aside and looked up.

" Oh, Lamerton ! What are you doing ? The boy is
unwell, and ought to be in bed."

" He has been dreaming, my dear ; has had the night-

ARMINELL. II3

mare, and I have brought him down for change, to drive the
frightening thoughts away. He will not take cold, he is in
flannel, and the shawl is round him. Besides, the evening
is warm."

*' He must not be here many minutes. He ought to be
asleep," said his mother.

"My dear, I have promised him a look at a picture-book.
It will make him forget his fancies. What have you over
there?"

" No Sunday stories or pictures, I fear."

" Yonder is a book in red — illustrated. What is it ? "

" ' Sintram ' — it is not a Sunday book."

" I have not read it for an age, but if I remember right,
the D — • comes into it."

" If that be the case it is perhaps allowable."

" What is the meaning of that picture ? " asked the little
boy, pointing to the first in the text. It was by Selous. It
represented a great hall with a stone table in the centre,
about which knights were seated, carousing. In the fore-
ground was a boy kneeling, beating his head, apparently
frantic. An old priest stood by, on one side, and a baron
was starting from the table, and upsetting his goblet of
wine.

" I cannot tell, I forget the story, it must be forty years
since I read it. I have not my glasses. Pass the book to
your mother, she will read."

Lady Lamerton ,drew the volume to her, and read as
follows : — "A boy, pale as death, with disordered hair and
closed eyes, rushed into the hall, uttering a wild scream of
terror, and clinging to the baron with both hands, shrieked
piercingly, ' Knight and father ! Father and knight ! Death
and another are closely pursuing me ! ' An awful stillness
lay like ice on the whole assembly, save that the boy
screamed ever the fearful words."

'' It is not a pretty story," said Lord Lamerton uneasily.

1 14 ARMINELL.

" Papa," whispered the boy, " I did not think that any-
thing was following me. I thought" — his father's hand
pressed his shoulders — " no, papa, I will not repeat it to
mamma."

" What is it, Giles ? " asked his mother, looking up from
the book.

" Nothing but this, my dear," answered Lord Lamerton,
" that I told Giles not to talk about his dreams. He must
forget them as quickly as possible."

" \Vhat is that priest doing?" asked the child, pointing
to the picture.

Lady Lamerton read further. " ' Dear Lord Biom,' said
the chaplain, * our eyes and thoughts have all been directed
to you and your son in a wonderful manner ; but so it has
been ordered by the providence of God.' "

" I think, Giles, we will have no more of ' Sintram ' to-
night. Let us look together at the album of photographs.
I will show you the new likeness of Aunt Hermione."

" Where is young Mr. Saltren ? " asked Lady Lamerton.

" I fancy he has gone to see his mother. If I remember
aright, he said, after dinner, that he would stroll down to
Chillacot."

" There comes nurse," said Lady Lamerton. " Now,
Giles, dear, you must go to sleep, and sleep like a top."

" I will try, dear mamma." But he clung to and kissed
most lovingly, and still with a little distress in his flushed
face, his father. He had not quite shaken off" the impres-
sion left by his dream. When the boy was going out at
the door, keeping his head over his nurse's shoulder,
wrapped in the shawl. Lord Lamerton watched him lov-
ingly. Then ensued a silence of a minute or two. It was
broken by Lady Lamerton who said —

" We really cannot go on any longer in the crypt"

" The crypt ? "

" You must build us a new school-room. The basement

ARMINELL, II5

of the keeper's cottage is unendurable. It did as a make-
shift through the winter, but in summer the closeness is
insupportable. Besides, the noises overhead preclude
teaching and prevent learning."

" I will do what I can," said Lord Lamerton ; " but I
want to avoid building this year, as I am not flush of money
Such a room will cost at least four hundred pounds. It
must have some architectural character, as it will be near
the church, and must not be an eyesore. I wish it were
possible to set the miners to build, so as to relieve them ;
but they are incapable of doing anything outside their
trade."

"What will they do?"

" I cannot say. They have not been like the young
larks in the fable. These were alarmed when they over-
heard the farmer and his sons discuss the cutting of the
corn. But the men have been forewarned and have taken
no notice of the warnings. Now they are bewildered and
alarmed because they are turned off."

" Something must be done for them."

" I have been considering the cutting of a new road to
the proposed station ; but the position of the station can-
not be determined till Saltren has consented to sell Chilla-
cot, and he is obstinate and stupid about it."

" Then you cannot cut it till you know where the station
will be?"

" Exactly ; and Captain Saltren is obstructive. I am not
at all sure that his right to the land could be maintained.
I strongly suspect that I might reclaim it ; but I do not
wish any unpleasantness."

" Of course not. Is the road necessary ? "

" Not exactly necessary ; but I suppose work for the
winter must be found for the men. As we have not gone
to town this season, and if, as I propose, we abandon our
projected tour to the Italian lakes in the autumn, 1 daresay

Il6 ARMINELL.

we can manage both the road and the school-room ; but I
need not tell you, Julia, that I have had heavy losses. My
Irish property brings me in not a groat. I have lost heavily
through the failure of the Occidental Bank, and I have
reduced my rents, I am sorry for the men. Cornish min-
ing is bad, or the fellows might have gone to Cornwall.
Perhaps if I find them work on the new road, mines may
look up next year."

" Arminell has been speaking to me about Samuel Ceely.
She wants him taken on," said her ladyship. "She will
pay for him out of her own pocket."

Lord Lamerton's mouth twitched. " Arminell has asked
me why I should have been allowed two Lady Lamertons,
and he not one Mrs. Ceely."

" Arminell is an odd girl," said her ladyship. " But I
am thankful to find her take some interest in the pcor. It
is a new phase in her hfe."

" It seems to me," said Lord Lamerton, " that you and
Armie are alike in one particular, and unlike in another.
You both puzzle your brains with questions beyond your
calibre, you with theological, she with social questions ;
but you are unlike in this, that you take your perplexities
easily, Arminell goes into a fever over hers."

" It is a bitter sorrow to me that I cannot influence her,"
said Lady Lamerton humbly. " But I believe that no one
devoid of definite opinions could acquire power over her.
I see that so much can be said, and said with justice on all
sides of every question, that all my opinions remain, and
ever will remain, in abeyance."

" I sincerely trust that the minx will not fall under the
influence of those who are opinionated."

'* Arminell is young, vehement, and, as is usual with the
young, indisposed to make allowance for those who oppose
what commends itself to her mind, or for those who do not
leap at conclusions with the same activity as herself"

ARMINELL. II7

*' And she is pert ! " said Lord Lamerton. " Upon my
soul, Julia, it is going a little too far to take me to task for
having been twice married. And again, when I said some-
thing about my being content with the providential ordering
of the world, she caught me up and told me that anyone
with a coj-onet and fifty thousand a year would say the same.
I have not that sum this year anyhow. Girls nowadays are
born without the bump of reverence, and with that of self-
assurance unduly developed."

Neither spoke for a few minutes.

Presently Lord Lamerton, who was looking depressed,
and was listening, said :

" Hark ! Is that Giles crying again ? "

" I heard nothing."

"Possibly it was but my fancy. Poor little fellow.
Something has upset him. It was unfortunate, Julia, our
lighting on ' Sintram.' "

He stood up.

" I am not easy about the dear little creature. Did you
see, Julia, liow he kissed me and clung to me ? "

'* He is very fond of you, Lamerton."

" And I of him. I think I shall be more easy if I go up
and see our Sintram, and learn whether he is asleep, or
whether the bad dreams are threatening him. Poor little
Sintram ! "

" You will come back, Lamerton ? "

"Yes, dear, when I have seen and kissed my little
Sintram."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE PRIVILEGED CLASS.

" Is it not a sad reflection," said Lady Lamerton on the re-
turn of his lordship, " that the men who influence others
are those of one idea, in a word, the narrow ? Because
they are borne in mental vision, ignorant and prejudiced,
they throw the whole force of their wills in one direction,
they become battering rams, and the harder their heads the
heavier the blows they deal. If we have knowledge,
breadth of vision, charity, we cease to be certain, are no
longer bigots, and our power of impressing others fails in
proportion to our liberality. I feel my own incompetence
with Arminell, but not with Arminell alone. I am conscious
of it when taking my Sunday class. I dare insist on no-
thing, because I am convinced of nothing. I am so much
afraid of laying stress on any religious topic, which has been,
is, or may be controverted, that I restrain myself to the ex-
planation of those facts which I know to be indisputable.
I teach the children that when Ahasuenis sent young men
with letters riding on dromedaries, these animals had two
humps ; whereas when Rebekah lighted down ofl" her camel
to meet Isaac, her creature had but one hump. And I
console the dying with the last bulletins of the Palestine
Exploration Fund determining the site of Ezion Geber.
You know, my dear Lamerton, that there are in the at
mosphere nitrogen which is the negative gas, oxygen which
is positive, and carbonic acid which is deleterious to life. I

ARMINELL. II9

suppose it is the same with the spiritual atmosphere
breathed by the soul, only the oxygen is so hard — nay, to
me so impossible to extract, and I am so scrupulous not to
communicate any carbonic acid to my scholars, that I fill the
lungs of their souls with nitrogen only — a long category of
negatives."

" What you teach matters little. The great fact of your
kindness and sympathy and sense of duty remains undis-
turbed, unassailable," said Lord Lamerton.

" My dear," said her ladyship, " I wish I could be of
more use than I am ; but I am like Mrs. Quickly in the
* Merry Wives of Windsor,' who held commissions simul-
taneously for Doctor Caius, Slender and Fenton, and
wished each and all success in his suit for sweet Anne Page.
I am not a power, or anything appreciable, because my
judgment hangs ever in suspense and flickers like a needle
in a magnetic storm. When I hear our dear good rector
lay down the law with thump of cushion in the pulpit, I
know he is thoroughly sincere and that sincerity is the out-
come of conviction. All this emphasis would go were he
to read such-or-such an article in the Westminster Revieiv^
because his conviction would be sapped. But, without his
conviction would he be of much use? Would he carry
weight with his rustic audience ? They value his discourses
as the Israelite valued the strong blast that brought quails.
If his mighty lungs blew nothing but vagueness, would they
care to listen, or if they listened would they pick up any-
thing where nothing was dropped? I am sure that the
great leaders of men were men of one idea. Look at the
apostles, illiterate fishermen, but convinced, and they upset
heathendom. Look at Mahomet, an epileptic madman, be-
lieving absolutely in only one thing — himself, and he
founded Islam. Calvin, Luther, St. Bernard, Hildebrand,
all were men of one idea, allowing of no Ifs and Buts to
qualify. That was the secret of their strength. It is the

I20 ARMINELL.

convex glass that kindles a fire, not that which is
even."

"The narrow can only influence the ignorant"

" The narrow will always influence the bulk of men, for
the bulk of mankind is ignorant, not perhaps of the three
R's, but of the compensating forces which keep the social
and political systems from flying to pieces."

" Thank heaven, Julia, the country is not in the hands of
fanatics to whirl her to destruction."

" How long will it remain so ? There are plenty of hot-
brained Phaethons who think themselves capable of driving
the horses of the sun, and who have not yet learned to
control themselves. To my mind, Lamerton, our class is
the fly-wheel that saves the watch from running down at a
gallop, and marking no progress at all. In the chronometer
the balance-wheel is made up of two metals with difl"erent
powers of contraction and expansion, one holds the other
in check, and produces equiHbrium. The wheel oscillates
this way, that way, and acts as a controlling power on the
mainspring and modifies the action of the wheels. Our
class is so constituted with its double character, is so
brought into relation with all parties in politics, is so as-
sociated with every kind of interest in the country, that it is
swung this way, that way, is kept in perpetual vibration, and
acts as an effective regulator on the violent forces in the
political and social world — forces confined, and strong be-
cause confined, forces w^hich keep the machine going, but
which uncontrolled would wreck it." -

**I dare say you are right, Julia, I have no doubt the
social classes are all as, and where they ought to be, super-
posed as geologic strata, but wonderfully contorted, it must
be allowed, in places. To change the subject — what have
you said to Arminell about that fellow for whom she
pleaded?"

« Samuel Ceely ? "

ARMINELL. 121

" Yes, that is his name."

"He is a poor creature," said Lady Lamerton, "a cripple."

'■' If I remember right he was a scamp at one time and
got into one or two scrapes, but what they were, 'pon my
soul, I do not remember."

" He is harmless enough now," said Lady Lamerton.
" I have him on my list of those for whom I pay into the
shoe-club, and the clothing club, the blanket and the coal
clubs. The rector's wife said it was a pity he should miss
the advantages, which he must do, as he is too poor to pay,
and he needs them more than many who receive them. So
I have him on my list of those for whom I pay. I have
told Arminell that he can work in the glen. That requires
to be done up, it has been neglected for so many years.
The paths and the summer-house, the benches, the water-
fall, are all out of order. Giles may like to play there.
Arminell will pay the man out of her allowance, it is her own
wish. And now, Lamerton, I also will change the subject,
and that to one which I am not sure I ought to mention
on a Sunday. I am glad for one thing, that we do not go
to town for the season, as it will enable us to show some
civility to the country people, the squires and the parsons.
Really, when we have the house full of our friends, we can-
not do it, the groups do not amalgamate, they have so few
subjects in common. I have thought of a garden-party for
Wednesday week. You will mind and make no engage-
ments for that day."

" I will book it — to be at home on Wednesday week."
Lord Lamerton seated himself, and the light of his wife's
reading lamp fell on his face.

" Are you not feeling well ? " she asked. " You look
pale, dear."

*' It is nothing," he replied. " I may have caught a slight
chill in the avenue, as no doubt the dew is falling, and there
are no clouds in the sky. The night is very still and lovely,

122 ARMINELL.

Julia. No — I think not — no, I cannot have been chilled
there. I do not know what it is. Well — I will not say that
either. To tell you the whole truth, I am worried."

" Worried ? About what ? "

" 1 am uneasy, for one thing, about Arminell. She has
got queer fancies in her head. Giles also is not well ; and
there is something further — in itself nothing, but though a
trifle it is distressing me greatly."

"What is it?"

"The leaders of my choice pines, which I had planted
about the grounds, have been maliciously cut off. The
thing has been done out of spite, and to hurt me, and yet
the real sufferers are yet unborn. A hundred years hence
these trees would have been admired for their stateliness —
and now they are mutilated. I shall be dead and forgotten
long before any tree I have put in comes to size. I am
pained — this has been aimed at me, to wound me. I fear
this has been done because I have refused to allow my
house to be undermined."

" Who can have done it ? "

" I do not know. If I did know, I would not prosecute.
That is one of the privileges of our privileged class — to
bear injuries and impertinences without resentment. I am
hurt — I am hurt greatly. The matter may be a trifle " — his
lordship stood up — "but — after all I have done for the
Orleigh people — it does seem unkind."

Lady Lamerton put out her hand, and took that of her
husband. " Never mind," she said ; " he who did it will
come to regret it."

" The injury does not touch the Lamertons alone," said
his lordship ; " we throw open the park and gardens every
Saturday to the public, and we allow Bands of Hope, and
Girls' Friendly Societies, and Choirs, and all sorts of agglo-
merations of men to come here and picnic in our grounds
and strew them with sandwich papers and empty ginger-

ARMINELLt 1 23

beer bottles, and cut their initials on the park gates and
trees. A century hence the trees that have been mutilated
would have grown into magnificence, and overshadowed
heaven knows what — political, social or religious holiday-
taking companies and awkward squads."

" Put in some more pines, next autumn."

" What with rabbits and the public, planting is discourag-
ing work. It costs a lot of money, and you get no satisfac-
tion from it. My dear Julia, it is one of the privileges — no
. — drawbacks of our class, that we expose a wide surface to
the envious and the evil-disposed. They can injure us in a
thousand ways, whereas our powers of self-protection are
unduly limited. If we try to save ourselves, we do our-
selves injury, as pigs when swimming cut their own throats
with their fore-claws."

*' Never mind that. Whom shall we invite — or rather,
whom must we omit ? I must send out cards of invitation
to our garden party at once."

" O, bother the garden party," said his lordship wearily.
" You and I hardly ever get a quiet evening together, so
now that we have one, let us forget the world outside and
some of these exacting and embarrassing duties we owe it.
Really, I envy those who, belonging to a less conspicuous
sphere, have their cosy evenings at home, their privacy and
peaceful joys. We are forced to live in publicity, we have
to fill our house with guests, lay ourselves out to entertain
them, keep a French cook for them — I am sure boiled
mutton and caper sauce would content me, — stock our
cellars for them, keep hunters and preserve the game for
them. Upon my word, Julia, we are not suffered to live
for ourselves. A selfish existence is with us impossible.
No monks or nuns ever gave up half so much, and lived so
completely for others, continually sacrificing their own
pleasures, leisure, thoughts, time, to others, — as we, the
British aristocracy."

124 ARMINELL.

" You are out of spirits to-night, Lamerton." His wife
retained his hand, and pressed it.

" Then," continued his lordship, following his own train
of thought, and not answering his wife's remark, perhaps
because he did not hear it, so full was his mind of the topic
then uppermost in it, " then, Julia, consider — we are
mounted specimens ; like those unfortunate worms in sour
paste, and monsters in a drop of dirty water, we were shown
by lime-light and a magnifying glass the other evening at
the National School, projected on a white sheet. The
whole room was crowded, and the bumpkins in the place
sat gazing as the lecturer pointed to the wriggling creatures,
named each in succession, and described it. What must
have been the discomfort to those animals, if in any degree
sensitive, to be exposed, stared at, glared through, com-
mented on ! and — consider — the lecturer may have misin-
terpreted them, because misunderstanding them, and they
lirtened to it all, squirmed a little more painfully, but were
incapable of setting him to rights. The German princes
are entitled durch-laucht, that is, * Transparencies ; ' and
quite right. We also are transparencies, we worms of the
aristocracy, monsters of privilege, held up before the public
eye, magnified, projected on newspaper sheets, characterised
sometimes aright, more often wrongly, forced to have every
nerve in our system, every pulsation in our blood, every motion
in our brains, every moment in our lives, and every writhe
of our bodies and spasm of our hearts commented on by
the vulgar, and brutally misunderstood. It is rather hard
on us, Julia. There are other worms in the sour paste of
life, other monsters in the drop of dirty water we call
Society, who are at liberty to turn about, and stretch them-
selves, bound or coil as they list ; only we — we must live
and wriggle between two plates of glass, illuminated and
made translucent by the most powerful known light, denied
that privilege which belongs to the humble — opacity."

ARMINELL. 1 25

*' Is it the injured pines that have put you out of spirits
to-night, Lamer ton ? " asked my lady, stroking the hand
she held.

" Did you ever read about Matthew Hopkins, the witch-
finder ? " asked his lordship, with a fluttering smile on his
lips. *' He brought many poor harmless creatures to a
violent end. Every suspected witch was stripped and
closely examined for a mole, a wart, for any blemish, — and
such blemishes were at once declared to be the devil's seals,
stamping the poor wretches as his own. Then they were
tied hand and foot together, and thrown into the water ; if
they sank they were pronounced innocent ; if they floated
they were declared guilty and were withdrawn from the
water to be delivered over to the fire. We, Julia, are
treated in a way not unlike that pursued by Matthew
Hopkins; and there are ten thousand amateur witch-
finders searching us, tearing off our clothes, peering after
defects, chucking us into the water or the fire. If we are
found to have moles, how we are probed with lancets, and
plucked with tweezers, and then we are cast to the flames
of public indignation and democratic wrath. If, however,
we are found to have no moles about us, if we give no
occasion for scandal, then away we are pitched into the
water, and down down we sink in public estimation, and
chill disregard, as coroneted nonentities."

Lady Lamerton continued to caress her husband's hand.

" Then again," he continued, after a short silence, " the
witches were tortured into confession by sleeplessness.
They were seated on uncomfortable stools, and watched
night and day. If they nodded, their soles were tickled
with feathers, cold water was poured down their backs, or
pepper was blown up their noses. As for us, it is the same,
we are not allowed to live quietly, we are forced to activity.
I am kept running about, giving prizes at school com-
memorations, taking seat on committees, laying foundation-

1 26 ARMINELL,

Stones, opening institutions, attending quarter sessions,
throwing wide my doors to every one, my purse to a good
many ; I am denied domesticity, denied rest. I am kept
in perpetual motion. I have a title, that means every one
else has a title to bully me. I am tickled into energy if
I nod, or the pepper of journalistic sarcasm is blown into
my eyes and nose to stir me to activity. Julia, a rich
merchant, or banker, or manufacturer, a well-to-do trades-
man Hves more comfortably than do we. In the first place
they can do what they will with their money — but we have
to meet a thousand claims on what we get, and are grudged
the remnant we reserve for our individual enjoyment.
Next, they are not exposed to ruthless criticism, to daily,
hourly comment, as we are. They are free, we are not ;
they can think first of themselves, afterwards of others,
whereas we have to be for ever considering others, and
thrusting ourselves into corners, thankful to find a comer
in which we may possess and stretch our individual selves.
Upon my soul, I wish I had been bom in another order of
humanity, without title, and land, and a seat in the Upper
House, and — and without manganese."

"Kit had been so—"

" If it had been so, then I could have enjoyed life,
stuck at home, and seen more of you, and Arminell, and
dear little Giles, and then — ^why then, I would have had no
enemies."

Lord Lamerton had reseated himself when he began to
talk of Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder. Now he stood
up again.

** Julia," he said, " those Douglas pines had made noble
shoots — it is a pity. I shall go to bed, and dream, if I can,
that I am lying in clover and not over a bunch of man-
ganese."

CHAPTER XIV.

MR. JAMES WELSH.

Mrs. Saltren had informed Arminell that she had a
brother who was a gentleman. The term " gentleman " is
derived from the Latin gens, and signifies a member of a
patrician family. But this is not the signification now given
it in the vernacular. On the tongue of the people, a
gentleman and a lady are those who do no manual labour.
A man informs you that he will be a gentleman on a bank-
holiday, because he will lounge about with his hands in his
pockets, and an old woman who has weeded turnips at
ninepence a day, becomes a lady when rheumatism invades
her limbs, and sends her to the union.

Mr. Tames Welsh, the brother of Mrs. Saltren, was a
gentleman in this, that he belonged to a gens, a class not
ancient or aristocratic, but modern, and one that has ob-
tained considerable influence, wields much power and is
likely to become dominant — we mean that of the professional
journalist and politician. He was agentleraan also in this,
that he did no hard manual labour, but few men worked
harder than he, but then he dirtied his hands with ink only.

Along the coasts of Scotland and Sweden are terraces
raised high above the sea-level, which are pronounced by
geologists to be ancient beaches. At one time the waves
washed where now sheep graze, and deposited sea-weed and
shells where now grow heather and harebells. There are
these raised sea-beaches in man, to which conscience at one

128 ARMINELL.

time reached, where it formed a barrier, and whence it has
retreated. But we are wrong in speaking of the retreat of
the sea, for actually the level of the ocean is permanent, it
is the land which rises, and as it rises leaves the sea below.
And so perhaps it is with us. We lift ourselves above old
convictions, scruples, principles, and the sometimes sleep-
ing, sometimes tossing sea of conscience no longer touches
those points they once fretted. Do we congratulate ourselves
on this elevation ? Perhaps so, and yet few of us can con-
template the raised beaches left in our hearts by the retiring
waves of conscience without a sigh, and a doubt.

Mr. James Welsh said and wrote and did many things as
a public journalist and a professional politician which as a
boy or young man he would have looked upon as dishonest,
false, and mischievous. His conscience no longer troubled
him in his business, but in home relations he was blameless.

Perhaps one reason why the sea-level alters with us, is
that we are always endeavouring to reclaim land from it,
thrusting our sea-walls of self-interest further out, to take in
more field from being overwashed. We make our line of
conscience co-terminous with our line of self-interest. Out-
side this line the waves may toss and roar, within they
may not cast a flake of foam, or waft a breath of ozone.
How much thunder and buffet we permit outside our sea-
wall of self-interest against any rock or sand-bank that
stands unenclosed ! but we only suffer the water of self-
reproach to sweep with a shallow swash and soothing
murmur the outside of the bank we have cast up.

What excellent words those are to conjure with and
wherewith blind our own eyes as well as those of others —
Political Party and the Public Weal ! We regard ourselves
as devoted to the respublica^ when, in reality, we care only
for our private interests ; and our zeal for the pubhc good
is hot or cold according as our dividends are affected.

If we can show that the welfare of our party can be

ARMINELL. 1 29

advanced by making out our neighbour to be a thief and
assassin, with what pious energy do we set to work to in-
vent lies to defame him. How we suppress and disguise
facts which make against our pet doctrines ! To what
subterfuges and tricks do we have recourse to colour those
facts which cannot be suppressed to make them look the
opposite to what we know them to be !

It is really deserving of note how every dirty and dis-
honourable act is wrapped about with a moral sanction, as
a comfit with a motto in a cracker.

We always profess to be actuated by noble and dis-
interested motives, and yet they are generally mean and
personal. Our ancestors regarded the planets only so far
as they by their conjunctions and interferences with each
other's houses affected the constitutions and careers of
these ancestors of ours. Jupiter is 1250 times larger than
the earth, and has seven moons, and this planet with its
moons revolves and illumines the sky to affect the spleen of
Master Jack Sparrow and disturb the courtship of Mistress
Jenny Wren. Jupiter is distant five hundred millions of
miles from Jack and Jenny — but what of that ? According
to Euclid a straight line can be drawn between any two
given points, accordingly between the planet at one end and
these little nobodies at the other, lines exist. Now all
people actually do draw invisible lines between themselves
and every other object in heaven and earth, and contemplate
these objects along these lines, and value and despise them
according as these objects affect them along these lines.

The author was travelling in a second-class railway-
carriage on that memorable Monday morning aftei the
Phoenix Park tragedy that thrilled all England with horror
and rage. Facing him, sat a gentleman reading his paper,
who ever and anon slapped his knee, and exclaimed,
"Famous! Splendid! Nothing better could have happened!"
Presently, unable to understand these exclamations, the

I

130 ARMINELL.

author asked, " Sir ! do you mean to say that you approve
of the crime ? "

" Oh, no ! " was his answer. " Certainly not, but, consider
how it will make the papers sell ! I have shares in one or
two."

The writer was talking the other day to a timber merchant
on the condition of Ireland. "I trust," said he, "that the
Plan of Campaign will not be suppressed as yet. We can
buy Irish oak at fourpence a foot just now."

The writer was discussing the annexation of Alsace with
a native farmer. " Well," said he, " when we belonged to
France I sold for a franc what I now sell for a mark, there-
fore, God save Kaiser Wilhelm." "But," was objected,
" probably you now have to pay a mark for what formerly
cost you a franc." He considered for a moment, and then
said, " That is true, vive la France ! " Twopence turned
his patriotism this way to Berlin, or that way to Paris. He
was a German when selling, a Frenchman when buying, all
for twopence.

The professional politician is a man who lives by politics
as the professional chess-player lives by chess. He acquires
a professional conscience. His profession has to fill his
pockets and find bread for his children, and politics must
be kept going to do so. The chess-player sacrifices pawns
to gain his end. The stoker shovels on coals into the
furnace to make his engine gallop ; and the electrician pours
vitriol into the battery to produce a current in his wires.
They have none of them the slightest scruple in doing these
things — they belong to the business, and the professional
politician has no scruple in playing with facts, and throwing
them away as pawns in his game, or of exciting the passions
and prejudices of men, or of using the most biting and
corroding acid in his endeavours to evoke a current of
feeling. Whenan organist desires to produce a noise, he pulls
out stop diapason, and dances on the pedals. The pro-

ARMINELL. I3I

fessional politician deals with the public in the same way ;
that is his instrument. What in the organ are the pedals
for but to be kicked, and the keys but to be struck, and the
stops but to be drawn out, and what are the social classes
but the manuals, and the individuals composing them, but
the keys, and the grudges, greed, ambition, envy, and pre-
judices but the stops, which a clever player undeistands to
manipulate ?

Mr. Welsh was a worthy man, eminently respectable, a
good husband, and a kind friend. , He was truthful, honest,
reliable in his family and social relations, but professionally
unscrupulous. The sea-line stood in its old place on one
side of his character, but on another a wide tract, that tract
on which he grew his harvest, had been reclaimed from the
waves of conscience. It is so with a good many others
besides Mr. Welsh, and in a good many other trades and
professions than journalism and politics. We are con-
scientious in every department except that of money making,
and in that we allow of tricks and meannesses, which we
excuse to ourselves as forced on us by the exigencies of
competition. Recently Mr. Welsh had been slightly in-
disposed, so he came from town into the country, on a
holiday, to spend the Sunday with his sister, and then run
on to see a congenial friend in a town in the same
county.

In the afternoon he took a stroll by himself in the woods,
smoking his pipe, and always with an eye to business, look-
ing about him for material for an article.

" Halloo ! " said Mr. Welsh, halting in front of the ruinous
cottage of Patience Kite. **What have we here? Does
any one inhabit this tumble-down concern ? "

He went to the door and looked in.

Patience faced him.

" What do you want ? Who are you ? This is my house,
and I will not be turned out of it.'

132 ARMINELL.

She took him for a sanitary officer, or a lawyer, come to
enforce her expulsion.

" This is a queer hole for a lady to occupy as her
boudoir," said Mr. Welsh, taking his pipe out of his mouth.
" I wouldn't care for this style of thing myself except as a
drawing copy. Not to become a hero of romance, or to give
my experience in a magazine article would I sleep under
that chimney on a stormy night."

"Nobody has invited you," said Patience, blocking her
door.

" And pray, madam, whose house is this ? Is this the
sort of cottage my lord provides for his tenants?"

" The house is mine."

" Copyhold or freehold ? "

" I pay ground rent for it of two shillings ; it is mine for
life, and then it falls to his lordship.'

" I should expect it would fall altogether to you shortly.
Why don't you do it up ? "

" How can I ? I am poor."

" I suppose that you are bound by the terms of the lease
to maintain the house in repair ? "

" I dare say. The agent, Mr. Macduff, has threatened
me ; but no one can make me do it when 1 haven't a shill-
ing. You can't make one dance who is born without legs."

" Then, properly, this house belongs to his lordship. Why
does not he do it up? I can make something out of this !
A Day in the Country, something to fill a column and a-
half in a Monday morning paper. Contrast his lordship's
princely residence with the ruins in which he pigs his
tenants. Compare Saltren's place, Chillacot, which is his
own, all in spic-and-span order, with this, and then a word
about the incubus of the great holders on the land, and the
advantage of the enfranchisement of the soil. It will do.
And so, madam, they have tried to evict you ? "

" Yes ; the sanitary officer ordered me to leave ; the

ARMINELL. 1 33

Board of Guardians went to the magistrates, and issued
a summons to me to quit, and my lord has sent Mr Macduff
to me, to threaten proceedings against me if I will not put
the house in repair or quit it. But what can they do when
I won't budge, and could prosecute 'em if they laid fingers
on me ? The police daren't touch me. They've come and
looked at me and argued, but they can't force me to leave."

" So his lordship wants to evict you, eh ? "

"Mr. Macduff has declared he'll send masons and
strip the roof, and pull down the chimney, and rebuild the
walls, but they can't do it without driving me out first, and
that is more than they can with me having the house as my
own for Hfe."

" By Jove ! " exclaimed Welsh, " it's a case — a poor widow,
I suppose you are a widow ; it doesn't matter if you are not ;
it sounds best — a widow, a victim to his lordship's tyranny
— tearing down the roof that shelters her grey head, casting
down her chimney, desecrating her hearthstone, the sacred
penates, with the foot of violence — or hoof, which shall it
be ? By George ! I'll make something out of it, harrowing
to the feelings, and as rousing as tartaric acid and soda !
Who cares for a contradiction or a correction? We can
always break the lines and make nonsense of it, and lay the
blame on the printer, if called to task. I'm glad I came
here for a Sunday. You will let me inside, I suppose, ma'am,
to cast an eye round ; particulars are so useful in a descrip-
tion, lend such a vraisemblance to an account."

But Mrs. Kite's tumble-down cottage was not the only
material Mr. Welsh collected for use on that Sunday. He
heard from Saltren about the stoppage of the manganese.

"Something can be made out of that," said Welsh.
"We are in want of a grievance. Tell me the parti-
culars, I'll sift out for myself what will serve my purpose."

When he had heard all, " It will do," said he, " there has
been nothing to interest the public or stir them up since

134 ARMINELL.

the last divorce suit in high Ufe. High hfe ! — so high that
some folks had to hold their noses. We want a bit of a
change now. After that bit of strong venison, some cap-
sicum to restore the palate. Saltren, you must convene a
public meeting, make a demonstration, a torchlight proces
sion of the out-of-work, issue a remonstrance. I'll come
and help you. I know how to work those kind of things.
A little grievance and some dissatisfaction well-stirred to-
gether is hke chlorate of potash and sulphur in a mortar ;
only stir away, and in th i end you get an explosion."

" It is of no use," said the captain, in a tone of dis-
couragement.

•' Of no use ! I tell you it is of the utmost use ; we'll
make a public matter of it. Get a question asked in the
House about it. There are so many journalists in there
now that we can get anything asked when we want the
question as a text for a leader. Why, we will fill the papers
with your grievance, only we must have some meeting to
report, and I'll help you with that. Bless you, I've half a
dozen ways of poking this matter into notoriety ; and we
will show up the British aristocracy as the oppressors of
the poor, those who are driving business out of the country,
who are the true cause of the prevaiUng depression.
Thanks to that recent divorce case we've made them out
to be the moral cancer in the body of old England, and
now we shall show that they are the drag on commercial
progress. When folks are grumbling because the times are
bad, it makes them mighty content to be shown a cause for
it all, on which they m^ay vent their ill-humour. Did you
ever read 'The Curiosity Shop,' Saltren? Quilp had a
figure-head to batter whenever things went wrong with him,
and the public are much like Quilp ; give 'em an admiral
or a peer, or an archbishop, some figure-head, and whack,
bang, hammer, and smash they go at it."

" As for the aristocracy," said Mrs. Saltren, " I ought to

ARMINELL. I35

know them. I combed their hair, and hooked their dresses,
and unpacked their portmanteaus ; and them as do that
are best qualified to know them, I should think."

" I don't mind telling you," said the captain, addressing
his brother-in-law, " that their doom is sealed in heaven.
I've had it revealed to me."

"You have, have you ? " asked Welsh in a tone of irony,
which, however, Saltren did not perceive.

"Yes, I have — you shall hear. I would not tell every
one, but I tell you. I was in the spirit this very morning,
and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Saltren,
Saltren ! Then I looked, and behold there came flying
down to me, a book from heaven, written within and with-
out. I held up my hands to receive it ; but it fell past me
into the water, and I stooped and looked thereon, and saw
written ' The Gilded Clique,' and again the voice cried, ' It
is fallen, it is fallen ! ' "

" You don't expect me to gulp that " Welsh checked

himself, and added, shaking his head — " I can't, I'm afraid,
make copy of that."

" It is true," said Saltren earnesdy. His vehemence, his
kindled eyes, his deepened colour, showed his sincerity.
" Would 1 dare in such matters to utter lies ? I am but a
poor mean instrument, but what of that ? Prophets have
been found among shepherds, and apostles taken from
their fishing nets. I was engaged in heartfelt prayer when
this took place."

"You didn't happen to fall asleep whilst occupied in
devotion, of course? " said Welsh, with a contemptuous jerk
of the chin. " Such a weakness is not likely to befall you."

" I was not asleep," answered Saltren sternly. " How
could I be asleep, when my eyes were open, and I saw- the
book ; and my ears, and they heard the voice? "

"You didn't happen to get hold of the book, and see
the name of the publisher ? "

136 ARM I NELL.

" No — I was unable. It was unnecessary. I read the
title plainly. I saw what was on the cover of the book."

" I can do nothing with this," said Welsh, leaning back
in his chaifj stretching, and closing his hands behind the
back of his head. *' This belongs to another department
altogether. You had better relate your experiences at the
next revival-meeting among the horse-marines, there is no
knowing what effect it may have upon that intelligent and
excitable body of men."

" It is true," urged Saltren again, frowning.

He was incapable of seeing that his brother-in-law was
bantering him. The man was absolutely without sense of
humour ; but he saw that Welsh did not believe in his
story, and this irritated and offended him. That his tale
as he tuld it, grew in its proportions and became more and
more unreal, was also what he did not know. His m.ind
worked on the small materials it had, and spun out of
them a fable in which he himself implicitly believed.

" I don't dispute what you have narrated," said Welsh
composedly. " 1 know you are a total abstainer, so it is
not to be accounted for in the way which comes naturally
uppermost Still, I've heard of wonderful elevation of
spirits and general head-over-heeledness after an over-dose
of non-alcoholic effervescing liquors."

" I had touched nothing," said Saltren, with his temper
chafed. " If you doubt me "

" But I do not doubt you," interrupted Welsh. '' I tell
you that this does not interest me, because it is outside my
department, like Bulgaria, and the Opera Comique, and
Inoculations for Hydrophobia, and Primitive Marriage. I
don't meddle with the Eastern Question, or review histori-
cal works, or sermons, or novels. I leave all that to other
fellows ; you must pass this on to the chap who does re-
ligion, not that I think he would make copy out of it for a
magazine article, except under the head of Hallucinations."

CHAPTER XV.

REVELATIONS.

" Now look straight for'ard," said Mr. Welsh, " and distin-
guish. You call this affair of yours and the book — a revela-
tion. There are revelations, my friend, that may be written
with a capital R, and others that have to begin with a small
cap."

Mr. Welsh was not particular about the English he spoke,
but he wrote it well, at least passably.

" The sort of revelation that suits me, one with a capital
R, is that at which a shorthand reporter assists. That's the
sort of revelation we get in the courts — that is, as the
French say, conirole. But on the other hand comes your
hole-and-corner revelation, which has more given it than is
its due when written with a little r. No reporter, no
public present, totally uncontrolled ; that sort of revelation
is no use to me. I don't mean to say but that sort of
thing may go down at revivals, but for the press it is no
good at all."

"Am I likely to have imagined it? What should have
put the thought of * The Gilded Clique ' into my head ? '"
asked Saltren angrily. " I tell you I believe in this revela-
tion as I believe that I see you before me."

"Gilded Clique!" repeated Welsh, "I can't say, but
Gaboriau's criminal novel may have fallen under your eyes."

" What is that ? "

" A French novel with that title. It has been translated.'

138 ARMINELL.

" Now see ! " exclaimed Captain Saltren, kindling, spring-
ing up, and waving his arms, " I never have set eyes on
such a book, never heard of it before. But nothing that
you could have said would have confirmed me in my con-
viction more than this. It shows that the devil is active,
and that to draw away attention from, and to weaken the
force of my revelation, he has caused a book to be circulated
under the same name. I should not be surprised if you
told me it had a blood-red cover."
" It has one."

" There ! " cried Saltren, " now nothing will ever shake
my faith. When the devil strives to defeat the purposes of
Heaven, it is because he fears those purposes. My solemn

and sincere conviction is " He lowered his voice, but

though low it shook with emotion. " My belief is that the
book I saw was the Everlasting Gospel. John saw an angel
flying in heaven having that book in his right hand, but it
was not then communicated to man. The time was not
rjpe. Now, at last, towards the end of the ages, that book
has been cast down, and its purport disclosed."

" You didn't happen to see the angel ? " asked Welsh
sneeringly.

" I — I am not sure, I saw something. Indeed, there no
doubt was an angel flying, but my eyes were blinded with
the extraordinary light, and my mind has not yet sufficiently
recovered for me to recollect all the particulars of the vision.
But this I can tell you, for I know it. Although I did not
get hold of the book, its contents are written in fire in my
brain. That book of the Everlasting Gospel declares that
the age of privilege is at an end, the distinctions between
rich and poor, noble and common, are at an end. This has
been hidden from the world, because the world was not
ready to receive it. Now the time is come, and I am the
humble instrument chosen for announcing these good tidings
to men. I care not if, like Samson, I be crushed as I take

ARMINELL. 139

hold of the pillars, and bow myself, and bring the House of
Lords down."

" Well," said Welsh, " if you can work that line in the
chapel, well and good. I keep to my province, and that is
the manganese. Why, Condy's fluid, I fancy, is perman-
ganate of potash — I can lug that in somehow."

" Ah ! " said Mrs. Saltren, who was becoming impatient
at having been left out of the conversation, " at the park
they thought a deal about Condy's fluid."

" I can manage it in this way," said her brother, rubbing
his hands. "That disinfectant has manganese as a con-
stituent. His lordship, by stopping the manganese mine,
cuts off a source of health, a deodorising and disinfecting
stream from entering the homes of sickness, and the haunts
of fever. Who can say how many lives may be sacrificed
by the stopping of Wheal Julia ? I'll bring in Condy's fluid
with effect. What else is manganese used for ? "

" Bleaching, I beheve," said Mrs. Saltren.

" Ah ! " said Mr. Welsh, " that can be worked in also,
and I'll pull old Isabelle of Castile in by the ears as well.
She vowed she would not change her smock till a
certain city she was besieging had capitulated, and as that
city held out three months, judge the colour of her linen.
We are all, I presume, to wear Isabelle shirts — or rather
cuffs and collars — and use Isabelle sheets and towels, and
eat off Isabelle tablecloths, and the ministers of the Estab-
lished Church to preach in Isabelle surplices, because, for
sooth, the supply of manganese is withheld wherewith to
whiten them."

" Well, it does seem wrong," said Mrs. Saltren.

" And then," continued her brother, kindling with profes-
sional enthusiasm, " after that divorce case, too, when the
noble lords and ladies washed their dirty linen in public.
You can figure how it will all work out. Here is my Lord
Lamerton knows that the tided aristocracy have so much

140 ARMINELL.

dirty linen at home, that he is determined to prevent the
British public from wearing bleached linen at all, lest they
should perceive the difference. There is nothing," con-
tinued Welsh, with a chuckle, " nothing so convenient for
one's purpose as well mixing one's hyperboles and analogies,
and drawing just any conclusions you like out of premises
well muddled up with similitudes. We know very well, my
dear Marianne, that the bread we buy of the bakers is com-
posed of some flour, and some alum, and some plaster-of-
paris, and some china-clay, but we don't stop to analyse it
at our breakfast; we cut ourselves a slice, butter it, and pop
it into our mouths, and like it a thousand times better than
home-made bread made of pure, unadulterated flour. It is
just the same with political ariicles and political speeches.
There's a lot of stuff of all sorts goes into them besides the
flour of pure reason. And the British public don't analyse,
they swallow. What they consume they expect to be light
and to taste agreeably — they don't care a farthing what it is
made up of."

Mr. Welsh took out his pocket-book, and dotted down
his ideas. " Of course," said he, talking and laughing to
himself, " we must touch this off with a light hand in a
semi-jocose, and semi-serious manner. There are some
folks who never see a joke, or rather they always see it as
something grave. They are like earth-worms — all swallow."

Mr. Welsh put up his knee, interlaced his fingers round
it, and began to swing his knee on a level with his chest.

"If you want to rouse the British public," he said, *'you
must tickle them. You can't do much with their heads,
but their feelings are easily roused. Heads ! — why there
was no getting wisdom out of the head of Jupiter, till it was
clove with an axe, and you would not have the skull of the
British public more yielding than that of the king of the
gods." He put down his leg that he had been hugging.
" My dear sister," he went on, " I know the British public,

' ARMINELL. I4T

it is my business to study it and treat it. I know its moods,
and it is one of the most docile of creatures to drive.
There is one thing it loves above anything, and that is a
sore. Do you remember how Aunt Susan had a bad leg,
and how she went on about that leg, the pride she took in
it, the medicines she swallowed for it, and how she hated
Betsy Tucker because she also had a bad leg, and how she
contended that hers was the worst, the most inflamed, and
caused her most pain ? It is so with the public. It must
have its sore ; and show it, and discuss it, and apply to it
quack plasters, and drink for it quack draughts. What would
the doctors do but for the Aunt Susans and Betsy Tuckers
— their fortunes stand on these old women's legs. So is it
with us — we live by the bad legs of the nation. The public,
in its heart of hearts, don't want those precious legs to be
healed — certainly not to be taken off. What we have to do
is to keep the sores angry with caustic, and poked with
needles. And that is just why I want this manganese now,
to rub it into the legs of the public and wake the sores up
into irritation once more."

Then Welsh began to whistle between his front teeth and
swing his foot again.

"The public," he continued, "are like Job on a dunghill,
rubbing its sores. The public has no desire to have the
dunghill removed; it rather likes the warmth. When it
nods off into a nap then we stick the prongs of the fork
into it, and up it starts excited and angry, and we turn the
heap over under its nose, and then it settles down into it
again deeper than before."

" I confess I do not know much about the public," said
Mrs Saltren. resolved to have a word; "but when you come
to the aristocracy, why then you are on my ground."

" On your ground," laughed Welsh, " because you were
lady's maid at the Park; that is like the land surveyor claiming
a property because he has walked over it with a chain."

142 ARMINELL.

"At all events the surveyor knows it," said Mrs.
Saltren, with some spirit, "perhaps better than does the
owner."

" 1 admit that you have me there," laughed her brother.

" And," said Mrs. Saltren, " it is pounds on pounds I
might have earned by sending information about high life
to the society papers ; but I was above doing that sort of
thing ; besides, the society papers were not published at
that time. Sometimes there were as many as a dozen or
fourteen lady's-maids and as many valets staying in the
house with their masters and mistresses, and they were full
of the most interesting information and bursting to reveal
it, like moist sugar in a paper-bag."

*' I'll tell you what it is," said Welsh, " servantdom is
becoming a power in the country, just as the press has
become. There is no knowing nowadays where to look for
the seat of power ; it is at the other extremity from the head.
In old times the serfs and slaves were not of account at all,
and now their direct representatives hold the characters and
happiness of the best in the land in their hands. The
country may have at one time been directed by its head ;
it is not so now, like a fish, it is directed and propelled by
its tail. The servant class at one time was despised, now
it is feared ; it mounts on its two wings, the divorce court
and the society press. What opportunities it now has of
paying off old grudges, of pushing itself into notoriety, of
earning a little money. This is the age of the utihsation of
refuse. We find an employment for what our forefathers,
nay, our fathers, cast aside. The rummage of copper mines
is now burnt for arsenic, the scum of coal-tar makes aniline
dyes, and I hear they are talking of the conversion of dirty
rags by means of vitriol into lump sugar. It is so in social
and political life — we are using up our refuse, we invest it
with preponderating pohtical influence, we chuck it into the
House of Commons, and right it should be so ; give every

is ARMINELL. 1 43

thing a chance, and in an age of transformation we must
turn up our social deposits. If it were not so, life would be
a donkey-race with the prize for the last."

" When I was companion to her ladyship," began Mrs.
Saltren, but was cut short by her brother —

" I beg your pardon, Marianne, when was that ? I only
knew you as lady's maid."

" I was more than that," said Mrs. Saltren flushing.

" Oh, of course, lady without the maid."

" I might, I daresay, have been my lady, and have kept
my maid," said Mrs. Saltren, tossing her head, " so there
is no point in your sneers, James. You may be a gentle-
man, but I am a captain's wife, and might have been more."

" Oh, indeed, and how came you not to be more ? "

" Because I did not choose."

" In fact," said Welsh, *' you thought you were in for a
donkey-race. By George, you have got the prize ! "

" You are really too bad," exclaimed Mrs. Saltren, vexed
and angry ; '' I could tell you things that would surprise
you. You think nothing of me because I am not rich or
grand, and have to do the house work in my home ; but I
have been much considered in my day, and admired, and
sought. And I have had my wrongs, which I thought to
have carried with me to my grave, but as you choose to
insult me, your sister, with saying I came in last at a
donkey-race, I will tell you that properly I ought to have
come in first."

" And I," said Saltren, standing up, " I insist on your
speaking out." He had remained silent for some time,
offended at his brother-in-law's incredulity, and not particu-
lady interested in what he was saying, which seemed to him
trifling.

"Let us hear," said Welsh, with a curl of his lips. He
had no great respect for his sister. " You must let me
observe in passing that just now you did not come in first

144 ARMINELL.

because you wouldn't, and now, apparently, it is because
you weren't allowed."

" I have no wish," said Marianne Welsh, not noticing the
sneer, " to make mischief, but truth is truth."

" Truth," interposed Welsh, who had the family infirmity
of loving to hear his own voice, "truth when naked is
unpresentable. The public are squeamish, and turn aside
from it as improper ; here we step in and frizzle, paint and
clothe her, and so introduce her to the public."

" If you interrupt me, how am I to go on ? " asked Mrs.
Saltren, testily. " I was going to say, when you interrupted
with your coarse remarks, that at one time I was a great
beauty, and I don't suppose I've quite lost my good looks
yet ; and I was then very much sought."

" And what is more," said Welsh, "to the best of my re-
membrance you were not like a slug in a flower-bed, that
when sought digs under ground."

"I tell you," continued Mrs. Saltren, with heightened
colour, " that I have been sought by some of the noblest in
the land."

Welsh looked out of the corners of his eyes at his sister,
and said nothing.

" I was cruelly deceived. A great nobleman whom I will
not name — "

" Whose title is in abeyance," threw in Welsh.

*' Whom I will not name, but might do so if I chose,
obtained a licence for a private marriage, and a minister to
perform the ceremony, and there were witnesses — the
nuptials took place. Not till several days after did I dis-
cover that I had been basely deceived. The licence was
forged, the minister was a friend of the bridegroom disguised
as a parson, and not in holy orders, and the witnesses were
sworn to secrecy."

"That is your revelation, is it?" asked James Welsh.
" I write it with a small cap, and in pica print."

' ARMINELL. 145

" It is truth."

" The truth dressed, of course, and not in tailor-made
clothes. I dress the truth myself, but — let me see, never
allow of so much margin for improvers."

Then Welsh stood up.

" I must be off, Marianne, if I am to catch the train.
Saltren, keep the manganese in agitation ; I will be with you
and set your meeting going. Marianne, I can make no
more of your revelation than I can of that disclosed by your
husband. Facts, my dear sister, in my business are like the
wax figures in Mrs. Jarley's show. They are to be dressed
in the livery of our political colours, and it is wonderful
what service they will do thus ; but, Marianne, you can't
make the livery stand by itself, there must be facts under-
neath, it matters not of what a wooden and skeleton nature,
they hold up the garments. I can't say that I see in what
you have told me any supporting facts at all, only a bundle
of tumbled, theatrical, romantic rubbish."

CHAPTER XVI.

HOW SALTREN TOOK IT.

Mrs. Saltren, as already said, as Marianne Welsh, had
been good-looking and vain, when lady's-maid to the
dowager Lady Lamerton, the mother of the present lord.
She had never been in the Park with Arminell's mother, as
she had pretended. She had been lady's-maid only to the
dowager, and had left her precipitately and married Saltren
a year before the marriage of my lord. She had been vain,
and thought much of; her good looks were gone, her vanity
had not departed with them. Her vanity had been wounded
by the loss of her husband's esteem. She had harboured
anger against him for many years because of his fantastic
ideas, and straight-laced morality. No one is perfect, she
argued, and Saltren, who pinned his religion on the Bible,
ought to have been the first to admit this. The just man
falleth seven times a day, and she had tripped only once in
forty -two years — over fifteen thousand days. If she could
but raise the veil and look into her husband's past life,
argued she, no doubt she would see comical things there.
What if she had tripped ? Were not the ways of the world
slippery ? Did she make them slippery ? Had she created
the world and set it all over with slides? And if a person
did slip, was it becoming of such a person to lie whimpering
where she had fallen ? Did not that show lack of spirit ?
For her part, after that slight lapse, she had hopped on her
feet, shaken her skirts, and warbled a tune.

ARMINELL. 147

It is a fact patent to every one, that the further we recede
from an object, the smaller it appears. For instance, the
dome of St. Paul's when we stand in St. Paul's Churchyard,
looks immense. But as we stand on Paul's Wharf, waiting
for a steamer, we always discover that the small intervening
distance has diminished the dome to the size of a dish-cover.
As we descend the river, the cupola decreases in proportion
as we widen our distance from it, till it is reduced to an in-
considerable speck, and finally sinks beyond the range of
our vision. It is precisely the same with our faults. At
the moment of their commission, from under their shadow,
they look portentous and actually oppress us ; but they be-
come sensibly reduced in bulk the farther we drift down
life's stream from them. What immeasurably weighed on
us yesterday, measurably burden us to-day, and to-morrow
are perceptible ; but the day after cease to discomfort us.
Not so only, but as we draw further from our past fault, we
look back on it with a sort of fond admiration, tinged with
sadness ; we lounge over the bulwarks of our boat, opera-
glass in hand, and consider it as we consider the dome of
St. Paul's, as an adjunct not altogether regrettable in the
retrospect ; for, consider how uniform, how insufferable
would be the landscape, without breaks in the sky line.

Now Mrs. Saltren was embarked on the same voyage with
Stephen, her husband, and naturally expected that the same
object which at one moment had obscured their sun, but
which rapidly diminished in size and importance and
signification to her eyes, should equally tend to disappear
from his. When, however, she found that it did not, she
was offended, and harboured the conviction that she was
herself the injured party. Why were not Stephen's eyes
constituted as the eyes of other men? She had good
occasion to take umbrage at the perversity of his vision.
She had admitted at one time, faintly, and with a graceful
curtsey, a pretty apology, and with that reluctance which a

148 ARMINELL.

woman has to confess a fault, that her husband had been an
injured man ; but now, after the lapse of over twenty years,
their relative positions were reversed. The cases are known
of girls who have swallowed packets of needles. These
needles inside have caused at first uneasiness and alarm for
the consequences ; but when they gradually, and in succes-
sion, work out, some at the elbows, some at the finger ends,
some at the nose, and in the end come all away, they cease
to trouble, and become a joke. It is so with our moral
transgressions. When committed, they plunge us in an
agony of remorse and fear ; but gradually they work out of
us, point or head foremost, and finally we get rid of them
altogether. Now Marianne Welsh and Stephen Saltren had
swallowed a packet of needles between them, and they were
all her needles which had entered him. She did not retain
hers long, but as they worked out of her, they worked into
him and transfixed his heart, which bristled with them, like
a christening pin-cushion. This, of course, was particularly
annoying to her. To forgive and to forget is a Christian
virtue, and Saltren, she argued, was no better than a heathen,
for all his profession, because he neither forgot nor for-
gave.

When Mrs. Saltren made the announcement to her
brother and husband, that a cruel fraud had been committed
on her, she had acted without premeditation, stung to the
confession by her galled vanity at her brother's disrespectful
tone, and with an indefined, immatured desire of setting
herself to rights with her husband.

The story had been contemptuously cast back in her
face by James Welsh ; and it was with some surprise and
much satisfaction, that she saw her husband ready to accept
it without question. Captain Saltren had not offered to
accompany his brother-in-law to the station, which was four
miles distant ; he could hardly wait with patience his
departure. No sooner was Welsh gone, than Saltren

ARMINELL. 149

grasped his wife's arm, and said in his deepest tones, " Tell
me all, Marianne, tell me all ! "

" I ought," saia Mrs. Saltren, recovering herself from the
confusion which she felt, when her brother ridiculed her
story, " I ought at this day to wear a coronet of diamonds.
I was loved by a distinguished nobleman, with ardour. I
cannot say I loved him equally ; but I was dazzled. His
family naturally were strenuously opposed to our union;
but, indeed, they knew nothing at all about it. He
entreated me to consent to have our union celebrated in
private. He undertook to obtain a special licence from the
Archbishop. How was I to know that my simplicity was
being imposed upon ? I was an innocent, confiding girl,
ignorant of the world's deceit ; and extraordinarily good-
looking."

*'And you did not reckon on the wickedness of the
aristocracy. Go on."

But Marianne paused. She was not ready to fill up the
details, and to complete her narrative without considera-
tion.

" Do not keep me in torture ! " protested Saltren ; his
face was twitching convulsively.

"How could I help myself?" asked Marianne. "It
was not my fault that I had such an exquisite complexion,
such abundant, beautiful hair, and such lovely eyes ; though,
heaven knows, little did I know it then, or have I thought
of, or valued it since. My beauty is, to some extent, gone
now, but not altogether. As for my teeth, Stephen, which
were pearls — I had not a decayed one in my jaws then ; but
after I married you they began to go with worry, and be-
cause you did not trust me, and were unkind to me ! "

" Marianne," said Saltren, " you deceived me — you
deceived me cruelly. You told me nothing of this when I
married you."

" I was always a woman of delicacy, and it was not for

150 ARMINELL.

me to speak. I had been deceived and was deserted.
Only when too late did I find how wickedly I had been be-
trayed, and then, when you came by and found me in my
sorrow and desolation, I clung to your hand ; I hoped you

would be my consolation, my stay, my solace, and I — I "

She burst into tears. " I have been bitterly disappointed.
I have found you without love, churlish, sullen, holding me
from you as if I were infected with the plague, not ready to
cbsp me as an unhappy, suffering woman, that needed all
the love and pity you could give."

" Not one word did you tell me of all this. You let me
marry you in unsuspicion that before you had loved
another."

*' Not at all, Stephen," she said, " I have already assured
you that I did not love the man whom I so foolishly and
unfortunately trusted."

" Why have you not told me this story long ago ? Why
have you left me in the dark so long ? "

" Your own fault, Stephen, none but yours. If you had
shown me that consideration which becomes a professing
Christian, I might have been encouraged to open my poor,
tired, fluttering heart to you ; but I was always a woman of
extreme delicacy, and very reserved. You, however, were
distant, and cold, and jealous. Then my pride bade me
keep my tragic story to myself."

Saltren stood before her with folded arras, his hands
were working. He could not keep them still but by clasp-
ing them to his side. " I was just, Marianne ! " he said.
"Just, and not severe to judge. I judged but as I knew
the facts. If I was told nothing, I knew nothing to ex-
tenuate your fault. You were young and beautiful, and I
thought that perhaps you had not strong principles to guide
you. Now that you have told me all, I allow that you
were more sinned against than sinning ; but I cannot acquit
you of not entrusting me before this with the whole truth,"

ARMINELL, I5T

" You never asked me for it."

" No," he answered sternly. " I could not do that. It
was for you to have spoken."

Then, all at once, Saltren began to tremble; he took
hold of the window-jamb, and he shook so that the diamond
panes in the casement rattled. He stood there quivering
in all his limbs. Great drops formed and rolled off his
tall forehead, hung a moment suspended on his shaggy brow
and then fell to the ground. They were not tears, they
were the anguish drops expressed from his brain.

Mrs. Saltren looked at him with astonishment and some
trepidation. She never had comprehended him. She
could not understand what was going on in him now,

"What is it, Stephen?"

He waved his hand. He could not speak.

" But, Stephen, what is it ? Are you ill ? "

Then he threw himself before her, and clasped her to
him furiously, with a cry and a sob, and broke into a convul-
sion of loud weeping. He kissed her forehead, hair, and
lips. He seized her hands, and covered them at once with
tears and kisses.

" Marianne ! " he said at last, with a voice interrupted
and choked. '' For all these years we have been divided,
you and I, I and you, under one roof, and yet with the
whole world between us. I never loved any but you —
never, never any ; and all these long years there has been
my old love deep in my heart, not dead, but sleeping ; and
now and then putting up its hands and uttering a cry, and
I have bid it go to sleep again and lie still, and never hoped
that the trumpet would sound, and it would spring up to
life once more. But why did you not tell me this before ?
Why did you hide from me that you were the sufferer, you
the wronged? If you would have told me this, I would
have forgiven you long ago. My heart has been hungering
and crying out for love. I have seen you every day, and

152 ARMINELL.

felt that I have loved you, felt it in every vein. To me you
have not grown old, but have remained the same, only there
was this shadow^ of a great darkness between us. I con-
strained myself, because I considered you had sinned against
God and me, and were unworthy of being loved ! "

Again he drew her head to his shoulder, laid it there, and
kissed her, and sobbed, and clasped her passionately.

*' Marianne ! Let him that is without guilt cast the first
stone. I forgive you. Tell me that you loved me when I
came to you asking you to be mine."

" I did love you, Stephen — you and you only."

" And that other ; he who — " he did not finish the sen-
tence— a fresh fit of trembling came on him.

" I never did love him, Stephen. Only his title and his
position impressed me. I was young, and he was so much
my superior in age, in rank, in strength ; and the prospect
opened before me was so splendid, that a poor, young,
trustful, foolish thing like me — "

" You did not love him ? " Stephen spoke with eager-
ness.

*' I have assured you that I never did."

" Oh the age that we have spent together under one roof,
united yet separated ; one in name, apart in soul ; years of
sorrow to both of us ; years of estrangement ; years of dis-
appointed love, and broken trust, and embittered home —
all this we owe to him ! "

Marianne felt his heart beating furiously, and his muscles
contracting spasmodically in his face, that was against hers,
in his breast, in his arms.

Has it ever chanced to the reader to encounter a married
couple blind to each other's faults, and these faults glaring?
One might suppose that daily intercourse would have
sharpened the perception of each other's weaknesses, but
instead of that it blunts it. They cannot detect in each
other the grotesque, the ugly, the false, that are conspicuous

ARMINELL. 1 53

and offensive to everyone else. Love, it is, which has softly
dropped the veil over their eyes, or withdrawn from them
the faculty of perceiving in each other these blemishes
which, if perceived, would make common life unendurable.
Love is well painted as bHnd, but the blindest of all loves
is the love of the married. In the case of the Saltrens the
blindness was on one side only, because on his side only
was there true love. This had dulled his perception, so
that he saw not the shallowness, untruthfulness, vanity, and
heartlessness of Marianne, qualities which her brother saw
clearly enough.

" You have borne your wrong all these years unavenged,"
he said. " My God ! how I have misjudged you ! One
word more, Marianne." He disengaged himself from her.
He had been kneeling with his arms enfolding her ; now he
released his hold, and knelt, bolt-upright, with his hands
depending to the floor, gaunt, ungainly, motionless. " Mari-
anne," he said, slowly, " I know so much that I must be
told all. I must know the rest." He paused for full a
minute, looking her steadily in the face, still kneeling up-
right, stiffly, uncouthly. " Who was he ? "

Marianne did not speak. Now in turn agitation over-
came her. Had she gone too far with this story, true or
false ?

She raised her hands deprecatingly. What would the
consequences be ?

Then, all at once, with a shriek rather than a cry, Saltren
leaped to his feet.

" You need not say a word. I know all now, all — with-
out your telling me. You were in the Park at the time with
the old Lady Lamerton, and — and you had the boy named
after him."

Had there been light in the room, it would have been
seen how pale was the face of Mrs. Saltren, but that of her
husband, the captain, had turned a deadlier white still.

154 ARMINELL.

'•' It all unfolds before me, all becomes plain ! " he cried.
" I wondered whose was the head I saw on the book."

" On what book, Stephen ? "

" I feared, I doubted, but now I doubt no more. It was
his likeness ! "

" What book do you mean ? "

" The book of the Everlasting Gospel which I saw an
angel carry in his right hand, flying in the midst of heaven ;
and he cast the book down, and the book was dipped in
blood ; and when it fell into the w^ater, the water was turned
to blood, as the river of Egypt when Israel was about to
escape."

The door flew open, and Giles Inglett Saltren entered,
wearing a light coat thrown over his evening dress. As he
came in he removed his hat.

Captain Saltren turned on him with flashing eyes, and in
his most sonorous tones said, as he waved him away : " Go
back, go back whence you came. You have no part in me.
You are not my son. Return to him who has cared for
you : to him who is your father — Lord Lamerton,"

CHAPTER XVII.

HOW JINGLES TOOK IT.

Giles Inglett Saltren stood motionless, his hat in one
hand, with the other holding the door, looking at the cap-
tain. No lamp had been lighted in the room since the sun
had set, and he could only see his father's face indistinctly
by the pale evening sky light cast in through the window
and door. But he would have known from the tones of his
father's voice that he was profoundly moved, even if he had
not caught the words he uttered. At first, indeed, he was
too surprised to comprehend the full force of these words ;
but, when their significance became clear to him, he also
became moved, and he said gravely :

" This must be explained."

" What I said is quickly explained," answered the captain ;
and he rose to his feet.

Does the reader remember a familiar toy of childhood
composed of pretty birds, with feathers stuck in them, strung
on horsehair or wires so as to form a sort of cage, but with this
difference, that the cage did not contain the birds ? When
this toy was set down, all the little figures quivered slowly,
uncertainly, to the bottom, and when it was reversed, the
same process was repeated. It was so with the captain's
speech. His words were threaded on the tremulous strings
of his vocal organ, and not only quivered from a high pitch
down, but also went up from a low one with much vibration
on high. A voice of this quality is provocative of sympathy ;

156 ARMINELL.

as, when a violincello string is touched, a piano chord
trembles responsive. Such voices make not the voices, but
the hearts of other men to tremble. I know a slater who,
when I am ordering of him slates, brings tears into my eyes
by asking if I will have " Duchess " or " Rag."

" My words are quickly explained/' said Stephen Saltren.
" I have never regarded you as my son — have never treated
you as such. You know that I have shown you no fatherly
affection, because I knew from the beginning that not a
drop of my blood flowed in your veins. But never, before
this evening, have I allowed you, or any one else, to suspect
what I knew, lest the honour of your mother should suffer.
Now, and only now, has the entire truth been disclosed to
me. I did not suspect it, no, not when you were christened
and given the name you bear. I thought it was a compli-
ment paid through a fancy of your mother's to the family in
which she had lived, that was all. A little flickering
suspicion may have been aroused afterwards, when his lord-
ship, to save you from consumption, sent you abroad ; but
I put it angrily from me as unworthy of being harboured.
I had no real grounds for suspicion ; since then it has come
up in my heart again and again, and I have stamped down
the hateful thought with a kind of rage and shame at myself
for thinking it. Only to-night has the whole story been
told me, and I find that your mother was not to blame —
that no real dishonour stains her — that all the fault, all the
guilt, lies on and blackens — blackens and degrades his
soul ! "

" I did not mean to say — that is, I did not wish — " began
Mrs. Saltren, in a weeping, expostulating tone.

*' Marianne, say nothing." Captain Saltren turned to her.
" It is not for you to justify yourself to your child. The
story shall be told him by me. I will spare you the pain
and shame."

*'But, mother," said Jingles, shutting the door behind

ARMINELL. I57

him and leaning his back against it, " I must be told the
whole truth. I must have it at least confirmed by your
lips."

"My dear," — Mrs. Saltren's voice shook — *'I would not
make mischief, for the world. I hate above everything the
mischief-makers. If there be one kind of people I abhor it
is those who make mischief; and I am, thank heaven, not
one of such."

"Quite so," said her son, gravely; "but I must know
what I have to believe, for I must act on it."

" Oh, my dear, do nothing ! Let it remain, if you love
me, just as if it had never been told. I should die of shame
were it to come out."

"It shall not come out," said Giles ; '*but I must know
from your lips, mother, whether I am — I cannot say it.
My happiness, my future depend on my knowledge of what
my real parentage is. You can understand that ? "

" Well, then, it is true that you are not Stephen Saltren's
son, and it is true that I was a shamefully-used and deceived
woman, and that I had no bad intentions whatever. I was
always a person of remarkable delicacy and refinement above
my station. As for who your father was, I name no names;
and, indeed, just now, when the captain asked me, I said
the same — that I would name no names, and so I stick to
the same resolution, and nothing more shall be torn from
me, not if you were to tear me to pieces with a chain
harrow."

" Come without," said the captain, " and you shall hear
from me how it came to pass. We must spare your mother's
feelings. She was not in fault, she was wickedly imposed
on."

Then the mining captain moved to the door; Giles
Inglett opened it, and stood aside to allow his reputed father
to go through; then he followed him and shut the door
behind them.

158 ARMINELL,

Half an hour passed. Mrs. Saltren remained for some
minutes seated where she had been, consoling herself with
the reflection that she had named no names ; and that, if
mischief came of this, the fact would attach to Saltren, not
to her. A little while ago we said that love was blind,
hymeneal love most blind ; but blind with incurable oph-
thalmia, blindest of all blindness, is self-love.

Mrs. Saltren rose and went about her domestic affairs.

"No one can charge me," said she, "with having kept
my house untidy, or with having left unmended my hus-
band's clothes. To think of the cartloads of buttons I've
put on during my married life ! It is enough to convince
any but the envious. Well, it is a comfort that Stephen
has been brought to his senses at last, and come to view
matters in a proper light. I've heard James say that there
is a nerve goes from each eyeball into the brain, and afore
they enter it they take a twist about each other, and, so
coupled, march in together. And James said if it were not
so we should see double, and neither eye would agree with
the other. I mind quite well that he said this one day
when I was complaining to him that Stephen and I didn't
get on quite right together. He said we'd get our twist
one day and then see all alike. What he said is come
true ; leastways, the proper twist has come in Stephen.
Thank God, I always see straight."

She went to a corner cupboard and opened it.

" Now that Stephen is gone," she said, " I'll rinse out the
glass James had for his gin-and-water. Saltren is that
crazy on teetotalism that he would be angry if he knew I
had given James any, and angry to think I kept spirits in
the house ; and because he is so stupid I'm obliged to put
it in a medicine-bottle with ' For outward application only '
on it, and say it is a lotion for neuralgia. It is a mercy that
I named no names, so my conscience is clear. It is just as
in Egypt, when there was darkness over all the land, the

ARMINELL. I59

Israelites had light ui their dwellings. I thank goodness
I've always the clearest of light in me."

She removed the tumbler and washed it in the back
kitchen.

"When one comes to consider it, after all, Stephen isn't
so very much out in his reckoning. When does a noble-
man take a delicate lad out of a school and send him to a
warm climate because his lungs are affected, and then give
him scholarship and college education, without having
something that makes him do it ? Are there no other
delicate lads with weak lungs besides Giles? Why did not
his lordship send them to Bordighera? Are there no
other clever young fellows in national schools besides my
boy, to be taken up and pushed on? There must have
been some reason for my lord selecting Giles. Was it
because I had been in service in the house? Other young
women out of the Park have married and had children, but
I never heard of my lord doing anything for their sons.
None of them have been sent to college and made into
gentlemen except my boy. But then I was uncommonly
good-looking, that is true, and not another young hussey at
the Park was fit to hold a candle to me. Though, the
Lord knows, I never set store on good looks. If it pleases
his lordship to treat Giles almost as if he were a son, he
has a right to do so, but he must take the consequences.
I don't interfere with the fancies of others, but if any one
chooses to do a queer thing, he must expect to have to
answer for it. I have no doubt that his lordship has fre-
quently wished he had a son, such a fine and handsome
fellow as my Giles, and for some years he was without any
son of his own to inherit his title. There was only Miss
Arminell. Anyhow, no responsibility attaches to me, what-
ever may be said. No one can blame me. His lordship
ought never to have taken notice of Giles, never to have
had the doctor examine his lungs, and, when told that the

l60 ARMINELL.

boy would die unless sent to the south of France, he should
have said, ' He is the son of poor parents, who can't afford
the expense, so I suppose he must die.' No one could
have blamed him, then. And when Giles came back —
better, but still delicate, and not suited to do hard work —
my lord should not have sent him to school and college,
and taken him in at Orleigh Park as tutor to his son — he
should not have done any of these things unless he had
made up his mind to take the consequences. Scripture
says that no man sets down to build a tower without having
first counted the cost. It is not at all unlikely that folks
will say queer things, and I know for certain my husband
thinks queer fancies about my boy and Lord Lamer
ton ; but who is to blame for that ? If his lordship didn't
want to make it thought by all the world that Giles was his
son, all I can say is, he shouldn't have done for him what
he did. It is not my place to stop idle talk. I'd like to
know whether it is any woman's duty to run about a parish
correcting the mistakes made by the gossiping tongues
therein. I thank heaven I am not a gadabout. I do my
duty, washing, and ironing, and mending of waistcoats, and
sewing on of buttons, and darning of stocking-feet, and
baking of meat-dumplings, and peeling of potatoes ; that is
what my work is, and I do it well. I don't take upon me
the putting to rights of other folks when in error. Every
one stands for himself. If you cut the wick crooked you
must expect your chimney-glass to get smoked, and, if Lord
Lamerton has snipped his wick askew, he must look out
for fish-tails."

Mrs. Saltren removed her petroleum lamp-glass, struck a
match, and proceeded slowly to light her lamp.

*' I remember James telling me once, how that he had
been in France, I think he called it La Vendee, where the
fields are divided by dykes full of stagnant water ; and one
of the industries of the place is the collecting of leeches.

ARMINELL. l6l

The men roll up their breeches above the knee and carry a
pail, and wade in the ditches, and now and again throw up
a leg, and sweep off two, three, or it may be a dozen
leeches from the calf into the pail. Then they wade
further, and up with a leg again, and off with a fresh batch
of leeches. I haven't been in a big house, and seen the
ways of the aristocracy, and not found out that they are
waders in leech dykes, and that it is as much as they can
do to keep their calves clear, and their blood from being
sucked out of them altogether. Now what I want to know
is, if a starved leech does bite, and suck and swell, and is
not wiped off and sent to market, but gets reg'lar blown out
with blood, hasn't that leech a right to say that he has in
him the blood of the man to whom he has attached him-
self? I'd ask any independent jury whether my Giles
Inglett has eaten and drunk more at Saltren's expense, or
at that of his lordship, whether he does not owe his very
life to his lordship as much as to me, for he'd have died of
decline, if he had not been sent to the South ? And if he
owes his life to Lord Lamerton equally as he does to me,
and has been fed and clothed, and educated by him and
not by Saltren. why then, like the leech, he can say he has
the blood of the Lamertons in him. That is common
sense. And again — bother that lamp ! "

Mrs. Saltren in place of turning the wick up, had turned
it down, and was obliged to remove the chimney and strike
another match.

" And then," she continued, " if Lord Lamerton has not
chose to wipe him off into the pail, who is to blame but
himself? If he choose to keep his leg in a leech pond,
there's neither rhyme nor reason in my objecting ; and he
has no claim to cry out. Put Giles on a plate, and sprinkle
salt on him, and whose blood will come out ? Any one
can see he is a gentleman ! He has imbibed it all, his

1 62 ARMINELL.

manners, his polish, his knowledge, everything he has, from
Lord Lamerton and others; all the world can see it."

Then in came the young man about whom she was argu-
ing with herself. He could not speak so great was his
agitation, but he went to his mother, and threw his arms
about her, clasped her to his heart, and kissed her. For
some time he could not say anything, but after a while he
conquered his emotion sufficiently to say —

" Oh, my mother — my poor mother ! Oh, my dear, my
ill-used mother ! " and then again his emotions got the
better of him. " I cannot," he said, after a pause, with a
renewed effort to govern himself, " I cannot say what T
shall do now, I cannot even think, but I am sure of one
thing, I must remain no longer at the Park."

" My boy ! " exclaimed Mrs. Saltren. " Fall off yourself
into the plate and salt ! "

"I do not understand," said he. She left him in his
ignorance ; she had been thinking of the leeches.

** My dear Giles ! Whatever you do, don't breathe a
word of this to any one."

" Mother, I will not, you may be sure of that."

"Not to Lord Lamerton above all — not for heaven's
sake."

" Least of all to him."

'* I should get into such trouble. Oh, my gracious ! "

" Mother, dear," the young fellow clasped her to his
heart again, "how inexpressibly precious you are to me
now, and how I grieve for you. I can say no more now."

Then he went forth.

" Why, bless me ! " exclaimed Mrs. Saltren. " He never
was so affectionate before. Well, as far as human reason
goes, it does seem as if all things were being brought to
their best for me ; for this day has given me my husband's
love and doubled that of ray son."

Giles Inglett Saltren walked hastily back to the Park.

ARMINELL. 1 63

On his way he encountered Samuel Ceely, who put forth
his maimed hand, and crooked the remaining fingers in his
overcoat to arrest him, as he went by.

"What do you want with me?" asked Jingles impatiently.

" I should be so glad if you would put in a word for me,"
pleaded the old man.

** I am engaged — I cannot wait."

'* But/' urged old Ceely, without letting go his hold,
" Joan has axed Miss Arminell for a scullery-maid's place
for me. Now I'd rather have to do wi' the dogs, or I could
keep the guns beautifully clean, or even the stables."

"I really cannot attend to this!" said Jingles impatiently.
*'I have other matters of more importance now on my
mind ; besides, my influence is not what — " he spoke
bitterly — " what it should be in the great house."

" You might do me a good turn, and speak a word for
me."

" The probability of my speaking a good word for you, or
any one, to Lord Lamerton, or of doing any one a good turn
in Orleigh Park, is gone from me for ever," said Giles.
" You must detain me no longer — it is useless. Let me go."

He shook himself free from the clutch of the old man,
and walked along the road.

After he had gone several paces, perhaps a hundred
yards, he turned — moved by what impulse was unknown to
him — and looked back. In the road, Ht by the moon,
stood the cripple, stretching forth his maimed hand after
him, with the claw-like fingers.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW ARMINELL TOOK IT.

Giles Inglett Saltren walked on fast, he was disturbed
in the stream of his thoughts by the interruption of the
tiresome old cripple. He had more important matters to
occupy his mind than the requirements of Samuel Ceely.
His heart beat, his hands became moist. What a mar-
vellous disclosure had been made to him — and he wondered
at himself for not having divined it before. He argued
much as did his mother. Why had Lord Lamerton done
such great things for him, why had he sent him abroad,
found him money, given him education, lifted him far
above the sphere in which his parents moved, unless he
felt called to do so by a sense of responsibiUty, such as
belongs to a father ?

To a whole class of minds disinterested conduct is in-
conceivable. All such conduct as is oblique is to them
intelligible, and allowance is made by them for stupidity,
and stupidity with them is the same thing as unselfishness.
But such unselfishness is permissible only by fits as lapses
from the course which all men naturally take. But that
men should act consistently on disinterested motives is an
idea too preposterous for them to allow of its existence.

This class of minds does not belong specially to any
particular stratum of society, though it is found to be most

ARMINELL. l6$

prevalent where the struggle for existence is most keen, and
where there is least culture.

But of culture there are two kinds, that which is ex-
ternal, and that which is within : it is generally found that
this inability to understand disinterested conduct is found
everywhere where the inner culture does not exist.

There is, we believe, a Rabbinic legend concerning a
certain cow which was its own calf, and much disputation
ensued among the Talmudists, to determine the point of
time at which the cow calved itself, and when it ceased to
be accounted beef, and became veal, or the contrary. But
what seems to us Gentiles to be impossible in the material
sense, is possible enough in the spiritual realm, and a very
calf-like self may become the mother of a cow-self, so vast,
so considerable that, like the Brahminic cow, Varuna, it
will occupy the entire firmament, extend to the horizon on
all sides, and overshadow and envelope everything. Varuna
in fact is the universe, and as we see and exist in that uni-
verse, so with the cow-self born of calf-self, it becomes our
universe. We see only that cow, inhale the breath of that
cow, think only cow thoughts, stand on cow, and our as-
pirations are limited on all sides by cow. That cow is
Self born of self. The breath of that cow is sweet to our
nostrils, its milk the nourishment of our bowels, its low is
music to our ears, and nothing that does not smell and
taste and sound of that cow is worthy of being smelt, and
tasted, and listened to.

Of this cow we can give information unattainable by the
Rabbis. We can watch its development, if we cannot
determine the moment of its nativity. It probably comes
to the birth at an early age, but there is this deserving of
consideration about it that this cow born of calf can be
bled to whiteness, and knocked on the head if taken in
time.

If, however, it be allowed to attain to heiferhood, it is

l66 ARMINELL.

thenceforth unmanageable : we see everything through its
medium, and like and dislike, love and hate all objects and
persons as they stand within or without of the compass of
the great cow-self, which has become our Varuna, our uni-
verse.

It must not be supposed that such as live under the
shadow of this great cow, are oppressed by it. On the con-
trary they have become so accustomed to it that they could
not exist apart from it There is a story of a man who
carried a monstrous cow on his shoulders, and explained
that he had acquired the ability to do so by beginning with
the creature when it was a day old. As the calf grew, so
grew his ability to support its weight. It is the same with
us, we carry the little calf-self about on our shoulder, and
dance along the road and leap over the stones, and as day
by day the calf grows, so does our capacity for carrying it,
till at last we trudge about everywhere, into all society, even
into church, with the monstrous cow-self on our shoulders,
and do not feel that we have anything weighing on us what-
soever.

Now Giles Inglett Saltren had grown up nursing and
petting this calf. He had good natural abilities, but partly
through his mother's folly, partly through external circum-
stances, he had come to see everything through a medium
of self. The notice taken of him by his schoolmaster be-
cause he was intelligent, by Lord Lamerton because he was
delicate, the very stethoscoping of his lungs, the jellies and
grapes sent him from the great house, the petting he got in
the servants' hall, because he was handsome and interest-
ing, the superiority he had acquired over his parents by his
residence abroad, and education, all tended to the feeding
and fattening of the calf-self; and the cod-liver oil he had
consumed, had not merely gone to restore his lungs, but to
build up piles of yellow fat on the flanks of self. Jingles
had already reached that point at which his cow had be-

ARMINELL. 167

come Varuna, his entire universe. He thought of, con-
sidered, nothing from any other point of view than as it
touched himself.

His consciousness of discomfort in the society of Orleigh,
his bitterness of mood, his resentment of the distinctions
not purposely made, but naturally existing and necessarily
insuperable, between himself and those with whom he
associated, all this sprang out of the one source, all came of
the one disease — intense, all-absorbing, all-prevailing self-
ishness.

He observed the natural ease that pervaded all the actions
of those with whom he was brought into contact in the
upper world, and their complete lack of self-consciousness,
their naturalness, simplicity, in all they said and did. He
had not got it — he could not acquire it, he was like a maid-
of-all-work from a farmhouse on a market day in the county
town wearing a Mephistopheles hat on her red head, and
ten-button gloves on her mottled arms. He was conscious
of his self-consciousness — he feared it would be remarked.
It made him suspicious and envious and angry. He could
not reach to the ease of those above him, and therefore he
desired to level them to his own plane. A man with black
blood in his veins is fearful lest those at the table should
look at his nails. Jingles was ever dreading lest some
chance glance should discover the want of breed in himself.

This caused him much misery ; and this all came of his
carrying about the cow-self with him into my lady's boudoir,
and my lord's study, to the dining-room, and to the parlour.

I was at the autumn fair some years ago at Liege ; on
the boulevards were streets of booths, some for the sale of
cakes and toys, others shows ; but, as among the stalls
those for cakes prevailed, so among the shows did the Rig-
olade Parisienne preponderate.

Not having the faintest conception of what the Rigolade
was, I paid my sou and entered one in quest of knowledge ;

1 68 ARMINELL.

and this is what I saw — a series of mirrors. But there was
this peculiar about the mirrors, one was convex, and in it I
beheld my nose reduced to a pimple, and my eyes to cur-
rants ; another was concave, in which my nose swelled to a
proboscis and my eyes to plums. A third mirror multiplied
my face fifty times. A fourth showed me my face elong-
ated, as when my MS. has been returned " not suited,"
from an editor ; a fifth widened my face to an absurd grin ;
in a sixth I saw my pleasant self magnified in serene and
smiling beauty in the midst, and showed me every surround-
ing person and object, the faces of men, the houses, the
cathedral, the sky, the sun, all distorted out of shape and
proportions. " Eh 5a, M'sou," said the showman, " c'est la
veritable Rigolade Parisienne."

Eh 9a — my dear readers, was Giles Inglett Saltren's
vision of life. He saw himself infinitely magnified and
everything else dwarfed about him and tortured into mon-
strosity.

Of one thing I am very certain, dear reader, in this great
Rigolade of life into which we have entered, and through
which we are walking, there are some who are always seeing
themselves in the multiplying mirror, and there are others
who contemplate their faces continually elongated, whilst
others again see themselves in the widening mirror and ac-
commodate themselves to be the perpetual buffoon. Let
us trust that these are not many, but there certainly are
some who view themselves enlarged, and view everything
and every person beside, the world about them, the heaven
above them, in a state of distortion.

Lord Lamerton had shown the young tutor extraordinary
kindness, for he was a man with a soft heart, and he really
wished to make the young fellow happy. He would have
liked Giles to have opened out to him and not to have
maintained a formal distance, but he was unable to do more
than invite confidence, and he attributed the stiffness of

ARMINELL. 169

the tutor to his shyness, Of late, his lordship had begun
to think that perhaps Jingles was somewhat morbid, but
this he attributed to his constitutional delicacy. Con-
sumptive people are fantastical, was his hasty generaliz-
ation.

