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diff --git a/6688-h/6688-h.htm b/6688-h/6688-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b33c3da --- /dev/null +++ b/6688-h/6688-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,27796 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify } + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +h1, h2, h3 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; +line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Mill on the Floss</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: George Eliot</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 13, 2003 [eBook #6688]<br /> +[Last updated: April 15, 2023]<br /></div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Curtis Weyant and David Maddock</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILL ON THE FLOSS ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:70%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover" /> +</div> + +<h1>The Mill on the Floss</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by George Eliot</h2> + +<p class="center"> +“In their death they were not divided.” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h3>Contents</h3> + +<table summary=""> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#book01">BOOK FIRST.</a> BOY AND GIRL.<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">Chapter I.</a> Outside Dorlcote Mill</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">Chapter II.</a> Mr Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">Chapter III.</a> Mr Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">Chapter IV.</a> Tom Is Expected</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">Chapter V.</a> Tom Comes Home</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">Chapter VI.</a> The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">Chapter VII.</a> Enter the Aunts and Uncles</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">Chapter VIII.</a> Mr Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">Chapter IX.</a> To Garum Firs</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">Chapter X.</a> Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">Chapter XI.</a> Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">Chapter XII.</a> Mr and Mrs Glegg at Home</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">Chapter XIII.</a> Mr Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#book02">BOOK SECOND.</a> SCHOOL-TIME.<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">Chapter I.</a> Tom’s “First Half”</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">Chapter II.</a> The Christmas Holidays</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">Chapter III.</a> The New Schoolfellow</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">Chapter IV.</a> “The Young Idea”</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">Chapter V.</a> Maggie’s Second Visit</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">Chapter VI.</a> A Love-Scene</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">Chapter VII.</a> The Golden Gates Are Passed<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#book03">BOOK THIRD.</a> THE DOWNFALL.<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">Chapter I.</a> What Had Happened at Home</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">Chapter II.</a> Mrs Tulliver’s Teraphim, or Household Gods</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">Chapter III.</a> The Family Council</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">Chapter IV.</a> A Vanishing Gleam</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">Chapter V.</a> Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">Chapter VI.</a> Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a Pocket-Knife</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">Chapter VII.</a> How a Hen Takes to Stratagem</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">Chapter VIII.</a> Daylight on the Wreck</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">Chapter IX.</a> An Item Added to the Family Register<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#book04">BOOK FOURTH.</a> THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION.<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">Chapter I.</a> A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">Chapter II.</a> The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">Chapter III.</a> A Voice from the Past<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#book05">BOOK FIFTH.</a> WHEAT AND TARES.<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">Chapter I.</a> In the Red Deeps</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">Chapter II.</a> Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob’s Thumb</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">Chapter III.</a> The Wavering Balance</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">Chapter IV.</a> Another Love-Scene</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">Chapter V.</a> The Cloven Tree</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">Chapter VI.</a> The Hard-Won Triumph</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">Chapter VII.</a> A Day of Reckoning<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#book06">BOOK SIXTH.</a> THE GREAT TEMPTATION.<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap40">Chapter I.</a> A Duet in Paradise</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap41">Chapter II.</a> First Impressions</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap42">Chapter III.</a> Confidential Moments</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap43">Chapter IV.</a> Brother and Sister</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap44">Chapter V.</a> Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap45">Chapter VI.</a> Illustrating the Laws of Attraction</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap46">Chapter VII.</a> Philip Re-enters</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap47">Chapter VIII.</a> Wakem in a New Light</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap48">Chapter IX.</a> Charity in Full-Dress</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap49">Chapter X.</a> The Spell Seems Broken</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap50">Chapter XI.</a> In the Lane</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap51">Chapter XII.</a> A Family Party</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap52">Chapter XIII.</a> Borne Along by the Tide</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap53">Chapter XIV.</a> Waking<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#book07">BOOK SEVENTH.</a> THE FINAL RESCUE.<br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap54">Chapter I.</a> The Return to the Mill</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap55">Chapter II.</a> St Ogg’s Passes Judgment</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap56">Chapter III.</a> Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap57">Chapter IV.</a> Maggie and Lucy</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap58">Chapter V.</a> The Last Conflict</td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="book01"></a>BOOK FIRST<br/> +BOY AND GIRL.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap01"></a>Chapter I.<br/> +Outside Dorlcote Mill</h3> + +<p> +A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to +the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an +impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black ships—laden with the +fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with the +dark glitter of coal—are borne along to the town of St Ogg’s, +which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves +between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft +purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each +hand stretch the rich pastures, and the patches of dark earth made ready for +the seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of the +tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of last year’s +golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and +everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; the distant ships seem to be +lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the +branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple +flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, +with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I +wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of +one who is deaf and loving. I remember those large dipping willows. I remember +the stone bridge. +</p> + +<p> +And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and +look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the +afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to +look at,—perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, +comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it +from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this +little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in +front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate +bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that +gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy +the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the +withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above. +</p> + +<p> +The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy deafness, +which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They are like a great +curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world beyond. And now there is the +thunder of the huge covered wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest +wagoner is thinking of his dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late +hour; but he will not touch it till he has fed his horses,—the strong, +submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him +from between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that +awful manner as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders +up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so +near home. Look at their grand shaggy feet that seem to grasp the firm earth, +at the patient strength of their necks, bowed under the heavy collar, at the +mighty muscles of their struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them +neigh over their hardly-earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist +necks freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond. +Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace, and the +arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the trees. +</p> + +<p> +Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresting wheel +sending out its diamond jets of water. That little girl is watching it too; she +has been standing on just the same spot at the edge of the water ever since I +paused on the bridge. And that queer white cur with the brown ear seems to be +leaping and barking in ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is +jealous because his playfellow in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. +It is time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very bright +fire to tempt her: the red light shines out under the deepening gray of the +sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms on the cold stone of +this bridge.... +</p> + +<p> +Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of +my chair, and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote +Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years ago. Before I dozed off, I +was going to tell you what Mr and Mrs Tulliver were talking about, as they +sat by the bright fire in the left-hand parlour, on that very afternoon I have +been dreaming of. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap02"></a>Chapter II.<br/> +Mr Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom</h3> + +<p> +“What I want, you know,” said Mr Tulliver,—“what I +want is to give Tom a good eddication; an eddication as’ll be a bread to +him. That was what I was thinking of when I gave notice for him to leave the +academy at Lady-day. I mean to put him to a downright good school at Midsummer. +The two years at th’ academy ’ud ha’ done well enough, if +I’d meant to make a miller and farmer of him, for he’s had a fine +sight more schoolin’ nor <i>I</i> ever got. All the learnin’ +<i>my</i> father ever paid for was a bit o’ birch at one end and the +alphabet at th’ other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, +so as he might be up to the tricks o’ these fellows as talk fine and +write with a flourish. It ’ud be a help to me wi’ these lawsuits, +and arbitrations, and things. I wouldn’t make a downright lawyer o’ +the lad,—I should be sorry for him to be a raskill,—but a sort +o’ engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or +one o’ them smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only +for a big watch-chain and a high stool. They’re pretty nigh all one, and +they’re not far off being even wi’ the law, <i>I</i> believe; for +Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i’ the face as hard as one cat looks another. +<i>He’s</i> none frightened at him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blond comely woman in a fan-shaped cap +(I am afraid to think how long it is since fan-shaped caps were worn, they must +be so near coming in again. At that time, when Mrs Tulliver was nearly forty, +they were new at St Ogg’s, and considered sweet things). +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mr Tulliver, you know best: <i>I’ve</i> no objections. But +hadn’t I better kill a couple o’ fowl, and have th’ aunts and +uncles to dinner next week, so as you may hear what sister Glegg and sister +Pullet have got to say about it? There’s a couple o’ fowl +<i>wants</i> killing!” +</p> + +<p> +“You may kill every fowl i’ the yard if you like, Bessy; but I +shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what I’m to do wi’ my own +lad,” said Mr Tulliver, defiantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear heart!” said Mrs Tulliver, shocked at this sanguinary +rhetoric, “how can you talk so, Mr Tulliver? But it’s your way to +speak disrespectful o’ my family; and sister Glegg throws all the blame +upo’ me, though I’m sure I’m as innocent as the babe unborn. +For nobody’s ever heard me say as it wasn’t lucky for my children +to have aunts and uncles as can live independent. Howiver, if Tom’s to go +to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and mend him; +else he might as well have calico as linen, for they’d be one as yallow +as th’ other before they’d been washed half-a-dozen times. And +then, when the box is goin’ back’ard and forrard, I could send the +lad a cake, or a pork-pie, or an apple; for he can do with an extry bit, bless +him! whether they stint him at the meals or no. My children can eat as much +victuals as most, thank God!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, we won’t send him out o’ reach o’ the +carrier’s cart, if other things fit in,” said Mr Tulliver. +“But you mustn’t put a spoke i’ the wheel about the +washin,’ if we can’t get a school near enough. That’s the +fault I have to find wi’ you, Bessy; if you see a stick i’ the +road, you’re allays thinkin’ you can’t step over it. +You’d want me not to hire a good wagoner, ’cause he’d got a +mole on his face.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear heart!” said Mrs Tulliver, in mild surprise, “when did +I iver make objections to a man because he’d got a mole on his face? +I’m sure I’m rether fond o’ the moles; for my brother, as is +dead an’ gone, had a mole on his brow. But I can’t remember your +iver offering to hire a wagoner with a mole, Mr Tulliver. There was John Gibbs +hadn’t a mole on his face no more nor you have, an’ I was all for +having you hire <i>him</i>; an’ so you did hire him, an’ if he +hadn’t died o’ th’ inflammation, as we paid Dr Turnbull for +attending him, he’d very like ha’ been drivin’ the wagon now. +He might have a mole somewhere out o’ sight, but how was I to know that, +Mr Tulliver?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, Bessy; I didn’t mean justly the mole; I meant it to stand +for summat else; but niver mind—it’s puzzling work, talking is. +What I’m thinking on, is how to find the right sort o’ school to +send Tom to, for I might be ta’en in again, as I’ve been wi’ +th’ academy. I’ll have nothing to do wi’ a ’cademy +again: whativer school I send Tom to, it sha’n’t be a +’cademy; it shall be a place where the lads spend their time i’ +summat else besides blacking the family’s shoes, and getting up the +potatoes. It’s an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school to +pick.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands into his +breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some suggestion there. Apparently he +was not disappointed, for he presently said, “I know what I’ll do: +I’ll talk it over wi’ Riley; he’s coming to-morrow, t’ +arbitrate about the dam.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mr Tulliver, I’ve put the sheets out for the best bed, and +Kezia’s got ’em hanging at the fire. They aren’t the best +sheets, but they’re good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he who he +will; for as for them best Holland sheets, I should repent buying ’em, +only they’ll do to lay us out in. An’ if you was to die to-morrow, +Mr Tulliver, they’re mangled beautiful, an’ all ready, an’ +smell o’ lavender as it ’ud be a pleasure to lay ’em out; +an’ they lie at the left-hand corner o’ the big oak linen-chest at +the back: not as I should trust anybody to look ’em out but +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +As Mrs Tulliver uttered the last sentence, she drew a bright bunch of keys +from her pocket, and singled out one, rubbing her thumb and finger up and down +it with a placid smile while she looked at the clear fire. If Mr Tulliver had +been a susceptible man in his conjugal relation, he might have supposed that +she drew out the key to aid her imagination in anticipating the moment when he +would be in a state to justify the production of the best Holland sheets. +Happily he was not so; he was only susceptible in respect of his right to +water-power; moreover, he had the marital habit of not listening very closely, +and since his mention of Mr Riley, had been apparently occupied in a tactile +examination of his woollen stockings. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I’ve hit it, Bessy,” was his first remark after a +short silence. “Riley’s as likely a man as any to know o’ +some school; he’s had schooling himself, an’ goes about to all +sorts o’ places, arbitratin’ and vallyin’ and that. And we +shall have time to talk it over to-morrow night when the business is done. I +want Tom to be such a sort o’ man as Riley, you know,—as can talk +pretty nigh as well as if it was all wrote out for him, and knows a good lot +o’ words as don’t mean much, so as you can’t lay hold of +’em i’ law; and a good solid knowledge o’ business +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mrs Tulliver, “so far as talking proper, and +knowing everything, and walking with a bend in his back, and setting his hair +up, I shouldn’t mind the lad being brought up to that. But them +fine-talking men from the big towns mostly wear the false shirt-fronts; they +wear a frill till it’s all a mess, and then hide it with a bib; I know +Riley does. And then, if Tom’s to go and live at Mudport, like Riley, +he’ll have a house with a kitchen hardly big enough to turn in, an’ +niver get a fresh egg for his breakfast, an’ sleep up three pair o’ +stairs,—or four, for what I know,—and be burnt to death before he +can get down.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Mr Tulliver, “I’ve no thoughts of his +going to Mudport: I mean him to set up his office at St Ogg’s, close by +us, an’ live at home. But,” continued Mr Tulliver after a pause, +“what I’m a bit afraid on is, as Tom hasn’t got the right +sort o’ brains for a smart fellow. I doubt he’s a bit slowish. He +takes after your family, Bessy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that he does,” said Mrs Tulliver, accepting the last +proposition entirely on its own merits; “he’s wonderful for liking +a deal o’ salt in his broth. That was my brother’s way, and my +father’s before him.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems a bit a pity, though,” said Mr Tulliver, “as the +lad should take after the mother’s side instead o’ the little +wench. That’s the worst on’t wi’ crossing o’ breeds: +you can never justly calkilate what’ll come on’t. The little un +takes after my side, now: she’s twice as ’cute as Tom. Too +’cute for a woman, I’m afraid,” continued Mr Tulliver, +turning his head dubiously first on one side and then on the other. +“It’s no mischief much while she’s a little un; but an +over-’cute woman’s no better nor a long-tailed +sheep,—she’ll fetch none the bigger price for that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it <i>is</i> a mischief while she’s a little un, Mr +Tulliver, for it runs to naughtiness. How to keep her in a clean pinafore two +hours together passes my cunning. An’ now you put me i’ +mind,” continued Mrs Tulliver, rising and going to the window, “I +don’t know where she is now, an’ it’s pretty nigh tea-time. +Ah, I thought so,—wanderin’ up an’ down by the water, like a +wild thing: She’ll tumble in some day.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and shook her head,—a +process which she repeated more than once before she returned to her chair. +</p> + +<p> +“You talk o’ ’cuteness, Mr Tulliver,” she observed as +she sat down, “but I’m sure the child’s half an idiot +i’ some things; for if I send her upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets +what she’s gone for, an’ perhaps ’ull sit down on the floor +i’ the sunshine an’ plait her hair an’ sing to herself like a +Bedlam creatur’, all the while I’m waiting for her downstairs. That +niver run i’ my family, thank God! no more nor a brown skin as makes her +look like a mulatter. I don’t like to fly i’ the face o’ +Providence, but it seems hard as I should have but one gell, an’ her so +comical.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh, nonsense!” said Mr Tulliver; “she’s a straight, +black-eyed wench as anybody need wish to see. I don’t know i’ what +she’s behind other folks’s children; and she can read almost as +well as the parson.” +</p> + +<p> +“But her hair won’t curl all I can do with it, and she’s so +franzy about having it put i’ paper, and I’ve such work as never +was to make her stand and have it pinched with th’ irons.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cut it off—cut it off short,” said the father, rashly. +</p> + +<p> +“How can you talk so, Mr Tulliver? She’s too big a gell—gone +nine, and tall of her age—to have her hair cut short; an’ +there’s her cousin Lucy’s got a row o’ curls round her head, +an’ not a hair out o’ place. It seems hard as my sister Deane +should have that pretty child; I’m sure Lucy takes more after me nor my +own child does. Maggie, Maggie,” continued the mother, in a tone of +half-coaxing fretfulness, as this small mistake of nature entered the room, +“where’s the use o’ my telling you to keep away from the +water? You’ll tumble in and be drownded some day, an’ then +you’ll be sorry you didn’t do as mother told you.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s hair, as she threw off her bonnet, painfully confirmed her +mother’s accusation. Mrs Tulliver, desiring her daughter to have a +curled crop, “like other folks’s children,” had had it cut +too short in front to be pushed behind the ears; and as it was usually straight +an hour after it had been taken out of paper, Maggie was incessantly tossing +her head to keep the dark, heavy locks out of her gleaming black eyes,—an +action which gave her very much the air of a small Shetland pony. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear, oh, dear, Maggie, what are you thinkin’ of, to throw +your bonnet down there? Take it upstairs, there’s a good gell, an’ +let your hair be brushed, an’ put your other pinafore on, an’ +change your shoes, do, for shame; an’ come an’ go on with your +patchwork, like a little lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, mother,” said Maggie, in a vehemently cross tone, “I +don’t <i>want</i> to do my patchwork.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane for your aunt +Glegg?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s foolish work,” said Maggie, with a toss of her +mane,—“tearing things to pieces to sew ’em together again. +And I don’t want to do anything for my aunt Glegg. I don’t like +her.” +</p> + +<p> +Exit Maggie, dragging her bonnet by the string, while Mr Tulliver laughs +audibly. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder at you, as you’ll laugh at her, Mr Tulliver,” said +the mother, with feeble fretfulness in her tone. “You encourage her +i’ naughtiness. An’ her aunts will have it as it’s me spoils +her.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver was what is called a good-tempered person,—never cried, +when she was a baby, on any slighter ground than hunger and pins; and from the +cradle upward had been healthy, fair, plump, and dull-witted; in short, the +flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk and mildness are not +the best things for keeping, and when they turn only a little sour, they may +disagree with young stomachs seriously. I have often wondered whether those +early Madonnas of Raphael, with the blond faces and somewhat stupid expression, +kept their placidity undisturbed when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys +got a little too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given +to feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more and +more ineffectual. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap03"></a>Chapter III.<br/> +Mr Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom</h3> + +<p> +The gentleman in the ample white cravat and shirt-frill, taking his +brandy-and-water so pleasantly with his good friend Tulliver, is Mr Riley, a +gentleman with a waxen complexion and fat hands, rather highly educated for an +auctioneer and appraiser, but large-hearted enough to show a great deal of +<i>bonhomie</i> toward simple country acquaintances of hospitable habits. Mr +Riley spoke of such acquaintances kindly as “people of the old +school.” +</p> + +<p> +The conversation had come to a pause. Mr Tulliver, not without a particular +reason, had abstained from a seventh recital of the cool retort by which Riley +had shown himself too many for Dix, and how Wakem had had his comb cut for once +in his life, now the business of the dam had been settled by arbitration, and +how there never would have been any dispute at all about the height of water if +everybody was what they should be, and Old Harry hadn’t made the lawyers. +Mr Tulliver was, on the whole, a man of safe traditional opinions; but on one +or two points he had trusted to his unassisted intellect, and had arrived at +several questionable conclusions; amongst the rest, that rats, weevils, and +lawyers were created by Old Harry. Unhappily he had no one to tell him that +this was rampant Manichæism, else he might have seen his error. But to-day it +was clear that the good principle was triumphant: this affair of the +water-power had been a tangled business somehow, for all it seemed—look +at it one way—as plain as water’s water; but, big a puzzle as it +was, it hadn’t got the better of Riley. Mr Tulliver took his +brandy-and-water a little stronger than usual, and, for a man who might be +supposed to have a few hundreds lying idle at his banker’s, was rather +incautiously open in expressing his high estimate of his friend’s +business talents. +</p> + +<p> +But the dam was a subject of conversation that would keep; it could always be +taken up again at the same point, and exactly in the same condition; and there +was another subject, as you know, on which Mr Tulliver was in pressing want of +Mr Riley’s advice. This was his particular reason for remaining silent +for a short space after his last draught, and rubbing his knees in a meditative +manner. He was not a man to make an abrupt transition. This was a puzzling +world, as he often said, and if you drive your wagon in a hurry, you may light +on an awkward corner. Mr Riley, meanwhile, was not impatient. Why should he +be? Even Hotspur, one would think, must have been patient in his slippers on a +warm hearth, taking copious snuff, and sipping gratuitous brandy-and-water. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a thing I’ve got i’ my head,” said Mr +Tulliver at last, in rather a lower tone than usual, as he turned his head and +looked steadfastly at his companion. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Mr Riley, in a tone of mild interest. He was a man with +heavy waxen eyelids and high-arched eyebrows, looking exactly the same under +all circumstances. This immovability of face, and the habit of taking a pinch +of snuff before he gave an answer, made him trebly oracular to Mr Tulliver. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a very particular thing,” he went on; “it’s +about my boy Tom.” +</p> + +<p> +At the sound of this name, Maggie, who was seated on a low stool close by the +fire, with a large book open on her lap, shook her heavy hair back and looked +up eagerly. There were few sounds that roused Maggie when she was dreaming over +her book, but Tom’s name served as well as the shrillest whistle; in an +instant she was on the watch, with gleaming eyes, like a Skye terrier +suspecting mischief, or at all events determined to fly at any one who +threatened it toward Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, I want to put him to a new school at Midsummer,” said Mr +Tulliver; “he’s comin’ away from the ’cademy at +Lady-day, an’ I shall let him run loose for a quarter; but after that I +want to send him to a downright good school, where they’ll make a +scholard of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mr Riley, “there’s no greater advantage +you can give him than a good education. Not,” he added, with polite +significance,—“not that a man can’t be an excellent miller +and farmer, and a shrewd, sensible fellow into the bargain, without much help +from the schoolmaster.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you,” said Mr Tulliver, winking, and turning his head +on one side; “but that’s where it is. I don’t <i>mean</i> Tom +to be a miller and farmer. I see no fun i’ that. Why, if I made him a +miller an’ farmer, he’d be expectin’ to take to the mill +an’ the land, an’ a-hinting at me as it was time for me to lay by +an’ think o’ my latter end. Nay, nay, I’ve seen enough +o’ that wi’ sons. I’ll never pull my coat off before I go to +bed. I shall give Tom an eddication an’ put him to a business, as he may +make a nest for himself, an’ not want to push me out o’ mine. +Pretty well if he gets it when I’m dead an’ gone. I +sha’n’t be put off wi’ spoon-meat afore I’ve lost my +teeth.” +</p> + +<p> +This was evidently a point on which Mr Tulliver felt strongly; and the impetus +which had given unusual rapidity and emphasis to his speech showed itself still +unexhausted for some minutes afterward in a defiant motion of the head from +side to side, and an occasional “Nay, nay,” like a subsiding growl. +</p> + +<p> +These angry symptoms were keenly observed by Maggie, and cut her to the quick. +Tom, it appeared, was supposed capable of turning his father out of doors, and +of making the future in some way tragic by his wickedness. This was not to be +borne; and Maggie jumped up from her stool, forgetting all about her heavy +book, which fell with a bang within the fender, and going up between her +father’s knees, said, in a half-crying, half-indignant voice,— +</p> + +<p> +“Father, Tom wouldn’t be naughty to you ever; I know he +wouldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver was out of the room superintending a choice supper-dish, and Mr +Tulliver’s heart was touched; so Maggie was not scolded about the book. +Mr Riley quietly picked it up and looked at it, while the father laughed, with +a certain tenderness in his hard-lined face, and patted his little girl on the +back, and then held her hands and kept her between his knees. +</p> + +<p> +“What! they mustn’t say any harm o’ Tom, eh?” said Mr +Tulliver, looking at Maggie with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice, +turning to Mr Riley, as though Maggie couldn’t hear, “She +understands what one’s talking about so as never was. And you should hear +her read,—straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. And allays at +her book! But it’s bad—it’s bad,” Mr Tulliver added +sadly, checking this blamable exultation. “A woman’s no business +wi’ being so clever; it’ll turn to trouble, I doubt. But bless +you!”—here the exultation was clearly recovering the +mastery,—“she’ll read the books and understand ’em +better nor half the folks as are growed up.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s cheeks began to flush with triumphant excitement. She thought +Mr Riley would have a respect for her now; it had been evident that he thought +nothing of her before. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Riley was turning over the leaves of the book, and she could make nothing +of his face, with its high-arched eyebrows; but he presently looked at her, and +said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come and tell me something about this book; here are some +pictures,—I want to know what they mean.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, with deepening colour, went without hesitation to Mr Riley’s +elbow and looked over the book, eagerly seizing one corner, and tossing back +her mane, while she said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ll tell you what that means. It’s a dreadful picture, +isn’t it? But I can’t help looking at it. That old woman in the +water’s a witch,—they’ve put her in to find out whether +she’s a witch or no; and if she swims she’s a witch, and if +she’s drowned—and killed, you know—she’s innocent, and +not a witch, but only a poor silly old woman. But what good would it do her +then, you know, when she was drowned? Only, I suppose, she’d go to +heaven, and God would make it up to her. And this dreadful blacksmith with his +arms akimbo, laughing,—oh, isn’t he ugly?—I’ll tell you +what he is. He’s the Devil <i>really</i>” (here Maggie’s +voice became louder and more emphatic), “and not a right blacksmith; for +the Devil takes the shape of wicked men, and walks about and sets people doing +wicked things, and he’s oftener in the shape of a bad man than any other, +because, you know, if people saw he was the Devil, and he roared at ’em, +they’d run away, and he couldn’t make ’em do what he +pleased.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie’s with petrifying +wonder. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?” he burst out at +last. +</p> + +<p> +“‘The History of the Devil,’ by Daniel Defoe,—not quite +the right book for a little girl,” said Mr Riley. “How came it +among your books, Mr Tulliver?” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie looked hurt and discouraged, while her father said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it’s one o’ the books I bought at Partridge’s +sale. They was all bound alike,—it’s a good binding, you +see,—and I thought they’d be all good books. There’s Jeremy +Taylor’s ‘Holy Living and Dying’ among ’em. I read in +it often of a Sunday” (Mr Tulliver felt somehow a familiarity with that +great writer, because his name was Jeremy); “and there’s a lot more +of ’em,—sermons mostly, I think,—but they’ve all got +the same covers, and I thought they were all o’ one sample, as you may +say. But it seems one mustn’t judge by th’ outside. This is a +puzzlin’ world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mr Riley, in an admonitory, patronizing tone as he +patted Maggie on the head, “I advise you to put by the ‘History of +the Devil,’ and read some prettier book. Have you no prettier +books?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to +vindicate the variety of her reading. “I know the reading in this book +isn’t pretty; but I like the pictures, and I make stories to the pictures +out of my own head, you know. But I’ve got ‘Æsop’s +Fables,’ and a book about Kangaroos and things, and the +‘Pilgrim’s Progress....’” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, a beautiful book,” said Mr Riley; “you can’t read +a better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but there’s a great deal about the Devil in that,” +said Maggie, triumphantly, “and I’ll show you the picture of him in +his true shape, as he fought with Christian.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped on a chair, and +reached down from the small bookcase a shabby old copy of Bunyan, which opened +at once, without the least trouble of search, at the picture she wanted. +</p> + +<p> +“Here he is,” she said, running back to Mr Riley, “and Tom +coloured him for me with his paints when he was at home last +holidays,—the body all black, you know, and the eyes red, like fire, +because he’s all fire inside, and it shines out at his eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go, go!” said Mr Tulliver, peremptorily, beginning to feel rather +uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal appearance of a being +powerful enough to create lawyers; “shut up the book, and let’s +hear no more o’ such talk. It is as I thought—the child ’ull +learn more mischief nor good wi’ the books. Go, go and see after your +mother.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie shut up the book at once, with a sense of disgrace, but not being +inclined to see after her mother, she compromised the matter by going into a +dark corner behind her father’s chair, and nursing her doll, toward which +she had an occasional fit of fondness in Tom’s absence, neglecting its +toilet, but lavishing so many warm kisses on it that the waxen cheeks had a +wasted, unhealthy appearance. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever hear the like on’t?” said Mr Tulliver, as +Maggie retired. “It’s a pity but what she’d been the +lad,—she’d ha’ been a match for the lawyers, <i>she</i> +would. It’s the wonderful’st thing”—here he lowered his +voice—“as I picked the mother because she wasn’t o’er +’cute—bein’ a good-looking woman too, an’ come of a +rare family for managing; but I picked her from her sisters o’ purpose, +’cause she was a bit weak like; for I wasn’t agoin’ to be +told the rights o’ things by my own fireside. But you see when a +man’s got brains himself, there’s no knowing where they’ll +run to; an’ a pleasant sort o’ soft woman may go on breeding you +stupid lads and ’cute wenches, till it’s like as if the world was +turned topsy-turvy. It’s an uncommon puzzlin’ thing.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Riley’s gravity gave way, and he shook a little under the application +of his pinch of snuff before he said,— +</p> + +<p> +“But your lad’s not stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last, +busy making fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he isn’t not to say stupid,—he’s got a notion +o’ things out o’ door, an’ a sort o’ common sense, as +he’d lay hold o’ things by the right handle. But he’s slow +with his tongue, you see, and he reads but poorly, and can’t abide the +books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an’ as shy as can be wi’ +strangers, an’ you never hear him say ’cute things like the little +wench. Now, what I want is to send him to a school where they’ll make him +a bit nimble with his tongue and his pen, and make a smart chap of him. I want +my son to be even wi’ these fellows as have got the start o’ me +with having better schooling. Not but what, if the world had been left as God +made it, I could ha’ seen my way, and held my own wi’ the best of +’em; but things have got so twisted round and wrapped up i’ +unreasonable words, as aren’t a bit like ’em, as I’m clean at +fault, often an’ often. Everything winds about so—the more +straightforrad you are, the more you’re puzzled.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver took a draught, swallowed it slowly, and shook his head in a +melancholy manner, conscious of exemplifying the truth that a perfectly sane +intellect is hardly at home in this insane world. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re quite in the right of it, Tulliver,” observed Mr +Riley. “Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son’s +education, than leave it him in your will. I know I should have tried to do so +by a son of mine, if I’d had one, though, God knows, I haven’t your +ready money to play with, Tulliver; and I have a houseful of daughters into the +bargain.” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say, now, you know of a school as ’ud be just the thing for +Tom,” said Mr Tulliver, not diverted from his purpose by any sympathy +with Mr Riley’s deficiency of ready cash. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Riley took a pinch of snuff, and kept Mr Tulliver in suspense by a silence +that seemed deliberative, before he said,— +</p> + +<p> +“I know of a very fine chance for any one that’s got the necessary +money and that’s what you have, Tulliver. The fact is, I wouldn’t +recommend any friend of mine to send a boy to a regular school, if he could +afford to do better. But if any one wanted his boy to get superior instruction +and training, where he would be the companion of his master, and that master a +first rate fellow, I know his man. I wouldn’t mention the chance to +everybody, because I don’t think everybody would succeed in getting it, +if he were to try; but I mention it to you, Tulliver, between ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +The fixed inquiring glance with which Mr Tulliver had been watching his +friend’s oracular face became quite eager. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, now, let’s hear,” he said, adjusting himself in his +chair with the complacency of a person who is thought worthy of important +communications. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s an Oxford man,” said Mr Riley, sententiously, shutting +his mouth close, and looking at Mr Tulliver to observe the effect of this +stimulating information. +</p> + +<p> +“What! a parson?” said Mr Tulliver, rather doubtfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and an M.A. The bishop, I understand, thinks very highly of him: +why, it was the bishop who got him his present curacy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah?” said Mr Tulliver, to whom one thing was as wonderful as +another concerning these unfamiliar phenomena. “But what can he want +wi’ Tom, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, the fact is, he’s fond of teaching, and wishes to keep up his +studies, and a clergyman has but little opportunity for that in his parochial +duties. He’s willing to take one or two boys as pupils to fill up his +time profitably. The boys would be quite of the family,—the finest thing +in the world for them; under Stelling’s eye continually.” +</p> + +<p> +“But do you think they’d give the poor lad twice o’ +pudding?” said Mrs Tulliver, who was now in her place again. +“He’s such a boy for pudding as never was; an’ a growing boy +like that,—it’s dreadful to think o’ their stintin’ +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what money ’ud he want?” said Mr Tulliver, whose +instinct told him that the services of this admirable M.A. would bear a high +price. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I know of a clergyman who asks a hundred and fifty with his +youngest pupils, and he’s not to be mentioned with Stelling, the man I +speak of. I know, on good authority, that one of the chief people at Oxford +said, Stelling might get the highest honours if he chose. But he didn’t +care about university honours; he’s a quiet man—not noisy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, a deal better—a deal better,” said Mr Tulliver; +“but a hundred and fifty’s an uncommon price. I never thought +o’ paying so much as that.” +</p> + +<p> +“A good education, let me tell you, Tulliver,—a good education is +cheap at the money. But Stelling is moderate in his terms; he’s not a +grasping man. I’ve no doubt he’d take your boy at a hundred, and +that’s what you wouldn’t get many other clergymen to do. I’ll +write to him about it, if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver rubbed his knees, and looked at the carpet in a meditative manner. +</p> + +<p> +“But belike he’s a bachelor,” observed Mrs Tulliver, in the +interval; “an’ I’ve no opinion o’ housekeepers. There +was my brother, as is dead an’ gone, had a housekeeper once, an’ +she took half the feathers out o’ the best bed, an’ packed +’em up an’ sent ’em away. An’ it’s unknown the +linen she made away with—Stott her name was. It ’ud break my heart +to send Tom where there’s a housekeeper, an’ I hope you won’t +think of it, Mr Tulliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may set your mind at rest on that score, Mrs Tulliver,” said +Mr Riley, “for Stelling is married to as nice a little woman as any man +need wish for a wife. There isn’t a kinder little soul in the world; I +know her family well. She has very much your complexion,—light curly +hair. She comes of a good Mudport family, and it’s not every offer that +would have been acceptable in that quarter. But Stelling’s not an +everyday man; rather a particular fellow as to the people he chooses to be +connected with. But I <i>think</i> he would have no objection to take your son; +I <i>think</i> he would not, on my representation.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what he could have <i>against</i> the lad,” +said Mrs Tulliver, with a slight touch of motherly indignation; “a nice +fresh-skinned lad as anybody need wish to see.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s one thing I’m thinking on,” said Mr +Tulliver, turning his head on one side and looking at Mr Riley, after a long +perusal of the carpet. “Wouldn’t a parson be almost too high-learnt +to bring up a lad to be a man o’ business? My notion o’ the parsons +was as they’d got a sort o’ learning as lay mostly out o’ +sight. And that isn’t what I want for Tom. I want him to know figures, +and write like print, and see into things quick, and know what folks mean, and +how to wrap things up in words as aren’t actionable. It’s an +uncommon fine thing, that is,” concluded Mr Tulliver, shaking his head, +“when you can let a man know what you think of him without paying for +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear Tulliver,” said Mr Riley, “you’re quite +under a mistake about the clergy; all the best schoolmasters are of the clergy. +The schoolmasters who are not clergymen are a very low set of men +generally.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that Jacobs is, at the ’cademy,” interposed Mr +Tulliver. +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure,—men who have failed in other trades, most likely. Now, +a clergyman is a gentleman by profession and education; and besides that, he +has the knowledge that will ground a boy, and prepare him for entering on any +career with credit. There may be some clergymen who are mere bookmen; but you +may depend upon it, Stelling is not one of them,—a man that’s wide +awake, let me tell you. Drop him a hint, and that’s enough. You talk of +figures, now; you have only to say to Stelling, ‘I want my son to be a +thorough arithmetician,’ and you may leave the rest to him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Riley paused a moment, while Mr Tulliver, somewhat reassured as to clerical +tutorship, was inwardly rehearsing to an imaginary Mr Stelling the statement, +“I want my son to know ’rethmetic.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, my dear Tulliver,” Mr Riley continued, “when you +get a thoroughly educated man, like Stelling, he’s at no loss to take up +any branch of instruction. When a workman knows the use of his tools, he can +make a door as well as a window.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that’s true,” said Mr Tulliver, almost convinced now +that the clergy must be the best of schoolmasters. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you,” said Mr +Riley, “and I wouldn’t do it for everybody. I’ll see +Stelling’s father-in-law, or drop him a line when I get back to Mudport, +to say that you wish to place your boy with his son-in-law, and I dare say +Stelling will write to you, and send you his terms.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s no hurry, is there?” said Mrs Tulliver; +“for I hope, Mr Tulliver, you won’t let Tom begin at his new +school before Midsummer. He began at the ’cademy at the Lady-day quarter, +and you see what good’s come of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, Bessy, never brew wi’ bad malt upo’ Michaelmas day, +else you’ll have a poor tap,” said Mr Tulliver, winking and +smiling at Mr Riley, with the natural pride of a man who has a buxom wife +conspicuously his inferior in intellect. “But it’s true +there’s no hurry; you’ve hit it there, Bessy.” +</p> + +<p> +“It might be as well not to defer the arrangement too long,” said +Mr Riley, quietly, “for Stelling may have propositions from other +parties, and I know he would not take more than two or three boarders, if so +many. If I were you, I think I would enter on the subject with Stelling at +once: there’s no necessity for sending the boy before Midsummer, but I +would be on the safe side, and make sure that nobody forestalls you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, there’s summat in that,” said Mr Tulliver. +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” broke in Maggie, who had stolen unperceived to her +father’s elbow again, listening with parted lips, while she held her doll +topsy-turvy, and crushed its nose against the wood of the +chair,—“father, is it a long way off where Tom is to go? +Sha’n’t we ever go to see him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, my wench,” said the father, tenderly. +“Ask Mr Riley; he knows.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie came round promptly in front of Mr Riley, and said, “How far is +it, please, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, a long, long way off,” that gentleman answered, being of +opinion that children, when they are not naughty, should always be spoken to +jocosely. “You must borrow the seven-leagued boots to get to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s nonsense!” said Maggie, tossing her head haughtily, +and turning away, with the tears springing in her eyes. She began to dislike +Mr Riley; it was evident he thought her silly and of no consequence. +</p> + +<p> +“Hush, Maggie! for shame of you, asking questions and chattering,” +said her mother. “Come and sit down on your little stool, and hold your +tongue, do. But,” added Mrs Tulliver, who had her own alarm awakened, +“is it so far off as I couldn’t wash him and mend him?” +</p> + +<p> +“About fifteen miles; that’s all,” said Mr Riley. “You +can drive there and back in a day quite comfortably. Or—Stelling is a +hospitable, pleasant man—he’d be glad to have you stay.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s too far off for the linen, I doubt,” said Mrs +Tulliver, sadly. +</p> + +<p> +The entrance of supper opportunely adjourned this difficulty, and relieved Mr +Riley from the labour of suggesting some solution or compromise,—a labour +which he would otherwise doubtless have undertaken; for, as you perceive, he +was a man of very obliging manners. And he had really given himself the trouble +of recommending Mr Stelling to his friend Tulliver without any positive +expectation of a solid, definite advantage resulting to himself, +notwithstanding the subtle indications to the contrary which might have misled +a too sagacious observer. For there is nothing more widely misleading than +sagacity if it happens to get on a wrong scent; and sagacity, persuaded that +men usually act and speak from distinct motives, with a consciously proposed +end in view, is certain to waste its energies on imaginary game. +</p> + +<p> +Plotting covetousness and deliberate contrivance, in order to compass a selfish +end, are nowhere abundant but in the world of the dramatist: they demand too +intense a mental action for many of our fellow-parishioners to be guilty of +them. It is easy enough to spoil the lives of our neighbours without taking so +much trouble; we can do it by lazy acquiescence and lazy omission, by trivial +falsities for which we hardly know a reason, by small frauds neutralised by +small extravagances, by maladroit flatteries, and clumsily improvised +insinuations. We live from hand to mouth, most of us, with a small family of +immediate desires; we do little else than snatch a morsel to satisfy the hungry +brood, rarely thinking of seed-corn or the next year’s crop. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Riley was a man of business, and not cold toward his own interest, yet even +he was more under the influence of small promptings than of far-sighted +designs. He had no private understanding with the Rev. Walter Stelling; on the +contrary, he knew very little of that M.A. and his acquirements,—not +quite enough, perhaps, to warrant so strong a recommendation of him as he had +given to his friend Tulliver. But he believed Mr Stelling to be an excellent +classic, for Gadsby had said so, and Gadsby’s first cousin was an Oxford +tutor; which was better ground for the belief even than his own immediate +observation would have been, for though Mr Riley had received a tincture of the +classics at the great Mudport Free School, and had a sense of understanding +Latin generally, his comprehension of any particular Latin was not ready. +Doubtless there remained a subtle aroma from his juvenile contact with the +<i>De Senectute</i> and the fourth book of the <i>Æneid</i>, but it had ceased +to be distinctly recognisable as classical, and was only perceived in the +higher finish and force of his auctioneering style. Then, Stelling was an +Oxford man, and the Oxford men were always—no, no, it was the Cambridge +men who were always good mathematicians. But a man who had had a university +education could teach anything he liked; especially a man like Stelling, who +had made a speech at a Mudport dinner on a political occasion, and had +acquitted himself so well that it was generally remarked, this son-in-law of +Timpson’s was a sharp fellow. It was to be expected of a Mudport man, +from the parish of St Ursula, that he would not omit to do a good turn to a +son-in-law of Timpson’s, for Timpson was one of the most useful and +influential men in the parish, and had a good deal of business, which he knew +how to put into the right hands. Mr Riley liked such men, quite apart from any +money which might be diverted, through their good judgment, from less worthy +pockets into his own; and it would be a satisfaction to him to say to Timpson +on his return home, “I’ve secured a good pupil for your +son-in-law.” Timpson had a large family of daughters; Mr Riley felt for +him; besides, Louisa Timpson’s face, with its light curls, had been a +familiar object to him over the pew wainscot on a Sunday for nearly fifteen +years; it was natural her husband should be a commendable tutor. Moreover, Mr +Riley knew of no other schoolmaster whom he had any ground for recommending in +preference; why, then, should he not recommend Stelling? His friend Tulliver +had asked him for an opinion; it is always chilling, in friendly intercourse, +to say you have no opinion to give. And if you deliver an opinion at all, it is +mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded +knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it. +Thus Mr Riley, knowing no harm of Stelling to begin with, and wishing him well, +so far as he had any wishes at all concerning him, had no sooner recommended +him than he began to think with admiration of a man recommended on such high +authority, and would soon have gathered so warm an interest on the subject, +that if Mr Tulliver had in the end declined to send Tom to Stelling, Mr Riley +would have thought his “friend of the old school” a thoroughly +pig-headed fellow. +</p> + +<p> +If you blame Mr Riley very severely for giving a recommendation on such slight +grounds, I must say you are rather hard upon him. Why should an auctioneer and +appraiser thirty years ago, who had as good as forgotten his free-school Latin, +be expected to manifest a delicate scrupulosity which is not always exhibited +by gentlemen of the learned professions, even in our present advanced stage of +morality? +</p> + +<p> +Besides, a man with the milk of human kindness in him can scarcely abstain from +doing a good-natured action, and one cannot be good-natured all round. Nature +herself occasionally quarters an inconvenient parasite on an animal toward whom +she has otherwise no ill will. What then? We admire her care for the parasite. +If Mr Riley had shrunk from giving a recommendation that was not based on +valid evidence, he would not have helped Mr Stelling to a paying pupil, and +that would not have been so well for the reverend gentleman. Consider, too, +that all the pleasant little dim ideas and complacencies—of standing well +with Timpson, of dispensing advice when he was asked for it, of impressing his +friend Tulliver with additional respect, of saying something, and saying it +emphatically, with other inappreciably minute ingredients that went along with +the warm hearth and the brandy-and-water to make up Mr Riley’s +consciousness on this occasion—would have been a mere blank. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap04"></a>Chapter IV.<br/> +Tom Is Expected</h3> + +<p> +It was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not allowed to go with her +father in the gig when he went to fetch Tom home from the academy; but the +morning was too wet, Mrs Tulliver said, for a little girl to go out in her +best bonnet. Maggie took the opposite view very strongly, and it was a direct +consequence of this difference of opinion that when her mother was in the act +of brushing out the reluctant black crop Maggie suddenly rushed from under her +hands and dipped her head in a basin of water standing near, in the vindictive +determination that there should be no more chance of curls that day. