Bot-S: Felix Holt, the Radical

    FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL


    BY GEORGE ELIOT


    Upon the midlands now the industrious muse doth fall,
    The shires which we the heart of England well may call.

        *       *       *       *       *

    My native country thou, which so brave spirits hast bred,
    If there be virtues yet remaining in the earth,
    Or any good of thine thou bred'st into my birth,
    Accept it as thine own, whilst now I sing of thee,
    Of all thy later brood the unworthiest though I be.

                                           --DRAYTON; _Polyolbion_.


    _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_


    BOSTON
    DE WOLFE, FISKE & COMPANY
    361 AND 365 WASHINGTON STREET




FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL.




INTRODUCTION.


Five-and-thirty years ago the glory had not yet departed from the old
coach roads: the great roadside inns were still brilliant with
well-polished tankards, the smiling glances of pretty barmaids, and the
repartees of jocose hostlers; the mail still announced itself by the
merry notes of the horn; the hedge-cutter or the rick-thatcher might
still know the exact hour by the unfailing yet otherwise meteoric
apparition of the pea-green Tally-ho or the yellow Independent; and
elderly gentlemen in pony-chaises, quartering nervously to make way for
the rolling, swinging swiftness, had not ceased to remark that times
were finely changed since they used to see the pack-horses and hear the
tinkling of their bells on this very highway.

In those days there were pocket boroughs, a Birmingham unrepresented in
Parliament and compelled to make strong representations out of it,
unrepealed corn-laws, three-and-sixpenny letters, a brawny and
many-breeding pauperism, and other departed evils; but there were some
pleasant things, too, which have also departed. _Non omnia grandior ætas
quæ fugiamus habet_, says the wise goddess: you have not the best of it
in all things, O youngsters! the elderly man has his enviable memories,
and not the least of them is the memory of a long journey in mid-spring
or autumn on the outside of a stage coach. Posterity may be shot, like a
bullet through a tube, by atmospheric pressure, from Winchester to
Newcastle: that is a fine result to have among our hopes; but the slow,
old fashioned way of getting from one end of our country to the other is
the better thing to have in the memory. The tube-journey can never lend
much to picture and narrative; it is as barren as an exclamatory O!
Whereas, the happy outside passenger, seated on the box from the dawn to
the gloaming, gathered enough stories of English life, enough of English
labors in town and country, enough aspects of earth and sky, to make
episodes for a modern Odyssey. Suppose only that his journey took him
through that central plain, watered at one extremity by the Avon, at the
other by the Trent. As the morning silvered the meadows with their long
lines of bushy willows marking the water-courses, or burnished the
golden corn-ricks clustered near the long roofs of some midland
homestead, he saw the full-uddered cows driven from their pasture to the
early milking. Perhaps it was the shepherd, head-servant of the farm,
who drove them, his sheep-dog following with a heedless, unofficial air,
as of a beadle in undress. The shepherd, with a slow and slouching walk,
timed by the walk of grazing beasts, moved aside, as if unwillingly,
throwing out a monosyllabic hint to his cattle; his glance, accustomed
to rest on things very near the earth, seemed to lift itself with
difficulty to the coachman. Mail or stage coach for him belonged to the
mysterious distant system of things called "Gover'ment," which, whatever
it might be, was no business of his, any more than the most outlying
nebula or the coal-sacks of the southern hemisphere: his solar system
was the parish; the master's temper and the casualties of lambing-time
were his region of storms. He cut his bread and bacon with his
pocket-knife, and felt no bitterness except in the matter of pauper
laborers and the bad-luck that sent contrarious seasons and the
sheep-rot. He and his cows were soon left behind, and the homestead,
too, with its pond overhung by elder-trees, its untidy kitchen-garden
and cone-shaped yew-tree arbor. But everywhere the bushy hedgerows
wasted the land with their straggling beauty, shrouded the grassy
borders of the pastures with catkined hazels, and tossed their long
blackberry branches on the corn-fields. Perhaps they were white with
May, or starred with pale pink dog-roses; perhaps the urchins were
already nutting among them, or gathering the plenteous crabs. It was
worth the journey only to see those hedgerows, the liberal homes of
unmarketable beauty--of the purple blossomed, ruby-berried nightshade,
of the wild convolvulus climbing and spreading in tendriled strength
till it made a great curtain of pale-green hearts and white trumpets, of
the many-tubed honey-suckle which, in its most delicate fragrance, hid a
charm more subtle and penetrating than beauty. Even if it were winter,
the hedgerows showed their coral, the scarlet haws, the deep-crimson
hips, with lingering brown leaves to make a resting-place for the jewels
of the hoar-frost. Such hedgerows were often as tall as the laborers'
cottages dotted along the lanes, or clustered into a small hamlet, their
little dingy windows telling, like thick-filmed eyes, of nothing but the
darkness within. The passenger on the coach-box, bowled along above
such a hamlet, saw chiefly the roofs of it: probably it turned its back
on the road, and seemed to lie away from everything but its own patch of
earth and sky, away from the parish church by long fields and green
lanes, away from all intercourse except that of tramps. If its face
could be seen, it was most likely dirty; but the dirt was Protestant
dirt, and the big, bold, gin-breathing tramps were Protestant tramps.
There was no sign of superstition near, no crucifix or image to indicate
a misguided reverence: the inhabitants were probably so free from
superstition that they were in much less awe of the parson than of the
overseer. Yet they were saved from the excess of Protestantism by not
knowing how to read, and by the absence of handlooms and mines to be the
pioneers of Dissent: they were kept safely in the _via media_ of
indifference, and could have registered themselves in the census by a
big black mark as members of the Church of England.

But there were trim cheerful villages too, with a neat or handsome
parsonage and gray church set in the midst; there was the pleasant
tinkle of the blacksmith's anvil, the patient cart horses waiting at his
door; the basket-maker peeling his willow wands in the sunshine; the
wheelwright putting his last touch to a blue cart with red wheels; here
and there a cottage with bright transparent windows showing pots full of
blooming balsams or geraniums, and little gardens in front all double
daisies or dark wallflowers; at the well, clean and comely women
carrying yoked buckets, and toward the free school small Britons
dawdling on, and handling their marbles in the pockets of unpatched
corduroys adorned with brass buttons. The land around was rich and
marly, great corn-stacks stood in the rick-yards--for the rick-burners
had not found their way hither; the homesteads were those of rich
farmers who paid no rent, or had the rare advantage of a lease, and
could afford to keep the corn till prices had risen. The coach would be
sure to overtake some of them on their way to their outlying fields or
to the market-town, sitting heavily on their well-groomed horses, or
weighing down one side of an olive-green gig. They probably thought of
the coach with some contempt, as an accommodation for people who had not
their own gigs, or who, wanting to travel to London and such distant
places, belonged to the trading and less solid part of the nation. The
passenger on the box could see that this was the district of protuberant
optimists, sure that old England was the best of all possible countries,
and that if there were any facts which had not fallen under their own
observation, they were facts not worth observing: the district of clean
little market-towns without manufactures, of fat livings, an
aristocratic clergy, and low poor-rates. But as the day wore on the
scene would change: the land would begin to be blackened with coal-pits,
the rattle of handlooms to be heard in hamlets and villages. Here were
powerful men walking queerly with knees bent outward from squatting in
the mine, going home to throw themselves down in their blackened flannel
and sleep through the daylight, then rise and spend much of their high
wages at the ale-house with their fellows of the Benefit Club; here the
pale eager faces of the handloom-weavers, men and women, haggard from
sitting up late at night to finish the week's work, hardly begun till
the Wednesday. Everywhere the cottages and the small children were
dirty, for the languid mothers gave their strength to the loom; pious
Dissenting women, perhaps, who took life patiently, and thought that
salvation depended chiefly on predestination, and not at all on
cleanliness. The gables of Dissenting chapels now made a visible sign of
religion, and of a meeting-place to counterbalance the ale-house, even
in the hamlets; but if a couple of old termagants were seen tearing each
other's caps, it was a safe conclusion that, if they had not received
the sacraments of the Church, they had not at least given in to
schismatic rites, and were free from the errors of Voluntaryism. The
breath of the manufacturing town, which made a cloudy day and a red
gloom by night on the horizon, diffused itself over all the surrounding
country, filling the air with eager unrest. Here was a population not
convinced that old England was as good as possible; here were
multitudinous men and women aware that their religion was not exactly
the religion of their rulers, who might therefore be better than they
were, and who, if better, might alter many things which now made the
world perhaps more painful than it need be, and certainly more sinful.
Yet there were the gray steeples too, and the churchyards, with their
grassy mounds and venerable headstones, sleeping in the sunlight; there
were broad fields and homesteads, and fine old woods covering a rising
ground, or stretching far by the roadside, allowing only peeps at the
park and mansion which they shut in from the working-day world. In these
midland districts the traveller passed rapidly from one phase of English
life to another: after looking down on a village dingy with coal-dust,
noisy with the shaking of looms, he might skirt a parish all of fields,
high hedges, and deep rutted lanes; after the coach had rattled over the
pavement of a manufacturing town, the scenes of riots and trades-union
meetings, it would take him in another ten minutes into a rural region,
where the neighborhood of the town was only felt in the advantages of a
near market for corn, cheese, and hay, and where men with a considerable
banking account were accustomed to say that "they never meddled with
politics themselves." The busy scenes of the shuttle and the wheel, of
the roaring furnace, of the shaft and the pulley, seemed to make but
crowded nests in the midst of the large-spaced, slow-moving life of
homesteads and far-away cottages and oak-sheltered parks. Looking at the
dwellings scattered amongst the woody flats and the plowed uplands,
under the low gray sky which overhung them with an unchanging stillness
as if Time itself were pausing, it was easy for the traveller to
conceive that town and country had no pulse in common, except where the
handlooms made a far-reaching straggling fringe about the great centres
of manufacture; that till the agitation about the Catholics in '29,
rural Englishmen had hardly known more of Catholics than of the fossil
mammals; and that their notion of Reform was a confused combination of
rick-burners, trades-unions, Nottingham riots, and in general whatever
required the calling out of the yeomanry. It was still easier to see
that, for the most part, they resisted the rotation of crops and stood
by their fallows: and the coachman would perhaps tell how in one parish
an innovating farmer, who talked of Sir Humphrey Davy, had been fairly
driven out by popular dislike, as if he had been a confounded Radical;
and how, the parson having one Sunday preached from the words, "Break up
your fallow-ground," the people thought he had made the text out of his
own head, otherwise it would never have come "so pat" on a matter of
business; but when they found it in the Bible at home, some said it was
an argument for fallows (else why should the Bible mention fallows?),
but a few of the weaker sort were shaken, and thought it was an argument
that fallows should be done away with, else the Bible would have said,
"Let your fallows lie"; and the next morning the parson had a stroke of
apoplexy, which, as coincident with a dispute about fallows, so set the
parish against the innovating farmer and the rotation of crops, that he
could stand his ground no longer, and transferred his lease.

The coachman was an excellent travelling companion and commentator on
the landscape: he could tell the names of sites and persons, and explain
the meaning of groups, as well as the shade of Virgil in a more
memorable journey; he had as many stories about parishes, and the men
and women in them, as the Wanderer in the "Excursion," only his style
was different. His view of life had originally been genial, such as
became a man who was well warmed within and without, and held a position
of easy, undisputed authority; but the recent initiation of railways had
embittered him: he now, as in a perpetual vision, saw the ruined country
strewn with shattered limbs, and regarded Mr. Huskisson's death as a
proof of God's anger against Stephenson. "Why, every inn on the road
would be shut up!" and at that word the coachman looked before him with
the blank gaze of one who had driven his coach to the outermost edge of
the universe, and saw his leaders plunging into the abyss. Still he
would soon relapse from the high prophetic strain to the familiar one of
narrative. He knew whose the land was wherever he drove; what noblemen
had half-ruined themselves by gambling; who made handsome returns of
rent; and who was at daggers-drawn with his eldest son. He perhaps
remembered the fathers of actual baronets, and knew stories of their
extravagant or stingy housekeeping; whom they had married, whom they had
horsewhipped, whether they were particular about preserving their game,
and whether they had had much to do with canal companies. About any
actual landed proprietor he could also tell whether he was a Reformer or
an Anti-Reformer. That was a distinction which had "turned up" in latter
times, and along with it the paradox, very puzzling to the coachman's
mind, that there were men of old family and large estate who voted for
the Bill. He did not grapple with the paradox; he let it pass, with all
the discreetness of an experienced theologian or learned scholiast,
preferring to point his whip at some object which could raise no
questions.

No such paradox troubled our coachman when, leaving the town of Treby
Magna behind him, he drove between the hedges for a mile or so, crossed
the queer long bridge over the river Lapp, and then put his horses to a
swift gallop up the hill by the low-nestled village of Little Treby,
till they were on the fine level road, skirted on one side by grand
larches, oaks, and wych elms, which sometimes opened so far as to let
the traveller see that there was a park behind them.

How many times in the year, as the coach rolled past the
neglected-looking lodges which interrupted the screen of trees, and
showed the river winding through a finely-timbered park, had the
coachman answered the same questions, or told the same things without
being questioned! That?--oh, that was Transome Court, a place there had
been a fine sight of lawsuits about. Generations back, the heir of the
Transome name had somehow bargained away the estate, and it fell to the
Durfeys, very distant connections, who only called themselves Transomes
because they had got the estate. But the Durfeys' claim had been
disputed over and over again; and the coachman, if he had been asked,
would have said, though he might have to fall down dead the next minute,
that property didn't always get into the right hands. However, the
lawyers had found their luck in it; and people who inherited estates
that were lawed about often lived in them as poorly as a mouse in a
hollow cheese; and, by what he could make out, that had been the way
with these present Durfeys, or Transomes, as they called themselves. As
for Mr. Transome, he was as poor, half-witted a fellow as you'd wish to
see; but _she_ was master, had come of a high family, and had a
spirit--you might see it in her eye and the way she sat her horse. Forty
years ago, when she came into this country, they said she was a pictur';
but her family was poor, and so she took up with a hatchet-faced fellow
like this Transome. And the eldest son had been just such another as his
father, only worse--a wild sort of half-natural, who got into bad
company. They said his mother hated him and wished him dead; for she'd
got another son, quite of a different cut, who had gone to foreign parts
when he was a youngster, and she wanted her favorite to be heir. But
heir or no heir, Lawyer Jermyn had had _his_ picking out of the estate.
Not a door in his big house but what was the finest polished oak, all
got off the Transome estate. If anybody liked to believe he paid for it,
they were welcome. However, Lawyer Jermyn had sat on that box-seat many
and many a time. He had made the wills of most people thereabout. The
coachman would not say that Lawyer Jermyn was not the man he would
choose to make his own will some day. It was not so well for a lawyer to
be over-honest, else he might not be up to other people's tricks. And as
for the Transome business, there had been ins and outs in time gone by,
so that you couldn't look into it straight backward. At this Mr. Sampson
(everybody in North Loamshire knew Sampson's coach) would screw his
features into a grimace expressive of entire neutrality, and appear to
aim his whip at a particular spot on the horse's flank. If the passenger
was curious for further knowledge concerning the Transome affairs,
Sampson would shake his head and say there had been fine stories in his
time; but he never condescended to state what the stories were. Some
attributed this reticence to a wise incredulity, others to a want of
memory, others to simple ignorance. But at least Sampson was right in
saying that there had been fine stories--meaning, ironically, stories
not altogether creditable to the parties concerned.

And such stories often come to be fine in a sense that is not ironical.
For there is seldom any wrong-doing which does not carry along with it
some downfall of blindly-climbing hopes, some hard entail of suffering,
some quickly-satiated desire that survives, with the life in death of
old paralytic vice, to see itself cursed by its woeful progeny--some
tragic mark of kinship in the one brief life to the far-stretching life
that went before, and to the life that is to come after, such as has
raised the pity and terror of men ever since they began to discern
between will and destiny. But these things are often unknown to the
world; for there is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations
that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying
existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of
murder; robberies that leave man or woman forever beggared of peace and
joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer--committed to no sound except that
of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the
face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears.
Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into
no human ear.

The poets have told us of a dolorous enchanted forest in the under
world. The thorn-bushes there, and the thick-barked stems, have human
histories hidden in them; the power of unuttered cries dwells in the
passionless-seeming branches, and the red warm blood is darkly feeding
the quivering nerves of a sleepless memory that watches through all
dreams. These things are a parable.




CHAPTER I.

    He left me when the down upon his lip
    Lay like the shadow of a hovering kiss.
    "Beautiful mother, do not grieve," he said;
    "I will be great, and build our fortunes high.
    And you shall wear the longest train at court,
    And look so queenly, all the lords shall say,
    'She is a royal changeling: there is some crown
    Lacks the right head, since hers wears naught but braids.'"
    O, he is coming now--but I am gray:
    And he----


On the first of September, in the memorable year 1832, some one was
expected at Transome Court. As early as two o'clock in the afternoon the
aged lodge-keeper had opened the heavy gate, green as the tree trunks
were green with nature's powdery paint, deposited year after year.
Already in the village of Little Treby, which lay on the side of a steep
hill not far off the lodge-gates, the elder matrons sat in their best
gowns at the few cottage doors bordering the road, that they might be
ready to get up and make their courtesy when a travelling carriage
should come in sight; and beyond the village several small boys were
stationed on the look-out, intending to run a race to the barn-like old
church, where the sexton waited in the belfry ready to set the one bell
in joyful agitation just at the right moment.

The old lodge-keeper had opened the gate and left it in the charge of
his lame wife, because he was wanted at the Court to sweep away the
leaves, and perhaps to help in the stables. For though Transome Court
was a large mansion, built in the fashion of Queen Anne's time, with a
park and grounds as fine as any to be seen in Loamshire, there were very
few servants about it. Especially, it seemed, there must be a lack of
gardeners; for, except on the terrace surrounded with a stone parapet in
front of the house, where there was a parterre, kept with some neatness,
grass had spread itself over the gravel walks, and over all the low
mounds once carefully cut as black beds for the shrubs and larger
plants. Many of the windows had the shutters closed, and under the grand
Scotch fir that stooped toward one corner, the brown fir-needles of many
years lay in a small stone balcony in front of two such darkened
windows. All round, both near and far, there were grand trees,
motionless in the still sunshine, and, like all large motionless things,
seemed to add to the stillness. Here and there a leaf fluttered down;
petals fell in a silent shower; a heavy moth fluttered by, and, when it
settled, seemed to fall wearily; the tiny birds alighted on the walks,
and hopped about in perfect tranquillity; even a stray rabbit sat
nibbling a leaf that was to its liking, in the middle of a grassy space,
with an air that seemed quite impudent in so timid a creature. No sound
was to be heard louder than a sleepy hum, and the soft monotony of
running water hurrying on to the river that divided the park. Standing
on the south or east side of the house, you would never have guessed
that an arrival was expected.

But on the west side, where the carriage entrance was, the gates under
the stone archway were thrown open; and so was the double door of the
entrance-hall, letting in the warm light on the scagliola pillars, the
marble statues, and the broad stone staircase, with its matting worn
into large holes. And, stronger sign of expectation than all, from one
of the doors that surrounded the entrance-hall, there came forth from
time to time a lady, who walked lightly over the polished stone floor,
and stood on the door-steps and watched and listened. She walked
lightly, for her figure was slim and finely formed, though she was
between fifty and sixty. She was a tall, proud-looking woman, with
abundant gray hair, dark eyes and eyebrows, and a somewhat eagle-like
yet not unfeminine face. Her tight-fitting black dress was much worn;
the fine lace of her cuffs and collar, and of the small veil that fell
backward over her high comb, was visibly mended; but rare jewels flashed
on her hands, which lay on her folded black-clad arms like finely-cut
onyx cameos.

Meantime Mrs. Transome went to the door-steps, watching and listening in
vain. Each time she returned to the same room; it was a moderate-sized
comfortable room, with low ebony bookshelves round it, and it formed an
ante-room to a large library, of which a glimpse could be seen through
an open doorway, partly obstructed by a heavy tapestry curtain drawn on
one side. There was a great deal of tarnished gilding and dinginess on
the walls and furniture of this smaller room, but the pictures above the
bookcases were all of a cheerful kind: portraits in pastel of
pearly-skinned ladies with hair-powder, blue ribbons, and low bodices; a
splendid portrait in oils of a Transome in the gorgeous dress of the
Restoration; another of a Transome in his boyhood, with his hand on the
neck of a small pony; and a large Flemish battle-piece, where war seemed
only a picturesque blue-and-red accident in a vast sunny expanse of
plain and sky. Probably such cheerful pictures had been chosen because
this was Mrs. Transome's usual sitting-room: it was certainly for this
reason that, near the chair in which she seated herself each time she
re-entered, there hung a picture of a youthful face which bore a strong
resemblance to her own: a beardless but masculine face, with rich brown
hair hanging low on the forehead, and undulating beside each cheek down
to the loose white cravat. Near this same chair were her writing table,
with vellum-covered account-books on it, the cabinet in which she kept
her neatly-arranged drugs, her basket for her embroidery, a folio volume
of architectural engravings from which she took her embroidery-patterns,
a number of the "North Loamshire Herald," and the cushion for her fat
Blenheim, which was too old and sleepy to notice its mistress's
restlessness. For, just now, Mrs. Transome could not abridge the sunny
tedium of the day by the feeble interest of her usual indoor
occupations. Her consciousness was absorbed by memories and prospects,
and except that she walked to the entrance-door to look out, she sat
motionless with folded arms, involuntarily from time to time turning
toward the portrait close by her, and as often, when its young brown
eyes met hers, turning away again with self-checking resolution.

At last, prompted by some sudden thought or by some sound, she rose and
went hastily beyond the tapestry curtain into the library. She paused
near the door without speaking: apparently she only wished to see that
no harm was being done. A man nearer seventy than sixty was in the act
of ranging on a large library-table a series of shallow drawers, some of
them containing dried insects, others mineralogical specimens. His pale
mild eyes, receding lower jaw, and slight frame, could never have
expressed much vigor, either bodily or mental; but he had now the
unevenness of gait and feebleness of gesture which tell of a past
paralytic seizure. His threadbare clothes were thoroughly brushed: his
soft white hair was carefully parted and arranged: he was not a
neglected-looking old man; and at his side a fine black retriever, also
old, sat on its haunches, and watched him as he went to and fro. But
when Mrs. Transome appeared within the doorway, her husband paused in
his work and shrank like a timid animal looked at in a cage where flight
was impossible. He was conscious of a troublesome intention, for which
he had been rebuked before--that of disturbing all his specimens with a
view to a new arrangement.

After an interval, in which his wife stood perfectly still, observing
him, he began to put back the drawers in their places in the row of
cabinets which extended under the bookshelves at one end of the
library. When they were all put back and closed, Mrs. Transome turned
away, and the frightened old man seated himself with Nimrod the
retriever on an ottoman. Peeping at him again, a few minutes after, she
saw that he had his arm round Nimrod's neck, and was uttering his
thoughts to the dog in a loud whisper, as little children do to any
object near them when they believe themselves unwatched.

At last the sound of the church-bell reached Mrs. Transome's ear, and
she knew that before long the sound of wheels must be within hearing;
but she did not at once start up and walk to the entrance-door. She sat
still, quivering and listening; her lips became pale, her hands were
cold and trembling. Was her son really coming? She was far beyond fifty;
and since her early gladness in this best-loved boy, the harvest of her
life had been scanty. Could it be that now--when her hair was gray, when
sight had become one of the day's fatigues, when her young
accomplishments seemed almost ludicrous, like the tone of her first
harpsichord and the words of the song long browned with age--she was
going to reap an assured joy? to feel that the doubtful deeds of her
life were justified by the result, since a kind Providence had
sanctioned them?--to be no longer tacitly pitied by her neighbors for
her lack of money, her imbecile husband, her graceless eldest-born, and
the loneliness of her life; but to have at her side a rich, clever,
possibly a tender, son? Yes; but there were the fifteen years of
separation, and all that had happened in that long time to throw her
into the background of her son's memory and affection. And yet--did not
men sometimes become more filial in their feeling when experience had
mellowed them, and they had themselves become fathers? Still, if Mrs.
Transome had expected only her son, she would have trembled less; she
expected a little grandson also: and there were reasons why she had not
been enraptured when her son had written to her only when he was on the
eve of returning that he already had an heir born to him.

But the facts must be accepted as they stood, and, after all, the chief
thing was to have her son back again. Such pride, such affection, such
hopes as she cherished in this fifty-sixth year of her life, must find
their gratification in him--or nowhere. Once more she glanced at the
portrait. The young brown eyes seemed to dwell on her pleasantly; but,
turning from it with a sort of impatience, and saying aloud, "Of course
he will be altered!" she rose almost with difficulty, and walked more
slowly than before across the hall to the entrance-door.

Already the sound of wheels was loud upon the gravel. The momentary
surprise of seeing that it was only a post-chaise, without a servant or
much luggage, that was passing under the stone archway and then wheeling
round against the flight of stone steps, was at once merged in the sense
that there was a dark face under a red travelling-cap looking at her
from the window. She saw nothing else; she was not even conscious that
the small group of her own servants had mustered, or that old Hickes the
butler had come forward to open the chaise door. She heard herself
called "Mother!" and felt a light kiss on each cheek; but stronger than
all that sensation was the consciousness which no previous thought could
prepare her for, that this son who had come back to her was a stranger.
Three minutes before, she had fancied that, in spite of all changes
wrought by fifteen years of separation, she should clasp her son again
as she had done at their parting; but in the moment when their eyes met,
the sense of strangeness came upon her like a terror. It was not hard to
understand that she was agitated, and the son led her across the hall to
the sitting-room, closing the door behind them. Then he turned toward
her and said, smiling--

"You would not have known me, eh, mother?"

It was perhaps the truth. If she had seen him in a crowd, she might have
looked at him without recognition--not, however, without startled
wonder; for though the likeness to herself was no longer striking, the
years had overlaid it with another likeness which would have arrested
her. Before she answered him, his eyes, with a keen restlessness, as
unlike as possible to the lingering gaze of the portrait, had travelled
quickly over the room, alighting on her as she said--

"Everything is changed, Harold. I am an old woman, you see."

"But straighter and more upright than some of the young ones!" said
Harold; inwardly, however, feeling that age had made his mother's face
very anxious and eager. "The old women at Smyrna are like sacks. You've
not got clumsy and shapeless. How is it I have the trick of getting
fat?" (Here Harold lifted his arm and spread out his plump hand.) "I
remember my father was as thin as a herring. How is my father? Where is
he?"

Mrs. Transome just pointed to the curtained doorway, and let her son
pass through it alone. She was not given to tears: but now, under the
pressure of emotion that could find no other vent, they burst forth. She
took care that they should be silent tears, and before Harold came out
of the library again they were dried. Mrs. Transome had not the feminine
tendency to seek influence through pathos; she had been used to rule in
virtue of acknowledged superiority. The consciousness that she had to
make her son's acquaintance, and that her knowledge of the youth of
nineteen might help her little in interpreting the man of thirty-four,
had fallen like lead on her soul; but in this new acquaintance of theirs
she cared especially that her son, who had seen a strange world, should
feel that he was come home to a mother who was to be consulted on all
things, and who could supply his lack of the local experience necessary
to an English landholder. Her part in life had been that of the clever
sinner, and she was equipped with the views, the reasons, and the habits
which belonged to that character; life would have little meaning for her
if she were to be gently thrust aside as a harmless elderly woman. And
besides, there were secrets which her son must never know. So, by the
time Harold came from the library again, the traces of tears were not
discernible, except to a very careful observer. And he did not observe
his mother carefully; his eyes only glanced at her on their way to the
_North Loamshire Herald_, lying on the table near her, which he took up
with his left hand, as he said--

"Gad! what a wreck poor father is! Paralysis, eh? Terribly shrunk and
shaken--crawls about among his books and beetles as usual, though. Well,
it's a slow and easy death. But he's not much over sixty-five, is he?"

"Sixty-seven, counting by birthdays; but your father was born old, I
think," said Mrs. Transome, a little flushed with the determination not
to show any unasked for feeling. Her son did not notice her. All the
time he had been speaking his eyes had been running down the columns of
the newspaper.

"But your little boy, Harold--where is he? How is it he has not come
with you?"

"Oh, I left him behind, in town," said Harold, still looking at the
paper. "My man Dominic will bring him, with the rest of the luggage. Ah,
I see it is young Debarry, and not my old friend Sir Maximus, who is
offering himself as candidate for North Loamshire."

"Yes. You did not answer me when I wrote to you to London about your
standing. There is no other Tory candidate spoken of, and you would
have all the Debarry interest."

"I hardly think that," said Harold, significantly.

"Why? Jermyn says a Tory candidate can never be got in without it."

"But I shall not be a Tory candidate."

Mrs. Transome felt something like an electric shock.

"What then?" she said, almost sharply. "You will not call yourself a
Whig?"

"God forbid! I'm a Radical."

Mrs. Transome's limbs tottered; she sank into a chair. Here was a
distinct confirmation of the vague but strong feeling that her son was a
stranger to her. Here was a revelation to which it seemed almost as
impossible to adjust her hopes and notions of a dignified life as if her
son had said that he had been converted to Mahometanism at Smyrna, and
had four wives, instead of one son, shortly to arrive under the care of
Dominic. For the moment she had a sickening feeling that it was of no
use that the long-delayed good fortune had come at last--all of no use
though the unloved Durfey was dead and buried, and though Harold had
come home with plenty of money. There were rich Radicals, she was aware,
as there were rich Jews and Dissenters, but she had never thought of
them as county people. Sir Francis Burdett had been generally regarded
as a madman. It was better to ask no questions, but silently to prepare
herself for anything else there might be to come.

"Will you go to your rooms, Harold, and see if there is anything you
would like to have altered?"

"Yes, let us go," said Harold, throwing down the newspaper, in which he
had been rapidly reading almost every advertisement while his mother had
been going through her sharp inward struggle. "Uncle Lingon is on the
bench still, I see," he went on, as he followed her across the hall; "is
he at home--will he be here this evening?"

"He says you must go to the rectory when you want to see him. You must
remember you have come back to a family with old-fashioned notions. Your
uncle thought I ought to have you to myself in the first hour or two. He
remembered that I had not seen my son for fifteen years."

"Ah, by Jove! fifteen years--so it is!" said Harold, taking his mother's
hand and drawing it under his arm; for he had perceived that her words
were charged with an intention. "And you are as straight as an arrow
still; you will carry the shawls I have brought you as well as ever."

They walked up the broad stone steps together in silence. Under the
shock of discovering her son's Radicalism, Mrs. Transome had no impulse
to say one thing rather than another; as in a man who had just been
branded on the forehead all wonted motives would be uprooted. Harold, on
his side, had no wish opposed to filial kindness, but his busy thoughts
were determined by habits which had no reference to any woman's
feelings; and even if he could have conceived what his mother's feeling
was, his mind, after that momentary arrest, would have darted forward on
its usual course.

"I have given you the south rooms, Harold," said Mrs. Transome, as they
passed along a corridor lit from above and lined with old family
pictures. "I thought they would suit you best, as they all open into
each other, and this middle one will make a pleasant sitting-room for
you."

"Gad! the furniture is in a bad state," said Harold, glancing around at
the middle room which they had just entered; "the moths seem to have got
into the carpets and hangings."

"I had no choice except moths or tenants who would pay rent," said Mrs.
Transome. "We have been too poor to keep servants for uninhabited
rooms."

"What! you've been rather pinched, eh?"

"You find us living as we have been living these twelve years."

"Ah, you've had Durfey's debts as well as the lawsuits--confound them!
It will make a hole in sixty thousand pounds to pay off the mortgages.
However, he's gone now, poor fellow; and I suppose I should have spent
more in buying an English estate some time or other. I always meant to
be an Englishman, and thrash a lord or two who thrashed me at Eton."

"I hardly thought you could have meant that, Harold, when I found you
had married a foreign wife."

"Would you have had me wait for a consumptive lackadaisical
Englishwoman, who would have hung all her relations around my neck? I
hate English wives; they want to give their opinion about everything.
They interfere with a man's life. I shall not marry again."

Mrs. Transome bit her lip, and turned away to draw up a blind. She would
not reply to words which showed how completely any conception of herself
and her feelings was excluded from her son's inward world.

As she turned round again she said, "I suppose you have been used to
great luxury; these rooms look miserable to you, but you can soon make
any alterations you like."

"Oh, I must have a private sitting-room fitted up for myself
down-stairs. And the rest are bedrooms, I suppose," he went on, opening
a side-door. "Ah, I can sleep here a night or two. But there's a bedroom
down-stairs, with an ante-room, I remember, that would do for my man
Dominic and the little boy. I should like to have that."

"Your father has slept there for years. He will be like a distracted
insect, and never know where to go, if you alter the track he has to
walk in."

"That's a pity. I hate going up-stairs."

"There is the steward's room: it is not used, and might be turned into a
bedroom. I can't offer you my room, for I sleep up-stairs." (Mrs.
Transome's tongue could be a whip upon occasion, but the lash had not
fallen on a sensitive spot.)

"No; I'm determined not to sleep up-stairs. We'll see about the
steward's room to-morrow, and I dare say I shall find a closet of some
sort for Dominic. It's a nuisance he had to stay behind, for I shall
have nobody to cook for me. Ah, there's the old river I used to fish in.
I often thought, when I was at Smyrna, that I would buy a park with a
river through it as much like the Lapp as possible. Gad, what fine oaks
those are opposite! Some of them must come down, though."

"I've held every tree sacred on the demesne, as I told you, Harold. I
trusted to your getting the estate some time, and releasing it; and I
determined to keep it worth releasing. A park without fine timber is no
better than a beauty without teeth and hair."

"Bravo, mother!" said Harold, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Ah,
you've had to worry yourself about things that don't properly belong to
a woman--my father being weakly. We'll set all that right. You shall
have nothing to do now but to be grandmamma on satin cushions."

"You must excuse me from the satin cushions. That is a part of the old
woman's duty I am not prepared for. I am used to be chief bailiff, and
to sit in the saddle two or three hours every day. There are two farms
on our hands besides the Home Farm."

"Phew-ew! Jermyn manages the estate badly, then. That will not last
under _my_ reign," said Harold, turning on his heel and feeling in his
pockets for the keys of his portmanteaus, which had been brought up.

"Perhaps when you've been in England a little longer," said Mrs.
Transome, coloring as if she had been a girl, "you will understand
better the difficulty there is in letting farms these times."

"I understand the difficulty perfectly, mother. To let farms, a man must
have the sense to see what will make them inviting to farmers, and to
get sense supplied on demand is just the most difficult transaction I
know of. I suppose if I ring there's some fellow who can act as valet
and learn to attend to my hookah?"

"There is Hickes the butler, and there is Jabez the footman; those are
all the men in the house. They were here when you left."

"Oh, I remember Jabez--he was a dolt. I'll have old Hickes. He was a
neat little machine of a butler; his words used to come like the clicks
of an engine. He must be an old machine now, though."

"You seem to remember some things about home wonderfully well, Harold."

"Never forget places and people--how they look and what can be done with
them. All the country round here lies like a map in my brain. A deuced
pretty country too; but the people were a stupid set of old Whigs and
Tories. I suppose they are much as they were."

"I am, at least, Harold. You are the first of your family that ever
talked of being a Radical. I did not think I was taking care of our old
oaks for that. I always thought Radicals' houses stood staring above
poor sticks of young trees and iron hurdles."

"Yes, but the Radical sticks are growing, mother, and half the Tory oaks
are rotting," said Harold, with gay carelessness. "You've arranged for
Jermyn to be early to-morrow?"

"He will be here to breakfast at nine. But I leave you to Hickes now; we
dine in an hour."

Mrs. Transome went away and shut herself in her own dressing-room. It
had come to pass now--this meeting with the son who had been the object
of so much longing; whom she had longed for before he was born, for whom
she had sinned, from whom she had wrenched herself with pain at their
parting, and whose coming again had been the one great hope of her
years. The moment was gone by; there had been no ecstasy, no gladness
even; hardly half an hour had passed, and few words had been spoken,
yet with that quickness in weaving new futures which belongs to women
whose actions have kept them in habitual fear of consequences, Mrs.
Transome thought she saw with all the clearness of demonstration that
her son's return had not been a good for her in the sense of making her
any happier.

She stood before a tall mirror, going close to it and looking at her
face with hard scrutiny, as if it were unrelated to herself. No elderly
face can be handsome, looked at in that way; every little detail is
startlingly prominent, and the effect of the whole is lost. She saw the
dried-up complexion, and the deep lines of bitter discontent about the
mouth.

"I am a hag!" she said to herself (she was accustomed to give her
thoughts a very sharp outline), "an ugly old woman who happens to be his
mother. That is what he sees in me, as I see a stranger in him. I shall
count for nothing. I was foolish to expect anything else."

She turned away from the mirror and walked up and down her room.

"What a likeness!" she said, in a loud whisper; "yet, perhaps, no one
will see it besides me."

She threw herself into a chair, and sat with a fixed look, seeing
nothing that was actually present, but inwardly seeing with painful
vividness what had been present with her a little more than thirty years
ago--the little round-limbed creature that had been leaning against her
knees, and stamping tiny feet, and looking up at her with gurgling
laughter. She had thought that the possession of this child would give
unity to her life, and make some gladness through the changing years
that would grow as fruit out of these early maternal caresses. But
nothing had come just as she had wished. The mother's early raptures had
lasted but a short time, and even while they lasted there had grown up
in the midst of them a hungry desire, like a black poisonous plant
feeding in the sunlight,--the desire that her first, rickety, ugly,
imbecile child should die, and leave room for her darling, of whom she
could be proud. Such desires make life a hideous lottery, where everyday
may turn up a blank; where men and women who have the softest beds and
the most delicate eating, who have a very large share of that sky and
earth which some are born to have no more of than the fraction to be got
in a crowded entry, yet grow haggard, fevered, and restless, like those
who watch in other lotteries. Day after day, year after year, had
yielded blanks; new cares had come, bringing other desires for results
quite beyond her grasp, which must also be watched for in the lottery;
and all the while the round-limbed pet had been growing into a strong
youth, who liked many things better than his mother's caresses, and who
had a much keener consciousness of his independent existence than of his
relation to her: the lizard's egg, that white rounded passive
prettiness, had become a brown, darting, determined lizard. The mother's
love is at first an absorbing delight, blunting all other sensibilities;
it is an expansion of the animal existence; it enlarges the imagined
range for self to move in: but in after years it can only continue to be
joy on the same terms as other long-lived love--that is, by much
suppression of self, and power of living in the experience of another.
Mrs. Transome had darkly felt the pressure of that unchangeable fact.
Yet she had clung to the belief that somehow the possession of this son
was the best thing she lived for; to believe otherwise would have made
her memory too ghastly a companion. Some time or other, by some means,
the estate she was struggling to save from the grasp of the law would be
Harold's. Somehow the hated Durfey, the imbecile eldest, who seemed to
have become tenacious of a despicable squandering life, would be got rid
of; vice might kill him. Meanwhile the estate was burdened: there was no
good prospect for any heir. Harold must go and make a career for himself
and this was what he was bent on, with a precocious clearness of
perception as to the conditions on which he could hope for any
advantages in life. Like most energetic natures, he had a strong faith
in his luck; he had been gay at their parting, and had promised to make
his fortune; and in spite of past disappointments, Harold's possible
fortune still made some ground for his mother to plant her hopes in. His
luck had not failed him; yet nothing had turned out according to her
expectations. Her life had been like a spoiled shabby pleasure-day, in
which the music and the processions are all missed, and nothing is left
at evening but the weariness of striving after what has been failed of.
Harold had gone with the Embassy to Constantinople, under the patronage
of a high relative, his mother's cousin; he was to be diplomatist, and
work his way upward in public life. But his luck had taken another
shape: he had saved the life of an Armenian banker, who in gratitude had
offered him a prospect which his practical mind had preferred to the
problematic promises of diplomacy and high-born cousinship. Harold had
become a merchant and banker at Smyrna; and let the years pass without
caring to find the possibility of visiting his early home, and had shown
no eagerness to make his life at all familiar to his mother, asking for
letters about England, but writing scantily about himself. Mrs. Transome
had kept up the habit of writing to her son, but gradually the
unfruitful years had dulled her hopes and yearnings; increasing
anxieties about money had worried her, and she was more sure of being
fretted by bad news about her dissolute eldest son than of hearing
anything to cheer her from Harold. She had begun to live merely in small
immediate cares and occupations, and like all eager-minded women who
advance in life without any activity of tenderness or any large
sympathy, she had contracted small rigid habits of thinking and acting,
she had her "ways" which must not be crossed, and had learned to fill up
the great void of life with giving small orders to tenants, insisting on
medicines for infirm cottagers, winning small triumphs in bargains and
personal economies, and parrying ill-natured remarks of Lady Debarry's
by lancet-edged epigrams. So her life had gone on till more than a year
ago, when that desire which had been so hungry when she was a blooming
young mother, was at last fulfilled--at last, when her hair was gray,
and her face looked bitter, restless, and unenjoying, like her life. The
news came from Jersey that Durfey, the imbecile son, was dead. _Now_
Harold was heir to the estate; now the wealth he had gained could
release the land from its burdens; now he would think it worth while to
return home. A change had come over her life, and the sunlight breaking
the clouds at evening was pleasant, though the sun must sink before
long. Hopes, affections, the sweeter part of her memories, started from
their wintry sleep, and it once more seemed a great good to have had a
second son who in some ways had cost her dearly. But again there were
conditions she had not reckoned on. When the good tidings had been sent
to Harold, and he had announced that he would return so soon as he could
wind up his affairs, he had for the first time informed his mother that
he had been married, that his Greek wife was no longer living, but that
he should bring home a little boy, the finest and most desirable of
heirs and grandsons. Harold seated in his distant Smyrna home considered
that he was taking a rational view of what things must have become by
this time at the old place in England, when he figured his mother as a
good elderly lady, who would necessarily be delighted with the
possession on any terms of a healthy grandchild, and would not mind
much about the particulars of a long-concealed marriage.

Mrs. Transome had torn up that letter in a rage. But in the months which
had elapsed before Harold could actually arrive, she had prepared
herself as well as she could to suppress all reproaches or queries which
her son might resent, and to acquiesce in his evident wishes. The return
was still looked for with longing; affection and satisfied pride would
again warm her later years. She was ignorant what sort of man Harold had
become now, and of course he must be changed in many ways; but though
she told herself this, still the image that she knew, the image fondness
clung to, necessarily prevailed over the negatives insisted on by her
reason.

And so it was, that when she had moved to the door to meet him, she had
been sure that she should clasp her son again, and feel that he was the
same who had been her boy, her little one, the loved child of her
passionate youth. An hour seemed to have changed everything for her. A
woman's hopes are woven of sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them. The
shadow which had fallen over Mrs. Transome in this first interview with
her son was the presentiment of her powerlessness. If things went wrong,
if Harold got unpleasantly disposed in a certain direction where her
chief dread had always lain, she seemed to foresee that her words would
be of no avail. The keenness of her anxiety in this matter had served as
insight; and Harold's rapidity, decision, and indifference to any
impressions in others, which did not further or impede his own purposes,
had made themselves felt by her as much as she would have felt the
unmanageable strength of a great bird which had alighted near her, and
allowed her to stroke its wing for a moment because food lay near her.

Under the cold weight of these thoughts Mrs. Transome shivered. That
physical reaction roused her from her reverie, and she could now hear
the gentle knocking at the door to which she had been deaf before.
Notwithstanding her activity and the fewness of her servants, she had
never dressed herself without aid; nor would that small, neat,
exquisitely clean old woman who now presented herself have wished that
her labor should be saved at the expense of such a sacrifice on her
lady's part. The small old woman was Mrs. Hickes, the butler's wife, who
acted as housekeeper, lady's-maid, and superintendent of the
kitchen--the large stony scene of inconsiderable cooking. Forty years
ago she had entered Mrs. Transome's service, when that lady was
beautiful Miss Lingon, and her mistress still called her Denner, as she
had done in the old days.

"The bell has rung, then, Denner, without my hearing it?" said Mrs.
Transome, rising.

"Yes, madam," said Denner, reaching from a wardrobe an old black velvet
dress trimmed with much-mended point, in which Mrs. Transome was wont to
look queenly of an evening.

Denner had still strong eyes of that short-sighted kind which sees
through the narrowest chink between the eyelashes. The physical contrast
between the tall, eagle-faced, dark-eyed lady, and the little peering
waiting woman, who had been round-featured and of pale mealy complexion
from her youth up, had doubtless had a strong influence in determining
Denner's feeling toward her mistress, which was of that worshipful sort
paid to a goddess in ages when it was not thought necessary or likely
that a goddess should be very moral. There were different orders of
beings--so ran Denner's creed--and she belonged to another order than
that to which her mistress belonged. She had a mind as sharp as a
needle, and would have seen through and through the ridiculous
pretensions of a born servant who did not submissively accept the rigid
fate which had given her born superiors. She would have called such
pretensions the wrigglings of a worm that tried to walk on its tail.
There was a tacit understanding that Denner knew all her mistress's
secrets, and her speech was plain and unflattering; yet with wonderful
subtlety of instinct she never said anything which Mrs. Transome could
feel humiliated by, as by familiarity from a servant who knew too much.
Denner identified her own dignity with that of her mistress. She was a
hard-headed godless little woman, but with a character to be reckoned on
as you reckon on the qualities of iron.

Peering into Mrs. Transome's face she saw clearly that the meeting with
the son had been a disappointment in some way. She spoke with a refined
accent, in a low quick, monotonous tone--

"Mr. Harold is dressed; he shook me by the hand in the corridor, and was
very pleasant."

"What an alteration, Denner! No likeness to me now."

"Handsome, though, spite of his being so browned and stout. There's a
fine presence about Mr. Harold. I remember you used to say, madam, there
were some people you would always know were in the room though they
stood round a corner, and others you might never see till you ran
against them. That's as true as truth. And as for likenesses,
thirty-five and sixty are not much alike, only to people's memories."

Mrs. Transome knew perfectly that Denner had divined her thoughts.

"I don't know how things will go on now, but it seems something too good
to happen that they will go on well. I am afraid of ever expecting
anything good again."

"That's weakness, madam. Things don't happen because they're bad or
good, else all eggs would be addled or none at all, and at the most it
is but six to the dozen. There's good chances and bad chances, and
nobody's luck is pulled only by one string."

"What a woman you are, Denner! You talk like a French infidel. It seems
to me you are afraid of nothing. I have been full of fears all my
life--always seeing something or other hanging over me that I couldn't
bear to happen."

"Well, madam, put a good face on it, and don't seem to be on the look-out
for crows, else you'll set other people watching. Here you have a rich
son come home, and the debts will all be paid, and you have your health
and can ride about, and you've such a face and figure, and will have if
you live to be eighty, that everybody is cap in hand to you before they
know you who are; let me fasten up your veil a little higher: there's a
good deal of pleasure in life for you yet."

"Nonsense! there's no pleasure for old women, unless they get it out of
tormenting other people. What are your pleasures, Denner--besides being
a slave to me?"

"Oh, there's pleasure in knowing one's not a fool, like half the people
one sees about. And managing one's husband is some pleasure; and doing
all one's business well. Why, if I've only got some orange flowers to
candy, I shouldn't like to die till I see them all right. Then there's
the sunshine now and then; I like that as the cats do. I look upon it,
life is like our game at whist, when Banks and his wife come to the
still-room of an evening. I don't enjoy the game much, but I like to
play my cards well, and see what will be the end of it; and I want to
see you make the best of your hand, madam, for your luck has been mine
these forty years now. But I must go and see how Kitty dishes up the
dinner, unless you have any more commands."

"No, Denner; I am going down immediately."

As Mrs. Transome descended the stone staircase in her old black velvet
and point, her appearance justified Denner's personal compliment. She
had that high-born, imperious air which would have marked her as an
object of hatred and reviling by a revolutionary mob. Her person was too
typical of social distinctions to be passed by with indifference by any
one: it would have fitted an empress in her own right, who had had to
rule in spite of faction, to dare the violation of treaties and dread
retributive invasions, to grasp after new territories, to be defiant in
desperate circumstances, and to feel a woman's hunger of the heart
forever unsatisfied. Yet Mrs. Transome's cares and occupations had not
been at all of an imperial sort. For thirty years she had led the
monotonous, narrowing life which used to be the lot of our poorer
gentry; who never went to town, and were probably not on speaking terms
with two out of the five families whose parks lay within the distance of
a drive. When she was young she had been thought wonderfully clever and
accomplished, and had been rather ambitious of intellectual
superiority--had secretly picked out for private reading the higher
parts of dangerous French authors--and in company had been able to talk
of Mr. Burke's style, or of Chateaubriand's eloquence--had laughed at
the Lyrical Ballads, and admired Mr. Southey's Thalaba. She always
thought that the dangerous French writers were wicked and that her
reading of them was a sin; but many sinful things were highly agreeable
to her, and many things which she did not doubt to be good and true were
dull and meaningless. She found ridicule of Biblical characters very
amusing, and she was interested in stories of illicit passion; but she
believed all the while that truth and safety lay in due attendance on
prayers and sermons, in the admirable doctrines and ritual of the Church
of England, equally remote from Puritanism and Popery; in fact, in such
a view of this world and the next as would preserve the existing
arrangements of English society quite unshaken, keeping down the
obtrusiveness of the vulgar and the discontent of the poor. The history
of the Jews, she knew, ought to be preferred to any profane history; the
Pagans, of course, were vicious, and their religions quite nonsensical,
considered as religions--but classical learning came from the Pagans;
the Greeks were famous for sculpture; the Italians for painting; the
middle ages were dark and Papistical; but now Christianity went hand in
hand with civilization, and the providential government of the world,
though a little confused and entangled in foreign countries, in our
favored land was clearly seen to be carried forward on Tory and Church
of England principles, sustained by the succession of the House of
Brunswick, and by sound English divines. For Miss Lingon had had a
superior governess, who held that a woman should be able to write a good
letter, and to express herself with propriety on general subjects. And
it is astonishing how effective this education appeared in a handsome
girl, who sat supremely well on horseback, sang and played a little,
painted small figures in water-colors, had a naughty sparkle in her eyes
when she made a daring quotation, and an air of serious dignity when she
recited something from her store of correct opinions. But however such a
stock of ideas may be made to tell in elegant society, and during a few
seasons in town, no amount of bloom and beauty can make them a perennial
source of interest in things not personal; and the notion that what is
true and, in general, good for mankind, is stupid and drug-like, is not
a safe theoretic basis in circumstances of temptation and difficulty.
Mrs. Transome had been in her bloom before this century began, and in
the long painful years since then, what she had once regarded as her
knowledge and accomplishments had become as valueless as old-fashioned
stucco ornaments, of which the substance was never worth anything, while
the form is no longer to the taste of any living mortal. Crosses,
mortifications, money-cares, conscious blame-worthiness, had changed the
aspect of the world for her; there was anxiety in the morning sunlight;
there was unkind triumph or disapproving pity in the glances of greeting
neighbors; there was advancing age, and a contracting prospect in the
changing seasons as they came and went. And what could then sweeten the
days to a hungry, much-exacting self like Mrs. Transome's? Under
protracted ill every living creature will find something that makes a
comparative ease, and even when life seems woven of pain, will convert
the fainter pang into a desire. Mrs. Transome, whose imperious will had
availed little to ward off the great evils of her life, found the opiate
for her discontent in the exertion of her will about smaller things. She
was not cruel, and could not enjoy thoroughly what she called the old
woman's pleasure of tormenting; but she liked every little sign of power
her lot had left her. She liked that a tenant should stand bareheaded
below her as she sat on horseback. She liked to insist that work done
without her orders should be undone from beginning to end. She liked to
be courtesied and bowed to by all the congregation as she walked up the
little barn of a church. She liked to change a laborer's medicine
fetched from the doctor, and substitute a prescription of her own. If
she had only been more haggard and less majestic, those who had glimpses
of her outward life might have said she was a tyrannical, griping
harridan, with a tongue like a razor. No one said exactly that; but they
never said anything like the full truth about her, or divined what was
hidden under that outward life--a woman's keen sensibility and dread,
which lay screened behind all her petty habits and narrow notions, as
some quivering thing with eyes and throbbing heart may lie crouching
behind withered rubbish. The sensibility and dread had palpitated all
the faster in the prospect of her son's return; and now that she had
seen him, she said to herself, in her bitter way, "It is a lucky eel
that escapes skinning. The best happiness I shall ever know, will be to
escape the worst misery."