In the heart of Giles Inglett Saltren a very mixed feeling
existed as he walked back to the park. He was gratified
to think that he had noble blood in his veins, but he was
incensed at the thought of the treachery to which his
mother had fallen a victim, and which robbed him of his
birthrights. Had that function in the drawing-room, de-
scribed by his mother, been celebrated legally, he and not
the snivelling little Giles would be heir to Orleigh, to fifty
thousand a year, and a coronet, and a seat in the House of
Lords. What use would Giles the Little make of his
privileges? Would he not lead the same prosaic life as
his father, planting pines, digging fish-ponds, keeping a
pack of hounds, doing the active work of a county magnate
and magistrate? — whereas he — Giles Inglett Saltren, no
longer Saltren, but Baron Lamerton of Orleigh, might be-
come, with the advantages of his birth, wealth, and abilities
combined, the greatest statesman and reformer England
had known. He felt that his head was bursting with ideas,
his blood on fire to give them utterance, and his hands
tingling to carry his projects into effect. Without some ad-
ventitious help, such as position and wealth could give, he
could not take the place he knew by inner illumination
should be his.

" I was sure of it," said Jingles, " that is to say I imagined
that I could not be the son of a common mining captain.
There was something superior to that sort of stuff in me.
But now this infamous act of treachery stands between me
and acknowledgment by the world, between me and such
success as, perhaps no man in England, except perhaps Mr.
Gladstone, has attained to. All I want is a lift on the

1 70 ARMINELL.

ladder — after that first step I will mount the rest of the way
myself."

He walked on fast. His blood seethed in his heart. He
was angry with LordLamerton for having betrayed his mother's
trust, and with his mother for allowing herself to be deceived.

" Something may yet be done. It is not impossible that
I may discover what has not been suspected. I must dis-
cover this friend who pretended to be a parson, and search
the archiepiscopal registers for the alleged licence. It is
hardly likely, that my lord would "dare to fabricate a false
licence, or for a friend of his to run the risk, out of friend-
ship, of twenty-five years' penal servitude. No — it is, calmly
considered, far more likely that a true licence was obtained,
that the marriage though secret, was vahd, and that my
mother was imposed upon, when assured she had been
duped, and then she was forced on Captain Saltren to dis-
pose of her securely against discovering her rights and de-
manding them. I will go to town and then take advice
what to do. It will, perhaps, be best for me thence to write
to his lordship and ask for the particulars, threatening unless
they are furnished me voluntarily, that I will search them
out for myself. If I were the Honourable Giles Inglett,"
mused Jingles, with his eyes on the moonlit road, "how
utterly different my position in the house would be to what
it now is. That confounded butler — who assumes a patron-
ising air, and would, if I gave him encouragement, pat me
on the shoulder. That impudent valet, who brought me
up the wrong waistcoat yesterday morning, and allowed me
to ring thrice before he chose to answer the bell, and never
apologised for having kept me waiting. Then, again, at
table the other day, when something was said of fish out of
water, the footman touched my back with the dish of curried
prawns. He did it intentionally, he meant that I was a fish
out of water, a curried prawn myself, in fiery heat. There was
something said among the gentlemen about Gammon, the

ARMINELL. 1 7 1

man who has just been created High Sheriff. He made his
money in mines. One of those present said that those
fellows who scramble into society for which they are not
qualified always reminded him of French poodles, half-
shaven and half-savage ; every one laughed and the laugh
cut me like knives. I am sure several at the table thought
of me, and that they have taken to calling me ' the French
poodle.' What am I? I am either his lordship's legitimate
but unacknowledged son — and if so I am shaved all over ;
but if I am as he would pretend, his bastard — I am half-
shaved, and so half-shaved I must run about the world,
laughed at, thought monstrous, pitied, a creature of aristo-
cratic and plebeian origin commingled, with the hair about
my neck, and ears, and eyes, and nose, but all the rest of
me poHshed and cultured. A poodle indeed ! I — a French
poodle ! "

A piece of decayed branch fallen from a tree lay in the
road. Jingles kicked it away.

*' That," said he passionately, ** is what I should like to
do to the butler, were I the Honourable Giles. And that,"
he kicked another stick, " is how I would treat that brute
who allowed me to wait for my waistcoat. And so," he
trod on and snapped a twig that lay athwart his path, " so
would I crush the footman who dared to nudge me with
the curried prawns ! And," he caught a hazel bough that
hung from the hedge, and broke it off, and ripped the
leaves away, and then with his teeth pulled the rind away,
*'and this is what I would do to that man who dared to
talk of half-shaved French poodles. Oh ! if I could be but
a despot — a dictator for an hour — for an hour only — to
ram the curried prawns down the throat of that insolent
ruffian who nudged me, and to flay alive that creature who
spoke of poodles ! Then I would cheerfully surrender my
power into the hands of the people and be the democratic
leader once more."

172 ARMINELL.

He entered the park grounds by a side-gate and was
soon on the terrace. There he saw Arminell returning to
the house from her stroll in the avenue.

" Mr. Saltren," she said, " have you also been enjoying
the beauty of the night ? "

" I have been trying to cool the fever within," he replied.

*' I hope," she said, misunderstanding him, " that you
have not caught the influenza, or whatever it is from Giles."

" I have taken nothing from Giles. The fever I speak of
is not physical."

" Oh ! you are still thinking of what we discussed over
the Noah's Ark."

" Yes — how can I help it ? I who am broken and
trodden on at every moment."

" I am sorry to hear you say this, Mr. Saltren. I also
have been talking the matter over with papa, and after he
went in, 1 have been walking up and down under the
trees meditating on it— but I get no farther, for all my
thinking."

*' Miss Inglelt," said Jingles, " the time of barley-mows is
at an end. Hitherto we have had the oats, and the wheat,
and the rye, and the clover, and the meadow-grass ricked,
stacked separately. All that is of the past. The age of
the stack-yard is over with its several distinct classified
ricks — this is wheat, that is rye ; this is clover, that damaged
hay. We are now entering an age of Silo, and inevitably as
feudalism is done away with, so will the last relics of
distinctions be swept aside also, and we shall all enter an
universal and common silo."

" I do not think I quite understand you."

" Henceforth all mankind will make one, all contribute
to the common good, all be pressed together and the in-
dividuality of one pass to become the property of all."

Arminell shook her head and laughed.

" I confess that I find great sweetness in the old stack-

ARMINELL. 173

yard, and a special fragrance attaches to each rick. Is all
that to be a thing of the past, and the savour of the silo to
be the social atmosphere of the future ? "

'* You strain the illustration," said Saltren, testily.

"You wish to substitute ait aggregate of nastiness for
diversified sweets."

" Miss Inglett, I will say no more. I thought you more
sympathetic with the aspirations of the despised and down-
trodden, with the movement of ideas in the present
century."

"I am sympathetic," said Arminell. "But I am as be-
wildered now as I was this morning. I am just as one who
has been spun through the spiral tunnel on the St. Gothard
line, when one rushes forth into day : you know neither in
which direction you are going, nor to what level you are
brought. I dislike your similitude of a silo, and so have a
right to criticise it."

"Arminell," said Jingles standing still.

" Mr. Saltren ! " The girl reared herself haughtily, and
spoke with icy coldness.

" Exactly," laughed the tutor, bitterly. " I thought as
much ! You will not allow the presumed son of a man-
ganese captain, the humble tutor, to presume an approach
of familiarity to the honourable the daughter of a peer."

" I allow no one to presume," said she, haughtily, and
turned her back on him, and resumed her walk.

"Yet I have a right," pursued Jingles, striding after her.
" Miss Inglett — Arminell, listen to me. I am not the man
to presume. I know and am made to feel too sharply my
inferiority to desire to take a liberty. But I have a right,
and I stand on my right. I have a right to call you by your
Christian name, a right which you will acknowledge. I
am your brother."

Arminell halted, turned and looked at him from head to
foot with surprise mingled with disdain.

174 ARMINELL.

" You doubt my words," he went on. " I am not
offended — I am not surprised at that ; indeed, I expected
it. But what I say is true. We have different mothers,
mine " — with bitterness — " of the people, that I allow^— of
the people, of the common, base lot, w^ho are dirt under
your feet ; yours is of the aristocracy, made much of, re-
ceived in society, in the magic circle from which mine would
be shut out. But we have one father ; I stand to you in
precisely the same relation as does the boy Giles, but I am
your elder brother, and should be your adviser and closest
friend."

CHAPTER XIX.

LITTLE JOHN NOBODY.

Giles Inglett Saltren had promised his mother to say
nothing to any one of what had been told him, but the
temptation^ had come strongly upon him to tell Arminell
that he was not the nobody she and others supposed, and
he had succumbed in the temptation. He and the girl had
interests in common, sympathies that drew them together,
and he felt that it would be of extraordinary benefit to her,
and a pleasure to himself, if, in that great house, where each
was so solitary, they could meet without the barrier which
had hitherto divided them and prevented the frank inter-
change of ideas and the communication of confidences.
Later on in the evening, it is true, he felt some twinges of
conscience, but they were easily stilled.

Jingles had greatly felt his loneHness. He had been
without a friend, without even a companion. He could not
associate with those of his mother's class, for he was separ-
ated from them by his education, and he made no friends
in the superior class, from the suspicion with which he
regarded its members. He had made acquaintances at
college, but he could not ask them to stay at Chillacot when
he was at the Park, nor invite them as guests to Orleigh ;
consequently, these acquaintanceships died natural deaths.
Nevertheless, that natural craving which exists in all hearts
to have a famiUar friend, a person with whom to associate
and open the soul, was strong in Jingles.

176 ARMINELL.

If the reader has travelled in a foreign country — let us
say in Bohemia — and is ignorant of the tongue, Czech, he
has felt the irksomeness of a table d'hote at which he has sat,
and of which he has partaken, without being able to join in
the general conversation. He has felt embarrassed, has
longed for the dinner to be over, that he might retire to his
solitary chamber. Yet, when there, he wearies over his
loneUness, and descends to the coffee-room, there to sip his
cafe noir^ and smoke, and pare his nails, and turn over a
Czech newspaper, make up his accounts, then sip again,
again turn over the paper, re-examine his nails, and recalcu-
late his expenditure, in weariful iteration, and long for the
time when he can call for his bill and leave. But, if some
one at an adjoining table says, " Ach ! zu Englitsch ! " how
he leaps to eager dialogue, how he takes over his coffee-cup
and cognac to the stranger's table ; how he longs to hug the
barbarian, who professes to "speaque a littelle Englitsch."
How he clings to him, forgives him his blunders, opens a
thirsty ear to his jargon, forces on him champagne and
cigars, forgets the clock, his nails, his notes, the bill and the
train, in the delight of having met one with whom he can
for a moment forget his isolation.

If this be so when meeting with a foreigner, how much
more cordial is our encounter with a pleasant Englishman.
We at once seek out links of connection, to establish the
fact of our having mutual acquaintances.

So did the impulse come on Saltren and overpower him.
There was a community of ideas between him and Arminell ;
and he was swept away by his desire to find a companion,
into forgetfulness of the promise he had made to his mother.

That he was doing wrong in telling the girl a secret,
about which he had no right to let a hint fall without her
father's knowledge and consent, could hardly be hid from
his concsience, but he refused to listen, and excused himself
on grounds satisfactory to his vanity. It was good for Armi-

ARMINELL. 1 77

nell herself to know the relationship, that she might be able
to lean on him without reserve. Giles Inglett Saltren had
been very solitary in Orleigh. He had not, indeed, been
debarred the use of his mother-tongue ; but he had been
unable to give utterance to his thoughts; and of what profit
is the gift of speech to a man, if he may not speak out what
is on his mind? The young are possessed with eager desire
to turn themselves inside out, and to show every one their
internal organisation. A polypus has the same peculiarity.
It becomes weary of exposing one surface to the tide, and
so frankly and capriciously inverts itself, so that what was
coat of stomach becomes external tissue, and the outer skin
accommodates itself to the exercise of digestive func-
tions. Young people do the same, and do it publicly, in
society, in a drawing-room, in unsympathetic company. As
we grow older we acquire reserve, and gradually withdraw
our contents within ourselves, and never dream of allowing
any other surface to become exposed to the general eye,
but that furnished us by nature as our proper external en-
velope. The young tutor had his own crude, indigested
notions, a mind in ferment, and an inflamed and irritable
internal tissue, and he naturally and eagerly embraced the
only opportunity he had of inverting himself.

Then, again, a still mightier temptation operated on
Jingles, the temptation which besets every man to assume
the rdle of somebody, who has been condemned to play the
part of nobody, when an opening is given.

There is a poem m Percy's Reliques, that represents the
grievances of the common Englishman at the time of the
Reformation, who dislikes the change that is going on
about him, the introduction of novelties, the greed that
masqueraded under the name of religion ; and every verse
ends with the burden, " But I am little John Nobody, and
^ durst not speak."
^ Jingles had been unable to express his opinion, to appear

178 ARMINELL.

to have any opinion at all ; he had been in the house, at
table, everywhere, a Httle John Nobody who durst not
speak. Now the role of little John Nobody is a role dis-
tasteful to every one, especially to one who has a good
opinion of himself. Imagine the emotions of an actor who
has been doomed for years to be a walking gentleman, to
whom has been suddenly offered the part of Hamlet.
Would he not embrace the chance with avidity ?

When Arminell approached Jingles with a not exactly,
" Me speaque a littelle Englitsch ! " but with the confession
that she understood his mind, and was asking of life the
same questions that troubled him, then he warmed to her
and longed for a closer intercourse. When, moreover,
he found that it was possible for him to establish a tie of a
close and binding nature between them, it was more than
his moral courage could resist to break the seal of silence
and tell her who he was.

But Jingles had entered into no particulars, and
Arminell could not rest with the half-knowledge she
possessed. She could not ask him to tell her more, nor
could she explain the circumstances. She could not
endure to be kept in partial ignorance, and immediately
after breakfast, on the following morning, she went to
Chillacot to see Mrs. Saltren.

The captain's wife was greatly alarmed when she heard
what was wanted. Arminell spoke coldly, distantly,
haughtily. Mr. Giles Inglett Saltren, she said, had let
drop some words that implied a relationship. She must
know whether there were any foundations for the implica-
tion. Mrs. Saltren trembled and made excuses, and
attempted evasions ; but Arminell was determined to know
the facts, and she forced the woman to repeat to her the
story she had told on the previous night.

** But, oh, miss ! I named no names ; and Giles never
ought to have breathed a word about it. I will go down

ARMINELL. 179

on my knees to you to beg you to say nothing to any one
about this matter."

" Do you suppose it is a subject I am likely to discuss —
to Mrs. Cribbage, for instance ? That I will talk freely of
an affair which compromises the honour of my father?"

" There is scarce any one knows about it."

" Except my father, yourself, and your son."

" And the captain ; but, miss, I beg you to bear witness
that I named no names."

"I want to know no more, none of the details," said
Arminell, " I only trust they may all be rolled up and cast
away into oblivion."

She returned to the Park, went into the music-room and
began to practise on the piano. She was able to do the
mechanical work and think at the same time. She believed
the story she had been told, not so much because Marianne
Saltren had related it, as because Jingles so confidently be-
lieved it. He would never have spoken to her on the
matter had he harboured the slightest shadow of doubt.

But the story was one on which her mind must busy it-
self. She began unconsciously to play Agatha's song
" Leise, leise," from " Der Freischiitz," and as she played,
two tears rolled down her cheeks.

She had always regarded her father with respect as a
man of principle and strict notions of honour, though she
did not consider him as a man of abiHty. Now he ap-
peared to her in a light that showed him guilty of conduct
unworthy of a gentleman, inexpressibly base and cowardly.
His behaviour towards her own mother had been bad, for
Arminell was satisfied that her mother would never have
married Lord Lamerton had she been allowed to suspect
that his character was stained with such an ugly blur.

" I am glad she died," said the girl with a sob, and then
with a start she asked, " How was it that that woman was
in the house with my mother ? How could she bear it ?

l8o ARMINELL.

No ; my dearest mother knew nothing, had no suspicions,
and it was generous of Mrs. Saltren to be so near, and
never let her suspect what had been done to her."

She shook her head to shake out the conjectures that
distressed her. It was a pity she did put these ques-
tions from her. Had she looked at them more closely she
'would have seen the incoherence in the story told her by
Marianne. Then the same thought occurred to her which
had presented itself to Jingles. Was it not possible that
the marriage with the servant-maid had been a valid one,
but that advantage had been taken of lier ignorance to
make her believe it was not, and so for Lord Lamerton to
shake himself free from an encumbrance which had be-
come irksome to him ? But if this were the case, her own
mother's marriage would be of questionable legality, and
with it would go her own — Arminell's — legitimacy. A cold
terror came over the girl at the thought. By all means
Jingles must be induced to desist from investigating the
matter and pressing his rights, if he had any. What a con-
dition of affairs would ensue if the marriage of Marianne
w^ere a real one. Why the present Lady Lamerton would
not be a proper wife, nor little Giles legitimate any more
than herself.

Arminell was young, had no practical knowledge of the
world, and her imagination had been fed by novels, not of
the most wholesome quality. Such an incident, such a
hideous entanglement involving so many was quite in accor-
dance with romance, and the young are always expecting
reality to take romantic lines, as the old are always mistrust-
ing the romantic as the garb of falsehood.

Arminell leaned her elbow on the music-stand, and her
head in her palm. She felt faint and sick at the thought
that had risen up in her.

At that precise moment Giles Inglett Saltren came into
the room. He had heard the sound of the piano, and he

ARMINELL. l8l

knew that the girl spent an hour every morning in the music-
room practising. She looked up, recovered her distracted
thoughts, and resumed her mechanical play on the
keys.

"Do you want to speak to me?" she asked, as he took
his place beside the grand piano, ready to turn over the
leaves of her exercises.

" Yes ; what are you playing ? "

" I am practising, not playing anything of importance,
anything consecutive, a reverie ; but one must hack every
day, without it all execution goes out of the fingers. It is a
pity that hacking with the tongue so many hours a day does
not conduce to brilliancy of conversation."

" I should like a few words with you," said the tutor, " if
you can spare me the time. I wish to express my regret for
having spoken last night. I ought not to have revealed the
secret of my birth ; but it was burning in my heart, and
flamed out at my mouih."

Arminell continued playing and said nothing.

" We must let the matter drop," he said in a low tone.
" I will not presume again, if you will endeavour to forget."

*' How can I forget ? As well dash vitriol in my eyes,
and say don't allow them to smart."

He saw that there were tears on her face.

"I am sincerely sorry," he said, "I am heartily penitent.
I see I have hurt you. My words were vitriol, and your
eyes have overflowed."

" Doubly do you hurt me now — in noticing what should
have been left unobserved. I am crying over my dead re-
spect for my father. I loved him in my own queer and
wayward fashion, though there was little we had in common.
I beUeved him to be upright and good, and now my faith is
gone to pieces."

"We must make allowances," said Jingles. "This hap-
pened long ago — I am twenty-one — and Lord Lamerton

1 82 ARM I NELL.

was at the time young, under thirty. In token of his regret
he has done much for me."

"I have been accustomed," said Arminell, "to look up to
my father, and I have been full of a certain family pride —
not pride in rank and wealth and all that sort of thing, but
pride in the honour and integrity which I believed had been
'ours always ; and now I find — " she sobbed ; she could not
finish her sentence.

"I am very sorry. I shall ever reproach myself," was
the impotent remark of Jingles, but he did feel a sting of
self-reproach. He had acted cruelly to kill a girl's trust in
her father.

"It cannot be helped," she said, "it is done. Well, 1
know all, my eyes are opened, I accept you as my half-brother.
When my father married again he sacrificed half his father-
hood in me, or so I felt it ; and now of that half that re-
mained something has been taken from me. Very little of
my dear papa remains now — only a shadow."

" And I," said Jingles, " I am even in a worse plight than
you, for I cannot love a father who has so wronged my
mother." After a long pause, during which he held and
fluttered a page of Arminell's music, he added, " What a for-
lorn condition mine is. I am here by sufferance who ought
to be here by right. Every one dins in my ears the great
kindness which I have had shown me by his lordship, and
yet I know that I am not receiving more than a fraction of
the portion that should be mine. Her ladyship patronises
me, Giles regards me as a hired tutor, the servants are barely
civil, the guests either ignore me or cast gibes, as — " he
checked himself; he was again recurring to the half-shaved
French poodle, when in at the door, or French window that
led from the terrace, came Lord Lamerton, fresh and
cheery.

"Saltren/' he said, "you here ! I am glad of that. The
man I want ; do me a favour, my good fellow, and be the

ARMINELL. 1 83

go-between 'twixt your father and me. Arminell, have you
seen Giles this morning? He is better, dear rascal, and
quite bright. What, doing drill on the keys? Saltren, I
hope you will do your utmost endeavour with your father
about his house. The company are in a quandary about it.
We — I am a director, you know — we will give him a tip-top
price, in fact, more than twice its value. The place is really '
not a pleasant one, and well deserves its chilly name. Ton
my word, I believe it was the cold and damp situation that
sowed in you the seeds of pulmonary disease. I sent
Macduff down, but he could effect nothing. I believe, on
my very soul, that there is no man on earth but yourself
who can move your father. He is a stubborn man, eh,
Saltren? I would go myself and see him about it, but
Macduff tells me your father is ruffled about the manganese.
It is the deuce of a pity, but I cannot help myself. I wish
he could be persuaded to sell. Why, Saltren, between you,
me, and the piano, I believe if I chose to dispute your
father's right to Chillacot I could beat him. Macduff says
that there has been some sort of acknowledgment made
every year, there was no lease of any sort, and I am the
lord of the manor — but I won't do that. I won't be harsh
or seem so, not only because I have the utmost respect for
the captain, such a good and thoroughly upright man, but
above all, because he is your father, my boy. However,
my dear Saltren, something must be done, we are in a fix.
The company will be put to the greatest possible incon-
venience and much expense that might be avoided, if it has
to carry the line below. Your father — "

" Seven," muttered Jingles.

" I beg your pardon ? '' asked my lord, raising his eye-
brows.

" Nothing, my lord," answered the young man. *' I had
no intention to interrupt. I was counting."

"Counting— oh, whilst my daughter played. She has

1 84 ARMINELL.

given over strumming, so give over counting, please. You
will do what I ask, will you not ? "

" I will see him, my lord, as it is your pleasure."

" Use all your powers of persuasion. Tell him that I
want to cut a new road, to find employment for the men ;
and if the station be at Chillacot, the road must go there.
If your father — "

"Eight," whispered Jingles as an aside, and looked at
Arminell.

*'If your father is reasonable, we will begin at once.
You see how we are situated. I can understand his re-
luctance to quit a house where he was bom, and for which
he has done so much ; but then, consider the price offered
for it. This offer comes in most fitly now that the mine is
abandoned. Your father — "

Again the tutor looked at Arminell.

" Your father must leave, as there is no work for him of
the kind he is accustomed to, and a nice Httle capital would
be very serviceable."

" I will go, my lord, at once," said Jingles.

"Thank you, Saltren, thank you. I have to be off to
catch the 11.28 train."

He went out of the room through the window by which
he had entered.

" Did you hear ? " asked the tutor, partly in scorn, partly
in pain. "Nine times at the least did he speak of the
manganese captain as my father, although he knew perfectly
all the while that I am not his son. Did you notice the
pointed way in which he spoke? It was as though he
suspected that I had got wind of the truth, and would em-
phatically let me understand that he would never, never
acknowledge it, emphatically bid me consider the mining
captain as my father. But " — his face darkened with anger
— " I am by no means assured that we know the whole
truth."

ARMINELL. 185

Arminell shuddered. Jingles looked intently at her, and
saw that she divined his thoughts.

"No," said he calmly: "never fear that I will have the
story published to the world. It would bring disgrace on
too many persons. It would make my mother's position
now as the wife of Captain Saltren an equivocal one. To
disclose the truth, whatever complexion the truth might be
found to wear when examined, would cause incalculable
misery. What I shall do, whither I shall turn, I cannot
yet tell."

Arminell also had noticed the manner in which Lord
Lamerton had spoken of the captain to the tutor as his
father, and she also, with her preconceptions, thought it was
pointedly so done.

" No," said Jingles. " I shall have to leave this house,
and I shall let his lordship know that I am not as blind as
he would wish me to be. But what I shall do is as yet
undetermined. I shall ask you to help me to come to a
decision."

CHAPTER XX.

HE BECOMES SOMEBODY.

Arminell kept to herself that day. At lunch she had not
much to say to her step-mother, and Lord Lamerton was
out. Giles came down, and his mother talked to him and
to the tutor, and seemed not to observe Arminell's silence.

The girl was unhappy. She had given way to a momen-
tary weakness, or wave of regret at the thought of her
father's unworthiness, but the feeling predominating in her
mind was indignation that her mother should have been left
unacquainted with the previous conduct of my lord. She
repeated to herself, " Most certainly she never knew it, or
she would never have married him, even if she knew that
ceremony was worthless that had been performed over him
and Marianne."

Arminell had idealised her mother. The girl had an
affectionate heart, but she concentrated her affection on the
memory of her mother. Ever since her father's re-marriage
there had brooded over her a sense of wrong done to the
memory of the mother. How could my lord, after having
loved such a woman, take to himself his present wife ?

Arminell was by no means easy in mind about Jingles'
assurance that he would not speak. He had given the
same assurance, as Mrs. Saltren had told her, to his mother,
and had broken his promise. She resolved to exert her

ARMINELL. 187

powers of persuasion on him to deepen this determination
to be silent.

It was unfortunate that Lord Lamerton had not been
able to cultivate more freely his daughter's society, but a
nobleman has ten thousand calls on his time ; he is pre-
vented from living that close life of familiar association with
his children which is the privilege of those in an inferior
station. He considered, and he was right in considering,
that his country, his order, and his county had claims on
him which must not be put aside. He was a poor orator
indeed, and rarely spoke in the House, but he conscienti-
ously voted with his party. In town he and Lady Lamerton
saw a good deal of society, not because they cared particu-
larly for it, but because they considered it a duty to enter-
tain and keep up relations with friends and connexions. In
the country Lord Lamerton, as Arminell contemptuously
said, was kept on the gallop between school prize-givings,
petty sessional meetings, quarter sessions, political and
charitable institutions. He sat on boards, occupied chairs
wherever there were boards and chairs placed for him.
Moreover, at Orleigh, after the London season, the house
was full of acquaintances, who came to shoot, hunt, drive,
and be amused; and, with a house full of guests. Lord
Lamerton had not opportunity for cultivating the society of
his daughter. But he was a man full of kindness, and he
made many attempts to gain her affection, and persuade her
to be to him the close companion that a daughter often is
to a father. These attempts had failed, chiefly because of
the resentment she bore him for having married again.
Had he remained a widower, and sought to associate her
with him in his pursuits, it might have been otherwise ; but,
as he had looked elsewhere for a companion, she closed her
heart in reserve against him.

Lord Lamerton was fond of hunting, and in this Arminell
did not accord with him. Her Girton governess had

1 88 ARMINELL.

scoffed at those who had nothing better to do or think of
than the pursuit, over hedge and gate, of a creature hardly
bigger than a cat ; and the sneer had taken effect on the
girl, and made her regard her father, because of his hunting,
as somewhat grotesque and deficient in moral dignity. She
could not accompany him when shooting, but she was out
of sympathy with sport of this kind also. Her governess
had spoken of those lords of creation who concentrated
their vast intellects on the killing of a jacksnipe, and this
remark stuck in her, as did the other about fox-hunting.
She regarded sportsmen as fools, more or less. I once knew
a man who had a mole with three white hairs growing out of
it, on his nose; and when I talked with him, one hemisphere
of my brain was engaged in considering the mole, and
asking how it came there — whether it had grown as he
grew, or whether it had been of the same size when he was
born, and whether his body had expanded and elongated
about it ; why he did not disguise it with chalk or violet
powder, or else darken the three white hairs with antimony ;
whether he had consulted a surgeon concerning its removal,
and, if so, why the surgeon had not removed it ? Was it
the cork plugging an artery, so that the man would bleed
to death were it to be cut away ? Why he, of all men, was
afflicted with this mole — was it hereditary ? And if so, on
which side did it come to him, on the paternal or maternal ?
And if it were a hereditary mole, whether it would be
possible, by judicious crossing, to reduce and finally extir-
pate it ? Then again, whether after long disappearance, in
say three generations, the mole would declare itself in the
fourth ? what the mole had to do with the doctrine of
evolution? whether the Anthropological Society had con-
sidered this mole ? and other questions. Afterwards I did
not know whether this man had blonde hair or swarthy,
eyes brown or blue, an intellectual forehead or one retreat-
ing, nose acquiline, retrousse^ or sausage. Neither could I

ARMINELL. I89

recall anything about his conversation — I could think of
him only as the Man with the Mole, or, to be more exact,
the Mole with the man.

Now, it sometimes happens that we see a blemish in a
man's character, and that blemish entirely engrosses our
attention, so that we cannot conceive of the man other than
as the man with the blemish. He may have good, counter-
balancing qualities, but of these we know nothing, we take
no account, we see only the moral mole.

Moreover, this habit of seeing moles, and marking nothing
but moles grows on us. I quite remember how that for a
twelvemonth after I had talked with my gentleman with
the mole, I examined the nose of every one I met, explor-
ing it for moles, and expecting to find them hid under
disguises, powdered or patched over ; or to discover traces
of the amputation of moles, suspicious, tell-tale scars, or
else tokens that latent moles were on the eve of eruption,
moles that had been hidden deep in the system which were
unsuspected by nearest and dearest, gradually, stealthily,
inexorably working into publicity ; and I began to calculate
how long it would be before the suspected mole came to
light. And I became radically convinced that all men had
moles in their constitution — that is, all men but myself —
and that all men therefore were to be mistrusted, and held
at arms' length, lest their moles should communicate them-
selves to us, after the manner of warts.

Arminell had not indeed reached this stage, but she was
in that condition in which she saw the faults of her father
and step-mother, and the faults only. Unable to forgive
him his second marriage, she was predisposed to judge
unfairly and harshly all he did, and all he left undone.

That one special reason for his re-marriage was his desire
to provide her with a step-mother, one who could guide
and advise her, and counteract some of the mischief done
by injudicious governesses, never for a moment occurred to

190 ARMINELL.

her, and yet this had been the predominant motive in the
mind of Lord Lamerton when he chose Lady Julia Chester-
ton. She was a woman spoken of as clever and well-read,
and kind-hearted. Clever, well-read, and kind-hearted, he
had found her, and yet deficient in the very quality necessary
for commanding Arminell's respect, and that was decision.
Lady Julia, whatever Arminell might think, was an able
woman, but her promiscuous reading had sapped the founda-
tions of all independence of mind that she ever possessed, and
had acted on her brain, as acids on osseous matter — reducing
it to jelly. She was ever building with head, and hands,
and heart, an indefatigable builder, but always on no foun-
dations at all, because she argued that solid rock was no
where discoverable, and sand was liable to shift, therefore
she would erect her structures in the air, on nothing.

Lord Lamerton had been disappointed at the result, but
had no idea as to the cause of failure. And now, upon a
mind in antagonism, this disclosure made by Mrs. Saltren
came, and brought Arminell's antagonism to a cHmax.

The tears which young Saltren had surprised were the sole
:ribute of her filial affection. When they were dried only
hostility remained.

Some while ago, Messrs. Pears published an advertise
ment of their soap, on which were a green spot and another
red, and the curious were invited to study one spot at a
time, and then look at a blank wall. When this was done
he who had contemplated the red spot, saw a green disc
dance before his eyes ; but if, on the other hand, he had
looked long on the green spot, he saw before him only a red
ball. It is so with a good many people ; and it was so with
Arminell. Whenever Lord or Lady Lamerton wished her
to see this or that, to take such a view of some particular
matter, she invariably saw the complementary colour, that is
the reverse of what she was desired to see.

T, who write this, am ashamed to confess that I do the

ARMINELL. I9I

same, and I am not sure that, occasionally, you, my dear
reader, may also do the same — now and then, of course :
only when the wind is easterly, and the liver is out of order,
or the next morning after a ball. I know that when I have
read the Saturday Review, I rise from the perusal believing
in Mr. Gladstone, and ready to follow him to the bottom of
the Red Sea, or wherever else he desires to lead us ; and
that when I liave read the Pali-Mall Gazette, I am eager to
drive my wife and daughters into the Primrose League.
Also, I am quite sure that when some person has been
warmly lauded in your hearing, dear reader, you take a low
view of that individual, and when another has been much
disparaged, you take up the cudgels to defend him, though
he or she is an absolute stranger to you, and one of whom
you have never heard before. \ never recommend a water-
ing-place to my friend, sure, if he goes there, he will call it
a beastly hole, or dissuade him from buying a horse, by de-
tailing its faults, so certain am I that my words will make
him purchase the brute.

In the afternoon of the same day, as the sun was warm,
and the air was soft, Saltren took little Giles upon the ter-
race; and Arminell, who saw them from her window,
descended, and joined them there. She was uneasy and
impatient to know what the tutor intended doing. Would
he come to a full understanding with Lord Lamerton, and
would my lord agree to provide for him, if he would depart
and keep the secret of his birth undisclosed ? Or would
Jingles in London discover sufficient to make him suspect
that his mother's marriage was valid, and be carried away
by ambition to establish his legitimacy at all costs to
others ?

At the same moment that Arminell came out on the ter-
race, the rector's wife, Mrs. Cribbage, drove up in her
wickerwork pony-carriage, and entered the house to pay a
visit to Lady Lamerton.

192 ARMINELL.

Giles ran off to see his rabbits, and Jingles was left alone
walking with ArminelL

"I suppose you are not burdening Giles with many
lessons, now that he is convalescent ? " said the girl

" No, her ladyship does not wish him to be pressed. He
is still heavy in his head with cold."

"Well," said Arminell, "I did not come here to talk
about Giles, so we will dismiss him from our conversation.
I have been considering this miserable matter, and I want
to know what action you purpose taking on it."

" I also," said the tutor, " have been revolving the matter
in my head, and I have resolved to leave Orleigh as soon as
possible, and to ask my uncle, Mr. James Welsh, my mother's
brother, to assist me to enter a literary career."

" Literary career ! in what branch ? "

" I intend to write for the press, I mean for the papers.
Mr. Welsh lives hy his profession, and I will do the same."

" That must be more interesting than teaching little boys
Mensa — mensae, Dominus — domini."

" The press is the sceptre that now rules the world, and I
will wield it."

" Oh, how I envy you 1 " said Arminell. " You are about
to do something, something worth the labour, something the
thought of which kindles ambition. You will escape out of
this wearisome round of hum-drum into the world of heroic
action. Here is my lord spending his life in petty duties as
he regards them, and has no result at the end to show ; my
lady thinking, planning, executing, and also with no result
appearing ; and I, wasting my time practising at the piano,
running my voice over scales, doing a little sketching, read-
ing odds and ends, picking flowers — and nothing can come
of it all. We are made for more serious work."

"I believe," said Jingles, "that the writer of leaders ex-
ercises more power, because he appeals to a wider circle,
than even the member of Parliament. One out of every

ARMINELL. 1 93

twenty who takes up a paper, reads the speeches, but every
one reads the leading articles. I believe that we stand at
the beginning of a great social revolution, not in England
only, but throughout the civilized world, and I have long
desired to take part in it, I mean in directing it. I do not
hold the extreme opinions of some, but I have my opinions,
no, that is not the word, convictions, bred in me by my
perception of the inequalities, injustices, and unrealities of
life as it is now organised."

" And you will work for your uncle ? "

" I do not altogether hold with him," said Jingles. " He
takes too commercial an aspect of the mission imposed on
a man with his power and faculties reaching the ear of the
people."

" Do you intend to live with him ? "

"I cannot tell. I have decided on nothing as to the
particulars. I have sketched out the broad features of my
future career."

" And," — Arminell's voice faltered — " my father ? "

" I will write to him after I am in town, informing him
that I know all, and that, therefore, it was not possible for
me, with self-respect, to remain in his house."

Arminell looked down on the gravel.

*' You will not go into this matter, not have my mother's
name brought in question ? "

" I will do nothing that can cause you a moment's pain,"
answered Jingles patronisingly.

" I shall be very solitary," she said. " More so than be-
fore. With you I can talk about matters of real interest,
matters above the twaddle of common talk — Yes ? "

This was addressed to the footman who appeared on the
terrace and approached.

" What is it, Matthews ? "

" My lady says, miss, that she will be glad if you could
make it convenient to step into the parlour."

194 ARMINELL.

"There," said Arminell, when Matthews had withdrawn,
" so she stands between me and the light at all times. I
shall be back directly. She wants me about the choice of
some new patterns for covering the sofas and chairs, I dare
say. Here comes Giles from his rabbits."

Arminell walked slowly to the drawing-room, with a frown
of vexation on her brow. She never responded with alacrity
to her step-mother's calls.

Mrs. Cribbage, the rector's wife, saw at once that Ar-
minell was in a bad humour, as she entered the room.

" I am sorry to interrupt you," she said. " It was my do-
ing. Lady Lamerton and I were speaking about old
Samuel Ceely, and I have just heard how you have inter-
ested yourself about him."

" I sent to ask you to come, dear," said Lady Lamerton
in her sweet, gentle tones, " because Mrs. Cribbage has
been telling me about the man. He is unobjectionable
now, but he was a bit of a rake once."

" He was a gamekeeper to the late Lord Lamerton, and
to the dowager," put in Mrs. Cribbage, " and was dismissed.
I could find out all the particulars. I believe he sold the
game, and besides, was esteemed not to have the best
moral character. However, I know no particulars. I will
now make a duty of enquiring, and finding them out. Of
late years — except for snaring rabbits and laying night-lines
»— I believe he has been inoffensive."

" We are all miserable sinners," said Arminell, " we were
told so on Sunday "

" You were not at church on Sunday," interrupted Mrs.
Cribbage.

" And," continued Arminell, " it is really satisfactory to
know that poor Ceely is not an exception to that all-
embracing rule, and that he has not the moral perfection
which would make up for his physical short-comings."

Arminell could not endure the rector's wife, and took no

ARMINELL. 1 95

pains to disguise her feelings. Lady Lamerton likewise
disliked her, but was too sweet and ladylike to show it.

Mrs. Cribbage was an indefatigable parish visitor. She
worked the parish with the most conscientious ardour, con-
sidering a week lost unless she had visited every house in
it and had dispensed a few pious scriptural remarks, and
picked up a pinch of gossip in each. She knew everything
about every one in the place, and retailed what she knew,
especially if it were too unpleasant to retain. She did not
give out much scandal in the cottages, but she pecked here
and there after grains of information, and swallowed what
she found. And the people, well aware of her liking, with
that courtesy and readiness to oblige which characterises
the English lower orders, brought out and strewed before
her all the nasty, and ill-natured, and suspicious scraps of
information they had hoarded in their houses. Mrs. Crib-
bage carried aw^ay whatever she learned, and communicated
it to her acquaintances in a circle superior to that where
she gathered it, to the Macduffs, to the wives of the neigh-
bouring parsons, to the curate, with caution to Lady
Lamerton. She acted as a turbine wheel that forces water
up from a low level to houses on a height. She thus im-
pelled a current of tittle-tattle from the deep places of
society to those who lived above ; but in this particular
she differed from the turbine, that forces up clean water,
whereas, what Mrs. Cribbage pumped up was usually the
reverse.

Mrs. Cribbage was nettled by Arminell's uncourteous
tone, and said : " What charming weather we have been
having. I hope. Miss Inglett, that you enjoyed your Sun-
day morning walk ? "

" It was as delightful as the weather," answered Arminell,
well aware that there were claws in the velvet paw that
stroked her. " Would you wish to know where I went ? "

" O, my dear Miss Inglett ! I know."

196 ARMINELL.

Then Mrs. Cribbage left, and when she was gone, Lady
Lamerton said gently, " You were too curt with that woman,
dear. You should never forget your manners, never be
rude to a visitor in your own house."

" I am not an adept at concealment, as are others."
"The best screen against such a person is politeness."
" She is like a snail, with eyes that she stretches forth to
all parts of the parish. I hate her."

"Arminell, your father has been putting prickly wire
about on fences where cattle or pigs force their way. The
beasts scratch themselves against the spikes, and after one
or two experiences, learn to keep within bounds, and lose
the desire to transgress. The Mrs. Cribbages — and there
are yards of them — are the spiky wires of society, hedging
us about, and keeping us in our proper places, odious in
themselves, but useful, and a protection to us against
ourselves."

" Barbed or unbarbed, I would break through them."
*' No, my dear, you would only tear yourself to pieces
on them, without hurting them ; they are galvanised, plated,
incapable of feeling, but they can inflict, and it is their
mission to inflict an incredible amount of pain. You have
already committed an indiscretion, and the crooked spike
of the Cribbage tongue has caught you. Instead of going
to church on Sunday morning, you walked in the road
with Mr. Saltren. Of course, this was an act of mere
thoughtlessness, but so is the first plunge of the calf against
the prickly wire. Be more judicious, dear Armie, in the
future. Where w^ere you on Sunday afternoon ? "

" Sitting with Giles and Mr. Saltren," said Arminell,
furious with anger and resentment, " talking Sabbath talk.
We discussed Noah's ark."

" And this morning he went into the music-room to
you. Your father told me he found him there turning over
the leaves of your music, and counting time for you ; and

ARMINELL. I97

now Mrs. Cribbage arrives and sees you walking with him
on the terrace. My dear Armie, Jingles is a nobody, and
these nobodies are just those whom it is unsafe to trifle
with. They so speedily lose their balance, and presume."

" Mr. Saltren is not such a nobody as you suppose,"
answered Arminell. " He is a man of abihty and inde-
pendence of thought, he is one who will before long prove
himself to be a somebody, indeed."

" My dear, he is a somebody already who has established
himself as a nuisance."

CHAPTER XXT.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

So, now, even this was denied Arminell, to talk with a
rational man, the only rational man in the house, about the
subjects that interested her. She must keep Mrs. Cribbage
before her eyes, ever walk in daily fear of Mrs. Cribbage ;
consider, before she did anything she liked, what would
Mrs. Cribbage's construction on it be. The opinion of
Mrs. Cribbage was to be what she must strive to conciliate.
All principle must be subordinated to the judgment of Mrs.
Cribbage, all independence sacrificed to her.

It is one of those pleasant delusions under which we
live in England, that we have only God and the Queen to
look up to and obey. As a matter of fact Mrs. Cribbage is
absolute in heaven and earth, and the Divine law has no
force, unless subscribed by Mrs. Cribbage. We fear God,
because Mrs. Cribbage is His vicegerent, and has the triple
crown and power of the keys, and in addition bears the
sword. Resistance is powerless before the all-reaching
power of Mrs. Cribbage. The Holy Vehm was nothing in
its might to the judgment of Mrs. Cribbage. Her ministers
are everywhere executing her orders, and none of the con-
demned dare to remonstrate, or attempt escape. We may
utter with impunity treasonable words against the Queen,
and profess agnosticism towards God, but no one disputes

ARMINELL. 1 99

tlie existence of Mrs. Cribbage and would not lick the dust
under her feet.

No one loves this autocrat, but there is not a Nihilist in
her realm.

Lady Lamerton had likened her to American barbed
wire, and those who have dealings with Mrs. Cribbage
touch her as I have seen porters handle a roll of spiked
wire deposited on the railway platform, with caution, and
impatience to consign it to its proper destination. And
yet, though every one dreads, and some positively loathe
Mrs. Cribbage, yet all agree that it would not be possible to
live without her. She keeps society together as a paper-
weight compacts all kinds of scraps of correspondence, and
bills and notices.

As long as young girls are in the nursery, and subject to
governesses, they look forward to their coming out as to a
time of emancipation. They have not reckoned on Mrs.
Cribbage, who, as with a whoop they burst out of the
school-room, confronts them and blocks their road.

Arminell had done with her schooling, and properly
ought to have come out that year, but the event had been
postponed, as Lord Lamerton did not wish to go to town
that year. She was free from governesses, and by no
means inclined to lay her neck under the wheels of Mrs.
Cribbage's car. When my lord and my lady had gone to
town during the season, Arminell and Giles had not
attended them. Giles was better in health in the country,
with his pony, and his cricket, that is, with the tutor bow-
ling to him, and the coachman's son acting as long-stop;
accordingly, he was left at Orleigh to his great delight, and
Arminell was left as well, with the governess, to continue
her lessons, till she put off governesses and other childish
things. Arminell had not therefore been brought much in
contact with the world, and did not know the force of
public opinion, she no more considered it than she con-

200 ARMINELL.

sidered the pressure of the atmosphere. According to our
best authorities, we are subjected to the weight of fifteen
pounds to each square-inch of surface, and a man of
ordinary size sustains a pressure on him of some thirty-
thousand pounds of air. I am a man of ordinary size, but
1 no more knew that I laboured under the burden of thirty-
thousand pounds than I did that I was subjected to the
pressure of about the same burden of Mrs. Cribbage who
sits on my shoulders all day and squats on my chest all
night, till I turned up the matter in an encyclopaedia. We
no more think about the pressure of public opinion, I say,
than we do about the pressure of the atmosphere. We
make allowance for it, in all we undertake.

If we ascend great heights we suffer because we are no
longer subjected to the pressure ; our noses bleed, our
breath comes short ; and if, by any chance, we get out of
the region where public opinion weighs, we become alarmed,
uneasy, gasp, and cry out to be brought back under its in-
cubus once more.

When Arminell had left the room, and closed the door
behind her, she stood for a minute, resting the fingers of her
left hand on the lock.

Should she obey her step-mother or defy her ? She had
promised young Saltren to return to the terrace. She
wanted to have further talk with him. Why should she
submit to the dictation of Lady Lamerton who was in-
fluenced by the hints of that detestable Mrs. Cribbage ? If
Lady Lamerton were allowed her own way in small matters,
she would presume to dictate in those which were large, and
Arminell would be allowed no will of her own. In her
heart, the girl admitted that her step-mother had reason to
reproach her. If Jingles were only the tutor, and the son
of the mining captain, he was, as my lady said, a nobody,
and it was unbecoming for her to frequent his society. In-
deed, it was hardly decorous for her to be so much with

ARMINELL. 20I

him, were he any thing else but what she knew him to be,
her brother. The possession of the knowledge of their
relationship altered the aspect of her conduct radically, and
justified it. Lady Lamerton, in her ignorance, interfered,
and might be excused interfering, but she, Arminell, being
better informed, was at hberty to act differently from what
my lady advised. The young man was her brother, and what
more delightful intercourse than that which subsists between
brother and sister, when like-minded ? There had taken
place no open rupture between her ladyship and Arminell
as yet ; but it was inevitable that one would come, and that
shortly : perhaps, the girl argued, the sooner the better, that
her step-mother might be made clearly to understand that
she — Arminell — stood on her independence.

The girl let go the handle of the drawing-room door, and
with beating heart and heaving bosom, went deliberately
out on the terrace and resumed her place at the side of
Jingles.

♦' I have come," she said, " as I undertook. My lady has
read me a lecture."

"About what?"

" About barbed wire, about Mrs. Cribbage. That crea-
ture saw me walking with you, and remonstrated with
mamma, I mean my step-mother, and my lady retailed the
remonstrance, as in duty bound ; I am forsooth to be placed
under Mrs. Cribbage, to have my feet strapped, compressed
and dfstorted, like those of a Chinese lady, till I am unable
to walk alone, and must lean on the shoulders of the Crib-
bage and my lady. This sort of thing is intolerable to me.
Oh, that I were a man, that I might run away, as you are
going to do, and stamp, and stride, and dance, and use
every muscle in my feet freely. I detest this strapping and
pinching and crippling."

" I have felt the same," said the young man. " And it
has become unendurable to me. One must either submit

202 ARMINELL.

or break away. The process must end in irremediable dis-
tortion, and fatal deprivation of the power of walking inde-
pendently. Your whole future, your character for good or
evil, depends on your conduct now. If you fall back in
your chair unable to resist — "

" No, I will kick and kick, I will not be disabled from
walking."

" If you make a brief attempt to resist, and do not main-
tain a stubborn and determined resistance, you will be
cramped and crippled for life. As you put it, the whole
social system of the upper classes is Chinese bandaging of
the feet ; not only so, but it is Indian flattening of the skull.
I have felt, and so have you, that in this house our heads
are strapped between boards to give them the requisite
shape, and our brains to be not allowed to excede the
requisite measure."

" What can I do ? I have no one but yourself to ad-
vise me."

"It will be impossible for you to escape the influences
brought to bear on you, if you remain here ; the Cribbages,
great and small, will lie in wait till you are napping and then
fall on you and bind you, and apply the laces to your feet,
and the boards to your head."

" But, whither could I go ? " Arminell asked. She
thought for a moment, and then said, " If I went to my Aunt
Hermione, it would be going from beneath the shower
under the shoot. There never was a more formal, society-
laced creature in the whole world than my aunt. Lady
Hermione Flathead. Everything in her house, her talk, her
manners, her mind, her piety, everything about her is con-
ventional."

Lady Lamerton approached, with little spots of colour in
her cheeks, holding a parasol.

" My dear Arminell," she said, " how can you be so in-
considerate as to come out without a sunshade ? "

ARMINELL. 203

" You see," said Arminell, turning contemptuously away
and addressing the tutor ; " everything is to order. I may
not even take two steps without a parasol, in fine weather ;
and in bad, without an umbrella. The hand must never be
free."

" I think, Mr. Saltren," said Lady Lamerton, " that it
would be well if Giles went indoors, and, now that he is
better, learn a little Latin."

'*As your ladyship desires it, certainly," answered the
tutor.

" I am so glad, my dear," said Lady Lamerton, " that you
have waited for me on the terrace. I am sorry to have
detained you one minute, but I was looking out the address
of those Straceys. I will take your arm and we will look
at the pansies."

"Step-mothers, the Germans call them," said Arminell.
"I do not admire pansies.'

" We call them pansies, from pensee^ dear, which means
thought, kind thought, and fore-thought, which possibly,
though not always acknowledged, is to be found in step-
mothers."

Arminell tossed her head.

" The homely name for these same flowers," continued
Lady Lamerton, *' is hearts-ease, and I'm sure it is a mis-
nomer, if hearts-ease be the equivalent for step-mother,
especially when she has to do with a wayward step-daughter."

" I think that step-mothers would find most hearts-ease,
if they would turn their activity away from their step-
daughters, and leave them alone."

" My conscience will not suffer me to do this," answered
Lady Lamerton without losing her temper. " You may not
acknowledge my authority, and you may hold cheap my in-
tellectual powers and acquirements, but, after all, Armie, I
am in authority, and I do not think I am quite a fool. I
can, and I must, warn you against dashing yourself against

204 ARMINELL.

the barbed wire. My dear, if we would listen to others, we
would save ourselves many a tear and bitter experience. I
love you too well, and your dear father too well, to leave
you uncautioned when I see you doing what is foolish and
dangerous."

"But do you not know that experience is the one thing
that must be bought, and cannot be accepted as a gift ? "

" I beg your pardon. Our whole system of social culture is
built upon experience accepted and not bought. It is not the
CathoHcs alone who hold by tradition, we all do it, or are
barbarians. Progress without it is impracticable. We start
from the accumulated experience of the past, handed on to
us by the traditions of our fathers. If everyone began by
rejecting the acquisitions of the past, advance would be
limited to the term of man's natural life, for everyone would
begin from the beginning ; whereas, each generation now
starts where the last generation left off. It is like the hill of
Hissarlik where there are cities superposed the one on the
other, and each is an advance culturally and artistically
on that below — above the Greek Ilium, below the Homeric
Troy, under that the primeval hovel of the flint-chipper."

"Each on the ruins of the other."

" Each using up the material of the other, following the
acquisitions of the earlier builders and pushing further on
to structural perfection."

" That may be true of material process," said Arminell,
*' but, morally, it is not true. Besides, our forefathers made
blunders. I have been speaking with Mr. Saltren about the
Flatheads and the Chinese who compress the heads and
double up the feet of children. But our ancestors were
nearly as stupid. Look at the monument ot the first Lord
Lamerton in the church. See the swaddled babies repre-
sented on it, cross-gartered like Malvolio. Now we give
freedom to our babies, let them stretch, and scramble, and
sprawl. But you old ladies still treat us young girls as your

ARMINELL. 20$

great-grandmothers treated their babies. You swaddle us,
and keep us swaddled all our life long. No wonder we
resent it. The babies got emancipated, and so will we. I
have heard both papa and you say that when you were
children you were not allowed to draw nearer the fire than
the margin of the rug. Was there sense in that ? Was the
fire lighted to radiate its heat over an area circumscribed by
the mat, and that the little prim mortals with blue noses
and frosty fingers must shiver beyond the range of its warmth?
We do not see it. We will step across the rug, and if we
are cold, step inside the fender."

" And set fire to your skirts ? "

" We will go for warmth where it is to be found, and not
keep aloof from it because of the vain traditions of the
elders."

Lady Lamerton sighed.

"Well, dear," she said, "we will not argue the matter.
To shift the subject, I hardly think it was showing much
good feeling in you to come straight out here after I had
expressed my wish that you would not. It was not what I
may term — pretty."

" I had promised Mr. Saltren to return to him and resume
the thread of our interrupted conversation. Why did you
send for me about old Ceely's past history, as if I cared a
straw for that ? "

"I sent for you, Armie, because you were walking with
the tutor, and Mrs. Cribbage had observed it. She told
me, also, that you had been seen with him when you ought
to have been at church."
' " Well ? "

" It was injudicious. She also said that you had been
observed walking in the avenue last night with a gentleman;
but I was able to assure her that the gentleman was your
father."

" This espionage is insufferable," interrupted Arminell.

2o6 ARMINELL.

" I allow it is unpleasant, but we must be careful to give
no occasion for ill-natured remark."

" I can not. I will not be swaddled and have my feet
crippled, and my head compressed, and then like a Chinese
lady ask to be helped about by you and Mrs. Cribbage."

"Better that than by any one you may pick up."

" I do not ask to be helped about by any one I may pick
up. Besides, Mr. Saltren was not picked up by me, but by
my father. He introduced him to the house, gave him to
be the guide and companion of Giles, and therefore I cannot
see why I may not cultivate his acquaintance, and, if I see
fit, lean on him. I will not be swaddled, and passed about
from arm to arm — baby eternal ! "

CHAPTER XXTI.

TOO LATE.

Lady Lamerton said no more to Arminell, but waited till
the return of his lordship, before dinner, and spoke to him
on the matter.

She was aware that any further exertion of authority would
lead to no good. She was a kind woman who laboured to
be on excellent terms with everybody, and who had discip-
lined herself to the perpetual bearing of olive branches.
She had done her utmost to gain Arminell's goodwill, but
had gone the wrong way to work. She had made conces-
sion after concession, and this made her step-daughter regard
her as wanting in spirit, and the grey foliage of Lady
Lamerton's olive boughs had become weariful in the eyes of
the girl.

If my lady had taken a firm course from the first, and had
held consistently to it, Arminell might have disliked her,
but would not have despised her. It does not succeed to
buy off barbarians. Moreover, Arminell misconstrued her
step-mother's motives. She thought that my lady's peace
pledges were sham, that she endeavoured to beguile her into
confidence, in order that she might establish a despotic
authority over her.

" I do not know what to do with Armie ! " sighed Lady
Lamerton. " We have had a passage of arms to-day, and

208 ARMINELL.

she has shaken her glove in my face. Another word from
me, and she would have thrown it at my feet."

She said no more, as she was afraid of saying too much,
and she waited for her husband to speak. But, as he offered
no remark, but looked annoyed, she continued, "lam sorry
to speak to you. I know that I am in fault. I ought to
have won her heart, and with it her cheerful respect, but I
have not. It is now too late for me to alter my conduct.
Arminell was a girl of sense when I came here, and it really
seems disgraceful that at my age I should have been unable
to win the child, or master her. But I have failed, and I
acknowledge the failure frankly, without knowing what to
suggest as a remedy to the mischief done. I accept all the
blame you may be inclined to lay on me — "

Lord Lamerton went up to his wife, took her face between
his hands, and kissed her.

" Little woman, I lay no blame on you."

" Well, dear, then I do on myself I told you last night
how I accounted for it. One can look back and see one's
faults, but looking forward one is still in ignorance what
road to pursue. It really seems to me, Lamerton, that on
life's way all the direction posts are painted so as to show us
where we have diverged from the right way and not whither
we are to go."

''Julia, I exercise as little control over Armie as yourself.
It is a painful confession for a father to make, that he has
not won the respect of his child — of his daughter, I mean :
as for Giles — dear monkey — " his voice softened and had a
slight shake in it.

" And I am sure," said Lady Lamerton, putting her arms
round his neck, and drawing his fresh red cheek to her lips,
*' that there is nothing, nothing whatever in you to make her
lack the proper regard."

" I will tell you what it is," said Lord Lamerton, " Armie is
young, and beheves in heroes. We are both of us too ordi-

ARMINELL. 209

nary in our ways, in our ideas, in our submission to the
social laws, in our arm-in-arm plod along the road of duty,
to satisfy her. She wants some one with great ideas to guide
her ; with high-flown sentiment ; to such an one alone will
she look up. She is young, this will wear off, and she will
sober down, and come to regard hum-drum life with
respect."

" In the meantime much folly may be perpetrated," said
Lady Lamerton sadly. " Do look how much has been
spent in the restoration of Orleigh. You have undone all
that your grandfather had done. He overlaid the stone with
stucco, and knocked out the muUions of the windows for the
insertion of sashes, and painted over drab all the oak that
was not cut away. So are we in later years restoring the
mistakes made in ourselves, perhaps by our parents in our
bringing up, but certainly, also, by our own folly and bad
taste in youth. And well for us if there is still solid stone to
be cleared of plaster, and rich old oak to be cleared of the
paint that obscures it. What I dread is lest the iconoclastic
spirit should be so strong in the girl that she may hack and
tear down in her violent passion for change what can never
be recovered and re-erected."

" She is not without principle."

" She mistakes her caprices for principles. Her own will
is the ruling motive of all her actions, she has no external
canon to which she regulates her actions and submits her will."

" What caprice has she got now ? "

" She has taken a violent fancy to the society of young
Saltren."

" Oh ! he is harmless."

" I am not so certain of that. He is morbid and
discontented."

"Discontented ! About what? Faith — he must be hard
to please then. Everything has been done for him that
could be done,"

o

2IO ARMTNELt.

" Possibly for that reason he is discontented. Some men
like to make their own fortunes, not to have them made for
them. You have, in my opinion, done too much for the
young fellow."

"He was consumptive and would certainly have died,
had I not sent him abroad."

"Yes— but after that?"

" Then he \vas unfit for manual labour, and he was an
intelh'gent lad, refined, and delicate still. So I had him
educated."

" Are you sure he is grateful for what you have done for
him ? "

Lord Lamerton shrugged his shoulders. " I never gave
a thought to that. I suppose so."

'" I am not sure that he is. Look at children, they accept
as their due everything given them, all care shown them, and
pay no regard to the sacrifices made for them. There is
no conscious gratitude in children. I should not be sur-
prised if it were the same with young Saltren. I do not
altogether trust him. There is a something in him I do
not like. He does his duty by Giles. He is respectful to
you and me — and yet — I have no confidence in him."

"Julia," said Lord Lamerton with a Lugh, " I know what
it is, you mistrust him because he is not a gentleman by birth."

"Not at all," answered his wife, warmly. "Though I
grant that there is a better guarantee for a man of birth
conducting himself properly in a place of trust, because he
has deposited such stakes. Even if he have not principle
in himself, he will not act as if he had none, for fear of
losing caste. Whereas one with no connections about him
to hold him in check will only act aright if he have prin-
ciple. But we have gone from our topic, which was, not
Jingles, but Arminell. I want to speak about her, and
about him only so far as he influences her for good or bad.
I will tell you my cause of uneasiness."

ARMINELL, 211

Then she related to her husband what she knew about
the Sunday walk in the morning, and the Sunday talk in
the afternoon, and the music-room meeting on the follow-
ing morning.

" Oh ! " said his lordship, " he only went there to turn
over the pages of her music."

" You see nothing in that ? "

" 'Pon my soul, no."

" Then I must tell you about her conduct this afternoon,
when she disobeyed me in a marked, and — I am sorry to
use the expression — offensive manner."

" That I will not tolerate. I can not suffer her to be
insolent to you."

" For pity's sake do not interfere. You will make matters
worse. She will hate me for having informed you of what
occurred. No — take some other course."

" What course ? "

" Will it not be well to get rid of Saltren ? And till he
has departed, let Arminell go to Lady Hermione Wood-
head."

Within parenthesis be it said that Woodhead was Aunt
Hermione's real name, only in scorn, and to signify her
contraction of mind had Arminell called her Flathead, after
the tribe of Indians which affects the compression of infants'
skulls.

" I cannot dismiss him at a moment's notice, like a
servant who has misconducted himself. I'll be bound it is
not his fault — it is Armie's."

" Let Arminell go to her aunt's at once."

" By all means. I'll have a talk with Saltren."

" Not a word about Arminell to him."

" Of course not, Julia. Now, my dear, it is time for me
to dress for dinner."

Dinner passed with restraint on all sides. Lord Lamicr-
ton was uncomfortable because he felt he must speak to

212 ARMINELL.

Arminell, and must give his conge to the tutor. Arminell
was in an irritable frame of mind, suspecting that something
was brewing, and Lady Lamerton was uneasy because she saw
that her husband was disturbed in his usually placid manner.

After dinner, Lord Lamerton said to his daughter as she
was leaving the room, " Armie, dear, are you going into the
avenue ? If so, I shall be glad of your company, as I in-
tend to go there with a cigar presently."

" If you wish it, papa ; but — Mrs. Cribbage heard that
you and I had been walking there last night, and it meets
with her disapproval. May James first run to the rectory
with our compliments and ask Mrs. Cribbage's kind per-
mission ? "

She looked, as she spoke, at her step-mother, and there
was defiance in her eye.

" Nonsense, dear," said her father. " I shall be out there
in ten minutes. Will you have a whitewash, Saltren, and
then I will leave for my cigar? You are not much of a
wine-drinker, I am glad, however, you are not a teetotaller
like your father."

Again a reference to the captain. Jingles looked to-
wards the door, and caught Arminell's eye as she went
through. She also had heard the reference, and under-
stood it, as did the tutor. Certainly his lordship was very
determined to have the past buried, and to refuse all
paternity in the young fellow.

" Very well," said the girl to herself, " I will let my
father understand that I know more than he supposes. He
has no right to shelve his responsibilities. If a man has
done wrong, let him be manful, and bear the consequences.
I would do so. I would be ashamed not to do so."

She set her teeth, and her step was firm. She threw a
light shawl over her head and shoulders and went into the
avenue, where she paced with a rebellious, beating heart a
few minutes alone, till her father joined her.

ARMINELL. 213

" I know, papa, what you want ; or rather what you have
been driven to. My lady has been peaching of me, and
has constituted you her executioner."

" Arminell, I dislike this tone. You forget that courtesy
which is due to a father."

*' Exacted of a father," corrected the girl.

"And due to him as a father," said Lord Lamerton
gravely. His cigar was out. He struck a fusee and
lighted it again. His hand was not steady ; Arminell looked
in his face, illumined by the fusee, and her heart relented.
That was a good, kind face, a guileless face, very honest,
and she could see by the flare of the match that it was
troubled. But her perverse mood gained the upper hand
again in a moment. She possessed the feminine instinct in
dealing with men, when threatened, to attack, not wait to
be attacked.

" I do not think it fair, papa, that my lady should hide
herself behind you, and thrust you forward, as besiegers
attack a fortress, from behind a screen."

" You are utterly mistaken, Arminell, if you imagine that
your mother — your step-mother — has intentions of attacking
you. Her heart overflows with kindness towards you,
the warmest kindness."

" Papa, when Vesuvius is in eruption, the villagers in
proximity pray to heaven to divert into the sea, anywhere
but towards them, the warm gush of incandescent lava."

"Arminell," said her father, "you pain me inexpressibly.
I suppose that it is inevitable that a daughter by a first wife
should not agree thoroughly with her father's second choice ;
but, 'pon my soul, I can see no occasion for you to take up
arms against your step-mother ; she has been too forbearing
with you. She is the kindest, most considerate and con-
scientious of women."

"You may spare me the enumeration of her good
qualities, papa : I am sure she is a paragon in your eyes.

214 ARMINELL.

and I would not disturb the happy conviction. I suppose
marriage is much like the transfusion of blood practised by
the renaissance physicians. An injection of rabbit's blocd
into the arm of a turbulent man made him sensible to fear,
and one of lion's blood into the arteries of a coward in-
fused heroism into his soul. When there was an interchange
of blood between two individuals they came to think alike,
feel alike, and act alike ; it is a happy condition. But as
there has been no infusion of my lady's blood into me — I
think and feel and act quite differently from her."

" We will leave her out of the question," said Lord
Lamerton, dropping his daughter's arm which at first he had
taken affectionately. " Confound it, my cigar is out again,
the tobacco must be bad. I will not trouble to relight it."

"By all means let us leave my lady out of the question,"
said Arminell. " I suppose I am not to be court-martialed
for having discussed Noah's Ark on Sunday with the tutor.
I assure you we did not question the universality of the
Flood, we talked only of the packing of the animals in the
Ark."

"Was there any necessity for Mr. Saltren to come to you
in the music-room ? "

" No necessity whatever. He came for the pleasure of
talking to me, not even to turn over my music leaves."

"You must not forget, my dear, who he is."

" I do not, I assure you, papa, it is precisely that which
makes me take such an interest in him."

"Well, my dear, I am glad of that; but you must not
allow him to forget what is due to you. It will not do for
you to encourage him. He is only a mining captain's son."

" Papa," said Arminell, slowly and emphatically, " I know
very well whose son he is."

" Of course you do ; all I say is, do not forget it. He is
a nice fellow, has plenty of brains, and knows his place."

*' Yes, papa," said Arminell, " he knows his place, and he

ARMINELL. 215

knows how equivocal that place is. He is regarded as one
thing, and he is another."

" I daresay I made a mistake in bringing him here so
near to his father."

*' So very near to his father, and yet so separated from
him."

" I suppose so," said Lord Lamerton, " education does
separate."

" It separates so widely that those who are divided by it
hardly regard each other as belonging to the same human
family."

** I daresay it is so ; the miners cannot judge me fairly
about the manganese, because we stand on different educa-
tional levels."

" It is not only those beneath the line who misjudge
those above ; it is sometimes the superiors who misunder-
stand those below."

" Very possibly ; but, my dear, that lower class, with
limited culture and narrow views, is nowadays the domin-
ating class. It is, in fact, the privileged class, it pays no
taxes, and yet elects our rulers ; our class is politically
swamped, we exist upon sufferance. Formerly the castle
dominated the cottage, but now the cottages command the
castle. We, the educated and wealthy, are maintained as
parochial cows, to furnish the parishioners with milk, and
when we run dry are cut up to be eaten, and our bones
treated with sulphuric acid and given to the earth to dress
it for mangel-wurzel."

Arminell was vexed at the crafty way in which, according
to her view, her father shifted ground, when she approached
too nearly the delicate secret. She wondered whether she
had spoken plainly enough to let him understand how much
she knew. It was not her desire to come to plain words,
she would spare him that humiliation. It would be quite
enough, it would answer her purpose fully to let him under-

2l6 ARMINELL.

Stand that she knew the real facts as to the relationship in
which she stood to the tutor.

" Papa," said Arminell, "Giles Inglett Saltren strikes me
as standing towards us much in the same relation as do
those apocryphal books the names of which my lady was
teaching the children on Sunday. He is not canonical; of
questionable origin, and to be passed over."

" I do not understand you, Armie."

V I am sorry, papa, that I do not see my way to express
my m.eaning unenlgmatically."

" Armie, I have been talking to mamma about your pay-
ing a visit to Aunt Hermione. You really ought to see the
Academy this year, and, as mamma and I do not intend to
go to town, it will be an opportunity for you."

" Aunt Hermione ! " — Arminell stood still. " I don't
want to go to her. Why should I go ? I do not like her,
and she detests me."

" My dear, I wish it.'

" What ? That I should see the A^cademy ? I can take
a day ticket, run up, race through Burlington House, and
come home the same evening."

" No, my dear, I wish you to stay a couple of months at
least, with Hermione."

" I see — you want to put me off, out of the way of the
tutor, so as to have no more talk, no more confidences with
him. That is my lady's scheme. It is too late, papa, do
you understand me ? It is too late. *

" What do you mean ? "

" What I say. This is locking the door after the horse
is stolen. Send me away ! It will not alter matters one
scrap. As I said before, the precaution have come too
late."

CHAPTER XXin.

Suddenly, in the midst of his breakfast, Lord Lamerton
uttered an exclamation and turned purple, and thrust his
chair from the table.

Lady Lamerton sprang from her seat. Arminell was
alarmed. She had not seen her father in this condition be-
fore ; was he threatened with apoplexy ?

" Look at it ! God bless my soul ! " gasped his lordship.
" What confounded scoundrel has written it ? Look at it,
Julia, it is monstrous."

He thrust a newspaper from him.

" It is in this damned Radical daily. Look at it, Julia !
Where is Macduff! I want Macduff. I'll send for my
solicitor. Confound their impudence, and the lies — the
lies ! " Lord Lamerton gasped for breath, then he went on
again, " From our Own Correspondent — who is he ? If I
knew I would have him dragged through the horsepond ;
the grooms and keepers would do it — delighted to do it —
if I stood consequences. Here am I held up as a monster
of injustice, to the scorn, the abhorrence of all right-minded
men, because I have capriciously closed the manganese
mine. There is a harrowing picture drawn of a hundred
householders thrown out of work — and thrown out of work,
it is suggested, because at the last election they voted
Liberal ; I am depopulating Auburn — I am in a degree

2l8 ARMINELL.

breaking up families. Not a word about the mine threat-
ening my foundations — not a hint that I have lost a thou-
sand pounds a year by it these five years. I am driving the
trade out of the country ; and, as if that were not enough,
here is a sketch of the sort of house in which I pig my
tenants — Patience Kite's tumble-down hovel at the old
lime quarry ! As if I were responsible for that, when she
has it on lives, and we want to turn her out and repair it,
and she won't go. When we have condemned the house,
and gone as far as the law will allow us ! Where is Mac-
duff? I must see Macduff about this; and then" — his
lordship nearly strangled, his throat swelled and he was ob-
liged to loose his cravat — *'and then there is a picture
drawn in the liveliest colours of Saltren's house — ^^1 beg your
pardon, Saltren, this must cause you as much annoyance as
it does myself — of Chillacot, in beautiful order, as it is ;
Captain Saltren does right by whatever he has the care of —
of Chillacot as an instance of a free holding, of a holding
not under one of those leviathans, the great landlords of
England. Look at this, then look at that — look at Patience
Kite's ruin and Captain Saltren's villa ; there you have in a
nutshell the difference between free land and land in bonds,
under one of the ogres, the earth-eaters. God bless my
soul, it is monstrous ; and it will all be believed, and I
shall walk about pointed at as a tyrant, an enemy of the
people, a disgrace to my country and my class. I don't
care whether she kicks and curses, I will take the
law into my hands and at once have Mrs. Kite turned
out, and her cottage pulled down or put in order. I
suppose I dare not pull it down, or the papers will be
down on me again. I will not have a cottage on my
•land described as this has been, and the blame laid on
me; the woman shall give up her lease. How came the
fellow to see the cottage ? Pie describes it accurately ;
it is true that the door has tumbled in ; it is true that the

ARMINELL. 219

chimney threatens to fall ; it is true that the staircase is all
to pieces, but this is no fault of mine. He has talked to
Mrs. Kite, but I am sure she never used the words he has
put into her mouth. Where is Macduff? I wish, my dear
Saltren^ you would find him and send him to me. By-
the-way, have you spoken to your father about — what was
it ? Oh, yes, the sale of his house. Fortunate it is that a
railway company, and not I, want Chillacot, or I should be
represented as the rich man demanding the ewe lamb, as
coveting Naboth's vineyard, by this prophet of the press.
Who the deuce is he ? He must have been here and must
know something of the place ; there is just so much of truth
mixed up with the misrepresentations as to make the case
look an honest one. I want Macduff. Have you seen
your father about that matter of Chillacot, Saltren ? "

" My lord," said Jingles, " I am sorry I have not seen
him yet. In fact, to tell the truth, I — I yesterday forgot
the commission." . ,

" Oh ! " said Lord Lamerton, now hot and irritable, " oh
don't trouble yourself any more about it. I'll send
Matthews after Macduff. I'll go down to Chillacot myself.
Confound this correspondent. His impudence is amazing."

Lord Lamerton took most matters easily. The enig-
matical words of his daughter, the preceding evening, in
the avenue, had not made much impression on him. They
were, he said, part of her rodomontade. But he repeated
them to his wife, and to her they had a graver significance
than he attributed to them. This article in the paper, how-
ever, agitated him deeply, and he was very angry, more
angry than any one had seen him for several years ; and the
last explosion was caused by the poisoning of some of his
fox-hounds.

" Matthews, send James down after Mr. Macduff at
once."

" Yes, my lord."

220 ARMINELL.

" And, Saltren, a word with you in the smoking-room if
you can spare me the time."

" I am at your service, my lord."

Lord Lamerton had been so excited by the article he had
read that he was in a hi|mour to find fault ; and, as Viola
says,

" Like the haggard cheek at every feather
That comes before his eye. "

Such moods did not last long ; he was the slowest of
men to be roused, and when angry, the most placable; but
an injustice angered him, and he had been unjustly treated
in the article in that morning's paper.

There must be deep in our souls, some original sense of
justice, for there is nothing so maddens a man and sweeps
him in angry fever beyond the control of reason, as a sense
of injustice done, not only to himself, but to another. It
is the violation of this ineradicable sense of justice which
provokes to the commission of the grossest injustice, for it
blinds the eyes to all extenuations and qualifying circum-
stances. It is an expansive and explosive gas that lies
latent in every breast — in the most pure and crystalline, an
infinite blessing to the world, but often infinitely mis-
chievous. It is the moral dynamite in our composition.

There is a hot well in Iceland called Strokr which
bubbles and steams far below the surface, the most in-
nocuous, apparently, of hot springs, and one that is even
beneficial. But if a clod of turf be thrown down the gullet,
Strokr holds his breath for a moment and is then resolved
into a raging geyser, a volcano of scalding steam and
water. I once let a flannel-shirt down by a fishing-line,
thinking to wash it in the cauldron of Strokr, and Strokr
resented the insult, and blew my shirt to threads, so that I
never recovered of it — no, not a button. It is so with men,
they are all Strokrs, with a fund of warmth in their hearts,

ARMINELL. 221

and they grumble and fume, but, for all that, exhale much
heat, and nourish flowers about them and pasture for sheep
and asses, but some slight wad of turf, or a dirty flannel-
shirt — some trifling wrong done their sense of justice, — and
they become raging geysers.

Lord Lamerton was not so completely transformed as that,
because culture imposes control on a man, but he was bub-
bhng and squirting. He was not angry with the tutor,
personally, because he did not think that the young
man was blameworthy. What indiscretion had been com-
mitted, had been committed by Arminell. With her he
was angry, because her tone towards him and her behaviour
to her step-mother were defiant. " Saltren," said he, when
he reached the smoking-room and was alone with Jingles,
*' do you think your uncle could have written that abomin-
able article ? I did not mention my suspicion in the break-
fast room, so as not to give you pain, or trouble the ladies,
but, 'pon my soul, I do not see who else could have done
it. I heard he had been down here on Sunday, and I
hoped he had talked the matter of the line and Chillacot
over with your father, and had given him sensible advice.
Yet I can hardly think he would do such an ungracious,
under the circumstances, such an immoral thing as write
this, not merely with suppressio veri, which is in itself sug-
gestio falsij but with the lies broadly and frankly put.
Upon my word — I know Welsh is a Radical — I do not see
who else could have done it."

" I am afraid he has, though I cannot say. I did not see
him, my lord," said the tutor.

*' I am sorry, really it is too bad, after all that has been
done — no, 1 will say nothing about that. Confound it all,
it is too bad. And what can I do? If I write a correction,
will it be inserted? If inserted, will it not serve for a leader
in which all I have admitted is exaggerated and distorted,
and I am made to be doubly in the wrong ? And now, I

2 2 2 ARMINELL.

suppose it is high time for Giles to go to school. I don't
want you to suppose that this idea of mine has risen in any
way from this damned article, or has anything whatever to
do with it, because it has not. I do not for one instant
attribute to you any part in it. I know that it shocks you
as it shocks me ; that you see how wrong it is, as I do.
But, nevertheless, Giles must go to school ; his mother and
1 have talked it over, and between you and me, I don't
want the boy— dear monkey that he is — to be over-coddled
at home. His mother is very fond of him, and gets alarmed
if the least thing is the matter with him, and fidgets and
frets, and, in a word, the boy may get spoiled by his mother.
A lad must learn to hold his own among others, to measure
himself beside others, and, above all, to give way w'here it
is courteous, as well as right to give way. A boy must
learn that others have to be considered as well as himself,
and there is no place like school for teaching a fellow that.
So Giles must go to school. Poor httle creature, I wonder
how he will like it ? Cry at first, and then make up his
mind to bear it. I do trust if he have his bad dreams the
other chaps won't bolster and hck him for squalling out at
night and rousing them. Poor monkey ! I hope they will
make allowance for him. He is not very strong. Giles
must go to school, and not be coddled here. His mother
is absurdly fond of the little fellow. 1 don't want to hurry
you — Saltren, and you can always rely on me as ready to
do my best for you, but I think you ought to look about
you, at your leisure, you know, but still look about you.
And, damn that article, don't you have anything to do with
Welsh, he will lead you, heaven alone knows w^hither."

" My lord," said Saltren, " you forestall me. I myself
was about to ask leave to depart. I have not the natural
qualifications for a tutor; I lack, perhaps, the necessary
patience. I intend to embrace the literary profession. In-
deed, I may almost say that I have secured a situation

ARMINELL. 223

which will make me independent. Secured is, possibly, too
decided a word — I have applied for one."

"I am glad to hear it, I am very glad. My lady said she
thought you had a fancy for something else. But — don't
have anything to do with Welsh. He will carry you along
the wrong course, along one where I could do nothing for
you, and, I will always help you when I can."

" My lord, whenever you can, with convenience, spare
me —

" Spare you ! Oh don't let us stand in your way. You
have almost got a berth to get into ? "

" I have applied for a place which I may almost say I can
calculate on having. My only difficulty has been, that I did
not know when I should be at liberty. If your lordship
would kindly allow me to leave immediately "

*'My dear fellow, suit your own convenience. We can
manage with Giles. The rector will give him an hour or
two of Latin and Greek, till the term begins, when he can
go to school. I don't know that I won't let the monkey run
wild till the time comes for the tasks to begin."

*'Then, my lord, it is understood that I may go im-
mediately ? "

"Certainly."

Though Lord Lamerton gave his consent, he was a little
surprised at the readiness of the tutor to leave Orleigh, and
to throw up his situation before he had really secured an-
other. There was something ungracious in his conduct
after all the kindnesses he had received which jarred on his
lordship's feelings. He had a real liking for the young man,
and he was desirous that he should do well for himself He
was unable to resist the temptation to say — " You seem in
a vast hurry to leave us, Saltren."

"I have reasons, my lord. Something has occurred
which makes it imperative on me to leave this house im-
mediately."

224 ARMINELL.

" Do you refer to this article by our own correspon-
dent?"

" Not at all, my lord. It has no connection with that.
Something, a distressing secret, has come to my knowledge,
which forces me to quit Orleigh."

" What the deuce is it ? "

" I will probably write to you, my lord, about it when I am
away."

" It is a secret then, between you and me, and — any one
else?"

'* It is a secret that concerns me most closely, and indeed,
others beside me. But, no doubt, your lordship has divined
to what I allude."

Lord Lamerton turned hot and cold. Now Arminell's
mysterious words recurred to his memory. What had her
meaning been? Was the tutor referring to the same
matter ? Had that headstrong girl thrown herself into his
arms, protesting that she loved him ? Very likely. She
was capable of doing such a thing. What else could she
have meant ? What else could induce the young man to go
precipitately ?

Lord Lamerton hesitated a moment what to say, looking
down, and knitting his brows.

" You have, my lord, I can see, guessed to what I refer.
It is not a matter on which we can speak together. It would
be too painful. Each of us would rather say nothing on a
very distressing matter. Let what has passed suffice for the
present. I am sure, my lord, that you can understand my
motives in desiring to leave promptly."

" Ton my soul, I think I do. Dash it, I do ! "

" Then, my lord, you will not desire to retain me in
Orleigh any longer ? "

" No — for God's sake, go. I respect you. You are be-
having aright. I am sorry, I am ashamed, but there, there,
you are acting properly. I will not say another word. Go

ARMINELL. 225

where you like, and always look to me as your friend, nay,
as taking almost a fatherly interest in you."

He held out his hand, caught that of young Saltren and
pressed it, then left the room for his wife's boudoir.

"Julia," said he, in an agitated tone, "things are worse
than we imagined. I thought nothing of it, but you women
have eyes where men are blind."

" What has happened ? "

"Armie — good heavens! — Armie has offered herself to
young Saltren, and he, like a gentleman, like a true, honour-
able gentleman, has asked me to let him go, because he
cannot remain here any longer, under the circumstances."

" Did he tell you this ? "

" Not in so many words, but there was no mistaking his
meaning. Of course he felt a delicacy — he did not like to
say how — but, there, there ! I shall be angry again. Ah,
that girl ! Armie is well off, has her mother's fortune ; he
knows that, but was not to be dazzled. He sees what is
right to be done, and does it. Hah ! There comes Mac-
duff. I see him in the drive. I'll have the masons at once,
this morning, and tear down Patience Kite's cottage."

CHAPTER XXIV.

A HANDLE TO THE ENEMY.

When Lord Lamerton decided that a thing was to be done,

he liked to have it done at once, and now that he was
thoroughly roused, he would brook no delay in the matter
of Patience Kite's cottage.

Mrs. Kite had baffled the authorities. There was no
question that her house was unfit to be inhabited by a
human being, and that her hfe was not safe in it. A heavy
gale might bring the roof and chimney down on her in her
bed and bury her. The relieving officer had complained
and remonstrated. The sanitary officer had viewed the
ruin and had condemned it. Mr. Macduff had ordered
Mrs. Kite to put the cottage in repair. She didn othing,
and apparently nothing could be done with her. She ab-
solutely refused to leave her cottage, and to put it in
habitable condition was beyond her power. If this case
had occurred anywhere in Europe except in England, the
police would have made short work with Mrs. Kite, but in
England, every man's house is his castle, in whatever con-
dition the house may be. Now, had a drain from Mrs.
Kite's hovel proved a nuisance to neighbours, she could
have been dealt with, but she had no drains at all ; and her
roof threatened no one but herself. The authorities had
necessarily consumed much time over Mrs. Kite, and all to
no purpose. The sanitary officer complained to the board

ARMINELL. 227

of guardians a month after viewing and condemning the
house. The guardians waited another month and then
waited on the magistrates in petty sessions to issue an
order to Mrs. Kite to vacate her cottage. The order was
issued and served. Another month passed, and Mrs. Kite
had not budged. At the next petty sessions enquiry was
made whether any further steps could be taken. It ap-
peared that Mrs. Kite was Hable to a fine of ten shilUngs
for every day she remained after the order had been served,
but, as the sergeant of poUce observed to the magistrates,
all her goods, if sold, would not fetch ten shillings, and the
clerk of the court could find no precedent for evicting the
old woman ; all that could be done would be to sell her
goods, but that was the limit of their power.

She was, it was true, by her tenure, bound to keep the
house in good order, and accordingly Lord Lamerton, as
lord of the manor, demanded this, but she did nothing. It
was true that he might, in the event of a tenant neglecting
to fulfil the stipulation, order the repair, and distrain on the
tenant for the costs. But Mrs. Kite was not worth dis-
training, and the house was not worth rebuilding. No one,
after the old woman's death, would care to live in such a
lonely spot. To rebuild, would cost a hundred and fifty
or two hundred pounds. However, rather than that the
scandal should continue, Lord Lamerton resolved to re-
build, when he learned that legally he might not pull down
without rebuilding. So Mrs. Kite was about to put his
lordship to the cost of nearly two hundred pounds to save
her hfe in her own despite. We have odd ways of doing
things in England.*

The news that Mrs. Kite's house was to be pulled about
her ears rapidly spread through the village, and many people

* As already said, this is an actual case. The magistrates' order
was issued in February 1887, and has been defied to present date,
September 1889.

228 ARMINELL.

assembled to see the ejection of the hag and the demolition
of roof and chimney.

Mrs. Kite was a personage not a little dreaded ; she was
what is called a \vise-woman ; she was consulted when any
of the cottagers were ill. The medical man was sent for
reluctantly, and little trust was put in his medicines, but the
wise-woman enjoyed the fullest confidence. To meddle
with her was a dangerous matter. She used her powers for
good, but it was quite possible for her to employ them
otherwise. No one cared to provoke her. Every one de-
sired to stand on good terms with her. Before the rector
and Mrs. Cribbage, and my lady and the Macduffs, the
villagers spoke disparagingly of Patience Kite, but among
themselves they regarded her with respect.

