Felix Holt, the Radical

by George Eliot

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  Mischief, thou art afoot.--_Julius Caesar._

  Felix could not go home again immediately after quitting Esther. He gotout of the town, skirted it a little while, looking across the Decemberstillness of the fields, and then re-entered it by the main road intothe market-place, thinking that, after all, it would be better for himto look at the busy doings of men than to listen in solitude to thevoices within him; and he wished to know how things were going on.

  It was now nearly half-past one, and Felix perceived that the street wasfilling with more than the previous crowd. By the time he got in frontof the booths, he was himself so surrounded by men who were being thrusthither and thither that retreat would have been impossible; and he wentwhere he was obliged to go, although his height and strength were abovethe average even in a crowd where there were so many heavy-armed workmenused to the pickaxe. Almost all shabby-coated Trebians must have beenthere, but the entries and back streets of the town did not supply themass of the crowd; and besides the rural incomers, both of the moredecent and the rougher sort, Felix, as he was pushed along, thought hediscerned here and there men of that keener aspect which is only commonin manufacturing towns.

  But at present there was no evidence of any distinctly mischievousdesign. There was only evidence that the majority of the crowd wereexcited with drink, and that their action could hardly be calculated onmore than those of the oxen and pigs congregated amidst hootings andpushings. The confused deafening shouts, the incidental fighting, theknocking over, pulling and scuffling, seemed to increase every moment.Such of the constables as were mixed with the crowd were quite helpless;and if an official staff was seen above the heads, it moved aboutfitfully, showing as little sign of a guiding hand as the summit of abuoy on the waves. Doubtless many hurts and bruises had been received,but no one could know the amount of injuries that were widely scattered.

  It was clear that no more voting could be done, and the poll had beenadjourned. The probabilities of serious mischief had grown strong enoughto prevail over the rector's objection to getting military aid withinreach; and when Felix re-entered the town, a galloping messenger hadalready been dispatched to Duffield. The rector wished to ride outagain, and read the Riot Act from a point where he could be better heardthan from the window of the Marquis; but Mr. Crow, the highconstable, who had returned from closer observation, insisted that therisk would be too great. New special constables had been sworn in, butMr. Crow said prophetically that if once mischief began, the mob waspast caring for constables.

  But the rector's voice was ringing and penetrating, and when he appearedon the narrow balcony and read the formula, commanding all men to go totheir homes or about their lawful business, there was a strong transienteffect. Every one within hearing listened, and for a few moments afterthe final words, "God save the King!" the comparative silence continued.Then the people began to move, the buzz rose again, and grew, and grew,till it turned to shouts and roaring as before. The movement was that ofa flood hemmed in; it carried nobody away. Whether the crowd would obeythe order to disperse themselves within an hour, was a doubt thatapproached nearer to a negative certainty.

  Presently Mr. Crow, who called himself a tactician, took awell-intentioned step, which went far to fulfill his own prophecy. Hehad arrived with the magistrates by a back way at the Seven Stars, andhere again the Riot Act was read from a window, with much the sameresult as before. The rector had returned by the same way to theMarquis, as the headquarters most suited for administration, but Mr.Crow remained at the other extremity of King Street, where someawe-striking presence was certainly needed. Seeing that the time waspassing, and all effect from the voice of law had disappeared, he showedhimself at an upper window, and addressed the crowd, telling them thatthe soldiers had been sent for, and that if they did not disperse theywould have cavalry upon them instead of constables.

  Mr. Crow, like some other high constables more celebrated in history,"enjoyed a bad reputation"; that is to say, he enjoyed many things whichcaused his reputation to be bad, and he was anything but popular inTreby. It is probable that a pleasant message would have lost somethingfrom his lips, and what he actually said was so unpleasant that, insteadof persuading the crowd, it appeared to enrage them. Some one, snatchinga raw potato from a sack in the green-grocer's shop behind him, threw itat the constable, and hit him on the mouth. Straightway raw potatoes andturnips were flying by twenties at the windows of the Seven Stars, andthe panes were smashed. Felix, who was half-way up the street, heard thevoices turning to a savage roar, and saw a rush toward the hardwareshop, which furnished more effective weapons and missiles than turnipsand potatoes. Then a cry ran along that the Tories had sent for thesoldiers, and if those among the mob who called themselves Tories aswillingly as anything else were disposed to take whatever called itselfthe Tory side, they only helped the main result of reckless disorder.