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie, Maggie!” exclaimed Mrs Tulliver, sitting stout and +helpless with the brushes on her lap, “what is to become of you if +you’re so naughty? I’ll tell your aunt Glegg and your aunt Pullet +when they come next week, and they’ll never love you any more. Oh dear, +oh dear! look at your clean pinafore, wet from top to bottom. Folks ’ull +think it’s a judgment on me as I’ve got such a +child,—they’ll think I’ve done summat wicked.” +</p> + +<p> +Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already out of hearing, +making her way toward the great attic that ran under the old high-pitched roof, +shaking the water from her black locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier escaped +from his bath. This attic was Maggie’s favourite retreat on a wet day, +when the weather was not too cold; here she fretted out all her ill humours, +and talked aloud to the worm-eaten floors and the worm-eaten shelves, and the +dark rafters festooned with cobwebs; and here she kept a Fetish which she +punished for all her misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden doll, +which once stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of cheeks; but +was now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering. Three nails +driven into the head commemorated as many crises in Maggie’s nine years +of earthly struggle; that luxury of vengeance having been suggested to her by +the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old Bible. The last nail had been +driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion +represented aunt Glegg. But immediately afterward Maggie had reflected that if +she drove many nails in she would not be so well able to fancy that the head +was hurt when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make +believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even aunt Glegg would be +pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so as to +beg her niece’s pardon. Since then she had driven no more nails in, but +had soothed herself by alternately grinding and beating the wooden head against +the rough brick of the great chimneys that made two square pillars supporting +the roof. That was what she did this morning on reaching the attic, sobbing all +the while with a passion that expelled every other form of +consciousness,—even the memory of the grievance that had caused it. As at +last the sobs were getting quieter, and the grinding less fierce, a sudden beam +of sunshine, falling through the wire lattice across the worm-eaten shelves, +made her throw away the Fetish and run to the window. The sun was really +breaking out; the sound of the mill seemed cheerful again; the granary doors +were open; and there was Yap, the queer white-and-brown terrier, with one ear +turned back, trotting about and sniffing vaguely, as if he were in search of a +companion. It was irresistible. Maggie tossed her hair back and ran downstairs, +seized her bonnet without putting it on, peeped, and then dashed along the +passage lest she should encounter her mother, and was quickly out in the yard, +whirling round like a Pythoness, and singing as she whirled, “Yap, Yap, +Tom’s coming home!” while Yap danced and barked round her, as much +as to say, if there was any noise wanted he was the dog for it. +</p> + +<p> +“Hegh, hegh, Miss! you’ll make yourself giddy, an’ tumble +down i’ the dirt,” said Luke, the head miller, a tall, +broad-shouldered man of forty, black-eyed and black-haired, subdued by a +general mealiness, like an auricula. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie paused in her whirling and said, staggering a little, “Oh no, it +doesn’t make me giddy, Luke; may I go into the mill with you?” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and often came out with +her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness that made her dark eyes flash out +with new fire. The resolute din, the unresting motion of the great stones, +giving her a dim, delicious awe as at the presence of an uncontrollable force; +the meal forever pouring, pouring; the fine white powder softening all +surfaces, and making the very spidernets look like a faery lace-work; the +sweet, pure scent of the meal,—all helped to make Maggie feel that the +mill was a little world apart from her outside everyday life. The spiders were +especially a subject of speculation with her. She wondered if they had any +relatives outside the mill, for in that case there must be a painful difficulty +in their family intercourse,—a fat and floury spider, accustomed to take +his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer a little at a cousin’s table +where the fly was <i>au naturel</i>, and the lady spiders must be mutually +shocked at each other’s appearance. But the part of the mill she liked +best was the topmost story,—the corn-hutch, where there were the great +heaps of grain, which she could sit on and slide down continually. She was in +the habit of taking this recreation as she conversed with Luke, to whom she was +very communicative, wishing him to think well of her understanding, as her +father did. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps she felt it necessary to recover her position with him on the present +occasion for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near which he was busying +himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was requisite in +mill-society,— +</p> + +<p> +“I think you never read any book but the Bible, did you, Luke?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Miss, an’ not much o’ that,” said Luke, with +great frankness. “I’m no reader, I aren’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I’ve not got any +<i>very</i> pretty books that would be easy for you to read; but there’s +‘Pug’s Tour of Europe,’—that would tell you all about +the different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn’t understand +the reading, the pictures would help you; they show the looks and ways of the +people, and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you +know, and one sitting on a barrel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Miss, I’n no opinion o’ Dutchmen. There ben’t +much good i’ knowin’ about <i>them</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“But they’re our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our +fellow-creatures.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not much o’ fellow-creaturs, I think, Miss; all I know—my +old master, as war a knowin’ man, used to say, says he, ‘If +e’er I sow my wheat wi’out brinin’, I’m a +Dutchman,’ says he; an’ that war as much as to say as a Dutchman +war a fool, or next door. Nay, nay, I aren’t goin’ to bother mysen +about Dutchmen. There’s fools enoo, an’ rogues enoo, wi’out +lookin’ i’ books for ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke’s unexpectedly +decided views about Dutchmen, “perhaps you would like ‘Animated +Nature’ better; that’s not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants and +kangaroos, and the civet-cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting on its +tail,—I forget its name. There are countries full of those creatures, +instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn’t you like to know about +them, Luke?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Miss, I’n got to keep count o’ the flour an’ +corn; I can’t do wi’ knowin’ so many things besides my work. +That’s what brings folks to the gallows,—knowin’ everything +but what they’n got to get their bread by. An’ they’re mostly +lies, I think, what’s printed i’ the books: them printed sheets +are, anyhow, as the men cry i’ the streets.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you’re like my brother Tom, Luke,” said Maggie, wishing +to turn the conversation agreeably; “Tom’s not fond of reading. I +love Tom so dearly, Luke,—better than anybody else in the world. When he +grows up I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I can tell +him everything he doesn’t know. But I think Tom’s clever, for all +he doesn’t like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and +rabbit-pens.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Luke, “but he’ll be fine an’ vexed, as +the rabbits are all dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dead!” screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding seat on the +corn. “Oh dear, Luke! What! the lop-eared one, and the spotted doe that +Tom spent all his money to buy?” +</p> + +<p> +“As dead as moles,” said Luke, fetching his comparison from the +unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, Luke,” said Maggie, in a piteous tone, while the big +tears rolled down her cheek; “Tom told me to take care of ’em, and +I forgot. What <i>shall</i> I do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you see, Miss, they were in that far tool-house, an’ it was +nobody’s business to see to ’em. I reckon Master Tom told Harry to +feed ’em, but there’s no countin’ on Harry; <i>he’s</i> +a offal creatur as iver come about the primises, he is. He remembers nothing +but his own inside—an’ I wish it ’ud gripe him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rabbits every day; but +how could I, when they didn’t come into my head, you know? Oh, he will be +so angry with me, I know he will, and so sorry about his rabbits, and so am I +sorry. Oh, what <i>shall</i> I do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you fret, Miss,” said Luke, soothingly; +“they’re nash things, them lop-eared rabbits; they’d happen +ha’ died, if they’d been fed. Things out o’ natur niver +thrive: God A’mighty doesn’t like ’em. He made the +rabbits’ ears to lie back, an’ it’s nothin’ but +contrairiness to make ’em hing down like a mastiff dog’s. Master +Tom ’ull know better nor buy such things another time. Don’t you +fret, Miss. Will you come along home wi’ me, and see my wife? I’m +a-goin’ this minute.” +</p> + +<p> +The invitation offered an agreeable distraction to Maggie’s grief, and +her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by Luke’s side to his +pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple and pear trees, and with the added +dignity of a lean-to pigsty, at the other end of the Mill fields. Mrs Moggs, +Luke’s wife, was a decidedly agreeable acquaintance. She exhibited her +hospitality in bread and treacle, and possessed various works of art. Maggie +actually forgot that she had any special cause of sadness this morning, as she +stood on a chair to look at a remarkable series of pictures representing the +Prodigal Son in the costume of Sir Charles Grandison, except that, as might +have been expected from his defective moral character, he had not, like that +accomplished hero, the taste and strength of mind to dispense with a wig. But +the indefinable weight the dead rabbits had left on her mind caused her to feel +more than usual pity for the career of this weak young man, particularly when +she looked at the picture where he leaned against a tree with a flaccid +appearance, his knee-breeches unbuttoned and his wig awry, while the swine +apparently of some foreign breed, seemed to insult him by their good spirits +over their feast of husks. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very glad his father took him back again, aren’t you, +Luke?” she said. “For he was very sorry, you know, and +wouldn’t do wrong again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, Miss,” said Luke, “he’d be no great shakes, I +doubt, let’s feyther do what he would for him.” +</p> + +<p> +That was a painful thought to Maggie, and she wished much that the subsequent +history of the young man had not been left a blank. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap05"></a>Chapter V.<br/> +Tom Comes Home</h3> + +<p> +Tom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another fluttering +heart besides Maggie’s when it was late enough for the sound of the +gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs Tulliver had a strong feeling, it was +fondness for her boy. At last the sound came,—that quick light bowling of +the gig-wheels,—and in spite of the wind, which was blowing the clouds +about, and was not likely to respect Mrs Tulliver’s curls and +cap-strings, she came outside the door, and even held her hand on +Maggie’s offending head, forgetting all the griefs of the morning. +</p> + +<p> +“There he is, my sweet lad! But, Lord ha’ mercy! he’s got +never a collar on; it’s been lost on the road, I’ll be bound, and +spoilt the set.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg and then +on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said, with masculine +reticence as to the tender emotions, “Hallo! Yap—what! are you +there?” +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie hung on +his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray eyes wandered +toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he +would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow morning. He was one of those lads +that grow everywhere in England, and at twelve or thirteen years of age look as +much alike as goslings,—a lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and +roses, full lips, indeterminate nose and eyebrows,—a physiognomy in which +it seems impossible to discern anything but the generic character to boyhood; +as different as possible from poor Maggie’s phiz, which Nature seemed to +have moulded and coloured with the most decided intention. But that same Nature +has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so +that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while +she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under +these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she +conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most +unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may +after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this pink-and-white bit +of masculinity with the indeterminate features. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner, as +soon as his mother was gone out to examine his box and the warm parlour had +taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, “you don’t +know what I’ve got in <i>my</i> pockets,” nodding his head up and +down as a means of rousing her sense of mystery. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Maggie. “How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls +(marbles) or cobnuts?” Maggie’s heart sank a little, because Tom +always said it was “no good” playing with <i>her</i> at those +games, she played so badly. +</p> + +<p> +“Marls! no; I’ve swopped all my marls with the little fellows, and +cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see +here!” He drew something half out of his right-hand pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” said Maggie, in a whisper. “I can see nothing +but a bit of yellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it’s—a—new—guess, Maggie!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I <i>can’t</i> guess, Tom,” said Maggie, impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be a spitfire, else I won’t tell you,” said Tom, +thrusting his hand back into his pocket and looking determined. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Tom,” said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that +was held stiffly in the pocket. “I’m not cross, Tom; it was only +because I can’t bear guessing. <i>Please</i> be good to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom’s arm slowly relaxed, and he said, “Well, then, it’s a +new fish-line—two new uns,—one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I +wouldn’t go halves in the toffee and gingerbread on purpose to save the +money; and Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn’t. And +here’s hooks; see here—I say, <i>won’t</i> we go and fish +to-morrow down by the Round Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie and +put the worms on, and everything; won’t it be fun?” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s answer was to throw her arms round Tom’s neck and hug him, +and hold her cheek against his without speaking, while he slowly unwound some +of the line, saying, after a pause,— +</p> + +<p> +“Wasn’t I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? +You know, I needn’t have bought it, if I hadn’t liked.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, very, very good—I <i>do</i> love you, Tom.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks one by +one, before he spoke again. +</p> + +<p> +“And the fellows fought me, because I wouldn’t give in about the +toffee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn’t fight at your school, Tom. +Didn’t it hurt you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hurt me? no,” said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a +large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at +meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added,— +</p> + +<p> +“I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know; that’s what he got by wanting +to leather <i>me;</i> I wasn’t going to go halves because anybody +leathered me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you’re like Samson. If there +came a lion roaring at me, I think you’d fight him, wouldn’t you, +Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There’s no +lions, only in the shows.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; but if we were in the lion countries—I mean in Africa, where +it’s very hot; the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book +where I read it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I should get a gun and shoot him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if you hadn’t got a gun,—we might have gone out, you +know, not thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run +towards us roaring, and we couldn’t get away from him. What should you +do, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, “But the lion +<i>isn’t</i> coming. What’s the use of talking?” +</p> + +<p> +“But I like to fancy how it would be,” said Maggie, following him. +“Just think what you would do, Tom.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t bother, Maggie! you’re such a silly. I shall go +and see my rabbits.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad +truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went out, +thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once his sorrow and +his anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom’s anger of all things; it was quite a +different anger from her own. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom,” she said, timidly, when they were out of doors, “how +much money did you give for your rabbits?” +</p> + +<p> +“Two half-crowns and a sixpence,” said Tom, promptly. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I’ve got a great deal more than that in my steel purse +upstairs. I’ll ask mother to give it you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What for?” said Tom. “I don’t want <i>your</i> money, +you silly thing. I’ve got a great deal more money than you, because +I’m a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas +boxes because I shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because +you’re only a girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but, Tom—if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and +a sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket and spend, you know, and buy +some more rabbits with it?” +</p> + +<p> +“More rabbits? I don’t want any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but, Tom, they’re all dead.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie. “You +forgot to feed ’em, then, and Harry forgot?” he said, his colour +heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. “I’ll pitch into +Harry. I’ll have him turned away. And I don’t love you, Maggie. You +sha’n’t go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the +rabbits every day.” He walked on again. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but I forgot—and I couldn’t help it, indeed, Tom. +I’m so very sorry,” said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a naughty girl,” said Tom, severely, “and +I’m sorry I bought you the fish-line. I don’t love you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Tom, it’s very cruel,” sobbed Maggie. “I’d +forgive you, if <i>you</i> forgot anything—I wouldn’t mind what you +did—I’d forgive you and love you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you’re silly; but I never <i>do</i> forget things, <i>I</i> +don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break,” said Maggie, +shaking with sobs, clinging to Tom’s arm, and laying her wet cheek on his +shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone, “Now, +Maggie, you just listen. Aren’t I a good brother to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye-ye-es,” sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and mean to +buy it, and saved my money o’ purpose, and wouldn’t go halves in +the toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn’t?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye-ye-es—and I—lo-lo-love you so, Tom.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’re a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off +my lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my fish-line +down when I’d set you to watch it, and you pushed your head through my +kite, all for nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I didn’t mean,” said Maggie; “I couldn’t +help it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you could,” said Tom, “if you’d minded what you +were doing. And you’re a naughty girl, and you sha’n’t go +fishing with me to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the mill, +meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute or two; then she +turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic, where she sat on the +floor and laid her head against the worm-eaten shelf, with a crushing sense of +misery. Tom was come home, and she had thought how happy she should be; and now +he was cruel to her. What use was anything if Tom didn’t love her? Oh, he +was very cruel! Hadn’t she wanted to give him the money, and said how +very sorry she was? She knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never +been naughty to Tom—had never <i>meant</i> to be naughty to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he is cruel!” Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure +in the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the attic. +She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was too miserable to +be angry. +</p> + +<p> +These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when +hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from +summer to summer seems measureless. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must be tea-time, +and they were all having their tea, and not thinking of her. Well, then, she +would stay up there and starve herself,—hide herself behind the tub, and +stay there all night,—and then they would all be frightened, and Tom +would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride of her heart, as she crept +behind the tub; but presently she began to cry again at the idea that they +didn’t mind her being there. If she went down again to Tom +now—would he forgive her? Perhaps her father would be there, and he would +take her part. But then she wanted Tom to forgive her because he loved her, not +because his father told him. No, she would never go down if Tom didn’t +come to fetch her. This resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark +minutes behind the tub; but then the need of being loved—the strongest +need in poor Maggie’s nature—began to wrestle with her pride, and +soon threw it. She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the long +attic, but just then she heard a quick foot-step on the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Tom had been too much interested in his talk with Luke, in going the round of +the premises, walking in and out where he pleased, and whittling sticks without +any particular reason,—except that he didn’t whittle sticks at +school,—to think of Maggie and the effect his anger had produced on her. +He meant to punish her, and that business having been performed, he occupied +himself with other matters, like a practical person. But when he had been +called in to tea, his father said, “Why, where’s the little +wench?” and Mrs Tulliver, almost at the same moment, said, +“Where’s your little sister?”—both of them having +supposed that Maggie and Tom had been together all the afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Tom. He didn’t want to +“tell” of Maggie, though he was angry with her; for Tom Tulliver +was a lad of honour. +</p> + +<p> +“What! hasn’t she been playing with you all this while?” said +the father. “She’d been thinking o’ nothing but your coming +home.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t seen her this two hours,” says Tom, commencing on +the plumcake. +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness heart; she’s got drownded!” exclaimed Mrs +Tulliver, rising from her seat and running to the window. +</p> + +<p> +“How could you let her do so?” she added, as became a fearful +woman, accusing she didn’t know whom of she didn’t know what. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, nay, she’s none drownded,” said Mr Tulliver. +“You’ve been naughty to her, I doubt, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I haven’t, father,” said Tom, indignantly. +“I think she’s in the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps up in that attic,” said Mrs Tulliver, “a-singing +and talking to herself, and forgetting all about meal-times.” +</p> + +<p> +“You go and fetch her down, Tom,” said Mr Tulliver, rather +sharply,—his perspicacity or his fatherly fondness for Maggie making him +suspect that the lad had been hard upon “the little un,” else she +would never have left his side. “And be good to her, do you hear? Else +I’ll let you know better.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr Tulliver was a peremptory man, and, as +he said, would never let anybody get hold of his whip-hand; but he went out +rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plumcake, and not intending to reprieve +Maggie’s punishment, which was no more than she deserved. Tom was only +thirteen, and had no decided views in grammar and arithmetic, regarding them +for the most part as open questions, but he was particularly clear and positive +on one point,—namely, that he would punish everybody who deserved it. +Why, he wouldn’t have minded being punished himself if he deserved it; +but, then, he never <i>did</i> deserve it. +</p> + +<p> +It was Tom’s step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs, when her need +of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down with her swollen +eyes and dishevelled hair to beg for pity. At least her father would stroke her +head and say, “Never mind, my wench.” It is a wonderful subduer, +this need of love,—this hunger of the heart,—as peremptory as that +other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to the yoke, and change the +face of the world. +</p> + +<p> +But she knew Tom’s step, and her heart began to beat violently with the +sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of the stairs and said, +“Maggie, you’re to come down.” But she rushed to him and +clung round his neck, sobbing, “Oh, Tom, please forgive me—I +can’t bear it—I will always be good—always remember +things—do love me—please, dear Tom!” +</p> + +<p> +We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we have +quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this way preserve a +dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one side, and swallowing much +grief on the other. We no longer approximate in our behaviour to the mere +impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like +members of a highly civilised society. Maggie and Tom were still very much like +young animals, and so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in +a random sobbing way; and there were tender fibres in the lad that had been +used to answer to Maggie’s fondling, so that he behaved with a weakness +quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she deserved. +He actually began to kiss her in return, and say,— +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t cry, then, Magsie; here, eat a bit o’ cake.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s sobs began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake +and bit a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company, and they ate +together and rubbed each other’s cheeks and brows and noses together, +while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two friendly ponies. +</p> + +<p> +“Come along, Magsie, and have tea,” said Tom at last, when there +was no more cake except what was down-stairs. +</p> + +<p> +So ended the sorrows of this day, and the next morning Maggie was trotting with +her own fishing-rod in one hand and a handle of the basket in the other, +stepping always, by a peculiar gift, in the muddiest places, and looking darkly +radiant from under her beaver-bonnet because Tom was good to her. She had told +Tom, however, that she should like him to put the worms on the hook for her, +although she accepted his word when he assured her that worms couldn’t +feel (it was Tom’s private opinion that it didn’t much matter if +they did). He knew all about worms, and fish, and those things; and what birds +were mischievous, and how padlocks opened, and which way the handles of the +gates were to be lifted. Maggie thought this sort of knowledge was very +wonderful,—much more difficult than remembering what was in the books; +and she was rather in awe of Tom’s superiority, for he was the only +person who called her knowledge “stuff,” and did not feel surprised +at her cleverness. Tom, indeed, was of opinion that Maggie was a silly little +thing; all girls were silly,—they couldn’t throw a stone so as to +hit anything, couldn’t do anything with a pocket-knife, and were +frightened at frogs. Still, he was very fond of his sister, and meant always to +take care of her, make her his housekeeper, and punish her when she did wrong. +</p> + +<p> +They were on their way to the Round Pool,—that wonderful pool, which the +floods had made a long while ago. No one knew how deep it was; and it was +mysterious, too, that it should be almost a perfect round, framed in with +willows and tall reeds, so that the water was only to be seen when you got +close to the brink. The sight of the old favourite spot always heightened +Tom’s good humour, and he spoke to Maggie in the most amicable whispers, +as he opened the precious basket and prepared their tackle. He threw her line +for her, and put the rod into her hand. Maggie thought it probable that the +small fish would come to her hook, and the large ones to Tom’s. But she +had forgotten all about the fish, and was looking dreamily at the glassy water, +when Tom said, in a loud whisper, “Look, look, Maggie!” and came +running to prevent her from snatching her line away. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was frightened lest she had been doing something wrong, as usual, but +presently Tom drew out her line and brought a large tench bouncing on the +grass. +</p> + +<p> +Tom was excited. +</p> + +<p> +“O Magsie, you little duck! Empty the basket.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was not conscious of unusual merit, but it was enough that Tom called +her Magsie, and was pleased with her. There was nothing to mar her delight in +the whispers and the dreamy silences, when she listened to the light dripping +sounds of the rising fish, and the gentle rustling, as if the willows and the +reeds and the water had their happy whisperings also. Maggie thought it would +make a very nice heaven to sit by the pool in that way, and never be scolded. +She never knew she had a bite till Tom told her; but she liked fishing very +much. +</p> + +<p> +It was one of their happy mornings. They trotted along and sat down together, +with no thought that life would ever change much for them; they would only get +bigger and not go to school, and it would always be like the holidays; they +would always live together and be fond of each other. And the mill with its +booming; the great chestnut-tree under which they played at houses; their own +little river, the Ripple, where the banks seemed like home, and Tom was always +seeing the water-rats, while Maggie gathered the purple plumy tops of the +reeds, which she forgot and dropped afterward; above all, the great Floss, +along which they wandered with a sense of travel, to see the rushing +spring-tide, the awful Eagre, come up like a hungry monster, or to see the +Great Ash which had once wailed and groaned like a man, these things would +always be just the same to them. Tom thought people were at a disadvantage who +lived on any other spot of the globe; and Maggie, when she read about +Christiana passing “the river over which there is no bridge,” +always saw the Floss between the green pastures by the Great Ash. +</p> + +<p> +Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were not wrong in believing +that the thoughts and loves of these first years would always make part of +their lives. We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no +childhood in it,—if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up +again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat +lisping to ourselves on the grass; the same hips and haws on the autumn’s +hedgerows; the same redbreasts that we used to call “God’s +birds,” because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is +worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and <i>loved</i> because +it is known? +</p> + +<p> +The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the young yellow-brown foliage of +the oaks between me and the blue sky, the white star-flowers and the blue-eyed +speedwell and the ground ivy at my feet, what grove of tropic palms, what +strange ferns or splendid broad-petalled blossoms, could ever thrill such deep +and delicate fibres within me as this home scene? These familiar flowers, these +well-remembered bird-notes, this sky, with its fitful brightness, these +furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the +capricious hedgerows,—such things as these are the mother-tongue of our +imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle, inextricable +associations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them. Our delight +in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more than the faint +perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in +the far-off years which still live in us, and transform our perception into +love. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap06"></a>Chapter VI.<br/> +The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming</h3> + +<p> +It was Easter week, and Mrs Tulliver’s cheesecakes were more exquisitely +light than usual. “A puff o’ wind ’ud make ’em blow +about like feathers,” Kezia the housemaid said, feeling proud to live +under a mistress who could make such pastry; so that no season or circumstances +could have been more propitious for a family party, even if it had not been +advisable to consult sister Glegg and sister Pullet about Tom’s going to +school. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d as lief not invite sister Deane this time,” said Mrs +Tulliver, “for she’s as jealous and having as can be, and’s +allays trying to make the worst o’ my poor children to their aunts and +uncles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” said Mr Tulliver, “ask her to come. I never +hardly get a bit o’ talk with Deane now; we haven’t had him this +six months. What’s it matter what she says? My children need be beholding +to nobody.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what you allays say, Mr Tulliver; but I’m sure +there’s nobody o’ <i>your</i> side, neither aunt nor uncle, to +leave ’em so much as a five-pound note for a leggicy. And there’s +sister Glegg, and sister Pullet too, saving money unknown, for they put by all +their own interest and butter-money too; their husbands buy ’em +everything.” Mrs Tulliver was a mild woman, but even a sheep will face +about a little when she has lambs. +</p> + +<p> +“Tchuh!” said Mr Tulliver. “It takes a big loaf when +there’s many to breakfast. What signifies your sisters’ bits +o’ money when they’ve got half-a-dozen nevvies and nieces to divide +it among? And your sister Deane won’t get ’em to leave all to one, +I reckon, and make the country cry shame on ’em when they are +dead?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what she won’t get ’em to do,” said +Mrs Tulliver, “for my children are so awk’ard wi’ their +aunts and uncles. Maggie’s ten times naughtier when they come than she is +other days, and Tom doesn’t like ’em, bless him!—though +it’s more nat’ral in a boy than a gell. And there’s Lucy +Deane’s such a good child,—you may set her on a stool, and there +she’ll sit for an hour together, and never offer to get off. I +can’t help loving the child as if she was my own; and I’m sure +she’s more like <i>my</i> child than sister Deane’s, for +she’d allays a very poor colour for one of our family, sister Deane +had.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, if you’re fond o’ the child, ask her father and +mother to bring her with ’em. And won’t you ask their aunt and +uncle Moss too, and some o’ <i>their</i> children?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear, Mr Tulliver, why, there’d be eight people besides the +children, and I must put two more leaves i’ the table, besides reaching +down more o’ the dinner-service; and you know as well as I do as +<i>my</i> sisters and <i>your</i> sister don’t suit well together.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, do as you like, Bessy,” said Mr Tulliver, taking up +his hat and walking out to the mill. Few wives were more submissive than Mrs +Tulliver on all points unconnected with her family relations; but she had been +a Miss Dodson, and the Dodsons were a very respectable family indeed,—as +much looked up to as any in their own parish, or the next to it. The Miss +Dodsons had always been thought to hold up their heads very high, and no one +was surprised the two eldest had married so well,—not at an early age, +for that was not the practice of the Dodson family. There were particular ways +of doing everything in that family: particular ways of bleaching the linen, of +making the cowslip wine, curing the hams, and keeping the bottled gooseberries; +so that no daughter of that house could be indifferent to the privilege of +having been born a Dodson, rather than a Gibson or a Watson. Funerals were +always conducted with peculiar propriety in the Dodson family: the hat-bands +were never of a blue shade, the gloves never split at the thumb, everybody was +a mourner who ought to be, and there were always scarfs for the bearers. When +one of the family was in trouble or sickness, all the rest went to visit the +unfortunate member, usually at the same time, and did not shrink from uttering +the most disagreeable truths that correct family feeling dictated; if the +illness or trouble was the sufferer’s own fault, it was not in the +practice of the Dodson family to shrink from saying so. In short, there was in +this family a peculiar tradition as to what was the right thing in household +management and social demeanour, and the only bitter circumstance attending +this superiority was a painful inability to approve the condiments or the +conduct of families ungoverned by the Dodson tradition. A female Dodson, when +in “strange houses,” always ate dry bread with her tea, and +declined any sort of preserves, having no confidence in the butter, and +thinking that the preserves had probably begun to ferment from want of due +sugar and boiling. There were some Dodsons less like the family than others, +that was admitted; but in so far as they were “kin,” they were of +necessity better than those who were “no kin.” And it is remarkable +that while no individual Dodson was satisfied with any other individual Dodson, +each was satisfied, not only with him or herself, but with the Dodsons +collectively. The feeblest member of a family—the one who has the least +character—is often the merest epitome of the family habits and +traditions; and Mrs Tulliver was a thorough Dodson, though a mild one, as +small-beer, so long as it is anything, is only describable as very weak ale: +and though she had groaned a little in her youth under the yoke of her elder +sisters, and still shed occasional tears at their sisterly reproaches, it was +not in Mrs Tulliver to be an innovator on the family ideas. She was thankful to +have been a Dodson, and to have one child who took after her own family, at +least in his features and complexion, in liking salt and in eating beans, which +a Tulliver never did. +</p> + +<p> +In other respects the true Dodson was partly latent in Tom, and he was as far +from appreciating his “kin” on the mother’s side as Maggie +herself, generally absconding for the day with a large supply of the most +portable food, when he received timely warning that his aunts and uncles were +coming,—a moral symptom from which his aunt Glegg deduced the gloomiest +views of his future. It was rather hard on Maggie that Tom always absconded +without letting her into the secret, but the weaker sex are acknowledged to be +serious <i>impedimenta</i> in cases of flight. +</p> + +<p> +On Wednesday, the day before the aunts and uncles were coming, there were such +various and suggestive scents, as of plumcakes in the oven and jellies in the +hot state, mingled with the aroma of gravy, that it was impossible to feel +altogether gloomy: there was hope in the air. Tom and Maggie made several +inroads into the kitchen, and, like other marauders, were induced to keep aloof +for a time only by being allowed to carry away a sufficient load of booty. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom,” said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder-tree, +eating their jam-puffs, “shall you run away to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Tom, slowly, when he had finished his puff, and was +eying the third, which was to be divided between them,—“no, I +sha’n’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Tom? Because Lucy’s coming?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Tom, opening his pocket-knife and holding it over the +puff, with his head on one side in a dubitative manner. (It was a difficult +problem to divide that very irregular polygon into two equal parts.) +“What do <i>I</i> care about Lucy? She’s only a +girl,—<i>she</i> can’t play at bandy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it the tipsy-cake, then?” said Maggie, exerting her hypothetic +powers, while she leaned forward toward Tom with her eyes fixed on the hovering +knife. +</p> + +<p> +“No, you silly, that’ll be good the day after. It’s the +pudden. I know what the pudden’s to be,—apricot roll-up—O my +buttons!” +</p> + +<p> +With this interjection, the knife descended on the puff, and it was in two, but +the result was not satisfactory to Tom, for he still eyed the halves +doubtfully. At last he said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Shut your eyes, Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +“What for?” +</p> + +<p> +“You never mind what for. Shut ’em when I tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, which’ll you have, Maggie,—right hand or left?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll have that with the jam run out,” said Maggie, keeping +her eyes shut to please Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you don’t like that, you silly. You may have it if it comes +to you fair, but I sha’n’t give it you without. Right or +left,—you choose, now. Ha-a-a!” said Tom, in a tone of +exasperation, as Maggie peeped. “You keep your eyes shut, now, else you +sha’n’t have any.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s power of sacrifice did not extend so far; indeed, I fear she +cared less that Tom should enjoy the utmost possible amount of puff, than that +he should be pleased with her for giving him the best bit. So she shut her eyes +quite close, till Tom told her to “say which,” and then she said, +“Left hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got it,” said Tom, in rather a bitter tone. +</p> + +<p> +“What! the bit with the jam run out?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; here, take it,” said Tom, firmly, handing, decidedly the best +piece to Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, please, Tom, have it; I don’t mind—I like the other; +please take this.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I sha’n’t,” said Tom, almost crossly, beginning on +his own inferior piece. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, thinking it was no use to contend further, began too, and ate up her +half puff with considerable relish as well as rapidity. But Tom had finished +first, and had to look on while Maggie ate her last morsel or two, feeling in +himself a capacity for more. Maggie didn’t know Tom was looking at her; +she was seesawing on the elder-bough, lost to almost everything but a vague +sense of jam and idleness. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you greedy thing!” said Tom, when she had swallowed the last +morsel. He was conscious of having acted very fairly, and thought she ought to +have considered this, and made up to him for it. He would have refused a bit of +hers beforehand, but one is naturally at a different point of view before and +after one’s own share of puff is swallowed. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie turned quite pale. “Oh, Tom, why didn’t you ask me?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> wasn’t going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You might +have thought of it without, when you knew I gave you the best bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I wanted you to have it; you know I did,” said Maggie, in an +injured tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but I wasn’t going to do what wasn’t fair, like +Spouncer. He always takes the best bit, if you don’t punch him for it; +and if you choose the best with your eyes shut, he changes his hands. But if I +go halves, I’ll go ’em fair; only I wouldn’t be a +greedy.” +</p> + +<p> +With this cutting innuendo, Tom jumped down from his bough, and threw a stone +with a “hoigh!” as a friendly attention to Yap, who had also been +looking on while the eatables vanished, with an agitation of his ears and +feelings which could hardly have been without bitterness. Yet the excellent dog +accepted Tom’s attention with as much alacrity as if he had been treated +quite generously. +</p> + +<p> +But Maggie, gifted with that superior power of misery which distinguishes the +human being, and places him at a proud distance from the most melancholy +chimpanzee, sat still on her bough, and gave herself up to the keen sense of +unmerited reproach. She would have given the world not to have eaten all her +puff, and to have saved some of it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very +nice, for Maggie’s palate was not at all obtuse, but she would have gone +without it many times over, sooner than Tom should call her greedy and be cross +with her. And he had said he wouldn’t have it, and she ate it without +thinking; how could she help it? The tears flowed so plentifully that Maggie +saw nothing around her for the next ten minutes; but by that time resentment +began to give way to the desire of reconciliation, and she jumped from her +bough to look for Tom. He was no longer in the paddock behind the rickyard; +where was he likely to be gone, and Yap with him? Maggie ran to the high bank +against the great holly-tree, where she could see far away toward the Floss. +There was Tom; but her heart sank again as she saw how far off he was on his +way to the great river, and that he had another companion besides +Yap,—naughty Bob Jakin, whose official, if not natural, function of +frightening the birds was just now at a standstill. Maggie felt sure that Bob +was wicked, without very distinctly knowing why; unless it was because +Bob’s mother was a dreadfully large fat woman, who lived at a queer round +house down the river; and once, when Maggie and Tom had wandered thither, there +rushed out a brindled dog that wouldn’t stop barking; and when +Bob’s mother came out after it, and screamed above the barking to tell +them not to be frightened, Maggie thought she was scolding them fiercely, and +her heart beat with terror. Maggie thought it very likely that the round house +had snakes on the floor, and bats in the bedroom; for she had seen Bob take off +his cap to show Tom a little snake that was inside it, and another time he had +a handful of young bats: altogether, he was an irregular character, perhaps +even slightly diabolical, judging from his intimacy with snakes and bats; and +to crown all, when Tom had Bob for a companion, he didn’t mind about +Maggie, and would never let her go with him. +</p> + +<p> +It must be owned that Tom was fond of Bob’s company. How could it be +otherwise? Bob knew, directly he saw a bird’s egg, whether it was a +swallow’s, or a tomtit’s, or a yellow-hammer’s; he found out +all the wasps’ nests, and could set all sorts of traps; he could climb the +trees like a squirrel, and had quite a magical power of detecting hedgehogs and +stoats; and he had courage to do things that were rather naughty, such as +making gaps in the hedgerows, throwing stones after the sheep, and killing a +cat that was wandering <i>incognito</i>. Such qualities in an inferior, who +could always be treated with authority in spite of his superior knowingness, +had necessarily a fatal fascination for Tom; and every holiday-time Maggie was +sure to have days of grief because he had gone off with Bob. +</p> + +<p> +Well! there was no hope for it; he was gone now, and Maggie could think of no +comfort but to sit down by the hollow, or wander by the hedgerow, and fancy it +was all different, refashioning her little world into just what she should like +it to be. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s was a troublous life, and this was the form in which she took +her opium. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Tom, forgetting all about Maggie and the sting of reproach which he +had left in her heart, was hurrying along with Bob, whom he had met +accidentally, to the scene of a great rat-catching in a neighbouring barn. Bob +knew all about this particular affair, and spoke of the sport with an +enthusiasm which no one who is not either divested of all manly feeling, or +pitiably ignorant of rat-catching, can fail to imagine. For a person suspected +of preternatural wickedness, Bob was really not so very villanous-looking; +there was even something agreeable in his snub-nosed face, with its +close-curled border of red hair. But then his trousers were always rolled up at +the knee, for the convenience of wading on the slightest notice; and his +virtue, supposing it to exist, was undeniably “virtue in rags,” +which, on the authority even of bilious philosophers, who think all +well-dressed merit overpaid, is notoriously likely to remain unrecognised +(perhaps because it is seen so seldom). +</p> + +<p> +“I know the chap as owns the ferrets,” said Bob, in a hoarse treble +voice, as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the river, like an +amphibious animal who foresaw occasion for darting in. “He lives up the +Kennel Yard at Sut Ogg’s, he does. He’s the biggest rot-catcher +anywhere, he is. I’d sooner, be a rot-catcher nor anything, I would. The +moles is nothing to the rots. But Lors! you mun ha’ ferrets. Dogs is no +good. Why, there’s that dog, now!” Bob continued, pointing with an +air of disgust toward Yap, “he’s no more good wi’ a rot nor +nothin’. I see it myself, I did, at the rot-catchin’ i’ your +feyther’s barn.” +</p> + +<p> +Yap, feeling the withering influence of this scorn, tucked his tail in and +shrank close to Tom’s leg, who felt a little hurt for him, but had not +the superhuman courage to seem behindhand with Bob in contempt for a dog who +made so poor a figure. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” he said, “Yap’s no good at sport. I’ll +have regular good dogs for rats and everything, when I’ve done +school.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hev ferrets, Measter Tom,” said Bob, eagerly,—“them +white ferrets wi’ pink eyes; Lors, you might catch your own rots, +an’ you might put a rot in a cage wi’ a ferret, an’ see +’em fight, you might. That’s what I’d do, I know, an’ +it ’ud be better fun a’most nor seein’ two chaps +fight,—if it wasn’t them chaps as sold cakes an’ oranges at +the Fair, as the things flew out o’ their baskets, an’ some +o’ the cakes was smashed—But they tasted just as good,” added +Bob, by way of note or addendum, after a moment’s pause. +</p> + +<p> +“But, I say, Bob,” said Tom, in a tone of deliberation, +“ferrets are nasty biting things,—they’ll bite a fellow +without being set on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lors! why that’s the beauty on ’em. If a chap lays hold +o’ your ferret, he won’t be long before he hollows out a good un, +<i>he</i> won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment a striking incident made the boys pause suddenly in their walk. +It was the plunging of some small body in the water from among the neighbouring +bulrushes; if it was not a water-rat, Bob intimated that he was ready to +undergo the most unpleasant consequences. +</p> + +<p> +“Hoigh! Yap,—hoigh! there he is,” said Tom, clapping his +hands, as the little black snout made its arrowy course to the opposite bank. +“Seize him, lad! seize him!” +</p> + +<p> +Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined to plunge, trying +whether barking would not answer the purpose just as well. +</p> + +<p> +“Ugh! you coward!” said Tom, and kicked him over, feeling +humiliated as a sportsman to possess so poor-spirited an animal. Bob abstained +from remark and passed on, choosing, however, to walk in the shallow edge of +the overflowing river by way of change. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s none so full now, the Floss isn’t,” said Bob, as +he kicked the water up before him, with an agreeable sense of being insolent to +it. “Why, last ’ear, the meadows was all one sheet o’ water, +they was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, but,” said Tom, whose mind was prone to see an opposition +between statements that were really accordant,—“but there was a big +flood once, when the Round Pool was made. <i>I</i> know there was, ’cause +father says so. And the sheep and cows all drowned, and the boats went all over +the fields ever such a way.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> don’t care about a flood comin’,” said Bob; +“I don’t mind the water, no more nor the land. I’d swim, +<i>I</i> would.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but if you got nothing to eat for ever so long?” said Tom, his +imagination becoming quite active under the stimulus of that dread. “When +I’m a man, I shall make a boat with a wooden house on the top of it, like +Noah’s ark, and keep plenty to eat in it,—rabbits and +things,—all ready. And then if the flood came, you know, Bob, I +shouldn’t mind. And I’d take you in, if I saw you swimming,” +he added, in the tone of a benevolent patron. +</p> + +<p> +“I aren’t frighted,” said Bob, to whom hunger did not appear +so appalling. “But I’d get in an’ knock the rabbits on +th’ head when you wanted to eat ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, and I should have halfpence, and we’d play at +heads-and-tails,” said Tom, not contemplating the possibility that this +recreation might have fewer charms for his mature age. “I’d divide +fair to begin with, and then we’d see who’d win.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a halfpenny o’ my own,” said Bob, proudly, +coming out of the water and tossing his halfpenny in the air. “Yeads or +tails?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tails,” said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s yeads,” said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny +as it fell. +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t,” said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. “You +give me the halfpenny; I’ve won it fair.” +</p> + +<p> +“I sha’n’t,” said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’ll make you; see if I don’t,” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t make me do nothing, you can’t,” said Bob. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I can.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you can’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m master.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I’ll make you care, you cheat,” said Tom, collaring Bob +and shaking him. +</p> + +<p> +“You get out wi’ you,” said Bob, giving Tom a kick. +</p> + +<p> +Tom’s blood was thoroughly up: he went at Bob with a lunge and threw him +down, but Bob seized hold and kept it like a cat, and pulled Tom down after +him. They struggled fiercely on the ground for a moment or two, till Tom, +pinning Bob down by the shoulders, thought he had the mastery. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You</i>, say you’ll give me the halfpenny now,” he said, +with difficulty, while he exerted himself to keep the command of Bob’s +arms. +</p> + +<p> +But at this moment Yap, who had been running on before, returned barking to the +scene of action, and saw a favourable opportunity for biting Bob’s bare +leg not only with inpunity but with honour. The pain from Yap’s teeth, +instead of surprising Bob into a relaxation of his hold, gave it a fiercer +tenacity, and with a new exertion of his force he pushed Tom backward and got +uppermost. But now Yap, who could get no sufficient purchase before, set his +teeth in a new place, so that Bob, harassed in this way, let go his hold of +Tom, and, almost throttling Yap, flung him into the river. By this time Tom was +up again, and before Bob had quite recovered his balance after the act of +swinging Yap, Tom fell upon him, threw him down, and got his knees firmly on +Bob’s chest. +</p> + +<p> +“You give me the halfpenny now,” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“Take it,” said Bob, sulkily. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I sha’n’t take it; you give it me.” +</p> + +<p> +Bob took the halfpenny out of his pocket, and threw it away from him on the +ground. +</p> + +<p> +Tom loosed his hold, and left Bob to rise. +</p> + +<p> +“There the halfpenny lies,” he said. “I don’t want your +halfpenny; I wouldn’t have kept it. But you wanted to cheat; I hate a +cheat. I sha’n’t go along with you any more,” he added, +turning round homeward, not without casting a regret toward the rat-catching +and other pleasures which he must relinquish along with Bob’s society. +</p> + +<p> +“You may let it alone, then,” Bob called out after him. “I +shall cheat if I like; there’s no fun i’ playing else; and I know +where there’s a goldfinch’s nest, but I’ll take care +<i>you</i> don’t. An’ you’re a nasty fightin’ +turkey-cock, you are——” +</p> + +<p> +Tom walked on without looking around, and Yap followed his example, the cold +bath having moderated his passions. +</p> + +<p> +“Go along wi’ you, then, wi’ your drowned dog; I +wouldn’t own such a dog—<i>I</i> wouldn’t,” said Bob, +getting louder, in a last effort to sustain his defiance. But Tom was not to be +provoked into turning round, and Bob’s voice began to falter a little as +he said,— +</p> + +<p> +“An’ I’n gi’en you everything, an’ showed you +everything, an’ niver wanted nothin’ from you. An’ +there’s your horn-handed knife, then as you gi’en me.” Here +Bob flung the knife as far as he could after Tom’s retreating footsteps. +But it produced no effect, except the sense in Bob’s mind that there was +a terrible void in his lot, now that knife was gone. +</p> + +<p> +He stood still till Tom had passed through the gate and disappeared behind the +hedge. The knife would do no good on the ground there; it wouldn’t vex +Tom; and pride or resentment was a feeble passion in Bob’s mind compared +with the love of a pocket-knife. His very fingers sent entreating thrills that +he would go and clutch that familiar rough buck’s-horn handle, which they +had so often grasped for mere affection, as it lay idle in his pocket. And +there were two blades, and they had just been sharpened! What is life without a +pocket-knife to him who has once tasted a higher existence? No; to throw the +handle after the hatchet is a comprehensible act of desperation, but to throw +one’s pocket-knife after an implacable friend is clearly in every sense a +hyperbole, or throwing beyond the mark. So Bob shuffled back to the spot where +the beloved knife lay in the dirt, and felt quite a new pleasure in clutching +it again after the temporary separation, in opening one blade after the other, +and feeling their edge with his well-hardened thumb. Poor Bob! he was not +sensitive on the point of honour, not a chivalrous character. That fine moral +aroma would not have been thought much of by the public opinion of Kennel Yard, +which was the very focus or heart of Bob’s world, even if it could have +made itself perceptible there; yet, for all that, he was not utterly a sneak +and a thief as our friend Tom had hastily decided. +</p> + +<p> +But Tom, you perceive, was rather a Rhadamanthine personage, having more than +the usual share of boy’s justice in him,—the justice that desires +to hurt culprits as much as they deserve to be hurt, and is troubled with no +doubts concerning the exact amount of their deserts. Maggie saw a cloud on his +brow when he came home, which checked her joy at his coming so much sooner than +she had expected, and she dared hardly speak to him as he stood silently +throwing the small gravel-stones into the mill-dam. It is not pleasant to give +up a rat-catching when you have set your mind on it. But if Tom had told his +strongest feeling at that moment, he would have said, “I’d do just +the same again.” That was his usual mode of viewing his past actions; +whereas Maggie was always wishing she had done something different. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap07"></a>Chapter VII.<br/> +Enter the Aunts and Uncles</h3> + +<p> +The Dodsons were certainly a handsome family, and Mrs Glegg was not the least +handsome of the sisters. As she sat in Mrs Tulliver’s arm-chair, no +impartial observer could have denied that for a woman of fifty she had a very +comely face and figure, though Tom and Maggie considered their aunt Glegg as +the type of ugliness. It is true she despised the advantages of costume, for +though, as she often observed, no woman had better clothes, it was not her way +to wear her new things out before her old ones. Other women, if they liked, +might have their best thread-lace in every wash; but when Mrs Glegg died, it +would be found that she had better lace laid by in the right-hand drawer of her +wardrobe in the Spotted Chamber than ever Mrs Wooll of St Ogg’s had +bought in her life, although Mrs Wooll wore her lace before it was paid for. +So of her curled fronts: Mrs Glegg had doubtless the glossiest and crispest +brown curls in her drawers, as well as curls in various degrees of fuzzy +laxness; but to look out on the week-day world from under a crisp and glossy +front would be to introduce a most dreamlike and unpleasant confusion between +the sacred and the secular. Occasionally, indeed, Mrs Glegg wore one of her +third-best fronts on a week-day visit, but not at a sister’s house; +especially not at Mrs Tulliver’s, who, since her marriage, had hurt her +sister’s feelings greatly by wearing her own hair, though, as Mrs Glegg +observed to Mrs Deane, a mother of a family, like Bessy, with a husband always +going to law, might have been expected to know better. But Bessy was always +weak! +</p> + +<p> +So if Mrs Glegg’s front to-day was more fuzzy and lax than usual, she had +a design under it: she intended the most pointed and cutting allusion to Mrs +Tulliver’s bunches of blond curls, separated from each other by a due +wave of smoothness on each side of the parting. Mrs Tulliver had shed tears +several times at sister Glegg’s unkindness on the subject of these +unmatronly curls, but the consciousness of looking the handsomer for them +naturally administered support. Mrs Glegg chose to wear her bonnet in the house +to-day,—untied and tilted slightly, of course—a frequent practice +of hers when she was on a visit, and happened to be in a severe humour: she +didn’t know what draughts there might be in strange houses. For the same +reason she wore a small sable tippet, which reached just to her shoulders, and +was very far from meeting across her well-formed chest, while her long neck was +protected by a <i>chevaux-de-frise</i> of miscellaneous frilling. One would +need to be learned in the fashions of those times to know how far in the rear +of them Mrs Glegg’s slate-coloured silk gown must have been; but from +certain constellations of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy odor about +it suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was probable that it belonged to a +stratum of garments just old enough to have come recently into wear. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand with the many-doubled chain +round her fingers, and observed to Mrs Tulliver, who had just returned from a +visit to the kitchen, that whatever it might be by other people’s clocks +and watches, it was gone half-past twelve by hers. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what ails sister Pullet,” she continued. +“It used to be the way in our family for one to be as early as +another,—I’m sure it was so in my poor father’s +time,—and not for one sister to sit half an hour before the others came. +But if the ways o’ the family are altered, it sha’n’t be +<i>my</i> fault; <i>I’ll</i> never be the one to come into a house when +all the rest are going away. I wonder <i>at</i> sister Deane,—she used to +be more like me. But if you’ll take my advice, Bessy, you’ll put +the dinner forrard a bit, sooner than put it back, because folks are late as +ought to ha’ known better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, there’s no fear but what they’ll be all here in +time, sister,” said Mrs Tulliver, in her mild-peevish tone. “The +dinner won’t be ready till half-past one. But if it’s long for you +to wait, let me fetch you a cheesecake and a glass o’ wine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Bessy!” said Mrs Glegg, with a bitter smile and a scarcely +perceptible toss of her head, “I should ha’ thought you’d +known your own sister better. I never <i>did</i> eat between meals, and +I’m not going to begin. Not but what I hate that nonsense of having your +dinner at half-past one, when you might have it at one. You was never brought +up in that way, Bessy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Jane, what can I do? Mr Tulliver doesn’t like his dinner +before two o’clock, but I put it half an hour earlier because o’ +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, I know how it is with husbands,—they’re for +putting everything off; they’ll put the dinner off till after tea, if +they’ve got wives as are weak enough to give in to such work; but +it’s a pity for you, Bessy, as you haven’t got more strength +o’ mind. It’ll be well if your children don’t suffer for it. +And I hope you’ve not gone and got a great dinner for us,—going to +expense for your sisters, as ’ud sooner eat a crust o’ dry bread +nor help to ruin you with extravagance. I wonder you don’t take pattern +by your sister Deane; she’s far more sensible. And here you’ve got +two children to provide for, and your husband’s spent your fortin +i’ going to law, and’s likely to spend his own too. A boiled joint, +as you could make broth of for the kitchen,” Mrs Glegg added, in a tone +of emphatic protest, “and a plain pudding, with a spoonful o’ +sugar, and no spice, ’ud be far more becoming.” +</p> + +<p> +With sister Glegg in this humour, there was a cheerful prospect for the day. +Mrs Tulliver never went the length of quarrelling with her, any more than a +water-fowl that puts out its leg in a deprecating manner can be said to quarrel +with a boy who throws stones. But this point of the dinner was a tender one, +and not at all new, so that Mrs Tulliver could make the same answer she had +often made before. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Tulliver says he always <i>will</i> have a good dinner for his +friends while he can pay for it,” she said; “and he’s a right +to do as he likes in his own house, sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Bessy, <i>I</i> can’t leave your children enough out +o’ my savings to keep ’em from ruin. And you mustn’t look to +having any o’ Mr Glegg’s money, for it’s well if I +don’t go first,—he comes of a long-lived family; and if he was to +die and leave me well for my life, he’d tie all the money up to go back +to his own kin.” +</p> + +<p> +The sound of wheels while Mrs Glegg was speaking was an interruption highly +welcome to Mrs Tulliver, who hastened out to receive sister Pullet; it must be +sister Pullet, because the sound was that of a four-wheel. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg tossed her head and looked rather sour about the mouth at the +thought of the “four-wheel.” She had a strong opinion on that +subject. +</p> + +<p> +Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped before Mrs +Tulliver’s door, and it was apparently requisite that she should shed a +few more before getting out; for though her husband and Mrs Tulliver stood +ready to support her, she sat still and shook her head sadly, as she looked +through her tears at the vague distance. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, whativer is the matter, sister?” said Mrs Tulliver. She was +not an imaginative woman, but it occurred to her that the large toilet-glass in +sister Pullet’s best bedroom was possibly broken for the second time. +</p> + +<p> +There was no reply but a further shake of the head, as Mrs Pullet slowly rose +and got down from the chaise, not without casting a glance at Mr Pullet to see +that he was guarding her handsome silk dress from injury. Mr Pullet was a +small man, with a high nose, small twinkling eyes, and thin lips, in a +fresh-looking suit of black and a white cravat, that seemed to have been tied +very tight on some higher principle than that of mere personal ease. He bore +about the same relation to his tall, good-looking wife, with her balloon +sleeves, abundant mantle, and a large befeathered and beribboned bonnet, as a +small fishing-smack bears to a brig with all its sails spread. +</p> + +<p> +It is a pathetic sight and a striking example of the complexity introduced into +the emotions by a high state of civilisation, the sight of a fashionably +dressed female in grief. From the sorrow of a Hottentot to that of a woman in +large buckram sleeves, with several bracelets on each arm, an architectural +bonnet, and delicate ribbon strings, what a long series of gradations! In the +enlightened child of civilisation the abandonment characteristic of grief is +checked and varied in the subtlest manner, so as to present an interesting +problem to the analytic mind. If, with a crushed heart and eyes half blinded by +the mist of tears, she were to walk with a too devious step through a +door-place, she might crush her buckram sleeves too, and the deep consciousness +of this possibility produces a composition of forces by which she takes a line +that just clears the door-post. Perceiving that the tears are hurrying fast, +she unpins her strings and throws them languidly backward, a touching gesture, +indicative, even in the deepest gloom, of the hope in future dry moments when +cap-strings will once more have a charm. As the tears subside a little, and +with her head leaning backward at the angle that will not injure her bonnet, +she endures that terrible moment when grief, which has made all things else a +weariness, has itself become weary; she looks down pensively at her bracelets, +and adjusts their clasps with that pretty studied fortuity which would be +gratifying to her mind if it were once more in a calm and healthy state. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Pullet brushed each door-post with great nicety, about the latitude of her +shoulders (at that period a woman was truly ridiculous to an instructed eye if +she did not measure a yard and a half across the shoulders), and having done +that sent the muscles of her face in quest of fresh tears as she advanced into +the parlour where Mrs Glegg was seated. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sister, you’re late; what’s the matter?” said +Mrs Glegg, rather sharply, as they shook hands. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully behind, before she +answered,— +</p> + +<p> +“She’s gone,” unconsciously using an impressive figure of +rhetoric. +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t the glass this time, then,” thought Mrs Tulliver. +</p> + +<p> +“Died the day before yesterday,” continued Mrs Pullet; +“an’ her legs was as thick as my body,” she added, with deep +sadness, after a pause. “They’d tapped her no end o’ times, +and the water—they say you might ha’ swum in it, if you’d +liked.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Sophy, it’s a mercy she’s gone, then, whoever she may +be,” said Mrs Glegg, with the promptitude and emphasis of a mind +naturally clear and decided; “but I can’t think who you’re +talking of, for my part.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>I</i> know,” said Mrs Pullet, sighing and shaking her +head; “and there isn’t another such a dropsy in the parish. +<i>I</i> know as it’s old Mrs Sutton o’ the Twentylands.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she’s no kin o’ yours, nor much acquaintance as +I’ve ever heared of,” said Mrs Glegg, who always cried just as +much as was proper when anything happened to her own “kin,” but not +on other occasions. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s so much acquaintance as I’ve seen her legs when they +was like bladders. And an old lady as had doubled her money over and over +again, and kept it all in her own management to the last, and had her pocket +with her keys in under her pillow constant. There isn’t many old +<i>par</i>ish’ners like her, I doubt.” +</p> + +<p> +“And they say she’d took as much physic as ’ud fill a +wagon,” observed Mr Pullet. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” sighed Mrs Pullet, “she’d another complaint ever +so many years before she had the dropsy, and the doctors couldn’t make +out what it was. And she said to me, when I went to see her last Christmas, she +said, ‘Mrs Pullet, if ever you have the dropsy, you’ll think +o’ me.’ She <i>did</i> say so,” added Mrs Pullet, beginning +to cry bitterly again; “those were her very words. And she’s to be +buried o’ Saturday, and Pullet’s bid to the funeral.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sophy,” said Mrs Glegg, unable any longer to contain her spirit +of rational remonstrance,—“Sophy, I wonder <i>at</i> you, fretting +and injuring your health about people as don’t belong to you. Your poor +father never did so, nor your aunt Frances neither, nor any o’ the family +as I ever heard of. You couldn’t fret no more than this, if we’d +heared as our cousin Abbott had died sudden without making his will.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Pullet was silent, having to finish her crying, and rather flattered than +indignant at being upbraided for crying too much. It was not everybody who +could afford to cry so much about their neighbours who had left them nothing; +but Mrs Pullet had married a gentleman farmer, and had leisure and money to +carry her crying and everything else to the highest pitch of respectability. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs Sutton didn’t die without making her will, though,” +said Mr Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying something to sanction +his wife’s tears; “ours is a rich parish, but they say +there’s nobody else to leave as many thousands behind ’em as Mrs +Sutton. And she’s left no leggicies to speak on,—left it all in a +lump to her husband’s nevvy.” +</p> + +<p> +“There wasn’t much good i’ being so rich, then,” said +Mrs Glegg, “if she’d got none but husband’s kin to leave it +to. It’s poor work when that’s all you’ve got to pinch +yourself for. Not as I’m one o’ those as ’ud like to die +without leaving more money out at interest than other folks had reckoned; but +it’s a poor tale when it must go out o’ your own family.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure, sister,” said Mrs Pullet, who had recovered +sufficiently to take off her veil and fold it carefully, “it’s a +nice sort o’ man as Mrs Sutton has left her money to, for he’s +troubled with the asthmy, and goes to bed every night at eight o’clock. +He told me about it himself—as free as could be—one Sunday when he +came to our church. He wears a hareskin on his chest, and has a trembling in +his talk,—quite a gentleman sort o’ man. I told him there +wasn’t many months in the year as I wasn’t under the doctor’s +hands. And he said, ‘Mrs Pullet, I can feel for you.’ That was +what he said,—the very words. Ah!” sighed Mrs Pullet, shaking her +head at the idea that there were but few who could enter fully into her +experiences in pink mixture and white mixture, strong stuff in small bottles, +and weak stuff in large bottles, damp boluses at a shilling, and draughts at +eighteenpence. “Sister, I may as well go and take my bonnet off now. Did +you see as the cap-box was put out?” she added, turning to her husband. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had forgotten it, and hastened +out, with a stricken conscience, to remedy the omission. +</p> + +<p> +“They’ll bring it upstairs, sister,” said Mrs Tulliver, +wishing to go at once, lest Mrs Glegg should begin to explain her feelings +about Sophy’s being the first Dodson who ever ruined her constitution +with doctor’s stuff. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver was fond of going upstairs with her sister Pullet, and looking +thoroughly at her cap before she put it on her head, and discussing millinery +in general. This was part of Bessy’s weakness that stirred Mrs +Glegg’s sisterly compassion: Bessy went far too well dressed, +considering; and she was too proud to dress her child in the good clothing her +sister Glegg gave her from the primeval strata of her wardrobe; it was a sin +and a shame to buy anything to dress that child, if it wasn’t a pair of +shoes. In this particular, however, Mrs Glegg did her sister Bessy some +injustice, for Mrs Tulliver had really made great efforts to induce Maggie to +wear a leghorn bonnet and a dyed silk frock made out of her aunt Glegg’s, +but the results had been such that Mrs Tulliver was obliged to bury them in her +maternal bosom; for Maggie, declaring that the frock smelt of nasty dye, had +taken an opportunity of basting it together with the roast beef the first +Sunday she wore it, and finding this scheme answer, she had subsequently pumped +on the bonnet with its green ribbons, so as to give it a general resemblance to +a sage cheese garnished with withered lettuces. I must urge in excuse for +Maggie, that Tom had laughed at her in the bonnet, and said she looked like an +old Judy. Aunt Pullet, too, made presents of clothes, but these were always +pretty enough to please Maggie as well as her mother. Of all her sisters, Mrs +Tulliver certainly preferred her sister Pullet, not without a return of +preference; but Mrs Pullet was sorry Bessy had those naughty, awkward children; +she would do the best she could by them, but it was a pity they weren’t +as good and as pretty as sister Deane’s child. Maggie and Tom, on their +part, thought their aunt Pullet tolerable, chiefly because she was not their +aunt Glegg. Tom always declined to go more than once during his holidays to see +either of them. Both his uncles tipped him that once, of course; but at his +aunt Pullet’s there were a great many toads to pelt in the cellar-area, +so that he preferred the visit to her. Maggie shuddered at the toads, and +dreamed of them horribly, but she liked her uncle Pullet’s musical +snuff-box. Still, it was agreed by the sisters, in Mrs Tulliver’s +absence, that the Tulliver blood did not mix well with the Dodson blood; that, +in fact, poor Bessy’s children were Tullivers, and that Tom, +notwithstanding he had the Dodson complexion, was likely to be as +“contrairy” as his father. As for Maggie, she was the picture of +her aunt Moss, Mr Tulliver’s sister,—a large-boned woman, who had +married as poorly as could be; had no china, and had a husband who had much ado +to pay his rent. But when Mrs Pullet was alone with Mrs Tulliver upstairs, the +remarks were naturally to the disadvantage of Mrs Glegg, and they agreed, in +confidence, that there was no knowing what sort of fright sister Jane would +come out next. But their <i>tête-à-tête</i> was curtailed by the appearance of +Mrs Deane with little Lucy; and Mrs Tulliver had to look on with a silent pang +while Lucy’s blond curls were adjusted. It was quite unaccountable that +Mrs Deane, the thinnest and sallowest of all the Miss Dodsons, should have had +this child, who might have been taken for Mrs Tulliver’s any day. And +Maggie always looked twice as dark as usual when she was by the side of Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +She did to-day, when she and Tom came in from the garden with their father and +their uncle Glegg. Maggie had thrown her bonnet off very carelessly, and coming +in with her hair rough as well as out of curl, rushed at once to Lucy, who was +standing by her mother’s knee. Certainly the contrast between the cousins +was conspicuous, and to superficial eyes was very much to the disadvantage of +Maggie though a connoisseur might have seen “points” in her which +had a higher promise for maturity than Lucy’s natty completeness. It was +like the contrast between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten. +Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed; everything about her +was neat,—her little round neck, with the row of coral beads; her little +straight nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows, rather darker than +her curls, to match hazel eyes, which looked up with shy pleasure at Maggie, +taller by the head, though scarcely a year older. Maggie always looked at Lucy +with delight. +</p> + +<p> +She was fond of fancying a world where the people never got any larger than +children of their own age, and she made the queen of it just like Lucy, with a +little crown on her head, and a little sceptre in her hand—only the queen +was Maggie herself in Lucy’s form. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lucy,” she burst out, after kissing her, “you’ll +stay with Tom and me, won’t you? Oh, kiss her, Tom.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom, too, had come up to Lucy, but he was not going to kiss her—no; he +came up to her with Maggie, because it seemed easier, on the whole, than +saying, “How do you do?” to all those aunts and uncles. He stood +looking at nothing in particular, with the blushing, awkward air and semi-smile +which are common to shy boys when in company,—very much as if they had +come into the world by mistake, and found it in a degree of undress that was +quite embarrassing. +</p> + +<p> +“Heyday!” said aunt Glegg, with loud emphasis. “Do little +boys and gells come into a room without taking notice of their uncles and +aunts? That wasn’t the way when <i>I</i> was a little gell.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go and speak to your aunts and uncles, my dears,” said Mrs +Tulliver, looking anxious and melancholy. She wanted to whisper to Maggie a +command to go and have her hair brushed. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and how do you do? And I hope you’re good children, are +you?” said Aunt Glegg, in the same loud, emphatic way, as she took their +hands, hurting them with her large rings, and kissing their cheeks much against +their desire. “Look up, Tom, look up. Boys as go to boarding-schools +should hold their heads up. Look at me now.” Tom declined that pleasure +apparently, for he tried to draw his hand away. “Put your hair behind +your ears, Maggie, and keep your frock on your shoulder.” +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Glegg always spoke to them in this loud, emphatic way, as if she +considered them deaf, or perhaps rather idiotic; it was a means, she thought, +of making them feel that they were accountable creatures, and might be a +salutary check on naughty tendencies. Bessy’s children were so +spoiled—they’d need have somebody to make them feel their duty. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my dears,” said aunt Pullet, in a compassionate voice, +“you grow wonderful fast. I doubt they’ll outgrow their +strength,” she added, looking over their heads, with a melancholy +expression, at their mother. “I think the gell has too much hair. +I’d have it thinned and cut shorter, sister, if I was you; it isn’t +good for her health. It’s that as makes her skin so brown, I +shouldn’t wonder. Don’t you think so, sister Deane?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say, I’m sure, sister,” said Mrs Deane, +shutting her lips close again, and looking at Maggie with a critical eye. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Mr Tulliver, “the child’s healthy +enough; there’s nothing ails her. There’s red wheat as well as +white, for that matter, and some like the dark grain best. But it ’ud be +as well if Bessy ’ud have the child’s hair cut, so as it ’ud +lie smooth.” +</p> + +<p> +A dreadful resolve was gathering in Maggie’s breast, but it was arrested +by the desire to know from her aunt Deane whether she would leave Lucy behind. +Aunt Deane would hardly ever let Lucy come to see them. After various reasons +for refusal, Mrs Deane appealed to Lucy herself. +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t like to stay behind without mother, should you, +Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, please, mother,” said Lucy, timidly, blushing very pink all +over her little neck. +</p> + +<p> +“Well done, Lucy! Let her stay, Mrs Deane, let her stay,” said Mr +Deane, a large but alert-looking man, with a type of <i>physique</i> to be seen +in all ranks of English society,—bald crown, red whiskers, full forehead, +and general solidity without heaviness. You may see noblemen like Mr Deane, +and you may see grocers or day-labourers like him; but the keenness of his +brown eyes was less common than his contour. +</p> + +<p> +He held a silver snuff-box very tightly in his hand, and now and then exchanged +a pinch with Mr Tulliver, whose box was only silver-mounted, so that it was +naturally a joke between them that Mr Tulliver wanted to exchange snuff-boxes +also. Mr Deane’s box had been given him by the superior partners in the +firm to which he belonged, at the same time that they gave him a share in the +business, in acknowledgment of his valuable services as manager. No man was +thought more highly of in St Ogg’s than Mr Deane; and some persons were +even of opinion that Miss Susan Dodson, who was once held to have made the +worst match of all the Dodson sisters, might one day ride in a better carriage, +and live in a better house, even than her sister Pullet. There was no knowing +where a man would stop, who had got his foot into a great mill-owning, +ship-owning business like that of Guest & Co., with a banking concern +attached. And Mrs Deane, as her intimate female friends observed, was proud +and “having” enough; <i>she</i> wouldn’t let her husband +stand still in the world for want of spurring. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” said Mrs Tulliver, beckoning Maggie to her, and +whispering in her ear, as soon as this point of Lucy’s staying was +settled, “go and get your hair brushed, do, for shame. I told you not to +come in without going to Martha first, you know I did.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tom come out with me,” whispered Maggie, pulling his sleeve as she +passed him; and Tom followed willingly enough. +</p> + +<p> +“Come upstairs with me, Tom,” she whispered, when they were outside +the door. “There’s something I want to do before dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no time to play at anything before dinner,” said +Tom, whose imagination was impatient of any intermediate prospect. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, there is time for this; <i>do</i> come, Tom.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother’s room, and saw her go at +once to a drawer, from which she took out a large pair of scissors. +</p> + +<p> +“What are they for, Maggie?” said Tom, feeling his curiosity +awakened. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie answered by seizing her front locks and cutting them straight across the +middle of her forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my buttons! Maggie, you’ll catch it!” exclaimed Tom; +“you’d better not cut any more off.” +</p> + +<p> +Snip! went the great scissors again while Tom was speaking, and he +couldn’t help feeling it was rather good fun; Maggie would look so queer. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, Tom, cut it behind for me,” said Maggie, excited by her own +daring, and anxious to finish the deed. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll catch it, you know,” said Tom, nodding his head in an +admonitory manner, and hesitating a little as he took the scissors. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, make haste!” said Maggie, giving a little stamp with +her foot. Her cheeks were quite flushed. +</p> + +<p> +The black locks were so thick, nothing could be more tempting to a lad who had +already tasted the forbidden pleasure of cutting the pony’s mane. I speak +to those who know the satisfaction of making a pair of scissors meet through a +duly resisting mass of hair. One delicious grinding snip, and then another and +another, and the hinder-locks fell heavily on the floor, and Maggie stood +cropped in a jagged, uneven manner, but with a sense of clearness and freedom, +as if she had emerged from a wood into the open plain. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Maggie,” said Tom, jumping round her, and slapping his knees +as he laughed, “Oh, my buttons! what a queer thing you look! Look at +yourself in the glass; you look like the idiot we throw out nutshells to at +school.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly at her own +deliverance from her teasing hair and teasing remarks about it, and something +also of the triumph she should have over her mother and her aunts by this very +decided course of action; she didn’t want her hair to look +pretty,—that was out of the question,—she only wanted people to +think her a clever little girl, and not to find fault with her. But now, when +Tom began to laugh at her, and say she was like an idiot, the affair had quite +a new aspect. She looked in the glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his +hands, and Maggie’s cheeks began to pale, and her lips to tremble a +little. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Maggie, you’ll have to go down to dinner directly,” said +Tom. “Oh, my!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t laugh at me, Tom,” said Maggie, in a passionate tone, +with an outburst of angry tears, stamping, and giving him a push. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, then, spitfire!” said Tom. “What did you cut it off +for, then? I shall go down: I can smell the dinner going in.” +</p> + +<p> +He hurried downstairs and left poor Maggie to that bitter sense of the +irrevocable which was almost an everyday experience of her small soul. She +could see clearly enough, now the thing was done, that it was very foolish, and +that she should have to hear and think more about her hair than ever; for +Maggie rushed to her deeds with passionate impulse, and then saw not only their +consequences, but what would have happened if they had not been done, with all +the detail and exaggerated circumstance of an active imagination. Tom never did +the same sort of foolish things as Maggie, having a wonderful instinctive +discernment of what would turn to his advantage or disadvantage; and so it +happened, that though he was much more wilful and inflexible than Maggie, his +mother hardly ever called him naughty. But if Tom did make a mistake of that +sort, he espoused it, and stood by it: he “didn’t mind.” If +he broke the lash of his father’s gigwhip by lashing the gate, he +couldn’t help it,—the whip shouldn’t have got caught in the +hinge. If Tom Tulliver whipped a gate, he was convinced, not that the whipping +of gates by all boys was a justifiable act, but that he, Tom Tulliver, was +justifiable in whipping that particular gate, and he wasn’t going to be +sorry. But Maggie, as she stood crying before the glass, felt it impossible +that she should go down to dinner and endure the severe eyes and severe words +of her aunts, while Tom and Lucy, and Martha, who waited at table, and perhaps +her father and her uncles, would laugh at her; for if Tom had laughed at her, +of course every one else would; and if she had only let her hair alone, she +could have sat with Tom and Lucy, and had the apricot pudding and the custard! +What could she do but sob? She sat as helpless and despairing among her black +locks as Ajax among the slaughtered sheep. Very trivial, perhaps, this anguish +seems to weather-worn mortals who have to think of Christmas bills, dead loves, +and broken friendships; but it was not less bitter to Maggie—perhaps it +was even more bitter—than what we are fond of calling antithetically the +real troubles of mature life. “Ah, my child, you will have real troubles +to fret about by and by,” is the consolation we have almost all of us had +administered to us in our childhood, and have repeated to other children since +we have been grown up. We have all of us sobbed so piteously, standing with +tiny bare legs above our little socks, when we lost sight of our mother or +nurse in some strange place; but we can no longer recall the poignancy of that +moment and weep over it, as we do over the remembered sufferings of five or ten +years ago. Every one of those keen moments has left its trace, and lives in us +still, but such traces have blent themselves irrecoverably with the firmer +texture of our youth and manhood; and so it comes that we can look on at the +troubles of our children with a smiling disbelief in the reality of their pain. +Is there any one who can recover the experience of his childhood, not merely +with a memory of what he did and what happened to him, of what he liked +and disliked when he was in frock and trousers, but with an intimate +penetration, a revived consciousness of what he felt then, when it was so long +from one Midsummer to another; what he felt when his school fellows shut him +out of their game because he would pitch the ball wrong out of mere wilfulness; +or on a rainy day in the holidays, when he didn’t know how to amuse +himself, and fell from idleness into mischief, from mischief into defiance, and +from defiance into sulkiness; or when his mother absolutely refused to let him +have a tailed coat that “half,” although every other boy of his age +had gone into tails already? Surely if we could recall that early bitterness, +and the dim guesses, the strangely perspectiveless conception of life, that +gave the bitterness its intensity, we should not pooh-pooh the griefs of our +children. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Maggie, you’re to come down this minute,” said Kezia, +entering the room hurriedly. “Lawks! what have you been a-doing? I never +<i>see</i> such a fright!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t, Kezia,” said Maggie, angrily. “Go away!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I tell you you’re to come down, Miss, this minute; your mother +says so,” said Kezia, going up to Maggie and taking her by the hand to +raise her from the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“Get away, Kezia; I don’t want any dinner,” said Maggie, +resisting Kezia’s arm. “I sha’n’t come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, I can’t stay. I’ve got to wait at dinner,” +said Kezia, going out again. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie, you little silly,” said Tom, peeping into the room ten +minutes after, “why don’t you come and have your dinner? +There’s lots o’ goodies, and mother says you’re to come. What +are you crying for, you little spooney?” +</p> + +<p> +Oh, it was dreadful! Tom was so hard and unconcerned; if <i>he</i> had been +crying on the floor, Maggie would have cried too. And there was the dinner, so +nice; and she was <i>so</i> hungry. It was very bitter. +</p> + +<p> +But Tom was not altogether hard. He was not inclined to cry, and did not feel +that Maggie’s grief spoiled his prospect of the sweets; but he went and +put his head near her, and said in a lower, comforting tone,— +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you come, then, Magsie? Shall I bring you a bit o’ +pudding when I’ve had mine, and a custard and things?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye-e-es,” said Maggie, beginning to feel life a little more +tolerable. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Tom, going away. But he turned again at the door +and said, “But you’d better come, you know. There’s the +dessert,—nuts, you know, and cowslip wine.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s tears had ceased, and she looked reflective as Tom left her. His +good nature had taken off the keenest edge of her suffering, and nuts with +cowslip wine began to assert their legitimate influence. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly she rose from amongst her scattered locks, and slowly she made her way +downstairs. Then she stood leaning with one shoulder against the frame of the +dining-parlour door, peeping in when it was ajar. She saw Tom and Lucy with an +empty chair between them, and there were the custards on a side-table; it was +too much. She slipped in and went toward the empty chair. But she had no sooner +sat down than she repented and wished herself back again. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver gave a little scream as she saw her, and felt such a +“turn” that she dropped the large gravy-spoon into the dish, with +the most serious results to the table-cloth. For Kezia had not betrayed the +reason of Maggie’s refusal to come down, not liking to give her mistress +a shock in the moment of carving, and Mrs Tulliver thought there was nothing +worse in question than a fit of perverseness, which was inflicting its own +punishment by depriving Maggie of half her dinner. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver’s scream made all eyes turn towards the same point as her +own, and Maggie’s cheeks and ears began to burn, while uncle Glegg, a +kind-looking, white-haired old gentleman, said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Heyday! what little gell’s this? Why, I don’t know her. Is +it some little gell you’ve picked up in the road, Kezia?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, she’s gone and cut her hair herself,” said Mr Tulliver +in an undertone to Mr Deane, laughing with much enjoyment. “Did you ever +know such a little hussy as it is?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, little miss, you’ve made yourself look very funny,” +said Uncle Pullet, and perhaps he never in his life made an observation which +was felt to be so lacerating. +</p> + +<p> +“Fie, for shame!” said aunt Glegg, in her loudest, severest tone of +reproof. “Little gells as cut their own hair should be whipped and fed on +bread and water,—not come and sit down with their aunts and +uncles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay,” said uncle Glegg, meaning to give a playful turn to this +denunciation, “she must be sent to jail, I think, and they’ll cut +the rest of her hair off there, and make it all even.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s more like a gypsy nor ever,” said aunt Pullet, in a +pitying tone; “it’s very bad luck, sister, as the gell should be so +brown; the boy’s fair enough. I doubt it’ll stand in her way +i’ life to be so brown.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a naughty child, as’ll break her mother’s +heart,” said Mrs Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie seemed to be listening to a chorus of reproach and derision. Her first +flush came from anger, which gave her a transient power of defiance, and Tom +thought she was braving it out, supported by the recent appearance of the +pudding and custard. Under this impression, he whispered, “Oh, my! +Maggie, I told you you’d catch it.” He meant to be friendly, but +Maggie felt convinced that Tom was rejoicing in her ignominy. Her feeble power +of defiance left her in an instant, her heart swelled, and getting up from her +chair, she ran to her father, hid her face on his shoulder, and burst out into +loud sobbing. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, my wench,” said her father, soothingly, putting his +arm round her, “never mind; you was i’ the right to cut it off if +it plagued you; give over crying; father’ll take your part.” +</p> + +<p> +Delicious words of tenderness! Maggie never forgot any of these moments when +her father “took her part”; she kept them in her heart, and thought +of them long years after, when every one else said that her father had done +very ill by his children. +</p> + +<p> +“How your husband does spoil that child, Bessy!” said Mrs Glegg, +in a loud “aside,” to Mrs Tulliver. “It’ll be the ruin +of her, if you don’t take care. <i>My</i> father never brought his +children up so, else we should ha’ been a different sort o’ family +to what we are.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver’s domestic sorrows seemed at this moment to have reached +the point at which insensibility begins. She took no notice of her +sister’s remark, but threw back her capstrings and dispensed the pudding, +in mute resignation. +</p> + +<p> +With the dessert there came entire deliverance for Maggie, for the children +were told they might have their nuts and wine in the summer-house, since the +day was so mild; and they scampered out among the budding bushes of the garden +with the alacrity of small animals getting from under a burning glass. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver had her special reason for this permission: now the dinner was +despatched, and every one’s mind disengaged, it was the right moment to +communicate Mr Tulliver’s intention concerning Tom, and it would be as +well for Tom himself to be absent. The children were used to hear themselves +talked of as freely as if they were birds, and could understand nothing, +however they might stretch their necks and listen; but on this occasion Mrs +Tulliver manifested an unusual discretion, because she had recently had +evidence that the going to school to a clergyman was a sore point with Tom, who +looked at it as very much on a par with going to school to a constable. Mrs +Tulliver had a sighing sense that her husband would do as he liked, whatever +sister Glegg said, or sister Pullet either; but at least they would not be able +to say, if the thing turned out ill, that Bessy had fallen in with her +husband’s folly without letting her own friends know a word about it. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Tulliver,” she said, interrupting her husband in his talk with +Mr Deane, “it’s time now to tell the children’s aunts and +uncles what you’re thinking of doing with Tom, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Mr Tulliver, rather sharply, “I’ve +no objections to tell anybody what I mean to do with him. I’ve +settled,” he added, looking toward Mr Glegg and Mr +Deane,—“I’ve settled to send him to a Mr Stelling, a parson, +down at King’s Lorton, there,—an uncommon clever fellow, I +understand, as’ll put him up to most things.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a rustling demonstration of surprise in the company, such as you may +have observed in a country congregation when they hear an allusion to their +week-day affairs from the pulpit. It was equally astonishing to the aunts and +uncles to find a parson introduced into Mr Tulliver’s family +arrangements. As for uncle Pullet, he could hardly have been more thoroughly +obfuscated if Mr Tulliver had said that he was going to send Tom to the Lord +Chancellor; for uncle Pullet belonged to that extinct class of British yeoman +who, dressed in good broadcloth, paid high rates and taxes, went to church, and +ate a particularly good dinner on Sunday, without dreaming that the British +constitution in Church and State had a traceable origin any more than the solar +system and the fixed stars. +</p> + +<p> +It is melancholy, but true, that Mr Pullet had the most confused idea of a +bishop as a sort of a baronet, who might or might not be a clergyman; and as +the rector of his own parish was a man of high family and fortune, the idea +that a clergyman could be a schoolmaster was too remote from Mr Pullet’s +experience to be readily conceivable. I know it is difficult for people in +these instructed times to believe in uncle Pullet’s ignorance; but let +them reflect on the remarkable results of a great natural faculty under +favouring circumstances. And uncle Pullet had a great natural faculty for +ignorance. He was the first to give utterance to his astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what can you be going to send him to a parson for?” he said, +with an amazed twinkling in his eyes, looking at Mr Glegg and Mr Deane, to +see if they showed any signs of comprehension. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, because the parsons are the best schoolmasters, by what I can make +out,” said poor Mr Tulliver, who, in the maze of this puzzling world, +laid hold of any clue with great readiness and tenacity. “Jacobs at +th’ academy’s no parson, and he’s done very bad by the boy; +and I made up my mind, if I send him to school again, it should be to somebody +different to Jacobs. And this Mr Stelling, by what I can make out, is the sort +o’ man I want. And I mean my boy to go to him at Midsummer,” he +concluded, in a tone of decision, tapping his snuff-box and taking a pinch. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have to pay a swinging half-yearly bill, then, eh, +Tulliver? The clergymen have highish notions, in general,” said Mr +Deane, taking snuff vigorously, as he always did when wishing to maintain a +neutral position. +</p> + +<p> +“What! do you think the parson’ll teach him to know a good sample +o’ wheat when he sees it, neighbour Tulliver?” said Mr Glegg, who +was fond of his jest, and having retired from business, felt that it was not +only allowable but becoming in him to take a playful view of things. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you see, I’ve got a plan i’ my head about Tom,” +said Mr Tulliver, pausing after that statement and lifting up his glass. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if I may be allowed to speak, and it’s seldom as I +am,” said Mrs Glegg, with a tone of bitter meaning, “I should like +to know what good is to come to the boy by bringin’ him up above his +fortin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” said Mr Tulliver, not looking at Mrs Glegg, but at the +male part of his audience, “you see, I’ve made up my mind not to +bring Tom up to my own business. I’ve had my thoughts about it all along, +and I made up my mind by what I saw with Garnett and <i>his</i> son. I mean to +put him to some business as he can go into without capital, and I want to give +him an eddication as he’ll be even wi’ the lawyers and folks, and +put me up to a notion now an’ then.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg emitted a long sort of guttural sound with closed lips, that smiled +in mingled pity and scorn. +</p> + +<p> +“It ’ud be a fine deal better for some people,” she said, +after that introductory note, “if they’d let the lawyers +alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is he at the head of a grammar school, then, this clergyman, such as +that at Market Bewley?” said Mr Deane. +</p> + +<p> +“No, nothing of that,” said Mr Tulliver. “He won’t +take more than two or three pupils, and so he’ll have the more time to +attend to ’em, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, and get his eddication done the sooner; they can’t learn much +at a time when there’s so many of ’em,” said uncle Pullet, +feeling that he was getting quite an insight into this difficult matter. +</p> + +<p> +“But he’ll want the more pay, I doubt,” said Mr Glegg. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, a cool hundred a year, that’s all,” said Mr +Tulliver, with some pride at his own spirited course. “But then, you +know, it’s an investment; Tom’s eddication ’ull be so much +capital to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, there’s something in that,” said Mr Glegg. “Well +well, neighbour Tulliver, you may be right, you may be right: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘When land is gone and money’s spent,<br/> +Then learning is most excellent.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I remember seeing those two lines wrote on a window at Buxton. But us +that have got no learning had better keep our money, eh, neighbour +Pullet?” Mr Glegg rubbed his knees, and looked very pleasant. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Glegg, I wonder <i>at</i> you,” said his wife. +“It’s very unbecoming in a man o’ your age and +belongings.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s unbecoming, Mrs G.?” said Mr Glegg, winking +pleasantly at the company. “My new blue coat as I’ve got on?” +</p> + +<p> +“I pity your weakness, Mr Glegg. I say it’s unbecoming to be +making a joke when you see your own kin going headlongs to ruin.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you mean me by that,” said Mr Tulliver, considerably nettled, +“you needn’t trouble yourself to fret about me. I can manage my own +affairs without troubling other folks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless me!” said Mr Deane, judiciously introducing a new idea, +“why, now I come to think of it, somebody said Wakem was going to send +<i>his</i> son—the deformed lad—to a clergyman, didn’t they, +Susan?” (appealing to his wife). +</p> + +<p> +“I can give no account of it, I’m sure,” said Mrs Deane, +closing her lips very tightly again. Mrs Deane was not a woman to take part in +a scene where missiles were flying. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mr Tulliver, speaking all the more cheerfully, that +Mrs Glegg might see he didn’t mind her, “if Wakem thinks o’ +sending his son to a clergyman, depend on it I shall make no mistake i’ +sending Tom to one. Wakem’s as big a scoundrel as Old Harry ever made, +but he knows the length of every man’s foot he’s got to deal with. +Ay, ay, tell me who’s Wakem’s butcher, and I’ll tell you +where to get your meat.” +</p> + +<p> +“But lawyer Wakem’s son’s got a hump-back,” said Mrs +Pullet, who felt as if the whole business had a funereal aspect; +“it’s more nat’ral to send <i>him</i> to a clergyman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mr Glegg, interpreting Mrs Pullet’s observation +with erroneous plausibility, “you must consider that, neighbour Tulliver; +Wakem’s son isn’t likely to follow any business. Wakem ’ull +make a gentleman of him, poor fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Glegg,” said Mrs G., in a tone which implied that her +indignation would fizz and ooze a little, though she was determined to keep it +corked up, “you’d far better hold your tongue. Mr Tulliver +doesn’t want to know your opinion nor mine either. There’s folks in +the world as know better than everybody else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I should think that’s you, if we’re to trust your own +tale,” said Mr Tulliver, beginning to boil up again. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>I</i> say nothing,” said Mrs Glegg, sarcastically. +“My advice has never been asked, and I don’t give it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’ll be the first time, then,” said Mr Tulliver. +“It’s the only thing you’re over-ready at giving.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been over-ready at lending, then, if I haven’t been +over-ready at giving,” said Mrs Glegg. “There’s folks +I’ve lent money to, as perhaps I shall repent o’ lending money to +kin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, come,” said Mr Glegg, soothingly. But Mr Tulliver +was not to be hindered of his retort. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got a bond for it, I reckon,” he said; “and +you’ve had your five per cent, kin or no kin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sister,” said Mrs Tulliver, pleadingly, “drink your wine, +and let me give you some almonds and raisins.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bessy, I’m sorry for you,” said Mrs Glegg, very much with +the feeling of a cur that seizes the opportunity of diverting his bark toward +the man who carries no stick. “It’s poor work talking o’ +almonds and raisins.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lors, sister Glegg, don’t be so quarrelsome,” said Mrs +Pullet, beginning to cry a little. “You may be struck with a fit, getting +so red in the face after dinner, and we are but just out o’ mourning, all +of us,—and all wi’ gowns craped alike and just put by; it’s +very bad among sisters.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think it <i>is</i> bad,” said Mrs Glegg. “Things +are come to a fine pass when one sister invites the other to her house o’ +purpose to quarrel with her and abuse her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Softly, softly, Jane; be reasonable, be reasonable,” said Mr +Glegg. +</p> + +<p> +But while he was speaking, Mr Tulliver, who had by no means said enough to +satisfy his anger, burst out again. +</p> + +<p> +“Who wants to quarrel with you?” he said. “It’s you as +can’t let people alone, but must be gnawing at ’em forever. +<i>I</i> should never want to quarrel with any woman if she kept her +place.” +</p> + +<p> +“My place, indeed!” said Mrs Glegg, getting rather more shrill. +“There’s your betters, Mr Tulliver, as are dead and in their +grave, treated me with a different sort o’ respect to what you do; +<i>though</i> I’ve got a husband as’ll sit by and see me abused by +them as ’ud never ha’ had the chance if there hadn’t been +them in our family as married worse than they might ha’ done.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you talk o’ that,” said Mr Tulliver, “my +family’s as good as yours, and better, for it hasn’t got a damned +ill-tempered woman in it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mrs Glegg, rising from her chair, “I +don’t know whether you think it’s a fine thing to sit by and hear +me swore at, Mr Glegg; but I’m not going to stay a minute longer in this +house. You can stay behind, and come home with the gig, and I’ll walk +home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear heart, dear heart!” said Mr Glegg in a melancholy tone, as +he followed his wife out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Tulliver, how could you talk so?” said Mrs Tulliver, with the +tears in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Let her go,” said Mr Tulliver, too hot to be damped by any amount +of tears. “Let her go, and the sooner the better; she won’t be +trying to domineer over <i>me</i> again in a hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sister Pullet,” said Mrs Tulliver, helplessly, “do you +think it ’ud be any use for you to go after her and try to pacify +her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Better not, better not,” said Mr Deane. “You’ll make +it up another day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, sisters, shall we go and look at the children?” said Mrs +Tulliver, drying her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +No proposition could have been more seasonable. Mr Tulliver felt very much as +if the air had been cleared of obtrusive flies now the women were out of the +room. There were few things he liked better than a chat with Mr Deane, whose +close application to business allowed the pleasure very rarely. Mr Deane, he +considered, was the “knowingest” man of his acquaintance, and he +had besides a ready causticity of tongue that made an agreeable supplement to +Mr Tulliver’s own tendency that way, which had remained in rather an +inarticulate condition. And now the women were gone, they could carry on their +serious talk without frivolous interruption. They could exchange their views +concerning the Duke of Wellington, whose conduct in the Catholic Question had +thrown such an entirely new light on his character; and speak slightingly of +his conduct at the battle of Waterloo, which he would never have won if there +hadn’t been a great many Englishmen at his back, not to speak of Blucher +and the Prussians, who, as Mr Tulliver had heard from a person of particular +knowledge in that matter, had come up in the very nick of time; though here +there was a slight dissidence, Mr Deane remarking that he was not disposed to +give much credit to the Prussians,—the build of their vessels, together +with the unsatisfactory character of transactions in Dantzic beer, inclining +him to form rather a low view of Prussian pluck generally. Rather beaten on +this ground, Mr Tulliver proceeded to express his fears that the country could +never again be what it used to be; but Mr Deane, attached to a firm of which +the returns were on the increase, naturally took a more lively view of the +present, and had some details to give concerning the state of the imports, +especially in hides and spelter, which soothed Mr Tulliver’s imagination +by throwing into more distant perspective the period when the country would +become utterly the prey of Papists and Radicals, and there would be no more +chance for honest men. +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Pullet sat by and listened with twinkling eyes to these high matters. He +didn’t understand politics himself,—thought they were a natural +gift,—but by what he could make out, this Duke of Wellington was no +better than he should be. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap08"></a>Chapter VIII.<br/> +Mr Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side</h3> + +<p> +“Suppose sister Glegg should call her money in; it ’ud be very +awkward for you to have to raise five hundred pounds now,” said Mrs +Tulliver to her husband that evening, as she took a plaintive review of the +day. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver had lived thirteen years with her husband, yet she retained in +all the freshness of her early married life a facility of saying things which +drove him in the opposite direction to the one she desired. Some minds are +wonderful for keeping their bloom in this way, as a patriarchal goldfish +apparently retains to the last its youthful illusion that it can swim in a +straight line beyond the encircling glass. Mrs Tulliver was an amiable fish of +this kind, and after running her head against the same resisting medium for +thirteen years would go at it again to-day with undulled alacrity. +</p> + +<p> +This observation of hers tended directly to convince Mr Tulliver that it would +not be at all awkward for him to raise five hundred pounds; and when Mrs +Tulliver became rather pressing to know <i>how</i> he would raise it without +mortgaging the mill and the house which he had said he never <i>would</i> +mortgage, since nowadays people were none so ready to lend money without +security, Mr Tulliver, getting warm, declared that Mrs Glegg might do as she +liked about calling in her money, he should pay it in whether or not. He was +not going to be beholden to his wife’s sisters. When a man had married +into a family where there was a whole litter of women, he might have plenty to +put up with if he chose. But Mr Tulliver did <i>not</i> choose. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver cried a little in a trickling, quiet way as she put on her +nightcap; but presently sank into a comfortable sleep, lulled by the thought +that she would talk everything over with her sister Pullet to-morrow, when she +was to take the children to Garum Firs to tea. Not that she looked forward to +any distinct issue from that talk; but it seemed impossible that past events +should be so obstinate as to remain unmodified when they were complained +against. +</p> + +<p> +Her husband lay awake rather longer, for he too was thinking of a visit he +would pay on the morrow; and his ideas on the subject were not of so vague and +soothing a kind as those of his amiable partner. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver, when under the influence of a strong feeling, had a promptitude +in action that may seem inconsistent with that painful sense of the +complicated, puzzling nature of human affairs under which his more +dispassionate deliberations were conducted; but it is really not improbable +that there was a direct relation between these apparently contradictory +phenomena, since I have observed that for getting a strong impression that a +skein is tangled there is nothing like snatching hastily at a single thread. It +was owing to this promptitude that Mr Tulliver was on horseback soon after +dinner the next day (he was not dyspeptic) on his way to Basset to see his +sister Moss and her husband. For having made up his mind irrevocably that he +would pay Mrs Glegg her loan of five hundred pounds, it naturally occurred to +him that he had a promissory note for three hundred pounds lent to his +brother-in-law Moss; and if the said brother-in-law could manage to pay in the +money within a given time, it would go far to lessen the fallacious air of +inconvenience which Mr Tulliver’s spirited step might have worn in the +eyes of weak people who require to know precisely <i>how</i> a thing is to be +done before they are strongly confident that it will be easy. +</p> + +<p> +For Mr Tulliver was in a position neither new nor striking, but, like other +everyday things, sure to have a cumulative effect that will be felt in the +long run: he was held to be a much more substantial man than he really was. And +as we are all apt to believe what the world believes about us, it was his habit +to think of failure and ruin with the same sort of remote pity with which a +spare, long-necked man hears that his plethoric short-necked neighbour is +stricken with apoplexy. He had been always used to hear pleasant jokes about +his advantages as a man who worked his own mill, and owned a pretty bit of +land; and these jokes naturally kept up his sense that he was a man of +considerable substance. They gave a pleasant flavour to his glass on a +market-day, and if it had not been for the recurrence of half-yearly payments, +Mr Tulliver would really have forgotten that there was a mortgage of two +thousand pounds on his very desirable freehold. That was not altogether his own +fault, since one of the thousand pounds was his sister’s fortune, which +he had to pay on her marriage; and a man who has neighbours that <i>will</i> go +to law with him is not likely to pay off his mortgages, especially if he enjoys +the good opinion of acquaintances who want to borrow a hundred pounds on +security too lofty to be represented by parchment. Our friend Mr Tulliver had +a good-natured fibre in him, and did not like to give harsh refusals even to +his sister, who had not only come in to the world in that superfluous way +characteristic of sisters, creating a necessity for mortgages, but had quite +thrown herself away in marriage, and had crowned her mistakes by having an +eighth baby. On this point Mr Tulliver was conscious of being a little weak; +but he apologised to himself by saying that poor Gritty had been a good-looking +wench before she married Moss; he would sometimes say this even with a slight +tremulousness in his voice. But this morning he was in a mood more becoming a +man of business, and in the course of his ride along the Basset lanes, with +their deep ruts,—lying so far away from a market-town that the labour of +drawing produce and manure was enough to take away the best part of the profits +on such poor land as that parish was made of,—he got up a due amount of +irritation against Moss as a man without capital, who, if murrain and blight +were abroad, was sure to have his share of them, and who, the more you tried to +help him out of the mud, would sink the further in. It would do him good rather +than harm, now, if he were obliged to raise this three hundred pounds; it would +make him look about him better, and not act so foolishly about his wool this +year as he did the last; in fact, Mr Tulliver had been too easy with his +brother-in-law, and because he had let the interest run on for two years, Moss +was likely enough to think that he should never be troubled about the +principal. But Mr Tulliver was determined not to encourage such shuffling +people any longer; and a ride along the Basset lanes was not likely to enervate +a man’s resolution by softening his temper. The deep-trodden hoof-marks, +made in the muddiest days of winter, gave him a shake now and then which +suggested a rash but stimulating snarl at the father of lawyers, who, whether +by means of his hoof or otherwise, had doubtless something to do with this +state of the roads; and the abundance of foul land and neglected fences that +met his eye, though they made no part of his brother Moss’s farm, +strongly contributed to his dissatisfaction with that unlucky agriculturist. If +this wasn’t Moss’s fallow, it might have been; Basset was all +alike; it was a beggarly parish, in Mr Tulliver’s opinion, and his +opinion was certainly not groundless. Basset had a poor soil, poor roads, a +poor non-resident landlord, a poor non-resident vicar, and rather less than +half a curate, also poor. If any one strongly impressed with the power of the +human mind to triumph over circumstances will contend that the parishioners of +Basset might nevertheless have been a very superior class of people, I have +nothing to urge against that abstract proposition; I only know that, in point +of fact, the Basset mind was in strict keeping with its circumstances. The +muddy lanes, green or clayey, that seemed to the unaccustomed eye to lead +nowhere but into each other, did really lead, with patience, to a distant +high-road; but there were many feet in Basset which they led more frequently to +a centre of dissipation, spoken of formerly as the “Markis o’ +Granby,” but among intimates as “Dickison’s.” A large +low room with a sanded floor; a cold scent of tobacco, modified by undetected +beer-dregs; Mr Dickison leaning against the door-post with a melancholy +pimpled face, looking as irrelevant to the daylight as a last night’s +guttered candle,—all this may not seem a very seductive form of +temptation; but the majority of men in Basset found it fatally alluring when +encountered on their road toward four o’clock on a wintry afternoon; and +if any wife in Basset wished to indicate that her husband was not a +pleasure-seeking man, she could hardly do it more emphatically than by saying +that he didn’t spend a shilling at Dickison’s from one Whitsuntide +to another. Mrs Moss had said so of <i>her</i> husband more than once, when +her brother was in a mood to find fault with him, as he certainly was to-day. +And nothing could be less pacifying to Mr Tulliver than the behaviour of the +farmyard gate, which he no sooner attempted to push open with his riding-stick +than it acted as gates without the upper hinge are known to do, to the peril of +shins, whether equine or human. He was about to get down and lead his horse +through the damp dirt of the hollow farmyard, shadowed drearily by the large +half-timbered buildings, up to the long line of tumble-down dwelling-houses +standing on a raised causeway; but the timely appearance of a cowboy saved him +that frustration of a plan he had determined on,—namely, not to get down +from his horse during this visit. If a man means to be hard, let him keep in +his saddle and speak from that height, above the level of pleading eyes, and +with the command of a distant horizon. Mrs Moss heard the sound of the +horse’s feet, and, when her brother rode up, was already outside the +kitchen door, with a half-weary smile on her face, and a black-eyed baby in her +arms. Mrs Moss’s face bore a faded resemblance to her brother’s; +baby’s little fat hand, pressed against her cheek, seemed to show more +strikingly that the cheek was faded. +</p> + +<p> +“Brother, I’m glad to see you,” she said, in an affectionate +tone. “I didn’t look for you to-day. How do you do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, pretty well, Mrs Moss, pretty well,” answered the brother, +with cool deliberation, as if it were rather too forward of her to ask that +question. She knew at once that her brother was not in a good humour; he never +called her Mrs Moss except when he was angry, and when they were in company. +But she thought it was in the order of nature that people who were poorly off +should be snubbed. Mrs Moss did not take her stand on the equality of the +human race; she was a patient, prolific, loving-hearted woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Your husband isn’t in the house, I suppose?” added Mr +Tulliver after a grave pause, during which four children had run out, like +chickens whose mother has been suddenly in eclipse behind the hen-coop. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mrs Moss, “but he’s only in the +potato-field yonders. Georgy, run to the Far Close in a minute, and tell father +your uncle’s come. You’ll get down, brother, won’t you, and +take something?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; I can’t get down. I must be going home again +directly,” said Mr Tulliver, looking at the distance. +</p> + +<p> +“And how’s Mrs Tulliver and the children?” said Mrs Moss, +humbly, not daring to press her invitation. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, pretty well. Tom’s going to a new school at Midsummer,—a +deal of expense to me. It’s bad work for me, lying out o’ my +money.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d be so good as let the children come and see their +cousins some day. My little uns want to see their cousin Maggie so as never +was. And me her godmother, and so fond of her; there’s nobody ’ud +make a bigger fuss with her, according to what they’ve got. And I know +she likes to come, for she’s a loving child, and how quick and clever she +is, to be sure!” +</p> + +<p> +If Mrs Moss had been one of the most astute women in the world, instead of +being one of the simplest, she could have thought of nothing more likely to +propitiate her brother than this praise of Maggie. He seldom found any one +volunteering praise of “the little wench”; it was usually left +entirely to himself to insist on her merits. But Maggie always appeared in the +most amiable light at her aunt Moss’s; it was her Alsatia, where she was +out of the reach of law,—if she upset anything, dirtied her shoes, or +tore her frock, these things were matters of course at her aunt Moss’s. +In spite of himself, Mr Tulliver’s eyes got milder, and he did not look +away from his sister as he said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Ay; she’s fonder o’ you than o’ the other aunts, I +think. She takes after our family: not a bit of her mother’s in +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Moss says she’s just like what I used to be,” said Mrs +Moss, “though I was never so quick and fond o’ the books. But I +think my Lizzy’s like her; <i>she’s</i> sharp. Come here, Lizzy, my +dear, and let your uncle see you; he hardly knows you, you grow so fast.” +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy, a black-eyed child of seven, looked very shy when her mother drew her +forward, for the small Mosses were much in awe of their uncle from Dorlcote +Mill. She was inferior enough to Maggie in fire and strength of expression to +make the resemblance between the two entirely flattering to Mr +Tulliver’s fatherly love. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, they’re a bit alike,” he said, looking kindly at the +little figure in the soiled pinafore. “They both take after our mother. +You’ve got enough o’ gells, Gritty,” he added, in a tone half +compassionate, half reproachful. +</p> + +<p> +“Four of ’em, bless ’em!” said Mrs Moss, with a sigh, +stroking Lizzy’s hair on each side of her forehead; “as many as +there’s boys. They’ve got a brother apiece.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but they must turn out and fend for themselves,” said Mr +Tulliver, feeling that his severity was relaxing and trying to brace it by +throwing out a wholesome hint “They mustn’t look to hanging on +their brothers.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; but I hope their brothers ’ull love the poor things, and +remember they came o’ one father and mother; the lads ’ull never be +the poorer for that,” said Mrs Moss, flashing out with hurried timidity, +like a half-smothered fire. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver gave his horse a little stroke on the flank, then checked it, and +said angrily, “Stand still with you!” much to the astonishment of +that innocent animal. +</p> + +<p> +“And the more there is of ’em, the more they must love one +another,” Mrs Moss went on, looking at her children with a didactic +purpose. But she turned toward her brother again to say, “Not but what I +hope your boy ’ull allays be good to his sister, though there’s but +two of ’em, like you and me, brother.” +</p> + +<p> +The arrow went straight to Mr Tulliver’s heart. He had not a rapid +imagination, but the thought of Maggie was very near to him, and he was not +long in seeing his relation to his own sister side by side with Tom’s +relation to Maggie. Would the little wench ever be poorly off, and Tom rather +hard upon her? +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, Gritty,” said the miller, with a new softness in his tone; +“but I’ve allays done what I could for you,” he added, as if +vindicating himself from a reproach. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not denying that, brother, and I’m noways +ungrateful,” said poor Mrs Moss, too fagged by toil and children to have +strength left for any pride. “But here’s the father. What a while +you’ve been, Moss!” +</p> + +<p> +“While, do you call it?” said Mr Moss, feeling out of breath and +injured. “I’ve been running all the way. Won’t you +’light, Mr Tulliver?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll just get down and have a bit o’ talk with you in +the garden,” said Mr Tulliver, thinking that he should be more likely to +show a due spirit of resolve if his sister were not present. +</p> + +<p> +He got down, and passed with Mr Moss into the garden, toward an old yew-tree +arbour, while his sister stood tapping her baby on the back and looking +wistfully after them. +</p> + +<p> +Their entrance into the yew-tree arbour surprised several fowls that were +recreating themselves by scratching deep holes in the dusty ground, and at once +took flight with much pother and cackling. Mr Tulliver sat down on the bench, +and tapping the ground curiously here and there with his stick, as if he +suspected some hollowness, opened the conversation by observing, with something +like a snarl in his tone,— +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you’ve got wheat again in that Corner Close, I see; and never +a bit o’ dressing on it. You’ll do no good with it this +year.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Moss, who, when he married Miss Tulliver, had been regarded as the buck of +Basset, now wore a beard nearly a week old, and had the depressed, unexpectant +air of a machine-horse. He answered in a patient-grumbling tone, “Why, +poor farmers like me must do as they can; they must leave it to them as have +got money to play with, to put half as much into the ground as they mean to get +out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know who should have money to play with, if it isn’t +them as can borrow money without paying interest,” said Mr Tulliver, who +wished to get into a slight quarrel; it was the most natural and easy +introduction to calling in money. +</p> + +<p> +“I know I’m behind with the interest,” said Mr Moss, +“but I was so unlucky wi’ the wool last year; and what with the +Missis being laid up so, things have gone awk’arder nor usual.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” snarled Mr Tulliver, “there’s folks as things +’ull allays go awk’ard with; empty sacks ’ull never stand +upright.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t know what fault you’ve got to find wi’ +me, Mr Tulliver,” said Mr Moss, deprecatingly; “I know there +isn’t a day-labourer works harder.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the use o’ that,” said Mr Tulliver, sharply, +“when a man marries, and’s got no capital to work his farm but his +wife’s bit o’ fortin? I was against it from the first; but +you’d neither of you listen to me. And I can’t lie out o’ my +money any longer, for I’ve got to pay five hundred o’ Mrs +Glegg’s, and there’ll be Tom an expense to me. I should find myself +short, even saying I’d got back all as is my own. You must look about and +see how you can pay me the three hundred pound.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if that’s what you mean,” said Mr Moss, looking +blankly before him, “we’d better be sold up, and ha’ done +with it; I must part wi’ every head o’ stock I’ve got, to pay +you and the landlord too.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor relations are undeniably irritating,—their existence is so entirely +uncalled for on our part, and they are almost always very faulty people. Mr +Tulliver had succeeded in getting quite as much irritated with Mr Moss as he +had desired, and he was able to say angrily, rising from his seat,— +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you must do as you can. <i>I</i> can’t find money for +everybody else as well as myself. I must look to my own business and my own +family. I can’t lie out o’ my money any longer. You must raise it +as quick as you can.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver walked abruptly out of the arbour as he uttered the last sentence, +and, without looking round at Mr Moss, went on to the kitchen door, where the +eldest boy was holding his horse, and his sister was waiting in a state of +wondering alarm, which was not without its alleviations, for baby was making +pleasant gurgling sounds, and performing a great deal of finger practice on the +faded face. Mrs Moss had eight children, but could never overcome her regret +that the twins had not lived. Mr Moss thought their removal was not without +its consolations. “Won’t you come in, brother?” she said, +looking anxiously at her husband, who was walking slowly up, while Mr Tulliver +had his foot already in the stirrup. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; good-by,” said he, turning his horse’s head, and +riding away. +</p> + +<p> +No man could feel more resolute till he got outside the yard gate, and a little +way along the deep-rutted lane; but before he reached the next turning, which +would take him out of sight of the dilapidated farm-buildings, he appeared to +be smitten by some sudden thought. He checked his horse, and made it stand +still in the same spot for two or three minutes, during which he turned his +head from side to side in a melancholy way, as if he were looking at some +painful object on more sides than one. Evidently, after his fit of promptitude, +Mr Tulliver was relapsing into the sense that this is a puzzling world. He +turned his horse, and rode slowly back, giving vent to the climax of feeling +which had determined this movement by saying aloud, as he struck his horse, +“Poor little wench! she’ll have nobody but Tom, belike, when +I’m gone.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver’s return into the yard was descried by several young Mosses, +who immediately ran in with the exciting news to their mother, so that Mrs +Moss was again on the door-step when her brother rode up. She had been crying, +but was rocking baby to sleep in her arms now, and made no ostentatious show of +sorrow as her brother looked at her, but merely said: +</p> + +<p> +“The father’s gone to the field, again, if you want him, +brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Gritty, no,” said Mr Tulliver, in a gentle tone. +“Don’t you fret,—that’s all,—I’ll make a +shift without the money a bit, only you must be as clever and contriving as you +can.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Moss’s tears came again at this unexpected kindness, and she could +say nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come!—the little wench shall come and see you. I’ll +bring her and Tom some day before he goes to school. You mustn’t fret. +I’ll allays be a good brother to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you for that word, brother,” said Mrs Moss, drying her +tears; then turning to Lizzy, she said, “Run now, and fetch the coloured +egg for cousin Maggie.” Lizzy ran in, and quickly reappeared with a small +paper parcel. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s boiled hard, brother, and coloured with thrums, very pretty; +it was done o’ purpose for Maggie. Will you please to carry it in your +pocket?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay,” said Mr Tulliver, putting it carefully in his side +pocket. “Good-by.” +</p> + +<p> + +</p> + +<p> +And so the respectable miller returned along the Basset lanes rather more +puzzled than before as to ways and means, but still with the sense of a danger +escaped. It had come across his mind that if he were hard upon his sister, it +might somehow tend to make Tom hard upon Maggie at some distant day, when her +father was no longer there to take her part; for simple people, like our friend +Mr Tulliver, are apt to clothe unimpeachable feelings in erroneous ideas, and +this was his confused way of explaining to himself that his love and anxiety +for “the little wench” had given him a new sensibility toward his +sister. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap09"></a>Chapter IX.<br/> +To Garum Firs</h3> + +<p> +While the possible troubles of Maggie’s future were occupying her +father’s mind, she herself was tasting only the bitterness of the +present. Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories +of outlived sorrow. +</p> + +<p> +The fact was, the day had begun ill with Maggie. The pleasure of having Lucy to +look at, and the prospect of the afternoon visit to Garum Firs, where she would +hear uncle Pullet’s musical box, had been marred as early as eleven +o’clock by the advent of the hair-dresser from St Ogg’s, who had +spoken in the severest terms of the condition in which he had found her hair, +holding up one jagged lock after another and saying, “See here! tut, tut, +tut!” in a tone of mingled disgust and pity, which to Maggie’s +imagination was equivalent to the strongest expression of public opinion. Mr +Rappit, the hair-dresser, with his well-anointed coronal locks tending wavily +upward, like the simulated pyramid of flame on a monumental urn, seemed to her +at that moment the most formidable of her contemporaries, into whose street at +St Ogg’s she would carefully refrain from entering through the rest of +her life. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, the preparation for a visit being always a serious affair in the +Dodson family, Martha was enjoined to have Mrs Tulliver’s room ready an +hour earlier than usual, that the laying out of the best clothes might not be +deferred till the last moment, as was sometimes the case in families of lax +views, where the ribbon-strings were never rolled up, where there was little or +no wrapping in silver paper, and where the sense that the Sunday clothes could +be got at quite easily produced no shock to the mind. Already, at twelve +o’clock, Mrs Tulliver had on her visiting costume, with a protective +apparatus of brown holland, as if she had been a piece of satin furniture in +danger of flies; Maggie was frowning and twisting her shoulders, that she might +if possible shrink away from the prickliest of tuckers, while her mother was +remonstrating, “Don’t, Maggie, my dear; don’t make yourself +so ugly!” and Tom’s cheeks were looking particularly brilliant as a +relief to his best blue suit, which he wore with becoming calmness, having, +after a little wrangling, effected what was always the one point of interest to +him in his toilet: he had transferred all the contents of his everyday pockets +to those actually in wear. +</p> + +<p> +As for Lucy, she was just as pretty and neat as she had been yesterday; no +accidents ever happened to her clothes, and she was never uncomfortable in +them, so that she looked with wondering pity at Maggie, pouting and writhing +under the exasperating tucker. Maggie would certainly have torn it off, if she +had not been checked by the remembrance of her recent humiliation about her +hair; as it was, she confined herself to fretting and twisting, and behaving +peevishly about the card-houses which they were allowed to build till dinner, +as a suitable amusement for boys and girls in their best clothes. Tom could +build perfect pyramids of houses; but Maggie’s would never bear the +laying on the roof. It was always so with the things that Maggie made; and Tom +had deduced the conclusion that no girls could ever make anything. But it +happened that Lucy proved wonderfully clever at building; she handled the cards +so lightly, and moved so gently, that Tom condescended to admire her houses as +well as his own, the more readily because she had asked him to teach her. +Maggie, too, would have admired Lucy’s houses, and would have given up +her own unsuccessful building to contemplate them, without ill temper, if her +tucker had not made her peevish, and if Tom had not inconsiderately laughed +when her houses fell, and told her she was “a stupid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t laugh at me, Tom!” she burst out angrily; +“I’m not a stupid. I know a great many things you +don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I dare say, Miss Spitfire! I’d never be such a cross thing as +you, making faces like that. Lucy doesn’t do so. I like Lucy better than +you; <i>I</i> wish Lucy was <i>my</i> sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it’s very wicked and cruel of you to wish so,” said +Maggie, starting up hurriedly from her place on the floor, and upsetting +Tom’s wonderful pagoda. She really did not mean it, but the +circumstantial evidence was against her, and Tom turned white with anger, but +said nothing; he would have struck her, only he knew it was cowardly to strike +a girl, and Tom Tulliver was quite determined he would never do anything +cowardly. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie stood in dismay and terror, while Tom got up from the floor and walked +away, pale, from the scattered ruins of his pagoda, and Lucy looked on mutely, +like a kitten pausing from its lapping. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Tom,” said Maggie, at last, going half-way toward him, +“I didn’t mean to knock it down, indeed, indeed I +didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom took no notice of her, but took, instead, two or three hard peas out of his +pocket, and shot them with his thumbnail against the window, vaguely at first, +but presently with the distinct aim of hitting a superannuated blue-bottle +which was exposing its imbecility in the spring sunshine, clearly against the +views of Nature, who had provided Tom and the peas for the speedy destruction +of this weak individual. +</p> + +<p> +Thus the morning had been made heavy to Maggie, and Tom’s persistent +coldness to her all through their walk spoiled the fresh air and sunshine for +her. He called Lucy to look at the half-built bird’s nest without caring +to show it Maggie, and peeled a willow switch for Lucy and himself, without +offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, “Maggie, shouldn’t +<i>you</i> like one?” but Tom was deaf. +</p> + +<p> +Still, the sight of the peacock opportunely spreading his tail on the stackyard +wall, just as they reached Garum Firs, was enough to divert the mind +temporarily from personal grievances. And this was only the beginning of +beautiful sights at Garum Firs. All the farmyard life was wonderful +there,—bantams, speckled and top-knotted; Friesland hens, with their +feathers all turned the wrong way; Guinea-fowls that flew and screamed and +dropped their pretty spotted feathers; pouter-pigeons and a tame magpie; nay, a +goat, and a wonderful brindled dog, half mastiff, half bull-dog, as large as a +lion. Then there were white railings and white gates all about, and glittering +weathercocks of various design, and garden-walks paved with pebbles in +beautiful patterns,—nothing was quite common at Garum Firs; and Tom +thought that the unusual size of the toads there was simply due to the general +unusualness which characterised uncle Pullet’s possessions as a gentleman +farmer. Toads who paid rent were naturally leaner. As for the house, it was not +less remarkable; it had a receding centre, and two wings with battlemented +turrets, and was covered with glittering white stucco. +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Pullet had seen the expected party approaching from the window, and made +haste to unbar and unchain the front door, kept always in this fortified +condition from fear of tramps, who might be supposed to know of the glass case +of stuffed birds in the hall, and to contemplate rushing in and carrying it +away on their heads. Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as +her sister was within hearing said, “Stop the children, for God’s +sake! Bessy; don’t let ’em come up the door-steps; Sally’s +bringing the old mat and the duster, to rub their shoes.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Pullet’s front-door mats were by no means intended to wipe shoes on; +the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom rebelled particularly +against this shoewiping, which he always considered in the light of an +indignity to his sex. He felt it as the beginning of the disagreeables incident +to a visit at aunt Pullet’s, where he had once been compelled to sit with +towels wrapped round his boots; a fact which may serve to correct the too hasty +conclusion that a visit to Garum Firs must have been a great treat to a young +gentleman fond of animals,—fond, that is, of throwing stones at them. +</p> + +<p> +The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions; it was the +mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very handsome carpets rolled up +and laid by in a spare bedroom, so that the ascent of these glossy steps might +have served, in barbarous times, as a trial by ordeal from which none but the +most spotless virtue could have come off with unbroken limbs. Sophy’s +weakness about these polished stairs was always a subject of bitter +remonstrance on Mrs Glegg’s part; but Mrs Tulliver ventured on no +comment, only thinking to herself it was a mercy when she and the children were +safe on the landing. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy,” said Mrs Pullet, +in a pathetic tone, as Mrs Tulliver adjusted her cap. +</p> + +<p> +“Has she, sister?” said Mrs Tulliver, with an air of much +interest. “And how do you like it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s apt to make a mess with clothes, taking ’em out and +putting ’em in again,” said Mrs Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys +from her pocket and looking at them earnestly, “but it ’ud be a +pity for you to go away without seeing it. There’s no knowing what may +happen.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious consideration, which +determined her to single out a particular key. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid it’ll be troublesome to you getting it out, +sister,” said Mrs Tulliver; “but I <i>should</i> like to see what +sort of a crown she’s made you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a very bright +wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she would find a new bonnet. Not +at all. Such a supposition could only have arisen from a too superficial +acquaintance with the habits of the Dodson family. In this wardrobe Mrs Pullet +was seeking something small enough to be hidden among layers of linen,—it +was a door-key. +</p> + +<p> +“You must come with me into the best room,” said Mrs Pullet. +</p> + +<p> +“May the children come too, sister?” inquired Mrs Tulliver, who +saw that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said aunt Pullet, reflectively, “it’ll perhaps +be safer for ’em to come; they’ll be touching something if we leave +’em behind.” +</p> + +<p> +So they went in procession along the bright and slippery corridor, dimly +lighted by the semi-lunar top of the window which rose above the closed +shutter; it was really quite solemn. Aunt Pullet paused and unlocked a door +which opened on something still more solemn than the passage,—a darkened +room, in which the outer light, entering feebly, showed what looked like the +corpses of furniture in white shrouds. Everything that was not shrouded stood +with its legs upward. Lucy laid hold of Maggie’s frock, and +Maggie’s heart beat rapidly. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Pullet half-opened the shutter and then unlocked the wardrobe, with a +melancholy deliberateness which was quite in keeping with the funereal +solemnity of the scene. The delicious scent of rose-leaves that issued from the +wardrobe made the process of taking out sheet after sheet of silver paper quite +pleasant to assist at, though the sight of the bonnet at last was an anticlimax +to Maggie, who would have preferred something more strikingly preternatural. +But few things could have been more impressive to Mrs Tulliver. She looked all +round it in silence for some moments, and then said emphatically, “Well, +sister, I’ll never speak against the full crowns again!” +</p> + +<p> +It was a great concession, and Mrs Pullet felt it; she felt something was due +to it. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d like to see it on, sister?” she said sadly. +“I’ll open the shutter a bit further.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if you don’t mind taking off your cap, sister,” said +Mrs Tulliver. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp with a jutting +promontory of curls which was common to the more mature and judicious women of +those times, and placing the bonnet on her head, turned slowly round, like a +draper’s lay-figure, that Mrs Tulliver might miss no point of view. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve sometimes thought there’s a loop too much o’ +ribbon on this left side, sister; what do you think?” said Mrs Pullet. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned her head on +one side. “Well, I think it’s best as it is; if you meddled with +it, sister, you might repent.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true,” said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and +looking at it contemplatively. +</p> + +<p> +“How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?” said Mrs +Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility of getting a +humble imitation of this <i>chef-d’œuvre</i> made from a piece of silk +she had at home. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then whispered, +“Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best bonnet at Garum +Church, let the next best be whose it would.” +</p> + +<p> +She began slowly to adjust the trimmings, in preparation for returning it to +its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts seemed to have taken a melancholy +turn, for she shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” she said at last, “I may never wear it twice, sister; +who knows?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk o’ that sister,” answered Mrs Tulliver. +“I hope you’ll have your health this summer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon after I +had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we can’t think +o’ wearing crape less nor half a year for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“That <i>would</i> be unlucky,” said Mrs Tulliver, entering +thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune decease. “There’s +never so much pleasure i’ wearing a bonnet the second year, especially +when the crowns are so chancy,—never two summers alike.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, it’s the way i’ this world,” said Mrs Pullet, +returning the bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a +silence characterised by head-shaking, until they had all issued from the +solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then, beginning to cry, she +said, “Sister, if you should never see that bonnet again till I’m +dead and gone, you’ll remember I showed it you this day.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver felt that she ought to be affected, but she was a woman of sparse +tears, stout and healthy; she couldn’t cry so much as her sister Pullet +did, and had often felt her deficiency at funerals. Her effort to bring tears +into her eyes issued in an odd contraction of her face. Maggie, looking on +attentively, felt that there was some painful mystery about her aunt’s +bonnet which she was considered too young to understand; indignantly conscious, +all the while, that she could have understood that, as well as everything else, +if she had been taken into confidence. +</p> + +<p> +When they went down, uncle Pullet observed, with some acumen, that he reckoned +the missis had been showing her bonnet,—that was what had made them so +long upstairs. With Tom the interval had seemed still longer, for he had been +seated in irksome constraint on the edge of a sofa directly opposite his uncle +Pullet, who regarded him with twinkling gray eyes, and occasionally addressed +him as “Young sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, young sir, what do you learn at school?” was a standing +question with uncle Pullet; whereupon Tom always looked sheepish, rubbed his +hands across his face, and answered, “I don’t know.” It was +altogether so embarrassing to be seated <i>tête-à-tête</i> with uncle Pullet, +that Tom could not even look at the prints on the walls, or the flycages, or +the wonderful flower-pots; he saw nothing but his uncle’s gaiters. Not +that Tom was in awe of his uncle’s mental superiority; indeed, he had +made up his mind that he didn’t want to be a gentleman farmer, because he +shouldn’t like to be such a thin-legged, silly fellow as his uncle +Pullet,—a molly-coddle, in fact. A boy’s sheepishness is by no +means a sign of overmastering reverence; and while you are making encouraging +advances to him under the idea that he is overwhelmed by a sense of your age +and wisdom, ten to one he is thinking you extremely queer. The only consolation +I can suggest to you is, that the Greek boys probably thought the same of +Aristotle. It is only when you have mastered a restive horse, or thrashed a +drayman, or have got a gun in your hand, that these shy juniors feel you to be +a truly admirable and enviable character. At least, I am quite sure of Tom +Tulliver’s sentiments on these points. In very tender years, when he +still wore a lace border under his outdoor cap, he was often observed peeping +through the bars of a gate and making minatory gestures with his small +forefinger while he scolded the sheep with an inarticulate burr, intended to +strike terror into their astonished minds; indicating thus early that desire +for mastery over the inferior animals, wild and domestic, including +cockchafers, neighbours’ dogs, and small sisters, which in all ages has +been an attribute of so much promise for the fortunes of our race. Now, Mr +Pullet never rode anything taller than a low pony, and was the least predatory +of men, considering firearms dangerous, as apt to go off of themselves by +nobody’s particular desire. So that Tom was not without strong reasons +when, in confidential talk with a chum, he had described uncle Pullet as a +nincompoop, taking care at the same time to observe that he was a very +“rich fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +The only alleviating circumstance in a <i>tête-à-tête</i> with uncle Pullet was +that he kept a variety of lozenges and peppermint-drops about his person, and +when at a loss for conversation, he filled up the void by proposing a mutual +solace of this kind. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like peppermints, young sir?” required only a tacit answer +when it was accompanied by a presentation of the article in question. +</p> + +<p> +The appearance of the little girls suggested to uncle Pullet the further solace +of small sweet-cakes, of which he also kept a stock under lock and key for his +own private eating on wet days; but the three children had no sooner got the +tempting delicacy between their fingers, than aunt Pullet desired them to +abstain from eating it till the tray and the plates came, since with those +crisp cakes they would make the floor “all over” crumbs. Lucy +didn’t mind that much, for the cake was so pretty, she thought it was +rather a pity to eat it; but Tom, watching his opportunity while the elders +were talking, hastily stowed it in his mouth at two bites, and chewed it +furtively. As for Maggie, becoming fascinated, as usual, by a print of Ulysses +and Nausicaa, which uncle Pullet had bought as a “pretty Scripture +thing,” she presently let fall her cake, and in an unlucky movement +crushed it beneath her foot,—a source of so much agitation to aunt Pullet +and conscious disgrace to Maggie, that she began to despair of hearing the +musical snuff-box to-day, till, after some reflection, it occurred to her that +Lucy was in high favour enough to venture on asking for a tune. So she whispered +to Lucy; and Lucy, who always did what she was desired to do, went up quietly +to her uncle’s knee, and blushing all over her neck while she fingered +her necklace, said, “Will you please play us a tune, uncle?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy thought it was by reason of some exceptional talent in uncle Pullet that +the snuff-box played such beautiful tunes, and indeed the thing was viewed in +that light by the majority of his neighbours in Garum. Mr Pullet had +<i>bought</i> the box, to begin with, and he understood winding it up, and knew +which tune it was going to play beforehand; altogether the possession of this +unique “piece of music” was a proof that Mr Pullet’s +character was not of that entire nullity which might otherwise have been +attributed to it. But uncle Pullet, when entreated to exhibit his +accomplishment, never depreciated it by a too ready consent. “We’ll +see about it,” was the answer he always gave, carefully abstaining from +any sign of compliance till a suitable number of minutes had passed. Uncle +Pullet had a programme for all great social occasions, and in this way fenced +himself in from much painful confusion and perplexing freedom of will. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps the suspense did heighten Maggie’s enjoyment when the fairy tune +began; for the first time she quite forgot that she had a load on her mind, +that Tom was angry with her; and by the time “Hush, ye pretty warbling +choir,” had been played, her face wore that bright look of happiness, +while she sat immovable with her hands clasped, which sometimes comforted her +mother with the sense that Maggie could look pretty now and then, in spite of +her brown skin. But when the magic music ceased, she jumped up, and running +toward Tom, put her arm round his neck and said, “Oh, Tom, isn’t it +pretty?” +</p> + +<p> +Lest you should think it showed a revolting insensibility in Tom that he felt +any new anger toward Maggie for this uncalled-for and, to him, inexplicable +caress, I must tell you that he had his glass of cowslip wine in his hand, and +that she jerked him so as to make him spill half of it. He must have been an +extreme milksop not to say angrily, “Look there, now!” especially +when his resentment was sanctioned, as it was, by general disapprobation of +Maggie’s behaviour. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you sit still, Maggie?” her mother said peevishly. +</p> + +<p> +“Little gells mustn’t come to see me if they behave in that +way,” said aunt Pullet. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you’re too rough, little miss,” said uncle Pullet. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Maggie sat down again, with the music all chased out of her soul, and the +seven small demons all in again. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver, foreseeing nothing but misbehaviour while the children remained +indoors, took an early opportunity of suggesting that, now they were rested +after their walk, they might go and play out of doors; and aunt Pullet gave +permission, only enjoining them not to go off the paved walks in the garden, +and if they wanted to see the poultry fed, to view them from a distance on the +horse-block; a restriction which had been imposed ever since Tom had been found +guilty of running after the peacock, with an illusory idea that fright would +make one of its feathers drop off. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver’s thoughts had been temporarily diverted from the quarrel +with Mrs Glegg by millinery and maternal cares, but now the great theme of the +bonnet was thrown into perspective, and the children were out of the way, +yesterday’s anxieties recurred. +</p> + +<p> +“It weighs on my mind so as never was,” she said, by way of opening +the subject, “sister Glegg’s leaving the house in that way. +I’m sure I’d no wish t’ offend a sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said aunt Pullet, “there’s no accounting for what +Jane ’ull do. I wouldn’t speak of it out o’ the family, if it +wasn’t to Dr Turnbull; but it’s my belief Jane lives too low. +I’ve said so to Pullet often and often, and he knows it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you said so last Monday was a week, when we came away from drinking +tea with ’em,” said Mr Pullet, beginning to nurse his knee and +shelter it with his pocket handkerchief, as was his way when the conversation +took an interesting turn. +</p> + +<p> +“Very like I did,” said Mrs Pullet, “for you remember when I +said things, better than I can remember myself. He’s got a wonderful +memory, Pullet has,” she continued, looking pathetically at her sister. +“I should be poorly off if he was to have a stroke, for he always +remembers when I’ve got to take my doctor’s stuff; and I’m +taking three sorts now.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s the ‘pills as before’ every other night, and +the new drops at eleven and four, and the ’fervescing mixture ‘when +agreeable,’” rehearsed Mr Pullet, with a punctuation determined by +a lozenge on his tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, perhaps it ’ud be better for sister Glegg if +<i>she’d</i> go to the doctor sometimes, instead o’ chewing Turkey +rhubarb whenever there’s anything the matter with her,” said Mrs +Tulliver, who naturally saw the wide subject of medicine chiefly in relation to +Mrs Glegg. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s dreadful to think on,” said aunt Pullet, raising her +hands and letting them fall again, “people playing with their own insides +in that way! And it’s flying i’ the face o’ Providence; for +what are the doctors for, if we aren’t to call ’em in? And when +folks have got the money to pay for a doctor, it isn’t respectable, as +I’ve told Jane many a time. I’m ashamed of acquaintance knowing +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, <i>we’ve</i> no call to be ashamed,” said Mr Pullet, +“for Doctor Turnbull hasn’t got such another patient as you +i’ this parish, now old Mrs Sutton’s gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pullet keeps all my physic-bottles, did you know, Bessy?” said +Mrs Pullet. “He won’t have one sold. He says it’s nothing +but right folks should see ’em when I’m gone. They fill two +o’ the long store-room shelves a’ready; but,” she added, +beginning to cry a little, “it’s well if they ever fill three. I +may go before I’ve made up the dozen o’ these last sizes. The +pill-boxes are in the closet in my room,—you’ll remember that, +sister,—but there’s nothing to show for the boluses, if it +isn’t the bills.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk o’ your going, sister,” said Mrs Tulliver; +“I should have nobody to stand between me and sister Glegg if you was +gone. And there’s nobody but you can get her to make it up with Mr +Tulliver, for sister Deane’s never o’ my side, and if she was, +it’s not to be looked for as she can speak like them as have got an +independent fortin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, your husband <i>is</i> awk’ard, you know, Bessy,” said +Mrs Pullet, good-naturedly ready to use her deep depression on her +sister’s account as well as her own. “He’s never behaved +quite so pretty to our family as he should do, and the children take after +him,—the boy’s very mischievous, and runs away from his aunts and +uncles, and the gell’s rude and brown. It’s your bad luck, and +I’m sorry for you, Bessy; for you was allays my favourite sister, and we +allays liked the same patterns.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know Tulliver’s hasty, and says odd things,” said Mrs +Tulliver, wiping away one small tear from the corner of her eye; “but +I’m sure he’s never been the man, since he married me, to object to +my making the friends o’ my side o’ the family welcome to the +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> don’t want to make the worst of you, Bessy,” said +Mrs Pullet, compassionately, “for I doubt you’ll have trouble +enough without that; and your husband’s got that poor sister and her +children hanging on him,—and so given to lawing, they say. I doubt +he’ll leave you poorly off when he dies. Not as I’d have it said +out o’ the family.” +</p> + +<p> +This view of her position was naturally far from cheering to Mrs Tulliver. Her +imagination was not easily acted on, but she could not help thinking that her +case was a hard one, since it appeared that other people thought it hard. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure, sister, I can’t help myself,” she said, +urged by the fear lest her anticipated misfortunes might be held retributive, +to take comprehensive review of her past conduct. “There’s no woman +strives more for her children; and I’m sure at scouring-time this +Lady-day as I’ve had all the bedhangings taken down I did as much as the +two gells put together; and there’s the last elder-flower wine I’ve +made—beautiful! I allays offer it along with the sherry, though sister +Glegg will have it I’m so extravagant; and as for liking to have my +clothes tidy, and not go a fright about the house, there’s nobody in the +parish can say anything against me in respect o’ backbiting and making +mischief, for I don’t wish anybody any harm; and nobody loses by sending +me a porkpie, for my pies are fit to show with the best o’ my +neighbours’; and the linen’s so in order as if I was to die +to-morrow I shouldn’t be ashamed. A woman can do no more nor she +can.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s all o’ no use, you know, Bessy,” said Mrs +Pullet, holding her head on one side, and fixing her eyes pathetically on her +sister, “if your husband makes away with his money. Not but what if you +was sold up, and other folks bought your furniture, it’s a comfort to +think as you’ve kept it well rubbed. And there’s the linen, with +your maiden mark on, might go all over the country. It ’ud be a sad pity +for our family.” Mrs Pullet shook her head slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“But what can I do, sister?” said Mrs Tulliver. “Mr +Tulliver’s not a man to be dictated to,—not if I was to go to the +parson and get by heart what I should tell my husband for the best. And +I’m sure I don’t pretend to know anything about putting out money +and all that. I could never see into men’s business as sister Glegg +does.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you’re like me in that, Bessy,” said Mrs Pullet; +“and I think it ’ud be a deal more becoming o’ Jane if +she’d have that pier-glass rubbed oftener,—there was ever so many +spots on it last week,—instead o’ dictating to folks as have more +comings in than she ever had, and telling ’em what they’re to do +with their money. But Jane and me were allays contrairy; she <i>would</i> have +striped things, and I like spots. You like a spot too, Bessy; we allays hung +together i’ that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Sophy,” said Mrs Tulliver, “I remember our having a +blue ground with a white spot both alike,—I’ve got a bit in a +bed-quilt now; and if you would but go and see sister Glegg, and persuade her +to make it up with Tulliver, I should take it very kind of you. You was allays +a good sister to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the right thing ’ud be for Tulliver to go and make it up with +her himself, and say he was sorry for speaking so rash. If he’s borrowed +money of her, he shouldn’t be above that,” said Mrs Pullet, whose +partiality did not blind her to principles; she did not forget what was due to +people of independent fortune. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no use talking o’ that,” said poor Mrs Tulliver, +almost peevishly. “If I was to go down on my bare knees on the gravel to +Tulliver, he’d never humble himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you can’t expect me to persuade <i>Jane</i> to beg +pardon,” said Mrs Pullet. “Her temper’s beyond everything; +it’s well if it doesn’t carry her off her mind, though there never +<i>was</i> any of our family went to a madhouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not thinking of her begging pardon,” said Mrs Tulliver. +“But if she’d just take no notice, and not call her money in; as +it’s not so much for one sister to ask of another; time ’ud mend +things, and Tulliver ’ud forget all about it, and they’d be friends +again.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver, you perceive, was not aware of her husband’s irrevocable +determination to pay in the five hundred pounds; at least such a determination +exceeded her powers of belief. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Bessy,” said Mrs Pullet, mournfully, “<i>I</i> +don’t want to help you on to ruin. I won’t be behindhand i’ +doing you a good turn, if it is to be done. And I don’t like it said +among acquaintance as we’ve got quarrels in the family. I shall tell Jane +that; and I don’t mind driving to Jane’s tomorrow, if Pullet +doesn’t mind. What do you say, Mr Pullet?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve no objections,” said Mr Pullet, who was perfectly +contented with any course the quarrel might take, so that Mr Tulliver did not +apply to <i>him</i> for money. Mr Pullet was nervous about his investments, +and did not see how a man could have any security for his money unless he +turned it into land. +</p> + +<p> +After a little further discussion as to whether it would not be better for Mrs +Tulliver to accompany them on a visit to sister Glegg, Mrs Pullet, observing +that it was tea-time, turned to reach from a drawer a delicate damask napkin, +which she pinned before her in the fashion of an apron. The door did, in fact, +soon open, but instead of the tea-tray, Sally introduced an object so startling +that both Mrs Pullet and Mrs Tulliver gave a scream, causing uncle Pullet to +swallow his lozenge—for the fifth time in his life, as he afterward +noted. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap10"></a>Chapter X.