Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. III, 1866.djvu/192

182 do the right thing by me and my son, if he's asked proper."

"Yes—a very good man—he'll do anything right," said Mr Transome, whose own ideas about the King just then were somewhat misty, consisting chiefly in broken reminiscences of George the Third. "I'll ask him anything you like," he added, with a pressing desire to satisfy Mrs Holt, who alarmed him slightly.

"Then, sir, if you'll go in your carriage and say, This young man, Felix Holt by name, as his father was known the country round, and his mother most respectable—he never meant harm to anybody, and so far from bloody murder and fighting, would part with his victual to them that needed it more—and if you'd get other gentlemen to say the same, and if they're not satisfied to inquire—I'll not believe but what the King 'ud let my son out of prison. Or if it's true he must stand his trial, the King 'ud take care no mischief happened to him. I've got my senses, and I'll never believe as in a country where there's a God above and a king below, the right thing can't be done if great people was willing to do it."

Mrs Holt, like all orators, had waxed louder and more energetic, ceasing to propel her arguments,