  But there were proofs that the predominant will of the crowd was against"Debarry's men," and in favor of Transome. Several shops were invaded,and they were all of them "Tory shops." The tradesmen who could do sonow locked their doors and barricaded their windows within. There was apanic among the householders of this hitherto peaceful town, and ageneral anxiety for the military to arrive. The rector was in painfulanxiety on this head; he had sent out two messengers as secretly as hecould toward Hathercote, to order the soldiers to ride straight to thetown; but he feared that these messengers had been somehow intercepted.

  It was three o'clock; more than an hour had elapsed since the reading ofthe Riot Act. The rector of Treby Magna wrote an indignant message andsent it to the Ram, to Mr. Lingon, the rector of Little Treby, sayingthat there was evidently a Radical animus in the mob, and that Mr.Transome's party should hold themselves peculiarly responsible. Wherewas Mr. Jermyn?

  Mr. Lingon replied that he was going himself out toward Duffield to seeafter the soldiers. As for Jermyn, he was not that attorney's sponsor;he believed that Jermyn was gone away somewhere on business--to fetchvoters.

  A serious effort was now being made by all the civil force at command.The December day would soon be passing into evening, and all disorderwould be aggravated by obscurity. The horrors of fire were as likely tohappen as any minor evil. The constables, as many of them as could doso, armed themselves with carbines and sabres; all the respectableinhabitants who had any courage, prepared themselves to struggle fororder; and many felt with Mr. Wace and Mr. Tiliot that the nearest dutywas to defend the breweries and the spirit and wine vaults, where theproperty was of a sort at once most likely to be threatened and mostdangerous in its effects. The rector, with fine determination, got onhorseback again, as the best mode of leading the constables, who couldonly act efficiently in a close body. By his direction the column ofarmed men avoided the main street, and made their way along a back road,that they might occupy the two chief lanes leading into the wine-vaultsof the brewery, and bear down on the crowd from these openings, which itwas especially desirable to guard.

  Meanwhile Felix Holt had been hotly occupied in King Street. After thefirst window-smashing at the Seven Stars, there was a sufficient reasonfor damaging that inn to the utmost. The destructive spirit tends towardcompleteness; and any object once maimed or otherwise injured, is asreadily doomed by unreasoning men as by unreasoning boys. Also the SevenStars sheltered Spratt; and to some Sproxton men in front of that inn itwas exasperating that Spratt should be safe and sound on a day whenblows were going, and justice might be rendered. And again, there wasthe general desirableness of being inside a public house.

  Felix had at last been willingly urged on to this spot. Hitherto swayedby the crowd, he had been able to do nothing but defend himself and keepon his legs; but he foresaw that the people would burst into the inn; heheard cries of "Spratt!" "Fetch him out!" "We'll pitch him out!" "Pummelhim!" It was not unlikely that lives might be sacrificed; and it wasintolerable to Felix to be witnessing the blind outrages of this madcrowd, and yet be doing nothing to counteract
them. Even some vaineffort would satisfy him better than mere gazing. Within the walls ofthe inn he might save some one. He went in with a miscellaneous set, whodispersed themselves with different objects--some to the tap-room, andto search for the cellar: some up-stairs to search in all the rooms forSpratt, or any one else, perhaps, as a temporary scapegoat for Spratt.Guided by the screams of women, Felix at last got to a high up-stairspassage, where the landlady and some of her servants were running awayin helpless terror from two or three half-tipsy men, who had beenemptying a spirit decanter in the bar. Assuming the tone of a mob-leaderhe cried out, "Here, boys, here's better fun this way--come with me!"and drew the men back with him along the passage. They reached the lowerstaircase in time to see the unhappy Spratt being dragged, coatless andscreaming, down the steps. No one at present was striking or kickinghim; it seemed as if he were being reserved for punishment on some widerarea, where the satisfaction might be more generally shared. Felixfollowed close, determined, if he could, to rescue both assailers andassaulted from the worst consequences. His mind was busy with possibledevices.