<br/> +Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected</h3> + +<p> +The startling object which thus made an epoch for uncle Pullet was no other +than little Lucy, with one side of her person, from her small foot to her +bonnet-crown, wet and discoloured with mud, holding out two tiny blackened +hands, and making a very piteous face. To account for this unprecedented +apparition in aunt Pullet’s parlour, we must return to the moment when the +three children went to play out of doors, and the small demons who had taken +possession of Maggie’s soul at an early period of the day had returned in +all the greater force after a temporary absence. All the disagreeable +recollections of the morning were thick upon her, when Tom, whose displeasure +toward her had been considerably refreshed by her foolish trick of causing him +to upset his cowslip wine, said, “Here, Lucy, you come along with +me,” and walked off to the area where the toads were, as if there were no +Maggie in existence. Seeing this, Maggie lingered at a distance, looking like a +small Medusa with her snakes cropped. Lucy was naturally pleased that cousin +Tom was so good to her, and it was very amusing to see him tickling a fat toad +with a piece of string when the toad was safe down the area, with an iron +grating over him. Still Lucy wished Maggie to enjoy the spectacle also, +especially as she would doubtless find a name for the toad, and say what had +been his past history; for Lucy had a delighted semi-belief in Maggie’s +stories about the live things they came upon by accident,—how Mrs Earwig +had a wash at home, and one of her children had fallen into the hot copper, for +which reason she was running so fast to fetch the doctor. Tom had a profound +contempt for this nonsense of Maggie’s, smashing the earwig at once as a +superfluous yet easy means of proving the entire unreality of such a story; but +Lucy, for the life of her, could not help fancying there was something in it, +and at all events thought it was very pretty make-believe. So now the desire to +know the history of a very portly toad, added to her habitual affectionateness, +made her run back to Maggie and say, “Oh, there is such a big, funny +toad, Maggie! Do come and see!” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie said nothing, but turned away from her with a deeper frown. As long as +Tom seemed to prefer Lucy to her, Lucy made part of his unkindness. Maggie +would have thought a little while ago that she could never be cross with pretty +little Lucy, any more than she could be cruel to a little white mouse; but +then, Tom had always been quite indifferent to Lucy before, and it had been +left to Maggie to pet and make much of her. As it was, she was actually +beginning to think that she should like to make Lucy cry by slapping or +pinching her, especially as it might vex Tom, whom it was of no use to slap, +even if she dared, because he didn’t mind it. And if Lucy hadn’t +been there, Maggie was sure he would have got friends with her sooner. +</p> + +<p> +Tickling a fat toad who is not highly sensitive is an amusement that it is +possible to exhaust, and Tom by and by began to look round for some other mode +of passing the time. But in so prim a garden, where they were not to go off the +paved walks, there was not a great choice of sport. The only great pleasure +such a restriction suggested was the pleasure of breaking it, and Tom began to +meditate an insurrectionary visit to the pond, about a field’s length +beyond the garden. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Lucy,” he began, nodding his head up and down with great +significance, as he coiled up his string again, “what do you think I mean +to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“What, Tom?” said Lucy, with curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean to go to the pond and look at the pike. You may go with me if you +like,” said the young sultan. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Tom, <i>dare</i> you?” said Lucy. “Aunt said we +mustn’t go out of the garden.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I shall go out at the other end of the garden,” said Tom. +“Nobody ’ull see us. Besides, I don’t care if they +do,—I’ll run off home.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>I</i> couldn’t run,” said Lucy, who had never before +been exposed to such severe temptation. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never mind; they won’t be cross with <i>you</i>,” said +Tom. “You say I took you.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom walked along, and Lucy trotted by his side, timidly enjoying the rare treat +of doing something naughty,—excited also by the mention of that +celebrity, the pike, about which she was quite uncertain whether it was a fish +or a fowl. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie saw them leaving the garden, and could not resist the impulse to follow. +Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love, +and that Tom and Lucy should do or see anything of which she was ignorant would +have been an intolerable idea to Maggie. So she kept a few yards behind them, +unobserved by Tom, who was presently absorbed in watching for the pike,—a +highly interesting monster; he was said to be so very old, so very large, and +to have such a remarkable appetite. The pike, like other celebrities, did not +show when he was watched for, but Tom caught sight of something in rapid +movement in the water, which attracted him to another spot on the brink of the +pond. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, Lucy!” he said in a loud whisper, “come here! take +care! keep on the grass!—don’t step where the cows have +been!” he added, pointing to a peninsula of dry grass, with trodden mud +on each side of it; for Tom’s contemptuous conception of a girl included +the attribute of being unfit to walk in dirty places. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy came carefully as she was bidden, and bent down to look at what seemed a +golden arrow-head darting through the water. It was a water-snake, Tom told +her; and Lucy at last could see the serpentine wave of its body, very much +wondering that a snake could swim. Maggie had drawn nearer and nearer; she +<i>must</i> see it too, though it was bitter to her, like everything else, +since Tom did not care about her seeing it. At last she was close by Lucy; and +Tom, who had been aware of her approach, but would not notice it till he was +obliged, turned round and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Now, get away, Maggie; there’s no room for you on the grass here. +Nobody asked <i>you</i> to come.” +</p> + +<p> +There were passions at war in Maggie at that moment to have made a tragedy, if +tragedies were made by passion only; but the essential τι +μέγεθος which was present in the passion +was wanting to the action; the utmost Maggie could do, with a fierce thrust of +her small brown arm, was to push poor little pink-and-white Lucy into the +cow-trodden mud. +</p> + +<p> +Then Tom could not restrain himself, and gave Maggie two smart slaps on the arm +as he ran to pick up Lucy, who lay crying helplessly. Maggie retreated to the +roots of a tree a few yards off, and looked on impenitently. Usually her +repentance came quickly after one rash deed, but now Tom and Lucy had made her +so miserable, she was glad to spoil their happiness,—glad to make +everybody uncomfortable. Why should she be sorry? Tom was very slow to forgive +<i>her</i>, however sorry she might have been. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall tell mother, you know, Miss Mag,” said Tom, loudly and +emphatically, as soon as Lucy was up and ready to walk away. It was not +Tom’s practice to “tell,” but here justice clearly demanded +that Maggie should be visited with the utmost punishment; not that Tom had +learned to put his views in that abstract form; he never mentioned +“justice,” and had no idea that his desire to punish might be +called by that fine name. Lucy was too entirely absorbed by the evil that had +befallen her,—the spoiling of her pretty best clothes, and the discomfort +of being wet and dirty,—to think much of the cause, which was entirely +mysterious to her. She could never have guessed what she had done to make +Maggie angry with her; but she felt that Maggie was very unkind and +disagreeable, and made no magnanimous entreaties to Tom that he would not +“tell,” only running along by his side and crying piteously, while +Maggie sat on the roots of the tree and looked after them with her small Medusa +face. +</p> + +<p> +“Sally,” said Tom, when they reached the kitchen door, and Sally +looked at them in speechless amaze, with a piece of bread-and-butter in her +mouth and a toasting-fork in her hand,—“Sally, tell mother it was +Maggie pushed Lucy into the mud.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Lors ha’ massy, how did you get near such mud as that?” +said Sally, making a wry face, as she stooped down and examined the <i>corpus +delicti</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Tom’s imagination had not been rapid and capacious enough to include this +question among the foreseen consequences, but it was no sooner put than he +foresaw whither it tended, and that Maggie would not be considered the only +culprit in the case. He walked quietly away from the kitchen door, leaving +Sally to that pleasure of guessing which active minds notoriously prefer to +ready-made knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +Sally, as you are aware, lost no time in presenting Lucy at the parlour door, +for to have so dirty an object introduced into the house at Garum Firs was too +great a weight to be sustained by a single mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness gracious!” aunt Pullet exclaimed, after preluding by an +inarticulate scream; “keep her at the door, Sally! Don’t bring her +off the oil-cloth, whatever you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, she’s tumbled into some nasty mud,” said Mrs Tulliver, +going up to Lucy to examine into the amount of damage to clothes for which she +felt herself responsible to her sister Deane. +</p> + +<p> +“If you please, ’um, it was Miss Maggie as pushed her in,” +said Sally; “Master Tom’s been and said so, and they must ha’ +been to the pond, for it’s only there they could ha’ got into such +dirt.” +</p> + +<p> +“There it is, Bessy; it’s what I’ve been telling you,” +said Mrs Pullet, in a tone of prophetic sadness; “it’s your +children,—there’s no knowing what they’ll come to.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver was mute, feeling herself a truly wretched mother. As usual, the +thought pressed upon her that people would think she had done something wicked +to deserve her maternal troubles, while Mrs Pullet began to give elaborate +directions to Sally how to guard the premises from serious injury in the course +of removing the dirt. Meantime tea was to be brought in by the cook, and the +two naughty children were to have theirs in an ignominious manner in the +kitchen. Mrs Tulliver went out to speak to these naughty children, supposing +them to be close at hand; but it was not until after some search that she found +Tom leaning with rather a hardened, careless air against the white paling of +the poultry-yard, and lowering his piece of string on the other side as a means +of exasperating the turkey-cock. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom, you naughty boy, where’s your sister?” said Mrs +Tulliver, in a distressed voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Tom; his eagerness for justice on Maggie +had diminished since he had seen clearly that it could hardly be brought about +without the injustice of some blame on his own conduct. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, where did you leave her?” said the mother, looking round. +</p> + +<p> +“Sitting under the tree, against the pond,” said Tom, apparently +indifferent to everything but the string and the turkey-cock. +</p> + +<p> +“Then go and fetch her in this minute, you naughty boy. And how could you +think o’ going to the pond, and taking your sister where there was dirt? +You know she’ll do mischief if there’s mischief to be done.” +</p> + +<p> +It was Mrs Tulliver’s way, if she blamed Tom, to refer his misdemeanour, +somehow or other, to Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +The idea of Maggie sitting alone by the pond roused an habitual fear in Mrs +Tulliver’s mind, and she mounted the horse-block to satisfy herself by a +sight of that fatal child, while Tom walked—not very quickly—on his +way toward her. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re such children for the water, mine are,” she said +aloud, without reflecting that there was no one to hear her; +“they’ll be brought in dead and drownded some day. I wish that +river was far enough.” +</p> + +<p> +But when she not only failed to discern Maggie, but presently saw Tom returning +from the pool alone, this hovering fear entered and took complete possession of +her, and she hurried to meet him. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie’s nowhere about the pond, mother,” said Tom; +“she’s gone away.” +</p> + +<p> +You may conceive the terrified search for Maggie, and the difficulty of +convincing her mother that she was not in the pond. Mrs Pullet observed that +the child might come to a worse end if she lived, there was no knowing; and Mr +Pullet, confused and overwhelmed by this revolutionary aspect of +things,—the tea deferred and the poultry alarmed by the unusual running +to and fro,—took up his spud as an instrument of search, and reached down +a key to unlock the goose-pen, as a likely place for Maggie to lie concealed +in. +</p> + +<p> +Tom, after a while, started the idea that Maggie was gone home (without +thinking it necessary to state that it was what he should have done himself +under the circumstances), and the suggestion was seized as a comfort by his +mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Sister, for goodness’ sake let ’em put the horse in the +carriage and take me home; we shall perhaps find her on the road. Lucy +can’t walk in her dirty clothes,” she said, looking at that +innocent victim, who was wrapped up in a shawl, and sitting with naked feet on +the sofa. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Pullet was quite willing to take the shortest means of restoring her +premises to order and quiet, and it was not long before Mrs Tulliver was in +the chaise, looking anxiously at the most distant point before her. What the +father would say if Maggie was lost, was a question that predominated over +every other. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap11"></a>Chapter XI.<br/> +Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow</h3> + +<p> +Maggie’s intentions, as usual, were on a larger scale than Tom imagined. +The resolution that gathered in her mind, after Tom and Lucy had walked away, +was not so simple as that of going home. No! she would run away and go to the +gypsies, and Tom should never see her any more. That was by no means a new idea +to Maggie; she had been so often told she was like a gypsy, and “half +wild,” that when she was miserable it seemed to her the only way of +escaping opprobrium, and being entirely in harmony with circumstances, would be +to live in a little brown tent on the commons; the gypsies, she considered, +would gladly receive her and pay her much respect on account of her superior +knowledge. She had once mentioned her views on this point to Tom and suggested +that he should stain his face brown, and they should run away together; but Tom +rejected the scheme with contempt, observing that gypsies were thieves, and +hardly got anything to eat and had nothing to drive but a donkey. To-day +however, Maggie thought her misery had reached a pitch at which gypsydom was +her refuge, and she rose from her seat on the roots of the tree with the sense +that this was a great crisis in her life; she would run straight away till she +came to Dunlow Common, where there would certainly be gypsies; and cruel Tom, +and the rest of her relations who found fault with her, should never see her +any more. She thought of her father as she ran along, but she reconciled +herself to the idea of parting with him, by determining that she would secretly +send him a letter by a small gypsy, who would run away without telling where +she was, and just let him know that she was well and happy, and always loved +him very much. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie soon got out of breath with running, but by the time Tom got to the pond +again she was at the distance of three long fields, and was on the edge of the +lane leading to the highroad. She stopped to pant a little, reflecting that +running away was not a pleasant thing until one had got quite to the common +where the gypsies were, but her resolution had not abated; she presently passed +through the gate into the lane, not knowing where it would lead her, for it was +not this way that they came from Dorlcote Mill to Garum Firs, and she felt all +the safer for that, because there was no chance of her being overtaken. But she +was soon aware, not without trembling, that there were two men coming along the +lane in front of her; she had not thought of meeting strangers, she had been +too much occupied with the idea of her friends coming after her. The formidable +strangers were two shabby-looking men with flushed faces, one of them carrying +a bundle on a stick over his shoulder; but to her surprise, while she was +dreading their disapprobation as a runaway, the man with the bundle stopped, +and in a half-whining, half-coaxing tone asked her if she had a copper to give +a poor man. Maggie had a sixpence in her pocket,—her uncle Glegg’s +present,—which she immediately drew out and gave this poor man with a +polite smile, hoping he would feel very kindly toward her as a generous person. +“That’s the only money I’ve got,” she said +apologetically. “Thank you, little miss,” said the man, in a less +respectful and grateful tone than Maggie anticipated, and she even observed +that he smiled and winked at his companion. She walked on hurriedly, but was +aware that the two men were standing still, probably to look after her, and she +presently heard them laughing loudly. Suddenly it occurred to her that they +might think she was an idiot; Tom had said that her cropped hair made her look +like an idiot, and it was too painful an idea to be readily forgotten. Besides, +she had no sleeves on,—only a cape and bonnet. It was clear that she was +not likely to make a favourable impression on passengers, and she thought she +would turn into the fields again, but not on the same side of the lane as +before, lest they should still be uncle Pullet’s fields. She turned +through the first gate that was not locked, and felt a delightful sense of +privacy in creeping along by the hedgerows, after her recent humiliating +encounter. She was used to wandering about the fields by herself, and was less +timid there than on the highroad. Sometimes she had to climb over high gates, +but that was a small evil; she was getting out of reach very fast, and she +should probably soon come within sight of Dunlow Common, or at least of some +other common, for she had heard her father say that you couldn’t go very +far without coming to a common. She hoped so, for she was getting rather tired +and hungry, and until she reached the gypsies there was no definite prospect of +bread and butter. It was still broad daylight, for aunt Pullet, retaining the +early habits of the Dodson family, took tea at half-past four by the sun, and +at five by the kitchen clock; so, though it was nearly an hour since Maggie +started, there was no gathering gloom on the fields to remind her that the +night would come. Still, it seemed to her that she had been walking a very +great distance indeed, and it was really surprising that the common did not +come within sight. Hitherto she had been in the rich parish of Garum, where was +a great deal of pasture-land, and she had only seen one labourer at a distance. +That was fortunate in some respects, as labourers might be too ignorant to +understand the propriety of her wanting to go to Dunlow Common; yet it would +have been better if she could have met some one who would tell her the way +without wanting to know anything about her private business. At last, however, +the green fields came to an end, and Maggie found herself looking through the +bars of a gate into a lane with a wide margin of grass on each side of it. She +had never seen such a wide lane before, and, without her knowing why, it gave +her the impression that the common could not be far off; perhaps it was because +she saw a donkey with a log to his foot feeding on the grassy margin, for she +had seen a donkey with that pitiable encumbrance on Dunlow Common when she had +been across it in her father’s gig. She crept through the bars of the +gate and walked on with new spirit, though not without haunting images of +Apollyon, and a highwayman with a pistol, and a blinking dwarf in yellow with a +mouth from ear to ear, and other miscellaneous dangers. For poor little Maggie +had at once the timidity of an active imagination and the daring that comes +from overmastering impulse. She had rushed into the adventure of seeking her +unknown kindred, the gypsies; and now she was in this strange lane, she hardly +dared look on one side of her, lest she should see the diabolical blacksmith in +his leathern apron grinning at her with arms akimbo. It was not without a +leaping of the heart that she caught sight of a small pair of bare legs +sticking up, feet uppermost, by the side of a hillock; they seemed something +hideously preternatural,—a diabolical kind of fungus; for she was too +much agitated at the first glance to see the ragged clothes and the dark shaggy +head attached to them. It was a boy asleep, and Maggie trotted along faster and +more lightly, lest she should wake him; it did not occur to her that he was one +of her friends the gypsies, who in all probability would have very genial +manners. But the fact was so, for at the next bend in the lane Maggie actually +saw the little semicircular black tent with the blue smoke rising before it, +which was to be her refuge from all the blighting obloquy that had pursued her +in civilised life. She even saw a tall female figure by the column of smoke, +doubtless the gypsy-mother, who provided the tea and other groceries; it was +astonishing to herself that she did not feel more delighted. But it was +startling to find the gypsies in a lane, after all, and not on a common; +indeed, it was rather disappointing; for a mysterious illimitable common, where +there were sand-pits to hide in, and one was out of everybody’s reach, +had always made part of Maggie’s picture of gypsy life. She went on, +however, and thought with some comfort that gypsies most likely knew nothing +about idiots, so there was no danger of their falling into the mistake of +setting her down at the first glance as an idiot. It was plain she had +attracted attention; for the tall figure, who proved to be a young woman with a +baby on her arm, walked slowly to meet her. Maggie looked up in the new face +rather tremblingly as it approached, and was reassured by the thought that her +aunt Pullet and the rest were right when they called her a gypsy; for this +face, with the bright dark eyes and the long hair, was really something like +what she used to see in the glass before she cut her hair off. +</p> + +<p> +“My little lady, where are you going to?” the gypsy said, in a tone +of coaxing deference. +</p> + +<p> +It was delightful, and just what Maggie expected; the gypsies saw at once that +she was a little lady, and were prepared to treat her accordingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Not any farther,” said Maggie, feeling as if she were saying what +she had rehearsed in a dream. “I’m come to stay with <i>you</i>, +please.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s pretty; come, then. Why, what a nice little lady you are, +to be sure!” said the gypsy, taking her by the hand. Maggie thought her +very agreeable, but wished she had not been so dirty. +</p> + +<p> +There was quite a group round the fire when she reached it. An old gypsy woman +was seated on the ground nursing her knees, and occasionally poking a skewer +into the round kettle that sent forth an odorous steam; two small shock-headed +children were lying prone and resting on their elbows something like small +sphinxes; and a placid donkey was bending his head over a tall girl, who, lying +on her back, was scratching his nose and indulging him with a bite of excellent +stolen hay. The slanting sunlight fell kindly upon them, and the scene was +really very pretty and comfortable, Maggie thought, only she hoped they would +soon set out the tea-cups. Everything would be quite charming when she had +taught the gypsies to use a washing-basin, and to feel an interest in books. It +was a little confusing, though, that the young woman began to speak to the old +one in a language which Maggie did not understand, while the tall girl, who was +feeding the donkey, sat up and stared at her without offering any salutation. +At last the old woman said,— +</p> + +<p> +“What! my pretty lady, are you come to stay with us? Sit ye down and tell +us where you come from.” +</p> + +<p> +It was just like a story; Maggie liked to be called pretty lady and treated in +this way. She sat down and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“I’m come from home because I’m unhappy, and I mean to be a +gypsy. I’ll live with you if you like, and I can teach you a great many +things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Such a clever little lady,” said the woman with the baby sitting +down by Maggie, and allowing baby to crawl; “and such a pretty bonnet and +frock,” she added, taking off Maggie’s bonnet and looking at it +while she made an observation to the old woman, in the unknown language. The +tall girl snatched the bonnet and put it on her own head hind-foremost with a +grin; but Maggie was determined not to show any weakness on this subject, as if +she were susceptible about her bonnet. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to wear a bonnet,” she said; “I’d +rather wear a red handkerchief, like yours” (looking at her friend by her +side). “My hair was quite long till yesterday, when I cut it off; but I +dare say it will grow again very soon,” she added apologetically, +thinking it probable the gypsies had a strong prejudice in favour of long hair. +And Maggie had forgotten even her hunger at that moment in the desire to +conciliate gypsy opinion. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a nice little lady!—and rich, I’m sure,” said +the old woman. “Didn’t you live in a beautiful house at +home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my home is pretty, and I’m very fond of the river, where we +go fishing, but I’m often very unhappy. I should have liked to bring my +books with me, but I came away in a hurry, you know. But I can tell you almost +everything there is in my books, I’ve read them so many times, and that +will amuse you. And I can tell you something about Geography +too,—that’s about the world we live in,—very useful and +interesting. Did you ever hear about Columbus?” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s eyes had begun to sparkle and her cheeks to flush,—she was +really beginning to instruct the gypsies, and gaining great influence over +them. The gypsies themselves were not without amazement at this talk, though +their attention was divided by the contents of Maggie’s pocket, which the +friend at her right hand had by this time emptied without attracting her +notice. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that where you live, my little lady?” said the old woman, at +the mention of Columbus. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no!” said Maggie, with some pity; “Columbus was a very +wonderful man, who found out half the world, and they put chains on him and +treated him very badly, you know; it’s in my Catechism of Geography, but +perhaps it’s rather too long to tell before tea—<i>I want my tea +so</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +The last words burst from Maggie, in spite of herself, with a sudden drop from +patronizing instruction to simple peevishness. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, she’s hungry, poor little lady,” said the younger +woman. “Give her some o’ the cold victual. You’ve been +walking a good way, I’ll be bound, my dear. Where’s your +home?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s Dorlcote Mill, a good way off,” said Maggie. “My +father is Mr Tulliver, but we mustn’t let him know where I am, else +he’ll fetch me home again. Where does the queen of the gypsies +live?” +</p> + +<p> +“What! do you want to go to her, my little lady?” said the younger +woman. The tall girl meanwhile was constantly staring at Maggie and grinning. +Her manners were certainly not agreeable. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Maggie, “I’m only thinking that if she +isn’t a very good queen you might be glad when she died, and you could +choose another. If I was a queen, I’d be a very good queen, and kind to +everybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s a bit o’ nice victual, then,” said the old +woman, handing to Maggie a lump of dry bread, which she had taken from a bag of +scraps, and a piece of cold bacon. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,’ said Maggie, looking at the food without taking it; +“but will you give me some bread-and-butter and tea instead? I +don’t like bacon.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve got no tea nor butter,” said the old woman, with +something like a scowl, as if she were getting tired of coaxing. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, a little bread and treacle would do,” said Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +“We han’t got no treacle,” said the old woman, crossly, +whereupon there followed a sharp dialogue between the two women in their +unknown tongue, and one of the small sphinxes snatched at the bread-and-bacon, +and began to eat it. At this moment the tall girl, who had gone a few yards +off, came back, and said something which produced a strong effect. The old +woman, seeming to forget Maggie’s hunger, poked the skewer into the pot +with new vigor, and the younger crept under the tent and reached out some +platters and spoons. Maggie trembled a little, and was afraid the tears would +come into her eyes. Meanwhile the tall girl gave a shrill cry, and presently +came running up the boy whom Maggie had passed as he was sleeping,—a +rough urchin about the age of Tom. He stared at Maggie, and there ensued much +incomprehensible chattering. She felt very lonely, and was quite sure she +should begin to cry before long; the gypsies didn’t seem to mind her at +all, and she felt quite weak among them. But the springing tears were checked +by new terror, when two men came up, whose approach had been the cause of the +sudden excitement. The elder of the two carried a bag, which he flung down, +addressing the women in a loud and scolding tone, which they answered by a +shower of treble sauciness; while a black cur ran barking up to Maggie, and +threw her into a tremor that only found a new cause in the curses with which +the younger man called the dog off, and gave him a rap with a great stick he +held in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie felt that it was impossible she should ever be queen of these people, or +ever communicate to them amusing and useful knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +Both the men now seemed to be inquiring about Maggie, for they looked at her, +and the tone of the conversation became of that pacific kind which implies +curiosity on one side and the power of satisfying it on the other. At last the +younger woman said in her previous deferential, coaxing tone,— +</p> + +<p> +“This nice little lady’s come to live with us; aren’t you +glad?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, very glad,” said the younger man, who was looking at +Maggie’s silver thimble and other small matters that had been taken from +her pocket. He returned them all except the thimble to the younger woman, with +some observation, and she immediately restored them to Maggie’s pocket, +while the men seated themselves, and began to attack the contents of the +kettle,—a stew of meat and potatoes,—which had been taken off the +fire and turned out into a yellow platter. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie began to think that Tom must be right about the gypsies; they must +certainly be thieves, unless the man meant to return her thimble by and by. She +would willingly have given it to him, for she was not at all attached to her +thimble; but the idea that she was among thieves prevented her from feeling any +comfort in the revival of deference and attention toward her; all thieves, +except Robin Hood, were wicked people. The women saw she was frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve got nothing nice for a lady to eat,” said the old +woman, in her coaxing tone. “And she’s so hungry, sweet little +lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here, my dear, try if you can eat a bit o’ this,” said the +younger woman, handing some of the stew on a brown dish with an iron spoon to +Maggie, who, remembering that the old woman had seemed angry with her for not +liking the bread-and-bacon, dared not refuse the stew, though fear had chased +away her appetite. If her father would but come by in the gig and take her up! +Or even if Jack the Giantkiller, or Mr Greatheart, or St George who slew the +dragon on the half-pennies, would happen to pass that way! But Maggie thought +with a sinking heart that these heroes were never seen in the neighbourhood of +St Ogg’s; nothing very wonderful ever came there. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie Tulliver, you perceive, was by no means that well trained, well-informed +young person that a small female of eight or nine necessarily is in these days; +she had only been to school a year at St Ogg’s, and had so few books +that she sometimes read the dictionary; so that in travelling over her small +mind you would have found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected +knowledge. She could have informed you that there was such a word as +“polygamy,” and being also acquainted with +“polysyllable,” she had deduced the conclusion that +“poly” mean “many”; but she had had no idea that +gypsies were not well supplied with groceries, and her thoughts generally were +the oddest mixture of clear-eyed acumen and blind dreams. +</p> + +<p> +Her ideas about the gypsies had undergone a rapid modification in the last five +minutes. From having considered them very respectful companions, amenable to +instruction, she had begun to think that they meant perhaps to kill her as soon +as it was dark, and cut up her body for gradual cooking; the suspicion crossed +her that the fierce-eyed old man was in fact the Devil, who might drop that +transparent disguise at any moment, and turn either into the grinning +blacksmith, or else a fiery-eyed monster with dragon’s wings. It was no +use trying to eat the stew, and yet the thing she most dreaded was to offend +the gypsies, by betraying her extremely unfavourable opinion of them; and she +wondered, with a keenness of interest that no theologian could have exceeded, +whether, if the Devil were really present, he would know her thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +“What! you don’t like the smell of it, my dear,” said the +young woman, observing that Maggie did not even take a spoonful of the stew. +“Try a bit, come.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” said Maggie, summoning all her force for a +desperate effort, and trying to smile in a friendly way. “I haven’t +time, I think; it seems getting darker. I think I must go home now, and come +again another day, and then I can bring you a basket with some jam-tarts and +things.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie rose from her seat as she threw out this illusory prospect, devoutly +hoping that Apollyon was gullible; but her hope sank when the old gypsy-woman +said, “Stop a bit, stop a bit, little lady; we’ll take you home, +all safe, when we’ve done supper; you shall ride home, like a +lady.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie sat down again, with little faith in this promise, though she presently +saw the tall girl putting a bridle on the donkey, and throwing a couple of bags +on his back. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, then, little missis,” said the younger man, rising, and +leading the donkey forward, “tell us where you live; what’s the +name o’ the place?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dorlcote Mill is my home,” said Maggie, eagerly. “My father +is Mr Tulliver; he lives there.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! a big mill a little way this side o’ St Ogg’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Maggie. “Is it far off? I think I should like to +walk there, if you please.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, it’ll be getting dark, we must make haste. And the +donkey’ll carry you as nice as can be; you’ll see.” +</p> + +<p> +He lifted Maggie as he spoke, and set her on the donkey. She felt relieved that +it was not the old man who seemed to be going with her, but she had only a +trembling hope that she was really going home. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s your pretty bonnet,” said the younger woman, putting +that recently despised but now welcome article of costume on Maggie’s +head; “and you’ll say we’ve been very good to you, +won’t you? and what a nice little lady we said you was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, thank you,” said Maggie, “I’m very much +obliged to you. But I wish you’d go with me too.” She thought +anything was better than going with one of the dreadful men alone; it would be +more cheerful to be murdered by a larger party. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you’re fondest o’ <i>me</i>, aren’t you?” +said the woman. “But I can’t go; you’ll go too fast for +me.” +</p> + +<p> +It now appeared that the man also was to be seated on the donkey, holding +Maggie before him, and she was as incapable of remonstrating against this +arrangement as the donkey himself, though no nightmare had ever seemed to her +more horrible. When the woman had patted her on the back, and said +“Good-by,” the donkey, at a strong hint from the man’s stick, +set off at a rapid walk along the lane toward the point Maggie had come from an +hour ago, while the tall girl and the rough urchin, also furnished with sticks, +obligingly escorted them for the first hundred yards, with much screaming and +thwacking. +</p> + +<p> +Not Leonore, in that preternatural midnight excursion with her phantom lover, +was more terrified than poor Maggie in this entirely natural ride on a +short-paced donkey, with a gypsy behind her, who considered that he was earning +half a crown. The red light of the setting sun seemed to have a portentous +meaning, with which the alarming bray of the second donkey with the log on its +foot must surely have some connection. Two low thatched cottages—the only +houses they passed in this lane—seemed to add to its dreariness; they had +no windows to speak of, and the doors were closed; it was probable that they +were inhabitated by witches, and it was a relief to find that the donkey did +not stop there. +</p> + +<p> +At last—oh, sight of joy!—this lane, the longest in the world, was +coming to an end, was opening on a broad highroad, where there was actually a +coach passing! And there was a finger-post at the corner,—she had surely +seen that finger-post before,—“To St Ogg’s, 2 miles.” +The gypsy really meant to take her home, then; he was probably a good man, +after all, and might have been rather hurt at the thought that she didn’t +like coming with him alone. This idea became stronger as she felt more and more +certain that she knew the road quite well, and she was considering how she +might open a conversation with the injured gypsy, and not only gratify his +feelings but efface the impression of her cowardice, when, as they reached a +cross-road, Maggie caught sight of some one coming on a white-faced horse. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, stop, stop!” she cried out. “There’s my father! +Oh, father, father!” +</p> + +<p> +The sudden joy was almost painful, and before her father reached her, she was +sobbing. Great was Mr Tulliver’s wonder, for he had made a round from +Basset, and had not yet been home. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what’s the meaning o’ this?” he said, checking +his horse, while Maggie slipped from the donkey and ran to her father’s +stirrup. +</p> + +<p> +“The little miss lost herself, I reckon,” said the gypsy. +“She’d come to our tent at the far end o’ Dunlow Lane, and I +was bringing her where she said her home was. It’s a good way to come +after being on the tramp all day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, father, he’s been very good to bring me home,” said +Maggie,—“a very kind, good man!” +</p> + +<p> +“Here, then, my man,” said Mr Tulliver, taking out five shillings. +“It’s the best day’s work <i>you</i> ever did. I +couldn’t afford to lose the little wench; here, lift her up before +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Maggie, how’s this, how’s this?” he said, as they +rode along, while she laid her head against her father and sobbed. “How +came you to be rambling about and lose yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, father,” sobbed Maggie, “I ran away because I was so +unhappy; Tom was so angry with me. I couldn’t bear it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh, pooh,” said Mr Tulliver, soothingly, “you +mustn’t think o’ running away from father. What ’ud father do +without his little wench?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, I never will again, father—never.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver spoke his mind very strongly when he reached home that evening; +and the effect was seen in the remarkable fact that Maggie never heard one +reproach from her mother, or one taunt from Tom, about this foolish business of +her running away to the gypsies. Maggie was rather awe-stricken by this unusual +treatment, and sometimes thought that her conduct had been too wicked to be +alluded to. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap12"></a>Chapter XII.<br/> +Mr and Mrs Glegg at Home</h3> + +<p> +In order to see Mr and Mrs Glegg at home, we must enter the town of St +Ogg’s,—that venerable town with the red fluted roofs and the broad +warehouse gables, where the black ships unlade themselves of their burthens +from the far north, and carry away, in exchange, the precious inland products, +the well-crushed cheese and the soft fleeces which my refined readers have +doubtless become acquainted with through the medium of the best classic +pastorals. +</p> + +<p> +It is one of those old, old towns which impress one as a continuation and +outgrowth of nature, as much as the nests of the bower-birds or the winding +galleries of the white ants; a town which carries the traces of its long growth +and history like a millennial tree, and has sprung up and developed in the same +spot between the river and the low hill from the time when the Roman legions +turned their backs on it from the camp on the hillside, and the long-haired +sea-kings came up the river and looked with fierce, eager eyes at the fatness +of the land. It is a town “familiar with forgotten years.” The +shadow of the Saxon hero-king still walks there fitfully, reviewing the scenes +of his youth and love-time, and is met by the gloomier shadow of the dreadful +heathen Dane, who was stabbed in the midst of his warriors by the sword of an +invisible avenger, and who rises on autumn evenings like a white mist from his +tumulus on the hill, and hovers in the court of the old hall by the river-side, +the spot where he was thus miraculously slain in the days before the old hall +was built. It was the Normans who began to build that fine old hall, which is, +like the town, telling of the thoughts and hands of widely sundered +generations; but it is all so old that we look with loving pardon at its +inconsistencies, and are well content that they who built the stone oriel, and +they who built the Gothic façade and towers of finest small brickwork with the +trefoil ornament, and the windows and battlements defined with stone, did not +sacrilegiously pull down the ancient half-timbered body with its oak-roofed +banqueting-hall. +</p> + +<p> +But older even than this old hall is perhaps the bit of wall now built into the +belfry of the parish church, and said to be a remnant of the original chapel +dedicated to St Ogg, the patron saint of this ancient town, of whose history I +possess several manuscript versions. I incline to the briefest, since, if it +should not be wholly true, it is at least likely to contain the least +falsehood. “Ogg the son of Beorl,” says my private hagiographer, +“was a boatman who gained a scanty living by ferrying passengers across +the river Floss. And it came to pass, one evening when the winds were high, +that there sat moaning by the brink of the river a woman with a child in her +arms; and she was clad in rags, and had a worn and withered look, and she +craved to be rowed across the river. And the men thereabout questioned her, and +said, ‘Wherefore dost thou desire to cross the river? Tarry till the +morning, and take shelter here for the night; so shalt thou be wise and not +foolish.’ Still she went on to mourn and crave. But Ogg the son of Beorl +came up and said, ‘I will ferry thee across; it is enough that thy heart +needs it.’ And he ferried her across. And it came to pass, when she +stepped ashore, that her rags were turned into robes of flowing white, and her +face became bright with exceeding beauty, and there was a glory around it, so +that she shed a light on the water like the moon in its brightness. And she +said, ‘Ogg, the son of Beorl, thou art blessed in that thou didst not +question and wrangle with the heart’s need, but wast smitten with pity, +and didst straightway relieve the same. And from henceforth whoso steps into +thy boat shall be in no peril from the storm; and whenever it puts forth to the +rescue, it shall save the lives both of men and beasts.’ And when the +floods came, many were saved by reason of that blessing on the boat. But when +Ogg the son of Beorl died, behold, in the parting of his soul, the boat loosed +itself from its moorings, and was floated with the ebbing tide in great +swiftness to the ocean, and was seen no more. Yet it was witnessed in the +floods of aftertime, that at the coming on of eventide, Ogg the son of Beorl +was always seen with his boat upon the wide-spreading waters, and the Blessed +Virgin sat in the prow, shedding a light around as of the moon in its +brightness, so that the rowers in the gathering darkness took heart and pulled +anew.” +</p> + +<p> +This legend, one sees, reflects from a far-off time the visitation of the +floods, which, even when they left human life untouched, were widely fatal to +the helpless cattle, and swept as sudden death over all smaller living things. +But the town knew worse troubles even than the floods,—troubles of the +civil wars, when it was a continual fighting-place, where first Puritans +thanked God for the blood of the Loyalists, and then Loyalists thanked God for +the blood of the Puritans. Many honest citizens lost all their possessions for +conscience’ sake in those times, and went forth beggared from their +native town. Doubtless there are many houses standing now on which those honest +citizens turned their backs in sorrow,—quaint-gabled houses looking on +the river, jammed between newer warehouses, and penetrated by surprising +passages, which turn and turn at sharp angles till they lead you out on a muddy +strand overflowed continually by the rushing tide. Everywhere the brick houses +have a mellow look, and in Mrs Glegg’s day there was no incongruous +new-fashioned smartness, no plate-glass in shop-windows, no fresh stucco-facing +or other fallacious attempt to make fine old red St Ogg’s wear the air +of a town that sprang up yesterday. The shop-windows were small and +unpretending; for the farmers’ wives and daughters who came to do their +shopping on market-days were not to be withdrawn from their regular well-known +shops; and the tradesmen had no wares intended for customers who would go on +their way and be seen no more. Ah! even Mrs Glegg’s day seems far back +in the past now, separated from us by changes that widen the years. War and the +rumor of war had then died out from the minds of men, and if they were ever +thought of by the farmers in drab greatcoats, who shook the grain out of their +sample-bags and buzzed over it in the full market-place, it was as a state of +things that belonged to a past golden age when prices were high. Surely the +time was gone forever when the broad river could bring up unwelcome ships; +Russia was only the place where the linseed came from,—the more the +better,—making grist for the great vertical millstones with their +scythe-like arms, roaring and grinding and carefully sweeping as if an +informing soul were in them. The Catholics, bad harvests, and the mysterious +fluctuations of trade were the three evils mankind had to fear; even the floods +had not been great of late years. The mind of St Ogg’s did not look +extensively before or after. It inherited a long past without thinking of it, +and had no eyes for the spirits that walk the streets. Since the centuries when +St Ogg with his boat and the Virgin Mother at the prow had been seen on the +wide water, so many memories had been left behind, and had gradually vanished +like the receding hilltops! And the present time was like the level plain where +men lose their belief in volcanoes and earthquakes, thinking to-morrow will be +as yesterday, and the giant forces that used to shake the earth are forever +laid to sleep. The days were gone when people could be greatly wrought upon by +their faith, still less change it; the Catholics were formidable because they +would lay hold of government and property, and burn men alive; not because any +sane and honest parishioner of St Ogg’s could be brought to believe in +the Pope. One aged person remembered how a rude multitude had been swayed when +John Wesley preached in the cattle-market; but for a long while it had not been +expected of preachers that they should shake the souls of men. An occasional +burst of fervor in Dissenting pulpits on the subject of infant baptism was the +only symptom of a zeal unsuited to sober times when men had done with change. +Protestantism sat at ease, unmindful of schisms, careless of proselytism: +Dissent was an inheritance along with a superior pew and a business connection; +and Churchmanship only wondered contemptuously at Dissent as a foolish habit +that clung greatly to families in the grocery and chandlering lines, though not +incompatible with prosperous wholesale dealing. But with the Catholic Question +had come a slight wind of controversy to break the calm: the elderly rector had +become occasionally historical and argumentative; and Mr Spray, the +Independent minister, had begun to preach political sermons, in which he +distinguished with much subtlety between his fervent belief in the right of the +Catholics to the franchise and his fervent belief in their eternal perdition. +Most of Mr Spray’s hearers, however, were incapable of following his +subtleties, and many old-fashioned Dissenters were much pained by his +“siding with the Catholics”; while others thought he had better let +politics alone. Public spirit was not held in high esteem at St Ogg’s, +and men who busied themselves with political questions were regarded with some +suspicion, as dangerous characters; they were usually persons who had little or +no business of their own to manage, or, if they had, were likely enough to +become insolvent. +</p> + +<p> +This was the general aspect of things at St Ogg’s in Mrs Glegg’s +day, and at that particular period in her family history when she had had her +quarrel with Mr Tulliver. It was a time when ignorance was much more +comfortable than at present, and was received with all the honours in very good +society, without being obliged to dress itself in an elaborate costume of +knowledge; a time when cheap periodicals were not, and when country surgeons +never thought of asking their female patients if they were fond of reading, but +simply took it for granted that they preferred gossip; a time when ladies in +rich silk gowns wore large pockets, in which they carried a mutton-bone to +secure them against cramp. Mrs Glegg carried such a bone, which she had +inherited from her grandmother with a brocaded gown that would stand up empty, +like a suit of armor, and a silver-headed walking-stick; for the Dodson family +had been respectable for many generations. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg had both a front and a back parlour in her excellent house at St +Ogg’s, so that she had two points of view from which she could observe +the weakness of her fellow-beings, and reinforce her thankfulness for her own +exceptional strength of mind. From her front window she could look down the +Tofton Road, leading out of St Ogg’s, and note the growing tendency to +“gadding about” in the wives of men not retired from business, +together with a practice of wearing woven cotton stockings, which opened a +dreary prospect for the coming generation; and from her back windows she could +look down the pleasant garden and orchard which stretched to the river, and +observe the folly of Mr Glegg in spending his time among “them flowers +and vegetables.” For Mr Glegg, having retired from active business as a +wool-stapler for the purpose of enjoying himself through the rest of his life, +had found this last occupation so much more severe than his business, that he +had been driven into amateur hard labour as a dissipation, and habitually +relaxed by doing the work of two ordinary gardeners. The economizing of a +gardener’s wages might perhaps have induced Mrs Glegg to wink at this +folly, if it were possible for a healthy female mind even to simulate respect +for a husband’s hobby. But it is well known that this conjugal +complacency belongs only to the weaker portion of the sex, who are scarcely +alive to the responsibilities of a wife as a constituted check on her +husband’s pleasures, which are hardly ever of a rational or commendable +kind. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Glegg on his side, too, had a double source of mental occupation, which +gave every promise of being inexhaustible. On the one hand, he surprised +himself by his discoveries in natural history, finding that his piece of +garden-ground contained wonderful caterpillars, slugs, and insects, which, so +far as he had heard, had never before attracted human observation; and he +noticed remarkable coincidences between these zoological phenomena and the +great events of that time,—as, for example, that before the burning of +York Minster there had been mysterious serpentine marks on the leaves of the +rose-trees, together with an unusual prevalence of slugs, which he had been +puzzled to know the meaning of, until it flashed upon him with this melancholy +conflagration. (Mr Glegg had an unusual amount of mental activity, which, when +disengaged from the wool business, naturally made itself a pathway in other +directions.) And his second subject of meditation was the +“contrairiness” of the female mind, as typically exhibited in Mrs +Glegg. That a creature made—in a genealogical sense—out of a +man’s rib, and in this particular case maintained in the highest +respectability without any trouble of her own, should be normally in a state of +contradiction to the blandest propositions and even to the most accommodating +concessions, was a mystery in the scheme of things to which he had often in +vain sought a clew in the early chapters of Genesis. Mr Glegg had chosen the +eldest Miss Dodson as a handsome embodiment of female prudence and thrift, and +being himself of a money-getting, money-keeping turn, had calculated on much +conjugal harmony. But in that curious compound, the feminine character, it may +easily happen that the flavour is unpleasant in spite of excellent ingredients; +and a fine systematic stinginess may be accompanied with a seasoning that quite +spoils its relish. Now, good Mr Glegg himself was stingy in the most amiable +manner; his neighbours called him “near,” which always means that +the person in question is a lovable skinflint. If you expressed a preference +for cheese-parings, Mr Glegg would remember to save them for you, with a +good-natured delight in gratifying your palate, and he was given to pet all +animals which required no appreciable keep. There was no humbug or hypocrisy +about Mr Glegg; his eyes would have watered with true feeling over the sale of +a widow’s furniture, which a five-pound note from his side pocket would +have prevented; but a donation of five pounds to a person “in a small way +of life” would have seemed to him a mad kind of lavishness rather than +“charity,” which had always presented itself to him as a +contribution of small aids, not a neutralizing of misfortune. And Mr Glegg was +just as fond of saving other people’s money as his own; he would have +ridden as far round to avoid a turnpike when his expenses were to be paid for +him, as when they were to come out of his own pocket, and was quite zealous in +trying to induce indifferent acquaintances to adopt a cheap substitute for +blacking. This inalienable habit of saving, as an end in itself, belonged to +the industrious men of business of a former generation, who made their fortunes +slowly, almost as the tracking of the fox belongs to the harrier,—it +constituted them a “race,” which is nearly lost in these days of +rapid money-getting, when lavishness comes close on the back of want. In +old-fashioned times an “independence” was hardly ever made without +a little miserliness as a condition, and you would have found that quality in +every provincial district, combined with characters as various as the fruits +from which we can extract acid. The true Harpagons were always marked and +exceptional characters; not so the worthy tax-payers, who, having once pinched +from real necessity, retained even in the midst of their comfortable +retirement, with their wallfruit and wine-bins, the habit of regarding life as +an ingenious process of nibbling out one’s livelihood without leaving any +perceptible deficit, and who would have been as immediately prompted to give up +a newly taxed luxury when they had had their clear five hundred a year, as when +they had only five hundred pounds of capital. Mr Glegg was one of these men, +found so impracticable by chancellors of the exchequer; and knowing this, you +will be the better able to understand why he had not swerved from the +conviction that he had made an eligible marriage, in spite of the too pungent +seasoning that nature had given to the eldest Miss Dodson’s virtues. A +man with an affectionate disposition, who finds a wife to concur with his +fundamental idea of life, easily comes to persuade himself that no other woman +would have suited him so well, and does a little daily snapping and quarrelling +without any sense of alienation. Mr Glegg, being of a reflective turn, and no +longer occupied with wool, had much wondering meditation on the peculiar +constitution of the female mind as unfolded to him in his domestic life; and +yet he thought Mrs Glegg’s household ways a model for her sex. It struck +him as a pitiable irregularity in other women if they did not roll up their +table-napkins with the same tightness and emphasis as Mrs Glegg did, if their +pastry had a less leathery consistence, and their damson cheese a less +venerable hardness than hers; nay, even the peculiar combination of grocery and +druglike odors in Mrs Glegg’s private cupboard impressed him as the only +right thing in the way of cupboard smells. I am not sure that he would not have +longed for the quarrelling again, if it had ceased for an entire week; and it +is certain that an acquiescent, mild wife would have left his meditations +comparatively jejune and barren of mystery. