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 could 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 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 to the triangles A
B C and D E F in the fourth proposition of the First Book of Euclid, but
only that there is a resemblance. Both Giles Saltren and Arminell had,
as the expression goes, got their heads under water, and having got them
there, found themselves beginning 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, therefore, make the best they could of
that new life in which they found themselves; and, perhaps, Arminell
acted sensibly 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.
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 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 æsthetic, and with—oh, such eyes! The young people soon strike up
an intimacy, 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.
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 monsieur or the madame is deficient, and we never
know exactly 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 inquire 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 _Times_, the _Queen_, and the country papers. Immediately after it,
she and Giles departed for Algiers. That was the warm place of which Mr.
Welsh had spoken to Mrs. Cribbage. They went to Algiers, instead 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 humiliations 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 suppose, 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 irritable 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 captured their guarded
treasures are thick-skinned, impervious to hints, ridicule,
remonstrances—you cannot pinch them, 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 archæological 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 explorations 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 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
reply, “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 them, and harboured for
the Radical journalist an affection quite special, mixed with great
respect. She knew the thorough goodness of the man, and she delighted in
his smartness.
“Look here, Tryphœna,” 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, who 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!’ was his reply. Then Allah
turned to Moses, and he exclaimed, ‘What! shall 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 me not to go where
demons 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, I
am the servant of God.’ Whereupon 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, Tryphœna, 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 disputing 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 fetching 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 could
you do with 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, instead 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.”