CHAPTER II.

    A jolly parson of the good old stock,
    By birth a gentleman, yet homely too,
    Suiting his phrase to Hodge and Margery
    Whom he once christened, and has married since,
    A little lax in doctrine and in life.
    Not thinking God was captious in such things
    As what a man might drink on holidays,
    But holding true religion was to do
    As you'd be done by--which could never mean
    That he should preach three sermons in a week.


Harold Transome did not choose to spend the whole evening with his
mother. It was his habit to compress a great deal of effective
conversation into a short space of time, asking rapidly all the
questions he wanted to get answered, and diluting no subject with
irrelevancies, paraphrase, or repetitions. He volunteered no information
about himself and his past life at Smyrna, but answered pleasantly
enough, though briefly, whenever his mother asked for any detail. He was
evidently ill-satisfied as to his palate, trying red pepper to
everything, then asking if there were any relishing sauces in the house,
and when Hickes brought various home-filled bottles, trying several,
finding them failures, and finally falling back from his plate in
despair. Yet he remained good-humored, saying something to his father
now and then for the sake of being kind, and looking on with a pitying
shrug as he saw him watch Hickes cutting his food. Mrs. Transome thought
with some bitterness that Harold showed more feeling for her feeble
husband who had never cared in the least about him, than for her, who
had given him more than the usual share of mother's love. An hour after
dinner, Harold, who had already been turning over the leaves of his
mother's account-books, said--

"I shall just cross the park to the parsonage to see my uncle Lingon."

"Very well. He can answer more questions for you."

"Yes," said Harold, quite deaf to the innuendo, and accepting the words
as a simple statement of the fact. "I want to hear all about the game
and the North Loamshire hunt. I'm fond of sport; we had a great deal of
it at Smyrna, and it keeps down my fat."

The Reverend John Lingon became very talkative over his second bottle of
port, which was opened on his nephew's arrival. He was not curious about
the manners of Smyrna, or about Harold's experience, but he unbosomed
himself very freely as to what he himself liked and disliked, which of
the farmers he suspected of killing the foxes, what game he had bagged
that very morning, what spot he would recommend as a new cover, and the
comparative flatness of all existing sport compared with cock-fighting,
under which Old England had been prosperous and glorious, while, so far
as he could see, it had gained little by the abolition of a practice
which sharpened the faculties of men, gratified the instincts of the
fowl, and carried out the designs of heaven in its admirable device of
spurs. From these main topics, which made his points of departure and
return, he rambled easily enough at any new suggestion or query; so that
when Harold got home at a late hour, he was conscious of having gathered
from amidst the pompous full-toned triviality of his uncle's chat some
impressions, which were of practical importance. Among the rector's
dislikes, it appeared, was Mr. Matthew Jermyn.

"A fat-handed, glib-tongued fellow, with a scented cambric handkerchief;
one of your educated low-bred fellows; a foundling who got his Latin for
nothing at Christ's Hospital; one of your middle-class upstarts who want
to rank with gentlemen, and think they'll do it with kid gloves and new
furniture."

But since Harold meant to stand for the county, Mr. Lingon was equally
emphatic as to the necessity of his not quarrelling with Jermyn till the
election was over. Jermyn must be his agent; Harold must wink hard till
he found himself safely returned; and even then it might be well to let
Jermyn drop gently and raise no scandal. He himself had no quarrel with
the fellow: a clergyman should have no quarrels, and he made it a point
to be able to take wine with any man he met at table. And as to the
estate, and his sister's going too much by Jermyn's advice, he never
meddled with business: it was not his duty as a clergyman. That, he
considered, was the meaning of Melchisedec and the tithe, a subject,
into which he had gone to some depth thirty years ago, when he preached
the Visitation sermon.

The discovery that Harold meant to stand on the Liberal side--nay, that
he boldly declared himself a Radical--was rather startling; but to his
uncle's good-humor, beatified by the sipping of port-wine, nothing could
seem highly objectionable, provided it did not disturb that operation.
In the course of half an hour he had brought himself to see that
anything really worthy to be called British Toryism had been entirely
extinct since the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel had passed the
Catholic Emancipation Bill; that Whiggery, with its rights of man
stopping short at ten-pound householders, and its policy of pacifying a
wild beast with a bite, was a ridiculous monstrosity; that therefore,
since an honest man could not call himself a Tory, which it was, in
fact, as impossible to be now as to fight for the old Pretender, and
could still less become that execrable monstrosity a Whig, there
remained but one course open to him. "Why, lad, if the world was turned
into a swamp, I suppose we should leave off shoes and stockings, and
walk about like cranes"--whence it followed plainly enough that, in
these hopeless times, nothing was left to men of sense and good family
but to retard the national ruin by declaring themselves Radicals, and
take the inevitable process of changing everything out of the hands of
beggarly demagogues and purse-proud tradesmen. It is true the rector was
helped to this chain of reasoning by Harold's remarks; but he soon
became quite ardent in asserting the conclusion.

"If the mob can't be turned back, a man of family must try and head the
mob, and save a few homes and hearths, and keep the country up on its
last legs as long as he can. And you're a man of family, my lad--dash
it! You're a Lingon, whatever else you may be, and I'll stand by you.
I've no great interest; I'm a poor parson. I've been forced to give up
hunting; my pointers and a glass of good wine are the only decencies
becoming my station that I can allow myself. But I'll give you my
countenance--I'll stick to you as my nephew. There's no need for me to
change sides exactly. I was born a Tory, and I shall never be a bishop.
But if anybody says you're in the wrong, I shall say, 'My nephew is in
the right; he has turned Radical to save his country. If William Pitt
had been living now he'd have done the same; for what did he say when he
was dying? Not 'Oh, save my party!' but 'Oh, save my country, heaven!'
That was what they dinned in our ears about Peel and the Duke; and now
I'll turn it round upon them. They shall be hoist with their own petard.
Yes, yes, I'll stand by you."

Harold did not feel sure that his uncle would thoroughly retain this
satisfactory thread of argument in the uninspired hours of the morning;
but the old gentleman was sure to take the facts easily in the end, and
there was no fear of family coolness or quarrelling on this side. Harold
was glad of it. He was not to be turned aside from any course he had
chosen; but he disliked all quarrelling as an unpleasant expenditure of
energy that could have no good practical result. He was at once active
and luxurious; fond of mastery, and good-natured enough to wish that
every one about him should like his mastery; not caring greatly to know
other people's thoughts, and ready to despise them as blockheads if
their thoughts differed from his, and yet solicitous that they should
have no colorable reason for slight thoughts about _him_. The blockheads
must be forced to respect him. Hence, in proportion as he foresaw his
equals in the neighborhood would be indignant with him for his political
choice, he cared keenly about making a good figure before them in every
other way. His conduct as a landholder was to be judicious, his
establishment was to be kept up generously, his imbecile father treated
with careful regard, his family relations entirely without scandal. He
knew that affairs had been unpleasant in his youth--that there had been
ugly lawsuits--and that his scapegrace brother Durfey had helped to
lower still farther the depressed condition of the family. All this must
be retrieved, now that events had made Harold the head of the Transome
name.

Jermyn must be used for the election, and after that if he must be got
rid of, it would be well to shake him loose quietly; his uncle was
probably right on both these points. But Harold's expectation that he
should want to get rid of Jermyn was founded on other reasons than his
scented handkerchief and his charity-school Latin.

If the lawyer had been presuming on Mrs. Transome's ignorance as a
woman, and on the stupid rakishness of the original heir, the new heir
would prove to him that he had calculated rashly. Otherwise, Harold had
no prejudice against him. In his boyhood and youth he had seen Jermyn
frequenting Transome Court, but had regarded him with that total
indifference with which youngsters are apt to view those who neither
deny them pleasure nor give them any. Jermyn used to smile at him, and
speak to him affably; but Harold, half proud, half shy, got away from
such patronage as soon as possible; he knew Jermyn was a man of
business; his father, his uncle, and Sir Maximus Debarry did not regard
him as a gentleman and their equal. He had known no evil of the man; but
he saw now that if he were really a covetous upstart, there had been a
temptation for him in the management of the Transome affairs; and it was
clear that the estate was in a bad condition.

When Mr. Jermyn was ushered into the breakfast-room the next morning,
Harold found him surprisingly little altered by the fifteen years. He
was gray, but still remarkably handsome; fat, but tall enough to bear
that trial to man's dignity. There was as strong a suggestion of
toilette about him as if he had been five-and-twenty instead of nearly
sixty. He chose always to dress in black, and was especially addicted to
black satin waistcoats, which carried out the general sleekness of his
appearance; and this, together with his white, fat, but
beautifully-shaped hands, which he was in the habit of rubbing gently on
his entrance into a room, gave him very much the air of a lady's
physician. Harold remembered with some amusement his uncle's dislike of
those conspicuous hands; but as his own were soft and dimpled, and as he
too was given to the innocent practice of rubbing those members, his
suspicions were not yet deepened.

"I congratulate you, Mrs. Transome," said Jermyn, with a soft and
deferential smile, "all the more," he added, turning toward Harold, "now
I have the pleasure of actually seeing your son. I am glad to perceive
that an Eastern climate has not been unfavorable to him."

"No," said Harold, shaking Jermyn's hand carelessly, and speaking with
more than his usual brusqueness, "the question is, whether the English
climate will agree with me. It's deuced shifting and damp; and as for
the food, it would be the finest thing in the world for this country if
the southern cooks would change their religion, get persecuted, and fly
to England, as the old silk-weavers did."

"There are plenty of foreign cooks for those who are rich enough to pay
for them, I suppose," said Mrs. Transome, "but they are unpleasant
people to have about one's house."

"Gad! I don't think so," said Harold.

"The old servants are sure to quarrel with them."

"That's no concern of mine. The old servants will have to put up with my
man Dominic, who will show them how to cook and do everything else in a
way that will rather astonish them."

"Old people are not so easily taught to change all their ways, Harold."

"Well, they can give up and watch the young ones," said Harold, thinking
only at that moment of old Mrs. Hickes and Dominic. But his mother was
not thinking of them only.

"You have a valuable servant, it seems," said Jermyn, who understood
Mrs. Transome better than her son did, and wished to smoothen the
current of their dialogue.

"Oh, one of those wonderful southern fellows that make one's life easy.
He's of no country in particular. I don't know whether he's most of a
Jew, a Greek, an Italian, or a Spaniard. He speaks five or six
languages, one as well as another. He's cook, valet, major-domo, and
secretary all in one; and what's more, he's an affectionate fellow--I
can trust to his attachment. That's a sort of human specimen that
doesn't grow here in England, I fancy. I should have been badly off if I
could not have brought Dominic."

They sat down to breakfast with such slight talk as this going on. Each
of the party was preoccupied and uneasy. Harold's mind was busy
constructing probabilities about what he should discover of Jermyn's
mismanagement or dubious application of funds, and the sort of
self-command he must in the worst case exercise in order to use the man
as long as he wanted him. Jermyn was closely observing Harold with an
unpleasant sense that there was an expression of acuteness and
determination about him which would make him formidable. He would
certainly have preferred at that moment that there had been no second
heir of the Transome name to come back upon him from the East. Mrs.
Transome was not observing the two men; rather, her hands were cold, and
her whole person shaken by their presence; she seemed to hear and see
what they said and did with preternatural acuteness, and yet she was
also seeing and hearing what had been said and done many years before,
and feeling a dim terror about the future. There were piteous
sensibilities in this faded woman, who thirty-four years ago, in the
splendor of her bloom, had been imperious to one of these men, and had
rapturously pressed the other as an infant to her bosom, and now knew
that she was of little consequence to either of them.

"Well, what are the prospects about election?" said Harold, as the
breakfast was advancing. "There are two Whigs and one Conservative
likely to be in the field, I know. What is your opinion of the chances?"

Mr. Jermyn had a copious supply of words which often led him into
periphrase, but he cultivated a hesitating stammer, which, with a
handsome impassiveness of face, except when he was smiling at a woman,
or when the latent savageness of his nature was thoroughly roused, he
had found useful in many relations, especially in business. No one could
have found out that he was not at his ease. "My opinion," he replied,
"is in a state of balance at present. This division of the county, you
are aware, contains one manufacturing town of the first magnitude, and
several smaller ones. The manufacturing interest is widely dispersed. So
far--a--there is a presumption--a--in favor of the two Liberal
candidates. Still, with a careful canvass of the agricultural districts,
such as those we have round us at Treby Magna, I think--a--the
auguries--a--would not be unfavorable to the return of a Conservative. A
fourth candidate of good position, who should coalesce with Mr.
Debarry--a----"

Here Mr. Jermyn hesitated for the third time, and Harold broke in.

"That will not be my line of action, so we need not discuss it. If I put
up it will be as a Radical; and I fancy, in any county that would return
Whigs there would be plenty of voters to be combed off by a Radical who
offered himself with good pretensions."

There was the slightest possible quiver discernible across Jermyn's
face. Otherwise he sat as he had done before, with his eyes fixed
abstractedly on the frill of a ham before him, and his hand trifling
with his fork. He did not answer immediately, but, when he did, he
looked round steadily at Harold.

"I'm delighted to perceive that you have kept yourself so thoroughly
acquainted with English politics."

"Oh, of course," said Harold, impatiently. "I'm aware how things have
been going on in England. I always meant to come back ultimately. I
suppose I know the state of Europe as well as if I'd been stationary at
Little Treby for the last fifteen years. If a man goes to the East,
people seem to think he gets turned into something like the one-eyed
calender in the 'Arabian Nights!'"

"Yet I should think there are some things which people who have been
stationary at Little Treby could tell you, Harold," said Mrs. Transome.
"It did not signify about your holding Radical opinions at Smyrna; but
you seem not to imagine how your putting up as a Radical will affect
your position here, and the position of your family. No one will visit
you. And then--the sort of people who will support you! You really have
no idea what an impression it conveys when you say you are a Radical.
There are none of our equals who will not feel that you have disgraced
yourself."

"Pooh!" said Harold, rising and walking along the room.

But Mrs. Transome went on with growing anger in her voice--"It seems to
me that a man owes something to his birth and station, and has no right
to take up this notion or other, just as it suits his fancy; still less
to work at the overthrow of his class. That was what every one said of
Lord Grey, and my family at least is as good as Lord Grey's. You have
wealth now, and might distinguish yourself in the county; and if you had
been true to your colors as a gentleman, you would have had all the
greater opportunity, because the times are so bad. The Debarrys and Lord
Wyvern would have set all the more store by you. For my part, I can't
conceive what good you propose to yourself. I only entreat you to think
again before you take any decided step."

"Mother," said Harold, not angrily or with any raising of his voice, but
in a quick, impatient manner, as if the scene must be got through as
quickly as possible; "it is natural that you should think in this way.
Women, very properly, don't change their views, but keep to the notions
in which they have been brought up. It doesn't signify what they
think--they are not called upon to judge or to act. You must leave me to
take my own course in these matters, which properly belong to men.
Beyond that, I will gratify any wish you may choose to mention. You
shall have a new carriage and a pair of bays all to yourself; you shall
have the house done up in first-rate style, and I am not thinking of
marrying. But let us understand that there shall be no further collision
between us on subjects on which I must be master of my own actions."

"And you will put the crown to the mortifications of my life, Harold. I
don't know who would be a mother if she could foresee what a slight
thing she will be to her son when she is old."

Mrs. Transome here walked out of the room by the nearest way--the glass
door open toward the terrace. Mr. Jermyn had risen too, and his hands
were on the back of his chair. He looked quite impassive: it was not the
first time he had seen Mrs. Transome angry; but now, for the first time,
he thought the outburst of her temper would be useful to him. She, poor
woman, knew quite well that she had been unwise, and that she had been
making herself disagreeable to Harold to no purpose. But half the
sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they
know to be useless--nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter.
Harold continued his walking a moment longer, and then said to Jermyn--

"You smoke?"

"No, I always defer to the ladies. Mrs. Jermyn is peculiarly sensitive
in such matters, and doesn't like tobacco."

Harold, who, underneath all the tendencies which had made him a Liberal,
had intense personal pride, thought, "Confound the fellow--with his Mrs.
Jermyn! Does he think we are on a footing for me to know anything about
his wife?"

"Well, I took my hookah before breakfast," he said aloud, "so, if you
like, we'll go into the library. My father never gets up till midday, I
find."

"Sit down, sit down," said Harold, as they entered the handsome,
spacious library. But he himself continued to stand before a map of the
county which he had opened from a series of rollers occupying a
compartment among the bookshelves. "The first question, Mr. Jermyn, now
you know my intentions, is, whether you will undertake to be my agent in
this election, and help me through? There's no time to be lost, and I
don't want to lose my chance, as I may not have another for seven years.
I understand," he went on, flashing a look straight at Jermyn, "that you
have not taken any conspicuous course in politics, and I know that
Labron is agent for the Debarrys."

"Oh--a--my dear sir--a man necessarily has his political convictions,
but of what use is it for a professional man--a--of some education, to
talk of them in a little country town? There really is no comprehension
of public questions in such places. Party feeling, indeed, was quite
asleep here before the agitation about the Catholic Relief Bill. It is
true that I concurred with our incumbent in getting up a petition
against the Reform Bill, but I did not state my reasons. The weak points
in that Bill are--a--too palpable, and I fancy you and I should not
differ much on that head. The fact is, when I knew that you were to come
back to us, I kept myself in reserve, though I was much pressed by the
friends of Sir James Clement, the Ministerial candidate, who is----"

"However, you will act for me--that's settled?" said Harold.

"Certainly," said Jermyn, inwardly irritated by Harold's rapid manner of
cutting him short.

"Which of the Liberal candidates, as they call themselves, has the
better chance, eh?"

"I was going to observe that Sir James Clement has not so good a
chance as Mr. Garstin, supposing that a third Liberal candidate
presents himself. There are two senses in which a politician can be
liberal"--here Mr. Jermyn smiled--"Sir James Clement is a poor baronet,
hoping for an appointment, and can't be expected to be liberal in that
wider sense which commands majorities."

"I wish this man were not so much of a talker," thought Harold, "he'll
bore me. We shall see," he said aloud, "what can be done in the way of
combination. I'll come down to your office after one o'clock if it will
suit you?"

"Perfectly."

"Ah, and you'll have all the lists and papers and necessary information
ready for me there. I must get up a dinner for the tenants, and we can
invite whom we like besides the tenants. Just now, I'm going over one of
the farms on hand with the bailiff. By the way, that's a desperately bad
business, having three farms unlet--how comes that about, eh?"

"That is precisely what I wanted to say a few words about to you. You
have observed already how strongly Mrs. Transome takes certain things to
heart. You can imagine that she has been severely tried in many ways.
Mr. Transome's want of health; Mr. Durfey's habits--a----"

"Yes, yes."

"She is a woman for whom I naturally entertain the highest respect, and
she has had hardly any gratification for many years, except the sense of
having affairs to a certain extent in her own hands. She objects to
changes; she will not have a new style of tenants; she likes the old
stock of farmers who milk their own cows, and send their younger
daughters out to service: all this makes it difficult to do the best
with the estate. I am aware things are not as they ought to be, for, in
point of fact, improved agricultural management is a matter in which I
take considerable interest, and the farm which I myself hold on the
estate you will see, I think, to be in a superior condition. But Mrs.
Transome is a woman of strong feeling, and I would urge you, my dear
sir, to make the changes which you have, but which I had not the right
to insist on, as little painful to her as possible."

"I shall know what to do, sir, never fear," said Harold, much offended.

"You will pardon, I hope, a perhaps undue freedom of suggestion from a
man of my age, who has been so long in a close connection with the
family affairs--a--I have never considered that connection simply in a
light of business--a----"

"Damn him, I'll soon let him know that _I_ do," thought Harold. But in
proportion as he found Jermyn's manners annoying, he felt the necessity
of controlling himself. He despised all persons who defeated their own
projects by the indulgence of momentary impulses.

"I understand, I understand," he said aloud. "You've had more awkward
business on your hands than usually falls to the share of a family
lawyer. We shall set everything right by degrees. But now as to the
canvassing. I've made arrangements with a first-rate man in London, who
understands these matters thoroughly--a solicitor, of course--he has
carried no end of men into Parliament. I'll engage him to meet us at
Duffield--say when?"

The conversation after this was driven carefully clear of all angles,
and ended with determined amicableness. When Harold, in his ride an hour
or two afterward, encountered his uncle shouldering a gun, and followed
by one black and one liver-spotted pointer, his muscular person with its
red eagle face set off by a velveteen jacket and leather leggings, Mr.
Lingon's first question was--

"Well, lad, how have you got on with Jermyn?"

"Oh, I don't think I shall like the fellow. He's a sort of amateur
gentleman. But I must make use of him. I expect whatever I get out of
him will only be something short of fair pay for what he has got out of
us. But I shall see."

"Ay, ay, use his gun to bring down your game, and after that, beat the
thief with the butt end. That's wisdom and justice and pleasure all in
one--talking between ourselves as uncle and nephew. But I say, Harold, I
was going to tell you, now I come to think of it, this is rather a
nasty business, your calling yourself a Radical. I've been turning it
over in after-dinner speeches, but it looks awkward--it's not what
people are used to--it wants a good deal of Latin to make it go down. I
shall be worried about it at the sessions, and I can think of nothing
neat enough to carry about in my pocket by way of answer."

"Nonsense, uncle! I remember what a good speechifier you always were;
you'll never be at a loss. You only want a few more evenings to think of
it."

"But you'll not be attacking the Church and the institutions of the
country--you'll not be going those lengths; you'll keep up the bulwarks,
and so on, eh?"

"No, I shan't attack the Church, only the incomes of the bishops,
perhaps, to make them eke out the incomes of the poor clergy."

"Well, well, I have no objection to that. Nobody likes our bishop: he's
all Greek and greediness; too proud to dine with his own father. You may
pepper the bishops a little. But you'll respect the constitution handed
down, etc.--and you'll rally round the throne--and the King, God bless
him, and the usual toasts, eh?"

"Of course, of course. I am a Radical only in rooting out abuses."

"That's the word I wanted, my lad!" said the vicar, slapping Harold's
knee. "That's a spool to wind a speech on. Abuses is the very word; and
if anybody shows himself offended, he'll put the cap on for himself."

"I remove the rotten timbers," said Harold, inwardly amused, "and
substitute fresh oak, that's all."

"Well done, my boy! By George, you'll be a speaker! But I say, Harold, I
hope you've got a little Latin left. This young Debarry is a tremendous
fellow at the classics, and walks on stilts to any length. He's one of
the new Conservatives. Old Sir Maximus doesn't understand him at all."

"That won't do at the hustings," said Harold. "He'll get knocked off his
stilts pretty quickly there."

"Bless me! it's astonishing how well you're up in the affairs of the
country, my boy. But rub up a few quotations--'_Quod turpe bonis decebat
Crispinum_'--and that sort of thing--just to show Debarry what you could
do if you liked. But you want to ride on?"

"Yes; I have an appointment at Treby. Good-bye."

"He's a cleverish chap," muttered the vicar, as Harold rode away. "When
he's had plenty of English exercise, and brought out his knuckle a bit,
he'll be a Lingon again as he used to be. I must go and see how Arabella
takes his being a Radical. It's a little awkward; but a clergyman must
keep peace in a family. Confound it! I'm not bound to love Toryism
better than my own flesh and blood, and the manor I shoot over. That's a
heathenish, Brutus-like sort of thing, as if Providence couldn't take
care of the country without my quarrelling with my own sister's son!"




CHAPTER III.

    'Twas town, yet country too: you felt the warmth
    Of clustering houses in the wintry time:
    Supped with a friend, and went by lantern home.
    Yet from your chamber window you could hear
    The tiny bleat of new-yeaned lambs, or see
    The children bend beside the hedgerow banks
    To pluck the primroses.


Treby Magna, on which the Reform Bill had thrust the new honor of being
a polling-place, had been, at the beginning of the century, quite a
typical old market-town, lying in pleasant sleepiness among green
pastures, with a rush-fringed river meandering through them. Its
principal street had various handsome and tall-windowed brick houses
with walled gardens behind them; and at the end, where it widened into
the market-place, there was the cheerful rough-stuccoed front of that
excellent inn, the Marquis of Granby, where the farmers put up their
gigs, not only on fair and market days, but on exceptional Sundays when
they came to church. And the church was one of those fine old English
structures worth travelling to see, standing in a broad churchyard with
a line of solemn yew-trees beside it, and lifting a majestic tower and
spire far above the red-and-purple roofs of the town. It was not large
enough to hold all the parishioners of a parish which stretched over
distant villages and hamlets; but then they were never so unreasonable
as to wish to be all in at once, and had never complained that the space
of a large side-chapel was taken up by the tombs of the Debarrys, and
shut in by a handsome iron screen. For when the black Benedictines
ceased to pray and chant in this church, when the Blessed Virgin and St.
Gregory were expelled, the Debarrys, as lords of the manor, naturally
came next to Providence and took the place of the saints. Long before
that time, indeed, there had been a Sir Maximus Debarry who had been at
the fortifying of the old castle, which now stood in ruins in the midst
of the green pastures, and with its sheltering wall toward the north
made an excellent strawyard for the pigs of Wace & Co., brewers of the
celebrated Treby beer. Wace & Co. did not stand alone in the town as
prosperous traders on a large scale, to say nothing of those who had
retired from business; and in no country town of the same small size as
Treby was there a larger proportion of families who had handsome sets of
china without handles, hereditary punch-bowls, and large silver ladles
with a Queen Anne's guinea in the centre. Such people naturally took tea
and supped together frequently; and as there was no professional man or
tradesman in Treby who was not connected by business, if not by blood,
with the farmers of the district, the richer sort of these were much
invited, and gave invitations in their turn. They played at whist, ate
and drank generously, praised Mr. Pitt and the war as keeping up prices
and religion, and were very humorous about each other's property, having
much the same coy pleasure in allusions to their secret ability to
purchase, as blushing lasses sometimes have in jokes about their secret
preferences. The rector was always of the Debarry family, associated
only with county people, and was much respected for his affability; a
clergyman who would have taken tea with the townspeople would have given
a dangerous shock to the mind of a Treby churchman.

Such was the old-fashioned, grazing, brewing, wool-packing,
cheese-loading life of Treby Magna, until there befell new conditions,
complicating its relation with the rest of the world, and gradually
awakening in it that higher consciousness which is known to bring higher
pains. First came the canal; next, the working of the coal-mines at
Sproxton, two miles off the town; and thirdly, the discovery of a saline
spring, which suggested to a too constructive brain the possibility of
turning Treby Magna into a fashionable watering-place. So daring an idea
was not originated by a native Trebian, but by a young lawyer who came
from a distance, knew the dictionary by heart, and was probably an
illegitimate son of somebody or other. The idea, although it promised an
increase of wealth to the town, was not well received at first; ladies
objected to seeing "objects" drawn about in hand-carriages, the doctor
foresaw the advent of unsound practitioners, and most retail tradesmen
concurred with him that new doings were usually for the advantage of new
people. The more unanswerable reasoners urged that Treby had prospered
without baths, and it was yet to be seen how it would prosper with them;
while a report that the proposed name for them was Bethesda Spa,
threatened to give the whole affair a blasphemous aspect. Even Sir
Maximus Debarry, who was to have an unprecedented return for the
thousands he would lay out on a pump-room and hotel, regarded the thing
as a little too new, and held back for some time. But the persuasive
powers of the young lawyer, Mr. Matthew Jermyn, together with the
opportune opening of a stone-quarry, triumphed at last; the handsome
buildings were erected, an excellent guide-book and descriptive cards,
surmounted by vignettes, were printed, and Treby Magna became conscious
of certain facts in its own history of which it had previously been in
contented ignorance.

But it was all in vain. The Spa, for some mysterious reason, did not
succeed. Some attributed the failure to the coal-mines and the canal;
others to the peace, which had had ruinous effects on the country; and
others, who disliked Jermyn, to the original folly of the plan. Among
these last was Sir Maximus himself, who never forgave the too persuasive
attorney: it was Jermyn's fault not only that a useless hotel had been
built, but that he, Sir Maximus, being straitened for money, had at last
let the building, with the adjacent land lying on the river, on a long
lease, on the supposition that it was to be turned into a tape
manufactory--a bitter thing to any gentleman, and especially to the
representative of one of the oldest families in England.

In this way it happened that Treby Magna gradually passed from being
simply a respectable market town--the heart of a great rural district,
where the trade was only such as had close relations with the local
landed interest--and took on the more complex life brought by mines and
manufactures, which belong more directly to the great circulating system
of the nation than to the local system to which they had been
superadded; and in this way it was that Trebian Dissent gradually
altered its character. Formerly it had been of a quiescent, well-to-do
kind, represented architecturally by a small, venerable, dark-pewed
chapel, built by Presbyterians, but long occupied by a sparse
congregation of Independents, who were as little moved by doctrinal zeal
as their church-going neighbors, and did not feel themselves deficient
in religious liberty, inasmuch as they were not hindered from
occasionally slumbering in their pews, and were not obliged to go
regularly to the weekly prayer-meeting. But when stone-pits and
coal-pits made new hamlets that threatened to spread up to the very
town, when the tape-weavers came with their news-reading inspectors and
book-keepers, the Independent chapel began to be filled with eager men
and women, to whom the exceptional possession of religious truth was the
condition which reconciled them to a meagre existence, and made them
feel in secure alliance with the unseen but supreme rule of a world in
which their own visible part was small. There were Dissenters in Treby
now who could not be regarded by the Church people in the light of old
neighbors to whom the habit of going to chapel was an innocent,
unenviable inheritance along with a particular house and garden, a
tan-yard, or a grocery business--Dissenters who, in their turn, without
meaning to be in the least abusive, spoke of the high-bred rector as a
blind leader of the blind. And Dissent was not the only thing that the
times had altered; prices had fallen, poor-rates had risen, rent and
tithe were not elastic enough, and the farmer's fat sorrow had become
lean; he began to speculate on causes, and to trace things back to that
causeless mystery, the cessation of one-pound notes. Thus, when
political agitation swept in a current through the country, Treby Magna
was prepared to vibrate. The Catholic Emancipation Bill opened the eyes
of neighbors and made them aware how very injurious they were to each
other and to the welfare of mankind generally. Mr. Tiliot, the Church
spirit-merchant, knew now that Mr. Nuttwood, the obliging grocer, was
one of those Dissenters, Deists, Socinians, Papists, and Radicals, who
were in league to destroy the Constitution. A retired old London
tradesman, who was believed to understand politics, said that thinking
people must wish George III were alive again in all his early vigor of
mind: and even the farmers became less materialistic in their view of
causes, and referred much to the agency of the devil and the Irish
Romans. The rector, the Reverend Augustus Debarry, really a fine
specimen of the old-fashioned aristocratic clergyman, preaching short
sermons, understanding business, and acting liberally about his tithe,
had never before found himself in collision with Dissenters; but now he
began to feel that these people were a nuisance in the parish, that his
brother Sir Maximus must take care lest they should get land to build
more chapels, and that it might not have been a bad thing if the law had
furnished him as a magistrate with a power of putting a stop to the
political sermons of the Independent preacher, which, in their way,
were as pernicious sources of intoxication as the beerhouses. The
Dissenters, on their side, were not disposed to sacrifice the cause of
truth and freedom to a temporizing mildness of language; but they
defended themselves from the charge of religious indifference, and
solemnly disclaimed any lax expectations that Catholics were likely to
be saved--urging, on the contrary, that they were not too hopeful about
Protestants who adhered to a bloated and worldly Prelacy. Thus Treby
Magna, which had lived quietly through the great earthquakes of the
French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, which had remained unmoved by
the "Rights of Man," and saw little in Mr. Cobbett's "Weekly Register"
except that he held eccentric views about potatoes, began at last to
know the higher pains of a dim political consciousness; and the
development had been greatly helped by the recent agitation about the
Reform Bill. Tory, Whig, and Radical did not perhaps become clearer in
their definition of each other; but the names seemed to acquire so
strong a stamp of honor or infamy, that definitions would only have
weakened the impression. As to the short and easy method of judging
opinions by the personal character of those who held them, it was liable
to be much frustrated in Treby. It so happened in that particular town
that the Reformers were not all of them large-hearted patriots or ardent
lovers of justice; indeed, one of them, in the very midst of the
agitation, was detected in using unequal scales--a fact to which many
Tories pointed with disgust as showing plainly enough, without further
argument, that the cry for a change in the representative system was
hollow trickery. Again, the Tories were far from being all oppressors,
disposed to grind down the working classes into serfdom; and it was
undeniable that the inspector at the tape manufactory, who spoke with
much eloquence on the extension of the suffrage, was a more tyrannical
personage than open-handed Mr. Wace, whose chief political tenet was
that it was all nonsense to give men votes when they had no stake in the
country. On the other hand there were some Tories who gave themselves a
great deal of leisure to abuse hypocrites, Radicals, Dissenters, and
atheism generally, but whose inflamed faces, theistic swearing, and
frankness in expressing a wish to borrow, certainly did not mark them
out strongly as holding opinions likely to save society.

The Reformers had triumphed: it was clear that the wheels were going
whither they were pulling, and they were in fine spirits for exertion.
But if they were pulling toward the country's ruin, there was the more
need for others to hang on behind and get the wheels to stick if
possible. In Treby, as elsewhere, people were told they must "rally" at
the coming election; but there was now a large number of waverers--men
of flexible, practical minds, who were not such bigots as to cling to
any views when a good tangible reason could be urged against them; while
some regarded it as the most neighborly thing to hold a little with both
sides, and were not sure that they should rally or vote at all. It
seemed an invidious thing to vote for one gentleman rather than another.

These social changes in Treby parish are comparatively public matters,
and this history is chiefly concerned with the private lot of a few men
and women; but there is no private life which has not been determined by
a wider public life, from the time when the primeval milkmaid had to
wander with the wanderings of her clan, because the cow she milked was
one of a herd which had made the pastures bare. Even in that
conservatory existence where the fair Camellia is sighed for by the
noble young Pine-apple, neither of them needing to care about the frost,
or rain outside, there is a nether apparatus of hot water pipes liable
to cool down on a strike of the gardeners or a scarcity of coal. And the
lives we are about to look back upon do not belong to those conservatory
species; they are rooted in the common earth, having to endure all the
ordinary chances of past and present weather. As to the weather of 1832,
the Zadkiel of that time had predicted that the electrical condition of
the clouds in the political hemisphere would produce unusual
perturbations in organic existence, and he would perhaps have seen a
fulfillment of his remarkable prophecy in that mutual influence of
dissimilar destinies which we shall see gradually unfolding itself. For
if the mixed political conditions of Treby Magna had not been acted on
by the passing of the Reform Bill, Mr. Harold Transome would not have
presented himself as a candidate for North Loamshire, Treby would not
have been a polling-place, Mr. Matthew Jermyn would not have been on
affable terms with a Dissenting preacher and his flock, and the
venerable town would not have been placarded with handbills, more or
less complimentary and retrospective--conditions in this case essential
to the "where," and the "what," without which, as the learned know,
there can be no event whatever.

For example, it was through these conditions that a young man named
Felix Holt made a considerable difference in the life of Harold
Transome, though nature and fortune seemed to have done what they could
to keep the lots of the two men quite aloof from each other. Felix was
heir to nothing better than a quack medicine; his mother lived up a back
street in Treby Magna, and her sitting-room was ornamented with her best
tea-tray and several framed testimonials to the virtues of Holt's
Cathartic Lozenges and Holt's Restorative Elixir. There could hardly
have been a lot less like Harold Transome's than this of the quack
doctor's son, except in the superficial facts that he called himself a
Radical, that he was the only son of his mother, and that he had lately
returned to his home with ideas and resolves not a little disturbing to
that mother's mind.

But Mrs. Holt, unlike Mrs. Transome, was much disposed to reveal her
troubles, and was not without a counsellor into whose ear she could pour
them. On this second of September, when Mr. Harold Transome had had his
first interview with Jermyn, and when the attorney went back to his
office with new views of canvassing in his mind, Mrs. Holt had put on
her bonnet as early as nine o'clock in the morning, and had gone to see
the Reverend Rufus Lyon, minister of the Independent Chapel usually
spoken of as "Malthouse Yard."




CHAPTER IV.

    "A pious and painful preacher."--FULLER.


Mr. Lyon lived in a small house, not quite so good as the parish
clerk's, adjoining the entry which led to the Chapel Yard. The new
prosperity of Dissent at Treby had led to an enlargement of the chapel,
which absorbed all extra funds and left none for the enlargement of the
minister's income. He sat this morning, as usual, in a low up-stairs
room, called his study, which, by means of a closet capable of holding
his bed, served also as a sleeping-room. The bookshelves did not suffice
for his store of old books, which lay about him in piles so arranged as
to leave narrow lanes between them; for the minister was much given to
walking about during his hours of meditation, and very narrow passages
would serve for his small legs, unencumbered by any other drapery than
his black silk stockings and the flexible, though prominent, bows of
black ribbon that tied his knee-breeches. He was walking about now, with
his hands clasped behind him, an attitude in which his body seemed to
bear about the same proportion to his head as the lower part of a stone
Hermes bears to the carven image that crowns it. His face looked old and
worn, yet the curtain of hair that fell from his bald crown and hung
about his neck retained much of its original auburn tint, and his large,
brown, short-sighted eyes were still clear and bright. At the first
glance, every one thought him a very odd-looking rusty old man; the
free-school boys often hooted after him, and called him "Revelations";
and to many respectable Church people, old Lyon's little legs and large
head seemed to make Dissent additionally preposterous. But he was too
short-sighted to notice those who tittered at him--too absent from the
world of small facts and petty impulses in which titterers live. With
Satan to argue against on matters of vital experience as well as of
church government, with great texts to meditate on, which seemed to get
deeper as he tried to fathom them, it had never occurred to him to
reflect what sort of image his small person made on the retina of a
light-minded beholder. The good Rufus had his ire and his egoism; but
they existed only as the red heat which gave force to his belief and his
teaching. He was susceptible concerning the true office of deacons in
the primitive Church, and his small nervous body was jarred from head to
foot by the concussion of an argument to which he saw no answer. In
fact, the only moments when he could be said to be really conscious of
his body, were when he trembled under the pressure of some agitating
thought.

He was meditating on the text for his Sunday morning sermon, "And all
the people said, Amen"--a mere mustard-seed of a text, which had split
at first only into two divisions, "What was said," and "Who said it";
but these were growing into a many-branched discourse, and the
preacher's eyes dilated, and a smile played about his mouth till, as his
manner was, when he felt happily inspired, he had begun to utter his
thoughts aloud in the varied measure and cadence habitual to him,
changing from a rapid but distinct undertone to a loud emphatic
_rallentando_.

"My brethren, do you think that great shout was raised in Israel by each
man's waiting to say 'amen' till his neighbors had said amen? Do you
think there will be a great shout for the right--the shout of a nation
as of one man, rounded and whole, like the voice of the archangel that
bound together all the listeners of earth and heaven--if every Christian
of you peeps round to see what his neighbors in good coats are doing, or
else puts his hat before his face that he may shout and never be heard?
But this is what you do: when the servant of God stands up to deliver
his message, do you lay your souls beneath the Word as you set out your
plants beneath the falling rain? No; one of you sends his eyes to all
corners, he smothers his soul with small questions, 'What does brother
Y. think?' 'Is this doctrine high enough for brother Z.?' 'Will the
church members be pleased?' And another----"

Here the door was opened, and old Lyddy, the minister's servant, put in
her head to say, in a tone of despondency, finishing with a groan, "Here
is Mrs. Holt wanting to speak to you; she says she comes out of season,
but she's in trouble."

"Lyddy," said Mr. Lyon, falling at once into a quiet conversational
tone, "if you are wrestling with the enemy, let me refer you to Ezekiel
the thirteenth and twenty-second, and beg of you not to groan. It is a
stumbling-block and offence to my daughter; she would take no broth
yesterday, because she said you had cried into it. Thus you cause the
truth to be lightly spoken of, and make the enemy rejoice. If your
faceache gives him an advantage, take a little warm ale with your
meat--I do not grudge the money."

"If I thought my drinking warm ale would hinder poor dear Miss Esther
from speaking light--but she hates the smell of it."

"Answer not again, Lyddy, but send up Mistress Holt to me."

Lyddy closed the door immediately.

"I lack grace to deal with these weak sisters," said the minister, again
thinking aloud, and walking. "Their needs lie too much out of the track
of my meditations, and take me often unawares. Mistress Holt is another
who darkens counsel by words without knowledge, and angers the reason of
the natural man. Lord, give me patience. My sins were heavier to bear
than this woman's folly. Come in, Mrs. Holt--come in."

He hastened to disencumber a chair of Matthew Henry's Commentary, and
begged his visitor to be seated. She was a tall elderly woman, dressed
in black, with a light-brown front and a black band over her forehead.
She moved the chair a little and seated herself in it with some
emphasis, looking fixedly at the opposite wall with a hurt and
argumentative expression. Mr. Lyon had placed himself in the chair
against his desk, and waited with the resolute resignation of a patient
who is about to undergo an operation. But his visitor did not speak.

"You have something on your mind, Mrs. Holt?" he said, at last.

"Indeed I have, sir, else I shouldn't be here."

"Speak freely."

"It's well known to you, Mr. Lyon, that my husband, Mr. Holt, came from
the north, and was a member in Malthouse Yard long before _you_ began
to be pastor of it, which was seven year ago last Michaelmas. It's the
truth, Mr. Lyon, and I'm not that woman to sit here and say it if it
wasn't true."

"Certainly, it is true."

"And if my husband had been alive when you'd come to preach upon trial,
he'd have been as good a judge of your gifts as Mr. Nuttwood or Mr.
Muscat, though whether he'd have agreed with some that your doctrine
wasn't high enough, I can't say. For myself, I've my opinion about high
doctrine."

"Was it my preaching you came to speak about?" said the minister,
hurrying in the question.

"No, Mr. Lyon, I'm not that woman. But this I _will_ say, for my husband
died before your time, that he had a wonderful gift in prayer, as the
old members well know, if anybody likes to ask 'em, not believing my
words, and he believed himself that the receipt for the Cancer Cure,
which I've sent out in bottles till this very last April before
September as now is, and have bottles standing by me--he believed it was
sent to him in answer to prayer; and nobody can deny it, for he prayed
most regular, and read out of the green baize Bible."

Mrs. Holt paused, appearing to think that Mr. Lyon had been successfully
confuted, and should show himself convinced.

"Has any one been aspersing your husband's character?" said Mr. Lyon,
with a slight initiative toward that relief of groaning for which he had
reproved Lyddy.

"Sir, they daredn't. For though he was a man of prayer, he didn't want
skill and knowledge to find things out for himself; and that's what I
used to say to _my_ friends when they wondered at my marrying a man from
Lancashire, with no trade nor fortune, but what he'd got in his head.
But my husband's tongue 'ud have been a fortune to anybody, and there
was many a one said it was as good as a dose of physic to hear him talk;
not but what that got him into trouble in Lancashire, but he always
said, if the worst came to the worst, he could go and preach to the
blacks. But he did better than that, Mr. Lyon, for he married me; and
this I will say, that for age, and conduct, and managing----"

"Mistress Holt," interrupted the minister, "these are not the things
whereby we may edify one another. Let me beg of you to be as brief as
you can. My time is not my own."

"Well, Mr. Lyon, I've a right to my own character; and I'm one of your
congregation, though I'm not a church member, for I was born in the
General Baptist connection: and as for being saved without works,
there's a many, I dare say, can't do without that doctrine; but I thank
the Lord I never needed to put _my_self on a level with the thief on the
cross. I've done _my_ duty, and more, if anybody comes to that; for I've
gone without my bit of meat to make broth for a sick neighbor: and if
there's any of the church members say they've done the same, I'd ask
them if they had the sinking at the stomach as I have; for I've ever
strove to do the right thing, and more, for good-natured I always was;
and I little thought, after being respected by everybody, I should come
to be reproached by my own son. And my husband said, when he was
a-dying--'Mary,' he said, 'the Elixir, and the Pills, and the Cure will
support you, for they've a great name in all the country round, and
you'll pray for a blessing on them.' And so I've done, Mr. Lyon; and to
say they're not good medicines, when they've been taken for fifty miles
round by high and low, rich and poor, and nobody speaking against 'em
but Dr. Lukin, it seems to me it's a flying in the face of Heaven; for
if it was wrong to take the medicines, couldn't the blessed Lord have
stopped it?"

Mrs. Holt was not given to tears; she was much sustained by conscious
unimpeachableness, and by an argumentative tendency which usually checks
the too great activity of the lachrymal gland; nevertheless her eyes had
become moist, her fingers played on her knee in an agitated manner, and
she finally plucked a bit of her gown and held it with great nicety
between her thumb and finger. Mr. Lyon, however, by listening
attentively, had begun partly to divine the source of her trouble.

"Am I wrong in gathering from what you say, Mistress Holt, that your son
has objected in some way to your sale of your late husband's medicines?"

"Mr. Lyon, he's masterful beyond everything, and he talks more than his
father did. I've got my reason, Mr. Lyon, and if anybody talks sense I
can follow him; but Felix talks so wild, and contradicts his mother. And
what do you think he says, after giving up his 'prenticeship, and going
off to study at Glasgow, and getting through all the bit of money his
father saved for his bringing-up--what has all his learning come to? He
says I'd better never open my Bible, for it's as bad poison to me as the
pills are to half the people as swallow 'em. You'll not speak of this
again, Mr. Lyon--I don't think ill enough of you to believe _that_. For
I suppose a Christian can understand the word o' God without going to
Glasgow, and there's texts upon texts about ointment and medicine, and
there's one as might have been for a receipt of my husband's--it's just
as if it was a riddle, and Holt's Elixir was the answer."

"Your son uses rash words, Mistress Holt," said the minister, "but it is
quite true that we may err in giving a too private interpretation to the
Scripture. The word of God has to satisfy the larger needs of His
people, like the rain and the sunshine--which no man must think to be
meant for his own patch of seed-ground solely. Will it not be well that
I should see your son, and talk with him on these matters? He was at
chapel, I observe, and I suppose I am to be his pastor."

"That was what I wanted to ask you, Mr. Lyon. For perhaps he'll listen
to you, and not talk you down as he does his poor mother. For after we'd
been to chapel, he spoke better of you than he does of most: he said you
was a fine old fellow, and an old-fashioned Puritan--he uses dreadful
language, Mr. Lyon; but I saw he didn't mean you ill, for all that. He
calls most folks's religion rottenness; and yet another time he'll tell
me I ought to feel myself a sinner, and do God's will and not my own.
But it's my belief he says first one thing and then another only to
abuse his mother. Or else he's going off his head, and must be sent to a
'sylum. But if he writes to the _North Loamshire Herald_ first, to tell
everybody the medicines are good for nothing, how can I ever keep him
and myself?"

"Tell him I shall feel favored if he will come and see me this evening,"
said Mr. Lyon, not without a little prejudice in favor of the young man,
whose language about the preacher in Malthouse Yard did not seem to him
to be altogether dreadful. "Meanwhile, my friend, I counsel you to send
up a supplication, which I shall not fail to offer also, that you may
receive a spirit of humility and submission, so that you may not be
hindered from seeing and following the Divine guidance in this matter by
any false lights of pride and obstinacy. Of this more when I have spoken
with your son."

"I'm not proud or obstinate, Mr. Lyon. I never did say I was everything
that was bad, and I never will. And why this trouble should be sent on
me above everybody else--for I haven't told you all. He's made himself a
journeyman to Mr. Prowd the watchmaker--after all this learning--and he
says he'll go with patches on his knees, and he shall like himself the
better. And as for him having little boys to teach, they'll come in all
weathers with dirty shoes. If it's madness, Mr. Lyon, it's no use your
talking to him."

"We shall see. Perhaps it may even be the disguised working of grace
within him. We must not judge rashly. Many eminent servants of God have
been led by ways as strange."

"Then I'm sorry for their mothers, that's all, Mr. Lyon; and all the
more if they'd been well-spoken-on women. For not my biggest enemy,
whether it's he or she, if they'll speak the truth, can turn round and
say I've deserved this trouble. And when everybody gets their due, and
people's doings are spoke of on the house-tops, as the Bible says they
will be, it'll be known what I've gone through with those medicines--the
pounding and the pouring, and the letting stand, and the weighing--up
early and down late--there's nobody knows yet but One that's worthy to
know; and the pasting o' the printed labels right side upwards. There's
few women would have gone through with it; and it's reasonable to think
it'll be made up to me; for if there's promised and purchased blessings,
I should think this trouble is purchasing 'em. For if my son Felix
doesn't have a strait-waistcoat put on him, he'll have his way. But I
say no more. I wish you good-morning, Mr. Lyon, and thank you, though I
well know it's your duty to act as you're doing. And I never troubled
you about my own soul, as some do who look down on me for not being a
church member."

"Farewell, Mistress Holt, farewell. I pray that a more powerful teacher
than I am may instruct you."

The door was closed, and the much-tried Rufus walked about again, saying
aloud, groaningly--

"This woman has sat under the Gospel all her life, and she is as blind
as a heathen, and as proud and stiff-necked as a Pharisee; yet she is
one of the souls I watch for. 'Tis true that even Sara, the chosen
mother of God's people, showed a spirit of unbelief, and perhaps of
selfish anger; and it is a passage that bears the unmistakable signet,
'doing honor to the wife or woman, as unto the weaker vessel.' For
therein is the greatest check put on the ready scorn of the natural
man."




CHAPTER V.

    1ST CITIZEN. Sir, there's a hurry in the veins of youth
                 That makes a vice of virtue by excess.

    2D CITIZEN.  What if the coolness of our tardier veins
                 Be loss of virtue?

    1ST CITIZEN.                      All things cool with time--
                 The sun itself, they say, till heat shall find
                 A general level, nowhere in excess.

    2D CITIZEN.  'Tis a poor climax, to my weaker thought,
                 That future middlingness.


In the evening, when Mr. Lyon was expecting the knock at the door that
would announce Felix Holt, he occupied his cushionless arm-chair in the
sitting-room, and was skimming rapidly, in his short-sighted way, by the
light of one candle, the pages of a missionary report, emitting
occasionally a slight "Hm-m" that appeared to be expressive of criticism
rather than of approbation. The room was dismally furnished, the only
objects indicating an intention of ornament being a bookcase, a map of
the Holy Land, an engraved portrait of Dr. Doddridge, and a black bust
with a colored face, which for some reason or other was covered with
green gauze. Yet any one whose attention was quite awake must have been
aware, even on entering, of certain things that were incongruous with
the general air of sombreness and privation. There was a delicate scent
of dried rose-leaves; the light by which the minister was reading was a
wax-candle in a white earthenware candle-stick, and the table on the
opposite side of the fireplace held a dainty work-basket frilled with
blue satin.

Felix Holt, when he entered, was not in an observant mood; and when,
after seating himself, at the minister's invitation, near the little
table which held the work-basket, he stared at the wax-candle opposite
to him, he did so without any wonder or consciousness that the candle
was not of tallow. But the minister's sensitiveness gave another
interpretation to the gaze which he divined rather than saw; and in
alarm lest this inconsistent extravagance should obstruct his
usefulness, he hastened to say--

"You are doubtless amazed to see me with a wax-light, my young friend;
but this undue luxury is paid for with the earnings of my daughter, who
is so delicately framed that the smell of tallow is loathsome to her."

"I heeded not the candle, sir. I thank Heaven I am not a mouse to have a
nose that takes note of wax or tallow."

The loud abrupt tones made the old man vibrate a little. He had been
stroking his chin gently before, with a sense that he must be very
quiet and deliberate in his treatment of the eccentric young man; but
now, quite unreflectingly, he drew forth a pair of spectacles, which he
was in the habit of using when he wanted to observe his interlocutor
more closely than usual.

"And I myself, in fact, am equally indifferent," he said, as he opened
and adjusted his glasses, "so that I have a sufficient light on my
book." Here his large eyes looked discerningly through the spectacles.

