Dibble

“ Mr. and Mrs. Dibble had returned together to London, to their little lodging-house at Pimlico, but by no means to live a happy life; for Dibble had been persuaded to lend the showman fifty pounds the morning after that introduction at Severntown, and the money had been lost irretrievably; for within a fortnight afterwards Digby Martin had presented himself at their house a ruined, ragged, dissipated fellow. ”

“ Dibble insisted upon Miss Somerton and her father remaining in her house until the next day, when Paul was to reappear at Bow Street; and this increase in the Dibbleonian establishment made it necessary that Mr. Thomas Dibble should sleep on the sofa in the parlour.
“I’ll make you up a comfortable bed, Thomath,” said Mrs. D., when all the other members of the household had retired to rest, “particularly on account of your sympathy with that young man; for if ever there was innocence anywhere it is in his face: though however that purse could get into his box is a matter as I have yet to learn. ”

“ Her father, when he returned home that night, was unusually bumptious in his manner towards Christabel, his daughter, and more than usually tipsy. Dibble had obtained a partial promise from Mrs. Dibble that the showman should not want for fifty pounds, and before that, as we have seen, a “gent” had given him similar hopes. Everything was going well with him, and he was independent of everybody; his daughter, too, felt particularly independent that night, and the result was a wordy warfare about the Skeleton. ”

“ Dibble scowled at her husband, and began to weep afresh over her fallen fortunes.
Paul hastily opened the note, which Dibble gave to him, and read as follows:—
“My dear Paul,—I have saved you from a great sin and from terrible misery. This wretched girl is my daughter. I have taken her away; do not seek to follow us. You shall know all in the course of a day or two. ”

“ Dibble had appealed to the showman to leave the neighbourhood, and had bribed him too. But Digby Martin, alias Digger, alias Smith, knew a trick worth two of that. He only spent the bribe in drink, and came back to Still Street and abused Mrs. Dibble for being proud and stuck up.
To think that she should come to this, with her boarding-school education and her semi-architectural contracting father; it was a blow which Mrs. Dibble could not possibly have dreamed of, and she upbraided herself for her weakness in following Dibble and releasing him from his degraded position. ”

“ Gibbs’ private room.
“Business is business,” said Mr. Gibbs; “I will take the shares from you, and here is a cheque for five hundred pounds.”
“God bless ’e, God bless ’e!” began Dibble, in an ecstasy of delight.
“Stop a little; there is a small condition,” said Mr. Gibbs, placing his hand upon a purse which he laid upon the table.
Dibble looked at Mr. Gibbs for explanation, but quite prepared in his own mind to buy peace at home at any sacrifice.
“You must put this purse secretly into Paul Somerton’s box, in his bedroom.” ”

“ On these occasions the showman smoked his pipe, and gave Dibble bits of philosophical advice anent his “outside dooties” in connection with the organ and the drum.
[Pg 260]
Sometimes they travelled in company with cheap-jacks and peep-shows; but these were generally too swift of motion for Digby’s establishment. Once a grand photographic saloon on radiant wheels, and with a smart young lady doing crochet work at the front door, went saucily by, without even a smile of contempt for the magician’s poles and bundles and boxes. ”

“ Mrs. Dibble let them in, and Mr. Williamson recognised her with pleasure.
“You did not tell me she was with Mrs. Dibble,” said the barrister.
“Did I not?” said Paul, hardly heeding the question.
“How is she to-night?” said Paul.
“Better—a little better,” said Mrs. Dibble. “She hath athked for you twenty timeth.”
“I will not keep you five minutes,” said Paul, as he ascended the stairs on tip-toe.
“Poor creature! poor dear love!” said Mrs. Dibble; “she’th had a thad life for one so young though we all have our troublth. ”

“ I did think I never could have forgiven that; but there, it’s all over, Thomath, and seeing other people in [Pg 239] trouble makes one’s heart softer than usual: and so bless you, Thomath, bless you.”
Whereupon Mrs. Dibble put her arms round poor Dibble’s neck and bade him good-night.
“And good-bye!” said Dibble, when she was going up-stairs; “And good-bye, Maria!” he repeated when he heard the door shut upon her. For Thomas Dibble when he went out into the back kitchen and contemplated the water-butt, determined to run away. ”