  Down the stairs, out along the stones through the gateway, Spratt wasdragged as a mere heap of linen and cloth rags. When he was got outsidethe gateway, there was an immense hooting and roaring, though many therehad no grudge against him, and only guessed that others had the grudge.But this was the narrower part of the street; it widened as it wentonward, and Spratt was dragged on, his enemies crying, "We'll make aring--we'll see how frightened he looks!"

  "Kick him, and have done with him," Felix heard another say. "Let's goto Tiliot's vaults--there's more gin there!"

  Here were two hideous threats. In dragging Spratt onward the people weregetting very near to the lane leading up to Tiliot's. Felix kept asclose as he could to the threatened victim. He had thrown away his ownstick, and carried a bludgeon which had escaped from the hands of aninvader at the Seven Stars; his head was bare; he looked, toundiscerning eyes, like a leading spirit of the mob. In this conditionhe was observed by several persons looking anxiously from their upperwindows, and finally observed to push himself, by violent efforts, closebehind the dragged man.

  Meanwhile, the foremost among the constables, who, coming by the backway, had now reached the opening of Tiliot's lane, discerned that thecrowd had a victim amongst them. One spirited fellow, named Tucker, whowas a regular constable, feeling that no time was to be lost inmeditation, called on his neighbor to follow him, and with a sabre thathappened to be his weapon, got away for himself where he was notexpected, by dint of quick resolution. At this moment Spratt had beenlet go--had been dropped, in fact, almost lifeless with terror, on thestreet stones, and the men round him had retreated for a little space,as if to amuse themselves with looking at him. Felix had taken hisopportunity; and seeing the first step toward a plan he was bent on, hesprang forward close to the cowering Spratt. As he did this, Tucker hadcut his way to the spot, and imagining Felix to be the destinedexecutioner of Spratt--for any discrimination of Tucker's lay in hismuscles rather than his eyes--he rushed up to Felix, meaning to collarhim and throw him down. But Felix had rapid senses and quick thoughts;he discerned the situation he chose between two evils. Quick aslightning he frustrated the constable, fell upon him, and tried tomaster his weapon. In the struggle, which was watched withoutinterference, the constable fell undermost, and Felix got his weapon. Hestarted up with the bare sabre in his hand. The crowd round him cried"Hurray!" with a sense that he was on their side against the constable.Tucker did not rise immediately; but Felix did not imagine that he wasmuch hurt.

  "Don't touch him!" said Felix. "Let him go. Here, bring Spratt, andfollow me."

  Felix was perfectly conscious that he was in the midst of a tangledbusiness. But he had chiefly before his imagination the horrors thatmight come if the mass of wild chaotic desires and impulses around himwere not diverted from any further attacks on places where they wouldget in the midst of intoxicating and inflammable materials. It was not amoment in which a spirit like his could calculate the effect ofmisunderstanding as to himself: nature never makes men who are at onceenergetically sympathetic and minutely calculating. He believed he hadthe power and was resolved to try, to carry the dangerous mass out ofmischief till the military came to awe them--which he supposed, from Mr.Crow's announcement a long time ago, must be a near event.

  He was followed the more willingly, because Tiliot's lane was seen bythe hindmost to be now defended by constables, some of whom hadfirearms; and where there is no strong counter-movement, any propositionto do something that is unspecified stimulates stupid curiosity. To manyof the Sproxton men who were within sight of him, Felix was knownpersonally, and vaguely believed to be a man who meant many queerthings, not at all of an everyday kind. Pressing along like a leader,with the sabre in his hand, and inviting them to bring on Spratt, thereseemed a better reason for following him than for doing anything else. Aman with a definite will and an energetic personality acts as a sort offlag to draw and bind together the foolish units of a mob. It was onthis sort of influence over men whose mental state was a mere medley ofappetites and confused impressions, that Felix had dared to count. Hehurried them along with words of invitation, telling them to hold upSpratt and not drag him; and those behind followed him, with a growingbelief that he had some design worth knowing, while those in front wereurged along partly by the same notion, partly by the sense that therewas a motive in those behind them, not knowing what the motive was. Itwas that mixture of pushing forward and being pushed forward, which is abrief history of most human things.