"'Tis the quality of the page you care about, not of the candle," said
Felix, smiling pleasantly enough at his inspector. "You're thinking that
you have a roughly-written page before you now."

That was true. The minister, accustomed to the respectable air of
provincial townsmen, and especially to the sleek well-clipped gravity of
his own male congregation, felt a slight shock as his glasses made
perfectly clear to him the shaggy-headed, large-eyed, strong-limbed
person of this questionable young man, without waistcoat or cravat. But
the possibility, supported by some of Mrs. Holt's words, that a
disguised work of grace might be going on in the son of whom she
complained so bitterly, checked any hasty interpretations.

"I abstain from judging by the outward appearance only," he answered,
with his usual simplicity. "I myself have experienced that when the
spirit is much exercised it is difficult to remember neck-bands and
strings and such small accidents of our vesture, which are nevertheless
decent and needful so long as we sojourn in the flesh. And you, too, my
young friend, as I gather from your mother's troubled and confused
report, are undergoing some travail of mind. You will not, I trust,
object to open yourself fully to me, as to an aged pastor who has
himself had much inward wrestling, and has especially known much
temptation from doubt."

"As to doubt," said Felix, loudly and brusquely as before, "if it is
those absurd medicines and gulling advertisements that my mother has
been talking of to you--and I suppose it is--I've no more doubt about
_them_ than I have about pocket-picking. I know there's a stage of
speculation in which a man may doubt whether a pickpocket is
blameworthy--but I'm not one of your subtle fellows who keep looking at
the world through their own legs. If I allowed the sale of those
medicines to go on, and my mother to live out of the proceeds when I can
keep her by the honest labor of my hands, I've not the least doubt that
I should be a rascal."

"I would fain enquire more particularly into your objection to these
medicines," said Mr. Lyon, gravely. Notwithstanding his
conscientiousness and a certain originality in his own mental
disposition, he was too little used to high principle quite dissociated
from sectarian phraseology to be as immediately in sympathy with it as
he would otherwise have been. "I know they have been well reported of,
and many wise persons have tried remedies providentially discovered by
those who are not regular physicians, and have found a blessing in the
use of them. I may mention the eminent Mr. Wesley, who, though I hold
not altogether with his Arminian doctrine, nor with the usages of his
institutions, was nevertheless a man of God; and the journals of various
Christians whose names have left a sweet savor, might be cited in the
same sense. Moreover, your father, who originally concocted these
medicines and left them as a provision for your mother, was, as I
understand, a man whose walk was not unfaithful."

"My father was ignorant," said Felix, bluntly. "He knew neither the
complication of the human system, nor the way in which drugs counteract
each other. Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug, but when it
prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm. I know something about
these things. I was 'prentice for five miserable years to a stupid brute
of a country apothecary--my poor father left money for that--he thought
nothing could be finer for me. No matter: I know that the Cathartic
Pills are a drastic compound which may be as bad as poison to half the
people who swallow them; that the Elixir is an absurd farrago of a dozen
incompatible things; and that the Cancer Cure might as well be bottled
ditch-water."

Mr. Lyon rose and walked up and down the room. His simplicity was
strongly mixed with sagacity as well as sectarian prejudice, and he did
not rely at once on a loud-spoken integrity--Satan might have flavored
it with ostentation. Presently he asked, in a rapid, low tone, "How long
have you known this, young man?"

"Well put, sir," said Felix. "I've known it a good deal longer than I
have acted upon it, like plenty of other things. But you believe in
conversion?"

"Yea, verily."

"So do I. I was converted by six weeks' debauchery."

The minister started. "Young man," he said, solemnly, going up close to
Felix and laying a hand on his shoulder, "speak not lightly of the
Divine operations, and restrain unseemly words."

"I'm not speaking lightly," said Felix. "If I had not seen that I was
making a hog of myself very fast, and that pig-wash, even if I could
have got plenty of it, was a poor sort of thing, I should never have
looked life fairly in the face to see what was to be done with it. I
laughed out loud at last to think that a poor devil like me, in a Scotch
garret, with my stockings out at heel and a shilling or two to be
dissipated upon, with a smell of raw haggis mounting from below, and old
women breathing gin as they passed me on the stairs--wanting to turn my
life into easy pleasure. Then I began to see what else it could be
turned into. Not much, perhaps. This world is not a very fine place for
a good many of the people in it. But I've made up my mind it shan't be
the worse for me, if I can help it. They may tell me I can't alter the
world--that there must be a certain number of sneaks and robbers in it,
and if I don't lie and filch somebody else will. Well then, somebody
else shall, for I won't. That's the upshot of my conversion, Mr. Lyon,
if you want to know it."

Mr. Lyon removed his hand from Felix's shoulder and walked about again.
"Did you sit under any preacher at Glasgow, young man?"

"No: I heard most of the preachers once, but I never wanted to hear them
twice."

The good Rufus was not without a slight rising of resentment at this
young man's want of reverence. It was not yet plain whether he wanted to
hear twice the preacher in Malthouse Yard. But the resentful feeling was
carefully repressed: a soul in so peculiar a condition must be dealt
with delicately.

"And now, may I ask," he said, "what course you mean to take, after
hindering your mother from making and selling these drugs? I speak no
more in their favor after what you have said. God forbid that I should
strive to hinder you from seeking whatsoever things are honest and
honorable. But your mother is advanced in years; she needs comfortable
sustenance; you have doubtless considered how you may make her amends?
'He that provideth not for his own----' I trust you respect the
authority that so speaks. And I will not suppose that, after being
tender of conscience toward strangers, you will be careless toward your
mother. There be indeed some who, taking a mighty charge on their
shoulder, must perforce leave their households to Providence, and to the
care of humbler brethren, but in such a case the call must be clear."

"I shall keep my mother as well--nay, better--than she has kept herself.
She has always been frugal. With my watch and clock cleaning, and
teaching one or two little chaps that I've got to come to me, I can earn
enough. As for me, I can live on bran porridge. I have the stomach of a
rhinoceros."

"But for a young man so well furnished as you, who can questionless
write a good hand and keep books, were it not well to seek some higher
situation as clerk or assistant? I could speak to Brother Muscat, who is
well acquainted with all such openings. Any place in Pendrell's Bank, I
fear, is now closed against such as are not Churchmen. It used not to be
so, but a year ago he discharged Brother Bodkin, although he was a
valuable servant. Still, something might be found. There are ranks and
degrees--and those who can serve in the higher must not unadvisedly
change what seems to be a providential appointment. Your poor mother is
not altogether----"

"Excuse me, Mr. Lyon; I've had all that out with my mother, and I may as
well save you any trouble by telling you that my mind has been made up
about that a long while ago. I'll take no employment that obliges me to
prop up my chin with a high cravat, and wear straps, and pass the
livelong day with a set of fellows who spend their spare money on shirt
pins. That sort of work is really lower than many handicrafts; it only
happens to be paid out of proportion. That's why I set myself to learn
the watchmaking trade. My father was a weaver first of all. It would
have been better for him if he had remained a weaver. I came home
through Lancashire and saw an uncle of mine who is a weaver still. I
mean to stick to the class I belong to--people who don't follow the
fashions."

Mr. Lyon was silent a few moments. This dialogue was far from plain
sailing; he was not certain of his latitude and longitude. If the
despiser of Glasgow preachers had been arguing in favor of gin and
Sabbath-breaking, Mr. Lyon's course would have been clearer. "Well,
well," he said, deliberately, "it is true that St. Paul exercised the
trade of tent-making, though he was learned in all the wisdom of the
Rabbis."

"St. Paul was a wise man," said Felix. "Why should I want to get into
the middle class because I have some learning? The most of the middle
class are as ignorant as the working people about everything that
doesn't belong to their own Brummagem life. That's how the workingmen
are left to foolish devices and keep worsening themselves: the best
heads among them forsake their boon comrades, and go in for a house with
a high door-step and a brass knocker."

Mr. Lyon stroked his mouth and chin, perhaps because he felt some
disposition to smile; and it would not be well to smile too readily at
what seemed but a weedy resemblance of Christian unworldliness. On the
contrary, there might be a dangerous snare in an unsanctified
outstepping of average Christian practice.

"Nevertheless," he observed, gravely, "it is by such self-advancement
that many have been enabled to do good service to the cause of liberty
and to the public well-being. The ring and the robe of Joseph were no
objects for a good man's ambition, but they were the signs of that
credit which he won by his divinely-inspired skill, and which enabled
him to act as a saviour to his brethren."

"Oh, yes, your ringed and scented men of the people!--I won't be one of
them. Let a man once throttle himself with a satin stock, and he'll get
new wants and new motives. Metamorphosis will have begun at his
neck-joint, and it will go on till it has changed his likings first and
then his reasoning, which will follow his likings as the feet of a
hungry dog follow his nose. I'll have none of your clerkly gentility. I
might end by collecting greasy pence from poor men to buy myself a fine
coat and a glutton's dinner, on pretence of serving the poor men. I'd
sooner be Paley's fat pigeon than a demagogue all tongue and stomach,
though"--here Felix changed his voice a little--"I should like well
enough to be another sort of demagogue, if I could."

"Then you have a strong interest in the great political movements of
these times?" said Mr. Lyon, with a perceptible flashing of the eyes.

"I should think so. I despise every man who has not--or, having it,
doesn't try to rouse it in other men."

"Right, my young friend, right," said the minister, in a deep cordial
tone. Inevitably his mind was drawn aside from the immediate
consideration of Felix Holt's spiritual interest by the prospect of
political sympathy. In those days so many instruments of God's cause in
the fight for religious and political liberty held creeds that were
painfully wrong, and, indeed, irreconcilable with salvation! "That is
my own view, which I maintain in the face of some opposition from
brethren who contend that a share in public movements is a hindrance to
the closer walk, and that the pulpit is no place for teaching men their
duties as members of the commonwealth. I have had much puerile blame
cast upon me because I have uttered such names as Brougham and
Wellington in the pulpit. Why not Wellington as well as Rabshakeh? and
why not Brougham as well as Balaam? Does God know less of men than He
did in the days of Hezekiah and Moses?--is His arm shortened, and is the
world become too wide for His providence? But, they say, there are no
politics in the New Testament----"

"Well, they're right enough there," said Felix, with his usual
unceremoniousness.

"What! you are of those who hold that a Christian minister should not
meddle with public matters in the pulpit?" said Mr. Lyon, coloring. "I
am ready to join issue on that point."

"Not I, sir," said Felix; "I should say, teach any truth you can,
whether it's in the Testament or out of it. It's little enough anybody
can get hold of, and still less what he can drive into the skulls of a
pence-counting, parcel-tying generation, such as mostly fill your
chapels."

"Young man," said Mr. Lyon, pausing in front of Felix. He spoke rapidly,
as he always did, except when his words were specially weighted with
emotion: he overflowed with matter, and in his mind matter was always
completely organized into words. "I speak not on my own behalf, for not
only have I no desire that any man should think of me above that which
he seeth me to be, but I am aware of much that should make me patient
under a disesteem resting even on too hasty a construction. I speak not
as claiming reverence for my own age and office--not to shame you, but
to warn you. It is good that you should use plainness of speech, and I
am not of those who would enforce a submissive silence on the young,
that they themselves, being elders, may be heard at large; but Elihu was
the youngest of Job's friends, yet was there a wise rebuke in his words;
and the aged Eli was taught by a revelation to the boy Samuel. I have to
keep a special watch over myself in this matter, inasmuch as I have need
of utterance which makes the thought within me seem as a pent-up fire,
until I have shot it forth, as it were, in arrowy words, each one
hitting its mark. Therefore I pray for a listening spirit, which is a
great mark of grace. Nevertheless, my young friend, I am bound, as I
said, to warn you. The temptations that most beset those who have great
natural gifts, and are wise after the flesh, are pride and scorn, more
particularly toward those weak things of the world which have been
chosen to confound the things which are mighty. The scornful nostril and
the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth. The
mind that is too ready at contempt and reprobation is----"

Here the door opened, and Mr. Lyon paused to look around, but seeing
only Lyddy with the tea-tray, he went on--

"Is, I may say, as a clenched fist that can give blows, but is shut up
from receiving and holding aught that is precious--though it were
heaven-sent manna."

"I understand you, sir," said Felix, good-humoredly, putting out his
hand to the little man, who had come close to him as he delivered the
last sentence with sudden emphasis and slowness. "But I'm not inclined
to clench my fist at you."

"Well, well," said Mr. Lyon, shaking the proffered hand, "we shall see
more of each other, and I trust shall have much profitable communing.
You will stay and have a dish of tea with us: we take the meal late on
Thursdays, because my daughter is detained by giving a lesson in the
French tongue. But she is doubtless returned now, and will presently
come and pour out tea for us."

"Thank you, I'll stay," said Felix, not from any curiosity to see the
minister's daughter, but from a liking for the society of the minister
himself--for his quaint looks and ways, and the transparency of his
talk, which gave a charm even to his weakness. The daughter was probably
some prim Miss, neat, sensible, pious, but all in a small feminine way,
in which Felix was no more interested than in Dorcas meetings,
biographies of devout women, and that amount of ornamental knitting
which was not inconsistent with Non-conforming seriousness.

"I'm perhaps a little too fond of banging and smashing," he went on: "a
phrenologist at Glasgow told me I had large veneration; another man
there, who knew me, laughed out and said I was the most blasphemous
iconoclast living. 'That,' says my phrenologist, 'is because of his
large ideality, which prevents him from finding anything perfect enough
to be venerated.' Of course I put my ears down and wagged my tail at
that stroking."

"Yes, yes; I have had my own head explored with somewhat similar
results. It is, I fear, but a vain show of fulfilling the heathen
precept, 'Know thyself,' and too often leads to a self-estimate which
will subsist in the absence of that fruit by which alone the quality of
the tree is made evident. Nevertheless----Esther, my dear, this is Mr.
Holt, whose acquaintance I have now been making with more than ordinary
interest. He will take tea with us."

Esther bowed slightly as she walked across the room to fetch the candle
and place it near her tray. Felix rose and bowed, also with an air of
indifference, which was perhaps exaggerated by the fact that he was
inwardly surprised. The minister's daughter was not the sort of person
he expected. She was quite incongruous with his notion of ministers'
daughters in general; and though he had expected something nowise
delightful, the incongruity repelled him. A very delicate scent, the
faint suggestion of a garden, was wafted as she went. He would not
observe her, but he had a sense of an elastic walk, the tread of small
feet, a long neck and a high crown of shining brown plaits and curls
that floated backward--things, in short, that suggested a fine lady to
him, and determined him to notice her as little as possible. A fine lady
was always a sort of spun-glass affair--not natural, and with no beauty
for him as art; but a fine lady as the daughter of this rusty old
Puritan was especially offensive.

"Nevertheless," continued Mr. Lyon, who rarely let drop any thread of
discourse, "that phrenological science is not irreconcilable with the
revealed dispensations. And it is undeniable that we have our varying
native dispositions which even grace will not obliterate. I myself, from
my youth up, have been given to question too curiously concerning the
truth--to examine and sift the medicine of the soul rather than to apply
it."

"If your truth happens to be such medicine as Holt's Pills and Elixir,
the less you swallow of it the better," said Felix. "But truth-vendors
and medicine-vendors usually recommend swallowing. When a man sees his
livelihood in a pill or a proposition, he likes to have orders for the
dose, and not curious enquiries."

This speech verged on rudeness, but it was delivered with a brusque
openness that implied the absence of any personal intention. The
minister's daughter was now for the first time startled into looking at
Felix. But her survey of this unusual speaker was soon made, and she
relieved her father from the need to reply by saying--

"The tea is poured out, father."

That was the signal for Mr. Lyon to advance toward the table, raise his
right hand, and ask a blessing at sufficient length for Esther to glance
at the visitor again. There seemed to be no danger of his looking at
her: he was observing her father. She had time to remark that he was a
peculiar looking person, but not insignificant, which was the quality
that most hopelessly consigned a man to perdition. He was massively
built. The striking points in his face were large clear gray eyes and
full lips.

"Will you draw up to the table, Mr. Holt?" said the minister.

In the act of rising, Felix pushed back his chair too suddenly against
the rickety table close by him, and down went the blue-frilled
work-basket, flying open, and dispersing on the floor reels, thimble,
muslin-work, a small sealed bottle of attar of rose, and something
heavier than these--a duodecimo volume which fell near him between the
table and the fender.

"Oh, my stars!" said Felix, "I beg your pardon." Esther had already
started up, and with wonderful quickness had picked up half the small
rolling things while Felix was lifting the basket and the book. This
last had opened, and had its leaves crushed in falling; and, with the
instinct of a bookish man, he saw nothing more pressing to be done than
to flatten the corners of the leaves.

"Byron's Poems!" he said, in a tone of disgust, while Esther was
recovering all the other articles. "'The Dream'--he'd better have been
asleep and snoring. What! do you stuff your memory with Byron, Miss
Lyon?"

Felix on his side, was led at last to look straight at Esther, but it
was with a strong denunciatory and pedagogic intention. Of course he saw
more clearly than ever that she was a fine lady.

She reddened, drew up her long neck, and said, as she retreated to her
chair again--

"I have a great admiration for Byron."

Mr. Lyon had paused in the act of drawing his chair to the tea table,
and was looking on at this scene, wrinkling the corners of his eyes with
a perplexed smile. Esther would not have wished him to know anything
about the volume of Byron, but she was too proud to show any concern.

"He is a worldly and vain writer, I fear," said Mr. Lyon. He knew
scarcely anything of the poet, whose books embodied the faith and ritual
of many young ladies and gentlemen.

"A misanthropic debauchee," said Felix, lifting a chair with one hand,
and holding the book open in the other, "whose notion of a hero was
that he should disorder his stomach and despise mankind. His corsairs
and renegades, his Alps and Manfreds, are the most paltry puppets that
were ever pulled by the strings of lust and pride."

"Hand the book to me," said Mr. Lyon.

"Let me beg of you to put it aside till after tea, father," said Esther.
"However objectionable Mr. Holt may find its pages, they would certainly
be made worse by being greased with bread-and-butter."

"That is true, my dear," said Mr. Lyon, laying down the book on the
small table behind him. He saw that his daughter was angry.

"Ho, ho!" thought Felix, "her father is frightened at her. How came he
to have such a nice-stepping, long-necked peacock for his daughter? but
she shall see that I am not frightened." Then he said aloud, "I should
like to know how you will justify your admiration for such a writer,
Miss Lyon."

"I should not attempt it with you, Mr. Holt," said Esther. "You have
such strong words at command that they make the smallest argument seem
formidable. If I had ever met the giant Cormoran, I should have made a
point of agreeing with him in his literary opinions."

Esther had that excellent thing in woman, a soft voice with clear fluent
utterance. Her sauciness was always charming because it was without
emphasis, and was accompanied with graceful little turns of the head.

Felix laughed at her thrust with young heartiness.

"My daughter is a critic of words, Mr. Holt," said the minister, smiling
complacently, "and often corrects mine on the ground of niceties, which
I profess are as dark to me as if they were the reports of a sixth sense
which I possess not. I am an eager seeker for precision, and would fain
find language subtle enough to follow the utmost intricacies of the
soul's pathways, but I see not why a round word that means some object,
made and blessed by the Creator, should be branded and banished as a
malefactor."

"Oh, your niceties--I know what they are," said Felix, in his usual
_fortissimo_. "They'll go on your system of make-believe. 'Rottenness'
may suggest what is unpleasant, so you'd better say 'sugar-plums,' or
something else such a long way off the fact that nobody is obliged to
think of it. Those are your roundabout euphuisms that dress up swindling
till it looks as well as honesty, and shoot with boiled peas instead of
bullets. I hate your gentlemanly speakers."

"Then you would not like Mr. Jermyn, I think," said Esther. "That
reminds me, father, that to-day, when I was giving Miss Louisa Jermyn
her lesson, Mr. Jermyn came in and spoke to me with grand politeness,
and asked me at what times you were likely to be disengaged, because he
wished to make your better acquaintance, and consult you on matters of
importance. He never took the least notice of me before. Can you guess
the reason of his sudden ceremoniousness?"

"Nay, child," said the minister, ponderingly.

"Politics, of course," said Felix. "He's on some committee. An election
is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere
interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. Eh, Mr. Lyon? Isn't
that it?"

"Nay, not so. He is the close ally of the Transome family, who are blind
hereditary Tories like the Debarrys, and will drive their tenants to the
poll as if they were sheep, and it has even been hinted that the heir
who is coming from the East may be another Tory candidate, and coalesce
with the younger Debarry. It is said that he has enormous wealth, and
could purchase every vote in the county that has a price."

"He is come," said Esther. "I heard Miss Jermyn tell her sister that she
had seen him going out of her father's room."

"'Tis strange," said Mr. Lyon.

"Something extraordinary must have happened," said Esther, "for Mr.
Jermyn to intend courting us. Miss Jermyn said to me only the other day
that she could not think how I came to be so well educated and ladylike.
She always thought Dissenters were ignorant, vulgar people. I said, so
they were, usually, and Church people also in small towns. She considers
herself a judge of what is ladylike, and she is vulgarity
personified--with large feet, and the most odious scent on her
handkerchief, and a bonnet that looks like 'The Fashion' printed in
capital letters."

"One sort of fine-ladyism is as good as another," said Felix.

"No, indeed. Pardon me," said Esther. "A real fine-lady does not wear
clothes that flare in people's eyes, or use importunate scents, or make
a noise as she moves: she is something refined and graceful, and
charming, and never obtrusive."

"Oh, yes," said Felix, contemptuously. "And she reads Byron also, and
admires Childe Harold--gentlemen of unspeakable woes, who employ a
hairdresser, and look seriously at themselves in the glass."

Esther reddened, and gave a little toss. Felix went on triumphantly. "A
fine-lady is a squirrel-headed thing, with small airs, and small
notions, about as applicable to the business of life as a pair of
tweezers to the clearing of a forest. Ask your father what those old
persecuted emigrant Puritans would have done with fine-lady wives and
daughters."

"Oh, there is no danger of such _mésalliances_," said Esther. "Men who
are unpleasant companions and make frights of themselves, are sure to
get wives tasteless enough to suit them."

"Esther, my dear," said Mr. Lyon, "let not your playfulness betray you
into disrespect toward those venerable pilgrims. They struggled and
endured in order to cherish and plant anew the seeds of a scriptural
doctrine and of a pure discipline."

"Yes, I know," said Esther, hastily, dreading a discourse on the pilgrim
fathers.

"Oh, they were an ugly lot!" Felix burst in, making Mr. Lyon start.
"Miss Medora wouldn't have minded if they had all been put into the
pillory and lost their ears. She would have said, 'Their ears did stick
out so.' I shouldn't wonder if that's a bust of one of them." Here
Felix, with sudden keenness of observation, nodded at the black bust
with the gauze over its colored face.

"No," said Mr. Lyon, "that is the eminent George Whitfield, who, you
well know, had a gift of oratory as of one on whom the tongue of flame
had rested visibly. But Providence--doubtless for wise ends in relation
to the inner man, for I would not enquire too closely into minutiæ which
carry too many plausible interpretations for any one of them to be
stable--Providence, I say, ordained that the good man should squint; and
my daughter has not yet learned to bear with his infirmity."

"She has put a veil over it. Suppose you had squinted yourself?" said
Felix, looking at Esther.

"Then, doubtless, you could have been more polite to me, Mr. Holt," said
Esther, rising and placing herself at her work-table. "You seem to
prefer what is unusual and ugly."

"A peacock!" thought Felix. "I should like to come and scold her every
day, and make her cry and cut her fine hair off."

Felix rose to go, and said, "I will not take up any more of your
valuable time, Mr. Lyon. I know that you have not many spare evenings."

"That is true, my young friend; for I now go to Sproxton one evening in
the week. I do not despair that we may some day need a chapel there,
though the hearers do not multiply save among the women, and there is no
work as yet begun among the miners themselves. I shall be glad of your
company in my walk thither to-morrow at five o'clock, if you would like
to see how that population has grown of late years."

"Oh, I've been to Sproxton already several times. I had a congregation
of my own there last Sunday evening."

"What! do you preach?" said Mr. Lyon, with brightened glance.

"Not exactly. I went to the ale-house."

Mr. Lyon started. "I trust you are putting a riddle to me, young man,
even as Samson did to his companions. From what you said but lately, it
cannot be that you are given to tippling and to taverns."

"Oh, I don't drink much. I order a pint of beer, and I get into talk
with the fellows over their pots and pipes. Somebody must take a little
knowledge and common-sense to them in this way, else how are they to get
it? I go for educating the non-electors, so I put myself in the way of
my pupils--my academy is the beer-house. I'll walk with you to-morrow
with pleasure."

"Do so, do so," said Mr. Lyon, shaking hands with his odd acquaintance.
"We shall understand each other better by-and-by, I doubt not."

"I wish you good-evening, Miss Lyon."

Esther bowed very slightly, without speaking.

"That is a singular young man, Esther," said the minister, walking about
after Felix was gone. "I discern in him a love for whatsoever things are
honest and true, which I would fain believe to be an earnest of further
endowment with the wisdom that is from on high. It is true that, as the
traveller in the desert is often lured, by a false vision of water and
freshness, to turn aside from the track which leads to the tried and
established fountains, so the Evil One will take advantage of a natural
yearning toward the better, to delude the soul with a self-flattering
belief in a visionary virtue, higher than the ordinary fruits of the
Spirit. But I trust it is not so here. I feel a great enlargement in
this young man's presence, notwithstanding a certain license in his
language, which I shall use my efforts to correct."

"I think he is very coarse and rude," said Esther, with a touch of
temper in her voice. "But he speaks better English than most of our
visitors. What is his occupation?"

"Watch and clock making, by which, together with a little teaching, as I
understand, he hopes to maintain his mother, not thinking it right that
he should live by the sale of medicines whose virtues he distrusts. It
is no common scruple."

"Dear me," said Esther, "I thought he was something higher than that."
She was disappointed.

Felix, on his side, as he strolled out in the evening air, said to
himself: "Now by what fine meshes of circumstance did that queer devout
old man, with his awful creed, which makes this world a vestibule with
double doors to hell, and a narrow stair on one side whereby the thinner
sort may mount to heaven--by what subtle play of flesh and spirit did he
come to have a daughter so little in his own likeness? Married
foolishly, I suppose. I'll never marry, though I should have to live on
raw turnips to subdue my flesh. I'll never look back and say, 'I had a
fine purpose once--I meant to keep my hands clean and my soul upright,
and to look truth in the face; but pray excuse me, I have a wife and
children--I must lie and simper a little, else they'll starve'; or 'My
wife is nice, she must have her bread well buttered, and her feelings
will be hurt if she is not thought genteel.' That is the lot Miss Esther
is preparing for some man or other. I could grind my teeth at such
self-satisfied minxes, who think they can tell everybody what is the
correct thing, and the utmost stretch of their ideas will not place them
on a level with the intelligent fleas. I should like to see if she could
be made ashamed of herself."




CHAPTER VI.

    Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives,
    And feed my mind, that dies for want of her.

                                 --MARLOWE: _Tamburlaine the Great_.


Hardly any one in Treby who thought at all of Mr. Lyon and his daughter
had not felt the same sort of wonder about Esther as Felix felt. She was
not much liked by her father's church and congregation. The less serious
observed that she had too many airs and graces and held her head much
too high; the stricter sort feared greatly that Mr. Lyon had not been
sufficiently careful in placing his daughter among God-fearing people,
and that, being led astray by the melancholy vanity of giving her
exceptional accomplishments, he had sent her to a French school, and
allowed her to take situations where she had contracted notions not
only above her own rank, but of too worldly a kind to be safe in any
rank. But no one knew what sort of woman her mother had been, for Mr.
Lyon never spoke of his past domesticities. When he was chosen as pastor
at Treby in 1825, it was understood that he had been a widower many
years, and he had no companion but the tearful and much-exercised Lyddy,
his daughter being still at school. It was only two years ago that
Esther had come home to live permanently with her father, and take
pupils in the town. Within that time she had excited a passion in two
young Dissenting breasts that were clad in the best style of Treby
waistcoat--a garment which at that period displayed much design both in
the stuff and the wearer; and she had secured an astonished admiration
of her cleverness from the girls of various ages who were her pupils;
indeed, her knowledge of French was generally held to give a distinction
to Treby itself as compared with other market-towns. But she had won
little regard of any other kind. Wise Dissenting matrons were divided
between fear lest their sons should want to marry her and resentment
that she should treat those "undeniable" young men with a distant scorn
which was hardly to be tolerated in a minister's daughter; not only
because that parentage appeared to entail an obligation to show an
exceptional degree of Christian humility, but because, looked at from a
secular point of view, a poor minister must be below the substantial
householders who keep him. For at that time the preacher who was paid
under the Voluntary system was regarded by his flock with feelings not
less mixed than the spiritual person who still took his tithe-pig or his
_modus_. His gifts were admired, and tears were shed under best bonnets
at his sermons; but the weaker tea was thought good enough for him; and
even when he went to preach a charity sermon in a strange town, he was
treated with home-made wine and the smaller bedroom. As the good
Churchman's reverence was often mixed with growling, and was apt to be
given chiefly to an abstract parson who was what a parson ought to be,
so the good Dissenter sometimes mixed his approval of ministerial gifts
with considerable criticism and cheapening of the human vessel which
contained those treasures. Mrs. Muscat and Mrs. Nuttwood applied the
principle of Christian equality by remarking that Mr. Lyon had his
oddities, and that he ought not to allow his daughter to indulge in such
unbecoming expenditure on her gloves, shoes, and hosiery, even if she
did pay for them out of her earnings. As for the Church people who
engaged Miss Lyon to give lessons in their families, their imaginations
were altogether prostrated by the incongruity between accomplishments
and Dissent, between weekly prayer-meetings and a conversance with so
lively and altogether worldly a language as the French. Esther's own
mind was not free from a sense of irreconcilableness between the objects
of her taste and the conditions of her lot. She knew that Dissenters
were looked down upon by those whom she regarded as the most refined
classes; her favorite companions, both in France and at an English
school where she had been a junior teacher, had thought it quite
ridiculous to have a father who was a Dissenting preacher; and when an
ardently admiring school-fellow induced her parents to take Esther as a
governess to the younger children, all her native tendencies toward
luxury, fastidiousness, and scorn of mock gentility, were strengthened
by witnessing the habits of a well-born and wealthy family. Yet the
position of servitude was irksome to her, and she was glad at last to
live at home with her father, for though, throughout her girlhood, she
had wished to avoid this lot, a little experience had taught her to
prefer its comparative independence. But she was not contented with her
life; she seemed to herself to be surrounded with ignoble, uninteresting
conditions, from which there was no issue; for even if she had been
unamiable enough to give her father pain deliberately, it would have
been no satisfaction to her to go to Treby church, and visibly turn her
back on Dissent. It was not religious differences, but social
differences, that Esther was concerned about, and her ambitious taste
would have been no more gratified in the society of the Waces than in
that of the Muscats. The Waces spoke imperfect English and played whist;
the Muscats spoke the same dialect and took in the "Evangelical
Magazine." Esther liked neither of these amusements. She had one of
those exceptional organizations which are quick and sensitive without
being in the least morbid; she was alive to the finest shades of manner,
to the nicest distinctions of tone and accent; she had a little code of
her own about scents and colors, textures and behavior, by which she
secretly condemned or sanctioned all things and persons. And she was
well satisfied with herself for her fastidious taste, never doubting
that hers was the highest standard. She was proud that the best-born
and handsomest girls at school had always said that she might be taken
for a born lady. Her own pretty instep, clad in a silk stocking, her
little heel, just rising from a kid slipper, her irreproachable nails
and delicate wrist, were the objects of delighted consciousness to her;
and she felt that it was her superiority which made her unable to use
without disgust any but the finest cambric handkerchiefs and freshest
gloves. Her money all went in the gratification of these nice tastes,
and she saved nothing from her earnings. I can not say that she had
pangs of conscience on this score; for she felt sure that she was
generous: she hated all meanness, would empty her purse impulsively on
some sudden appeal to her pity, and if she found out that her father had
a want, she would supply it with some pretty device of a surprise. But
then the good man so seldom had a want--except the perpetual desire,
which she could never gratify, of seeing her under convictions, and fit
to become a member of the church.

As for little Mr. Lyon, he loved and admired this unregenerate child
more, he feared, than was consistent with the due preponderance of
impersonal and ministerial regards: he prayed and pleaded for her with
tears, humbling himself for her spiritual deficiencies in the privacy of
his study; and then came down stairs to find himself in timorous
subjection to her wishes, lest, as he inwardly said, he should give his
teaching an ill savor, by mingling it with outward crossing. There will
be queens in spite of Salic or other laws of later date than Adam and
Eve; and here in this small dingy house of the minister in Malthouse
Yard, there was a light-footed, sweet-voiced Queen Esther.

The stronger will always rule, say some, with an air of confidence which
is like a lawyer's flourish, forbidding exceptions or additions. But
what is strength? Is it blind wilfulness that sees no terrors, no
many-linked consequences, no bruises and wounds of those whose cords it
tightens? Is it the narrowness of a brain that conceives no needs
differing from its own, and looks to no results beyond the bargains of
to-day; that tugs with emphasis for every small purpose, and thinks it
weakness to exercise the sublime power of resolved renunciation? There
is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and
of love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to
irremediable weakness.

Esther had affection for her father: she recognized the purity of his
character, and a quickness of intellect in him which responded to her
own liveliness, in spite of what seemed a dreary piety, which selected
everything that was least interesting and romantic in life and history.
But his old clothes had a smoky odor, and she did not like to walk with
him, because, when people spoke to him in the street, it was his wont,
instead of remarking on the weather and passing on, to pour forth in an
absent manner some reflections that were occupying his mind about the
traces of the Divine government, or about a peculiar incident narrated
in the life of the eminent Mr. Richard Baxter. Esther had a horror of
appearing ridiculous even in the eyes of vulgar Trebians. She fancied
that she should have loved her mother better than she was able to love
her father; and she wished she could have remembered that mother more
thoroughly.

But she had no more than a broken vision of the time before she was five
years old--the time when the word oftenest on her lips was "Mamma"; when
a low voice spoke caressing French words to her, and she in her turn
repeated the words to her rag doll; when a very small white hand,
different from any that came after, used to pat her, and stroke her, and
tie on her frock and pinafore, and when at last there was nothing but
sitting with a doll on a bed where mamma was lying, till her father once
carried her away. Where distinct memory began, there was no longer the
low caressing voice and the small white hand. She knew that her mother
was a Frenchwoman, that she had been in want and distress, and that her
maiden name was Annette Ledru. Her father had told her no more than
this; and once, he had said, "My Esther, until you are a woman, we will
only think of your mother: when you are about to be married and leave
me, we will speak of her, and I will deliver to you her ring and all
that was hers; but, without a great command laid upon me, I cannot
pierce my heart by speaking of that which was and is not." Esther had
never forgotten these words, and the older she became, the more
impossible she felt it that she should urge her father with questions
about the past.

His inability to speak of that past to her depended on manifold causes.
Partly it came from an initial concealment. He had not the courage to
tell Esther that he was not really her father: he had not the courage to
renounce that hold on her tenderness which the belief in his natural
fatherhood must help to give him, or to incur any resentment that her
quick spirit might feel at having been brought up under a false
supposition. But there were other things yet more difficult for him to
be quite open about--deep sorrows of his life as a Christian minister
that were hardly to be told to a girl.

Twenty-two years ago, when Rufus Lyon was no more than thirty-six years
old, he was the admired pastor of a large Independent congregation in
one of our southern seaport towns. He was unmarried, and had met all
exhortations of friends who represented to him that a bishop, _i.e._,
the overseer of an Independent church and congregation--should be the
husband of one wife, by saying that St. Paul meant this particular as a
limitation, and not as an injunction; that a minister was permitted to
have one wife, but that he, Rufus Lyon, did not wish to avail himself of
that permission, finding his studies and other labors of his vocation
all-absorbing, and seeing that mothers in Israel were sufficiently
provided by those who had not been set apart for a more special work.
His church and congregation were proud of him: he was put forward on
platforms, was made a "deputation," and was requested to preach
anniversary sermons in far-off towns. Wherever noteworthy preachers were
discussed, Rufus Lyon was almost sure to be mentioned as one who did
honor to the Independent body; his sermons were said to be full of fire;
and while he had more of human knowledge than many of his brethren, he
showed in an eminent degree the marks of a true ministerial vocation.
But on a sudden this burning and shining light seemed to be quenched:
Mr. Lyon voluntarily resigned his charge and withdrew from the town.

A terrible crisis had come upon him; a moment in which religious doubt
and newly-awakened passion had rushed together in a common flood, and
had paralyzed his ministerial gifts. His thirty-six years had been a
story of purely religious and studious fervor; his passion had been for
doctrines, for argumentative conquest on the side of right; the sins he
had chiefly to pray against had been those of personal ambition (under
such forms as ambition takes in the mind of a man who has chosen the
career of an Independent preacher), and those of a too restless
intellect, ceaselessly urging questions concerning the mystery of that
which was assuredly revealed, and thus hindering the due nourishment of
the soul on the substance of the truth delivered. Even at that time of
comparative youth, his unworldliness and simplicity in small matters
(for he was keenly awake to the larger affairs of this world) gave a
certain oddity to his manners and appearance; and though his sensitive
face had much beauty, his person altogether seemed so irrelevant to a
fashionable view of things, that well-dressed ladies and gentlemen
usually laughed at him, as they probably did at Mr. John Milton after
the Restoration and ribbons had come in, and still more at that apostle,
of weak bodily presence, who preached in the back streets of Ephesus and
elsewhere, a new view of a religion that hardly anybody believed in.
Rufus Lyon was the singular-looking apostle of the Meeting in Skipper's
Lane. Was it likely that any romance should befall such a man? Perhaps
not; but romance did befall him.

One winter's evening in 1812, Mr. Lyon was returning from a village
preaching. He walked at his usual rapid rate, with busy thoughts
undisturbed by any sight more distinct than the bushes and the hedgerow
trees, black beneath a faint moonlight, until something suggested to him
that he had perhaps omitted to bring away with him a thin account-book
in which he recorded certain subscriptions. He paused, unfastened his
outer coat, and felt in all his pockets, then he took off his hat and
looked inside it. The book was not to be found, and he was about to walk
on, when he was startled by hearing a low, sweet voice, say, with a
strong foreign accent--

"Have pity on me, sir."

Searching with his short-sighted eyes, he perceived some one on a
side-bank; and approaching, he found a young woman with a baby on her
lap. She spoke again more faintly than before.

"Sir, I die with hunger; in the name of God take the little one."

There was no distrusting the pale face and the sweet low voice. Without
pause, Mr. Lyon took the baby in his arms and said, "Can you walk by my
side, young woman?"

She rose, but seemed tottering. "Lean on me," said Mr. Lyon, and so they
walked slowly on, the minister for the first time in his life carrying a
baby.

Nothing better occurred to him than to take his charge to his own house;
it was the simplest way of relieving the woman's wants, and finding out
how she could be helped further; and he thought of no other
possibilities. She was too feeble for more words to be spoken between
them till she was seated by his fireside. His elderly servant was not
easily amazed at anything her master did in the way of charity, and at
once took the baby, while Mr. Lyon unfastened the mother's damp bonnet
and shawl, and gave her something warm to drink. Then, waiting by her
till it was time to offer her more, he had nothing to do but to notice
the loveliness of her face, which seemed to him as that of an angel,
with a benignity in its repose that carried a more assured sweetness
than any smile. Gradually she revived, lifted up her delicate hands
between her face and the firelight, and looked at the baby which lay
opposite to her on the old servant's lap, taking in spoonfuls with much
content, and stretching out naked feet toward the warmth. Then, as her
consciousness of relief grew into contrasting memory, she lifted up her
eyes to Mr. Lyon, who stood close by her, and said, in her pretty broken
way:

"I knew you had a good heart when you took your hat off. You seemed to
me as the image of the _bien-amié Saint Jean_."

The grateful glance of those blue-gray eyes, with their long
shadow-making eyelashes, was a new kind of good to Rufus Lyon; it seemed
to him as if a woman had never really looked at him before. Yet this
poor thing was apparently a blind French Catholic--of delicate nurture,
surely, judging from her hands. He was in a tremor; he felt that it
would be rude to question her, and he only urged her now to take a
little food. She accepted it with evident enjoyment, looking at the
child continually, and then, with a fresh burst of gratitude, leaning
forward to press the servant's hand and say, "Oh, you are good!" Then
she looked up at Mr. Lyon again and said, "Is there in the world a
prettier _marmot?_"

The evening passed; a bed was made up for the strange woman, and Mr.
Lyon had not asked her so much as her name. He never went to bed himself
that night. He spent it in misery, enduring a horrible assault of Satan.
He thought a frenzy had seized him. Wild visions of an impossible future
thrust themselves upon him. He dreaded lest the woman had a husband; he
wished that he might call her his own, that he might worship her beauty,
that she might love and caress him. And what to the mass of men would
have been only one of many allowable follies--a transient fascination,
to be dispelled by daylight and contact with those common facts of which
common-sense is the reflex--was to him a spiritual convulsion. He was as
one who raved, and knew that he raved. These mad wishes were
irreconcilable with what he was, and must be, as a Christian minister,
nay, penetrating his soul as tropic heat penetrates the frame, and
changes for it all aspects and all flavors, they were irreconcilable
with that conception of the world which made his faith. All the busy
doubt which had before been mere impish shadows flitting around a belief
that was strong with the strength of an unswerving moral bias, had now
gathered blood and substance. The questioning spirit had become suddenly
bold and blasphemous; it no longer insinuated scepticism--it prompted
defiance; it no longer expressed cool, inquisitive thought, but was the
voice of a passionate mood. Yet he never ceased to regard it as the
voice of the tempter: the conviction which had been the law of his
better life remained within him as a conscience.

The struggle of that night was an abridgment of all the struggles that
came after. Quick souls have their intensest life in the first
anticipatory sketch of what may or will be, and the pursuit of their
wish is the pursuit of that paradisiacal vision which only impelled
them, and is left farther and farther behind, vanishing forever even out
of hope in the moment which is called success.

The next morning Mr. Lyon heard his guest's history. She was the
daughter of a French officer of considerable rank, who had fallen in the
Russian campaign. She had escaped from France to England with much
difficulty in order to rejoin her husband, a young Englishman, to whom
she had become attached during his detention as a prisoner of war on
parole at Vesoul, where she was living under the charge of some
relatives, and to whom she had been married without the consent of her
family. Her husband had served in the Hanoverian army, had obtained his
discharge in order to visit England on some business, with the nature of
which she was not acquainted, and had been taken prisoner as a suspected
spy. A short time after their marriage he and his fellow-prisoners had
been moved to a town nearer the coast, and she had remained in wretched
uncertainty about him, until at last a letter had come from him telling
her that an exchange of prisoners had occurred, that he was in England,
that she must use her utmost effort to follow him, and that on arriving
on English ground she must send him word under a cover which he
enclosed, bearing an address in London. Fearing the opposition of her
friends, she started unknown to them, with a very small supply of money;
and after enduring much discomfort and many fears in waiting for a
passage which she at last got in a small trading smack, she arrived at
Southampton--ill. Before she was able to write, her baby was born; and
before her husband's answer came, she had been obliged to pawn some
clothes and trinkets. He desired her to travel to London where he would
meet her at the Belle Sauvage, adding that he was himself in distress,
and unable to come to her: when once she was in London they would take
ship and quit the country. Arrived at the Belle Sauvage, the poor thing
waited three days in vain for her husband: on the fourth a letter came
in a strange hand, saying that in his last moments he had desired this
letter to be written to inform her of his death, and recommend her to
return to her friends. She could choose no other course, but she had
soon been reduced to walking, that she might save her pence to buy bread
with: and on the evening when she made her appeal to Mr. Lyon, she had
pawned the last thing, over and above needful clothing, that she could
persuade herself to part with. The things she had not borne to part with
were her marriage-ring, and a locket containing her husband's hair, and
bearing his baptismal name. This locket, she said, exactly resembled one
worn by her husband on his watch-chain, only that his bore the name
Annette, and contained a lock of her hair. The precious trifle now hung
round her neck by a cord, for she had sold the small gold chain which
formerly held it.

The only guarantee of this story, besides the exquisite candor of her
face, was a small packet of papers which she carried in her pocket,
consisting of her husband's few letters, the letter which announced his
death, and her marriage certificate. It was not so probable a story as
that of many an inventive vagrant; but Mr. Lyon did not doubt it for a
moment. It was impossible to him to suspect this angelic-faced woman,
but he had strong suspicions concerning her husband. He could not help
being glad that she had not retained the address he had desired her to
send to in London, as that removed any obvious means of learning
particulars about him. But enquiries might have been made at Vesoul by
letter, and her friends there might have been appealed to. A
consciousness, not to be quite silenced, told Mr. Lyon that this was the
course he ought to take, but it would have required an energetic
self-conquest, and he was excused from it by Annette's own
disinclination to return to her relatives, if any other acceptable
possibility could be found.

He dreaded, with a violence of feeling which surmounted all struggles,
lest anything should take her away, and place such barriers between them
as would make it unlikely or impossible that she should ever love him
well enough to become his wife. Yet he saw with perfect clearness that
unless he tore up his mad passion by the roots, his ministerial
usefulness would be frustrated, and the repose of his soul would be
destroyed. This woman was an unregenerate Catholic; ten minutes'
listening to her artless talk made that plain to him: even if her
position had been less equivocal, to unite himself to such a woman was
nothing less than a spiritual fall. It was already a fall that he had
wished there was no high purpose to which he owed an allegiance--that he
had longed to fly to some backwoods where there was no church to
reproach him, and where he might have this sweet woman to wife, and to
know the joys of tenderness. Those sensibilities which in most lives are
diffused equally through the youthful years, were aroused suddenly in
Mr. Lyon, as some men have their special genius revealed to them by a
tardy concurrence of conditions. His love was the first love of a fresh
young heart full of wonder and worship. But what to one man is the
virtue which he has sunk below the possibility of aspiring to, is to
another the backsliding by which he forfeits his spiritual crown.

The end was, that Annette remained in his house. He had striven against
himself so far as to represent her position to some chief matrons in his
congregation, praying and yet dreading that they would so take her by
the hand as to impose on him that denial of his own longing not to let
her go out of his sight, which he found it too hard to impose on
himself. But they regarded the case coldly; the woman was, after all, a
vagrant. Mr. Lyon was observed to be surprisingly weak on the
subject--his eagerness seemed disproportionate and unbecoming; and this
young Frenchwoman, unable to express herself very clearly, was no more
interesting to those matrons and their husbands than other pretty young
women suspiciously circumstanced. They were willing to subscribe
something to carry her on her way, or if she took some lodgings they
would give her a little sewing, and endeavor to convert her from
Papistry. If, however, she was a respectable person, as she said, the
only proper thing for her was to go back to her own country and friends.
In spite of himself, Mr. Lyon exulted. There seemed a reason now that he
should keep Annette under his own eyes. He told himself that no real
object would be served by his providing food and lodging for her
elsewhere--an expense which he could ill afford. And she was apparently
so helpless, except as to the one task of attending to her baby, that it
would have been folly to think of her exerting herself for her own
support.

But this course of his was severely disapproved by his church. There
were various signs that the minister was under some evil influence: his
preaching wanted its old fervor, he seemed to shun the intercourse of
his brethren, and very mournful suspicions were entertained. A formal
remonstrance was presented to him, but he met it as if he had already
determined to act in anticipation of it. He admitted that external
circumstances, conjoined with a peculiar state of mind, were likely to
hinder the fruitful exercise of his ministry, and he resigned it. There
was much sorrowing, much expostulation, but he declared that for the
present he was unable to unfold himself more fully; he only wished to
state solemnly that Annette Ledru, though blind in spiritual things, was
in a worldly sense a pure and virtuous woman. No more was to be said,
and he departed to a distant town. Here he maintained himself, Annette
and the child, with the remainder of his stipend, and with the wages he
earned as a printer's reader. Annette was one of those angelic-faced
helpless women who take all things as manna from heaven: the good image
of the well-beloved Saint John wished her to stay with him, and there
was nothing else that she wished for except the unattainable. Yet for a
whole year Mr. Lyon never dared to tell Annette that he loved her: he
trembled before this woman; he saw that the idea of his being her lover
was too remote from her mind for her to have any idea that she ought not
to live with him. She had never known, never asked the reason why he
gave up his ministry. She seemed to entertain as little concern about
the strange world in which she lived as a bird in its nest: an avalanche
had fallen over the past, but she sat warm and uncrushed--there was food
for many morrows, and her baby flourished. She did not seem even to care
about a priest, or about having her child baptized; and on the subject
of religion Mr. Lyon was as timid, and shrank as much from speaking to
her, as on the subject of his love. He dreaded anything that might cause
her to feel a sudden repulsion toward him. He dreaded disturbing her
simple gratitude and content. In these days his religious faith was not
slumbering; it was awake and achingly conscious of having fallen in a
struggle. He had had a great treasure committed to him, and had flung it
away: he held himself a backslider. His unbelieving thoughts never
gained the full ear and consent of his soul. His prayers had been
stifled by the sense that there was something he preferred to complete
obedience; they had ceased to be anything but intermittent cries and
confessions, and a submissive presentiment, rising at times even to an
entreaty, that some great discipline might come, that the dull spiritual
sense might be roused to full vision and hearing as of old, and the
supreme facts become again supreme in his soul. Mr. Lyon will perhaps
seem a very simple personage, with pitiably narrow theories; but none of
our theories are quite large enough for all the disclosures of time, and
to the end of men's struggles a penalty will remain for those who sink
from the ranks of the heroes into the crowd for whom the heroes fight
and die.

One day, however, Annette learned Mr. Lyon's secret. The baby had a
tooth coming, and being large and strong now, was noisily fretful. Mr.
Lyon, though he had been working extra hours and was much in need of
repose, took the child from its mother immediately on entering the house
and walked about with it, patting and talking soothingly to it. The
stronger grasp, the new sensations, were a successful anodyne, and baby
went to sleep on his shoulder. But fearful lest any movement should
disturb it, he sat down, and endured the bondage of holding it still
against his shoulder.

"You do nurse baby well," said Annette, approvingly. "Yet you never
nursed before I came?"

"No," said Mr. Lyon. "I had no brothers and sisters."

"Why were you not married?" Annette had never thought of asking that
question before.

"Because I never loved any woman--till now. I thought I should never
marry. Now I wish to marry."

Annette started. She did not see at once that she was the woman he
wanted to marry; what had flashed on her mind was, that there might be a
great change in Mr. Lyon's life. It was as if the lightning had entered
into her dream and half awaked her.

"Do you think it foolish, Annette, that I should wish to marry?"

"I did not expect it," she said, doubtfully. "I did not know you thought
about it."

"You know the woman I should like to marry?"

"I know her?" she said, interrogatively, blushing deeply.

"It is you, Annette--you whom I have loved better than my duty. I
forsook everything for you."

Mr. Lyon paused: he was about to do what he felt would be ignoble--to
urge what seemed like a claim.

"Can you love me, Annette? Will you be my wife?" Annette trembled and
looked miserable.

"Do not speak--forget it," said Mr. Lyon, rising suddenly and speaking
with loud energy. "No, no--I do not want it--I do not wish it."

The baby awoke as he started up; he gave the child into Annette's arms,
and left her.

His work took him away early the next morning and the next again. They
did not need to speak much to each other. The third day Mr. Lyon was too
ill to go to work. His frame had been overwrought; he had been too poor
to have sufficiently nourishing food, and under the shattering of his
long deferred hope his health had given away. They had no regular
servant--only occasional help from an old woman, who lit the fires and
put on the kettles. Annette was forced to be the sick-nurse, and this
sudden demand on her shook away some of her torpor. The illness was a
serious one, and the medical man one day hearing Mr. Lyon in his
delirium raving with an astonishing fluency in Biblical language,
suddenly looked round with increased curiosity at Annette, and asked if
she were the sick man's wife, or some other relative.

"No--no relation," said Annette, shaking her head. "He has been good to
me."

"How long have you lived with him?"

"More than a year."

"Was he a preacher once?"

"Yes."