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Glegg’s unmistakable kind-heartedness was shown in this, that it +pained him more to see his wife at variance with others,—even with Dolly, +the servant,—than to be in a state of cavil with her himself; and the +quarrel between her and Mr Tulliver vexed him so much that it quite nullified +the pleasure he would otherwise have had in the state of his early cabbages, as +he walked in his garden before breakfast the next morning. Still, he went in to +breakfast with some slight hope that, now Mrs Glegg had “slept upon +it,” her anger might be subdued enough to give way to her usually strong +sense of family decorum. She had been used to boast that there had never been +any of those deadly quarrels among the Dodsons which had disgraced other +families; that no Dodson had ever been “cut off with a shilling,” +and no cousin of the Dodsons disowned; as, indeed, why should they be? For they +had no cousins who had not money out at use, or some houses of their own, at +the very least. +</p> + +<p> +There was one evening-cloud which had always disappeared from Mrs +Glegg’s brow when she sat at the breakfast-table. It was her fuzzy front +of curls; for as she occupied herself in household matters in the morning it +would have been a mere extravagance to put on anything so superfluous to the +making of leathery pastry as a fuzzy curled front. By half-past ten decorum +demanded the front; until then Mrs Glegg could economise it, and society would +never be any the wiser. But the absence of that cloud only left it more +apparent that the cloud of severity remained; and Mr Glegg, perceiving this, +as he sat down to his milkporridge, which it was his old frugal habit to stem +his morning hunger with, prudently resolved to leave the first remark to Mrs +Glegg, lest, to so delicate an article as a lady’s temper, the slightest +touch should do mischief. People who seem to enjoy their ill temper have a way +of keeping it in fine condition by inflicting privations on themselves. That +was Mrs Glegg’s way. She made her tea weaker than usual this morning, +and declined butter. It was a hard case that a vigorous mood for quarrelling, +so highly capable of using an opportunity, should not meet with a single remark +from Mr Glegg on which to exercise itself. But by and by it appeared that his +silence would answer the purpose, for he heard himself apostrophised at last in +that tone peculiar to the wife of one’s bosom. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mr Glegg! it’s a poor return I get for making you the wife +I’ve made you all these years. If this is the way I’m to be +treated, I’d better ha’ known it before my poor father died, and +then, when I’d wanted a home, I should ha’ gone elsewhere, as the +choice was offered me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Glegg paused from his porridge and looked up, not with any new amazement, +but simply with that quiet, habitual wonder with which we regard constant +mysteries. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Mrs G., what have I done now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Done now, Mr Glegg? <i>done now?</i>—I’m sorry for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Not seeing his way to any pertinent answer, Mr Glegg reverted to his porridge. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s husbands in the world,” continued Mrs Glegg, after +a pause, “as ’ud have known how to do something different to siding +with everybody else against their own wives. Perhaps I’m wrong and you +can teach me better. But I’ve allays heard as it’s the +husband’s place to stand by the wife, instead o’ rejoicing and +triumphing when folks insult her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, what call have you to say that?” said Mr Glegg, rather +warmly, for though a kind man, he was not as meek as Moses. “When did I +rejoice or triumph over you?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s ways o’ doing things worse than speaking out plain, +Mr Glegg. I’d sooner you’d tell me to my face as you make light of +me, than try to make out as everybody’s in the right but me, and come to +your breakfast in the morning, as I’ve hardly slept an hour this night, +and sulk at me as if I was the dirt under your feet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sulk at you?” said Mr Glegg, in a tone of angry facetiousness. +“You’re like a tipsy man as thinks everybody’s had too much +but himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t lower yourself with using coarse language to <i>me</i>, Mr +Glegg! It makes you look very small, though you can’t see +yourself,” said Mrs Glegg, in a tone of energetic compassion. “A +man in your place should set an example, and talk more sensible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but will you listen to sense?” retorted Mr Glegg, sharply. +“The best sense I can talk to you is what I said last night,—as +you’re i’ the wrong to think o’ calling in your money, when +it’s safe enough if you’d let it alone, all because of a bit of a +tiff, and I was in hopes you’d ha’ altered your mind this morning. +But if you’d like to call it in, don’t do it in a hurry now, and +breed more enmity in the family, but wait till there’s a pretty mortgage +to be had without any trouble. You’d have to set the lawyer to work now +to find an investment, and make no end o’ expense.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg felt there was really something in this, but she tossed her head and +emitted a guttural interjection to indicate that her silence was only an +armistice, not a peace. And, in fact hostilities soon broke out again. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll thank you for my cup o’ tea, now, Mrs G.,” said +Mr Glegg, seeing that she did not proceed to give it him as usual, when he had +finished his porridge. She lifted the teapot with a slight toss of the head, +and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad to hear you’ll <i>thank</i> me, Mr Glegg. +It’s little thanks <i>I</i> get for what I do for folks i’ this +world. Though there’s never a woman o’ <i>your</i> side o’ +the family, Mr Glegg, as is fit to stand up with me, and I’d say it if I +was on my dying bed. Not but what I’ve allays conducted myself civil to +your kin, and there isn’t one of ’em can say the contrary, though +my equils they aren’t, and nobody shall make me say it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better leave finding fault wi’ my kin till +you’ve left off quarrelling with your own, Mrs G.,” said Mr Glegg, +with angry sarcasm. “I’ll trouble you for the milk-jug.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s as false a word as ever you spoke, Mr Glegg,” said +the lady, pouring out the milk with unusual profuseness, as much as to say, if +he wanted milk he should have it with a vengeance. “And you know +it’s false. I’m not the woman to quarrel with my own kin; +<i>you</i> may, for I’ve known you to do it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what did you call it yesterday, then, leaving your sister’s +house in a tantrum?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d no quarrel wi’ my sister, Mr Glegg, and it’s +false to say it. Mr Tulliver’s none o’ my blood, and it was him +quarrelled with me, and drove me out o’ the house. But perhaps +you’d have had me stay and be swore at, Mr Glegg; perhaps you was vexed +not to hear more abuse and foul language poured out upo’ your own wife. +But, let me tell you, it’s <i>your</i> disgrace.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did ever anybody hear the like i’ this parish?” said Mr +Glegg, getting hot. “A woman, with everything provided for her, and +allowed to keep her own money the same as if it was settled on her, and with a +gig new stuffed and lined at no end o’ expense, and provided for when I +die beyond anything she could expect—to go on i’ this way, biting +and snapping like a mad dog! It’s beyond everything, as God A +’mighty should ha’ made women <i>so</i>.” (These last words +were uttered in a tone of sorrowful agitation. Mr Glegg pushed his tea from +him, and tapped the table with both his hands.) +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mr Glegg, if those are your feelings, it’s best they should +be known,” said Mrs Glegg, taking off her napkin, and folding it in an +excited manner. “But if you talk o’ my being provided for beyond +what I could expect, I beg leave to tell you as I’d a right to expect a +many things as I don’t find. And as to my being like a mad dog, +it’s well if you’re not cried shame on by the county for your +treatment of me, for it’s what I can’t bear, and I won’t +bear——” +</p> + +<p> +Here Mrs Glegg’s voice intimated that she was going to cry, and breaking +off from speech, she rang the bell violently. +</p> + +<p> +“Sally,” she said, rising from her chair, and speaking in rather a +choked voice, “light a fire up-stairs, and put the blinds down. Mr +Glegg, you’ll please to order what you’d like for dinner. I shall +have gruel.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg walked across the room to the small book-case, and took down +Baxter’s “Saints’ Everlasting Rest,” which she carried +with her up-stairs. It was the book she was accustomed to lay open before her +on special occasions,—on wet Sunday mornings, or when she heard of a +death in the family, or when, as in this case, her quarrel with Mr Glegg had +been set an octave higher than usual. +</p> + +<p> +But Mrs Glegg carried something else up-stairs with her, which, together with +the “Saints’ Rest” and the gruel, may have had some influence +in gradually calming her feelings, and making it possible for her to endure +existence on the ground-floor, shortly before tea-time. This was, partly, Mr +Glegg’s suggestion that she would do well to let her five hundred lie +still until a good investment turned up; and, further, his parenthetic hint at +his handsome provision for her in case of his death. Mr Glegg, like all men of +his stamp, was extremely reticent about his will; and Mrs Glegg, in her +gloomier moments, had forebodings that, like other husbands of whom she had +heard, he might cherish the mean project of heightening her grief at his death +by leaving her poorly off, in which case she was firmly resolved that she would +have scarcely any weeper on her bonnet, and would cry no more than if he had +been a second husband. But if he had really shown her any testamentary +tenderness, it would be affecting to think of him, poor man, when he was gone; +and even his foolish fuss about the flowers and garden-stuff, and his +insistence on the subject of snails, would be touching when it was once fairly +at an end. To survive Mr Glegg, and talk eulogistically of him as a man who +might have his weaknesses, but who had done the right thing by her, +not-withstanding his numerous poor relations; to have sums of interest coming +in more frequently, and secrete it in various corners, baffling to the most +ingenious of thieves (for, to Mrs Glegg’s mind, banks and strong-boxes +would have nullified the pleasure of property; she might as well have taken her +food in capsules); finally, to be looked up to by her own family and the +neighbourhood, so as no woman can ever hope to be who has not the præterite and +present dignity comprised in being a “widow well left,”—all +this made a flattering and conciliatory view of the future. So that when good +Mr Glegg, restored to good humour by much hoeing, and moved by the sight of his +wife’s empty chair, with her knitting rolled up in the corner, went +up-stairs to her, and observed that the bell had been tolling for poor Mr +Morton, Mrs Glegg answered magnanimously, quite as if she had been an uninjured +woman: “Ah! then, there’ll be a good business for somebody to take +to.” +</p> + +<p> +Baxter had been open at least eight hours by this time, for it was nearly five +o’clock; and if people are to quarrel often, it follows as a corollary +that their quarrels cannot be protracted beyond certain limits. +</p> + +<p> +Mr and Mrs Glegg talked quite amicably about the Tullivers that evening. Mr +Glegg went the length of admitting that Tulliver was a sad man for getting into +hot water, and was like enough to run through his property; and Mrs Glegg, +meeting this acknowledgment half-way, declared that it was beneath her to take +notice of such a man’s conduct, and that, for her sister’s sake, +she would let him keep the five hundred a while longer, for when she put it out +on a mortgage she should only get four per cent. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap13"></a>Chapter XIII.<br/> +Mr Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life</h3> + +<p> +Owing to this new adjustment of Mrs Glegg’s thoughts, Mrs Pullet found +her task of mediation the next day surprisingly easy. Mrs Glegg, indeed +checked her rather sharply for thinking it would be necessary to tell her elder +sister what was the right mode of behaviour in family matters. Mrs +Pullet’s argument, that it would look ill in the neighbourhood if people +should have it in their power to say that there was a quarrel in the family, +was particularly offensive. If the family name never suffered except through +Mrs Glegg, Mrs Pullet might lay her head on her pillow in perfect confidence. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not to be expected, I suppose,” observed Mrs Glegg, by +way of winding up the subject, “as I shall go to the mill again before +Bessy comes to see me, or as I shall go and fall down o’ my knees to Mr +Tulliver, and ask his pardon for showing him favours; but I shall bear no +malice, and when Mr Tulliver speaks civil to me, I’ll speak civil to +him. Nobody has any call to tell me what’s becoming.” +</p> + +<p> +Finding it unnecessary to plead for the Tullivers, it was natural that aunt +Pullet should relax a little in her anxiety for them, and recur to the +annoyance she had suffered yesterday from the offspring of that apparently +ill-fated house. Mrs Glegg heard a circumstantial narrative, to which Mr +Pullet’s remarkable memory furnished some items; and while aunt Pullet +pitied poor Bessy’s bad luck with her children, and expressed a +half-formed project of paying for Maggie’s being sent to a distant +boarding-school, which would not prevent her being so brown, but might tend to +subdue some other vices in her, aunt Glegg blamed Bessy for her weakness, and +appealed to all witnesses who should be living when the Tulliver children had +turned out ill, that she, Mrs Glegg, had always said how it would be from the +very first, observing that it was wonderful to herself how all her words came +true. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I may call and tell Bessy you’ll bear no malice, and +everything be as it was before?” Mrs Pullet said, just before parting. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you may, Sophy,” said Mrs Glegg; “you may tell Mr +Tulliver, and Bessy too, as I’m not going to behave ill because folks +behave ill to me; I know it’s my place, as the eldest, to set an example +in every respect, and I do it. Nobody can say different of me, if they’ll +keep to the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg being in this state of satisfaction in her own lofty magnanimity, I +leave you to judge what effect was produced on her by the reception of a short +letter from Mr Tulliver that very evening, after Mrs Pullet’s +departure, informing her that she needn’t trouble her mind about her five +hundred pounds, for it should be paid back to her in the course of the next +month at farthest, together with the interest due thereon until the time of +payment. And furthermore, that Mr Tulliver had no wish to behave uncivilly to +Mrs Glegg, and she was welcome to his house whenever she liked to come, but he +desired no favours from her, either for himself or his children. +</p> + +<p> +It was poor Mrs Tulliver who had hastened this catastrophe, entirely through +that irrepressible hopefulness of hers which led her to expect that similar +causes may at any time produce different results. It had very often occurred in +her experience that Mr Tulliver had done something because other people had +said he was not able to do it, or had pitied him for his supposed inability, or +in any other way piqued his pride; still, she thought to-day, if she told him +when he came in to tea that sister Pullet was gone to try and make everything +up with sister Glegg, so that he needn’t think about paying in the money, +it would give a cheerful effect to the meal. Mr Tulliver had never slackened +in his resolve to raise the money, but now he at once determined to write a +letter to Mrs Glegg, which should cut off all possibility of mistake. Mrs +Pullet gone to beg and pray for <i>him</i> indeed! Mr Tulliver did not +willingly write a letter, and found the relation between spoken and written +language, briefly known as spelling, one of the most puzzling things in this +puzzling world. Nevertheless, like all fervid writing, the task was done in +less time than usual, and if the spelling differed from Mrs +Glegg’s,—why, she belonged, like himself, to a generation with whom +spelling was a matter of private judgment. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg did not alter her will in consequence of this letter, and cut off +the Tulliver children from their sixth and seventh share in her thousand +pounds; for she had her principles. No one must be able to say of her when she +was dead that she had not divided her money with perfect fairness among her own +kin. In the matter of wills, personal qualities were subordinate to the great +fundamental fact of blood; and to be determined in the distribution of your +property by caprice, and not make your legacies bear a direct ratio to degrees +of kinship, was a prospective disgrace that would have embittered her life. +This had always been a principle in the Dodson family; it was one form of that +sense of honour and rectitude which was a proud tradition in such +families,—a tradition which has been the salt of our provincial society. +</p> + +<p> +But though the letter could not shake Mrs Glegg’s principles, it made +the family breach much more difficult to mend; and as to the effect it produced +on Mrs Glegg’s opinion of Mr Tulliver, she begged to be understood from +that time forth that she had nothing whatever to say about him; his state of +mind, apparently, was too corrupt for her to contemplate it for a moment. It +was not until the evening before Tom went to school, at the beginning of +August, that Mrs Glegg paid a visit to her sister Tulliver, sitting in her gig +all the while, and showing her displeasure by markedly abstaining from all +advice and criticism; for, as she observed to her sister Deane, “Bessy +must bear the consequence o’ having such a husband, though I’m +sorry for her,” and Mrs Deane agreed that Bessy was pitiable. +</p> + +<p> +That evening Tom observed to Maggie: “Oh my! Maggie, aunt Glegg’s +beginning to come again; I’m glad I’m going to school. +<i>You’ll</i> catch it all now!” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was already so full of sorrow at the thought of Tom’s going away +from her, that this playful exultation of his seemed very unkind, and she cried +herself to sleep that night. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver’s prompt procedure entailed on him further promptitude in +finding the convenient person who was desirous of lending five hundred pounds +on bond. “It must be no client of Wakem’s,” he said to +himself; and yet at the end of a fortnight it turned out to the contrary; not +because Mr Tulliver’s will was feeble, but because external fact was +stronger. Wakem’s client was the only convenient person to be found. Mr +Tulliver had a destiny as well as Œdipus, and in this case he might plead, like +Œdipus, that his deed was inflicted on him rather than committed by him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="book02"></a>BOOK SECOND.<br/> +SCHOOL-TIME.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap14"></a>Chapter I.<br/> +Tom’s “First Half”</h3> + +<p> +Tom Tulliver’s sufferings during the first quarter he was at King’s +Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were rather +severe. At Mr Jacob’s academy life had not presented itself to him as a +difficult problem; there were plenty of fellows to play with, and Tom being +good at all active games,—fighting especially,—had that precedence +among them which appeared to him inseparable from the personality of Tom +Tulliver. Mr Jacobs himself, familiarly known as Old Goggles, from his habit +of wearing spectacles, imposed no painful awe; and if it was the property of +snuffy old hypocrites like him to write like copperplate and surround their +signatures with arabesques, to spell without forethought, and to spout +“my name is Norval” without bungling, Tom, for his part, was glad +he was not in danger of those mean accomplishments. He was not going to be a +snuffy schoolmaster, he, but a substantial man, like his father, who used to go +hunting when he was younger, and rode a capital black mare,—as pretty a +bit of horse-flesh as ever you saw; Tom had heard what her points were a +hundred times. <i>He</i> meant to go hunting too, and to be generally +respected. When people were grown up, he considered, nobody inquired about +their writing and spelling; when he was a man, he should be master of +everything, and do just as he liked. It had been very difficult for him to +reconcile himself to the idea that his school-time was to be prolonged and that +he was not to be brought up to his father’s business, which he had always +thought extremely pleasant; for it was nothing but riding about, giving orders, +and going to market; and he thought that a clergyman would give him a great +many Scripture lessons, and probably make him learn the Gospel and Epistle on a +Sunday, as well as the Collect. But in the absence of specific information, it +was impossible for him to imagine that school and a schoolmaster would be +something entirely different from the academy of Mr Jacobs. So, not to be at a +deficiency, in case of his finding genial companions, he had taken care to +carry with him a small box of percussion-caps; not that there was anything +particular to be done with them, but they would serve to impress strange boys +with a sense of his familiarity with guns. Thus poor Tom, though he saw very +clearly through Maggie’s illusions, was not without illusions of his own, +which were to be cruelly dissipated by his enlarged experience at King’s +Lorton. +</p> + +<p> +He had not been there a fortnight before it was evident to him that life, +complicated not only with the Latin grammar but with a new standard of English +pronunciation, was a very difficult business, made all the more obscure by a +thick mist of bashfulness. Tom, as you have observed, was never an exception +among boys for ease of address; but the difficulty of enunciating a +monosyllable in reply to Mr or Mrs Stelling was so great, that he even +dreaded to be asked at table whether he would have more pudding. As to the +percussion-caps, he had almost resolved, in the bitterness of his heart, that +he would throw them into a neighbouring pond; for not only was he the solitary +pupil, but he began even to have a certain scepticism about guns, and a general +sense that his theory of life was undermined. For Mr Stelling thought nothing +of guns, or horses either, apparently; and yet it was impossible for Tom to +despise Mr Stelling as he had despised Old Goggles. If there were anything +that was not thoroughly genuine about Mr Stelling, it lay quite beyond +Tom’s power to detect it; it is only by a wide comparison of facts that +the wisest full-grown man can distinguish well-rolled barrels from mere +supernal thunder. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Stelling was a well-sized, broad-chested man, not yet thirty, with flaxen +hair standing erect, and large lightish-gray eyes, which were always very wide +open; he had a sonorous bass voice, and an air of defiant self-confidence +inclining to brazenness. He had entered on his career with great vigor, and +intended to make a considerable impression on his fellow-men. The Rev. Walter +Stelling was not a man who would remain among the “inferior clergy” +all his life. He had a true British determination to push his way in the +world,—as a schoolmaster, in the first place, for there were capital +masterships of grammar-schools to be had, and Mr Stelling meant to have one of +them; but as a preacher also, for he meant always to preach in a striking +manner, so as to have his congregation swelled by admirers from neighbouring +parishes, and to produce a great sensation whenever he took occasional duty for +a brother clergyman of minor gifts. The style of preaching he had chosen was +the extemporaneous, which was held little short of the miraculous in rural +parishes like King’s Lorton. Some passages of Massillon and Bourdaloue, +which he knew by heart, were really very effective when rolled out in Mr +Stelling’s deepest tones; but as comparatively feeble appeals of his own +were delivered in the same loud and impressive manner, they were often thought +quite as striking by his hearers. Mr Stelling’s doctrine was of no +particular school; if anything, it had a tinge of evangelicalism, for that was +“the telling thing” just then in the diocese to which King’s +Lorton belonged. In short, Mr Stelling was a man who meant to rise in his +profession, and to rise by merit, clearly, since he had no interest beyond what +might be promised by a problematic relationship to a great lawyer who had not +yet become Lord Chancellor. A clergyman who has such vigorous intentions +naturally gets a little into debt at starting; it is not to be expected that he +will live in the meagre style of a man who means to be a poor curate all his +life; and if the few hundreds Mr Timpson advanced toward his daughter’s +fortune did not suffice for the purchase of handsome furniture, together with a +stock of wine, a grand piano, and the laying out of a superior flower-garden, +it followed in the most rigorous manner, either that these things must be +procured by some other means, or else that the Rev. Mr Stelling must go +without them, which last alternative would be an absurd procrastination of the +fruits of success, where success was certain. Mr Stelling was so broad-chested +and resolute that he felt equal to anything; he would become celebrated by +shaking the consciences of his hearers, and he would by and by edit a Greek +play, and invent several new readings. He had not yet selected the play, for +having been married little more than two years, his leisure time had been much +occupied with attentions to Mrs Stelling; but he had told that fine woman what +he meant to do some day, and she felt great confidence in her husband, as a man +who understood everything of that sort. +</p> + +<p> +But the immediate step to future success was to bring on Tom Tulliver during +this first half-year; for, by a singular coincidence, there had been some +negotiation concerning another pupil from the same neighbourhood and it might +further a decision in Mr Stelling’s favour, if it were understood that +young Tulliver, who, Mr Stelling observed in conjugal privacy, was rather a +rough cub, had made prodigious progress in a short time. It was on this ground +that he was severe with Tom about his lessons; he was clearly a boy whose +powers would never be developed through the medium of the Latin grammar, +without the application of some sternness. Not that Mr Stelling was a +harsh-tempered or unkind man; quite the contrary. He was jocose with Tom at +table, and corrected his provincialisms and his deportment in the most playful +manner; but poor Tom was only the more cowed and confused by this double +novelty, for he had never been used to jokes at all like Mr Stelling’s; +and for the first time in his life he had a painful sense that he was all wrong +somehow. When Mr Stelling said, as the roast-beef was being uncovered, +“Now, Tulliver! which would you rather decline, roast-beef or the Latin +for it?” Tom, to whom in his coolest moments a pun would have been a hard +nut, was thrown into a state of embarrassed alarm that made everything dim to +him except the feeling that he would rather not have anything to do with Latin; +of course he answered, “Roast-beef,” whereupon there followed much +laughter and some practical joking with the plates, from which Tom gathered +that he had in some mysterious way refused beef, and, in fact, made himself +appear “a silly.” If he could have seen a fellow-pupil undergo +these painful operations and survive them in good spirits, he might sooner have +taken them as a matter of course. But there are two expensive forms of +education, either of which a parent may procure for his son by sending him as +solitary pupil to a clergyman: one is the enjoyment of the reverend +gentleman’s undivided neglect; the other is the endurance of the reverend +gentleman’s undivided attention. It was the latter privilege for which +Mr Tulliver paid a high price in Tom’s initiatory months at King’s +Lorton. +</p> + +<p> +That respectable miller and maltster had left Tom behind, and driven homeward +in a state of great mental satisfaction. He considered that it was a happy +moment for him when he had thought of asking Riley’s advice about a tutor +for Tom. Mr Stelling’s eyes were so wide open, and he talked in such an +off-hand, matter-of-fact way, answering every difficult, slow remark of Mr +Tulliver’s with, “I see, my good sir, I see”; “To be +sure, to be sure”; “You want your son to be a man who will make his +way in the world,”—that Mr Tulliver was delighted to find in him a +clergyman whose knowledge was so applicable to the everyday affairs of this +life. Except Counsellor Wylde, whom he had heard at the last sessions, Mr +Tulliver thought the Rev. Mr Stelling was the shrewdest fellow he had ever met +with,—not unlike Wylde, in fact; he had the same way of sticking his +thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat. Mr Tulliver was not by any means an +exception in mistaking brazenness for shrewdness; most laymen thought Stelling +shrewd, and a man of remarkable powers generally; it was chiefly by his +clerical brethren that he was considered rather a dull fellow. But he told Mr +Tulliver several stories about “Swing” and incendiarism, and asked +his advice about feeding pigs in so thoroughly secular and judicious a manner, +with so much polished glibness of tongue, that the miller thought, here was the +very thing he wanted for Tom. He had no doubt this first-rate man was +acquainted with every branch of information, and knew exactly what Tom must +learn in order to become a match for the lawyers, which poor Mr Tulliver +himself did <i>not</i> know, and so was necessarily thrown for self-direction +on this wide kind of inference. It is hardly fair to laugh at him, for I have +known much more highly instructed persons than he make inferences quite as +wide, and not at all wiser. +</p> + +<p> +As for Mrs Tulliver, finding that Mrs Stelling’s views as to the airing +of linen and the frequent recurrence of hunger in a growing boy entirely +coincided with her own; moreover, that Mrs Stelling, though so young a woman, +and only anticipating her second confinement, had gone through very nearly the +same experience as herself with regard to the behaviour and fundamental +character of the monthly nurse,—she expressed great contentment to her +husband, when they drove away, at leaving Tom with a woman who, in spite of her +youth, seemed quite sensible and motherly, and asked advice as prettily as +could be. +</p> + +<p> +“They must be very well off, though,” said Mrs Tulliver, +“for everything’s as nice as can be all over the house, and that +watered silk she had on cost a pretty penny. Sister Pullet has got one like +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Mr Tulliver, “he’s got some income besides +the curacy, I reckon. Perhaps her father allows ’em something. +There’s Tom ’ull be another hundred to him, and not much trouble +either, by his own account; he says teaching comes natural to him. That’s +wonderful, now,” added Mr Tulliver, turning his head on one side, and +giving his horse a meditative tickling on the flank. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps it was because teaching came naturally to Mr Stelling, that he set +about it with that uniformity of method and independence of circumstances which +distinguish the actions of animals understood to be under the immediate +teaching of nature. Mr Broderip’s amiable beaver, as that charming +naturalist tells us, busied himself as earnestly in constructing a dam, in a +room up three pair of stairs in London, as if he had been laying his foundation +in a stream or lake in Upper Canada. It was “Binny’s” +function to build; the absence of water or of possible progeny was an accident +for which he was not accountable. With the same unerring instinct Mr Stelling +set to work at his natural method of instilling the Eton Grammar and Euclid +into the mind of Tom Tulliver. This, he considered, was the only basis of solid +instruction; all other means of education were mere charlatanism, and could +produce nothing better than smatterers. Fixed on this firm basis, a man might +observe the display of various or special knowledge made by irregularly +educated people with a pitying smile; all that sort of thing was very well, but +it was impossible these people could form sound opinions. In holding this +conviction Mr Stelling was not biassed, as some tutors have been, by the +excessive accuracy or extent of his own scholarship; and as to his views about +Euclid, no opinion could have been freer from personal partiality. Mr Stelling +was very far from being led astray by enthusiasm, either religious or +intellectual; on the other hand, he had no secret belief that everything was +humbug. He thought religion was a very excellent thing, and Aristotle a great +authority, and deaneries and prebends useful institutions, and Great Britain +the providential bulwark of Protestantism, and faith in the unseen a great +support to afflicted minds; he believed in all these things, as a Swiss +hotel-keeper believes in the beauty of the scenery around him, and in the +pleasure it gives to artistic visitors. And in the same way Mr Stelling +believed in his method of education; he had no doubt that he was doing the very +best thing for Mr Tulliver’s boy. Of course, when the miller talked of +“mapping” and “summing” in a vague and diffident +manner, Mr Stelling had set his mind at rest by an assurance that he understood +what was wanted; for how was it possible the good man could form any reasonable +judgment about the matter? Mr Stelling’s duty was to teach the lad in the +only right way,—indeed he knew no other; he had not wasted his time in +the acquirement of anything abnormal. +</p> + +<p> +He very soon set down poor Tom as a thoroughly stupid lad; for though by hard +labour he could get particular declensions into his brain, anything so abstract +as the relation between cases and terminations could by no means get such a +lodgment there as to enable him to recognise a chance genitive or dative. This +struck Mr Stelling as something more than natural stupidity; he suspected +obstinacy, or at any rate indifference, and lectured Tom severely on his want +of thorough application. “You feel no interest in what you’re +doing, sir,” Mr Stelling would say, and the reproach was painfully true. +Tom had never found any difficulty in discerning a pointer from a setter, when +once he had been told the distinction, and his perceptive powers were not at +all deficient. I fancy they were quite as strong as those of the Rev. Mr +Stelling; for Tom could predict with accuracy what number of horses were +cantering behind him, he could throw a stone right into the centre of a given +ripple, he could guess to a fraction how many lengths of his stick it would +take to reach across the playground, and could draw almost perfect squares on +his slate without any measurement. But Mr Stelling took no note of these +things; he only observed that Tom’s faculties failed him before the +abstractions hideously symbolised to him in the pages of the Eton Grammar, and +that he was in a state bordering on idiocy with regard to the demonstration +that two given triangles must be equal, though he could discern with great +promptitude and certainty the fact that they <i>were</i> equal. Whence Mr +Stelling concluded that Tom’s brain, being peculiarly impervious to +etymology and demonstrations, was peculiarly in need of being ploughed and +harrowed by these patent implements; it was his favourite metaphor, that the +classics and geometry constituted that culture of the mind which prepared it +for the reception of any subsequent crop. I say nothing against Mr +Stelling’s theory; if we are to have one regimen for all minds, his seems +to me as good as any other. I only know it turned out as uncomfortably for Tom +Tulliver as if he had been plied with cheese in order to remedy a gastric +weakness which prevented him from digesting it. It is astonishing what a +different result one gets by changing the metaphor! Once call the brain an +intellectual stomach, and one’s ingenious conception of the classics and +geometry as ploughs and harrows seems to settle nothing. But then it is open to +some one else to follow great authorities, and call the mind a sheet of white +paper or a mirror, in which case one’s knowledge of the digestive process +becomes quite irrelevant. It was doubtless an ingenious idea to call the camel +the ship of the desert, but it would hardly lead one far in training that +useful beast. O Aristotle! if you had had the advantage of being “the +freshest modern” instead of the greatest ancient, would you not have +mingled your praise of metaphorical speech, as a sign of high intelligence, +with a lamentation that intelligence so rarely shows itself in speech without +metaphor,—that we can so seldom declare what a thing is, except by saying +it is something else? +</p> + +<p> +Tom Tulliver, being abundant in no form of speech, did not use any metaphor to +declare his views as to the nature of Latin; he never called it an instrument +of torture; and it was not until he had got on some way in the next half-year, +and in the Delectus, that he was advanced enough to call it a +“bore” and “beastly stuff.” At present, in relation to +this demand that he should learn Latin declensions and conjugations, Tom was in +a state of as blank unimaginativeness concerning the cause and tendency of his +sufferings, as if he had been an innocent shrewmouse imprisoned in the split +trunk of an ash-tree in order to cure lameness in cattle. It is doubtless +almost incredible to instructed minds of the present day that a boy of twelve, +not belonging strictly to “the masses,” who are now understood to +have the monopoly of mental darkness, should have had no distinct idea how +there came to be such a thing as Latin on this earth; yet so it was with Tom. +It would have taken a long while to make conceivable to him that there ever +existed a people who bought and sold sheep and oxen, and transacted the +everyday affairs of life, through the medium of this language; and still +longer to make him understand why he should be called upon to learn it, when +its connection with those affairs had become entirely latent. So far as Tom had +gained any acquaintance with the Romans at Mr Jacob’s academy, his +knowledge was strictly correct, but it went no farther than the fact that they +were “in the New Testament”; and Mr Stelling was not the man to +enfeeble and emasculate his pupil’s mind by simplifying and explaining, +or to reduce the tonic effect of etymology by mixing it with smattering, +extraneous information, such as is given to girls. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, strange to say, under this vigorous treatment Tom became more like a girl +than he had ever been in his life before. He had a large share of pride, which +had hitherto found itself very comfortable in the world, despising Old Goggles, +and reposing in the sense of unquestioned rights; but now this same pride met +with nothing but bruises and crushings. Tom was too clear-sighted not to be +aware that Mr Stelling’s standard of things was quite different, was +certainly something higher in the eyes of the world than that of the people he +had been living amongst, and that, brought in contact with it, he, Tom +Tulliver, appeared uncouth and stupid; he was by no means indifferent to this, +and his pride got into an uneasy condition which quite nullified his boyish +self-satisfaction, and gave him something of the girl’s susceptibility. +He was of a very firm, not to say obstinate, disposition, but there was no +brute-like rebellion and recklessness in his nature; the human sensibilities +predominated, and if it had occurred to him that he could enable himself to +show some quickness at his lessons, and so acquire Mr Stelling’s +approbation, by standing on one leg for an inconvenient length of time, or +rapping his head moderately against the wall, or any voluntary action of that +sort, he would certainly have tried it. But no; Tom had never heard that these +measures would brighten the understanding, or strengthen the verbal memory; and +he was not given to hypothesis and experiment. It did occur to him that he +could perhaps get some help by praying for it; but as the prayers he said every +evening were forms learned by heart, he rather shrank from the novelty and +irregularity of introducing an extempore passage on a topic of petition for +which he was not aware of any precedent. But one day, when he had broken down, +for the fifth time, in the supines of the third conjugation, and Mr Stelling, +convinced that this must be carelessness, since it transcended the bounds of +possible stupidity, had lectured him very seriously, pointing out that if he +failed to seize the present golden opportunity of learning supines, he would +have to regret it when he became a man,—Tom, more miserable than usual, +determined to try his sole resource; and that evening, after his usual form of +prayer for his parents and “little sister” (he had begun to pray +for Maggie when she was a baby), and that he might be able always to keep +God’s commandments, he added, in the same low whisper, “and please +to make me always remember my Latin.” He paused a little to consider how +he should pray about Euclid—whether he should ask to see what it meant, +or whether there was any other mental state which would be more applicable to +the case. But at last he added: “And make Mr Stelling say I +sha’n’t do Euclid any more. Amen.” +</p> + +<p> +The fact that he got through his supines without mistake the next day, +encouraged him to persevere in this appendix to his prayers, and neutralised +any scepticism that might have arisen from Mr Stelling’s continued +demand for Euclid. But his faith broke down under the apparent absence of all +help when he got into the irregular verbs. It seemed clear that Tom’s +despair under the caprices of the present tense did not constitute a +<i>nodus</i> worthy of interference, and since this was the climax of his +difficulties, where was the use of praying for help any longer? He made up his +mind to this conclusion in one of his dull, lonely evenings, which he spent in +the study, preparing his lessons for the morrow. His eyes were apt to get dim +over the page, though he hated crying, and was ashamed of it; he couldn’t +help thinking with some affection even of Spouncer, whom he used to fight and +quarrel with; he would have felt at home with Spouncer, and in a condition of +superiority. And then the mill, and the river, and Yap pricking up his ears, +ready to obey the least sign when Tom said, “Hoigh!” would all come +before him in a sort of calenture, when his fingers played absently in his +pocket with his great knife and his coil of whipcord, and other relics of the +past. +</p> + +<p> +Tom, as I said, had never been so much like a girl in his life before, and at +that epoch of irregular verbs his spirit was further depressed by a new means +of mental development which had been thought of for him out of school hours. +Mrs Stelling had lately had her second baby, and as nothing could be more +salutary for a boy than to feel himself useful, Mrs Stelling considered she +was doing Tom a service by setting him to watch the little cherub Laura while +the nurse was occupied with the sickly baby. It was quite a pretty employment +for Tom to take little Laura out in the sunniest hour of the autumn day; it +would help to make him feel that Lorton Parsonage was a home for him, and that +he was one of the family. The little cherub Laura, not being an accomplished +walker at present, had a ribbon fastened round her waist, by which Tom held her +as if she had been a little dog during the minutes in which she chose to walk; +but as these were rare, he was for the most part carrying this fine child round +and round the garden, within sight of Mrs Stelling’s window, according +to orders. If any one considers this unfair and even oppressive toward Tom, I +beg him to consider that there are feminine virtues which are with difficulty +combined, even if they are not incompatible. When the wife of a poor curate +contrives, under all her disadvantages, to dress extremely well, and to have a +style of coiffure which requires that her nurse shall occasionally officiate as +lady’s-maid; when, moreover, her dinner-parties and her drawing-room show +that effort at elegance and completeness of appointment to which ordinary women +might imagine a large income necessary, it would be unreasonable to expect of +her that she should employ a second nurse, or even act as a nurse herself. Mr +Stelling knew better; he saw that his wife did wonders already, and was proud +of her. It was certainly not the best thing in the world for young +Tulliver’s gait to carry a heavy child, but he had plenty of exercise in +long walks with himself, and next half-year Mr Stelling would see about having +a drilling-master. Among the many means whereby Mr Stelling intended to be +more fortunate than the bulk of his fellow-men, he had entirely given up that +of having his own way in his own house. What then? He had married “as +kind a little soul as ever breathed,” according to Mr Riley, who had +been acquainted with Mrs Stelling’s blond ringlets and smiling demeanour +throughout her maiden life, and on the strength of that knowledge would have +been ready any day to pronounce that whatever domestic differences might arise +in her married life must be entirely Mr Stelling’s fault. +</p> + +<p> +If Tom had had a worse disposition, he would certainly have hated the little +cherub Laura, but he was too kind-hearted a lad for that; there was too much in +him of the fibre that turns to true manliness, and to protecting pity for the +weak. I am afraid he hated Mrs Stelling, and contracted a lasting dislike to +pale blond ringlets and broad plaits, as directly associated with haughtiness +of manner, and a frequent reference to other people’s “duty.” +But he couldn’t help playing with little Laura, and liking to amuse her; +he even sacrificed his percussion-caps for her sake, in despair of their ever +serving a greater purpose,—thinking the small flash and bang would +delight her, and thereby drawing down on himself a rebuke from Mrs Stelling +for teaching her child to play with fire. Laura was a sort of +playfellow—and oh, how Tom longed for playfellows! In his secret heart he +yearned to have Maggie with him, and was almost ready to dote on her +exasperating acts of forgetfulness; though, when he was at home, he always +represented it as a great favour on his part to let Maggie trot by his side on +his pleasure excursions. +</p> + +<p> +And before this dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually came. Mrs Stelling +had given a general invitation for the little girl to come and stay with her +brother; so when Mr Tulliver drove over to King’s Lorton late in +October, Maggie came too, with the sense that she was taking a great journey, +and beginning to see the world. It was Mr Tulliver’s first visit to see +Tom, for the lad must learn not to think too much about home. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my lad,” he said to Tom, when Mr Stelling had left the room +to announce the arrival to his wife, and Maggie had begun to kiss Tom freely, +“you look rarely! School agrees with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom wished he had looked rather ill. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I <i>am</i> well, father,” said Tom; “I +wish you’d ask Mr Stelling not to let me do Euclid; it brings on the +toothache, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +(The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever been subject.) +</p> + +<p> +“Euclid, my lad,—why, what’s that?” said Mr Tulliver. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know; it’s definitions, and axioms, and +triangles, and things. It’s a book I’ve got to learn +in—there’s no sense in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go, go!” said Mr Tulliver, reprovingly; “you mustn’t +say so. You must learn what your master tells you. He knows what it’s +right for you to learn.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I’ll</i> help you now, Tom,” said Maggie, with a little +air of patronizing consolation. “I’m come to stay ever so long, if +Mrs Stelling asks me. I’ve brought my box and my pinafores, +haven’t I, father?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You</i> help me, you silly little thing!” said Tom, in such +high spirits at this announcement that he quite enjoyed the idea of confounding +Maggie by showing her a page of Euclid. “I should like to see you doing +one of <i>my</i> lessons! Why, I learn Latin too! Girls never learn such +things. They’re too silly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know what Latin is very well,” said Maggie, confidently, +“Latin’s a language. There are Latin words in the Dictionary. +There’s bonus, a gift.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, you’re just wrong there, Miss Maggie!” said Tom, +secretly astonished. “You think you’re very wise! But +‘bonus’ means ‘good,’ as it happens,—bonus, bona, +bonum.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that’s no reason why it shouldn’t mean +‘gift,’” said Maggie, stoutly. “It may mean several +things; almost every word does. There’s ‘lawn,’—it +means the grass-plot, as well as the stuff pocket handkerchiefs are made +of.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well done, little ’un,” said Mr Tulliver, laughing, while +Tom felt rather disgusted with Maggie’s knowingness, though beyond +measure cheerful at the thought that she was going to stay with him. Her +conceit would soon be overawed by the actual inspection of his books. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Stelling, in her pressing invitation, did not mention a longer time than a +week for Maggie’s stay; but Mr Stelling, who took her between his knees, +and asked her where she stole her dark eyes from, insisted that she must stay a +fortnight. Maggie thought Mr Stelling was a charming man, and Mr Tulliver was +quite proud to leave his little wench where she would have an opportunity of +showing her cleverness to appreciating strangers. So it was agreed that she +should not be fetched home till the end of the fortnight. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie,” said Tom, as +their father drove away. “What do you shake and toss your head now for, +you silly?” he continued; for though her hair was now under a new +dispensation, and was brushed smoothly behind her ears, she seemed still in +imagination to be tossing it out of her eyes. “It makes you look as if +you were crazy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I can’t help it,” said Maggie, impatiently. +“Don’t tease me, Tom. Oh, what books!” she exclaimed, as she +saw the bookcases in the study. “How I should like to have as many books +as that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you couldn’t read one of ’em,” said Tom, +triumphantly. “They’re all Latin.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, they aren’t,” said Maggie. “I can read the back of +this,—‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman +Empire.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what does that mean? <i>You</i> don’t know,” said Tom, +wagging his head. +</p> + +<p> +“But I could soon find out,” said Maggie, scornfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, how?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should look inside, and see what it was about.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better not, Miss Maggie,” said Tom, seeing her hand on +the volume. “Mr Stelling lets nobody touch his books without leave, and +<i>I</i> shall catch it, if you take it out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very well. Let me see all <i>your</i> books, then,” said +Maggie, turning to throw her arms round Tom’s neck, and rub his cheek +with her small round nose. +</p> + +<p> +Tom, in the gladness of his heart at having dear old Maggie to dispute with and +crow over again, seized her round the waist, and began to jump with her round +the large library table. Away they jumped with more and more vigor, till +Maggie’s hair flew from behind her ears, and twirled about like an +animated mop. But the revolutions round the table became more and more +irregular in their sweep, till at last reaching Mr Stelling’s reading +stand, they sent it thundering down with its heavy lexicons to the floor. +Happily it was the ground-floor, and the study was a one-storied wing to the +house, so that the downfall made no alarming resonance, though Tom stood dizzy +and aghast for a few minutes, dreading the appearance of Mr or Mrs Stelling. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I say, Maggie,” said Tom at last, lifting up the stand, +“we must keep quiet here, you know. If we break anything Mrs +Stelling’ll make us cry peccavi.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” said Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s the Latin for a good scolding,” said Tom, not +without some pride in his knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +“Is she a cross woman?” said Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you!” said Tom, with an emphatic nod. +</p> + +<p> +“I think all women are crosser than men,” said Maggie. “Aunt +Glegg’s a great deal crosser than uncle Glegg, and mother scolds me more +than father does.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, <i>you’ll</i> be a woman some day,” said Tom, +“so <i>you</i> needn’t talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I shall be a <i>clever</i> woman,” said Maggie, with a toss. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I dare say, and a nasty conceited thing. Everybody’ll hate +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you oughtn’t to hate me, Tom; it’ll be very wicked of +you, for I shall be your sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but if you’re a nasty disagreeable thing I <i>shall</i> hate +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but, Tom, you won’t! I sha’n’t be disagreeable. I +shall be very good to you, and I shall be good to everybody. You won’t +hate me really, will you, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, bother! never mind! Come, it’s time for me to learn my +lessons. See here! what I’ve got to do,” said Tom, drawing Maggie +toward him and showing her his theorem, while she pushed her hair behind her +ears, and prepared herself to prove her capability of helping him in Euclid. +She began to read with full confidence in her own powers, but presently, +becoming quite bewildered, her face flushed with irritation. It was +unavoidable; she must confess her incompetency, and she was not fond of +humiliation. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nonsense!” she said, “and very ugly stuff; nobody +need want to make it out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there, now, Miss Maggie!” said Tom, drawing the book away, and +wagging his head at her, “You see you’re not so clever as you +thought you were.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Maggie, pouting, “I dare say I could make it out, +if I’d learned what goes before, as you have.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s what you just couldn’t, Miss Wisdom,” said +Tom. “For it’s all the harder when you know what goes before; for +then you’ve got to say what definition 3 is, and what axiom V. is. But +get along with you now; I must go on with this. Here’s the Latin Grammar. +See what you can make of that.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie found the Latin Grammar quite soothing after her mathematical +mortification; for she delighted in new words, and quickly found that there was +an English Key at the end, which would make her very wise about Latin, at +slight expense. She presently made up her mind to skip the rules in the Syntax, +the examples became so absorbing. These mysterious sentences, snatched from an +unknown context,—like strange horns of beasts, and leaves of unknown +plants, brought from some far-off region,—gave boundless scope to her +imagination, and were all the more fascinating because they were in a peculiar +tongue of their own, which she could learn to interpret. It was really very +interesting, the Latin Grammar that Tom had said no girls could learn; and she +was proud because she found it interesting. The most fragmentary examples were +her favourites. <i>Mors omnibus est communis</i> would have been jejune, only +she liked to know the Latin; but the fortunate gentleman whom every one +congratulated because he had a son “endowed with <i>such</i> a +disposition” afforded her a great deal of pleasant conjecture, and she +was quite lost in the “thick grove penetrable by no star,” when Tom +called out,— +</p> + +<p> +“Now, then, Magsie, give us the Grammar!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Tom, it’s such a pretty book!” she said, as she jumped +out of the large arm-chair to give it him; “it’s much prettier than +the Dictionary. I could learn Latin very soon. I don’t think it’s +at all hard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know what you’ve been doing,” said Tom; +“you’ve been reading the English at the end. Any donkey can do +that.