Arminell, a social romance. Baring-Gould Sabine
dear Armie, my subterranean source—the manganese—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 between 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. Accident, 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."
"Here, Armie, 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 livelihood 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 incapacitated 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 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 his 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."
"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 not 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, Huc 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 lowlands. And so is it with us. We spend what we receive and enrich therewith those beneath. But come—I shall go in. I am feeling 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 12: SINTRAM.
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