Some ill would come of this action of Lord Lamerton,
they argued ; he might be a great man, but there are things
with which the greatest cannot cope. Ill would come
of itj how, no one could say, but somehow, all agreed, it
would come. Had not Patience's uncle beaten her when
she was a child, and his house had been burnt down?
True, folks said that Patience had fired it, and true it was
she had been sent to prison on that account; but it was
said she had done it only because they could not otherwise
account for the fire. There was Farmer Worth called her
an ugly name once, when she asked for skimmed milk, and
sure enough his cows had dropped their calves after till he
got a goat to run along with them. Moreover, the villagers
argued, why should a woman be ejected from her house ?
Her father had built the cottage, and it was on three Hves,
his, his wife's and child's, and now it was Patience's as long
as the breath was in her. If she chose to keep it in bad
repair that was her look-out. Because a woman wore rags,
was that a reason why Lord Lamerton and Mr. Macduff
should pull her gown off her back ? Because she had a
bad tooth or two in her head, had they any right to knock

ARMINELL. 229

out all the sound teeth in her jaw ? Because she had not
patent-leather dancing-pumps, was she to be forced to go
barefoot ? Because she didn't keep her hair over tidy, was
that a reason why she should have her head shaved ? Lord
Lamerton had no right to interfere. England is a free
country, in which folks may act as they like, and live as
they like, so long as they do not interfere with their neigh-
bours, and Mrs. Kite had no neighbours. Her cottage was
not within sight of Orleigh Park — it did his lordship no
injury. Did Mrs. Kite's kitchen chimney threaten to fall
on Lord Lamerton's head? Folks, even lords, have no
right to interfere with those who don't interfere with them.

Popular sympathy went altogether with Patience Kite.
Perhaps at another time the villagers would have been more
disposed to judge reasonably, but at this juncture they were
smarting under the sense of wrong caused by the closing of
the manganese mine, and were therefore disposed to make
common cause with any one against whom his lordship
acted with apparent rigour.

When Macduff and his workmen came to the hovel, they
found a number of sympathisers assembled, mostly miners
out of work and some women.

Outside the cottage sat Thomasine. She had been sent
back to her mother from Court farm because of her sprained
ankle, which incapacitated her for work. Archelaus Tubb
was there also. He, likewise, was out of work — not an un-
usual condition with him, for he was a bad workman what-
ever he took up, and got his dismissal wherever he went.
The girl was pouting ; she had her hands folded in her lap,
and her brows bent. She looked wonderfully handsome,
with a dash of savagery in her beauty.

Within the house was Mrs. Kite. She had put together
her few valuables in an oak chest, and sat on it, near her
hearth, with her feet on the hearthstone, and her arms
folded. She would not move. The house might be dis-

230 ARMINELL.

mantled about her, but there she would remain to the
last.

Mr. Macduff entered the cottage, and received a scowl
from Thomasine as he passed her. He endeavoured, but
in vain, to persuade the woman to come outside.

"But," said Mr. Macduff, "they're about to pu' the roof
down over your head."

Mrs. Kite made no answer.

Then he became angry, and ordered two masons to enter
the ruin and remove the old woman ; but this they were
afraid to do. They pretended that the reason was lest she
should bring an action against them ; really, lest she should
" overlook " them ; that is, cast an evil eye upon them.

" I'll give half a sovereign to any who will bring her out,"
offered the agent

The men shrugged their shoulders, and a miner who was
lounging against a tree in the rear muttered, " If you're so
anxious to get her out, you and his lordship had best drag
her out yourselves."

" Begin with the demolition," ordered Macduff.

The workmen scrambled on the roof, and commenced
tearing off the old, thin and rotten thatch, beginning at the
end furthest removed from that where the old woman sat.

A few groans and exclamations of " shame ! " issued from
the lookers-on.

As the thatch was being riven away, plaster from the
rotten ceiling fell, and with it drifts of straw, into the cottage.
Dust rose, thick and blinding, but Mrs. Kite refused to stir.
She would stifle there rather than desert her hearth.

Again Macduff went to the door to expostulate. The
woman answered with a snarl, as a wild beast worried in its
lair.

" Go on," shouted Macduff to the men.

Then suddenly a tie-beam gave way, and fell through,
with a crash, to the cottage floor.

ARMINELL. ZJI

Immediately ensued a rush of lookers-on to the cottage
door and windows, but the dust drave out in their faces,
thick as steam, preventing them from seeing anything. But,
though Patience could not be seen, her voice was heard
muttering behind the fog of lime and dust of rotten wood.

Macduff did not relish his task. Lord Lamerton was not
present ; he had gone to a ploughing match, where he was
to distribute the prizes. If my lord had been at home, the
agent would have asked for further directions ; but, as he
was away, he felt bound to proceed according to his
orders.

The workmen engaged on the roof now discovered that
their lunch hour had arrived, and they descended the
ladders with alacrity to regale themselves on the cake and
cold tea they had brought with them.

The pause allowed the dust to clear away, and Macduff,
looking through the doorway, descried Mrs. Kite, powdered
with lime, her hair almost white, still crouched on her box
in the same place, resting her chin in her hands, and her
elbows on her knees.

What was he to do ? He bit his lips, and swore in broad
Scotch. The masons were eating and joking among them-
selves. The miners were muttering.

Leisurely — before Macduff had decided on a course, and
reluctantly, the masons refolded their bundles, and returned
to the ladders.

" Rip off the straw," said the agent, " but be varry careful
not to disturb the principals. If the old creature finds she
has nae cover o'er her head when the rain comes, maybe
she'll depart of her own accord."

The stripping off of the thatch was resumed, and the
dust fell thicker over the part of the room where Mrs. Kite
sat ; it poured out of every opening, it rose from where the
roof had been torn ; the cottage resembled a smoking dung-
hill, and the cloud spread over and enveloped the whole

232 ARMINELL.

clearing, powdering grass and bushes, and the coats and
boots of the spectators.

All at once, a shout from a mason, then a crash. He
had been astride on a principal when it had given way and
the man had fallen through the ceiling into the room beneath,
tearing down the laths and plaster with him. He was not
injured, he came forth a moment later, coughing and
sneezing, as dusty as a miller, and was saluted with
laughter.

" Halloo there ! " shouted Macduff. " The roof is
going."

The failure of one principal entailed the fall of the rest ;
they were dragged out of place ; they slanted on one side,
parted from the chimney, but remained on the walls, inclined.

Thomasine, alarmed for her mother's safety, now clung to
the door, and cried to her to come forth. She could see
nothing for the cloud that filled the cottage. Thomasine,
lamed by her sprained ankle, stood at the door and limped
painfully a step forward.

" Oh, Arkie ! Arkie ! " she cried, appealing to her lover,
" do run in and force mother to come out."

** But she will not come," remonstrated he.

Another shout — now of dismay.

" The chimney ! the chimney ! "

A crack had suddenly revealed itself. The rotten loosely-
compacted wall had parted.

" It will be down in a minute ! save her ! "

" Five — I mean one sovereign to any who will bring her
out," shouted Macduff.

Then Thomasine grasped Archelaus' shoulder. " Come,"
she said, " I will go — help, we must save her."

*'I will do it," said the lad, and plunged into the cottage.

For a moment every one held his breath. Thomasine
limped away from the doomed cottage. All heard the young
fellow's voice shouting to Mrs. Kite.

ARMINELL. . 233

Then, suddenly, the whole chimney came down with a
rush. It was as though it had closed into itself like a
telescope. A dull, heavy thud, muffled by the dense en-
veloping fog of dust, was heard, and then volumes of yellow
smoke-like fumes poured out in gushes and spirals, and rose
in a column above the cottage.

Dense though the cloud was, in through it rushed the
men, stumbling over heaps of stone, and choking in the
thick air, but saw nothing whatever, could see nothing ; and
came forth coughing, rubbing their eyes, half suffocated, half
blinded.

Nothing could be done, the extent of the mischief could
not be discovered till the volumes of fine powder, pungent
as snuff, had been given time to clear away, at least
partially.

Now Macduff plunged in, and stumbled against Thomasine
weeping and wringing her hands, blindly groping in the
opaque atmosphere, thick as soup. " My mother ! My
Arkie ! They are both dead ! Both taken from me ! "

" Stand aside ! " shouted the agent. " What creatures
these women are." He coughed and growled. " If any-
thing has happened, it is her fault, she was warned. But
the blame will be put on me." Then he shouted, " Tubb '
Tubb ! Mrs. Kite ! " but received no answer.

In at the door came the men again, miners and masons
together, and by crouching they obtained clearer air, and
were better able to see. The fallen chimney formed a great
heap, and the ruins were spread over the whole floor ; but
how high the heap rose they were unable to distinguish, for
the dust-mist hung about it, dense, impenetrable, disclosing
only, and that indistinctly, the base of the mound.

Then a cry from Thomasine. She had clasped a hand
that protruded from the rubbish pile.

" It is Arkie ! It is Arkie ! " she cried. " He is dead,
he has been killed."

234 ARMINELU

" Run," ordered Mr. Macduff. " Run, some of you fel-
lows, for picks."

*' If he's dead, you've killed 'n," growled a miner. "That
is — you and my lord." The man went forth, whilst the rest,
crouching, wiping their eyes on their cuffs, and wiping the
dust into them, clearing their throats and choking again,
began to pull the stones away. But the chimney had been
built of as much clay as stone. Though so close to a lime-
kiln, little lime had been used in its construction, and the
slaty stone itself corroded by weather and the lime which
had lain between its films in the quarry had dissolved to
black powder. A pick did not suffice to remove the rub-
bish, shovels were required as well. The dust did not dis-
perse, every upturn of the heap sent forth fresh volumes
mingled with soot ; but many hands were now engaged, and
in ten minutes Archelaus Tubb had been extracted, and was
carried forth and laid on the turf outside.

He was so covered with dust that he looked as if made
of dark earth, all of one colour — face, hair, clothing,
hands.

" Run for a doctor," called Macduff. " \Vhere is he to
be taken to ? Go on some of you turning over the heap.
Look for Mrs. Kite, she must be there. Confound the
obstinacy of the woman. I shall be blamed for this, of
course. Always so. The saddle put on the wrong horse.
Some of you get water, and wash his face, and see where
the lad is hurt. Please stand back, Thomasine, you can
do no good. I will go back and help to find Mrs. Kite.
Why the de'il could she not have come forth when bidden ?
She had warning enough given her." Then he returned to
the cottage. He was now himself so covered with dust that
the natural colour of his face and the tincture of his gar-
ments could not be distinguished. Looking up from inside
the cottage was like looking into a London fog. There
was a great gap where the chimney had stood, the roof was

ARMINELL. 235

Stripped of its covering and the principals were inclined
out of their proper positions.

" Well," said Macduff. " Have you come on her ? "

"We haven't come on nothing but Arkie Tubb," answered
one of the men. "There's a lot of rummage more to be
cleared away."

" Look sharp about it," said the agent. " If she be
buried, the only chance of life for her is to be dug out at
once."

" Not much chance of life, then," said one of the men.

A quarter of an hour passed, and Patience had not been
exhumed.

A diversion of interest was caused by the arrival of the
surgeon. He examined the young man, and pronounced
that, though he was not dead, he was so injured that he
could not live beyond an hour.

The last heap of fallen chimney-ruin had been cleared
away, and Mrs. Kite had not been found.

'^ She has been spirited away," said the men. " We
always knew she was a wise woman."

"I^wouldn't have had this happen," growled Macduff,
" not for ten pounds — I mean, two pounds ten. What a
handle this will give to the enemy ! "

CHAPTER XXV.

BAMBOOZLED.

Lord Lamerton was that day engaged in distributing
prizes at a ploughing match, about fifteen miles away from
Orleigh.

"My dear," said he to his wife before he started, "for
goodness' sake come with me into the avenue, and give me
the heads of what I am to say."

Report had it that his lordship got all his speeches from
his wife, and report was not far wrong in so saying.

" I'll run up to Eggins," he said, "and get him to give me
some wrinkles about ploughing. I know nothing concern-
ing it."

Thus primed, partly by one of his farmers and partly by
his wife, his lordship started for the ploughing match ; and
on reaching the ground inspected the furrows with his glass
to his eye, and repeated some of the scraps of information
he had gathered from Eggins.

After that came the dinner, and after the dinner the prize
distribution, and a speech from Lord Lamerton.

His lordship stood up, and coughed. He was not a
fluent speaker, nor a ready speaker ; indeed he could not
speak at all unless he had been given time and opportunity
to get primed. But he had a retentive memory, and when
allowance was made for hesitation, and repetition, and
occasional halts, his speeches were admitted to be not so

ARMINELL. 237

bad as are the generality of such performances. They read
well; only it was a little irritating to listen to them. The
hearer never could be sure that his lordship would not break
down altogether. Speaking made him and his audience
hot. They perspired sympathetically. It made him un-
certain what to do with his legs, and those listening to his
words found their attention drawn away to his inferior
members, and were kept in suspense as to what he would
do next with his extremities. Sometimes he endeavoured
to stand on one foot, and then he invariably lost his bal-
ance, and grabbed at the table-cloth, or a lady's bonnet to
stay himself from falling. On such an occasion he lost the
thread of his discourse, and had to seek it in his pocket-
handkerchief, whilst those listening good-naturedly stamped
and rapped the table, and shrieked " Hear, hear ! "

Sometimes he curled one leg round the other in such a
manner that to recover himself he was obliged to face
about, and he found himself addressing the latter part of a
sentence to the waiter and the tent wall behind him, instead
of the audience at the table. It was said that once he put
his foot into his plate on the table, but this was an exag-
geration ; he caught himself about to do it and desisted in
time.

How is it that the Englishman is so poor a speaker ? I
believe that the language is partly the cause. The English
tongue is so simple in its structure that it runs out of the
mouth faster than the ideas it is supposed to express have
taken shape in the brain. Consequently we males, some-
times women even, say things before we have thought them
out, and then are embarrassed because the thought lags
behind the word, like the thunder after the flash.

In such a language as the German, however, the mind
has to formulate the sentence in all its ramifications and
subsidiary articulations, before it is uttered. The idea is
kneaded, and squeezed into a shape and then baked. A

238 ARMINELL.

tap, and out of the buttered mould comes the sentence,
compact and complete, whereas, in English, the idea is not
given time to set, it is not even half baked, and then it is
shaken out, and falls to pieces as it appears ; or like an ill-
set jelly, resolves into an insipid wash.

When Lord Lamerton rose to his feet, he proceeded to
blow his nose loudly, then he looked about him, and his
face glowed redly. He caught the eye of the Rector of
Oileigh, and he said to himself: "Deuce take the fellow,
he will know whence I got this speech. He was discussing
the matter with my lady the other day."

He arranged his legs as best he could to support his
superincumbent weight, and to make quite sure of not
losing his balance laid his hand on the back of a chair.
Then he put the other hand into his pocket,

" Ladies and gentlemen," he began, *' I am not the sort
of man you should have chosen to speak to you to-day,
because "

Interruptions of " No, no ! "

" Because, if you allow me, I am not in the best of
moods. I have had an attack, a damned — I beg your
pardon, a dastardly attack made on me in the public
papers, and I have been — I have been represented— that
is, represented as a monster of iniquity, one who is ruining
the country, and driving trade out of it,"

"No, no!"

" I was never more astonished and shocked in my life.
I did think, gentlemen and ladies, that, if there was one
thing I cherished and loved, and strove to live for, it was — ■
that is to say — it was my country, and next to my country,
my dear old — my dear old mother country."

General emotion, and some of the ladies who had taken
more than two glasses of sherry felt the tears rise into their
eyes. Every gentleman kindled and stamped and said,
" Hear, hear ! "

ARMINELL. 239

"But,** continued Lord Lamerton, re-adjusting his
balance, by putting one foot between the rails of the chair,
and the other on the hat of a gentleman, that was on the floor
near him, and removing his hand from his trouser to his
waistcoat pocket, " but, ladies and gentlemen, I will pass
from personal matters to the subject in hand." (Then, to
himself, " Confound the rector, I can see by the twinkle of
his eye that he knows what is coming.") " But, ladies and
gentlemen, we are here assembled on an august and inter-
esting occasion, perhaps one of the most august and inter-
esting that could have arisen — I mean, I mean, a ploughing-
match. And .this recalls me to the fact that one of our
earliest English poets, William Langland, who lived in the
reign of Richard II., wrote an entire poem on— what do
you suppose ? Ploughing. He entitled his poem, ' The
Vision of Piers the Ploughman.' And what would you
think, gentlemen and ladies, was the drift of this remarkable
composition ? We know that long before, centuries earlier,
Virgil wrote his * Georgics,' in praise of agriculture, but
here, our English poet confined himself to one branch of
agriculture, and that, ploughing. And the author represents
all men — mark me — all men, as ploughmen, all, from the
king on his throne and the parson in the pulpit, to the least
among us all, as ploughmen set to make our furrows in the
great field of the world. And, ladies and gentlemen, each
has his own proper furrow to run, and he may make it well,
or make it badly, plough deep, or merely skirt the soil,
plough straight, or run a feeble, fluttering, irregular line, or
he may even fold his hands, and take a snooze in the hedge,
and make no attempt to plough."

A pause : the gentleman whose hat had been converted
into a footstool recovered the crushed article from under
the foot of the speaker, and cast at him a melancholy,
reproachful glance.

" I beg your pardon, 'pon my soul, I did not mean it. I

240 ARMINELL.

did not observe it." This was said aside to the sufferer.
Then after a complete rearrangement of his attitude, with
his legs very wide apart, like that of the Colossus of Rhodes,
Lord Lamerton continued, " Ladies and gentlemen ! I am
much afraid that some of us — 1 will not say all — for I do
not believe it is true of all — I say some of us, and God
knows, I include myself, on looking back at our furrows do
not find them as we should have wished ; do not derive, I
mean, much satisfaction in the retrospect; but — but — let
me see. Yes ! " He leaned both his hands on the table,
so that his back was curved, and his position was far from
elegant. " But, ladies and gentlemen, the broad fact
remains, that we are all ploughboys together, and we must
take a lesson from these hearty good fellows we have seen
to-day, and in all we do and undertake, make our furrows
straight, and drive them deep."

" Hear ! Hear ! Hear ! " and much thumping and stamp-
ing ; in the midst of which Lord Lamerton sat down, and
nearly missed his chair in so doing. Then he leaned over
to the rector, and said, " All my lady's ; 'pon my soul, all.
Never read a line of what's-his-name in my Hfe. She has —
she reads everything."

Lord Lamerton returned to Orleigh by an evening train.
The station was at some distance from his place. Only
when the new Hne was made would he have a station near
at hand.

On reaching the Orleigh road station, the master told
him what had occurred during his absence. His carriage
was in waiting outside to take him home.

" Bless my heart ! " exclaimed his lordship. " You don't
mean to tell me that Tubb's son is dead, and that the old
woman has not been found? Here — " said he to the
coachman, " set me down at the Chillacot turn, and drive
on. I shall walk home, after I have made enquiries.
Deuce take it ! I wouldn't have had this happen for all I

ARMINELL. 24T

am worth. Poor Tubb ! He is a workman and will feel
the loss of his son, though the fellow was not good for
much — I know that I should be horribly cut up if anything
were to happen to my cub."

He threw himself into the carriage, and continued his
exclamations of distress and wonder how it could have come
about. " Macduff must have gone to work clumsily. Bless
the man, he is a machine."

The carriage stopped.

" Shall I attend you, my lord ? " asked the footman at
the door, as he held it.

" Attend me ! What for ? Me I I'm going to enquire
about the matter, then I shall go on to Tubb's cottage.
Tell my lady not to wait dinner."

He swung his umbrella, and walked away. He marched
to the quarry where had been Patience Kite's cottage. He
thought it possible that some one might still be on the spot,
and that there he would learn the latest, fullest and most
authentic particulars. That the old woman had been seen
crouched at her hearth, that the chimney had fallen upon
her, and that she had not been exhumed from the ruins,
was to him inexplicable. When he came out on the clear-
ing where the ruins of the cottage stood, Lord Lamerton
was surprised to find it occupied by a crowd. A lantern
was slung to one of the principals of the roof, above the
head of a speaker who occupied a table that had been
drawn out of the cottage. That speaker was Mr. James
Welsh. Lord Lamerton did not know him by sight, only
by reputation.

As my lord appeared on the scene, those there assembled
shrank aside, with a look of confusion and shyness. He
listened for a moment to the orator, and then proceeded to
push his way through the throng, which divided to allow
him to pass : and, approaching the table, he said, " I beg
your pardon, sir ; I have not the honour of knowing your

Q

242 ARMINELL.

name ; but you are making pretty free with mine. What is
it all about ? "

" You are Lord Lamerton, I presume ? " said the orator,
looking at the dismayed faces of those within the radiance
of the lantern. " The saying goes that listeners hear no
good of themselves. Perhaps it may be true in this case."

" I have not been listening, but I have caught a
sentence or two ; and I have no idea of allowing any one
taking liberties with my name behind my back. If you
have anything to say about me, say it to my face. What is
all this about ? "

" What is all this about ? " repeated the orator. " His
noble lordship, the Right Honourable Giles Inglett, Baron
Lamerton, asks. What is all this about ? " In a lower tone
charged with oratorical irony, " What is all this about ? "
Mr. Welsh looked round on his audience. " Having shut
up his manganese mine, and reduced a hundred men to
destitution, broken up their homes, obliged them to wander
over the face of the earth in quest of work, without houses
of their own, without bread to put into the mouths of their
children, forced to sell their poor sticks of furniture down
to the baby's cradle — he asks. What is all this about?
After having torn down a house over the head of a poor
widow, and bespattered her grey hairs with gore, he asks.
What is all this about ? After having deprived a father of
his only child, and an orphan of her mother, he has tlie
effrontery — yes — in the face of his lordship I repeat the
word, I repeat it in the boldness which my righteous in-
dignation gives me — the effrontery to ask. What is all this
about ? Possibly, when Cain saw his brother, his younger
brother Abel, lying at his feet, with fractured skull and
crushed limbs, he also asked. What is all this about? I
will not pretend to know where his lordship has been all
day ; but I do say that, as an Englishman, as a Christian,
as a man, when he was about to render desolate the heart

ARMINELL. 243

of a father by taking the Ufe of his only son, and of a child
by bereaving her of her mother, when he was about to tear
the roof off from over the head of the widow and the
fatherless, he should have been here^ yes, here and not far
away — Heaven knows where — in what scene of riot and
revelry, into which decent folk like us would not venture to
look."

*' Now come," said Lord Lamerton, " this is all rubbish.
I have been at a ploughing match. I want to know what
you are doing here. Who the deuce are you ? "

*' My lord," said the orator, " I am — I rejoice to say it —
one of the People, one of the down-trodden and ill-treated,
the excluded from the good things of life. My heart, my
lord, beats in the right place. Where yours is, my lord, it
is not for me, it is for your own conscience to decide. But
mine, mine — is in the right place. I am one of the people,
and, my lord, let me inform you that when you insult me,
you insult the entire people of England ; you bespatter not
me only, but the whole of that enlightened, hearty, in-
telligent people, of whom I see so many noble, generous
specimens before me — you bespatter them, I repeat, my
lord, you bespatter them in the grossest and most un-
warranted fashion — with dirt."

" 'Pon my soul," interrupted Lord Lamerton, rapping on
the table, " I can make no heads nor tails out of all this.
If you have anything against me, say it out. If you want ■
anything, tell it me plainly. I am not unreasonable, but
I'm not going to stand here and Usten to all this rigmarole."

"Perhaps, my lord, you are not aware, that there are
many grievances under which the Public, the Public, my
lord, are groaning. Shall I begin with the lighter, and pro-
ceed to the graver, or reverse the process ? "

" As you please. It is one to me."

"Very well," said Welsh. He looked round com-
placently on his audience, and rubbed his hands. " His

244 ARMINELL.

lordship, in all simplicity of heart, wants to know what oc-
casion he has given for this indignation. What occasion,"
with a chuckle, and those who could see his face and catch
his tone chuckled also. " What occasion," with sarcasm,
and his audience felt their gall rise. " What occasion," in
a hollow thrilling tone, and the crowd responded with a
groan. " Shall we tell his lordship ? We will, and we will
begin with some of the lighter grievances, heavy in them-
selves, but light in comparison with the others. In the
first place, what does he mean by throwing open the
grounds on a Tuesday, a day when the public, as he knows,
the hard-working public which needs relaxation and the
sight of the beautiful, cannot enjoy the boon ? Is that, I
ask, a day when the shops are closed ? Is it a day when
the sons of toil in our cities can get away from their labours
and admire the beauties of nature, and the charms of art ?
It is not. The grounds are thrown open on Tuesdays, with
almost fiendish malevolence, and the cunning of the serpent,
that his lordship may obtain the credit of liberality, whilst
doing nothing to deserve it. The true public are excluded
by the selection of the day, but the gentle-folks, the parsons,
the squires, and all the do-nothings, to whom one day is as
another, they can see Orleigh Park on Tuesdays. If Lord
Lamerton had in him any true humanity, any sympathy for
the tradesman, for the clerk, for the milliner and the seam-
stress, he would open on — let us say Saturday."

" Very well," said Lord Lamerton, " I have no objection
in the world, except that it will give the gardeners more to
do, picking up the papers and scraps — henceforth the
grounds shall be open to the public on Saturdays."

" But, my lord, are the pictures and statuary and other
works of art to be shown only to the aristocratic eye, and
are they to be carefully kept within closed doors from the
profane gaze of what you contemptuously call — The Com-
mon People ? "

ARMINELL. 245

" Not at all," said Lord Lamerton. " I will order that
the state apartments be opened on Saturdays — though, Lord
knows, above a questionable Van Dyck, there are no great
shakes in the way of pictures there. Is that all ? "

" That is not all," proceeded Mr. James Welsh. " Lord
Lamerton innocently — I will not say, sheepishly — asks, Is
that all ? No, I reply, and I reply as the mouth-piece of
all present, as the shout of the democracy of England. It
is not all. It is very far from being all. Is that all ? he
asks, standing before you, out of whose mouths he has
snatched the crust of bread, the staff of life. Is that all ?
When he closes the manganese mine, and throws almost
the entire population of Orleigh out of employ, and scatters
them everywhere, hungry, homeless, forlorn."

" Now, this a trifle too extravagant," said Lord Lamerton.
" The mine would have gone under my house and brought
it down. Why, it would have cost me twenty thousand
pounds to rebuild the house."

" You hear that! Twenty thousand pounds which might
have been spent in Orleigh is refused the people. Twenty
thousand pounds ! How many able-bodied men are there
in Orleigh? About two hundred. What might you not
have done with a hundred pounds each ? What comforts
might you not have provided yourselves with? But his
lordship buttons up his pockets. Look upon yourselves,
each of you, as defrauded of a hundred pounds. My lord
will bank his twenty thousand. He does not want it. He
hoards it. He fossilizes it. There is a fable about a dog
in the manger which snarled at the horses that wanted to eat
out of that manger which was of no use at all to the hound."

Then Lord Lamerton raised his voice, and said, " My
good friends, I don't believe you are so weak as to be
gulled by these fallacies. Why should I allow my house to
be undermined and rattled down about my ears, if I can
help it?"

246 ARMINELL.

A voice from the throng shouted, " Good for trade."
" Some one has said," continued Lord Lamerton, " some
one has remarked that it would be good for trade. I dis-
pute this. I deny it energetically. I say that it would
cost me twenty thousand pounds to rebuild the place, but I
do not say that — if ousted by the manganese mine, I would
rebuild it. Why should I ? If I built on any rock, how
could I tell but that some vein of metal would again be
found under it, and then I might be driven away once
more. Or if I built on clay, some company might insist on
exploring the clay for aluminium ; or if I built on gravel, it
might be insisted on to under-dig me for coprolites, for the
formation of artificial manure. Why, I say, should I risk
my twenty thousand pounds when my very foundations are
no security for the outlay? I would say to myself: As
there is no security any where, I will spend my twenty
thousand pounds in amusing myself on the Continent, on
personal jewellery — or God knows what selfish luxuries.
Security of property, unassailability of right of property,
that is the basis of all prosperity in trade. Touch property,
and down goes trade with it. Look at the Jews in past
times. They had no security, so they hoarded, and never
spent a farthing they could not help. They did nothing
for trade with their wealth. Touch property, and no one
with money will do other than did the Jews. Touch pro-
perty and down goes trade." I>ord Lamerton thumped the
table. " Now look here, I don't want to be hard on any
one. I have lost a great deal of money already on the
manganese, which has not paid for these five years, but has
been worked at a dead loss. I don't see my way to lose
more, and to endanger, moreover, the walls of my house.
That is plain sense. But as I say, I won't be hard on any
one. If the miners cannot get work elsewhere, I'll set
them road- making. They can cut a new road as soon as
ever it is settled where the station is to be, and hedge and

ARMINELL. 247

Stone it That will cost me a thousand pounds, if it will
cost me a penny."

"Just listen to this proposal," shouted Welsh, who found
that the plain sense of Lord Lamerton was producing some
effect. " You hear his lordship's magnanimous offer. He
wiU take you honest, hearty, active mining fellows and
debase you to stone-breakers by a road-side. He has had
such experience in heart-breaking, that he thinks to set you
a job that commends itself to his fancy— stone-breaking.
But let us pass from this. I have not done with my noble
lord yet. Not by any means. The last of his misdeeds is
not yet quite exhausted. I want to ask the Right Honour-
able Baron Lamerton how it is that he is so sensitive about
the tumbling down of his own house, and so ready by the
hands of his Macduffs and other minions to tear down the
walls of the widow's cottage ? I ask him that. See — he is
confounded, he cannot answer." Welsh looked round
triumphantly. " Nor is that all," he pursued ; " I have
another question to put, to which also, I have no doubt, I
shall meet with silence only as an answer. His lordship
who is so touchy about the rights of property is, I suspect,
only touchy about the rights of his own property. I have
it on the best possible authority that he is threatening to
dispossess a man whom we all esteem. Captain Saltren, to
dispossess him of his house and land, a house built by his
father and repaired and beautified by himself. I believe I
am not wrong in saying that he has threatened to employ
law against our valued friend. Captain Saltren."

A cry of " Shame, shame ! "

"Yes," pursued the orator, "it is shame. What was that
his lordship said just now about rights of property ? Touch
property, he insisted, and down goes trade. Who is touch-
ing property ? Who but he ? Who lays his envious grasp
— he, Ahab, on the vineyard of the poor Naboth."

Then the orator jumped off the table, and in a changed

248 ARM I NELL.

tone said to I^ord Lamerton, " I must be off and report
this meeting. I've a train to catch. Give you a leader on
it, old cock. No offence meant; none I hope taken.
Both of us men of the world, and know how to live by it.
I know as well as you what is gammon, but gammon is the
staple diet of the chawbacon. Give us your hand." He
nudged the nobleman in the side. " Bamboozled, my lord,
eh ? I am James Welsh. Pretty considerably bamboozled,
eh?"

CHAPTER XXVI.

DUMFOUNDERED.

When James Welsh sprang from the table, and held out
his hand, Lord Lamerton was in that condition of bam-
boozlement that he did not know what to do, whether to
mount the table and address the audience, or to walk away ;
whether to accept the proffered hand, or to refuse it. He
felt as does a boy who has been blindfolded and set in the
midst of a room to be spun about, struck, and bidden
catch his persecutors, but who finds himself unable to touch
one.

Whatsoever he said was caught from his lips and con-
verted into a fresh charge against him : every kindness he
proposed was perverted into an act of barbarity.

And then — after he had been thus treated, his persecutor
bounced down before him, and in the most cheery tone in
the world, declared that no offence was intended, asked him
if he were bamboozled, and invited him to shake hands.
Lord Lamerton was no match for his assailant. He was
not a ready man. When he had been primed by his wife,
or after laborious preparation, he was able to produce the
collected matter, but neither smoothly nor naturally. His
sentences came from him as liquid issues from a barrel un-
provided with a vent. They flow^ed for a while, then
stopped, and a gulp ensued ; after that a drop or two ;
another gulp, and then a rush of words forming a sentence,

?50 ARMINELL.

or, more probably, a sentence and a half. An interruption
confused Lord Lamerton, a question silenced him. He
was deficient in precisely those qualities which Mr. Welsh
possessed in perfection —ready wit, assurance, bluntness of
feeling, qualities essential to the successful orator. Welsh
knew exactly how to' keep in touch with his audience, he
could gauge their ignorance at a glance, and would always
accommodate himself to their capacity. He had unbounded
audacity, because utterly without scruple j he had smartness,
and skill in parrying.

Lord Lamerton stood back. The night was not dark,
but the trees cast shadows about the glade where the meet-
ing was held, and the lantern cast but a feeble light. His
movements could be seen only by those who were close to
him, and in his condition of bamboozlement, he was glad
to take advantage of the opening made in the throng by
Welsh, to follow and place himself outside the crowd. He
did not leave altogether ; he remained to see what would
follow, and to gather together his scattered senses. He
leaned against the bole of a Scotch pine, and looked on un-
observed. Those who had noticed that he had passed
through concluded that he had left entirely.

" What a thing it is," muttered Lord Lamerton, " to have
the gift of assurance. That fellow was all in the wrong, and
I was all in the right, but I could not explain ray right, and
he was able to make all I said seem wrong. Ton my soul,
I don't believe that he was in earnest, and believed in what
he said. I couldn't do that, God bless me ! I couldn't do
that and look my lady in the face again."

Suddenly Captain Saltren appeared on the table vacated
by Welsh. He looked more gaunt, hollow-eyed and pale
than usual, but this may have been the effect of the lantern-
light falling from above on his prominent features. The
moment he appeared he was greeted with clapping of hands
and cheers.

ARMINELL. 25 1

As T^ord Lamerton looked on, he thought the scene was
strangely picturesque, it was like a meeting of old Scotch
Covenanters. To the north, the sky was full of twilight,
but black clouds drove over it, flying rapidly, though little
wind was perceptible below. Against the silvery light rose
the well-wooded hill with spires of pine, and larch, and
spruce, like one of those fantastic prospects of a mediaeval
city in Dore's night pictures. In front was the ruined
cottage with the yellow lantern, suspended from a projecting
beam, and in its radiance the form of the mining captain as
wild as the surroundings. Between the looker-on and the
table were the figures of men, boys, and some women,
partially illumined by the pale twilight from above, partially
by the yellow halo of the lantern. Now and then a match
was struck, as a man lit his pipe, and then, there was a
flare, and the heads that intervened were distinctly seen,
black against the momentary flash.

Saltren looked from side to side, and waved his arms.
As he did so, the fingers of his right hand came within the
direct rays of the lantern, and were seen quivering and in
movement as though he were engaged in playing a piece of
rapid music on an unseen instrument. And in truth, he
was so doing, and doing it unconsciously. From these
long, thin, thrilling fingers, invisible threads attached them-
selves to the nerves of those who stood before him, and be-
fore he spoke, before he opened his mouth, a magic, alto-
gether marvellous accord was established between him and
those who surrounded him. It is told of St. Anthony of
Padua that he was once asked to preach to an audience
whose tongue he could not speak, and who understood not
a word of Italian. He went up into the pulpit, looked
round, and all in the church went into paroxysms of con-
trition and tears, and — he had not said a word. The secret
of this power is intensity of conviction and absolute sincerity.
Saltren was convinced and sincere. The look of his face,

252 ARMINELL.

the agitation of his limbs, the convulsive movements of his
lips all proclaimed his sincerity.

The captain, moreover, was known to all those who now
looked up to him, known as a man of probity, true in all he
said and just in all he did, a blameless man. But though
his blamelessness commanded respect, there was in him
something beyond the blamelessness that commanded re-
spect ; and that something was his spirituality. Men felt
and acknowledged that there existed in him a mysterious
link with the unseen world. All, even the dullest, were
aware, when speaking with Captain Saltren, that they were
in the presence of a man who lived in two worlds, and
principally in that which was supersensual and immaterial.
He impressed the people of Orleigh — as did Patience Kite
— with awe. These two belonged to the same category of
beings who lived in an atmosphere of the supernatural ; the
captain talked with angels, and Patience Kite with, perhaps,
devils. The influence exerted was not confined to the
ignorant, it extended to those who were partially educated ;
perhaps he influenced these latter even more than the
former. In the general flux and disintegration of belief,
those who were most aware of the debacle clung most
tenaciously to the skirts of such who still remained con-
vinced. Now Mrs. Kite, however sceptical she might be
in religious matters, had no doubt whatever in her own
powers, and Captain Saltren was profoundly rooted in his
own convictions, and this was the source of the strength of
both.

As he stood on the table, his Hmbs trembled as though
he were stricken with the ague, his mouth quivered, sweat
streamed from his face. He could not speak, emotion
overpowered him. He waved his hands, and his fingers
clutched at the air, and he looked nervously from side to
side.

A woman screamed, fell on her knees, and shrieked for

ARMINELL. 253

mercy. She thought she was at a revivalist meeting, and
the movement of Saltren's hands had caught every nerve in
her head and had drawn together and knotted them, so that
she shrieked with the tension insupportable.

" My friends and fellow sufferers," began Saltren. The
cry of the woman had unloosed his tongue, for it proclaimed
that sympathy was established between him and his
hearers. "I have doubted" — he spoke slowly, in a low
tone, with tremor in his tones, and with diffidence — " I have
doubted whether I should address you or not. I do not
desire to speak. I am held back, and yet I am thrust on.
I am like an anchored vessel with the sails spread and the
wind filling them. The anchor must part, or the sails be
torn to shreds. The anchor is in the earth, the breath of
heaven is in the sails. I know which ought to go. But
there is strain — great strain ; " he paused and passed his
hand over his face, and it came away dripping with
moisture. " I have no natural gift. 1 am fearful of my-
self. I cannot speak as did James Welsh. I am no
scholar. I am an ignorant man. But so were the
apostles, taken from their nets, and so was Levi taken from
the receipt of custom. So was Elisha, drawn from the
plough. I hang back. I can say with David, my heart is
not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty. Surely I have behaved
and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his
mother."

Then the woman, kneeling, began again to scream,
" Lord, have mercy ! have mercy ! " and her cries assisted
in thrilling and exciting the speaker and people alike.
Some of the audience began to groan and sigh. One
young bumpkin from behind called out, " We don't want no
sarmon. If you're going to preach, I'm off." Then ensued
a commotion ; heads were turned, exclamations of anger
and disgust greeted the interruption, and the lad was
hustled away.

2 54 ARMINELL.

Saltren resumed his speech, when the interruption was
over and quiet restored.

" I am," he said, "a quiet man. I keep to myself and
to my own concerns. So was Gideon a quiet man, keeping
to himself and his farm. But the spirit of prophecy came
on him, and he was summoned to lead the people against
Midian, and to smite the enemy hip and thigh, and utterly
to destroy them." The tones of his voice became firmer
and deeper. His hearers trembled as he trembled, and
their hearts quivered with every vibration of his voice.

Lord Lamerton listened with amazement. He and that
ploughboy who had called out in mockery were the only
two in that assembly who had not fallen under the in-
fluence of the orator, one because he was cultivated beyond
its reach, the other because he was spiritually sunk beneath
it.

The clouds had now formed a black canopy overhead,
and as a pause ensued in the address of Saltren, the rush of
the wind could be heard in the tree-tops.

" There was neither sword nor spear found among the
Israelites," continued Saltren, "and yet they overthrew
their enemies, and the way was scattered with their gar-
ments and weapons as far as Jordan. I am an ignorant and
a foolish man, and yet I am sent to you commissioned
from above. I cannot forbear, for I am driven on. Moses
was in favour with the Egyptians, and yet he threw away
his advantages because of the sighing and the groaning of
his people. I have had no favour with the Egyptians, but
I have been sent to lead Israel out of captivity. I would
keep silence, but I may not. I have had a call as had
Jonah, and if I try like him to fly, I shall be brought back.
I must deliver my message. If I were sunk in the sea, the
sea would throw me up. If I were covered by the
mountains falling, I should come forth to proclaim the
message. That is why I stand here before you. I have

ARMINELL. 255

wrestled with myself. I have shrunk from declaring what
I have seen and heard, but if I were to hold my peace, ]
should be broken as a rotten branch, and be consumed in
the fire. Therefore I must speak."

He paused and drew a long breath, and again wiped his
brow. All the audience drew a long breath with him.
Overhead the wind muttered and puffed, and along the
horizon at the back the dark spires bent and righted them-
selves.

" I was in the spirit on the Lord's day," said Saltren, and
at once, as he said the words, the man was changed. His
tremors ceased, his knees no longer shook, he stood firm
with head erect, and with a face as that of a frozen man and
his hands clasped before his breast.

" I was in the spirit on the Lord's day," he repeated.
"I was here, hard by, down by the water — no, on the
water, in the old quarry, engaged in prayer. Then, sud-
denly, I saw a light from heaven above the brightness of the
sun, and I was as one dazzled and in a trance ; and I heard
a voice, like the voice of a trumpet calling to me, and say-
ing, Saltren, Saltren, Saltren ! Then, before I could
answer, I saw an angel flying in the midst of heaven, having
a little book in his hand, and he held it aloft, and cried,
* This is the Book of the Everlasting Gospel, this is the
truth hid froni the earth for ten thousand years, and now at
length revealed unto men.' Then I cried. Give me the
book. And the angel cast it down, and said, ' This is the
Everlasting Gospel, all men are equal, all are the sons of
the one Adam, and are children of one family. There
shall be no more rich and poor, noble and common ; all
shall be equal, and so all shall be one.' "

Then some of those who heard, carried away by their
emotions, began to leap and hold up their hands, and cry,
" Glory, Allelulia ! " and the woman on her knees was
joined by others who united in cries for mercy. For a few

256 ARMINELL.

moments a whirlwind of groans and exclamations and
general commotion swept over the assembly, and as
suddenly died away again.

" Then," continued Saltren, " Then the angel cast down
the book, and it fell into the water, but as it fell I read
thereon the title, The Gilded Clique. And what, I ask, is
the gilded clique, which, like a sponge, sucks in all the
wealth of the country and gives nothing back ? What is the
gilded cHque which claims to itself nobility and gentility,
and calls us common and unclean ? What is the gilded
clique which sits alone, firm on its strong foundations struck
in the earth, and drives us from place to place in search of
work and food ? Which denies to all but itself sure and
lasting homes, and a certain future? What is the gilded
clique which carries corruption into our families, and
blights the land with its vices ? The gilded clique ! Such
are they. A handful of dirt ! Such are we. But where
are truth and righteousness, diligence and honesty to be
found ? Among them ? In the gilded clique ? or among
us, in the handful of dirt ? The day of reckoning is ap-
proaching, already has one seal of the seven been un-
clasped, and I have read what it is to be, and what I have
read, that must I proclaim. As I wrestle night and day in
prayer, more and more of the contents of the book are
disclosed to me. When it fell from heaven, I saw only the
cover and what was thereon, but since then, when I am in
prayer, I am shown the book and the seals, and one after
another is unclosed and I read further. Time will reveal
what is now hidden from your eyes. Only have confidence,
and look forward."

As Saltren talked, he worked himself out of the constraint
with which he had begun, and he spoke easily, fluently, as
one inspired, speaking with authority ; and his action as he
addressed the audience was dignified, serious and easy.
His voice was full, deep and sonorous, and his eye flashed

ARMINELL. 257

with conscious power. Whilst he was speaking, a few
drops of rain began to fall, large and warm ; and the sky
overhead was black with cloud. Behind, in the ruined
cottage, strange, spectral, blue flashing lights began to
play, seen at first on the threshold, then on the hearth, and
then dancing from one end to another of the hovel. The
course of the flame could not be traced by those without,
because the walls intervened, but it was seen quivering at
the broken doorway, and then through the shattered
window.

Those who stood near the cottage, shrank from it, cowering
back, pressing on those behind, leaving a space between them
and the table, and the house where these ghostly lights moved
about. Saltren alone was unconscious of what passed in the
ruin, for his back was to it.

" We have our misery brought home to us," he continued.
"Why are we thrown out of work ? Why am I threatened
with having my house taken from me ? Why is this cottage
torn down, and the stones cast upon an innocent man to
crush the life out of him ? The Lord has suffered all this
to come upon us at once, so as to rouse us to a knowledge
of the truth revealed to me that all are equal, and in our
equality are one ; and that the time has arrived when the
poor are to rise and put their feet on the necks of their
oppressors. I saw on the cover of that book which de-
scended to me from above the clouds, the head of a man,
and the cover was red with blood, and I saw how that that
man was handed over first to destruction, the first among
many ; and I know how that the heads of those predestined
to destruction will appear in order, one after another, on
the cover of the book, as the sentence goes forth against
each. He who comes first is the chief offender, he who
has caused so much woe, he who has destroyed the peace
of homes, that one — "

A shout of " Name, name ! "

R

458 ARMINELL.

Then, suddenly, from within the ruin flared up a vivid
conflagration, golden yellow, so brilliant as to light up the
faces of all present turned to the speaker, and convert every
leaf of every tree into a flake of gold.

Women shrieked, then were instantaneously hushed,
hushed as in death, for, standing on the table behind
Saltren, they saw Patience Kite, wild, ragged, with her hair
about her shoulders, and an arm extended, pointing. Saltren,
also, by the vivid glare, saw Lord Lamerton under the Scotch
fir, his face catching full the reflection, as if illumined by
the sun.

" Do you ask his name ? " he shouted. " He is there."
He also pointed, and all the while was unconscious that the
wild woman near him was indicating the same man.

Then the whole assembly turned to look, and for a moment
saw Lord Lamerton.

For a moment only, for the flame fell, and cries, piercing,
thriUing every nerve, distracted the attention of the crowd.
A woman had fallen in convulsions on the ground, declaring
that she had seen the Devil.

CHAPIER XXVII.

FLOUTED.

Lord Lamerton put his hand to his head — he could not
have spoken if addressed, he was dumfoundered. After the
.' ssaiilt delivered by James Welsh, he might possibly have
blundered through some sort of self-exculpation, but the
attack of Captain Saltren was so amazing, so unexpected,
so different in kind from anything against which he was
armed, that he could not speak, could not utter a syllable.

He was all at once caught by the arm, and saw the faces
of Jingles and Arminell.

*' My lord," said young Saltren, hastily, " you must not
stay here. The people are incensed, and may do you an
injury."

Lord Lamerton looked from the tutor to his daughter,
and then back again. What had brought him there ? Why
had Arminell thus acted in disobedience to his wishes, and
against common decorum? But he said nothing, he was,
struck dumb. The world was turned upside down, and
those who had stood on their feet were now on their heads.

Young Saltren took his arm, and he allowed himself to
be led away.

He did not recover at once from his bewilderment. He
was as a man stunned. What he had experienced that
night was unlike any other experience he had gone through.
A sense of helplessness momentarily came upon him, of

26o ARMINELL.

inability to resist the forces of fanaticism, unscrupulous
partisanship, superstition and prejudice gathered against
him. He could neither descend to the personalities and
dishonesties of Welsh, nor climb to the fantastic extrava-
gance of Saltren.

Like a plain Englishman he liked to fight face to face
with his antagonist on open ground, and on a level, to hit
straight before him, and give hard blows ; but he was taken
in flank, and bewildered among the tortuous defiles into
which he was drawn by Welsh, and unable to touch Saltren
who menaced him from aerial heights.

There are two sorts of culture, as there are two eyes and
two ears, and two hands, and two feet to every man, and
two poles to the globe, and two lights to rule the day and
night. But these two cultures are very different in their
effects.

The man without intellectual culture has strong opinions,
is rugged and angular, and is unable to conceive of the
possibility of any qualifications to what he holds as the
truth. As he becomes cultivated, he is cut into more facets,
and rubbed down, and still further culture makes the angles
obtuse and multiplies the facets till finally he loses all angles,
and becomes a globe. Friction among his fellowmen has
rubbed away every sharpness of opinion, till with perfect
culture he ceases to have any opinions at all. Let us put
the same fact in another way. The rude man comes out of
the dye-vat intense in the colour of his opinions, but every
dip he gets in mixed society runs some of his colour out of
him, and after having been plunged a good many times in
the social wash-tub he ceases to have any distinguishable
colour whatever. Intellectual culture makes a man moderate
and tolerant, because he becomes indifferent.

Moral culture has an opposite effect. The uncultivated
moral faculty is dull, and blunt to discriminate between
right and wrong ; the moral palate requires training, for by

ARMINELL. 261

nature it tastes only what is crude, and distinguishes sharp
extremes. The disciphne of life, many a painful experience,
and some humiliation, serve to train the moral faculty to
nice distinction, and teach it to shrink from the smallest
sources of falsehood, to avoid the rank and gross, and to
acquire the strictest love of justice. It learns to enjoy the
soft velvety port, and to pass the brandied logwood un-
touched.

Lord Lamerton was a man of double culture. He was
not a man of brains, but he was thoroughly scrupulous and
honourable, eminently a fair man, and essentially truthful.
As such he was incapable of meeting Welsh. His moral
culture had disarmed him for such a combat. He was like
a man called to duel, handling a polished rapier, and en-
gaged with an antagonist armed with a revolver. On the
other hand, his intellectual culture incapacitated him from
meeting Captain Saltren. Such a craze as that of his about
a vision of an angel bearing the Everlasting Gospel was a
craze and nothing more, undeserving of being argued about,
entitling the holder to a cell in Bedlam.

Pohtical unscrupulousness and fanatical unreason were
united against him, and although he was aware that they
were powerless to injure him, still they might cause him
considerable annoyance. It is never pleasant to be on bad
terms with neighbours, however removed from them one
may be in class and fortune. It is like living in a land
haunted by malaria. You are safe on your toft of high
land, and look down on the vaporous and poisonous region
below, but it hems you in, it interferes with your independ-
ence, you have to reckon upon it, and avoid it. To Lord
Lamerton it was intolerable to be on other terms than the
best with every one, and he was ruffled and hurt by lack of
cordiality and want of reciprocity.

How could he bring these misguided people to their
senses ? It would not do for him to send Macduff among

262 ARMINELL.

them. Macduff was a Scotchman, and did not understand
the ways of thought of the Southerners. He was himself
unable to do anything. He put his hand to his head — he
was utterly dumfoundered.

All this while he was walking away, led by the tutor, and
had his daughter on the other side of him.

Then, abruptly, Lord Lamerton asked, " How long have
you been listening to that — to — I mean — him ? "

*•' O, papa, we have only just arrived, as dinner is over,"
answered Arminell. " I heard from Mr. Saltren that there
was to be a meeting of protest at the ruined cottage, and 1
persuaded him to accompany me to it. But we came late —
and now the rain has begun to pour down, it will disperse
the assembly."

" Did you know I was here ? "

"No — T heard you had walked on to Captain Tubb's
house to make enquiries."

Lord Lamerton disengaged his arm from that of Jingles,
who still held it, and said, " Mr. Saltren, your way lies to
Chillacot. You are no doubt going to your father, and will
be glad to remain with him. 1 will give orders that your
clothes and other possessions be removed to-morrow.
Things necessary for the night shall be sent at once."

" My lord ! "

" I wish you a very good evening, Mr. Saltren, and a
good-bye."

Then Lord Lamerton took his daughter's arm, and walked
hastily away. The rain was beginning to fall heavily.

He said nothing more for some distance, and Arminell
remained silent. But when the park gates were reached,
he spoke, and his voice shook as he did so.

** Arminell, this is too bad, this is direct and deliberate
revolt. It is not enough for me to be attacked from without,
but I must encounter treason in the camp."

" I will not pretend to misunderstand you, papa," said

ARM IN ELL. 263

Arminell. " You are annoyed at my coming out at night
with Mr. Saltren — with Giles senior."

" Arminell ! "

**I am sorry to have caused you annoyance, but, papa,
in the first place I was desirous of seeing the meeting,
and hearing what was said at it, and of judging for my-
self."

"Of hearing your own father abused, insulted and de-
nounced."

" Not exactly that, papa ; but surely there is wrong on
both sides."

''And you constituted yourself judge over your father ! "

" No, papa, I wished to hear what was said, and I asked —
you know whom I mean — to come with me. It may pos-
sibly have been indiscreet."

" Not merely indiscreet, but wrong, for it was an act of
deliberate, wilful disobedience to the wishes of your father,
plainly expressed."

" I do not wish to vex and disobey you, papa, but I will
exercise my independence and judgment. I cannot allow
myself to be cooped in the cage of proprieties. I must see
what is going on, and form my own opinions."

"Very well — you shall go to your Aunt Hermione.
Your step-mother is not good enough for you. I — your
father — am not good enough for you. We are all too strait-
laced, too tied hand and foot by the laces of respectability,
to serve as guide or check on such a headstrong piece of
goods as yourself. You go to Hermione next week."

" I do not wish to go to her. I dishke her. I detest the
sort of life led in her house, a life utterly hollow, frivolous
and insincere."

" She is a woman of the world."

" A woman of the world that is passing away. I am
standing with one foot on a world that is coming on, and I
will not step back on to the other."

264 ARMINELL.

" You go to Aunt Hermione," said Lord Lamerton
peremptorily. He was losing his temper.

" How long am I to be with her ? "

" That depends. Your mother has written to ask her to
receive you for six months."

"Six months!" Arminell disengaged herself from her
father. "Six months is an eternity. I cannot ! I will not
submit to this. I shall do something desperate. I detest
that old Hermione. Her voice grates on my nerves, her
laugh raises my bad passions. I can hardly endure her for
six days. Her good nature is imbecility itself, and pro-
vokes me ; her vanity makes her ridiculous. I cannot, in
deed, I will not go to her."

" You must, Armie ! It is my wish — it is my com-
mand."

"But not for six months. Six weeks is the outside
of my endurance."

" Armie, I heartily wish that there were no necessity for
parting with you at all, but you have given me and your
mother such cause for anxiety, and such pain, that we have
concluded together that it is best for you and us to be
separated for a while. You, I have said, give me pain,
especially now at a time when I am worried by external
troubles. I cannot force you to go to your aunt's, nor
force you to remain there longer than you choose, but you
know my intentions, and they are for your good, and our
own relief."

" Am I such an annoyance to you? " asked Arminell, in
a subdued tone.

" Of course, with your waywardness, and open defiance
of our authority, you are. You have made me — let alone
my lady — very unhappy. You have set yourself up to dis-
agree with us at every point, to run counter to all our
wishes, and to take up with persons with whom we dis-
approve of your associating."

ARMINELL. 1265

" I give you pain, papa ? "

*'Very much pain indeed."

"And you think it would make you happier if I left
Orleigh, and that it would also be better for me ? "

" I do, indeed."

"And six months, you suppose, will cure me of my
wilfulness ? "

" I do not say that ; that depends on yourself."

"Anyhow, for six months you will have ease of mind if I
am away from you, and in good hands ? "

" In good hands, certainly. Hermione's house is a very
suitable school. You will there be brought to understand
that deference is due to your superiors, consideration for
the feelings of others, respect for opinions that differ from
your own, and especially that regard is to be had for les
convenances, without which social life would go to pieces, as
a chain of pearls that has lost its connecting links. Les
convenances may be, and indeed are, in themselves nothing,
but they hold society together. You have been left too
much to yourself or with unsatisfactory governesses. You
must be taught your proper place. You must go into the
stream of social life, and feel the current and its irresistidle
force."

"Very well, papa, I will go."

"Your aunt will be sure to write to-day; we shall have a
letter to-morrow."

Arminell said nothing. Her brows were knit and her
lips set.

" I am sorry we have to give up the trip to Switzerland;
it might have been pleasant, had we been all together, but I
must deny myself that. The Irish property has brought in
nothing; and I have lost money in other ways; now I must
set the men to work on the new road — that is, if they will
condescend to make it."

On reaching the house. Lord Lamerton went at once to

266 ARMINELL.

the drawing-room, and caught his wife dozing over a magazine.
He put his hand on her shoulder, and said,

''JuUa!"

She started, and dropped her book.

" Oh, you are back at last ! Have you had anything t^ eat?"

" More than I am able to digest, ray dear."

" How did the speech succeed ? You remembered
Langland's date, I hope ? "

" My dear, I have heard too many speeches to-day to
remember anything about my own — that is to say, yours.
I have had three — one from Mr. Welsh, one from Captain
Saltren, and one from Arminell, and upon my soul, I do not
know which was the most unpleasant. Do you know where
Arminell has been since dinner?"

*' In her room, I suppose."

" No ; she has been out — with Jingles."

" Never ! "

Her ladyship looked blank.

" It is a fact. She went with him to a meeting held by
the malcontents against me ; went to hear what they had to
say against her own father, and went with that fellow with
whom you had cautioned her not to be seen, and whom I
had forbidden to associate with her."

" Good gracious ! how improper."

" The girl is unmanageable. However, I have got her to
promise to go to her Aunt Hermione for a bit, if Hermione
will take her. I tried to make her agree to six months, but
I am not sure that I can bring her to consent to so long a
banishment."

" But — to go out with Jingles, after all that has been said
to her ! "

" And for him to have the audacity to take her out — and
to such a meeting."

"They must have gone out immediately after dinner.
You have not dined ? "

ARMINELL. 267

Lord Lamerton shook his head.

" I have swallowed a good deal to-day," he said with an
attempt at a smile. " I have been bamboozled by Vv^'elsh,
dumfoundered by Saltren, and flouted by Arminell."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A CONTRETEMPS.

The inquest on young Tubb took place on the following
day. This occasioned fresh unpleasantness, and further
excitement of feeling. Unfortunately Captain Saltren was
on the jury, and he insisted against all evidence and reason,
in maintaining that the verdict should be to the effect that
Archelaus Tubb had been murdered by his lordship. One
other juryman agreed with him, but the others could not
go so far. As Saltren stubbornly refused to yield, the jury
was discharged, and another summoned by the coroner,
which returned " Accidental death," but with a rider
blaming Macduff for carelessness in the destruction of the
cottage.

Arminell was changed in her behaviour to her father since
she had heard Mrs. Saltren's story. She had lost faith in
him ; those good qualities which she had previously recog-
nised in him, she now believed to be unreal. The man as
he was had been disclosed to her — false, sensual, wanting
in honour. All the good he displayed was the domino cast
over and concealing the mean and shabby reality. He wore
his domino naturally, with a frank bonhoi7imie which was the
perfection of acting — but then, it was acting. Arminell was
very straightforward, blunt and sincere, and hated everything
which was not open. Social life she represented to herself
as a school of disguises, a masquerade in which no oxio,

ARMINELL. 269

shows as he is, but dresses in the part he wishes to appear
in. Some men and women are such finished actors that
they forget themselves in their assumed parts, and such was
her father. Having to occupy the position of a county
magnate, he had come to fit the position exteriorly, and had
accommodated his conscience to the delusion that he was
what he pretended to be — the wealthy, blameless, honourable
nobleman, against whom not a stone could be cast. All this
was a pretence, and Arminell was not angry, only her moral
nature revolted at the assumption. Her high principle and
downrightness made her resent the fraud that had been per-
petrated on herself and the world.

She had on several occasions heard her father speak in
public, and had felt ashamed because he spoke so badly,
but chiefly because she was convinced that he was repeating,
parrot-like, what had been put into his mouth by my lady.
He pretended to speak his own thoughts, and he spoke
ihose of his wife — that was an assumption, and so was his
respectability, so his morality.

Arminell had long undervalued her father's mental powers,
but she had believed in his rectitude. She thought his virtue
was like that stupid going-straightforward that is found in a
farmer's horse, which will jog along the road, and go straight,
and be asleep as it goes. But Mrs. Saltren's story, which
she believed in spite of the improbabilities — improbabilities
she did not stop to consider, had overthrown the conviction,
and she now saw in her father a man as morally imperfect
as he was intellectually deficient.

Had he been open, and not attempted to disguise his
offence, she might have forgiven him, but when he assumed
the disguise of an upright God-fearing man, doing his duty,
her strictly truthful nature rose up in indignant protest.
******

" My dear ! " exclaimed Lady Lamerton ; " good gracious,
what is this I hear? What have you done? Undertaken

270 ARMINELL.

to throw open the grounds and house on Saturday ! Wh}^,
Lamerton, how could you ? Saturday is the day on which
I proposed to give our garden-party."

" Ton my word, JuUa, I forgot about your garden-
party ! "

" You promised to make a note of the day."

"So I did — not to be from home. But I forgot when I
was asked to allow the place to be seen."

" You must countermand the order to have it opened."

" That I cannot do. I publicly, at the meeting, an-
nounced that I would allow the house and grounds to be
overrun on Saturday, and I cannot withdraw the per-
mission."

" Only for this once."

"Not for this once. It is the first Saturday after the
promise was made. You must postpone your garden-party."

" I cannot do that. The invitations have been sent out.
There is no time ; ices, the band, everything, are ordered."

" Well, Julia, we must make shift as we can."

" Look here, Lamerton, how will it do to confine
our party to the terrace and garden, and have refreshments
in the orangery ? "

" So be it ; that will do very well. The guests will not
object. Tell them there has been a clash, and they will
enjoy the joke."

"The public will want to be admitted to the house by
the principal entrance."

" Of course. They are to be shown the state apart-
ments, and the doubtful Van Dyck."

" Then — how about our guests ? What a predicament
you have got me into. We cannot receive our guests at the
back door."

" No need for that, Julia. Receive in the garden. The
carriages will set down the guests at the iron gates. Pray
heaven we may have fine weather 1 "

ARMINELL. 27 1

"It will be very awkward. The footmen will have to
look after the sight-seers, that they do not poke their
umbrellas through the pictures, or finger the ornaments —
and we shall want them in the garden to attend to our
guests ! "

*' It will go all right. I will send Macduff to arrange.
He is a manager."

After a pause, Lady Lamerton said, " I am glad
Hermione will take Arminell under her wing. You have
told Armie to be ready to start on Monday ? "

" Yes ; I don't understand the girl, whether she is in a
sulk, or sorry for her misconduct."

" Her boxes are being got ready," said Lady Lamerton.
" There is something in her manner that is uncomfortable.
I have noticed it as well as you. When I speak about
Lady Hermione, she says nothing, and leaves the room."

" A plunge in London life will renovate her."

** I trust so. She sadly needs renovation. The caldron
of a London season differs from that of Pelias. The
latter rejuvenated those dipped in it ; but the former
matures."

" Have you spoken to Arminell about going out with
Jingles the other night ? "

Lady Lamerton shook her head.

" No," said his lordship, " I know it is of no use. Best
say nothing. We must build our hopes on a diversion of
her thoughts."

*' Yes — " Lady Lamerton mused, then heaved a sigh.
" Oh, Lamerton, what a muddle you have made ! How
shall wc manage a garden-party when we have the public
swarming all about the place ? It is a contretemps I "

CHAPTER XXIX.

HOW IT WAS CONTRIVED.

Macduff did it. Macduff exerted himself over it, for
Macduff was under a cloud, and endeavoured to disperse
the cloud by the sunshine of amiabihty. Besides Macduff
was a manager — would have made a superb station-master
at Rugby, or President of the French Republic — any other
office full of difficulty and conflicting elements would suit
Macduff. He rose to the occasion.

The day for the garden-party was delightful, and the
park looked its loveliest, except in early spring and late
autumn, when the buds of some and the fresh green of
other trees were in all shades, or when the first frosts had
touched the foliage with every hue of gold and copper.
These, indeed, were the times when the park and woods
were in most radiant beauty ; but, now, with a soft and
luscious haze over the distance, and a brilliant sun stream-
ing light above all, it was very beautiful.

The park and the house were abandoned to the sight-
seers; but the garden, terrace, and avenue were reserved
for the guests. The orange house, now empty, because the
trees had been brought forth to adorn the terrace, vras de-
corated and arranged for refreshments, or for a refuge in the
event of rain.

A military band was in attendance, and four lawn-tennis
courts marked out, with boys in picturesque uniforms

ARMINELL. 2 73

Stationed about them, to return the balls that passed be-
yond bounds.

At the lodge gate instructions had been given that the
coachmen should deposit the guests at the garden gates —
handsome, scroll iron gates under an arch of Anglo-Italian
architecture, on the pediment of which were emblazoned
the arms, supporters, and coronet of the Lamertons. This
gate afforded admission to the garden-terrace, and com-
pletely shut oif the more private part of the grounds from
the park. But though the terrace was shut off from all in-
trusion, it was not so completely closed as to prevent those
without from seeing into it. Between the gate and the
house was a low w^all, with a railing on it. The windows of
the state drawing-room looked out on the terrace, and a
glass door with a flight of stone steps descended from the
entrance hall to the terrace. The house was of the age of
Elizabeth ; but one wing, that containing the state apart-
ments, had been rebuilt or re-modelled in the reign of
Queen Anne, so that it in no way harmonised with the rest
of the house, though furnishing within a suite of noble and
lofty apartments, cheerful, and a pleasing contrast to the
somewhat sombre rooms, panelled with oak, or hung with
tapestry in the older house. Orleigh was not one of those
brick palaces that are found in the Midland and Eastern
counties ; but it was commodious, venerable, and charm-
ingly situated.

The arrangements made by Macduff and sanctioned by
my lady, worked harmoniously. To some of her guests the
hostess mentioned the inconvenience to which she feared
they would be subjected, and left them to tell the others
about it, if they saw fit.

The day was so bright that there was no occasion to go
indoors. Lord and Lady Lamerton stood at a short dis-
tance from the iron gates, ready to receive their guests, who,
after a first greeting, walked forward and allowed their host?

s

274 ARMINELL.

to receive the next batch. They looked at the beds, the
oranges, the view ; and those who were enthusiastic about
flowers found their way into the conservatories. Then
the guests began to coagulate into knots and sets. The
clergy herded together, and the sporting men graduated to-
wards each other ; only the army men sought out and made
themselves agreeable to the ladies.

" Where is Arminell ? " asked Lady Lamerton, in an in-
terval between the reception of guests.

" 'Pon my soul, JuHa, I do not know."

" She ought to be here — with us. She puts the obliga-
tions of common courtesy from her as undeserving of at-
tention."

" I will send for her."

"No; best take no notice. She may appear presently.
Here come the Cribbages."

" My dear Lady Lamerton," exclaimed the rector's wife,
running up, and in a gushing manner extending her hand.
" How bright and charming you look, in spite of all your
worries. It is a marvel to me how you bear up under it all ;
and to think of the audacity of Jingles ! the ingratitude, the
presumption ! So he is turned out of the house, neck and
crop ; and yet you look as fresh and smiling as if nothing
had happened. How I do envy your placidity of temper."

Then, turning to Lord Lamerton, " Really, my lord, you
are an angel of good-nature to allow the public admission
to your beautiful grounds twice a week, and put yourself and
your guests to annoyance to oblige them. I heard the par-
ticulars from Mrs. Macduff. Come, Robert " — this to her
husband — "you must not detain our kind hosts. Don't
you see that the Calwoodleighs are coming? By the way,
dear Lady Lamerton, wher-e is Miss Inglett ? Shall I find
her on the terrace? What dress is she wearing? There
are so many persons here that I may miss her among the
throng. Which dress is it? The heliotrope or the amber?"

ARMINELL. 275

She was drawn on by her husband, who saw that the
Calwoodleighs were waiting to be received. " Come along,
Selina," said the rector. " I see the archdeacon yonder."

"I'm not going to be hurried, Robert," answered Mrs.
Cribbage. " I must have another word presently with my
lord. You may leave me if you like. You are not wont
to be civil to your wife. Besides, I know why you want to
be off. It is very fine pretending you have something to
say to the archdeacon ; I know what is the attraction in that
direction, his niece, Miss Lovat, whom some think pretty.
But I don't. Go and prance about the archdeacon and her,
if you like."

The Calwoodleighs having gone forward, Mrs. Cribbage
returned to her hosts, and said to Lord Lamerton :

"How good and kind it was of you, my lord, to put in
an appearance at poor Archelaus Tubb's funeral. I have
no doubt the family were flattered by the extraordinary
attention, and to be sure, what nasty, spiteful things have
been said about your share in his death. Now, Robert, 1
will go with you and engage Miss Lovat whilst you talk to
the archdeacon."

The arrival of the guests had in the meantime caused
great satisfaction to the sight-seer?, who had discussed and
severely criticised the equipages.

The meeting at Patience Kite's cottage had been reported
in the papers, the speech by Welsh given as he chose that
it should be read, that of Saltren omitted altogether.
Moreover, the county papers had announced the throwing
open of the grounds on Saturday, and as this was a day of
early closing, a good many townsfolk, mostly shopmen and
shopgirls, took advantage of the occasion to come to Orleigh,
and see the place where that notorious Lord Lamerton lived.

They clustered about the garden gates, passing their com-
ments on the arrivals, mostly disparaging, and expressed at
times loud enough to be heard by those discussed.

276 ARMINELL.

One or two parties arrived in hired conveyances. " Them's
too poor to keep a carriage," was the observation with which
they were saluted. The rector and Mrs. Cribbage came on
foot. *' These can't afford a cab. Curate and his old house-
keeper, won't they eat ! "

By far the most stylish and astonishing was the equipage
of Sir Bosanquet Gammon, the new high sheriff. Sir
Bosanquet was a north-country man who had made a large
fortune as a civil engineer. He was never able altogether
to shake off his native dialect and to speak as an educated
English gentleman. This was the more singular, as he
asserted that the family was originally De Gammon, and
had Plantagenet blood in it. His coat-of-arms on carriage
and yacht was a patchwork of quarterings. That Plantagenet
blood and fifty heiresses should not by their fused gentility
have prevented Gammon from talking with a north-country
twang was something to shake the foundations of Anthro-
pology.

Sir Bosanquet Gammon, being high sheriff, thought it in-
cumbent on him to make a display, so he drove to Orleigh
in a carriage with hammercloth, and powdered coachman
and flunkeys.

Giraldus Cambrensis, in his *' Topography of Ireland,"
says that in Meath, near Foure, are three lakes, each occu-
pied by a special kind of fish, and he adds that, although
these lakes are connected, the fish of each lake keep to
themselves, and should they venture into the lake inhabited
by the finny tribe of another species, they would be so like
fish out of water, that they would die, unless indeed they
precipitately retreated to their former habitation.

It also seemed at Orleigh this day that fish of three sorts
were swimming about in three several ponds without as-
sociation and amalgamation. Within the iron gates and
rails were the red-fleshed salmon, by themselves, with
interests in common, a common mode of speech, a common

ARMINELL. 277

code of manner, and a common culture. Without the
raihngs, yet within the park, were the common-place fish
that understood and appreciated jokes which would have
been insipid or vulgar to those within the raihngs, also with
a common dialect, a peculiar twang and intonation of voice,
and a common style of thought and cultural tone.

Further away, outside the park gates and enclosure were
fish of another quality altogether, the homely trout — the
village rustics, the miners out of work — also with their
peculiar modes of thought, their dialect, their prejudices,
and their quahty of humour, distinct from the rest and
special to themselves.

How would one of the town fish have felt, had he been
admitted within the gates? How one of the rustics, if
associated with the shop-folk ? Each would have been un-
easy, gasping, and glad to get back from such uncongenial
society into his proper pond once more.

When the last of the guests had arrived. Lord and Lady
Lamerton left their reception post, and mixed with the
company. The lookers-on outside the railings did not at
once disperse. A policeman and a couple of keepers were
on guard. The gates were closed, but the people insisted
on peering through the bars and between the rails at the
well-dressed gentle class within, and others scrambled up on
the dwarf wall to obtain a better view, and were ordered
down by the policeman only to reascend to the vantage
point when his back was turned.

" I ain't doing nothing," remonstrated one of those re-
quired to descend ; " a cat may look at a king, and I want
to see Lord Lamerton."

" Come down at once."

" But I came here o' purpose."

*' You can see the park and the pictures."

*' Oh, blow the park and pictures. I didn't pay two-
and-eight return to see them. I came here to see his lord-

278 ARMINELL.

ship. So, Mr. Bobby, take him my card and comph'ments.
I'm in the Bespoke Department at Messrs. Skewes."

" You cannot see him. Come down at once."

" But I must and will see the nobleman who has been so
wicked, and has caused such wretchedness, who has tore
down widows' houses, and crushed the 'eads of orphans."

Then another man offered a cigar to one of the keepers.

" Look here, old man," he said. " Point his lordship
out to me. I want to have a squint at him — a regular
Jiid^je Jeffries he is."

" Talk of Bulgarian atrocities," said another. " They're a
song to these at Orleigh. Down with the House of Lords,
says I, and let us have the enfranchisement of the
soil."

" It is all primogeniture does it," said a third, " there
never ought to be no first borns."

In the innermost pond, meanwhile, the giie-ts were
swimming about and consorting. Mrs. Cribbage bore
down on Lady Lamerton.

"Do tell me, dear Lady Lamerton, where is Miss Ar-
minell ; I have been searching for her everywhere. Don't
tell me she is ill. Though, perhaps, she has had occasion
to feel upset. She really must be somewhere, but I am so
short-sighted I have not been able to find her. Perhaps
she is in a new dress, with which I am not acquainted."

"We are going to send her to town; her aunt. Lady
Hermione Woodhead, has been so kind as to invite her, as
we remain at Orleigh for the time, and do not think of
being in town during the season. It would be a pity for
Arminell not to see the Academy this year, and hear the
Italian opera, and see some of our friends. So when Lady
Hermione offered it. we accepted gladly."

"Very gladly, I am sure," said Mrs. Cribbage with a
knowing twinkle in her eye. *' But where is she now ? "

" I cannot say, I have not looked for her ; I have been

ARMINELL. 279

intent on receiving our friends. Here is Lady Gammon.
I must be civil to her."

*' How propitious the weather is," said the high sheriffess,
" and how gratified you must be, my lady, to see so many
individuals about you in the plentitude of enjoyment."

There are persons, they belong to a certain social class,
who always use a long word from the Latin when a short
Anglo-Saxon one would do.

" What a superabundance of ministers, all, I perceive, of
the Established Church ; but really, considering the high
sheriff was to be here, they might have come in hats, in-
stead of what is vulgarly called wide-awakes. Do you
know, my lady, what it is that I really want of you ? Can
you guess what the favour is that I am going to ask of you ?
No — I am sure you cannot. Sir Bosanquet and I had a
discussion together at breakfast relative to the polarisation
of light, and I said to Sir Bosanquet — " (within parenthesis be
it noted that before the civil engineer was knighted, his
wife always called him hub or hubby) — " I said to Sir
Bosanquet, ' my dear, we will refer the matter to her lady-
ship who is a very learned lady, and she shall de-
cide.' "

" I ! " answered Lady Lamerton, *' I really do not know.
It has — that is — I believe it has — but really I have only the
vaguest idea concerning it ; it has to do with the breaking
up of a ray into its prismatic colours."

" I knew it has to do with prismatic colours, and had no-
thing to do with polar bears. Polar bears are white."

" Thomson," said Lady Lamerton aside to a footman,
" be so good as to send me Miss Inglett's maid — to me
here, on the terrace."

A few minutes later the lady's-maid came to where my
lady was standing ; she held a salver with a three-cornered
sealed note on it.

" Please, my lady, Thomson said your ladyship "

28o

ARMINELL.

" Yes," interrupted Lady Lamerton, '^ what have you got
there ? "

" A note, my lady, Miss Inglett left on her dressing-table
for his lordship, before she went."

''Went!"

" Started, my lady, for town to Lady Hermione Wood-
head's. She said, my lady, she would write for me wlien I
was required."

Lady Lamerton took the note. It was addressed to her
husband, but she hastily opened it. It contained these few
lines only —

" Dear Papa,

" You said it would be best for you and for my step-
mother, and for myself, if I went away for some time from
Orleigh. I have gone — but not to Aunt Hermione. You
can, of course, guess who accompanies me, one whom I
trust ere long you will acknowledge as a son. I will write
in a day or two.

" Yours ever,
"Arminell."

Lady Lamerton did not lose her presence of mind.
" That will do," she said to the maid, and went in quest of
her husband. She showed him the letter and said in a low
tone, " No time is to be lost ; go instantly, go yourself to
Chillacot, and see if she be there. If not you can learn
where he is. No one else can go. I will keep the company
amused and occupied. Slip out by the gate at the end of
the avenue and go over the down, no one will observe you."

Lord Lamerton nodded, and departed without a word.
Presently up came Mrs. Cribbage again, " I cannot find
Miss Inglett anywhere," she said.

" No, Mrs. Cribbage," answered Lady Lamerton. " How
are you likely to when she is gone to town ? Did not I tell
you that we had accepted Lady Herraione's kind invitation? "

ARMINELL. 28 1

" But I did not understand she was gone. I thought she
was going."

"Surely you misunderstood me, Mrs. Cribbage; here
comes Sir Bosanquet."

" There now," exclaimed Lady Gammon, sailing up with
a flutter of silk, and a waving of lace fringe to her parasol
" There, I said so. Sir Bosanquet, polarisation of light has
nothing to do with polar bears. I bought Plantagenet a
box of the prismatical colours because they are warranted
to contain no deleterious matter in them, should the dear
child take to" — there was no Latinised word that would
suit, or that she knew — " to suck 'em."

" Oh Lady Gammon," said the hostess, " I am so vexed
that I cannot introduce to you my step-daughter, but she
has been invited to her aunt's, Lady Hermione Woodhead,
and there is a Richter concert to-night — selections from
Parzifal, which she ought not to miss."

CHA.PTER XXX.

HOW THE FISH CAME TOGETHER.

Lady Lamerton did her utmost. She was lively, quite
sprightly even. She moved among her guests with a pleasant
smile and a courteous word for every one. The lawn-tennis
courts were occupied by four sets of players. A cluster of
young men and girls were at a table blowing soap bubbles,
and finding fund for laughter in the process. A group of
their seniors were making a party for bowls. Some of the
guests stood on the terrace looking down at the lawn-tennis
players and pretending to take interest in the games. The
majority of those present wandered about the gardens,
shrubberies, and conservatories.

A little hand was thrust into that of Lady Lamerton, and
on looking down she saw Giles.

" Mamma, where is papa? I want to go with him."
" He has had to leave, dear, for a few minutes ; he will
return in perhaps half an hour."

" But I can run after him. Where is he ? "
"You cannot follow him, Giles, he is walking fast, and is
about something that your presence would disturb. Are
there no little boys here for you to play with ? Yes, there
are the two Fountaynes. I invited them expressly."
" I do not want to play. I had rather walk with papa."
" But he would wish you to take the little boys and show
them your pony. We cannot, my dear, always do what we
like. We must bestir ourselves to make our guests happy."

ARMINELL. 283

"Very well, mamma, I will go with the Fountaynes as
papa wishes it."

He let go her hand, and went off. She looked affection-
ately after the child for a moment, and then resumed her
duties as hostess, with an anxious heart but an untroubled
brow.

From the first moment that our intelligence dawns, the
first lessons impressed on us, lessons never pretermitted,
from which no holiday gives release, relentlessly and syste-
matically enforced, are those of self-suppression. We are
not allowed as children even to express our opinions de-
cidedly, to hate heartily any person or anything. We are
required, for instance, to say nothing more forcible than —
we are not devoted to our governess, and not partial to
bread-and-butter pudding. We are instructed either to keep
silence altogether relative to our feelings, which is best of
all, a counsel of perfection ; or if we cannot do that, to give
utterance to them in an inoffensive and unobjectionable
manner. We are taught to speak of a stupid person as
amiable, and of a disagreeable person as well-intentioned.
Our faces are not suffered to express what our tongues are
not permitted to speak, consequently the facial muscles are
brought into as complete control as the tongue.

Consequently also when we are thoroughly schooled, we
wear masks perpetually and always go about with gloved
tongues. At first, in the nursery and in the schoolroom,
there are kicks and sulks, when the mask and the glove are
fitted on, and yet, in time, we become so habituated to them
that we are incapable of conceiving of life as endurable
without the wearing of them.

I know that I have become so accustomed to a ring on
my little finger, that if perchance I have forgotten it, and
gone into society, I have blushed to the roots of my hair,
and stammered and been distracted, thinking myself in-
sufficiently clothed, simply because I had left my ring on

284 ARMINELL.

the washhand-stand. And it is the same with our masks
and gloves, we grow to like them, to be uncomfortable
without them, to be afraid to show our faces or move our
tongues when unprotected by mask and glove.

A circus horse becomes so used to the bearing rein that
even when he is allowed to gallop without one, he runs
with arched neck.

We are all harnessed from our cradle, with bearing reins,
not only to give our necks the proper curve, but also to
prevent us from caking the bit in our mouths, kicking out,
plunging over the barriers, and deserting the ring, and the
saw-dust, the lignts, and the crack of the manager's
whjp.

Round and round our ring we go, now at an amble, then
at a canter, and at last at a gallop, but always under re-
straint ; the only liberty allowed and taken is now and
again to make our hoofs sound against the barriers, and to
send a little sawdust in the faces of the lookers-on, who
clap hands and laugh or scream. We dance in our arena
to music, and spin about, and balance ourselves on pre-
carious bases, take a five-barred gate at a leap, and go over
a score of white poles, dexterously lowered to allow of a
leap without accident. Then we fall lame, and lie down,
and allow a pistol to be exploded in our ears, and permit
ourselves to be carried out as dead. But whatever jump
we make has been pre-arranged and laboriously practised,
and whatever performance we be put through has been
artificially acquired We never snap our bearing rein,
never utter a defiant snort, toss our heads, kick out at those
who w^ould detain us, and dash away to pastures green and
free moorside.

Possibly our happiness would be greater were we to
burst away from the perpetual mill-round, but I know very
well what the result would be. We would rapidly de-
generate on the moorside into uncouth, shaggy creatures,

ARMINELL. 285

destitute of gloss and grace, and forget all our circus
manners.

That which the grooming and breaking-in are to a horse,
that culture is to a man, a sacrifice of freedom. The lower
classes of men, the great undisciplined, or imperfectly dis-
ciplined bulk of mankind look on at the easy motions and
trained grace of the higher classes, with much the same
puzzlement as would a cluster of wild ponies stand and
watch the passing of a cavalcade of elaborately-trained
horses. Both would be equally ignorant of the amount of
self-abnegation and submission to rule which go to give
ease and gloss.

According to a Mussulman legend, the Queen of Sheba
had some smack of savagery about her ; she had goat's hair
on her ankles. King Solomon heard this by report, and
being desirous of ascertaining the truth, he had water
poured over the pavement of his court when she came to
visit him. As she approached she raised her skirt, and
Solomon detected the goat's hair.

There are a good many men as well as women who
appear in the best courts nowadays with hair about their
hocks ; they have been insufficiently groomed. But in this
they differ from the Queen of Sheba, that they persistently
show us their hocks, and even thrust them in our faces.
Merciful powers ! how many half-broken, ill-trimmed cobs
I have met with, kicking up their undocked heels, showing
us that they can jump over poles and overleap hurdles, that
they can balance themselves on chairs, and dance and rear
on their hind legs, and paw the air, and whinny for
applause. We politely pat our palms, and look all the
while, not at their antics, but at their hocks, not at all im-
pressed with their silver and spangled trappings, but very
conscious of the hair about their hoofs.

It is the fashion for moralists to hold up their hands, and
shake their heads, and declaim against the artificialities, the

286 ARMINELL.

disguises of social life, and to say that every word spoken
and look given should be sincere ; that men and women
should scorn concealment and hate subterfuge. But —
would the world be tolerable were it so constituted ? I
mean the world of men. Is it so in the world of nature ?
Is that above screens and disguises? Is that ruthlessly
true, and offensively genuine in its operations ? Where is
there not manifest a desire to draw the veil over what is
harsh and unbecoming ? The very earth covers her bald
places with verdure, obscures her wounds, and drapes her
ragged edges. So the function of culture is the softening
of what is rough, the screening of what is unseemly, the dis-
guising of all that may occasion pain. It is nothing else
but charity in its most graceful form, that spares another at
the cost of self.

I have been in a volcanic region where there were in-
numerable craters, great and small. Those on the plain,
hardly rising above a few feet out of it, showed all their
bare horror, their torn lips, their black throats, their sides
bristling with the angular lava that had boiled out of their
hot and angry hearts, long ago, but ever showing. They
were perfectly genuine, expressing their true nature in ugly
nakedness. But there were other volcanoes rising to
mountain heights, and these had mantled themselves in
snow, had choked and smoothed over their clefts, and hung
garlands of silver, and dropped gauzy veils over their
vitreous precipices ; the very craters, the sources of the fire,
were filled to the brim and heaped up to overflow with un-
sullied snow, rising white, rounded, innocent, as a maiden's
bosom. Which was best ? I know which was the pleasant-
est to see.

