Arminell, Vol. 2

“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, intelligent 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 unwarranted 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 listen 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 proceed to the graver, or reverse the process?”

“As you please. It is one to me.”

“Very well,” said Welsh. He looked round complacently on his audience, and rubbed his hands. “His lordship, in all simplicity of heart, wants to know what occasion 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 themselves, 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 seamstress, 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 Common People?”

“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 is 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?”

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 dispute 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 property, and down goes trade.” Lord 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 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 will 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 Honourable 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 touching 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 tone said to Lord 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 bamboozlement 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 converted 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 unprovided with a vent. They flowed 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, 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; 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 meeting 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 unobserved. 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 my right, and he was able to make all I said seem wrong. ’Pon 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.

As Lord 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 mediæval city in Doré’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 themselves to the nerves of those who stood before him, and before he spoke, before he opened his mouth, a magic, altogether 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 contrition 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, 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 respect; 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 both 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 débacle clung most tenaciously to the skirts of such who still remained convinced. 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 limbs 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 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. I am fearful of myself. 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.

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 influence 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 garments 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 wrestled with myself. I have shrunk from declaring what I have seen and heard, but if I were to hold my peace, I 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 themselves.

“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, suddenly, 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 saying, 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 from 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 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 clique 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 approaching, already has one seal of the seven been unclasped, 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 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, and 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 descended 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!”

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, thrilling every nerve, distracted the attention of the crowd. A woman had fallen in convulsions on the ground, declaring that she had seen the Devil.