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom seized the book and opened it with a determined and business-like air, as +much as to say that he had a lesson to learn which no donkeys would find +themselves equal to. Maggie, rather piqued, turned to the bookcases to amuse +herself with puzzling out the titles. +</p> + +<p> +Presently Tom called to her: “Here, Magsie, come and hear if I can say +this. Stand at that end of the table, where Mr Stelling sits when he hears +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie obeyed, and took the open book. +</p> + +<p> +“Where do you begin, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I begin at <i>’Appellativa arborum,’</i> because I say +all over again what I’ve been learning this week.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines; and Maggie was beginning to +forget her office of prompter in speculating as to what <i>mas</i> could mean, +which came twice over, when he stuck fast at <i>Sunt etiam volucrum</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t tell me, Maggie; <i>Sunt etiam volucrum</i>—<i>Sunt +etiam volucrum</i>—<i>ut ostrea, cetus</i>——” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Maggie, opening her mouth and shaking her head. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Sunt etiam volucrum</i>,” said Tom, very slowly, as if the next +words might be expected to come sooner when he gave them this strong hint that +they were waited for. +</p> + +<p> +“C, e, u,” said Maggie, getting impatient. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know—hold your tongue,” said Tom. “<i>Ceu +passer, hirundo; Ferarum</i>—<i>ferarum</i>——” Tom took +his pencil and made several hard dots with it on his +book-cover—“<i>ferarum</i>——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, oh dear, Tom,” said Maggie, “what a time you are! +<i>Ut</i>——” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Ut ostrea</i>——” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Maggie, “<i>ut tigris</i>——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, now I can do,” said Tom; “it was <i>tigris, +vulpes</i>, I’d forgotten: <i>ut tigris, volupes; et Piscium</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +With some further stammering and repetition, Tom got through the next few +lines. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, then,” he said, “the next is what I’ve just +learned for to-morrow. Give me hold of the book a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +After some whispered gabbling, assisted by the beating of his fist on the +table, Tom returned the book. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mascula nomina in a</i>,” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Tom,” said Maggie, “that doesn’t come next. +It’s <i>Nomen non creskens genittivo</i>——” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Creskens genittivo!</i>” exclaimed Tom, with a derisive laugh, +for Tom had learned this omitted passage for his yesterday’s lesson, and +a young gentleman does not require an intimate or extensive acquaintance with +Latin before he can feel the pitiable absurdity of a false quantity. +“<i>Creskens genittivo!</i> What a little silly you are, Maggie!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you needn’t laugh, Tom, for you didn’t remember it at +all. I’m sure it’s spelt so; how was I to know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Phee-e-e-h! I told you girls couldn’t learn Latin. It’s +<i>Nomen non crescens genitivo</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then,” said Maggie, pouting. “I can say that as +well as you can. And you don’t mind your stops. For you ought to stop +twice as long at a semicolon as you do at a comma, and you make the longest +stops where there ought to be no stop at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, don’t chatter. Let me go on.” +</p> + +<p> +They were presently fetched to spend the rest of the evening in the +drawing-room, and Maggie became so animated with Mr Stelling, who, she felt +sure, admired her cleverness, that Tom was rather amazed and alarmed at her +audacity. But she was suddenly subdued by Mr Stelling’s alluding to a +little girl of whom he had heard that she once ran away to the gypsies. +</p> + +<p> +“What a very odd little girl that must be!” said Mrs Stelling, +meaning to be playful; but a playfulness that turned on her supposed oddity was +not at all to Maggie’s taste. She feared that Mr Stelling, after all, +did not think much of her, and went to bed in rather low spirits. Mrs +Stelling, she felt, looked at her as if she thought her hair was very ugly +because it hung down straight behind. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless it was a very happy fortnight to Maggie, this visit to Tom. She +was allowed to be in the study while he had his lessons, and in her various +readings got very deep into the examples in the Latin Grammar. The astronomer +who hated women generally caused her so much puzzling speculation that she one +day asked Mr Stelling if all astronomers hated women, or whether it was only +this particular astronomer. But forestalling his answer, she said,— +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it’s all astronomers; because, you know, they live up in +high towers, and if the women came there they might talk and hinder them from +looking at the stars.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Stelling liked her prattle immensely, and they were on the best terms. She +told Tom she should like to go to school to Mr Stelling, as he did, and learn +just the same things. She knew she could do Euclid, for she had looked into it +again, and she saw what A B C meant; they were the names of the lines. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure you couldn’t do it, now,” said Tom; +“and I’ll just ask Mr Stelling if you could.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind,” said the little conceited minx, +“I’ll ask him myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Stelling,” she said, that same evening when they were in the +drawing-room, “couldn’t I do Euclid, and all Tom’s lessons, +if you were to teach me instead of him?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you couldn’t,” said Tom, indignantly. “Girls +can’t do Euclid; can they, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“They can pick up a little of everything, I dare say,” said Mr +Stelling. “They’ve a great deal of superficial cleverness; but they +couldn’t go far into anything. They’re quick and shallow.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom, delighted with this verdict, telegraphed his triumph by wagging his head +at Maggie, behind Mr Stelling’s chair. As for Maggie, she had hardly +ever been so mortified. She had been so proud to be called “quick” +all her little life, and now it appeared that this quickness was the brand of +inferiority. It would have been better to be slow, like Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha, ha! Miss Maggie!” said Tom, when they were alone; “you +see it’s not such a fine thing to be quick. You’ll never go far +into anything, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +And Maggie was so oppressed by this dreadful destiny that she had no spirit for +a retort. +</p> + +<p> +But when this small apparatus of shallow quickness was fetched away in the gig +by Luke, and the study was once more quite lonely for Tom, he missed her +grievously. He had really been brighter, and had got through his lessons +better, since she had been there; and she had asked Mr Stelling so many +questions about the Roman Empire, and whether there really ever was a man who +said, in Latin, “I would not buy it for a farthing or a rotten +nut,” or whether that had only been turned into Latin, that Tom had +actually come to a dim understanding of the fact that there had once been +people upon the earth who were so fortunate as to know Latin without learning +it through the medium of the Eton Grammar. This luminous idea was a great +addition to his historical acquirements during this half-year, which were +otherwise confined to an epitomised history of the Jews. +</p> + +<p> +But the dreary half-year <i>did</i> come to an end. How glad Tom was to see the +last yellow leaves fluttering before the cold wind! The dark afternoons and the +first December snow seemed to him far livelier than the August sunshine; and +that he might make himself the surer about the flight of the days that were +carrying him homeward, he stuck twenty-one sticks deep in a corner of the +garden, when he was three weeks from the holidays, and pulled one up every day +with a great wrench, throwing it to a distance with a vigor of will which would +have carried it to limbo, if it had been in the nature of sticks to travel so +far. +</p> + +<p> +But it was worth purchasing, even at the heavy price of the Latin Grammar, the +happiness of seeing the bright light in the parlour at home, as the gig passed +noiselessly over the snow-covered bridge; the happiness of passing from the +cold air to the warmth and the kisses and the smiles of that familiar hearth, +where the pattern of the rug and the grate and the fire-irons were “first +ideas” that it was no more possible to criticise than the solidity and +extension of matter. There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those +scenes where we were born, where objects became dear to us before we had known +the labour of choice, and where the outer world seemed only an extension of our +own personality; we accepted and loved it as we accepted our own sense of +existence and our own limbs. Very commonplace, even ugly, that furniture of our +early home might look if it were put up to auction; an improved taste in +upholstery scorns it; and is not the striving after something better and better +in our surroundings the grand characteristic that distinguishes man from the +brute, or, to satisfy a scrupulous accuracy of definition, that distinguishes +the British man from the foreign brute? But heaven knows where that striving +might lead us, if our affections had not a trick of twining round those old +inferior things; if the loves and sanctities of our life had no deep immovable +roots in memory. One’s delight in an elderberry bush overhanging the +confused leafage of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening sight than the finest +cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the softest undulating turf, is an +entirely unjustifiable preference to a nursery-gardener, or to any of those +regulated minds who are free from the weakness of any attachment that does not +rest on a demonstrable superiority of qualities. And there is no better reason +for preferring this elderberry bush than that it stirs an early memory; that it +is no novelty in my life, speaking to me merely through my present +sensibilities to form and colour, but the long companion of my existence, that +wove itself into my joys when joys were vivid. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap15"></a>Chapter II.<br/> +The Christmas Holidays</h3> + +<p> +Fine old Christmas, with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his duty that +year in the noblest fashion, and had set off his rich gifts of warmth and +colour with all the heightening contrast of frost and snow. +</p> + +<p> +Snow lay on the croft and river-bank in undulations softer than the limbs of +infancy; it lay with the neatliest finished border on every sloping roof, +making the dark-red gables stand out with a new depth of colour; it weighed +heavily on the laurels and fir-trees, till it fell from them with a shuddering +sound; it clothed the rough turnip-field with whiteness, and made the sheep +look like dark blotches; the gates were all blocked up with the sloping drifts, +and here and there a disregarded four-footed beast stood as if petrified +“in unrecumbent sadness”; there was no gleam, no shadow, for the +heavens, too, were one still, pale cloud; no sound or motion in anything but +the dark river that flowed and moaned like an unresting sorrow. But old +Christmas smiled as he laid this cruel-seeming spell on the outdoor world, for +he meant to light up home with new brightness, to deepen all the richness of +indoor colour, and give a keener edge of delight to the warm fragrance of food; +he meant to prepare a sweet imprisonment that would strengthen the primitive +fellowship of kindred, and make the sunshine of familiar human faces as welcome +as the hidden day-star. His kindness fell but hardly on the +homeless,—fell but hardly on the homes where the hearth was not very +warm, and where the food had little fragrance; where the human faces had had no +sunshine in them, but rather the leaden, blank-eyed gaze of unexpectant want. +But the fine old season meant well; and if he has not learned the secret how to +bless men impartially, it is because his father Time, with ever-unrelenting +purpose, still hides that secret in his own mighty, slow-beating heart. +</p> + +<p> +And yet this Christmas day, in spite of Tom’s fresh delight in home, was +not, he thought, somehow or other, quite so happy as it had always been before. +The red berries were just as abundant on the holly, and he and Maggie had +dressed all the windows and mantlepieces and picture-frames on Christmas eve +with as much taste as ever, wedding the thick-set scarlet clusters with +branches of the black-berried ivy. There had been singing under the windows +after midnight,—supernatural singing, Maggie always felt, in spite of +Tom’s contemptuous insistence that the singers were old Patch, the parish +clerk, and the rest of the church choir; she trembled with awe when their +carolling broke in upon her dreams, and the image of men in fustian clothes was +always thrust away by the vision of angels resting on the parted cloud. The +midnight chant had helped as usual to lift the morning above the level of +common days; and then there were the smell of hot toast and ale from the +kitchen, at the breakfast hour; the favourite anthem, the green boughs, and the +short sermon gave the appropriate festal character to the church-going; and +aunt and uncle Moss, with all their seven children, were looking like so many +reflectors of the bright parlour-fire, when the church-goers came back, stamping +the snow from their feet. The plum-pudding was of the same handsome roundness +as ever, and came in with the symbolic blue flames around it, as if it had been +heroically snatched from the nether fires, into which it had been thrown by +dyspeptic Puritans; the dessert was as splendid as ever, with its golden +oranges, brown nuts, and the crystalline light and dark of apple-jelly and +damson cheese; in all these things Christmas was as it had always been since +Tom could remember; it was only distinguished, if by anything, by superior +sliding and snowballs. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas was cheery, but not so Mr Tulliver. He was irate and defiant; and +Tom, though he espoused his father’s quarrels and shared his +father’s sense of injury, was not without some of the feeling that +oppressed Maggie when Mr Tulliver got louder and more angry in narration and +assertion with the increased leisure of dessert. The attention that Tom might +have concentrated on his nuts and wine was distracted by a sense that there +were rascally enemies in the world, and that the business of grown-up life +could hardly be conducted without a good deal of quarrelling. Now, Tom was not +fond of quarrelling, unless it could soon be put an end to by a fair stand-up +fight with an adversary whom he had every chance of thrashing; and his +father’s irritable talk made him uncomfortable, though he never accounted +to himself for the feeling, or conceived the notion that his father was faulty +in this respect. +</p> + +<p> +The particular embodiment of the evil principle now exciting Mr +Tulliver’s determined resistance was Mr Pivart, who, having lands higher +up the Ripple, was taking measures for their irrigation, which either were, or +would be, or were bound to be (on the principle that water was water), an +infringement on Mr Tulliver’s legitimate share of water-power. Dix, who +had a mill on the stream, was a feeble auxiliary of Old Harry compared with +Pivart. Dix had been brought to his senses by arbitration, and Wakem’s +advice had not carried <i>him</i> far. No; Dix, Mr Tulliver considered, had +been as good as nowhere in point of law; and in the intensity of his +indignation against Pivart, his contempt for a baffled adversary like Dix began +to wear the air of a friendly attachment. He had no male audience to-day except +Mr Moss, who knew nothing, as he said, of the “natur’ o’ +mills,” and could only assent to Mr Tulliver’s arguments on the +<i>a priori</i> ground of family relationship and monetary obligation; but Mr +Tulliver did not talk with the futile intention of convincing his audience, he +talked to relieve himself; while good Mr Moss made strong efforts to keep his +eyes wide open, in spite of the sleepiness which an unusually good dinner +produced in his hard-worked frame. Mrs Moss, more alive to the subject, and +interested in everything that affected her brother, listened and put in a word +as often as maternal preoccupations allowed. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Pivart’s a new name hereabout, brother, isn’t +it?” she said; “he didn’t own the land in father’s +time, nor yours either, before I was married.” +</p> + +<p> +“New name? Yes, I should think it <i>is</i> a new name,” said Mr +Tulliver, with angry emphasis. “Dorlcote Mill’s been in our family +a hundred year and better, and nobody ever heard of a Pivart meddling with the +river, till this fellow came and bought Bincome’s farm out of hand, +before anybody else could so much as say ‘snap.’ But I’ll +<i>Pivart</i> him!” added Mr Tulliver, lifting his glass with a sense +that he had defined his resolution in an unmistakable manner. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t be forced to go to law with him, I hope, brother?” +said Mrs Moss, with some anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what I shall be forced to; but I know what I shall +force <i>him</i> to, with his dikes and erigations, if there’s any law to +be brought to bear o’ the right side. I know well enough who’s at +the bottom of it; he’s got Wakem to back him and egg him on. I know Wakem +tells him the law can’t touch him for it, but there’s folks can +handle the law besides Wakem. It takes a big raskil to beat him; but +there’s bigger to be found, as know more o’ th’ ins and outs +o’ the law, else how came Wakem to lose Brumley’s suit for +him?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver was a strictly honest man, and proud of being honest, but he +considered that in law the ends of justice could only be achieved by employing +a stronger knave to frustrate a weaker. Law was a sort of cock-fight, in which +it was the business of injured honesty to get a game bird with the best pluck +and the strongest spurs. +</p> + +<p> +“Gore’s no fool; you needn’t tell me that,” he observed +presently, in a pugnacious tone, as if poor Gritty had been urging that +lawyer’s capabilities; “but, you see, he isn’t up to the law +as Wakem is. And water’s a very particular thing; you can’t pick it +up with a pitchfork. That’s why it’s been nuts to Old Harry and the +lawyers. It’s plain enough what’s the rights and the wrongs of +water, if you look at it straight-forrard; for a river’s a river, and if +you’ve got a mill, you must have water to turn it; and it’s no use +telling me Pivart’s erigation and nonsense won’t stop my wheel; I +know what belongs to water better than that. Talk to me o’ what th’ +engineers say! I say it’s common sense, as Pivart’s dikes must do +me an injury. But if that’s their engineering, I’ll put Tom to it +by-and-by, and he shall see if he can’t find a bit more sense in +th’ engineering business than what <i>that</i> comes to.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom, looking round with some anxiety at this announcement of his prospects, +unthinkingly withdrew a small rattle he was amusing baby Moss with, whereupon +she, being a baby that knew her own mind with remarkable clearness, +instantaneously expressed her sentiments in a piercing yell, and was not to be +appeased even by the restoration of the rattle, feeling apparently that the +original wrong of having it taken from her remained in all its force. Mrs Moss +hurried away with her into another room, and expressed to Mrs Tulliver, who +accompanied her, the conviction that the dear child had good reasons for +crying; implying that if it was supposed to be the rattle that baby clamored +for, she was a misunderstood baby. The thoroughly justifiable yell being +quieted, Mrs Moss looked at her sister-in-law and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry to see brother so put out about this water work.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s your brother’s way, Mrs Moss; I’d never anything +o’ that sort before I was married,” said Mrs Tulliver, with a +half-implied reproach. She always spoke of her husband as “your +brother” to Mrs Moss in any case when his line of conduct was not matter +of pure admiration. Amiable Mrs Tulliver, who was never angry in her life, had +yet her mild share of that spirit without which she could hardly have been at +once a Dodson and a woman. Being always on the defensive toward her own +sisters, it was natural that she should be keenly conscious of her superiority, +even as the weakest Dodson, over a husband’s sister, who, besides being +poorly off, and inclined to “hang on” her brother, had the +good-natured submissiveness of a large, easy-tempered, untidy, prolific woman, +with affection enough in her not only for her own husband and abundant +children, but for any number of collateral relations. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope and pray he won’t go to law,” said Mrs Moss, +“for there’s never any knowing where that’ll end. And the +right doesn’t allays win. This Mr Pivart’s a rich man, by what I +can make out, and the rich mostly get things their own way.” +</p> + +<p> +“As to that,” said Mrs Tulliver, stroking her dress down, +“I’ve seen what riches are in my own family; for my sisters have +got husbands as can afford to do pretty much what they like. But I think +sometimes I shall be drove off my head with the talk about this law and +erigation; and my sisters lay all the fault to me, for they don’t know +what it is to marry a man like your brother; how should they? Sister Pullet has +her own way from morning till night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mrs Moss, “I don’t think I should like my +husband if he hadn’t got any wits of his own, and I had to find +head-piece for him. It’s a deal easier to do what pleases one’s +husband, than to be puzzling what else one should do.” +</p> + +<p> +“If people come to talk o’ doing what pleases their +husbands,” said Mrs Tulliver, with a faint imitation of her sister +Glegg, “I’m sure your brother might have waited a long while before +he’d have found a wife that ’ud have let him have his say in +everything, as I do. It’s nothing but law and erigation now, from when we +first get up in the morning till we go to bed at night; and I never contradict +him; I only say, ‘Well, Mr Tulliver, do as you like; but whativer you +do, don’t go to law.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence over her husband. No +woman is; she can always incline him to do either what she wishes, or the +reverse; and on the composite impulses that were threatening to hurry Mr +Tulliver into “law,” Mrs Tulliver’s monotonous pleading had +doubtless its share of force; it might even be comparable to that proverbial +feather which has the credit or discredit of breaking the camel’s back; +though, on a strictly impartial view, the blame ought rather to lie with the +previous weight of feathers which had already placed the back in such imminent +peril that an otherwise innocent feather could not settle on it without +mischief. Not that Mrs Tulliver’s feeble beseeching could have had this +feather’s weight in virtue of her single personality; but whenever she +departed from entire assent to her husband, he saw in her the representative of +the Dodson family; and it was a guiding principle with Mr Tulliver to let the +Dodsons know that they were not to domineer over <i>him</i>, or—more +specifically—that a male Tulliver was far more than equal to four female +Dodsons, even though one of them was Mrs Glegg. +</p> + +<p> +But not even a direct argument from that typical Dodson female herself against +his going to law could have heightened his disposition toward it so much as the +mere thought of Wakem, continually freshened by the sight of the too able +attorney on market-days. Wakem, to his certain knowledge, was (metaphorically +speaking) at the bottom of Pivart’s irrigation; Wakem had tried to make +Dix stand out, and go to law about the dam; it was unquestionably Wakem who had +caused Mr Tulliver to lose the suit about the right of road and the bridge +that made a thoroughfare of his land for every vagabond who preferred an +opportunity of damaging private property to walking like an honest man along +the highroad; all lawyers were more or less rascals, but Wakem’s +rascality was of that peculiarly aggravated kind which placed itself in +opposition to that form of right embodied in Mr Tulliver’s interests and +opinions. And as an extra touch of bitterness, the injured miller had recently, +in borrowing the five hundred pounds, been obliged to carry a little business +to Wakem’s office on his own account. A hook-nosed glib fellow! as cool +as a cucumber,—always looking so sure of his game! And it was vexatious +that Lawyer Gore was not more like him, but was a bald, round-featured man, +with bland manners and fat hands; a game-cock that you would be rash to bet +upon against Wakem. Gore was a sly fellow. His weakness did not lie on the side +of scrupulosity; but the largest amount of winking, however significant, is not +equivalent to seeing through a stone wall; and confident as Mr Tulliver was in +his principle that water was water, and in the direct inference that Pivart had +not a leg to stand on in this affair of irrigation, he had an uncomfortable +suspicion that Wakem had more law to show against this (rationally) +irrefragable inference than Gore could show for it. But then, if they went to +law, there was a chance for Mr Tulliver to employ Counsellor Wylde on his +side, instead of having that admirable bully against him; and the prospect of +seeing a witness of Wakem’s made to perspire and become confounded, as +Mr Tulliver’s witness had once been, was alluring to the love of +retributive justice. +</p> + +<p> +Much rumination had Mr Tulliver on these puzzling subjects during his rides on +the gray horse; much turning of the head from side to side, as the scales +dipped alternately; but the probable result was still out of sight, only to be +reached through much hot argument and iteration in domestic and social life. +That initial stage of the dispute which consisted in the narration of the case +and the enforcement of Mr Tulliver’s views concerning it throughout the +entire circle of his connections would necessarily take time; and at the +beginning of February, when Tom was going to school again, there were scarcely +any new items to be detected in his father’s statement of the case +against Pivart, or any more specific indication of the measures he was bent on +taking against that rash contravener of the principle that water was water. +Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress, and +Mr Tulliver’s heat was certainly more and more palpable. If there had +been no new evidence on any other point, there had been new evidence that +Pivart was as “thick as mud” with Wakem. +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” said Tom, one evening near the end of the holidays, +“uncle Glegg says Lawyer Wakem <i>is</i> going to send his son to Mr +Stelling. It isn’t true, what they said about his going to be sent to +France. You won’t like me to go to school with Wakem’s son, shall +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no matter for that, my boy,” said Mr Tulliver; +“don’t you learn anything bad of him, that’s all. The +lad’s a poor deformed creatur, and takes after his mother in the face; I +think there isn’t much of his father in him. It’s a sign Wakem +thinks high o’ Mr Sterling, as he sends his son to him, and Wakem knows +meal from bran.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver in his heart was rather proud of the fact that his son was to have +the same advantages as Wakem’s; but Tom was not at all easy on the point. +It would have been much clearer if the lawyer’s son had not been +deformed, for then Tom would have had the prospect of pitching into him with +all that freedom which is derived from a high moral sanction. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap16"></a>Chapter III.<br/> +The New Schoolfellow</h3> + +<p> +It was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went back to school; a day quite in +keeping with this severe phase of his destiny. If he had not carried in his +pocket a parcel of sugar-candy and a small Dutch doll for little Laura, there +would have been no ray of expected pleasure to enliven the general gloom. But +he liked to think how Laura would put out her lips and her tiny hands for the +bits of sugarcandy; and to give the greater keenness to these pleasures of +imagination, he took out the parcel, made a small hole in the paper, and bit +off a crystal or two, which had so solacing an effect under the confined +prospect and damp odors of the gig-umbrella, that he repeated the process more +than once on his way. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Tulliver, we’re glad to see you again,” said Mr +Stelling, heartily. “Take off your wrappings and come into the study till +dinner. You’ll find a bright fire there, and a new companion.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom felt in an uncomfortable flutter as he took off his woollen comforter and +other wrappings. He had seen Philip Wakem at St Ogg’s, but had always +turned his eyes away from him as quickly as possible. He would have disliked +having a deformed boy for his companion, even if Philip had not been the son of +a bad man. And Tom did not see how a bad man’s son could be very good. +His own father was a good man, and he would readily have fought any one who +said the contrary. He was in a state of mingled embarrassment and defiance as +he followed Mr Stelling to the study. +</p> + +<p> +“Here is a new companion for you to shake hands with, Tulliver,” +said that gentleman on entering the study,—“Master Philip Wakem. I +shall leave you to make acquaintance by yourselves. You already know something +of each other, I imagine; for you are neighbours at home.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom looked confused and awkward, while Philip rose and glanced at him timidly. +Tom did not like to go up and put out his hand, and he was not prepared to say, +“How do you do?” on so short a notice. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Stelling wisely turned away, and closed the door behind him; boys’ +shyness only wears off in the absence of their elders. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was at once too proud and too timid to walk toward Tom. He thought, or +rather felt, that Tom had an aversion to looking at him; every one, almost, +disliked looking at him; and his deformity was more conspicuous when he walked. +So they remained without shaking hands or even speaking, while Tom went to the +fire and warmed himself, every now and then casting furtive glances at Philip, +who seemed to be drawing absently first one object and then another on a piece +of paper he had before him. He had seated himself again, and as he drew, was +thinking what he could say to Tom, and trying to overcome his own repugnance to +making the first advances. +</p> + +<p> +Tom began to look oftener and longer at Philip’s face, for he could see +it without noticing the hump, and it was really not a disagreeable +face,—very old-looking, Tom thought. He wondered how much older Philip +was than himself. An anatomist—even a mere physiognomist—would have +seen that the deformity of Philip’s spine was not a congenital hump, but +the result of an accident in infancy; but you do not expect from Tom any +acquaintance with such distinctions; to him, Philip was simply a humpback. He +had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem’s son had some relation to +the lawyer’s rascality, of which he had so often heard his father talk +with hot emphasis; and he felt, too, a half-admitted fear of him as probably a +spiteful fellow, who, not being able to fight you, had cunning ways of doing +you a mischief by the sly. There was a humpbacked tailor in the neighbourhood +of Mr Jacobs’s academy, who was considered a very unamiable character, +and was much hooted after by public-spirited boys solely on the ground of his +unsatisfactory moral qualities; so that Tom was not without a basis of fact to +go upon. Still, no face could be more unlike that ugly tailor’s than this +melancholy boy’s face,—the brown hair round it waved and curled at +the ends like a girl’s: Tom thought that truly pitiable. This Wakem was a +pale, puny fellow, and it was quite clear he would not be able to play at +anything worth speaking of; but he handled his pencil in an enviable manner, +and was apparently making one thing after another without any trouble. What was +he drawing? Tom was quite warm now, and wanted something new to be going +forward. It was certainly more agreeable to have an ill-natured humpback as a +companion than to stand looking out of the study window at the rain, and +kicking his foot against the washboard in solitude; something would happen +every day,—“a quarrel or something”; and Tom thought he +should rather like to show Philip that he had better not try his spiteful +tricks on <i>him</i>. He suddenly walked across the hearth and looked over +Philip’s paper. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that’s a donkey with panniers, and a spaniel, and partridges +in the corn!” he exclaimed, his tongue being completely loosed by +surprise and admiration. “Oh my buttons! I wish I could draw like that. +I’m to learn drawing this half; I wonder if I shall learn to make dogs +and donkeys!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you can do them without learning,” said Philip; “I never +learned drawing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never learned?” said Tom, in amazement. “Why, when I make +dogs and horses, and those things, the heads and the legs won’t come +right; though I can see how they ought to be very well. I can make houses, and +all sorts of chimneys,—chimneys going all down the wall,—and +windows in the roof, and all that. But I dare say I could do dogs and horses if +I was to try more,” he added, reflecting that Philip might falsely +suppose that he was going to “knock under,” if he were too frank +about the imperfection of his accomplishments. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said Philip, “it’s very easy. You’ve +only to look well at things, and draw them over and over again. What you do +wrong once, you can alter the next time.” +</p> + +<p> +“But haven’t you been taught <i>any</i>thing?” said Tom, +beginning to have a puzzled suspicion that Philip’s crooked back might be +the source of remarkable faculties. “I thought you’d been to school +a long while.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Philip, smiling; “I’ve been taught Latin +and Greek and mathematics, and writing and such things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but I say, you don’t like Latin, though, do you?” said +Tom, lowering his voice confidentially. +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty well; I don’t care much about it,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but perhaps you haven’t got into the <i>Propria quæ +maribus</i>,” said Tom, nodding his head sideways, as much as to say, +“that was the test; it was easy talking till you came to +<i>that</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt some bitter complacency in the promising stupidity of this +well-made, active-looking boy; but made polite by his own extreme +sensitiveness, as well as by his desire to conciliate, he checked his +inclination to laugh, and said quietly,— +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve done with the grammar; I don’t learn that any +more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you won’t have the same lessons as I shall?” said Tom, +with a sense of disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +“No; but I dare say I can help you. I shall be very glad to help you if I +can.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom did not say “Thank you,” for he was quite absorbed in the +thought that Wakem’s son did not seem so spiteful a fellow as might have +been expected. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” he said presently, “do you love your father?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Philip, colouring deeply; “don’t you love +yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—I only wanted to know,” said Tom, rather ashamed of +himself, now he saw Philip colouring and looking uncomfortable. He found much +difficulty in adjusting his attitude of mind toward the son of Lawyer Wakem, +and it had occurred to him that if Philip disliked his father, that fact might +go some way toward clearing up his perplexity. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall you learn drawing now?” he said, by way of changing the +subject. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Philip. “My father wishes me to give all my time +to other things now.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! Latin and Euclid, and those things?” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Philip, who had left off using his pencil, and was +resting his head on one hand, while Tom was learning forward on both elbows, +and looking with increasing admiration at the dog and the donkey. +</p> + +<p> +“And you don’t mind that?” said Tom, with strong curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“No; I like to know what everybody else knows. I can study what I like +by-and-by.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t think why anybody should learn Latin,” said Tom. +“It’s no good.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s part of the education of a gentleman,” said Philip. +“All gentlemen learn the same things.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! do you think Sir John Crake, the master of the harriers, knows +Latin?” said Tom, who had often thought he should like to resemble Sir +John Crake. +</p> + +<p> +“He learned it when he was a boy, of course,” said Philip. +“But I dare say he’s forgotten it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, I can do that, then,” said Tom, not with any +epigrammatic intention, but with serious satisfaction at the idea that, as far +as Latin was concerned, there was no hindrance to his resembling Sir John +Crake. “Only you’re obliged to remember it while you’re at +school, else you’ve got to learn ever so many lines of +‘Speaker.’ Mr Stelling’s very particular—did you know? +He’ll have you up ten times if you say ‘nam’ for +‘jam,’—he won’t let you go a letter wrong, <i>I</i> can +tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Philip, unable to choke a laugh; +“I can remember things easily. And there are some lessons I’m very +fond of. I’m very fond of Greek history, and everything about the Greeks. +I should like to have been a Greek and fought the Persians, and then have come +home and have written tragedies, or else have been listened to by everybody for +my wisdom, like Socrates, and have died a grand death.” (Philip, you +perceive, was not without a wish to impress the well-made barbarian with a +sense of his mental superiority.) +</p> + +<p> +“Why, were the Greeks great fighters?” said Tom, who saw a vista in +this direction. “Is there anything like David and Goliath and Samson in +the Greek history? Those are the only bits I like in the history of the +Jews.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there are very fine stories of that sort about the +Greeks,—about the heroes of early times who killed the wild beasts, as +Samson did. And in the Odyssey—that’s a beautiful +poem—there’s a more wonderful giant than Goliath,—Polypheme, +who had only one eye in the middle of his forehead; and Ulysses, a little +fellow, but very wise and cunning, got a red-hot pine-tree and stuck it into +this one eye, and made him roar like a thousand bulls.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what fun!” said Tom, jumping away from the table, and stamping +first with one leg and then the other. “I say, can you tell me all about +those stories? Because I sha’n’t learn Greek, you know. Shall +I?” he added, pausing in his stamping with a sudden alarm, lest the +contrary might be possible. “Does every gentleman learn Greek? Will Mr +Stelling make me begin with it, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I should think not, very likely not,” said Philip. “But +you may read those stories without knowing Greek. I’ve got them in +English.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but I don’t like reading; I’d sooner have you tell them +me. But only the fighting ones, you know. My sister Maggie is always wanting to +tell me stories, but they’re stupid things. Girls’ stories always +are. Can you tell a good many fighting stories?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” said Philip; “lots of them, besides the Greek +stories. I can tell you about Richard Cœur-de-Lion and Saladin, and about +William Wallace and Robert Bruce and James Douglas,—I know no end.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re older than I am, aren’t you?” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, how old are <i>you?</i> I’m fifteen.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m only going in fourteen,” said Tom. “But I thrashed +all the fellows at Jacob’s—that’s where I was before I came +here. And I beat ’em all at bandy and climbing. And I wish Mr Stelling +would let us go fishing. <i>I</i> could show you how to fish. You <i>could</i> +fish, couldn’t you? It’s only standing, and sitting still, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom, in his turn, wished to make the balance dip in his favour. This hunchback +must not suppose that his acquaintance with fighting stories put him on a par +with an actual fighting hero, like Tom Tulliver. Philip winced under this +allusion to his unfitness for active sports, and he answered almost +peevishly,— +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t bear fishing. I think people look like fools sitting +watching a line hour after hour, or else throwing and throwing, and catching +nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but you wouldn’t say they looked like fools when they landed a +big pike, I can tell you,” said Tom, who had never caught anything that +was “big” in his life, but whose imagination was on the stretch +with indignant zeal for the honour of sport. Wakem’s son, it was plain, +had his disagreeable points, and must be kept in due check. Happily for the +harmony of this first interview, they were now called to dinner, and Philip was +not allowed to develop farther his unsound views on the subject of fishing. But +Tom said to himself, that was just what he should have expected from a +hunchback. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap17"></a>Chapter IV.<br/> +“The Young Idea”</h3> + +<p> +The alterations of feeling in that first dialogue between Tom and Philip +continued to mark their intercourse even after many weeks of schoolboy +intimacy. Tom never quite lost the feeling that Philip, being the son of a +“rascal,” was his natural enemy; never thoroughly overcame his +repulsion to Philip’s deformity. He was a boy who adhered tenaciously to +impressions once received; as with all minds in which mere perception +predominates over thought and emotion, the external remained to him rigidly +what it was in the first instance. But then it was impossible not to like +Philip’s company when he was in a good humour; he could help one so well +in one’s Latin exercises, which Tom regarded as a kind of puzzle that +could only be found out by a lucky chance; and he could tell such wonderful +fighting stories about Hal of the Wynd, for example, and other heroes who were +especial favourites with Tom, because they laid about them with heavy strokes. +He had small opinion of Saladin, whose cimeter could cut a cushion in two in an +instant; who wanted to cut cushions? That was a stupid story, and he +didn’t care to hear it again. But when Robert Bruce, on the black pony, +rose in his stirrups, and lifting his good battle-axe, cracked at once the +helmet and the skull of the too hasty knight at Bannockburn, then Tom felt all +the exaltation of sympathy, and if he had had a cocoanut at hand, he would have +cracked it at once with the poker. Philip in his happier moods indulged Tom to +the top of his bent, heightening the crash and bang and fury of every fight +with all the artillery of epithets and similes at his command. But he was not +always in a good humour or happy mood. The slight spurt of peevish +susceptibility which had escaped him in their first interview was a symptom of +a perpetually recurring mental ailment, half of it nervous irritability, half +of it the heart-bitterness produced by the sense of his deformity. In these +fits of susceptibility every glance seemed to him to be charged either with +offensive pity or with ill-repressed disgust; at the very least it was an +indifferent glance, and Philip felt indifference as a child of the south feels +the chill air of a northern spring. Poor Tom’s blundering patronage when +they were out of doors together would sometimes make him turn upon the +well-meaning lad quite savagely; and his eyes, usually sad and quiet, would +flash with anything but playful lightning. No wonder Tom retained his +suspicions of the humpback. +</p> + +<p> +But Philip’s self-taught skill in drawing was another link between them; +for Tom found, to his disgust, that his new drawing-master gave him no dogs and +donkeys to draw, but brooks and rustic bridges and ruins, all with a general +softness of black-lead surface, indicating that nature, if anything, was rather +satiny; and as Tom’s feeling for the picturesque in landscape was at +present quite latent, it is not surprising that Mr Goodrich’s +productions seemed to him an uninteresting form of art. Mr Tulliver, having a +vague intention that Tom should be put to some business which included the +drawing out of plans and maps, had complained to Mr Riley, when he saw him at +Mudport, that Tom seemed to be learning nothing of that sort; whereupon that +obliging adviser had suggested that Tom should have drawing-lessons. Mr +Tulliver must not mind paying extra for drawing; let Tom be made a good +draughtsman, and he would be able to turn his pencil to any purpose. So it was +ordered that Tom should have drawing-lessons; and whom should Mr Stelling have +selected as a master if not Mr Goodrich, who was considered quite at the head +of his profession within a circuit of twelve miles round King’s Lorton? +By which means Tom learned to make an extremely fine point to his pencil, and +to represent landscape with a “broad generality,” which, doubtless +from a narrow tendency in his mind to details, he thought extremely dull. +</p> + +<p> +All this, you remember, happened in those dark ages when there were no schools +of design; before schoolmasters were invariably men of scrupulous integrity, +and before the clergy were all men of enlarged minds and varied culture. In +those less favoured days, it is no fable that there were other clergymen +besides Mr Stelling who had narrow intellects and large wants, and whose +income, by a logical confusion to which Fortune, being a female as well as +blindfold, is peculiarly liable, was proportioned not to their wants but to +their intellect, with which income has clearly no inherent relation. The +problem these gentlemen had to solve was to readjust the proportion between +their wants and their income; and since wants are not easily starved to death, +the simpler method appeared to be to raise their income. There was but one way +of doing this; any of those low callings in which men are obliged to do good +work at a low price were forbidden to clergymen; was it their fault if their +only resource was to turn out very poor work at a high price? Besides, how +should Mr Stelling be expected to know that education was a delicate and +difficult business, any more than an animal endowed with a power of boring a +hole through a rock should be expected to have wide views of excavation? Mr +Stelling’s faculties had been early trained to boring in a straight line, +and he had no faculty to spare. But among Tom’s contemporaries, whose +fathers cast their sons on clerical instruction to find them ignorant after +many days, there were many far less lucky than Tom Tulliver. Education was +almost entirely a matter of luck—usually of ill-luck—in those +distant days. The state of mind in which you take a billiard-cue or a dice-box +in your hand is one of sober certainty compared with that of old-fashioned +fathers, like Mr Tulliver, when they selected a school or a tutor for their +sons. Excellent men, who had been forced all their lives to spell on an +impromptu-phonetic system, and having carried on a successful business in spite +of this disadvantage, had acquired money enough to give their sons a better +start in life than they had had themselves, must necessarily take their chance +as to the conscience and the competence of the schoolmaster whose circular fell +in their way, and appeared to promise so much more than they would ever have +thought of asking for, including the return of linen, fork, and spoon. It was +happy for them if some ambitious draper of their acquaintance had not brought +up his son to the Church, and if that young gentleman, at the age of +four-and-twenty, had not closed his college dissipations by an imprudent +marriage; otherwise, these innocent fathers, desirous of doing the best for +their offspring, could only escape the draper’s son by happening to be on +the foundation of a grammar-school as yet unvisited by commissioners, where two +or three boys could have, all to themselves, the advantages of a large and +lofty building, together with a head-master, toothless, dim-eyed and deaf, +whose erudite indistinctness and inattention were engrossed by them at the rate +of three hundred pounds a-head,—a ripe scholar, doubtless, when first +appointed; but all ripeness beneath the sun has a further stage less esteemed +in the market. +</p> + +<p> +Tom Tulliver, then, compared with many other British youths of his time who +have since had to scramble through life with some fragments of more or less +relevant knowledge, and a great deal of strictly relevant ignorance, was not so +very unlucky. Mr Stelling was a broad-chested, healthy man, with the bearing +of a gentleman, a conviction that a growing boy required a sufficiency of beef, +and a certain hearty kindness in him that made him like to see Tom looking well +and enjoying his dinner; not a man of refined conscience, or with any deep +sense of the infinite issues belonging to everyday duties, not quite competent +to his high offices; but incompetent gentlemen must live, and without private +fortune it is difficult to see how they could all live genteelly if they had +nothing to do with education or government. Besides, it was the fault of +Tom’s mental constitution that his faculties could not be nourished on +the sort of knowledge Mr Stelling had to communicate. A boy born with a +deficient power of apprehending signs and abstractions must suffer the penalty +of his congenital deficiency, just as if he had been born with one leg shorter +than the other. A method of education sanctioned by the long practice of our +venerable ancestors was not to give way before the exceptional dulness of a boy +who was merely living at the time then present. And Mr Stelling was convinced +that a boy so stupid at signs and abstractions must be stupid at everything +else, even if that reverend gentleman could have taught him everything else. It +was the practice of our venerable ancestors to apply that ingenious instrument +the thumb-screw, and to tighten and tighten it in order to elicit non-existent +facts; they had a fixed opinion to begin with, that the facts were existent, +and what had they to do but to tighten the thumb-screw? In like manner, Mr +Stelling had a fixed opinion that all boys with any capacity could learn what +it was the only regular thing to teach; if they were slow, the thumb-screw must +be tightened,—the exercises must be insisted on with increased severity, +and a page of Virgil be awarded as a penalty, to encourage and stimulate a too +languid inclination to Latin verse. +</p> + +<p> +The thumb-screw was a little relaxed, however, during this second half-year. +Philip was so advanced in his studies, and so apt, that Mr Stelling could +obtain credit by his facility, which required little help, much more easily +than by the troublesome process of overcoming Tom’s dulness. Gentlemen +with broad chests and ambitious intentions do sometimes disappoint their +friends by failing to carry the world before them. Perhaps it is that high +achievements demand some other unusual qualification besides an unusual desire +for high prizes; perhaps it is that these stalwart gentlemen are rather +indolent, their <i>divinæ particulum auræ</i> being obstructed from soaring by +a too hearty appetite. Some reason or other there was why Mr Stelling deferred +the execution of many spirited projects,—why he did not begin the editing +of his Greek play, or any other work of scholarship, in his leisure hours, but, +after turning the key of his private study with much resolution, sat down to +one of Theodore Hook’s novels. Tom was gradually allowed to shuffle +through his lessons with less rigor, and having Philip to help him, he was able +to make some show of having applied his mind in a confused and blundering way, +without being cross-examined into a betrayal that his mind had been entirely +neutral in the matter. He thought school much more bearable under this +modification of circumstances; and he went on contentedly enough, picking up a +promiscuous education chiefly from things that were not intended as education +at all. What was understood to be his education was simply the practice of +reading, writing, and spelling, carried on by an elaborate appliance of +unintelligible ideas, and by much failure in the effort to learn by rote. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, there was a visible improvement in Tom under this training; +perhaps because he was not a boy in the abstract, existing solely to illustrate +the evils of a mistaken education, but a boy made of flesh and blood, with +dispositions not entirely at the mercy of circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +There was a great improvement in his bearing, for example; and some credit on +this score was due to Mr Poulter, the village schoolmaster, who, being an old +Peninsular soldier, was employed to drill Tom,—a source of high mutual +pleasure. Mr Poulter, who was understood by the company at the Black Swan to +have once struck terror into the hearts of the French, was no longer personally +formidable. He had rather a shrunken appearance, and was tremulous in the +mornings, not from age, but from the extreme perversity of the King’s +Lorton boys, which nothing but gin could enable him to sustain with any +firmness. Still, he carried himself with martial erectness, had his clothes +scrupulously brushed, and his trousers tightly strapped; and on the Wednesday +and Saturday afternoons, when he came to Tom, he was always inspired with gin +and old memories, which gave him an exceptionally spirited air, as of a +superannuated charger who hears the drum. The drilling-lessons were always +protracted by episodes of warlike narrative, much more interesting to Tom than +Philip’s stories out of the Iliad; for there were no cannon in the Iliad, +and besides, Tom had felt some disgust on learning that Hector and Achilles +might possibly never have existed. But the Duke of Wellington was really alive, +and Bony had not been long dead; therefore Mr Poulter’s reminiscences of +the Peninsular War were removed from all suspicion of being mythical. Mr +Poulter, it appeared, had been a conspicuous figure at Talavera, and had +contributed not a little to the peculiar terror with which his regiment of +infantry was regarded by the enemy. On afternoons when his memory was more +stimulated than usual, he remembered that the Duke of Wellington had (in strict +privacy, lest jealousies should be awakened) expressed his esteem for that fine +fellow Poulter. The very surgeon who attended him in the hospital after he had +received his gunshot-wound had been profoundly impressed with the superiority +of Mr Poulter’s flesh,—no other flesh would have healed in +anything like the same time. On less personal matters connected with the +important warfare in which he had been engaged, Mr Poulter was more reticent, +only taking care not to give the weight of his authority to any loose notions +concerning military history. Any one who pretended to a knowledge of what +occurred at the siege of Badajos was especially an object of silent pity to Mr +Poulter; he wished that prating person had been run down, and had the breath +trampled out of him at the first go-off, as he himself had,—he might talk +about the siege of Badajos then! Tom did not escape irritating his +drilling-master occasionally, by his curiosity concerning other military +matters than Mr Poulter’s personal experience. +</p> + +<p> +“And General Wolfe, Mr Poulter,—wasn’t he a wonderful +fighter?” said Tom, who held the notion that all the martial heroes +commemorated on the public-house signs were engaged in the war with Bony. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all!” said Mr Poulter, contemptuously. “Nothing +o’ the sort! Heads up!” he added, in a tone of stern command, which +delighted Tom, and made him feel as if he were a regiment in his own person. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” Mr Poulter would continue, on coming to a pause in his +discipline; “they’d better not talk to me about General Wolfe. He +did nothing but die of his wound; that’s a poor haction, I consider. Any +other man ’ud have died o’ the wounds I’ve had. One of my +sword-cuts ’ud ha’ killed a fellow like General Wolfe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Poulter,” Tom would say, at any allusion to the sword, +“I wish you’d bring your sword and do the sword-exercise!” +</p> + +<p> +For a long while Mr Poulter only shook his head in a significant manner at +this request, and smiled patronizingly, as Jupiter may have done when Semele +urged her too ambitious request. But one afternoon, when a sudden shower of +heavy rain had detained Mr Poulter twenty minutes longer than usual at the +Black Swan, the sword was brought,—just for Tom to look at. +</p> + +<p> +“And this is the real sword you fought with in all the battles, Mr +Poulter?” said Tom, handling the hilt. “Has it ever cut a +Frenchman’s head off?” +</p> + +<p> +“Head off? Ah! and would, if he’d had three heads.