So is it with humanity. We are all volcanoes with fire
in our hearts. Some have broken forth and torn themselves
to pieces, some are in a chronic state of fume, and dribble
lava and splutter cinders perpetually, and others are ex-

ARMINELL. 287

hausted. Surely it is best to hide our fires, and drape our
savagery, and bury our snags and dust the white snow over
all that is rugged and gloomy and ungentle.

Or — to revert to our former illustration, if we have hair
on our heels, which is best, to expose it, or, like the Queen
of Sheba, let down our skirts over it ?

When our temper is ruffled, we do not fret with it those
we meet — when our heart is bitter, we do not spit our gall
in the faces of our friends — when our blood boils in our
veins we are careful to let none of it squirt on and blister
the hand that is extended to us. A man may smile, and
smile, and be a villain — that is true, but a man or a woman
may smile, and smile, and be exceedingly sorrowful, may
dance and laugh with an aching heart. Who does not re-
member Andersen's story of the little mermaid, who ob-
tained from the witch power to shed her squamous tail at
the cost of feeling knives pierce her soles every footstep she
took ? And the little mermaid danced at the prince's wed-
ding— at the wedding of the prince whom she had once held
to her heart, and for the love of whom she had shed her
fish's tail, and danced with a rosy face, though every step
was a mortal agony. Do we not love and venerate the
little mermaid, because, instead of howling or whining, and
holding up her bleeding soles to extract commiseration from
all, she dropped her skirts over them, and danced and
warbled, and flushed as the rose, so that none supposed she
leaped with pain, and sang to still her heart, and flushed
with stress of anguish ? So is it with all who have gone
through the great discipline of culture ; they no more expose
their wounds and cry out for sympathy than they expose
deformities.

I remember the bridge over the Gave at Pau, on each
side of which through its entire length sat beggars exhibiting
sores and soliciting alms. But these were men and women
in rags, and those who wear only the rags of culture do the

288 ARMINELL.

same, they draw aside their tatters and expose their wounds
to our shocked eyes.

But it is not so with such as have gone through the school
and learnt its lessons. They are not for ever obtruding
themselves, their worries, their distresses on every one they
meet, their own proper self with its torn veins, and festering
grief, and distilling blood is folded over with silk, and a
jewelled brooch clasps the lace over the swelling, suffering
bosom, and all who see it admire the jewels and are kept in
ignorance of what is beneath. In the primitive Church
the disciplina arcani was enforced, the doctrine of holy re-
serve taught ; for there were certain mysteries of which the
faithful were required to keep the secret ; and culture,
modern culture, has also its disciplina arcani^ its doctrine of
reserve, a reserve to be observed on all selfish pains and
sorrows, a mantling over with a cloak of mystery everything
which can jar with the pleasure and the cheerfulness and
the brightness of the day to others.

So, with a heart quivering with apprehension and racked
with grief for Arminell, Lady Lamerton moved about the
terrace with a placid face, and w^ith her thoughts apparently
engrossed wholly in making her guests at home and happy.
She insisted on Sir Eosanquet Gammon and the rector playing
at aunt Sally, whilst Lady Gammon looked on with a face
green with horror. She brought a garden chair herself to
old and tottery Mrs. Calwoodleigh, who was standing looking
on at her daughter playing lawn-tennis. She found a timid
little cluster of husband and wife and daughters, fresh arrivals
in the neighbourhood, and knowing no one, and introduced
them to a dozen nice families. She broke up a flirtation
with a young officer, which she thought undesirable, by
sweeping away with her the young lady into the orchid
house to admire a clump of Dissa grandi^ora. She inter-
rupted a political discussion in the nick of time, before the
parties became angry and personal. She singled out a little

ARMINELL. 289

old maid outrageously dressed who was prowling about the
flowers, and delighted her by presents of cuttings and little
pots of bulbs, more than she could carry, but which the
gardener was bidden convey to Miss Bligh's carriage. She
galvanised into life a drooping cluster of young and smooth
parsons, and set them playing La Crosse with as many
charming girls. She pointed out the tables where were
claret and champagne cups, strawberries and cream, to
certain thirsty and heavy souls which had been gravitating
sideways in that direction for some time. She caught an
antiquary, and carried him off to the end of the garden to
show him a Romano-British stone with ogams nicked at the
angle, which had been discovered used as a footbridge, and
set up by Lord Lamerton to save it from destruction.

" Here, Mr. Fothergill, I must leave you to copy the
inscription. Lady Gammon is anxious to have the polarisa-
tion of light explained, and I must take her to the library
for an encyclopaedia — fortunately the study to-day is not
invaded by the public."

Behind her back many a remark was made on her excel-
lence as a hostess, her cheerfulness, her amiability. Every
one liked Lady Lamerton ; they could not fail to do so, she
took such pains to make herself agreeable. Only Arminell
despised her, and despised her for those very qualities which
won to her the hearts of her acquaintances. Arminell
thought her lacking in depth and sincerity. It was true
that she was without intensity of conviction, but that was
characteristic of breadth ; it was true that she was unreal,
and that was part of her culture ; so to some folks everything
is unreal but Zolaism, the Morgue, discourtesy, breach of
good manners, the refuse heap. Man is unreal clothed in
skin, the only genuine man is he who has been excoriated,
with every nerve and muscle and vein exposed ; the canvas
only is real, not the Madonna di San Sisto looking with her
ineffably earnest eyes out of it ; lamp-black and treacle and

T

290 ARMINELL,

old rags are the reality, not the Book of Psalm and Song,
printed out of the former on the transubstantiated latter;
catgut and deal and brass only are real, not the symphony
of Beethoven, not the march from the Kemenate in " Lohen-
grin," played on the instruments manufactured out of these
vulgar materials. The pelting rain is real, not the gilded
evening cloud that contains the stored moisture ; in a word,
that only is real, and commendable, and to be observed,
which is gross, material, offensive. I know that the sweet-
ness and fragrance of that old culture which was but another
name, as I have already said, for charity, is passing away,
like the rising incense, perhaps again to be caught and
scented only in the courts of heaven. I know that it is in
fashion now to be rude and brusque, and to deny oneself
no freedom, and exercise on oneself- no restraint, so as to
be quite natural. But what is that save to revert to social
Adamanism and Bosjesmanism — to savagery in its basest
and nastiest form. — to renounce the form as well as the
power of culture.

Phaedrus tells in one of his fables of an old woman who
found an empty amphora of old Falernian wine ; she put
her nose to the mouth and snuffed and said, " If you smell
so sweet when void, how sweet you must be when full."

Well ! let us say that half the politeness and grace and
charm of society is unreal. It is the aroma of the old
Falernian. How much better, no doubt, if the vessel be
full of that most precious old Falernian, that perfect
courtesy of heart which suffereth long and is kind ; vaunteth
not itself, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, believeth
all things, loveth all things, endureth all things. But, I ask,
is not an empty amphora of Falernian more grateful than
one full of asafcetida ?

The evening light slanted over the park, making the
grass yellow as corn, and casting purple shadows behind the
elms. The front of the house toward the terrace was

ARMINELL. 29 1

glorified, the plate-glass windows gleamed as if rolled out of
sunlight. The terrace was alive with people in their gayest
dresses, in light summer colours, pink and turquoise, straw-
berry, spring green, crimson and cream. The band was
playing, and the scarlet uniforms of the military formed a
brilliant patch of colour at the end of the terrace against a
bank of yews.

Below the terrace was the tennis-court, reached by a
flight of several steps, and against the wall that upheld the
terrace roses were trained, and were in masses of flower,
scenting the air.

The lawn-tennis ground formed a second terrace banked
up from the park which sloped away rapidly thence to the
winding river Ore.

In the midst of the flower-beds and moving coloured
kaleidoscope of figures on the gravelled terrace was a
fountain and a basin. In the latter floated water-lilies, and
gold fish darted, and carried off the crumbs cast to them.
The water that leaped out of a triton's shell was turned in
the evening sun as it fell, into amethysts.

Away, across the valley, stood the little church with its
tower peeping out of limes, now all alight with the western
sun ; and the cock on its top was turned to a bird of fire.

" Hark ! " exclaimed the rector, " I hear our bell,
Good heaven ! Surely I've not forgotten — I did not know
there was to be a funeral. I did not know any one was
ill — in danger. It is tolling."

Then the band, which had rested for a moment and
shaken the moisture out of their wind instruments, and
cleared their throats with iced ale, came to attention as the
conductor rattled his staff on the music-stand, and beat, one,
two, three, four ! Then with a blast and crash and rattle —

" Se-e-e the conquer-ing her-er-er-er-er-o comes,
Sou-ou-ound the trum-pets,
Be-e-eat the drums."

293 ARMINELL.

At that moment, again, a little hand was thrust into that
of Lady Lamerton, and again she saw her boy, Giles, at her
side. He was looking pale, and was crying.

" What is the matter, Giles ? You are shivering. Have
you taken a chill ? Go indoors, dear."

" Mamma," said the boy, " I want papa. I have shown
the Fountayne boys my pony and the horses, and my goat,
and rabbits, whatever I thought papa would Uke them to
see, and now I want papa. Where is papa ? "

"My dear, you must go indoors. What is that? In
pity — what is going on ? Surely the public are not going
to invade the terrace."

Yes — they were.

A large party had been shown the state apartments, had
looked at the pictures, tried the sofas, made jokes over the
family portraits, attempted to finger the china, and then
had assembled at the drawing-room windows which com-
manded the terrace and the lawn-tennis courts.

" Seeing the 'ouse without the master, is like 'Amlet with
the part of 'Amlet left out," observed one of the sight-seers.
*' I say, flunkey, point us out the noble lord, and I'll tip you
a copper."

"Gentlemen and ladies," said the august butler, "I
must request that you will not press to the windows. It is
time to move on. There is another party waiting to go
over the house."

" Ah ! but suppose we don't choose to move on, Old
Heavy? Ain't the place open to us ? Was any time
specified for us to be trotted out ? Show us the statute,"
laughed a lawyer's clerk.

However, after some urging and remonstrance, the throng
was got outside the state drawing-room, into the entrance
hall.

" I say, you coves ! " shouted the young man from the
bespoke department of Messrs. Skewes, "Follow me, and

AHMINELL. 293

1 will get you a sight of his lordship and all the blue-
blooded aristocrats below."

He led the way, and was followed at a run to the glass
door opening upon the steps that descended to the terrace :
the rush was so sudden that the butler had not time or
thought to interpose.

" Hark ! " called the lawyer's clerk. ** By George, if the
band ain't doing us the compliment by anticipation of strik-
ing up * See the conquering hero comes ! ' which means us —
the British public. Lend a shove, Tommy, and we'll be
down among them and have some ices and sherry cobbler
too, and take a squint at the noble lord himself."

A united thrust against the double glass doors drove them
apart, and down the steps, and out upon the terrace poured
the Public.

At that same moment the iron gates were swung apart,
and another party entered through them — not of the sight-
seers, but villagers in their working clothes and shirt-sleeves.

*' See-Cre the cbnquer-ing her-er-er-er-er-o comes,
Sou-ou-ound the trum-pets,
Be-e-eat the drums."

The conductor of the band looked round, and what he
saw made him hold up his staff. The music instantly
ceased.

Also, simultaneously, all talking among the guests ceased.

Also, instantaneously, the sight-seers who had been jostling
one another, and laughing loudly, and egging one another
on, and were pouring down the steps, halted and ceased to
be heard.

Nothing, indeed, was heard but the toll of the distant
bell, and the crunch of the gravel under the feet of the
advancing party of villagers.

The fish of the three ponds had mixed for once, and were
silent in the presence of the all-conquering hero to whom all
submit — Death.

CHAPTER XXXI.

HOW IT CAME ABOUT.

" I WONDER now," said Mrs. Saltren to herself, " whatever
has made the raspberry jam so mouldy ? Was the fruit wet
when it was picked? I cannot remember. If it was, it
weren't my fault, but the weather on which no one can
depend. I wanted to send up some to Tryphoena Welsh,
but now I can't, unless I spoon off the mould on the top
of one and fill up from the bottom of another. It is a pity
and a waste of confidence and a sapping of faith when one
goes, makes jams, and spends coals and sugar and a lot of
perspiration, and gets nothing for it but mould an inch thick.
I must send Tryphoena Welsh something, for if Giles, as he
tells me, has gone to take up with writing for the papers,
he'll need the help of James, and there's no way of getting
at men's hearts but through their stomachs. It was tiresome
Giles writing to my brother and not saying a word to me
about it. I could have told him James was not in town, so
no need for him to address a letter to him at Shepherd's
Bush ; he went, after seeing us, to stay with one literary
friend and then another, so he won't have Giles' letter till
he returns to town. That accounts for my boy receiving no
answer. Giles never saw him when he was here, which was
tiresome. It is vexing too about the hams. I'd have sent
one up to James, if they had not been spoiled, along of the
knuckles being outside the bags, so that the flies walked in
as they might at a house door. I pickled those haras in

ARMINELL. 295

treacle and ale and juniper. I made paper bags for them,
and what more could I do ? It was no fault of mine if the
hams got spoiled. It was the fault of the hams being too
big for my paper bags, so that the bone stuck out. And
then the weather — it was encouraging to the flies. After
the raspberry jam and the hams, one wants comfort. I'll
get a drop."

But before she had reached the corner cupboard, the door
opened, and her husband came in, looking more strange,
white, and wild than ever. He staggered to the table,
rolling in his walk as if he were drunk, and held to the
furniture to stay himself, fearing to take a step unsupported.
His face was so livid, his eyes so full of something like terror,
that a thrill of fear ran through Mrs. Saltren — she thought
he was mad.

"What is it, Saltren? Why do you look at me in that
fashion ? I was not going to my cupboard for anything but
my knitting. I said to myself, I will knit a warm jersey for
Giles against the winter, and I put the pins and the wool in
there. Now don't look so queer. Are you ill ? "

" Marianne," he said slowly, then drew a long breath that
sounded hoarsely in his throat as he inhaled it, " Marianne,
you are avenged."

" What do you mean ? Are you referring to the hams
or the raspberry jam ? "

" Marianne," he repeated, " the word has come to pass.
The hand has been stretched forth and has smitten the evil
doer. The mighty is cast out of his seat and laid even with
the dust."

" I don't know what you're a-talking about, Stephen. I
concern myself about common things, and about prophecy
no more than I do about moonshine. The jams get mouldy
and the hams ain't fit to eat."

" Did I not tell you, Marianne, of what I saw and heard
that Sabbath day ? "

296 ARMINELL.

" I gave no heed to it."

" It is fulfilled. The purposes of heaven fulfil themselves
in a wonderful and unexpected way when we are least
awaiting it. He is dead."

"Who is dead?"

" Lord Lamerton."

" Lord Lamerton ! " Marianne Saltren started.

" How is it that ? Where, Stephen, and when ? "

" He is lying dead beneath the cliff."

" Good heavens ! How came that about ? "

" He was cast down by the hand of an avenging justice.
You have been avenged."

" I — I have nothing to complain of — to have avenged on
Lord Lamerton."

" Nothing of late, but you told me of the dishonour, of
the wrong — "

Mrs. Saltren uttered a cry of horror.

** Stephen, for God's sakel^you do not mean? — you
know, you know that I named no names."

"I knew, Marianne, to whom you referred. I knew it at
once. Then I understood why you gave your son the
Christian name he bears."

*' Oh, Stephen, it was not that."

"Yes, Marianne, it was. It all hangs together. I saw
how he, Lord Lamerton, was constrained to make much of
the boy, to spend money on him, to educate and make a
gentleman of him, and take him into his house."

" Stephen ! Stephen ! this is all a mistake."

" No, Marianne, it is no mistake. I see it all as plainly
as I saw the angel flying in the midst of heaven bearing the
Everlasting Gospel in his right hand, which he cast into the
water before me."

"I was talking nonsense. I am— Oh, Stephen! What
did you say ? — he — Lord Lamerton is not dead ? "

" He is dead. He is lying dead on the path."

ARMINELL. 297

Mrs. Saltren was seized with a fit of trembling, as if an
ague were come over her. She stared at her husband,
terror-stricken, and could not speak. A horrible thought, a
sickening dread, had swept over her, and she shrank from
asking a question which might receive an answer confirming
her half-formulated fears.

" The judgment has tarried long, but the sentence has
overtaken the sinner at last. Now, after all, he has been
made to suffer for what he once did to you. He cast you
down, and with like measure has it been meted to him.
He is cast down."

" He did nothing to me."

"You are ready to forgive him now, and to forget the
past, because you are a Christian. But eternal justice
never forgets, it waits and watches, and when least ex-
pected, strikes down."

" Oh, Stephen ! What are you thinking of ? You
listened to my idle talk. You fancy that Lord Lamerton
was — was the father of Giles, but he was not. Indeed,
indeed, he was not."

" He was not ! " echoed the captain, standing stiffly with
outstretched arms and clenched fists, a queer ungainly
figure, jointless, as if made of wooden sticks. " You your-
self told me that he was."

" I named no names. Indeed I never said he was — why,
Stephen, how could he have been, when you know as well
as I do, that he was out of England for three years at that
time ; he was attache as they call it at the embassy in — I
forget, some German Court, whilst I was at Orleigh with
the dowager Lady Lamerton."

The captain stood still, thinking, as one frozen and fast
to the spot.

" Besides," put in the woman, with a flicker of her old
inordinate vanity and falsehood, in spite of her present fear,

298 ARMINELL.

** you think very bad of me if you suppose I'd have took up
with any one less than a viscount."

A long silence ensued, in which the tick of the clock
sounded loudly and harshly.

" Marianne," he said at last hoarsely.

" It is all your fault and stupidity," said his wife hastily.
" You have no judgment, and a brain on fire with religious
craze. If you would but behave like an ordinary, sensible
man and think reasonably, you would never have fallen in-
to this mistake. You had only to think a moment reason-
ably, and you'd know that it was not, and could not be a
man, and he only the honourable, and like to be no better
than a baron, many hundred miles away at a foreign court,
and the postage then not twopence ha'penny as 'tis
now."

" Marianne," said Saltren again hoarsely, and he took a
step nearer to her, and grasped her wrist. " Marianne,
answer me." Saltren spoke with a wild flicker in his eyes
as though jack-o-lanterns were dancing over those deep
mysterious pools, " as you will have to answer at the great
day of account — is Giles not the son of Lord Lamerton ? "

" Of course not, I never said so. Who but a fool
would suppose he was, and a week's post and foreign
languages between? He never left — Munich I think it
was, but it may have been Munchausen, and I never left
Orleigh all the three years. Besides — I never said it was.
I named no names."

Now a shudder ran through Saltren, a convulsive quake,
but it was over instantaneously. Then, with his iron hand he
pressed the woman's wrist downwards.

'' Kneel," he said, "kneel."

" You are hurting me, Stephen ! let go ! "

" Kneel," he repeated, " kneel."

He forced her from her feet to her knees, before him ;
she was too frightened to disobey ; and her vain efforts to

ARMINELL. 299

parry reproof, and lay the blame On him, had been without
success, he had not noticed even the mean evasions.

" Marianne," he said solemnly, in his deepest, most
tremulous tones. " Tell me — who was the father of
Giles ? "

" That I will not — never — no, I cannot tell."

" You shall, I will hold you here, with my hand clenched,
and not let you go — No, never, not all the coming night,
not all next day, all the night following — for ever, and ever,
until you confess."

She stooped towards the floor, to hide her face from his
searching eyes, with the lambent flame in them that
frightened her. Then she looked furtively towards the
window, and next to the door, into the back kitchen, seek-
ing means of escape.

" It is vain for you to try to get away," said the captain
slowly. " Here I hold you, and tighten my grasp, till you
scream out the truth. They used to do that in England.
They slipped the hands in iron gloves and the feet in iron
boots, and screwed till the blood ran out of fingers and
foot-ends, and the criminal told the truth. So will I screw
the truth out of you, out of your hands. You cannot
escape. Was the father of Giles a nobleman ? "

" He was not the highest of all — not a duke."

" What was he then ? "

She was silent, and strove to twist her hands away. He
held both now. He compressed his clutch. She cried out,
" I cannot bear this."

" What was his title ? "

" You are hurting me, Stephen."

" Was he a nobleman at all ? "

With hesitation, and another writhe to get away — " N —
no."

" Then, all that story you told of the deception practised
upon you was a lie ? "

300 ARMINELL.

** Not a lie — it was a joke. James was not such a fool
as you, he took it as such. But you — "

Then Stephen Saltren drew his wife to her feet, and
strode to the door, dragging her with him. She screamed.
She supposed he was about to kill her ; but he turned, and
said gloomily, " I will not hurt you, I want to show you
what you have done — with youi joke."

He forced open the door, and drew her through the
garden, out at the wicket gate, along the path, up the
coombe. There was two ways thence to Orleigh Park, one
down the coombe to the main valley and high-road, and
round a shoulder of hill ; the other way by a steep climb up
a zig-zag path in the side of the hill to the top of the crag,
thence over a stretch of some thirty acres of furzy down
into the plantations and so into the park through them.
The tortuous ascent began at the cottage, Chillacot, but
Saltren drew his wife past the point whence it rose to where
the evening sun cast the black shadow of the crag or
"cleave" across the glen, and there — lying on broken,
fallen stones, with his hands outstretched, his face to the
clear sky, lay Lord Lamerton, dead.

Marianne Saltren cowered back, she was too frightened
by what she saw to care to approach ; but her husband's
vice-like grasp did not relax for all her weeping and en-
treaties. He compelled her to come close to the fallen
man.

His finger ends buried themselves in her wrists, and
checked her pulse, that her hands became numb, and
tingled.

He remained silent, for long, looking at the dead man,
his own face scarcely less white, his muscles hardly less
rigid, his features as set, and more drawn. There was no
sunlight in the narrow valley where they stood under the
great slate cleave, but above at the edge of the opposite hill
were gorse bushes so covered with golden bloom that they

ARMINELL. 30I

seemed to be but one yellow flower, and on them the even-
ing sun rested lovingly. Above, ghost-like in the blue sky,
was a filmy disc — the moon, only perceivable from the deep
valley, unseen by those who stood in the sunlight. The
rooks were congregating in the wood at the bottom of the
valley. That wood was a favourite resort to which the
birds from several rookeries came every evening before set
of sun, and chattered incessantly, and made as much noise
as if they were members of the House of Commons discus-
sing Irish matters. The sound issuing from that wood was
strident like the rattle of a lawn-mower.

A blue-bottle fly was buzzing round the dead man. Sal-
tren saw it, it made him uneasy ; he let go one of his wife's
hands and with his disengaged hand drew his kerchief from
his throat, a black silk one, and whisked it to and fro, to
drive away the insect. " I cannot tell," he said, '' heaven
knows. If it had not been for what you said, for your
amusing joke, he might now be living. I cannot tell. The
ways of Providence are dark. We are but instruments
used, and not knowing for what purposes used. I cannot
tell."

He put the kerchief to his face and wiped it.

*' I was yonder," he pointed upwards with his chin, and
then whisked his kerchief in the direction of the top of the
cliff. " I was on the down, and when I least expected it,
and at the moment when I was not thinking of him, I saw
him striding towards me, and when he came up with me,
he was out of breath. I was standing then at the edge of
the cleave. I was looking down into the coombe at my
house, and I was in a dream. When I saw him, I did not
stir. I would not go to meet him. I let him come to me.
And when I saw him turn out of his path and cross the
down to me, then I knew the hand out of the clouds pointed
the way, and he followed not knowing to what it pointed.
He came close to me, to the very edge of the rock, and I

302 ARMINELL.

did not budge one inch. He had been walking fast, and
spoke pantingly, in a strangely mixed manner, and he asked
some question about Giles. I do not remember what he
asked, but at the sound of his voice and of that name, then
the fire that was in my heart broke out, and I was blind
and mad. My blood roared in my ears and head, as the
sea roars and beats against the coast in a gale. Then I
shouted out all I knew ; I told him that Giles was his son,
and that God would call him to account for his sins and his
injustice and cruelties; and he was as one amazed, that
neither spoke nor moved till I raised my hand to strike
him on the breast to rouse him to answer, and then before
ever I touched him, he stepped back and went over the
cleave."

Then Marianne Saltren uttered a piercing shriek and
tossed, and put her teeth to her husband's hand to bite at
the fingers and force them to relax their grasp.

" There are people coming," she screamed, " I will tell
them all that you killed him. Let me go. I cannot bear
your touch."

" You accursed woman, you daughter of the old father of
lies," said Saltren between his teeth, and the bubbles formed
in his mouth as he spoke through his teeth, *' I will not let
you go till you have told me who was the father of Giles."

Suddenly, however, he let go her wrist, but she had her
liberty for a moment only. He had drawn his black silk
neckerchief round her throat, and twisted the ends about
his fingers under her chin.

" Marianne, I killed him. Yet not I. I am but the ex-
ecutioner under Providence. What heaven judges that I
carry out. And now I do not care if I kill you, after I
killed him. I will kill you, I will strangle you, unless you
confess who was the father of Giles."

He was capable of doing what he threatened.

*' It were best for you," he said, " wicked woman, to

ARMINELL. 303

suffer here a little pain, than burn eternally. Confess, or I
will send you into the world beyond." She was quiet for a
moment, desisting from her useless struggle.

" You will release me if I say ? "

" I will do so."

*' He was a wonderfully handsome man then, a very fine
fellow, the handsomest I ever saw."

" Who was he ? "

" There were others besides me lost their hearts to him."

" Who was he ? "

" I hear voices below the house. People are coming.
You will be taken and hung because you killed him."

" Who was he ? "

Saltren did not move a muscle. " Let them come, and
they will find you dead also, beside him."

" You cannot judge of what he was by what he is now."

" His name ? "

Again she looked to right and left, in spite of the grip
under her chin, and made a start to escape, but instantly
he tightened the kerchief and she became red as blood.

" Marianne," said Saltren. " His name? "

He relaxed the pressure. She listened, no — she heard
no voices, only mingled cawing of rooks and thumping of
pulses in her ears.

" If you must know ? '*

" I must."

" It was — Samuel Ceely."

CHAPTER XXXII.

A PLACE OF REFUGE.

He thrust her away from him with an exclamation of dis-
gust Then he stooped. A tuft of meadow-sweet grew
among the stones where the dead man lay, and its white
flowers were full of pollen, and the pollen, shaken from
them, had fallen, and formed a dust over the upturned face.

Captain Saltren drew his black silk kerchief over the dead
man's brow, and wiped away the powder, and as he did so
was aware that the blue-blottle had returned ; he heard its
drone, he saw its glazed metallic back, as it flickered about
the body. Then he turned and went away, but had not
gone far before he halted and came back, for he thought of
the insect. That fly teased his mind, it was as though it
buzzed about his brain, then perched and ran over it,
irritating the nerves with its hasty movement of the many
feet, and the tap of its proboscis. He could not endure
the thought of that fly — therefore he went back, and stood
sweeping with his kerchief up and down over the face and
then the hands, protecting the body against the blue-bottle.

He heard his wife running away, crying for help. He
knew that before long she would have collected assistants
to come to remove the dead body. They would find him
there ; and was it safe for him to be seen in close proximity
to the man he had killed ?

He knew that he ought to go. He had a horror of being
there, alone with the corpse. Again he took a few steps to

ARMINELL. 305

leave it, but, looking back over his shoulder, he saw the
blae-bottle settle on the forehead, then run down along the
nose to the lips of the dead man, and he went back to
drive the creature away once more. Presently he heard
voices, not those now of cawing rooks, but of men. But
he could not stir from the place. He would be committing
a sin, an unpardonable sin, a sin from which his soul could
not cleanse itself by floods of penitential tears, were he to
allow the blue-bottle to deposit its eggs between those dead
lips. His mind was unsettled. Now and then only did he
think of himself as endangered, and feel an impulse to
escape ; and yet the impulse was not strong enough to
overcome his anxiety to protect the body. He did not
consider the future, whether he had occasion to fear for
himself, whether he would be put on his defence.

After a flood we find backwaters where promiscuous
matter drifts in circles — straw, snags of wood, a dead sheep,
a broken chair ; so was it in the mind of Stephen Saltren.
His ideas were thrown into confusion ; thoughts and
fancies, most varied and incongruous, jostled each other,
without connection. The discovery that his wife had lied
to him in the matter of the parentage of Giles and the guilt
of Lord Lamerton, following on the excitement in which he
had been through the encounter with his enemy, had sufficed
to paralyse his judgment, and make his thoughts swerve
about incoherently.

He was aware that he had committed a great mistake, he
knew that his position was precarious ; but his confidence
in his vision, and the mission with which he was entrusted
remained unshaken, and this confidence justified to his
conscience the crime that he had committed, if, indeed, he
had committed one. But in the gyration of thoughts in his
brain, only one fact stood out clearly — that a blue-bottle fly
menaced the corpse, and that it was his duty to drive the
insect away.

u

306 ARMINELL.

He was engaged on this obligation, when a hand touched
him, and on looking round he saw Patience Kite.

" Captain Saltren," said the woman, " why are you here ?
I saw you both on top of the cleave, and I do know tliat
he did not fall by chance. I will not tell of you,"

He looked at her with blank eyes.

" Others may have seen you besides myself. You must
not be found here."

*' I am glad," said he, dreamily, talking to himself, not to
her, " I am glad that I had, myself, no occasion against
him. I thought I had, but I had not."

"Come with me," said Mrs. Kite, "folks are near at
hand. I hear them."

He looked wistfully at the dead face.

" I cannot," he said.

" What ! Do you want to be taken by the police ? "

"I cannot — 1 am held by the blue-bottle." In a moment
she stooped, snapped her hands together and caught the
fly.

" Now," said Saltren, " I will follow. It was not I, I am
but the miserable instrument. The hand did it that brought
him my way, that led him to the edge, and that then laid
hold of my arm."

Patience caught him by the shoulder and urged him
away.

" You must not be seen ne'ar the body. Take my advice
and be off to Captain Tubb about some lime, and so estab-
lish an alibi."

Saltren shook his head.

" If not, then come along with me. I will show you a
hiding-place no one thinks of Folks could not tell how to
take it, when they didn't find me lying buried under the fallen
chimney; but when I saw it was cracking, I made off
through the dust, and none saw me escape. At the night-
meeting some thought, when I stood on the table behind

ARMINELL. 307

you, that I was a spirit. You can feel my grip on your
arm, that I am in the flesh and hearty. I set fire to the
tumbled thatch. It does good to scare folks at times."

She drew Saltren into the wood. From a vantage point
on the other side of the valley from that of the crag, them
selves screened from sight, they could see a cluster of men
about the dead body of Lord Lamerton, and Mrs. Saltren
gesticulating behind them.

" I wonder," said Patience Kite, " whether that wife of
yours be a fool or not ? Your safety, I reckon, depends on
her tongue. If she has sense, she will say she found the
dead lord as she was going to fetch water. If she's a fool
she'll let out about you. Did any one see you on the
down ? "

" I think Macduff went by some time before."

" Yes — I saw'n go along. That was some while afore."

Saltren said nothing. He was less concerned about his
own safety than Mrs. Kite supposed. He was intently
watching the men raise the dead body.

" It is a pity," pursued Mrs. Kite, " because if you hadn't
been seen by Mr. Macduff, I might have sworn you a famous
alibi, and made out you was helping me to move my furni-
ture. Thomasine also, she'd ha' sworn anything in reason
to do you a good turn. What a sad job it was that you
didn't chuck over Macduff as well. But there — I won't
blame you. We none of us, as the parson says, do all those
things we ought to do, but leave undone what we ought.
Thomasine and I'd swear against Mr. Macduff, but I doubt
it would do no good, as Mrs. Macduff keeps a victoria and
drives about in it, and we don't, so the judge would have
respect to the witness of Macduff and disregard ours. And
yet they say there is justice and righteousness in the world ! —
when our testimony would not be taken and Macduff's ac-
cepted, along of a victoria."

She caught Saltren's arm again, and led him further into

3o8 ARMINELL.

the wood, along a path that seemed to be no path at all for
a man to walk, but rather a run for a rabbit. The bushes
closed over a mere track in the moss.

*' I reckon," muttered Patience, " there'll be a rare fuss
made about the death of his lordship ; but how little account
was made of that of young Tubb. That was a cruel loss to
Thomasine and me. My daughter and he were sweethearts.
Captain Tubb was going to take the boy on as a hand at
the lime quarry ; he could not earn twenty shillings in a
trade, so he would get fifteen as a labourer. Well — he
could have married and kept house on that. Either he and
my girl would have lived with me or with his father. Macduff
and Lord Lamerton spoiled the chance for me and them.
I owe them both a grudge, and I thank you for paying off
my score on his lordship. Macduff may wait. In fall 1
will make a clay figure of him and stick pins in it, and give
him rheumatic pains and spasms of the heart. Whatever
parsons and doctors may say, I can do things which are not
to be found in books, and there is more learning than is got
by scholarship."

Mrs. Kite paused and looked round.

" You've not been about in the woods, creeping on all
fours as I have, through the coppice. I know my way even
in the dark. I can tell it by the feel of the stems of oak.
Where there is moss, that is the side to the sou'-west wind
and rain. The other side is smooth. So one can get along
in the dark. What a moyle there will be over the death of
his lordship all because he was a lord, and there was nothing
made of the death of Arkie, because he was nobody.
There is no justice and righteousness in the world, or Mr.
Macduff would be wearing bracelets now and expecting a
hempen necklace. Here we are at my cottage that he and
his lordship tore down."

They emerged suddenly on the glade where stood the
ruins. No one was visible. It remained as it had been

ARMINELL. 309

left, save that the fallen rafters and walls were blackened by
the smoke of the up-flaming thatch.

Patience did not tarry at the hovel, but led the way to the
quarry edge.

"Do you see here," she said, "you take hold of the ivy
ropes, and creep along after me. It is not hard to do when
you know the way. Miss Arminell first led me to the Owl's
Nest. One Sunday she came here, and holding the ivy,
got along to the cave, and then let go the rope. I went
after her ; and when my house was being pulled down
about my head, then I remembered the cave, and went to it
in the same way. Since then I have moved most of my
things I want, and Thomasine has helped me. But she
couldn't come till her foot was better, along the edge where
we shall go. What I cannot carry we let down from above
by a rope, and I draw them in to me with a crooked stick.
I shall have to pay no ground rent for that habitation, and I
defy Mr. Macduff to pull the roof down on me. It is a tidy,
comfortable place, in the eye of the sun. What I shall do
in winter I cannot tell, but it serves me well enough as a
summer house. If I want to bake, I have my old oven in
the back kitchen. Now lay hold of the ivy bands and
come after me. I will show you where you can lie hid
when there is danger at Chillacot."

Saltren followed her, and in a few minutes found himself
in the cave. She had hung an old potato sack half-way
down the hollow, and behind this she had made her bed
and stored her treasures.

" No one can visit me whom I do not choose to receive,"
said Mrs. Kite. " If I should see a face come round the
corner, the way we came, I'd have but to give a thrust, as
that you gave his lordship, and down he would go. Now I
will return. You remain here. See, I crook the ivy chains
over this prong of rock when I am here. Whatever you do,
mind and do not let the chains fall away. If you do, you're

3IO ARMINELL.

a prisoner till I release you. That is how Miss Arminell
was caught. I'll run and see what is going on, and bring
you word."

The old woman unhooked sufficient strands of ivy to
support herself, and went lightly and easily along the face
of the rock.

Saltren remained standing. He had his hands linked
behind his back, and his head projecting. He had not re-
covered balance of mind ; his thoughts were like hares in
poachers' gate-nets — entangled, leaping, turning over, and
working themselves, in their efforts after freedom, into more
inextricable entanglement. But one idea gradually formed
itself distinctly in his mind — the idea that he had not been
wronged by Lord Lamerton in the way in which he had sup-
posed, and that, therefore, all personal feeling against him dis-
appeared. But, in the confusion of his brain, he carried back
this idea to a period before he discovered that he had been
deceived by his wife into feeling this grudge, and he justified
his action to himself; he satisfied himself that there could
have been no private resentment in his conduct to his lord-
ship when he lifted his hand against him, because twenty
minutes later he discovered that there were no grounds for
entertaining it. This consideration sufficed to dissipate the
first sense of guilt that had stolen over him. Now he knelt
down in the cave, at its entrance, and thanked heaven that
no taint of personal animosity had entered into his motives
and marred their purity. It was true that Lord Lamerton
had thrown Saltren out of employ — he forgot that. It was
true also that, as chairman of the board of directors of the
railway, he had sought to force him to surrender his house
and plot of land — he forgot that. It was true that at the
time when he confronted Lord Lamerton, he believed that
his domestic happiness had been destroyed by that noble-
man— he forgot that also. He concluded that he had put
forth his hand, acting under a divine impulse, and exe-

ARMINELL. 3II

cuting, not personal vengeance, but the sentence of
heaven.

When a camel, heavy laden, is crossing the desert, the
notion sometimes occurs to it that it is over-burdened, that
its back is breaking, and it sullenly lies down on the sand.
No blows will stir it — not even fire appHed to its flanks ;
but the driver with much fuss goes to the side of the beast
and pretends to unburden it of' — one straw, ^nd th^ one
straw he holds under the eye of the camel, ^hich, satisfied
that it has been sensibly relieved, gets up and shambles on.
Our consciences are as easily satisfied when heavy bur-
dened as the stupid camel. One straw — nay the semblance,
the shadow of a straw — taken from them contents us ; we
rise, draw a long breath, shake our sides, and amble on our
way well pleased.

Lord Lamerton had been doomed by heaven for his guilt
in the matter of Archelaus Tubb. Was it not written that
he who had taken the life of another should atone therefor
with his own life ? Who was the cause of the lad's death ?
Surely Lord Lamerton, who had ordered the destruction of
the cottage. If the cottage had been left untouched, the
chimney would not have fallen. Mr. Macduff was but the
agent acting under the orders of his lordship, and the
deepest stain of blood rested, not on the agent, but on his
instigator and employer. Saltren had been on the jury when
the inquest took place, and he had then seen clearly where
the fault lay, and who was really guilty in the matter ; but
others, with the fear of man in them, had not received his
opinion and consented to it, and so there had been a mis-
carriage of justice.

If a bell-pull be drawn, it moves a crank, and the crank
tightens a wire, and that wire acts on a second lever, and
this second crank moves a spring and sets a bell tingling.
The hand that touches the bell-rope is responsible for the
tingling of the bell, however far removed from it. So was

312 ARMINELL.

Lord Lamerton responsible for the death of Archelaus,
though he had not touched the chimney with his own
hand.

Saltren was, moreover, deeply impressed with the reality
of his vision, which had grown in his mind and taken
extraordinary dimensions, and had assumed distinct outline
as his fancy brooded over it. But it did not occur to his
mind that fancy had deceived him, for to Saltren, as to all
mystics, the internal imaginings are ever more real than
those sensible presentiments which pass before their eyes.

Now he knelt in the cave, relieved of all sense of wrong-
doing, and thanked heaven for having called him to
vindicate its justice on the man whom human justice had
acquitted.

CHAPTER XXXTIT.

NOTHING.

Mr. James Welsh occupied a small, respectable house in
a row in Shepherd's Bush. The house was very new ; the
smell of plaster clung about it Before the row were
young plane trees, surrounded with wire-netting to pro-
tect their tender bark from the pen-knives and pinching
fingers of boys. Far in the dim future was a prospect of
the road becoming an umbrageous avenue ; accordingly,
with an eye to the future, those who had planned and
planted the row entitled it The Avenue.

Up this avenue of wretched, coddled saplings walked
Mr. Giles Inglett Saltren, in the best of spirits, to visit his
uncle, the Monday morning after his arrival in town.

Now Giles Inglett Saltren was about to begin his career
as a journalist, as a politician, as a man of letters. He
had broken away from the position which had degraded
and enslaved him, which had cramped his genius, and sup-
pressed his generous emotions.

He had not, indeed, heard from Welsh since he had
written to him, but youth is sanguine. He could rely on
his uncle finding him work, and he knew his own abilities
w?re of no ordinary quality. He had essayed his powers on
several political questions. He had written articles on the
Eastern Embroglio, the Madagascar Policy of the French
Republic, Port Hamilton, the dispute about the Fisheries,

314 ARMINELL.

and Irish dissatisfaction. Very vigorous they were in style,
and pulverizing in argumentative force.

He had not sent them to his uncle, but he brought them
with him now in a hand-bag. He came early to ensure
finding Mr. Welsh at home and to allow time for read-
ing his articles to him, and discussing the terms on which
he was to be taken upon the staff of the paper with which
his uncle was connected. He figured to himself the ex-
pression of the face of Welsh changing, as he lisiened from
incredulity to pleased surprise and rapt ecstasy, and the
clasp of hands when the lecture was over, the congratulation
on success, and the liberal offer of remuneration that would
ensue.

There was one telling passage on Port Hamilton which to
Jingles' mind was so finely turned, so rich and mellow in its
eloquence, that he repeated it twice to himself as he walked
from Shepherd's Bush station to his destination.

" It is really well put," mused Jingles ; " and I think if it
comes under the eye of the Ministry, that it must materially
affect their policy, and, perhaps, decide the question of the
retention or surrender of the station. More wonderful
things have happened than that it should lead to my being
offered a colonial appointment. Not that I would accept a
post which was not influential. I am not going to be
shelved as a foreign consul. I intend to be where I can
put my mark on my times, and mould the destinies of the
people. It would not be surprising were the Conservative
Government to endeavour to silence me by the offer of some
governorship which would take me from home, and corner
me where my influence would be powerless. But I intend
to keep my eyes open. I am not one of the men who sub-
mit to suppression. Ah ! here is Uncle James' door."

He opened the little iron gate. A servant was on the
steps, kneeling and scrubbing the threshold. She had
managed to kneel on her apron, and tear it out of the

ARMINELL. 315

gathers. Her slippers exposed a split over the toe, showing
stocking, and the stocking was split over the heel, showing
skin. She put her scrubbing-brush to her head to smooth
the hair that had fallen forward, over the fringe.

*' Is Mr. Welsh at home ? "

*' Yes'ir. Your card, please ? "

She looked at her fingers ; they were wet, so she put them
beneath her apron, and extended her hand thus covered to
receive the card, and nipped it through the integument of
coarse linen, then turned and went in, leaving Saltren on the
doorstep with the bucket. The soap she had prudently re-
moved within, lest, while she was presenting the. card, he
might make off with the square. She was up to the dodges
of such chaps. So, also, she shut the door behind her, lest
he should make off with an overcoat or umbrella. A
servant cannot be too careful in the suburbs of London.
Presently she returned, re-opened the door, and asked
Saltren to kindly step into the master's study.

Mr. James Welsh was just engaged in unfolding his
morning's paper preparatory to reading, or, rather, skimming
it, when Jingles entered.

" Hallo, young shaver ! " exclaimed the uncle, laying
aside the newspaper somewhat reluctantly. " This is sharp
work, dropping in on me before I have had time allowed
me to answer your letter. I only came home last night.
It is like crossing the frontier simultaneously with declara-
tion of war. If you had waited for my answer you would
have saved yourself trouble and the cost of your ticket."

" There were reasons which made it necessary for me to
leave at once."

" My dear boy, reasons are like eggs in a recipe for a
pudding. The pudding is best with them ; but it is good
without. You wanted to come, and you enrich your com-
ing with reasons. That is the sense of it."

" But, Uncle James, I have long felt a decided vocation

3 T 6 ARMINELL.

for a political and literary life, and I have long chafed at the

restraints "

"Young shaver, in the ministerial world — I mean the
world of ministers of religion — there are also calls ; but,
curiously enough, only such are Hstened to when the call is
from a salary of fifty to a hundred and fifty. I never yet
heard of a pastor who listened to a call to leave one of a
hundred for one of half that amount. But they jump like
frogs when the call is t'other way. You should have learned
wisdom from those apostles of light. You have, I fear,
thrown up a lucrative situation for nothing. Like the dog
in the fable, dropped the piece of meat to bite at a shadow."
" I have no doubt," said Jingles gravely, " that at first I
shall not earn much ; but I have some money laid by which
will serve my necessities till I have made myself a name,
and got an assured income."

" Made yourself a name ! That is what no journalist
ever does. Got an assured income ! That comes late.
You have not been through the mill."

" I have in my bag some articles I have touched off,
leaders on important matters, of absorbing interest to the
public."

" As what ? "

" Port Hamilton."

" The public don't care a snap about that."

" The Eastern Question."

" About which you know nothing."

" The Irish Land Question."

" On which you are incompetent to form an opinion."

" Will you look at my articles ? "

" I can't say. I can tell what they are like without your
opening the bag. I know exactly the style of these school-
boy productions. If you particularly desire it, I will run
my eye over them ; but I tell you beforehand, they are
good for nought. Mind you, I don't expect that a writer

ARMINELL. 317

of a leader knows any more of his subject than do you; but
he does know how to affect a knowledge he does not pos-
sess, and disguise his ignorance ; and he has a certain style
that belongs to the business. It is with journalism as with
acting. An amateur proclaims himself in every sentence.
The ass's ears project from under the lion's skin. There
are little tricks of the trade, a margin for gag, that must be
employed and utilised, and only a professional is at his
ease, and has the familiar tricks at his disposal, and gag at
the end of his tongue. Can you manage shorthand ? "

" Shorthand ! No."

" Pity that. I might have got you some reporting jobs."

" But I do not want reporting jobs."

" Then you will get nothing."

Jingles was rather offended than cast down.

" I see what it is, Uncle Welsh," he said in a tone of irri
tation, "you journalists are a close corporation, and you
will not admit an intruder. You are jealous of an invasion
within your circle, just as a parcel of commercials resent
the entry of any but a commissioned bagman into their
coffee-room."

" Not a bit ; but we do object to a raw bumpkin who
has not gone through his apprenticeship giving himself airs,
and pretending an equality with us who have drudged at
the trade till we have mastered its technicalities."

" I presume that a good education and brains qualify a
man to write."

" Not necessarily — certainly not to write leaders. I dare
say we might hand over to you the reviewing of children's
books. That would come within your range."

" It is an insult to offer such a thing."

" Indeed ! You know little of literature or you would
not say so. Formerly, when education was scarce, there
were but a few writers, and they were well paid. Now edu-
cation is universal, and every one who can handle a pen

3l8 ARMINELL.

thinks he can write, even if he be imperfectly acquainted
with spelling. Education now is as common, as general, as
pocket-handkerchiefs. Both were luxuries fifty years ago.
Literature is glutted with aspirants ; brain is as common as
aesthetic colours, as embroidered sunflowers, and Japanese
lacquer. What is rare is muscle. Learn some mechanical
art, and you will find biceps pay better than brain."

" You know very well I have not the health to adopt the
trade of an artisan."

"Then become a preacher; and here let me give you
advice. If you want to become a popular preacher, and a
power in the pulpit or on the platform, tear down. It is
thankless work to build up ; that takes time, demands
patience, and does not command immediate popularity and
ready applause. You appeal to no passion when construc-
tive. Passion is your assistant in destruction. Every man
has so much of the savage in him that he likes the war-path
and the taste of blood. You appeal to what you know is
in all, when you give a war-whoop, and brandish a toma-
hawk. There is some picturesqueness and a sense of
power, in whooping and whirling the axe; there is only
prose in smoking calumets of peace."

" I have no fancy for the pulpit ; but I should like to
become a political speaker."

" We can try you at some village meeting ; but the pay
is not much. Take my advice and return to Orleigh."

" That is impossible. I have burnt my ships. I can
never recross the threshold of the house till I am recog-
nised."

" What — as a literary lion ? As a stump orator ? "

" No, uncle, as Lord Lamerton's son."

" As — as his — what ? "

Mr. James Welsh burst into a fit of laughter, and when
he was exhausted, exploded, in spite of exhaustion, into a
second peal.

ARMINELL. 3x9

Jingles maintained his gravity. His brow contracted.
He folded his arms across his breast, and stood sternly
waiting till this unseemly ebullition of merriment had sub-
sided, in the attitude in which Napoleon appears in Horace
Vernet's celebrated picture, on Saint Helena, looking at the
setting sun.

" You must excuse me," said he at last, " if I say that
this is not the way in which I expected to be received.
First you scoff at my honourable ambition to be a man of
letters, and then you explode into indecent laughter when I
mention the fact of my parentage with which you are per-
fectly familiar, though it is not known to the world at large."

" By Jove, Giles, I did not suppose you were such a
fool."

" I do not understand you."

"I may say, Giles, that I do not understand jv^2^. Do
you mean seriously to assure me that you give credence to
that cock-and-bull tale ? "

" Uncle Welsh, I believe my mother's word."

" Far be it from me to say anything to a son disrespectful
of his mother ; and in this case I merely point out to you
the richness and exuberance of your mother's fancy. Pene-
lope embroidered by day, and by night unpicked her day-
work. My dear boy, it is, perhaps, a matter of regret that
my sister contents herself with embroidery, and does not
complement her work by unpicking the fantastic and highly-
coloured figures that needle, her tongue, has elaborated.
She is like a magic-lantern projecting pictures upon smoke,
sheets, or blank walls, making those surfaces alive with
forms and faces. You really would suppose that the man
in bed was actually swallowing the rats that ran into his
mouth, and that Blue Beard in very truth rolled his eyes
and cut off his wife's head, and that the cabbage was con-
verted into Snip the Tailor. But, my dear nephew, they
are phantasms. Go up to them, touch, observe, there is

320 ARMINELL.

only smoke or whited wall. I have the highest respect for
my sister's genius. I bow before her imagination, and
adore it ; but remember what Paley said of the imagination
— that it is the fertile mother of error. My good sister's
delusive faculty seems to have become mamma to an ex-
travagant blunder, which you are lovingly nursing."

"Then you place no rehance on my mother's account? "

"Wait a moment." Mr. Welsh went to the bookcase.
" Here is a peerage. Turn up ' Lamerton, Baron,' and see
where his lordship was at that time that you were begun
to be thought about. He was not in England — had not
been there for two or three years. I knew that as well as
the author of the peerage, perhaps better; for I was at
Orleigh at that time, a fact my sister Marianne forgot when
she exhibited to me her magic-lantern slides. I was not
then what I am now. I was then thankful for a bit of
literary work, and did not turn up my nose at reviewing
children's books. I was as glad then to get a chance of
putting pen to paper as I now am of getting a holiday from
pen and paper."

" And," said Jingles, somewhat staggered by the evidence
of the peerage, " you mean to tell me that my mother said
— what — what — what was false ? "

" Young shaver," said Mr. Welsh, " I read ' Herodotus '
in Bohn's translation. I don't even know the letters of the
Greek alphabet. I read for professional purposes. I ob-
serve that when the father of history comes to a delicate
and disputed question, he passes it over with the remark ' I
prefer not to express my own opinion thereon.' When you
ask me whether what your mother said was true or a lie, I
cnswer with Herodotus, ' I prefer not to express my own
opinion thereon.' "

Giles Inglett looked down on the carpet. His lips
quivered.

" Young shaver," pursued Mr. Welsh, cheerily, rubbing

ARMINELL. 3 2 T

his hands together, and taking up his newspaper, as a hint
to his nephew to be gone, " you had best return to your inn,
and begin to pull out the threads of that elaborate and
gorgeous piece of Gobelin your mother has furnished you
with. Believe me, under the coloured worsted and floss
silk, you will come on very vulgar canvas. It is a sad pity
that you should have learned that you are not the son of
Stephen Saltren. You might well have been left to share
the common behef. Perhaps it was inevitable that you
should discover the flaw in your nativity. Some women
cannot hold their tongues. I am not sure that the Babylon-
ians acted unwisely when on the occasion of their revolt
against Darius, they strangled every woman in the city ex-
cept their cooks, for, they argued, men can get along with-
out the sex in every other capacity."

The young man was profoundly disturbed. He looked
up, and said in a voice that expressed his emotion —

" Uncle, do not jest with me in this matter. To me it is
one of deadly earnest. I entreat you speak the truth, for —
good heavens ! If I am not what I supposed myself to be,
I have made a terrible mistake."

" You are no more a son of Lord Lamerton than I am.
Marianne — I mean your mother — thinks I am ignorant of
the real facts, but I never was, though I said nothing at the
time or after."

" Then you know who my father was."

" Yes, I do — but I am not disposed to tell you."

" I insist on knowing."

" You ought never to have been told that you were not
what you and the world supposed. Now don't attempt to
lift the embroidered veil your good mother has over the
mystery. The veil is handsomer than what it conceals."

" But — I have acted on the supposition that I was the son
of Lord Lamerton."

" I know you have, and more fool you. You have left

X

322 ARMINELL.

your situation as tutor in his house and a respectable in-
come."

" I have done more. I have persuaded Miss Inglett to
run away with me."
" You have— what ? "

Mr. Welsh dropped his hands and the paper ; he stood
for a moment in blank amazement. Then the blood rushed
into his brow, and his hands clenched.

"You have — you dare not repeat those words."
" It is true. I supposed she was my sister."
" You dirty little blackguard ! " cried Welsh, losing all
control over himself and his tongue ; he sprang towards his
nephew, brandishing the newspaper. " I will horsewhip you
with the only weapon I have, the Daily News I You cox-
comb ! You infamous snob ! I'm ashamed to acknowledge
you as my sister's child."

" I know that I have made a terrible mistake."
" Mistake is not the word for it. A more detestable, out-
rageous, caddish act, I could not conceive. Good gracious !
I would like to kick you round my table, kick you down the
hall, kick you out at my door, down the steps, send you fly-
ing along the avenue from tree to tree, and a kick at each.
Do you not see, you scoundrel, what you have done ? — cast
an indelible slur upon the girl's character. Mistake — mis-
take, indeed ! Of all snobbery ! Mistake ! Get out of my
house this instant. You pollute the atmosphere, you. You
a son of my lord ! You, who have not a drop of honourable
blood in your veins, not a spark of proper feeling in your
heart, not the smallest grain of gentlemanly, let alone noble
sentiment in your whole nature — you contemptible bastard
of Sam Ceely."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

LESS THAN NOBODY.

Giles Inglett Saltren was so completely thrown off his
balance by Welsh's repudiations of the story of his parent-
age, that he did not resent, he hardly heard the burst of in-
dignation that escaped his uncle ; or, if he heard it, his
mind was too preoccupied to follow his words, and measure
their force, and take umbrage at their grossness. He was
overpowered with dismay. What had he done ? He could
not even realise the extent of the evil he had wrought, nor
measure the depth of his own baseness.

But Mr. Welsh was not a man to leave him without hav-
ing spread out the mass of his misdeeds before him, and
held his head down over it, and indicated its most salient
features.

*' You abominable little snob ! " he exclaimed. " Have
you forgotten what has been done for you ? If his lordship
had not taken you from the hard form on which you
polished the seat of your corduroys, and set you in an easy
chair, you'd have nice callosities now. Probably you would
not have been alive at all had he not sent you to the South
of France." Mr. Welsh became sarcastic. " No doubt you
owe his lordship a grudge because he didn't let you go at
once to kingdom come instead of detaining you here in this
Vale of Tears. Mind you, Giles — there is no escape from
this fact, that you owe your life to him. To him also you

324 ARMINELL.

owe your education. To liim you owe it that, supposing
you had lived, your are not now a horny-handed ploughboy,
that you know how to use a pocket-handkerchief, and don't
put your knife in your mouth."

Mr. Welsh thrust his hands into his pockets, and stood
with legs apart looking scornfully at his nephew.

" Pray, Mr. Giles Inglett, how would you like to go back
to potato pasty and cold boiled junk of bacon? To an
early dinner, and swipes instead of claret ? To getting your
clothes at a slop-shop, instead of being fitted by a tailor?
To being without books and magazines and reviews ? Are
you aware that you have earned not one of the luxuries or
even comforts of civilized life? That they have come to
you undeserved as does free Grace ? Upon my word, you
make my blood splutter ! Shall I tell you what would have
been the end of you had not Lord Lamerton come to the
rescue ? After you were ill you would have been cared for,
or not cared for, after the fashion of common folk's children,
and your mother's haphazard way of doing everything?
allowed to get your feet wet, and stand in draughts, neglected
one day, coddled the next, till your weak lungs gave way, and
rapid consumption set in. Shall I tell you what would have
been the course of Act II ? Then you would have been
mewed up in that dismal back bedroom at Chillacot, with
the ultramarine wash on the walls, and the snipped, emerald-
green, silver-paper fly trap suspended in the middle of the
room, and the blistered mirror and the vrindow looking out
at a dripping rock, ugh ! There you would have lain and
coughed ; and when an attempt was made to light the fire,
the smoke would have refused to try the road up the chim-
ney, and preferred that to your lungs; and when the window
was opened to let the smoke out it would have let in the
smell of the pigstye. When you wanted a book to enliven
you, you would have been given Baxter's ' Saints' Rest ' or
a Methodist Missionary Magazine, and death itself would

ARMINELL. 325

have been welcome as an escape from such literature. You
would have needed wine, and not had it ; cod-liver oil, and
not had it ; grapes, and not had them ; calves' foot jelly,
and had to do without. You would have been given thin
gruel, and fried india-rubber, that playfully considered itself
rump steak, much as you consider yourself a nobleman, and
leaden dough, greasy bacon, and lukewarm bad tea. Your
bed would have been lumpy and made occasionally, and
your sheets changed now and then, and your pillow-case
assuming the adhesiveness to your cheek of postage stamps ;
and there would have been a draught like a mill-race pouring
in through that gap — I know it — under the door. When
you wanted to sleep by day, your mother would be scouring
pans in the back kitchen underneath, and when so inclined
at night, your father, on the other side of the partition,
would be snoring like John Willett. As you grew weaker,
and more unable to endure worry, in would have come the
captain, to exhort and expound, and stir and whip up your
weary soul into a caper of screaming terror. You would
have longed for death as an escape from the smells and the
smoke, and the crude blue, and the draught, and the knots
in your mattress, and the Missionary Magazines, and the
pigs in the yard, and the benzoline lamp."

Mr. Welsh stooped and picked up his newspaper, which
lay crumpled on the floor. He smoothed it, and folded it
on the table. Then he looked hard at his nephew. Giles
remained motionless, with eyes on the carpet; his brow
was troubled and his lips trembling. He was very pale.

"That is how you would have ended as a boy of
seventeen," pursued Mr. Welsh, remorselessly, mercilessly.
" Your life you owe to Lord Lamerton, your mind has been
expanded and enriched by him. Had he not sent you to
college what would have been the range of your ideas?
What would you have known of Shakespeare, Thackeray
Pope, Goethe, and Dante? What appreciation of art?

326 ARMINELU

You would have been as incapable of judging between a
good painting and a daub, of discriminating between Tann-
haiiser and Sankey and Moody, as any chawbacon. What
I have learned, I have learned with labour, I had no masters,
no hand to help me over the stile. I wish I had had your
advantages, but no Lord Lamerton took me up. I had not
that luck. I have had to fight my own way. I daresay you
think it inconsistent in me to take the part of his lordship
against my own nephew, but that is because your conscience
is disordered. I fight him tooth and nail, because he is an
aristocrat and I a democrat. It is my business to attack
the Tories and the landed interest and the House of Lords.
I am a politician, and in politics all is fair ; but we are now
in another region altogether, in that of common honesty,
and domestic relations ; I look on my lord, not as a noble-
man, but as a father, and a kind-hearted man who has done
much for you ; and I am able to take the gauge of your
conduct accordingly. You have behaved infamously towards
your benefactor, you have hurt him where he is most
sensitive — hitting, you contemptible little coward, below
the belt. You have stained the pure name of his only
daughter, tarnished the honour of an irreproachable house.
Who will believe that the girl ran away with you, because
she supposed that you were her brother? Everyone knows
that you are nothing of the kind. Should it leak out that
you are not Captain Saltren's son, how will it mend matters
if it be shown that you are the bastard brat of old blear-
eyed, one-handed, limping Samuel Ceely ? "

Giles winced, he raised both his hands, half beseechingly,
half as if to protect himself from the words which struck
him as blows. It was a convulsive, not a purposed move-
ment. Also he looked up for a moment, and attempted to
speak, but said nothing, the words died away in his throat.
Then his head fell again.

" You say you have saved some money," Welsh went

ARMINELL. 327

on ; " whose money ? That which Lord Lamerton gave
you. How many hundreds of pounds do you suppose
you have cost him ? In sending you to Bordighera, in
doctors' bills, in school and college accounts? You
swaggered at Oxford as a gentleman, and Lord Lamerton
paid for it. He furnished your rooms in college, paid your
battels. You invited your friends to breakfasts and wines,
and he paid for them. Who but he put the clothes on
your back, hung the pictures on your walls, fitted neat
boots on your feet, and supplied you with that silk pocket-
handkerchief you are now using to wipe the shame drops off
your brow with? And — in return for all this, you stab him
to the heart and blast the fair name of his child ! Good
heavens ! I feel as uncomfortable in your presence as
would Mr. Gladstone in a lodge of Primrose Dames on St.
Benjamin's day. But there !— enough about your despic-
able self. It is high time something were done about Miss
Inglett. I'll go with you. What a nuisance it is that
Tryphoena is just now without a cook. I'll bring the
girl here, nevertheless, if she has nowhere else to go to ; or
I will run down with her myself to Orleigh, or I'll take her
to any relation she may have in town. You come with me,
you mean little cad, as far as your inn, or lodgings, or where
the deuce you are, and leave me there. Don't show your
pasty face again. We have seen already too much of
you."

He rang the bell, and the maid-of-all-work appeared.

" Susan, turn, or take off your apron, and run and fetch
me a hansom."

" Please, sir, an' if I don't come on an 'ansom ? "

" Then a cab. Come, sharp ! "

He said no more. He was agitated, because very angry.
He went out for his hat and gloves, and an umbrella,
opened the latter, and refolded it ; then he discovered that
he was in a shabby morning coat, so he changed it upstairs,

328 ARMINELL,

and put on his boots in the hall, and then returned for his
newspaper.

By this time Susan had arrived, seated in a four-wheeler.
She had not encountered a hansom.

" Go on," said Welsh to his nephew, " I'll follow." He
took his newspaper from the table, and brought it with him
to the cab.

The direction was given to the driver, and the vehicle
started. Welsh would not speak another word to Giles.
He threw himself back with a grunt in the cab, and began
to read his paper.

Jingles looked dreamily forth from the window on his
side. The cab was being driven along Gold Hawk Road ;
there was not much traffic in it that morning ; a coal-cart, a
Shepherd's Bush omnibus were passed. The cabman drew
up, and swore at an old lady who in crossing the road had
dropped a parcel of tracts, which scattered in all directions,
and who returned almost under the feet of the horse to re-
cover some of the papers. Mr. James Welsh uttered an
exclamation. Saltren did not notice it, he was in a stunned
condition unable to take observation of anything, unable to
do more than reiterate in his mind, " I have made a mis-
take— a fatal mistake I " He was unable even to consider
in what way it could be rectified, if capable of rectification.
He was not in a condition to weigh his uncle's proposals
what to do with Arminell. He did not even feel his uncle's
rude remarks, they passed over him without producing an
impression, so deadened were his faculties by the consterna-
tion in which he was. His brain was Uke a sewing-machine
in full operation, with a needle in it, stab — stab — stabbing,
and always carrying the same thread, " I've made a mistake
— a fatal mistake ! " and making therewith a lock stitch in-
capable of unravelment, that went round and round both
heart and brain, and bound them together.

" Good God ! " exclaimed Welsh, and let drop his paper

ARMINELL. 329

on his lap. Then he turned, " Giles ! " he shouted in his
nephew's ear. " Confound the fellow, are you asleep ? I
did think I had heard the worst, but there is worse behind !
Lord — this is awful ! Giles — you fool — look at the paper."

The young nnan took the sheet mechanically. The fly
jolted, and he could not read. He laid the paper down.
" My eyes are dazzled," he said, " I cannot make out the
print. Besides, I am indifferent to news."

" You must not be indifferent. The news concerns you
particularly."

"I don't care about politics," said Giles irritably, *'I am
worried, crushed. 1 have made a mistake — an awful, a
fatal mistake."

" This is not about politics at all," shouted his uncle.
" Lord ! how shall 1 break the tidings to Miss Inglett ? I
wish I had brought my wife. Women do these things
better than men. But, as we have no cook, Tryphoena is
engaged this morning in the kitchen, up to her ears, above
her ears, judging from the condition of the top of her head,
in work — I must do it. I hope that Miss Inglett has not
seen a newspaper this morning."

"Well — then — what is it?" asked young Saltren im-
patiently.

"What is it? Just this," answered Welsh grimly and
with vehemence, " Lord Lamerton is dead."

" Dead I " Giles Saltren was frozen with horror.

"Yes — dead. Found dead near Chillacot, fallen down
the cliff whilst on his way to see your father. Of course
there are suspicions of foul play. Nothing as yet certain."

" Found dead 1 " The young man gasped for breath.
The muscles of his chest contracted and a pain as though a
bayonet had stabbed him shot through his heart. He was
suffocating, he gasped for breath. The windows of the cab
began to spin round him, the back of the cab with the
cushions swung round to the front, and the front lights

330 ARMINELL.

went behind, and the side windows rose and hung over his
head, then revolved and were beneath his feet. Mr. Welsh
let down the glass near the young man, as he saw the con-
dition into which he was falling, and that he was incapable
of doing this for himself.

" Yes," said his uncle, '^ dead — that is what has come on
us now, and there is mischief behind. That mad, fanatical
fool, the captain — I should not wonder if he were involved
in it, with his visions, and trumpets, and vials, and book of
the Gilded Clique. He ought to have been locked up long
ago. He took everything in solemn earnest ; he believed
in Marianne's rhodomontade ; he swallowed her lies whole.
As far as I can guess this is what happened. Lord Lamer-
ton discovered that Miss Inglett was gone, gone with you,
and without a word to any one went to Chillacot over the
down to make enquiries of the captain about the fugitives.
How he came to fall over the cliff on his way, God knows !
But of this I am very certain, that it was you, Giles, who
sent him on the road that led to death. He would not
have gone to Chillacot had he not had need to go there to
enquire after you. So now, Giles, what do you think of
yourself— eh ? "

Young Saltren covered his face with his hands, and sank
fainting into the bottom of the cab.

(

CHAPTER XXXV.

ANOTHER BREAK-DOWN.

Arminell had awoke to the fact that she had made a mistake
before that conviction had been brought home to the mind
of Jingles ; but she entertained not the shadow of a sus-
picion how radical that mistake was.

She became conscious that she had put herself in a false
position almost as soon as she had taken the false step.
At the first large station the guard had been obtrusively
obliging, and a little familiar. He had allowed her to see
that he regarded her and Giles as a young couple starting
on their honeymoon tour; that he took a friendly interest in
them, and he assured them he would allow no one to invade
their compartment. He looked in on them half-way, to
know how they were getting on ; whether she would desire
refreshments to be brought her to the carriage; whether
she would like to have the blinds drawn down.

Arrived in town, they went to a quiet private hotel in
Bloomsbury, mostly frequented by literary persons consult-
ing the library of the British Museum. Jingles had not
been there before. He knew of the hotel only by repute.

The landlady, an eminently respectable person, hesitated
at first about receiving the young people. She did not
understand the relation in which they stood to each other,
and she looked inquisitively at Arminell's left hand. There
was not a trace of family likeness that she could discover
in their faces, when young Saltren explained that they were

33^ ARM I NELL.

brother and sister. A further explanation was necessary
when he gave his name as Saltren, and hers as Inglett.
Then he regretted that he had not gone to a large hotel,
where no questions would have been asked. He had
considered his pocket, and Arminell's wishes. He could
not afford a heavy expense, and she shrank from publicity.

Next morning Arminell woke with a sense of depression
she could not shake off. As she dressed, the tears of
mortification rose into her eyes. She was vexed with
herself, and vexed with Jingles. She knew that what she
had done must wound her father, and compromise herself,
at all events, for a while. She had taken the step in a fit
of pique at her father's desire to get rid of her, and of
romantic enthusiasm, to force him to acknowledge Jingles.
She had felt convinced that in no other way could he be
mduced to do this. She entertained no particular admira-
tion for young Saltren, no great affection for him, only a
girlish eagerness to see a misunderstood and ill-used man
put in his proper place and acknowledged by the world.
When she met Jingles at breakfast in the coffee-room, there
was mutual restraint between them of which both were
conscious ; and in Arminell's heart a little welling up of
wrath against him. She knew that the feehng was ungener-
ous. He was less to blame than herself — that is, she had
proposed the elopement ; but then he was older than
herself, and as a man ought to have pointed out the impro-
priety of the proposal. Now it was too late. The die was
cast which must mould the rest of her life, and of what
nature that die was she could not yet tell.

Sunday passed quietly. Arminell remained for the most
part in her own room, and young Saltren also kept secluded,
going through, recopying, and improving his article on Port
Hamilton, which he regarded as his masterpiece.

On Monday, at breakfast, Saltren told her that he would
go at once, early in the day, to consult his uncle, and that

ARMINELL. 333

then they would go together in search ot suitable lodgings.
The looking out for lodgings could be done in the after
noon, as their nature would be determined by the amount
of income on which Saltren could reckon.

"I suppose," he said, "that my uncle can help me into
getting the composition of a leader every alternate day as a
beginning, and if I get five guineas for a leader, that will
make fifteen in the week. Then, I suppose, I can do re-
viewing, and write for magazines, and make about thirty
pounds a week, that will be, say fifteen hundred a year, as a
beginning. I have reckoned the year as one of fifty instead
of fiity-two weeks, because I shall have to allow myself a
short holiday. On fifteen hundred a year we ought to have
a nice villa residence, with garden and conservatories.
What do you say to a Queen Anne house at Turnham
Green? I, myself, rather incline to Chislehurst."

When he was gone, Arminell, left to herself, had returned
to her bedroom, to find it not ready for her. So she went
downstairs again, and sat by the window in the coffee-room,
looking into the street through the wire-gauze blind, not
thinking of and interested in what passed in the street, but
turning in mind to Orleigh, to her pretty chamber there ; to
the breakfast room, with the windows to the east, and the
sun flooding it ; to the table with its silver, and flowers, and
porcelain. How small everything in this inn was, and how
lacking in freshness and grace !

Her father's cheery face had been a feature at the meal,
as was also her step-mother, fresh, gentle, pale, and dove-
like in movement and tone. She remembered these things
now that she had cast them from her, and found that they
had been pleasant, and were not to be recalled without a
beating of the pulse, and a rising in the throat.

Two gentlemen were at breakfast at a table near her,
and were eating eggs — London eggs — and the savour of
eggs, especially London eggs, in a low room is not agreeable.

334

ARMINELL.

They were talking about the tribes of Northern Asia,
Samojeds, Ostiacks, Tungus, Vogulese, about brachyce-
phalic and dolichocephalic heads, and agglutinative tongues,
and linguistic roots ; and then one of the gentlemen dropped
some of his egg on his beard, and continued to eat and talk
of agglutinative tongues, and ethnological peculiarities, and
Turanian characteristics, without observing it ; and the drop
of yolk coagulated on his beard, and moved with his jaw,
and became agitated and excited over the linguistic affinities
of the Tchuchtchees with the Koriacks on one side and the
Yuckaheres on the other.

Arminell was teased both by the drop of yolk from which
she could not withdraw her eye, and by the vehemence of
the disputants, and by the — to her — uninteresting nature of
the topic that was discussed. She forced herself to look
into the street, and observe the passers-by ; but in another
minute fell to ruminating on the condition of the gentleman's
beard, to wondering whether he had yet wiped the egg-drop
away, or why his friend did not point it out to him ; and
then her eye mechanically travelled back to the beard, and
the gamboge spot on it. Presently a stout, shabbily-dressed
lady entered with her two plain daughters, all three with that
grey complexion that makes one think the heads must be
cut out of Jerusalem artichoke. The mother had puify
cheeks, and small beady eyes. She talked loudly to her
daughters, loudly enough to be heard by all in the room,
about her distinguished acquaintances, her butler, and foot-
men, and lady's-maid, and coachman, and carriages, and
gradually subdued the gentlemen who had been arguing over
the ethnology of Northern Asia, and set them wondering
how it was that this stout party and her daughters Lad come
to so small an inn, and were not occupying a suite in the
Hotel Metropole.

Arminell had endured the talk of the learned men, but
the vulgar clack of this underbred woman was insupport-

ARMINELL. 335

able. She rose and ascended the stairs to her bedroom,
which was now, fortunately, ready for her.

This room did not command the street. It looked out at
the mews, and beyond the mews at a row of brick houses,
seen above thf wall enclosing the back premises. In the
mews yard were some carriages being washed, and grooms
with their braces discharged from their right shoulders,
brushing and combing their horses. Over the stables were
the windows of the dwellings of the cabdrivers and their
wives, and of the ostlers ; and there were sickly attempts at
flower gardening in some of them. Out of others hung
articles of clothing to be aired or dried. A multitude of
dingy sparrows hopped about in the yard, and also a con-
siderable and apparently inexhaustible number of equally
dingy children.

Beyond the wall of the backyard of a house in the row
was a gaunt Lombardy poplar, trunk and branches sable as
the stalks of maidenhair fern. What a pretty view had
been that which Arminell had commanded from her bed-
room window at Orleigh ! The sweeps of green turf in the
park, the stately trees, the cedars, and the copper beech,
and the silver birch ! How the birds had sung in the
morning about her window I How sweet had been the in-
cense of the wisteria trusses of lilac flowers entering at the
open casement !

What would her father say at her departure ? Into what
a predicament had she put him ? She had forced him into
one from which he could not escape without publishing his
own dishonour, without allowing his wife, and the parish,
and the county, and society generally to know that once on
a time he had behaved in a manner unworthy of a gentle-
man to a poor servant girl. He to whom every one in the
place, in the county, looked up as a spotless and worthy
John Bull, was to be proclaimed an impostor, and made the
talk of idle and malicious tongues.

33^ ARMINELL.

" If a man has done wrong," she said to justify her-
self, "he must bear the consequences. It is cowardly
to try and hide the act, evade what it entails, and base to
ap[>ear before the world under false pretences. Let him
acknowledge the wrong he has done, and men will then
respect him because he is open, and does not shrink from
those consequences a wrong act brings on the wrong-doer."

But this did not satisfy her. It might be true, it was
true, that this was the only right and honourable course for
one to take who had erred, but — was she, his daughter, the
proper person to force her father into the course and out of
the road he had elected to pursue ? Was it for her hand to
rip up old wounds, and drag into the light the dark secrets
he strove to bury out of sight ? Was it for her to reveal a stain
which disfigured the whole house? Was it for her to shock
her step-mother, and disturb her trust ? To mar the domes-
tic unity and mutual esteem which had been so perfect ?

Lady Lamerton had her weaknesses, but she had also
her strength, and her strength was the rectitude of her heart,
which made her do her duty with all her power. In pursu-
ance of this sense of duty, Lady Lamerton had been unfail-
ingly kind to Arminell. The girl, looking back, saw this
now, and was stung with self-reproach, because in return for
this treatment she cast the apple of discord between her
father and mother, and broke what to her ladyship was the
most precious jewel she possessed — her reverence for my
lord.

And how — when it pleased Arminell to return home after
all the disturbance she had caused, the pain and humilia-
tion she had occasioned — how would she be received again
by those she had wronged and hurt ? She had no doubt
upon this point. She knew that she would be received
with open arms, and without a word of reproach from one
or the other.

Then Arminell began to sob, and she saw no more the

ARMINELL. 337

ostler curricombing his horse, nor the woman shaking a
table-cloth out of a window, nor the sparrows quarrelling
for the crumbs, nor the back of a maid seated outside a
house on a window-ledge cleaning the glass, or she saw
these things through a watery film.

She was roused by a tap at her door. She hastily dried
her eyes, and stood up, with her back to the Hght, that her
discomposure might be unobserved, and called to the per-
son without to enter.

A waiter opened the door and announced that a gentleman
had called, and was below in a private sitting-room. He ex-
tended a tray, and Miss Inglett took from it a card, and
read, " Mr. James Welsh."

" I will come down directly," she said.

The waiter bowed and closed the door.

Arminell tarried for a moment only, to recover herself,
and then descended. She expected to see Jingles with his
uncle, but he was not in the room.

"At your service, Miss Inglett. I am the uncle of Hansel
who has run away with Grethel. You find that you have
not come to the cottage of almond rock, with windows of
barley sugar. You are not, I suppose, interested in politics?"

" No, or only slightly. Social subjects — "

" Neither in Monday's paper. Never in my life saw one
with less of interest in it, no news, nothing but a Temper-
ance Demonstration at Exeter Hall, presided over by the
Reverend Jowles. It is not worth your while looking into
a paper to-day."

" Is Mr. Saltren returned ? " asked ArminelL

"Damped off," replied Welsh. "That is a process
whereby an amateur loses a good many cuttings and seed-
lings. Hansel came to me with any amount of young hopes
and ambitions and cockscombs — especially, and I have
damped them all off. Expected to make a fortune in
literature, wanted to tread the walks of political journalism

Y

338 ARMINELL.

— as well try to tread the tight rope without previous educa-
tion. Miss Inglett, you will see no more of him. So what
is Grethel to do without her Hansel ? "

He paused for a minute but received no answer, not,
perhaps, that he expected one, but he allowed time for what
he had said to soak into her mind before he went on.

" There is a story," continued Welsh, who purposely spun
out what he had to say, knowing that it was an unpleasant
dose, and therefore to be mixed with jam. " There is a
story by a classic author, whom I have read only in English,
concerning a young man named Lucius who once saw a
woman smear herself with an unguent, whereupon she flew
out at the window, transformed into a bird. Lucius got
hold of the unguent and applied it to himself and found
himself to have become — not a bird by any means — simply
an ass. Our good friend has been going through the same
experience. You, Miss Inglett, have spread your wings,
and Giles comes trotting after with a bray. You need not
be afraid — he will not show himself again. He has looked
on himself in a mirror, and is hiding his ears."

" Do you mean, Mr. Welsh, that your nephew has de-
serted me ? "

" The ass is just now so ashamed of himself, that he is in
hiding. But no more about him. What about yourself?
I place myself unreservedly at your disposal. I will recon-
duct you to Orleigh, by the next train, and telegraph for the
carriage to meet us at the station."

" I cannot go back — ^just now."

" Have you a relation, a lady, in town who could receive
you?"

" Lady Hermione Woodhead — my aunt."

" Then I will take you to her at once."

" I cannot go to her." •'

" Then Mrs. Welsh will be happy to accommodate you.
She is without a cook, but that don't matter. She can make

ARMINELL. 339

good pastry. Come along with me to Shepherd's Bush.
There will be rissoles for dinner to-day as we had joint
yesterday ; and we will buy a pair of soles on our
way."

"I cannot understand," said Arminell. "I came here
with your nephew. I suppose you are aware that he is my
half-brother."

"Half-fiddlesticks," exclaimed Mr. Welsh. "My dear
young lady, you have been carried off your feet by romantic
fancies, which at a certain ingenious age inflate the head as
carburetted hydrogen does a goldbeaterskin bag. Giles has
been in the same condition, but I have pricked the bag and
let out the nonsense. Now his head is in a condition of
collapse. That which you were told about his parentage is
all nonsense."

" Do you mean — " Arminell did not finish the sentence,
she was interrupted by Welsh.

" Yes, I do," he said. " I know all the circumstances.
I know more about them than my sister Marianne supposes.
Marianne is an utter liar, has a physical infirmity, I sup-
pose, which prevents her tongue from being straight. It
describes as many curls as a corkscrew on the St. Gothard
line. She has about as keen a sense of truth as a Russian
diplomatist, and as much bounce as General Boulanger.
Now, then — as you see from which direction the wind blows,
and where lie the reefs, perhaps you will allow a pilot to
come unsignalied on board, and turn your head off the
breakers."

" I have made a mistake — a fatal mistake," was all that
Arminell could say, dropping her hands at her sides.

"Those are precisely my nephew's words — literally the
same ; which is not to be wondered at, because you have
both fallen together into the same error. Come, I must
help you out of your difficulties. What will you do ? Go
to your aunt? Return home? Or come to Shepherd's

340 ARMINELL.

Bush to rissoles and a pair of soles, fried or boiled as you

prefer ? "

" But where is Mr. Saltren? I ought to see him."

" He will not show his face again. He is at the present

moment like blancmange from which the isinglass has been

omitted, in a condition of mental and moral imbecility."
A tap at the door, and without waiting for an answer

Giles Inglett Saltren entered, erect, with firm step, and a

resolute face.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

A RALLY.

Giles Inglett Saltren had left the cab at Cumberland
Gate, when the momentary faintness had passed. He
wished to be alone, in the fresh air, and with his own
thoughts. His uncle had detained the cab till he saw that
his nephew was better. He left him on a bench in the
park and bade him remain there till his return from the
interview with Arminell.

The young man felt the relief of being alone. The
vibration of the carriage, his uncle's voice, his own self-
reproach, had, combined with the shock of the news of
his lordship's death, brought about the slight fit of uncon-
sciousness. He was in that overwrought condition of
nervous tension in which another touch would be insup-
portable ; and Welsh's finger was not light, he twanged the
fibres in his nephew's heart, not as if he were playing a harp
with finger-balls, but as if he were performing on a zither
with his nails. The air was cool ; the bench on which
Jingles was seated had not another occupant. The great
open space in Hyde Park devoted to political meetings was
sparsely peopled at that time in the morning ; he was not
likely to be disturbed, and the rumble of vehicles along
Uxbridge Road and Oxford Street produced a soothing
effect rather than the contrary.

342

ARMINELL.

A Frenchman was walking along the path before his
bench with a walking-stick ; he had found a bit of slate in
the way, and with his cane he flipped it along a few feet,
then stopped, and flipped it on to the grass ; went upon the
turf and flapped it back into the path. Then he sent it
forward, past Jingles on his bench, and so on as far as
Cumberland Gate, where the young man lost sight of
Monsieur, and was unable to see whether he continued to
drive the scrap of slate before him up Oxford Street in the
direction of his haunts in Leicester Square, or whether he
left it under the arch.

Till the Frenchman had disappeared, Giles Saltren did
not begin to consider his own trouble. He could not do
so till the bit of slate was gone beyond his range, with
Monsieur after it. Watching the man was a sensible relief
to him. When one has run, a pause allows the recovery of
breath, and abates the pulsations, so did this diversion of
attention serve to relieve Jingles, to lull the agony of re-
morse, and enable his mind to regain something of evenness
and tone.

When a man has been struck on the head by a hammer,
he falls. Jingles had received three stunning blows, and
recovery could not be immediate. His sanguine hopes of
living by his pen had been upset, and that was a blow to
his self-esteem. Then his belief in his noble parentage had
been knocked over. And lastly he had heard of Lord
Lamerton's death — and whether that were accidental or
not, he could hardly doubt that he had brought it about,
for his lordship would not have left his guests to go to Chil-
lacot, had he not been impelled to do so by learning of the
elopement.

There are moments in the lives of most of us when we
come on new scenes that are epoch-making in our life's-
history. I shall never, forget as such my first view of Mont
Blanc, from the Col de Balme, and of a portion of the

ARMINELL. 343

moon's surface through the Cambridge Observatory teles-
cope, or the first sight of death. Some of these first sights
are invested with pleasure unutterable, others with infinite
pain ; and of such latter are often those peeps within our-
selves which we sometimes obtain.

What atmospheric effects, what changing lights, all beauti-
ful, invest the outer landscape with magic, even where the
scenery is tame. How rarely is it unpleasing to the eye.
And it is the same when we turn our eyes inwards, and
contemplate the landscape of our own selves, what glories
of light flood all, what richness of foliage clothes all, how
picturesque are the inequalities ! How vast the surface to
the horizon ! And yet, it sometimes happens, not often,
and not even to all, that a shadow falls over the scene and
blots out all its comeliness, and then ensues a flare, a light-
ning flash, and we see all — no longer beautiful, but infinitely
ghastly.

Saint Theresa, in one of her autobiographical sketches,
says that she was shown her own self, on one occasion of
introspection, not as she was wont to view it, but as it was
in naked reality, and she could never after recall the vision
without a shudder.

Who sees himself as he is? Who wishes to do so?
Who would not be oflended were you to exhibit to his eyes
a picture of himself as he is ? No one likes his own photo-
graph, for the sun does not flatter. But no photographs
have yet been taken of man's interior self ; if they were, no
one would consent to look on his own ; he would spend all
his fortune in buying up the copies and destroying the
plates.