"When did he leave off being a preacher?"

"Soon after he took care of me."

"Is that his child?"

"Sir," said Annette, coloring indignantly, "I am a widow."

The doctor, she thought, looked at her oddly, but he asked no more
questions.

When the sick man was getting better, and able to enjoy invalid's food,
he observed one day, while he was taking some broth, that Annette was
looking at him; he paused to look at her in return, and was struck with
a new expression in her face, quite distinct from the merely passive
sweetness which usually characterized it. She laid her little hand on
his, which was now transparently thin, and said, "I am getting very
wise; I have sold some of the books to make money--the doctor told me
where; and I have looked into the shops where they sell caps and bonnets
and pretty things, and I can do all that, and get more money to keep
us. And when you are well enough to get up, we will go out and be
married--shall we not? See! and _la petite_" (the baby had never
been named anything else) "shall call you Papa--and then we shall never
part."

Mr. Lyon trembled. This illness--something else, perhaps--had made a
great change in Annette. A fortnight after that they were married. The
day before he had ventured to ask her if she felt any difficulty about
her religion, and if she would consent to have _la petite_ baptized and
brought up as a Protestant. She shook her head and said very simply--

"No: in France, in other days, I would have minded; but all is changed.
I never was fond of religion, but I knew it was right. _J'aimais les
fleurs, les bals, la musique, et mon mari qui était beau_. But all that
is gone away. There is nothing of my religion in this country. But the
good God must be here, for you are good; I leave all to you."

It was clear that Annette regarded her present life as a sort of death
to the world--an existence on a remote island where she had been saved
from wreck. She was too indolent mentally, too little interested, to
acquaint herself with any secrets of the isle. The transient energy, the
more vivid consciousness and sympathy which had been stirred in her
during Mr. Lyon's illness, had soon subsided into the old apathy to
everything except her child. She withered like a plant in strange air,
and the three years of life that remained were but a slow and gentle
death. Those three years were to Mr. Lyon a period of such
self-suppression and life in another as few men know. Strange! that the
passion for this woman, which he felt to have drawn him aside from the
right as much as if he had broken the most solemn vows--for that only
was right to him which he held the best and highest--the passion for a
being who had no glimpse of his thoughts induced a more thorough
renunciation than he had ever known in the time of his complete devotion
to his ministerial career. He had no flattery now, either from himself
or the world; he knew that he had fallen, and _his_ world had forgotten
him, or shook their heads at his memory. The only satisfaction he had
was the satisfaction of his tenderness--which meant untiring work,
untiring patience, untiring wakefulness even to the dumb signs of
feeling in a creature whom he alone cared for.

The day of parting came, and he was left with little Esther as the one
visible sign of that four years' break in his life. A year afterward he
entered the ministry again, and lived with the utmost sparingness that
Esther might be so educated as to be able to get her own bread in case
of his death. Her probable facility in acquiring French naturally
suggested his sending her to a French school, which would give her a
special advantage as a teacher. It was a Protestant school, and French
Protestantism had the high recommendation of being non-Prelatical. It
was understood that Esther would contract no Papistical superstitions;
and this was perfectly true; but she contracted, as we see, a good deal
of non-Papistical vanity.

Mr. Lyon's reputation as a preacher and devoted pastor had revived; but
some dissatisfaction beginning to be felt by his congregation at a
certain laxity detected by them in his views as to the limits of
salvation, which he had in one sermon even hinted might extend to
unconscious recipients of mercy, he had found it desirable seven years
ago to quit this ten years' pastorate and accept a call from the less
important church in Malthouse Yard, Treby Magna.

This was Rufus Lyon's history, at that time unknown in its fullness to
any human being besides himself. We can perhaps guess what memories they
were that relaxed the stringency of his doctrine on the point of
salvation. In the deepest of all senses his heart said--

    "Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives,
    And feed my mind, that dies for want of her."




CHAPTER VII.

    _M._  It was but yesterday you spoke him well--
          You've changed your mind so soon?

    _N._                    Not I--'tis he
          That, changing to my thought, has changed my mind.
          No man puts rotten apples in his pouch
          Because their upper side looked fair to him.
          Constancy in mistake is constant folly.


The news that the rich heir of the Transomes was actually come back, and
had been seen at Treby, was carried to some one else who had more
reasons for being interested in it than the Reverend Rufus Lyon was yet
conscious of having. It was owing to this that at three o'clock, two
days afterward, a carriage and pair, with coachman and footman in
crimson and drab, passed through the lodge gates at Transome Court.
Inside there was a hale, good-natured-looking man of sixty, whose hands
rested on a knotted stick held between his knees; and a blue-eyed,
well-featured lady, fat and middle-aged--a mountain of satin, lace, and
exquisite muslin embroidery. They were not persons of a highly
remarkable appearance, but to most Trebians they seemed absolutely
unique, and likely to be known anywhere. If you had looked down upon
them from the box of Sampson's coach, he would have said, after lifting
his hat, "Sir Maximus and his lady--did you see?" thinking it needless
to add the surname.

"We shall find her greatly elated, doubtless," Lady Debarry was saying.
"She has been in the shade so long."

"Ah, poor thing!" said Sir Maximus. "A fine woman she was in her bloom.
I remember the first county ball she attended we were all ready to fight
for the sake of dancing with her. I always liked her from that time--I
never swallowed the scandal about her myself."

"If we are to be intimate with her," said Lady Debarry, "I wish you
would avoid making such allusions, Sir Maximus. I should not like Selina
and Harriet to hear them."

"My dear, I should have forgotten all about the scandal, only you remind
me of it sometimes," retorted the baronet, smiling and taking out his
snuff-box.

"These sudden turns of fortune are often dangerous to an excitable
constitution," said Lady Debarry, not choosing to notice her husband's
epigram. "Poor Lady Alicia Methurst got heart-disease from a sudden
piece of luck--the death of her uncle, you know. If Mrs. Transome was
wise she would go to town--she can afford it now, and consult Dr.
Truncheon. I should say myself he would order her digitalis: I have
often guessed exactly what a prescription would be. But it certainly was
one of her weak points to think she understood medicine better than
other people."

"She's a healthy woman enough, surely: see how upright she is, and she
rides about like a girl of twenty."

"She is so thin that she makes me shudder."

"Pooh! she's slim and active; women are not bid for by the pound."

"Pray don't be so coarse."

Sir Maximus laughed and showed his good teeth, which made his laughter
very becoming. The carriage stopped, and they were soon ushered to Mrs.
Transome's sitting-room, where she was working at her worsted
embroidery. A little daily embroidery had been a constant element in
Mrs. Transome's life; but that soothing occupation of taking stitches to
produce what neither she nor any one else wanted, was then the resource
of many a well-born and unhappy woman.

She received much warm congratulation and pressure of her hand with
perfect composure of manner; but she became paler than usual, and her
hands turned quite cold. The Debarrys did not yet know what Harold's
politics were.

"Well, our lucky youngster is come in the nick of time," said Sir
Maximus: "if he'll stand, he and Philip can run in harness together and
keep out both the Whigs."

"It is really quite a providential thing--his returning just now," said
Lady Debarry. "I couldn't help thinking that something would occur to
prevent Philip from having such a man as Peter Garstin for his
colleague."

"I call my friend Harold a youngster," said Sir Maximus, "for, you know,
I remember him only as he was when that portrait was taken."

"That is a long while ago," said Mrs. Transome. "My son is much altered,
as you may imagine."

There was a confused sound of voices in the library while this talk was
going on. Mrs. Transome chose to ignore that noise, but her face, from
being pale, began to flush a little.

"Yes, yes, on the outside, I dare say. But he was a fine fellow--I
always liked him. And if anybody should ask me what I should choose for
the good of the country, I couldn't have thought of anything better than
having a young Transome for a neighbor who will take an active part. The
Transomes and the Debarrys were always on the right side together in old
days. Of course he'll stand--he has made up his mind to it?"

The need for an answer to this embarrassing question was deferred by the
increase of inarticulate sounds accompanied by a bark from the library,
and the sudden appearance at the tapestry-hung doorway of old Mr.
Transome with a cord around his waist, playing a very poor-paced horse
for a black-maned little boy about three years old, who was urging him
on with loud encouraging noises and occasional thumps from a stick which
he wielded with difficulty. The old man paused with a vague smile at the
doorway while the baronet got up to speak to him. Nimrod snuffed at his
master's legs to ascertain that he was not hurt, and the little boy,
finding something new to be looked at, let go the cord and came round in
front of the company, dragging his stick, and standing at a safe
war-dancing distance as he fixed his great black eyes on Lady Debarry.

"Dear me, what a splendid little boy, Mrs. Transome! why--it cannot
be--can it be--that you have the happiness to be a grandmamma?"

"Yes; that is my son's little boy."

"Indeed!" said Lady Debarry, really amazed. "I never heard you speak of
his marriage. He has brought you home a daughter-in-law, then?"

"No," said Mrs. Transome, coldly; "she is dead."

"O--o--oh!" said Lady Debarry, in a tone ludicrously undecided between
condolence, satisfaction, and general mistiness. "How very singular--I
mean that we should not have heard of Mr. Harold's marriage. But he's a
charming little fellow: come to me, you round-cheeked cherub."

The black eyes continued fixed as if by a sort of fascination on Lady
Debarry's face, and her affable invitation was unheeded. At last,
putting his head forward and pouting his lips, the cherub gave forth
with marked intention the sounds, "Nau-o-oom," many times repeated:
apparently they summed up his opinion of Lady Debarry, and may perhaps
have meant "naughty old woman," but his speech was a broken lisping
polyglot of hazardous interpretation. Then he turned to pull at the
Blenheim spaniel, which, being old and peevish, gave a little snap.

"Go, go, Harry; let poor Puff alone--he'll bite you," said Mrs.
Transome, stooping to release her aged pet.

Her words were too suggestive, for Harry immediately laid hold of her
arm with his teeth, and bit with all his might. Happily the stuffs upon
it were some protection, but the pain forced Mrs. Transome to give a low
cry; and Sir Maximus, who had now turned to reseat himself, shook the
little rascal off, whereupon he burst away and trotted into the library
again.

"I fear you are hurt," said Lady Debarry, with sincere concern. "What a
little savage! Do have your arm attended to, my dear--I recommend
fomentation--don't think of me."

"Oh, thank you, it is nothing," said Mrs. Transome, biting her lip and
smiling alternately; "it will soon go off. The pleasures of being a
grandmamma, you perceive. The child has taken a dislike to me; but he
makes quite a new life for Mr. Transome; they were playfellows at once."

"Bless my heart!" said Sir Maximus, "it is odd to think of Harold having
been a family man so long. I made up my mind he was a young bachelor.
What an old stager I am, to be sure! And whom has he married? I hope we
shall soon have the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Harold Transome." Sir
Maximus, occupied with old Mr. Transome, had not overheard the previous
conversation on that subject.

"She is no longer living," Lady Debarry hastily interposed; "but now, my
dear Sir Maximus, we must not hinder Mrs. Transome from attending to her
arm. I am sure she is in pain. Don't say another word, my dear--we shall
see you again--you and Mr. Harold will come and dine with us on
Thursday--say yes, only yes. Sir Maximus is longing to see him: and
Philip will be down."

"Yes, yes!" said Sir Maximus; "he must lose no time in making Philip's
acquaintance. Tell him Philip is a fine fellow--carried everything
before him at Oxford. And your son must be returned along with him for
North Loamshire. You said he meant to stand?"

"I will write and let you know if Harold has any engagement for
Thursday; he would of course be happy otherwise," said Mrs. Transome,
evading the question.

"If not Thursday, the next day--the very first day he can."

The visitors left, and Mrs. Transome was almost glad of the painful bite
which had saved her from being questioned further about Harold's
politics. "This is the last visit I shall receive from them," she said
to herself as the door closed behind them, and she rang for Denner.

"That poor creature is not happy, Sir Maximus," said Lady Debarry as
they drove along. "Something annoys her about her son. I hope there is
nothing unpleasant in his character. Either he kept his marriage a
secret from her, or she was ashamed of it. He is thirty-four at least by
this time. After living in the East so long he may have become a sort of
person one would not care to be intimate with, and that savage boy--he
doesn't look like a lady's child."

"Pooh, my dear," said Sir Maximus, "women think so much of those
minutiæ. In the present state of the country it is our duty to look at a
man's position and politics. Philip and my brother are both of that
opinion, and I think they know what's right, if any man does. We are
bound to regard every man of our party as a public instrument, and to
pull all together. The Transomes have always been a good Tory family,
but it has been a cipher of late years. This young fellow coming back
with a fortune to give the family a head and a position is a clear gain
to the county; and with Philip he'll get into the right hands--of course
he wants guiding, having been out of the country so long. All we have to
ask is, whether a man's a Tory, and will make a stand for the good of
the country?--that's the plain English of the matter. And I do beg of
you, my dear, to set aside all these gossiping niceties, and exert
yourself, like a woman of sense and spirit as you are, to bring the
right people together."

Here Sir Maximus gave a deep cough, took out his snuff-box, and tapped
it: he had made a serious marital speech, an exertion to which he was
rarely urged by anything smaller than a matter of conscience. And this
outline of the whole duty of a Tory was a matter of conscience with him;
though the _Duffield Watchman_ had pointed expressly to Sir Maximus
Debarry amongst others, in branding the co-operation of the Tories as a
conscious selfishness and reckless immorality, which, however, would be
defeated by the co-operation of all the friends of truth and liberty,
who, the _Watchman_ trusted, would subordinate all non-political
differences in order to return representatives pledged to support the
present government.

"I am sure, Sir Maximus," Lady Debarry answered, "you could not have
observed that anything was wanting in my manners to Mrs. Transome."

"No, no, my dear; but I say this by way of caution. Never mind what was
done at Smyrna, or whether Transome likes to sit with his heels tucked
up. We may surely wink at a few things for the sake of the public
interest, if God Almighty does; and if He didn't, I don't know what
would have become of the country--Government could never have been
carried on, and many a good battle would have been lost. That's the
philosophy of the matter, and common-sense too."

Good Sir Maximus gave a deep cough and tapped his box again, inwardly
remarking, that if he had not been such a lazy fellow he might have made
as good a figure as his son Philip.

But at this point the carriage, which was rolling by a turn toward Treby
Magna, passed a well-dressed man, who raised his hat to Sir Maximus, and
called to the coachman to stop.

"Excuse me, Sir Maximus," said this personage, standing uncovered at the
carriage-door, "but I have just learned something of importance at
Treby, which I thought you would like to know as soon as possible."

"Ah! what's that? Something about Garstin or Clement?" said Sir Maximus,
seeing the other draw a poster from his pocket.

"No; rather worse, I fear you will think. A new Radical candidate. I got
this by a stratagem from the printer's boy. They're not posted yet."

"A Radical!" said Sir Maximus, in a tone of incredulous disgust, as he
took the folded bill. "What fool is he?--he'll have no chance."

"They say he's richer than Garstin."

"Harold Transome!" shouted Sir Maximus, as he read the name in
three-inch letters. "I don't believe it--it's a trick--it's a squib:
why--why--we've just been to his place--eh? do you know any more? Speak,
sir--speak; don't deal out your story like a damned mountebank, who
wants to keep people gaping."

"Sir Maximus, pray don't give way so," said Lady Debarry.

"I'm afraid there's no doubt about it, sir," said Christian. "After
getting the bill, I met Mr. Labron's clerk, and he said he had just had
the whole story from Jermyn's clerk. The Ram Inn is engaged already, and
a committee is being made up. He says Jermyn goes like a steam engine,
when he has a mind, although he makes such long-winded speeches."

"Jermyn be hanged for a two-faced rascal! Tell Mitchell to drive on.
It's of no use to stay chattering here. Jump up on the box and go home
with us. I may want you."

"You see I was right, Sir Maximus," said the baronet's wife. "I had an
instinct that we should find him an unpleasant person."

"Fudge! if you had such a fine instinct, why did you let us go to
Transome Court and make fools of ourselves?"

"Would you have listened to me? But of course you will not have him to
dine with you?"

"Dine with me? I should think not. I'd sooner he should dine off me. I
see how it is clearly enough. He has become a regular beast among those
Mahometans--he's got neither religion nor morals left. He can't know any
thing about English politics. He'll go and cut his own nose off as a
landholder, and never know. However, he won't get in--he'll spend his
money for nothing."

"I fear he is a very licentious man," said Lady Debarry. "We know now
why his mother seemed so uneasy. I should think she reflects a little,
poor creature."

"It's a confounded nuisance we didn't meet Christian on our way, instead
of coming back; but better now than later. He's an uncommonly adroit,
useful fellow, that factotum of Philip's. I wish Phil would take my man
and give me Christian. I'd make him house-steward: he might reduce the
accounts a little."

Perhaps Sir Maximus would not have been so sanguine as to Mr.
Christian's economical virtues if he had seen that gentleman relaxing
himself the same evening among the other distinguished dependents of the
family and frequenters of the steward's room. But a man of Sir Maximus's
rank is like those antediluvian animals whom the system of things
condemned to carry such a huge bulk that they really could not inspect
their bodily appurtenance, and had no conception of their own tails:
their parasites doubtless had a merry time of it, and often did
extremely well when the high-bred saurian himself was ill at ease. Treby
Manor, measured from the front saloon to the remotest shed, was as large
as a moderate-sized village, and there were certainly more lights
burning in it every evening, more wine, spirits, and ale drunk, more
waste and more folly, than could be found in some large villages. There
was fast revelry in the steward's room, and slow revelry in the Scotch
bailiff's room; short whist, costume, and flirtation in the
housekeeper's room, and the same at a lower price in the servants' hall;
a select Olympian feast in the private apartment of the cook, who was a
much grander person than her ladyship, and wore gold and jewelry to a
vast amount of suet; a gambling group in the stables, and the coachman,
perhaps the most innocent member of the establishment, tippling in
majestic solitude by a fire in the harness-room. For Sir Maximus, as
every one said, was a gentleman of the right sort, condescended to no
mean enquiries, greeted his head-servants with a "good-evening,
gentlemen," when he met them in the park, and only snarled in a subdued
way when he looked over the accounts, willing to endure some personal
inconvenience in order to keep up the institutions of the country, to
maintain his hereditary establishment, and do his duty in that station
of life--the station of the long-tailed saurian--to which it had pleased
Providence to call him.

The focus of brilliancy at Treby Manor that evening was in no way the
dining-room, where Sir Maximus sipped his port under some mental
depression, as he discussed with his brother, the Reverend Augustus, the
sad fact that one of the oldest names in the county was to be on the
wrong side--not in the drawing-room, where Miss Debarry and Miss Selina,
quietly elegant in their dress and manners, were feeling rather dull
than otherwise, having finished Mr. Bulwer's "Eugene Aram," and being
thrown back on the last great prose work of Mr. Southey, while their
mamma slumbered a little on the sofa. No; the centre of eager talk and
enjoyment was the steward's room, where Mr. Scales, house-steward and
head-butler, a man most solicitous about his boots, wristbands, the roll
of his whiskers, and other attributes of a gentleman, distributed
cigars, cognac, and whiskey, to various colleagues and guests who were
discussing, with that freedom of conjecture which is one of our
inalienable privileges as Britons, the probable amount of Harold
Transome's fortune, concerning which fame had already been busy long
enough to have acquired vast magnifying power.

The chief part in this scene was undoubtedly Mr. Christian's, although
he had hitherto been comparatively silent; but he occupied two chairs
with so much grace, throwing his right leg over the seat of the second,
and resting his right hand on the back; he held his cigar and displayed
a splendid seal-ring with such becoming nonchalance, and had his gray
hair arranged with so much taste, that experienced eyes would at once
have seen even the great Scales himself to be but a secondary character.

"Why," said Mr. Crowder, an old respectable tenant, though much in
arrear as to his rent, who condescended frequently to drink in the
steward's room for the sake of the conversation; "why, I suppose they
get money so fast in the East--it's wonderful. Why," he went on, with a
hesitating look toward Mr. Scales, "this Transome p'r'aps got a matter
of a hundred thousand."

"A hundred thousand, my dear sir! fiddle-stick's end of a hundred
thousand," said Mr. Scales, with a contempt very painful to be borne by
a modest man.

"Well," said Mr. Crowder, giving way under torture, as the all-knowing
butler puffed and stared at him, "perhaps not so much as that."

"Not so much, sir! I tell you that a hundred thousand pounds is a
bagatelle."

"Well, I know it's a big sum," said Mr. Crowder, deprecatingly.

Here there was a general laugh. All the other intellects present were
more cultivated than Mr. Crowder's.

"Bagatelle is the French for trifle, my friend," said Mr. Christian.
"Don't talk over people's heads so, Scales. I shall have hard work to
understand you myself soon."

"Come, that's a good one," said the head-gardener, who was a ready
admirer; "I should like to hear the thing you don't understand,
Christian."

"He's a first-rate hand at sneering," said Mr. Scales, rather nettled.

"Don't be waspie, man. I'll ring the bell for lemons, and make some
punch. That's the thing for putting people up to the unknown tongues,"
said Mr. Christian, starting up and slapping Scales's shoulder as he
passed him.

"What I mean, Mr. Crowder, is this." Here Mr. Scales paused to puff,
and pull down his waistcoat in a gentlemanly manner, and drink. He was
wont in this way to give his hearers time for meditation.

"Come, then, speak English; I'm not against being taught," said the
reasonable Crowder.

"What I mean is, that in a large way of trade a man turns his capital
over almost as soon as he can turn himself. Bless your soul! I know
something about these matters, eh, Brent?"

"To be sure you do--few men more," said the gardener, who was the person
appealed to.

"Not that I've had anything to do with commercial families myself. I've
those feelings that I look to other things besides lucre. But I can't
say that I've not been intimate with parties who have been less nice
than I am myself; and knowing what I know, I shouldn't wonder if
Transome had as much as five hundred thousand. Bless your soul, sir!
people who get their money out of land are as long scraping five pounds
together as your trading men are in turning five pounds into a hundred."

"That's a wicked thing, though," said Mr. Crowder, meditatively.
"However," he went on, retreating from this difficult ground, "trade or
no trade, the Transomes have been poor enough this many a long year.
I've a brother a tenant on their estate--I ought to know a little bit
about that."

"They've kept up no establishment at all," said Mr. Scales, with
disgust. "They've even let their kitchen gardens. I suppose it was the
son's gambling. I've seen something of that. A man who has always lived
in first-rate families is likely to know a thing or two on that
subject."

"Ah, but it wasn't gambling did the first mischief," said Mr. Crowder,
with a slight smile, feeling that it was his turn to have some
superiority. "New-comers don't know what happened in this country twenty
and thirty years ago. I'm turned fifty myself, and my father lived under
Sir Maximus's father. But if anybody from London can tell me more than I
know about this country-side, I'm willing to listen."

"What was it, then, if it wasn't gambling?" said Mr. Scales, with some
impatience. "_I_ don't pretend to know."

"It was law--law--that's what it was. Not but what the Transomes always
won."

"And always lost," said the too-ready Scales. "Yes, yes; I think we all
know the nature of law."

"There was the last suit of all made the most noise, as I understood,"
continued Mr. Crowder; "but it wasn't tried hereabout. They said there
was a deal o' false swearing. Some young man pretended to be the true
heir--let me see--I can't justly remember the names--he'd got two. _He_
swore he was one man, and _they_ swore he was another. However Lawyer
Jermyn won it--they say he'd win a game against the Old One himself--and
the young fellow turned out to be a scamp. Stop a bit--his name was
Scaddon--Henry Scaddon."

Mr. Christian here let a lemon slip from his hand into the punch-bowl
with a splash which sent some of the nectar into the company's faces.

"Hallo! What a bungler I am!" he said, looking as if he were quite
jarred by this unusual awkwardness of his. "Go on with your tale, Mr.
Crowder--a scamp named Henry Scaddon."

"Well, that's the tale," said Mr. Crowder. "He was never seen nothing of
anymore. It was a deal talked of at the time--and I've sat by; and my
father used to shake his head; and always when this Mrs. Transome was
talked of, he used to shake his head, and say she carried things with a
high hand once. But, Lord! it was before the battle of Waterloo, and I'm
a poor hand at tales; I don't see much good in 'em myself--but if
anybody'll tell me a cure for the sheep-rot, I'll thank him."

Here Mr. Crowder relapsed into smoking and silence, a little discomfited
that the knowledge of which he had been delivered had turned out rather
a shapeless and insignificant birth.

"Well, well, bygones should be bygones; there are secrets in most good
families," said Mr. Scales, winking, "and this young Transome, coming
back with a fortune to keep up the establishment, and have things done
in a decent and gentlemanly way--it would all have been right if he'd
not been this sort of Radical madman. But now he's done for himself. I
heard Sir Maximus say at dinner that he would be excommunicated; and
that's a pretty strong word, I take it."

"What does it mean, Scales?" said Mr. Christian, who loved tormenting.

"Ay, what's the meaning?" insisted Mr. Crowder, encouraged by finding
that even Christian was in the dark.

"Well, it's a law term--speaking in a figurative sort of way--meaning
that a Radical was no gentleman."

"Perhaps it's partly accounted for by his getting his money so fast, and
in foreign countries," said Mr. Crowder, tentatively. "It's reasonable
to think he'd be against the land and this country--eh, Sircome?"

Sircome was an eminent miller who had considerable business transactions
at the Manor, and appreciated Mr. Scales's merits at a handsome
percentage on the yearly account. He was a highly honorable tradesman,
but in this and in other matters submitted to the institutions of his
country; for great houses, as he observed, must have great butlers. He
replied to his friend Crowder sententiously.

"I say nothing. Before I bring words to market, I should like to see 'em
a bit scarcer. There's the land and there's trade--I hold with both. I
swim with the stream."

"Hey-day, Mr. Sircome! that's a Radical maxim," said Mr. Christian, who
knew that Mr. Sircome's last sentence was his favorite formula. "I
advise you to give it up, else it will injure the quality of your
flour."

"A Radical maxim!" said Mr. Sircome, in a tone of angry astonishment. "I
should like to hear you prove that. It's as old as my grandfather,
anyhow."

"I'll prove it in one minute," said the glib Christian. "Reform has set
in by the will of the majority--that's the rabble, you know; and the
respectability and good sense of the country, which are in the minority,
are afraid of Reform running on too fast. So the stream must be running
toward Reform and Radicalism; and if you swim with it, Mr. Sircome,
you're a Reformer and a Radical, and your flour is objectionable, and
not full weight--and being tried by Scales, will be found wanting."

There was a roar of laughter. This pun upon Scales was highly
appreciated by every one except the miller and butler. The latter pulled
down his waistcoat, and puffed and stared in rather an excited manner.
Mr. Christian's wit, in general, seemed to him a poor kind of quibbling.

"What a fellow you are for fence, Christian," said the gardener. "Hang
me, if I don't think you're up to everything."

"That's a compliment you might pay Old Nick, if you come to that," said
Mr. Sircome, who was in the painful position of a man deprived of his
formula.

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Scales; "I'm no fool myself, and could parry a
thrust if I liked, but I shouldn't like it to be said of me that I was
up to everything. I'll keep a little principle if you please."

"To be sure," said Christian, ladling out the punch. "What would justice
be without Scales?"

The laughter was not quite so full-throated as before. Such excessive
cleverness _was_ a little Satanic.

"A joke's a joke among gentlemen," said the butler, getting exasperated;
"I think there has been quite liberties enough taken with my name. But
if you must talk about names, I've heard of a party before now calling
himself a Christian, and being anything _but_ it."

"Come, that's beyond a joke," said the surgeon's assistant, a fast man,
whose chief scene of dissipation was the manor. "Let it drop, Scales."

"Yes, I dare say it's beyond a joke. I'm not a harlequin to talk nothing
but jokes. I leave that to other Christians, who are up to everything,
and have been everywhere--to the hulks, for what I know; and more than
that, they come from nobody knows where, and try to worm themselves into
gentlemen's confidence, to the prejudice of their betters."

There was a stricter sequence in Mr. Scales's angry eloquence than was
apparent--some chief links being confined to his own breast, as is often
the case in energetic discourse. The company were in a state of
expectation. There was something behind worth knowing, and something
before them worth seeing. In the general decay of other fine British
pugnacious sports, a quarrel between gentlemen was all the more
exciting, and though no one would himself have liked to turn on Scales,
no one was sorry for the chance of seeing him put down. But the amazing
Christian was unmoved. He had taken out his handkerchief and was rubbing
his lips carefully. After a slight pause, he spoke with perfect
coolness.

"I don't intend to quarrel with you, Scales. Such talk as this is not
profitable to either of us. It makes you purple in the face--you _are_
apoplectic, you know--and it spoils good company. Better tell a few fibs
about me behind my back--it will heat you less, and do me more harm.
I'll leave you to it; I shall go and have a game of whist with the
ladies."

As the door closed behind the questionable Christian, Mr. Scales was in
a state of frustration that prevented speech. Every one was rather
embarrassed.

"That's an uncommon sort o' fellow," said Mr. Crowder, in an undertone,
to his next neighbor, the gardener. "Why, Mr. Philip picked him up in
foreign parts, didn't he?"

"He was a courier," said the gardener. "He's had a deal of experience.
And I believe, by what I can make out--for he's been pretty free with me
sometimes--there was a time when he was in that rank of life that he
fought a duel."

"Ah! that makes him such a cool chap," said Mr. Crowder.

"He's what I call an overbearing fellow," said Mr. Sircome, also _sotto
voce_, to his next neighbor, Mr. Filmore, the surgeon's assistant. "He
runs you down with a sort of talk that's neither here nor there. He's
got a deal too many samples in his pocket for me."

"All I know is, he's a wonderful hand at cards," said Mr. Filmore, whose
whiskers and shirt-pin were quite above the average. "I wish I could
play _écarté_ as he does; it's beautiful to see him; he can make a man
look pretty blue; he'll empty his pocket for him in no time."

"That's none to his credit," said Mr. Sircome.

The conversation had in this way broken up into _tête-à-tête_, and the
hilarity of the evening might be considered a failure. Still the punch
was drunk, the accounts were duly swelled, and, notwithstanding the
innovating spirit of the time, Sir Maximus Debarry's establishment was
kept up in sound hereditary British manner.




CHAPTER VIII.

    "Rumor doth double like the voice and echo."--_Shakespeare._

    The mind of a man is as a country which was once open to squatters,
    who have bred and multiplied and become masters of the land. But
    then happeneth a time when new and hungry comers dispute the land;
    and there is trial of strength, and the stronger wins. Nevertheless
    the first squatters be they who have prepared the ground, and the
    crops to the end will be sequent (though chiefly on the nature of
    the soil, as of light sand, mixed loam, or heavy clay, yet)
    somewhat on the primal labor and sowing.


That talkative maiden, Rumor, though in the interest of art she is
figured as a youthful, winged beauty with flowing garments, soaring
above the heads of men, and breathing world-thrilling news through a
gracefully-curved trumpet, is in fact a very old maid, who puckers her
silly face by the fireside, and really does no more than chirp a wrong
guess or a lame story into the ear of a fellow gossip; all the rest of
the work attributed to her is done by the ordinary working of those
passions against which men pray in the Litany, with the help of a
plentiful stupidity against which we have never yet had any authorized
form of prayer.

When Mr. Scales's strong need to make an impressive figure in
conversation, together with his very slight need of any other premise
than his own sense of his wide general knowledge and probable
infallibility, led him to specify five hundred thousand as the lowest
admissible amount of Harold Transome's commercially-acquired fortune, it
was not fair to put this down to poor old Miss Rumor, who had only told
Scales that the fortune was considerable. And again, when the curt Mr.
Sircome found occasion at Treby to mention the five hundred thousand as
a fact that folks seemed pretty sure about, this expansion of the butler
into "folks" was entirely due to Mr. Sircome's habitual preference for
words which could not be laid hold of or give people a handle over him.
It was in this simple way that the report of Harold Transome's fortune
spread and was magnified, adding much lustre to his opinion in the eyes
of Liberals, and compelling even men of the opposite party to admit that
it increased his eligibility as a member for North Loamshire. It was
observed by a sound thinker in these parts that property was ballast;
and when once the aptness of that metaphor had been perceived, it
followed that a man was not fit to navigate the sea of politics without
a great deal of such ballast; and that, rightly understood, whatever
increased the expense of election, inasmuch as it virtually raised the
property qualification, was an unspeakable boon to the country.

Meanwhile the fortune that was getting larger in the imagination of
constituents was shrinking a little in the imagination of its owner. It
was hardly more than a hundred and fifty thousand; and there were not
only the heavy mortgages to be paid off, but also a large amount of
capital was needed in order to repair the farm-buildings all over the
estate, to carry out extensive drainage, and make allowances to
in-coming tenants, which might remove the difficulties of newly letting
the farms in a time of agricultural depression. The farms actually
tenanted were held by men who had begged hard to succeed their fathers
in getting a little poorer every year, on land which was also getting
poorer, where the highest rate of increase was in the arrears of rent,
and where the master, in crushed hat and corduroys, looked pitiably lean
and care-worn by the side of pauper laborers, who showed that superior
assimilating power often observed to attend nourishment by the public
money. Mr. Goffe, of Rabbit's End, had never had it explained to him
that, according to the true theory of rent, land must inevitably be
given up when it would not yield a profit equal to the ordinary rate of
interest; so that from want of knowing what was inevitable, and not from
a Titanic spirit of opposition, he kept on his land. He often said to
himself, with a melancholy wipe of his sleeve across his brow, that he
"didn't know which-a-way to turn"; and he would have been still more at
a loss on the subject if he had quitted Rabbit's End with a wagonful of
furniture and utensils, a file of receipts, a wife with five children,
and a shepherd dog in low spirits.

It took no long time for Harold Transome to discover this state of
things, and to see, moreover, that, except on the demesne immediately
around the house, the timber had been mismanaged. The woods had been
recklessly thinned, and there had been insufficient planting. He had not
yet thoroughly investigated the various accounts kept by his mother, by
Jermyn, and by Banks the bailiff; but what had been done with the large
sums which had been received for timber was a suspicious mystery to him.
He observed that the farm held by Jermyn was in first-rate order, that a
good deal had been spent on the buildings, and that the rent had stood
unpaid. Mrs. Transome had taken an opportunity of saying that Jermyn had
had some of the mortgage deeds transferred to him, and that his rent was
set against so much interest. Harold had only said, in his careless yet
decisive way, "Oh, Jermyn be hanged! It seems to me if Durfey hadn't
died and made room for me, Jermyn would have ended by coming to live
here, and you would have had to keep the lodge and open the gate for his
carriage. But I shall pay him off--mortgages and all--by-and-by. I'll
owe him nothing--not even a curse!" Mrs. Transome said no more. Harold
did not care to enter fully into the subject with his mother. The fact
that she had been active in the management of the estate--had ridden
about it continually, had busied herself with accounts, had been
head-bailiff of the vacant farms, and had yet allowed things to go
wrong--was set down by him simply to the general futility of women's
attempts to transact men's business. He did not want to say anything to
annoy her: he was only determined to let her understand, as quietly as
possible, that she had better cease all interference.

Mrs. Transome did understand this; and it was very little that she dared
to say on business, though there was a fierce struggle of her anger and
pride with a dread which was nevertheless supreme. As to the old
tenants, she only observed, on hearing Harold burst forth about their
wretched condition, "that with the estate so burdened, the yearly loss
by arrears could better be borne than the outlay and sacrifice necessary
in order to let the farms anew."

"I was really capable of calculating, Harold," she ended, with a touch
of bitterness. "It seems easy to deal with farmers and their affairs
when you only see them in print, I dare say; but it's not quite so easy
when you live among them. You have only to look at Sir Maximus's estate:
you will see plenty of the same thing. The times have been dreadful and
old families like to keep their old tenants. But I dare say that is
Toryism."

"It's a hash of odds and ends, if that is Toryism, my dear mother.
However, I wish you had kept three more old tenants; for then I should
have had three more fifty-pound voters. And, in a hard run, one may be
beaten by a head. But," Harold added, smiling and handing her a ball of
worsted which had fallen, "a woman ought to be a Tory, and graceful, and
handsome, like you. I should hate a woman who took up my opinions and
talked for me. I'm an Oriental, you know. I say, mother, shall we have
this room furnished with rose-color? I notice that it suits your bright
gray hair."

Harold thought it was only natural that his mother should have been in a
sort of subjection to Jermyn throughout the awkward circumstances of the
family. It was the way of women, and all weak minds, to think that what
they had been used to was unalterable, and any quarrel with a man who
managed private affairs was necessarily a formidable thing. He himself
was proceeding very cautiously, and preferred not even to know too much
just at present, lest a certain personal antipathy he was conscious of
toward Jermyn, and an occasional liability to exasperation, should get
the better of a calm and clear-sighted resolve not to quarrel with the
man while he could be of use. Harold would have been disgusted with
himself if he had helped to frustrate his own purpose. And his strongest
purpose now was to get returned for Parliament, to make a figure there
as a Liberal member, and to become on all grounds a personage of weight
in North Loamshire.

How Howard Transome came to be a Liberal in opposition to all the
traditions of his family, was a more subtle enquiry than he had ever
cared to follow out. The newspapers undertook to explain it. The _North
Loamshire Herald_ witnessed with a grief and disgust certain to be
shared by all persons who were actuated by wholesome British feeling, an
example of defection in the inheritor of a family name which in times
past had been associated with attachment to right principle, and with
the maintenance of our constitution in Church and State; and pointed to
it as an additional proof that men who had passed any large portion of
their lives beyond the limits of our favored country, usually contracted
not only a laxity of feeling toward Protestantism, nay, toward religion
itself--a latitudinarian spirit hardly distinguishable from atheism--but
also a levity of disposition, inducing them to tamper with those
institutions by which alone Great Britain had risen to her pre-eminence
among the nations. Such men, infected with outlandish habits,
intoxicated with vanity, grasping at momentary power by flattery of the
multitude, fearless because godless, Liberal because un-English, were
ready to pull one stone from under another in the national edifice, till
the great structure tottered to its fall. On the other hand, the
_Duffield Watchman_ saw in this signal instance of self-liberation from
the trammels of prejudice, a decisive guarantee of intellectual
pre-eminence, united with a generous sensibility to the claims of man as
man, which had burst asunder, and cast off, by a spontaneous exertion of
energy, the cramping out-worn shell of hereditary bias and class
interest.

But these large-minded guides of public opinion argued from wider data
than could be furnished by any knowledge of the particular case
concerned. Harold Transome was neither the dissolute cosmopolitan so
vigorously sketched by the Tory _Herald_, nor the intellectual giant and
moral lobster suggested by the Liberal imagination of the _Watchman_.
Twenty years ago he had been a bright, active, good-tempered lad, with
sharp eyes and a good aim; he delighted in success and in predominance;
but he did not long for an impossible predominance, and become sour and
sulky because it was impossible. He played at the games he was clever
in, and usually won; all other games he let alone, and thought them of
little worth. At home and at Eton he had been side by side with his
stupid elder brother Durfey, whom he despised; and he very early began
to reflect that since this Caliban in miniature was older than himself,
he must carve out his own fortune. That was a nuisance; and on the whole
the world seemed rather ill-arranged, at Eton especially, where there
were many reasons why Harold made no great figure. He was not sorry the
money was wanting to send him to Oxford; he did not see the good of
Oxford; he had been surrounded by many things during his short life, of
which he had distinctly said to himself that he did not see the good,
and he was not disposed to venerate on the strength of any good that
others saw. He turned his back on home very cheerfully, though he was
rather fond of his mother, and very fond of Transome Court, and the
river where he had been used to fish; but he said to himself as he
passed the lodge-gates, "I'll get rich somehow, and have an estate of my
own, and do what I like with it." This determined aiming at something
not easy but clearly possible, marked the direction in which Harold's
nature was strong; he had the energetic will and muscle, the
self-confidence, the quick perception, and the narrow imagination which
make what is admiringly called the practical mind.

Since then his character had been ripened by a various experience, and
also by much knowledge which he had set himself deliberately to gain.
But the man was no more than the boy writ large, with an extensive
commentary. The years had nourished an inclination to as much opposition
as would enable him to assert his own independence and power without
throwing himself into that tabooed condition which robs power of its
triumph. And this inclination had helped his shrewdness in forming
judgments which were at once innovating and moderate. He was addicted at
once to rebellion and to conformity, and only an intimate personal
knowledge could enable any one to predict where his conformity would
begin. The limit was not defined by theory, but was drawn in an
irregular zigzag by early disposition and association; and his
resolution, of which he had never lost hold, to be a thorough Englishman
again some day, had kept up the habit of considering all his conclusions
with reference to English politics and English social conditions. He
meant to stand up for every change that the economical condition of the
country required, and he had an angry contempt for men with coronets on
their coaches, but too small a share of brains to see when they had
better make a virtue of necessity. His respect was rather for men who
had no coronets, but who achieved a just influence by furthering all
measures which the common-sense of the country, and the increasing
self-assertion of the majority, peremptorily demanded. He could be such
a man himself.

In fact Harold Transome was a clever, frank, good-natured egoist; not
stringently consistent, but without any disposition to falsity; but with
a pride that was moulded in an individual rather than an hereditary
form; unspeculative, unsentimental, unsympathetic; fond of sensual
pleasures, but disinclined to all vice, and attached as a healthy,
clear-sighted person, to all conventional morality, construed with a
certain freedom, like doctrinal articles to which the public order may
require subscription. A character is apt to look but indifferently,
written out in this way. Reduced to a map, our premises seem
insignificant, but they make, nevertheless, a very pretty freehold to
live in and walk over; and so, if Harold Transome had been among your
acquaintances, and you had observed his qualities through the medium of
his agreeable person, bright smile, and a certain easy charm which
accompanies sensuousness when unsullied by coarseness--through the
medium also of the many opportunities in which he would have made
himself useful or pleasant to you--you would have thought him a good
fellow, highly acceptable as a guest, a colleague, or a brother-in-law.
Whether all mothers would have liked him as a son is another question.

It is a fact perhaps kept a little too much in the background, that
mothers have a self larger than their maternity, and that when their
sons have become taller than themselves, and are gone from them to
college or into the world, there are wide spaces of their time which are
not filled with praying for their boys, reading old letters, and envying
yet blessing those who are attending to their shirt-buttons. Mrs.
Transome was certainly not one of those bland, adoring, and gently
tearful women. After sharing the common dream that when a beautiful
man-child was born to her, her cup of happiness would be full, she had
travelled through long years apart from that child to find herself at
last in the presence of a son of whom she was afraid, who was utterly
unmanageable by her, and to whose sentiments in any given case she
possessed no key. Yet Harold was a kind son: he kissed his mother's
brow, offered her his arm, let her choose what she liked for the house
and garden, asked her whether she would have bays or grays for her new
carriage, and was bent on seeing her make as good a figure in the
neighborhood as any other woman of her rank. She trembled under this
kindness: it was not enough to satisfy her; still, if it should ever
cease and give place to something else--she was too uncertain about
Harold's feelings to imagine clearly what that something would be. The
finest threads, such as no eye sees, if bound cunningly about the
sensitive flesh, so that the movement to break them would bring torture,
may make a worse bondage than any fetters. Mrs. Transome felt the fatal
thread about her, and the bitterness of this helpless bondage mingled
itself with the new elegancies of the dining and drawing-rooms, and all
the household changes which Harold had ordered to be brought about with
magical quickness. Nothing was as she had once expected it would be. If
Harold had shown the least care to have her stay in the room with
him--if he had really cared for her opinion--if he had been what she had
dreamed he would be in the eyes of those people who had made her
world--if all the past could be dissolved, and leave no solid trace of
itself--mighty _ifs_ that were all impossible--she would have tasted
some joy; but now she began to look back with regret to the days when
she sat in loneliness among the old drapery, and still longed for
something that might happen. Yet, save in a bitter little speech, or in
a deep sigh, heard by no one besides Denner, she kept all these things
hidden in her heart, and went out in the autumn sunshine to overlook the
alterations in the pleasure-grounds very much as a happy woman might
have done. One day, however, when she was occupied in this way, an
occasion came on which she chose to express indirectly a part of her
inward care.

She was standing on the broad gravel in the afternoon; the long shadows
lay on the grass; the light seemed the more glorious because of the
reddened and golden trees. The gardeners were busy at their pleasant
work; the newly-turned soil gave out an agreeable fragrance; and little
Harry was playing with Nimrod round old Mr. Transome, who sat placidly
on a low garden-chair. The scene would have made a charming picture of
English domestic life, and the handsome, majestic, gray-haired woman
(obviously grandmamma) would have been especially admired. But the
artist would have felt it requisite to turn her face toward her husband
and little grandson, and to have given her an elderly amiability of
expression which would have divided remark with his exquisite rendering
of her Indian shawl. Mrs. Transome's face was turned the other way, and
for this reason she only heard an approaching step, and did not see
whose it was; yet it startled her: it was not quick enough to be her
son's step, and besides, Harold was away at Duffield. It was Mr.
Jermyn's.




CHAPTER IX.

    "A woman naturally born to fears."--_King John._

                                     "Methinks,
    Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,
    Is coming toward me; and my inward soul
    With nothing trembles."--_King Richard II._


Matthew Jermyn approached Mrs. Transome taking off his hat and smiling.
She did not smile, but said--

"You knew Harold was not at home?"

"Yes; I came to see you, to know if you had any wishes that I could
further, since I have not had an opportunity of consulting you since he
came home."

"Let us walk toward the Rookery, then."

They turned together, Mr. Jermyn still keeping his hat off and holding
it behind him; the air was so soft and agreeable that Mrs. Transome had
nothing but a large veil over her head.

They walked for a little while in silence till they were out of sight,
under tall trees, and treading noiselessly on falling leaves. What
Jermyn was really most anxious about, was to learn from Mrs. Transome
whether anything had transpired that was significant of Harold's
disposition toward him, which he suspected to be very far from friendly.
Jermyn was not naturally flinty-hearted: at five-and-twenty he had
written verses, and had got himself wet through in order not to
disappoint a dark-eyed woman whom he was proud to believe in love with
him; but a family man with grown up sons and daughters, a man with a
professional position and complicated affairs that make it hard to
ascertain the exact relation between property and liabilities,
necessarily thinks of himself and what may be impending.

"Harold is remarkably acute and clever," he began at last, since Mrs.
Transome did not speak. "If he gets into Parliament, I have no doubt he
will distinguish himself. He has a quick eye for business of all kinds."

"That is no comfort to me," said Mrs. Transome. To-day she was more
conscious than usual of that bitterness which was always in her mind in
Jermyn's presence, but which was carefully suppressed:--suppressed
because she could not endure that the degradation she inwardly felt
should ever become visible or audible in acts or words of her
own--should ever be reflected in any word or look of his. For years
there had been a deep silence about the past between them; on her side
because she remembered; on his, because he more and more forgot.

"I trust he is not unkind to you in any way. I know his opinions pain
you; but I trust you find him in everything else disposed to be a good
son."

"Oh, to be sure--good as men are disposed to be to women, giving them
cushions and carriages, and recommending them to enjoy themselves, and
then expecting them to be contented under contempt and neglect. I have
no power over him--remember that--none."

Jermyn turned to look in Mrs. Transome's face: it was long since he had
heard her speak to him as if she were losing her self-command.

"Has he shown any unpleasant feeling about your management of affairs?"

"_My_ management!" Mrs. Transome said, with concentrated rage, flashing
a fierce look at Jermyn. She checked herself: she felt as if she were
lighting a torch to flare on her own past folly and misery. It was a
resolve which had become a habit, that she would never quarrel with this
man--never tell him what she saw him to be. She had kept her woman's
pride and sensibility intact: through all her life there had vibrated
the maiden need to have her hand kissed and be the object of chivalry.
And so she sank into silence again, trembling.

Jermyn felt annoyed--nothing more. There was nothing in his mind
corresponding to the intricate meshes of sensitiveness in Mrs.
Transome's. He was anything but stupid; yet he always blundered when he
wanted to be delicate or magnanimous; he constantly sought to soothe
others by praising himself. Moral vulgarity cleaved to him like an
hereditary odor. He blundered now.

"My dear Mrs. Transome," he said, in a tone of bland kindness, "you are
agitated--you appear angry with me. Yet I think, if you consider, you
will see that you have nothing to complain of in me, unless you will
complain of the inevitable course of man's life. I have always met your
wishes both in happy circumstances and in unhappy ones. I should be
ready to do so now, if it were possible."

Every sentence was as pleasant to her as if it had been cut in her bared
arm. Some men's kindness and love-making are more exasperating, more
humiliating than others' derision; but the pitiable woman who has once
made herself secretly dependent on a man who is beneath her in feeling,
must bear that humiliation for fear of worse. Coarse kindness is at
least better than coarse anger; and in all private quarrels the duller
nature is triumphant by reason of its dullness. Mrs. Transome knew in
her inmost soul that those relations which had sealed her lips on
Jermyn's conduct in business matters, had been with him a ground for
presuming that he should have impunity in any lax dealing into which
circumstances had led him. She knew that she herself had endured all the
more privation because of his dishonest selfishness. And now, Harold's
long-deferred heirship, and his return with startlingly unexpected
penetration, activity, and assertion of mastery, had placed them both in
the full presence of a difficulty which had been prepared by the years
of vague uncertainty as to issues. In this position, with a great dread
hanging over her, which Jermyn knew, and ought to have felt that he had
caused her, she was inclined to lash him with indignation, to scorch him
with the words that were just the fit names for his doings--inclined all
the more when he spoke with an insolent blandness, ignoring all that was
truly in her heart. But no sooner did the words "You have brought it on
me" rise within her than she heard within also the retort, "You brought
it on yourself." Not for all the world beside could she bear to hear
that retort uttered from without. What did she do? With strange sequence
to all that rapid tumult, after a few moments' silence she said--

"Let me take your arm."

He gave it immediately, putting on his hat and wondering. For more than
twenty years Mrs. Transome had never chosen to take his arm.

"I have but one thing to ask. Make me a promise."

"What is it?"

"That you will never quarrel with Harold."

"You must know that it is my wish not to quarrel with him."

"But make a vow--fix it in your mind as a thing not to be done. Bear
anything from him rather than quarrel with him."

"A man can't make a vow not to quarrel," said Jermyn, who was already a
little irritated by the implication that Harold might be disposed to use
him roughly. "A man's temper may get the better of him at any moment. I
am not prepared to bear _anything_."

"Good God!" said Mrs. Transome, taking her hand from his arm, "is it
possible you don't feel how horrible it would be?"

As she took away her hand, Jermyn let his arm fall, put both his hands
in his pockets, and shrugging his shoulders said, "I shall use him as he
uses me."

Jermyn had turned round his savage side, and the blandness was out of
sight. It was this that had always frightened Mrs. Transome: there was a
possibility of fierce insolence in this man who was to pass with those
nearest to her as her indebted servant, but whose brand she secretly
bore. She was as powerless with him as she was with her own son.

This woman, who loved rule, dared not speak another word of attempted
persuasion. They were both silent, taking the nearest way into the
sunshine again. There was a half-formed wish in both their minds--even
in the mother's--that Harold Transome had never been born.

"We are working hard for the election," said Jermyn, recovering
himself, as they turned into the sunshine again. "I think we shall get
him returned, and in that case he will be in high good-humor. Everything
will be more propitious than you are apt to think. You must persuade
yourself," he added, smiling at her, "that it is better for a man of his
position to be in Parliament on the wrong side than not to be in at
all."

"Never," said Mrs. Transome. "I am too old to learn to call bitter sweet
and sweet bitter. But what I may think or feel is of no consequence now.
I am as unnecessary as a chimney ornament."

And in this way they parted on the gravel, in that pretty scene where
they had met. Mrs. Transome shivered as she stood alone: all around her,
where there had once been brightness and warmth, there were white ashes,
and the sunshine looked dreary as it fell on them.

Mr. Jermyn's heaviest reflections in riding homeward turned on the
possibility of incidents between himself and Harold Transome which would
have disagreeable results, requiring him to raise money, and perhaps
causing scandal, which in its way might also help to create a monetary
deficit. A man of sixty, with a wife whose Duffield connections were of
the highest respectability, with a family of tall daughters, an
expensive establishment, and a large professional business, owed a great
deal more to himself as the mainstay of all those solidities, than to
feelings and ideas which were quite unsubstantial. There were many
unfortunate coincidences which placed Mr. Jermyn in an uncomfortable
position just now; he had not been much to blame, he considered; if it
had not been for a sudden turn of affairs no one would have complained.
He defied any man to say that he had intended to wrong people; he was
able to refund, to make reprisals, if they could be fairly demanded.
Only he would certainly have preferred that they should not be demanded.

