The body reacts on the moral nature more than we suppose, or allow for in others. We call those ill-tempered who are in fact disordered in liver and not in heart, and we consider those to be peppery who in reality are only irritable because they have gout flying about their joints. The morbidness of Jingles was largely due to his delicacy of lung, and with De Jongh’s cod-liver oil would probably in time disappear.
When a man battles a way for himself into a position not his by right of birth, he acquires a tough skin. Siegfried, the Dragon-slayer, goes by the name of the Horny Siegfried because, by bathing in the dragon’s blood, he toughened his hide—only between his shoulders, where a linden-leaf fell whilst he was bathing, could he be made to feel.
The successful men who have fought dragons and captured their guarded treasures are thick-skinned, impervious to hints, ridicule, remonstrances—you cannot pinch them, scratch them, prick them, unless you discover the one vulnerable point. But Saltren had fought no dragons, only his own shadow, and his skin was as thin as the inner film of an egg—highly sensitive, and puckering at a breath. His vanity had been broken away, but his skin had not been rendered more callous thereby. Formerly he was in perpetual dudgeon because he imagined slights that were never offered. He still imagined slights, but instead of becoming angry at them became depressed.
As his health improved in the dry, salubrious air of North Africa, he began to interest himself in the antiquities, to explore ruins, to copy inscriptions, and so forgot himself in archæological pursuits. Arminell encouraged him to prosecute these subjects, and he became more enthusiastic on them; he regretted that the increasing heat would send him to Europe. However, on his arrival at Bournemouth, he found occupation in arranging his library and setting out his antiquities. Then he wrote an account of some explorations he had among the megalithic monuments near Constantine for a scientific journal, and this attracted attention, and led to correspondence, and to the article being reprinted with additions, and to a dispute as to the resemblances and dissimilarities between the Constantine monuments and the so-called Druidical remains in Britain.
The following winter Saltren was again at Algiers, and resumed his explorations with assiduity, spent much time in planning, sketching, digging, and formed a theory of his own relative to megalithic monuments contrary to that of Mr. Fergusson, whom he resolved to attack and crush. When summer came, at his particular desire, Arminell and he visited Denmark and Norway, where he examined such stone monuments as belonged to a prehistoric period, and then went with her into Brittany.
As he became known as an antiquary, his society was sought by men of like tastes, and so he came to have a little circle of acquaintances, which tended to widen, and as those who came to know him through prehistoric rude stone monuments fell in love with his charming young wife, they insisted on their womankind calling and knowing her also. In vain did the ladies ask, “But, who was she?” They were crushed with the reply, “My dears, what does it matter what she was, she is the wife of one of our first authorities on comparative megalithology.” So by degrees, the young couple formed a coterie about themselves, and were no longer solitary and feeling as if they were outcasts.
Now and then Mr. Welsh ran down to Bournemouth and spent a day with them, and sometimes Mrs. Welsh brought the baby; but the Welshes were no assistance to them in social matters. The Welsh circle was of a different style of mind and manner and interest from that which formed round the Saltrens. It was not a circle which could wax excited over anything prehistoric, it was so completely engrossed in the present.
But the Welshes were always received with the utmost warmth and kindness by Arminell, who could not forget what she owed them, and harboured for the Radical journalist an affection quite special, mixed with great respect. She knew the thorough goodness of the man, and she delighted in his smartness.
“Look here, Tryphœna,” said James Welsh one day to his wife; “do you remember what I said to you about aristocrats and their trains? There is something else I will tell you. Once upon a time, say the Mussulmans, Allah, sitting on his throne in paradise, dropped the slipper off his foot, and it fell down into hell. Then he called to Adam, and bade him go and fetch it. ‘What!’ exclaimed Adam, ‘Shall I, who am made in the likeness of God, descend to the place of devils? God forbid!’ Then Allah ordered Abraham to go after his slipper. ‘Shall I go down into hell? I who am the friend of God! Far be it from me!’ was his reply. Then Allah turned to Moses, and he exclaimed, ‘What! shall I, who am the law-giver of God, I who led the people out of the brick-kilns, shall I descend to the furnace? Away with the thought!’ And David cried, when Allah turned to him, ‘Nay, but I am the psalmist of God, press me not to go where demons yell discords.’ And Isaiah had also an objection to go, for he said, ‘I am the prophet of God.’ Then Allah turned to Mahomet, and said, ‘Wilt thou go after my slipper?’ And Mahomet answered, ‘I go at once, I am the servant of God.’ Whereupon Allah exclaimed, ‘Thou only art worthy to sit on my throne. All the rest are a parcel of cads’—or words to that effect.”
“But, James, what has this to do with the aristocracy?”