Lord Lamerton

“ 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 impression 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 lovingly. ”

“ 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 another. 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." ”

“ 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 surprised if it were the same with young Saltren. I do not altogether trust him. ”

“ 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 particulars 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, where 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. ”

“ Miss Inglett looked at him with unfeigned 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?" ”

“ 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 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 independence, 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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.” ”

“ I am not inclined for the Church, I have a positive 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; 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 shirt sleeves. ”

“ 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—I 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 ”

“ 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 Chillacot, had he not been impelled to do so by learning of the elopement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our consciences are as easily satisfied when heavy burdened 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. ”

“ 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 clearing 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Lord Lamerton was not so completely transformed as that, because culture imposes control on a man, but he was bubbling 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 committed, 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 abominable article? ”

“ 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 manners, his polish, his knowledge, everything he has, from Lord Lamerton and others ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 don’t blame him,” concluded the tailor sententiously. “Human nature is human nature.”
“And,” shouted a miner, “facts is facts”—but he pronounced them fax.
“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. ”

“ 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 line 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. ”

“ It was broken by Lady Lamerton who said—
200“We really cannot go on any longer in the crypt.”
“The crypt?”
“You must build us a new school-room. The basement 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!"
"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." ”