Felix Holt Read online

  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 forward 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 neckbands 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 labour of my hands, I’ve not the least doubt that I should be a rascal.’

  ‘I would fain inquire 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,2 nor with the usages of his institution, was nevertheless a man of God; and the journals of various Christians whose names have left a sweet savour 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 flavoured 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’ve acted on 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 of 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 favour after what you have said. God forbid that I should strive to hinder you from seeking whatsoever things are honest and honourable. 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 towards strangers, you will be careless towards your mother. There be indeed some who, taking a mighty charge on their shoulders, 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,3 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 dialog
ue was far from plain sailing; he was not certain of his latitude and longitude. If the despiser of Glasgow preachers had been arguing in favour 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 working men are left to foolish devices and keep worsening themselves: the best heads among them forsake their born 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 wellbeing. 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.’

  ‘O 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 pigeon4 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 Brougham5 and Wellington6 in the pulpit. Why not Wellington as well as Rabshakeh?7 and why not Brougham as well as Balaam?8 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, colouring. ‘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; for Elihu9 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.10 I have to keep a special watch over myself in this matter, inasmuch as I have a 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 towards 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 odours 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 round, 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 ought that is precious – though it were heaven-sent manna.’

  ‘I understand you, sir,’ said Felix, good-humouredly, 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 weaknesses. 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,11 biographies of devout women, and that amount of ornamental knitting which was not inconsistent with Nonconforming seriousness.

  ‘I’m perhaps a little too fond of banging and smashing,’ he went on; ‘a phrenologist12 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 even 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 with 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 inquiries.’

  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 towards 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 grey eyes and full lips.