  What Felix really intended to do, was to get the crowd by the nearestway out of the town, and induce them to skirt it on the north side withhim, keeping up in them the idea that he was leading them to executesome stratagem, by which they would surprise something worth attacking,and circumvent the constables who were defending the lanes. In themeantime he trusted that the soldiers would have arrived, and with thissort of mob which was animated by no real political passion or furyagainst social distinctions, it was in the highest degree unlikely thatthere would be any resistance to a military force. The presence of fiftysoldiers would probably be enough to scatter the rioting hundreds. Hownumerous the mob was, no one ever knew: many inhabitants afterward wereready to swear that there must have been at least two thousand rioters.Felix knew he was incurring great risks; but "his blood was up"; wehardly allow enough in common life for the results of that enkindledpassionate enthusiasm which, under other conditions, makes world-famousdeeds.

  He was making for a point where the street branched off on one sidetoward a speedy opening between hedgerows, on the other toward theshabby wideness of Pollard's End. At this forking of the street therewas a large space, in the centre of which there was a small stoneplatform, mounting by three steps, with an old green finger-post uponit. Felix went straight to this platform and stepped upon it, crying"Halt!" in a loud voice to the men behind and before him, and calling tothose who held Spratt to bring him there. All came to a stand with facestoward the finger-post, and perhaps for the first time the extremitiesof the crowd got a definite idea that a man with a sabre in his hand wastaking the command.

  "Now!" said Felix, when Spratt had been brought to the stone platform,faint and trembling, "has anybody got cord? if not, handkerchiefsknotted fast; give them to me."

  He drew out his own handkerchief, and two or three others were musteredand handed to him. He ordered them to be knotted together, while curiouseyes were fixed on him. Was he going to have Spratt hanged? Felix keptfast hold of his weapon, and ordered others to act.

  "Now, put it round his waist, wind his arms in, draw them a littlebackward--so! and tie it fast on the other side of the post."

  When that was done, Felix said, imperatively:

  "Leave him there--we shall come back to him; let us make haste; marchalong, lads! Up Park Street and down Hobb's Lane."

  It was the best chance he could think of for saving Spratt's life. Andhe succeeded. The pleasure of seeing
the helpless man tied up sufficedfor the moment, if there were any who had ferocity enough to count muchon coming back to him. Nobody's imagination represented the certaintythat some one out of the houses at hand would soon come and untie himwhen he was left alone.

  And the rioters pushed up Park Street, a noisy stream, with Felix stillin the midst of them, though he was laboring hard to get his way to thefront. He wished to determine the course of the crowd along a by-roadcalled Hobb's Lane, which would have taken them to the other--theDuffield end of the town. He urged several of the men round him, one ofwhom was no less a person than the big Dredge, our old Sproxtonacquaintance, to get forward, and be sure that all the fellows would godown the lane, else they would spoil sport. Hitherto Felix had beensuccessful, and he had gone along with an unbroken impulse. But soonsomething occurred which brought with a terrible shock the sense thathis plan might turn out to be as mad as all bold projects are seen to bewhen they have failed.

  Mingled with the more headlong and half-drunken crowd there were somesharp-visaged men who loved the irrationality of riots for somethingelse than its own sake, and who at present were not so much the richeras they desired to be, for the pains they had taken in coming to theTreby election, induced by certain prognostics gathered at Duffield onthe nomination-day that there might be the conditions favorable to thatconfusion which was always a harvest-time. It was known to some of thesesharp men that Park Street led out toward the grand house of TrebyManor, which was as good--nay, better, for their purpose than the bank.While Felix was entertaining his ardent purpose, these other sons ofAdam were entertaining another ardent purpose of their peculiar sort,and the moment had come when they were to have their triumph.

  From the front ranks backward toward Felix there ran a new summons--anew invitation.

  "Let us go to Treby Manor!"