A German poet was entrusted with a particularly fine sausage, which he
was to convey to the donor's friend at Paris. In the course of a long
journey he smelled the sausage; he got hungry, and desired to taste it;
he pared a morsel off, then another, and another, in successive moments
of temptation, till at last the sausage was, humanly speaking, at an
end. The offence had not been premeditated. The poet had never loved
meanness, but he loved sausage; and the result was undeniably awkward.

So it was with Matthew Jermyn. He was far from liking that ugly
abstraction rascality, but he had liked other things which had suggested
nibbling. He had to do many things in law and in daily life which, in
the abstract, he would have condemned; and indeed he had never been
tempted by them in the abstract. Here, in fact, was the inconvenience:
he had sinned for the sake of particular concrete things, and particular
concrete consequences were likely to follow.

But he was a man of resolution, who, having made out what was the best
course to take under a difficulty, went straight to his work. The
election must be won: that would put Harold in good-humor, give him
something to do, and leave himself more time to prepare for any crisis.

He was in anything but low spirits that evening. It was his eldest
daughter's birthday, and the young people had a dance. Papa was
delightful--stood up for a quadrille and a country-dance, told stories
at supper, and made humorous quotations from his early readings: if
these were Latin, he apologized, and translated to the ladies; so that a
deaf lady-visitor from Duffield kept her trumpet up continually, lest
she should lose any of Mr. Jermyn's conversation, and wished that her
niece Maria had been present, who was young and had a good memory.

Still the party was smaller than usual, for some families in Treby
refused to visit Jermyn, now that he was concerned for a Radical
candidate.




CHAPTER X.

    "He made love neither with roses, nor with apples, nor with locks
    of hair."--THEOCRITUS.


One Sunday afternoon Felix Holt rapped at the door of Mr. Lyon's house,
although he could hear the voice of the minister preaching in the
chapel. He stood with a book under his arm, apparently confident that
there was someone in the house to open the door for him. In fact, Esther
never went to chapel in the afternoon: that "exercise" made her head
ache.

In these September weeks Felix had got rather intimate with Mr. Lyon.
They shared the same political sympathies; and though, to Liberals who
had neither freehold nor copyhold nor leasehold, the share in a county
election consisted chiefly of that prescriptive amusement of the
majority known as "looking on," there was still something to be said on
the occasion, if not to be done. Perhaps the most delightful friendships
are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet
more personal liking; and the advent of the public-spirited,
contradictory, yet affectionate Felix, into Treby life, had made a
welcome epoch to the minister. To talk with this young man, who, though
hopeful, had a singularity which some might at once have pronounced
heresy, but which Mr. Lyon persisted in regarding as orthodoxy "in the
making," was like a good bite to strong teeth after a too plentiful
allowance of spoon meat. To cultivate his society with a view to
checking his erratic tendencies was a laudable purpose; but perhaps if
Felix had been rapidly subdued and reduced to conformity, little Mr.
Lyon would have found the conversation much flatter.

Esther had not seen so much of their new acquaintance as her father had.
But she had begun to find him amusing, and also rather irritating to her
woman's love of conquest. He always opposed and criticised her; and
besides that, he looked at her as if he never saw a single detail about
her person--quite as if she were a middle-aged woman in a cap. She did
not believe that he had ever admired her hands, or her long neck, or her
graceful movements, which had made all the girls at school call her
Calypso (doubtless from their familiarity with "Telémaque"). Felix ought
properly to have been a little in love with her--never mentioning it, of
course, because that would have been disagreeable, and his being a
regular lover was out of the question. But it was quite clear that,
instead of feeling any disadvantage on his own side, he held himself to
be immeasurably her superior: and, what was worse, Esther had a secret
consciousness that he was her superior. She was all the more vexed at
the suspicion that he thought slightly of her; and wished in her
vexation that she could have found more fault with him--that she had not
been obliged to admire more and more the varying expressions of his open
face and his deliciously good-humored laugh, always loud at a joke
against himself. Besides, she could not help having her curiosity roused
by the unusual combinations both in his mind and in his outward
position, and she had surprised herself as well as her father one day by
suddenly starting up and proposing to walk with him when he was going to
pay an afternoon visit to Mrs. Holt, to try and soothe her concerning
Felix. "What a mother he has!" she said to herself when they came away
again; "but, rude and queer as he is, I cannot say there is anything
vulgar about him. Yet--I don't know--if I saw him by the side of a
finished gentleman." Esther wished that finished gentleman were among
her acquaintances: he would certainly admire her, and make her aware of
Felix's inferiority.

On this particular Sunday afternoon, when she heard the knock at the
door, she was seated in the kitchen corner between the fire and the
window reading "Réné." Certainly in her well-fitting light-blue
dress--she almost always wore some shade of blue--with her delicate
sandaled slipper stretched toward the fire, her little gold watch, which
had cost her nearly a quarter's earnings, visible at her side, her
slender fingers playing with a shower of brown curls, and a coronet of
shining plaits, at the summit of her head, she was a remarkable
Cinderella. When the rap came, she colored, and was going to shut her
book and put it out of the way on the window ledge behind her; but she
desisted with a little toss, laid it open on the table beside her, and
walked to the outer door, which opened into the kitchen. There was
rather a mischievous gleam in her face: the rap was not a small one; it
came probably from a large personage with a vigorous arm.

"Good afternoon, Miss Lyon," said Felix, taking off his cloth cap: he
resolutely declined the expensive ugliness of a hat, and in a poked cap
and without a cravat, made a figure at which his mother cried every
Sunday, and thought of with a slow shake of the head at several passages
in the minister's prayer.

"Dear me, it is you, Mr. Holt! I fear you will have to wait some time
before you can see my father. The sermon is not ended yet, and there
will be the hymn and the prayer, and perhaps other things to detain
him."

"Well, will you let me sit down in the kitchen? I don't want to be a
bore."

"Oh, no," said Esther, with her pretty light laugh, "I always give you
credit for not meaning it. Pray come in, if you don't mind waiting. I
was sitting in the kitchen: the kettle is singing quite prettily. It is
much nicer than the parlor--not half so ugly."

"There I agree with you."

"How very extraordinary! But if you prefer the kitchen, and don't want
to sit with me, I can go into the parlor."

"I came on purpose to sit with you," said Felix, in his blunt way, "but
I thought it likely you might be vexed at seeing me. I wanted to talk to
you, but I've got nothing pleasant to say. As your father would have it,
I'm not given to prophesy smooth things--to prophesy deceit."

"I understand," said Esther, sitting down. "Pray be seated. You thought
I had no afternoon sermon, so you came to give me one."

"Yes," said Felix, seating himself sideways in a chair not far off her,
and leaning over the back to look at her with his large, clear, gray
eyes, "and my text is something you said the other day. You said you
didn't mind about people having right opinions so that they had good
taste. Now I want you to see what shallow stuff that is."

"Oh, I don't doubt it if you say so. I know you are a person of right
opinions."

"But by opinions you mean men's thoughts about great subjects, and by
taste you mean their thoughts about small ones: dress, behavior,
amusements, ornaments."

"Well--yes--or rather, their sensibilities about those things."

"It comes to the same thing; thoughts, opinions, knowledge, are only a
sensibility to facts and ideas. If I understand a geometrical problem,
it is because I have a sensibility to the way in which lines and figures
are related to each other; and I want you to see that the creature who
has the sensibilities that you call taste, and not the sensibilities
that you call opinions, is simply a lower, pettier sort of thing--an
insect that notices the shaking of the table, but never notices the
thunder."

"Very well, I am an insect; yet I notice that you are thundering at me."

"No, you are not an insect. That is what exasperates me at your making a
boast of littleness. You have enough understanding to make it wicked
that you should add one more to the women who hinder men's lives from
having any nobleness in them."

Esther colored deeply: she resented this speech, yet she disliked it
less than many Felix had addressed to her.

"What is my horrible guilt?" she said, rising and standing, as she was
wont, with one foot on the fender, and looking at the fire. If it had
been any one but Felix who was near her, it might have occurred to her
that this attitude showed her to advantage; but she had only a mortified
sense that he was quite indifferent to what others praised her for.

"Why do you read this mawkish stuff on a Sunday, for example?" he said,
snatching up "Réné," and running his eye over the pages.

"Why don't you always go to chapel, Mr. Holt, and read Howe's 'Living
Temple,' and join the church?"

"There's just the difference between us--I know why I don't do those
things. I distinctly see that I can do something better. I have other
principles, and should sink myself by doing what I don't recognize as
the best."

"I understand," said Esther, as lightly as she could, to conceal her
bitterness. "I am a lower kind of being, and could not so easily sink
myself."

"Not by entering into your father's ideas. If a woman really believes
herself to be a lower kind of being, she should place herself in
subjection: she should be ruled by the thoughts of her father or
husband. If not, let her show her power of choosing something better.
You must know that your father's principles are greater and worthier
than what guides your life. You have no reason but idle fancy and
selfish inclination for shirking his teaching and giving your soul up to
trifles."

"You are kind enough to say so. But I am not aware that I have ever
confided my reasons to you."

"Why, what worth calling a reason could make any mortal hang over this
trash?--idiotic immorality dressed up to look fine, with a little bit of
doctrine tacked to it, like a hare's foot on a dish, to make believe the
mess is not cat's flesh. Look here! 'Est-ce ma faute, si je trouve
partout les bornes, si ce qui est fini n'a pour moi aucune valeur?' Yes,
sir, distinctly your fault, because you're an ass. Your dunce who can't
do his sums always has a taste for the infinite. Sir, do you know what a
rhomboid is? Oh, no, I don't value these things with limits. 'Cependant,
j'aime la monotonie des sentimens de la vie, et si j'avais encore la
folie de croire au bonheur----'"

"Oh, pray, Mr. Holt, don't go on reading with that dreadful accent; it
sets one's teeth on edge." Esther, smarting helplessly under the
previous lashes, was relieved by this diversion of criticism.

"There it is!" said Felix, throwing the book on the table, and getting
up to walk about. "You are only happy when you can spy a tag or a tassel
loose to turn the talk, and get rid of any judgment that must carry
grave action after it."

"I think I have borne a great deal of talk without turning it."

"Not enough, Miss Lyon--not all that I came to say. I want you to
change. Of course I am a brute to say so. I ought to say you are
perfect. Another man would, perhaps. But I say I want you to change."

"How am I to oblige you? By joining the Church?"

"No; but by asking yourself whether life is not as solemn a thing as
your father takes it to be--in which you may be either a blessing or a
curse to many. You know you have never done that. You don't care to be
better than a bird trimming its feathers, and pecking about after what
pleases it. You are discontented with the world because you can't get
just the small things that suit your pleasure, not because it's a world
where myriads of men and women are ground by wrong and misery, and
tainted with pollution."

Esther felt her heart swelling with mingled indignation at this liberty,
wounded pride at this depreciation, and acute consciousness that she
could not contradict what Felix said. He was outrageously ill-bred; but
she felt that she should be lowering herself by telling him so, and
manifesting her anger; in that way she would be confirming his
accusation of a littleness that shrank from severe truth; and, besides,
through all her mortification there pierced a sense that this
exasperation of Felix against her was more complimentary than anything
in his previous behavior. She had self-command enough to speak with her
usual silvery voice.

"Pray go on, Mr. Holt. Relieve yourself of these burning truths. I am
sure they must be troublesome to carry unuttered."

"Yes, they are," said Felix, pausing, and standing not far off her. "I
can't bear to see you going the way of the foolish women who spoil men's
lives. Men can't help loving them, and so they make themselves slaves to
the petty desires of petty creatures. That's the way those who might do
better spend their lives for nought--get checked in every great
effort--toil with brain and limb for things that have no more to do with
a manly life than tarts and confectionery. That's what makes women a
curse; and life is stunted to suit their littleness. That's why I'll
never love, if I can help it; and if I love, I'll bear it, and never
marry."

The tumult of feeling in Esther's mind--mortification, anger, the sense
of a terrible power over her that Felix seemed to have as his angry
words vibrated through her--was getting almost too much for her
self-control. She felt her lips quivering; but her pride, which feared
nothing so much as the betrayal of her emotion, helped her to a
desperate effort. She pinched her own hand hard to overcome her tremor,
and said, in a tone of scorn--

"I ought to be very much obliged to you for giving me your confidence so
freely."

"Ah! now you are offended with me, and disgusted with me. I expected it
would be so. A woman doesn't like a man who tells her the truth."

"I think you boast a little too much of your truth-telling, Mr. Holt,"
said Esther, flashing out at last. "That virtue is apt to be easy to
people when they only wound others and not themselves. Telling the truth
often means no more than taking a liberty."

"Yes, I suppose I should have been taking a liberty if I had tried to
drag you back by the skirt when I saw you running into a pit."

"You should really found a sect. Preaching is your vocation. It is a
pity you should ever have an audience of only one."

"I see I have made a fool of myself. I thought you had a more generous
mind--that you might be kindled to a better ambition. But I've set your
vanity aflame--nothing else. I'm going. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Esther, not looking at him. He did not open the door
immediately. He seemed to be adjusting his cap and pulling it down.
Esther longed to be able to throw a lasso round him and compel him to
stay, that she might say what she chose to him; her very anger made this
departure irritating, especially as he had the last word, and that a
very bitter one. But soon the latch was lifted and the door closed
behind him. She ran up to her bedroom and burst into tears. Poor maiden!
There was a strange contradiction of impulses in her mind in those first
moments. She could not bear that Felix should not respect her, yet she
could not bear that he should see her bend before his denunciation. She
revolted against his assumption of superiority, yet she felt herself in
a new kind of subjection to him. He was ill-bred, he was rude, he had
taken an unwarrantable liberty; yet his indignant words were a tribute
to her: he thought she was worth more pains than the women of whom he
took no notice. It was excessively impertinent in him to tell her of his
resolving not to love--not to marry--as if she cared about that; as if
he thought himself likely to inspire an affection that would incline any
woman to marry him after such eccentric steps as he had taken. Had he
ever for a moment imagined that she had thought of him in the light of a
man who would make love to her?----But did he love her one little bit,
and was that the reason why he wanted her to change? Esther felt less
angry at that form of freedom; though she was quite sure that she did
not love him, and that she could never love any one who was so much of a
pedagogue and master, to say nothing of his oddities. But he wanted her
to change. For the first time in her life Esther felt herself seriously
shaken in her self-contentment. She knew there was a mind to which she
appeared trivial, narrow, selfish. Every word Felix had said to her
seemed to have burned itself into her memory. She felt as if she should
forevermore be haunted by self-criticism, and never do anything to
satisfy those fancies on which she had simply piqued herself before
without being dogged by inward questions. Her father's desire for her
conversion had never moved her; she saw that he adored her all the
while, and he never checked her unregenerate acts as if they degraded
her on earth, but only mourned over them as unfitting her for heaven.
Unfitness for heaven (spoken of as "Jerusalem" and "glory"), the prayers
of a good little father, whose thoughts and motives seemed to her like
the "Life of Dr. Doddridge," which she was content to leave unread, did
not attack her self-respect and self-satisfaction. But now she had been
stung--stung even into a new consciousness concerning her father. Was it
true that his life was so much worthier than her own? She could not
change for anything Felix said, but she told herself he was mistaken if
he supposed her incapable of generous thoughts.

She heard her father coming into the house. She dried her tears, tried
to recover herself hurriedly, and went down to him.

"You want your tea, father; how your forehead burns!" she said gently,
kissing his brow, and then putting her cool hand on it.

Mr. Lyon felt a little surprise; such spontaneous tenderness was not
quite common with her; it reminded him of her mother.

"My sweet child," he said gratefully, thinking with wonder of the
treasures still left in our fallen nature.




CHAPTER XI.

    Truth is the precious harvest of the earth.
    But once, when harvest waved upon a land,
    The noisome cankerworm and caterpillar,
    Locusts, and all the swarming foul-born broods,
    Fastened upon it with swift, greedy jaws,
    And turned the harvest into pestilence,
    Until men said, What profits it to sow?


Felix was going to Sproxton that Sunday afternoon. He always enjoyed his
walk to that outlying hamlet; it took him (by a short cut) through a
corner of Sir Maximus Debarry's park; then across a piece of common,
broken here and there into red ridges below dark masses of furze; and
for the rest of the way alongside of the canal, where the Sunday
peacefulness that seemed to rest on the bordering meadows and pastures
was hardly broken if a horse pulled into sight along the towing-path,
and a boat, with a little curl of blue smoke issuing from its tin
chimney, came slowly gliding behind. Felix retained something of his
boyish impression that the days in a canal-boat were all like Sundays;
but the horse, if it had been put to him, would probably have preferred
a more Judaic or Scotch rigor with regard to canal-boats, or at least
that the Sunday towing should be done by asses, as a lower order.

This canal was only a branch of the grand trunk, and ended among the
coal-pits, where Felix, crossing a network of black tram-roads, soon
came to his destination--that public institute of Sproxton, known to its
frequenters chiefly as Chubb's, but less familiarly as the Sugar Loaf,
or the New Pits; this last being the name for the more modern and lively
nucleus of the Sproxton hamlet. The other nucleus, known as the Old
Pits, also supported its "public," but it had something of the forlorn
air of an abandoned capital; and the company at the Blue Cow was of an
inferior kind--equal, of course, in the fundamental attributes of
humanity, such as desire for beer, but not equal in ability to pay for
it.

When Felix arrived, the great Chubb was standing at the door. Mr. Chubb
was a remarkable publican; none of your stock Bonifaces, red, bloated,
jolly, and joking. He was thin and sallow, and was never, as his
constant guests observed, seen to be the worse (or the better) for
liquor; indeed, as among soldiers an eminent general was held to have a
charmed life, Chubb was held by the members of the Benefit Club to have
a charmed sobriety, a vigilance over his own interest that resisted all
narcotics. His very dreams, as stated by himself, had a method in them
beyond the waking thoughts of other men. Pharaoh's dream, he observed,
was nothing to them; and, as lying so much out of ordinary experience,
they were held particularly suitable for narration on Sunday evenings,
when the listening colliers, well washed and in their best coats, shook
their heads with a sense of peculiar edification which belongs to the
inexplicable. Mr. Chubb's reasons for becoming landlord of the Sugar
Loaf, were founded on the severest calculation. Having an active mind,
and being averse to bodily labor, he had thoroughly considered what
calling would yield him the best livelihood with the least possible
exertion, and in that sort of line he had seen that a "public" amongst
miners who earned high wages was a fine opening. He had prospered
according to the merits of such judicious calculation, was already a
forty-shilling freeholder, and was conscious of a vote for the county.
He was not one of those mean-spirited men who found the franchise
embarrassing, and would rather have been without it: he regarded his
vote as part of his investment, and meant to make the best of it. He
called himself a straight-forward man, and at suitable moments expressed
his views freely; in fact, he was known to have one fundamental division
for all opinion--"my idee" and "humbug."

When Felix approached, Mr. Chubb was standing, as usual, with his hands
nervously busy in his pockets, his eyes glancing around with a detective
expression at the black landscape, and his lipless mouth compressed, yet
in constant movement. On a superficial view it might be supposed that so
eager-seeming a personality was unsuited to the publican's business; but
in fact, it was a great provocative to drinking. Like the shrill biting
talk of a vixenish wife, it would have compelled you to "take a little
something" by way of dulling your sensibility.

Hitherto, notwithstanding Felix drank so little ale, the publican
treated him with high civility. The coming election was a great
opportunity for applying his political "idee," which was, that society
existed for the sake of the individual, and that the name of that
individual was Chubb. Now, for a conjunction of absurd circumstances
inconsistent with that idea, it happened that Sproxton hereto had been
somewhat neglected in the canvass. The head member of the company that
worked the mines was Mr. Peter Garstin, and the same company received
the rent from the Sugar Loaf. Hence, as the person who had the most
power of annoying Mr. Chubb, and being of detriment to him, Mr. Garstin
was naturally the candidate for whom he had reserved his vote. But where
there is this intention of ultimately gratifying a gentleman by voting
for him in an open British manner on the day of the poll, a man, whether
Publican or Pharisee (Mr. Chubb used this generic classification of
mankind as one that was sanctioned by Scripture), is all the freer in
his relation with those deluded persons who take him for what he is not,
and imagine him to be a waverer. But for some time opportunity had
seemed barren. There were but three dubious votes besides Mr. Chubb's
in the small district of which the Sugar Loaf could be regarded as the
centre of intelligence and inspiration: the colliers, of course, had no
votes, and did not need political conversion; consequently, the
interests of Sproxton had only been tacitly cherished in the breasts of
candidates. But ever since it had been known that a Radical candidate
was in the field, that in consequence of this Mr. Debarry had coalesced
with Mr. Garstin, and that Sir James Clement, the poor baronet, had
retired, Mr. Chubb had been occupied with the most ingenious mental
combinations in order to ascertain what possibilities of profit to the
Sugar Loaf might lie in this altered state of the canvass.

He had a cousin in another county, also a publican, but in a larger way,
and resident in a borough, and from him Mr. Chubb had gathered more
detailed political information than he could find in the Loamshire
newspapers. He was now enlightened enough to know that there was a way
of using voteless miners and navvies at nominations and elections. He
approved of that; it entered into his political "idee"; and indeed he
would have been for extending the franchise to this class--at least in
Sproxton. If any one had observed that you must draw a line somewhere,
Mr. Chubb would have concurred at once, and would have given permission
to draw it at a radius of two miles from his own tap.

From the first Sunday evening when Felix had appeared at the Sugar Loaf,
Mr. Chubb had made up his mind that this 'cute man who kept himself
sober was an electioneering agent. That he was hired for some purpose or
other there was not a doubt; a man didn't come and drink nothing without
a good reason. In proportion as Felix's purpose was not obvious to
Chubb's mind, it must be deep; and this growing conviction had even led
the publican on the last Sunday evening privately to urge his mysterious
visitor to let a little ale be chalked up for him--it was of no
consequence. Felix knew his man, and had taken care not to betray too
soon that his real object was so to win the ear of the best fellows
about him as to induce them to meet him on a Saturday evening in the
room where Mr. Lyon, or one of his deacons, habitually held his
Wednesday preachings. Only women and children, three old men, a
journeyman tailor, and a consumptive youth, attended those preachings;
not a collier had been won from the strong ale of the Sugar Loaf, not
even a navvy from the muddier drink of the Blue Cow. Felix was sanguine;
he saw some pleasant faces among the miners when they were washed on
Sundays; they might be taught to spend their wages better. At all
events, he was going to try: he had great confidence in his powers of
appeal, and it was quite true that he never spoke without arresting
attention. There was nothing better than a dame school in the hamlet; he
thought that if he could move the fathers, whose blackened week-day
persons and flannel caps, ornamented with tallow candles by way of
plume, were a badge of hard labor, for which he had a more sympathetic
fibre than for any ribbon in the buttonhole--if he could move these men
to save something from their drink and pay a school-master for their
boys, a greater service would be done them than if Mr. Garstin and his
company were persuaded to establish a school.

"I'll lay hold of them by their fatherhood," said Felix; "I'll take one
of their little fellows and set him in the midst. Till they can show
there's something they love better than swilling themselves with ale,
extension of the suffrage can never mean anything for them but extension
of boozing. One must begin somewhere: I'll begin at what is under my
nose. I'll begin at Sproxton. That's what a man would do if he had a
red-hot superstition. Can't one work for sober truth as hard as for
megrims?"

Felix Holt had his illusions, like other young men, though they were not
of a fashionable sort; referring neither to the impression his costume
and horsemanship might make on beholders, nor to the ease with which he
would pay the Jews when he gave a loose to his talents and applied
himself to work. He had fixed his choice on a certain Mike Brindle (not
that Brindle was his real name--each collier had his _sobriquet_) as the
man whom he would induce to walk part of the way home with him this very
evening, and get to invite some of his comrades for the next Saturday.
Brindle was one of the head miners: he had a bright good-natured face,
and had given especial attention to certain performances with a magnet
which Felix carried in his pocket.

Mr. Chubb, who had also his illusions, smiled graciously as the
enigmatic customer came up to the door-step.

"Well, sir, Sunday seems to be your day: I begin to look for you on a
Sunday now."

"Yes, I'm a workingman; Sunday is my holiday," said Felix, pausing at
the door since the host seemed to expect this.

"Ah, sir, there's many ways of working. I look at it you're one of those
as work with your brains. That's what I do myself."

"One may do a good deal of that and work with one's hands too."

"Ah, sir," said Mr. Chubb, with a certain bitterness in his smile, "I've
that sort of head that I've often wished I was stupider. I use things
up, sir; I see into things a deal too quick. I eat my dinner, as you may
say, at breakfast-time. That's why I hardly ever smoke a pipe. No sooner
do I stick a pipe in my mouth than I puff and puff till it's gone before
other folks' are well lit; and then, where am I? I might as well have
let it alone. In this world it's better not to be too quick. But you
know what it is, sir."

"Not I," said Felix, rubbing the back of his head, with a grimace. "I
generally feel myself rather a blockhead. The world's a largish place,
and I haven't turned everything inside out yet."

"Ah, that's your deepness. I think we understand one another. And about
this here election, I lay two to one we should agree if we was to come
to talk about it."

"Ah!" said Felix, with an air of caution.

"You're none of a Tory, eh, sir? You won't go to vote for Debarry? That
was what I said at the very first go-off. Says I, he's no Tory. I think
I was right, sir--eh?"

"Certainly; I'm no Tory."

"No, no, you don't catch me wrong in a hurry. Well, between you and me,
I care no more for the Debarrys than I care for Johnny Groats. I live on
none o' their land, and not a pot's-worth did they ever send to the
Sugar Loaf. I'm not frightened at the Debarrys: there's no man more
independent than me. I'll plump or I'll split for them as treat me the
handsomest and are the most of what I call gentlemen; that's my idee.
And in the way of hatching for any man, them are fools that don't employ
me."

We mortals sometimes cut a pitiable figure in our attempts at display.
We may be sure of our own merits, yet fatally ignorant of the point of
view from which we are regarded by our neighbor. Our fine patterns in
tattooing may be far from throwing him into a swoon of admiration,
though we turn ourselves all round to show them. Thus it was with Mr.
Chubb.

"Yes," said Felix, dryly; "I should think there are some sorts of work
for which you are just fitted."

"Ah, you see that? Well, we understand one another. You're no Tory; no
more am I. And if I'd got four hands to show at a nomination, the
Debarrys shouldn't have one of 'em. My idee is, there's a deal too much
of their scutchins and their moniments in Treby Church. What's their
scutchins mean? They're a sign with little liquor behind 'em; that's how
I take it. There's nobody can give account of 'em as I ever heard."

Mr. Chubb was hindered from further explaining his views as to the
historical element in society by the arrival of new guests, who
approached in two groups. The foremost group consisted of well-known
colliers, in their good Sunday beavers and colored handkerchiefs serving
as cravats, with the long ends floating. The second group was a more
unusual one, and caused Mr. Chubb to compress his mouth and agitate the
muscles about it in rather an excited manner.

First came a smartly-dressed personage on horseback, with a conspicuous
expansive shirt-front and figured satin stock. He was a stout man, and
gave a strong sense of broadcloth. A wild idea shot through Mr. Chubb's
brain; could this grand visitor be Harold Transome? Excuse him: he had
been given to understand by his cousin from the distant borough that a
Radical candidate in the condescension of canvassing had even gone the
length of eating bread-and-treacle with the children of an honest
freeman, and declaring his preference for that simple fare. Mr. Chubb's
notion of a Radical was that he was a new and agreeable kind of
lick-spittle who fawned on the poor instead of on the rich, and so was
likely to send customers to a "public"; so that he argued well enough
from the premises at his command.

The mounted man of broadcloth had followers: several shabby-looking men,
and Sproxton boys of all sizes, whose curiosity had been stimulated by
unexpected largesse. A stranger on horseback scattering half-pence on a
Sunday was so unprecedented that there was no knowing what he might do
next; and the smallest hindmost fellows in sealskin caps were not
without hope that an entirely new order of things had set in.

Everyone waited outside for the stranger to dismount, and Mr. Chubb
advanced to take the bridle.

"Well, Mr. Chubb," were the first words when the great man was safely
out of the saddle, "I've often heard of your fine tap, and I'm come to
taste it."

"Walk in, sir--pray walk in," said Mr. Chubb, giving the horse to the
stable-boy. "I shall be proud to draw for you. If anybody's been
praising me, I think my ale will back him."

All entered in the rear of the stranger except the boys, who peeped in
at the window.

"Won't you please to walk into the parlor, sir," said Mr. Chubb,
obsequiously.

"No, no, I'll sit down here. This is what I like to see," said the
stranger, looking round at the colliers, who eyed him rather shyly--"a
bright hearth where workingmen can enjoy themselves. However, I'll step
into the other room for three minutes, just to speak half a dozen words
with you."

Mr. Chubb threw open the parlor door, and then stepping back, took the
opportunity of saying, in a low tone, to Felix, "Do you know this
gentleman?"

"Not I; no."

Mr. Chubb's opinion of Felix Holt sank from that moment. The parlor door
was closed, but no one sat down or ordered beer.

"I say, master," said Mike Brindle, going up to Felix, "don't you think
that's one o' the 'lection men?"

"Very likely."

"I heared a chap say they're up and down everywhere," said Brindle; "and
now's the time, they say, when a man can get beer for nothing."

"Ay, that's sin' the Reform," said a big, red-whiskered man, called
Dredge. "That's brought the 'lections and the drink into these parts;
for afore that, it was all kep' up the Lord knows wheer."

"Well, but the Reform's niver come anigh Sprox'on," said a gray-haired
but stalwart man called Old Sleck. "I don't believe nothing about'n, I
don't."

"Don't you?" said Brindle, with some contempt. "Well, I do. There's
folks won't believe beyond the end o' their own pickaxes. You can't
drive nothing into 'em, not if you split their skulls. I know for
certain sure, from a chap in the cartin' way, as he's got money and
drink too, only for hollering. Eh, master, what do _you_ say?" Brindle
ended, turning with some deference to Felix.

"Should you like to know all about the Reform?" said Felix, using his
opportunity. "If you would, I can tell you."

"Ay, ay--tell's; you know I'll be bound," said several voices at once.

"Ah, but it will take some little time. And we must be quiet. The
cleverest of you--those who are looked up to in the Club--must come and
meet me at Peggy Button's cottage next Saturday, at seven o'clock, after
dark. And, Brindle, you must bring that little yellow-haired lad of
yours. And anybody that's got a little boy--a very little fellow, who
won't understand what is said--may bring him. But you must keep it
close, you know. We don't want fools there. But everybody who hears me
may come. I shall be at Peggy Button's."

"Why, that's where the Wednesday preachin' is," said Dredge. "I've been
aforced to give my wife a black eye to hinder her from going to the
preachin'. Lors-a-massy, she thinks she knows better nor me, and I can't
make head nor tail of her talk."

"Why can't you let the woman alone?" said Brindle, with some disgust.
"I'd be ashamed to beat a poor crawling thing 'cause she likes
preaching."

"No more I did beat her afore, not if she scrat' me," said Dredge, in
vindication; "but if she jabbers at me, I can't abide it. Howsomever,
I'll bring my Jack to Peggy's o' Saturday. His mother shall wash him. He
is but four year old, and he'll swear and square at me a good un, if I
set him on."

"There you go blatherin'," said Brindle, intending a mild rebuke.

This dialogue, which was in danger of becoming too personal, was
interrupted by the reopening of the parlor door, and the reappearance of
the impressive stranger with Mr. Chubb, whose countenance seemed
unusually radiant.

"Sit you down here, Mr. Johnson," said Chubb, moving an arm-chair. "This
gentleman is kind enough to treat the company," he added, looking round,
"and what's more, he'll take a cup with 'em; and I think there's no man
but what'll say that's a honor."

The company had nothing equivalent to a "hear, hear," at command, but
they perhaps felt the more, as they seated themselves with an
expectation unvented by utterance. There was a general satisfactory
sense that the hitherto shadowy Reform had at length come to Sproxton in
a good round shape, with broadcloth and pockets. Felix did not intend to
accept the treating, but he chose to stay and hear, taking his pint as
usual.

"Capital ale, capital ale," said Mr. Johnson, as he set down his glass,
speaking in a quick, smooth treble. "Now," he went on, with a certain
pathos in his voice, looking at Mr. Chubb, who sat opposite, "there's
some satisfaction to me in finding an establishment like this at the
Pits. For what would higher wages do for the workingman if he couldn't
get a good article for his money? Why, gentlemen"--here he looked
round--"I've been into ale-houses where I've seen a fine fellow of a
miner or a stone-cutter come in and have to lay down money for beer that
I should be sorry to give to my pigs!" Here Mr. Johnson leaned forward
with squared elbows, hands placed on his knees, and a defiant shake of
the head.

"Aw, like at the Blue Cow," fell in the irrepressible Dredge, in a deep
bass; but he was rebuked by a severe nudge from Brindle.

"Yes, yes, you know what it is, my friend," said Mr. Johnson, looking at
Dredge, and restoring his self-satisfaction. "But it won't last much
longer, that's one good thing. Bad liquor will be swept away with other
bad articles. Trade will prosper--and what's trade now without steam?
and what is steam without coal? And mark you this, gentlemen--there's no
man and no government can make coal."

A loud "Haw, haw," showed that this fact was appreciated.

"Nor freeston', nayther," said a wide-mouthed wiry man called Gills, who
wished for an exhaustive treatment of the subject, being a stone-cutter.

"Nor freestone, as you say; else, I think, if coal could be made
above-ground, honest fellows who are the pith of our population would
not have to bend their backs and sweat in a pit six days out of the
seven. No, no; I say, as this country prospers it has more and more need
of you, sirs. It can do without a pack of lazy lords and ladies, but it
can never do without brave colliers. And the country _will_ prosper. I
pledge you my word, sirs, this country will rise to the tiptop of
everything, and there isn't a man in it but what shall have his joint in
the pot, and his spare money jingling in his pocket, if we only exert
ourselves to send the right men to Parliament--men who will speak up for
the collier, and the stone-cutter, and the navvy" (Mr. Johnson waved his
hand liberally), "and will stand no nonsense. This is a crisis, and we
must exert ourselves. We've got Reform, gentlemen, but now the thing is
to make Reform work. It's a crisis--I pledge you my word it's a crisis."

Mr. Johnson threw himself back as if from the concussion of that great
noun. He did not suppose that one of his audience knew what a crisis
meant; but he had large experience in the effect of uncomprehended
words; and in this case the colliers were thrown into a state of
conviction concerning they did not know what, which was a fine
preparation for "hitting out," or any other act carrying a due sequence
to such a conviction.

Felix felt himself in danger of getting into a rage. There is hardly any
mental misery worse than that of having our own serious phrases, our own
rooted beliefs, caricatured by a charlatan or a hireling. He began to
feel the sharp lower edge of his tin pint-measure, and to think it a
tempting missile.

Mr. Johnson certainly had some qualifications as an orator. After this
impressive pause he leaned forward again, and said, in a lowered tone,
looking round--

"I think you all know the good news."

There was a movement of shoe-soles on the quarried floor, and a scrape
of some chair legs, but no other answer.

"The good news I mean is, that a first-rate man, Mr. Transome, of
Transome Court, has offered himself to represent you in Parliament,
sirs. I say you in particular, for what he has at heart is the welfare
of the workingman--of the brave fellows that wield the pickaxe, and the
saw, and the hammer. He's rich--has more money than Garstin--but he
doesn't want to keep it to himself. What he wants is, to make a good use
of it, gentlemen. He's come back from foreign parts with his pockets
full of gold. He could buy up the Debarrys, if they were worth buying,
but he's got something better to do with his money. He means to use it
for the good of the workingmen in these parts. I know there are some men
who put up for Parliament and talk a little too big. They may say they
want to befriend the colliers, for example. But I should like to put a
question to them. I should like to ask them, 'What colliers?' There are
colliers up at Newcastle, and there are colliers down in Wales. Will it
do any good to honest Tom, who is hungry in Sproxton, to hear that Jack
at Newcastle has his belly full of beef and pudding?"

"It ought to do him good," Felix burst in, with his loud, abrupt voice,
in odd contrast with glib Mr. Johnson's. "If he knows it's a bad thing
to be hungry and not have enough to eat, he ought to be glad that
another fellow, who is not idle, is not suffering in the same way."

Every one was startled. The audience was much impressed with the
grandeur, the knowledge, and the power of Mr. Johnson. His brilliant
promises confirmed the impression that Reform had at length reached the
New Pits; and Reform, if it were good for anything, must at last resolve
itself into spare money--meaning "sport" and drink, and keeping away
from work for several days in the week. These "brave" men of Sproxton
liked Felix as one of themselves, only much more knowing--as a
workingman who had seen many distant parts, but who must be very poor,
since he never drank more than a pint or so. They were quite inclined to
hear what he had got to say on another occasion, but they were rather
irritated by his interruption at the present moment. Mr. Johnson was
annoyed, but he spoke with the same glib quietness as before, though
with an expression of contempt.

"I call it a poor-spirited thing to take up a man's straight-forward
words and twist them. What I meant to say was plain enough--that no man
can be saved from starving by looking on while others eat. I think
that's common-sense, eh, sirs?"

There was again an approving "Haw, haw." To hear anything said, and
understand it, was a stimulus that had the effect of wit. Mr. Chubb cast
a suspicious and viperous glance at Felix, who felt that he had been a
simpleton for his pains.

"Well, then," continued Mr. Johnson, "I suppose I may go on. But if
there is any one here better able to inform the company than I am, I
give way--I give way."

"Sir," said Mr. Chubb, magisterially, "no man shall take the words out
of _your_ mouth in this house. And," he added, looking pointedly at
Felix, "company that's got no more orders to give, and wants to turn up
rusty to them that has, had better be making room than filling it. Love
an' 'armony's the word on our Club's flag, an' love an' 'armony's the
meaning of 'The Sugar Loaf, William Chubb.' Folks of a different mind
had better seek another house of call."

"Very good," said Felix, laying down his money and taking his cap. "I'm
going." He saw clearly enough that if he said more, there would be a
disturbance which could have no desirable end.

When the door had closed behind him, Mr. Johnson said, "What is that
person's name?"

"Does anybody know it?" said Mr. Chubb.

A few noes were heard.

"I've heard him speak like a downright Reformer, else I should have
looked a little sharper after him. But you may see he's nothing
partic'lar."

"It looks rather bad that no one knows his name," said Mr. Johnson.
"He's most likely a Tory in disguise--a Tory spy. You must be careful,
sirs, of men who come to you and say they're Radicals, and yet do
nothing for you. They'll stuff you with words--no lack of words--but
words are wind. Now, a man like Transome comes forward and says to the
workingmen of this country: 'Here I am, ready to serve you and speak for
you in Parliament, and to get the laws made all right for you; and in
the meanwhile, if there's any of you who are my neighbors who want a
day's holiday, or a cup to drink with friends, or a copy of the King's
likeness--why, I'm your man. I'm not a paper handbill--all words and no
substance--nor a man with land and nothing else; I've got bags of gold
as well as land.' I think you know what I mean by the King's likeness."

Here Mr. Johnson took a half-crown out of his pocket and held the head
toward the company.

"Well, sirs, there are some men who like to keep this pretty picture a
great deal too much to themselves. I don't know whether I'm right, but I
think I've heard of such a one not a hundred miles from here. I think
his name was Spratt, and he managed some company's coal-pits."

"Haw, haw! Spratt--Spratt's his name," was rolled forth to an
accompaniment of scraping shoe-soles.

"A screwing fellow, by what I understand--a domineering fellow--who
would expect men to do as he liked without paying them for it. I think
there's not an honest man wouldn't like to disappoint such an upstart."

There was a murmur which was interpreted by Mr. Chubb. "I'll answer for
'em, sir."

"Now, listen to me. Here's Garstin: he's one of the company you work
under. What's Garstin to you? who sees him? and when they do see him
they see a thin miserly fellow who keeps his pockets buttoned. He calls
himself a Whig, yet he'll split votes with a Tory--he'll drive with the
Debarrys. Now, gentlemen, if I said I'd got a vote, and anybody asked me
what I should do with it, I should say, 'I'll plump for Transome.'
You've got no votes, and that's a shame. But you _will_ have some day,
if such men as Transome are returned; and then you'll be on a level with
the first gentleman in the land, and if he wants to sit in Parliament,
he must take off his hat and ask your leave. But though you haven't got
a vote you can give a cheer for the right man, and Transome's not a man
like Garstin; if you lost a day's wages by giving a cheer for Transome,
he'll make you amends. That's the way a man who has no vote can serve
himself and his country; he can lift up his hand and shout 'Transome
forever!'--'hurray for Transome!' Let the workingmen--let the colliers
and navvies and stone-cutters, who between you and me have a good deal
too much the worst of it, as things are now--let them join together and
give their hands and voices for the right man, and they'll make the
great people shake in their shoes a little; and when you shout for
Transome, remember you shout for more wages, and more of your rights,
and you shout to get rid of rats and _sprats_ and such small animals,
who are the tools the rich make use of to squeeze the blood out of the
poor man."

"I wish there'd be a row--I'd pommel him," said Dredge, who was
generally felt to be speaking to the question.

"No, no, my friend--there you're a little wrong. No pommelling--no
striking first. There you have the law and the constable against you. A
little rolling in the dust and knocking hats off, a little pelting with
soft things that'll stick and not bruise--all that doesn't spoil the
fun. If a man is to speak when you don't like to hear him, it is but
fair you should give him something he doesn't like in return. And the
same if he's got a vote and doesn't use it for the good of the country;
I see no harm in splitting his coat in a quiet way. A man must be taught
what's right if he doesn't know it. But no kicks, no knocking down, no
pommelling."

"It 'ud be good fun, though, if so-_be_," said Old Sleck, allowing
himself an imaginative pleasure.

"Well, well, if a Spratt wants you to say Garstin, it's some pleasure to
think you can say Transome. Now, my notion is this. You are men who can
put two and two together--I don't know a more solid lot of fellows than
you are; and what I say is, let the honest men in this country who've
got no vote show themselves in a body when they have got the chance.
Why, sirs, for every Tory sneak that's got a vote, there's fifty-five
fellows who must stand by and be expected to hold their tongues. But I
say let 'em hiss the sneaks, let 'em groan at the sneaks, and the sneaks
will be ashamed of themselves. The men who've got votes don't know how
to use them. There's many a fool with a vote, who is not sure in his
mind whether he shall poll, say for Debarry, or Garstin, or
Transome--whether he'll plump or whether he'll split; a straw will turn
him. Let him know your mind if he doesn't know his own. What's the
reason Debarry gets returned? Because people are frightened at the
Debarrys. What's that to you? You don't care for the Debarrys. If people
are frightened at the Tories, we'll turn round and frighten _them_. You
know what a Tory is--one who wants to drive the workingman as he'd drive
cattle. That's what a Tory is; and a Whig is no better, if he's like
Garstin. A Whig wants to knock the Tory down and get the whip, that's
all. But Transome's neither Whig nor Tory; he's the workingman's friend,
the collier's friend, the friend of the honest navvy. And if he gets
into Parliament, let me tell you it will be better for you. I don't say
it will be the better for overlookers and screws, and rats and _sprats_;
but it will be the better for every good fellow who takes his pot at the
Sugar Loaf."

Mr. Johnson's exertions for the political education of the Sproxton men
did not stop here, which was the more disinterested in him as he did not
expect to see them again, and could only set on foot an organization by
which their instruction could be continued without him. In this he was
quite successful. A man known among the "butties" as Pack, who had
already been mentioned by Mr. Chubb, presently joined the party, and had
a private audience of Mr. Johnson, that he might be instituted as the
"shepherd" of this new flock.

"That's a right down genelman," said Pack, as he took the seat vacated
by the orator, who had ridden away.

"What's his trade, think you?" said Gills, the wiry stone-cutter.

"Trade?" said Mr. Chubb. "He one of the top sawyers of the country. He
works with his head, you may see that."

"Let's have our pipes, then," said Old Sleck; "I'm pretty well tired o'
jaw."

"So am I," said Dredge. "It's wriggling work--like follering a stoat. It
makes a man dry. I'd as lief hear preaching, on'y there's naught to be
got by't. I shouldn't know which end I stood on if it wasn't for the
tickets and the treatin'."




CHAPTER XII.

    "Oh, sir, 'twas that mixture of spite and over-fed merriment
    which passes for humor with the vulgar. In their fun, they have
    much resemblance to a turkey-cock. It has a cruel beak, and
    a silly iteration of ugly sounds; it spreads its tail in
    self-glorification, but shows you the wrong side of the
    ornament--liking admiration, but knowing not what is admirable."


This Sunday evening, which promised to be so memorable in the experience
of the Sproxton miners, had its drama also for those unsatisfactory
objects to Mr. Johnson's moral sense, the Debarrys. Certain incidents
occurring at Treby Manor caused an excitement there which spread from
the dining-room to the stables; but no one underwent such agitating
transitions of feeling as Mr. Scales. At six o'clock that superior
butler was chuckling in triumph at having played a fine and original
practical joke on his rival, Mr. Christian. Some two hours after that
time he was frightened, sorry, and even meek; he was on the brink of a
humiliating confession; his cheeks were almost livid; his hair was
flattened for want of due attention from his fingers; and the fine roll
of his whiskers, which was too firm to give way, seemed only a sad
reminiscence of past splendor and felicity. His sorrow came about in
this wise.

After service on that Sunday morning, Mr. Philip Debarry had left the
rest of the family to go home in the carriage, and had remained at the
rectory to lunch with his uncle Augustus, that he might consult him
touching some letters of importance. He had returned the letters to his
pocket-book but had not returned the book to his pocket, and he finally
walked away leaving the enclosure of private papers and bank-notes on
his uncle's escritoire. After his arrival at home he was reminded of his
omission, and immediately dispatched Christian with a note begging his
uncle to seal up the pocket-book and send it by the bearer. This
commission, which was given between three and four o'clock, happened to
be very unwelcome to the courier. The fact was that Mr. Christian, who
had been remarkable through life for that power of adapting himself to
circumstances which enables a man to fall safely on all-fours in the
most hurried expulsions and escapes, was not exempt from bodily
suffering--a circumstance to which there is no known way of adapting
one's self so as to be perfectly comfortable under it, or to push it off
on to other people's shoulders. He did what he could: he took doses of
opium when he had an access of nervous pains, and he consoled himself as
to future possibilities by thinking that if the pains ever became
intolerably frequent, a considerable increase in the dose might put an
end to them altogether. He was neither Cato nor Hamlet, and though he
had learned their soliloquies at his first boarding-school, he would
probably have increased his dose without reciting those master-pieces.
Next to the pain itself he disliked that any one should know of it:
defective health diminished a man's market value; he did not like to be
the object of the sort of pity he himself gave to a poor devil who was
forced to make a wry face or "give in" altogether.

He had felt it expedient to take a slight dose this afternoon, and still
he was not altogether relieved at the time he set off for the rectory.
On returning with the valuable case safely deposited in his hind
pocket, he felt increasing bodily uneasiness, and took another dose.
Thinking it likely that he looked rather pitiable, he chose not to
proceed to the house by the carriage-road. The servants often walked in
the park on a Sunday, and he wished to avoid any meeting. He would make
a circuit, get into the house privately, and after delivering his packet
to Mr. Debarry, shut himself up till the ringing of the half-hour bell.
But when he reached an elbowed seat under some sycamores, he felt so ill
at ease that he yielded to the temptation of throwing himself on it to
rest a little. He looked at his watch: it was but five; he had done his
errand quickly hitherto, and Mr. Debarry had not urged haste. But in
less than ten minutes he was in a sound sleep. Certain conditions of his
system had determined a stronger effect than usual from the opium.

As he had expected, there were servants strolling in the park, but they
did not all choose the most frequented part. Mr. Scales, in pursuit of a
light flirtation with the younger lady's maid, had preferred a more
sequestered walk in the company of that agreeable nymph. And it happened
to be this pair, of all others, who alighted on the sleeping
Christian--a sight which at the very first moment caused Mr. Scales a
vague pleasure as at an incident that must lead to something clever on
his part. To play a trick, and make some one or other look foolish, was
held the most pointed form of wit throughout the back regions of the
Manor, and served as a constant substitute for theatrical entertainment:
what the farce wanted in costume or "make up" it gained in the reality
of the mortification which excited the general laughter. And lo! here
was the offensive, the exasperatingly cool and superior Christian,
caught comparatively helpless, with his head hanging on his shoulder,
and one coat-tail hanging out heavily below the elbow of the rustic
seat. It was this coat-tail which served as a suggestion to Mr. Scales's
genius. Putting his finger up in warning to Mrs. Cherry, and saying,
"Hush--be quiet--I see a fine bit of fun"--he took a knife from his
pocket, stepped behind the unconscious Christian, and quickly cut off
the pendent coat-tail. Scales knew nothing of the errand to the rectory;
and as he noticed that there was something in the pocket, thought it was
probably a large cigar-case. So much the better--he had no time to
pause. He threw the coat-tail as far as he could, and noticed that it
fell among the elms under which they had been walking. Then, beckoning
to Mrs Cherry, he hurried away with her toward the more open part of
the park, not daring to explode in laughter until it was safe from the
chance of waking the sleeper. And then the vision of the graceful,
well-appointed Mr. Christian, who sneered at Scales about his "get up,"
having to walk back to the house with only one tail to his coat, was a
source of so much enjoyment to the butler, that the fair Cherry began to
be quite jealous of the joke. Still she admitted that it really was
funny, tittered intermittently, and pledged herself to secrecy. Mr.
Scales explained to her that Christian would try to creep in unobserved,
but that this must be made impossible; and he requested her to imagine
the figure this interloping fellow would cut when everybody was asking
what had happened. "Hallo, Christian! where's your coat tail?" would
become a proverb at the Manor, where jokes kept remarkably well without
the aid of salt; and Mr. Christian's comb would be cut so effectually
that it would take a long time to grow again. Exit Scales, laughing, and
presenting a fine example of dramatic irony to any one in the secret of
Fate.

When Christian awoke, he was shocked to find himself in the twilight. He
started up, shook himself, missed something, and soon became aware what
it was he missed. He did not doubt that he had been robbed, and he at
once foresaw that the consequences would be highly unpleasant. In no way
could the cause of the accident be so represented to Mr. Philip Debarry
as to prevent him from viewing his hitherto unimpeachable factotum in a
new and unfavorable light. And though Mr. Christian did not regard his
present position as brilliant, he did not see his way to anything
better. A man nearly fifty who is not always quite well is seldom
ardently hopeful: he is aware that this is a world in which merit is
often overlooked. With the idea of robbery in full possession of his
mind, to peer about and search in the dimness, even if it had occurred
to him, would have seemed a preposterous waste of time and energy. He
knew it was likely that Mr. Debarry's pocket-book had important and
valuable contents, and that he should deepen his offence by deferring
his announcement of the unfortunate fact. He hastened back to the house,
relieved by the obscurity from that mortification of his vanity on which
the butler had counted. Indeed, to Scales himself the affair had already
begun to appear less thoroughly jocose than he had anticipated. For he
observed that Christian's non-appearance before dinner had caused Mr.
Debarry some consternation; and he had gathered that the courier had
been sent on a commission to the rectory. "My uncle must have detained
him for some reason or other," he heard Mr. Philip say; "but it is odd.
If he were less trusty about commissions, or had ever seemed to drink
too much, I should be uneasy." Altogether the affair was not taking the
turn Mr. Scales had intended. At last, when dinner had been removed, and
the butler's chief duties were at an end, it was understood that
Christian had entered without his coat tail, looking serious and even
agitated; that he had asked leave at once to speak to Mr. Debarry, and
that he was even then in parley with the gentleman in the dining-room.
Scales was in alarm; it must have been some property of Mr. Debarry's
that had weighted the pocket. He took a lantern, got a groom to
accompany him with another lantern, and with the utmost practical speed
reached the fatal spot in the park. He searched under the elms--he was
certain that the pocket had fallen there--and he found the pocket; but
he found it empty, and, in spite of further search, did not find the
contents, though he had first consoled himself with thinking that they
had fallen out, and would be lying not far off. He returned with the
lanterns and the coat tail and a most uncomfortable consciousness in
that great seat of a butler's emotion, the stomach. He had no sooner
re-entered than he was met by Mrs. Cherry, pale and anxious, who drew
him aside to say that if he didn't tell everything she would; that the
constables were to be sent for; that there had been no end of bank-notes
and letters and things in Mr. Debarry's pocket-book, which Christian was
carrying in that very pocket Scales had cut off; that the rector was
sent for, the constable was coming, and they should all be hanged. Mr.
Scales's own intellect was anything but clear as to the possible issues.
Crest-fallen, and with the coat-tail in his hands as an attestation that
he was innocent of anything more than a joke, he went and made his
confession. His story relieved Christian a little, but did not relieve
Mr. Debarry, who was more annoyed at the loss of the letters, and the
chance of their getting into hands that might make use of them, than at
the loss of the bank-notes. Nothing could be done for the present, but
that the rector, who was a magistrate, should instruct the constables,
and that the spot in the park indicated by Scales should again be
carefully searched. This was done, but in vain; and many of the family
at the Manor had disturbed sleep that night.




