Felix Holt, The Radical Part 23

"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 pa.s.s. When our good old King George III. heard his ministers talking about Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation, 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 const.i.tution. 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 n.o.bleman. And he's as good a Tory as I am. And as for his town establishment--why, how much b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 n.o.bility. Look at France. When they got rid of the old n.o.bles 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, st.u.r.dily. "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 t.i.the, 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 Ca.n.a.l 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 gla.s.s 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 doc.u.ment?"

"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.