  From that moment Felix was powerless; a new definite suggestion overrodehis vaguer influence. There was a determined rush past Hobb's Lane, andnot down it. Felix was carried along too. He did not know whether towish the contrary. Once on the road, out of town, with openings intofields and with the wide park at hand, it would have been easy toliberate himself from the crowd. At first it seemed to him the betterpart to do this, and to get back to the town as fast as he could, in thehope of finding the military and getting a detachment to come and savethe Manor. But he reflected that the course of the mob had beensufficiently seen, and that there were plenty of people in Park Streetto carry the information faster than he could. It seemed more necessarythat he should secure the presence of some help for the family at theManor by going there himself. The Debarrys were not of the class ofpeople he was wont to be anxious about; but Felix Holt's conscience wasalive to the accusation that any danger they might be in now was broughton by a deed of his. In these moments of bitter vexation anddisappointment, it did occur to him that very unpleasant consequencesmight be hanging over him of a kind quite different from inwarddissatisfaction but it was useless now to think of averting suchconsequences. As he was pressed along with the multitude into TrebyPark, his very movement seemed to him only an image of the day'sfatalities, in which the multitudinous small wickednesses of smallselfish ends, really undirected toward any larger result, had issued inwidely-shared mischief that might yet be hideous.

  FELIX WOUNDED IN THE RIOT.]

  The light was declining: already the candles shone through many windowsof the Manor. Already the foremost part of the crowd had burst into theoffices, and adroit men were busy in the right places to find plate,after setting others to force the butler into unlocking the cellars; andFelix had only just been able to force his way on to the front terrace,with the hope of getting to the rooms where he would find the ladies ofthe household and comfort them with the assurance that rescue mustsoon come, when the sound of horses' feet convinced him that the rescuewas nearer than he had expected. Just as he heard the horses, he hadapproached the large window of a room where a brilliant light suspendedfrom the ceiling showed him a group of women clinging together interror. Others of the crowd were pushing their way up the terrace-stepsand gravel-slopes at various points. Hearing the horses, he kept hispost in front of the window, and, motioning with his sabre, cried out tothe oncomers, "Keep back! I hear the soldiers coming." Some scrambledback, some paused automatically.

  The louder and louder sound of the hoofs changed its pace anddistribution. "Halt! Fire!" Bang! bang! bang!--came deafening the earsof the men on the terrace.

  Before they had time or nerve to move, there was a rushing sound closerto them--again "Fire!" a bullet whizzed, and passed through Felix Holt'sshoulder--the shoulder of the arm that held the naked weapon which shonein the light from the window.

  Felix fell. The rioters ran confusedly, like terrified sheep. Some ofthe soldiers, turning, drove them along with the flat of their swords.The greater difficulty was to clear the invaded offices.

  The rector, who with another magistrate and several other gentlemen onhorseback had accompanied the soldiers, now jumped on to the terrace,and hurried to the ladies of the family.

  Presently there was a group round Felix, who had fainted, and, reviving,had fainted again. He had had little food during the day, and had beenoverwrought. Two of the group were civilians, but only one of them knewFelix, the other being a magistrate not resident in Treby. The one whoknew Felix was Mr. John Johnson, whose zeal for the public peace hadbrought him from Duffield when he heard that the soldiers were summoned.

  "I know this man very well," said Mr. Johnson. "He is a dangerouscharacter--quite revolutionary."

  It was a weary night; and the next day, Felix, whose wound was declaredtrivial, was lodged in Loamford Jail. There were three charges againsthim: that he had assaulted a constable, that he had committedmanslaughter (Tucker was dead from spinal concussion), and that he hadled a riotous onslaught on a dwelling-house.

  Four other men were committed: one of them for possessing himself of agold cup with the Debarry arms on it; the three others, one of whom wasthe collier Dredge, for riot and assault.

  That morning Treby town was no longer in terror; but it was in muchsadness. Other men, more innocent than the hated Spratt, were groaningunder severe bodily injuries. And poor Tucker's corpse was not the onlyone that had been lifted from the pavement. It is true that none grievedmuch for the other dead man, unless it be grief to say, "Poor oldfellow!" He had been trampled upon, doubtless, where he fell drunkenly,near the entrance of the Seven Stars. This second corpse was old TommyTrounsem, the bill-sticker--otherwise Thomas Transome, the last of avery old family-line.