CHAPTER XIII.

    "Give sorrow leave awhile, to tutor me
    To this submission."--_Richard II._


Meanwhile Felix Holt had been making his way back from Sproxton to Treby
in some irritation and bitterness of spirit. For a little while he
walked slowly along the direct road, hoping that Mr. Johnson would
overtake him, in which case he would have the pleasure of quarrelling
with him, and telling him what he thought of his intentions in coming to
cant at the Sugar Loaf. But he presently checked himself in this folly
and turned off again toward the canal, that he might avoid the
temptation of getting into a passion to no purpose.

"Where's the good," he thought, "of pulling at such a tangled skein as
this electioneering trickery? As long as three-fourths of the men in
this country see nothing in an election but self-interest, and nothing
in self-interest but some form of greed, one might as well try to purify
the proceedings of the fishes, and say to a hungry cod-fish--'My good
friend, abstain; don't goggle your eyes so, or show such a stupid
gluttonous mouth, or think the little fishes are worth nothing except in
relation to your own inside.' He'd be open to no argument short of
crimping him. I should get into a rage with this fellow, and perhaps end
by thrashing him. There's some reason in me as long as I keep my temper,
but my rash humor is drunkenness without wine. I shouldn't wonder if he
upsets all my plans with these colliers. Of course he's going to treat
them for the sake of getting up a posse at the nomination and
speechifyings. They'll drink double, and never come near me on a
Saturday evening. I don't know what sort of man Transome really is. It's
no use my speaking to anybody else, but if I could get at him, he might
put a veto on this thing. Though, when once the men have been promised
and set a-going, the mischief is likely to be past mending. Hang the
Liberal cod-fish! I shouldn't have minded so much if he'd been a Tory!"

Felix went along in the twilight struggling in this way with the
intricacies of life, which would certainly be greatly simplified if
corrupt practices were the invariable mark of wrong opinions. When he
had crossed the common and had entered the park, the overshadowing trees
deepened the gray gloom of the evening; it was useless to try and keep
the blind path, and he could only be careful that his steps should be
bent in the direction of the park gate. He was striding along rapidly
now, whistling "Bannockburn" in a subdued way as an accompaniment to
his inward discussion, when something smooth and soft on which his foot
alighted arrested him with an unpleasant startling sensation, and made
him stoop to examine the object he was treading on. He found it to be a
large leather pocket-book swelled by its contents, and fastened with a
sealed ribbon as well as a clasp. In stooping he saw about a yard off
something whitish and square lying on the dark grass. This was an
ornamental note-book of pale leather stamped with gold. Apparently it
had burst open in falling, and out of the pocket formed by the cover,
there protruded a small gold chain about four inches long, with various
seals and other trifles attached to it by a ring at the end. Felix
thrust the chain back, and finding that the clasp of the note-book was
broken, he closed it and thrust it into his side-pocket, walking along
under some annoyance that fortune had made him the finder of articles
belonging most probably to one of the family at Treby Manor. He was much
too proud a man to like any contact with the aristocracy, and he could
still less endure coming within speech of their servants. Some plan must
be devised by which he could avoid carrying these things up to the Manor
himself: he thought at first of leaving them at the lodge, but he had a
scruple against placing property, of which the ownership was after all
uncertain, in the hands of persons unknown to him. It was possible that
the large pocket-book contained papers of high importance, and that it
did not belong to any of the Debarry family. He resolved at last to
carry his findings to Mr. Lyon, who would perhaps be good-natured enough
to save him from the necessary transactions with the people at the Manor
by undertaking those transactions himself. With this determination he
walked straight to Malthouse Yard, and waited outside the chapel until
the congregation was dispersing, when he passed along the aisle to the
vestry in order to speak to the minister in private.

But Mr. Lyon was not alone when Felix entered. Mr. Nuttwood, the grocer,
who was one of the deacons, was complaining to him about the obstinate
demeanor of the singers, who had declined to change the tunes in
accordance with a change in the selection of hymns, and had stretched
short metre into long out of pure wilfulness and defiance, irreverently
adapting the most sacred monosyllables to a multitude of quavers,
arranged, it was to be feared, by some musician who was inspired by
conceit rather than by the true spirit of psalmody.

"Come in, my friend," said Mr. Lyon, smiling at Felix, and then
continuing in a faint voice, while he wiped the perspiration from his
brow and bald crown, "Brother Nuttwood, we must be content to carry a
thorn in our sides while the necessities of our imperfect state demand
that there should be a body set apart and called a choir, whose special
office it is to lead the singing, not because they are more disposed to
the devout uplifting of praise, but because they are endowed with better
vocal organs, and have attained more of the musician's art. For all
office, unless it be accompanied by peculiar grace, becomes, as it were,
a diseased organ, seeking to make itself too much of a centre. Singers,
specially so called, are, it must be confessed, an anomaly among us who
seek to reduce the Church to its primitive simplicity, and to cast away
all that may obstruct the direct communion of spirit with spirit."

"They are so headstrong," said Mr. Nuttwood, in a tone of sad
perplexity, "that if we dealt not warily with them they might end in
dividing the church, even now that we have had the chapel enlarged.
Brother Kemp would side with them, and draw the half part of the members
after him. I cannot but think it a snare when a professing Christian has
a bass voice like Brother Kemp's. It makes him desire to be heard of
men; but the weaker song of the humble may have more power in the ear of
God."

"Do you think it any better vanity to flatter yourself that God likes to
hear you, though men don't?" said Felix, with unwarrantable bluntness.

The civil grocer was prepared to be scandalized by anything that came
from Felix. In common with many hearers in Malthouse Yard, he already
felt an objection to a young man who was notorious for having interfered
in a question of wholesale and retail, which should have been left to
Providence. Old Mr. Holt, being a church member, had probably had
"leadings" which were more to be relied on than his son's boasted
knowledge. In any case, a little visceral disturbance and inward
chastisement to the consumers of questionable medicines would tend less
to obscure the divine glory than a show of punctilious morality in one
who was not a "professor." Besides, how was it to be known that the
medicines would not be blessed, if taken with due trust in a higher
influence? A Christian must consider not the medicines alone in their
relation to our frail bodies (which are dust), but the medicines with
Omnipotence behind them. Hence a pious vendor will look for "leadings,"
and he is likely to find them in the cessation of demand and the
disproportion of expenses and returns. The grocer was thus on his guard
against the presumptuous disputant.

"Mr. Lyon may understand you, sir," he replied. "He seems to be fond of
your conversation. But you have too much of the pride of human learning
for me. I follow no new lights."

"Then follow an old one," said Felix, mischievously disposed toward a
sleek tradesman. "Follow the light of the old-fashioned Presbyterians
that I've heard sing at Glasgow. The preacher gives out the psalm, and
then everybody sings a different tune, as it happens to turn up in their
throats. It's a domineering thing to set a tune and expect everybody
else to follow it. It's a denial of private judgment."

"Hush, hush, my young friend," said Mr. Lyon, hurt by this levity, which
glanced at himself as well as at the deacon. "Play not with paradoxes.
That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others, may happen to
sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things. 'Tis
difficult enough to see our way and keep our torch steady in this dim
labyrinth: to whirl the torch and dazzle the eyes of our fellow-seekers
is a poor daring, and may end in total darkness. You yourself are a
lover of freedom, and a bold rebel against usurping authority. But the
right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule, and not to wander
in mere lawlessness. Wherefore, I beseech you, seem not to say that
liberty is license. And I apprehend--though I am not endowed with an ear
to seize those earthly harmonies, which to some devout souls have
seemed, as it were, the broken echoes of the heavenly choir--I apprehend
that there is a law in music, disobedience whereunto would bring us in
our singing to the level of shrieking maniacs or howling beasts: so that
herein we are well instructed how true liberty can be nought but the
transfer of obedience from the will of one or of a few men to that will
which is the norm or rule for all men. And though the transfer may
sometimes be but an erroneous direction of search, yet is the search
good and necessary to the ultimate finding. And even as in music, where
all obey and concur to one end, so that each has the joy of contributing
to a whole whereby he is ravished and lifted up into the courts of
heaven, so will it be in that crowning time of the millennial reign,
when our daily prayer will be fulfilled, and one law shall be written on
all hearts, and be the very structure of all thought, and be the
principle of all action."

Tired, even exhausted, as the minister had been when Felix Holt entered,
the gathering excitement of speech gave more and more energy to his
voice and manner; he walked away from the vestry table, he paused, and
came back to it; he walked away again, then came back, and ended with
his deepest toned largo, keeping his hands clasped behind him, while his
brown eyes were bright with the lasting youthfulness of enthusiastic
thought and love. But to any one who had no share in the energies that
were thrilling his little body, he would have looked queer enough. No
sooner had he finished his eager speech, than he held out his hand to
the deacon, and said, in his former faint tone of fatigue--

"God be with you, brother. We shall meet to-morrow, and we will see what
can be done to subdue these refractory spirits."

When the deacon was gone, Felix said, "Forgive me, Mr. Lyon; I was
wrong, and you are right."

"Yes, yes, my friend, you have that mark of grace within you, that you
are ready to acknowledge the justice of a rebuke. Sit down; you have
something to say--some packet there."

They sat down at a corner of the small table, and Felix drew the
note-book from his pocket to lay it down with the pocket-book, saying--

"I've had the ill-luck to be the finder of these things in the Debarrys'
park. Most likely they belong to one of the family at the Manor, or to
some grandee who is staying there. I hate having anything to do with
such people. They'll think me a poor rascal, and offer me money. You are
a known man, and I thought you would be kind enough to relieve me by
taking charge of these things, and writing to Debarry, not mentioning
me, and asking him to send some one for them, I found them on the grass
in the park this evening about half-past seven, in the corner we cross
going to Sproxton."

"Stay," said Mr. Lyon, "this little book is open; we may venture to look
in it for some sign of ownership. There be others who possess property,
and might be crossing that end of the park, besides the Debarrys."

As he lifted the note-book close to his eyes, the chain again slipped
out. He arrested it and held it in his hand, while he examined some
writing, which appeared to be a name on the inner leather. He looked
long, as if he were trying to decipher something that was partly rubbed
out; and his hands began to tremble noticeably. He made a movement in an
agitated manner, as if he were going to examine the chain and seals,
which he held in his hand. But he checked himself, closed his hand
again, and rested it on the table, while with the other hand he pressed
the sides of the note-book together.

Felix observed his agitation, and was much surprised; but with a
delicacy of which he was capable under all his abruptness, he said, "You
are overcome with fatigue, sir. I was thoughtless to tease you with
these matters at the end of Sunday, when you have been preaching three
sermons."

Mr. Lyon did not speak for a few moments, but at last he said--

"It is true. I am overcome. It was a name I saw--a name that called up a
past sorrow. Fear not; I will do what is needful with these things. You
may trust them to me."

With trembling fingers he replaced the chain, and tied both the large
pocket-book and the note-book in his handkerchief. He was evidently
making a great effort over himself. But when he had gathered the knot of
the handkerchief in his hand he said--

"Give me your arm to the door, my friend. I feel ill. Doubtless I am
over-wearied."

The door was already open, and Lyddy was watching for her master's
return. Felix therefore said good-night and passed on, sure that this
was what Mr. Lyon would prefer. The minister's supper of warm porridge
was ready by the kitchen-fire, where he always took it on a Sunday
evening, and afterward smoked his weekly pipe up the broad chimney--the
one great relaxation he allowed himself. Smoking, he considered, was a
recreation of the travailled spirit, which, if indulged in, might endear
this world to us by the ignoble bonds of mere sensuous ease. Daily
smoking might be lawful, but it was not expedient. And in this Esther
concurred with a doctrinal eagerness that was unusual in her. It was her
habit to go to her own room, professedly to bed, very early on
Sundays--immediately on her return from chapel--that she might avoid her
father's pipe. But this evening she had remained at home, under a true
plea of not feeling well; and when she heard him enter, she ran out of
the parlor to meet him.

"Father, you are ill," she said, as he tottered to the wicker-bottomed
arm-chair, while Lyddy stood by, shaking her head.

"No, my dear," he answered feebly, as she took off his hat and looked in
his face enquiringly; "I am weary."

"Let me lay these things down for you," said Esther, touching the bundle
in the handkerchief.

"No; they are matters which I have to examine," he said, laying them on
the table, and putting his arm across them. "Go you to bed, Lyddy."

"Not me, sir. If ever a man looked as if he was struck with death, it's
you, this very night as here is."

"Nonsense, Lyddy," said Esther, angrily. "Go to bed when my father
desires it. I will stay with him."

Lyddy was electrified by surprise at this new behavior of Miss Esther's.
She took her candle silently and went.

"Go you too, my dear," said Mr. Lyon, tenderly, giving his hand to
Esther, when Lyddy was gone. "It is your wont to go early. Why are you
up?"

"Let me lift your porridge from before the fire, and stay with you,
father. You think I'm so naughty that I don't like doing anything for
you," said Esther, smiling rather sadly at him.

"Child, what has happened? You have become the image of your mother
to-night," said the minister, in a loud whisper. The tears came and
relieved him while Esther, who had stooped to lift the porridge from the
fender, paused on one knee and looked up at him.

"She was very good to you?" asked Esther, softly.

"Yes, dear. She did not reject my affection. She thought not scorn of my
love. She would have forgiven me, if I had erred against her, from very
tenderness. Could you forgive me, child?"

"Father, I have not been good to you; but I will be, I will be," said
Esther, laying her head on his knee.

He kissed her head. "Go to bed, dear; I would be alone."

When Esther was lying down that night, she felt as if the little
incidents between herself and her father on this Sunday had made it an
epoch. Very slight words and deeds may have a sacramental efficacy, if
we can cast our self-love behind us, in order to say or do them. And it
has been well believed through many ages that the beginning of
compunction is the beginning of a new life; that the mind which sees
itself blameless may be called dead in trespasses--in trespasses on the
love of others, in trespasses on their weakness, in trespasses on all
those great claims which are the image of our own need.

But Esther persisted in assuring herself that she was not bending to any
criticism from Felix. She was full of resentment against his rudeness,
and yet more against his too harsh conception of her character. She was
determined to keep as much at a distance from him as possible.




CHAPTER XIV.

    This man's metallic; at a sudden blow
    His soul rings hard. I cannot lay my palm,
    Trembling with life, upon that jointed brass.
    I shudder at the cold unanswering touch;
    But if it press me in response, I'm bruised.


The next morning, when the Debarrys, including the rector, who had
ridden over to the Manor early, were still seated at breakfast,
Christian came in with a letter, saying that it had been brought by a
man employed at the chapel in Malthouse Yard, who had been ordered by
the minister to use all speed and care in the delivery.

The letter was addressed to Sir Maximus.

"Stay, Christian, it may possibly refer to the lost pocket-book," said
Philip Debarry, who was beginning to feel rather sorry for his factotum,
as a reaction from previous suspicions and indignation.

Sir Maximus opened the letter and felt for his glasses, but then said,
"Here, you read it, Phil: the man writes a hand like small print."

Philip cast his eyes over it, and then read aloud in a tone of
satisfaction:--

    SIR,--I send this letter to apprise you that I have now in my
    possession certain articles, which, last evening, at about
    half-past seven o'clock, were found lying on the grass at the
    western extremity of your park. The articles are =1=, a well-filled
    pocket-book, of brown leather, fastened with a black ribbon and
    with a seal of red wax; =2=, a small note-book, covered with gilded
    vellum, whereof the clasp was burst, and from out whereof had
    partly escaped a small chain, with seals and a locket attached, the
    locket bearing on the back a device, and round the face a female
    name.

    Whereof I request that you will further my effort to place these
    articles in the right hands, by ascertaining whether any person
    within your walls claims them as his property, and by sending that
    person to me (if such be found); for I will on no account let them
    pass from my care save into that of one who, declaring himself to
    be the owner, can state to me what is the impression on the seal,
    and what the device and name upon the locket.

    I am, sir, yours to command in all right dealing,

    Malthouse Yard. Oct. 3, 1832.                    RUFUS LYON.

"Well done, old Lyon," said the rector; "I didn't think that any
composition of his would ever give me so much pleasure."

"What an old fox it is!" said Sir Maximus. "Why couldn't he send the
things to me at once along with the letter?"

"No, no, Max; he uses a justifiable caution," said the rector, a refined
and rather severe likeness of his brother, with a ring of fearlessness
and decision in his voice which startled all flaccid men and unruly
boys. "What are you going to do, Phil?" he added, seeing his nephew
rise.

"To write, of course. Those other matters are yours, I suppose?" said
Mr. Debarry, looking at Christian.

"Yes, sir."

"I shall send you with a letter to the preacher. You can describe your
own property. And the seal, uncle--was it your coat-of-arms?"

"No, it was this head of Achilles. Here, I can take it off the ring, and
you can carry it, Christian. But don't lose that, for I've had it ever
since eighteen hundred. I should like to send my compliments with it,"
the rector went on, looking at his brother, "and beg that since he has
so much wise caution at command, he would exercise a little in more
public matters, instead of making himself a firebrand in my parish, and
teaching hucksters and tape-weavers that it's their business to dictate
to statesmen."

"How did Dissenters, and Methodists, and Quakers, and people of that
sort first come up, uncle?" said Miss Selina, a radiant girl of
twenty, who had given much time to the harp.

"Dear me, Selina," said her elder sister, Harriet, whose forte was
general knowledge, "don't you remember 'Woodstock'? They were in
Cromwell's time."

"Oh! Holdenough, and those people? Yes; but they preached in the
churches; they had no chapels. Tell me, uncle Gus; I like to be wise,"
said Selina, looking up at the face which was smiling down on her with a
sort of severe benignity. "Phil says I'm an ignorant puss."

"The seeds of Nonconformity were sown at the Reformation, my dear, when
some obstinate man made scruples about surplices and the place of the
communion-table, and other trifles of that sort. But the Quakers came up
about Cromwell's time, and the Methodists only in the last century. The
first Methodists were regular clergymen, the more's the pity."

"But all those wrong things, why didn't government put them down?"

"Ah, to be sure," fell in Sir Maximus, in a cordial tone of
corroboration.

"Because error is often strong, and government is often weak, my dear.
Well, Phil, have you finished your letter?"

"Yes, I will read it to you," said Philip, turning and leaning over the
back of his chair with the letter in his hand.

There is a portrait of Mr. Philip Debarry still to be seen at Treby
Manor, and a very fine bust of him at Rome, where he died fifteen years
later, a convert to Catholicism. His face would have been plain but for
the exquisite setting of his hazel eyes, which fascinated even the dogs
of the household. The other features, though slight and irregular, were
redeemed from triviality by the stamp of gravity and intellectual
preoccupation in his face and bearing. As he read aloud, his voice was
what his uncle's might have been if it had been modulated by delicate
health and a visitation of self-doubt.

    SIR,--In reply to the letter with which you have favored me this
    morning, I beg to state that the articles you describe were lost
    from the pocket of my servant, who is the bearer of this letter to
    you, and is the claimant of the vellum note-book and the gold
    chain. The large leathern pocket-book is my own property and the
    impression on the wax, a helmeted head of Achilles, was made by my
    uncle, the Reverend Augustus Debarry, who allows me to forward this
    seal to you in proof that I am not making a mistaken claim.

    I feel myself under deep obligation to you, sir, for the care and
    trouble you have taken in order to restore to its right owner a
    piece of property which happens to be of particular importance to
    me. And I shall consider myself doubly fortunate if at any time you
    can point out to me some method by which I may procure you as
    lively a satisfaction as I am now feeling, in that full and speedy
    relief from anxiety which I owe to your considerate conduct.

   I remain, sir, your obliged and faithful servant,
                                                 PHILIP DEBARRY.

"You know best, Phil, of course," said Sir Maximus, pushing his plate
from him, by way of interjection. "But it seems to me you exaggerate
preposterously every little service a man happens to do for you. Why
should you make a general offer of that sort? How do you know what he
will be asking you to do? Stuff and nonsense! Tell Willis to send him a
few head of game. You should think twice before you give a blank check
of that sort to one of these quibbling, meddlesome Radicals."

"You are afraid of my committing myself to 'the bottomless perjury of an
et cetera,'" said Philip, smiling, as he turned to fold his letter. "But
I think I am not doing any mischief; at all events I could not be
content to say less. And I have a notion that he would regard a present
of game just now as an insult. I should, in his place."

"Yes, yes, you; but you don't make yourself a measure of Dissenting
preachers, I hope," said Sir Maximus, rather wrathfully. "What do you
say, Gus?"

"Phil is right," said the rector, in an absolute tone. "I would not deal
with a Dissenter, or put profits into the pocket of a Radical which I
might put into the pocket of a good Churchman and a quiet subject. But
if the greatest scoundrel in the world made way for me, or picked my hat
up, I would thank him. So would you, Max."

"Pooh! I didn't mean that one shouldn't behave like a gentleman," said
Sir Maximus, in some vexation. He had great pride in his son's
superiority even to himself; but he did not quite trust the dim vision
opened by Phil's new words and new notions. He could only submit in
silence while the letter was delivered to Christian, with the order to
start for Malthouse Yard immediately.

Meanwhile, in that somewhat dim locality the possible claimant of the
note-book and the chain was thought of and expected with palpitating
agitation. Mr. Lyon was seated in his study, looking haggard and already
aged from a sleepless night. He was so afraid lest his emotion should
deprive him of the presence of mind necessary to the due attention to
particulars in the coming interview, that he continued to occupy his
sight and touch with the objects which had stirred the depths, not only
of memory, but of dread. Once again he unlocked a small box which stood
beside his desk, and took from it a little oval locket, and compared
this with one which hung with the seals on the stray gold chain. There
was the same device in enamel on the back of both: clasped hands
surrounded with blue flowers. Both had round the face a name in gold
italics on a blue ground: the name on the locket taken from the drawer
was _Maurice_; the name on the locket which hung with the seals was
_Annette_, and within the circle of this name there was a lover's knot
of light brown hair, which matched a curl that lay in the box. The hair
in the locket which bore the name of Maurice was of a very dark brown,
and before returning it to the drawer Mr. Lyon noted the color and
quality of this hair more carefully than ever. Then he recurred to the
note-book: undoubtedly there had been something, probably a third name,
beyond the names _Maurice Christian_, which had themselves been rubbed
and slightly smeared as if by accident; and from the very first
examination in the vestry, Mr. Lyon could not prevent himself from
transferring the mental image of the third name in faint lines to the
rubbed leather. The leaves of the note-book seemed to have been recently
inserted; they were of fresh white paper, and only bore some
abbreviations in pencil with a notation of small sums. Nothing could be
gathered from the comparison of the writing in the book with that of the
yellow letters which lay in the box; the smeared name had been carefully
printed, and so bore no resemblance to the signature of those letters;
and the pencil abbreviations and figures had been made too hurriedly to
bear any decisive witness. "I will ask him to write--to write a
description of the locket," had been one of Mr. Lyon's thoughts; but he
faltered in that intention. His power of fulfilling it must depend on
what he saw in this visitor, of whose coming he had a horrible dread, at
the very time he was writing to demand it. In that demand he was obeying
the voice of his rigid conscience, which had never left him perfectly at
rest under his one act of deception--the concealment from Esther that he
was not her natural father, the assertion of a false claim upon her.
"Let my path be henceforth simple," he had said to himself in the
anguish of that night; "let me seek to know what is, and if possible to
declare it." If he was really going to find himself face to face with
the man who had been Annette's husband, and who was Esther's father--if
that wandering of his from the light had brought the punishment of a
blind sacrilege as the issue of a conscious transgression,--he prayed
that he might be able to accept all consequences of pain to himself. But
he saw other possibilities concerning the claimant of the book and
chain. His ignorance and suspicions as to the history and character of
Annette's husband made it credible that he had laid a plan for
convincing her of his death as a means of freeing himself from a
burdensome tie; but it seemed equally probable that he was really dead,
and that these articles of property had been a bequest, or a payment, or
even a sale, to their present owner. Indeed, in all these years there was
no knowing into how many hands such pretty trifles might have passed.
And the claimant might, after all, have no connection with the Debarrys;
he might not come on this day or the next. There might be more time left
for reflection and prayer.

All these possibilities, which would remove the pressing need for
difficult action, Mr. Lyon represented to himself, but he had no
effective belief in them; his belief went with his strongest feeling,
and in these moments his strongest feeling was dead. He trembled under
the weight that seemed already added to his own sin; he felt himself
already confronted by Annette's husband and Esther's father. Perhaps the
father was a gentleman on a visit to the Debarrys. There was no
hindering the pang with which the old man said to himself--

"The child will not be sorry to leave this poor home, and I shall be
guilty in her sight."

He was walking about among the rows of books when there came a loud rap
at the outer door. The rap shook him so that he sank into his chair,
feeling almost powerless. Lyddy presented herself.

"Here's ever such a fine man from the Manor wants to see you, sir. Dear
heart, dear heart! shall I tell him you're too bad to see him?"

"Show him up," said Mr. Lyon, making an effort to rally. When Christian
appeared, the minister half rose, leaning on an arm of his chair, and
said, "Be seated, sir," seeing nothing but that a tall man was entering.

"I've brought you a letter from Mr. Debarry," said Christian, in an
off-hand manner. The rusty little man, in his dismal chamber, seemed to
the Ulysses of the steward's room a pitiable sort of human curiosity, to
whom a man of the world would speak rather loudly, in accommodation to
an eccentricity which was likely to be accompanied with deafness. One
cannot be eminent in everything; and if Mr. Christian had dispersed his
faculties in study that would have enabled him to share unconventional
points of view, he might have worn a mistaken kind of boot, and been
less competent to win at _écarté_, or at betting, or in any other
contest suitable to a person of figure.

As he seated himself, Mr. Lyon opened the letter, and held it close to
his eyes, so that his face was hidden. But at the word "servant" he
could not avoid starting, and looking off the letter toward the bearer.
Christian, knowing what was in the letter, conjectured that the old man
was amazed to learn that so distinguished-looking a personage was a
servant; he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, balanced his
cane on his fingers, and began a whispering whistle. The minister
checked himself, finished the reading of the letter, and then slowly and
nervously put on his spectacles to survey this man, between whose fate
and his own there might be a terrible collision. The word "servant" had
been a fresh caution to him. He must do nothing rashly. Esther's lot was
deeply concerned.

"Here is the seal mentioned in the letter," said Christian.

Mr. Lyon drew the pocket-book from his desk, and after comparing the
seal with the impression, said, "It is right, sir: I deliver the
pocket-book to you."

He held it out with the seal, and Christian rose to take them, saying
carelessly, "The other things--the chain and the little book--are mine."

"Your name then is----"

"Maurice Christian."

A spasm shot through Mr. Lyon. It had seemed possible that he might hear
another name, and be freed from the worse half of his anxiety. His next
words were not wisely chosen, but escaped him impulsively.

"And you have no other name?"

"What do you mean?" said Christian, sharply.

"Be so good as to reseat yourself."

Christian did not comply. "I'm rather in a hurry, sir," he said,
recovering his coolness. "If it suits you to restore to me those small
articles of mine, I shall be glad; but I would rather leave them behind
than be detained." He had reflected that the minister was simply a
punctilious old bore. The question meant nothing else. But Mr. Lyon had
wrought himself up to the task of finding out, then and there, if
possible, whether or not this were Annette's husband. How could he lay
himself and his sin before God if he wilfully declined to learn the
truth? "Nay, sir, I will not detain you unreasonably," he said, in a
firmer tone than before. "How long have these articles been your
property?"

"Oh, for more than twenty years," said Christian, carelessly.

He was not altogether easy under the minister's persistence, but for
that very reason he showed no more impatience.

"You have been in France and in Germany?"

"I have been in most countries on the continent."

"Be so good as to write me your name," said Mr. Lyon, dipping a pen in
ink, and holding it out with a piece of paper.

Christian was much surprised, but not now greatly alarmed. In his rapid
conjectures as to the explanation of the minister's curiosity, he had
alighted on one which might carry advantage rather than inconvenience.
But he was not going to commit himself.

"Before I oblige you there, sir," he said, laying down the pen, and
looking straight at Mr. Lyon, "I must know exactly the reasons you have
for putting these questions to me. You are a stranger to me--an
excellent person, I dare say--but I have no concern about you farther
than to get from you those small articles. Do you still doubt that they
are mine? You wished, I think, that I should tell you what the locket is
like. It has a pair of hands and blue flowers on one side and the name
Annette round the hair on the other side. That is all I have to say. If
you wish for anything more from me, you will be good enough to tell me
why you wish it. Now then, sir, what is your concern with me?"

The cool stare, the hard challenging voice, with which these words were
uttered, made them fall like the beating cutting chill of heavy hail on
Mr. Lyon. He sank back in his chair in utter irresolution and
helplessness. How was it possible to lay bare the sad and sacred past in
answer to such a call as this? The dread with which he had thought of
this man's coming, the strongly-confirmed suspicion that he was really
Annette's husband, intensified the antipathy created by his gestures and
glances. The sensitive little minister knew instinctively that words
which would cost him efforts as painful as the obedient footsteps of a
wounded bleeding hound that wills a foreseen throe, would fall on this
man as the pressure of tender fingers falls on a brazen glove. And
Esther--if this man was her father, every additional word might help to
bring down irrevocable, perhaps cruel consequences on her. A thick mist
seemed to have fallen where Mr. Lyon was looking for the track of duty:
the difficult question, how far he was to care for consequences in
seeking and avowing the truth, seemed anew obscured. All these things,
like the vision of a coming calamity, were compressed into a moment of
consciousness. Nothing could be done to-day; everything must be
deferred. He answered Christian in a low apologetic tone.

"It is true, sir; you have told me all I can demand. I have no
sufficient reason for detaining your property further."

He handed the note-book and chain to Christian, who had been observing
him narrowly, and now said, in a tone of indifference, as he pocketed
the articles--

"Very good, sir. I wish you a good-morning."

"Good-morning," said Mr. Lyon, feeling, while the door closed behind his
guest, that mixture of uneasiness and relief which all procrastination
of difficulty produces in minds capable of strong forecast. The work
was still to be done. He had still before him the task of learning
everything that could be learned about this man's relation to himself
and Esther.

Christian, as he made his way back along Malthouse Lane, was thinking,
"This old fellow has got some secret in his head. It's not likely he can
know anything about me: it must be about Bycliffe. But Bycliffe was a
gentleman: how should he ever have had anything to do with such a seedy
old ranter as that?"




CHAPTER XV.

    And doubt shall be as lead upon the feet
    Of thy most anxious will.


Mr. Lyon was careful to look in at Felix as soon as possible after
Christian's departure, to tell him that his trust was discharged. During
the rest of the day he was somewhat relieved from agitating reflections
by the necessity of attending to his ministerial duties, the rebuke of
rebellious singers being one of them; and on his return from the Monday
evening prayer-meeting he was so overcome with weariness that he went to
bed without taking note of any objects in his study. But when he rose
the next morning, his mind, once more eagerly active, was arrested by
Philip Debarry's letter, which still lay open on his desk, and was
arrested by precisely that portion which had been unheeded the day
before:--"_I shall consider myself doubly fortunate if at any time you
can point out to me some method by which I may procure you as lively a
satisfaction as I am now feeling, in that full and speedy relief from
anxiety which I owe to your considerate conduct_."

To understand how these words could carry the suggestion they actually
had for the minister in a crisis of peculiar personal anxiety and
struggle, we must bear in mind that for many years he had walked through
life with the sense of having for a space been unfaithful to what he
esteemed the highest trust ever committed to man--the ministerial
vocation. In a mind of any nobleness, a lapse into transgression against
an object still regarded as supreme, issues in a new and purer
devotedness, chastised by humility and watched over by a passionate
regret. So it was with that ardent spirit which animated the little body
of Rufus Lyon. Once in his life he had been blinded, defeated, hurried
along by rebellious impulse; he had gone astray after his own desires,
and had let the fire die out on the altar; and as the true penitent,
hating his self-besotted error, asks from all coming life duty instead
of joy, and service instead of ease, so Rufus was perpetually on the
watch lest he should ever again postpone to some private affection a
great public opportunity which to him was equivalent to a command.

Now here was an opportunity brought by a combination of that unexpected
incalculable kind which might be regarded as the Divine emphasis
invoking especial attention to trivial events--an opportunity of
securing what Rufus Lyon had often wished for as a means of honoring
truth, and exhibiting error in the character of a stammering, halting,
short-breathed usurper of office and dignity. What was more exasperating
to a zealous preacher, with whom copious speech was not a difficulty but
a relief--who never lacked argument, but only combatants and
listeners--than to reflect that there were thousands on thousands of
pulpits in this kingdom, supplied with handsome sounding-boards, and
occupying an advantageous position in buildings far larger than the
chapel in Malthouse Yard--buildings sure to be places of resort, even as
the markets were, if only from habit and interest; and that these
pulpits were filled, or rather made vacuous, by men whose privileged
education in the ancient centres of instruction issued in twenty
minutes' formal reading of tepid exhortation or probably infirm
deductions from premises based on rotten scaffolding? And it is in the
nature of exasperation gradually to concentrate itself. The sincere
antipathy of a dog toward cats in general, necessarily takes the form of
indignant barking at the neighbor's black cat which makes daily
trespass; the bark at imagined cats, though a frequent exercise of the
canine mind, is yet comparatively feeble. Mr. Lyon's sarcasm was not
without an edge when he dilated in general on an elaborate education for
teachers which issued in the minimum of teaching, but it found a
whetstone in the particular example of that bad system known as the
rector of Treby Magna. There was nothing positive to be said against the
Rev. Augustus Debarry; his life could not be pronounced blameworthy
except for its negatives. And the good Rufus was too pure-minded not to
be glad of that. He had no delight in vice as discrediting wicked
opponents; he shrank from dwelling on the images of cruelty or
grossness, and his indignation was habitually inspired only by those
moral and intellectual mistakes which darken the soul but do not injure
or degrade the temple of the body. If the rector had been a less
respectable man, Rufus would have more reluctantly made him an object
of antagonism; but as an incarnation of soul-destroying error,
dissociated from those baser sins which have no good repute even with
the worldly, it would be an argumentative luxury to get into close
quarters with him, and fight with a dialectic short-sword in the eyes of
the Treby world (sending also a written account thereof to the chief
organs of Dissenting opinion). Vice was essentially stupid--a deaf and
eyeless monster, insusceptible to demonstration: the Spirit might work
on it by unseen ways, and the unstudied sallies of sermons were often as
the arrows which pierced and awakened the brutified conscience; but
illuminated thought, finely divided speech, were the choicer weapons of
the Divine armory, which whoso could wield must be careful not to leave
idle.

Here, then, was the longed-for opportunity. Here was an engagement--an
expression of a strong wish--on the part of Philip Debarry, if it were
in his power, to procure a satisfaction to Rufus Lyon. How had that man
of God and exemplary Independent minister, Mr. Ainsworth, of persecuted
sanctity, conducted himself when a similar occasion had befallen him at
Amsterdam? He had thought of nothing but the glory of the highest cause,
and had converted the offer of recompense into a public debate with a
Jew on the chief mysteries of the faith. Here was a model: the case was
nothing short of a heavenly indication, and he, Rufus Lyon, would seize
the occasion to demand a public debate with the rector on the
constitution of the true Church.

What if he were inwardly torn by doubt and anxiety concerning his own
private relations and the facts of his past life? That danger of
absorption within the narrow bounds of self only urged him the more
toward action which had a wider bearing, and might tell on the welfare
of England at large. It was decided. Before the minister went down to
breakfast that morning he had written the following letter to Mr. Philip
Debarry:--

    SIR,--Referring to your letter of yesterday, I find the following
    words: "I shall consider myself doubly fortunate if at any time you
    can point out to me some method by which I may procure you as
    lively a satisfaction as I am now feeling, in that full and speedy
    relief from anxiety which I owe to your considerate conduct."

    I am not unaware, sir, that, in the usage of the world, there are
    words of courtesy (so called) which are understood, by those
    amongst whom they are current, to have no precise meaning, and to
    constitute no bond of obligation. I will not now insist that this
    is an abuse of language, wherein our fallible nature requires the
    strictest safeguards against laxity and misapplication, for I do
    not apprehend that in writing the words I have above quoted, you
    were open to the reproach of using phrases which, while seeming to
    carry a specific meaning, were really no more than what is called a
    polite form. I believe, sir, that you used these words advisedly,
    sincerely, and with an honorable intention of acting on them as a
    pledge, should such action be demanded. No other supposition on my
    part would correspond to the character you bear as a young man who
    aspires (albeit mistakenly) to engraft the finest fruits of public
    virtue on a creed and institutions, whereof the sap is composed
    rather of human self-seeking than of everlasting truth.

    Wherefore I act on this my belief in the integrity of your written
    word; I beg you to procure for me (as it is doubtless in your
    power) that I may be allowed a public discussion with your near
    relative, the rector of this parish, the Reverend Augustus Debarry,
    to be held in the large room of the Free School, or in the Assembly
    Room of the Marquis of Granby, these being the largest covered
    spaces at our command. For I presume he would neither allow me to
    speak within his church, nor would consent himself to speak within
    my chapel; and the probable inclemency of the approaching season
    forbids an assured expectation that we could discourse in the open
    air. The subjects I desire to discuss are--first, the Constitution
    of the true Church; and secondly, the bearing thereupon of the
    English Reformation. Confidently expecting that you will comply
    with this request, which is the sequence of your expressed desire,
    I remain, sir, yours, with the respect offered to a sincere
    withstander,
                                                     RUFUS LYON,
    Malthouse Yard.

After writing this letter, the good Rufus felt that serenity and
elevation of mind which is infallibly brought by a preoccupation with
the wider relations of things. Already he was beginning to sketch the
course his argument might most judiciously take in the coming debate;
his thoughts were running into sentences, and marking off careful
exceptions in parentheses; and he had come down and seated himself at
the breakfast-table quite automatically, without expectation of toast or
coffee, when Esther's voice and touch recalled to him an inward debate
of another kind, in which he felt himself much weaker. Again there arose
before him the image of that cool, hard-eyed, worldly man, who might be
this dear child's father, and one against whose rights he had himself
grievously offended. Always as the image recurred to him Mr. Lyon's
heart sent forth a prayer for guidance, but no definite guidance had yet
made itself visible for him. It could not be guidance--it was a
temptation--that said, "Let the matter rest: seek to know no more; know
only what is thrust upon you." The remembrance that in his time of
wandering he had wilfully remained in ignorance of facts which he might
have enquired after, deepened the impression that it was now an
imperative duty to seek the fullest attainable knowledge. And the
enquiry might possibly issue in a blessed repose, by putting a negative
on all his suspicions. But the more vividly all the circumstances became
present to him, the more unfit he felt himself to set about any
investigation concerning this man who called himself Maurice Christian.
He could seek no confidant or helper among "the brethren"; he was
obliged to admit to himself that the members of his church, with whom he
hoped to go to heaven, were not easy to converse with on earth touching
the deeper secrets of his experience, and were still less able to advise
him as to the wisest procedure in a case of high delicacy, with a
worldling who had a carefully-trimmed whisker and a fashionable costume.
For the first time in his life it occurred to the minister that he
should be glad of an adviser who had more worldly than spiritual
experience, and that it might not be inconsistent with his principles to
seek some light from one who had studied human law. But it was a thought
to be paused upon, and not followed out rashly; some other guidance
might intervene.

Esther noticed that her father was in a fit of abstraction, that he
seemed to swallow his coffee and toast quite unconsciously, and that he
vented from time to time a low guttural interjection, which was habitual
with him when he was absorbed by an inward discussion. She did not
disturb him by remarks, and only wondered whether anything unusual had
occurred on Sunday evening. But at last she thought it needful to say,
"You recollect what I told you yesterday, father?"

"Nay, child; what?" said Mr. Lyon, rousing himself.

"That Mr. Jermyn asked me if you would probably be at home this morning
before one o'clock."

Esther was surprised to see her father start and change color as if he
had been shaken by some sudden collision before he answered--

"Assuredly; I do not intend to move from my study after I have once been
out to hand this letter to Zachary."

"Shall I tell Lyddy to take him up at once to your study if he comes? If
not, I shall have to stay in my own room, because I shall be at home all
this morning, and it is rather cold now to sit without a fire."

"Yes, my dear, let him come up to me; unless, indeed, he should bring a
second person, which might happen, seeing that in all likelihood he is
coming, as hitherto, on electioneering business. And I could not well
accommodate two visitors up-stairs."

When Mr. Lyon went out to Zachary, the pew-opener, to give him a second
time the commission of carrying a letter to Treby Manor, Esther gave her
injunction to Lyddy that if one gentleman came he was to be shown
up-stairs--if two, they were to be shown into the parlor. But she had to
resolve several questions before Lyddy clearly saw what was before
her--as that, "if it was the gentleman as came on Thursday in the
pepper-and-salt coat, was he to be shown up-stairs? And the gentleman
from the Manor yesterday as went out whistling--had Miss Esther heard
about him? There seemed no end of these great folks coming to Malthouse
Yard since there was talk of the election; but they might be poor lost
creatures the most of 'em." Whereupon Lyddy shook her head and groaned,
under an edifying despair as to the future lot of gentlemen callers.

Esther always avoided asking questions of Lyddy, who found an answer as
she found a key, by pouring out a pocketful of miscellanies. But she had
remarked so many indications that something had happened to cause her
father unusual excitement and mental preoccupation, that she could not
help connecting with them the fact of this visit from the Manor, which
he had not mentioned to her.

She sat down in the dull parlor and took up her netting; for since
Sunday she had felt unable to read when she was alone, being obliged, in
spite of herself, to think of Felix Holt--to imagine what he would like
her to be, and what sort of views he took of life so as to make it seem
valuable in the absence of all elegance, luxury, gayety, or romance. Had
he yet reflected that he had behaved very rudely to her on Sunday?
Perhaps not. Perhaps he had dismissed her from his mind with contempt.
And at that thought Esther's eyes smarted unpleasantly. She was fond of
netting, because it showed to advantage both her hand and her foot; and
across this image of Felix Holt's indifference and contempt there passed
the vaguer image of a possible somebody who would admire her hands and
feet, and delight in looking at their beauty, and long, yet not dare, to
kiss them. Life would be much easier in the presence of such a love. But
it was precisely this longing after her own satisfaction that Felix had
reproached her with. Did he want her to be heroic? That seemed
impossible without some great occasion. Her life was a heap of
fragments, and so were her thoughts: some great energy was needed to
bind them together. Esther was beginning to lose her complacency at her
own wit and criticism; to lose the sense of superiority in an awakening
need of reliance on one whose vision was wider, whose nature was purer
and stronger than her own. But then, she said to herself, that "one"
must be tender to her, not rude and predominating in his manners. A man
with any chivalry in him could never adopt a scolding tone toward a
woman--that is, toward a charming woman. But Felix had no chivalry in
him. He loved lecturing and opinion too well ever to love any woman.

In this way Esther strove to see that Felix was thoroughly in the
wrong--at least, if he did not come again expressly to show that he was
sorry.




CHAPTER XVI.

    _Trueblue._ These men have no votes. Why should I court them?

    _Grayfox._ No votes, but power.

    _Trueblue._ What! over charities?

    _Grayfox._ No, over brains: which disturbs the canvass. In a
    natural state of things the average price of a vote at Paddlebrook
    is nine-and-sixpence, throwing the fifty pound tenants, who cost
    nothing, into the divisor. But these talking men cause an
    artificial rise of prices.


The expected important knock at the door came about twelve o'clock, and
Esther could hear that there were two visitors. Immediately the parlor
door was opened and the shaggy-haired, cravatless image of Felix Holt,
which was just then full in the mirror of Esther's mind, was displaced
by the highly-contrasted appearance of a personage whose name she
guessed before Mr. Jermyn had announced it. The perfect morning costume
of that day differed much from our present ideal: it was essential that
a gentleman's chin should be well propped, that his collar should have a
voluminous roll, that his waistcoat should imply much discrimination,
and that his buttons should be arranged in a manner which would now
expose him to general contempt. And it must not be forgotten that at the
distant period when Treby Magna first knew the excitements of an
election, there existed many other anomalies now obsolete, besides
short-waisted coats and broad stiffeners.

But we have some notions of beauty and fitness which withstand the
centuries; and quite irrespective of dates, it would be pronounced that
at the age of thirty-four Harold Transome was a striking and handsome
man. He was one of those people, as Denner remarked, to whose presence
in the room you could not be indifferent; if you do not hate or dread
them, you must find the touch of their hands, nay, their very shadows,
agreeable.

Esther felt a pleasure quite new to her as she saw his finely-embrowned
face and full bright eyes turned toward her with an air of deference by
which gallantry must commend itself to a refined woman who is not
absolutely free from vanity. Harold Transome regarded women as slight
things, but he was fond of slight things in the intervals of business;
and he held it among the chief arts of life to keep these pleasant
diversions within such bounds that they should never interfere with the
course of his serious ambition. Esther was perfectly aware, as he took a
chair near her, that he was under some admiring surprise at her
appearance and manner. How could it be otherwise? She believed that in
the eyes of a well-bred man no young lady in Treby could equal her: she
felt a glow of delight at the sense that she was being looked at.

"My father expected you," she said to Mr. Jermyn. "I delivered your
letter to him yesterday. He will be down immediately."

She disentangled her foot from her netting and wound it up.

"I hope you are not going to let us disturb you," said Harold, noticing
her action. "We come to discuss election affairs, and we particularly
desire to interest the ladies."

"I have no interest with any one who is not already on the right side,"
said Esther smiling.

"I am happy to see at least that you wear the Liberal colors."

"I fear I must confess that it is more from love of blue than from love
of Liberalism. Yellow opinions could only have brunettes on their side."
Esther spoke with her usual pretty fluency, but she had no sooner
uttered the words than she thought how angry they would have made Felix.

"If my cause is to be recommended by the becomingness of my colors, then
I am sure you are acting in my interest by wearing them."

Esther rose to leave the room.

"Must you really go?" said Harold, preparing to open the door for her.

"Yes, I have an engagement--a lesson at half past twelve," said Esther,
bowing and floating out like a blue-robed Naïad, but not without a
suffused blush as she passed through the doorway.

It was a pity the room was so small, Harold Transome thought: this girl
ought to walk in a house where there were halls and corridors. But he
had soon dismissed this chance preoccupation with Esther; for before the
door was closed again Mr. Lyon had entered, and Harold was entirely bent
on what had been the object of his visit. The minister, though no
elector himself, had considerable influence over Liberal electors, and
it was the part of wisdom in a candidate to cement all political
adhesion by a little personal regard, if possible. Garstin was a harsh
and wiry fellow; he seemed to suggest that sour whey, which some say was
the original meaning of Whig in the Scottish, and it might suggest the
theoretic advantages of Radicalism if it could be associated with a more
generous presence. What would conciliate the personal regard of old Mr.
Lyon became a curious problem to Harold, now the little man made his
appearance. But canvassing makes a gentleman acquainted with many
strange animals; together with the ways of catching and taming them; and
thus the knowledge of natural history advances amongst the aristocracy
and wealthy commoners of our land.

"I am very glad to have secured this opportunity of making your personal
acquaintance, Mr. Lyon," said Harold, putting out his hand to the
minister when Jermyn had mentioned his name. "I am to address the
electors here, in the Market-Place, to-morrow; and I should have been
sorry to do so without first paying my respects privately to my chief
friends, as there may be points on which they particularly wish me to
explain myself."

"You speak civilly, sir, and reasonably," said Mr. Lyon, with a vague
short-sighted gaze, in which a candidate's appearance evidently went for
nothing. "Pray be seated, gentlemen. It is my habit to stand."

He placed himself at a right angle with his visitors, his worn look of
intellectual eagerness, slight frame, and rusty attire, making an odd
contrast with their flourishing persons, unblemished costume, and
comfortable freedom from excitement. The group was fairly typical of the
difference between the men who are animated by ideas and the men who are
expected to apply them. Then he drew forth his spectacles, and began to
rub them with the thin end of his coat tail. He was inwardly exercising
great self-mastery--suppressing the thought of his personal needs, which
Jermyn's presence tended to suggest, in order that he might be equal to
the larger duties of this occasion.

"I am aware--Mr. Jermyn has told me," said Harold, "what good service
you have done me already, Mr. Lyon. The fact is, a man of intellect like
you was especially needed in my case. The race I am running is really
against Garstin only, who calls himself a Liberal, though he cares for
nothing, and understands nothing, except the interests of the wealthy
traders. And you have been able to explain the difference between
Liberal and Liberal, which, as you and I know, is something like the
difference between fish and fish."

"Your comparison is not unapt, sir," said Mr. Lyon, still holding his
spectacles in his hand, "at this epoch, when the mind of the nation has
been strained on the passing of one measure. Where a great weight has to
be moved, we require not so much selected instruments as abundant
horse-power. But it is an unavoidable evil of these massive achievements
that they encourage a coarse undiscriminatingness obstructive of more
nicely-wrought results, and an exaggerated expectation inconsistent with
the intricacies of our fallen and struggling condition. I say not that
compromise is unnecessary, but it is an evil attendant on our
imperfection; and I would pray every one to mark that, where compromise
broadens, intellect and conscience are thrust into narrower room.
Wherefore it has been my object to show our people that there are many
who have helped to draw the car of Reform, whose ends are but partial,
and who forsake not the ungodly principle of selfish alliances, but
would only substitute Syria for Egypt--thinking chiefly of their own
share in peacocks, gold and ivory."

"Just so," said Harold, who was quick at new languages, and still
quicker at translating other men's generalities into his own special and
immediate purposes, "men who will be satisfied if they can only bring in
a plutocracy, buy up the land, and stick the old crests on their new
gateways. Now the practical point to secure against these false Liberals
at present is, that our electors should not divide their votes. As it
appears that many who vote for Debarry are likely to split their votes
in favor of Garstin, it is of the first consequence that my voters
should give me plumpers. If they divide their votes they can't keep out
Debarry, and they may help to keep out me. I feel some confidence in
asking you to use your influence in this direction, Mr. Lyon. We
candidates have to praise ourselves more than is graceful; but you are
aware that, while I belong by my birth to the classes that have their
roots in tradition and all the old loyalties, my experience has lain
chiefly among those who make their own career, and depend on the new
rather than the old. I have had the advantage of considering the
national welfare under varied lights: I have wider views than those of a
mere cotton lord. On questions connected with religious liberty I would
stop short at no measure that was not thorough."

"I hope not, sir--I hope not," said Mr. Lyon, gravely; finally putting
on his spectacles and examining the face of the candidate, whom he was
preparing to turn into a catechumen. For the good Rufus, conscious of
his political importance as an organ of persuasion, felt it his duty to
catechise a little, and also to do his part toward impressing a probable
legislator with a sense of his responsibility. But the latter branch of
duty somewhat obstructed the catechising, for his mind was so urged by
considerations which he held in danger of being overlooked, that the
questions and answers bore a very slender proportion to his exposition.
It was impossible to leave the question of church-rates without noting
the grounds of their injustice, and without a brief enumeration of
reasons why Mr. Lyon, for his own part, would not present that passive
resistance to a legal imposition which had been adopted by the Friends
(whose heroism in this regard was nevertheless worthy of all honor).

Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome when we are not athirst for
information, but, to be quite fair, we must admit that superior
reticence is a good deal due to the lack of matter. Speech is often
barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest.
Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be
sitting on one addled nest-egg; and when it takes to cackling, will have
nothing to announce but that addled delusion.

Harold Transome was not at all a patient man, but in matters of business
he was quite awake to his cue, and in this case it was perhaps easier to
listen than to answer questions. But Jermyn, who had plenty of work on
his hands, took an opportunity of rising, and saying, as he looked at
his watch--

"I must really be at the office in five minutes. You will find me there,
Mr. Transome; you have probably still many things to say to Mr. Lyon."

"I beseech you, sir," said the minister, changing color, and by a quick
movement laying his hand on Jermyn's arm--"I beseech you to favor me
with an interview on some private business--this evening, if it were
possible."

Mr. Lyon, like others who are habitually occupied with impersonal
subjects, was liable to this impulsive sort of action. He snatched at
the details of life as if they were darting past him--as if they were
like the ribbons at his knees, which would never be tied all day if they
were not tied on the instant. Through these spasmodic leaps out of his
abstractions into real life, it constantly happened that he suddenly
took a course which had been the subject of too much doubt with him ever
to have been determined on by continuous thought. And if Jermyn had not
startled him by threatening to vanish just when he was plunged in
politics, he might never have made up his mind to confide in a worldly
attorney.

("An odd man," as Mrs. Muscat observed, "to have such a gift in the
pulpit. But there's One knows better than we do----" which, in a lady
who rarely felt her judgment at a loss, was a concession that showed
much piety.)

Jermyn was surprised at the little man's eagerness. "By all means," he
answered, quite cordially. "Could you come to my office at eight
o'clock?"

"For several reasons, I must beg you to come to me."

"Oh, very good. I'll walk out and see you this evening, if possible. I
shall have much pleasure in being of any use to you." Jermyn felt that
in the eyes of Harold he was appearing all the more valuable when his
services were thus in request. He went out, and Mr. Lyon easily relapsed
into politics, for he had been on the brink of a favorite subject on
which he was at issue with his fellow-Liberals.

At that time, when faith in the efficacy of political change was at
fever-heat in ardent Reformers, many measures which men are still
discussing with little confidence on either side, were then talked about
and disposed of like property in near reversion. Crying abuses--"bloated
paupers," "bloated pluralists," and other corruptions hindering men from
being wise and happy--had to be fought against and slain. Such a time is
a time of hope. Afterward when the corpses of those monsters have been
held up to the public wonder and abhorrence, and yet wisdom and
happiness do not follow, but rather a more abundant breeding of the
foolish and unhappy, comes a time of doubt and despondency. But in the
great Reform-year Hope was mighty: the prospect of Reform had even
served the voters instead of drink; and in one place, at least, there
had been "a dry election." And now the speakers at Reform banquets were
exuberant in congratulation and promise: Liberal clergymen of the
Establishment toasted Liberal Catholic clergymen without any allusion to
scarlet, and Catholic clergymen replied with a like tender reserve.
Some dwelt on the abolition of all abuses, and on millennial blessedness
generally; others, whose imaginations were less suffused with
exhalations of the dawn insisted chiefly on the ballot-box.

Now on this question of the ballot the minister strongly took the
negative side. Our pet opinions are usually those which place us in a
minority of a minority amongst our own party:--very happily, else those
poor opinions, born with no silver spoon in their mouths--how would they
get nourished and fed? So it was with Mr. Lyon and his objection to the
ballot. But he had thrown out a remark on the subject which was not
quite clear to his hearer, who interpreted it according to his best
calculation of probabilities.

"I have no objection to the ballot," said Harold, "but I think that is
not the sort of thing we have to work at just now. We shouldn't get it.
And other questions are imminent."

"Then, sir, you would vote for the ballot?" said Mr. Lyon, stroking his
chin.

"Certainly, if the point came up. I have too much respect for the
freedom of the voter to oppose anything which offers a chance of making
that freedom more complete."

Mr. Lyon looked at the speaker with a pitying smile and a subdued
"h'm--m--m," which Harold took for a sign of satisfaction. He was soon
undeceived.

"You grieve me, sir; you grieve me much. And I pray you to reconsider
this question, for it will take you to the root, as I think, of
political morality. I engage to show to any impartial mind, duly
furnished with the principles of public and private rectitude, that the
ballot would be pernicious, and that if it were not pernicious, it would
still be futile. I will show, first, that it would be futile as a
preservative from bribery and illegitimate influence; and, secondly,
that it would be in the worst kind pernicious, as shutting the door
against those influences whereby the soul of a man and the character of
a citizen are duly educated for their great functions. Be not alarmed if
I detain you, sir. It is well worth the while."

"Confound this old man," thought Harold. "I'll never make a canvassing
call on a preacher again, unless he has lost his voice from a cold." He
was going to excuse himself as prudently as he could, by deferring the
subject till the morrow, and inviting Mr. Lyon to come to him in the
committee-room before the time appointed for his public speech; but he
was relieved by the opening of the door, Lyddy put in her head to say--

"If you please, sir, here's Mr. Holt wants to know if he may come in and
speak to the gentleman. He begs your pardon, but you're to say 'no' if
you don't like him to come."

"Nay, show him in at once, Lyddy. A young man," Mr. Lyon went on,
speaking to Harold, "whom a representative ought to know--no voter, but
a man of ideas and study."

"He is thoroughly welcome," said Harold, truthfully enough, though he
felt little interest in the voteless man of ideas except as a diversion
from the subject of the ballot. He had been standing for the last minute
or two, feeling less of a victim in that attitude, and more able to
calculate on means of escape.

"Mr. Holt, sir," said the minister, as Felix entered, "is a young friend
of mine, whose opinions on some points I hope to see altered, but who
has a zeal for public justice which I trust he will never lose."

"I am glad to see Mr. Holt," said Harold, bowing. He perceived from the
way in which Felix bowed to him and turned to the most distant spot in
the room, that the candidate's shake of the hand would not be welcome
here. "A formidable fellow," he thought, "capable of mounting a cart in
the market-place to-morrow and cross-examining me, if I say anything
that doesn't please him."

"Mr. Lyon," said Felix, "I have taken a liberty with you in asking to
see Mr. Transome when he is engaged with you. But I have to speak to him
on a matter which I shouldn't care to make public at present, and it is
one on which I am sure you will back me. I heard that Mr. Transome was
here, so I ventured to come. I hope you will both excuse me, as my
business refers to some electioneering measures which are being taken by
Mr. Transome's agents."

"Pray go on," said Harold, expecting something unpleasant.

"I'm not going to speak against treating voters," said Felix; "I suppose
buttered ale, and grease of that sort to make the wheels go, belong to
the necessary humbug of representation. But I wish to ask you, Mr.
Transome, whether it is with your knowledge that agents of yours are
bribing rough fellows who are no voters--the colliers and navvies at
Sproxton--with the chance of extra drunkenness, that they may make a
posse on your side at the nomination and polling?"

"Certainly not," said Harold. "You are aware, my dear sir, that a
candidate is very much at the mercy of his agents as to the means by
which he is returned, especially when many years' absence has made him a
stranger to the men actually conducting business. But are you sure of
your facts?"

"As sure as my senses can make me," said Felix, who then briefly
described what had happened on Sunday. "I believed that you were
ignorant of all this, Mr. Transome," he ended, "and that was why I
thought some good might be done by speaking to you. If not, I should be
tempted to expose the whole affair as a disgrace to the Radical party.
I'm a Radical myself, and mean to work all my life long against
privilege, monopoly, and oppression. But I would rather be a
livery-servant proud of my master's title, than I would seem to make
common cause with scoundrels who turn the best hopes of men into
by-words for cant and dishonesty."

"Your energetic protest is needless here, sir," said Harold, offended at
what sounded like a threat, and was certainly premature enough to be in
bad taste. In fact, this error of behavior in Felix proceeded from a
repulsion which was mutual. It was a constant source of irritation to
him that the public men on his side were, on the whole, not
conspicuously better than the public men on the other side; that the
spirit of innovation, which with him was a part of religion, was in many
of its mouthpieces no more of a religion than the faith in rotten
boroughs; and he was thus predisposed to distrust Harold Transome.
Harold, in his turn, disliked impracticable notions of loftiness and
purity--disliked all enthusiasm; and he thought he saw a very
troublesome, vigorous incorporation of that nonsense in Felix. But it
would be foolish to exasperate him in any way.

"If you choose to accompany me to Jermyn's office," he went on, "the
matter shall be enquired into in your presence. I think you will agree
with me, Mr. Lyon, that this will be the most satisfactory course."

"Doubtless," said the minister, who liked the candidate very well, and
believed that he would be amenable to argument; "and I would caution my
young friend against a too great hastiness of words and action. David's
cause against Saul was a righteous one; nevertheless not all who clave
unto David were righteous men."

"The more was the pity, sir," said Felix. "Especially if he winked at
their malpractices."

Mr. Lyon smiled, shook his head, and stroked his favorite's arm
deprecatingly.

"It is rather too much for any man to keep the consciences of all his
party," said Harold. "If you had lived in the East, as I have, you would
be more tolerant, for example, of an active industrious selfishness,
such as we have here, though it may not always be quite scrupulous: you
would see how much better it is than an idle selfishness. I have heard
it said, a bridge is a good thing--worth helping to make, though half
the men who worked at it were rogues."

"Oh, yes!" said Felix, scornfully, "give me a handful of generalities
and analogies, and I'll undertake to justify Burke and Hare, and prove
them benefactors of their species. I'll tolerate no nuisances but such
as I can't help; and the question now is, not whether we can do away
with all the nuisances in the world, but with a particular nuisance
under our noses."

"Then we had better cut the matter short, as I propose, by going at once
to Jermyn's," said Harold. "In that case, I must bid you good-morning,
Mr. Lyon."

"I would fain," said the minister, looking uneasy--"I would fain have
had a further opportunity of considering that question of the ballot
with you. The reasons against it need not be urged lengthily; they only
require complete enumeration to prevent any seeming hiatus, where an
opposing fallacy might trust itself in."

"Never fear, sir," said Harold, shaking Mr. Lyon's hand cordially,
"there will be opportunities. Shall I not see you in the committee-room
to-morrow?"

"I think not," said Mr. Lyon, rubbing his brow, with a sad remembrance
of his personal anxieties. "But I will send you, if you will permit me,
a brief writing, on which you can meditate at your leisure."

"I shall be delighted. Good-bye."

Harold and Felix went out together; and the minister, going up to his
dull study, asked himself whether, under the pressure of conflicting
experience, he had faithfully discharged the duties of the past
interview?

If a cynical sprite were present, riding on one of the motes in that
dusty room, he may have made himself merry at the illusions of the
little minister who brought so much conscience to-bear on the production
of so slight an effect. I confess to smiling myself, being sceptical as
to the effect of ardent appeals and nice distinctions on gentlemen who
are got up, both inside and out, as candidates in the style of the
period; but I never smiled at Mr. Lyon's trustful energy without falling
to penitence and veneration immediately after. For what we call
illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and recent
realities--a willing movement of a man's soul with the larger sweep of
the world's forces--a movement toward a more assured end than the
chances of a single life. We see human heroism broken into units and
say, this unit did little--might as well not have been. But in this way
we might break up a great army into units; in this way we might break
the sunlight into fragments, and think that this and the other might be
cheaply parted with. Let us rather raise a monument to the soldiers
whose brave hearts only kept the ranks unbroken and met death--a
monument to the faithful who were not famous, and who are precious as
the continuity of the sunbeams is precious, though some of them fall
unseen and on barrenness.

At present, looking back on that day at Treby, it seem to me that the
sadder illusion lay with Harold Transome, who was trusting in his own
skill to shape the success of his own morrows, ignorant of what many
yesterdays had determined for him beforehand.




CHAPTER XVII.

    It is a good and soothfast saw;
    Half-roasted never will be raw;
    No dough is dried once more to meal,
    No crock new-shapen by the wheel;
    You can't turn curds to milk again,
    Nor Now, by wishing, back to Then;
    And having tasted stolen honey,
    You can't buy innocence for money.


Jermyn was not particularly pleased that some chance had apparently
hindered Harold Transome from making other canvassing visits immediately
after leaving Mr. Lyon, and so had sent him back to the office earlier
than he had been expected to come. The inconvenient chance he guessed at
once to be represented by Felix Holt, whom he knew very well by Trebian
report to be a young man with so little of the ordinary Christian
motives as to making an appearance and getting on in the world, that he
presented no handle to any judicious and respectable person who might be
willing to make use of him.

Harold Transome, on his side, was a great deal annoyed at being worried
by Felix in an enquiry about electioneering details. The real dignity
and honesty there was in him made him shrink from this necessity of
satisfying a man with a troublesome tongue; it was as if he were to show
indignation at the discovery of one barrel with a false bottom, when he
had invested his money in a manufactory where a larger or smaller
number of such barrels had always been made. A practical man must seek a
good end by the only possible means; that is to say, if he is to get
into Parliament he must not be too particular. It was not disgraceful to
be neither a Quixote nor a theorist, aiming to correct the moral rules
of the world: but whatever actually was, or might prove to be,
disgraceful, Harold held in detestation. In this mood he pushed on
unceremoniously to the inner office without waiting to ask questions;
and when he perceived that Jermyn was not alone he said, with haughty
quickness--

"A question about the electioneering at Sproxton. Can you give your
attention to it at once? Here is Mr. Holt, who has come to me about the
business."

"A--yes--a--certainly," said Jermyn, who, as usual, was the more cool
and deliberate because he was vexed. He was standing, and, as he turned
round, his broad figure concealed the person who was seated writing at
the bureau. "Mr. Holt--a--will doubtless--a--make a point of saving a
busy man's time. You can speak at once. This gentleman"--here Jermyn
made a slight backward movement of the head--"is one of ourselves; he is
a true-blue."

"I have simply to complain," said Felix, "that one of your agents has
been sent on a bribing expedition to Sproxton--with what purpose you,
sir, may know better than I do. Mr. Transome, it appears, was ignorant
of the affair, and does not approve it."

Jermyn, looking gravely and steadily at Felix while he was speaking, at
the same time drew forth a small sheaf of papers from his side pocket,
and then, as he turned his eyes slowly on Harold, felt in his
waistcoat-pocket for his pencil-case.

"I don't approve of it at all," said Harold, who hated Jermyn's
calculated slowness and conceit in his own impenetrability. "Be good
enough to put a stop to it, will you?"

"Mr. Holt, I know, is an excellent Liberal," said Jermyn, just inclining
his head to Harold, and then alternately looking at Felix and docketing
his bills; "but he is perhaps too inexperienced to be aware that no
canvass--a--can be conducted without the action of able men, who
must--a--be trusted, and not interfered with. And as to any possibility
of promising to put a stop--a--to any procedure--a--that depends. If he
had ever held the coachman's ribbons in his hands, as I have in my
younger days--a--he would know that stopping is not always easy."

"I know very little about holding ribbons," said Felix; "but I saw
clearly enough at once that more mischief had been done than could be
well mended. Though I believe, if it were heartily tried, the treatment
might be reduced and something might be done to hinder the men from
turning out in a body to make a noise, which might end in worse."

"They might be hindered from making a noise on our side," said Jermyn,
smiling. "That is perfectly true. But if they made a noise on the
other--would your purpose be answered better, sir?"

Harold was moving about in an irritated manner while Felix and Jermyn
were speaking. He preferred leaving the talk to the attorney, of whose
talk he himself liked to keep as clear as possible.

"I can only say," answered Felix, "that if you make use of those heavy
fellows when the drink is in them, I shouldn't like your responsibility.
You might as well drive bulls to roar on our side as bribe a set of
colliers and navvies to shout and groan."

"A lawyer may well envy your command of language, Mr. Holt," said
Jermyn, pocketing his bills again, and shutting up his pencil; "but he
would not be satisfied with the accuracy--a--of your terms. You must
permit me to check your use of the word 'bribery.' The essence of
bribery is, that it should be legally proved; there is not such a
thing--a--_in rerum natura_--a--as unproved bribery. There has been no
such thing as bribery at Sproxton, I'll answer for it. The presence of a
body of stalwart fellows on--a--the Liberal side will tend to preserve
order; for we know that the benefit clubs from the Pitchley district
will show for Debarry. Indeed, the gentleman who has conducted the
canvass at Sproxton is experienced in Parliamentary affairs, and would
not exceed--a--the necessary measures that a rational judgment would
dictate."

"What! you mean the man who calls himself Johnson?" said Felix, in a
tone of disgust.

Before Jermyn chose to answer, Harold broke in, saying, quickly and
peremptorily, "The long and short of it is this, Mr. Holt: I shall
desire and insist that whatever can be done by way of remedy shall be
done. Will that satisfy you? You see now some of the candidate's
difficulties?" said Harold, breaking into his most agreeable smile. "I
hope you will have some pity for me."

"I suppose I must be content," said Felix, not thoroughly propitiated.
"I bid you good-morning, gentlemen."

When he was gone out, and had closed the door behind him, Harold,
turning round and flashing, in spite of himself, an angry look at
Jermyn, said--

"And who is Johnson? an _alias_, I suppose. It seems you are fond of the
name."

Jermyn turned perceptibly paler, but disagreeables of this sort between
himself and Harold had been too much in his anticipations of late for
him to be taken by surprise. He turned quietly round and just touched
the shoulder of the person seated at the bureau, who now rose.

"On the contrary," Jermyn answered, "the Johnson in question is this
gentleman, whom I have the pleasure of introducing to you as one of my
most active helpmates in electioneering business--Mr. Johnson, of
Bedford Row, London. I am comparatively a novice--a--in these matters.
But he was engaged with James Putty in two hardly-contested elections,
and there could scarcely be a better initiation. Putty is one of the
first men of the country as an agent--a--on the Liberal side--a--eh,
Johnson? I think Makepiece is--a--not altogether a match for him, not
quite of the same calibre--a--_haud consimili ingenio_--a--in
tactics--a--and in experience?"

"Makepiece is a wonderful man, and so is Putty," said the glib Johnson,
too vain not to be pleased with an opportunity of speaking, even when
the situation was rather awkward. "Makepiece for scheming, but Putty for
management. Putty knows men, sir," he went on, turning to Harold: "it's
a thousand pities that you have not had his talents employed in your
service. He's beyond any man for saving a candidate's money--does half
the work with his tongue. He'll talk of anything, from the Areopagus,
and that sort of thing, down to the joke about 'Where are you going,
Paddy?'--you know what I mean, sir! 'Back again, says Paddy'--an
excellent electioneering joke. Putty understands these things. He has
said to me, 'Johnson, bear in mind there are two ways of speaking an
audience will always like: one is to tell them what they don't
understand; and the other is, to tell them what they're used to.' I
shall never be the man to deny that I owe a great deal to Putty. I
always say it was a most providential thing in the Mugham election last
year that Putty was not on the Tory side. He managed the women; and, if
you'll believe me, sir, one-fourth of the men would never have voted if
their wives hadn't driven them to it for the good of their families. And
as for speaking--it's currently reported in our London circles that
Putty writes regularly for the _Times_. He has that kind of language;
and I needn't tell you, Mr. Transome, that it's the apex, which, I take
it, means the tiptop--and nobody can get higher than that, I think. I've
belonged to a political debating society myself; I've heard a little
language in my time; but when Mr. Jermyn first spoke to me about having
the honor to assist in your canvass of North Loamshire"--here Johnson
played with his watch-seals and balanced himself a moment on his
toes--"the very first thing I said was, 'And there's Garstin has got
Putty! No Whig could stand against a Whig,' I said, 'who had Putty on
his side: I hope Mr. Transome goes in for something of a deeper color.'
I don't say that, as a general rule, opinions go for much in a return,
Mr. Transome; it depends on who are in the field before you, and on the
skill of your agents. But as a Radical, and a moneyed Radical, you are
in a fine position, sir; and with care and judgment--with care and
judgment----"

It had been impossible to interrupt Johnson before, without the most
impolitic rudeness. Jermyn was not sorry that he should talk, even if he
made a fool of himself; for in that solid shape, exhibiting the average
amount of human foibles, he seemed less of the _alias_ which Harold had
insinuated him to be, and had all the additional plausibility of a lie
with a circumstance.

Harold had thrown himself with contemptuous resignation into a chair,
had drawn off one of his buff gloves, and was looking at his hand. But
when Johnson gave his iteration with a slightly slackened pace, Harold
looked up at him and broke in--

"Well then, Mr. Johnson, I shall be glad if you will use your care and
judgment in putting an end, as well as you can, to this Sproxton affair;
else it may turn out an ugly business."

"Excuse me, sir; I must beg you to look at the matter a little more
closely. You will see that it is impossible to take a single step
backward at Sproxton. It was a matter of necessity to get the Sproxton
men; else I know to a certainty the other side would have laid hold of
them first, and now I've undermined Garstin's people. They'll use their
authority, and give a little shabby treating, but I've taken all the
wind out of their sails. But if, by your orders, I or Mr. Jermyn here
were to break promise with the honest fellows, and offend Chubb the
publican, what would come of it? Chubb would leave no stone unturned
against you, sir; he would egg on his customers against you; the
colliers and navvies would be at the nomination and the election all the
same, or rather not all the same, for they would be there against us;
and instead of hustling people good-humoredly by way of a joke, and
counterbalancing Debarry's cheers, they'd help to kick the cheering and
voting out of our men, and instead of being, let us say, half-a-dozen
ahead of Garstin, you'd be half-a-dozen behind him, that's all. I speak
plain English to you, Mr. Transome, though I've the highest respect for
you as a gentleman of first-rate talents and position. But, sir, to
judge of these things a man must know the English voter and the English
publican; and it would be a poor tale indeed"--here Mr. Johnson's mouth
took an expression at once bitter and pathetic--"that a gentleman like
you, to say nothing of the good of the country, should have gone to the
expense and trouble of a canvass for nothing but to find himself out of
Parliament at the end of it. I've seen it again and again; it looks bad
in the cleverest man to have to sing small."

Mr. Johnson's argument was not the less stringent because his idioms
were vulgar. It requires a conviction and resolution amounting to
heroism not to wince at phrases that class our foreshadowed endurance
among those common and ignominious troubles which the world is more
likely to sneer at than to pity. Harold remained a few minutes in angry
silence looking at the floor, with one hand on his knee and the other on
his hat, as if he were preparing to start up.

"As to undoing anything that's been done down there," said Johnson,
throwing in this observation as something into the bargain, "I must wash
my hands of it, sir. I couldn't work knowingly against your interest.
And that young man who is just gone out,--you don't believe that he need
be listened to, I hope? Chubb, the publican, hates him. Chubb would
guess he was at the bottom of your having the treating stopped, and he'd
set half-a-dozen of the colliers to duck him in the canal, or break his
head by mistake. I'm an experienced man, sir. I hope I've put it clear
enough."

"Certainly, the exposition befits the subject," said Harold, scornfully,
his dislike of the man Johnson's personality being stimulated by causes
which Jermyn more than conjectured. "It's a damned, unpleasant, ravelled
business that you and Mr. Jermyn have knit up between you. I've no more
to say."

"Then, sir, if you've no more commands, I don't wish to intrude. I shall
wish you good-morning, sir," said Johnson, passing out quickly.

Harold knew that he was indulging his temper, and he would probably have
restrained it as a foolish move if he had thought there was great danger
in it. But he was beginning to drop much of his caution and self-mastery
where Jermyn was concerned, under the growing conviction that the
attorney had very strong reasons for being afraid of him; reasons which
would only be reinforced by any action hostile to the Transome interest.
As for a sneak like this Johnson, a gentleman had to pay him, not to
please him. Harold had smiles at command in the right place, but he was
not going to smile when it was neither necessary nor agreeable. He was
one of those good-humored, yet energetic men, who have the gift of
anger, hatred, and scorn upon occasion, though they are too healthy and
self-contented for such feelings to get generated in them without
external occasion. And in relation to Jermyn the gift was coming into
fine exercise.

"A--pardon me, Mr. Harold," said Jermyn, speaking as soon as Johnson
went out, "but I am sorry--a--you should behave disobligingly to a man
who has it in his power to do much service--who, in fact, holds many
threads in his hands. I admit that--a--_nemo mortalium omnibus horis
sapit_, as we say--a----"

"Speak for yourself," said Harold. "I don't talk in tags of Latin, which
might be learned by a school-master's foot-boy. I find the King's
English expresses my meaning better."

"In the King's English, then," said Jermyn, who could be idiomatic
enough when he was stung, "a candidate should keep his kicks till he's a
member."

"Oh, I suppose Johnson will bear a kick if you bid him. You're his
principal, I believe."

"Certainly, thus far--a--he is my London agent. But he is a man of
substance, and----"

"I shall know what he is if it's necessary, I dare say. But I must jump
into the carriage again. I've no time to lose; I must go to Hawkins at
the factory. Will you go?"

When Harold was gone, Jermyn's handsome face gathered blackness. He
hardly ever wore his worst expression in the presence of others, and but
seldom when he was alone, for he was not given to believe that any game
would ultimately go against him. His luck had been good. New conditions
might always turn up to give him new chances; and if affairs threatened
to come to an extremity between Harold and himself, he trusted to
finding some sure resource.

"He means to see to the bottom of everything if he can, that's quite
plain," said Jermyn to himself. "I believe he has been getting another
opinion; he has some new light about those annuities on the estate that
are held in Johnson's name. He has inherited a deuced faculty for
business--there's no denying that. But I shall beg leave to tell him
that I've propped up the family. I don't know where they would have been
without me; and if it comes to balancing, I know into which scale the
gratitude ought to go. Not that he's likely to feel any--but he can feel
something else; and if he makes signs of setting the dogs on me, I shall
make him feel it. The people named Transome owe me a good deal more than
I owe them."

In this way Mr. Jermyn inwardly appealed against an unjust construction
which he foresaw that his old acquaintance the law might put on certain
items in his history.

I have known persons who have been suspected of under-valuing gratitude,
and excluding it from the list of virtues; but on closer observation it
has been seen that, if they have never felt grateful, it has been for
want of an opportunity; and that, far from despising gratitude, they
regard it as the virtue most of all incumbent--on others toward them.




CHAPTER XVIII.

    The little, nameless, unremembered acts
    Of kindness and of love.

                                  --WORDSWORTH: _Tintern Abbey_.


Jermyn did not forget to pay his visit to the minister in Malthouse Yard
that evening. The mingled irritation, dread and defiance which he was
feeling toward Harold Transome in the middle of the day depended on too
many and far-stretching causes to be dissipated by eight o'clock; but
when he left Mr. Lyon's house he was in a state of comparative triumph
in the belief that he, and he alone, was now in possession of facts
which, once grouped together, made a secret that gave him new power over
Harold.

Mr. Lyon, in his need for help from one who had that wisdom of the
serpent which, he argued, is not forbidden, but is only of hard
acquirement to dovelike innocence, had been gradually led to pour out to
the attorney all the reasons which made him desire to know the truth
about the man who called himself Maurice Christian: he had shown all the
precious relics, the locket, the letters, and the marriage certificate.
And Jermyn had comforted him by confidently promising to ascertain,
without scandal or premature betrayals, whether this man were really
Annette's husband, or Maurice Christian Bycliffe.

Jermyn was not rash in making this promise, since he had excellent
reasons for believing that he had already come to a true conclusion on
the subject. But he wished both to know a little more of this man
himself, and to keep Mr. Lyon in ignorance--not a difficult
precaution--in an affair which it cost the minister so much pain to
speak of. An easy opportunity of getting an interview with Christian was
sure to offer itself before long--might even offer itself to-morrow.
Jermyn had seen him more than once, though hitherto without any reason
for observing him with interest; he had heard that Philip Debarry's
courier was often busy in the town, and it seemed specially likely that
he would be seen there when the market was to be agitated by politics,
and the new candidate was to show his paces.

The world of which Treby Magna was the centre was, naturally, curious to
see the young Transome, who had come from the East, was as rich as a
Jew, and called himself a Radical--characteristics all equally vague in
the minds of various excellent ratepayers, who drove to market in their
taxed carts or in their hereditary gigs. Places at convenient windows
had been secured beforehand for a few best bonnets; but, in general, a
Radical candidate excited no ardent feminine partisanship, even among
the Dissenters in Treby, if they were of the prosperous and
long-resident class. Some chapel-going ladies were fond of remembering
that "their family had been Church"; others objected to politics
altogether as having spoiled old neighborliness, and sundered friends
who had kindred views as to cowslip wine and Michaelmas cleaning;
others, of the melancholy sort, said it would be well if people would
think less of reforming Parliament and more of pleasing God.
Irreproachable Dissenting matrons, like Mrs. Muscat, whose youth had
been passed in a short-waisted bodice and tight skirt, had never been
animated by the struggle for liberty, and had a timid suspicion that
religion was desecrated by being applied to the things of this world.
Since Mr. Lyon had been in Malthouse Yard there had been far too much
mixing up of politics with religion; but, at any rate, these ladies had
never yet been to hear speechifying in the market-place, and they were
not going to begin that practice.

Esther, however, had heard some of her feminine acquaintances say that
they intended to sit at the druggist's upper window, and she was
inclined to ask her father if he could think of a suitable place where
she also might see and hear. Two inconsistent motives urged her. She
knew that Felix cared earnestly for public questions, and she supposed
that he held it one of her deficiencies not to care about them: well,
she would try to learn the secret of this ardor, which was so strong in
him that it animated what she thought the dullest form of life. She was
not too stupid to find it out. But this self-correcting motive was
presently displaced by a motive of a different sort. It had been a
pleasant variety in her monotonous days to see a man like Harold
Transome, with a distinguished appearance and polished manners, and she
would like to see him again: he suggested to her that brighter and more
luxurious life on which her imagination dwelt without the painful effort
it required to conceive the mental condition which would place her in
complete sympathy with Felix Holt. It was this less unaccustomed
prompting of which she was chiefly conscious when she awaited her
father's coming down to breakfast. Why, indeed, should she trouble
herself so much about Felix?

Mr. Lyon, more serene now that he had unbosomed his anxieties and
obtained a promise of help, was already swimming so happily in the deep
water of polemics in expectation of Philip Debarry's answer to his
challenge, that, in the occupation of making a few notes lest certain
felicitous inspirations should be wasted, he had forgotten to come down
to breakfast. Esther, suspecting his abstraction, went up to his study,
and found him at his desk looking up with wonder at her interruption.

"Come, father, you have forgotten your breakfast."

"It is true, child, I will come," he said, lingering to make some final
strokes.

"Oh, you naughty father!" said Esther, as he got up from his chair,
"your coat-collar is twisted, your waistcoat is buttoned all wrong, and
you have not brushed your hair. Sit down and let me brush it again as I
did yesterday."

He sat down obediently, while Esther took a towel, which she threw over
his shoulders, and then brushed the thick, long fringe of soft auburn
hair. This very trifling act, which she had brought herself to for the
first time yesterday, meant a great deal in Esther's little history. It
had been her habit to leave the mending of her father's clothes to
Lyddy; she had not liked even to touch his cloth garments; still less
had it seemed a thing she would willingly undertake to correct his
toilette, and use a brush for him. But having once done this, under her
new sense of faulty omission, the affectionateness that was in her
flowed so pleasantly, as she saw how much her father was moved by what
he thought a great act of tenderness, that she quite longed to repeat
it. This morning, as he sat under her hands, his face had such a calm
delight in it that she could not help kissing the top of his bald head;
and afterward, when they were seated at breakfast, she said, merrily--

"Father, I shall make a _petit maître_ of you by-and-by; your hair looks
so pretty and silken when it is well brushed."

"Nay, child, I trust that while I would willingly depart from my evil
habit of a somewhat slovenly forgetfulness in my attire, I shall never
arrive at the opposite extreme. For though there is that in apparel
which pleases the eye, and I deny not that your neat gown and the color
thereof--which is that of certain little flowers that spread themselves
in the hedgerows, and make a blueness there as of the sky when it is
deepened in the water--I deny not, I say, that these minor strivings
after a perfection which is, as it were, an irrecoverable yet haunting
memory, are a good in their proportion. Nevertheless, the brevity of our
life, and the hurry and crush of the great battle with error and sin,
often oblige us to an advised neglect of what is less momentous. This, I
conceive, is the principle on which my friend Felix Holt acts; and I
cannot but think the light comes from the true fount, though it shines
through obstructions."

"You have not seen Mr. Holt since Sunday, have you, father?"

"Yes, he was here yesterday. He sought Mr. Transome, having a matter of
some importance to speak upon with him. And I saw him afterward in the
street, when he agreed that I should call for him this morning before I
go into the market-place. He will have it," Mr. Lyon went on, smiling,
"that I must not walk about in the crowd without him to act as my
special constable."

Esther felt vexed with herself that her heart was suddenly beating with
unusual quickness, and that her last resolution not to trouble herself
about what Felix thought had transformed itself with magic swiftness
into mortification that he evidently avoided coming to the house when
she was there, though he used to come on the slightest occasion. He knew
that she was always at home until the afternoon on market-days: that was
the reason why he would not call for her father. Of course it was
because he attributed such littleness to her that he supposed she would
retain nothing else than a feeling of offence toward him for what he had
said to her. Such distrust of any good in others, such arrogance of
immeasurable superiority, was extremely ungenerous. But presently she
said--

"I should have liked to hear Mr. Transome speak, but I suppose it is too
late to get a place now."

"I am not sure, I would fain have you go if you desire it, my dear,"
said Mr. Lyon, who could not bear to deny Esther any lawful wish. "Walk
with me to Mrs. Holt's, and we will learn from Felix, who will doubtless
already have been out, whether or not he could lead you in safety to
Friend Lambert's."

Esther was glad of the proposal, because, if it answered no other
purpose, it would be an easy way of obliging Felix to see her, and of
showing him that it was not she who cherished offence. But when, later
in the morning, she was walking toward Mrs. Holt's with her father, they
met Mr. Jermyn, who stopped them to ask, in his most affable manner,
whether Miss Lyon intended to hear the candidate, and whether she had
secured a suitable place. And he ended by insisting that his daughters,
who were presently coming in an open carriage, should call for her if
she would permit them. It was impossible to refuse this civility, and
Esther turned back to await the carriage, pleased with the certainty of
hearing and seeing, yet sorry to miss Felix. There was another day for
her to think of him with unsatisfied resentment, mixed with some
longings for a better understanding: and in our spring-time every day
has its hidden growths in the mind, as it has in the earth when the
little folded blades are getting ready to pierce the ground.




CHAPTER XIX.

    Consistency?--I never changed my mind,
    Which is, and always was, to live at ease.


It was only in the time of summer fairs that the market-place had ever
looked more animated than it did under that autumn midday sun. There
were plenty of blue cockades and streamers, faces at all the windows,
and a crushing buzzing crowd, urging each other backward and forward
round the small hustings in front of the Ram Inn, which showed its more
plebeian sign at right angles with the venerable Marquis of Granby.
Sometimes there were scornful shouts, sometimes a rolling cascade of
cheers, sometimes the shriek of a penny whistle; but above all these
fitful and feeble sounds, the fine old church-tower, which looked down
from above the trees on the other side of the narrow stream, sent
vibrating, at every quarter, the sonorous tones of its great bell, the
Good Queen Bess.

Two carriages, with blue ribbons on the harness, were conspicuous near
the hustings. One was Jermyn's, filled with the brilliantly-attired
daughters, accompanied by Esther, whose quieter dress helped to mark her
out for attention as the most striking of the group. The other was
Harold Transome's; but in this there was no lady--only the olive-skinned
Dominic, whose acute yet mild face was brightened by the occupation of
amusing little Harry and rescuing from his tyrannies a King Charles
puppy, with big eyes, much after the pattern of the boy's.

This Trebian crowd did not count for much in the political force of the
nation, but it was not the less determined as to lending or not lending
its ears. No man was permitted to speak from the platform except Harold
and his uncle Lingon, though, in the interval of expectation, several
Liberals had come forward. Among these ill-advised persons the one whose
attempt met the most emphatic resistance was Rufus Lyon. This might have
been taken for resentment at the unreasonableness of the cloth, that,
not content with pulpits, from whence to tyrannize over the ears of men,
wishes to have the larger share of the platforms; but it was not so, for
Mr. Lingon was heard with much cheering, and would have been welcomed
again.

The rector of Little Treby had been a favorite in the neighborhood since
the beginning of the century. A clergyman thoroughly unclerical in his
habits had a piquancy about him which made him a sort of practical joke.
He had always been called Jack Lingon, or Parson Jack--sometimes, in
older and less serious days, even "Cock-fighting Jack." He swore a
little when the point of a joke seemed to demand it, and was fond of
wearing a colored bandana tied loosely over his cravat, together with
large brown leather leggings; he spoke in a pithy familiar way that
people could understand, and had none of that frigid mincingness called
dignity, which some have thought a peculiar clerical disease. In fact,
he was "a charicter--" something cheerful to think of, not entirely out
of connection with Sunday and sermons. And it seemed in keeping that he
should have turned sharp round in politics, his opinions being only
part of the excellent joke called Parson Jack. When his red eagle face
and white hair were seen on the platform, the Dissenters hardly cheered
this questionable Radical; but to make amends, all the Tory farmers gave
him a friendly "hurray." "Let's hear what old Jack will say for
himself," was the predominant feeling among them; "he'll have something
funny to say, I'll bet a penny."

It was only Lawyer Labron's young clerks and their hangers-on who were
sufficiently dead to Trebian traditions to assail the parson with
various sharp-edged interjections, such as broken shells, and cries of
"Cock-a-doodle-doo."

"Come now, my lads," he began, in his full, pompous, yet jovial tones,
thrusting his hands into the stuffed-out pockets of his greatcoat, "I'll
tell you what; I'm a parson you know; I ought to return good for evil.
So here are some good nuts for you to crack in return for your shells."

There was a roar of laughter and cheering as he threw handfuls of nuts
and filberts among the crowd.

"Come now, you'll say I used to be a Tory; and some of you, whose faces
I know as well as I know the head of my own crab-stick, will say that's
why I'm a good fellow. But now I'll tell you something else. It's for
that very reason--that I used to be a Tory, and am a good fellow--that I
go along with my nephew here, who is a thorough-going Liberal. For will
anybody here come forward and say, 'A good fellow has no need to tack
about and change his road?' No, there's not one of you such a Tom-noddy.
What's good for one time is bad for another. If anybody contradicts
that, ask him to eat pickled pork when he's thirsty, and to bathe in the
Lapp there when the spikes of ice are shooting. And that's the reason
why the men who are the best Liberals now are the very men who used to
be the best Tories. There isn't a nastier horse than your horse that'll
jib and back and turn round when there is but one road for him to go,
and that's the road before him.

"And my nephew here--he comes of a Tory breed, you know--I'll answer for
the Lingons. In the old Tory times there was never a pup belonged to a
Lingon but would howl if a Whig came near him. The Lingon blood is good,
rich old Tory blood--like good rich milk--and that's why, when the right
time comes, it throws up a liberal cream. The best sort of Tory turns to
the best sort of Radical. There's plenty of Radical scum--I say, beware
of the scum, and look but for the cream. And here's my nephew--some of
the cream, if there is any: none of your Whigs, none of your painted
water that looks as if it ran, and it's standing still all the while;
none of your spinning-jenny fellows. A gentleman; but up to all sorts of
business. I'm no fool myself; I'm forced to wink a good deal, for fear
of seeing too much, for a neighborly man must let himself be cheated a
little. But though I've never been out of my own country, I know less
about it than my nephew does. You may tell what he is, and only look at
him. There's one sort of fellow sees nothing but the end of his own
nose, and another sort that sees nothing but the hinder side of the
moon; but my nephew Harold is of another sort; he sees everything that's
at hitting distance, and he's not one to miss his mark. A good-looking
man in his prime! Not a greenhorn; not a shrivelled old fellow, who'll
come to speak to you and find he's left his teeth at home by mistake.
Harold Transome will do you credit; if anybody says the Radicals are a
set of sneaks, Brummagem half-pennies, scamps who want to play
pitch-and-toss with the property of the country, you can say, 'Look at
the member for North Loamshire!' And mind what you'll hear him say;
he'll go in for making everything right--Poor-laws and Charities and
Church--he wants to reform 'em all. Perhaps you'll say, 'There's that
Parson Lingon talking about Church Reform--why, he belongs to the Church
himself--he wants reforming too.' Well, well, wait a bit, and you'll
hear by-and-by that old Parson Lingon is reformed--shoots no more,
cracks his joke no more, has drunk his last bottle: the dogs, the old
pointers, will be sorry; but you'll hear that the Parson at Little Treby
is a new man. That's what Church Reform is sure to come to before long.
So now here are some more nuts for you, lads, and I leave you to listen
to your candidate. Here he is--give him a good hurray; wave your hats,
and I'll begin. Hurray!"

Harold had not been quite confident beforehand as to the good effect of
his uncle's introduction; but he was soon reassured. There was no acrid
partisanship among the old-fashioned Tories who mustered strong about
the Marquis of Granby, and Parson Jack had put them in a good humor.
Harold's only interruption came from his own party. The oratorical clerk
at the Factory, acting as the tribune of the Dissenting interest, and
feeling bound to put questions, might have been troublesome; but his
voice being unpleasantly sharp, while Harold's was full and
penetrating, the questioning was cried down. Harold's speech "did": it
was not of the glib-nonsensical sort, not ponderous, not
hesitating--which is as much as to say, that it was remarkable among
British speeches. Read in print the next day, perhaps it would be
neither pregnant nor conclusive, which is saying no more than that its
excellence was not of an abnormal kind, but such as is usually found in
the best efforts of eloquent candidates. Accordingly, the applause
drowned the opposition, and content predominated.

But, perhaps, the moment of most diffusive pleasure from public speaking
is that in which the speech ceases and the audience can turn to
commenting on it. The one speech, sometimes uttered under great
responsibility as to missiles and other consequences, has given a text
to twenty speakers who are under no responsibility. Even in the days of
duelling a man was not challenged for being a bore, nor does this
quality apparently hinder him from being much invited to dinner, which
is the great index of social responsibility in a less barbarous age.

Certainly the crowd in the market-place seemed to experience this
culminating enjoyment when the speaking on the platform in front of the
Ram had ceased, and there were no less than three orators holding forth
from the elevation of chance vehicles, not at all to the prejudice of
the talking among those who were on a level with their neighbors. There
was little ill-humor among the listeners, for Queen Bess was striking
the last quarter before two, and a savory smell from the inn kitchens
inspired them with an agreeable consciousness that the speakers were
helping to trifle away the brief time before dinner.

Two or three of Harold's committee had lingered talking to each other on
the platform, instead of re-entering; and Jermyn, after coming out to
speak to one of them, had turned to the corner near which the carriages
were standing, that he might tell the Transome's coachman to drive round
to the side door and signal to his own coachman to follow. But a
dialogue which was going on below induced him to pause, and instead of
giving the order, to assume the air of a careless gazer. Christian, whom
the attorney had already observed looking out of a window at the Marquis
of Granby, was talking to Dominic. The meeting appeared to be one of new
recognition, for Christian was saying:

"You've not got gray, as I have, Mr. Lenoni; you're not a day older for
the sixteen years. But no wonder you didn't know me; I'm bleached like a
dried bone."

"Not so. It is true I was confused a meenute--I could put your face
nowhere; but, after that, Naples came behind it, and I said, Mr.
Creesstian. And so you reside at the Manor, and I am at Transome Court."

"Ah! it's a thousand pities you're not on our side, else we might have
dined together at the Marquis," said Christian. "Eh, could you manage
it?" he added, languidly, knowing there was no chance of a yes.

"No--much obliged--couldn't leave the leetle boy. Ahi! Arry, Arry, pinch
not poor Moro."

While Dominic was answering, Christian had stared about him, as his
manner was when he was being spoken to, and had had his eyes arrested by
Esther, who was leaning forward to look at Mr. Harold Transome's
extraordinary little gypsy of a son. But, happening to meet Christian's
stare, she felt annoyed, drew back, and turned away her head, coloring.

"Who are those ladies?" said Christian, in a low tone, to Dominic, as if
he had been startled into a sudden wish for this information.

"They are Meester Jermyn's daughters," said Dominic, who knew nothing
either of the lawyer's family or of Esther.

Christian looked puzzled a moment or two, and was silent.

"Oh, well--_au revoir_," he said, kissing the tips of his fingers as the
coachman, having had Jermyn's order, began to urge on the horses.

"Does he see some likeness in the girl?" thought Jermyn, as he turned
away. "I wish I hadn't invited her to come in the carriage, as it
happens."




CHAPTER XX.

    "Good earthenware pitchers, sir!--of an excellent quaint pattern
    and sober color."


The market dinner at "the Marquis" was in high repute in Treby and its
neighborhood. The frequenters of this three-and-sixpenny ordinary liked
to allude to it, as men allude to anything which implies that they move
in good society, and habitually converse with those who are in the
secret of the highest affairs. The guests were not only such rural
residents as had driven to market, but some of the most substantial
townsmen, who had always assured their wives that business required this
weekly sacrifice of domestic pleasure. The poorer farmers, who put up at
the Ram or the Seven Stars, where there was no fish, felt their
disadvantage, bearing it modestly or bitterly, as the case might be;
and although the Marquis was a Tory house, devoted to Debarry, it was
too much to expect that such tenants of the Transomes as had always been
used to dine there, should consent to eat a worse dinner, and sit with
worse company, because they suddenly found themselves under a Radical
landlord, opposed to the political party known as Sir Maxim's. Hence the
recent political divisions had not reduced the handsome length of the
table at the Marquis; and the many gradations of dignity--from Mr. Wace,
the brewer, to the rich butcher from Leek Malton, who always modestly
took the lowest seat, though without the reward of being asked to come
up higher--had not been abbreviated by any secessions.

To-day there was an extra table spread for expected supernumeraries, and
it was at this that Christian took his place with some of the younger
farmers, who had almost a sense of dissipation in talking to a man of
his questionable station and unknown experience. The provision was
especially liberal, and on the whole the presence of a minority destined
to vote for Transome was a ground for joking, which added to the good
humor of the chief talkers. A respectable old acquaintance turned
Radical rather against his will, was rallied with even greater gusto
than if his wife had had twins twice over. The best Trebian Tories were
far too sweet-blooded to turn against such old friends, and to make no
distinction between them and the Radical, Dissenting, Papistical,
Deistical set with whom they never dined, and probably never saw except
in their imagination. But the talk was necessarily in abeyance until the
more serious business of dinner was ended, and the wine, spirits, and
tobacco raised mere satisfaction into beatitude.

Among the frequent though not regular guests, whom every one was glad to
see, was Mr. Nolan, the retired London hosier, a wiry old gentleman past
seventy, whose square, tight forehead, with its rigid hedge of gray
hair, whose bushy eyebrows, sharp dark eyes, and remarkable hooked nose,
gave a handsome distinction to his face in the midst of rural
physiognomies. He had married a Miss Pendrell early in life, when he was
a poor young Londoner, and the match had been thought as bad as ruin by
her family; but fifteen years ago he had had the satisfaction of
bringing his wife to settle amongst her own friends, and of being
received with pride as a brother-in-law, retired from business,
possessed of unknown thousands, and of a most agreeable talent for
anecdote and conversation generally. No question had ever been raised
as to Mr. Nolan's extraction on the strength of his hooked nose, or of
his name being Baruch. Hebrew names "ran" in the best Saxon families;
the Bible accounted for them; and no one among the uplands and hedgerows
of that district was suspected of having an oriental origin unless he
carried a peddler's jewel-box. Certainly, whatever genealogical research
might have discovered, the worthy Baruch Nolan was so free from any
distinctive marks of religious persuasion--he went to church with so
ordinary an irregularity, and so often grumbled at the sermon--that
there was no ground for classing him otherwise than with good Trebian
Churchmen. He was generally regarded as a good-looking old gentleman,
and a certain thin eagerness in his aspect was attributed to the life of
the metropolis, where narrow space had the same sort of effect on men as
on thickly-planted trees. Mr. Nolan always ordered his pint of port,
which, after he had sipped it a little, was wont to animate his
recollections of the Royal Family, and the various ministries which had
been contemporary with the successive stages of his prosperity. He was
always listened to with interest: a man who had been born in the year
when good old King George came to the throne--who had been acquainted
with the nude leg of the Prince Regent, and hinted at private reasons
for believing that the Princess Charlotte ought not to have died--had
conversational matter as special to his auditors as Marco Polo could
have had on his return from his Asiatic travel.

"My good sir," he said to Mr. Wace, as he crossed his knees and spread
his silk handkerchief over them, "Transome may be returned, or he may
not be returned--that's a question for North Loamshire; but it makes
little difference to the kingdom. I don't want to say things which may
put younger men out of spirits, but I believe this country has seen it's
best days--I do, indeed."

"I am sorry to hear it from one of your experience, Mr. Nolan," said the
brewer, a large, happy-looking man. "I'd make a good fight myself before
I'd leave a worse world for my boys than I've found for myself. There
isn't a greater pleasure than doing a bit of planting and improving
one's buildings, and investing one's money in some pretty acres of land,
and when it turns up here and there--land you've known from a boy. It's
a nasty thought that these Radicals are to turn things round so as one
can calculate on nothing. One doesn't like it for one's self, and one
doesn't like it for one's neighbors. But somehow, I believe it won't
do: if we can't trust the Government just now, there's Providence and
the good sense of the country; and there's a right in things--that's
what I've always said--there's a right in things. The heavy end will get
downmost. And if Church and King, and every man being sure of his own,
are things good for this country, there's a God above will take care of
'em."

"It won't do, my dear sir," said Mr. Nolan--"It won't do. When Peel and
the Duke turned round about the Catholics in '29, I saw it was all over
with us. We could never trust ministers any more. It was to keep off a
rebellion, they said; but I say it was to keep their places. They're
monstrously fond of place, both of them--that I know." Here Mr. Nolan
changed the crossing of his legs, and gave a deep cough, conscious of
having made a point. Then he went on--"What we want is a king with a
good will of his own. If we'd had that, we shouldn't have heard what
we've heard to-day; Reform would never have come to this pass. When our
good old King George III. heard his ministers talking about Catholic
Emancipation, he boxed their ears all round. Ah, poor soul! he did
indeed, gentlemen," ended Mr. Nolan, shaken by a deep laugh of
admiration.

"Well, now, that's something like a king," said Mr. Crowder, who was an
eager listener.

"It was uncivil, though. How did they take it?" said Mr. Timothy Rose, a
"gentleman farmer" from Leek Malton, against whose independent position
nature had provided the safeguard of a spontaneous servility. His large
porcine cheeks, round twinkling eyes, and thumbs habitually twirling,
expressed a concentrated effort not to get into trouble, and to speak
everybody fair except when they were safely out of hearing.

"Take it! they'd be obliged to take it," said the impetuous young Joyce,
a farmer of superior information. "Have you ever heard of the king's
prerogative?"

"I don't say but what I have," said Rose, retreating. "I've nothing
against it--nothing at all."

"No, but the Radicals have," said young Joyce, winking. "The prerogative
is what they want to clip close. They want us to be governed by
delegates from the trades-unions, who are to dictate to everybody, and
make everything square to their mastery."

"They're a pretty set, now, these delegates," said Mr. Wace, with
disgust. "I once heard two of 'em spouting away. They're a sort of
fellow I'd never employ in my brewery, or anywhere else. I've seen it
again and again. If a man takes to tongue-work it's all over with him.
'Everything's wrong,' says he. That's a big text. But does he want to
make everything right? Not he. He'd lose his text. 'We want every man's
good,' say they. Why, they never knew yet what a man's good is. How
should they? It's working for his victual--not getting a slice of other
people's."

"Ay, ay," said young Joyce, cordially. "I should just have liked all the
delegates in the country mustered for our yeomanry to go into--that's
all. They'd see where the strength of Old England lay then. You may tell
what it is for a country to trust to trade when it breeds such spindling
fellows as those."

