The World's Greatest Books - Volume 4 Part 6

Lisbeth opened his eyes on the Sunday morning when Adam sat at home and read from his large pictured Bible.

For a long time his mother talked on about Dinah, and about how they were losing her when they might keep her, and Adam at last told her she must make up her mind that she would have to do without Dinah.

"Nay, but I canna ma' up my mind, when she's just cut out for thee; an'

nought shall ma' me believe as G.o.d didna make her and send her here o'

purpose for thee. What's it sinnify about her being a Methody? It 'ud happen wear out on her wi' marryin'."

Adam threw himself back in his chair and looked at his mother. He understood now what her talk had been aiming at, and tried to chase away the notion from her mind.

He was amazed at the way in which this new thought of Dinah's love had taken possession of him with an overmastering power that made all other feelings give way before the impetuous desire to know that the thought was true. He spoke to Seth, who said quite simply that he had long given up all thoughts of Dinah ever being his wife, and would rejoice in his brother's joy. But he could not tell whether Dinah was for marrying.

"Thee might'st ask her," Seth said presently. "She took no offence at _me_ for asking, and thee'st more right than I had."

When Adam did ask, Dinah answered that her heart was strongly drawn towards him, but that she must wait for divine guidance. So she left the Hall Farm and went back to the town, and Adam waited,--and then went after her to get his answer.

"Adam," she said when they had met and walked some distance together, "it is the divine will. My soul is so knit to yours that it is but a divided life I live without you. And this moment, now you are with me, and I feel that our hearts are filled with the same love, I have a fullness of strength to bear and do our Heavenly Father's will that I had lost before."

Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.

"Then we'll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us."

And they kissed each other with deep joy.

Felix Holt, the Radical

"Felix Holt, the Radical," was published in 1866. It has never been one of George Eliot's very popular books. There is less in it of her own life and experience than in most of her novels, less of the homely wit of agricultural England. The real value of the book is the picture it gives of the social and political life, and for this reason, it will always be read by those who want to know what English political methods and customs were like at the time of the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bill of 1832. The character of Mr. Rufus Lyon, the independent minister, is an admirable study of the non-conformist of that period. Esther's renunciation of a brilliant fortune for a humbler lot with the man she loved and admired, was quite in accord with the teaching George Eliot inculcated all her life.

The scene of the story is laid in the Midlands, and the action, covering about nine months, begins in 1832.

_I.--The Minister's Daughter_

The Rev. Rufus Lyon, Minister of the Independent Chapel, in the old-fashioned market town of Treby Magna, in the County of Loumshire, lived in a small house, adjoining the entry which led to the Chapel Yard.

He sat this morning, as usual, in a low upstairs room, called his study, which served also as a sleeping-room, and from time to time got up to walk about between the piles of old books which lay around him on the floor. 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, everyone thought him a very odd-looking, rusty old man, and the free-school boys often hooted after him, and called him "Revelations." But he was too short-sighted and too absent from the world of small facts and petty impulses to notice those who t.i.ttered at him.

He was meditating on the text for his Sunday morning sermon, when old Lyddy, the minister's servant, opened the door to tell him that Mrs.

Holt was wanting to see him. "She says she comes out of season, but she's in trouble."

The minister bade her send Mistress Holt up, and a tall elderly woman dressed in black entered.

Mrs. Holt, Mr. Lyon said to himself, is a woman who darkens counsel by words without knowledge, and angers the reason of the natural man; and he prayed for patience while his visitor rambled on concerning her late husband and her son Felix.

The minister made out that Felix objected to the sale of his father's quack medicines, Holt's Elixir and Cancer Cure, and wanted Mr. Lyon to talk to him.

"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' religion rottenness."

Mrs. Holt departed, and in the evening, when Mr. Lyon was in the sitting-room, Felix Holt knocked at the door.

The minister, accustomed to the respectable air of provincial townsmen, felt a slight shock, when his spectacles made clear to him the s.h.a.ggy- headed, large-eyed, strong-limbed person of this questionable young man, without waistcoat or cravat.

Felix spoke loudly and brusquely when the minister mentioned the subject of Mrs. Holt's visit.

"As to those absurd medicines and gulling advertis.e.m.e.nts that my mother has been talking of to you, I've no more doubt about _them_ than I have about pocket-picking. 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 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.

"My father was ignorant," said Felix, bluntly. "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 may be as bad as poison to half the people who swallow them, and that the cancer cure might as well be bottled ditch-water. I can keep my mother, as well, nay, better, than she keeps herself. 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."

Mr. Lyon's suggestion that some situation might be obtained as clerk or a.s.sistant was brushed aside.

"Why should I want to get into the middle cla.s.s because I have some learning? The most of the middle cla.s.s are as ignorant as the working people about everything that doesn't belong to their own Brummagem life."

The entrance of Lyddy with the tea tray disturbed the conversation, but the minister, interested in his visitor, asked Felix to stay for a dish of tea, and Felix accepted.

"My daughter, who has been detained in giving a lesson in the French tongue, has doubtless returned now," said the minister. On the entrance of the young lady, Felix was conscious she was not the sort of person he had expected the minister's daughter to be, and the incongruity repelled him. There were things about her, her walk, the long neck and high crown of shining brown hair, that suggested a fine lady to him. A fine lady was always a sort of spun gla.s.s affair; but a fine lady as the daughter of this rusty old Puritan was especially offensive.

The discovery that Miss Lyon read Byron set Felix off on a tirade against the poet, and his works, and throughout the meal no agreement on any topic seemed possible between Esther and the guest.

Felix noted that Mr. Lyon was devoted to his daughter and stood in some fear of her.

"That is a singular young man, Esther," said the minister, when Felix had gone. "I discern in him a love for whatever things are honest and true, and I feel a great enlargement in his presence."

"I think he is very coa.r.s.e and rude," said Esther, with a touch of temper. "But he speaks better English than most of our visitors. What is his occupation?"

"Watch and clock making, my dear."

Esther was disappointed, she thought he was something higher than that.

Felix on his side wondered how the queer old minister had a daughter so little in his own likeness. He decided that nothing should make him marry.

_II.--The Election Riot_

The return of Mr. Harold Transome, to Transome Court, after fifteen years' absence, and his adoption as Radical Candidate for the county created no little stir and excitement in Treby. It also a.s.sisted the growing intimacy between Mr. Lyon and Felix Holt, for though neither possessed votes in that memorable year 1832, they shared the same liberal sympathies. 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.

Esther had not seen so much of their new acquaintance as her father had.

But she had begun to find him amusing, though he always opposed and criticised her, and looked at her as if he never saw a single detail about her person. It seemed to Esther that he thought slightly of her.

"But, rude and queer as he is, I cannot say there is anything vulgar about him," she said to herself.

One Sunday afternoon Felix Holt rapped at the door of Mr. Lyon's house, although he could hear the voice of the minister in the chapel.