Arminell, a social romance. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ supposed that dogmas were the cast cocoons of a living religion, and then, newly instructed, harboured the belief that it was as impossible to preserve the spirit of religion without them as it is to keep essences without bottles. At one time she supposed the articles of the creed to be the shackles of faith, and then that they were the characters by which faith was decipherable.

      The sun was at one time supposed to be a solid incandescent ball, but astronomers probed it with their proboscises, and found that the body was enveloped in sundry wraps, which they termed photosphere and chromosphere, and which acted as jacket and overcoat to the body, which was declared to be black as that of a Hottentot. Some fresh proboscis-poking revealed the fact that the blackness supposed to be the sun-core was in fact an intervening vapour or rain of ash, and when this was perforated, the ​very body of the sun was seen, red as that of an Indian, sullenly glowing, lifeless, almost lightless, a cinder. Moreover, the spectroscope was brought to analyse the constituents of the photosphere and to determine the metals in a state of incandescence composing it.

      Lady Lamerton, looking through the telescopes of magazine articles and reviews, was continually seeing deeper into the great luminous, heat-giving orb of Christianity; was shown behind its photosphere, taught to despise its chromosphere, and saw exhibited behind them blackness, exhausted force, the ash of extinct superstitions. The critical spectroscope was, moreover, brought to bear on Christianity, and to analyse its luminous atmosphere, and resolve it into alien matter, none distinctively solar, all vulgar, terrestrial, and fusible.

      The astronomer assures us that the fuel of the sun must fail, and then the world will congeal and life disappear out of it, and the critic announces the speedy expiring of Christianity. But, as—indifferent to the fact that the sun like a worn-out and made-up old beau is tottering to extinction—Lady Lamerton ordered summer bonnets, and laid out new azalea beds, just so was it with her religion. 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.

      "Oh, Lamerton! What are you doing? The boy is unwell, and ought to be in bed."

      "He has been dreaming, my dear; has had the ​nightmare, and I have brought him down for change, to drive the frightening thoughts away. He will not take cold, he is in flannel, and the shawl is round him. Besides, the evening is warm."

      "He must not be here many minutes. He ought to be asleep," said his mother.

      "My dear, I have promised him a look at a picture-book. It will make him forget his fancies. What have you over there?"

      "No Sunday stories or pictures, I fear."

      "Yonder is a book in red—illustrated. What is it?"

      "'Sintram'—it is not a Sunday book."

      "I have not read it for an age, but if I remember right, the D— comes into it."

      "If that be the case it is perhaps allowable."

      "What is the meaning of that picture?" asked the little boy, pointing to the first in the text. It was by Selous. It represented a great hall with a stone table in the centre, about which knights were seated, carousing. In the foreground was a boy kneeling, beating his head, apparently frantic. An old priest stood by, on one side, and a baron was starting from the table, and upsetting his goblet of wine.

      "I cannot tell, I forget the story, it must be forty years since I read it. I have not my glasses. Pass the book to your mother, she will read."

      Lady Lamerton drew the volume to her, and read as follows:— "A boy, pale as death, with disordered hair and closed eyes, rushed into the hall, uttering a wild scream of terror, and clinging to the baron with both hands, shrieked piercingly, 'Knight and father! Father and knight! Death and another are closely pursuing me!' An awful stillness lay like ice on the whole assembly, save that the boy screamed ever the fearful words."

      "It is not a pretty story," said Lord Lamerton uneasily.

      ​"Papa," whispered the boy, "I did not think that anything was following me. I thought"—his father's hand pressed his shoulders—"no, papa, I will not repeat it to mamma."

      "What is it, Giles?" asked his mother, looking up from the book.

      "Nothing but this, my dear," answered Lord Lamerton, "that I told Giles not to talk about his dreams. He must forget them as quickly as possible."

      "What is that priest doing?" asked the child, pointing to the picture.

      Lady Lamerton read further. "'Dear Lord Biorn,' said the chaplain, 'our eyes and thoughts have all been directed to you and your son in a wonderful manner; but so it has been ordered by the providence of God.'"

      "I think, Giles, we will have no more of 'Sintram' to-night. Let us look together at the album of photographs. I will show you the new likeness of Aunt Hermione."

      "Where is young Mr. Saltren?" asked Lady Lamerton.

      "I fancy he has gone to see his mother. 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. Then ensued a silence of a minute or two. It was broken by Lady Lamerton who said——

      "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. It must have some architectural character, as it will be near the church, and must not be an eyesore. I wish it were possible to set the miners to build, so as to relieve them; but they are incapable of doing anything outside their trade."

      "What will they do?"

      "I cannot say. They have not been like the young larks in the fable. These were alarmed when they overheard the farmer and his sons discuss the cutting of the corn. But the men have been forewarned and have taken no notice of the warnings. Now they are bewildered and alarmed because they are turned off."

      "Something must be done for them."

      "I have been considering the cutting of a new road to the proposed station; but the position of the station cannot be determined till Saltren has consented to sell Chillacot, and he is obstinate and stupid about it."

      "Then you cannot cut it till you know where СКАЧАТЬ