Part 5 (1/2)

Badman's term being out, his father gives him money and sets him up as a tradesman on his own account. Mr. Attentive considers this to have been a mistake. Mr. Wiseman answers that even in the most desperate cases, kindness in parents is more likely to succeed than severity, and if it fails they will have the less to reproach themselves with.

The kindness is, of course, thrown away. Badman continues a loose blackguard, extravagant, idle and dissolute. He comes to the edge of ruin. His situation obliges him to think; and now the interest of the story begins. He must repair his fortune by some means or other. The easiest way is by marriage. There was a young orphan lady in the neighbourhood, who was well off and her own mistress. She was a 'professor' eagerly given to religion, and not so wise as she ought to have been. Badman pretends to be converted. He reforms, or seems to reform. He goes to meeting, sings hymns, adopts the most correct form of doctrine, tells the lady that he does not want her money, but that he wants a companion who will go with him along the road to Heaven. He was plausible, good-looking, and, to all appearance, as absorbed as herself in the one thing needful. The congregation warn her, but to no purpose. She marries him, and finds what she has done too late. In her fortune he has all that he wanted. He swears at her, treats her brutally, brings prost.i.tutes into his house, laughs at her religion, and at length orders her to give it up. When she refuses, Bunyan introduces a special feature of the times, and makes Badman threaten to turn informer, and bring her favourite minister to gaol. The informers were the natural but most accursed products of the Conventicle Acts. Popular abhorrence relieved itself by legends of the dreadful judgments which had overtaken these wretches.

In St. Neots an informer was bitten by a dog. The wound gangrened and the flesh rotted off his bones. In Bedford 'there was one W. S.'

(Bunyan probably knew him too well), 'a man of very wicked life, and he, when there seemed to be countenance given to it, would needs turn informer. Well, so he did, and was as diligent in his business as most of them could be. He would watch at nights, climb trees and range the woods of days, if possible to find out the meeters, for then they were forced to meet in the fields. Yea, he would curse them bitterly, and swore most fearfully what he would do to them when he found them.

Well, after he had gone on like a Bedlam in his course awhile, and had done some mischief to the people, he was stricken by the hand of G.o.d.

He was taken with a faltering in his speech, a weakness in the back sinews of his neck, that ofttimes he held up his head by strength of hand. After this his speech went quite away, and he could speak no more than a swine or a bear. Like one of them he would gruntle and make an ugly noise, according as he was offended or pleased, or would have anything done. He walked about till G.o.d had made a sufficient spectacle of his judgments for his sin, and then, on a sudden, he was stricken, and died miserably.'

Badman, says Mr. Wiseman, 'had malice enough in his heart' to turn informer, but he was growing prudent and had an eye to the future. As a tradesman he had to live by his neighbours. He knew that they would not forgive him, so 'he had that wit in his anger that he did it not.'

Nothing else was neglected to make the unfortunate wife miserable. She bore him seven children, also typical figures. 'One was a very gracious child, that loved its mother dearly. This child Mr. Badman could not abide, and it oftenest felt the weight of its father's fingers. Three were as bad as himself. The others that remained became a kind of mongrel professors, not so bad as their father nor so good as their mother, but betwixt them both. They had their mother's notions and their father's actions. Their father did not like them because they had their mother's tongue. Their mother did not like them because they had their father's heart and life, nor were they fit company for good or bad. They were forced with Esau to join in affinity with Ishmael, to wit, to look out for a people that were hypocrites like themselves, and with them they matched and lived and died.'

Badman meanwhile, with the help of his wife's fortune, grew into an important person, and his character becomes a curious study. 'He went,' we are told, 'to school with the Devil, from his childhood to the end of his life.' He was shrewd in matters of business, began to extend his operations, and 'drove a great trade.' He carried a double face. He was evil with the evil. He pretended to be good with the good. In religion he affected to be a freethinker, careless of death and judgment, and ridiculing those who feared them 'as frighted with unseen bugbears.' But he wore a mask when it suited him, and admired himself for the ease with which he could a.s.sume whatever aspect was convenient. 'I can be religious and irreligious,' he said; 'I can be anything or nothing. I can swear and speak against swearing. I can lie and speak against lying. I can drink, wench, be unclean, and defraud, and not be troubled for it. I can enjoy myself and am master of my own ways, not they of me. This I have attained with much study, care, and pains.' 'An Atheist Badman was, if such a thing as an Atheist could be. He was not alone in that mystery. There was abundance of men of the same mind and the same principle. He was only an arch or chief one among them.'

