Saltren

“ When a ship is storm-tossed, escape is possible in a boat, when a house is on fire there are feather-beds into which we can leap; but when the earth is insecure, then we have nowhere to which we can flee, nothing to which we can look.
With Captain Saltren, his religious convictions were what was most stable. Everything else glided before him as a dream, but he kept his feet on those things that belonged to the spiritual world, as if they were adamantine foundations. And now he was being, like an aeronaut, caught away, and these shifted under his eyes ”

“ I know that sometimes I wake after having dreamed of some amiable and innocent person in an odious light, and though I fight against the impression all day, I cannot view that person without repugnance. Captain Saltren was aware that he had dreamed, that he had believed in the reality of the mirage conjured up by his fancy, had regarded that crimson-covered book as the revelation of the Everlasting Gospel, and though his mind assented to the fact that he had been deceived, he was unable to drive away the glamour of the delusion that clung to him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She entertained no particular admiration for young Saltren, no great affection for him, only a girlish eagerness to see a misunderstood and ill-used man put in his proper place and acknowledged by the world. When she met Jingles at breakfast in the coffee-room, there was mutual restraint between them of which both were conscious; and in Arminell's heart a little welling up of wrath against him. ”

“ A little while ago we saw Giles Saltren humiliated and crushed, passing through the flame of disappointment and disenchantment, the purgatorial flame that in this life tries every man. In that fire the young man's self-esteem and self-reliance had shrivelled up and been reduced to ash. ”

“ So much for the past of Captain Stephen Saltren. Now, on this spring Sunday morning, Arminell Inglett watched the man at his devotions on the raft. She allowed him to proceed with them undisturbed for some time; but she could not spend the whole day in the owl’s nest. Saltren must be roused from his spiritual exercises and raptures. He must assist her—he must surely have ropes at his disposal, and could call men to help in her release. ”

“ But Saltren was not a man who could restrain himself under an over-mastering conviction, and he burst forth in a torrent of words, and as he spoke his sombre eyes gleamed with excitement, and sparks lit up and flashed in them. Soft they usually were, and dreamy, but now, all at once they kindled into vehement life.
"I tell you, Tubb, the Lord hath spoken. The last days are at hand. I read my Bible and I read my newspaper, and I know that the aristocracy are a scandal and a burden to the country. Now the long-suffering of heaven will not tarry. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Captain Stephen Saltren, master of the manganese mine, was a tall man, rather gaunt and thin, and loosely compacted at the joints, with dark hair, high cheek-bones and large, deeply-sunken eyes. His features were irregular and ill cut—yet it was impossible to look at his face without being impressed with the thought that he was no ordinary man. His hands, though roughened and enlarged by work, had long fingers, the indication of a nervous temperament. He had, moreover, one of those flexible voices which go far towards making a man an orator. ”

“ After a flood we find backwaters where promiscuous matter drifts in circles—straw, snags of wood, a dead sheep, a broken chair; so was it in the mind of Stephen Saltren. His ideas were thrown into confusion; thoughts and fancies, most varied and incongruous, jostled each other, without connection. The discovery that his wife had lied to him in the matter of the parentage of Giles and the guilt of Lord Lamerton, following on the excitement in which he had been through the encounter with his enemy, had sufficed to paralyse his judgment, and make his thoughts swerve about incoherently. ”

“ He is not very strong. Giles must go to school, and not be coddled here. His mother is absurdly fond of the little fellow. I don't want to hurry you—Saltren, and you can always rely on me as ready to do my best for you, but I think you ought to look about you, at your leisure, you know, but still look about you. And, damn that article, don't you have anything to do with Welsh, he will lead you, heaven alone knows whither."
"My lord," said Saltren, "you forestall me. I myself was about to ask leave to depart. I have not the natural qualifications for a tutor ”

“ The mirage was past, the dry and hideous reality remained, but Saltren had not as yet quite recovered from the impression of reality that mirage had produced on his mind. We cannot on waking from certain dreams drive them entirely from us, so that they in no way affect our conduct and influence our opinions. ”

“ Saltren, "mind that we live in the West End. Why don't you go to Shepherd's Bush, near the Welshes? A man of my brother's political and literary position must have hosts of distinguished acquaintances, and a woman of Tryphœna's accomplishments and beauty must have the entrée into the highest circles. If we lived near them we might get good introductions. If we don't get settled to my liking shortly in a fashionable quarter of town, I do not know but that I may return to Orleigh." ”

“ Saltren, and dropped her hands in her lap.
"It does seem almost wicked for a man at his time of life and crippled. But he and Joan Melhuish have been keeping company a long time, and now he has come in for some money. I hope," said the captain, "that the childer, if there come any, mayn't come into this world with half their fingers blowed off through poaching, and a bad life through drunkenness."
Mrs. Saltren said nothing.
"There's another thing," pursued Captain Tubb. "The new quarry is running out, and we're thinking of reopening the old one." ”

“ She drew Saltren into the wood. From a vantage point on the other side of the valley from that of the crag, themselves screened from sight, they could see a cluster of men about the dead body of Lord Lamerton, and Mrs. Saltren gesticulating behind them.
"I wonder," said Patience Kite, "whether that wife of yours be a fool or not? Your safety, I reckon, depends on her tongue. If she has sense, she will say she found the dead lord as she was going to fetch water. If she's a fool she'll let out about you. Did any one see you on the down?"
"I think Macduff went by some time before." ”