We are accustomed to view ourselves as those do who
stand on the Brocken, magnified a thousand fold, with
rainbow haloes about our heads. I have known a little
fellow, who reached my elbow, strut with infinite conse-
quence, and gesticulate with tragic dignity on the Brocken,

344 ARMINELL.

before his own shadow projected on a cloud, nimbus-girded,
and vast as the All-Father of Norse mythology. A breath
of wind passed, and the phantom vanished. But we carry
our Brocken shadow about with us everywhere, and posture
to it, and look up to it, with an awe and admiration that
slides into worship ; and very rarely does the cold east wind
sweep it away. But there remains this consolation to the
Brocken shadow worshipper, that when the phantom form
disappears, nothing remains behind, and it is a satisfaction,
a poor one, but still a satisfaction, when the blast has
dispelled our ideal self before which we have bowed, to
discover behind it simple nonentity. There would be dis-
enchantment indeed, and a graver walk, and a more subdued
voice, and a less self-asserting tone, but there would not be
that exquisite, that annihilating horror that ensues when the
scattering of the vapour discloses a reality the reverse at
every point of what we had imagined.

In the Egyptian temples hung purple curtains embroidered
with gold, and censers perpetually smoked before the veil,
and golden lamps, ever burning, diffused a mellow light
through the sacred enclosure. What was behind that pic-
tured spangled veil, within the holy of holies ? Sometimes
a hippopotamus wallowing on straw — or a chattering crane —
sometimes, Nothing. We are engaged all our lives in the
erection of magnificent temples about ourselves, and in
embroidering gold-besprent curtains, and in the burning of
frankincense, and in the kindling and feeding of lamps, in
these tabernacles ; and what is behind the veil ? Do we
know ? Do we ever look ? We paint and plate with gold
idealrepresentations of the god within on the propylaeum
of our temple, but what resemblance does this figure bear
to the reality ? Do we know ? Do we care to know ? Will
we not rather put out our eyes than compare them? If, by
chance, a sudden gleam of sun, a puff" of pure air, stir the
curtain and reveal the mystery, with what haste we fly to

ARMINELL. 345

duplicate the veils, to blind the windows, to nail the curtains
to the gilded sideposts, and weight them with lead. How
we redouble our prostrations, and make more dense the
cloud of incense; how we elaborate our ceremonial, and
when the hippopotamus within yawns, or the ibis chatters,
we clash our cymbals, boom our drums, peal our trumpets
to drown the utterance of the god.

There was in Alexandria no god like unto Serapis, whose
temple was the wonder of the world. But one day an
impious hand struck off the head, and out of the gilded
idol rushed a legion of rats. There is no god, no idol, like
the ideal self within the veil; but it does not chance to
every one as it chanced to Giles Inglett Saltren, to have its
head knocked off and see the vermin scamper out of it.
When that does happen, that is a moment never to be
forgotten. It is a moment of infinite importance in the
life-history, it is a moment determinative of the future.
The worshippers of Serapis, after that terrible spectacle,
which was also extremely laughable, stood in consternation ;
and at that moment stood also at the fork of two roads.
Either they shuffled off to the left, with their hands in their
pockets, damning all religion, and vowing they would
believe in nothing thenceforth, or they moved with firm
steps along the right-hand road that led to a truer faith.

The same takes place with us when the Serapis of our
ideal self is broken and reveals the nest of rats within.
Either our moral nature becomes disintegrated, and breaks
down utterly and irremediably into unsightly debris, or we
turn from the worship of ourselves to seek elsewhere our
ideal, and looking to it, attain to a nobler, more generous,
an altruistic life.

Mr. James Welsh had not spared Jingles; he had told
him plainly, even coarsely, what he thought of him, but no
words of his could express the intensity of the sense of
infamy that Giles Inglett felt. For a moment he had been

34^ ARMINELL.

Stunned, numbed as hand and foot become numbed for
awhile, and then with a tinghng and needle-pricking, the
moral juices began once more to flow, and the agony of
inner pain he felt was the pledge of moral recovery.

As soon as Giles Inglett Saltren began to consider what
were the consequences drawn upon him and Arminell by
his folly, an almost overpowering desire came over him to
fly from England. He had sufficient money to pay his
passage across the Atlantic, and to maintain him in a new
world till he could obtain a suitable situation. In a new
world he might begin life anew, leaving behind his old
follies and faults, and make a smooth table of the past. In
the old world he could do nothing to remedy what he had
wrought; but he put the temptation from him. He saw
that to yield to it would be an act of cowardice, and would
result in moral ruin. Instinctively, without self-analysis, he
reached the conclusion that a single course lay open before
him if he were to save his moral self from wreck. The same
moment that he became conscious of this, he stood up, and
hailed a passing empty hansom.

That moment saw the beginning of a new life in him ;
new ends, new visions, rose before his eyes.

Thus it was that Giles Inglett Saltren entered the sitting-
room where his uncle was engaged with Arminell, and thus
it was that he entered it a very different man from w^hat Mr.
Welsh had described him.

"How came you here?" asked the journalist. "Did
not I tell you to remain in Hyde Park till you w^ere
wanted?"

" I have come," answered Giles firmly, "to speak to Miss
Inglett. I have a just duty to perform to her, to clear her
mind of the clouds I have brought over it. Miss Inglett, I
was utterly wrong in supposing that his lordship was — was
" — what I let you believe him to be, my father. I did him
a grievous wrong, I imagined it possible that the best and

ARMINELL. 347

most blameless of men had been guilty of the basest con-
duct. And now that your father is dead — "

" Dead ! " echoed Arminell.

Saltren looked at his uncle. He had supposed that
Welsh had broken the news to the girl.

" Yes," said he, and his voice, which before was firm, gave
way for a moment. " Your father is dead."

" Dead ! " again repeated Arminell, and put her hands to
her brow. She was being stunned by repeated blows, as
Saltren had been stunned. " Dead ! Impossible."

" Miss Inglett, it is as well that you should know all, and
know it at once, for action must be taken immediately.
Your father has met with an accident — he has been found
dead after a fall. I shall return immediately by the express
to Orleigh. I go to my mother at Chillacot. You must
allow my uncle at once to escort you to Lady Hermione ;
place yourself under her protection, and confide to her all
the particulars of your leaving home. I will see Lady
Lamerton, and she shall telegraph to you at Lady Her-
mione's to return to the Park. I will wire at once, in your
name, to your mother, to send your lady's-maid to you at
your aunt's in Portland Place. Your maid will find you
there, and attend you home to Orleigh. It is possible that
by this means your running away from home with me may
remain unknown. You left Orleigh on Saturday, by to-night
your maid will be with you in Portland Place, and I shall
be seen this evening at Orleigh, where I shall make a point
of showing myself. It is therefore not likely that suspicions
of my ever having left may arise. There is no time to be
lost. You will hear, all too soon, the particulars of your
father's death — about myself I will not speak. I should
be ashamed to say a word in self-justification, and
my self-reproach is beyond the power of words to ex-
press."

Arminell turned herself about, as though rotating on a

34^ ARMINELL.

pivot, holding her temples with both hands, and elbows ex-
tended.

" Yes," said Mr. Welsh, " this is well considered. Giles,
it shall be as you say. I will take Miss Inglett at once to
Portland Place, unless she prefers that I should go to her
ladyship, and prepare her ; and then Miss Inglett can
follow. That probably will be the least painful course."

Arminell still swung herself from side to side. She was
pale as ashes, and her eyes full of trouble and terror.

" I will go home directly, uncle," said Giles. " I have
acted not like a fool only, but wickedly, and I must face
the consequences."

Arminell remained stationary, and released her temples.

" What was that you said ? " she asked.

" As I have been guilty, not of indiscretion only, but of a
crime," said he, gravely, " I must face the consequences, be
they what they may." Then Arminell drew a long breath.
She recovered her composure for a moment. She recalled
what had been her judgment on her father when she thought
him guilty. -

" I also," she said, and her voice was harsh, " I also have
been guilty, not of folly only, but of a crime. I have sinned
against my dear, dear father. I will not go to my Aunt
Hermione. I will not go back to Orleigh."

" But the repentant prodigal," said Welsh, "in the Gospel
story did return."

" When the father was at home to receive him," answered
Arminell sharply. " There is not — " She drew another long
breath ; and then said, " I also will face the consequences."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE TURN OF THE TIDE.

Giles Saltren caught an express and whirled down into
the west. He had not taken a ticket for Orleigh Road
Station, as he did not choose to get out there, but at the
nearest town, and there he hired a light trap in which he
was driven to within half a mile of Chillacot, where he dis-
missed the vehicle and walked on.

He had resolved what to do. He would pay a hasty visit
to his mother and then go on to the village, and perhaps
call at the Rectory. He must show himself as much as
possible.

He had hardly left the trap, when, on turning a corner,
he came on Samuel Ceely and Joan Melhuish walking to-
gether, arm in arm. The sight brought the blood into his
pale face. He was behind the pair, and he was able to
notice the shabbiness of the old man and the ungainliness
of his walk. This man was his father. To him, the
meanest in the parish — not to his lordship, the highest —
must he look as the author of his being.

Joan Melhuish knew nothing of Samuel's love affair with
Marianne Welsh. She looked up to and admired the
cripple, seeing him in the light of her girlish fancy, as the
handsome, reckless gamekeeper.

Giles's foot lagged, but he kept his eyes steadily on the
man slouching along before him. A new duty had fallen on
him. He must provide for the cripple, without allowing the

350 ARMINELL.

secret of his relationship to become known, both for the
sake of his mother and for that of the trusting Joan.

Samuel Ceely heard his step and turned his head, dis-
engaged his arm from the woman, and extended the muti-
lated hand towards the young man.

" I say — I say ! " began he, with his water-blue eyes fixed
eagerly on Jingles. "I was promised a place ; Miss Ar-
minell herself said I should have work, two shillings a day,
sweeping, and now they say she has gone away and left no
directions about me. If you can put in a word with my
lady, or with my lord, mind that I was promised it."

"How can you, Samuel, speak of my lord, when you
know he is dead ? "

" My lord is not dead," answered the old man sharply.
" Master Giles is now my lord. I know what I am about."

"And Samuel would do the work wonderfully well,"
threw in Joan ; " of all the beautifulest things that ever I see,
is Samuel's sweeping. If they were to give prizes for that as
they do for ploughing, Samuel would be rich."

" I should like," said Giles, " to have some particulars
about my lord's death."

"'Tis a terrible job, sure enough," answered the woman.
"And folks tell strange tales about it, not half of 'em is
true. They've sat on him this afternoon."

" The inquest already ? "

" Yes, to be sure. You see he died o' Saturday, so he
was crowned to-day. Couldn't do it yesterday."

"And what was the verdict? I have been to Huxham
to-day " — this was the nearest town.

" Samuel can tell you better than I, sir, I don't under-
stand these things. But it do seem a funny thing to crown
a man when he is dead."

" Wliat was the verdict ? " asked Giles of Samuei.

" Well," said the old man, shaking his head. "It puzzled
the jury a bit. Some said it was an accident, and some that

ARMINBLL. 3-5 T

it was murder ; but the worst of it all is, that it will drive
my sweeping at two shillings out of the heads of my lady
and Miss Arminell. They'll be so took up wi* ordering of
mourning that they'll not think of me — which is a crying
shame. If his lordship could but have lived another week
till 1 was settled into my sweeping and victuals, he might
have died and welcome, but to go interfering like between
me and two shillings, is that provoking I could swear. Not
that I say it was his lordship's fault, and I lay no blame on
him, but folks do say, that "

" There now, Samuel," interrupted Joan. '^ This is young
Mr. Saltren you are speaking to and you are forgetting."

" I'm not forgetting," grumbled the old man ; " don't you
be always of a flurrying me. Why, if I had had my situation
as was promised me, we might have married and reared a
family. I reckon one can do that on two shillings a day,
and broken victuals from the kitchen. I might take the
case into court and sue Captain Saltren for damages."

" Hush, Samuel," interposed Joan nervously, looking at
Giles.

" I ain't a-going to be hushed like a baby," said Samuel
Ceely irritably ; "I reckon if I don't get my place,
we can't marry, and have a family, and where will my do-
mestic happiness be? I tell you, them as chucked his
lordship down the Cleave, chucked my family as was to be
down with him, and if I can't bring 'em into court for
murdering his lordship, I can for murdering my family, of
as healthy and red-cheeked children as might have been —
— all gone," said the old man grimly. "All, head over
heels down the Cleave, along of Lord Lamerton."

"How can you talk so?" said Joan reproachfully.
" You know you have no children."

" I might have had — a dozen of 'em — seven girls and
five boys, and I'd got the names for them all in my head.
I might have had if I'd got the sweeping and the broken

352 ARMINELL.

victuals as I was promised. What's the difference in
wickedness, I'd like to know ? " asked the old man sententi-
ously, and figuring out his proposition on Saltren's coat
with his crooked fingers. " What's the odds in wickedness,
chucking Over a horrible precipice a dozen sweet and
innocent children as is, or as is to be, my family was as
certain as new potatoes in June, and now — all gone, chucked
down the Cleave. It is wickedness."

" What is that you hinted about Captain Saltren ? " asked
Giles gravely.

'* Oh, I say nothing," answered old Samuel sourly. " I
don't talk — I leave that to the woman."

" It does seem a pity," said Joan. " Samuel would have
been so useful. He might have gone about the park pick-
ing up the sandwich-papers and the corks and bottles, after
the pubUc."

" But," said the young man, " I really wish to know what
the talk is about in which my father's name is introduced."

" Sir, sir ! folks' tongues go like the clappers in the fields
to drive away the blackbirds. A very little wind makes 'em
rattle wonderfully."

" But what have they said ? "

" Well " — Joan hesitated. She was a woman of delicate
feeling. " Well, sir, you must not think there is anything in
it. Tongues cannot rest, and what they say to-day they un-
say to-morrow. Some think that as the captain was so
bitter against his lordship, and denounced him as ordained
to destruction, that he may have had a helping hand in his
death. But, sir, the captain did not speak so strong as Mr.
Welsh, and nobody says that Mr. Welsh laid a finger on
him. Why should they try to fix it on your father and not
on your uncle ? But, sir, there is no call to fix it on any
one. I might walk over the edge of the Cleave. If a man
goes over the brink, I reckon he needs no help to make
him go to the bottom."

ARMINELL. 353

" The jury couldn't agree, Joan," said Samuel. " Two of
'em wanted to bring in wilful murder against the cap-
tain."

" So they did against his lordship in the case of Arkie
Tubb. But that was nonsense. His lordship wasn't there.
And this is nonsense, just the same."

" But the captain was nigh. Mr. Macduff saw him."
" Well, and he might have seen me, and he did see me a
little while afore, as I was coming from Court with some
baccy money for you, Samuel. That don't follow that I
killed his lordship. Mr. Macduff see'd also Farmer Yole's old
grey mare. Be you a going accusing of that old mare of
having had a hoof in his lordship's death ? "

^' Where did Mr. Macduff see my father?" asked the
young man.

" On the down. But he didn't see him speak to his lord-
ship, and he couldn't tell to half an hour or three-quarters
when it was. So the crowner discharged the jury, just as he
did in the case of Arkie, and he got together another, and
they found that his lordship had done it accidental."

'* For all that," growled Samuel, " folks will always say
that the captain helped him over, as he was so set against
him."

''Then," said Joan, "it is a shame and a sin if they do.
It is one thing to talk against a person, and another thing
to lift a hand against him. I've said hard things of you,
scores of times ; I've said you never ought to have taken the
game and sent it off by the mail-cart when you was keeper,
and that you couldn't have blown off your hand if you'd not
gone poaching, nor put out your hip if you'd been sober —
I've said them cruel things scores o' times, but never laid a
finger on you to hurt you. I couldn't do it — as you know
very well."

She cast an affectionate glance at the cripple ; then she
went on, " Lord 1 I forgive and excuse all the frolics of your

354 ARMINELL.

youth ; and folks always says things rougher than they mean
them."

Instead of going on to Chillacot, as he had at first in-
tended, Giles now resolved on following the road to the
village, and returning home later. He must lose no time
in showing himself. He trusted that in the excitement
caused by the death of Lord Lamerton no questions would
be raised about Arminell, and any little suspicions which
might have been wakened by her sudden departure would
be allayed.

He was not altogether easy about his father, nor satisfied
with Joan's justification of him. That the jury had returned
a verdict of accidental death was a relief to his mind, but it
made him uncomfortable to think that suspicion against his
father should be entertained. Giles had little or no know-
ledge of his father's new craze. He knew that the captain
was a fanatic who went heart and soul with whatever com-
mended itself to his reason or prejudice. At one time he
took up hotly the subject of vegetarianism, then he became
infatuated with Anglo-Israelism, then he believed vehemently
in a quack syrup he saw advertised in a Christian paper,
w^arranted to cure all disorders ; after that he became posses-
sed with the teetotal mania, and attributed all the evils in the
world, war, plagues, earthquakes, popery, and foot-and-mouth
disease to the use of alcohol. Recently he had combined
his religious vagaries mth political theories, and had made
a strange stir-about of both. His trouble at losirg his situ-
ation as captain of the manganese mine, and his irritation
against the railway company for wanting Chillacot had com-
bined to work him into a condition of unusual excitability.
Giles had heard that his father had seen a vision, but of
what sort he had not inquired, because he was entirely out
of sympathy with the spiritual exaltations and fancies of his
father.

The village of Orleigh was not what is commonly termed

ARMINELL. $^S

a " church town," that is to say, it was not clustered about
the church, which stood in the park, near the mansion of
the Ingletts. In ancient days, when the population was
sparse, the priest drew his largest congregation from the
manor house, and therein he lived as chaplain and tutor ;
consequently in many places we find the parish church
situated close to the manor house, and away from the
village which had grown up later. It was so at Orleigh. The
village consisted of a green, with an old tree in the midst,
an ale-house, the Lamerton Arms, a combined grocery and
grocery store, which was also post-office, a blacksmith's
forge, and half-a-dozen picturesque cottages white-washed,
with red windows and thatched roofs. Most of these
houses had flower gardens before their doors, encouraged
thereto by an annual Floricultural Society which gave
prizes to those villagers who had the neatest, most cheerful
and varied gardens.

Jingles found knots of men standing about the green,
some were coming out of, others about to enter the public-
house door; another knot clustered about the forge.
Women were not wanting, to throw in words.

The dusk of evening had settled in, so that at first none
noticed the approach of the young man. He came, not by
the road, but across by the blacksmith's garden, where a
short cut saved a round. Thus he was in the midst of the
men before they were aware that he was near.

He could not catch all that was being said, but he heard
that the death of Lord Lamerton occupied their minds and
exercised their tongues. His father's name was also freely
bandied about.

" I say," exclaimed the village tailor, in a voice like that
of a corncrake, " I say that Cap'n Saltren did it. What do
you consider the reason why the coroner discharged the
jury and called another? I know, if you do not. You
don't perhaps happen to know, but I do, that Marianne

356 ARMINELL.

Saltren's aunt, old Betsy Welsh, washes for the coroner.
Nothing more likely, were he to allow a verdict against the
captain, than that his shirt-fronts would come home iron-
moulded. Don't tell me there was no evidence. Evidence
is always to be had if looked for. Evidence is like snails'
horns, thrust forth or drawn in, according to circumstances.
If the coroner had wanted evidence, he could have had it.
But he was thinking of his shirt-front, and he, maybe, going
out to a dinner-party. It is easy done, boil an old nail
along with the clothes, and pounds worth of linen is spoiled.
I don't blame him," concluded the tailor sententiously.
" Human nature is human nature."

"And," shouted a miner, "facts is facts" — but he pro-
nounced ihQm/ax.

" Lord Lamerton," said a second miner, ** wanted to
make a new road, and carry it to Chillacot. The cap'n
didn't like it, he didn't want to have a station there. He
was set against his lordship on that account, for his lordship
was a director. If you can prove to me that his lordship
wasn't a director, then I shall admit he may have come by
his death naturally. I say naught against his lordship for
not wanting to have his house undermined, but I do say
that the cap'n acted unreasonably and wrongly in not
letting the company have Chillacot for the station. If he'd
have done that, his lordship would have found us work on
the road."

" Ah, Gloyne," called the other miner, " that's it. Fax is
fax."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE RISE OF THE TIDE.

" Come here," shouted the blacksmith, who was outside his
shop, and still wore his apron, and the smut and rust on his
hands and face. " Come here. Master Jingles. You've
come into the midst of us, and we want to know something
from you. Where is your father ? We've seen nothing of
him since Friday. If he has not been at mischief, why
don't he come forward like a man ? Why don't your father
show his face ? He ain't a tortoise, privileged to draw it in,
or a hedgehog, at liberty to coil it up. Where is he? He
is not at home. If he is hiding, what is he hiding from un-
less he be guilty ? "

" He may have gone after work," said young Saltr€n.

" I heard him say," said the shoemaker, " that his lord-
ship was doomed to destruction."

" I know he said it," answered the blacksmith, " and I
ask, is a man Hke to make a prophecy and not try to make
what he said come to pass ? "

" Human nature is human nature," threw in the tailor.

" And fax is fax," added the miner.

*^ Then," pursued the blacksmith, "let us look at things
as they affect us. His lordship has kept about twenty-three
horses — hunters, cobs, ponies and carriage horses — and
each has four hoofs, and all wants shoeing once a month,

358 ARMINELL.

and some every fortnight. That brings me in a good part,
of my living. Very well. I ask all who hear me, is his
lordship like to keep such a stud now he is dead ? Is he
like to want hunters ? I grant you, for the sake of argu-
ment, that the young lady and young gentleman will have
their cobs and ponies, but will there be anything like as
many horses kept as there have been ? No, in reason there
cannot be. So you may consider what a loss to me is the
death of his lordship. My worst personal enemy couldn't
have hit me harder than when he knocked Lord Lamerton
over the Cleave. He as much as knocked a dozen or
fourteen horses over with him, each with four hoofs, at
sixpence a shoe, and shod, let us say, eighteen times in the
year."

" You are right," put in the tailor, " landed property is
tied up, and his lordship's property is tied up — tied up and
sealed like mail bags — till the young lord comes of age,
which will not be for eleven years. So, Blatchford," — ad-
dressing the blacksmith — " you must multiply your horses
by eleven."

" That makes," said the smith, working out the sum in
chalk on the shutter of the shop, " say fourteen horses
eighteen times — two hundred and two — and by four — and
again by eleven — and halved because of sixpences, that
makes five hundred and fifty-four pounds ; then there were
odd jobs, but them I won't reckon. Whoever chucked
Lord Lamerton down the Cleave chucked five hundred and
fifty-four pounds of as honestly-earned money as ever was
got, belonging to me, down along with him."

" Fax is fax," said the miner.

" And human nature is human nature to feel it," added
the tailor.

*' There's another thing to be considered," said a game-
keeper. " In the proper sporting season, my lord had down
scores of gentlemen to shoot his covers, and that brought

ARMINELL. 359

me in a good many sovereigns and half-sovs. Now, I'd
like to know, with the family in mourning, and the young
lord not able to handle a gun, will there be a house full of
gentlemen ? It wouldn't be decent. And that means the
loss of twenty pound to me — if one penny."

"Nor is that all," said the tailor, "you'll have Macduff to
keep an eye on you, not my lord. There'll be no more
chucking of hampers into the goods train as it passes Cop-
ley Wood, I reckon."

The keeper made no other reply than a growl, and drew
back.

" There is my daughter Jane, scullery-maid at the Park,"
said the shoemaker, '' learning to be a cook. If her lady-
ship shuts up the house, and leaves the place, what will
become of Jane ? It isn't the place I grieve for, nor the
loss of learning, for places ask to be filled now, and any
one will be taken as cook, if she can do no more than
boil water — but it is the perquisites. My wife was uncom-
mon fond of jellies and sweets of all sorts, and I don't suppose
these are to be picked off hedges, when the house is empty."

" Here comes Farmer Labett," exclaimed the tailor. " I
say, Mr. Labett, did not his lordship let off five-and-twenty
per cent, from his rents last fall ? "

" That is no concern of yours," replied the farmer.

" But it does concern you," retorted the tailor, " for now
that his lordship is dead, the property is tied up and put in
the hands of trustees, and trustees can't remit rents. If
they were to do so, the young lord, when he comes of age,
might be down on them and make them refund out of their
own pockets. So that away over the rocks, down the
Cleave, went twenty-five per cent, abatement when his lord-
ship fell, or was helped over."

"Ahl" groaned the shoemaker, "and all them jellies,
and blanc-mange, and custards was chucked down along of
him."

360 ARMINELL.

" And now," said another, " Macduff will have the rule.
Afore, if we didn't like what Macduff ordained, we could
go direct to his lordship, but now there will be no one above
Macduff but trustees, and trustees won't meddle. That
will be a pretty state of things, and his wife to ride in a
victoria, too."

Then a woman called Tregose pushed her way through
the throng, and with loud voice expressed her views.

" I don't see what occasion you men have to grumble.
Don't y' see that the family will have to go into mourning,
and so get rid of their colours, and we shall get them.
There's Miss Arminell's terra-cotta I've had my eye on for
my Louisa, but I never reckoned on having it so soon.
There never was a wind blowed/' argued Mrs. Tregose,
"that was an unmixed evil, and didn't blow somebody
good. If this here wind have blowed fourteen horses, and
jellies and twenty-five per cent, and the keeper's tips over
the Cleave-;— it ha' blowed a terra-cotta gown on to my
Louisa."

" But," argued the tailor in his strident voice, " supposing,
in consequence of the death, that her ladyship and the
young lady and the little lord give up living here, and go
for education to London or abroad, where will you be, Mrs.
Tregose, for their cast gowns ? Your Louisa ain't going to
wear that terra-cotta for eleven years, I reckon."

" There's something in that," assented the woman, and
her mouth fell. "Yes," she said, after a pause for con-
sideration, " who can tell how many beautiful dresses and
bonnets and mantles have gone over the Cleave along with
the blanc-mange, and the horses and the five-and-twenty
per cent.? I'm uncommon sorry now his lordship is dead."

*' I've been credibly informed," said the tailor, " that his
lordship laid claim to Chillacot, and said that because old
Gaffer Saltren squatted there, that did not constitute a title.
Does it give a rook a title to a Scotch fir because he builds

ARMINELL. 36 1

a nest on it ? Can the rook dispose of the timber ? Can
it refuse to allow the tree to be cut down and sawn up, for
and because he have sat on the top of it ? I've an old
brood-sow in my stye. Does the stye belong to the sow or
to me ? "

" Fax is fax," assented the miner.

"And," urged the blacksmith, "if his lordship wanted to
get the land back, why not? If I lend my ladder to Farmer
Eggins, haven't I a right to reclaim it ? His lordship asked
for the land back, not because he wanted it for himself, but
in the interest of the public, to give us a station nigh at
hand, instead of forcing us to walk three and a half or four
miles, and sweat terrible on a summer's day. And his lord-
ship intended to run a new road to Chillacot, where the
station was to be, and so find work for hands out of employ,
and he said it would cost him a thousand pounds. And
noW; there is the new road and all it would have cost as
good as thrown over the Cleave along with his lordship."

" The captain — he did it," shouted the blacksmith.

" Fax speak, they are fax. Skin me alive, if they baint,"
said the miner.

Giles Inglett Saltren had heard enough. He raised his
voice and said, " Mr. Blatchford, and the rest of you — some
insinuate, others openly assert that my father has been
guilty of an odious crime, that he has had a hand in the
death of Lord Lamerton."

He was interrupted by shouts of " He has, he has ! We
know it ! "

" How do you know it ? You only suppose it. You
have no grounds absolutely, no grounds for basing such a
supposition. The coroner, as yourselves admit, refused to
listen to the charge."

A voice: ''He was afraid of having his shirt-fronts
moulded."

" Here, again, you bring an accusation as unfounded as

362 ARMINELL.

it is absurd, against an honourable man and a Crown
oflScial. If you had been able to produce a particle of
evidence against my father, a particle of evidence to show
that what you imagine is not as hollow as a dream, the
coroner would have hearkened and acted. Are you aware
that this bandying of accusations is an indictable offence ?
My father has not hurt you in any way."

This elicited a chorus of cries.

" He has spoiled my shoeing." " He has prevented the
making of the road." " My wife will never have blanc-mange
again." And Samuel Ceely, now arrived on the scene, in
whispering voice added, " All my beautiful darHngs — twelve
of them, as healthy as apples, and took their vaccination
well— all gone down the Cleave."

It really seemed as if the happiness, the hopes, the
prosperity of all Orleigh, had gone over the edge of the cliff
with his lordship.

" I repeat it," exclaimed the young man, waxing warm ;
*•' I repeat it, my father never did you an injury. You are
now charging him with hurting you, because you suffer
through his lordship's death, and you are eager to find some
one on whom to cast blame. As for any real sorrow and
sympathy, you have none ; wrapped up in your petty and
selfish ends."

A voice : " Fax is fax — he did kill Lord Lamerton."

The tailor : " Human nature is human nature, and
nobody can deny he prophesied my lord's death."

" I dare you to charge my father with the crime," cried
young Saltren. "I warn you. I have laid by a little
money, and I will spend it in prosecuting the man who
does."

"We all do. Prosecute the parish," rose in a general
shout.

" My father is incapable of the crime."

" We have no quarrel with you, young Jingles," roared a

ARMINELL, 3^5

miner. " Our contention is with the captain. Mates, what
do y' say ? Shall we pay him a visit ? "

" Aye— aye ! " from all sides. " Let us show him our
minds."

A boisterous voice exclaimed : " We'll serve him out for
taking the bread out of our mouths. We'll tumble his
house about his ears. He sha'n't stand in our light any more."

And another called, "If you want to prosecute us, we'll
provide you with occasion."

Then a stone was flung, which struck Jingles on the head
and knocked him down.

For a few minutes the young man was unconscious, or
rather confused, he never quite lost his senses. The
women clustered about him, and Mrs. Tregose threw water
in his face.

He speedily gathered his faculties together, and stood up,
rather angry than hurt, to see that nearly all the men had
departed. The act of violence, instead of quelling the
excitement, had stirred it to greater heat ; and the body of
men, the miners, labourers, the blacksmith, tailor, and shoe-
maker, their sons and apprentices, went off in a shouting,
gesticulating rabble in the direction of the Cleave, not of
Chillacot, but of the down overhanging it.

In a moment the latent savage, suppressed in those
orderly men, was awake and asserting itself. Mr. Welsh
had spoken the truth when he told Jingles that the
destructive passion was to be found in all ; it was aroused
now. The blacksmith, the tailor, the shoemaker, the
labourers, had all in their several ways been working con-
structively all their life, one to make shoes and harrows,
one to shape trousers and waistcoats, one to put together
boots, others to build, and plant, and stack, and roof, and
now, all at once, an appeal came to the suppressed barbarian
in each, the chained madman in the asylum, and the de-
structive faculty was loose and rioting in its freedom.

364 ARMINELL.

Thomasine Kite stood before the young man. " Now,
then," she said half mockingly, " if you want to save your
mother out of the house before the roof is broke in, you
must make haste. Come along with me."

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE FLOW OF THE TIDE.

Captain Saltren returned at night to sleep at Chillacot,
but he wandered during the day in the woods, with his
Bible in his pocket or in his hand, now reading how Gideon
was raised up to deliver Israel from Alidian, and Samson
was set apart from his mother's womb to smite the Philis-
tines, then sitting at the edge of the quarry brooding over
his thoughts.

He was not able to fix his mind for long on anything,
and he found that the Scripture only interested and arrested
his attention so far as it touched on analogous trains of
ideas. For the first time in his life a chilling sense of
doubt, a cold suspicion of error stole over his heart. When
this was the case he was for a moment in agony, his nerves
tingled, his throat contracted, and a clammy sweat broke
out over his face. The fit passed, and he was again confi-
dent, and in his confidence strong. He raised his voice
and intoned a hymn, then became frightened at the sound,
and stopped in the midst of a stanza.

Presently he recalled his wife's deceptions and how his
heart had foamed and leaped at the thought of the wrong
done her and himself, and how he had nourished a deadly
hatred against Lord Lamerton on that account. Now he
knew that there had been no occasion for this hatred.

366 ARMINELL.

What had he done to his lordship ? Had he really with
his hand thrust him over the precipice, or had the nobleman
fallen in stepping back to avoid the blow. Either way the
guilt, if guilt there were, rested on Saltren's head ; but the
captain would not listen to the ever welling-up suggestion
that there was guilt. It was not he who had killed his
lordship, it was the hand of God that had slain him, be-
cause the hand of human justice had failed to reach him.
The captain entertained little or no personal fear — he was
ready, if it were the will of heaven, to appear before magis-
trates and juries; before them he would testify as the
apostles had testified. If it were the will of heaven that he
should die on the gallows, he was ready to ascend the
scaffold, sure of receiving the crown of glory ; perhaps the
world was not ripe to receive his mission.

When that wave of horror swept over him, no fear of the
consequences of his act helped to chill the wave ; his only
horrible apprehension was lest he should have made a
mistake. This it w^as that lowered his pulsation, turned
his lips blue, and made a cloud come between him and the
landscape. He fought against the doubt, battled with it as
against a temptation of the Evil One, but as often as he
overcame it, it returned. The discovery that he had been
deceived by Marianne into believing that Lord Lamerton
had injured him, was the little rift in his hitherto unbroken
all-enveloping faith ; but even now he had no doubt about
the vision, but only as to its purport. That he had seen
and heard all that he professed to have seen and heard —
that he believed still, but he feared and quaked with appre-
hension lest he should have misread his revelation.

It is not easy, rather is it impossible, for a man of educa-
tion, surrounded as he has been from infancy by ten
thousand influences to which the inferior classes are not
subjected, to understand the self-delusion of such a man.

The critical, sceptical spirit is developed in this century

ARMINELL. 367

among the cultured classes at an early age, and tne child of
the present day begins with a Duhito not with a Credo.
Where there is no conviction there can be no enthusiasm,
for enthusiasm is the flame that dances about the glowing
coals of belief ; and where no fire is, there can be no flame.
We allow of any amount of professions, but not of con-
viction. Zeal is as much a mark of bad breeding as a
hoarse guffaw.

Enthusiasms are only endurable when affectations, to be
put on and put off at pleasure ; to be trifled with, not to be
possessed by. This is an age of toleration ; we tolerate
everything but what is earnest, and we lavish our adulation
on the pretence, not the reality of sincerity. For we know
that a genuine enthusiasm is unsuitable for social inter-
course ; he who is carried away by it is carried beyond the
limits of that toleration which allows a little of everything,
but exclusiveness to none. He who harbours a belief is
not suffered to obtrude it ; if he be a teetotaller he must
hide his blue ribbon; if a Home Ruler, must joke over his
shamrock ; if a Quaker, must dress in colours ; if a Catholic,
eat meat on Good Friday. The apostle expressed his desire
to be all things to all men j we have made universal what
was then a possibility only to one, we are all things to all
men, only sincere neither to ourselves nor to any one. We
are like children's penny watches that mark any hour the
wearers desire, not chronometers that fix the time for all.
How can we be chronometers when we have no main
springs, or if we had them, wilfully break them.

We regard all enthusiasms as forms of fever, and quaran-
tine those infected by them ; we watch ourselves against
them, we are uneasy when the symptoms appear among
our children. At the least quickening of the pulse and
kindling of the eye we fly to our medicine chests for a
spiritual narcotic or a sceptical lowering draught.

The new method of dealing with fevers is to plunge the

368 ARMINELL.

patients in cold water, the reverse of the old method, which
was to bring out the heat; and we apply this improved
system to our spiritual fevers, to all these mental attacks
bred of convictions. We subdue them with the douche
and ice, and the wet blanket. When the priests of Baal
invoked their god on Mount Carmel, they leaped upon the
altar, and cut themselves with knives ; but Elijah looked
on with a supercilious smile, and invited those who followed
him to pour buckets of water over his sacrifice ; and with
what pity, what contempt we regard all such as are pos-
sessed with the divine fury, and are ready to suffer and
make themselves ridiculous for their god ; how we water
our oblations, and make sure that the sticks on our altar
are green and incombustible ; how, if a little spark appears,
or a, spiral of smoke arises, we turn on hydrants, and our
friends rush to our aid with the buckets, and we do not
breathe freely till spark and smoke are subdued.

But then, because altars are erected for burnt sacrifices,
and a burnt sacrifice is unsavoury, expensive, and un-
fashionable, we thrust a little coloured tin-foil in among the
wet sticks, and protest how natural, how like real fire it
looks, and we prostrate ourselves before it in mock homage.

No dread of enthusiasm, no shrinking from conviction, is
found among the uneducated, and the semi-educated.
Among them enthusiasm is the token of the divine afflatus,
as madness is regarded among savages. They respect it,
they bring fuel to feed it, they allow it to burst into extrava-
gance, to riot over reason, and to consume every particle of
common sense. The corrective, judicial faculty, the balance
wheel is deficient ; the strength, not the quality of a con-
viction gives it its command to the respect and adhesion of
the many. If I were to break out of Bedlam with the one
fixed idea in me that I had eyes at the ends of my ten toes,
wherewith I saw everything that went on in the world, and
%vith my big toes saw what was to be in the future ; and if I

ARMINELL. 369

went up and down England preaching this and declaring
what I saw with my toes, and continued preaching it with
the fire of perfect sincerity for a twelvemonth, I would shake
the hold of the Established Church on the hearts of the
people, and make the work of the Liberation Society easy.
Half England would form the Church of the seeing toes,
but in that Church I would not number any of the cultured.

As for us, we get over our enthusiasms early, as we cut
our teeth, and we lose them as rapidly. Primeval man
wore his teeth till he died, so do savages of the present
day ; but the very milk teeth of our infants decay. We are
so familiar with the fact that we assume that all good sets
of teeth are false, that if we keep here and there a fang in
our jaws, it is carious, and only preserved as a peg to which
to wire our sham molars and front teeth. It is so unusual
to find any one with a real set, that we look on such a
person with suspicion as having in him a stain of barbarous
blood.

It is obvious that this defect of real teeth in our jaws has
its advantages. It allows us to change our teeth when we
find those we have hitherto worn inconvenient or out of
fashion.

It is the same with our convictions, we lose them early,
all the inside disappears, leaving but the exterior enamel,
and that breaks away finally.

But then, we do not open our mouths to our friends and
in society, exposing our deficiencies. We replace what is
lost by what looks well, and hold them in position by the
fragments of early belief that still project ; and when these
artificial articles prove irksome we change them. This is
how it is that, for instance, in politics, a man may profess
to-day one thing, and something quite different to-morrow.
No one is shocked, every one understands that this exhibi-
tion to-day is unreal, and that to-morrow also unreal.

But, together with the advantage afforded by this power

2 A

37© ARMINELL.

of altering our sets, there is a disadvantage which must not
be left unnoticed, which is that the biting and holding
power in them is not equal to that possessed by the natural
articles.

Patience Kite came upon the captain as he stood in
a dream, Bible in hand, but not reading, meditating, and
looking far away, yet seeing nothing. She roused him with
a hand on his shoulder.

" Do you know what they are about ? "

" They ! Who ? "

" All the parish — the men ; the miners out of work, the
day-labourers, the tradesmen, all."

Saltren shook his head ; he desired to be left alone to his
thoughts, his prayers, his Bible reading.

" They are destroying your house," said Patience, shaking
him, to rouse him, as she would have shaken a sleeper.

*' My house? Chillacot?"

"Yes, they are; they are breaking up the rock on the
Cleave, and throwing it down on your roof, and smashing
it in."

" My house ! Chillacot ? " He was still absent in mind.
He could not at once withdraw his thoughts from where
they had strayed to matters so closely concerning himself.

" It is true ; Tamsine came running to me to tell me
about it. Your son managed to get into the house and
bring his mother out, and Marianne is like one in a fit, she
cannot speak — fAaf, if you wish it, is a miracle. The men
have set picks and crowbars to work to tumble the stones
down on your house and garden, and bury them. Slates
and windows are smashed already, and the shrubs broken
down in your garden."

" My house ! — why ? "

" Why ? Because you won't let the railway come along
there, and the parish is angry, and thinks the station will be
set further from the village. The fellows say you, with your

ARMINELL, 3? I

obstinacy, are standing in the way of improvement, and
driving trade and money out of the place." i

Stephen Saltren looked at Mrs. Kite with dazed eyes.
He could not receive all she said, but he allowed her to
lead him through the woods in the direction of Chillacot.
He came out with her at the spot where he had stood before
and looked on whilst the body of Lord Lamerton was re-
moved from the place where it had fallen.

He stood there now, and looked again, and saw the
destruction of the house he loved. A crowd of men and
boys were on the down, shouting, laughing, some working,
others encouraging them. Those who had crowbars drove
them into the turf, and worked through to the rock that
came up close to the surface ; then they levered the stones
through clefts and faults, out of place, and sent them
plunging over the edge of the precipice, accompanied by
clouds of dust, and avalanches of rubble. As each piece
went leaping and rolling down it was saluted with a cheer,
and the men leaned over the edge of the cliff to see where
it fell, and what amount of damage was done by it.

The roof of Chillacot was broken through in several places;
the slates at the top of the chimney, set on edge to divert
the draught from blowing down it, were knocked off. One
huge block had overleaped the house, torn a track through
the flower-bed in front, had beat down the entrance gate
and there halted, seated on the shattered gate.

Saltren stood looking on with apparent indifference, be-
cause he was still unable to realise what was being done ;
but the full importance of the fact that his home was being
wrecked came on him with a sudden rush, the blood flew
into his face, he uttered a shout of rage, plunged through
the bushes, down the hill-side, dashed through the stream
below in the valley, ran up to his cottage, and for a moment
stood shaking his fist in inarticulate wrath at the men, who
looked down on him, laughing and jeering, from the cliff.

372

ARMINELL.

He had forgotten everything now except what \?as before
him, and his anger made him blind and speechless. This
was his house, built by his father ; this his garden, tilled
by his own hands. Who had a right to touch his pro-
perty ?

The blacksmith from above shouted to him to stand off,
another mass of rock was dislodged and would fall. Saltren
could see what menaced. On the piece of rock grew a
thorn-tree, and the thorn was swaying against the sky with
the exertions of the men, leaning on their levers, snapping
the ligatures of root-fibre, and opening the joints in the
stone. But Saltren had no fear for himself in his fury at
the outrage being done him. Regardless of the warning
cries addressed to him, he strode over the broken gale, and
entered his partially ruined house.

The blacksmith, alarmed, shouted to the miners engaged
on the levers to desist from their work, as Saltren was in the
house below ; but they replied that the stone was moving,
the crack widening between it and the rock, and that to
arrest it was now impossible.

The men held their breath, and were for the moment
afraid of the consequence of what they had done. But they
breathed freely a moment later, as they saw the captain
emerge from his house and cross the garden, and take up a
place out of the reach of danger. What they did not notice,
or disregarded, was that he had brought out his gun with him.
Stephen stood where he could command those on the cliff,
and levelled and cocked his gun. His strong jaws were
set ; his dark eyebrows drawn over his flashing eyes ; there
was not a tremor in his muscles. He watched the swaying
thorn ; he saw that in another moment it would come down
along with the mass of rock on which it stood, and which it
grappled with its claw-like roots.

** What are you about, Cap'n ? " asked Mrs. Kite, coming
up hastily.

ARMINELL. 373

lie turned his head, smiled bitterly, and touched the
barrel of his gun.

" When that rock comes down," he said, " one of those
above shall follow it."

At that moment the block parted from the parent rock,
and whirled beneath, followed by a train of dust. It struck
the corner of the chimney, sent the stones of which it was
built flying in all directions, and crashed through the roof,
but left the thorn-bush athwart the gap it had torn.

Before Saltren could discharge his gun, Mrs. Kite struck
it up, and he fired it into the air.

** You fool ! " she said, and then burst into a harsh laugh.
"You find fault with others for doing that you approve
yourself. You would undermine Orleigh, and object to
Chillacot being overthrown."

CHAPTER XL.

THE END OF A DELUSION.

Captain Saltren remained motionless, with his gun raised,

as it had been struck up by Patience Kite, for several
minutes ; then he slowly lowered it, and turned his face to
her. The troubled expression which of late had passed
over it at intervals returned. The jaw was no longer set,
and the red spots of anger had faded from his cheeks. The
momentary character of decision his face had assumed was
gone, and now the lips trembled feebly.

"What was that you said?" he asked.

Patience laughed, and pointed to the crag.

*' See," she exclaimed, " the gun has frightened the men ;
and there comes the policeman with your son over the
down ! " She laughed again. " How the fellows run !
After all, men are cowards."

" What was that you said when I was about to fire ? '"'
asked the captain again.

" Said ? — why, what is true. You wanted to rattle down
his lordship's house, and killed him because he refused to
allow it to be done ; and now you object to having your
own shaken down. But there, that is the way of men."

Saltren remained brooding in thought, with his eyes on
the ground, and the end of the gun resting where his eyes
fell.

ARMINELL. 375

Mrs. Kite taunted him.

"You kill the man who won't let you pull down his
house, and you would kill the man who throws down youri.
What are you going to do now ? Prosecute them for the
mischief, and make them patch up again what they have
broken ? or will you give up the point, and let them have
their own way, and the railway to run here, with a station to
Chillacot ? " '

He did not answer. He was considering Mrs. Kite's re-
proach, not her question. Presently he threw the gun
away, and turned from his wrecked house.

"It is true," he said. " Our ways are unequal; it is very
true." He put his hand over his face, and passed it before
his eyes ; his hand was shaking. " I will go back to the
Owl's Nest," he said in a low tone.

" What ! Leave your house ? Do you not want to
secure what has not been broken ? "

*' I do not care about my house. I do not care about
anything in it."

"But will you not go and see Marianne — your wife?
You do not know where she is, into what place your son
took her, and whether she is ill ? "

He looked at her with a mazed expression, almost as if
he were out of his senses, and said slowly —

" I do not care about her any more." Then, dimly see-
ing that this calmness needed justification, he added, "I
have condemned in others what I allow in myself. I have
measured to one in this way, and to myself in that."

He turned away, and went slowly along the brook to the
point at which he had crossed it with Patience Kite after
the death of Lord Lamerton, when she led him into the
covert of the woods. Mrs. Kite accompanied him
now.

They ascended the further hillside together, passing
through the coppice, and he remained silent, mechanically

37^ ARMINELL.

thrusting the oak-boughs apart. He seemed to see, to feel
nothing, so occupied was he with his own thoughts.

Presently he came out on the open patch where ne had
stood twice before, once to watch the removal of his victim,
next to see the destruction of his house. There now he
halted, and brushed his arms down, first the left, then
the right with his hands, then passed them over his
shoulders as though he were sweeping off him something
that clung to and encumbered him.

"They are all gone," said Mrs. Kite, pointing to the
headland, " and Jingles is bringing the policeman down to
see the mischief that has been done."

Captain Saltren stood and looked across the valley, but
not at his house ; he seemed to have forgotten about it, or
lost all concern in it ; he looked away from it, higher up, to
the spot whence Lord Lamerton had fallen. Mrs. Kite was
puzzled at the expression in his face, and at his peculiar
manner. She had never thought highly of him, now she
supposed he was losing his head. Every now and then he
put up his hand over his mouth to conceal the contraction
and quivering of the lips ; and once she heard him utter a
sound which might have been a laugh, but was more hke a
sob, not in his throat, but in his breast.

That dread of having been a prey to delusions, which had
passed over him before, had gained consistency, and
burdened him insupportably. Opposite him was the head-
land whence he had precipitated Lord Lamerton, and now
he asked himself why he had done it. Because he believed
his lordship had hurt him in his family relations ? In that
he was mistaken. Because his lordship stopped the
mine and thre^ him out of work rather than have his
house imperilled ? He himself was as resolute in resisting
an attack on his own property, an interference with his own
house. Because his lordship had occasioned the death of
Arkie Tubb ? Now, as the veils of prejudice fell, one after

ARMINELL. 377

another, he saw that no guilt attached to his lordship on
that account. The boy had gone in to save Mrs. Kite. It
was her fault that he was crushed. She had allowed her
daughter, Arkie, all who looked on to believe she was
endangered, when she had placed herself in a position of
security. The only way in which he could allay the unrest
in his mind was to repeat again and again to himself, " It
was ordained. The Lord revealed it. There were reasons
which I did not know."

There is a moment, we are told by those who have
ascended in a balloon, when the cord is cut, and the solid
earth is seen to begin to drift below, the trees to dance, and
the towers to slide away, that an ail-but over-powering sense
of fear and inclination comes on one to leap from the car
at the risk of being dashed to pieces. It is said that the
panic produced by an earthquake exceeds every other terror.
When a ship is storm-tossed, escape is possible in a boat,
when a house is on fire there are feather-beds into which
we can leap ; but when the earth is insecure, then we have
nowhere to which we can flee, nothing to which we can
look.

With Captain Saltren, his religious convictions were
what was most stable. Everything else glided before him
as a dream, but he kept his feet on those things that be-
longed tc the spiritual world, as if they were adamantine
foundations. And now he was being, like an aeronaut,
caught away, and these shifted under his eyes ; like one in
an earthquake, he felt the strong bases rock beneath him.
The sense of terror that passed over him was akin to
despair ; but the last cord was not snapped, and that was
the firmest of all— his visions and revelations'.

" Of all queer folks," said Mrs. Kite, " I reckon you are
the queerest, captain. I thought so from the time I first
saw you come and pray on your raft in the pond, and when
I heard what a tale you had made out of Miss Arminell

378 ARMINELL.

throwing a book at you, then I did begin to believe you
were not right in your mind ; now I'm sure of it."

Captain Saltren looked dreamily at her; but in that
dreamy look was pain.

" That was, to be sure, a wonderful tale," pursued Mrs.
Kite, losing patience with him. " An angel from Heaven
cast the Everlasting Gospel down to you, was that it ? "

He nodded, but said nothing.

"And I seed Miss Arminell do it."

His eyes opened wide with alarm.

" What the name of the book was, I do not mind ; in-
deed, I do not know, because I cannot read ; but I have
got the book, and can show it you, and you who are a
scholar can read it through from the first word to the last."

" You have the book ? "

" I have ; when it fell it went under your raft, but it did
not sink, it came up after on the other side, and when you
were gone I fished it out, and I have it now."

" It was red as blood."

"Aye, and the paint came off on my fingers, but I dried
it in the sun ; and I have the book now, not in the Owl's
Nest, but in a cupboard of the back kitchen o' my old
house."

" His likeness was on it."

" That I can't say. There is a head of a man."

" The head of Lord Lamerton."

" It don't look like it ; the man has black hair and a
beard, and his lordship had no beard, and his hair was
light brown."

A shudder came over the captain. Was his last, his
firmest anchor to break ?

Again, as he had done several times already, he passed
his hands over his arms and shoulders and sides, as if peel-
ing off what adhered to him.

" Let me see the book," he said faintly. " Lead on."

AkMINELL. 379

" I ought to have returned it to Miss Arminell," said
Mrs. Kite ; " but I didn't, because my Tamsine saw it, and
said she'd like to read it. She's mighty fond of what they
call a sensational novel."

*' It was the book of the Everlasting Gospel," said
Saltren with a burst of desperation. " Nothing will ever
make me believe otherwise."

*•' Or that Miss Arminell, who stood in the mouth of the
Owl's Nest, was an angel flying ? "

He made no reply, but lowered his head, and pushed
forwards.

When they reached the ruined hovel, Mrs. Kite went into
that part which had not been dismantled, and brought forth
the crimson-covered book from the oven, where it had
been hidden, and gave it to her companion.

"It is 'The Gilded Clique,'" was all he said, and fixed
his eyes on it with terror in them.

He dared not look Mrs. Kite in the face ; he stood with
lowered head before her, and his hands shook as he held
the book, so that he could not study it.

" Tell me all that you heard and saw," he said ; then
with sudden eagerness, " It was not on the Sabbath ? "

" Yes," said Mrs. Kite, " it was on a Sunday that I saw
you." Then she told him all the circumstances as they had
really liappened.

Wondrous are the phantasmagoric pictures conjured up
by the sun in the desert ; the traveller looks on and sees
blue water, flying sails, palm groves, palaces, and all is so
real that he believes he even hears the muezzin's call to
prayer from the minarets, and the lap of the water on the
sands, and the chant of the mariners in the vessels. Then
up springs a cold air, and in a moment the picture is dis-
solved and exposes arid waste strewn with bones and
utterly herbless. And the words of the woman produced
some such an efl'ect on the mind of Saltren. In a minute

380 ARMINELL.

all the imaginations that had spun themselves out of the
little bare fact, and overspread and disguised it, were
riven and swept aside.

Captain Saltren stood turning the book about, and look-
ing at the likeness of M. Emile Gaboriau on the cover ; it
bore not the faintest resemblance to the late Lord Lamer-
ton. The book ^Yas headed "Gaboriau's Sensational
Novels, the Favourite Reading of Prince Bismarck, one
shilling." And beneath the medallion was "The Gilded
Clique." Sick at heart, with giddy head. Captain Saltren
opened the book stained with water, and read, hardly know-
ing what he did, an advertisement that occupied the fly leaf
— an advertisement of " Asiatic Berordnung," for the pro-
duction of " whiskers, moustaches, and hair, and for the
cure of baldness, and the renovation of ladies' scanty part-
ings."

Was this the revelation which had been communicated to
him ? Was it this which had drawn him on into an ecstasy
of fanatical faith, and led him to the commission of an un-
provoked crime ?

Still half-stunned by his fear he read on. "Eminent
authorities have expressed their entire approval of the
valuable yet perfectly harmless nature of our discovery. In
an age like this, when a youthful appearance is so against a
young man, those without beard or moustache being desig-
nated boys, and scanty hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, so
unproductive of admiration in the fair sex^ the Asiatic
Berordnung should be universally adopted. Price is. 6d. ;
full-sized bottles 3s. 6d. each."

Captain Saltren's face was in colour like that of a corpse ;
he raised his eyes for a moment to Mrs. Kite, and saw the
mocking laugh on her lips. He dropped them again, and
said in a low voice ; '•' Leave me alone, I cannot think upon
what you have said till you are gone."

" I will return to Chillacot and see the ruin," she said

ARMINELL. 38 1

"The ruin?" he repeated, "the ruin?" He had for-
gotten about his house, he was looking on a greater ruin
than that, the desolation of a broken-down faith, and of
prostrate self-confidence.

'' Mind you do not risk going to the Owl's Nest," said
Mrs. Kite ; *' you are not in condition for that, your knees
scarce support you. Abide here and read your book, and
see what comfort you can get out of it ; a firm head and a
steady foot is needed for that path."

He made a sign to the woman to go ; he shook as with
the palsy ; he put his hand to his head. A band as of iron
was tightening about his temples. He could not endure to
have Mrs. Kite there any longer. He would go mad un-
less left alone.

She hesitated for a moment, repeated her injunctions to
him to stay where he was till her return, and then left.

He looked after her till she had disappeared, and for
some little while after she was gone he looked at the bushes
that had closed behind her, fearing lest she should return :
then he sank down on a heap of stones, put the book from
him with a shudder, and buried his head in his hands.

The mirage was past, the dry and hideous reality re-
mained, but Saltren had not as yet quite recovered from the
impression of reality that mirage had produced on his mind.
We cannot on waking from certain dreams drive them en-
tirely from us, so that they in no way affect our conduct and
influence our opinions. I know that sometimes I wake
after having dreamed of some amiable and innocent person
in an odious light, and though I fight against the impression
all day, I cannot view that person without repugnance.
Captain Saltren was aware that he had dreamed, that he
had believed in the reality of the mirage conjured up by his
fancy, had regarded that crimson-covered book as the
revelation of the Everlasting Gospel, and though his mind
assented to the fact that he had been deceived, he was un-

38a ARMINELL.

able to drive away the glamour of the delusion that clung to
him.

T, who write this, know full well that I shall find readers,
and encounter critics who wiil pronounce the case of Captain
Saitren impossible; because in the London clubs and in
country houses no such delusions are found. What ! are
we not all engaged in blowing soap-bubbles, in painting
mirages, in spinning cobwebs ? But then our soap-bubbles,
our mirages, our cobwebs, in which we, unlike spiders, en-
tangle ourselves, are not theological, but social and political.
Do we not weave out of our own bowels vast webs, and
hang them up in the sight of all as substantial realities?
And are we not surprised with paralysing amazement when
we discover that the bubbles we have blown are not new
created worlds, and our cobwebs are dissolved by a touch ?
I have seen in Innsbruck pictures painted on cobwebs of
close texture, with infinite dexterity and patient toil. We
not only spin our cobwebs, but paint on them, though I
allow we do not picture on them sacred images. Why, my
own path is strewn with these gossamer webs of my own
weaving that never caught any other midge than my own
insignificant self ; me they entangled, they choked my wind-
pipe, they filled my eyes, they clogged my ears. Look
back, critical reader, at your own course, and see if it be not
encumbered with such torn and trampled cobwebs. There
is a great German book of nine volumes, each of over a
thousand pages, and it is entitled " The History of Human
Folly." Alas, it is not complete ! It gives but the record
of the inconceivable follies of a few most salient characters.
But in our own towns, in our villages, in our immediate
families, what histories of human folly there are unwritten,
but well known, I go closer home — in our own lives there
is a volume for every year recording our delusions and our
inconsequences.

In our Latin grammars we learned " Nemo omnibus

ARMINELL. 383

horis sapit,' but that may be better rendered, " Quis non
omnibus horis deliiat ? "

The anthropologist and antiquary delight in exploring the
kitchen middens of a lost race, heaps of bones, and shells,
and broken potsherds rejected by a population that lived
in pre-historic times. But, oh, what kitchen middens are
about our own selves, at our own doors, of empty shells and
dismarrowed bones of old convictions, old superstitions, old
conceits, old ambitions, old hopes ! Where is the meat ?
Where the nutriment ? Nowhere ; gone past recall ; only
the dead husks, and shells, and bones, and potsherds re-
main. Open your desk, pull out the secret drawer, and
what are revealed ? A dry flower — the refuse scrap of an
old passion ; a worthless voucher of a bad investment ; a
MS. poem which was refused by every magazine ; a mother's
Bible, monument of a dead belief. Go, turn over your own
kitchen middens, and then come and argue with me that
such a delusion as that of Captain Saltren is impossible. I
tell you it is paralleled every year.

And now, sitting on the heap of stones, full of doubt, and
yet not altogether a prey to despair. Captain Saltren took
the red book again, and began to read it, first at the begin-
ning, then turning to the middle, then looking to the end.
Then he put it from him once more, and, with the cold
sweat streaming over his face, he walked to the edge of the
quarry, and there knelt down to pray. Had he been de-
ceived ? Was he not now subjected to a fiery trial of his
faith — a last assault of the Evil One ? This was indeed a
possibility, and it was a possibility to which he clung des-
perately.

A little while ago we saw Giles Saltren humiliated and
crushed, passing through the flame of disappointment and
disenchantment, the purgatorial flame that in this life tries
every man. In that fire the young man's self-esteem
and self-reliance had shrivelled up and been reduced

384 ARMINELL.

to ash. And now his reputed father entered the same
furnace.

He prayed and wrestled in spirit, wringing his hands, and
with sweat and tears commingled streaming down his cheeks.
He prayed that he might be given a token. He could not,
he would not, accept the humiliation. He fought against
it with all the powers of his soul and mind.

Then he stood up. He was resolved what to do. He
would walk along the ledge of rock to the Owl's Nest, hold-
ing the red book in his hand instead of clinging to the ivy
bands. If that book stayed him up and sustained him in
equilibrium till he reached the Cave, then he would still be-
lieve in his mission, and the revelations that attended it.
But if he had erred, why then

Holding the book he began the perilous walk. He took
three steps forward, and then the judgment was pronounced.

CHAPTER XLI.

SOCIAL SUICIDE.

VVhen Giles Saltren had left town to return to Orleigh his
uncle remained with Arminell. The girl asked Mr. Welsh
to leave her for half an hour to collect her thoughts and
resolve on what she would do ; and he went off to the
British Museum to Jook at the marbles till he considered
she had been allowed sufficient time to decide her course,
and then he returned to the inn. She was ready for him,
composed, seated on the sofa, pale, and dark under the
eyes.

" Well, Miss Inglett," said Welsh, '^ I've been studying
the busts of the Roman Emperors and their wives, and
imagining them dressed in our nineteenth-century costume ;
and, upon my word, I believe they would pass for ordinary
English men and women. I believe dress has much to do
with the determination of character. Conceive of Domi-
tian in a light, modern summer suit — in that he could not
be bloodthirsty and a tyrant. Imagine me in a toga, and you
may imagine me committing any monstrosity. Dress does
it. How about your affairs ? Are you going to Aunt
Hermione ? "

" To Lady Hermione Woodhead ? " corrected Arminell,
with a touch of haughtiness. " No."

"Then what will you do? I'll take the liberty of a

2 B

386 ARMINELL.

chair." He seated himself. " I can't get their busts out
of my head — however, go on."

" Mr. Welsh, I wish to state to you exactly what I have
done, and let you see how I am circumstanced. I have
formed my own opinion as to what I must do, and I shall
be glad afterwards to hear what you think of my determina-
tion. You have shown me kindness in coming here, and
offering your help, and I am not so ungracious as to re-
fuse to accept, to some extent, the help so readily offered."

" I shall be proud, young lady."

" ""^.^t me then proceed to tell you how stands the case,
ant. then you will comprehend why I have taken my resolu-
tion. I ran away from home with your nephew, moved by a
vague romantic dream, which, when I try to recall, partly
escapes me, and appears to me now altogether absurd."

" You were not dressed for the part," threw in Welsh.
" You could no more be the heroine in modem vest and
the now fashionable hat, than I could commit the crimes of
Caesar in this suit."

" In the first place," pursued Arminell, disregarding the
interruption, " I was filled with the spirit of unrest and dis-
content, which made me undervalue everything I had, and
crave for and over-estimate everything I had not. With
my mind ill at ease, I was ready to catch at whatever chance
offered of escape from the vulgar round of daily life, and
plunge into a new, heroic, and exciting career. The chance
came. Your nephew believed that he was my half-brother."

** Young Jack-an-apes ! " intercalated Welsh.

" That he was my dear father's son by a former fictitious
marriage with your sister, Mrs. Saltren, I believed, as firmly
as your nephew believed it ; and I was extremely indignant
with my poor father for what I thought was his dishonour-
able conduct in the matter, and for the hypocrisy of his
after life. I thought that, if I ran away with your nephew,
I would force him — I mean my lord — to acknowledge the

ARMINELL. ' 387

tie, and so do an act of tardy justice to his son. Then, in
the next place, I was filled with exalted ideas of what we
ought to do in this world, that we were to be social knights
errant, rambling about at our own free will, redressing
wrongs, and I despised tlie sober virtues of my father, and
the ordinary social duties, with the execution of which my
step-mother filled up her life. I thought that a brilliant
career was open to your nephew, and that I might take a
share in it, that we would make ourselves names, and effect
great things for the social regeneration of the age. It was
all nonsense and moonshine. I see that clearly enough
now. My wonder is that I did not see it before. But the
step has been taken and cannot be recalled. I have broken
with my family and with my class, I cannot ask to have
links rewelded which I wilfully snapped, to be reinstalled in
a place I deliberately vacated. Nemesis has overtaken me,
and even the gods bow to Nemesis."

" You are exaggerating^," interrupted Welsh ; ''you have,
I admit, acted like a donkey — excuse the expression, no
other is as forcible and as true — but I find no such irretriev-
able mischief done as you suppose. Fortunately the mis-
take has been corrected at once. If you will go home, or
to Lady Woodhead — "

" Lady Hermione Woodhead," corrected Arminell.

"Or to Lady Hermione Woodhead — all will be well.
What might have been a catastrophe is averted."

" No," answered Arminell, "all will not be well. Excuse
me if I flatly contradict you. There is something else you
have not reckoned on, but which I must take into my cal-
culations. I shall never forget what I have done, never
forgive myself for having embittered the last moments of
my dear father's life, never for having thought unworthily of
him, and let him see that he had lost my esteem. If I were
to return home, now or later from my aunt's house, I could
not shake off the sense of self-reproach, of self-loathing

388 ARMINELL.

which I now feel. There is one way, and one way only, in
which I can recover my self-respect and peace of mind."

"And that is— ?"

" By not going home."

"Well — go to your aunt's."

"I should be there for a month, and after that must
return to Orleigh. No — that is not possible. Do you not
see that several reasons conspire against my taking that
course ? "

" Pray let me know them."

" In the first place, it is certain to have leaked out that I
ran away from home. My conduct will be talked about
and commented on in Orleigh, in the county. It will
become part of the scandal published in the society papers,
and be read and laughed over by the clerks and shop-girls
who take in these papers, whose diet it is. Everywhere, in
all classes, the story will be told how the Honourable
Arminell Inglett, only daughter of Giles, tenth Baron
Lamerton of Orleigh, and his first wife, the Lady Lucy
Hele, daughter of the Earl of Anstey, had eloped with the
son of a mining captain, the tutor to her half-brother, and
how that they were discovered together in a Httle inn in
Bloomsbury."

"No," said Welsh, impatiently. "If you will act as
Jingles has suggested, this will never be known. He is
back at Orleigh, or will be there this afternoon, and you will
be at Portland Place, where your maid will find you. What
more natural than that you should return to-morrow home,
on account of your father's death? As for the society
papers — if they get an inkling of the real facts — I am
connected with the press. I can snuff the light out. There
are ways and means. Leave that to me."

" But, Mr. Welsh, suppose that suspicion has been roused
at Orleigh — Mrs. Cribbage has to be considered. That
woman will not leave a stone unturned till she has routed

ARMINELL. 389

out everything. I used to say that was why the finger ends
were always out of her gloves. I would have to equivocate,
and perhaps to lie, when asked point-blank questions which
if answered would betray the truth. I would be putting my
dear step-mother to the same inconvenience and humili-
ation."

"Trust her wit and knowledge of the world to evade Mrs.
Cribbage."

" But I cannot. I have not the wit."

Mr. Welsh was vexed, he stamped impatiently.

" I can't follow you in this," he said.

" Well, Mr. Welsh, then perhaps you may in what I give
you as my next reason. T feel bound morally to take the
consequences of my act. When a wretched girl flings her-
self over London Bridge, perhaps she feels a spasm of regret
for the life she is throwing away, as the water closes over
her, but she drowns, all the same."

" Not at all, when there are boats put forth to the rescue,
and hands extended to haul her in."

"To rescue her for what? — To be brought before a
magistrate, and to have her miserable story pubUshed in the
daily penny papers. Why, Mr. Welsh, her friends regret
that her body was not rolled down into the deep sea, or
smothered under a bed of Thames mud ; that were better
than the publication of her infamy."

" What will you have ? "

" I have made the plunge ; I must go down."

** Not if I can pull you out."

" You cannot pull me out. I made my leap out of my
social order. What I have done has been to commit social
suicide. There is no recovery for me save at a cost which
I refuse to pay. I have heard that those who have been
half drowned suffer infinite agonies on the return of vitality.
I shrink from these pains. I know what it would be were I
fished up and thrown on my own shore again. I would

390 ARMINKLL.

tingle and smart in every fibre of my consciousness, and cry
out to be cast in again. No, Mr. Welsh, through youthful
impetuosity and wrongheadedness 1 have jumped out of my
social world, and I must abide by the consequences. As
the Honourable Arminell Inglett I have ceased to exist. I
die out of the peerage, die out of my order, die out of the
recognition, though not the memory, of my relatives. But
I live on as plain Miss Inglett, one of the countless members
of the great Middle Class."

James Welsh looked at the girl with puzzlement in his
face. Spots of flame had come into her pale cheeks, and
to the temples, as she spoke, and she moved her slender
fingers on her lap in her eagerness to make herself explicit
and her diflficulties intelligible.

" I don't understand you. Miss Inglett. That is, I do
not see what is your intention."

" I mean that I have committed social suicide, and I do
not wish to be saved either for my friends' sake or for my
own. I ask you kindly to get my death inserted in the
Times and the other daily papers."

" Your actual death ? "

" A statement that on such a day died the Honourable
Arminell Inglett, only daughter of the late Lord Lamerton.
That will suffice ; it proclaims to society that I have ceased
to belong to it. Of course my dear step-mother and my
aunt and the family solicitors shall know the truth. I have
money that comes to me from my mother. A statement of
my death in the Times will not constitute legal death, but
it will suffice to establish my social death."

" You are taking an extraordinary and unwarrantable
course."

" Extraordinary it may be, but not unwarranted. I have
the justification within, in my conscience. When one has
done that which is wrong, one is called to suffer for it,
and the conscience is never cleansed and restored without

ARMINELL. 39I

expiating pains. If I were to return to Orleigh, I would
die morally, of that I am sure, because it would be a
shirking of the consequences which my foolish act has
brought down on me."

" There may be something in that," said Welsh.

" I will write to Lady Lamerton and tell her everything
and assure her that my decision is irrevocable. I have
caused her so much pain, I have behaved so badly to my
father, I have been so ungrateful for all the happy days and
pleasant comforts of dear, dear Orleigh" — her eyes filled
with tears, and she was unable to finish her sentence.

Mr. Welsh said nothing.

" No," she said, after a pause -" No, Mr. Welsh, I can-
not in conscience go home, there to dissemble and lie to
Mrs. Cribbage and to neighbours ; and never to be able to
shake off the sense of self-reproach for not having frankly
accepted the results of my own misconduct. Do you know,
Mr. Welsh, I was angry with my father because I thought
he was evading his retribution ? "

Mr. Welsh, usually a talkative man, felt no inclination
now to say a word.

"Mr. Welsh," said Arminell, "T ask you to go to Port-
land Place, call on Lady Hermione Woodhead, she is a
practical woman of the world ; lay the entire case before
her, and see if she does not say, ' Throw her in again, for
Heaven's sake, so as to keep the story out of the papers.' "

*' And if her ladyship does not say so? "

" She will say it."

" If she does not, but asks me to bring you to her, will
you go to Portland Place ? "

" No ; my resolution is taken."

Welsh stood up and paced the room.

'•' What the deuce will you do?" he asked. "You are
quite a girl, and a pretty girl, and confoundedly inexperi-
enced. You cannot, you must not live alone. My

392 ARMINELL.

Tryphoena is a good soul ; it is true that we are without a
cook, but if you do not object to rissoles I shall be happy
to offer you such hospitality as my house affords. Shep-
herd's Bush is not the most aristocratic quarter of the town,
but Poplar is worse; it is not near the theatres and the
parks, but you're welcome to it Your idea is startling.
I'll go into that ad-de-sac^ Queen's Square, where runs no
cab, no 'bus does rumble, and consider it there."

" Will you see my aunt. Lady Hermione ? It will save
me writing, and you can explain the circumstances by word
better than I can tell them with a pen."

" Bless me ! I have a mind to do so." He stopped,
went to the window, came back, and said abruptly, " Yes, I
will. God bless me ! To think that I — I of all men, a
raging Democrat, should be hansoming to and fro between
my Ladies and Honourables."

" You can do what will give you pleasure," said the girl
with a faint smile — " with a stroke of the pen convert the
Honourable Arminell into plain Miss Inglett."

He did not laugh at the sally. He came in front of her,
and stood contemplating her, with his hands behind his
back.

" God bless me ! " he said, " one can be heroic after all
in modern costume. I didn't think it. Well, I will go, but
write me a line to ensure her receiving me in the morning."

Arminell did as required.

When she had finished the note and was folding it, she
looked up at Welsh, and asked, "Have you read the
Hecuba ? "

"The Hecuba? Classic? Not even in Bohn's trans-
lation."

" Then the saying of Hecuba to Polyxenes will not occur
to you : ' I am dead before my death, through my ills.' "

" I will go," he said, and held out his hand. *' Give me
a shake — it will do me good."

ARMINELL. 393

" But, Mr. Welsh, you will return to me ? "

" Yes." His mouth «.nd eyes were twitching.

" Deuce take it ! an aristocrat can do an heroic thing
even with a vest and toupee."

Two hours later the journalist returned.

" Confound these aristocrats," he said, as he entered, hot
and puffing. "They live in daily, hourly terror of public
opinion. I wouldn't be one of them, existing in such a
state of quivering terror, not for anything you could offer
me. They are like a man I knew who spent all his energies
in fighting against draughts. He put sandbags to the
bottom of his doors, stuffed cotton-wool into the crevices of
his windows, papered over the joints of his flooring, corked
up the keyholes, and yet was always catching catarrh from
draughts that came from — no one knows where. What
they fear is breath — the breath of public opinion."

" What did my aunt say ? " asked Arminell.

" Say ? In the most elegant and roundabout way what
may be summarized in four words — ' Chuck her in again.' "

" I said as much."

" Come, Miss Inglett. I have telegraphed to Tryphoena
to do two extra rissoles. We shall pass the stores, and I'll
buy a tin of prawns and a bottle of Noyeau jelly. Pack up
your traps. The cab is at the door. Sorry to-day is Mon-
day, or you should have had something better than rissoles."

CHAPTER XLII.

SHEPHERD S BUSH.

•* Here we are," said Mr. Welsh, " The Avenue— the most
stylish part of Shepherd's Bush, as it is of New York. You
sit still in the fly whilst I go in and make an explanation to
her ladyship. Til take that bottle of Noyeau you have
been nursing ; I have the canister of prawns in my coat-
pocket ; I am sorry before purchasing it that I forgot to ask
you if you preferred Lock Awe salmon. What is your
favourite tipple ? You will hear from ray wife that we have
no cook. The last we got became inebriated, and we had
to dismiss her. We have been without one for a fortnight.
Tryphoena — that is, her ladyship — upon my word I have
been so mixed up with aristocrats of late, that I find myself
giving a title to every one I meet. What was I saying !
Oh ! that her ladyship has all the cooking to do now ?
You sit quiet. No fumbling after your purse ; I pay the
cabby because I engaged him. We of the Upper Ten,
under present depression, do not keep our own carriages
and livery servants — we hire as we want."

Under all Welsh's rollicking humour lay real kindness of
heart. Arminell felt it, and drew towards this man, so
unlike any other man with whom she was acquainted, or
whom she had met. She knew that he was perfectly reli-
able, that he would do everything in his power to serve her,

ARMINELL. 395

and that a vast store of tenderness and consideration lay
veiled under an affectation of boisterousness and burles-
que.

How is it that when we do a kindness we endeavour to
minimise it ? We disguise the fact that what we do costs
us something, that it gives us trouble, that it draws down
on us irksome responsibilities ? It is not that we are
ashamed of ourselves for doing kindnesses, that we think it
unmanly to be unselfish, but rather that we fear to embarrass
the person who receives favours at our hands.

Mr. Welsh had really sacrificed much that day for
Arminell. He was to have met an editor and arranged
with him for articles for his paper. He had not kept his
appointment ; that might possibly be resented, and lead to
pecuniary loss, to some one else being engaged in his room.
Editors are unforgiving. " Yes," said Mr. Welsh that same
afternoon, when he found that what he dreaded had oc-
curred, "a Domitian is possible still in our costume, but
the tyrants confine their ferocity to aspirants after literary
work. They cut off their heads, they put out their eyes,
and they disjoint their noses, wholesale."

Presently Welsh put his head to the cab door and said
cheerfully, *' All right, I've broken it to her ladyship. She
don't know all. You are a distant and disowned relative of
the noble house of Lamerton. That is what I have told
her ; and I am your guardian for the time. I have explained.
Come in. The maid-of-all-work don't clean herself till the
afternoon, and is now in hiding behind the hall door. She
spends the morning in accumulating the dirt of the house
on her person, when no one is expected to call, and she
scrubs it off after lunch." He opened the cab door, and
conducted her into the house. ** I will lug the slavey out
from behind the door," he said, " if you will step into the
dining room ; and then she and I will get the luggage from
the cab. Your room is not yet ready. Go in there." He

39^ ARMINELU

opened the door on his left, and ushered Arminell into the
Httle apartment.

" Excuse me if I leave you," he said, *' and excuse Mrs.
Welsh for a bit. She is rummaging somewhere. We have,

as she will tell you presently, no cook. The last " he

made pantomimic signs of putting a bottle to his lips.
Then he went out, and for a while there reached Arminell
from the narrow front passage, somewhat grandly designated
the hall, sounds of the moving of her luggage.

A moment later, and a whispered conversation from out-
side the door reached her ears.

" It's no use — there are only scraps. How can you sug-
gest rissoles ? There is no time for the preparation of
delicacies. If we are to have them, it must be for dinner.
I did not expect you at noon, much less that you would be
bringing a visitor. Your telegram arrived one minute be-
fore yourself."

" Not so loud," whispered James Welsh, " or she will
hear. You must provide enough to eat, of course. Send
out for steak."

" Nonsense, James ; it is lunch time already. She must
manage with scraps, and them cold scraps are wholesome.
What doesn't poison fattens."

'^ You couldn't, I suppose, have the scraps warmed, or "
— somewhat louder, with a flash of inspiration — " or con-
verted into a haricot ? "

*' How can you talk like this, James ? Go on, suggest
that they shall be made into a mayonnaise next. To have
hot meat means a fire, and there is none to speak of in the
kitchen."

" Only dead scraps ! My dear Tryphoena, she belongs to
a titled family, a long way off and disowned, you under-
stand, but still — there is a title in the family and — scraps ! "

" What else will you have, James ? Had you been home
yesterday for dinner, there would have been joint, roast;

ARMINELL. 397

but as you were not, I ate cold meat. Now there are only
scraps."

"Perhaps if you were to turn out the Noyeau jelly in a
shape, Tryphoena, it would give the lunch a more distin-
guished look."

" Scraps of cold boiled mutton and Noyeau jelly ! No,
that won't do. The jelly must be warmed and melted into
the shape, and take three hours to cool."

" I wish I had taken her to the Holborn Restaurant,"
groaned Welsh ; *' what difficulties encumber domestic
arrangements ! "

" Without a cook — yes," added his wife.

" Do go in and welcome her," urged Mr. Welsh.

" I cannot in this condition. You know I have no cook,
and must attend to everything. The girl has been impu-
dent this morning, and has given me notice."

Whilst this discussion was being carried on, Arminell
tried not to listen, but the whispers were pitched so high,
and were so articulate, that scarce a word escaped her.

Then Mr. Welsh whispered, " Do lower your voice,
Tryphoena," and the pair drifted down the passage to the
head of the kitchen steps, and what was further discussed
there was inaudible.

Arminell looked round the room. Its most prominent
feature was the gas-lamp with double burner and globes —
the latter a little smoked, suspended from the ceiling by a
telescopic tube that allowed just sufficient gas to escape at
the joints to advertise itself as gas, not paraffin or electric
fluid. This room was the one in which, apparently, Mrs.
Welsh sat when she had a cook, and was not engrossed in
domestic affiiirs. Her work-box, knitting, a railway novel,
bills paid and unpaid, and one of Mr. Welsh's stockings
with a hole in the heel, showed that she occupied this apart-
ment occasionally.

The door opened, and Mrs. Welsh entered, followed by

398 ARMINELL.

her husband. She was a stout lady with a flat face, and a
pair of large dark eyes, her only beauty. Her hair was not
tidy, nor were all the buttons and hooks in place and per-
forming their proper functions about her body.

" How do you do ? " said she, extending her hand ; " I'm
sorry to say I have no cook ; nothing is more difficult than
to find cooks with characters now-a-days ; ladies will give
such false characters. What I say is, tell the truth, what-
ever comes of it. My last cook had a glowing character
from the lady with whom she lived in Belgrave Square. I
assure you she was in a superior house, quite aristocratic —
carriage people ; but I could not keep her. I did not my-
self find out that she drank. I did not suspect it. I knew
she was flighty — but at last she went up a ladder, sixty feet
high, and could hardly be got down again. It was in an
adjoining builder's yard. The ladder leaned against no-
thing, it pointed to the sky, and she went up it, and though
a stout and elderly woman, looked no bigger than a fly when
she had reached the top. Won't you sit down ? or stay —
let me take you up to the parlour. We will have the table
laid directly for lunch. Mr. Welsh does not generally come
home at this time of day, so I was unprepared, and I have
no cook. The ladder began to sway with her, for she
became nervous at the top, and afraid to come down ; quite
a crowd collected. Do take off your things. Your room
will be ready presently. In the meantime you can lay your
bonnet in the drawing-room. I am short of hands now.
The steps are rather narrow and steep, but I will lead the
way. I'll see to having water and soap and a towel taken
to the best bed-room presently, but my servant is now
making herself neat. None of the police Hked to go up
the ladder after my cook. The united weights at the top,
sixty feet, would have made it sway like a bulrush, and
perhaps break. This is the drawing-room. Do make your-
self comfortable in it and excuse me. My father and

ARMINELL. . 399

mother were carriage people. There he is in his uniform,
between the windows, taken when he was courting my
mother. You will excuse me, or the girl will spread a dirty
instead of a clean tablecloth for lunch. Dear me, the blinds
have not been drawn up ! "

Then Mrs. Welsh departed. All men and women trail
shadows behind them when the sun shines in their faces,
but some women, in all conditions of the heavens, drag
behind them braid. It would seem as if they had their
skirts bound to come undone. As in the classic world
certain females were described as being with relaxed zones,
so are there females in the modern world in a perpetual
condition of relaxed bindings. If Mrs. Welsh had lived in
a palaeozoic period, when the beasts that inhabited the globe
impressed their footprints on the pliant ooze, what perplexity
her traces would now produce among the palaeontologists,
and what triumph in the minds of the anthropologists, who
would conclude that these were the footprints of the homo
caudatus, the missing link between the ape and man, and
point in evidence to the furrow accompanying the impres-
sions of the feet ; and Mrs. Welsh always did wear a tail,
but the tail was of black binding, sometimes looped, some-
times dragging in ends. As Arminell followed Mrs. Welsh
up the stairs, she had to keep well in the rear to avoid
treading on th's tail.

On reaching the drawing-room, Arminell laid her bonnet
and cloak on the sofa, and looked round the room as she
had looked about that below. The latter had been dreary
to the eyes, the former had the superadded dreariness of
pretence.

Houses that are uninhabited are haunted by ghosts, and
unoccupied rooms by smells. The carpet, the curtains, the
wall-paper, the chintz covers, the cold fire-place, send forth
odours urgent to attract attention, as soon as the door
opens. They are so seldom seen that they iviil be smelt.

400 ARMINELL.

The drawing-room in the Avenue was small, with two
narrow windows to it ; the walls were papered with an
aesthetic dado of bulrushes and water weeds, on a pea-green
base ; above that ran a pattern picked out with gold, a self-
assertive paper. Above the marble mantelshelf was a
chimney-piece of looking-glasses and shelves, on which
stood several pieces of cheap modern china, mostly
Japanese, such as are seen outside Glaves in Oxford Street,
in baskets, labelled, " Any of this lot for 2d."

Against the wall opposite the windows were two blue
Delft plates, hung by wires. Between the windows was the
miniature of the father of Mrs. Welsh, once a carriage-man,
but not looking it, wearing the uniform of a marine officer,
and the languishment of a lover. He was represented with
a waxy face, a curl on his brow, and either water or wadding
on his chest.

Upon the table were books radiating from a central opal
specimen glass that contained three or four dry everlastings,
smelling like corduroys ; and the books in very bright cloth
had their leaves glued together with the gilding.

Unhappy, occupied with her own trouble though Arminell
was, yet she noted these things because they were so
different from that to which she was accustomed. Perhaps
the rawness of the decoration, the strain after impossible
effect, struck Arminell more than the lack of taste. She
had been accustomed to furniture and domest'c decoration
pitched in a key below that of the occupants, but here
everything was screwed up above that of such as were sup-
posed to use the room. Elsewhere she had seen chairs and
sofas to be sat on, carpets to be walked on, books to be
read, wall papers to be covered with paintings. Here even
the sun was not allowed to touch the carpet, and the chairs
were to be made use of gingerly, and the fire-irons not to be
employed at all, and the grate most rarely. After Arminell
had spent half-an-hour in this parlour, the whole house

\

ARMINELL. 4OI

reverberated with the boom of a gong ; and next moment
Mrs. Welsh came in to say that lunch was ready. She had
in the meantime dressed herself to do the honours of the
meal ; had changed her gown, then brushed her hair, and
put on rings. Nevertheless she lacked finish. The brooch
was not fastened, and threatened to fall, and her dress im-
prover had not been accurately and symmetrically fitted to
her person.

" Welsh," she said, " has departed. He is very sorry, but
business calls must be attended to. Never mind, I'll do
what I can to entertain you. I will tell you the end of the
story of my cook up a ladder. Ah 1 " she exclaimed on
reaching the foot of the stairs — " is that your umbrella
fallen on the floor? You stuck it up against the wall, no
doubt. The gong has done it, shaken it down with the
vibration."

The lunch was plain, but the good lady had made aa
effort to give it the semblance of elegance. She had sen^
out for parsley to garnish the cold mutton, and for a dish of
lettuce and another of watercress, and had set a just un-
corked bottle of Castle A Claret on the table beside
Arminell's plate.