Mr. Badman now took to speculation, which Bunyan's knowledge of business enabled him to describe with instructive minuteness. His adventures were on a large scale, and by some mistakes and by personal extravagance he had nearly ruined himself a second time. In this condition he discovered a means, generally supposed to be a more modern invention, of 'getting money by hatfuls.'

'He gave a sudden and great rush into several men's debts to the value of four or five thousand pounds, driving at the same time a very great trade by selling many things for less than they cost him, to get him custom and blind his creditors' eyes. When he had well feathered his nest with other men's goods and money, after a little while he breaks; while he had by craft and knavery made so sure of what he had, that his creditors could not touch a penny. He sends mournful sugared letters to them, desiring them not to be severe with him, for he bore towards all men an honest mind, and would pay them as far as he was able. He talked of the greatness of the taxes, the badness of the times, his losses by bad debts, and he brought them to a composition to take five s.h.i.+llings in the pound. His release was signed and sealed, and Mr. Badman could now put his head out of doors again, and be a better man than when he shut up shop by several thousands of pounds.'

Twice or three times he repeated the same trick with equal success. It is likely enough that Bunyan was drawing from life and perhaps from a member of his own congregation; for he says that 'he had known a professor do it.' He detested nothing so much as sham religion which was put on as a pretence. 'A professor,' he exclaims, 'and practise such villanies as these! Such an one is not worthy the name. Go professors, go--leave off profession unless you will lead your lives according to your profession. Better never profess than make profession a stalking horse to sin, deceit, the devil, and h.e.l.l.'

Bankruptcy was not the only art by which Badman piled up his fortune.

The seventeenth century was not so far behind us as we sometimes persuade ourselves. 'He dealt by deceitful weights and measures. He kept weights to buy by and weights to sell by, measures to buy by and measures to sell by. Those he bought by were too big, and those he sold by were too little. If he had to do with other men's weights and measures, he could use a thing called sleight of hand. He had the art besides to misreckon men in their accounts, whether by weight or measure or money; and if a question was made of his faithful dealing, he had his servants ready that would vouch and swear to his look or word. He would sell goods that cost him not the best price by far, for as much as he sold his best of all for. He had also a trick to mingle his commodity, that that which was bad might go off with the least mistrust. If any of his customers paid him money, he would call for payment a second time, and if they could not produce good and sufficient ground of the payment, a hundred to one but they paid it again.'

'To buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest' was Mr.

Badman's common rule in business. According to modern political economy, it is the cardinal principle of wholesome trade. In Bunyan's opinion it was knavery in disguise, and certain to degrade and demoralise everyone who acted upon it. Bunyan had evidently thought on the subject. Mr. Attentive is made to object:--

'But you know that there is no settled price set by G.o.d upon any commodity that is bought or sold under the sun; but all things that we buy and sell do ebb and flow as to price like the tide. How then shall a man of tender conscience do, neither to wrong the seller, buyer, nor himself in the buying and selling of commodities?'

Mr. Wiseman answers in the spirit of our old Acts of Parliament, before political economy was invented:--

'Let a man have conscience towards G.o.d, charity to his neighbours, and moderation in dealing. Let the tradesman consider that there is not that in great gettings and in abundance which the most of men do suppose; for all that a man has over and above what serves for his present necessity and supply, serves only to feed the l.u.s.ts of the eye. Be thou confident that G.o.d's eyes are upon thy ways; that He marks them, writes them down, and seals them up in a bag against the time to come. Be sure that thou rememberest that thou knowest not the day of thy death. Thou shalt have nothing that thou mayest so much as carry away in thy hand. Guilt shall go with thee if thou hast gotten thy substance dishonestly, and they to whom thou shalt leave it shall receive it to their hurt. These things duly considered, I will shew thee how thou should'st live in the practical part of this art. Art thou to buy or sell? If thou sellest do not commend. If thou buyest do not dispraise, any otherwise but to give the thing that thou hast to do with its just value and worth. Art thou a seller and do things grow cheap? set not thy hand to help or hold them up higher. Art thou a buyer and do things grow dear? use no cunning or deceitful language to pull them down. Leave things to the Providence of G.o.d, and do thou with moderation submit to his hand. Hurt not thy neighbour by crying out Scarcity, scarcity! beyond the truth of things. Especially take heed of doing this by way of a prognostic for time to come. This wicked thing may be done by h.o.a.rding up (food) when the hunger and necessity of the poor calls for it. If things rise do thou be grieved.

