Arminell, a social romance. Baring-Gould Sabine
Consequently she had no special interests, but that inner eagerness and fire which would impel her to take up and follow with enthusiasm 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 upstairs 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.
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 disconsolately. 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 Egypto."
The young man coloured.
"You tread too sharply on the heels of the pied de la lettre, Miss Inglett."
"But you feel this, though you shrink from the expression of your thoughts. You told me yourself this forenoon that you were not happy. If you leave us, whither 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 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 establish 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 surfer. 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 remained abroad. With me, the dark thoughts fly over the flood and come home 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 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 giraffe 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.
"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 instead 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 proboscis 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