" You'll excuse if we help ourselves and dispense with
the girl," said Mrs. Welsh. "Have you had much to do
with servants ? I have applied to the registry offices for a
cook and can't get one ; they object to Shepherd's Bush, or
else want to redeem their characters at my expense. I
have applied at the hospital for a convalescent, but if I get
one, she will not be up to much work, and besides will
have been so pampered in hospital, that she will not
accomm.odate herself to our fare, and will leave as soon as
she is well. If we were carriage people, it would be
different. Servants won't remain in a situation where a
carriage and pair are not kept. They think it immoral.
Were your parents carriage people ? And did your mother

2 C

402 ARM I NELL.

have much trouble with her servants ? And, if I may ask,
where did she go for her cooks?"

" My mother died shortly after my birth, and my father
recently." Arminell spoke with a choke in her voice. " I
have not had time to get mourning. I must do some
shopping this afternoon."

" I can show you where you can get things very
cheap. You take a 'bus along Goldhavvk Road, it costs but
twopence if you walk as far as Shepherd's Bush Station,
otherwise it comes to threepence. I suppose you have
kept home for your father ? Did you meet with imperti-
nence from the servants? But I dare say you kept your
carriage. If you don't do that they regard you as their
equals. They divide mankind into castes — the lowest keep
no conveyances, the middle have one-horse traps, and the
superior and highest of all keep a pair and close carriage.
My parents were carriage people — indeed my father was an
officer in her Majesty's service. My husband will some day,
I trust, have his equipage. His sister is very intimate with
people of distinction. I don't mean carriage people only,
but titled persons, the highest nobility. She was a bosom
friend of the dowager Lady Lamerton, she told me so herself.
I almost expect the Lamerton family to call on me. Should
they do so whilst you are here, I shall be happy to introduce
you. By the way — your name is Inglett, you must be a
distant connexion o<" the family. James said you were
related to a noble family, but that they did not receive you.
In the event of a call, perhaps you would prefer to remain
in the dining-room. My husband's nephew is called after
his lordship, Giles Inglett, because my lord stood godfather
to him at the font. I assure you the intimacy between
Marianne and the family is most cordial. I wonder what
Mrs. Tomkins over the way will say when their carriage
stops at my gate ! What a pity it is that the British nobility
should be the hot-bed of vice."

ARMINELL. 403

" Is it ? " asked Arminell listlessly.

" Indeed it is. I know a great deal about the aristocracy.
My sister-in-law moves in the highest circles. I read all the
divorce cases in high life, and I have an intimate friend who
is much in great houses — in fact, she nurses there. Persons
of good family when reduced in circumstances become trained
nurses. This lady has nursed Sir Lionel Trumpington, and
I could tell you a thing or two about his family she has con-
fided to me — but you are not married. She had the charge
of chief Justice Bacon's daughter, who was a dipsomaniac,
and so had the entree into the best families, and has told
me the most extraordinary and shocking stories about them."

After lunch, Mrs. Welsh said, " There now, go up to the
parlour, and sit there an hour, till I am ready. I must see
that the girl does your room, after which I will put on my
walking clothes. I will take you where you can get crape,,
just a little crumpled and off colour, at half price. We will
walk to the railway arch and so save a penny."

Arminell sat by herself in the drawing-room ; the sun was
streaming in, but Mrs. Welsh allowed the blinds to remain
undrawn. She stood hesitatingly with hand raised to draw
them, but went away, leaving them rolled up, a concession
to the presence of a visitor.

Arminell's mind turned from her own troubles to the con-
sideration of the life Mrs. Welsh and those of her social grade
led. How utterly uninteresting, commonplace, aimless it
seemed ; how made up of small pretences, absurd vanities,
petty weaknesses, and considerable follies ! A few days ago,
such a revelation of sordid middle-class triviality would have
amused her. Now it did not. She saw something beside
all the littleness and affectation, something which dignified it.

Everywhere in life is to be observed a straining after what
is above ; and the wretched drunken cook scrambling up a
ladder that led to nothing, blindly exemplified the universal
tendency. As among the plants in a garden, and the trees

404 ARMINELL.

of a plantation, there is manifest an upward struggle, so is
it in the gardens and plantations of humanity. The servant,
as Mrs. Welsh had said, is not content to serve where no
servant is kept, and changes to a situation where there is a
pony-chacise ; then feels a yearning in her that fills her with
unrest till she has got into a sphere where there is a one-horse
brougham, and deserts that again for the house that main-
tains a landau and pair. In the lower class an effort is made
to emulate the citizens of the middle class, in dress and
arrangement of hair, and mode of speech ; and in the
middle class is apparent protracted effort to reach the
higher; or if it cannot be reached, to hang on to it by
a miniature and a sister-in-law, and a trained nurse friend.
Is this ridiculous ? Of course it is ridiculous to see cooks
scrambling up ladders that reach nowhere, but it is infinitely
better that they should do this than throw themselves into
the gutter. And so thought Arminell now. Mrs. Welsh
may have been absurd, but behind all her nonsense beat a
true and generous heart, full of aspiration after something
better, and a cheerful spirit of hospitality and self-sacrifice.
No^ Arminell saw the struggle in the woman's face about
the blinds, and respected her. But when she was gone, the
girl stood up, went to the windows and drew down the
blinds, to save from fading Mrs. Welsh's new gaudy carpet.

CHAPTER XLIII.

DOWSING.

A FEW days later, towards evening, Mr. James Welsh arrived,
after having been absent from home. He had not told his
wife or Arminell the cause of his departure, nor whither he
was going. When he returned, he informed Arminell that
he had been away on business, and that he wanted a word
with her in the parlour.

" There is no gas in the drawing-room. Will you have a
lamp ? " asked Mrs. Welsh.

" Thank you. It will be unnecessary. At this time of
the year it is not dark, and the dusk is agreeable for a tete-^-
tete. My business does not need reference to papers."

" Then I will go down and see about locking up the re-
mains of the plum-pudding. The girl has had her share set
apart on a plate, and I object to her consuming everything
that goes out from dinner. There is enough of the pudding
left to serve up fried to-morrow."

Arminell and Mr. Welsh mounted the steep stairs to the
sitting-room. The parlour was close and stuffy ; Welsh went
to the window and opened it a little way.

" Do sit down, Miss Inglett," he said, " there, on the sofa,
with your back to the window, if you are not afraid of a
breath of air. This twilight is restful to the eyes and grate-
ful to the overwrought brain. There is no need for candles."
He seated himself away from her, looking in another

406 ARMINELL.

direction, and said, " I suppose you can guess where I have
been ? "

" Indeed I cannot, Mr. Welsh."

*' I have been at Orleigh. I thought I would like to be
present at your father's funeral. Besides, I belong to the
press, and my duties took me there. Also, my sister is left
a widow. You may not, perhaps, have heard of the death
of Captain Saltren ? "

" Captain Saltren dead ! "

" Yes, drowned in the old quarry pit."

" I remember having once seen him there. He was a
strange man. He went there to say his prayers, and he
prayed on a kind of raft of his own construction. I suppose
it gave way under him, or he overbalanced himself."

"Possibly. How he fell is not known. He was very
strange in his manner of late, so that the general opinion is
that he was off his head. He had visions, or fancied that
he had."

Arminell said no more on this matter. She was desirous
of hearing about her father's funeral.

" I was present when Lord Lamerton was taken to his last
rest," said Welsh ; *' you cannot have any conception what an
amount of feeling was elicited by his death. By me it was
unexpected. I could not have supposed that the people, as
distinguished from the aristocracy, would have been other
than coldly respectful, but his lordship must have been
greatly beloved." Welsh paused and rubbed his chin.
" Yes, much loved. Of course, I had only seen one side of
him, and that was the side I cared to see, being a profes-
sional man, and professionally engaged to see only one side.
That is in the way of business, and just as a timber merchant
measures a tree, and estimates it by the amount of plank it
will make, regardless of its effect in the landscape, so it is
with me. I look on a man, especially a nobleman, from a
commercial point of view, and ask how many feet of type I

ARMINELL. 407

can get out of him. I don't consider him for any other
qualities he may have than those which serve my object.
But I will admit that there must have been a large amount
of kindness and sterling worth in his lordship, or there would
not have been such a demonstration at his funeral, and that
not by a party, but general— not cooked, but spontaneous.
One expected to see the quality at the funeral, but what
surprised me was the real sorrow expressed by the people.
Why, bless you ! what do you think ? Because Captain
Saltren had denounced his lordship, and prophesied his
death, the mob rolled stones down the cliff on Chillacot and
ruined the house and spoiled the garden."

Pope Leo X. was inaccessible except to buffoons, and
when a priest desired an interview with his Holiness, but
was unable to obtain one in the ordinary manner, he dressed
himself in motley, and as a clown obtained immediate ad-
mission.

There are some people who suppose that every one else
has the peculiarities of Leo X., and who never approach
their fellows, even when they have to speak on matters of
serious import, without putting on cap and bells. They labour
under the conviction that " the motley," as Jaques said to
the Duke, " is the only wear," especially when most inappro-
priate to the matter of discourse.

Mr. Welsh was desirous of doing what was kind, of con-
veying to Arminell what he knew was to her painful infor
mation, describing to her scenes which must stir her emo
tions, but he could not assume a sympathetic and serious
tone. He was possessed by that perverse spirit which forces
a man to garnish his story, however tragic, with quirks and
scraps of illustration incongruous and out of taste. He was
at heart full of pity for Arminell ; he had not gone to Orleigh
on journalistic ends, though not averse to paying his travelling
expenses by turning what he had seen into type, but he had
gone for the girl's s ike, and only learned the death of his

4o8 ARMINELL.

brother-in-law on reaching Orleigh. He knew that she
hungered for information which she could not receive
through the channels formerly open to her. As he spoke
to her, his heart swelled, and he had some difficulty in con-
trolling his emotion. Nevertheless, he assumed a tone of
half banter, that galled his own sense of propriety as much
as it jarred on Arminell. And this masquerade was assumed
by him as much to disguise his real self from himself as
from the girl. Verily, in our horror of hypocrisy, we are
arrant hypocrites. Essayists and satirists have united to
wage a crusade against cant, and have succeeded so com-
pletely that we dread the semblance of piety, kindliness,
sweetness, lest they be taken as an assumption only. In the
reaction against false appearances of goodness we have run
into the opposite extreme, and put on a false appearance of
roughness, hardness, and cynicism. Lest we should be
taken to be apricots, with sweet outside and hard interior,
we affect to be walnuts, rugged and bitter. A woman poses
to herself in the glass, and adorns herself with jewelry to
give pleasure first to herself and then to others ; but men
cock their hats, smut their noses, make grimaces in the
glass, and having sneered at their own buffoon appearance,
pass off the same pranks on their acquaintance. They will
neither allow to themselves nor to others that they acknow-
ledge a serious interest in the drama of life, that they have
respect for what is noble, pity for what is suffering, rever-
ence for what is holy. They affect to cast burlesque into all
relations of life, as salt is put into all dishes, to make them
palatable.

Arminell was not deceived by the manner of James
Welsh ; under the affectation of selfishness and callousness
she recognised the presence of generous sympathy, just as
she had seen the same quality under the chatter and pre-
tence of the wife.

At the beginning of this story we saw Arminell present at

ARMINELL. 409

what we called the grand transformation scene in the panto-
mime of life ; now she had reached another, and that a
more startling, thorough-going transformation scene. She
saw the world and the performers therein differently from
the way in which she had seen them before, the world in a
real light, the performers in undress. She had got behind
the scenes, and into the green-room. Delusion was no
longer possible ; she saw the framework of the scenery, the
contrivances for the production of effects, and the actors
oiling their faces with cotton-wool to remove the paint.

In former times there existed in England a profession
which has become extinct — the profession of dowsing. A
dowser was a man who laid claim to the peculiar gift of
discernment of metal and of water. He was employed to
discover mines and springs. He took in his hands a forked
hazel rod, holding in each hand one of the branches.
When he walked over a hidden vein of metal, or a subter-
ranean artery of water, the rod revolved in his hands, and
pointed downwards, and wherever it pointed, there he
ordered the sinking of a shaft or well.

But, although dowsing after minerals and fountains has
ceased to be practised, we still have among us moral
dowsers, and it is even possible for us to become adepts at
dowsing ourselves.

The old dowsers insisted that their profession was not an
art but an inherent faculty. The dowser was born, not
made. But in moral dowsing this is not the case. The
faculty can most certainly be acquired, but only on one
condition, that we begin with dowsing our own selves.
Fiat experifnentum in corpore vili. Unconsciously, Arminell
had been invested with this power ; it had come on her at
once, on that morning when her folly, her error, had been
revealed to her consciousness. From that memorable
moment, when she came to know herself as she really was,
not as she had fancied herself to be, the manner in which

4IO ARMINFLL.

she viewed other natures with which she was brought in
contact was radically changed. She found herself no longer
as heretofore occupied with the outer surface, its ups and
downs, its fertility or its barrenness, the invisible rod turned
in her hands and revealed to her the hidden veins of ore
and motive currents. She saw the silver thread deep be-
low the most unpromising surface, the Umpid spring under
the most rugged exterior.

As she overlooked the superficial flaws in Mr. and Mrs.
Welsh because she recognised their substantial goodness, so
did she begin now to perceive what had before been un-
noticed in the characters of her father and step-mother.
She had had eyes previously only for their foibles and in-
firmities, now she saw how full of sterling qualities both had
been, of punctual fulfilment of duties, of conscientious dis-
charge of the obligations imposed on them by their position
and wealth, of hearty good-will for all with whom they were
brought in contact. She had disregarded her little half-
brother, the present Baron Lamerton, because he was only
a child with childish thoughts, childish pursuits, and childish
prattle ; and now she saw that his was a very tender, loving
spirit, which it would have been worth her while to culti-
vate. In the first moment of disappointment, humiliation
and anger, she had been incensed against Jingles for having
assisted her in perpetrating her great mistake. She saw
what a fool he had been, how conceited, how ungrateful,
but even over this forbidding soil the divining rod turned,
and revealed a vein of noble metal. If it had not been
there, he would not have accepted his humiliation with
frankness and have shown so decided a moral rebound.

When one who has the dowsing faculty is in the society
of those who lack it, and listens to their talk, their dispar-
agement of others, the captiousness with which they pick at
trivial blemishes, sneer at infirmities, blame short-comings,
that person listens with a sort of wonder at the blindness ot

ARMINELL. 4IT

the talkers, at their lack of perception, because their eyes
never penetrate below the surface, and a sort of pity that
they have never turned it inwards and searched themselves,
not for silver but for dross.

The knight Huldbrand, when riding through the En-
chanted Wood, had his eyes opened, and beneath the turf
and the roots of the trees, he looked through, as it were, a
sheet of green glass, and saw the gold and silver veins in
the earth, and the spirits that worked at, and directed their
courses, opening sluices here and stopping currents there.
So it is with those invested with the dowsing gift — with
them in the Enchanted Wood of Life.

In the twilight room Arminell listened to Mr. Welsh's
story of the funeral of her father, with tears running
down her cheeks, regardless of the manner in which tlie
story was told, in the intensity of her interest in the matter,
and conscious of the intention of the narrator.

The death of Lord Lamerton had indeed evoked an
amount of feeling and regret that showed how deeply rooted
was the estimation in which his good qualities were held,
and how unreal was the agitation that had been provoked
against him.

The county papers of all political complexions gave laud-
atory notices of the late nobleman. Every one who had
come within range of his influence had good words to say
of him, and lamented his loss us that of a relative. Selfish
interest undoubtedly mixed with the general regret. The
sportsmen feared that the subscription to the foxhounds
would not be maintained on the same liberal scale; the
parsons, that on the occurrence of a vacancy in the Lamer-
ton patronage, their claims would be overlooked by the
trustees; the medical men regretted that the death had
been too sudden to advantage them professionally ; the
benevolent societies feared that the park would not be
thrown open lo them with the same liberality; the younsf

4"^^ ARMINELL.

ladies that there would be no ball at Orleigh next winter ;
the topers that they would not taste again the contents of a
famous cellar; the tradesmen that money would not be
spent in the little country town ; the artisans that work
would be abandoned and hands discharged. Of course
there was self-interest in the minds of those who lamented
the loss of Lord Lamerton, regret was not unmingled with
selfish feeling ; but, then, what motives, what emotions are
unmixed ? The coin of the realm is not pure, it consists of
metal and alloy ; and the feelings that pass current among
men are not less adulterated. But are they the less estim-
able on that account? Would they pass if unmixed?
Would they be as poignant if pure ? Why, the very prayers
in which we address Heaven have their stiffening of self-
concern, and it is this that gives them their force. Are
they less acceptable above on that account ?

Popular feeling was doubly stirred, and sympathy for the
family greatly deepened by the news of the almost simul-
taneous death of Miss Arminell Inglett. The notice of her
death had appeared first in the Twies, and then in all the
papers j but the circumstances were only imperfectly known.
It was rumoured that the shock of the news of her father's
death had affected her fatally — her heart having always been
weak — whilst in London, staying with her aunt. Such an
account had appeared in one of the society papers, and
perhaps Mr. Welsh could give the best explanation of how
it came there. This was reported at Orleigh. Others said
she had died at the second family place in Northampton-
shire ; all agreed that she had been buried there beside her
mother. Strange rumours had circulated about Miss Inglett,
but they had been traced to Mrs. Cribbage, and every one
knew that the tongue of that lady, like that of an ox, must
be taken with salt. Consequently the rumours died away,
and were wholly discredited.

And it was true that Arminell Inglett was dead. That is

ARMINELL. 413

to say, the old self-opinionated, supercilious, self-willed
Arminell was no more.

In spring the new buds are sheathed in hard husks. One
warm morning after a shower they thrust aside these horny
sheaths, and the tender foliage appears. It was so with
Arminell. She had hitherto worn her better part, the
generous qualities of her soul, in a hard and ungracious
shell ; now this shell had fallen off, and they broke forth,
ready to expand and clothe her with a new and unexpected
beauty.

CHAPTER XLIV.

FRAMING.

Mr. James Welsh did all that was requisite for the arrange-
ment of Arminell's money-matters. She was entitled to her
mother's dower, sufficient to maintain her in easy circum-
stances. The settlement of her affairs with the trustees,
guardians, and the solicitors of the family was a deHcate
transaction ; Arminell authorised Welsh to act for her, and
he managed with adroitness and tact, without grudging
time or trouble. Meanwhile she remained an inmate of
his villa in the Avenue, Shepherd's Bush. She did not
wish to be hasty in securing a house for herself and engag-
ing a companion. She would not, however, encroach on
the hospitahty of the Welshes, and she insisted on becoming
their lodger, paying them a moderate weekly sum for her
board. They were not rich, their circumstances somewhat
strait ; it was an object with Mrs. Welsh to save the penny
on the 'bus by walking to the railway arch, and though, in
their exuberant hospitahty, they would have cheerfully kept
her as their guest, and treated her to the best they could
afford, she insisted on their accepting her on her own
terms, not on theirs.

Only by degrees did she reahse to the full extent what her
social suicide implied. It was not possible for her to
estimate its cost till she had committed the irrevocable act

ARMINELL. 415

which severed her Yrom the world to which she had be-
longed ; as impossible, or almost as impossible, as it is for
the girl who jumps off London Bridge to conceive of the
altered relations and strangeness of the region into which
she will pass through the mud and water of the Thames.

I know that nothing surprised me more as a child than
being told that water was composed of an infinite number of
globules arranged like pebbles in a bag ; but the stream of
social life, which looks equally simple and elemental, is in
reality made not only of the little component globules of
individual hfe, but of a thousand other circles enclosing
these globules, all distinct, self-contained, and rotating on
their own axes and taking their own courses. Each of these
circles has its special interests, its special tittle-tattle, its
special spites, and its special ambitions. There are circles
of all sorts, professional, and social, and intellectual, and
those who pass from one to another have to undergo mental
adjustment before they can understand the language and
partake in the momentum of these spheres. Such is the
parsonic circle, such the sporting circle, such the circle of
politicians, such the legal circle. Let a hunter pitch his
rider in pink over a hedge into a ditchful of picnicing clergy
and their wives and daughters, and he will be as unable to
talk with them as they to entertain him. Let Mrs. Brown
drop through the ceiling into an officers' mess, and she will
not have a thought, a taste, a word in common. Suffer an
archbishop to rise through a trap into the green-room of the
ballet girls, and what would they have in common ? The
gods live on Olympus, mortals on the plain, and the demons
in Tartarus, and all roll on together in one current. Dante
divides heaven into constellations, and purgatory into
mansions — all the blessed are separated by leagues of ether,
and all the lost by adamantine walls. They do not as-
sociate, the former enjoy themselves by themselves in their
cold planets and groups of stars, and the latter stop in their

41 6 ARMINELL.

several torments by themselves. Their several virtues and
several vices classify them and separate them from their
fellows. It is not otherwise in this world. We are all
boxed off from each other, and very uncomfortable when
we step out of our proper box into another.

Arminell felt keenly the solitude of her condition, and it
weighed on her spirits. It was not possible for her at once
to accommodate herself to her new surroundings. She had
Mrs. Welsh to talk, or rather to listen to, but Mrs. Welsh
had no other subjects of conversation than the iniquities of
servants and the scandals in high life. According to Mrs.
Welsh, there was but one social circle in which reigned
virtue, and that was the circle of the middle class to which
she belonged. Servants as beneath that were bad, that her
daily experience taught her, and the upper ten thousand, as
she knew by the voice of gossip and the revelations of the
press, were also corrupt. It is conceivable that one may
tire of hearing only two subjects discussed, even though
these subjects be of engrossing interest ; and Arminell was
fatigued with the relation of the misdeeds of domestics, and
the disorders of the nobility. Shylock said to Antonio that
he would talk with him, buy with him, sell with him, but
would not eat with him. Arminell could do everything with
Mrs. Welsh except think with her. The girl felt her friend-
less condition. She had no companion of her own age,
class, and sex, to whom she could open her mind and of
whom ask counsel. She could have no more communica-
tion with those in the upper world to which she had be-
longed, and which shared her intellectual and moral culture,
than can a fish have communication with the bird. It looks
up and sees the beautiful creatures skimming the surface of
its element, sees their feet moving in it, their beaks dipped
below it, but the birds do not belong to the aqueous element,
nor the fish to the atmosphere, and they must live apart
accordingly. The bird can pull out a fish and gobble it.

ARMINELL. 417

and the fish can bite the toes of the swimming duck, and
that is the limit of their association.

I have heard of the case of a lady who was either struck
by lightning or so paralyzed by electricity that she lay as
one dead, bereft of power of motion. She neither breathed
nor did her pulse beat, she could not move a muscle or
articulate a sound. She was pronounced to be dead, and
was measured, shrouded, and put into her coffin. But
though apparently dead, she could hear all that went on in
the room, the blinds being drawn down, the number of feet
and inches determined for her shell, the sobbing of her
mother, and the tramp of those who brought in her coffin.
She heard the undertaker ask her father on the day of the
funeral, whether he should at once screw her down — then,
by a supreme effort, she succeeded in flickering an eyelid,
and her father saw the movement and sent for a surgeon.

Arminell was dead — dead to her relations, to her friends,
and to her acquaintance. They discussed her, and she was
unable to defend herself. They wept over her, and she
could not dry their tears. She was incapacitated by her
own act from giving a token of life. She was separated
from every one with whom for eighteen years she had as-
sociated, cut off from every interest which for all these years
had occupied her mind, severed from that stream of intel-
lectual life in which she had moved.

She would not quiver an eye in entreaty to be taken out
of her shell, she had deliberately gone into that chest, and
to it she must henceforth contract her interests and accom-
modate her habits. When we die we carry away nothing
with us of our treasure, but we have our friends and relatives
to associate with in the world of spirits ; Arminell, by her
social death, had carried away with her her patrimony, but that
was all. She must make new acquaintances, and acquire
fresh friends.

If there be any truth in the doctrine of the transmigration

2 D

4l8 ARMINELL.

of spirits, then the souls after death enter into new exist-
ences as dogs, oxen, elephants, cockatoos, or earth-worms.
If so — the dog that fawns on us with such speaking eyes
may be the wife we still lament ; and when we cut a worm
in two with our spade, we may be slicing in half our little
lost babe ; and the beef of the ox served at our table may
have been worn by the wandering spirit of our most intimate
friend.

There are two considerations which make me most re-
luctant to accept the doctrine of transmigration — the one is
that when we leave our human frames and enter into those
of dog or slug, what wretchedness it will be for us to adapt
our minds and feelings to doggish or sluggish limits. And
the other is that the distress must be insupportable to as-
sociate with those with whom we have lived without the
power of communicating with them.

Now Arminell had transmigrated from the aristocratic
order of beings into the middle class order of beings, and
she had to accommodate her mind to the ways of this lower
grade ; and although sitting on a bench in Hyde Park, she
might see those she had known, talked to, loved, pass in
Rotten Row, she could no more communicate with them
than can those who have migrated into dog, and cockatoo,
and slug, communicate with us.

In course of time, no doubt, she would find congenial
spirits, get to know and love nice girls in this new circle in
which she found herself, but that would take time. In
course of time, no doubt, she would find her place in this
new order of life, be caught by its drift, and drive forward
with it. When we are in a railway carnage and cast some-
thing from* the window, that object is carried on by the
mom.entum of the train, and does not drop perpendicularly
to the ground. So Arminell in falling from her class was
still for a while sensible of its impulses, but this would cease
in time.

ARMINELL. 4I9

There are cases known to science, in which a person has
fallen into a condition of mental blank, has forgotten every-
thing acquired, and all acquaintances, and has to begin from
the beginning again, to learn to know the relations and to
acquire speech and every accomplishment. Now such a
case was not that of Arminell, for she remembered all her
past, nevertheless she had in this new condition to accept
as lost a vast amount of what she had acquired in eighteen
years, and begin to accumulate afresh.

Now — she was solitary. It had not occurred to her in
her former life that solitude could be oppressive. Then she
had counted it as an escape from the whirl of social inter-
course. Then she had resented advice, and undervalued
sympathy ; but now, when she was deprived of these things,
she felt the loss of them. The wife transmigrated into a
dog may snap and bark, but cannot otherwise express her
heartache, and reproach her husband when preparing for
his second wife ; nor can the worm plead and look at us
out of our child's blue eyes and tell us it is our own little
one translated, when we lift the spade over it. So must
Arminell remain silent and unrecognised before all those
who had loved her and known her in her first existence.

The life she led in the Avenue, Shepherd's Bush, was so
unlike what she had been accustomed to that it was not
possible for her to fit herself to it all at once. But Arminell
had good sense, and a brave spirit. She did not waste her
energies on vain repining. She did not recoil from and
disparage that life into which she had entered. She ac-
cepted it, as she had accepted the revelation of her
folly.

There is a serviceable Yorkshire word, descriptive of ac-
commodation to circumstances, which is worthy of being
rescued from a provincialism and of elevation into general
acceptance, and that word is — to frame.

A raw country girl is taken into a household as servant.

420 ARMINBLL.

If she shows token of adaptabiUty to the situation, teach-
ableness, and wiUingness, she is said to frame.

A clerk settles into an office, is quick in acquiring the
technicalities of the business, is interested in his work,
obliging as to extension of hours under pressure, and he is
said by his employers to frame.

A newly-married couple, if they make allowances for each
other's weaknesses, are not self-willed and unyielding, if
ready to make the best of all circumstances, are said also to
frame.

The frame is the situation, and it may be of all kinds,
plain or rich, narrow or wide ; it may be gilt and burnished,
or of rude cross-pieces of oak. Into this frame the new life,
like a picture, has to be fitted, so much of margin has to be
shorn off, or so much of mount has to be added. The
frame will not accommodate itself to the picture, the picture
must be adapted to the frame.

Arminell was in the process of framing, and the frame
was one of her own selection. Whether suitable or not, the
situation could not be adapted to her, she must adapt her-
self to it ; she must cut away here, and piece on there to fit
it. The reader shall be shown some instances of the way
in which Arminell progressed with her framing.

In the first place, the girl had been accustomed all her
life to having a lady's-maid in attendance on her, and
putting to rights everything she left in disorder. When she
changed her dress, she had been accustomed to throw her
clothes about just where she had taken them off ; she had
not put her gloves away, tidied her dressing-table, arranged
her dresses in the drawers. When, at first, she came to the
Avenue, she did as she had been wont, and was unable to
understand the hints thrown out by her hostess that the
maid had too much of household work to do to be able to
act as lady's-maid as well. Then Arminell discovered that
it engaged Mrs. Welsh half-an-hour in the morning, another

ARMINELL. 431

half-hour in the afternoon, and a third in the evening, to
arrange her clothes and room. And as she was aware that
Mrs. Welsh had no cook, and had to superintend the cook-
ing herself, this imposed on her hostess an extra and
arduous task. Mrs. Welsh expected before long to be a
mother, and to accumulate work on the good woman at
such a time was unjustifiable.

Accordingly Arminell began to put her room to rights
herself, learned how to fold her gowns, and liked to arrange
her boots tidily under the dressing-table, and jfut her towels
straight on the horse, and the comb on the brush. After a
week she found that the trouble she gave herself was very
slight, and that it afforded her real pleasure to be her own
lady's-maid.

That was one item in the framing.

Mrs. Welsh had not much plate. Arminell was not
particular about what she ate, but she was accustomed to
silver and glass, kept very bright, and to unchipped and
pretty china. The plate of the Welsh estabhshment was
electro-plate, and the plating was somewhat abraded. The
forks and spoons were scratched, not polished. If an egg
had been eaten at breakfast, it was not impossible to identify
at dinner the spoon that had been used for the egg. Even
Castle E claret was not attractive when the bowl of the
wine-glass bore on it the impress of a thumb.

One day Arminell said to Mrs. Welsh, '* I am sure that
the girl is overworked. Shall I give a final burnish to the
silver and glass before they come on table ? " and Mrs.
Welsh had joyfully assented. So Arminell began to take a
pride and find a pleasure in being butler in the house of
Welsh.

That was another item in the framing.

One day Mrs. Welsh threw out mysterious hints about
the anticipated addition to the family, and lamented that,
owing to her being without a cook, she had been unable to

422 ARMINELL.

provide the many articles of clothing which a new-comer
into the world expects and exacts, to wit : — six long night-
dresses, half-a-dozen flannels, six shirts, the same number of
little socks, bibs to the number of one dozen, besides other
articles which for brevity we will include under an &c.
What would little Welsh do without his trousseau ?

Then Arminell went out and bought linen and flannel,
and horrocks, and began to cut out and sew, and mark, and
then hold up the little garments and laugh and dance round
them, and find a pleasure and pride in being a sempstress.

That was another item in the framing.

In a couple of weeks, Mrs. Welsh was unable to further
superintend the cooking. The heat of the kitchen made
her faint, and the girl, when left to her own devices, devised
startling effects, quite Wagnerian, Doreish.

Then Arminell began diligently to study " Mrs. Warne's
Cookery Book," and descend to the subareal world and
direct the proportions of condiments, the rolling of pastry,
the mincing of veal, and the stuffing of geese. Mrs. Welsh
had had a hmited culinary horizon — beef olives, rissoles,
haricot, were the changes on joint, and the puddings were
ground rice mould, " shape " Mrs. Welsh called it, rice milk
and apple-tart. Arminell extended the range, and was
pleased to surprise and delight Mr. Welsh when he re-
turned fagged in the evening, with a dinner that was a
pleasure to eat. In a word she found a gratification and
pride in being cook.

That was another item in the framing.

Later, a little Welsh appeared on the scene, and the
monthly nurse appeared simultaneously. It really seemed
as if Mrs. Welsh had been brought to bed of two babies,
for the nurse was as helpless as the infant. She could, or
would, neither dust the patient's room, nor lay a fire, nor
put a match to the fire when laid for her. She was incap-
able of carrying upstairs a cup of tea or bowl of gruel. It

ARMINELL. 423

was hard to say which of the two babes was the most
incapable, exacting, fractious, and insatiable. The maid-of-
all-work lost what little head she had, and her temper went
along with her head. When, finally, it became clear that
the corpulent, middle-aged baby drank something stronger
than milk, Arminell asked to have her dismissed, and
undertook to attend to Mrs. Welsh and the baby for the re-
maining fortnight.

Thus Arminell fell into the position of a nurse.

That was another item in the framing.

But there were other adjustments went to the framing.
Arminell's superciliousness, her pride of intellect, her self-
will, required much paring down. Formerly she had
treated what was common-place and humdrum with con-
tempt as beneath the regard of one gifted with intelligence.
Now she began to acknowledge that it was in the fulfilment
of humdrum duties, and in the accomplishment of com-
mon-place obligations that the dignity and heroism of life
lay.

Arminell had been accustomed to criticise severely those
with whom she associated, and to laugh at their weaknesses ;
and now she had learned her own weakness, the disposition
to laugh at others had departed from her, and was replaced
by great forbearance.

She began to wonder whether the regeneration of society
was to be eff"ected by revolutionary methods, and was not
best accomplished by the slow processes of leavening with
human charity.

How often had she supposed that happiness was im-
possible apart from the amenities of life, that in the middle
class, with its imperfect culture and narrow aims, there
could be no true felicity ; that in the lowest classes, where
there was no refinement of taste, no polish of mind, no
discipline of intellect, life must be insupportable in its
wretchedness. But now she saw that happiness was of

424 ARMINELL.

general distribution and was not to be arrogated as a prero-
gative of one class alone, that, indeed, it seemed to lose its
freshness, its gaiety in proportion as knowledge increased
and culture advanced. The two Welshes were happy ;
James happy in his work of furious onslaught against
aristocracy, Tryphcena happy in the little sphere of house-
hold duties, and supremely happy in giving food to her
baby. Not only so, but the slave, the maid-of-all-work, was
happy down the area, and sang over her drudgery.

Then Arminell recalled the game she had played as a
child with her companions in a circle, holding a string with
a gold ring threaded on it. One child stood in the centre,
and tried to discover who had the ring, and the ring passed
about the living hoop, and there was no hand under which
the ring might not be found. It was the same with the
round game of life. The gold ring of happiness was not
retained by those in gay clothing, nor to be found only
under the taper fingers and in the delicate palms, as often
it slipped under the broad fiat hands of those in washing
calico gowns, and quite as often was retained by the
laughing rogues in rags, whose rough hands were begrimed
with dirt.

Consequently Arminell's ideas on this point, as on many
another, underwent radical change. This also went to-
wards the framing. Arminell's manner changed. Her
impatience was replaced by gentleness and consideration
for others. Instead of her thoughts radiating from and
reverting to self, they played about others, to the forgetful-
ness of self.

An underlying sadness never deserted her, but never in-
truded on notice. She constrained herself to be cheerful,
and its presence was only revealed by great sweetness of
disposition. She took interest in what interested others,
and did not force on others interest in her own concerns.

There are frames ready made for all of us. It falls to

ARMINELL. 425

the lot of an exceptional few to have frames made to fit
them. Some of us make frames for ourselves, and as we
always over-estimate our size such frames are never suitable.
As we cannot expand or contract our frames to our liking,
we must do the other thing, stretch and shape our pictures
to them. I have seen coloured sketches on an elastic
material capable of being extended indefinitely. Well for
us if our life's picture be painted on such accommodating
material.

CHAPTER XLV.

FAREWELL,

The house at Chillacot had been temporarily repaired, and
made habitable, so that Jingles and his mother could
occupy it ; but the young man shortly after the death of his
reputed father entered into negotiations with the railway
company for the sale of the place. His mother was shaken
by what had occurred. She had been threatened with paralysis,
and her speech affected for a few days ; but she speedily
recovered activity of tongue. There was now nothing in
Orleigh to retain the Saltrens. The mother had never
liked the dismal house, it was not grand enough to meet
her ideas, for was she not the sister of a gentleman of the
press, a man who was certain, according to her account, to
contest that division of the county in the Radical interest
at the next election ? She resolved to settle in London.
There she would be able to assume more consequence than
where she and her antecedents were well known. But Mrs.
Saltren laid down to her son that it was not to any part of
London she would go. She must have a house in the West
End — her brother, she said, lived in the West End. There
was no qualifying S. before or C. after the W. on his
address. Those persons who lived in S. W. or W. C. might
be gentlemen, those who lived in division W. were gentle-
men. As certain estates in Austria ennoble their pur-

ARMINELL. 427

chasers, so did living in the W. quarter of town elevate
socially. At Orleigh Mrs. Saltren could not aspire to
occupy such a position as that which her fancy pictured
herself as adorning in town. There she could figure as the
widow of a captain ; at Orleigh it was known too well that
the captaincy of her husband had been over a gang of
miners.

The sale of Chillacot would enable her to spend more
money than was usually at her command, and she talked
grandly of having a carriage and a button-boy. At Orleigh
she could not speak as freely of her acquaintance with the
Lamerton family as she could elsewhere, for at Orleigh it was
known that her situation at the Park had been a menial one.
The railway company paid liberally for Chillacot, but not
so liberally as Mrs. Saltren figured to herself, nor was the
capital thus acquired likely to cover all the expenditure
which she flattered herself she would be able to launch forth
into.

Marianne Saltren had exercised sufficient discretion to
hold her tongue about her husband's concern in the death
of Lord Lamerton, but she was sufficiently aware of her
own frailty to doubt whether she could retain the secret for
ever among confidential friends, and she knew that to trust
an intimate friend with a secret was the way to publish it to
the world. Anxiety lest she should be betrayed into com-
municating what had better remain unknown acted strongly
upon her to make her desire to leave Orleigh speedily.

The young man, moreover, had no wish to stay in a place
which was associated in his mind with too many painful
and humiliating recollections. It would not be possible for
him there to escape meeting Lady Lamerton and little
Giles, and such encounters must be productive of distress
to her ladyship and embarrassment to himself.

At Orleigh, moreover, there were no means of his earning
for himself a livelihood. His mother was welcome, in his

428 ARMINELL.

eyes, to spend the money derived from the sale, money to
which he had, he felt, a legal but no moral right. The
captain was not his father, therefore he did not consider
himself entitled to what he left.

The desire to make his way in literature had deserted
him under the rebuff received from Mr. Welsh, and his self-
confidence had not recovered the blow it had been given to
make him feel himself qualified to act as political teacher of
men.

He resolved on taking a clerkship in an office. His pride
was gone. So long as he could earn enough to support
himself and his mother, he did not care in what sort of
business he made the money, so long as it was fairly and
honourably earned.

As the day approached on which it was arranged that he
and his mother should leave Chillacot, Saltren's heart sank ;
but not so that of his mother. She became more talkative
and more boastful. Only since he had discovered how
false she had been in the story of his parentage, had his
eyes been open to her unreliability. Hitherto he had
looked up to her with respect. He had never felt much
tenderness towards old Saltren, and his mother by her com-
plaints had bred in him antagonism towards his father as if
he were a man who misunderstood his mother and failed to
show her the love and regard she deserved. There are
heads like those of thistles, that are full of feather-light,
mischievous thoughts, which are blown about the country
and in proper soil germinate and produce a crop of weeds.
Such was the head of Marianne Saltren, but Jingles was
sufficiently humbled to acknowledge that unless his own
heart had proved suitable soil, rich in self-conceit, these
thistle-down fancies would not have rooted.

Mrs. Saltren's acquaintances called to say farewell, and
before them her boasting was so ridiculous that it covered
her son with shame. He knew what the circumstances of

ARMINELL. 429

James Welsh were, and what the position was that he oc-
cupied in town.

Young Saltren hesitated for some days how to act to-
wards Lady Lamerton. Should he call and bid her fare-
well, or should he forbear? To both a meeting must be
painful. If he considered his natural shrinking from an
unpleasant scene, he would desist from paying her his re-
spects ; but his conscience told him that to depart without
an apology and a word of explanation would be ungenerous.

Accordingly, on his last day at Chillacot, he walked over
to the Park, and asked to see her ladyship. Lady Lamerton
was engaged at the moment with some ladies who had called
to pay their condolence, so at his request he was shown into
the library ; and the butler undertook to inform her ladyship
that he was there, as soon as she was free from her visitors.

As he sat in the familiar room, he mused on what he
had to say. The situation was peculiar, as it was difficult.
Lady Lamerton knew nothing, he supposed, and need know
nothing, about the mistake he had made concerning his
parentage. He could not tell her the story which he and
Arminell had believed, and on which they had acted, yet
without this key to their conduct it was hardly possible to
explain it — to justify it even with the key was impossible.

As Jingles sat in the study meditating, the door opened
slightly, and little Giles's face appeared at it. The moment
he saw his old tutor he uttered an exclamation of delight,
and ran to him. " Mr. Saltren, why have you left me ? " he
asked ; " my dear papa is dead, and I am so unhappy.
Why do you not come back to us ? and Arminell is dead
also. I have no one here but mamma. I love mamma,
but I want you also."

Jingles took the little boy on his knee. The child had a
delicate, intelligent face.

" Did you hear that I had arrived ? " asked Saltren.

" No ; I looked into the library because — I really can

430 ARMINELL.

hardly say why. Since I have lost papa, I go all about the
house ; I know I cannot find him, but I cannot help running
into one room and then another seeking him. I heard the
study door open, and that was papa's room, and I thought —
that is^^I didn't think — I wondered who could be in papa's
room. I was fond of coming here and sitting on his lap
and hearing about his rides and his spills when foxhunting.
Whenever I hear a door open or a step on the stairs, I think
papa is coming, and then next moment I know it cannot be
so. Why do you not come back ? I am doing no lessons
now, and am tired of holiday."

" You are going to school shortly, Giles."

" Yes, I know, but not till the term begins. Nurse says
that I am my lord now, and that mamma will call me
Lamerton instead of Giles. But I don't like it. I don't
wish to take anything that was papa's. I always persuade
myself he will come back. Did they tell you that I saw a
black coach come to the door and carry away papa ? The
black coach never came for Arminell. When I saw that,
papa would not let me tell mamma lest it should frighten
her. Why was not Arminell buried in the vault ? "

" Have you had any of your bad dreams lately ? "

" No, sir, but two nights ago I thought that papa camel
to my crib side and kissed me. I did not see, but I felt]
him; and he put his hand on my head and stroked my
hair, exactly the same way he did that night when I had
my bad dreams and saw the black coach and screamed. I
know papa's kiss even when I do not hear him speak, and
also the touch of his hand, which is not heavy, but very
light. I told nurse about it in the night, after he was gone,
but she said it was all stuff and nonsense, and I must go to ;
sleep. There comes mamma."

The boy jumped off his tutor's knee and stood aside.
He had been brought up to old-fashioned courtesy, and
never remained seated when his mother entered the room.

ARMINELL. 43 1

Lady Lamerton bowed stiffly to Jingles. She was dressed
in the deepest mourning, and looked pale and delicate. At
a sign from her the little fellow withdrew. She indicated
a chair, but Saltren, who had risen, did not reseat himself.
She did not speak, but waited for what he had to say, and
she remained standing.

" My lady," said the young man, ** my conscience would
not suffer me to depart, probably never again to revisit
Orleigh, without coming here to express to you in few words
what I feel in every fibre of my heart. I know how much
I owe you, my lady, — to your forbearance and kindness
towards a " — he hesitated a moment, and then said the word
firmly—" towards a Prig. I have not the words at my com-
mand in which even to allude to the debt I owe to one
who "

She bowed her head, she understood to whom he referred.
His voice refused to proceed with the sentence.

" I have come, my lady, in the first place to tell you that
never, while life lasts, will I forget what I owe to you and
to his lordship."

" It is a pity " — she began, and then checked herself; but
a faint colour came into her lips, a flush of anger at the
recollection of how he had repaid the kindness shown him.

Jingles waited for her to finish the sentence, but as she
did not do so, he said, " It is a pity I did not reniember this
earlier. Ves, that I now admit, to my indelible shame. I
acted most ungratefully. I do not know, my lady, what
Miss Inglett has told you, and therefore I am placed in a
difficulty."

" She has told me everything," answered Lady Lamerton,
" at least so I suppose. Here is her letter to me, which you
are at liberty to peruse, and you will see by it if there is
anything kept back which ought to be told, or which you
wish to tell me."

She extended a note to him, and he took it, and ran his

432 ARMINELL.

eye through it. It was written in Arminell's firm hand, and
it told everything, in her plain, decisive, and direct manner
— she hid nothing, she excused nothing.

He returned the letter to Lady Lamerton.

" There is but one thing for me to add — or rather," said
he, " one correction for me to make. Miss Inglett takes
the blame on herself. It should rest mainly on my shoul-
ders. Without my offer of help she never would have left
this house. I have no word of self-excuse. No one can
reproach me more severely than I reproach myself In no
eyes can I figure more despicably than in my own. That
is all I have to say — to assure you of my gratitude and my
regret. I thank you. Lady Lamerton, that you have pep
mitted me to see you and say this."

" Mr. Saltren," said she, " I will not disguise the fact that
you — you and my step-daughter between you — have occa-
sioned me more grief than has even the death of my dear
lord. But I am not justified in refusing to accept your ex-
pression of sorrow, though perhaps it is too early yet, and
the wound too fresh, for me to be able heartily to forgive
you both. I acknowledge that you acted for the best when
you discovered your error, in returning promptly to Chilla-
cot, so as to silence the voice of scandal. Whether Armi-
nell was wise in acting as she did admits of difference of
opinioiL For her decision you are not responsible. She
tells me what you proposed — to telegraph for her maid to
be sent to Portland Place, and that the maid should find
her at her aunt's and accompany her home. If that plan
had been executed, only ourselves would have known the
secret history of that London escapade. But she elected
otherwise. She would punish herself for having thought
unworthily of her dear father, and for having embittered his
last hour of life. It is possible, indeed it is probable, that
it was the distress and alarm which he felt, as he took that
fatal walk, that blinded him as to his course, so that he fell

ARMINELL. 433

over the cliff. I dare say Arminell has judged right in
resolving to suffer. I do not blame her. There is some-
thing honourable in her resolve to abide the consequences
of her own foolish act. She has also spared me the diffi-
culty of meeting her under the circumstances, and control-
ling and disguising my feelings towards her. If we had
met immediately, I hardly know how I could have behaved
with composure and charity towards her. I never, never
could have loved her as I have loved her heretofore ; for I
could not have forgotten the dishonour she had done in

thought to the purest life, the noblest soul " Then her

ladyship broke down.

After a minute she recovered herself, and proceeded,
** She has foreseen this, and has resolved to relieve me of
the restraint, to spare me the trial. I thank her for that.
I confess, Mr. Saltren, that when I heard you were here my
first impulse was to decline an interview. But on second
thoughts I resolved to accord you a meeting. It is as well
that no one should suspect the wrong you have done ; and
it is right that I should accept your expression of penitence,
for we daily ask of Heaven to forgive us our trespasses as
we forgive such as have trespassed against us." She paused.

Saltren's heart was too full for him to speak.

Silence ensued for a minute or two. Each stood, each
with lowered eyes, and with a struggle raging in each for
control over the stirred emotions.

" I will say good-bye," said her ladyship, ** no doubt for
ever. After what has passed it is as well that we should
never meet again. I am glad that you have called, I am
glad that I have received you. I shall think of you hence-
forth more kindly, in the light of one who, having done
wrong, devotes the rest of his life to striving to do his duty.
Mr. Saltren, our feelings must not be allowed to guide us,
but principle."

Giles Inglett Saltren walked home much depressed, and

2 E

434 ARMINELL.

yet content that he had seen Lady Lamerton ; depressed
because he had seen her and Giles for the last time, and
content because he had done right in seeking the interview.

He felt now that he had thrown away an opportunity of
in some little way repaying Lady Lamerton for the kindness
shown him. But for his mistake he might at this time have
rendered her valuable aid, such as, in a time of confusion
consequent on the fall of the main pillar of a house, must
always occur. He might have been of use to her in a
thousand little ways, knowing as he did the ramifications of
life in the great house ; of use also now with the boy in
giving bent to his fresh and pliable character.

A remarkable difference is found to exist between the
stages of development in the physical and moral natures.
The insect passes through three degrees, tlie larva, the
pupa, and imago, the last phase being the noblest, and the
middle the most torpid of the three conditions. With man
and woman physically it is different. The childhood in-
deed corresponds to the grub stage, but this is immediately
followed by the butterfly condition, and that of cessation of
energies and deterioration of beauty follows as the third
period. In psychical development, however, man follows
the same course as the insect. After the first voracious
acquisitive period of growth, comes the pupa condition,
when the human conscience, glutted with as much know-
ledge and experience as it deems sufficient, encases itself in
a chrysalis of conceit, and falls asleep in self-sufficiency.
Then, after a period of comatosity, comes a shock of awak-
ening life, the breath of a new spirit passes over the earth,
the sun smites with provocative ray, and the sleeping soul
stretches itself, and suddenly finds its case too strait for it.
Then that horny hide of self-conceit is riven from top to
bottom, and falls away, and at length the true, the perfect
spiritual character comes forth, flutters its wings for a
moment, gains fresh courage and expands them. It is in-

ARMINELL. 435

deed true that some insects never escape out of their chry-
salis, and some birds stifle in their shells through lack of
force to rive the encasing bound. And it is also true that
there are men and women who to the last remain hide-
bound in their self-esteem ; and the moral sense, the
spiritual force, the power of development becomes extinct
in them.

In our gardens the spade occasionally brings up these
dead pupse in their horny coffins ; and we are continually
coming across human beings in society, in like manner
enchrysalised in conceit, in which they remain eternally
encoffined.

It must not be supposed that the transition condition is
without its throes and effort. On the contrary, the advance
to the better, the perfect life is only possible through effort,
and the effort is stimulated by the sense of oppression,
through realisation of the straitness of the shell.

Hard had been the case that enclosed Jingles, but the
Giles Inglett Saltren we now see had completely emanci-
pated himself from it.

When he opened the door of Chillacot, his mother said —
** Giles, I have secured a servant. I have promised Tamsine
Kite a place in my establishment as lady's-maid. She will
attend me to town."

" But, mother "

" My dear, it is settled ; and see, here is Captain Tubb."
" Captain Tubb I"

"Yes, he has come to pay me his respects before I leave,
and to congratulate me on the disposal of Chillacot for so
handsome a sum, and to inquire what I propose doing with
the money — and even to suggest a desirable investment for
it."

CHAPTER XLVI.

ON FLOWER-POTS.

Saltren moved with his mother to London, and went with
her into lodgings. Mrs. Saltren had insisted on taking
Thomasine with her, and incurred accordingly the ad-
ditional expense of maintaining her where she was not
wanted. Thomasine was not likely to be of use till the
Saltrens got a house of their own, and Giles did not choose
to take one till he had got into a situation and was able to
see what his prospects were likely to be. As lady's-maid to
Mrs. Saltren, Thomasine was, of course, no good at all, or
likely, to employ that serviceable Yorkshire word again, '•' to
frame " as one.

"Whatever you do," said Mrs. Saltren, "mind that we
live in the West End. Why don't you go to Shepherd's
Bush, near the Welshes ? A man of my brother's political
and literary position must have hosts of distinguished
acquaintances, and a woman of Tryphoena's accomplish-
ments and beauty must have the entree into the highest
circles. If we lived near them we might get good intro-
ductions. If we don't get settled to my liking shortly in a
fashionable quarter of town, I do not know but that I may
return to Orleigh."

''Return to Orleigh !" echoed the son, "why, mother, I
thought that your desire had been to leave it. Besides, we
have not a house there any more."

ARMINELL. 437

" I know we have not," answered his mother, " but what
we may be without, it is possible that / might secure."

" I do not understand," said Jingles.

"I think," said Mrs. Saltren, '*that it is proper the
money paid by the railway company for Chillacot should be
put into the bank in my name and not in yours."

**1 have already told you, mother," said Giles, "that I
will not touch it myself. I consider it yours, not mine."

"But I have not the disposal of it."

" Indeed, mother, you have ; it is entered in your name,
not in mine, already. I have no account at the bank at
all."

" How can you talk nonsense," said Mrs. Saltren ; " you
have all your savings — quite a fortune — which you got at
the Park whilst tutor to young Giles."

" My dear mother, I had not the time to accumulate a
fortune. I was tutor there for eighteen months, and what I
saved was a hundred and twenty-five pounds, and that sum
is already disposed of."

" Disposed of ! what have you done with it ? "

" I have purchased an annuity for some one."

" For whom ? for me ? "

" No, mother, not for you. You have the purchase
money of Chillacot."

" For whom then ? I insist on knowing."

" For a man who has been crippled, and is unable to earn
his livelihood."

*' What nonsense ! What absurd fit of heroic charity has
come over you ? Since you went to town in that strange,
hurried fashion at the time of your father's death, you have
been altered from what you were before, as different as
canister beef from that which is fresh from the ox."

Giles said nothing in self-defence.

" But I insist on knowing on whom you have thrown this
money away."

43^ ARMINELt.

"I do not wish to tell — on a man who has the nearest of
claims on me."

Mrs. Saltren considered, then coloured, looked mortified,
and did not prosecute her inquiries. "Well," she said
petulantly, " a fool and his money are soon parted. I am
very glad I insisted on having the Chillacot purchase money
removed from your fingering. Please to ring for my lady's-
maid."

" Lady's-maid, mother ? "

*' For Thomasine. I want to speak to her. You may
leave the room. Here we have been in town a week and
the Welshes have not called. If we are to be more solitary
here than we were at Chillacot, I shall go back to Orleigh.
Ring for my lady's-maid."

Mrs. Saltren was, indeed, becoming tired of London.
Her opportunities for boasting were confined to talks with
her landlady and her landlady's visitors.

It did her soul good, said the woman of the lodgings, to
hear of lords and ladies ; it was as comforting and improving
as the words that dropped from the lips of the Reverend
Hezekiah Bumpas. She felt it down to her toes.

Mrs. Saltren indulged her in this particular to her heart's
content. She knew many persons of distinction. Lady
Hermione Woodhead, who lived in Portland Place, had
once been her intimate friend, till they differed about Lord
Lamerton's marriage. What had made them differ? It
did not become her to speak, but his lordship had set his
aff"ections elsewhere, she could not name in what direction,
and had been inveigled by the Woodheads into an alliance
with their family. It was a mistake, an entanglement
managed by designing women.

Lord Lamerton was ill after his engagement, so was
another person who must be nameless. When Lady
Lamerton died, then his first flame had married — without
love, and in his desperation he married again. Of course

ARMINELL. 439

after that first estrangement she and Lady Hermione never
spoke. She — Marianne Saltren — had passed the Eari of
Anstey's family repeatedly without recognition. If her
landlady doubted her word, let her accompany her to Hyde
Park, and when the Anstey family drove by, she would see
that they took no notice of each other. After what had
happened it could not be otherwise. But though Mrs.
Saltren could talk what nonsense came into her vain head to
the lodging-house keeper, she was disappointed that she could
not to a larger circle, disappointed at the little notice she
attracted in town. It was most strange that the Welshes
took no notice of her. She feared that they were going to
treat her with coldness and not introduce her to the dis-
tinguished circle of acquaintances in which they moved.

I knew a young girl who was given lessons in oil-painting
before she had learned how to draw, and a somewhat
similar inversion of order went on in the instruction of
Thomasine Kite, whom Marianne Saltren began to train to
be a lady's-maid before the girl knew the elements of
domestic service, having previously been a farm-maid, feed-
ing pigs and scouring milk-pails.

Thomasine did not take readily to instruction, least of all
could she acquire deference towards her mistress ; and Mrs.
Saltren was irritated at the freedom with which the girl
accosted her, and at the laughter she provoked in Thomasine
when she, Marianne, assumed her grand manner. More-
over, she discovered that her landlady had been questioning
the girl in private as to the circumstances and former
position of her mistress, and Mrs. Saltren was afraid that the
revelations in the kitchen might cause some of her stories
to be discounted. Fortunately for her, the broad dialect of
Thomasine was almost unintelligible to the landlady, and
the girl had the cunning of the uneducated, which leads
them to evade giving a direct answer to any question put
to them

440 ARMINELL.

Giles Inglett Saltren was unaware till he came to town
that Arminell was settled in the house of the Welshes.
He knew that his uncle had undertaken to arrange matters
of business for her, and to look out for a house and com-
panion for her, but he had refrained from asking questions
about her, from motives of delicacy. Indeed he had scarcely
written to Mr. Welsh since his return to Orleigh. He was
resolved not again to seek his assistance on his own behalf,
but to find a situation for himself. When, however, he
came to town, and met his uncle at an office in the city, he
learned from him where Arminell was, and at once urged
on Mr. Welsh the mischief which would ensue should Mrs.
Saltren discover that Miss Inglett was alive and their lodger.
Welsh saw that, and undertook to prevent his wife from
calling on Mrs. Saltren, and promised to keep his eye open
for an opportunity of placing Arminell elsewhere. Marianne
Saltren shared the prevailing opinion that Miss Inglett was
dead, and Giles was specially anxious lest she should dis-
cover that this was not the case. If she were to see
Arminell, would it be possible to control her tongue?
Would she not be eager to publish the fact that the Honour-
able Miss Inglett was a guest of her brother and sister-in-
law?

It had been Saltren's intention to keep away from Armi-
nell, but under this alarm he felt it his duty to see her and
precipitate her departure from Shepherd's Bush. His
mother could not be kept indefinitely away from her
brother's house. One word from his mother might frustrate
Arminell's intention, upset her plans. From Mrs. Saltren
the report would rapidly spread. Mrs. Cribbage had ears
like those of the trusty servant on the Winchester escutcheon,
and without the trusty servant's padlock on the tongue. If
once the truth got wind, to what difficulties w^ould the
Lamerton family be put, now that they had accepted and
published the death of the girl I

ARMINELL. 44 1

The author of this novel was involved many years ago in
an amateur performance of " Macbeth," but the sole part
he took in the tragedy was to sit in the midst of the witches'
cauldron, and ignite the several coloured fires which were
destined to flame, as scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, liver of
blaspheming Jew, were cast in. But when, to Locke's
lovely music, the imps and witches danced around the
vessel, then it was his function to explode a so-called
flower-pot, which is a roaring, spirting composition of fire-
work. Unfortunately, at the first chorus and circular dance,
the blazing flower-pot tumbled back upon the author, con-
cealed within the depths of the cauldron, and, to save him-
self from an auto-da-fe end, he enveloped the flower-pot in a
rug, and screwed it up tight and sat on it. So the scene
ended, and, believing that the fire-work was completely
extinguished, he then unfolded the rug. No sooner, how-
ever, did the air reach the smothered fire-work, than it
bounced, and roared, and blazed with doubled vigour. It
threw out sheaths of flame, it shot ofl" roraan candles, it
ejected a score of crackers and filled the entire stage with
smoke, and very nearly burnt down the theatre.

Saltren dreaded something of this sort happening now.
The fire-work of scandal had, indeed, been muflled up and
smothered, when first it began to fizz; but — who could tell?
— if it got air again, even through a pin-hole, it would
burst into furious conflagration and defy all efforts made to
suppress it.

The writer of this story takes this occasion of apologising
— if apology be necessary — for the introduction, on more
than one occasion, of his own adventures, his own opinions,
and, if you will it, his own prejudices into the course of his
narrative. He will be told that the author should disappear
as a personality, just as the actor merges his individuality
in that of the character he represents. He must treat him-
self as a flower-pot and wrap himself up in the garde-robe of

442 ARMINELL.

his dramatis personce. I might, of course, have told that
story of the flower-pot in the cauldron as having happened
to Jingles at Orleigh, but then I could never have told that
story again at a dinner-party, for my guest, next but one,
would say, " Ah ! that happened to my brother, or to
my uncle, or to an intimate friend;" and how can I
deny that Jingles did not stand in one of these relations
to him ?

Montaigne, the essayist, was a sad sinner in the introduc-
tion of himself into his prose. The essay on which he was
engaged might be on the history of Virgil, or Julius Caesar,
but there was certain to creep into it more of Montaigne
than of either. The younger Scaliger rebuked him for it,
and, after having acquainted the world with the ancestry of
Montaigne, he adds, " His great fault is this, that he must
needs inform you, * For my part I am a lover of white wines or
red wines.' What the Devil signifies it to the public," adds
Scaliger, "whether he is a lover of white wines or red wines?"
So, but with more delicacy, and without the introduction of
that personage whose name has been written with a capital
D, the reader may say to the author, What the blank does
it signify what you think, what you like, what you did,
whether you ever sat in a cauldron, whether you ever had a
flower-pot fall on your head, whether you sought to extin-
guish it by sitting on it — go on with your story.

But a man's personality — I mean my own — is like that
piece of pyrotechnic contrivance, a flower-pot. He wraps
it up, he smothers it under fold after fold of fiction ; but,
fizz ! fizz ! out it comes at last — here, there, on all sides,
and cannot be disguised. There is, to be sure, that subter-
fuge, the use of the first person plural in place of the first
person singular, but is it not more vain-glorious to talk of
We, as if we were royalties, instead of plain and modest I ?

When Giles Saltren arrived at the house in the Avenue,
Shepherd's Bush, Arminell flushed with pleasure, sprang

ARMINELL. 443

from her seat, and with outstretched hand started to receive
him; then she checked herself, and said, "I am glad to see
you. Oh, Mr. Saltren, I hear nothing of Orleigh, of dear,
dear Orleigh ! I have the heartache for news. I want to
hear my own tongue wag on the subject nearest my heart,
and to listen to tidings about the people I knew there. I
am like a departed soul looking back on familiar scenes,
and unable to visit them and old friends, and unable to
communicate with them. I am Dives, and Orleigh is to
me Paradise. You have come thence with a drop of fresh
news wherewith to cool my thirsty tongue."

" I am Lazarus indeed," said Saltren, " but out of Para-
dise. Ask me what you will about Orleigh, and I will
answer what I can."

" There is one matter that teases me," she said ; " I
promised a poor fellow, before I left, that he should have
employment at a small wage, and I do not suppose he has
had what I undertook to give him."

" Do you mean Samuel Ceely ? He is provided for."

" How so ? "

" He has come in, unexpectedly, for a little money,
wherewith an annuity has been purchased."

" I am glad of that. And — my mother and Giles, have
you seen them ? "

" Yes, 1 called to say farewell to both. Lady Lamerton
looks worn and sad, and your dear brother is out of spirits ;
but this could not be otherwise."

Arminell's eyes filled, and she went to the window and
dried her tears.

*' Miss Inglett," said the young man, after she had been
given time to recover herself, " I have only ventured to call
on you for one reason, that I might impress on you the
necessity of leaving this house. My mother is in town, and
she must not be allowed to know or even suspect that you
are alive and here."

444 ARMINELL.

Arminell did not speak for some time. Presently she
said, " Do not let us talk about anything at present but
Orleigh. I am parched for news. I daresay there is
nothing of tremendous importance to relate, but I care for
little details. How was the house looking? Were the
trees turning to their autumn tints? The Virginian creeper,
was that touched with crimson ? How are Mr. and Mrs.
Macdufif ? I could not abide them when I was at Orleigh,
I could be thankful now for a sound of their delightful
Scotch brogue. What is Giles going to do? dear little boy I
I would give a week's sunlight for a kiss from his moist lips
— which formerly I objected to. And mamma — has she
been to the Sunday School since — since — ? "

Then Arminell's tears flowed agaiiL

After another pause, during which the young man looked
through the photographic album on the table, Arminell
recovered herself, and said, " Do not suppose for a moment
that I regret my decision. My conscience is relieved. I
am beginning to acquire fresh interests. I am now making
a frock for baby. I am godmother to Mrs. Welsh's child,
and have come to be very fond of him. But there — tell me
something about Orleigh, and Giles, and my mother —
about any person or animal, or shrub or tree there. And,
oh ! can you obtain for me some photographs of the place ?
I should cherish them above everything T have. I dream
of Orleigh. I think of Orleigh, and — I shall never see dear
Orleigh again."

" I will come another day. Miss Inglett, and tell you all
that I can, but to-day I must urge on you the vital necessity
of at once leaving this house."

"Your aunt can hardly get on without me."

" She managed formerly without you, she must do the
same again."

" But there was no baby in the house then. And, be-
sides, the new cook who was to have come has failed. The

ARMINELL. 445

last went up a ladder sixty feet high, and it took several
constables and a sergeant to get her down."

Arminell laughed through her tears.

** Miss Inglett, consider what the difficulty would be in
which her ladyship would be placed should it become
known — "

" Mrs. Saltren and her lady's-maid ! "

The door was thrown open by the maidof-all-work, and
she ushered into the drawing-room the person of all others
— except perhaps Mrs. Cribbage — whom it was desired to
keep from the house, and she was followed by Thomasine
Kite.

Verily, the flower-pot was not smothered. It was about
to fizz and puff again.

CHAPTER XLVII.

EQUILIBRIUM.

The story is told of a mouse having been hidden under a
dish-cover, and a married pair introduced into the dining-
room and invited to partake of every dish except that
which remained covered. When left to themselves, the
woman, contrary to the advice of her husband, raised the
cover, and out ran the mouse. Blue Beard forbade Fatima
to open one door in his castle, and of course she tried the
forbidden key. There was one tree in the midst of Paradise
of which our first parents were not allowed to eat, and of
course they nibbled at the fruit to discover how it tasted.
All these stories point to the truth that nothing can be re-
tained from human inquisitiveness. A secret resembles a
mouse more than an apple or a dead wife of Blue Beard,
for the mouse escapes when once uncovered and can no
more be hidden, whereas the apple disappears when
eaten, and the dead woman is locked up again. A secret
when once out is all over the house, and is far too wary to
be trapped again.

Who would expect to find a mouse under a dish-cover ?
So with secrets, they are let loose from the most unlikely
places, and many of us know that so well that we devote
our energies to, and spend our time in lifting china cups,
opening snuff-boxes, removing lids of tea-caddies, unsnap-

ARMINELL. 447

ping purses, pulling out drawers, boring holes in casks, in
the hopes of letting out secrets. We suspect our acquain-
tance and " visit " their goods, as if we were custom-house
officers in search of what is contraband. We know that
they have a forbidden secret somewhere, and we search and
probe everywhere to discover it.

There are mice everywhere ; if we hold our breath and
remain still for two minutes we can hear them scratching
and squeaking; and there are secrets everywhere, behind
the wainscot, under the floor, in the cupboard. Once I
knew of a nest of mice in a gentleman's boot, and once in
a lady's muff; and secrets nest and breed in quite as extra-
ordinary places — in a pocket, in a bunch of flowers, in
envelopes, under pillows.

-^sop tells of a beautiful cat that was transformed into
a woman, but this woman could never forget her feline
instinct to run after a mouse. A great many ladies I know
have the same feline instinct to spring out of bed, up from
their sofas, to make a dart after a secret, if they hear but
the slightest footsteps, see but a whisker. I do not blame
them. Men are sportsmen, why should not women be
mousers ? We find pleasure in starting a hare, why should
not a woman find as much in starting a couching secret ?

I do not blame them for their love of sport, but for what
they do with their game when it is caught. We bag ours,
they let theirs run. Samson did the same. He caught
foxes and tied firebrands to their tails and sent them into
the standing corn of the Philistines. Our secret-hunters,
when they have caught their game, tie brimstone matches to
their tails and send them among the stores of their neigh-
bours.

i do not believe in the possibility of concealing secrets,
and therefore never try to keep them. As for pursuing a
secret when once out, that is labour in vain, it changes
form, it doubles, it dives, it has as many artifices as a

448 ARMINELL.

chased fox. As soon recover a secret as recondense
volatile essential oils that have been spilt. A secret is not
safe in our own heads, for our heads are of amber, and the
secret is visible to every one who looks at us, like a con-
gealed fly therein.

In one of the Arabian Nights' Tales a princess goes after
a necromancer who has transformed himself into a scorpion,
and she takes the shape of a serpent ; the wizard, hard
pressed, becomes a cat, and the princess attacks him in the
disguise of a wolf Then the cat becomes a seed, and the
wolf a cock, thereat the seed falls into a canal and is trans-
muted into a trout, which is at once chased by the princess
in shape of a pike. Finally both issue in flames from the
water, the wizard is reduced to ashes, but so also is the
princess. If we try to overtake and make an end of a
secret, we shall meet with less success than did this
princess. She at last succeeded in destroying her game,
but we, in our efibrts to catch and make an end of an un-
pleasant secret, get set on flames ourselves. If we have
anything we do not want our neighbours to know, and it
has got out, we had better let it run ; we cannot recover it.
Indeed, I beHeve that the best way to conceal what we do
not want to have known is to expose it for sale, to dangle it
before the eyes of every one, like those men outside the
Exchange who off'er spiders at the end of threads of elastic
for one penny. Nobody buys. No one even looks at
them. But were one of these fellows to hide such a black
putty spider in his hat, up his arm, in his pocket, a crowd
would collect and pull him to pieces to find the spider.

It was not immediately that Arminell realised the serious
consequences of Mrs. Saltren's visit, but the young man
knew at once that all chance of the secret being respected
was at an end.

"I am interrupting,'' said the widow, knowingly, *'I am
sure I hadn't the wish. I came to see Mrs. Welsh, and

ARMINELL. 449

never expected to find my son here, much less Miss In-
glett."

" Mrs. Welsh is upstairs with the baby," said Arminell.
"You have not seen your nephew. Shall I fetch him, Mrs.
Saltren ? "

*' Not for the world, Miss Inglett. I will run upstairs
and find my sister-in-law, who, I do say, has been
negligent in calling on me. But if the mountain won't go
to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain. I'm sure
I don't want to intrude here. You may leave the room,
Thomasine, I don't want you to follow me up to the nursery.
Go down to the kitchen. Every one ought to know her
own place."

When the girl had disappeared, Mrs. Saltren said confid-
entially, " We brought the young person to town, and she
don't understand how to friz the hair, and me wanting to
wear a fringe. However she could have had the fa<^ to
oifer for my situation as lady's-maid, passes my understand-
ing. But, miss, the conceit of the rising generation is sur-
prising. I want to ask Mrs. Welsh to take the creature off
my hands in any capacity she likes to name. She might do
as parlour-maid, or nurse-girl, or cook, anything but lady's-
maid. I've tried to teach her to fold gowns, but folding is
like music or painting — you must be borne with the gift ; it
cannot be learnt ; and as some have no ear for tune, and
others no eye for colour, so have some no natural gift for
folding. You can't make, as they say, a fichu out of a
bustle. I had once a red flannel coverlet, and a hole was
burnt in it, so I turned it into a petticoat. When the hot
weather came I couldn't bear it, and as the Band of Hope
wanted a banner, I did a non-alcoholic motto on it in straw
letters, and converted it into a Temperance banner, and
very inspiriting it was. It is the same with girls. Some
you can adapt to all sorts of purposes, others you can't."

When Mrs. Saltren had left the room in quest of her

2 F

45 O ARMINELL.

sister-in-law and the baby, Giles said in a tone of discourage-
ment, " I do not now know what is to be done. It is in-
evitable that the news of your being here should reach Or-
leigh, either through my mother or the girl, probably through
both, not perhaps at once, but eventually, Then — what a
difficult position Lady Lamerton will be in ! "

Arminell looked down on the carpet, and traced the
pattern with her foot. Presently she looked up and said,
" I see — I never did justice to the merits of humdrum.
Even when I was shown my folly and acknowledged my
fault, I must needs still play the heroine, and take a bold
step, not altogether justifiable, because it landed me in
falsehood, and involved others in untruth. But I thought
then it was the simplest course for me to follow to escape
having to equivocate and even lie. The straight course is
always the best. Now I admit that. Short cuts do not
always lead where one thinks they will. I wish I had acted
with less precipitation and more modesty, had Hstened to
your advice and acted without dissimulation. For myself
now I do not care, but I do not see how my mother and
other relations can extricate themselves from the dilemma
in which I have placed them."

« Nor do I."

" I am neither dead nor alive. The situation is almost
grotesque. I wish it were not distressing. Do not mis-
understand me. It is painful to myself only, as every
sharp lesson cuts. But I am more vexed for the sake
of others than for my own. I have been a fool, an utter
fooL'

She put her hands over her eyes.

" Upon my word, Mr. Saltren," she said after an interval,
" I have hardly an atom of self-confidence left. There
never was a more perverse girl than myself, such a profound
blunderer. I make a mistake whatever I do. What is to
be done ? What can I do ? "

I

ARMINELL. 451

Giles Saltren was silent. The predicament was one
from which there was no escape.

" Your mother's red coverlet was better than me," said
Arminell. " That did serve some good purpose, to what-
ever end it was turned, but I always get from one difficulty
into another, and drag my friends out of one discomfort into
another still worse. Only here — here am I of any good at
all ; I was born into a wrong sphere, only now have I re-
turned to that system in which I ought to have been planted
when called into existence. And yet even in this I produce
a disturbing effect on the system of planets I have left"

" You cannot remain in this house, Miss Inglett, not now
for the reason I gave at first, but because too much is put
upon you."

" Nothing is put on me — I take on me what I feel quali-
fied to execute. Do you remember the answer made by the
young Persian to Cyrus, when the prince reprimanded him
because his actions were not in accordance with his pre-
viously expressed sentiments ? ' Sire,' he said, ' I perceive
that I have two souls in me, one wilful and wicked, and the
other modest and righteous. Sometimes one is awake and
at other times the second.' So it is with me. Now I trust
the nobler soul is rubbing its eyes and stretching itself, and
the sandman is scattering dust in the eyes of the baser soul.
My old soul was haughty and lived in an atmosphere of ex-
travagance, and the new one is humble, and delights in the
breath of commonplace. Do you remember, Mr. Saltren,
telling me of the effect of the contrast to you of a return
from Orleigh Park to Chillacot ? You said that you were
unfitted by the grandeur of the former to endure the mean-
ness of the latter. At the time when you said this, I
thought that such a translation to me would be unendurable,
but the translation has been effected, and I am not miser-
able. On the contrary, but for my self-reproach and look-
ing back on lost faces and scenes, I should be happier here :

452 ARMINELL.

for the childlike spirit is waking in me, which is content
with trifles."

" Happier — here ! Miss Inglett, surely not."

"Yes — happier. I am happy in helping others. I am
become useful to Mrs. Welsh, I relieve her of the baby, I
can even cook fairly, I make the glass and silver shine. The
work and worry here were more than your aunt could bear.
Cooks are scarce as saints. The last your aunt had — oh !
I have already mentioned the circumstances. I will not repeat
them. I do not feel that the house is small, indeed I am
glad that it is not larger. We talk a good deal about the
misdeeds of servants, and the difficulty there is in getting
cooks ; in my former world we talked a good deal about the
unscrupulousness of politicians, and the difficulty there was
in getting morality among statesmen — political morality I
mean. We discuss now the humours of the baby, what his
dribbling means — whether teeth or disorder; and we dis-
cussed then the humours of the public, and what the dribble
meant that flowed so freely at public meetings. We think
now how we may cut out and alter garments for the little
creature; and then, what adjustments and changes were
needed for the satisfaction of the public. Conversation on
each subject is as interesting and as profitless. I thought
at one time that I could not live away from rocks and trees —
I hardly miss them now. I have no time to consider whether
I want them or not, because I am engaged all day. I really
believe that the servant girl, the slavey, as your uncle calls
her, is happier than your aunt or me, because she has the
fewest responsibilities and the most work."

Arminell spoke fast, half in jest, half in tears ; she spoke
quickly, to conceal the emotion she felt.

" Did you see a picture at the Royal Academy a few years
ago representing the Babylonian Marriage Market ? In old
Babylon all marriageable women were sent up to auction,
and the sum paid for the pretty ones went as dower for

ARMINELL. 453

those who were ugly. Thus was a balance preserved. I
suspect it is much the same in life. There is equilibrium
where we least expect it. The peacock has a gorgeous
plumage and a horrible voice, the nightingale the sweetest
song and the plainest feathers. Some of our most radiant
flowers are without perfume, and some that smell odorifer
ously have little in the way of beauty to boast of When I
was in the aristocratic world, I had my luxuries, intellectual,
aesthetic, and physical, but, somehow, I lacked that joyous-
ness I am finding here. In the middle class there is a
freedom from the restraints which cramped us in the class
above, and I have no doubt that there is an abandon^ an
insouciance in the class below which makes up for the
deficiency in the amenities, refinements, and glow of life in
higher spheres. There is a making up of the balance, an
adjustment of the equilibrium in the market-place of modern
life as in that of ancient Babylon. Those with rank and
wealth have to walk with muffled faces, only the plain and
lowly may breathe freely and let the sun kiss their cheeks."

" Miss Inglett, I am sure, notwithstanding your efforts to
make me think the contrary, that you are not happy."

*' I tell you that I am. I say this in all sincerity. I do
not deny that I feel a heartache. That is because my con-
science reproaches me, and because I now love and regret
what I once cast from me. If I had not been born elsewhere
I should be fresh and happy now, but every plant suffers
for a while when transplanted. I am throwing out my
rootlets and fastening myself into the new soil, and will soon
be firm fixed in it as if I had grown there from the beginning —
my only trouble that I have dreams of the past. A princess
was once carried off by Riibezahl, giant spirit of the moun-
tains, to his palace of crystal in the heart of the earth. He
gave her all she could wish for, save one thing, the sound
of the cattle bells on the Alpine pastures. His home was
too far down for those sounds to reach. Whenever we are

454 ARMINELL.

carried away from our home, we must always carry away
with us some recollections of pleasant sounds and sights,
and they linger with us as memories over which to weep.
But there — we have had enough about myself — nay, too
much. I want to hear what you are about, and what are
your prospects."

" I am in search of occupation, and have, so far, met only
with disappointment."

" You have been anxious. You are not looking well."

"Naturally, I am anxious, I, hke you, have the weight
of the past oppressing me. Unlike you, I have not accom-
modated myself to my transplantation, but — in fact, I have
not yet found soil in which my roots may take hold."

" "What soil do you want ? "

" Any. There is a demand, I am told, for muscle ; the
market is glutted with brain, or what passes for brain. As
there is a deficiency in the supply of cooks, I will mount a
white cap and apron and apply for a kitchen. But, seri-
ously, apart from my affairs, which can wait, yours must be
attended to."

"But nothing can be done. You propose nothing. I
can suggest nothing."

Then in came Mrs. Welsh and Mrs. Saltren. The former
was carrying the baby.

*' It is all settled," said Tryphoena Welsh. " Rejoice with
me. Miss Inglett. I did want a cook, one not given to
climbing ladders, and now I have got one ; now James will
swear, for he has been spoiled by your cookery. Miss
Inglett ; at last I have got a cook, the girl Thomasine Kite.
Come, kiss the baby and thank Heaven."

CHAPTER XLVIII.

l'allemande.

" Why, blessings on me ! " exclaimed Mrs. Saltren, on her
return to the lodgings in Bloomsbury. " Whoever expected
the pleasure ! And — I am sorry that you should see us
here, Captain Tubb ; not settled into our West-End house.
Me and my son are looking about for a suitable residence,
genteel and commodious, and with a W. to the address ;
but there is that run on the West End, and it is almost
impossible, without interest, to get a house. My brother,
however, who is like to be an M.P., is using his influence.
But, captain, you see that every house won't suit me ; I'm
not going to be in the shade any more. Well, it is a plea-
sure to see an Orleigh face here; and, pray, what has
brought you to town. Captain Tubb ? "

The visitor was in a black suit, that obtained for his son's
funeral ; he held his hat in one hand, with a broad black
cloth band about it. With his disengaged hand he thrust
up his beard and nibbled the ends.

Ladies play with their fans, coquette with them, talk with
them, angle with them ; and an uninitiated person looking
on wonders what is the meaning of the many movements
made with the fan — the unfurling, the snapping, the half-
opening. Perhaps Captain Tubb may have been coquet-
ting, talking with his hat, for he turned it about, then looked

456 ARMINELL.

into it, then smoothed it where it was ruffled, then put it
under his chair, then took it up and balanced it on his
knee. I cannot tell. If he was not speaking with his hat,
what else could he have meant by all the movements he
went through with it?

" Well, ma'am," said the captain ; " seeing as how I was
in London, I thought I'd come and inquire how you was
getting along. How are you ? And how is Mr. Jingles ? "

" I, myself, am but middling," answered Mrs. Saltren,
with stateliness. " My son — Mr. Giles Inglett Saltren — is
very well indeed. I have gone through a great deal of
trouble, and that takes it out of one," said Mrs. Saltren,
" like spirits of nitre.'*

" So it do, ma'am. There is a vale of misery ; but the
sale of Chillacot was an elevation in the same ; and bank-
notes are of that spongy nature that they sop up a lot o'
tears. How, if I may make so bold as to ask, is your son
thinking of investing the money? You see, ma'am, poor
Captain Saltren and I knowed each other that intimate, our
hues o' business running alongside of each other, that we
was always a-hailing of each other. And now that he's
gone, it seems natural for me to come and consult with his
relict."

"You're flattering, Mr. Tubb. I must say, it is a pity
my poor Stephen did not oftener consult me. If he had —
but there, I won't say what I might. About Chillacot, he
was that pig-headed that — but no, not another word. I've
always heard say that the wife is the better half. What a
mercy it is, and how it proves the wisdom of Providence,
that the wusser half was took away first."

"You don't know, Mrs. Saltren, how dreadful you're
missed in Orleigh ; the place don't seem the same without
you. And folks say such spiteful things too."

" As what, captain ? "

'* As that, having sold Chillacot, you ought to spend the

ARMINELL. 457

purchase money there, and not be throwing it about in
town."

" Do they now ? But I'm not throwing it about ; it is all
in the bank."

" I reckon Mr. Jingles — I mean your son, ma'am — has it
there in his own name."

" Not at all, cap'n. The money is mine."

Captain Tubb whisked round the brim of his hat with
both hands.

" There have been changes since you've gone," he said.
" For one, there is old Sam Ceely married."

" Sam Ceely ! " echoed Mrs. Saltren, and dropped her
hands in her lap.

" It does seem almost wicked for a man at his time of
life and crippled. But he and Joan Melhuish have been
keeping company a long time, and now he has come in for
some money. I hope," said the captain, " that the childer,
if there come any, mayn't come into this world with half
their fingers blowed off through poaching, and a bad life
through drunkenness."

Mrs. Saltren said nothing.

" There's another thing," pursued Captain Tubb. " The
new quarry is running out, and we're thinking of reopening
the old one."

" What — that which is full of water ? It is worked out."

"Oh, no ! there is more lime if more head be taken off;
but there can be nothing done till the water is pumped
out."

" You are thinking of pumping the quarry dry ? "

" Yes, ma'am ; with a water-wheel it could be cleared.
I've talked the matter with Mr. Macduff and the trustees,
and they are content to let me have the quarry rent free for
five years, if I will put up the proper machinery to get out
the water."

" The expense will be very heavy."

458 ARMINELL.

Captain Tubb stroked his beard, and put the ends into
his mouth ; then, after consideration he admitted —

" Well, it will cost money."

" And are you really going to sink money in pumping out
water?"

" Consider, Mrs. Saltren, that I shall have the working of
the quarry for no rent at all during five years."

" And you think it worth the outlay ? "

" Seven per cent, guaranteed."

" My son says that all I can expect to get for my capital
if invested is five per cent."

" I dare say, in town. At Orleigh, seven."

Neither spoke for some time ; Captain Tubb continued
to play alternately with his beard and his hat ; and Mrs.
Saltren looked on the floor, then furtively at her visitor.

Presently the widow asked, "What will you take?
Bottled stout or spirits and water ? "

" Thank you, whichever you drink."

"I drink neither," answered Mrs. Saltren, drawing herself
up. " I taste nothing but tea and water ; but when an old
friend comes and sees me, I make an exception. I have
some whisky in the sideboard — Giles suffers in his inside,
and I'm obliged to keep it by me against his attacks. If
you will allow me I will get it out."

She rang for water and tumblers, and produced the spirits
and sugar.

" Now tell me some further news of Orleigh," she said, as
she stirred a glass.

" There has been the cottage of Patience Kite done up
again," said he, "and she has gone back into it, which is
unfortunate, for it would have suited me if I work the old
quarry."

" But surely it would not be large enough for you, cap'n."

He shook his head. He had finished his glass, and
now abstractedly he half filled it with water.

ARMINELL. 459

** Since poor Arkie died, I'm very lonely. It is fifteen
years since I buried my wife. I feel as lonely as does this
drop o' water in the tumbler, without spirits to qualify it."

Mrs. Saltren pushed the whisky bottle towards him.

" Mix to your liking, captain," she said.

In old English country dances there is a figure known by
the name of Tallemande, which consists of a couple dancing
round each other, back to back, after which they join hands
and dance down the middle. The allemande lingers on in
Sir Roger de Coverley, but is never performed in polite
society. It survives in full force in country courtships.

We who live in the midst of artificiality of all kinds in our
time of roses sigh for the unchecked liberty of the rustic
swain- and his milkmaid, and kick at the little etiquettes
which restrain us within the limits of decorum. But, as a
matter of fact, the love-making below stairs is oblique,
prosaic, and of a back-to-back description, full of restraints
and shynesses, of setting to partners, and allemanding about
them. From the contemplation of pastoral pictures in red
crayon on our Queen Anne walls, we carry away the notion
that country love-making is direct, idyllic, and flowery. It
is nothing of the sort. Come, follow the allemanding of
this mature pair.

