This canal 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 institute 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 embarrassing, 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 circumstances inconsistent with that idea, it happened that Sproxton hereto had been somewhat neglected in the canvass. 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 classification 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 breasts 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 canvass.
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 class—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 Saturday 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 buttonhole—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 superstition. 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 Saturday. 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."