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 ma.s.ses of furze; and for the rest of the way alongside of the ca.n.a.l, 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 ca.n.a.l-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 ca.n.a.l-boats, or at least that the Sunday towing should be done by a.s.ses, as a lower order.

This ca.n.a.l 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 inst.i.tute 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 embarra.s.sing, 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 circ.u.mstances inconsistent with that idea, it happened that Sproxton hereto had been somewhat neglected in the canva.s.s. 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 cla.s.sification 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 canva.s.s.

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 cla.s.s--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 Sat.u.r.day 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 b.u.t.tonhole--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 superst.i.tion. 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 Sat.u.r.day.

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 n.o.body 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 canva.s.sing 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."