" I've not yet been to Brignton and seen the Aquarium,"
said Mrs. Saltren. " Have you, Captain Tubb ? "

" Can't say I have, ma'am. It's lone work going by
oneself to see fishes."

"So have I thought," said the widow. "And for that
reason I've not been."

"It is a wonderful consideration," said the captain,
" how fond cats are of fish ; and how ill the skin and bones
of a salt herring do make a cat ! For myself, I like trout."

"Well, so do I!" said the widow. "They're fresher
than salt-water fish, as stands to reason."

" The old lord put trout into the quarry-pond," said Tubb.

460 ARMINELL.

" So I've heard ; and Saltren told me they were monstrous
fat and large."

" There is no catching them," observed the captain ;
*' the water is clear, and they are wary. If ever I pump the
pond dry, ma'am, you shall have a dish."

"Trout should be eaten when they are just out of the
watei," said Mrs. Saltren; "they lose their flavour when a
day old. I suppose it will not be possible for me to have
them trout you so kindly offer the same day they are
ketched."

" Not possible if you are in London," answered the
captain. " Perhaps you'd best come to Orleigh to eat
'em."

Then ensued a silence, broken at last by Mrs. Saltren,
who remarked, with a sigh —

"There'll be no eating of them trout till the pump is
got."

" That is true," sighed Tubb. " But then the money is
sure to be raised wherewith to put up the water-wheel and
pump. Just consider, ma'am, seven per cent. You've not
thought of investing, have you, what you got by the sale of
Chillacot ? "

This was a direct question, and the captain was scared at
his temerity in putting it. Ke ate a whole mouthful of his
beard.

"*A fool and her money are soon parted,' says the
proverb," answered Mrs. Saltren. "Consequently, I don't
think I'U let my money go anywhere without me."

Captain Tubb drew his chair closer; and, instead of
settling the matter at once, began a fresh allemand.

" What do you think of mutton here in London ? "

"I don't relish it; and it is awfully dear, so is beef.
Elevenpence and a shilling for w^hat at Orleigh cost eight-
pence and ninepence. What fortunes them butchers must
be making ! "

ARMINELL. 46 1

" It seems a sin to encourage them," said Tubb.

" It does go against my conscience," agreed Mrs. Saltren.

" Then," argued the captain, " I wouldn't encourage
them. Twopence and threepence in the pound is too
much."

" I've a mind to return to the country," said Mrs.
Saltren ; " I don't want to encourage such wickedness."

" And then, ma'am, you can eat the trout fresh."

*' Ah, captain ! but the capital for pumping ? "

Then Captain Tubb cautiously slid one arm round Mrs.
Saltren's waist, and said —

** Come, Marianne, with your capital, away from the
mutton of town to the trout of the country."

" I should like 'em fresh," said the widow. " We'll pump
together for them."

The youthful romance-reader exacts of a novel some love-
making, and, to satisfy this reader, I have given this
pathetic and romantic scene in full. To this sort of reader,
style is nothing, characterisation is nothing, the grammar is
nothing — indeed the whole story is nothing if there be
in it no love-making.

That is the spice which flavours the dish, and without it
the dish is rejected as unpalatable.

To encourage this reader, accordingly, at the outset a
chapter was devoted to love-making in tandem, and another
to love-making abreast. Only one of those love-affairs has
come to a happy conclusion ; one was broken off by the
breaking-down of Patience Kite's chimney. To make up to
the reader for her disappointment, I have inserted this other
love-scene, and have introduced it near the end of my book
to stimulate the jaded appetite to finish it.

Is it false to nature ? Only those will say so who are
ignorant of country courtships. Oh, foraDionysian ear through
which to listen to —not the sighs of prisoners, but the coo

462 ARMTNELL.

of turtle-doves ! Now it so fell out that the writer of these
lines was himself, on one occasion, an eye-and-ear witness to
the wooing of a rustic couple — involuntarily. It came about
in this way.

When -I was a boy, on a Sunday, I had set a trap to
catch rats that scared the scullery-maid in the back kitchen,
and caused her to drop my mother's best china. But as
rat-catching was not considered by my parents a Sabbatical
amusement, I set my traps on the sly when they were at
church on Sunday afternoon, and I was at home with a
cold. The housemaid was left in charge, and naturally
admitted her lover to assist her in watching after the safety
of the house. Both seated themselves in the kitchen, one
in the settle, the other in a chair before the fire. When I,
in the back kitchen, heard them enter, I was afraid to stir
lest my parents should be informed of my proceedings, and
the sanctity of the Sabbath be impressed tinglingly on me,
across my father's knee, with the back of a hair-brush, a
paper-knife, or a slipper. Accordingly I kept still.

Twenty minutes elapsed, and no words having passed I
stole to the kitchen door and peeped through. The maid
sat on the settle, the swain on the chair, unctuously oghng
each other in silence.

After the lapse of twenty minutes by the clock, the
youth lifted up his voice and said solemnly, " Alary, what be
that there thing for ? " and he pointed to a button above the
kitchen range.

" That, Joshua, is the damper."

Again silence fell over the kitchen, only broken by the
ticking of the clock. After the expiration of twenty minutes
more, the youth further inquired, " And what be the
damper for, Mary ? "

"For to make the fire go a smother-like, Joshua," she
replied.

Again twenty minutes elapsed : then I heard a long-

ARMINELL. 463

drawn sigh, and Joshua said in a grave, emotionless voice,
'' Mary, there be no damper in my buzzom."

"There come master and mistress from church," ex-
claimed Mary ; " Joshua, you must go."

" Lord ! " said the swain, slowly rising, " how I have
enjoyed myself, Mary."

Next Sunday the banns were called.

This was slow allemanding indeed, quite at the cinque-
pace, but then it was the love-making of an inexperienced
youthful couple. Marianne Saltren and Captain Tubb had
gone through the process, at least, once previously, so that
there was not the same shyness and stiffness in their court-
ship. Nevertheless they conformed to the rule of country
courtship, and allemanded about each other, though, I grant
you, at a sprightlier pace than that of Joshua and Mary,
before they joined hands and went down the middle.

CHAPTER XLIX.

TWO ORLEIGH GIRLS.

Mrs. Welsh burst in on Arminell one evening just before
dinner with a face of dismay, and both her hands upHfted.

" Mercy on us ! What do you think ? "

Arminell stood up. "What has happened, Mrs. Welsh?"
she asked in some alarm.

" My dear ! You might have knocked me down with a
feather. I thought that the girl would be sure to know how
to do boiled rabbit with onion sauce."

" Does she not ? "

"And there was to be a Swiss pudding."

" That, probably, she would not know how to make, but
she can read, and has Mrs. Warne to fly to for light."

" I put out the currant jelly for the pudding, and she has
spread it over the rabbit on top of the onion sauce."

Arminell was unable to restrain a laugh.

" I went down to see her dish up, and that is what she
has done. Poured the onion sauce over the rabbit, and
heaped the currant jelly a top of that. Whatever shall we
do ? The last cook was bad enough, but she did not spoil
good food."

" What induced her to do this ? "

"She says that she has been told to put currant jelly
with hare, and so she has put it with rabbit, as she saw the
jelly-pot set out on the the kitchen table for the pudding."

ARMINELL. 465

" And the pudding ? "

" Is without anything. We cannot eat the rabbit. That
is spoiled ; and the pudding is nothing without red currant
jelly. Whatever will Mr. Welsh do for his dinner ? "

'* But the girl had Mrs. Warne's Cookery Book on the
table for reference."

" Yes, but she also had a sensational novel."

Arminell laughed again. "I am afraid the education she
has received has garnished her head much in the same
fashion as she has garnished the rabbit, several good things
jumbled together, making an unpalatable whole. I will go
and see what can be done."

" I have given the girl notice."

" Surely not, Mrs. Welsh. She has but just come to town."

" I spoke sharply to her, and girls now-a-days will not
bear a word. She flew out at me and said she would not
remain another hour in the house. Girls give themselves
such airs. She knows my extremity, how long I have been
without a cook."

Arminell descended to the kitchen, but Thomasine was
not there. The boiled rabbit stood on the table crowned
with onion sauce and crimson jelly. Near it lay, wide open,
a book, not so thick as Mrs. Warne's Cookery Manual, and
Arminell stooped to look at it. The book was Gaboriau's
' Gilded Clique,' much stained and cockled, as if it had
been wet through, and then dried. Arminell turned it
over ; it was her own copy, which she had flung from her
when in the Owl's Nest, to arouse and arrest the attention
of Captain Saltren. She could not doubt that it was the
identical book, for her name was pencilled on it, and the
water had not effaced the pencil scrawl. She did not know,
what was the fact, that the book had undergone two im-
mersions, and had twice been recovered by Patience, and
that on the last occasion she had passed it on to her
daughter.

2 G

466 ARMINELL.

Arminell stood turning over the disfigured volume, specu-
lating on how it had come into Thomasine's hands, and
thinking of the occasion when she had last read it ; and so
thinking, for a moment she forgot the rabbit with its incon-
gruous garnishment, and why she had descended to the
kitchen. She was roused from her reverie by the maid-of-
all-work coming in excitedly.

" Oh my, miss ! What do you think ? Thomasine has
flown out at missus, and packed up her things in a bundle,
and gone."

" Thomasine gone ! "

" Lawk, miss ! She wouldn't stand no nonsense, she
said ; and if the missus didn't like her cooking she might
cook for herself. She wouldn't stay. Thomasine had a
flaming temper ; it's the way of them red-headed girls."

" Thomasine gone ! "

" Gone in a tantrum, her cheeks as red as her head. I
can't think what folks find to admire in her hair. It is
thick and red. I don't fancy carrots."

"But whither is she gone? She is a stranger in London,
and has no friends."

" I don't suppose, miss, she knows herself."

" Has she gone back to Mrs. Saltren ? "

" I don't fancy so. She was in such a rage, she thought
of nothing but going, and never even asked for her wage."

" Do you know in which direction she went ? "

*' No, I was not on the look-out. She came flaring on
me to give me good-bye, and away she went. She said that
as the missus had insulted her, go she would to where she
would be valued."

" Have you no idea where she is gone ? "

" I don't know." The girl hesitated, then said, " Thom-
asine said as how there was a gentleman at the hotel where
Mrs. Saltren first was who admired her and said she ought
never to demean herself to go into service — I can't say, she has

ARMINELL. 467

Spoken of him once or twice, and I fancy he came to look
for her when she was at the lodgings with Mrs. Saltren — she
may have gone to ask his advice what to do and where to go."

"That is enough," said Arminell, and ran upstairs, put
on her bonnet, and hastened into the street. She was
doubtful in which direction to turn, but seeing the postman
coming with the letters, she asked him if he had observed a
girl with red hair.

"What, the new cook at Mrs. Welsh's, miss? Oh, yes,
she has gone by with a bundle. Very 'ansome girl, that."

Arminell went down the Avenue, and at the corner en-
countered a policeman on duty. She asked him the same
question. He also had noticed Thomasine. Indeed he
knew her. Her splendid build, her profusion of glowing
hair, and beautiful complexion were a phenomenon in
Shepherd's Bush, and all the milkmen, butchers' boys, post-
men, police, knew and admired her, though she had been
in the house of Mrs. Welsh but a fortnight.

" Yes, miss, she's gone down that way — has a bundle in
her hand. I asked her whither she was going and she said
she was leaving her situation because her mistress was im-
pudent to her. Wery 'ansome gall, that."

Arminell went on to a cabstand ; she was near the Ham-
mersmith Station. As a disengaged flyman hailed her, she
asked him if he had seen a young woman go by carrying a
bundle.

" A 'ansome gal with red hair? To be sure. 'Ailed her,
but she said she'd take a 'bus."

Take a 'bus ! — she had gone on to that great centre of
radiating streets and roads a few steps ahead. Arminell
quickened her pace, almost ran, and reached the main
artery of traffic between the City and Hammersmith through
Kensington. She had a sharp eye, and in a moment saw
Thomasine, who was mounting an omnibus. She ran, as
the horses started — ran, regardless of what any one might

468 ARMINELL.

think, but could not overtake the 'bus. She signed to the
driver of a passing empty cab.

" Keep up with the Hammersmith omnibus," she said,
panting. " When it stops, set me down. Here is a shil-
hng." She sprang in, and speedily caught up the scarlet-
bodied conveyance, descended from the cab, entered the
omnibus, and seated herself beside Thomasine.

She was out of breath, the perspiration ran off her brow,
and her heart beat fast. She could not speak, but she laid
her hand on that of the girl which rested on the bundle,
and the action said, " I have taken you in charge."

She was beside Thomasine, and could not see her face;
she did not attempt to look at her, but kept her hand where
she had laid it, till the omnibus halted at Broad Walk in
front of Kensington Palace ; by this time she had recovered
her breath sufficiently to bid the conductor let her out.
She rose hastily, still holding Thomasine, who did not
stir.

"Come," said Arminell, "come with me," and looked
the girl straight in the eyes.

Thomasine's hand quivered under that of Arminell, and
her face flushed. She dropped her eyes and rose. In an-
other moment they were together on the pavement.

"We will walk together," said Miss Inglett, "up the broad
avenue. I want to speak to you. I want to know why you
are running away, and whither you are going ? "

" Please, miss," answered the girl, " I ain't going to be
spoken to by Mrs. Welsh. Her's nothing, nor old Welsh
neither. He is the brother of Marianne Saltren, and no
better than me or my mother. They may set up to be
gentlefolk and giye themselves airs, but they are only com-
mon people like myself."

" You have made a mistake, Thomasine. You should
not have put the currant jelly over the boiled rabbit
Those who make mistakes must have them corrected.

ARMINELL. 469

How would you like to have your pretty velvet bonnet
spoiled by Mrs. Welsh spilling ink over it ? "

" I should be angry."

*' Well, it is the same case. You have spoiled the nice
dinner she had provided for Mr. Welsh."

" Welsh is nothing. His father was an old Methody
shopkeeper who ran away, having cheated a lot of folk out
of their money. I know all about the Welshes. I'm not
going to stand cheek from them."

" But you will listen to a word from me."

"Oh, miss, you are different. I wouldn't be impudent
to you for anything. But it is other with them stuck-ups as
are no better than myself."

" You will not try to twist yourself away from me ? "

" No, miss."

" I want you to tell me, Thomasine, whither you were
running ? Were you going to Mrs. Saltren ? "

" Mrs. Saltren ! " scoffed the girl. " She is nothing.
Marianne Saltren, the daughter of the canting old cheat,
and widow of a mining captain. I won't be servant to her.
Not I."

" Whither were you going, then ? "

Thomasine was silent.

Arminell walked at her side ; she had let go the girl's hand.

" I ran after you," said Arminell.

" Was that what made you so hot and out of breath, miss?"

"Yes, I was frightened when I heard that you had gone
away."

" What was there to frighten you ? I had not taken any
spoons."

" I never supposed that for a moment. I was alarmed
about yourself."

" I can take care of myself. I am old enough."

" I am not sure that you can take care of yourself.
Thomasine, you and I come from the same place, dear

47° ARMINELL.

Orleigh, and it is such a pleasure to me to see you, and
hear you talk. When I found that you were gone, I
thought what shall I do without my dear Tamsine to talk
with about the old place I love so much ? "

" Why don't you go back to it, miss, if you like it ? "
asked the girl.

" Because I cannot. Come closer to me." Arminell
caught the girl's hand again. " I also ran away. I ran
away, as you are running away now. That has brought
upon me great sorrow and bitter self-reproach, and I would
save you from doing the same thing that I have done, and
from the repentance that comes too late."

" They said at Orleigh, miss, that you were dead."

" 1 am dead to Orleigh and all I love there. Why did
you come to town with Mrs. Saltren, if you do not care to
be with her?"

" Because I wanted to see the world, but I had no inten-
tion of remaining with her."

" Then what did you intend ? "

Thomasine shrugged her shoulders. " I wanted to see
life, and have some fun, and know what London was like.
I don't want to slave here as I slaved in a farm."

" You came to town restless and discontented, so did I ;
and now I would give everything I have, to be set back
where I was. You came in the same spirit, and I have
stopped you on the threshold of a grave disaster, and per-
haps saved you from unutterable misery. Thomasine, dear
Thomasine, tell me the truth. Were you going to that
hotel where some one flattered your vanity and held out to
you prospects of idleness? You were leaving hard work
and the duties that fell to your lot where God placed you,
because impatient of restraint. You had learned the one
lesson that is taught in all schools to boys and girls alike —
hatred of honest work. Tamsine, you must return with
me."

ARMINELL. 47 1

The girl pouted. Arminell, looking round, saw the curl
in her lip.

" I don't care to be under the Welshes," said the girl ;
"nor Marianne Saltren, neither. They ain't better than
me, and why shouldn't I be as styhsh as they ? "

" If you resent being with them, be with me. Be my
maid. I am not going to remain in Shepherd's Bush. I
intend to take a house somewhere in the country — some-
where where I can be useful, and, Tamsine, find work, hard
work that I can do for others. That is what I seek now
for myself. Will you come with me ? Then we two
Orleigh girls will be together, that will be charming."

Thomasine turned and looked wonderingly at Miss
Inglett. We two Orleigh girls ! We — the baron's
daughter and the wise woman's bastard.

"I'd Hke my frolic first," said Thomasine.

" After that — I could not receive you," answered Arminell
gravely.

" I don't see," said Thomasine, still pouting, but uneasy
and undecided, with the colour flying in flakes over her
face and showing through the transparent complexion. " I
don't see why we are to be always kept at work, and not
be allowed to amuse ourselves. We aren't young for
long."

" Tamsine," said Arminell, " poor Arkie Tubb sat by you
when your mother's cottage was being pulled down, and
when you thought that she was in danger, and you could
not run to her aid yourself, because you had turned your
ankle, you sent him. You sent him to his death. The
chimney fell and buried him. If he had considered himself
he would not have risked his life for your mother. We all
honour him for what he did. He never was clever and
sharp in life, he failed in everything he undertook, he even
failed then, for he did not bring your mother out of the ruin,
he was buried in it himself. But he was a hero in his

472 ARMINELL.

death because he sacrificed himself for others — for you, be-
cause he loved you, and for your mother."

Thomasine said nothing, but her hand twitched in that
of Arminell.

" You must be worthy of him, remain worthy of him.
Thomasine, if you follow your own self-will and passion for
pleasure, people will say it was well that Arkie Tubb died,
she was not deserving of him."

They had reached the head of the Broad Walk, and issued
from Kensington Park into Uxbridge Road. The stream
of traffic flowed east and west, east to the City, west to
Shepherd's Bush, past them, and they stood watching the
two currents. Thomasine withdrew her hand.

Arminell was certain that this was a critical moment in
the girl's heart. She said nothing more. She had said
enough, she waited. Thomasine turned her face east, and
took a step in that direction with a red flush in her cheek.
Then the red flush rose to her brow and deserted her cheek,
and she turned back.

Presently she said, "May I take your hand again, miss?"

Arminell readily gave it.

Then Thomasine strode to the west, holding Arminell.
She seemed fearful of herself if left to herself, but confident
whilst holding the hand of Arminell. The good angel had
conquered, and that good angel was the thought of poor,
blundering, kindly, stupid Arkie Tubb.

Is ever a life utterly thrown away? It had seemed so
when the stones crushed the soul out of that lad. A profit-
less life had ended unprofitably. But see ! Here at the
end of Broad Walk, Kensington, that cast-away life was the
saving of the girl whom he had loved unprofitably.

CHAPTER L.

A RAZOR TO CUT CABBAGES.

An old man told me one day that he had spent fifty years
of his life in making a concordance of the Bible — he had
never heard of Cruden's work. The labour of fifty years
thrown away ! I know another who sank all his savings in
publishing a Law Compendium he had compiled, and when
it was published sold two copies.

Jingles was going through a heart-breaking experience.
He was discovering that all he had acquired in school and
university was a disadvantage to him in the position in which
he now found himself.

He had been well educated, had been polished and
sharpened; but the money spent on his education might
as well have been thrown into the sea, and the time devoted
to learning have been as profitably given up to billiards.

This would not have been the case had Giles Inglett
Saltren been able to enter a learned profession, but as this
was out of the question, his education was profitless. He
had been qualified to take his place in a social class in
which he was no more able to show himself.

One day Jingles had given his razor to a boy to sharpen
for him. The lad took it to a grindstone and put an edge
to the back. " Please, sir," said the fellow when repri-
manded, " the front was middling sharp, so I thought

4 74 ARMINELL.

I'd put an edge to the back." Jingles remembered this
incident now with some bitterness. He had been sharpened
on the wrong side for cutting his way. He was a classic
scholar, knew his ^schylus and Euripides, and could write
elegant Latin verses. He was disciplined in the manners
and habits of the upper class. But he knew little of modern
languages, and his working out of a sum in compound addi-
tion left much to be desired.

At first he looked out for such a situation as would suit
him, but speedily discovered that what he must find was a
situation which he would suit.

A librarianship, a secretaryship, lastly a tutorship, com-
mended themselves to him as situations for which he was
qualified ; but such situations are few, and the applicants
are legion.

The paralytic in the Gospel was always wanting to be let
down into biloam after the troubling of the water, but in-
variably found that some one else had stepped in whilst he
was being carried, or was laboriously dragging himself to the
brink. It was so with Jingles. When he did hear of a
vacancy that would suit him, and made application for it,
it was to find that another had stepped in before him.

He tried for private pupils. He was ready to attend any
house and teach during the day. He would prefer that to
being again taken into a family as a resident tutor, but he
was not even as successful as Nicholas Nickleby. There
weie no little Miss Kenwigses to be taught.

He had a difficulty about giving references. He could
not mention Lady Lamer ton, and invite inquiries concerning
him of the family at Orleigh Park. At first he was reluctant
to apply to his uncle for a testimonial, or for leave to use his
name, but when he found that his way was blocked through
lack of references, he swallowed his pride and asked the
requisite permission of Mr. Welsh. The leave was granted,
and conduced to nothing.

ARMINELL. 475

If pride could have fattened, about this time, Jingles
ought to have grown plump, he swallowed so much of it ;
but it was like blackbeetles to a cat — it made him grow
lanker.

He spent a good deal of money in advertising in the
daily papers, but got no answers. Then he took to answer-
ing advertisements, and met with no better success. Then
he applied to agents, paid fees, and got no further. It was
to the advantage of these go-betweens to put bad men in
good posts, and thrust good men into bad posts, to plant
square men into round holes, and round men in square
holes.

Every change brought an additional fee, and naturally
this consideration had its influence on the agents.

There was a whole class of middle schools conducted by
speculative men without education themselves, for the sons
of tradesmen and farmers, where the teaching given was of
the worst description, and the moral supervision was of
the most inefficient quality. The ushers in these were
Germans, Swiss, and French, men out of pocket and out at
elbows, picking up a wretched subsistence, and eating as
their daily diet humble-pie. The doors of these " Acade-
mies for Young Gentlemen " were closed to Saltren because
he was an University man and a scholar. He was danger-
ous, he knew too much, and might expose the hollowness
of these swindles.

Convinced at length that there was no hope of his getting
any place such as he would like, in which his acquirements
would avail. Jingles turned to commercial life. But here
also he found that his education stood in the way. He
went to Mincing Lane in quest of a clerkship in one of the
great tea, rice, sugar, and spice firms ; but there an accoun-
tant and not a logician was wanted.

Next he visited Mark Lane and sought admission into
one of the great corn-factors' offices. He was too raw for

476 ARMINELL.

these men ; what were wanted in such houses as these in
Mark and Mincing Lanes were sharp lads of from seventeen
to nineteen, trained at Board Schools, who could reckon
rapidly, and were not above being sent messages ; lads who
would be filed into business shape, who were disciplinable
to take a special line, not young men educated already and
with their heads stuifed with matter utterly useless for
business.

In a state of discouragement Jingles next visited Lloyds.
There it was the same. What did he want? To become
an underwriter ! Well and good, let him deposit five thou-
sand pounds and find a clerk at two hundred, with five per
cent, on all transactions, till he had himself thoroughly
mastered the system of underwriting. He could not afford
this. He must be taken on as clerk. Where? At Lloyds,
or at one of the Marine Insurance offices that has its base
at Lloyds. What did he know of the work ? The clerk
has to go round with policies to be initialed, and when the
books return to the office after four o'clock,, he has to make
them up. What did he understand about the value of
cargoes and the risks run ? There was no place for him in
a Marine Insurance. Some one recommended him to try
stockbroking.

Like a greenhorn, as he was, Jingles made at once for
the Exchange, and, passing the porters, entered the House.
The vast space was croivded. The din bewildered him.
He heard names shouted from the telegraph offices, the call
of porters, the voices of the stock-jobbers raised in dispute
or argument. All at once an exclamation, " Seventeen
hundred."^ Then ensued a gravitation towards himself,
and in a moment his hat was knocked over his eyes, then
he was thrust, elbowed, jostled from side to side.

When he recovered his sight, his hat was snatched from

1 This was the original number on Exchange, and the call is one to
attract attention to an unwarranted intrusion.

ARMINELL. 477

his hand and flung across the House. Next, his umbrella was
wrenched from him, and with it he was struck over the back.

" You have no right in here, sir," said a porter.

" Don't mind him," shouted a dozen around. " We are
heartily glad to make your acquaintance."

The horseplay was resumed, and as the young man's
blood rose, and he resented the treatment, and showed
fight, he was still more roughly handled, and finally found
himself kicked and hustled out of the Exchange.

Giles Saltren stood on the step without, minus a hat and
umbrella, and with his coat split down the back — his best
coat put on to produce a good impression on employers —
stood dazed and humbled, an object of derision to match-
boys and flower-girls, who danced about him, with words
and antics of mockery.

Presently an old white-haired stockbroker, who came out
of the Exchange, noticed him, and stopped and spoke to
him, and bade him not be angry. What had occurred was
due to his having intruded where he had no right to be.
Jingles answered that he had gone there because he was in
quest of employment, whereupon he was told he might just
as well have jumped into the Thames because he desired
engagement on a penny steamer.

"Young gentleman," said the broker, "it is of no use
your looking lor employment in our line of business. We
have a Clerks' Provident Fund, to which every clerk out of
employ subscribes ; and if a broker wants a man at forty,
sixty, a hundred, two hundred pounds, he applies to the
secretary of the Provident Fund, who furnishes him with
the man he wants out of the number of those then disen-
gaged. You have no experience, or you would not have
ventured into the House. If I want an errand boy, I take
on the son of a clerk. You have, I fear, no connexions in
the line to speak a word for you ! You have been to the
University, do you say ? "

478 ARMINELL.

The broker whistled

" My good sir, I do not recommend you to waste time in
applying at stockbrokers' offices ; you are likely to make
acquaintance with the outside only of their office doors.
There is 'more chance for the son of a bed-maker or a
chimney-sweep than for you."

Giles Saltren next sought admission into a bank, but
found that this was a business even more close than that of
stock-jobbing. The banking business was like the sleeping
Brynhild, surrounded by a waberlohe^ a wall of flame ; and
he was no Siegfried to spur his horse through the ring of
fire.

Having discovered how futile were his attempts to enter
a bank, he turned to the docks, in hopes of getting a situa-
tion in a shipping-office, only there also to meet with rebuff.

Then he saw an advertisement from a West-End shop-
keeper, one of those giants of trade, who has an universal
store. There was a vacancy in the stocking department for
a young man. Applicants were to appear personally at a
fixed hour on Friday next.

Giles Inglett hesitated before he could resolve to offer
himself as a counter-jumper, and acquire the " What can
we serve you next with, ma'am ? " To descend to the
counter from the Oxford schools was a great descent ; but
Jingles was like a vessel in stress of weather, throwing over-
board all her lading. Away must go his Greek, his Latin,
his logic, his position as an University scholar, that of a
gentleman, his self-esteem, certainly, his self-respect to some
extent, his ambition altogether.

But why not ? He was not born to be a gentleman ; it
was by a happy accident that he had been given an educa-
tion that furnished him with most accomplishments which
adorn a man of birth and standing. He must remember
that he was not entitled by his parentage to anything above
a shopman's place, and must gulp down this junk of pride.

ARMINELL. 479

On the appointed day Saltren went to Westbourne Grove,
and found that he was but one of between three or four
hundred young men, appHcants for the vacancy behind the
stocking counter. His appearance, delicate and refined,
the diffidence with which he spoke, were against him, and
he found himself at once and decisively rejected, and a
vulgar young fellow at his side, full of self-conceit, was
chosen instead.

Saltren made application in other offices, but always
without success : his ignorance of shorthand was against
him. In the offices of solicitors it is indispensable that
shorthand be practised by the clerks. It facilitates and
expedites the dictation of letters.

So also, had he been a proficient in shorthand, he might
have obtained work as a reporter at meetings. But to his
grief he discovered that all the education he had received
which tended to broaden the mind was valueless, that only
was profitable which contracted the intellect. Saltren,
moreover, was speedily given to understand that unless he
went in search of a situation with gold in his hand, he could
get nothing. With capital, his intellectual culture would be
graciously overlooked and excused. His university educa-
tion was such a drawback, that it could only be forgiven if
he put money into the concern where he proposed to enter.

Saltren had come to the end of his own resources, and
he saw that without capital he could get admission nowhere.
He could not obtain a clerkship in any kind of business ;
the sole chance of entering a commercial life was to be-
come a partner in one.

There was abundance of advertisements for partners in
the daily papers, but nearly all the businesses, when exam-
ined, proved unsatisfactory, and the risk of losing all too
great. Giles Saltren had, indeed, no capital of his own ;
but he resolved, should he see a chance of making an in-
vestment that was safe, and one which would give him work

480 ARMINELL.

in a partnership, to propose to his mother that she should
in this manner dispose of the purchase-money for Chillacot.
She would derive from it an annual sum as interest, and
have the satisfaction as well of knowing that she had found
employment for her son.

At last he found what he sought, and sanguine as to the
results, he came to his mother's lodgings to make the pro-
posal to her.

"Please, Mr. Saltren," said the landlady; "your mother
has gone out with the admiral."

" The admiral ? "

" Ah, the admiral, sir ! " said the landlady, with a know-
ing smile. " You don't mean to say, Mr. Saltren, that your
mother hasn't told you ? and a beautiful breakfast spread,
and a cake with a cupid at top all made of sugar."

" But what admiral ? we know no admiral ! "

"What, not Admiral Tubb ? Well now, Mr. Saltren,
who would have thought your mother would have been so
sly as not to have told you that she was going to give you a
new pa ? "

" Upon my word, I do not understand you."

"Then, Mr. Saltren, you come along with me, and see
the breakfast laid in the dining-room, and the beautiful
wedding-cake all over orange-flowers. It does seem sharp
work too, when your father died so very recently ; but if
widows don't seize the moments as they fly, and take ad-
mirals by the forelock, they may be left in their weeds till it
is too late. Why, bless me, Mr. Saltren, here they
come ! "

"But," persisted Jingles, much astonished, and almost
persuaded that Mrs. Bankes, the lodging-house-keeper, had
gone off her head, " what admiral ? "

" Admiral Tubb, sir, R.N. Your mother told me so.
There they are. Lawk, sir ! he in lavender don't-mention-
ems and yaller gloves ; and she is in a beautiful Brussels

ARMINELL. 48 1

veil that must have cost ten pounds, and the cabby wearing
of a favour."

Into the house sailed Mrs. Saltren — Saltren no more, but
Tubb — with a long white veil over her head, and orange-
blossoms in her hand, wearing a grey silk gown. Captain
Tubb advanced with her on his arm, and looked red and
sheepish.

" My child," said Marianne, " come and salute your new
father. This distinguished officer — I mean," she hesitated
and corrected herself, "Bartholomew Tubb has prevailed
on me to lay aside my widow's cap for the bridal-veil. And,
oh ! my Giles, you will be pleased to hear that the capital
I got through the sale of Chillacot is to be sunk in the old
quarry, and me and the admiral — I mean Tubb— are going
to join hands and pump the water out."

2H

CHAPTER LI

A PATCH OF BLUE SKY.

About the same time that Jingles was situation-hunting,
Arminell was engaged in house-hunting. She had made up
her mind to take a cottage on the south coast. Mrs. Welsh
had, at length, got a cook who did passably. She had fits
occasionally and frothed at the mouth ; she also kicked out
with her legs convulsively on these occasions and kicked
over every little table near her, regardless of what was on it
— a glass custard-dish, a sugar-bowl, or, indeed, anything
smashable. However, between her fits she was a good
plain cook, and the fits did not come on every day. When
they did, Mrs. Welsh telegraphed to her husband to dine at
a restaurant, and she satisfied herself on scraps. Conse-
quently, the inconvenience was not serious, and as cooks
are rare as capercailzies, Mrs. Welsh was glad to have one
even with the disadvantage of epileptic attacks.

Mr. Welsh placed himself and his time at the service of
Arminell. He went with her to Brighton, St. Leonards,
Worthing, Littlehampton, Bournemouth; and finally Ar-
minell decided on purchasing a small house at the last-
named place — a pretty villa among the pines, with a view
of the sea, a garden, a conservatory. The girl had scruples
about troubling the journalist so much, but he insisted that
his excursions with her gave him pleasure, and he did ever}'-

ARMINELL. 483

thing he could for her, and did it in the most cheery, con-
siderate and hearty manner.

Welsh was a shrewd man of business, and he fought hard
over the terms before he bought, and keenly scrutinised the
title.

Then ensued the furnishing, and in this Arminell did not
trust Mr. Welsh. His ambition was to do all his purchases
cheaply. He would have ordered her sets for her several
rooms in Tottenham Court Road, and gloried in having got
them at an extraordinarily low figure. Arminell took Mrs.
Welsh with her when making her purchases ; not that she
placed any value on that lady's taste, but because she was
well aware that by so doing she was giving to her hostess
the richest treat she could devise. There is, undoubtedly,
positive enjoyment in spending money, and next to the
pleasure of spending money oneself, is that of accompany-
ing another shopping who spends money. After a day's
shopping and the expenditure of a good many pounds, un-
questionably one feels morally elevated. And one is con-
scious of having done meritoriously when one acts as a goad
to a companion, urging her to more lavish outlay, spurring
her on when her heart fails at the estimation of the cost.
How mean you think your friend if she buys material at
twopence-three-farthings instead of that which is superior at
threepence. How vehemently you impress on her the mis-
take of purchasing only five-and-a-half yards instead of six.
Margin, you urge, should always be given. It is false econo-
my to cut your cloth too close. With what rigidity of
spinal marrow do you sit on your tall chair and scorn the
woman on your left who asks for cheaper Swiss embroidery
at threepence-farthing, when your friend on your right is
buying hers at a shilling. With what an approving glow of
conscience do you smile when you hear your companion's
bill reckoned up as over fifteen pounds ; and then you
snatch the opportunity to secure a remnant or a piece of

484 ARMINELL.

tarnished material, with a haughty air, and bid that it be
put in with the rest — it will serve for a charity in which you
are interested : to wit — but you do not add this — the
charity that begins and ends with home.

Next to the enjoyment of shopping with a friend, who is
lavish of her money, comes the luxury of discussing the
purchases after, of debating whether this stamped velvet
was, after all, the right thing, and whether that tapestry silk
would not have been better ; whether the carpet and the
curtains will harmonise, and the paper for the wall accord
with both.

It was a disappointment to Mrs. Welsh that Arminell did
not have a dado with water-reeds and sunflowers, and storks
flying or standing on one leg. " It is the fashion, I assure
you," said she, "as you may see in our drawing-room at
Shepherd's Bush." But then, it was a shock of surprise and
adoring admiration that came on Tryphoena Welsh, when,
after having advised jute for curtains and sofa-covers, be-
cause so extraordinarily cheap, Arminell had deliberately
turned to stamped velvet.

" Dear me ! " said IMrs. Welsh to her husband one night,
when they were alone, " how you do worship Miss Inglett.
Not that I'm jealous. Far be it from me, for I admire her
as much as I love her ; but I am surprised at it in you —
and she related to the nobility. It is inconsistent, Welsh,
with your professions, as inconsistent as it would be for Mr.
Spurgeon to be found crossing himself in a Roman Catholic
chapel."

" My dear Tryphoena," said James Welsh, " I do not deny
that the British aristocracy has its good qualities — for one,
its want of stuck-upedness. For another, its readiness to
adapt itself to circumstances. It is part of their education,
and it is not part of ours, and I don't pretend to that which
I have not got. They used to make wooden dolls with a
peg through their joints, so that they would move their

ARMINELL. 485

limbs forward and backward, and that was all. Now there
is another contrivance introduced, the ball and socket
system for the joints, and dolls can now move their legs and
arms in all directions, describe circles with them, do more
with them than I can with mine. It is the same with the
faculties of the aristocracy, there is a flexibility and a
pliability in them that shows they are on the ball and socket
system, and not upon the peg arrangement. I don't mean
to say that there are not to be found elsewhere faculties so
variable and adaptable, but it is exceptional elsewhere;
among the upper classes the whole educational system is
directed towards making the mental joints revolve in their
sockets, and getting rid of all woodenness and pegishness.
Look at Miss Inglett. She was ready to be just what you
wanted— cook, nurse, butler, seamstress — and yet never for
a second has ceased to be what she is, a tip-top lady."

" You talk, James, in a different way from what you used
to talk."

" I'll tell you what stands in the way with us. Even if
we be gifted with faculties on the ball and socket system,
we are afraid of using them except as is allowed by fashion,
and is supposed to be elegant. We are ever considering
whether we shall not lose respect if we employ them in this
way, set them at that angle, fold them in such a manner,
turn them about in such another. I know once," continued
Mr. Welsh, " I had burst my boot over the toe, just before
I went for an important interview with an editor. I cut a
sorry figure in his presence, because I was considering the
hole in my boot, and whether my stocking showed through.
I put my foot under the chair as far back as I could, then
drew it forward and set the other foot on it. Then I hid it
behind my hat, then curled it over in an ungainly fashion,
so as to expose only the sole ; and all the while I was with
the editor, I had no thought for what we were talking about;
I could not take my attention from the hole in my boot.

486 ARMINELL.

And it is the same with us who haven't an all-round and
complete culture — we are conscious of burst seams, and
splits, and exposures, and are anxious to be screening them,
and so are never at our ease."

When Mr. Welsh began to talk, he liked to talk on
uninterruptedly. His wife knew this, and humoured him.

'•' Connected with this subject, Tryphoena, is the way in
which the aristocracy manage their trains."

" Their trains, James ? "

" Exactly — their trains or skirts. You know how that it
is not possible for you to be in a crowd without having
your skirts trodden on and ripped out of the gathers.
There used to be a contrivance, Tryphoena, I remember you
had it once, like a pair of bell-ropes. You put your fingers
into rings, and up came your train in a series of loops and
folds, on the principle of the Venetian blind. But some-
how you were always pulling up your skirt just too late,
after it had been be-trampled and be-muddled. Now from
what I have observed, the skirts and trains of the aristocracy
are imbued with an imparted vitality from their persons, for
all the world hke the tail of a peacock, which it elevates
when it steps about in the dirt. Their skirts shrink and
rise of themselves, whenever a rude foot approaches, or
they tread where the soil may bespatter."

" Now, really, James — how can human beings Hft their
tails?"

" My dear, I am speaking figuratively. If you do not
understand — remain in ignorance. There is, as the clown
says in 'Twelfth Night,' no darkness like ignorance. I
suppose you know, my dear, what it is to be pressed upon
and trampled on by those just behind you in the social
ball ? Well, some persons manage so cleverly that they do
not get their trains crumpled ; and others are in constant
alarm and suspicion of everyone who approaches within a
pace of theirs."

ARMINELL. 487

Welsh lighted a cigar.

"Don't you mistake me and tbink that I have given up
my opinions, Nothing of the sort. I notice the difference
between the aristocracy and ourselves, but I do not say that
I do not estimate the middle class above theirs. On the
contrary, I think our order of the nobility is the most
honourable. To us belongs the marquisate."

" James, how can you talk such nonsense ? "

" It is a fact, Tryphoena, that the marquis or margrave
takes, or rather took, his title from the debatable ground he
held. He was the earl who watched the marches against
the barbarians ; he protected civilization from overthrow.
It was because he stood with drawn sword on the confines,
armed cap-a-pie, that the counts and viscounts and the
barons sat in clover at home and grew fat and wanton.
We, Tryphoena, guard the marches, we occupy the debatable
ground, and we have to be perpetually on the alert, to make
blaze of beacons, blow cow's-horns, and rattle drums at the
least approach or signs of approach of barbarism. Of
course we are touchy, tenacious of our right, sensitive about
our skirts, and must bluster and deal blows to protect them.
We hold the banat, the military frontier between culture
and savagery, and it is because of us that the noblemen
and gentlemen of England can dwell at home at ease. Of
course our hands are rough with grip of the lance and
sword, and our boots smell of the stable. Heigh-ho ! — here
comes my Lady Fair — and not looking herself."

He stood up, and threw away his cigar into the grate and
then went to the window and threw up the sash. Arminell
entered in her bonnet ; her face was sad, and her eyes were
red as though she had been crying.

" Miss Inglett 1 I shall kill myself for having lit a cigar/'
said Welsh, " I am vexed beyond measure. I did not
think you were going to favour us with your company. A?
for Tryphoena, she loves smoke as a salamander loves fire.

488 ARMINELL.

But — what is the matter? You remind me of a certain
river I have read about in Bohn's translation of 'Herodotus/
The river flowed sweet from its source for many miles, but
finally a tiny rill of bitterness entered it, and throughout the
rest of its course to the sea the waters had lost their fresh-
ness."

" Not so, Mr. Welsh," said Arminell with a smile. " At
least, I trust not. May I not rather have reached the
point to which the tide mounts. It is not bitterness that is
in me, but just a smack of the salt of the mighty far-off
ocean that runs up the estuary of life, and qualifies sooner
or later the water of every soul ? "

" What has troubled you ? I'm sure something has gone
wrong."

" I have been with Thomasine to see your nephew."

" What — Jingles ! you should not have done that."

" Thomasine had paid a visit to Mrs. Bankes, the land-
lady of the house where Mrs. Saltren lodged before she
married and departed ; and the good woman told the girl
something about Mr. Saltren that made me uneasy. So I
went to see him.'*

" You have acted inconsiderately," said James Welsh.

" I do not say that it was a proper and prudent thing to
do, and yet, under the circumstances, justifiable, and I
have no doubt you will forgive me."

"You must make a full confession before I pronounce
the absolution," said the journalist.

" Thomasine goes occasionally to see the good woman of
the lodgings and her servant, and she heard so sad an
account of your nephew that she communicated it to me."

" What is the matter with him ? I have not seen the
cock-sparrow for three months, and what is more, I do not
want to see him ; I can never forgive him for what he has
done."

"He knows how you regard him, and that is the reason

ARMINELL. 489

why he has not been to see you, and told you how he was
situated."

" But — what has happened ? Has he been run over at
crossing ? He is fool enough for even that to befall him."

" No, Mr. Welsh ; I will tell you all I know, and then you
will think more kindly and judge more leniently of Mr.
Saltren. The landlady spoke to Thomasine because she
was uneasy about him, and she is a good-hearted creature.
It seems that when Mrs. Saltren married, Mr. Saltren was
left without any means whatever."

" He had plenty of money. He sold Chillacot."

" He made over the whole proceeds to his mother. She
has not left him a penny of it. From what I learn, she has
given it to Captain Tubb to invest for her in a water-wheel
and a pump."

" Marianne is fool enough for anything — except to speak
the truth. What next ? "

"After she had departed as Mrs. Tubb, your nephew
was left absolutely without resources. He did everything
that lay in his power to obtain a situation, first in one
capacity, then in another. He even — he even " — Ar-
minell's voice quivered — " he even oifered himself as a shop
assistant and was rejected. Disappointments, repeated day
by day and week by week, told on his spirits and on his
health. As he was without means, he frankly informed his
hostess about his circumstances, and asked for leave to
occupy an attic bedroom, promising to pay her directly he
got employment. She did not like to turn him out, and I
daresay she thought she would get her rent in the end from
Mrs. Tubb, so she consented. But he has been living for
many weeks on nothing but bread and a little tliin tea
without milk. He has sold his books and everything he
could part with, and is now reduced to dire distress. He
goes out every day in the desperate endeavour to find work,
but his superior education, and his gentlemanly feelings

490 ARMINELL.

Stand in his way. Now his health is failing, he looks too
delicate for work, and no one will have him on that account.
He does not complain. He goes on trying, but his daily
disappointments have broken his spirit. It does seem a
hopeless venture for a man of good education and excep-
tional abilities to find work in London."

" Sans interest," added Welsh. " Of old, interest was in
the hands of the upper classes. Now it is in the hands of
the lower."

" I heard a good deal of this from Thomasine," continued
A.rminell. " I could not bear it. I ran off to Bloomsbury to
see Mrs. Bankes, and found her to be a very kind, feeling,
and willing woman. She told me everything — how under-
fed Mr. Saltren was, how thin and shabby his clothes had
become, what a bad cough he had got, and how long it was
since she had been paid for her lodging."

" I made sure Mrs. Bankes would not omit to mention
that."

" She is a most considerate woman. She said she had
done him an egg of late, every morning, and charged him
nothing for it, though eggs are at nine for a shilling, and he
had had sixteen in all ; so that she was, as she said, beside
the cost of his lodging, nearly two shillings to the bad
through these eggs — but she is a good honest soul, she told
me he had worn out the soles of his boots and could not
afford a new pair, and they let in the wet." Arminell
stopped, she was choking.

Presently she went on, " Whilst we were talking, he came
in at the house door, and I heard him cough ; and then he
went upstairs, with his hand on the bannisters, dragging his
tired feet and his springless weight up the steep steps. He
halted at each landing ; he was weary and his breath failed.
I listened till he had reached the very top of the house, and
gone into his little attic-room where he sleeps, and reads,
and eats, and dreams over his disappointments."

ARMINELL. 49 1

She stopped. She had clasped her hands on her lap, and
was twisting, plaiting, and pulling her fingers.

" Then you came away to tell me," said Mr. Welsh.

" No, I did not."

"What next?"

" My heart was full. I went out into the lobby and stood
there, and I began to cry. And then, all at once, I ran
upstairs."

" What— to his room ? "

" Yes — I went after him, I could not help it. He was so
utterly lonely and so unhappy. Mrs. Bankes said that no
one ever came to see him, he had no friends. It is dread-
ful to think of being alone in London for months without
any one to speak to, that is, any one who feels for you, and
knows about persons and things and places you have loved.
I ran upstairs after him, and tapped at his door, and dashed
right in on him."

The colour rose and fell on her cheek.

*' I should have been happy for the occasion to have a
talk with him, only the circumstances were so sad. My
heart came into my throat when I saw him, and I held out my
hand to him — no, in honour bright — I held out both hands
to him. He was surprised. I sat down there and made
him tell me everything. He did not complain, he was very
brave, but he had lost hope, and he plodded on as in a
treadmill, trying for work because it was a duty to seek it,
not because he was sanguine of getting it. I do not know
how long I was there ; I insisted on having tea with him,
and quite a nice little tea we had, and a chop — no, two
chops with it. I ordered them, and I would have them,
and, of course, Mrs. Bankes brought up Worcester sauce as
well. Who ever knew a lodging-house without Worcester
sauce ? I am obstinate when I take an idea into my head.
You know that. He was quite happy, I do believe,
happier than he has been for months, sitting there with me,

492 ARMINELL,

taking tea, and milk in the tea, and talking about old times,
and Orleigh — dear Orleigh ! — and my brother Giles and
papa." Her heart was beating fast, so fast that it stopped
her flow of words.

Mr. Welsh said nothing, nor did Mrs. Welsh, who looked
at her husband questioningly, and then at Arminell.

" Once or twice I made him laugh, and the colour came
again into his white face, and the brightness into his dull
eyes. But when he laughed it brought on a fit of cough-
ing."

" Why did not the fellow come to me ? " asked Welsh.
" I have no patience with his pride — it was nothing but
pride which kept him away."

"Self-respect, perhaps, and resolve to make a way for
himself if possible. You had discouraged him from at-
tempting literature, and he had lost all faith in politics. Be-
sides, he kept away from this house because I was in it, and
he felt he had no right to come here whilst I lived with you."

She began again to plait her fingers, and looked down at
them with a little confusion in her face. Presently she
looked at the miniature of the marine officer, Mrs. Welsh's
father, and said, with a laugh, " Do you know, Mr. Welsh,
that Mrs. Saltren imposed on the landlady, and made her
believe that she was going to marry an Admiral of the Blue.
When Mrs. Bankes found out the truth, Mrs. Saltren, I mean
Mrs. Tubb, said she had heard men-of-war so constantly
spoken of as tubs, and nothing but tubs, and as her husband
was a Tubb, she considered she had a right to speak of
him as a naval officer. It is a shame to tell the story,
but "

" It is too good not to be told. Marianne all over."

"And, Mr. Welsh, there was a doctor lodging on the
first floor at Mrs. Bankes', and he happened to see your
nephew on the stairs, and hear him cough, so he made him
step into his room and he examined his chest."

ARMINELL. 493

"What did he say?"

" That there was constitutional delicacy, and that unless
he went for a couple of winters to the south of Europe, and
after that wintered at Penzance, Torquay, or Bournemouth,
he would be a dead man. But, if he took proper care of
himself and lived well, drank cod-liver oil and old port, kept
out of east winds and from getting wet, he might yet make
old bones."

"That is out of the question," said Welsh; "he shall
have De Jongh's cod-liver oil, and inhale carbolic acid, and
wear Dr. Jaeger's all-wool — to go to the south of Europe is
impracticable."

" Not at all."

" My dear Miss Tnglett, not another word. I will do all
I can for the rascal. But I cannot afford that."

" But I can."

" I won't allow it. I am very sorry for the boy, and will
do my duty by him as his uncle ; but I can't send him to
the Riviera."

" But it is settled that he is going."

"How? When?"

" Directly, and with me."

"Nonsense, Miss Inglett."

" And I have a house at Bournemouth."

" That is true ; but "

" But I am going to marry him, so as to be able to nurse
him and carry him off to Bordighera, and give him De
Jongh's cod-liver oil myself."

** Miss Inglett, in reason 1 "

" It is settled. I settled it. I have paid Mrs. Bankes
for the eggs and all the rest. When we are off together we
can talk at our leisure about Orleigh."

CHAPTER LIL

ON DIPPERS.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his treatise on the composition
of a picture, lays down as a necessity that a patch of blue
sky should be introduced into every painting, an opening
through which the eye may escape out of the constraint and
gloom of the canvas. If the subject be a dungeon, in one
corner must be a window through which the eye can mount
to heaven ; if a forest, there must be a gap in the foliage
through which the sun may strike and the free air blow. If
a landscape under a grey canopy, or a storm at sea under
rolling thunder clouds, there must be a rift somewhere
through which the upper azure gleams ; otherwise the
picture oppresses and the frame cramps. For this reason,
the preceding chapter was entitled " A Patch of Blue Sky,"
for in that chapter a small opening was made quite in a
corner, into that serene and super-terrestrial, that ethereal
and sublime realm — ^matrimony.

For a good many chapters our hero and heroine have
been in a poor way, inhaling London smoke, without sun-
shine enlivening their existences. From Orleigh Park to
Shepherd's Bush, and from the elastic atmosphere of the
country to the fogs of the metropolis, is a change which,
considering the altered conditions of both — Jingles without
a situation, living on bread and thin tea, and Arminell

ARMINELL. 495

without a home, living with third-rate people — was depress-
ing to both, and the picture was overcharged with shadows.
Therefore a little glimpse has been given into that heaven
to which all youthful and inexperienced novel-readers
aspire.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, moreover, insists on a proper
balance of lights and shadows. He says that it is false art
to accumulate dark spots on one side of a picture without
relieving them with a corresponding number of luminous
foci on the other. Now in this story the reader has been
given three deaths. Therefore, there must needs be the
same number of marriages to produce equilibrium. Accord-
ingly, over against the dark points of Archelaus Tubb, Lord
Lamerton, and Captain Saltren, we set off the bright com-
binations of Samuel and Joan, of Captain Tubb and
Marianne, and of Arminell and Jingles. These are not, it
is true, spots of transcendent brilliancy, double stars of the
first order, but of subdued and chastened effulgence. Not
many roses crowned the hymeneal altar of Sam Ceely, nor
would an impassioned epithalamium suit the nuptials of
Mrs. Saltren, just recovered from a touch of paralysis. Nor
will the beaker of ecstatic love brim over at the union of
Arminell and Giles Saltren, seeing that it is largely filled
with De Jongh's cod-liver oil. When a cook has over-salted
the soup, he mixes white sugar with it, and this neutralises
the brine and gives the soup a mellowness, and velvety
softness to the palate. On the same principle, having put
too many tears into this tale, I am shaking in the hymeneal
sugar in just proportions.

I know very well I am letting the reader into the secrets
of construction^ telling the tricks of the trade, but as this
narrative is written for instruction as well as for amusement,
I do not scruple thus to indicate one of the principles of the
art of novel writing ; and I do this with purpose, to gain
the favour of the reader, who I fear is a little ruffled and

496 ARMINELL.

resentful, because I do not give a full and particular account
of the marriage. But it really hardly merited such an
account, it was celebrated so quietly — without choral song
and train of bride's-maids, and without peal of bells. I am
so much' afraid that by omitting to make a point of the
marriage I may offend my readers that I have let them into
one of the secrets of the construction of a plot.

Among poor people a bottle of lemon-drops is set on the
table, and the children are given bread to eat. Those little
ones whose conduct has been indifferent are allowed only
bread and point for a meal, but those who have behaved
well are permitted to enjoy bread and rub. To their imagi-
nations some of the sweetness of the lollipops penetrates
the glass and adheres to their slices.

A novel is the intellectual meal of a good many readers,
and it begins with bread and point, and is expected to end
with bread and rub at the acidulated drops of connubial
felicity. Usually the reader has to consume a great deal of
bread and point and is only allowed bread and rub in
final chapters. In this story, however, I have been
generous, I have allowed of three little frettings at the bottle
instead — indeed, instead of keeping one tantalising bottle
before the eyes of the reader, I have set three on the table
in front of him.

That I have transgressed the rule which requires the
marriage of hero and heroine to be at the end of the book,
in the very last chapter, I freely admit ; but I have done
this on purpose, and I have, for the same purpose, most
slyly slipped in the marriage, or rather left it to the imagi-
nation, between the end of Chapter LI. and the beginning of
Chapter LII. And what do you suppose is my reason ? It
is, that I want to dodge the dippers. The dippers are those
readers who are only by an euphemism called readers.
They stand by the course of a story, and pop a beak down
into it every now and then, and bring up something from

ARMINELL. 497

the current, and then fly away pretending that they have
read the whole story. The dipper generally plunges the
bill into the first chapter, then dips into the last of the three
volumes, and then again once or twice in the mid-stream of
the tale.

These dippers are gorgeous creatures, arrayed in gold and
azure, with bejewelled necks and wings and crowns. But
in one matter they differ from all other fowl — they have no
gizzards. Other birds, notably those of the barn door, when
they eat pass their food through a pair of internal grind-
stones, and thoroughly digest and assimilate it. The
dippers, being devoid of this organ, neither digest nor
assimilate anything. They take nothing into them for the
purpose of nutrition, but for the taste it leaves on their
tongues. Consequently, the food they like best is not that
which invigorates, but that which is high flavoured.

A dipper may seem very small game at which to fire a
shot, but the dippers are the special aversion of novel
writers. These latter have laboured to please, perhaps to
instruct ; they have worked with their pens till their fingers
Are cramped, and their brains bemuzzed, and they see the
fruit of conscientious toil treated as a bird treats a nectarine
— pecked at and spoiled, not eaten.

But I have headed this chapter " On Dippers," not be-
cause I intended to blaze at those littU*. frivolous, foolish
birds who dip into my story and let all they scoop up dribble
from their beaks again, but because I have another class of
dippers in my eye, about whom I have still sharper words to
say. And see ! — one of this order has unexpectedly dropped
in on the Welshes — and that is Mrs. Cribbage.

The Reverend Mrs. Cribbage was not one of the king-
fishers, but was a dipper of rhe cormorant or skua genus.
She was not one to stand by the stream of a story and dip
in that, but in the sea of life, and seek in that for savoury
meat over which to snap the bill, and smack the tongue, and

2 I

498 ARMINELL.

turn up the eyes, and distend the jaw-pouches. The dippers
of this order congregate on a rock above the crystal tide and
chatter with their beaks, whilst their eyes pierce the liquid
depths. They have no perceptions of the beauty of colour
in the water, no admiration for its limpidity. They inhale
with relish none of the ozone that wafts over it — their eyes
explore for blubber, for uprooted weed, for mollusks that
have been bruised, for dead fish, for crustaceans that have
lost limbs, for empty shells invaded by parasites, for the
scum, and the waste, and the wreckage, in the mighty
storm-tossed ocean of life.

Aristotle, in his ' History of Animals,' says that most fish
avoid what is putrescent ; but the taste of the dippers is
other than that of the fish. The dippers have no perception
and liking for the freshness and fragrance of the sea, but
have vastly keen noses for carrion. The suffering whiting,
the crushed nautilus, the disabled shrimp, are pounced on
with avidity, and the great penguin-pouch expands under
the beak like a Gladstone bag full of the most varied forms
of misery, of sorrow and of nastiness.

The skua is a dipper akin to, but more active than the
wary cormorant and the clumsy auk. It is a lively bird, and
darts on nimble wing over the sea, and when it perceives a
glutted dipper in flight, it dives under it, strikes it on the
breast, and makes it disgorge ; whereupon it seizes the prey
as it falls, for itself. There are skuas as well as cormorants
about the coasts of the great social ocean, and there are
birds with the voracity of the cormorant and the quickness
and adoitness of the skua — of such was Mrs. Cribbage. It
was part of her cleverness in getting the food she required
to come with a whisk and blow at those who least expected
her ; and such was her visit or swoop on the Welshes.

Unfortunately for her, James Welsh was at home when she
swept in, and he was quite able to hold his own before her.

" My dear," said he to his wife, '^ I think I hear the cook

ARMINELL. 499

squealing. She is in an epileptic fit. You had better go
down into the kitchen and remain below as long as the fit
lasts. Get the slavey to sit on her feet, and you hold her
head. I will remain at the service of Mrs. Cribbage. I
am sure she will excuse you. We have an epileptic cook,
ma'am — not a bad cook when out of her fits."

*' I am Mrs. Cribbage," said the visitor, " the wife of the
Rector of Orleigh. We have not had the pleasure of meeting
before, but I know your sister, Mrs. Tubb, very well ; she
is a parishioner and the wife of one of our Sunday-school
teachers. Of course I know about you, Mr. Welsh, though
you may not know me."

" I have heard a good deal about you, ma'am."

" Through whom ? " asked the lady eagerly.

** Through my nephew."

*' I have come to break to you some sad news about your
sister. Poor thing, she had a first seizure on the death of
her first husband, and she had a second immediately after
her return to Orleigh as a bride. It was kept quiet. I was
not told of it, nor was my husband sent for. Now a third
has ensued which has bereft her of speech, and it is feared
will end fatally. I have come to town for some purchases
and on a visit to friends, and I thought it would be kind and
wise if I came to see you and tell you what I knew."

" Very kind indeed, ma'am."

" I promised Captain Tubb that I would do so ; he is not
a great hand at letter writing, and I said that I could explain
the circumstances so much better by word of mouth than
he could with the pen. The case, I fear, is serious. She
cannot speak."

" It must indeed be serious, if Marianne can't speak," ob-
served Welsh dryly ; " I'll run down to Orleigh to-morrow."

" How is your nephew ? Mrs. Tubb hadn't heard of him
for three or four months. I dare say anxiety about him has
brought on the seizure."

500 ARMINELL.

" My late nephew ? " Welsh heaved a sigh. " Poor fellow,
he is gone. He always was delicate."

« Gone !— "

" Yes — to a warm place."

" It is not for us to judge/' said Mrs. Cribbage, sternly.

"Well, perhaps not," answered Welsh; "but between
you and me, ma'am, for what else was he fit ? "

" I always considered that he gave himself airs, and I
had an impression that he indulged in free-thinking. Still,
he was not positively vicious. Nothing was proved against
his morals."

" Others go to a warm place that shall be nameless, be-
sides those who are positively vicious."

"Well," said Mrs. Cribbage, "that is true, sadly true.
And now, to change the topic — how is Miss Inglett ? Is
she still with you ? "

" Miss Inglett ? " Welsh's eyes twinkled. He knew
what the woman had come to his place for. It was not out
of kindness to communicate to him his sister's condition.
He felt the dig of the skua's beak in his chest.

" Oh yes, we know all about it. Marianne Tubb talked
before she had the stroke and lost the power of speech.
You must not suppose, Mr. Welsh, that we are taken in and
believe that the Honourable Arminell Inglett died as has
been represented, through the shock caused by her father's
fatal fall."

" Ah ! I remember seeing something about it in the
papers. She died, did she ? "

" No, no, Mr. Welsh, that will not do. Your sister let
the cat out of the bag. She said that Miss Inglett was
lodging here with you ; and very boastful Mr. Tubb was
about it, and much talk did it occasion in Orleigh. Some
people would not believe it, they said that Marianne Saltren
had been a liar, and Marianne Tubb was no better. How-
ever, others say that there is something in it. So, as I am

ARMINELL. 5OI

come to town, I thought I would just run here and enquire,
and see Miss Inglett myself."

"We have liad an Inglett here, certainly," answered
Welsh, composedly, "and very decent pastry she made.
She had a light hand."

" I do not comprehend."

*' Are you in want of a cook, a nursemaid, or parlour
maid? She was a handy girl, and Mrs. Welsh would be
happy to give her a good character — a true and honest one,
no reading between the lines, no disguising of defects.
She did not drink, was not a lie-abed, and was clean in her
work and person. I won't say whether she put her fingers
into the sugar, because I don't know, and Mrs. Welsh
keeps the preserves and candied fruit locked up in the side-
board."

" I do not understand," said Mrs. Cribbage, gazing per-
plexedly at Mr. Welsh's imperturbable face.

" She was a sort of general hand with us," explained
Welsh, " was that girl Inglett. We were sorry to lose her
but she thought to better herself, and we do not give high
wages. We can't afford to pay more than twelve pounds,
and no beer. But the maid has the tea-leaves and dripping.
That is — she had ; but now that we have a cook, the cook
arrogates the dripping to herself. We bear the young
woman no grudge for leaving us. It is the way with girls,
they will always be on the move, and if they can better
themselves by moving, why not ? What wages do you pay,
ma'am ? And how about perquisites ? "

" You had a general servant named Inglett ? "

" Yes, and our present housemaid is named Budge.
Our cook is Mrs. Winter. The last cook we had drank,
and ran up a ladder. It took several policemen to get her
down. The ladder was of extraordinary height. It stood
in a builder's yard. It was impossible for us to retain the
woman after that. She had risen into notoriety. Then,

5a2 ARMINELL.

for awhile, the girl Inglett cooked for us ; she was not
brought up to it, had never passed through her apprentice-
ship as kitchen-maid, but some women take to cooking as
poets take to verses — naturally."

" That is true," said Mrs. Cribbage. Her mouth was
gradually falling at the corners. She had expected to fish
up a very queer and unpleasant bit of scandal, and, to her
disappointment, began to see that she had spooned up
clean water in her beak.

*' Mrs. Welsh, seeing her abilities, may have advised the
girl Inglett to take a kitchen-maid's place — I cannot say.
Has she applied to you for such a situation in your house,
ma'am ? If so, I am sure Mrs. Welsh can confidently re-
commend her."

" We thought," said Mrs. Cribbage, in a tone of discour-
agement, " that is to say, Mrs. Tubb said most positively
that — that the Honourable Arminell Inglett, daughter of
Lord Lamerton, was not dead, but was lodging with
you. And you really had a servant of the name of
Inglett ? "

" Certainly, a general, as I said — and now you mention
it, it does seem queer that she should have had such an
aristocratic name, but I daresay she assumed it, as actresses
do."

" I was led by Marianne Tubb to suppose — "

" Was not that like Marianne ! " Mr. Welsh went into a
fit of laughter. .- Mrs. Cribbage, with a ghastly smile, ad-
mitted that it was like Marianne Tubb, who was certainly
given to boasting and romancing. However, she added,
charitably —

" Really, it almost seems a judgment on her."

" What does ? "

" The stroke. It was too bad of her to make us suppose
that the Honourable Arminell Inglett had come to live in
such a quarter as this. Then you really believe, Mr. Welsh,

ARMINELL. 503

that Lord Lamerton's daughter died of the shock, when she
heard of her father's premature death ? ''

'* I saw it so stated in the papers, and they are generally
well informed. What sort of a person was she? I ask
you, as the Rector's wife, was she worldly ? Was she at
all [prepared for the great change ? "

Mrs. Cribbage shook her head.

" I was afraid it was so," said Welsh solemnly. " Then
I should not be at all surprised if she also had gone to the
same warm place as my poor nephew."

" It is not for us to judge," said Mrs. Cribbage gravely ;
" still, if it be permitted us to look beyond the veil, I would
not say but that she had. She was barely civil to me, once
she was positively rude. Yes — I have no doubt that she
also has gone — gone — "

" To the same warm place," added Welsh.

CHAPTER LIII.

ALLAH'S SLIPPER.

Having occupied an entire chapter with dippers, it may
seem to the reader to be acting in excess of what is just to
revert in the ensuing chapter to the same topic ; but if we
mention dippers again, it is in another sense altogether.

In an oriental tale, a sultan was unable to conceive how
that a thousand days cculd seem to pass as a minute, or a
minute be expanded into a thousand days. Then a
magician bade a pail of water be brought into the royal
presence, and invited the sultan to plunge his head into it.
He did so, and at once found himself translated to a strange
country where he was destitute of the means of life, and
was forced to support existence by hard labour as a porter.
He married a wife, and became the father of seven children,
after which his wife died, and as he was oppressed with old
age and poverty, he plunged into a river to finish his woes,
when — up came his head out of the pail of water. He
stormed at the magician for having given him such a life of
wretchedness. "But, sire," said the magician, "your
august head has been under water precisely three seconds."

Now I do not mean to say that this story is applicable to
my hero and heroine in all its parts. I do not mean that
their history and that of the sultan fit, when one is applied
to the other, as do the triangles a b c and d e f in the

ARMINELL. 505

fourth proposition of the First Book of Euclid, but only
that there is a resemblance. Both Giles Saltren and Armi-
nell had, as the expression goes, got their heads under
water, and having got them there, found themselves begin-
ning a new career, in a fresh place of existence, with fresh
experiences to make and connections to form. The past
was to both cut away as if it had never been, and, unlike
this sultan, there was no prospect of their getting their
heads up again into their former life. They must, there-
fore, make the best they could of that new life in which
they found themselves ; and, perhaps, Arminell acted sen-
sibly in resolving that they should begin it together.

If Arminell had settled into her house at Bournemouth,
and kept her pony-carriage and appeared to be unstraitened
in circumstances, the residents of Bournemouth would, in
all probability, have asked who this Miss Inglett was, and
have turned up the name in the Red Books, and pushed
enquiries which could with difficulty have been evaded;
but when she set up her establishment as Mrs. Saltren, the
case was altered ; for the patronymic does not occur in the
" Peerage " or in " Burke's Landed Gentry." It was a
name to baffle enquiry, whereas Inglett was calculated to
provoke it. It is true that Arminell might have changed
her maiden name without altering her condition, but this
she was reluctant to do.

In Gervase of Tilbury's " Otia Imperalia " is an account
of a remarkable event that took place in England in the
reign of Henry II. One day an anchor descended out of
the clouds and grappled the earth, immediately followed by
a man who swarmed down the cable and disengaged the
anchor, whereupon man and anchor were drawn up again
into the clouds.

Similar events occur at the present day. People, not
men alone, but women, whole families, come down on us out
of the clouds, and move about on the earth in our midst.

$o6 ARMINELL.

We know neither whence they come, nor anything about
their antecedents. They talk and eat and drink like the
rest of us, and are sometimes very agreeable to converse
with, and take infinite pains to make themselves popular.
Nevertheless, we regard them with suspicion. We are never
sure that they will be with us for long. Some day they
will release the anchor and go up with a whisk above the
clouds into the fog-land whence they fell.

There are certain times of the year when meteoric stones
descend, and there are certain belts on the surface of the
earth on which they chiefly tumble. So is it with these
people who come down on us out of the clouds. They
usually fall into watering-places, and winter-quarters, and
always drop down in the season at these resorts. Rarely do
they descend into quiet country towns or rural districts
among the autochthones, parsonic and squirarchical. We
come on them abroad, we become acquaintances, we sit
together at the opera, organize picnics together, take coffee
at one table in the gardens where the band plays, yet we
never know whence they have come and whither they will
go. When we are at the sea-side with our family we meet with
another family, the father and mother respectable, the young
men handsome and polite, the girls aesthetic, and with —
oh, such eyes ! The young people soon strike up an in-
timacy, go boating, shrimping, nutting together ; but we,
the parents, have seen the intimacy thicken with some
uneasiness, and do not like to see our son hang about the
handsomest of the girls, or the most irreproachable of the
young men so assiduous in his attentions to our daughter.
Then we begin to institute enquiries, but learn nothing.
Nobody ever heard of these people before. Nobody ever
saw them before. Nobody knows where they made their
money — yet money they must have, for the girls dress
charmingly, and you cannot dress charmingly by the sea-
side for nothing.

ARMINELL. 507

Then, all at once, when these people become aware
that you are pushing enquiries, the blade of the anchor
wriggles out of the sand, and up they all go, the young men
waving their straw hats, and the girls casting sad glances
out of their splendid eyes, and the old people silent about
prosecuting the acquaintance elsewhere.

But — it must be admitted that these people who come
down out of the clouds do not for the most part form as
complete a family as that just spoken of. Either the mon-
sieur or the madame is deficient, and we never know ex-
actly where he or she is, whether above the clouds or under
the earth.

No doubt that at Bournemouth, as at other sea-side
places, persons appear at the beginning of the season, cast
anchor for a while, and no one troubles himself about their
antecedents, because they are supposed to be there for the
season only ; but were a young lady to anchor herself
firmly, to buy a house and become a permanent resident,
especially if she were pretty and rich, do you suppose that
the Bournemouth residents would not examine the cable of
her anchor, to see if the government thread be woven into
it, and the anchor to discover the maker's stamp ? Do you
not suppose that they would set their telescopes and opera-
glasses to work to discover out of what star the rope
descended ?

Arminell knew this. She brought with her out of her
old world that caution which bade her enquire who a person
was before she consulted with that person ; and she was
quite sure that wherever she set up her tent, there questions
would be asked concerning her. She knew that there were
Mrs. Cribbages everywhere, and that she would have to be
on her guard against them. But her difficulties about
keeping her secret were materially diminished by marriage.

The ceremony took place quietly, and no announcement
of it was made in the Tifnes, the Queen^ and the country

5o8 ARMINELL.

papers. Immediately after it, she and Giles departed for
Algiers. That was the warm place of which Mr. Welsh
had spoken to ]\Irs. Cribbage. They went to Algiers, in-
stead of Bordighera and Mentone, because Saltren had
been to the Riviera before, and might be recognised.

Arminell had constituted herself the nurse of Jingles.
She was the nurse not only of a sick body, but of an infirm
soul. His morbid sensitiveness was in part constitutional,
and due to his delicacy, but it had been fostered and been
ripened by the falseness of the position in which he had
been placed. Arminell had recovered her elasticity sooner
than had he ; but then she had not been reduced to the
same distress. Both had been humbled, but the humilia-
tions he had undergone had been more numerous, more
persistent than hers. She, at her moral rebound, had
adapted herself to her situation and had done well in every
capacity; he had not been able to find any situation in
which he could show his powers.

The body reacts on the moral nature more than we sup-
pose, or allow for in others. We call those ill-tempered
who are in fact disordered in liver and not in heart, and we
consider those to be peppery who in reality are only irrit-
able because they have gout flying about their joints. The
morbidness of Jingles was largely due to his delicacy of
lung, and with De Jongh's cod-liver oil would probably in
time disappear.

When a man battles a way for himself into a position not
his by right of birth, he acquires a tough skin. Siegfried,
the Dragon-slayer, goes by the name of the Horny Siegfried
because, by bathing in the dragon's blood, he toughened
his hide — only between his shoulders, where a linden-leaf
fell whilst he was bathing, could he be made to feel.

The successful men who have fought dragons and cap-
tured their guarded treasures are thick-skinned, impervious
to hints, ridicule, remonstrances — you cannot pinch them,

ARMINELL. 509

scratch them, prick them, unless you discover the one
vulnerable point. But Saltren had fought no dragons, only
his own shadow, and his skin was as thin as the inner film
of an egg — highly sensitive, and puckering at a breath.
His vanity had been broken away, but his skin had not
been rendered more callous thereby. Formerly he was in
perpetual dudgeon because he imagined slights that were
never offered. He still imagined slights, but instead of
becoming angry at them became depressed.

As his health improved in the dry, salubrious air of
North Africa, he began to interest himself in the antiquities,
to explore ruins, to copy inscriptions, and so forgot himself
in archaeological pursuits. Arminell encouraged him to
prosecute these subjects, and he became more enthusiastic
on them ; he regretted that the increasing heat would send
him to Europe. However, on his arrival at Bournemouth,
he found occupation in arranging his library and setting out
his antiquities. Then he wrote an account of some ex-
plorations he had among the megalithic monuments near
Constantine for a scientific journal, and this attracted
attention, and led to correspondence, and to the article
being reprinted with additions, and to a dispute as to the
resemblances and dissimilarities between the Constantine
monuments and the so-called Druidical remains in Britain.

The following winter Saltren was again at Algiers, and
resumed his explorations with assiduity, spent much time in
planning, sketching, digging, and formed a theory of his
own relative to megalithic monuments contrary to that of
Mr. Fergusson, whom he resolved to attack and crush.
When summer came, at his particular desire, Arminell and
he visited Denmark and Norway, where he examined such
stone monuments as belonged to a prehistoric period, and
then went with her into Brittany.

As he became known as an antiquary, his society was
sought by men of like tastes, and so he came to have a

5IO ARMINELL.

little circle of acquaintances, which tended to widen, and
as those who came to know him through prehistoric rude
stone monuments fell in love with his charming young
wife, they insisted on their womankind calling and knowing
her also. In vain did the ladies ask, " But, who was she ? "
They were crushed with the rt ply, " My dears, what does it
matter what she was, she is the wife of one of our first
authorities on comparative megalithology." So, by degrees,
the young couple formed a coterie about themselves, and
were no longer solitary and feeling as if they were outcasts.

Now and then Mr. Welsh ran down to Bournemouth and
spent a day with them, and sometimes Mrs. Welsh brought
the baby ; but the Welshes were no assistance to them in
social matters. The Welsh circle was of a different style of
mind and manner and interest from that which formed
round the Saltrens. It was not a circle which could wax
excited over anything prehistoric, it was so completely
engrossed in the present.

But the Welshes were always received with the utmost
warmth and kindness by Arminell, who could not forget
what she owed to them, and harboured for the Radical
journalist an affection quite special, mixed with great re-
spect. She knew the thorough goodness of the man, and
she delighted in his smartness.

" Look here, Tryphoena," said James Welsh one day to
his wife ; " do you remember what I said to you about
aristocrats and their trains ? There is something else I will
tell you. Once upon a time, say the Mussulmans, Allah,
sitting on his throne in paradise, dropped the slipper off his
foot, and it fell down into hell. Then he called to Adam,
and bade him go and fetch it. * What ! ' exclaimed Adam,
* shall I, w^ho am made in the likeness of God, descend to
the place of devils ? God forbid ! ' Then Allah ordered
Abraham to go after his slipper. ' Shall I go down into
hell? I who am the friend of God ! Far be it from me ! '

ARMINELL. 5 1 1

was his reply. Then Allah turned to Moses, and he ex-
claimed, ' What ! sl^.all I, who am the law-giver of God, I
who led the people out of the brick-kilns, shall I descend to
the furnace ? Away with the thought ! ' And David cried,
when Allah turned to him, ' Nay, but I am the psalmist of
God, press we not to go where denions yell discords.' And
Isaiah had also an objection to go, for he said, ' I am the
prophet of God.' Then Allah turned to Mahomet, and
said, 'Wilt thou go after my slipper?' And Mahomet
answered, ' I go at once, 1 am the servant of God.' Where-
upon Allah exclaimed, * Thou only art worthy to sit on my
throne. All the rest are a parcel of cads ' — or words to
that effect."

" But, James, what has this to do with the aristocracy ? "
" Be silent, Tryphcena, and listen. You and I, and all
those who have clambered up the steps of the social heaven,
are mightily tenacious of our places, and resent the slightest
suggestion made to us to step below. We clutch at our
seats and insist on every prerogative and privilege that
attaches to it. Quite right that it should be so. We value
the place we have gained, because it has cost us so much
effort to attain it, and because we have to balance ourselves
and cling so tight to keep ourselves from sliding down.
But it is different with those who have been born and
brought up on the footstool of the throne. They don't
want a pat of cobblers'-wax to keep them firm on their seat,
and they are not scrupulous about descending after Allah's
shoe wherever it may have fallen. If they go down to
hell they don't get smoked. They don't find anyone dis-
puting their seats when they return. They can go and
come, and we must sit and cling. That makes a difference.
There is something of Allah everywhere, only it wants fetch
ing up. Just see what has been made of that girl,
Thomasine Kite. If ever there was a wilful, unruly-
creature, fated to go to the devil, it was she. And what

512 ARMINELL.

could you do witli her ? Nothing. You sat on a step just
above her, and were not able to stoop for fear of toppling
over. She is not the same girl now, and I hear she is going
to be married to a sergeant of the coastguard. She is a
well-conducted woman, passionately attached to her mistress,
and no wonder, — Arminell has brought up Allah's slipper
out of her. Look again at Jingles ! I never had any
opinion of him — a conceited, morbid monkey — and I could
have done nothing with him ; I lack the tact or whatever it
is that is needful. But he is changed also, unobtrusive,
self-respecting, learned, and modest — she has brought up
Allah's slipper out of him."

"You are a weather-cock, James. At one time you were
all against the aristocracy, and now no one can do anything
right unless he has blue blood in him. And yet — you call
yourself a Radical."

" So I am— a Radical still," said Welsh. " I have not
altered my opinions, but my mode of procedure. I do not
want to pull the aristocracy down, but to pull all society up
to it. I don't say that no one can fetch up Allah's slipper
but a born gentleman, but I do say that no one who has
not attained to the aristocratic ease in a superior position, is
likely to descend to seek Allah's slipper, wherever it is to
be found. I may have been wrong in thinking the best way
of advancing society was by pinching the calves of those
who sat above me, so as to make their seat intolerable, in-
stead of lending a hand to help up those below to a share
of my stool. Do you understand me, old woman ? "

"I do not think I do. You have such a figurative
method of speaking, James."

CHAPTER LIV.

MEGALITH IC.

One bright summer day, when the sea was still and blue as
the nemophyla, and twinkling as if strewn with diamond
dust, Arminell was in her garden, with an apron on, gloves
over her hands, a basket on her arm, and scissors for
flowers.

At the end of the garden, partly screened by rhodo-
dendrons, was a summer-house, and outside it some lumps
of plaster of Paris, pots of oil-paint, and slabs of slate,
smeared with mortar. Occasionally the door of the pavilion
opened, and a man issued from it wearing a brown-holland
blouse, and on his head a paper cap. Particles and splashes
of plaster marked his face, especially about the nose, where
he had rubbed with a white finger.

" I will have it all cleaned away, Giles," said Arminell.
" How are you getting on with the models ? "

"Very well, only the plaster does not set as fast as I
could wish. When I have got the dolmens of Gozo and
Constantine, of Lock Mariaker and Madron to scale, side
by side, the most prejudiced persons must agree that the
similarity of construction is strong evidence of identity of
origin. I can show on my map of megalithic monuments
where the stream of dolmen builders travelled, how that it
set from Asia, along the margin of the Baltic, and then

^ 2 K

514 ARMINELL.

branched north over Britain, and south over Gaul. I can
prove conclusively that they were not Gauls and Kelts.
Just come and look at my cromlechs and dolmens in the
rough. The resemblance saute aux yeux. We must estab-
lish their geographical distribution, and then compare their
points of similarity and dis ^^

" Please, ma'am, a lady and a young gentleman are in the
drawing-room, and want to see you."

" What names ? "

" They gave none, ma'am."

Arminell removed her apron, took off her gloves, and
handed them and the basket to the maid, then went to-
wards the drawing-room glass door opening upon the
garden.

"Some people come to collect for the Jubilee," said
Arminell aside to her husband, as she passed.

" I heard they were about."

In another moment, however, Saltren, who was engaged
on his models of prehistoric rude stone monuments, heard
a cry, and returning to the door of his laboratory, saw
Arminell in the arms of an old lady, and at the same
moment recognised her, and also the boy at her side.
Then, without removing his blouse or his paper cap, he ran
also across the garden, to welcome Lady Lamerton and his
old pupil, Giles.

I do not think I could better illustrate the fact of the
transformation that had been effected in Jingles, than by
mentioning this incident. Can you — I cannot — conceive
of Mr. Jingles as tutor at Orleigh Park, allowing himself to
be seen smudged with plaster, in a paper cap, with a nose
of chalky whiteness ? On the present occasion he was so
excited, so pleased to see dear Lady Lamerton and Giles
again, that he forgot all about his own personal appearance,
and even about the quoit of the Madron cromlech he was
then modelling to scale.

ARMINELL. 515

Lady I^merton had come to see Arminell, as Arminell
could not visit her; and this was her first visit. She had
not ventured before, because she did not think it prudent,
not because her heart did not draw her to Arminell.

The most contradictory reports had circulated relative to
the girl. Some had asserted that she was dead, others de-
clared she was alive. Then it was said she was lodging in
London, under an assumed name, and had made herself
notorious by her advocacy of woman's rights, divided skirts,
and social democracy. It was asserted that she had be-
come a platform orator and a writer under the direction of
that revolutionist, James Welsh. This was again denied,
and said to rest on a mistake arising from James Welsh
having . had a general servant named Inglett. After a
twelvemonth gossip ceased, for interest was no longer taken
in a person who was no more seen, and who probably was
dead.

And what does it matter, argued the cynical, whether she
be dead or alive, as she is no more in society ? We know
nothing of those who do not appear, who liave not been
presented, who are not danced before our eyes.

In mediaeval times there were oubliettes in all castles, and
inconvenient persons were let fall down them to disappear
for ever. Did they break their necks in falling ? Or did
they linger on, fed on bread and water, and languish for
years ? What did it matter ? They were practically dead
when the trap-door closed over their heads.

Every aristocratic, every gentle family has now what was
anciently the prerogative of the mightiest barons only.
Every family is encumbered with its awkward and trouble-
some members who must be dropped somewhere.

The Honourable Arminell Inglett had gone down an
oubliette^ but whether it Were the family vault or a social
limbo mattered nothing. We are too wise to ask about her.
We never do anything inconsistent with good taste. We

5l6 ARMINELL.

let sleeping dogs lie, and don't push enquiries about dropped
relatives.

When we are invited to dine at my lord's, we do not peep
to see if the broken meats and the half-finished bottles be
tumbled -down under the feet to be mumbled and drained
by the forgotten ones beneath. When we dance at my
lady's Christmas ball, in the state ball-room, we know very
well that below it is the family oubliette^ but we scuffle with
our feet to drown the moans of those mauvais sujets who lie
below, and the orchestra sounds its loudest strains to dis-
guise the rattle of their chains.

" My dear husband," said Arminell, " take Lamerton to
see your models. They will interest him, and I will go in
with mamma. Besides, you can clear his mind of delusions
with respect to the Druids, which is really important. You
know that there is a circle of stones on Orleigh Common,
and in an unguarded moment the boy might attribute them
to the ancient Britons."

" The matter is not one to joke upon," said Jingles, with
a flicker of annoyance in his face.

Then he retreated to the pavilion with his old pupil, to
show him the work on which he was engaged.

Arminell, quick in perception, saw that Lady Lamerton
had noticed the transient cloud, so she said, with a smile,
" Do you remember my husband when he was Giles's tutor ?
I mean, do you remember how sensitive he then was, how
he winced when you came near him ? I have heard of
nervous disorders that make men thus susceptible. If you
put a finger on them, they scream and writhe ; if near them,
they quiver with apprehension. He was in like manner
touchy. Now, however, he is quite recovered. There is
but one single point on which he is sensitive, and where a
feather will make him wince."