Be also moderate in all thy sellings, and be sure let the poor have a pennyworth, and sell thy corn to those who are in necessity; which thou wilt do when thou showest mercy to the poor in thy selling to him, and when thou undersellest the market for his sake because he is poor. This is to buy and sell with a good conscience. The buyer thou wrongest not, thy conscience thou wrongest not, thyself thou wrongest not, for G.o.d will surely recompense with thee.'

These views of Bunyan's are at issue with modern science, but his principles and ours are each adjusted to the objects of desire which good men in those days and good men in ours have respectively set before themselves. If wealth means money, as it is now a.s.sumed to do, Bunyan is wrong and modern science right. If wealth means moral welfare, then those who aim at it will do well to follow Bunyan's advice. It is to be feared that this part of his doctrine is less frequently dwelt upon by those who profess to admire and follow him, than the theory of imputed righteousness or justification by faith.

Mr. Badman by his various ingenuities became a wealthy man. His character as a tradesman could not have been a secret from his neighbours, but money and success coloured it over. The world spoke well of him. He became 'proud and haughty,' took part in public affairs, 'counted himself as wise as the wisest in the country, as good as the best, and as beautiful as he that had the most of it.' 'He took great delight in praising himself, and as much in the praises that others gave him.' 'He could not abide that any should think themselves above him, or that their wit and personage should be by others set before his.' He had an objection, nevertheless, to being called proud, and when Mr. Attentive asked why, his companion answered with a touch which reminds us of De Foe, that 'Badman _did not tell him the reason_. He supposed it to be that which was common to all vile persons. They loved their vice, but cared not to bear its name.'

Badman said he was unwilling to seem singular and fantastical, and in this way he justified his expensive and luxurious way of living.

Singularity of all kinds he affected to dislike, and for that reason his special pleasure was to note the faults of professors. 'If he could get anything by the end that had scandal in it, if it did but touch professors, however falsely reported, oh, then he would glory, laugh and be glad, and lay it upon the whole party. Hang these rogues, he would say, there is not a barrel better herring in all the holy brotherhood of them. Like to like, quoth the Devil to the collier.

This is your precise crew, and then he would send them all home with a curse.'

Thus Bunyan developed his specimen scoundrel, till he brought him to the high alt.i.tudes of worldly prosperity; skilful in every villanous art, skilful equally in keeping out of the law's hands, and feared, admired and respected by all his neighbours. The reader who desires to see Providence vindicated would now expect to find him detected in some crimes by which justice could lay hold, and poetical retribution fall upon him in the midst of his triumph. An inferior artist would certainly have allowed his story to end in this way. But Bunyan, satisfied though he was that dramatic judgments did overtake offenders in this world with direct and startling appropriateness, was yet aware that it was often otherwise, and that the worst fate which could be inflicted on a completely worthless person was to allow him to work out his career unvisited by any penalties which might have disturbed his conscience and occasioned his amendment. He chose to make his story natural, and to confine himself to natural machinery. The judgment to come Mr. Badman laughed at 'as old woman's fable,' but his courage lasted only as long as he was well and strong. One night as he was riding home drunk, his horse fell and he broke his leg. 'You would not think,' says Mr. Wiseman, 'how he swore at first. Then coming to himself, and finding he was badly hurt, he cried out, after the manner of such, Lord help me; Lord have mercy on me; good G.o.d deliver me, and the like. He was picked up and taken home, where he lay some time. In his pain he called on G.o.d, but whether it was that his sin might be pardoned and his soul saved, or whether to be rid of his pain,' Mr.

Wiseman 'could not determine.' This leads to several stories of drunkards which Bunyan clearly believed to be literally true. Such facts or legends were the food on which his mind had been nourished.

They were in the air which contemporary England breathed.

'I have read in Mr. Clarke's Looking-gla.s.s for Sinners,' Mr. Wiseman said, 'that upon a time a certain drunken fellow boasted in his cups that there was neither heaven nor h.e.l.l. Also he said he believed that man had no soul, and that for his own part he would sell his soul to any that would buy it. Then did one of his companions buy it of him for a cup of wine, and presently the devil, in man's shape, bought it of that man again at the same price; and so in the presence of them all laid hold of the soul-seller, and carried him away through the air so that he was no more heard of.'

Again:

'There was one at Salisbury drinking and carousing at a tavern, and he drank a health to the devil, saying that if the devil would not come and pledge him, he could not believe that there was either G.o.d or devil. Whereupon his companions, stricken with fear, hastened out of the room, and presently after, hearing a hideous noise and smelling a stinking savour, the vintner ran into the chamber, and coming in he missed his guest, and found the window broken, the iron bars in it bowed and all b.l.o.o.d.y, but the man was never heard of afterwards.'