"That isn't the fault of trade, my good sir," said Mr. Nolan, who was
often a little pained by the defects of provincial culture. "Trade,
properly conducted, is good for a man's constitution. I could have shown
you, in my time, weavers past seventy, with all their faculties as sharp
as a pen-knife, doing without spectacles. It's the new system of trade
that's to blame: a country can't have too much trade if it's properly
managed. Plenty of sound Tories have made their fortune by trade. You've
heard of Calibut & Co.--everybody has heard of Calibut. Well, sir, I
knew old Mr. Calibut as well as I know you. He was once a crony of mine
in a city warehouse; and now, I'll answer for it, he has a larger rent
roll than Lord Wyvern. Bless your soul! his subscriptions to charities
would make a fine income for a nobleman. And he's as good a Tory as I
am. And as for his town establishment--why, how much butter do you think
is consumed there annually?"

Mr. Nolan paused, and then his face glowed with triumph as he answered
his own question. "Why, gentlemen, not less than two thousand pounds of
butter during the few months the family is in town! Trade makes
property, my good sir, and property is conservative, as they say now.
Calibut's son-in-law is Lord Fortinbras. He paid me a large debt on his
marriage. It's all one web, sir. The prosperity of the country is one
web."

"To be sure," said Christian, who, smoking his cigar with his chair
turned away from the table, was willing to make himself agreeable in the
conversation. "We can't do without nobility. Look at France. When they
got rid of the old nobles they were obliged to make new."

"True, very true," said Mr. Nolan, who thought Christian a little too
wise for his position, but could not resist the rare gift of an instance
in point. "It's the French Revolution that has done us harm here. It was
the same at the end of the last century, but the war kept it off--Mr.
Pitt saved us. I knew Mr. Pitt. I had a particular interview with him
once. He joked me about getting the length of his foot. 'Mr. Nolan,'
said he, 'there are those on the other side of the water whose name
begins with N. who would be glad to know what you know.' I was
recommended to send an account of that to the newspapers after his
death, poor man! but I'm not fond of that kind of show myself." Mr.
Nolan swung his upper leg a little, and pinched his lip between his
thumb and finger, naturally pleased with his own moderation.

"No, no--very right," said Mr. Wace, cordially. "But you never said a
truer word than that about property. If a man's got a bit of property, a
stake in the country, he'll want to keep things square. Where Jack isn't
safe, Tom's in danger. But that's what makes it such an uncommonly nasty
thing that a man like Transome should take up with these Radicals. It's
my belief he does it only to get into Parliament; he'll turn round when
he gets there. Come, Dibbs, there's something to put you in spirits,"
added Mr. Wace, raising his voice a little and looking at a guest lower
down. "You've got to vote for a Radical with one side of your mouth, and
make a wry face with the other; but he'll turn round by-and-by. As
Parson Jack says, he's got the right sort of blood in him."

"I don't care two straws who I vote for," said Dibbs, sturdily. "I'm not
going to make a wry face. It stands to reason a man should vote for his
landlord. My farm's in good condition, and I've got the best pasture on
the estate. The rot's never come nigh me. Let them grumble as are on the
wrong side of the hedge."

"I wonder if Jermyn'll bring him in, though," said Mr. Sircome, the
great miller. "He's an uncommon fellow for carrying things through. I
know he brought me through that suit about my weir; it cost a pretty
penny, but he brought me through."

"It's a bit of a pill for him, too, having to turn Radical," said Mr.
Wace. "They say he counted on making friends with Sir Maximus, by this
young one coming home and joining with Mr. Philip."

"But I'll bet a penny he brings Transome in," said Mr. Sircome. "Folks
say he hasn't got many votes hereabout; but toward Duffield, and all
there, where the Radicals are, everybody's for him. Eh, Mr. Christian?
Come--you're at the fountain-head--what do they say about it now at the
Manor?"

When general attention was called to Christian young Joyce looked down
at his own legs and touched the curves of his own hair, as if measuring
his own approximation to that correct copy of a gentleman. Mr. Wace
turned his head to listen for Christian's answer with that tolerance of
inferiority which becomes men in places of public resort.

"They think it will be a hard run between Transome and Garstin," said
Christian. "It depends on Transome's getting plumpers."

"Well, I know I shall not split for Garstin," said Mr. Wace. "It's
nonsense for Debarry's voters to split for a Whig. A man's either a Tory
or not a Tory."

"It seems reasonable there should be one of each side," said Mr. Timothy
Rose. "I don't like showing favor either way. If one side can't lower
the poor's rates and take off the tithe, let the other try."

"But there's this in it, Wace," said Mr. Sircome. "I'm not altogether
against the Whigs. For they don't want to go so far as the Radicals do,
and when they find they've slipped a bit too far they'll hold on all the
tighter. And the Whigs have got the upper hand now, and it's no use
fighting with the current. I run with the----"

Mr. Sircome checked himself, looked furtively at Christian, and, to
divert criticisms, ended with--"eh, Mr. Nolan?"

"There have been eminent Whigs, sir. Mr. Fox was a Whig," said Mr.
Nolan. "Mr. Fox was a great orator. He was very intimate with the Prince
of Wales. I've seen him, and the Duke of York too, go home by daylight
with their hats crushed. Mr. Fox was a great leader of Opposition:
Government requires an Opposition. The Whigs should always be in
opposition, and the Tories on the ministerial side. That's what the
country used to like. 'The Whigs for salt and mustard, the Tories for
meat,' Mr. Gottlib, the banker, used to say to me. Mr. Gottlib was a
worthy man. When there was a great run on Mr. Gottlib's bank in '16, I
saw a gentleman come in with bags of gold, and say, 'Tell Mr. Gottlib
there's plenty more where that came from.' It stopped the run,
gentlemen--it did indeed."

This anecodote was received with great admiration, but Mr. Sircome
returned to the previous question.

"There now, you see, Wace--it's right there should be Whigs as well as
Tories--Pitt and Fox--I've always heard them go together."

"Well, I don't like Garstin," said the brewer. "I didn't like his
conduct about the Canal Company. Of the two, I like Transome best. If a
nag is to throw me, I say, let him have some blood."

"As for blood, Wace," said Mr. Salt, the wool-factor, a bilious man, who
only spoke when there was a good opportunity of contradicting, "ask my
brother-in-law, Labron, a little about that. These Transomes are not the
old blood."

"Well, they're the oldest that's forthcoming, I suppose," said Mr. Wace,
laughing. "Unless you believe in mad old Tommy Trounsem. I wonder where
that old poaching fellow is now."

"I saw him half-drunk the other day," said young Joyce. "He'd got a
flag-basket with handbills in it over his shoulder."

"I thought the old fellow was dead," said Mr. Wace. "Hey! why, Jermyn,"
he went on merrily, as he turned round and saw the attorney entering;
"you Radical! how dare you show yourself in this Tory house? Come, this
is going a bit too far. We don't mind Old Harry managing our law for
us--that's his proper business from time immemorial; but----"

"But--a--" said Jermyn, smiling, always ready to carry on a joke, to
which his slow manner gave the piquancy of surprise, "if he meddles with
politics he must be a Tory."

Jermyn was not afraid to show himself anywhere in Treby. He knew many
people were not exactly fond of him, but a man can do without that, if
he is prosperous. A provincial lawyer in those old-fashioned days was as
independent of personal esteem as if he had been a Lord Chancellor.

There was a good-humored laugh at this upper end of the room as Jermyn
seated himself at about an equal angle between Mr. Wace and Christian.

"We were talking about old Tommy Trounsem; you remember him? They say
he's turned up again," said Mr. Wace.

"Ah?" said Jermyn, indifferently. "But--a--Wace--I'm very busy
to-day--but I wanted to see you about that bit of land of yours at the
corner of Pod's End. I've had a handsome offer for you--I'm not at
liberty to say from whom--but an offer that ought to tempt you."

"It won't tempt me," said Mr. Wace, peremptorily, "if I've got a bit of
land, I'll keep it. It's hard enough to get hereabouts."

"Then I'm to understand that you refuse all negotiation?" said Jermyn,
who had ordered a glass of sherry, and was looking around slowly as he
sipped it, till his eyes seemed to rest for the first time on Christian,
though he had seen him at once on entering the room.

"Unless one of the confounded railways should come. But then I'll stand
out and make 'em bleed for it."

There was a murmur of approbation; the railways were a public wrong much
denunciated in Treby.

"A--Mr. Philip Debarry at the Manor now?" said Jermyn, suddenly
questioning Christian, in a haughty tone of superiority which he often
chose to use.

"No," said Christian, "he is expected to-morrow morning."

"Ah!----" Jermyn paused a moment or two, and then said, "You are
sufficiently in his confidence, I think, to carry a message to him with
a small document?"

"Mr. Debarry has often trusted me so far," said Christian, with much
coolness; "but if the business is yours, you can probably find some one
you know better."

There was a little winking and grimacing among those of the company who
heard this answer.

"A--true--a," said Jermyn, not showing any offence; "if you decline. But
I think, if you will do me the favor to step round to my residence on
your way back, and learn the business, you will prefer carrying it
yourself. At my residence, if you please--not my office."

"Oh, very well," said Christian. "I shall be very happy." Christian
never allowed himself to be treated as a servant by anyone but his
master, and his master treated a servant more deferentially than an
equal.

"Will it be five o'clock? what hour shall we say?" said Jermyn.

Christian looked at his watch and said, "About five I can be there."

"Very good," said Jermyn, finishing his sherry.

"Well--a--Wace--a--so you will hear nothing about Pod's End?"

"Not I."

"A mere pocket-handkerchief, not enough to swear by-a--" here Jermyn's
face broke into a smile--"without a magnifying-glass."

"Never mind. It's mine into the bowels of the earth and up to the sky. I
can build the Tower of Babel on it if I like--eh, Mr. Nolan?"

"A bad investment, my good sir," said Mr. Nolan, who enjoyed a certain
flavor of infidelity in this smart reply, and laughed much at it in his
inward way.

"See now, how blind you Tories are," said Jermyn, rising; "if I had been
your lawyer, I'd have had you make another forty-shilling freeholder
with that land, and all in time for this election. But--a--the verbum
sapientibus comes a little too late now."

Jermyn was moving away as he finished speaking, but Mr. Wace called out
after him, "We're not so badly off for votes as you are--good sound
votes, that'll stand the Revising Barrister. Debarry at the top of the
poll!"

The lawyer was already out of the doorway.




CHAPTER XXI.

    'Tis grievous that with all amplification of travel both by sea and
    land, a man can never separate himself from his past history.


Mr. Jermyn's handsome house stood a little way out of the town,
surrounded by garden and lawn and plantations of hopeful trees. As
Christian approached it he was in a perfectly easy state of mind: the
business he was going on was none of his, otherwise than as he was well
satisfied with any opportunity of making himself valuable to Mr. Philip
Debarry. As he looked at Jermyn's length of wall and iron railing, he
said to himself, "These lawyers are the fellows for getting on in the
world with the least expense of civility. With this cursed conjuring
secret of theirs called Law, they think everybody is frightened at them.
My Lord Jermyn seems to have his insolence as ready as his soft sawder.
He's as sleek as a rat, and has as vicious a tooth. I know the sort of
vermin well enough. I've helped to fatten one or two."

In this mood of conscious, contemptuous penetration, Christian was shown
by the footman into Jermyn's private room, where the attorney sat
surrounded with massive oaken bookcases, and other furniture to
correspond, from the thickest-legged library-table to the calendar frame
and card-rack. It was the sort of a room a man prepares for himself when
he feels sure of a long and respectable future. He was leaning back in
his leather chair, against the broad window opening on the lawn, and had
just taken off his spectacles and let the newspaper fall on his knees,
in despair of reading by the fading light.

When the footman opened the door and said, "Mr. Christian," Jermyn said,
"Good evening, Mr. Christian. Be seated," pointing to a chair opposite
himself and the window. "Light the candles on the shelf, John, but leave
the blinds alone."

He did not speak again till the man was gone out, but appeared to be
referring to a document which lay on the bureau before him. When the
door was closed he drew himself up again, began to rub his hands, and
turned toward his visitor, who seemed perfectly indifferent to the fact
that the attorney was in shadow, and that the light fell on himself.

"A--your name--a--is Henry Scaddon."

There was a start through Christian's frame which he was quick enough,
almost simultaneously, to try and disguise as a change of position. He
uncrossed his legs and unbuttoned his coat. But before he had time to
say anything, Jermyn went on with slow emphasis.

"You were born on the sixteenth of December, 1782, at Blackheath. Your
father was a cloth-merchant in London: he died when you were barely of
age, leaving an extensive business: before you were five-and-twenty you
had run through the greater part of the property, and had compromised
your safety by an attempt to defraud your creditors. Subsequently you
forged a check on your father's elder brother, who had intended to make
you his heir."

Here Jermyn paused a moment and referred to the document. Christian was
silent.

"In 1808 you found it expedient to leave this country in a military
disguise, and were taken prisoner by the French. On the occasion of an
exchange of prisoners you had the opportunity of returning to your own
country, and to the bosom of your own family. You were generous enough
to sacrifice that prospect in favor of a fellow-prisoner, of about your
own age and figure, who had more pressing reasons than yourself for
wishing to be on this side of the water. You exchanged dress, luggage,
and names with him, and he passed to England instead of you as Henry
Scaddon. Almost immediately afterward you escaped from your
imprisonment, after feigning an illness which prevented your exchange of
names from being discovered; and it was reported that you--that is, you
under the name of your fellow-prisoner--were drowned in an open boat,
trying to reach a Neapolitan vessel bound for Malta. Nevertheless I
have to congratulate you on the falsehood of that report, and on the
certainty that you are now, after the lapse of more than twenty years,
seated here in perfect safety."

Jermyn paused so long that he was evidently awaiting some answer. At
last Christian replied in a dogged tone--

"Well, sir, I've heard much longer stories than that told quite as
solemnly, when there was not a word of truth in them. Suppose I deny the
very peg you hang your statement on. Suppose I say I am not Henry
Scaddon."

"A--in that case--a," said Jermyn, with wooden indifference, "you would
lose the advantage which--a--may attach to your possession of Henry
Scaddon's knowledge. And at the same time, if it were in the
least--a--inconvenient to you that you should be recognized as Henry
Scaddon, your denial would not prevent me from holding the knowledge and
evidence which I possess on that point; it would only prevent us from
pursuing the present conversation."

"Well, sir, suppose we admit, for the sake of the conversation, that
your account of the matter is the true one: what advantage have you to
offer the man named Henry Scaddon?"

"The advantage--a--is problematical; but it may be considerable. It
might, in fact, release you from the necessity of acting as courier,
or--a--valet, or whatever other office you may occupy which prevents you
from being your own master. On the other hand, my acquaintance with your
secret is not necessarily a disadvantage to you. To put the matter in a
nutshell, I am not inclined--a--gratuitously--to do you any harm, and I
may be able to do you a considerable service."

"Which you want me to earn somehow?" said Christian. "You offer me a
turn in a lottery?"

"Precisely. The matter in question is of no earthly interest to you,
except--a--as it may yield you a prize. We lawyers have to do with
complicated questions, and--a--legal subtleties, which are
never--a--fully known even to the parties immediately interested, still
less to the witnesses. Shall we agree, then, that you continue to retain
two-thirds of the name which you gained by exchange, and that you oblige
me by answering certain questions as to the experience of Henry
Scaddon?"

"Very good. Go on."

"What articles of property once belonging to your fellow-prisoner,
Maurice Christian Bycliffe, do you still retain?"

"This ring," said Christian, twirling round the fine seal-ring on his
finger, "his watch, and the little matters that hung with it, and a case
of papers. I got rid of a gold snuff-box once when I was hard up. The
clothes are all gone, of course. We exchanged everything; it was all
done in a hurry. Bycliffe thought we should meet again in England before
long, and he was mad to get there. But that was impossible--I mean that
we should meet soon after. I don't know what's become of him, else I
would give him up his papers and the watch, and so on--though, you know,
it was I who did _him_ the service, and he felt that."

"You were at Vesoul together before being moved to Verdun?"

"Yes."

"What else do you know about Bycliffe?"

"Oh, nothing very particular," said Christian pausing, and rapping his
boot with his cane. "He'd been in the Hanoverian army--a high-spirited
fellow, took nothing easily; not over-strong in health. He made a fool
of himself with marrying at Vesoul; and there was the devil to pay with
the girl's relations; and then, when the prisoners were ordered off,
they had to part. Whether they ever got together again I don't know."

"Was the marriage all right then?"

"Oh, all on the square--civil marriage, church--everything. Bycliffe was
a fool--a good-natured, proud, headstrong fellow."

"How long did the marriage take place before you left Vesoul?"

"About three months. I was witness to the marriage."

"And you know no more about the wife?"

"Not afterward. I knew her very well before--pretty Annette--Annette
Ledru was her name. She was of a good family, and they had made up a
fine match for her. But she was one of your meek little diablesses, who
have a will of their own once in their lives--the will to choose their
own master."

"Bycliffe was not open to you about his other affairs?"

"Oh, no--a fellow you wouldn't dare to ask a question of. People told
him everything, but he told nothing in return. If Madame Annette ever
found him again, she found her lord and master with a vengeance; but she
was a regular lapdog. However, her family shut her up--made a prisoner
of her--to prevent her running away."

"Ah--good. Much of what you have been so obliging as to say is
irrelevant to any possible purpose of mine, which, in fact, has only to
do with a mouldy law-case that might be aired some day. You will
doubtless, on your own account, maintain perfect silence on what has
passed between us, and with that condition duly preserved--a--it is
possible that--a--the lottery you have put into--as you observe--may
turn up a prize."

"This, then, is all the business you have with me?" said Christian,
rising.

"All. You will, of course, preserve carefully all the papers and other
articles which have so many--a--recollections--a--attached to them?"

"Oh, yes. If there's any chance of Bycliffe turning up again, I shall be
sorry to have parted with the snuff-box; but I was hard-up at Naples. In
fact, as you see, I was obliged at last to turn courier."

"An exceedingly agreeable life for a man of some--a--accomplishments
and--a--no income," said Jermyn, rising, and reaching a candle, which he
placed against his desk.

Christian knew this was a sign that he was expected to go, but he
lingered standing, with one hand on the back of his chair. At last, he
said rather sulkily--

"I think you're too clever, Mr. Jermyn, not to perceive that I'm not a
man to be made a fool of."

"Well--a--it may perhaps be a still better guarantee for you," said Jermyn,
smiling, "that I see no use in attempting that--a--metamorphosis."

"The old gentleman, who ought never to have felt himself injured, is
dead now, and I'm not afraid of creditors after more than twenty years."

"Certainly not;--a--there may indeed be claims which can't assert
themselves--a--legally, which yet are molesting to a man of some
reputation. But you may perhaps be happily free from such fears."

Jermyn drew round his chair toward the bureau, and Christian, too acute
to persevere uselessly, said, "Good-day," and left the room.

After leaning back in his chair to reflect a few minutes, Jermyn wrote
the following letter:--

    DEAR JOHNSON,--I learn from your letter, received this morning,
    that you intend returning to town on Saturday.

    While you are there, be so good as to see Medwin, who used to be
    with Batt & Cowley, and ascertain from him indirectly, and in the
    course of conversation on other topics, whether in that old
    business in 1810-11, Scaddon _alias_ Bycliffe, or Bycliffe _alias_
    Scaddon, before his imprisonment, gave Batt & Cowley any reason to
    believe that he was married and expected to have a child. The
    question, as you know, is of no practical importance; but I wish to
    draw up an abstract of the Bycliffe case, and the exact position in
    which it stood before the suit was closed by the death of the
    plaintiff, in order that, if Mr. Harold Transome desires it, he may
    see how the failure of the last claim has secured the
    Durfey-Transome title, and whether there is a hair's breadth of
    chance that another claim should be set up.

    Of course there is not a shadow of such a chance. For even if Batt
    & Cowley were to suppose that they had alighted on a surviving
    representative of the Bycliffes, it would not enter their heads to
    set up a new claim, since they brought evidence that the last life
    which suspended the Bycliffe remainder was extinct before the case
    was closed, a good twenty years ago.

    Still I want to show the present heir of the Durfey-Transomes the
    exact condition of the family title to the estates. So get me an
    answer from Medwin on the above mentioned point.

    I shall meet you at Duffield next week. We must get Transome
    returned. Never mind his having been a little rough the other day,
    but go on doing what you know is necessary for his interest. His
    interest is mine, which I need not say is John Johnson's.

                Yours faithfully,                MATTHEW JERMYN.

When the attorney had sealed this letter and leaned back in his chair
again, he was inwardly saying--

"Now, Mr. Harold, I shall shut up this affair in a private drawer till
you choose to take any extreme measures which will force me to bring it
out. I have the matter entirely in my own power. No one but old Lyon
knows about the girl's birth. No one but Scaddon can clench the evidence
about Bycliffe, and I've got Scaddon under my thumb. No soul except
myself and Johnson, who is a limb of myself, knows that there is one
half-dead life which may presently leave the girl a new claim to the
Bycliffe heirship. I shall learn through Methurst whether Batt & Cowley
knew, through Bycliffe, of this woman having come to England. I shall
hold all the threads between my thumb and finger. I can use the evidence
or I can nullify it.

"And so, if Mr. Harold pushes me to extremity, and threatens me with
chancery and ruin, I have an opposing threat, which will either save me
or turn into a punishment for him."

He rose, put out his candles, and stood with his back to the fire,
looking out on the dim lawn, with its black twilight fringe of shrubs,
still meditating. Quick thought was gleaming over five-and-thirty years
filled with devices more or less clever, more or less desirable to be
avowed. Those which might be avowed with impunity were not always to be
distinguished as innocent by comparison with those which it was
advisable to conceal. In a profession where much that is noxious may be
done without disgrace, is a conscience likely to be without balm when
circumstances have urged a man to overstep the line where his good
technical information makes him aware that (with discovery) disgrace is
likely to begin?

With regard to the Transome affairs, the family had been in pressing
need of money, and it had lain with him to get it for them: was it to be
expected that he would not consider his own advantage where he had
rendered services such as are never fully paid? If it came to a question
of right and wrong instead of law, the least justifiable things he had
ever done had been done on behalf of the Transomes. It had been a
deucedly unpleasant thing for him to get Bycliffe arrested and thrown
into prison as Henry Scaddon--perhaps hastening the man's death in that
way. But if it had not been done by dint of his (Jermyn's) exertions and
tact, he would like to know where the Durfey-Transomes might have been
by this time. As for right or wrong, if the truth were known, the very
possession of the estate by the Durfey-Transomes was owing to law-tricks
that took place nearly a century ago, when the original old Durfey got
his base fee.

But inward argument of this sort now, as always, was merged in anger, in
exasperation, that Harold, precisely Harold Transome, should have turned
out to be the probable instrument of a visitation which would be bad
luck, not justice; for is there any justice where ninety-nine out of
every hundred escape? He felt himself beginning to hate Harold as he had
never--

Just then Jermyn's third daughter, a tall slim girl, wrapped in a white
woollen shawl, which she had hung over her blanket-wise, skipped across
the lawn toward the greenhouse to get a flower. Jermyn was startled, and
did not identify the figure, or rather he identified it falsely with
another tall white-wrapped figure which had sometimes set his heart
beating quickly more than thirty years before. For a moment he was fully
back in those distant years when he and another bright-eyed person had
seen no reason why they should not indulge their passion and their
vanity, and determine for themselves how their lives should be made
delightful in spite of unalterable external conditions. The reasons had
been unfolding themselves gradually ever since through all the years
which had converted the handsome, soft-eyed, slim young Jermyn (with a
touch of sentiment) into a portly lawyer of sixty, for whom life had
resolved itself into the means of keeping up his head among his
professional brethren and maintaining an establishment--into a
gray-haired husband and father, whose third affectionate and expensive
daughter now rapped at the window and called to him, "Papa, papa, get
ready for dinner; don't you remember that the Lukyns are coming?"




CHAPTER XXII.

    Her gentle looks shot arrows, piercing him
    As gods are pierced, with poison of sweet pity.


The evening of the market-day had passed, and Felix had not looked in at
Malthouse Yard to talk over the public events with Mr. Lyon. When Esther
was dressing the next morning, she had reached a point of irritated
anxiety to see Felix, at which she found herself devising little schemes
for attaining that end in some way that would be so elaborate as to seem
perfectly natural. Her watch had a long-standing ailment of losing;
possibly it wanted cleaning; Felix would tell her if it merely wanted
regulating, whereas Mr. Prowd might detain it unnecessarily, and cause
her useless inconvenience. Or could she not get a valuable hint from
Mrs. Holt about the home-made bread, which was something as "sad" as
Lyddy herself? Or, if she came home that way at twelve o'clock, Felix
might be going out, she might meet him, and not be obliged to call.
Or--but it would be very much beneath her to take any steps of this
sort. Her watch had been losing for the last two months--why should it
not go on losing a little longer? She could think of no devices that
were not so transparent as to be undignified. All the more undignified
because Felix chose to live in a way that would prevent any one from
classing him according to his education and mental refinement--"which
certainly are very high," said Esther, inwardly, coloring, as if in
answer to some contrary allegation, "else I should not think his opinion
of any consequence." But she came to the conclusion that she could not
possibly call at Mrs. Holt's.

It followed that, up to a few minutes past twelve, when she reached the
turning toward Mrs. Holt's, she believed that she should go home the
other way; but at the last moment there is always a reason not existing
before--namely, the impossibility of further vacillation. Esther turned
the corner without any visible pause, and in another minute was knocking
at Mrs. Holt's door, not without an inward flutter, which she was bent
on disguising.

"It's never you, Miss Lyon! who'd have thought of seeing you at this
time? Is the minister ill? I thought he looked creechy. If you want
help, I'll put my bonnet on."

"Don't keep Miss Lyon at the door, mother; ask her to come in," said the
ringing voice of Felix, surmounting various small shufflings and
babbling voices within.

"It's my wish for her to come in, I'm sure," said Mrs. Holt, making way;
"but what is there for her to come in to? a floor worse than any public.
But step in, pray, if you're so inclined. When I've been forced to take
my bit of carpet up, and have benches, I don't see why I need mind
nothing no more."

"I only came to ask Mr. Holt if he would look at my watch for me," said
Esther, entering, and blushing a general rose-color.

"He'll do that fast enough," said Mrs. Holt, with emphasis; "that's one
of the things he _will_ do."

"Excuse my rising, Miss Lyon," said Felix; "I'm binding up Job's
finger."

Job was a small fellow about five, with a germinal nose, large round
blue eyes, and red hair that curled close to his head like the wool on
the back of an infantine lamb. He had evidently been crying, and the
corners of his mouth were still dolorous. Felix held him on his knee as
he bound and tied up very cleverly a tiny forefinger. There was a table
in front of Felix and against the window, covered with his watchmaking
implements and some open books. Two benches stood at right angles on the
sanded floor, and six or seven boys of various ages up to twelve were
getting their caps and preparing to go home. They huddled themselves
together and stood still when Esther entered. Felix could not look up
till he had finished his surgery, but he went on speaking.

"This is a hero, Miss Lyon. This is Job Tudge, a bold Briton whose
finger hurts him, but who doesn't mean to cry. Good-morning, boys. Don't
lose your time. Get out into the air."

Esther seated herself on the end of the bench near Felix, much relieved
that Job was the immediate object of attention; and the other boys
rushed out behind her with a brief chant of "Good-morning!"

"Did you ever see," said Mrs. Holt, standing to look on, "how wonderful
Felix is at that small work with his large fingers? And that's because
he learned doctoring. It isn't for want of cleverness he looks like a
poor man, Miss Lyon. I've left off speaking, else I should say it's a
sin and a shame."

[Illustration: FELIX HOLT AND JOB TUDGE.]

"Mother," said Felix, who often amused himself and kept good-humored by
giving his mother answers that were unintelligible to her, "you have an
astonishing readiness in the Ciceronian antiphrasis, considering you
have never studied oratory. There, Job--thou patient man--sit still if
thou wilt; and now we can look at Miss Lyon."

Esther had taken off her watch and was holding it in her hand. But he
looked at her face, or rather at her eyes, as he said, "You want me to
doctor your watch?"

Esther's expression was appealing and timid, as it had never been before
in Felix's presence; but when she saw the perfect calmness, which to her
seemed coldness, of his clear gray eyes, as if he saw no reason for
attaching any emphasis to this first meeting, a pang swift as an
electric shock darted through her. She had been very foolish to think so
much of it. It seemed to her as if her inferiority to Felix made a gulf
between them. She could not at once rally her pride and self-command,
but let her glance fall on her watch, and said, rather tremulously, "It
loses. It is very troublesome. It has been losing a long while."

Felix took the watch from her hand; then, looking round and seeing that
his mother was gone out of the room, he said, very gently--

"You look distressed, Miss Lyon. I hope there is no trouble at home"
(Felix was thinking of the minister's agitation on the previous Sunday).
"But I ought perhaps to beg your pardon for saying so much."

Poor Esther was quite helpless. The mortification which had come like a
bruise to all the sensibilities that had been in keen activity, insisted
on some relief. Her eyes filled instantly, and a great tear rolled down
while she said in a loud sort of whisper, as involuntary as her tears--

"I wanted to tell you that I was not offended--that I am not
ungenerous--I thought you might think--but you have not thought of it."

Was there ever more awkward speaking?--or any behavior less like that of
the graceful, self-possessed Miss Lyon, whose phrases were usually so
well turned, and whose repartees were so ready?

For a moment there was silence. Esther had her two little
delicately-gloved hands clasped on the table. The next moment she felt
one hand of Felix covering them both and pressing them firmly; but he
did not speak. The tears were both on her cheeks now, and she could look
up at him. His eyes had an expression of sadness in them, quite new to
her. Suddenly little Job, who had his mental exercises on the occasion,
called out, impatiently--

"She's tut her finger!"

Felix and Esther laughed, and drew their hands away; and as Esther took
her handkerchief to wipe the tears from her cheeks she said--

"You see, Job, I am a naughty coward. I can't help crying when I've hurt
myself."

"Zoo soodn't kuy," said Job energetically, being much impressed with a
moral doctrine which had come to him after a sufficient transgression of
it.

"Job is like me," said Felix, "fonder of preaching than of practice. But
let us look at this same watch," he went on, opening and examining it.
"These little Geneva toys are cleverly constructed to go always a little
wrong. But if you wind them up and set them regularly every night, you
may know at least that it's not noon when the hand points there."

Felix chatted, that Esther might recover herself; but now Mrs. Holt came
back and apologized.

"You'll excuse my going away, I know, Miss Lyon. But there were the
dumplings to see to, and what little I've got left on my hands now I
like to do well. Not but what I've more cleaning to do than ever I had
in my life before, as you may tell soon enough if you look at this
floor. But when you've been used to doing things, and they've been taken
away from you, it's as if your hands had been cut off, and you felt the
fingers as are of no use to you."

"That's a great image, mother," said Felix, as he snapped the watch
together and handed it to Esther; "I never heard you use such an image
before."

"Yes, I know you've always some fault to find with what your mother
says. But if ever there was a woman could talk with the open Bible
before her, and not be afraid, it's me. I never did tell stories, and I
never will--though I know it's done, Miss Lyon, and by church members
too, when they have candles to sell, as I could bring you to the proof.
But I never was one of 'em, let Felix say what he will about the
printing on the tickets. His father believed it was gospel truth, and
it's presumptuous to say it wasn't. For as for curing, how can anybody
know? There's no physic'll cure without a blessing, and _with_ a
blessing I know I've seen a mustard plaister work when there was no more
smell nor strength in the mustard than so much flour. And reason
good--for the mustard had lain in paper nobody knows how long--so I'll
leave you to guess."

Mrs. Holt looked hard out of the window and gave a slight, inarticulate
sound of scorn.

Felix had leaned back in his chair with a resigned smile, and was
pinching Job's ears.

Esther said, "I think I had better go now," not knowing what else to
say, yet not wishing to go immediately, lest she should seem to be
running away from Mrs. Holt. She felt keenly how much endurance there
must be for Felix. And she had often been discontented with her father,
and called him tiresome!

"Where does Job Tudge live?" she said, still sitting and looking at the
droll little figure, set off by a ragged jacket with a tail about two
inches deep sticking out above the funniest of corduroys.

"Job has two mansions," said Felix. "He lives here chiefly; but he has
another home, where his grandfather, Mr. Tudge, the stone-breaker,
lives. My mother is very good to Job, Miss Lyon. She has made him a
little bed in a cupboard, and she gives him sweetened porridge."

The exquisite goodness implied in these words of Felix impressed Esther
the more, because in her hearing his talk had usually been pungent and
denunciatory. Looking at Mrs. Holt, she saw that her eyes had lost their
bleak north-easterly expression, and were shining with some mildness on
little Job, who had turned round toward her, propping his head against
Felix.

"Well, why shouldn't I be motherly to the child, Miss Lyon?" said Mrs.
Holt, whose strong powers of argument required the file of an imagined
contradiction, if there were no real one at hand. "I never was
hard-hearted, and I never will be. It was Felix picked the child up and
took to him, you may be sure, for there's nobody else master where he
is; but I wasn't going to beat the orphan child and abuse him because of
that, and him as straight as an arrow when he's stripped, and me so fond
of children, and only had one of my own to live. I'd three babies, Miss
Lyon, but the blessed Lord only spared Felix, and him the masterfulest
and brownest of 'em all. But I did my duty by him, and I said, he'll
have more schooling than his father, and he'll grow up a doctor, and
marry a woman with money to furnish--as I was myself, spoons and
everything--and I shall have the grandchildren to look up to me, and be
drove out in the gig sometimes, like old Mrs. Lukyn. And you see what
it's all come to, Miss Lyon: here's Felix made a common man of himself,
and says he'll never be married--which is the most unreasonable thing,
and him never easy but when he's got the child on his lap, or when----"

"Stop, stop, mother," Felix burst in; "pray don't use that limping
argument again--that a man should marry because he's fond of children.
That's a reason for not marrying. A bachelor's children are always
young: they're immortal children--always lisping, waddling, helpless,
and with a chance of turning out good."

"The Lord above may know what you mean! And haven't other folks's
children a chance of turning out good?"

"Oh, they grow out of it very fast. Here's Job Tudge now," said Felix,
turning the little one round on his knee, and holding his head by the
back--"Job's limbs will get lanky; this little fist that looks like a
puff-ball and can hide nothing bigger than a gooseberry, will get large
and bony, and perhaps want to clutch more than its share; these wide
blue eyes that tell me more truth than Job knows, will narrow and narrow
and try to hide truth that Job would be better without knowing; this
little negative nose will become long and self-asserting; and this
little tongue--put out thy tongue, Job"--Job, awe-struck under this
ceremony, put out a little red tongue very timidly--"this tongue, hardly
bigger than a rose-leaf, will get large and thick, wag out of season, do
mischief, brag and cant for gain or vanity, and cut as cruelly, for all
its clumsiness, as if it were a sharp-edged blade. Big Job will perhaps
be naughty--" As Felix, speaking with the loud emphatic distinctness
habitual to him, brought out this terribly familiar word, Job's sense of
mystification became too painful: he hung his lip and began to cry.

"See here," said Mrs. Holt, "you're frightening the innocent child with
such talk--and it's enough to frighten them that think themselves the
safest."

"Look here, Job, my man," said Felix, setting the boy down and turning
him toward Esther; "go to Miss Lyon, ask her to smile at you, and that
will dry up your tears like the sunshine."

Job put his two brown fists on Esther's lap, and she stooped to kiss
him. Then holding his face between her hands she said, "Tell Mr. Holt we
don't mean to be naughty, Job. He should believe in us more. But now I
must really go home."

Esther rose and held out her hand to Mrs. Holt, who kept it while she
said, a little to Esther's confusion--

"I'm very glad it's took your fancy to come here sometimes, Miss Lyon. I
know you're thought to hold your head high, but I speak of people as I
find 'em. And I'm sure anybody had need be humble that comes where
there's a floor like this--for I've put by my best tea-trays, they're so
out of all character--I must look Above for comfort now; but I don't say
I'm not worthy to be called on for all that."

Felix had risen and moved toward the door that he might open it and
shield Esther from more last words on his mother's part.

"Good-bye, Mr. Holt."

"Will Mr. Lyon like for me to sit with him an hour this evening, do you
think?"

"Why not? He always likes to see you."

"Then I will come. Good-bye."

"She's a very straight figure," said Mrs. Holt. "How she carries
herself! But I doubt there's some truth in what our people say. If she
won't look at young Muscat, it's the better for _him_. He'd need have a
big fortune that marries her."

"That's true, mother," said Felix, sitting down, snatching up little
Job, and finding a vent for some unspeakable feeling in the pretence of
worrying him.

Esther was rather melancholy as she went home, yet happier withal than
she had been for many days before. She thought, "I need not mind having
shown so much anxiety about his opinion. He is too clear-sighted to
mistake our mutual position; he is quite above putting a false
interpretation on what I have done. Besides, he had not thought of me at
all--I saw that plainly enough. Yet he was very kind. There is something
greater and better in him than I had imagined. His behavior to-day--to
his mother and me too--I should call it the highest gentlemanliness,
only it seems in him to be something deeper. But he has chosen an
intolerable life; though I suppose, if I had a mind equal to his, and if
he loved me very dearly, I should choose the same life."

Esther felt that she had prefixed an impossible "if" to that result. But
now she had known Felix her conception of what a happy love must be had
become like a dissolving view, in which the once-dear images were
gradually melting into new forms and new colors. The favorite Byronic
heroes were beginning to look like last night's decorations seen in the
sober dawn. So fast does a little leaven spread within us--so
incalculable is one personality on another. Behind all Esther's
thoughts, like an unacknowledged yet constraining presence, there was
the sense, that if Felix Holt were to love her, her life would be
exalted into something quite new--into a sort of difficult blessedness,
such as one may imagine in beings who are conscious of painfully growing
into possession of higher powers.

It was quite true that Felix had not thought the more of Esther because
of that Sunday afternoon's interview which had shaken her mind to the
very roots. He had avoided intruding on Mr. Lyon without special reason,
because he believed the minister to be preoccupied with some private
care. He had thought a great deal of Esther with a mixture of strong
disapproval and strong liking, which both together made a feeling the
reverse of indifference; but he was not going to let her have any
influence on his life. Even if his determination had not been fixed, he
would have believed that she would utterly scorn him in any other light
than that of an acquaintance, and the emotion she had shown to-day did
not change that belief. But he was deeply touched by this manifestation
of her better qualities, and felt that there was a new tie of friendship
between them. That was the brief history Felix would have given of his
relation to Esther. And he was accustomed to observe himself. But very
close and diligent looking at living creatures, even through the best
microscope, will leave room for new and contradictory discoveries.

Felix found Mr. Lyon particularly glad to talk to him. The minister had
never yet disburdened himself about his letter to Mr. Philip Debarry
concerning the public conference; and as by this time he had all the
heads of his discussion thoroughly in his mind, it was agreeable to
recite them, as well as to express his regret that time had been lost by
Mr. Debarry's absence from the Manor, which had prevented the immediate
fulfillment of his pledge.

"I don't see how he can fulfill it if the rector refuses," said Felix,
thinking it well to moderate the little man's confidence.

"The rector is of a spirit that will not incur earthly impeachment, and
he cannot refuse what is necessary to his nephew's honorable discharge
of an obligation," said Mr. Lyon. "My young friend, it is a case wherein
the prearranged conditions tend by such a beautiful fitness to the issue
I have sought, that I should have forever held myself a traitor to my
charge had I neglected the indication."




CHAPTER XXIII.

    "I will not excuse you; you shall not be excused; excuses shall not
    be admitted; there's no excuse shall serve; you shall not be
    excused."--_Henry IV._


When Philip Debarry had come home that morning and read the letters
which had not been forwarded to him, he laughed so heartily at Mr.
Lyon's that he congratulated himself on being in his private room.
Otherwise his laughter would have awakened the curiosity of Sir Maximus,
and Philip did not wish to tell any one the contents of the letter until
he had shown them to his uncle. He determined to ride over to the
rectory to lunch; for as Lady Mary was away, he and his uncle might be
_tête-á-tête_.

The rectory was on the other side of the river, close to the church of
which it was the fitting companion: a fine old brick-and-stone house,
with a great bow-window opening from the library on to the deep-turfed
lawn, one fat dog sleeping on the door-stone, another fat dog waddling
on the gravel, the autumn leaves duly swept away, the lingering
chrysanthemums cherished, tall trees stooping or soaring in the most
picturesque variety, and a Virginian creeper turning a little rustic hut
into a scarlet pavilion. It was one of those rectories which are among
the bulwarks of our venerable institutions--which arrest disintegrating
doubt, serve as a double embankment against Popery and Dissent, and
rally feminine instinct and affection to reinforce the decisions of
masculine thought.

"What makes you look so merry, Phil?" said the rector, as his nephew
entered the pleasant library.

"Something that concerns you," said Philip, taking out the letter. "A
clerical challenge. Here's an opportunity for you to emulate the divines
of the sixteenth century and have a theological duel. Read this letter."

"What answer have you sent the crazy little fellow?" said the rector,
keeping the letter in his hand and running over it again and again, with
brow knit, but eyes gleaming without any malignity.

"Oh, I sent no answer. I awaited yours."

"Mine!" said the rector, throwing down the letter on the table. "You
don't suppose I'm going to hold a public debate with a schismatic of
that sort? I should have an infidel shoemaker next expecting me to
answer blasphemies delivered in bad grammar."

"But you see how he puts it," said Philip. With all his gravity of
nature he could not resist a slightly mischievous prompting, though he
had a serious feeling that he should not like to be regarded as failing
to fulfill his pledge. "I think if you refuse, I shall be obliged to
offer myself."

"Nonsense! Tell him he is himself acting a dishonorable part in
interpreting your words as a pledge to do any preposterous thing that
suits his fancy. Suppose he had asked you to give him land to build a
chapel on; doubtless that would have given him a 'lively satisfaction.'
A man who puts a non-natural, strained sense on a promise is no better
than a robber."

"But he has not asked for land. I dare say he thinks you won't object to
his proposal. I confess there's a simplicity and quaintness about the
letter that rather pleases me."

"Let me tell you, Phil, he's a crazy little firefly, that does a great
deal of harm in my parish. He inflames the Dissenters' minds on
politics. There's no end to the mischief done by these busy, prating
men. They make the ignorant multitude the judges of the largest
questions, both political and religious, till we shall soon have no
institution left that is not on a level with the comprehension of a
huckster or a drayman. There can be nothing more retrograde--losing all
the results of civilization, all the lessons of Providence--letting the
windlass run down after men have been turning at it painfully for
generations. If the instructed are not to judge for the uninstructed,
why, let us set Dick Stubbs to make our almanacs, and have a President
of the Royal Society elected by universal suffrage."

The rector had risen, placed himself with his back to the fire, and
thrust his hands in his pockets, ready to insist further on this wide
argument. Philip sat nursing one leg, listening respectfully, as he
always did, though often listening to the sonorous echo of his own
statements, which suited his uncle's needs so exactly that he did not
distinguish them from his own impressions.

"True," said Philip; "but in special cases we have to do with special
conditions. You know I defend the casuists. And it may happen that, for
the honor of the church in Treby, and a little also for my honor,
circumstances may demand a concession even to some notions of a
Dissenting preacher."

"Not at all. I should be making a figure which my brother clergy might
well take as an affront to themselves. The character of the
Establishment has suffered enough already through the Evangelicals, with
their extempore incoherence and their pipe-smoking piety. Look at
Wimple, the man who is vicar of Shuttleton--without his gown and bands
anybody would take him for a grocer in mourning."

"Well, I shall cut a still worse figure, and so will you, in the
Dissenting magazines and newspapers. It will go the round of the
kingdom. There will be a paragraph headed, 'Tory Falsehood and Clerical
Cowardice,' or else, 'The Meanness of the Aristocracy and the
Incompetence of the Beneficed Clergy.'"

"There would be a worse paragraph if I were to consent to the debate. Of
course it would be said that I was beaten hollow, and, that now the
question had been cleared up at Treba Magna, the Church had not a sound
leg to stand on. Besides," the rector went on, frowning and smiling,
"it's all very well for you to talk, Phil; but this debating is not so
easy when a man's close upon sixty. What one writes or says must be
something good and scholarly; and, after all had been done, this little
Lyon would buzz about one like a wasp, and cross-question and rejoin.
Let me tell you, a plain truth may be so worried and mauled by fallacies
as to get the worst of it. There's no such thing as tiring a
talking-machine like Lyon."

"Then you absolutely refuse?"

"Yes, I do."

"You remember that when I wrote my letter of thanks to Lyon you approved
my offer to serve him if possible."

"Certainly I remember it. But suppose he had asked you to vote for civil
marriage, or to go and hear him preach every Sunday?"

"But he has not asked that."

"Something as unreasonable, though."

"Well," said Philip, taking up Mr. Lyon's letter and looking
graver--looking even vexed, "it is rather an unpleasant business for me.
I really felt obliged to him. I think there's a sort of worth in the man
beyond his class. Whatever may be the reason of the case, I shall
disappoint him instead of doing him the service I offered."

"Well, that's a misfortune; we can't help it."

"The worst of it is, I should be insulting him to say, 'I will do
anything else, but not just this that you want.' He evidently feels
himself in company with Luther and Zwingle and Calvin, and considers our
letters part of the history of Protestantism."

"Yes, yes. I know it's rather an unpleasant thing, Phil. You are aware
that I would have done anything in reason to prevent you from becoming
unpopular here. I consider your character a possession to all of us."

"I think I must call on him forthwith and explain and apologize."

"No, sit still; I've thought of something," said the rector, with a
sudden revival of spirits. "I've just seen Sherlock coming in. He is to
lunch with me to-day. It would do no harm for him to hold the debate--a
curate and a young man--he'll gain by it; and it would release you from
any awkwardness, Phil. Sherlock is not going to stay here long, you
know; he'll soon have his title. I'll put the thing to him. He won't
object if I wish it. It's a capital idea. It will do Sherlock good. He's
a clever fellow, but he wants confidence."

Philip had not time to object before Mr. Sherlock appeared--a young
divine of good birth and figure, of sallow complexion and bashful
address.

"Sherlock, you have come in most opportunely," said the rector. "A case
has turned up in the parish in which you can be of eminent use. I know
that is what you have desired ever since you have been with me. But I'm
about so much myself that there really has not been sphere enough for
you. You are a studious man, I know; I dare say you have all the
necessary matter prepared--at your finger-ends, if not on paper."

Mr. Sherlock smiled with rather a trembling lip, willing to distinguish
himself, but hoping that the rector only alluded to a dialogue on
Baptism by Aspersion, or some other pamphlet suited to the purposes of
the Christian Knowledge Society. But as the rector proceeded to unfold
the circumstances under which his eminent service was to be rendered, he
grew more and more nervous.

"You'll oblige me very much, Sherlock," the rector ended, "by going into
this thing zealously. Can you guess what time you will require? because
it will rest with us to fix the day."

"I should be rejoiced to oblige you, Mr. Debarry, but I really think I
am not competent to----"

"That's your modesty, Sherlock. Don't let me hear any more of that. I
know Filmore of Corpus said you might be a first-rate man if your
diffidence didn't do you injustice. And you can refer anything to me,
you know. Come, you will set about the thing at once. But, Phil, you
must tell the preacher to send a scheme of the debate--all the different
heads--and he must agree to keep rigidly within the scheme. There, sit
down at my desk and write the letter now; Thomas shall carry it."

Philip sat down to write, and the rector, with his firm ringing voice,
went on at his ease, giving "indications" to his agitated curate.

"But you can begin at once preparing a good, cogent, clear statement,
and considering the probable points of assault. You can look into Jewel,
Hall, Hooker, Whitgift, and the rest: you'll find them all here. My
library wants nothing in English divinity. Sketch the lower ground taken
by Usher and those men, but bring all your force to bear on marking out
the true High-Church doctrine. Expose the wretched cavils of the
Noncomformists, and the noisy futility that belongs to schismatics
generally. I will give you a telling passage from Burke on the
Dissenters, and some good quotations which I brought together in two
sermons of my own on the Position of the English Church in Christendom.
How long do you think it will take you to bring your thoughts together?
You can throw them afterward into the form of an essay; we'll have the
thing printed; it will do you good with the Bishop."

With all Mr. Sherlock's timidity, there was fascination for him in this
distinction. He reflected that he could take coffee and sit up late, and
perhaps produce something rather fine. It might be a first step toward
that eminence which it was no more than his duty to aspire to. Even a
polemical fame like that of a Philpotts must have had a beginning. Mr.
Sherlock was not insensible to the pleasure of turning sentences
successfully, and it was a pleasure not always unconnected with
preferment. A diffident man likes the idea of doing something
remarkable, which will create belief in him without any immediate
display of brilliancy. Celebrity may blush and be silent, and win a
grace the more. Thus Mr. Sherlock was constrained, trembling all the
while, and much wishing that his essay were already in print.

"I think I could hardly be ready under a fortnight."

"Very good. Just write that, Phil, and tell him to fix the precise day
and place. And then we'll go to lunch."

The rector was quite satisfied. He had talked himself into thinking that
he should like to give Sherlock a few useful hints, look up his own
earlier sermons, and benefit the curate by his criticism, when the
argument had been got into shape. He was a healthy-natured man, but that
was not at all a reason why he should not have those sensibilities to
the odor of authorship which belong to almost everybody who is not
expected to be a writer--and especially to that form of authorship
which is called suggestion, and consists in telling another man that he
might do a great deal with a given subject, by bringing a sufficient
amount of knowledge, reasoning, and wit to bear upon it.

Philip would have had some twinges of conscience about the curate, if he
had not guessed that the honor thrust upon him was not altogether
disagreeable. The Church might perhaps have had a stronger supporter;
but for himself, he had done what he was bound to do: he had done his
best toward fulfilling Mr. Lyon's desire.




CHAPTER XXIV.

    If he come not, the play is marred.--_Midsummer Night's Dream._


Rufus Lyon was very happy on that mild November morning appointed for
the great conference in the larger room at the Free School, between
himself and the Reverend Theodore Sherlock, B.A. The disappointment of
not contending with the rector in person, which had at first been
bitter, had been gradually lost sight of in the positive enjoyment of an
opportunity for debating on any terms. Mr. Lyon had two grand elements
of pleasure on such occasions: confidence in the strength of his case,
and confidence in his own power of advocacy. Not--to use his own
phrase--not that "he glorified himself herein;" for speech and
exposition were so easy to him, that if he argued forcibly, he believed
it to be simply because the truth was forcible. He was not proud of
moving easily in his native medium. A panting man thinks of himself as a
clever swimmer; but a fish swims much better, and takes his performance
as a matter of course.

Whether Mr. Sherlock were that panting, self-gratulating man, remained a
secret. Philip Debarry, much occupied with his electioneering affairs,
had only once had an opportunity of asking his uncle how Sherlock got
on, and the rector had said, curtly, "I think he'll do. I've supplied
him well with references. I advise him to read only, and decline
everything else as out of order. Lyon will speak to a point, and then
Sherlock will read: it will be all the more telling. It will give
variety." But on this particular morning peremptory business connected
with the magistracy called the rector away.

Due notice had been given, and the feminine world of Treby Magna was
much more agitated by the prospect than by that of any candidate's
speech. Mrs. Pendrell at the Bank, Mrs. Tiliot, and the Church ladies
generally felt bound to hear the curate, who was known, apparently by an
intuition concerning the nature of curates, to be a very clever young
man; and he would show them what learning had to say on the right side.
One or two Dissenting ladies were not without emotion at the thought
that, seated on the front benches, they should be brought near to old
Church friends, and have a longer greeting than had taken place since
the Catholic Emancipation. Mrs. Muscat, who had been a beauty, and was
as nice in her millinery as any Trebian lady belonging to the
Establishment, reflected that she should put on her best embroidered
collar, and that she should ask Mrs. Tiliot where it was in Duffield
that she once got her bed-hanging dyed so beautifully. When Mrs. Tiliot
was Mary Salt, the two ladies had been bosom friends; but Mr. Tiliot
looked higher and higher since his gin had become so famous; and in the
year '29 he had, in Mr. Muscat's hearing, spoken of Dissenters as
sneaks--a personality which could not be overlooked.