"What is that?"

ARMINELL. 517

" Megalithic monuments."

" Megalithic monuments, my dear ? "

" Yes, mamma. He loves me dearly, but even I, who
can do almost anything with him, would shrink from hold-
ing Mr. Fergusson's view that Stonehenge was a work of the
Anglo-Saxons. If it did not separate us, it would make a
temporary estrangement. But, understand me, we are the
greatest of friends, we never quarrel. 1 believe with all my
soul that the rude stone monuments are prehistoric and
pre-Keltic."

" And what are his political views ? "

" I do not think he has any. But he is deeply interested
in the bill for the acquisition and nationalisation of the
antiquities of the country. He says, and I agree with him,
that if Britain is to maintain her place as a leading nation
in the civilized world, she should conserve most strictly
every prehistoric monument on the soil."

Then Arminell made Lady Lamerton rest on the sofa ;
and she drew a stool to her feet, and sat there holding her
hands.

" I dare say you cannot understand why I married him,"
she said, after a short period of silence and mutual endear-
ments. " But I was much alone, and oh ! so solitary. I
wanted a companion and did not relish the idea of an
elderly eligible female, who, with bland perpetual smile, ac-
quiescence in all my vagaries, non-resistance to my opinion,
would have been intolerable to me. I could not do without
a companion, and I could not endure the society of one.
It is the vocation of these companions to be complaisant,
to have no view, no opinion, no personality. Unless she
were all that, she would be no companion ; if she were all
that, she would be insupportable to me. Then — with her I
could not have talked about dear Orleigh."

She stroked and then kissed her step-mother's hand.

"Also poor Jingles— I mean Mr. Saltren —required a

5jS ARMINELL.

Companion, a nurse ; some one to look after him day and
night, and see that he changed his socks when they were
damp, and drank fresh milk warm from the cow, and took
tonics at regular hours, and had sweet-oil rubbed into his
back between the shoulder-blades. I could not ask Mrs.
Bankes to do that, or the housemaid, and there was really
no one else who could be asked. I could not do this
unless I married him, and so — I became his wife, and
rubbed in the sweet-oil. Thank God, he is a strong man
now ; but he has to be kept up to the mark. I go with
him when he makes archaeological excursions to the Morbi-
han, or to Scotland to plan old stones, for when he gets
interested he forgets himself, and would work on in an east
wind or in a sou'-west drizzle unless I were by to insist on
his postponing the measurements till the weather mends.
He is a dear, amiable fellow, and yields with the best grace.
It is real pleasure to have to do with him. Now tell me
something about Orleigh."
" About the people ? "

"O yes, mamma, about the dear people there."

" You know that Sam Ceely is married to Joan Melhuish,

and she is devoted to that old impostor as you seem to be

to your patient. They live now in the cottage which was

occupied by Captain Tubb till he moved to the old quarry."

" Where is Patience Kite ? "

" She has been had up twice before the magistrates for
obtaining money under false pretences. She is an inveter-
ate witch, and might well have been left alone, but ^Irs.
Cribbage has taken a dislike to her, and set the police upon
her, and has had her summonsed. Just now she is in
prison, because she could not pay the fine imposed on her.
How is her daughter, Thomasine ? "

" Thomasine ! — I will ring and you shall see her."

" Not just yet, Arminell."

** No, presently. She is the belle of Bournemouth

ARMINELL. 519

Such a handsome girl, blooms into greater beauty than ever,
and is so good and affectionate and steady. She is going
to be married to a coast-guard man, a most respectable
fellow."

" And now about yourself, Armie. Does time not hang
heavy on your hands ? You cannot be always engaged on
pre-historic antiquities."

"Indeed, mamma," answered Arminell with energy,
"time does not hang heavy on my hands. I have, of
course, my dear husband, to consider first of all, but I have
plenty to occupy me besides — duties thoroughly humdrum.
I visit the old women, I read to the sick, I am an active
patroness of the Girls' Friendly Society, and I teach every
Sunday in the school."

" You do ! Why, Armie, you used to hate Sunday
School."

" Dear mamma, I wish you could hear my class of girls,
they have just acquired the list of apocryphal books which
are not to be applied to establish doctrine. And, till I
find some positive truth to teach, I content myself with
making them repeat the names of all the homilies which no
one has read, and which never are likely to be read. They
have also been taught the meaning of Quinquagesima, Sexa-
gesima, and Septuagesima."

" And you think you are really doing good, Armie ? "

" I am using all my energies to teach my girls to grow
up humdrum women."

THE END.

S. Cowan <& Co., Printers, Perth.

A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS

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MARCH 1897

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GEORGE WYNDHAM
SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS. Edited, with an Introduction and
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BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA. By Sir H. H. JOHNSTON,
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Contents.

(s) The Missionaries.

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CAPTAIN HINDE
THE FALL OF THE CONGO ARABS. By Sidney L.
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This volume deals with the recent Belgian Expedition to the Upper Congo, which
developed into a war between the State forces and the Arab slave raiders in
Central Africa. Two white men only returned alive from the three years' war —
Commandant Dhanis and the writer of this book, Captain Hinde. During the
greater part of the time spent by Captain Hinde in the Congo he was amongst
cannibal races in little-known regions, and, owing to the peculiar circumstances
of his position, was enabled to see a side of native history shown to few Europeans.
The war terminated in the complete defeat of the Arabs, seventy thousand of
whom perished during Jhe struggle.

Messrs. Methuen's Announcements 3
baben-fowell

SCOUTING SKETCHES IN RHODESIA. By Lieut.
Colonel Baden-Powell. With numerous Illustrations, Maps,
etc. Demy 2>vo. Cloth. i$s.

PRINCE HENRI OF ORLEANS
FROM TONKIN TO INDIA. By Prince Henri of
Orleans. Translated by Hamley Bent, M.A. With over loo
Illustrations and 4 Maps. DemyZvo. 2is.
The travels of Prince Henri in 1895 from China to the valley of the Bramaputra
covered a distance of 2100 miles, of which 1600 was through absolutely unexplored
country. No fewer than seventeen ranges of mountains were crossed at altitudes
of from 11,000 to 13,000 feet. The journey was made memorable by the discovery
of the sources of the Irrawaddy. To the physical difficulties of the journey were
added dangers from the attacks of savage tribes. The book deals with many of
the burning political problems of the East, and it will be found a most important
contribution to the literature of adventure and discovery.

L. DECLE
THREE YEARS IN SAVAGE AFRICA. By Lionel Decle.
With an Introduction by H. M. Stanley, M.P. With 100 Illus-
trations and 5 Maps. Deniy%vo. 21s.

Few Europeans have had the same opportunity of studying the barbarous parts of
Africa as Mr. Decle. Starting from the Cape, he visited in succession Bechuana-
land, the Zambesi, Matabeleland and Mashonaland, the Portuguese settlement on
the Zambesi, Nyasaland, Ujiji, the headquarters of the Arabs, German East
Africa, Uganda (where he saw fighting in company with the late Major ' Roddy*
Owen), and British East Africa. In his book he relates his experiences, his
minute observations of native habits and customs, and his views as to the work
done in Africa by the various European Governments, whose operations he was
able to study. The whole journey extended over 7000 miles, and occupied
exactly three years.

H. S. COWPER

THE HILL OF THE GRACES: OR, THE Great Stone
Temples of Tripoli. By H. S. Cowper, F.S.A. With Maps,
Plans, and 75 Illustrations. Demy Svo. los. 6d.
The Turkish prohibition against all European travel in their African Pashalics has,
during the last seventeen years, rendered impossible both geographical and
archaeological research. The author, however, was enabled to make two journeys
through the hill range of Tripoli in 1895 and 1896, and this volume deals chiefly
with a remarkable series of megalithic Temples and Trilithons, which he found
to exist there in extraordinary numbers. These ruins have hitherto been quite
uninvestigated, and to Englishmen should have an exceptional interest, from the
light it is believed they will throw on our own national monument of Stonehenge.
In all about one hundred sites were visited and photographed, and the volume will
be fully illustratedby maps, plans, and photographs. Chapters will also be devoted
to modern Tripoli, the little_ visited ruins of Leptes Magna, the ancient and
modern geography of the district generally, and the author's personal experiences.

W CROOKE
THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES OF INDIA: Their
Ethnology and Administration. By W, Crooke. With Maps
^nd Illustrations. Demy Svo. los. 6cl,

4 Messrs. Methuen's Announcements
History and Biography

MORRIS FULLER
THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN DAVENANT,
D.D. (1571-1641), President of Queen's College, Lady Margaret Pro-
fessor of Divinity, Cambridge, Lord Bishop of Salisbury. By the
Rev. Morris Fuller, B.D., Vicar of St. Mark's, Marylebone.
Crowjt Zvo. *]s. 6d.

Dr. Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury, the maternal uncle of Dr. Fuller, lived at a very
critical time in our history (1571-1641), He was one of the British representatives
of the first great Synod of the reformed churches held at Dort, was one of Arch-
bishop Laud's Suffragans, and assisted him in carrying out his reforms.

Precis is given of some of the Bishop's writings, and a very celebrated sermon, never
before published and supposed to have been lost, is printed in extenso.

EDWARD GIBBON

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

By Edward Gibbon. A New Edition, edited with Notes,

Appendices, and Maps by J. B. Bury, M.A., Fellow of Trinity

. College, Dublin. In Seven Volumes. Demy ^vo, gilt top. 8^. 6d.

each. Crown Svo. 6s. each. Vol. III.

J. WELLS

THE CITY AND UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. By J.
Wells, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Wadham College. Illustrated
by E. H. New. Fcp. Svo. 2s. 6d.

This is a Guide — chiefly historical— to the Colleges of Oxford. It contains numerous
full-page illustrations.

C. H. GRINLING
A HISTORY OF THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY,
1845-95. By C. H. Grinling. With Maps and Illustrations.
Crown Svo. 6s.
A record of Railway enterprise and development in Northern England, containing
much matter hitherto unpublished. It appeals both to the general reader and to
those specially interested in railway construction and management.

Naval and Military

DAVID HANNAY

L SHORT HISTORY OF THE ROYAL NAVY, From
Early Times to the Present Day. By David Hannay.
Illustrated. 2 Vols. Demy Svo. 15^.

This book aims at giving an account not only of tne fighting we nave done at sea,
but of the growth of the service, of the part the Navy has played in the develop-
ment of the Empire, and of its inner life. The author has endeavoured to avoid
the mistake of sacrificing the earlier periods of naval history- — the very interesting
wars with Holland in the seventeenth century, for instance, or the American
War of 1779-1783 — to the later struggle with Revolutionary and Imperial France.

Messrs. Methuen's Announcements 5
col. cooper king

THE STORY OF THE BRITISH ARMY. By Lieut-Colonel
Cooper King, of the Staff College, Camberley. Illustrated. Demy
Svo. ys. 6d.
This volume aims at describing the nature of the different armies that have been
formed in Great Britain, and how from the early and feudal levies the present
standing army came to be. The changes in tactics, uniform, and armament are
briefly touched upon, and the campaigns in which the army has shared have
been so far followed as to explain the part played by British regiments in them.

Theology

E. C. S. GIBSON
THE XXXIX ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENG-
LAND. Edited with an Introduction by E. C. S. Gibson, D.D.,
Vicar of Leeds, late Principal of Wells Theological College. In Two
Volumes. Demy^vo. ys. 6d. each. Vol. II. Articles IX.-XXXIX.

A PRIMER OF THE BIBLE. By Prof. W. H. Bennett.
Crown Svo. 2s. 6d.

g^bottxjnal §txu0

C. BIGG
THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Newly Trans-
lated, with an Introduction, by C. Bigg, D.D., late Student of
Christ Church. With a Frontispiece. iSmo. is. 6d.

This little book is the first volume of a new Devotional Series, the volumes of which
will be edited by competent scholars, printed in clear type, and published at a
very low price.

This volume contains the nine books of the 'Confessions,' which are suitable for
devotional purposes. The name of the Editor is a sufficient guarantee of the
excellence of the edition.

F. E. BRIGHTMAN
THE DEVOTIONS OF BISHOP ANDREWES. Newly Trans-
lated, together with his * Manual of the Sick,' with an Introduction
by F. E. Brightman, M.A., of the Pusey House, Oxford. i8mo.
IS. 6.i.
The inclusion of Andrewes' * Manual of the Sick ' will greatly increase the value of
this edition of the ' Preces Privatae.'

Sport

H. MORGAN BROWNE
SPORTING AND ATHLETIC RECORDS. By H. MORGAN

Browne. Crown Svo. ^s. 6d.

This book gives, in a clear and complete form, accurate records of the best perform-
ances in ail important branches of Sport. It is an attempt, never yet made, to

6 Messrs. Methuen's Announcements

present all-important sporting records in a systematic way. In many branches of
athletics world's records will be properly tabulated for the first time. Records at
many of the great public schools will be given. While complete lists of the
winners of important events in the world of sport {c.£^. principal horse races,
English Amateur Championships, Oxford and Cambridge Boat-race, etc. etc.)
will be found in an Appendix.

General Literature

ARTHUR SHERWELL

LIFE IN WEST LONDON: A Study and a Contrast.
By Arthur Sherwell, M.A. Crown ?,vo. 2s. 6d.

H. A. SALMONS

THE FALL AND RESURRECTION OF TURKEY. By

H. Anthony Salmon e. With Portraits. Crown Svo. ss. 6d.

LAURIE MAGNUS
A PRIMER OF WORDSWORTH. By Laurie Magnus.
Crown Svo. 2s. 6d.

R. USSHER

NEO-MALTHUSIANISM. By R. Ussher, M.A. Cr.Svo. s^-
An Enquiry into that System, with regard to its Economy and
Morality.

This book deals with a ver>' delicate but most important matter, namely, the volun-
r limitation - - --

the nation.

tary limitation of the family, and how such action affects morality, the individual,
and t"

Educational

C. STEPHENSON AND F. SUDDARDS
ORNAMENTAL DESIGN FOR WOVEN FABRICS. By
C. Stephenson, of The Technical College, Bradford, and
F. SuDDARDS, of The Yorkshire College, Leeds. With 65 full-page
plates, and numerous designs and diagrams in the text. Demy Svo.
7s. 6d.

The aim of this book is to supply, in a systematic and practical form, information on
the subject of Decorative Design as applied to Woven Fabrics, and is primarily
intended to meet the requirements of students in Textile and Art Schools, or of
designers actively engaged in the weaving industry. Its wealth of illustration is
a marked feature of the book.

Messrs. Methuen's Announcements 7

R. E. STEEL

MAGNETISM AND ELECTRICITY. By R. ELLIOTT

Steel, M.A., F.C.S. With Illustrations. Crown Zvo. ^. 6d.

E. E. WHITFIELD
PRECIS WRITING AND OFFICE CORRESPONDENCE.

By E. E. Whitfield, M.A. Crown Svo. 2s.

[Commera'al Series.

ESSENTIALS OF COMMERCIAL EDUCATION. By
E, E. Whitfield, M.A. Crown %vo. \s. 6d.

A guide to Commercial Education and Examinations, which ought to prove most
useful as showing what is now being done in this country to promote commercial
education, and also as giving valuable information to those who may wish to enter
for some of the commercial examinations now held by the London Chamber of
Commerce and other bodies.

Methuen's Classical Texts

general editor
E. C. MARCH ANT, M.A.

OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD ; FELLOW OF PETERHOUSE, CAMBRIDGE ;

ST. Paul's school, London.
Messrs. Methuen propose to issue a new series of Classical Texts, edited
by eminent scholars, for the use of English-speaking students. The books
will be well printed and bound, and will be published at a very low^ price.
The first volume of every author will contain a brief Introduction in English,
not exceeding eight pages, in which the necessary information about the MSS.
will be given, and the salient features of the author's style indicated.

The critical notes, which will be at the foot of the page, will exhibit only
the important MS. variants and conjectures of special value. They will
contain very little argument ; and there will be no explanatory notes. Every
volume of the series will contain a short Index Rerum et Nominum

Special attention will be paid to the typography of the scries.

The following, among many others, are arranged : —

AUTHOR. editor.

Aeschylus, . . . R. Y. Tyrrell^ D.Litt, LL.D., E.egius Professor of

Greek in the Xjniversity of Dublin.
Professor Tyrrell.
W. J. M. Starkie, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College,

Dublin.
W. S. Hadley, M.A., Fellow and Bursar of Pembroke

College, Cambridge.
E. C. Marchant, M.A., Fellow of Pelerhouse, Cam-

bridge ; St. Paul's School.
J. E. Sandys, Litt.D., Public Orator In the University

of Cambridge.

Aristophanes, 2 vols.,
Sophocles,

Euripides, 3 vols., .

Thucydides, 2 vols., .

Dkmosthbnes, 3 vols..

Messrs. Methuen's Announcements

CiCBRO —

Speeches, 3 vols.,

Philosophical Work
Letters, 2 vols..

Tacitus, 2 vols.,

Terence, .

lucrktius,

Vergil,

Horace, .
Ovid, 3 vols..

Juvenal, .
Phaedrus,

Martial,

J. S. Reid, LittD., Fellow and Tutor of Caius Collie,

Cambridge.
J. S. Reid
L. C. Purser, M.iV., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity

College, Dublin.
G. G. Ramsay, LL.D., Litt.D., Professor of HuTianity

in the University of Glasgow.
W. M. Lindsay, M.A., Fellow of Jesus College,

Oxford.
J. S. Duff. M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge.
A. S. Wilkins, M.A., Professor of Latin, Owen's

College, Manchester.
James Gow, Litt.D. , Master of Nottingham High School.
S. G. Owen, ALA., Senior Student and Censor of Christ

Church, Oxford.
S. G. Owen, M..\.
Robinson Ellis, M.A., LL.D., Corpus Professor of

Latin in the University of Oxford.
W. M. Lindsay, M.A.

Methuen's Byzantine Texts

GENERAL EDITOR

J. B. BURY, M.A.

FELLOW and tutor OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, PROFESSOR OF MODERN
HISTORY IN DUBLIN UNIVERSITY.

Messrs, Methuen propose to issue a series of texts of Byzantine Historians,
edited by English and foreign scholars. It will consist mainly of Greek texts,
but will also include English translations of some Oriental works which are
important sources for Byzantine history. The Greek texts, which will be in
all cases based on original study of MSS. , will be accompanied by brief critical
notes, and preceded by short introductions, containing the necessary explana-
tions as to the material which has been used for the determination of the text.
A special feature of these volumes will be very full indices Graecitatis, framed
with a view to the collection of material for the Lexicon totius Graecitatis of
the future. Each volume will of course also be provided with an Index Rerum
et Nominum.

The collaboration of a considerable number of eminent foreign scholars has
been secured ; so that this series can justly claim to be regarded as inter-
national.

Chronicle of Morea, .
constantine porphyrogennetos,
EcTHEsis Chronica,
evagrius,

Genesius,

George Pisides, ....
John of Nikin (translated from the

Ethiopia),

PsELLUS (Historia), . . . .
Theodore of Cvzicus, .

John Schmitt, Ph.D.

Professor J. B. Bury.

Professor Lambros of Athens.

Professor L^on Parmentier of Liege and

M. BiDEZof Gand.
Professor J. B. Bury.
Professor Leo Sternbach of Cracow.

Rev. R. H. Charles.
Monsieur C. Sathas.
Professor Lambros.

Messrs. Methuen's Announcements 9
Fiction

MARIE OORELLI'S ROMANCES

New and Uniform Edition. Large Crown 8vo,- 6s.
WORMWOOD. £igMi. Editio7i.
THE SOUL OF LILITH. Ninth Edition.

BARABBAS : A DREAM OF THE WORLD'S TRAGEDY,

Twenty-ninth Edition,

THE SORROWS OF SATAN. Thirty -fourth Edition.

The above will be issued in the uniform edition of Marie Corelli's books.

ANTHONY HOPE
PHROSO. By Anthony Hope, Author of 'The Prisoner of
Zenda,' etc. Illustrated by H. R. Millar. Crown 8vo. 6s.

ROBERT BARR

THE MUTABLE MANY. By Robert Barr, Author of Mn
the Midst of Alarms,' * A Woman Intervenes,' etc. CrownSvo. 6s.

EMILY LAWLESS
A NEW BOOK. By The Hon. Emily Lawless, Author of

* Hurrish,' * Maelcho,' etc. Crown Svo. 6s.

S. BARING GOULD
GUAVAS THE TINNER. By S. Baring Gould, Author of

* The Broom Squire,' etc. Illustrated by Frank Dadd. Crown Svo.
6s.

A Historical Romance of the time of Elizabeth,

W. E. NORRIS
CLARISSA FURIOSA. By W. E. NORRIS, Author of 'The
Rogue,' etc. Crown Svo. 6s.

GILBERT PARKER

THE POMP OF THE LAVILLETTES. By Gilbert Parker,
Author of ' The Seats of the Mighty,' etc. Crow ft Svo. 3^. 6d.

J, MACLAREN COBBAN
WILT THOU HAVE THIS WOMAN ? By J. M. Cobban,
Author of ' The King of Andaman.' Crozvn Svo. 6s.
A 2

10 Messrs. Methuen's Announcements

H. MORRAH
THE FAITHFUL CITY. By Herbert Morrah, Author of
'A Serious Comedy.' Crown ^vo. 6s.

J. F. BREWER
THE SPECULATORS. By J. F. Brewer. CrowjtZvo. 6s.

A. BALFOUR
BY STROKE OF SWORD. By Andrew Balfour. Illus-
trated by W. CuBiTT Cooke. Crown 2>vo. 6s.
JAMES GORDON
THE VILLAGE AND THE DOCTOR. By James GORDON.
Crown Svo. 6s.

IDA HOOPER

THE SINGER OF MARLY. By Ida Hooper. Illustrated
by W. CuBiTT Cooke. Crown Svo. 6s.
A romance of adventure.

H. 6. WELLS.

THE PLATTNER STORY ; and Others. By H. G. Wells,
Author of 'The Stolen Bacillus,' 'The Time Machine,' etc. Crown
Svo. 6s.

MARY GAUNT

KIRKHAM'S FIND. By Mary Gaunt, Author of 'The
Moving Finger. ' CroTvn Svo. 6s.

L. S. McCHESNEY
UNDER SHADOW OF THE MISSION. By L. S. McChes-
NEY. Crown Svo. 6s.

M. C. BALFOUR

THE FALL OF THE SPARROW. By M. C. Balfour.
Crown Svo. 65.

S. GORDON

A HANDFUL OF EXOTICS. By S. Gordon. Crown Svo.
Zs.6d.

A volume of stories of Jewish life in Russia.

P. NEUMANN
THE SUPPLANTER. By P. Neumann. Crown Svo. y. 6d.

H. A. KENNEDY
A MAN WITH BLACK EYELASHES. By H. A. Kennedy.
Crown Svo. 3^. 6d.

HANNAH LYNCH
AN ODD EXPERIMENT. By Hannah Lynch. Cr. Svo.
35. 6d.

A LIST OF

Messrs. Methuen's

PUBLICATIONS

Poetry

RUDYARD KIPLING'S NEW POEMS

Rudyard Kipling. THE SEVEN SEAS. By Rudyard
Kipling. Third Edition. Crown Svo. Buckram^ gilt top. 6s,

'The new poems of Mr. Rudyard Kipling have all the spirit and swing of_ their pre-
decessors. Patriotism is the solid concrete foundation on which Mr. Kipling has
built the whole of his work.' — Times.

' Full of passionate patriotism and the Imperial spirit.' — Yorkshire Post.

* The Empire has found a singer ; it is no depreciation of the songs to say that states-

men may have, one way or other, to take account of them.' — Manchester

Guardian.
' Animated through and through with Indubitable genius.' — Daily Telegraph.
'Packed with inspiration, with humour, with pathos.' — Daily Chronicle.
' All the pride of empire, all the intoxication of power, all the ardour, the energy,

the masterful strength and the wonderful endurance and death-scorning pluck

which are the very bone and fibre and marrow of the British character are here.'

— Daily Mail.

Rudyard Kipling. BARRACK- ROOM BALLADS; And

Other Verses. By Rudyard Kipling. Tenth Edition. Crown
Svo. 6s.

* Mr. Kipling's verse is strong, vivid, full of character. . . . Unmistakable genius

rings in every line.' — Times.
* The ballads teem with imagination, they palpitate with emotion. We read them
with laughter and tears ; the metres throb in our pulses, the cunningly ordered
words tingle with life ; and if this be not poetry, what is?' — Pall Mall Gazette.

"Q." POEMS AND BALLADS. By "Q.,» Author of 'Green
Bays,' etc. Crown Svo. Buckram, 3^. 6d.
' His book will be read with interest by the most fastidious lovers of poetry, and it
will please many who think they have no taste for poetry at all. ' — Scotsman.

"Q." THE GOLDEN POMP : A Procession of English Lyrics
from Surrey to Shirley, arranged by A. T. Quiller Couch. Crown
Svo. Buckram. 6s.
•A delightful volume : a really golden ^^Vom^."^— Spectator.

" Q." GREEN BAYS : Verses and Parodies. By " Q.," Author
of *Dead Man's Rock,' etc. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 3^. 6d.
' The verses display a rare and versatile gift of parody, great command of metre, and
a very pretty turn of humour.' — Times.

12 Messrs. Methuen's List

H. C. BeecMng. LYRA SACRA : An Anthology of Sacred Verse.
Edited by H. C. Beeching, M.A. Crown Svo. Buckram. 6j.
' An anthology of high excellence.' — Atherueum.
' A charming selection, which maintains a lofty standard of excellence.' — Times.

W. B. Yeats. AN ANTHOLOGY OF IRISH VERSE.
Edited by W. B. Yeats. Crown Svo. 35. 6d.

' An attractive and catholic selection.' — Times.

' It is edited by the most original and most accomplished of modern Irish poets, and
against his editing but a single objection can be brought, namely, that it excludes
from the collection his own delicate lyrics. ' — Saturday Review.

E. Mackay. A SONG OF THE SEA : My Lady of Dreams,

AND OTHER PoEMS. By Eric Mackay, Author of 'The Love
Letters of a Violinist.' Second Edition. Fcap. 2>vOy gilt top. ^s.

' Everywhere Mr. Mackay displays himself the master 01 a style marked by all the
characteristics of the best rhetoric. He has a keen sense of rhythm and of general
balance; his verse is excellently sonorous.' — Globe.

Ibsen. BRAND. A Drama by Henrik Ibsen. Translated by
William Wilson. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 3^. 6d.

'The greatest world-poem ot the nineteenth century next to "Faust." It is in
the same set with "Agamemnon," with "Lear," with the literature that we now
instinctively regard as high and holy.' — Daily Chronicle.

"A.G." VERSES TO ORDER. By"A. G." Cr.Zvo. 2s. 6d.
net.
A small volume of verse by a writer whose initials are well known to Oxford men.
' A capital specimen of light academic poetry. These verses are very bright and
engaging, easy and sufficiently witty.' — St. James's Gazette.

F. Langbridge. BALLADS OF THE BRAVE: Poems of

Chivalry, Enterprise, Courage, and Constancy, from the Earliest
Times to the Present Day. Edited, with Notes, by Rev. F. Lang-
bridge. Crown Svo. Buckram. 35. dd. School Edition. 2s. 6d.

' A very happy conception happily carried out. These " Ballads of the Brave " are
intended to suit the real tastes of boys, and will suit the taste of the great majority.'
Spectator. ' The book is full of splendid things.' — World.

Lang and Craigie. THE POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS.
Edited by Andrew Lang and W. A. Craigie. With Portrait.
Demy Svo^ gilt top. 6j.

This edition contains a carefully collated Text, numerous Notes, critical and textual,
a critical and biographical Introduction, and a Glossary.

'Among the editions in one volume, Mr. Andrew Lang's will take the place of
authority.' — Ti7fies.

' To the general public the beauty of its type, and the fair proportions of its pages, as
well as the excellent chronological arrangement of the poems, should make jt
acceptable enough. Mr. Lang and his publishers have certainly succeeded in
producing an attractive popular edition of the poet, in which the brightly written
biographical introduction is not the least notable feature.' — Glasgow Herald,

Messrs. Methuen's List 13

English Classics

Edited by W. E. Henley.

* Very dainty volumes are these ; the paper, type, and light-green binding are all

very agreeable to the eye. Simplex munditiis is the phrase that might be applied

to them.' — Globe.
' The volumes are strongly bound in green buckram, are of a convenient size, and

pleasant to look upon, so that whether on the shelf, or on the table, or in the hand

the possessor is thoroughly content with them. ' — Guardian.

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY.
By Lawrence Sterne. With an Introduction by Charles
Whibley, and a Portrait. 2 vols. 75.

THE COMEDIES OF WILLIAM CONGREVE. With
an Introduction bv G. S. Street, and a Portrait. 2 vols. Ts.

THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA OF ISPAHAN.
By James Morier. With an Introduction by E. G. Browne, M. A.,
and a Portrait. 2 vols. ys.

THE LIVES OF DONNE, WOTTON, HOOKER, HER-
BERT, and SANDERSON. By Izaak Walton. With an
Introduction by Vernon Blackburn, and a Portrait. 3^. 6d.

THE LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. By Samuel
Johnson, LL.D. With an Introduction by J. H. Millar, and a
Portrait. 3 vols. los. 6d.

Illustrated Books

Jane Barlow. THE BATTLE OF THE FROGS AND MICE,

translated by Jane Barlow, Author of ' Irish Idylls,' and pictured
by F. D. Bedford. Small dfto. 6j. net.

S. Baring Gould. A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES retold by S.
Baring Gould. With numerous illustrations and initial letters by
Arthur J. Gaskin. Second Edition. Crown Svo. Buckram. 6j.
'Mr. Baring Gould is deserving of gratitude, in re-writing in honest, simple style the
old stories that delighted the childhood of " our fathers and grandfathers." As to
the form of the book, and the printing, which is by Messrs. Constable, it were
difficult to commend overmuch. — Saturday Review.

S. Baring Gould. OLD ENGLISH FAIRY TALES. Col-
lected and edited by S. Baring Gould. With Numerous Illustra-
tions by F. D. Bedford. Second Edition. Crown ^vo. Btickram. ds.
A charming volume, which children will be sure to appreciate. The stories have
been selected with great ingenuity from various old ballads and folk-tales, and,
having been somewhat altered and readjusted, now stand forth, clothed in Mr.
Baring Gould's delightful English, to enchant youthful readers.' — Guardian.

14 Messrs. Methuen's List

S. Baring Gould. A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS AND
RHYMES. Edited by S. Baring Gould, and Illustrated by the
Birmingham Art School. Buckram^ gilt top. Crown %vo. 6s.
' The volume is very complete in its way, as it contains nursery songs to the number
of 77i game-rhymes, and jingles. To the student we commend the sensible intro-
duction, and the explanatory notes. The volume is superbly printed on soft,
thick paper, which it is a pleasure to touch ; and the borders and pictures are
among the very best specimens we have seen of the Gaskin school.' — Birming-
ham Gazette.

H. C. Beeching. A BOOK OF CHRISTMAS VERSE. Edited
by H. C. Beeching, M.A., and Illustrated by Walter Crane.
Crown SvOy gilt top. 5^.

A collection of the best verse inspired by the birth of Christ from the Middle Ages
to the present day. A distinction of the book is the large number of poems it
contains by modern authors, a few of which are here printed for the first time.

•An anthology which, from its unity of aim and high poetic excellence, has a better
right to exist than most of its fellows.' — Guardian.

History

Gibbon. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN
EMPIRE. By Edward Gibbon. A New Edition, Edited with
Notes, Appendices, and Maps, by J. B. Bury, M.A., Fellow of
Trinity College, Dublin. In Seven Volumes. De77iy Zvo. Gilt top.
Zs. 6d. each. Also crown Svo. 6s. each. , Vols. I. and II.

' The time has certainly arrived for a new edition of Gibbon's great work. . . . Pro-
fessor Bury is the right man to undertake this task. His learning is amazing,
both in extent and accuracy. The book is issued in a handy form, and at a
moderate price, and it is admirably printed.' — Times.

* The edition is edited as a classic should be edited, removing nothing, yet indicating

the value of the text, and bringing it up to date. It promises to be of the utmost
value, and will be a welcome addition to many libraries.' — Scotsman.
'This edition, so far as one may judge from the first instalment, is a marvel of
erudition and critical skill, and it is the very minimum of praise to predict that the
seven volumes of it will supersede Dean Milman's as the standard edition of our
great historical classic' — Glasgow Herald.

* The beau-ideal Gibbon has arrived at \2l%X.: —Sketch.

' At last there is an adequate modern edition of Gibbon. . . . The best edition the
nineteenth century could produce.' — Manchester Guardian.

Flinders Petrie. A HISTORY OF EGYPT,fromthe Earliest

Times to the Present Day. Edited by W. M. Flinders

Petrie, D.C.L., LL.D,, Professor of Egyptology at University

College. Fully Illustrated. In Six Volumes. Crown 2>vo. 6s. each.

Vol. I. Prehistoric Times to XVI. Dynasty. W. M. F.

Petrie. Secofid Edition.
Vol. II. The XVIIth and XVIIIth Dynasties. W. M. F.
Petrie.
' A history written in the spirit of scientific precision so worthily represented by Dr.
Petrie and his school cannot but promote sound and accurate study, and
supply a vacant place in the English literature of Egyptology.' — Timet.

Messrs. Methuen's List 15

FUnders Petrie. EGYPTIAN TALES. Edited by W. M.
Flinders Petrie. Illustrated by Tristram Ellis. In Two
Volumes. Crown %vo. y. 6d. each.

* A valuable addition to the literature of comparative folk-lore. The drawings are

really illustrations in the literal sense of the vford.' —Globe.
' It has a scientific value to the student of history and archaeology.' — Scotsman.
' Invaluable as a picture of life in Palestine and Egypt.'— Z><M'/y News.

Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN DECORATIVE ART. By
W. M. Flinders Petrie, D.C.L. With 120 Illustrations. Crown
Svo. 3^. 6ci.

* Professor Flinders Petrie is not only a profound Egyptologist, but an accomplished

student of comparative archaiology. In these lectures, delivered at the_ Royal
Institution, he displays both qualifications with rare skill in elucidating the
development of decorative art in Egypt, and in tracing its influence on the
art of other countries.' — Times.

S. Baring Gould. THE TRAGEDY OF THE C^SARS.

The Emperors ot the Julian and Claudian Lines. With numerous
Illustrations from Busts, Gems, Cameos, etc. By S. Baring Gould,
Author of * Mehalah,' etc. Fourth Edition. Royal Zvo. l^s.
* A most splendid and fascinating book on a subject of undying interest. The great
feature of the book is the use the author has made of the existing portraits of the
Caesars, and the admirable critical subtlety he hasexhibited in dealing with this
line of research. It is brilliantly written, and the illustrations are supplied on a
scale of profuse magnificence. ' — Daily Chronicle.
' The volumes will in no sense disappoint the general reader. Indeed, in their way,
there is nothing in any sense so good in English. . . . Mr. Baring Gould has
presented his narrative in such a way as not to make one dull page.' — Athenceum.

H. de B. Gibbins. INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND : HISTORI-
CAL OUTLINES. By H. de B. Gibbins, M.A., D.Litt. With
5 Maps. Demy^vo. los. 6d. Pp. 450.
This book is written with the view of aflfording a clear view of the main facts of
English Social and Industrial History placed in due perspective. Beginning
with prehistoric times, it passes in review the growth and advance of industry
up to the nineteenth century, showing its gradual development and progress.
The author has endeavoured to place before his readers the history of industry
as a connected whole in which all these developments have their proper place.
The book is illustrated by Maps, Diagrams, and Tables, and aided by copious
Footnotes.

A. Clark. THE COLLEGES OF OXFORD : Their History,

their Traditions. By Members of the University. Edited by A.

Clark, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Lincoln College, ^vo. 12s. 6d.

' A work which will certainly be appealed to for many years as the standard book on

the Colleges of Oxford.' — Athenaum.

Perrens. THE HISTORY OF FLORENCE FROM 1434
TO 1492. By F. T. Perrens. Translated by Hannah Lynch.
%vo. 1 2 J. dd.
A history of Florence under the domination of Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo de

Medicis.
' This is a standard book by an honest and intelligent historian, who has deserved
well of all who are interested in Italian history.' — Manchester Guardian.

i6 Messrs. Methuen's List

J. WeUs. A SHORT HISTORY OF ROME. By J. Wells,

M. A. , Fellow and Tutor of Wadham Coll. , Oxford. With 4 Maps.

Crown Svo. 3^. 6d. ZV^ PP-
This book is intended for the Middle and Upper Forms of Public Schools and few

Pass Students at the Universities. It contains copious Tables, etc.
' An original work wTitten on an original plan, and with uncommon freshness and

^^gour. ' — Speaker.

E. L. S. Horsburgh. THE CAMPAIGN OF WATERLOO.

By E. L. S. Horsburgh, B. A. With Plans. Crown Svo. ^s.
'A brilliant essay — simple, sound, and thorough.' — Baz'l^ Chronicle.
' A study, the most concise, the most lucid, the most critical that has been produced.'

— Birviingham Mercury,

H. B. George. BATTLES OF ENGLISH HISTORY. By H. B.

George, ^LA., Fellow of New College, Oxford. With numerous
Plans. Third Edition, Crown Svo. 6s.

' Mr. George has undertaken a very useful task — that of making military affairs in-
telligible and instructive to non-military readers — and has executed it with laud-
able intelligence and industry, and with a large measure of success.' — Times.

' This book is almost a revelation ; and we heartily congratulate the author on his
work.' — Daily Chronicle.

0. Browning. A SHORT HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL ITALY,
A.D. 1250-1530. By Oscar Browning, Fellow and Tutor of King's
College, Cambridge. Second Edition. In Two Volumes. Crown
Svo. 55. each.

Vol. I. 1 250- 1 409. — Guelphs and Ghibellines.
Vol. il 1409- 1530. — The Age of the Condottieri.
' A vivid picture of mediaeval Italy.' — Standard.

'Mr. Browning is to be congratulated on the production of a work of immense
labour and learning.' — Westminster Gazette.

O'Grady. THE STORY OF IRELAND. By Standish
O'Grady, Author of * Finn and his Companions.' Cr. Svo. 2s. 6d.
' Most delightful, most stimulating. Its racy humour, its original imaginings,
make it one of the freshest, breeziest volvLvnes.'— Methodist Times.

Biography

S. Baring Gould. THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONA-
PARTE. By S. Baring Gould. With over 450 Illustrations in
the Text and 13 Photogravure Plates. Lar^e quarto. Gilt top. 36J.
•A brilliant and attractive volume. It impresses first by reason of its bulk,
and next by reason of its substantial and striking binding. Within, it is
remarkable, to begin with, for the considerable number and unusual excellence
of its illustrations. Never before, it is safe to say, have so many pictures
relating to Napoleon been brought together within the limits of an English
book. The portraits alone are multitudinous ; Bonaparte is presented to us
at all ages, in all sorts of costume, and amid very varied circumstances. Then
there are reproductions of statuettes, busts, and medals, caricatures, portraits of
his connections by birth and marriage, representations of events in which he took

Messrs. Methuen's List 17

part, and what not. The list of illustrations in the text covers nine pages^ and In
addition there are a dozen full-page photogravures, in which famous paintings are
reproduced. Altogether, this is a table-book of the first class. But it is more. It
embodies "a study of the character and opinions of Napoleon " on which Mr.
Baring Gould can be freely congratulated. The writer's plan has been to " lay
on one side what concerned Napoleon's military achievements and the political
importance of his life, so far as did not bear on the development of his mind and
the movements of his heart." By this means a novel point of view has been
secured, and the result is a narrative of which the chief characteristic is an agree-
able freshness.' — Globe.

R. L. Stevenson. VAILIMA LETTERS. By Robert Louis
Stevenson, With an Etched Portrait by William Strang, and
other Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown Zvo. Buckram. Ts.6d.

* The Vailima Letters are rich in all the varieties of that charm which have secured

for Stevenson the affection of many others besides "journalists, fellow-novelists,
and boys." ' — The Times.

* Few publications have in our time been more eagerly awaited than these " Vailima

Letters," giving the first fruits of the correspondence of Robert Louis Stevenson.
But, high as the tide cf expectation has run, no reader can possibly bp disappointed
in the result.' — Si. Jameses Gazette.
' For the student of English literature these letters indeed are a treasure. They
are more like " Scott's Journal" in kind than any other literary autobiography.'
—National Observer.

Victor Hugo. THE LETTERS OF VICTOR HUGO.

Translated from the French by F. Clarke, M.A. In Two Volumes.
Demy Svo. los. 6d. each. Vol. I. 1815-35.

This is the first volume of one of the most interesting and important collection of
letters ever published in France. The correspondence dates from Victor Hugo's
boyhood to his death, and none of the letters have been published before. The
arrangement is chiefly chronological, but where there is an interesting set of
letters to one person these are arranged together. The first volume contains,
among others, (i) Letters to his father ; (2) to his young wife ; (3) to his confessor,
Lamennais ; (4) a very important set of about fifty letters to Sainte-Beuve ; (5)
letters about his early books and plays.

'A charming and vivid picture of a man whose egotism never marred his natural
kindness, and whose vanity did not impair his greatness.' — Standard.

J.M.Rigg. ST. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY: A Chapter

IN THE History of Religion. By J. M. Rigg, of Lincoln's

Inn, Barrister-at-Law. Demy %vo. *ls. 6d.

This work gives for the first time in moderate compass a complete portrait of St.
Anselm, exhibiting him in his intimate and interior as well as in his public life.
Thus, while the great ecclesiastico-political struggle in which he played so prominent
a part is fully dealt with, unusual prominence is given to the profound and subtle
speculations by which he permanently influenced theological and metaphysical
thought ; while it will be a surprise to most readers to find him also appearing as
the author of some of the most exquisite religious poetry in the Latin language.

* Mr. Rigg has told the story of the great Primate's life with scholarly ability, and

has thereby contributed an interesting chapter to the history of the Norman period.'
— Daily Chronicle.

A3

i8 Messrs. Methuen's List

F. W. Joyce. THE LIFE OF SIR FREDERICK GORE
OUSELEY. By F. W. Joyce, M.A. With Portraits and Illustra-
tions. Crown Svo. ys. 6d.

' The book gives us a complete picture of the life of one^ who will ever be held in
loN-ing remembrance, and who in the history of music in this country will always
occupy a prominent position on account of the many services he rendered to
the Bxt.'— Musical News.

' Thisbook has been undertaken in quite the right spirit, and written with sympathy,
insight, and considerable literary skill.' — Times.

W. G. Collingwood. THE LIFE OF JOHN RUSKIN. By
W. G. Collingwood, M.A., Editor of Mr. Ruskin's Poems. With
numerous Portraits, and 13 Drawings by Mr. Ruskin. Second
Edition. 2 vols. Svo. 32^.

' No more magnificent volumes have been published for a long time.' — Tit/us.

' It is long since we had a biography with such delights of substance and of form.
Such a book is a pleasure for the day, and a joy for ever.' — Daily Chronicle.

C. Waldstein. JOHN RUSKIN ; a Study. By Charles
Waldstein, M.A., Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. With a
Photogravure Portrait after Professor Herkomer. Post Svo. 5^.
'A thoughtful, impartial, well-written criticism of Ruskin's teaching, intended to
separate what the author regards as valuable and permanent from what is transient
and erroneous in the great master's writing.' — Daily Chronicle.

W. H. Hutton. THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE. By

W. H. Hutton, M.A., Author of * William Laud.' With Portraits.

Crown Svo, ^s.

' The book laj's good claim to high rank among our biographies. It is excellently,

even lovingly, written.' — Scotsman. ' An excellent monograph.' — Tifnes.

M. Kaufmann. CHARLES KINGSLEY. By M. Kaufmann,
M.A. Crown Svo. Buckram, ^s.
A biography of Kingsley, especially dealing with his achievements in social reform.
'The author has certainly gone about his work with conscientiousness and industry. —
Sheffield Daily Telegraph.

A. F. Robbins. THE EARLY PUBLIC LIFE OF WILLIAM
EWART GLADSTONE. By A. F. Robbins. With Portraits.
Crown Svo. 6s.
' Considerable labour and much skill of presentation have not been unworthily
expended on this interesting work.' — Times.

Clark RusseU. THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COL-
LINGWOOD. By W. Clark Russell, Author of ' The Wreck
of the Grosvenor.' With Illustrations by F. Brangwyn. Third
Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
' A book which we should like to see in the hands of every boy in the country.* —
St. James's Gazette. ' A really good hook.'— Saturday Review.

Soutbey. ENGLISH SEAMEN (Howard, ClifTord, Hawkins,
Drake, Cavendish). By Robert Southey. Edited, with an
Introduction, by David Hannay. Second Edition. CrownSvo. 6s.

' Admirable and well-told stories of our naval history.' — Army and Nazy Gazette.
' A brave, inspiriting book.' — Black and White.

Messrs. Methuen's List 19

General Literature

S. Baring Gould. OLD COUNTRY LIFE. By S. Baring
Gould, Author of *Mehalah,' etc. With Sixty-seven Illustrations
by W. Parkinson, F. D. Bedford, and F. Masey. Large
Crown Svo. los. 6d. Fifth and Cheaper Edition, ds,
' " Old Country Life," as healthy wholesome reading, full of breezy life and move-
ment, full of quaint stories vigorously told, will not be excelled by any book to be
published throughout the year. Sound, hearty, and English to the core.' — World.

S. Baring Gould. HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE

EVENTS. By S. Baring Gould. Third Edition. Crown %vo. 6s.

A collection of exciting and entertaining chapters. The whole volume is delightful
reading. ' — Times.

S. Baring Gould. FREAKS OF FANATICISM. By S. Baring

Gould. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
* Mr. Baring Gould has a keen eye for colour and effect, and the subjects he has
chosen give ample scope to his descriptive and analytic faculties. A perfectly
fascinating book.' — Scottish Leader,

S. Baring Gould. A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG :

English Folk Songs with their Traditional Melodies. Collected and
arranged by S. Baring Gould and H. Fleetwood Sheppard.
Demy ^o. 6s.

S. Baring Gould. SONGS OF THE WEST : Traditional

Ballads and Songs of the West of England, with their Traditional
Melodies. Collected by S. Baring Gould, M.A., and H. Fleet-
wood Sheppard, M. A. Arranged for Voice and Piano. In 4 Parts
(containing 25 Songs each), Parts /., //., ///., 3^. each. Part
IV.i 5 J. In one Vol., French morocco, \^s.
'A rich collection of humour, pathos, grace, and poetic fancy.' — Saturday Revietu.

S. Baring Gould. YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND STRANGE

EVENTS. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

S. Baring Gould. STRANGE SURVIVALS AND SUPER-
STITIONS. With Illustrations. By S. Baring Gould. Crown
Svo. Second Edition. 6s.
' We have read Mr. Baring Gould's book from beginning to end. It is full of quaint
and various information, and there is not a dull page in it.' — Notes and Queries.

S. Baring Gould. THE DESERTS OF SOUTHERN
FRANCE. By S. Baring. Gould, With numerous Illustrations
by F. D. Bedford, S. Hutton, etc. 2 vols. Demy Svo. 32^.

This book describes the great barren tableland that extends to the south of Limousin,
a country of dolomite cliffs, and canons, and subterranean rivers. The region
is full of prehistoric and historic interest, relics of cave-dwellers, of mediseval
robbers, and of the English domination and the Hundred Years' War.

'His two richly-illustrated volumes are full of matter of interest to the geologist,
the archKologist, and the student of history and manners.' — Scotsman,

ao Messrs. Methuen's List

R.S. Baden-PoweU. THE DOWNFALL OF PREMPEH. A

Diary of Life with the Native Levy in Ashanti, 1895. By Lieut. -Col.
Baden-Powell. With 21 Illustrations, a Map, and a Special
Chapter on the Political and Commercial Position of Ashanti by Sir
George Baden-Powell, K.C.M.G., M.P. Demy 8vo. los. 6d.

A compact, faithful, most readable record of the campaign.' — Daily News.
' A bluff and vigorous narrative.' — Glasgow Herald.

G. W. Steevens. NAVAL POLICY: With a Descrip-
tion OF English and Foreign Navies. By G. W. Steevens.
Demy Svo. 6s.

This book is a description of the British and other more important navies of the world,
with a sketch of the lines on which our naval policy might possibly be developed.
It describes our recent naval policy, and shows what our naval force really is. A
detailed but non-technical account is given of the instruments of modern warfare —
guns, armour, engines, and the like — with a view to determine how far we are
abreast of modern invention and modern requirements. An ideal policy is then
sketched for the building and manning of our fleet ; and the last chapter is
devoted to docks, coaling-stations, and especially colonial defence.

* An extremely able and interesting work.' — Daily Chronicle.

W. E. Gladstone. THE SPEECHES AND PUBLIC AD-
DRESSES OF THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.
Edited by A. W. Hutton, M.A., and H. J. Cohen, M.A. With
Portraits. Svo. Vols. IX. and X. \2s. 6d. each.

Henley and Whibley. A BOOK OF ENGLISH PROSE.
Collected by W. E. Henley and Charles Whibley. Cr. Svo. 6s.

'A unique volume of extracts — an art gallery of early prose.' — Birfftinghajn Post.

'An admirable companion to Mr. Henley's "Lyra Heroica."' — Saturday Review.

'Quite delightful. The choice made has been excellent, and the volume has been
most admirably printed by Messrs. Constable. A greater treat for those not well
acquainted with pre-Restoration prose could not be imagined.' — Athetueum.

G. W. Steevens. MONOLOGUES OF THE DEAD. By
G. W. Steevens. Foolscap Svo. 3^. 6d.

A series of Soliloquies in which famous men of antiquity — Julius Caesar, Nero,
Alcibiades, etc., attempt to express themselves in the modes of thought and
language of to-day.

' The effect is sometimes splendid, sometimes bizarre, but always amazingly clever.
—Pall Mall Gazette.

J. Wells. OXFORD AND OXFORD LIFE. By Members of
the University. Edited by J. Wells, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of
Wadham College. Crown Svo. 3^. 6d.
This work contains an account of life at Oxford — intellectual, social, and religious —
a careful estimate of necessary expenses, a review of recent changes, a statement
of the present position of the University, and chapters on Women's Education,
aids to study, and University Extension.

* We congratulate Mr. Wells on the production of a readable and intelligent account

of Oxford as it is at the present time, written by persons who are possessed of a
close acquaintance with the system and life of the University.' — AthenceutH.

Messrs. Methuen's List 21

W. M. Dixon. A PRIMER OF TENNYSON. By W. M.
Dixon, M.A., Professor of English Literature at Mason College.
Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.

* Much sound and well-expressed criticism and acute literary judgments. The biblio-

graphy- is a boon.' — Speaker.
' No better estimate of the late Laureate's work has yet been published. His sketch
of Tennyson's life contains everything essential ; his bibliography is full and con-
cise : his literary criticism is most interesting.' — Glasgow Herald.

W. A. Craigie. A PRIMER OF BURNS. By W. A. Craigie.

Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
This book is planned on a method similar to the * Primer of Tennyson.' It has also
a glossary.

* A valuable addition to the literature of the poet. ' — Times.
' An excellent short account. ' — Pall Mall Gazette.

' An admirable introduction. ' — Globe.

L. Whibley. GREEK OLIGARCHIES : THEIR ORGANISA-
TION AND CHARACTER. By L. Whibley, M.A., Fellow
of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Crown Svo. 6s.
' An exceedingly useful handbook : a careful and well-arranged study of an obscure

subject. ' — Times.
' Mr. Whibley is never tedious or pedantic' — Pall Mall Gazette.

W. B. Worsfold. SOUTH AFRICA : Its History and its Future.

By W. Basil Worsfold, M.A. With a Map. Second Edition.

Crown Svo. 6s.
' An intensely interesting bsok.' — Daily Chronicle.
' A monumental work compressed into a very moderate compass.' — World.

C. H. Pearson. ESSAYS AND CRITICAL REVIEWS. By
C. H. Pearson, M.A., Author of • National Life and Character.'
Edited, with a Biographical Sketch, by H. A. Strong, M.A.,
LL.D. With a Portrait. Demy Svo. los. 6d.

'These fine essays illustrate the great breadth of his historical and literary sym-
pathies and the remarkable variety of his intellectual interests.' — Glasgow Herald.

' Remarkable for careful handling, breadth of view, and thorough knowledge.'— ^co/j-
mati. ' Charming essays. ' — Spectator.

L. P. Price. ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND PRACTICE.
By L. F. Price, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Crown
Svo. 6s.

This book consists of a number of Studies in Economics and Industrial and Social
Problems.

* The book is well written, giving evidence of considerable literary ability, and clear

mental grasp of the subject under consideration. '—W^/rj^^r« Morning News.

0. p. Andrews. CHRISTIANITY AND THE LABOUR
QUESTION. By C. F. Andrews, B.A. Crown Svo. 2s. 6d.

' A bold and scholarly survey of the principle and motive which have shaped and
determined the conflicts of Labour.' — Speaker.

Ouida. VIEWS AND OPINIONS. By Ouida. CrownSvo.

Second Edition. 6s.
Ouida is outspoken, and the reader of this book will not have a dull moment.^ The
book is full of variety, and sparkles with entertaining xaaxXKt.^— Speaker.

22 Messrs. Methuen's List

J. S. Shedlock. THE PIANOFORTE SONATA: Its Origin
and Development. By J. S. Shedlock. Crown Svo. ^s.

' This work shonld be in the possession of every musician and amateur, for it not
only embodies a concise and lucid history ot the origin ofoneof the most im-
portant forms of musical composition, but, by reason of the painstaking research
and accuracy of the author's statements, it is a very valuable work for reference.'
— A the7ueuin.

E. M. Bowden. THE EXAMPLE OF BUDDHA: Being Quota-
tions from Buddhist Literature for each Day in the Year. Compiled
by E. M. Bowden. With Preface by Sir Edwin Arnold. Third
Edition. i6mo. 2s. 6d.

J. Beever. PRACTICAL FLY-FISHING, Founded on
Nature, by John Beever, late of the Thwaite House, Coniston. A
New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author by W. G. COLLINGWOOD,
M.A. Crown ^vo. 2^. 6d.
A little book on Fly-Fishing by an old friend of Mr. Ruskin.

Science

Freudenreich. DAIRY BACTERIOLOGY. A Short Manual
for the Use of Students. By Dr. Ed. von Freudenreich.
Translated from the German by J. R. Ainsworth Davis, B.A.,
F.C.P. Crown 2>vo. 2s.6d.

Chalmers MitcheU. OUTLINES OF BIOLOGY. By P.
Chalmers Mitchell, M.A., F.Z.S. Fully Illustrated. Crown
Svo. 6s.
A text-book designed to cover the new Schedule issued by the Royal College of
Physicians and Surgeons.

G.Massee. A MONOGRAPH OF THEM YXOGASTRES. By
George Massee. With 12 Coloured Plates. RoyalZvo. \%s. net.

' A work much in advance of any book in the language treating of this group of
organisms. It is indispensable to every student of the Myxogastres. The
coloured plates deserve high praise for their accuracy and execution.' — Nature.

Philosophy

L. T. Hobhouse. THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. By
L. T. Hobhouse, Fellow and Tutor of Corpus College, Oxford.
Demy Svo. 21s.

' The most important contribution to English philosophy since the publication of Mr.
Bradley's " Appearance and Reality." Full of brilliant criticism and of positive
theories which are models of lucid statement.' — Glasgow Herald.

' An elaborate and often brilliantly written volume. The treatment is one of great
freshness, and the illustrations are particularly numerous and apt.'— T'/wm.

Messrs. Methuen's List 23

W. H. Fairbrotlier. THE PHILOSOPHY OF T. H. GREEN.
By W. H. Fairbrother, M.A., Lecturer at Lincoln College,
Oxford. Crown Sva. y. 6d.

This volume is expository, not critical, and is intended for senior students at the
Universities and others, as a statement of Green's teaching, and an introduction to
the study of Idealist Philosophy.

* In every way an admirable book._ As an introduction to the writings of perhaps the

most remarkable speculative thinker whom England has produced in the present
centviry, nothing could be better.' — Glasgow Herald.

F. W. Bussell. THE SCHOOL OF PLATO : its Origin and
its Revival under the Roman Empire. By F. W. Bussell, M.A.,
Fellow and Tutor of Brasenose College, Oxford. Demy Zvo. los. 6d.

' A highly valuable contribution to the history of ancient thought.'— Glasgow Herald.

* A clever and stimulating book, provocative of thought and deserving careful reading.'

— Manchester Guardian.

F. S. Granger. THE WORSHIP OF THE ROMANS. By
F. S. Granger, M.A., Litt.D., Professor of Philosophy at Univer-
sity College, Nottingham. Crown Svo. 6s.

The author delineates that group of beliefs which stood in close connection with the
Roman religion, and among the subjects treated are Dreams, Nature Worship,
Roman Magic, Divination, Holy Places, Victims, etc.

' A scholarly analysis of the religious ceremonies,beliefs, and superstitions of ancient
Rome, conducted in the new instructive light of comparative anthropology.' —
Times.

Theology

E. C. S. Gibson. THE XXXIX. ARTICLES OF THE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Edited with an Introduction by E.
C. S. Gibson, D.D., Vicar of Leeds, late Principal of Wells
Theological College. In Two Volumes. Demy Svo. Js. 6d. each.
Vol. I. Articles I. - VIII.

* The tone maintained throughout is not that of the partial advocate, but the faithful

exponent.' — Scotsman.
' There are ample proofs of clearness of expression, sobriety of judgment, and breadth
of view. . . . The book will be welcome to all students of the subject, and its sound,
definite, and loyal theology ought to be of great service.' — National Observer.

* So far from repelling the general reader, its orderly arrangement, lucid treatment,

and felicity of diction invite and encourage his zXt&ntxon.'— Yorkshire Post.

R. L. Ottley. THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION.

By R. L. Ottley, M.A., late fellow of Magdalen College, Oxon.,

Principal of Pusey House. In Two Volumes. Demy Svo. 1 5^.
' Learned and reverent : lucid and well arranged.' — Record.
' Accurate, well ordered, and judicious.' — National Observer.
'A clear and remarkably full account of the main currents of speculation. Scholarly

precision . . . genuine tolerance . . . intense interest in his subject — are Mr.

Ottley's m&xKts:— Guardian.

24 Messrs. Methuen's List

F. B. Jevons. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY
OF RELIGION. By F. B. Jevons, M.A., Litt.D., Tutor at the
University of Durham. Demy Svo. los. 6d.
Mr. F. B. Jevons' ' Introduction to the History or Religion ' treats of early religion,
from the point of view of Anthropology and Folk-lore ; and is the first attempt
that has been made in any language to weave together the results of recent
investigations into such topics as Sympathetic Magic, Taboo, Totemism.
Fetishism, etc., so as to present a systematic account of the growth of primitive
religion and the development of early religious institutions.
' Displays mental power of no ordinary kind, and is the result of much and well-
directed study.* — Scotsman-.

S. R. Driver. SERMONS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED
WITH THE OLD TESTAMENT. By S. R. Driver, D.D.,
Canon of Christ Church, Regius Professor of Hebrew in the Uni-
versity of Oxford. Crown $vo. 6s.
' A welcome companion to the author's famous 'Introduction.' No man can read these
discourses without feeling that Dr. Driver is fully alive to the deeper teaching of
the Old Testament.' — Guardian,

T. K. Cheyne. FOUNDERS OF OLD TESTAMENT CRITI-
CISM : Biographical, Descriptive, and Critical Studies. By T. K.
Cheyne, D.D., Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scrip-
ture at Oxford. Large crown Svo. "Js. 6d.

This important book is a historical sketch of O. T. Criticism in the form of biographi-
cal studies from the days of Eichhorn to those of Driver and Robertson Smith.
It is the only book of its kind in English.

' A very learned and instructive work.' — Times.

C.H.Prior. CAMBRIDGE SERMONS. Edited by C.H. Prior,
M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Pembroke College. Crown Svo. 6s.

A volume of sermons preached before the University of Cambridge by various
preachers, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Westcott.

'A representative collection. Bishop Westcott's is a noble sermon.' — Guardian.

H. C. Beeching. SERMONS TO SCHOOLBOYS. By H. C.
Beeching, M.A., Rector of Yattendon, Berks. With a Preface by
Canon Scott Holland. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.
Seven sermons preached before the boys of Bradfield College.

E. B. Layard. RELIGION IN BOYHOOD. Notes on the
Religious Training of Boys. With a Preface by J. R. Illing-
WORTH. By E. B. Layard, M.A. iSmo. is.

W. Yorke Faussett. THE DE CATECHIZANDIS
RUDIBUS OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Edited, with Introduction,
Notes, etc., by W. Yorke Faussett, M.A., late Scholar of Balliol
Coll. Crown 8vo. 3^. 6d.
An edition of a Treatise on the Essentials of Christian Doctrine, and the best
methods of impressing them on candidates for baptism. The editor bestows upon
this patristic work the same care which a treatise of Cicero might claim. There
is a general Introduction, a careful Analysis, a full Commentary, and other useful
matter. No better introduction to the study of the Latin Fathers, their stj'le and
diction, could be found than this treatise, which also has no lack of modem interest.
Ably and judiciously edited on the same principle as the ordinary Greek and
Latin te.xt%.' —Glasgow Herald.

Messrs. Methuen^s List 25

a)et)otional Boofe0*

With Full-page Illustrations, Fcap, Svo. Buckram. 3^. 6d.
Padded morocco ^ 55'.
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. By Thomas a Kempis.
With an Introduction by Dean Farrar. Illustrated by C. M.
Gere, and printed in black and red. Second Edition.
•Amongst all the innumerable English editions of the "Imitation," there can have
been few which were prettier than this one, printed ih strong and handsome type
by Messrs. Constable, with all the p;lory of red initials, and the comfort of buckram
binding.' — Glasgow Herald.

THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. By John Keble. With an Intro-
duction and Notes by W. LoCK, M.A., Sub-Warden of Keble College,
Ireland Professor at Oxford, Author of the ' Life of John Keble.'
Illustrated by R. Anning Bell.

* The present edition is annotated with all the care and insight to be expected from

Mr. Lock. The progress and circumstances of its composition are detailed in the
Introduction. There is an interesting Appendix on the mss. of the "Christian
Year," and another giving the order in which the poems were written. A "Short
Analysis of the Thought" is prefixed to each, and any difficulty in the text is ex«
plained in a note, — Guardian.

* The most acceptable edition of this ever-popular work. '—Globe.

3/6

Leaders of Religion

Edited by H. C. BEECHING, M. A. With Portraits, crown 2>vo.

A series of short biographies of the most prominent leaders
of religious life and thought of all ages and countries.

The following are ready —
CARDINAL NEWMAN. By R. H. HUTTON
JOHN WESLEY. By J. H. Overton, M.A.
bishop WILBERFORCE. By G. W. Daniel, M.A.
CARDINAL MANNING. By A. W. Hutton, M.A.
CHARLES SIMEON. By H. C. G. Moule, M.A.
JOHN KEBLE. By Walter Lock, M.A.
THOMAS CHALMERS. By Mrs. Oliphant.
LANCELOT ANDREWES. By R. L. Ottley, M.A.
AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY. By E. L. Cutts, D.D.
WILLIAM LAUD. By W. H. Hutton, M.A.
JOHN KNOX. By F. M'CUNN.
JOHN HOWE. By R. F. Horton, D.D.
BISHOP KEN. By F. A. Clarke, M.A.
GEORGE FOX, THE QUAKER. By T. HODGKIN, D.C.L.
Other volumes will be announced in due course.

26 Messrs. Methuen's List

Fiction

SIX SHILLING NOVELS

Marie Corelli's Novels

Crown %vo. 6j. each.
A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS. Fourteenth Edition,
VENDETTA. Twelfth Edition.
THELMA. Sixteenth Edition.
ARDATH. Tenth Edition,
THE SOUL OF LILITH. Ninth Edition.
WORMWOOD. Eighth Edition.

BARABBAS : A DREAM OF THE WORLD'S TRAGEDY.
Twenty-ninth Edition.

' The tender reverence of the treatment and the imaginative beauty of the writing
have reconciled us to the daring of the conception, and the conviction is forced on
us that even so exalted a subject cannot be made too familiar to us, provided it be
presented in the true spirit of Christian faith. The amplifications of the Scripture
narrative are often conceived with high poetic insight, and this "Dream of the
World's Tragedy " is, despite some trifling incongruities, a lofty and not inade-
quate paraphrase of the supreme climax of the inspired narrative.' — Dublin
Review.

THE SORROWS OF SATAN. Thirty-fourth Edition.

' A very powerful piece of work. . . . The conception is magnificent, and is likely
to win an abiding place within the memory of man. • . . The author has immense
command of language, and a limitless audacity. . . . This interesting and re-
markable romance will live long after much of the ephemeral literature of the day
is forgotten. ... A literary phenomenon . . . novel, and even sublime.' — W. T.
Stead in the Review of Reviews.

Anthony Hope's Novels

Crown Svo. 6s. each.
THE GOD IN THE CAR. Seventh Edition.

' A very remarkable book, deserving of critical analysis impossible within our limit ;
brilliant, but not superficial ; well considered, but not elaborated ; constructed
with the proverbial art that conceals, but yet allows itself to be enjoj'ed by readers
to whom fine literarj' method is a keen pleasure.'— The World.

A CHANGE OF AIR. Fourth Edition.

'A graceful, vivacious comedy, true to human nature. The characters are traced
with a masterly hand.' — Tivtes.

A MAN OF MARK. Fourth Edition.

' Of all Mr. Hope's books, " A Man of Mark " is the one which best compares with
" The Prisoner of Zenda."' — National Observer.

Messrs. Methuen's List 27

THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO. Third
Edition.
'It is a perfectly enchanting story of love and chivalry, and pure romance. The
outlawed Count is the most constant, desperate, and writhal modest and tender of
lovers, a peerless gentleman, an intrepid fighter, a very faithful friend, and a most
magnanimous foe. ' — Guardian.

S. Baring Gould's Novels

Crown 8vo. 6s. each.
*To say that a book is by the author of " Mehalah" is to imply that it contains a
story cast on strong lines, containing dramatic possibilities, vivid and sympathetic
descriptions of Nature, and a wealth of ingenious imagery.' — Speaker.
• That whatever Mr. Baring Gould writes is well worth reading, is a conclusion that
may be very generally accepted His views of life are fresh and vigorous, his
language pointed and characteristic, the incidents of which he makes use are
striking and original, his characters are life-like, and though somewhat excep-
tional people, are drawn and coloured with artistic force. Add to this that his
descriptions of scenes and scenery are painted with the loving eyes and skilled
hands of a master of his art, that he is always fresh and never dull, and under
such conditions it is no wonder that readers have gained confidence both in his
power of amusing and satisfying them, and that year by year his popularity
widens.' — Court Circular.

ARM I NELL : A Social Romance. Fourth Edition.
URITH : A Story of Dartmoor. Fifth Edition.

'The author is at his best.' — Times.

IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA Fifth Edition.

'One of the best imagined and most enthralling stories the author has produced.
— Saturday Review.

MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGENVEN. Fourth Edition.

' The swing of the narrative is splendid.' — Sussex Daily News.

CHEAP JACK ZITA. Fourth Edition.

' A powerful drama of human passion.' — IVestminster Gazette.
'A story worthy the author.' — National Observer.

THE QUEEN OF LOVE. Fourth Edition.

' You cannot put it down until you have finished it.' — Punch.

' Can be heartily recommended to all who care for cleanly, energetic, and interesting
fiction.' — Sussex Daily News.

KITTY ALONE. Fourth Edition.

' A strong and original story, teeming with graphic description, stirring incident,
and, above all, with vivid and enthralling human interest.' — Daily Telegraph.

NO^MI : A Romance of the Cave-Dwellers. Illustrated by
R. Caton Woodville. Third Edition.

* " Nodmi " is as excellent a tale of fighting and adventure as one may wish to meet.

The narrative also runs clear and sharp as the Loire itself.' — Pall Mall Gazette.
'Mr. Baring Gould'p powerful story is full of the strong lights and shadows and
vivid colouring to which he has accustomed us.' — Standard.

THE BROOM-SQUIRE. Illustrated by Frank Dadd.

Fourth Edition.

• A strain of tenderness is woven through the web of his tragic tale, and its atmosphere

is sweetened by the nobility and sweetness of the heroine's character.' — Daily News.
' A story of exceptional interest that seems to us to be better than anything he has
written oilsX^.'— Speaker.

28 Messrs. Methuen's List

THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. Ne-ju Edition.
DARTMOOR IDYLLS.

'A book to read, and keep and read again ; for the genuine fun and pathos of it will
not early lose their effect.' — Vanity Fair.

Gilbert Parker's Novels

Crown 2>vo. 6s. each.
PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. Third Edition.

' Stories happily conceived and finely executed. There is strength and genins in Mr.
Parker's st^le.'— Daily Telegraph.

MRS. FALCHION. Fourth Edition.

' A splendid study of character.' — A thefutum.

• But little behind anything that has been done by any writer of our time.'— Pa//
Mall Gazette. ' A very striking and admirable novel.' — .S"^. James's Gazette.

THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE.

'The plot is original and one difficult to work out ; but Mr. Parker has done it with
great skill and delicacy. The reader who is not interested in this original, fresh,
and well-told tale must be a dull person indeed.' — Daily Chronicle.

THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD. Fourth Edition.

'Everybody with a soul for romance will thoroughly enjoy "The Trail of the
Sword." ' — St. James's Gazette.

' A rousing and dramatic tale. A book like this, in which swords flash, great sur-
prises are undertaken, and daring deeds done, in which men and women live and
love in the old straightforward passionate way, is a joy inexpressible to the re-
viewer.'— Daily Chronicle.

WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC : The Story of
a Lost Napoleon. Fourth Edition.
' Here we find romance — real, breathing, living romance, but it nms flush with our
own times, level with our own feelings. The character of Valmond is drawn un-
erringly ; his career, brief as it is, is placed before us as convincingly as history
itself. The book must be read, we may say re-read, for any one thoroughly to
appreciate Mr. Parker's delicate touch and innate sj-mpathy with humanity.' —
Pall Mall Gazette.
'The one work of genius which 1895 has as yet produced.' — New Age.

AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH: The Last Adven-
tures of * Pretty Pierre.' Second Edition.
'The present book is full of fine and moving stories of the great North, and it will
add to Mr. Parker's already high reputation.' — Glasgow Herald.

THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY. Illustrated. Sixth Edition.

The best thing he has done ; one of the best things that any one has done lately.' —

.S"^. James's Gazette.
' Mr. Parker seems to become stronger and easier with every serious novel that he

attempts. . . . In " The Seats of the Mighty " he shows the matured power which

his former novels have led us to expect, and has produced a really fine historical

novel. . . . Most sincerely is Mr. Parker to be congratulated on the finest

novel he has yet written.' — Atheneeum^.
'Mr. Parker's latest book places him in the front rank ol living novelists. "The

Seats of the Mighty" is a great book.' — Black and White.
' One of the strongest stories of historical interest and adventure that we have read

for many a day. ... A notable and successful book.' — Speaker.^
' An admirable romance. The glory of a romance is its plot, and this plot is crowded

with fine sensations, which have no rest until the fall of the famous old city and

the final restitution of love. —Pall Mall Gazette.

Messrs. Methuen's List 29

Oonan Doyle. ROUND THE RED LAMP. By A. Conan
Doyle, Author of *The White Company,* *The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes,' etc. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

* The book is, indeed, composed of leaves from life, and is far and away the best riew

that has been vouchsafed us behind the scenes of the consulting-room. It is very
superior to "The Diary of a late Physician.'" — Illustrated London News.

Stanley Weyman. UNDER THE RED ROBE. By Stanley
Weym AN, Author of * A Gentleman of France. ' With Twelve Illus-
trations b)^ R. Caton Woodville. Eleventh Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
*A book of which we have read every word for the sheer pleasure of reading, and
which we put down with a pang that we cannot forget it all and start again.' —
Westminster Gazette.

* Every one who reads books at all must read this thrilling romance, from the first

page of which to the last the breathless reader is haled along. An inspiration of
"manliness and courage.'" — Daily Chronicle.
' A delightful tale of chivalry and adventure, vivid and dramatic' — Gloie.

Lucaa Malet. THE CAR! SSI MA. By Lucas Malet,

Authorof * The Wages of Sin,' etc. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
This is the first novel which Lucas Malet has written since her very powerful • The

Wages of Sin.*
' A very able story. Only a very few of our novelists can write so well.' — Sketch,

Lucas Malet. THE WAGES OF SIN. By Lucas

Malet. Thirteenth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s,
Mrs. Clifford. A FLASH OF SUMMER. By Mrs. W. K.
Clifford, Author of * Aunt Anne,' etc. Second Edition. Crown
Svo. 6s.

' The story is a very sad and a very beautiful one, exquisitely told, and enriched with
many subtle touches of wise and tender insight. It will, undoubtedly, add to its
author's reputation — already high — in the ranks of novelists.' — Speaker.

Emily Lawless. HURRISH. By the Honble. Emily Law-
less, Author of ' Maelcho,' etc. Fifth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s,
A reissue of Miss Lawless' most popular novel, uniform with ' Maelcho.'

Emily Lawless. MAELCHO : a Sixteenth Century Romance.
By the Honble. Emily Lawless, Author of * Grania,' * Hurrish,'etc.
Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s,

* A really great book.' — Spectator.

'There is no keener pleasure in life than the recognition of genius. Good work is
commoner than it used to be, but the best is as rare as ever. AH the more
gladly, therefore, do we welcome in " Maelcho " a piece of work of the first order,
which we do not hesitate to describe as one of the most remarkable literary
achievements of this generation. Miss Lawless is possessed of the very essence
of historical genius.' — Manchester Guardian.

J. H. Findlater. THE GREEN GRAVES OF BALGOWRIE.
By Jane H. Findlater. Third Edition, Croivn Svo. 6s.

'A powerful and vivid story.' — Standard.

' A beautiful story, sad and strange as trathjts,tM.'— Vanity Fair.

* A work of remarkable interest and originality.' — National Observer.
'A very charming and pathetic tale.' — Pall Mall Gazette.

' A singularly original, clever, and beautiful story.' — Guardian.

* " The Green Graves of Balgowrie" reveals to us a new Scotch writer of undoubted

faculty and reserve force.' — Spectator.
'An exquisite idyll, delicate, affecting, and beautiful.'— ^/oc-t and White.

30 Messrs. Methuen's List

E. F. Benson. DODO : A DETAIL OF THE DAY. By E. F.
Benson. Sixteeiith Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

' A delightfully witty sketch of society.' — Spectator.
' A perpetual feast of epigram and paradox.' — Speaker.

E. F. Benson. THE RUBICON. By E. F. Benson, Author of
*Dodo.' Fifth Edition. Crown Zvo. 6s.
' An exceptional achievement ; a notable advance on his previous work.' — National
Observer.

M. M. Dowie. GALLIA. By Menie Muriel Dowie, Author
of ' A Girl in the Carpathians. ' Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
'The style is_ generally admirable, the dialogue not seldom brilliant, the situations
surprising in their freshness and originality, while the subsidiary as well as the
principal characters live and move, and the story itself is readable from title-page
to colophon.' — Saturday Review.

Mrs. OUphant. SIR ROBERT'S FORTUNE. By Mrs.

Oliphant. Crown Sz'o. 6s.
'Full of her own peculiar charm of style and simple, subtle character- painting comes
her new gift, the delightful story before us. The scene mostly lies in the moors,
and at the touch of the authoress a Scotch moor becomes a living thing, strong,
tender, beautiful, and cha.nge{nl.'— Fait Matt Gazette.

Mrs. Oliphant. THE TWO MARYS. By Mrs. Oliphant.
Seco7id Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

W.E.Norris. MATTHEW AUSTIN. By W. E. NoRRis, Author
of * Mademoiselle de Mersac,' etc. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
' "Matthew Austin" may safely be pronounced one of the most intellectually satis-
factory and morally bracing novels of the current year. ' — Daily Telegraph.

W. E. Norris. HIS GRACE. By W. E. Norris. Third

Edition. Crown Svo. * 6s.
' Mr. Norris has drawn a really fine character in the Duke of Hurstboume, at once
unconventional and very true to the conventionalities of life.' — Athetuxum.

W. E. Norris. THE DESPOTIC LADY AND OTHERS.

By W. E. Norris. Crown Svo. 6s.
' A budget of good fiction of which no one will tire.' — Scotsman. ^

•An extremely entertaining volume — the sprightliest of holiday" companions.' —

Daily Telegraph

U. G. Wells. THE STOLEN BACILLUS, and other Stories.
By H. G. Wells, Author of ' The Time Machine.' Crown Svo. 6s.
• The ordinary reader of fiction may be glad to know that these stories are eminently
readable from one cover to the other, but they are more than that ; they are the
impressions of a very striking imagination, which, it would seem, has a great deal
within its reach.' — Saturday Review.

Arthur Morrison. TALES OF MEAN STREETS. By Arthur
Morrison. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.
' Told with consummate art and extraordinary detail. He tells a plain, unvarnished
tale, and the very truth of it makes for beauty. In the true humanity of the book
lies its justification, the permanence of its interest, and its indubitable triumph.' —
Athemeum.
' A great book. The author's method is amazingly effective, and produces a thrilling
sense of reality. The writer lays upon us a master hand. The book is simply
appalling and irresistible in its interest. It is humorous also ; without humour
it would not make the mark it is certain to mzk^.^ —World.

Messrs. Methuen's List 31

Arthur Morrison. A CHILD OF THE JAGO. By Arthur

Morrison, Author of 'Tales of Mean Streets.' Second Edition,
Crown Svo. 6s.
This, the first long story which Mr. Morrison has written, is like his reniarkable
' Tales of Mean Streets,' a realistic study of East End life,

* The book is a masterpiece.' — Pall Mall Gazette.

* Told with great vigour and powerful simplicity.' — Athenctum.

J. Maclaren Cobban. THE KING OF ANDAMAN : A

Saviour of Society. By J. Maclaren Cobban. Crown 8vo. 6s.

'An unquestionably interesting book. It would not surprise us if it turns out to be
the most interesting novel of the season, for it contains one character, at least,
who has in him the root of immortality, and the book itself is ever exhaling the
sweet savour of the unexpected. . . . Plot is forgotten and incident fades, and
only the really human endures, and throughout this book there stands out in bold
and beautiful relief its high-souled and chivalric protagonist, James the Master
of Hutcheon, the King of Andaman himself.' — Pall Mall Gazette.

H. Morrah. A SERIOUS COMEDY. By Herbert Morrah.
Crown Svo. 6s.
' There are many delightful places in this volume, which is well worthy of its title.
The theme has seldom been presented with more freshness or more force.' —
Scotsman.

L. B. Walford. SUCCESSORS TO THE TITLE. By Mrs.
Walford, Author of 'Mr. Smith, 'etc. Second Edition. Crown%vo.6s.

* The story is fresh and healthy from beginning to finish ; and our liking for the two

simple people who are the successors to the title mounts steadily, and ends almost
in respect. — Scotsman.

T. L. Paton. A HOME IN INVERESK. By T. L. Paton.

Crown Svo. 6s.
'A book which bears marks of considerable promise.' — Scotsman.
'A pleasant and well- written story.' — Daily Chronicle.

John Davidson. MISS ARMSTRONG'S AND OTHER CIR-
CUMSTANCES. By John Davidson. Crown %vo. 6s,

' Throughout the volume there is a strong vein of originality, a strength in the
handling, and a knowledge of human nature that are worthy of the highest praise.'
— Scotsman.

J. A. Barry. IN THE GREAT DEEP : Tales of the Sea.
By J. A. Barry. Author of * Steve Brown's Bunyip.' Crown Svo. 6s.
'A collection of really admirable short stories of the sea, very simply told, and placed
before the reader in pithy and telling English.' — Westminster Gazette.

J. B. Burton. IN THE DAY OF ADVERSITY. ByJ.BLOUN-

DELLE Burton, Author of ' The Hispaniola Plate.' Second Edition,

Crown 8vo. 6s.
' Unusually interesting and full of highly dramatic sitWL.tions.'— Guardian.
' A well-written story, drawn from that inexhaustible mine, the time of Louis XIV.

—Pall Mall Gazette.

J. Bloundelle Burton. DENOUNCED. By J. Bloundelle
Burton, Author of * In the Day of Adversity,' etc. ^ Second Edition.
^ Crown Svo. 6s,

•The plot is an extremely original one, and the local colouring is laid on with a
delicacy of touch and an accuracy of detail which denote the true artist.' — Broad
Arrow.'

32 Messrs. Methuen's List

H. Johnston. DR. CONGALTON'S LEGACY. By Henry

Johnston, Crown 8vo. 6s.

• The story is redolent of humour, pathos, and tenderness, while it is not without a

touch of tragedy,' — Scotsman.
' A worthy and permanent contribution to Scottish creative literature. ' — Glasgow
Herald,

Julian Corbett. A BUSINESS IN GREAT WATERS. By
Julian Corbett, Author of 'Forgotten Gold,' ' Kophetua xiii,'
etc. Crown Svo. 6s.
' Mr. Corbett writes with immense spirit, and the book is a thoroughly enjoyable
one in all respects. The salt of the ocean is in it, and the right heroic ring re-
sounds through its gallant adventures.' — Speaker,

L. Cope Comford. CAPTAIN JACOBUS ; A ROMANCE OF

THE ROAD. ByL. CopeCornford. Illustrated. Crown^vo. 6s.
' An exceptionally good story of adventure and character.' — World.

C. Phillips Wolley. THE QUEENSBERRY CUP. A Tale
of Adventure. By Clive Phillips Wolley, Author of ' Snap,'
Editor of * Big Game Shooting.' Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 6s.
' A book which will delight boys: a book which upholds the healthy schoolboy code
of morality.' — Scotsman.

Robert Ban. IN THE MIDST OF ALARMS. By Robert
Barr, Author of 'From Whose Bourne,' etc. Third Edition.
Crown %vo. 6s.

' A book which has abundantly satisfied us by its capital humour.' — Daily Chronicle.

•Mr. Barr has achieved a triumph whereof he has every reason to be proud.' — Pall
Mall Gazette.

L. Daintrey. THE KING OF ALBERIA. A Romance of
the Balkans. By Laura Daintrey. Crown %vo. 6s.

' Miss Daintrey seems to have an intimate acquaintance with the people and politics
of the Balkan countries in which the scene of her lively and picturesque romance
is laid. On almost every page we find clever touches of local colour which dif-
ferentiate her book unmistakably from the ordinary novel.' — Glasgow Herald.

M. A. Owen. THE DAUGHTER OF ALOUETTE. By
Mary A. Owen. Crown Svo. 6s.
A story of life among the American Indians.
' A fascinating story.' — Literary World.

Mrs. Pinsent. CHILDREN OF THIS WORLD, By Ellen
F. Pinsent, Author of 'Jenny's Case.' Crown Svo. 6s.

* Mrs. Pinsent's new novel has plenty of vigour, variety, and good writing. There

are certainty of purpose, strength of touch, and clearness of vision.' — Athen<evm.

Clark Russell. MY DANISH SWEETHEART. By W.
Clark Russell, Author of 'The Wreck of the Grosvenor,' etc.
Illustrated. Fourth Edition. Crown Sz'o. 6s.

G. Manville Fenn. AN ELECTRIC SPARK. By G. Manville

Fenn, Author of * The Vicar's Wife,' 'A Double Knot,' etc. Second

Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

Ronald Ross. THE SPIRIT OF STORM. By Ronald

Ross, Author of * The Child of Ocean.' Crown Svo. 6s.

A romance of tbe Sea. ' Weird, powerful, and impressive.' — Black and White,

Messrs. Methuen's List 33

R. Pryce. TIME AND THE WOMAN. By Richard Pryce,

Author of ' Miss Maxwell's Affections,' * The Quiet Mrs. Fleming,'
etc. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6s.

Mrs. Watson. THIS MAN'S DOMINION. By the Author
of ' A High Little World. ' Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.

Marriott Watson. DIOGENES OF LONDON, and
Other Sketches. By H. B, Marriott Watson, Author
of ' The Web of the Spider.' Crown Stjo. Buckram. 6s.

M. Gilchrist. THE STONE DRAGON. By Murray Gil-
christ. Crown Svo. Buckram. 6s.
* The author's faults are atoned for by certain positive and admirable merits. The
romances have not their counterpart in modern literature, and to read them is a
unique experience.' — National Observer.

E. Dickinson. A VICAR'S WIFE. By Evelyn Dickinson.

Crown Svo. 6s.
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3|6

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