“ Dibble soon made himself useful, and found enough to do at Barton Hall (where he had once been in the employ of Christopher Tallant, Esq.) all day long. This made his evenings happier; the music of the old piano no longer twitted him with his dependency. Mrs. Dibble, as had been her wont in the happy times, mixed every night for him a glass of gin toddy, and whilst they sat together by the fire on the conclusion of the “Old Hundredth,” she acknowledged that after all Thomas Dibble was worthy to be the husband of a woman who had had a boarding-school education, with music and extras. ”

“ Dibble, just think of your husband; he is in prison, and perhaps you can help him; Montem Castle is close to Brazencrook.”
“O dear! what a hard-hearted man you mutht be to be thure, to remind me of that again just ath [Pg 234] I wath a trying to think that all your newth wath not bad newth.”
And then Mrs. Dibble began to cry once more for decency’s sake.
“Will you be ready in the morning?—however you must; so there’s an end. Lady Verner wished that you would come to-day. You don’t suppose you are going to sit in the drawing-room, and all that sort of thing, with an earl and countess, eh? ”

“ The broiling rays of the midday sun give way nightly to bitter and frosty dews; her long-slumbering sands are at times whirled violently aloft by sharp, sudden, blinding storms that often overwhelm caravans and tents, to subside as suddenly, leaving her surface forever different—and yet forever the same. ”

“ A few attempts at joint wiping will convince the beginner that it is not the easiest thing in the world to learn. Let me caution the beginner not to get discouraged. He must have patience and a firm resolve to master the art of joint wiping and not let it master him and keep him back. ”

“ The rainbow’s end is forever at hand and yet forever distant; and similarly the intangible, chameleon-like personality of Mohammed constantly eludes and mocks one at the precise time when one is most confident of touching and cornering the flitting phantom. Under the circumstances, a rapid recapitulation of such concrete events as have been handed down with a minimum of bias is perhaps least likely to lead one too far astray. ”

“ And so, while the destruction of the helpless icons was enthusiastically carried out in every Meccan home—while Abu Sufyan’s wife, Hind, smashed her favorite god as energetically as she had once ripped Hamza’s vitals out, and further insulted the deity by the charge that it had vilely cheated her all her life—Mohammed, fatigued and dusty, retired to a corner of his tent and, as his daughter, Fatima, shielded him with a screen, gave himself a thorough bath. ”

“ Such interrogations face the tracker of Mohammed’s career at every turn of the journey, and, in avoiding the pitfalls on one side, he is very likely to stumble into the abysses on the other. For the facts of his life are at once too abundant and too few; and he who ponders them is ever apt to discover that, just at the moment when he confidently believes he is on the right path, he knows both too much and too little. ”

“ This overscrupulous vigilance turned out to be unnecessary, for rumors of his approach had set the city agog with delight; and every morning a band of converts and refugees had posted themselves on a hill to watch his arrival. On this morning one of them, catching sight of the travelers as they trudged toward Koba, raised the rapturous shout: “Ho! he has come! he whom we have been looking for has come!” The marvelous news flew from tongue to tongue, and everybody rushed forth to Koba to greet the majestic guest. Even the children cried out: “Here is the Prophet! He is come! ”

“ Then, closely escorted by Al-Abbas, Abu went forth, pausing a moment, as his amazed eyes swept the innumerable warriors around him, to remark, “Truly this kingdom of thy nephew’s is a mighty kingdom.” “Nay, Abu Sufyan!” chided Al-Abbas, “he is more than a king—he is a mighty Prophet!” “Yes, thou sayest truly; now let me go,” replied Abu as he edged away. Arriving home, he promptly repeated the Prophet’s message; and never before, in all her long and distinguished history, had Mecca witnessed such a scurrying of feet and banging—or draping—of doors as followed. ”

“ Mohammed, gazing at the bloody spectacle from the safety of an adjacent hill, was so overpowered with warlike ardor that he screamed: “Now is the furnace heated; I am the Prophet that lieth not; the seed of Abd al-Muttalib!” Then, hurling a fistful of gravel at the foe, he continued: “Ruin seize them! I swear they are discomfited. By the Lord of the Kaba, they yield! God hath cast fear into their hearts.” The hard-won victory was indeed so complete that thousands of prisoners, forty thousand sheep and goats, and four thousand ounces of silver were seized as spoil. ”