“ No one is perfect, she argued, and Saltren, who pinned his religion on the Bible, ought to have been the first to admit this. The just man falleth seven times a day, and she had tripped only once in forty-two years—over fifteen thousand days. If she could but raise the veil and look into her husband's past life, argued she, no doubt she would see comical things there. ”

“ He resolved on taking a clerkship in an office. His pride was gone. So long as he could earn enough to support himself and his mother, he did not care in what sort of business he made the money, so long as it was fairly and honourably earned.
As the day approached on which it was arranged that he and his mother should leave Chillacot, Saltren's heart sank; but not so that of his mother. She became more talkative and more boastful. ”

“ Saltren in a weeping, expostulating tone.
“Marianne, say nothing,” Captain Saltren turned to her. “It is not for you to justify yourself to your child. The story shall be told him by me. I will spare you the pain and shame.”
“But, mother,” said Jingles, shutting the door behind him and leaning his back against it, “I must be told the whole truth. I must have it at least confirmed by your lips.”
“My dear,”—Mrs. Saltren’s voice shook—“I would not make mischief, for the world. I hate above everything the mischief-makers. If there be one kind of people I abhor it is those who make mischief ”

“ The sound issuing from that wood was strident like the rattle of a lawn-mower.
A blue-bottle fly was buzzing round the dead man. Saltren saw it, it made him uneasy; he let go one of his wife’s hands and with his disengaged hand drew his kerchief from his throat, a black silk one, and 221whisked it to and fro, to drive away the insect. “I cannot tell,” he said, “heaven knows. If it had not been for what you said, for your amusing joke, he might now be living. I cannot tell. The ways of Providence are dark. We are but instruments used, and not knowing for what purpose used. ”

“ Why don't your father show his face? He ain't a tortoise, privileged to draw it in, or a hedgehog, at liberty to coil it up. Where is he? He is not at home. If he is hiding, what is he hiding from unless he be guilty?"
"He may have gone after work," said young Saltren.
"I heard him say," said the shoemaker, "that his lordship was doomed to destruction."
"I know he said it," answered the blacksmith, "and I ask, is a man like to make a prophecy and not try to make what he said come to pass?"
"Human nature is human nature," threw in the tailor. ”

“ I, who write this, know full well that I shall find readers, and encounter critics who will pronounce the case of Captain Saltren impossible; because in the London clubs and in country houses no such delusions are found. What! are we not all engaged in blowing soap-bubbles, in painting mirages, in spinning cobwebs? But then our soap-bubbles, our mirages, our cobwebs, in which we, unlike spiders, entangle ourselves, are not theological, but social and political. Do we not weave out of our own bowels vast webs, and hang them up in the sight of all as substantial realities? ”

“ He is fool enough for even that to befall him.”
“No, Mr. Welsh; I will tell you all I know, and then you will think more kindly and judge more leniently of Mr. Saltren. The landlady spoke to Thomasine because she was uneasy about him, and she is a good-hearted creature. It seems that when Mrs. Saltren married, Mr. Saltren was left without any means whatever.”
244“He had plenty of money. He sold Chillacot.”
“He made over the whole proceeds to his mother. She has not left him a penny of it. From what I learn, she has given it to Captain Tubb to invest for her in a water-wheel and a pump.” ”

“ I might have had if I’d got the sweeping and the broken victuals as I was promised. What’s the difference in wickedness, I’d like to know?” asked the old man sententiously, and figuring out his proposition on Saltren’s coat with his crooked fingers. “What’s the odds in wickedness, chucking over a horrible precipice a dozen sweet and innocent children as is, or as is to be, my family was as certain as new potatoes in June, and now all gone, chucked down the Cleave. It is wickedness.”
“What is that you hinted about Captain Saltren?” asked Giles gravely. ”

“ He bore a spite against Captain Saltren, because the captain was not a churchman. Not a word had been said about stopping the lime-quarry. Oh no! of course not, for Captain Tubb taught in the Sunday-school. If Stephen Saltren had taken a class, nothing would have been said about discontinuing the mine. Therefore the miners resolved to join the Liberation Society and make an outcry for the dis-establishment of the Church.
So the men argued—we will not say reasoned, and that is no caricature of their arguments, not reasonings, in similar cases. The uneducated man is always a suspicious man. ”

“ Patience caught him by the shoulder and urged him away.
“You must not be seen near the body. Take my advice and be off to Captain Tubb about some lime, and so establish an alibi.”
Saltren shook his head.
“If not, then come along with me. I will show you a hiding-place no one thinks of. Folks could not tell how to take it, when they did find me lying buried under the fallen chimney; but when I saw it was cracking, I 231made off through the dust, and none saw me escape. At the night-meeting some thought, when I stood on the table behind you, that I was a spirit. ”

“ Eh ça—my dear readers, was Giles Inglett Saltren’s vision of life. He saw himself, infinitely magnified, and everything else dwarfed about him and tortured into monstrosity.
Of one thing I am very certain, dear reader, in this great Rigolade of life into which we have entered, and through which we are walking, there are some who are 296always seeing themselves in the multiplying mirror, and there are others who contemplate their faces continually elongated, whilst others again see themselves in the widening mirror and accommodate themselves to be the perpetual buffoon. ”

“ As a young man he had worked with his father at the original mine, Wheal Eldorado, and on his father's death, had continued to live in the house his father had built on land he had appropriated. He continued to work at Eldorado, became captain in his father's room, and when Eldorado was exhausted, directed the works of Wheal Perseverance. Every one spoke highly of Stephen Saltren, as a steady, conscientious man, truthful and of unimpeachable honesty. ”