Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. II, 1866.djvu/156

146 his high tenor, observed that it was an occasion on which some stinging things might be said with all the extra effect of an apropos.

The position of receiving a many-voiced lecture from the members of his church was familiar to Mr Lyon; but now he felt weary, frustrated, and doubtful of his own temper. Felix, who stood by and saw that this man of sensitive fibre was suffering from talkers whose noisy superficiality cost them nothing, got exasperated. "It seems to me, sirs," he burst in, with his predominant voice, "that Mr Lyon has hitherto had the hard part of the business, while you of his congregation have had the easy one. Punish the Church clergy, if you like—they can take care of themselves. But don't punish your own minister. It's no business of mine, perhaps, except so far as fair-play is everybody's business; but it seems to me the time to ask Mr Lyon to take a little rest, instead of setting on him like so many wasps."

By this speech Felix raised a displeasure which fell on the minister as well as on himself; but he gained his immediate end. The talkers dropped off after a slight show of persistence, and Mr Lyon quitted the field of no combat with a small group of his less imperious friends, to whom he confided