“ It seems probable that Mohammed at first offered his disciples no promise of earthly rewards, but seduced them by painting gorgeously graphic pictures of their eventual felicity in Paradise, as well as the utter discomfiture of their foes in Hell. The Koran of this period abounds with eloquent descriptions of both places. Paradise is represented as a haven bulging with sensuous delights of the most naïve and ephemeral sort. ”

“ Even his she-camel, if he chanced to become inspired while mounted on her, would be affected by a wild excitement, sitting down and rising up, now planting her legs rigidly, then throwing them about as if they would be parted from her. ”

“ This pleased Mohammed so much that he immediately escorted Zeid to the Black Stone and said: “Bear testimony, all ye that are present. Zeid is my son; I will be his heir, and he shall be mine.” In his thirty-ninth year Mohammed had become acquainted with Abu Bekr—commonly called either “the Sighing” or “the True”—a rich cloth merchant who was middle-aged and short, and who had deep-set eyes. ”

“ Mohammed and Abu Bekr sought repose in a hut of palm branches guarded by a soldier with his sword drawn; and the Prophet’s slumbers were comforted by dreams in which the enemy appeared as a pitifully weak force. Morning had barely dawned when foe swiftly advanced to meet foe. A providential rain had softened the ground over which the Koreish must needs pass, and, at the same time, it had paradoxically hardened the soil beneath the Moslem feet; the fortunate fact that small sandy ridges concealed the majority of the Meccans induced the Medinese to advance with extra courage ”

“ For, as Islam has continued to prosper, all devout Moslems have at one time or another journeyed from every quarter of the globe to visit that “Navel of the Islamic faith” which seems to them to be the earthly replica of that indescribably glorious Paradise which awaits the faithful; and myriads of curious, and even irreverent, sightseers have perennially flocked thither to enjoy the endless diversion afforded by one of the greatest religious entertainments on the globe. ”

“ A land untouched by time, where time’s oppression is yet most powerfully felt; a land that never alters, though perpetually subject to alteration; a land where the new is eternally old, and the old is eternally new. ”

“ Buffeted and disfigured between these two intensely antagonistic forces of opinion, the massive figure of Mohammed must forever remain largely ambiguous and enigmatical. His Boswells were too Boswellian, and his Froudes were too Froudish. And yet, by steering a zigzag course between the Scylla of rhapsodical praise and the Charybdis of envious detraction, it may be possible to arrive at a relatively detached and peaceful haven where the immeasurable Arab looms a little less vaguely through the remoteness of thirteen centuries. ”

“ Then Mohammed knew at last that he was safe among friends. He had escaped from Mecca, where the Koreishite swords might have altered the course of events for all time; but the otherwise dull and sluggish Middle Ages were fated to be infinitely enriched by the romantic contest between the Crescent and the Cross. “Ye people!” he courteously proclaimed, “show your joy by giving your neighbors the salutation of peace; send portions to the poor; bind close the ties of kinsmanship; and offer up your prayers whilst others sleep. Thus ye shall enter Paradise in peace.” ”

“ If, as it now appeared to Mohammed, the Koreish were disposed to keep the peace, the extended lull in hostilities would furnish an admirable opportunity to flaunt the banners of Islam over an ever widening extent of Arabia; for the defeat of Uhud, no less than the success at Bedr, had profoundly convinced him that the ultimate victory of Islam depended upon the sword. The Koran of this period breathes defiance against the enemies of Islam on almost every page; its profuse maledictions, once confined to the evildoers of Mecca, now include all unbelievers everywhere. ”

“ Devotees who were able to satisfy their consciences by performing the ritual of the Lesser Pilgrimage only, went about it thus: they came to Mecca, generally during the sacred month of Rejeb, feverishly kissed the blessed Black Stone—the most divinely hallowed rock in a country that reverenced every one of her millions of stones—imbedded in the eastern corner of the Kaba, sedately walked seven times around the saintly edifice, and then marched in a more hasty manner seven times to and fro between two spots near by, over a route which Hagar was supposed to have trod. ”