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you had a gun and bayonet besides?” said Tom. “<i>I</i> +should like the gun and bayonet best, because you could shoot ’em first +and spear ’em after. Bang! Ps-s-s-s!” Tom gave the requisite +pantomime to indicate the double enjoyment of pulling the trigger and thrusting +the spear. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but the sword’s the thing when you come to close +fighting,” said Mr Poulter, involuntarily falling in with Tom’s +enthusiasm, and drawing the sword so suddenly that Tom leaped back with much +agility. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but, Mr Poulter, if you’re going to do the exercise,” +said Tom, a little conscious that he had not stood his ground as became an +Englishman, “let me go and call Philip. He’ll like to see you, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! the humpbacked lad?” said Mr Poulter, contemptuously; +“what’s the use of <i>his</i> looking on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but he knows a great deal about fighting,” said Tom, +“and how they used to fight with bows and arrows, and battle-axes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let him come, then. I’ll show him something different from his +bows and arrows,” said Mr Poulter, coughing and drawing himself up, +while he gave a little preliminary play to his wrist. +</p> + +<p> +Tom ran in to Philip, who was enjoying his afternoon’s holiday at the +piano, in the drawing-room, picking out tunes for himself and singing them. He +was supremely happy, perched like an amorphous bundle on the high stool, with +his head thrown back, his eyes fixed on the opposite cornice, and his lips wide +open, sending forth, with all his might, impromptu syllables to a tune of +Arne’s which had hit his fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Philip,” said Tom, bursting in; “don’t stay +roaring ‘la la’ there; come and see old Poulter do his +sword-exercise in the carriage-house!” +</p> + +<p> +The jar of this interruption, the discord of Tom’s tones coming across +the notes to which Philip was vibrating in soul and body, would have been +enough to unhinge his temper, even if there had been no question of Poulter the +drilling-master; and Tom, in the hurry of seizing something to say to prevent +Mr Poulter from thinking he was afraid of the sword when he sprang away from +it, had alighted on this proposition to fetch Philip, though he knew well +enough that Philip hated to hear him mention his drilling-lessons. Tom would +never have done so inconsiderate a thing except under the severe stress of his +personal pride. +</p> + +<p> +Philip shuddered visibly as he paused from his music. Then turning red, he +said, with violent passion,— +</p> + +<p> +“Get away, you lumbering idiot! Don’t come bellowing at me; +you’re not fit to speak to anything but a cart-horse!” +</p> + +<p> +It was not the first time Philip had been made angry by him, but Tom had never +before been assailed with verbal missiles that he understood so well. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m fit to speak to something better than you, you poor-spirited +imp!” said Tom, lighting up immediately at Philip’s fire. +“You know I won’t hit you, because you’re no better than a +girl. But I’m an honest man’s son, and <i>your</i> father’s a +rogue; everybody says so!” +</p> + +<p> +Tom flung out of the room, and slammed the door after him, made strangely +heedless by his anger; for to slam doors within the hearing of Mrs Stelling, +who was probably not far off, was an offence only to be wiped out by twenty +lines of Virgil. In fact, that lady did presently descend from her room, in +double wonder at the noise and the subsequent cessation of Philip’s +music. She found him sitting in a heap on the hassock, and crying bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, Wakem? what was that noise about? Who slammed +the door?” +</p> + +<p> +Philip looked up, and hastily dried his eyes. “It was Tulliver who came +in—to ask me to go out with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what are you in trouble about?” said Mrs Stelling. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was not her favourite of the two pupils; he was less obliging than Tom, +who was made useful in many ways. Still, his father paid more than Mr Tulliver +did, and she meant him to feel that she behaved exceedingly well to him. +Philip, however, met her advances toward a good understanding very much as a +caressed mollusk meets an invitation to show himself out of his shell. Mrs +Stelling was not a loving, tender-hearted woman; she was a woman whose skirt +sat well, who adjusted her waist and patted her curls with a preoccupied air +when she inquired after your welfare. These things, doubtless, represent a +great social power, but it is not the power of love; and no other power could +win Philip from his personal reserve. +</p> + +<p> +He said, in answer to her question, “My toothache came on, and made me +hysterical again.” +</p> + +<p> +This had been the fact once, and Philip was glad of the recollection; it was +like an inspiration to enable him to excuse his crying. He had to accept +eau-de-Cologne and to refuse creosote in consequence; but that was easy. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Tom, who had for the first time sent a poisoned arrow into +Philip’s heart, had returned to the carriage-house, where he found Mr +Poulter, with a fixed and earnest eye, wasting the perfections of his +sword-exercise on probably observant but inappreciative rats. But Mr Poulter +was a host in himself; that is to say, he admired himself more than a whole +army of spectators could have admired him. He took no notice of Tom’s +return, being too entirely absorbed in the cut and thrust,—the solemn +one, two, three, four; and Tom, not without a slight feeling of alarm at Mr +Poulter’s fixed eye and hungry-looking sword, which seemed impatient for +something else to cut besides the air, admired the performance from as great a +distance as possible. It was not until Mr Poulter paused and wiped the +perspiration from his forehead, that Tom felt the full charm of the +sword-exercise, and wished it to be repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Poulter,” said Tom, when the sword was being finally sheathed, +“I wish you’d lend me your sword a little while to keep.” +</p> + +<p> +“No no, young gentleman,” said Mr Poulter, shaking his head +decidedly; “you might do yourself some mischief with it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m sure I wouldn’t; I’m sure I’d take care +and not hurt myself. I shouldn’t take it out of the sheath much, but I +could ground arms with it, and all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, it won’t do, I tell you; it won’t do,” said +Mr Poulter, preparing to depart. “What ’ud Mr Stelling say to +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I say, do, Mr Poulter! I’d give you my five-shilling piece if +you’d let me keep the sword a week. Look here!” said Tom, reaching +out the attractively large round of silver. The young dog calculated the effect +as well as if he had been a philosopher. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mr Poulter, with still deeper gravity, “you +must keep it out of sight, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I’ll keep it under the bed,” said Tom, eagerly, +“or else at the bottom of my large box.” +</p> + +<p> +“And let me see, now, whether you can draw it out of the sheath without +hurting yourself.” That process having been gone through more than once, +Mr Poulter felt that he had acted with scrupulous conscientiousness, and said, +“Well, now, Master Tulliver, if I take the crown-piece, it is to make +sure as you’ll do no mischief with the sword.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, indeed, Mr Poulter,” said Tom, delightedly handing him the +crown-piece, and grasping the sword, which, he thought, might have been lighter +with advantage. +</p> + +<p> +“But if Mr Stelling catches you carrying it in?” said Mr Poulter, +pocketing the crown-piece provisionally while he raised this new doubt. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he always keeps in his upstairs study on Saturday afternoon,” +said Tom, who disliked anything sneaking, but was not disinclined to a little +stratagem in a worthy cause. So he carried off the sword in triumph mixed with +dread—dread that he might encounter Mr or Mrs Stelling—to his +bedroom, where, after some consideration, he hid it in the closet behind some +hanging clothes. That night he fell asleep in the thought that he would +astonish Maggie with it when she came,—tie it round his waist with his +red comforter, and make her believe that the sword was his own, and that he was +going to be a soldier. There was nobody but Maggie who would be silly enough to +believe him, or whom he dared allow to know he had a sword; and Maggie was +really coming next week to see Tom, before she went to a boarding-school with +Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +If you think a lad of thirteen would not have been so childish, you must be an +exceptionally wise man, who, although you are devoted to a civil calling, +requiring you to look bland rather than formidable, yet never, since you had a +beard, threw yourself into a martial attitude, and frowned before the +looking-glass. It is doubtful whether our soldiers would be maintained if there +were not pacific people at home who like to fancy themselves soldiers. War, +like other dramatic spectacles, might possibly cease for want of a +“public.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap18"></a>Chapter V.<br/> +Maggie’s Second Visit</h3> + +<p> +This last breach between the two lads was not readily mended, and for some time +they spoke to each other no more than was necessary. Their natural antipathy of +temperament made resentment an easy passage to hatred, and in Philip the +transition seemed to have begun; there was no malignity in his disposition, but +there was a susceptibility that made him peculiarly liable to a strong sense of +repulsion. The ox—we may venture to assert it on the authority of a great +classic—is not given to use his teeth as an instrument of attack, and Tom +was an excellent bovine lad, who ran at questionable objects in a truly +ingenious bovine manner; but he had blundered on Philip’s tenderest +point, and had caused him as much acute pain as if he had studied the means +with the nicest precision and the most envenomed spite. Tom saw no reason why +they should not make up this quarrel as they had done many others, by behaving +as if nothing had happened; for though he had never before said to Philip that +his father was a rogue, this idea had so habitually made part of his feeling as +to the relation between himself and his dubious schoolfellow, whom he could +neither like nor dislike, that the mere utterance did not make such an epoch to +him as it did to Philip. And he had a right to say so when Philip hectored over +<i>him</i>, and called him names. But perceiving that his first advances toward +amity were not met, he relapsed into his least favourable disposition toward +Philip, and resolved never to appeal to him either about drawing or exercise +again. They were only so far civil to each other as was necessary to prevent +their state of feud from being observed by Mr Stelling, who would have +“put down” such nonsense with great vigor. +</p> + +<p> +When Maggie came, however, she could not help looking with growing interest at +the new schoolfellow, although he was the son of that wicked Lawyer Wakem, who +made her father so angry. She had arrived in the middle of school-hours, and +had sat by while Philip went through his lessons with Mr Stelling. Tom, some +weeks ago, had sent her word that Philip knew no end of stories,—not +stupid stories like hers; and she was convinced now from her own observation +that he must be very clever; she hoped he would think <i>her</i> rather clever +too, when she came to talk to him. Maggie, moreover, had rather a tenderness +for deformed things; she preferred the wry-necked lambs, because it seemed to +her that the lambs which were quite strong and well made wouldn’t mind so +much about being petted; and she was especially fond of petting objects that +would think it very delightful to be petted by her. She loved Tom very dearly, +but she often wished that he <i>cared</i> more about her loving him. +</p> + +<p> +“I think Philip Wakem seems a nice boy, Tom,” she said, when they +went out of the study together into the garden, to pass the interval before +dinner. “He couldn’t choose his father, you know; and I’ve +read of very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had bad +children. And if Philip is good, I think we ought to be the more sorry for him +because his father is not a good man. <i>You</i> like him, don’t +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s a queer fellow,” said Tom, curtly, “and +he’s as sulky as can be with me, because I told him his father was a +rogue. And I’d a right to tell him so, for it was true; and <i>he</i> +began it, with calling me names. But you stop here by yourself a bit, Maggie, +will you? I’ve got something I want to do upstairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t I go too?” said Maggie, who in this first day of +meeting again loved Tom’s shadow. +</p> + +<p> +“No, it’s something I’ll tell you about by-and-by, not +yet,” said Tom, skipping away. +</p> + +<p> +In the afternoon the boys were at their books in the study, preparing the +morrow’s lessons that they might have a holiday in the evening in +honour of Maggie’s arrival. Tom was hanging over his Latin grammar, +moving his lips inaudibly like a strict but impatient Catholic repeating his +tale of paternosters; and Philip, at the other end of the room, was busy with +two volumes, with a look of contented diligence that excited Maggie’s +curiosity; he did not look at all as if he were learning a lesson. She sat on a +low stool at nearly a right angle with the two boys, watching first one and +then the other; and Philip, looking off his book once toward the fire-place, +caught the pair of questioning dark eyes fixed upon him. He thought this sister +of Tulliver’s seemed a nice little thing, quite unlike her brother; he +wished <i>he</i> had a little sister. What was it, he wondered, that made +Maggie’s dark eyes remind him of the stories about princesses being +turned into animals? I think it was that her eyes were full of unsatisfied +intelligence, and unsatisfied beseeching affection. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Magsie,” said Tom at last, shutting his books and putting +them away with the energy and decision of a perfect master in the art of +leaving off, “I’ve done my lessons now. Come upstairs with +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” said Maggie, when they were outside the door, a +slight suspicion crossing her mind as she remembered Tom’s preliminary +visit upstairs. “It isn’t a trick you’re going to play me, +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, Maggie,” said Tom, in his most coaxing tone; +“It’s something you’ll like <i>ever so</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +He put his arm round her neck, and she put hers round his waist, and twined +together in this way, they went upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Magsie, you must not tell anybody, you know,” said Tom, +“else I shall get fifty lines.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it alive?” said Maggie, whose imagination had settled for the +moment on the idea that Tom kept a ferret clandestinely. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I sha’n’t tell you,” said he. “Now you go +into that corner and hide your face, while I reach it out,” he added, as +he locked the bedroom door behind them. “I’ll tell you when to turn +round. You mustn’t squeal out, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but if you frighten me, I shall,” said Maggie, beginning to +look rather serious. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t be frightened, you silly thing,” said Tom. +“Go and hide your face, and mind you don’t peep.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I sha’n’t peep,” said Maggie, disdainfully; +and she buried her face in the pillow like a person of strict honour. +</p> + +<p> +But Tom looked round warily as he walked to the closet; then he stepped into +the narrow space, and almost closed the door. Maggie kept her face buried +without the aid of principle, for in that dream-suggestive attitude she had +soon forgotten where she was, and her thoughts were busy with the poor deformed +boy, who was so clever, when Tom called out, “Now then, Magsie!” +</p> + +<p> +Nothing but long meditation and preconcerted arrangement of effects could have +enabled Tom to present so striking a figure as he did to Maggie when she looked +up. Dissatisfied with the pacific aspect of a face which had no more than the +faintest hint of flaxen eyebrow, together with a pair of amiable blue-gray eyes +and round pink cheeks that refused to look formidable, let him frown as he +would before the looking-glass (Philip had once told him of a man who had a +horseshoe frown, and Tom had tried with all his frowning might to make a +horseshoe on his forehead), he had had recourse to that unfailing source of the +terrible, burnt cork, and had made himself a pair of black eyebrows that met in +a satisfactory manner over his nose, and were matched by a less carefully +adjusted blackness about the chin. He had wound a red handkerchief round his +cloth cap to give it the air of a turban, and his red comforter across his +breast as a scarf,—an amount of red which, with the tremendous frown on +his brow, and the decision with which he grasped the sword, as he held it with +its point resting on the ground, would suffice to convey an approximate idea of +his fierce and bloodthirsty disposition. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie looked bewildered for a moment, and Tom enjoyed that moment keenly; but +in the next she laughed, clapped her hands together, and said, “Oh, Tom, +you’ve made yourself like Bluebeard at the show.” +</p> + +<p> +It was clear she had not been struck with the presence of the sword,—it +was not unsheathed. Her frivolous mind required a more direct appeal to its +sense of the terrible, and Tom prepared for his master-stroke. Frowning with a +double amount of intention, if not of corrugation, he (carefully) drew the +sword from its sheath, and pointed it at Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Tom, please don’t!” exclaimed Maggie, in a tone of +suppressed dread, shrinking away from him into the opposite corner. “I +<i>shall</i> scream—I’m sure I shall! Oh, don’t I wish +I’d never come upstairs!” +</p> + +<p> +The corners of Tom’s mouth showed an inclination to a smile of +complacency that was immediately checked as inconsistent with the severity of a +great warrior. Slowly he let down the scabbard on the floor, lest it should +make too much noise, and then said sternly,— +</p> + +<p> +“I’m the Duke of Wellington! March!” stamping forward with +the right leg a little bent, and the sword still pointing toward Maggie, who, +trembling, and with tear-filled eyes, got upon the bed, as the only means of +widening the space between them. +</p> + +<p> +Tom, happy in this spectator of his military performances, even though the +spectator was only Maggie, proceeded, with the utmost exertion of his force, to +such an exhibition of the cut and thrust as would necessarily be expected of +the Duke of Wellington. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom, I <i>will not</i> bear it, I <i>will</i> scream,” said +Maggie, at the first movement of the sword. “You’ll hurt yourself; +you’ll cut your head off!” +</p> + +<p> +“One—two,” said Tom, resolutely, though at “two” +his wrist trembled a little. “Three” came more slowly, and with it +the sword swung downward, and Maggie gave a loud shriek. The sword had fallen, +with its edge on Tom’s foot, and in a moment after he had fallen too. +Maggie leaped from the bed, still shrieking, and immediately there was a rush +of footsteps toward the room. Mr Stelling, from his upstairs study, was the +first to enter. He found both the children on the floor. Tom had fainted, and +Maggie was shaking him by the collar of his jacket, screaming, with wild eyes. +She thought he was dead, poor child! and yet she shook him, as if that would +bring him back to life. In another minute she was sobbing with joy because Tom +opened his eyes. She couldn’t sorrow yet that he had hurt his foot; it +seemed as if all happiness lay in his being alive. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap19"></a>Chapter VI.<br/> +A Love-Scene</h3> + +<p> +Poor Tom bore his severe pain heroically, and was resolute in not +“telling” of Mr Poulter more than was unavoidable; the +five-shilling piece remained a secret even to Maggie. But there was a terrible +dread weighing on his mind, so terrible that he dared not even ask the question +which might bring the fatal “yes”; he dared not ask the surgeon or +Mr Stelling, “Shall I be lame, Sir?” He mastered himself so as not +to cry out at the pain; but when his foot had been dressed, and he was left +alone with Maggie seated by his bedside, the children sobbed together, with +their heads laid on the same pillow. Tom was thinking of himself walking about +on crutches, like the wheelwright’s son; and Maggie, who did not guess +what was in his mind, sobbed for company. It had not occurred to the surgeon or +to Mr Stelling to anticipate this dread in Tom’s mind, and to reassure +him by hopeful words. But Philip watched the surgeon out of the house, and +waylaid Mr Stelling to ask the very question that Tom had not dared to ask for +himself. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, sir,—but does Mr Askern say Tulliver will be +lame?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no; oh, no,” said Mr Stelling, “not permanently; only +for a little while.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he tell Tulliver so, sir, do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; nothing was said to him on the subject.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then may I go and tell him, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, to be sure; now you mention it, I dare say he may be troubling +about that. Go to his bedroom, but be very quiet at present.” +</p> + +<p> +It had been Philip’s first thought when he heard of the +accident,—“Will Tulliver be lame? It will be very hard for him if +he is”; and Tom’s hitherto unforgiven offences were washed out by +that pity. Philip felt that they were no longer in a state of repulsion, but +were being drawn into a common current of suffering and sad privation. His +imagination did not dwell on the outward calamity and its future effect on +Tom’s life, but it made vividly present to him the probable state of +Tom’s feeling. Philip had only lived fourteen years, but those years had, +most of them, been steeped in the sense of a lot irremediably hard. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Askern says you’ll soon be all right again, Tulliver, did you +know?” he said rather timidly, as he stepped gently up to Tom’s +bed. “I’ve just been to ask Mr Stelling, and he says you’ll +walk as well as ever again by-and-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom looked up with that momentary stopping of the breath which comes with a +sudden joy; then he gave a long sigh, and turned his blue-gray eyes straight on +Philip’s face, as he had not done for a fortnight or more. As for Maggie, +this intimation of a possibility she had not thought of before affected her as +a new trouble; the bare idea of Tom’s being always lame overpowered the +assurance that such a misfortune was not likely to befall him, and she clung to +him and cried afresh. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be a little silly, Magsie,” said Tom, tenderly, +feeling very brave now. “I shall soon get well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by, Tulliver,” said Philip, putting out his small, delicate +hand, which Tom clasped immediately with his more substantial fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” said Tom, “ask Mr Stelling to let you come and sit +with me sometimes, till I get up again, Wakem; and tell me about Robert Bruce, +you know.” +</p> + +<p> +After that, Philip spent all his time out of school-hours with Tom and Maggie. +Tom liked to hear fighting stories as much as ever, but he insisted strongly on +the fact that those great fighters who did so many wonderful things and came +off unhurt, wore excellent armor from head to foot, which made fighting easy +work, he considered. He should not have hurt his foot if he had had an iron +shoe on. He listened with great interest to a new story of Philip’s about +a man who had a very bad wound in his foot, and cried out so dreadfully with +the pain that his friends could bear with him no longer, but put him ashore on +a desert island, with nothing but some wonderful poisoned arrows to kill +animals with for food. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t roar out a bit, you know,” Tom said, “and I +dare say my foot was as bad as his. It’s cowardly to roar.” +</p> + +<p> +But Maggie would have it that when anything hurt you very much, it was quite +permissible to cry out, and it was cruel of people not to bear it. She wanted +to know if Philoctetes had a sister, and why <i>she</i> didn’t go with +him on the desert island and take care of him. +</p> + +<p> +One day, soon after Philip had told this story, he and Maggie were in the study +alone together while Tom’s foot was being dressed. Philip was at his +books, and Maggie, after sauntering idly round the room, not caring to do +anything in particular, because she would soon go to Tom again, went and leaned +on the table near Philip to see what he was doing, for they were quite old +friends now, and perfectly at home with each other. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you reading about in Greek?” she said. “It’s +poetry, I can see that, because the lines are so short.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s about Philoctetes, the lame man I was telling you of +yesterday,” he answered, resting his head on his hand, and looking at her +as if he were not at all sorry to be interrupted. Maggie, in her absent way, +continued to lean forward, resting on her arms and moving her feet about, while +her dark eyes got more and more fixed and vacant, as if she had quite forgotten +Philip and his book. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” said Philip, after a minute or two, still leaning on his +elbow and looking at her, “if you had had a brother like me, do you think +you should have loved him as well as Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie started a little on being roused from her reverie, and said, +“What?” Philip repeated his question. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, better,” she answered immediately. “No, not better; +because I don’t think I <i>could</i> love you better than Tom. But I +should be so sorry,—<i>so sorry</i> for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip coloured; he had meant to imply, would she love him as well in spite of +his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly, he winced under her +pity. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake. Hitherto she had +instinctively behaved as if she were quite unconscious of Philip’s +deformity; her own keen sensitiveness and experience under family criticism +sufficed to teach her this as well as if she had been directed by the most +finished breeding. +</p> + +<p> +“But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing,” +she added quickly. “I wish you <i>were</i> my brother. I’m very +fond of you. And you would stay at home with me when Tom went out, and you +would teach me everything; wouldn’t you,—Greek and +everything?” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie,” said +Philip, “and then you’ll forget all about me, and not care for me +any more. And then I shall see you when you’re grown up, and you’ll +hardly take any notice of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, I sha’n’t forget you, I’m sure,” said +Maggie, shaking her head very seriously. “I never forget anything, and I +think about everybody when I’m away from them. I think about poor Yap; +he’s got a lump in his throat, and Luke says he’ll die. Only +don’t you tell Tom, because it will vex him so. You never saw Yap; +he’s a queer little dog,—nobody cares about him but Tom and +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you care as much about me as you do about Yap, Maggie?” said +Philip, smiling rather sadly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I should think so,” said Maggie, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very fond of <i>you</i>, Maggie; I shall never forget +<i>you</i>,” said Philip, “and when I’m very unhappy, I shall +always think of you, and wish I had a sister with dark eyes, just like +yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you like my eyes?” said Maggie, well pleased. She had never +heard any one but her father speak of her eyes as if they had merit. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Philip. “They’re not like +any other eyes. They seem trying to speak,—trying to speak kindly. I +don’t like other people to look at me much, but I like you to look at me, +Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I think you’re fonder of me than Tom is,” said Maggie, +rather sorrowfully. Then, wondering how she could convince Philip that she +could like him just as well, although he was crooked, she said: +</p> + +<p> +“Should you like me to kiss you, as I do Tom? I will, if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, very much; nobody kisses me.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie put her arm round his neck and kissed him quite earnestly. +</p> + +<p> +“There now,” she said, “I shall always remember you, and kiss +you when I see you again, if it’s ever so long. But I’ll go now, +because I think Mr Askern’s done with Tom’s foot.” +</p> + +<p> +When their father came the second time, Maggie said to him, “Oh, father, +Philip Wakem is so very good to Tom; he is such a clever boy, and I <i>do</i> +love him. And you love him too, Tom, don’t you? <i>Say</i> you love +him,” she added entreatingly. +</p> + +<p> +Tom coloured a little as he looked at his father, and said: “I +sha’n’t be friends with him when I leave school, father; but +we’ve made it up now, since my foot has been bad, and he’s taught +me to play at draughts, and I can beat him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well,” said Mr Tulliver, “if he’s good to you, +try and make him amends, and be good to <i>him</i>. He’s a poor crooked +creature, and takes after his dead mother. But don’t you be getting too +thick with him; he’s got his father’s blood in him too. Ay, ay, the +gray colt may chance to kick like his black sire.” +</p> + +<p> +The jarring natures of the two boys effected what Mr Tulliver’s +admonition alone might have failed to effect; in spite of Philip’s new +kindness, and Tom’s answering regard in this time of his trouble, they +never became close friends. When Maggie was gone, and when Tom by-and-by began +to walk about as usual, the friendly warmth that had been kindled by pity and +gratitude died out by degrees, and left them in their old relation to each +other. Philip was often peevish and contemptuous; and Tom’s more specific +and kindly impressions gradually melted into the old background of suspicion +and dislike toward him as a queer fellow, a humpback, and the son of a rogue. +If boys and men are to be welded together in the glow of transient feeling, +they must be made of metal that will mix, else they inevitably fall asunder +when the heat dies out. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap20"></a>Chapter VII.<br/> +The Golden Gates Are Passed</h3> + +<p> +So Tom went on even to the fifth half-year—till he was turned +sixteen—at King’s Lorton, while Maggie was growing with a rapidity +which her aunts considered highly reprehensible, at Miss Firniss’s +boarding-school in the ancient town of Laceham on the Floss, with cousin Lucy +for her companion. In her early letters to Tom she had always sent her love to +Philip, and asked many questions about him, which were answered by brief +sentences about Tom’s toothache, and a turf-house which he was helping to +build in the garden, with other items of that kind. She was pained to hear Tom +say in the holidays that Philip was as queer as ever again, and often cross. +They were no longer very good friends, she perceived; and when she reminded Tom +that he ought always to love Philip for being so good to him when his foot was +bad, he answered: “Well, it isn’t my fault; <i>I</i> don’t do +anything to him.” She hardly ever saw Philip during the remainder of +their school-life; in the Midsummer holidays he was always away at the seaside, +and at Christmas she could only meet him at long intervals in the street of St +Ogg’s. When they did meet, she remembered her promise to kiss him, but, +as a young lady who had been at a boarding-school, she knew now that such a +greeting was out of the question, and Philip would not expect it. The promise +was void, like so many other sweet, illusory promises of our childhood; void as +promises made in Eden before the seasons were divided, and when the starry +blossoms grew side by side with the ripening peach,—impossible to be +fulfilled when the golden gates had been passed. +</p> + +<p> +But when their father was actually engaged in the long-threatened lawsuit, and +Wakem, as the agent at once of Pivart and Old Harry, was acting against him, +even Maggie felt, with some sadness, that they were not likely ever to have any +intimacy with Philip again; the very name of Wakem made her father angry, and +she had once heard him say that if that crook-backed son lived to inherit his +father’s ill-gotten gains, there would be a curse upon him. “Have +as little to do with him at school as you can, my lad,” he said to Tom; +and the command was obeyed the more easily because Mr Sterling by this time +had two additional pupils; for though this gentleman’s rise in the world +was not of that meteor-like rapidity which the admirers of his extemporaneous +eloquence had expected for a preacher whose voice demanded so wide a sphere, he +had yet enough of growing prosperity to enable him to increase his expenditure +in continued disproportion to his income. +</p> + +<p> +As for Tom’s school course, it went on with mill-like monotony, his mind +continuing to move with a slow, half-stifled pulse in a medium of uninteresting +or unintelligible ideas. But each vacation he brought home larger and larger +drawings with the satiny rendering of landscape, and water-colours in vivid +greens, together with manuscript books full of exercises and problems, in which +the handwriting was all the finer because he gave his whole mind to it. Each +vacation he brought home a new book or two, indicating his progress through +different stages of history, Christian doctrine, and Latin literature; and that +passage was not entirely without results, besides the possession of the books. +Tom’s ear and tongue had become accustomed to a great many words and +phrases which are understood to be signs of an educated condition; and though +he had never really applied his mind to any one of his lessons, the lessons had +left a deposit of vague, fragmentary, ineffectual notions. Mr Tulliver, seeing +signs of acquirement beyond the reach of his own criticism, thought it was +probably all right with Tom’s education; he observed, indeed, that there +were no maps, and not enough “summing”; but he made no formal +complaint to Mr Stelling. It was a puzzling business, this schooling; and if he +took Tom away, where could he send him with better effect? +</p> + +<p> +By the time Tom had reached his last quarter at King’s Lorton, the years +had made striking changes in him since the day we saw him returning from Mr +Jacobs’s academy. He was a tall youth now, carrying himself without the +least awkwardness, and speaking without more shyness than was a becoming +symptom of blended diffidence and pride; he wore his tail-coat and his stand-up +collars, and watched the down on his lip with eager impatience, looking every +day at his virgin razor, with which he had provided himself in the last +holidays. Philip had already left,—at the autumn quarter,—that he +might go to the south for the winter, for the sake of his health; and this +change helped to give Tom the unsettled, exultant feeling that usually belongs +to the last months before leaving school. This quarter, too, there was some +hope of his father’s lawsuit being decided; <i>that</i> made the prospect +of home more entirely pleasurable. For Tom, who had gathered his view of the +case from his father’s conversation, had no doubt that Pivart would be +beaten. +</p> + +<p> +Tom had not heard anything from home for some weeks,—a fact which did not +surprise him, for his father and mother were not apt to manifest their +affection in unnecessary letters,—when, to his great surprise, on the +morning of a dark, cold day near the end of November, he was told, soon after +entering the study at nine o’clock, that his sister was in the +drawing-room. It was Mrs Stelling who had come into the study to tell him, and +she left him to enter the drawing-room alone. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, too, was tall now, with braided and coiled hair; she was almost as tall +as Tom, though she was only thirteen; and she really looked older than he did +at that moment. She had thrown off her bonnet, her heavy braids were pushed +back from her forehead, as if it would not bear that extra load, and her young +face had a strangely worn look, as her eyes turned anxiously toward the door. +When Tom entered she did not speak, but only went up to him, put her arms round +his neck, and kissed him earnestly. He was used to various moods of hers, and +felt no alarm at the unusual seriousness of her greeting. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, how is it you’re come so early this cold morning, Maggie? Did +you come in the gig?” said Tom, as she backed toward the sofa, and drew +him to her side. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I came by the coach. I’ve walked from the turnpike.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how is it you’re not at school? The holidays have not begun +yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Father wanted me at home,” said Maggie, with a slight trembling of +the lip. “I came home three or four days ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t my father well?” said Tom, rather anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite,” said Maggie. “He’s very unhappy, Tom. The +lawsuit is ended, and I came to tell you because I thought it would be better +for you to know it before you came home, and I didn’t like only to send +you a letter.” +</p> + +<p> +“My father hasn’t lost?” said Tom, hastily, springing from +the sofa, and standing before Maggie with his hands suddenly thrust into his +pockets. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, dear Tom,” said Maggie, looking up at him with trembling. +</p> + +<p> +Tom was silent a minute or two, with his eyes fixed on the floor. Then he said: +</p> + +<p> +“My father will have to pay a good deal of money, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Maggie, rather faintly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it can’t be helped,” said Tom, bravely, not +translating the loss of a large sum of money into any tangible results. +“But my father’s very much vexed, I dare say?” he added, +looking at Maggie, and thinking that her agitated face was only part of her +girlish way of taking things. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Maggie, again faintly. Then, urged to fuller speech by +Tom’s freedom from apprehension, she said loudly and rapidly, as if the +words <i>would</i> burst from her: “Oh, Tom, he will lose the mill and +the land and everything; he will have nothing left.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom’s eyes flashed out one look of surprise at her, before he turned +pale, and trembled visibly. He said nothing, but sat down on the sofa again, +looking vaguely out of the opposite window. +</p> + +<p> +Anxiety about the future had never entered Tom’s mind. His father had +always ridden a good horse, kept a good house, and had the cheerful, confident +air of a man who has plenty of property to fall back upon. Tom had never +dreamed that his father would “fail”; <i>that</i> was a form of +misfortune which he had always heard spoken of as a deep disgrace, and disgrace +was an idea that he could not associate with any of his relations, least of all +with his father. A proud sense of family respectability was part of the very +air Tom had been born and brought up in. He knew there were people in St +Ogg’s who made a show without money to support it, and he had always +heard such people spoken of by his own friends with contempt and reprobation. +He had a strong belief, which was a lifelong habit, and required no definite +evidence to rest on, that his father could spend a great deal of money if he +chose; and since his education at Mr Stelling’s had given him a more +expensive view of life, he had often thought that when he got older he would +make a figure in the world, with his horse and dogs and saddle, and other +accoutrements of a fine young man, and show himself equal to any of his +contemporaries at St Ogg’s, who might consider themselves a grade above +him in society because their fathers were professional men, or had large +oil-mills. As to the prognostics and headshaking of his aunts and uncles, they +had never produced the least effect on him, except to make him think that aunts +and uncles were disagreeable society; he had heard them find fault in much the +same way as long as he could remember. His father knew better than they did. +</p> + +<p> +The down had come on Tom’s lip, yet his thoughts and expectations had +been hitherto only the reproduction, in changed forms, of the boyish dreams in +which he had lived three years ago. He was awakened now with a violent shock. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was frightened at Tom’s pale, trembling silence. There was +something else to tell him,—something worse. She threw her arms round him +at last, and said, with a half sob: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Tom—dear, dear Tom, don’t fret too much; try and bear it +well.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom turned his cheek passively to meet her entreating kisses, and there +gathered a moisture in his eyes, which he just rubbed away with his hand. The +action seemed to rouse him, for he shook himself and said: “I shall go +home, with you, Maggie. Didn’t my father say I was to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Tom, father didn’t wish it,” said Maggie, her anxiety +about <i>his</i> feeling helping her to master her agitation. What <i>would</i> +he do when she told him all? “But mother wants you to come,—poor +mother!—she cries so. Oh, Tom, it’s very dreadful at home.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s lips grew whiter, and she began to tremble almost as Tom had +done. The two poor things clung closer to each other, both trembling,—the +one at an unshapen fear, the other at the image of a terrible certainty. When +Maggie spoke, it was hardly above a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“And—and—poor father——” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie could not utter it. But the suspense was intolerable to Tom. A vague +idea of going to prison, as a consequence of debt, was the shape his fears had +begun to take. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s my father?” he said impatiently. “<i>Tell</i> +me, Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s at home,” said Maggie, finding it easier to reply to +that question. “But,” she added, after a pause, “not +himself—he fell off his horse. He has known nobody but me ever +since—he seems to have lost his senses. O father, +father——” +</p> + +<p> +With these last words, Maggie’s sobs burst forth with the more violence +for the previous struggle against them. Tom felt that pressure of the heart +which forbids tears; he had no distinct vision of their troubles as Maggie had, +who had been at home; he only felt the crushing weight of what seemed +unmitigated misfortune. He tightened his arm almost convulsively round Maggie +as she sobbed, but his face looked rigid and tearless, his eyes blank,—as +if a black curtain of cloud had suddenly fallen on his path. +</p> + +<p> +But Maggie soon checked herself abruptly; a single thought had acted on her +like a startling sound. +</p> + +<p> +“We must set out, Tom, we must not stay. Father will miss me; we must be +at the turnpike at ten to meet the coach.” She said this with hasty +decision, rubbing her eyes, and rising to seize her bonnet. +</p> + +<p> +Tom at once felt the same impulse, and rose too. “Wait a minute, +Maggie,” he said. “I must speak to Mr Stelling, and then +we’ll go.” +</p> + +<p> +He thought he must go to the study where the pupils were; but on his way he met +Mr Stelling, who had heard from his wife that Maggie appeared to be in trouble +when she asked for her brother, and now that he thought the brother and sister +had been alone long enough, was coming to inquire and offer his sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, sir, I must go home,” Tom said abruptly, as he met Mr +Stelling in the passage. “I must go back with my sister directly. My +father’s lost his lawsuit—he’s lost all his +property—and he’s very ill.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Stelling felt like a kind-hearted man; he foresaw a probable money loss for +himself, but this had no appreciable share in his feeling, while he looked with +grave pity at the brother and sister for whom youth and sorrow had begun +together. When he knew how Maggie had come, and how eager she was to get home +again, he hurried their departure, only whispering something to Mrs Stelling, +who had followed him, and who immediately left the room. +</p> + +<p> +Tom and Maggie were standing on the door-step, ready to set out, when Mrs +Stelling came with a little basket, which she hung on Maggie’s arm, +saying: “Do remember to eat something on the way, dear.” +Maggie’s heart went out toward this woman whom she had never liked, and +she kissed her silently. It was the first sign within the poor child of that +new sense which is the gift of sorrow,—that susceptibility to the bare +offices of humanity which raises them into a bond of loving fellowship, as to +haggard men among the ice-bergs the mere presence of an ordinary comrade stirs +the deep fountains of affection. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Stelling put his hand on Tom’s shoulder and said: “God bless +you, my boy; let me know how you get on.” Then he pressed Maggie’s +hand; but there were no audible good-byes. Tom had so often thought how joyful +he should be the day he left school “for good”! And now his school +years seemed like a holiday that had come to an end. +</p> + +<p> +The two slight youthful figures soon grew indistinct on the distant +road,—were soon lost behind the projecting hedgerow. +</p> + +<p> +They had gone forth together into their life of sorrow, and they would never +more see the sunshine undimmed by remembered cares. They had entered the thorny +wilderness, and the golden gates of their childhood had forever closed behind +them. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="book03"></a>BOOK THIRD<br/> +THE DOWNFALL.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap21"></a>Chapter I.<br/> +What Had Happened at Home</h3> + +<p> +When Mr Tulliver first knew the fact that the lawsuit was decided against him, +and that Pivart and Wakem were triumphant, every one who happened to observe +him at the time thought that, for so confident and hot-tempered a man, he bore +the blow remarkably well. He thought so himself; he thought he was going to +show that if Wakem or anybody else considered him crushed, they would find +themselves mistaken. He could not refuse to see that the costs of this +protracted suit would take more than he possessed to pay them; but he appeared +to himself to be full of expedients by which he could ward off any results but +such as were tolerable, and could avoid the appearance of breaking down in the +world. All the obstinacy and defiance of his nature, driven out of their old +channel, found a vent for themselves in the immediate formation of plans by +which he would meet his difficulties, and remain Mr Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill +in spite of them. There was such a rush of projects in his brain, that it was +no wonder his face was flushed when he came away from his talk with his +attorney, Mr Gore, and mounted his horse to ride home from Lindum. There was +Furley, who held the mortgage on the land,—a reasonable fellow, who would +see his own interest, Mr Tulliver was convinced, and who would be glad not +only to purchase the whole estate, including the mill and homestead, but would +accept Mr Tulliver as tenant, and be willing to advance money to be repaid +with high interest out of the profits of the business, which would be made over +to him, Mr Tulliver only taking enough barely to maintain himself and his +family. Who would neglect such a profitable investment? Certainly not Furley, +for Mr Tulliver had determined that Furley should meet his plans with the +utmost alacrity; and there are men whose brains have not yet been dangerously +heated by the loss of a lawsuit, who are apt to see in their own interest or +desires a motive for other men’s actions. There was no doubt (in the +miller’s mind) that Furley would do just what was desirable; and if he +did—why, things would not be so very much worse. Mr Tulliver and his +family must live more meagrely and humbly, but it would only be till the +profits of the business had paid off Furley’s advances, and that might be +while Mr Tulliver had still a good many years of life before him. It was clear +that the costs of the suit could be paid without his being obliged to turn out +of his old place, and look like a ruined man. It was certainly an awkward +moment in his affairs. There was that suretyship for poor Riley, who had died +suddenly last April, and left his friend saddled with a debt of two hundred and +fifty pounds,—a fact which had helped to make Mr Tulliver’s +banking book less pleasant reading than a man might desire toward Christmas. +Well! he had never been one of those poor-spirited sneaks who would refuse to +give a helping hand to a fellow-traveller in this puzzling world. The really +vexatious business was the fact that some months ago the creditor who had lent +him the five hundred pounds to repay Mrs Glegg had become uneasy about his +money (set on by Wakem, of course), and Mr Tulliver, still confident that he +should gain his suit, and finding it eminently inconvenient to raise the said +sum until that desirable issue had taken place, had rashly acceded to the +demand that he should give a bill of sale on his household furniture and some +other effects, as security in lieu of the bond. It was all one, he had said to +himself; he should soon pay off the money, and there was no harm in giving that +security any more than another. But now the consequences of this bill of sale +occurred to him in a new light, and he remembered that the time was close at +hand when it would be enforced unless the money were repaid. Two months ago he +would have declared stoutly that he would never be beholden to his wife’s +friends; but now he told himself as stoutly that it was nothing but right and +natural that Bessy should go to the Pullets and explain the thing to them; they +would hardly let Bessy’s furniture be sold, and it might be security to +Pullet if he advanced the money,—there would, after all, be no gift or +favour in the matter. Mr Tulliver would never have asked for anything from so +poor-spirited a fellow for himself, but Bessy might do so if she liked. +</p> + +<p> +It is precisely the proudest and most obstinate men who are the most liable to +shift their position and contradict themselves in this sudden manner; +everything is easier to them than to face the simple fact that they have been +thoroughly defeated, and must begin life anew. And Mr Tulliver, you perceive, +though nothing more than a superior miller and maltster, was as proud and +obstinate as if he had been a very lofty personage, in whom such dispositions +might be a source of that conspicuous, far-echoing tragedy, which sweeps the +stage in regal robes, and makes the dullest chronicler sublime. The pride and +obstinacy of millers and other insignificant people, whom you pass unnoticingly +on the road every day, have their tragedy too; but it is of that unwept, hidden +sort that goes on from generation to generation, and leaves no +record,—such tragedy, perhaps, as lies in the conflicts of young souls, +hungry for joy, under a lot made suddenly hard to them, under the dreariness of +a home where the morning brings no promise with it, and where the unexpectant +discontent of worn and disappointed parents weighs on the children like a damp, +thick air, in which all the functions of life are depressed; or such tragedy as +lies in the slow or sudden death that follows on a bruised passion, though it +may be a death that finds only a parish funeral. There are certain animals to +which tenacity of position is a law of life,—they can never flourish +again, after a single wrench: and there are certain human beings to whom +predominance is a law of life,—they can only sustain humiliation so long +as they can refuse to believe in it, and, in their own conception, predominate +still. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver was still predominating, in his own imagination, as he approached +St Ogg’s, through which he had to pass on his way homeward. But what was +it that suggested to him, as he saw the Laceham coach entering the town, to +follow it to the coach-office, and get the clerk there to write a letter, +requiring Maggie to come home the very next day? Mr Tulliver’s own hand +shook too much under his excitement for him to write himself, and he wanted the +letter to be given to the coachman to deliver at Miss Firniss’s school in +the morning. There was a craving which he would not account for to himself, to +have Maggie near him, without delay,—she must come back by the coach +to-morrow. +</p> + +<p> +To Mrs Tulliver, when he got home, he would admit no difficulties, and scolded +down her burst of grief on hearing that the lawsuit was lost, by angry +assertions that there was nothing to grieve about. He said nothing to her that +night about the bill of sale and the application to Mrs Pullet, for he had +kept her in ignorance of the nature of that transaction, and had explained the +necessity for taking an inventory of the goods as a matter connected with his +will. The possession of a wife conspicuously one’s inferior in intellect +is, like other high privileges, attended with a few inconveniences, and, among +the rest, with the occasional necessity for using a little deception. +</p> + +<p> +The next day Mr Tulliver was again on horseback in the afternoon, on his way +to Mr Gore’s office at St Ogg’s. Gore was to have seen Furley in +the morning, and to have sounded him in relation to Mr Tulliver’s +affairs. But he had not gone half-way when he met a clerk from Mr Gore’s +office, who was bringing a letter to Mr Tulliver. Mr Gore had been prevented +by a sudden call of business from waiting at his office to see Mr Tulliver, +according to appointment, but would be at his office at eleven to-morrow +morning, and meanwhile had sent some important information by letter. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Mr Tulliver, taking the letter, but not opening it. +“Then tell Gore I’ll see him to-morrow at eleven”; and he +turned his horse. +</p> + +<p> +The clerk, struck with Mr Tulliver’s glistening, excited glance, looked +after him for a few moments, and then rode away. The reading of a letter was +not the affair of an instant to Mr Tulliver; he took in the sense of a +statement very slowly through the medium of written or even printed characters; +so he had put the letter in his pocket, thinking he would open it in his +armchair at home. But by-and-by it occurred to him that there might be +something in the letter Mrs Tulliver must not know about, and if so, it would +be better to keep it out of her sight altogether. He stopped his horse, took +out the letter, and read it. It was only a short letter; the substance was, +that Mr Gore had ascertained, on secret, but sure authority, that Furley had +been lately much straitened for money, and had parted with his +securities,—among the rest, the mortgage on Mr Tulliver’s +property, which he had transferred to——Wakem. +</p> + +<p> +In half an hour after this Mr Tulliver’s own wagoner found him lying by +the roadside insensible, with an open letter near him, and his gray horse +snuffing uneasily about him. +</p> + +<p> +When Maggie reached home that evening, in obedience to her father’s call, +he was no longer insensible. About an hour before he had become conscious, and +after vague, vacant looks around him, had muttered something about “a +letter,” which he presently repeated impatiently. At the instance of Mr +Turnbull, the medical man, Gore’s letter was brought and laid on the bed, +and the previous impatience seemed to be allayed. The stricken man lay for some +time with his eyes fixed on the letter, as if he were trying to knit up his +thoughts by its help. But presently a new wave of memory seemed to have come +and swept the other away; he turned his eyes from the letter to the door, and +after looking uneasily, as if striving to see something his eyes were too dim +for, he said, “The little wench.” +</p> + +<p> +He repeated the words impatiently from time to time, appearing entirely +unconscious of everything except this one importunate want, and giving no sign +of knowing his wife or any one else; and poor Mrs Tulliver, her feeble +faculties almost paralyzed by this sudden accumulation of troubles, went +backward and forward to the gate to see if the Laceham coach were coming, +though it was not yet time. +</p> + +<p> +But it came at last, and set down the poor anxious girl, no longer the +“little wench,” except to her father’s fond memory. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, mother, what is the matter?” Maggie said, with pale lips, as +her mother came toward her crying. She didn’t think her father was ill, +because the letter had come at his dictation from the office at St +Ogg’s. +</p> + +<p> +But Mr Turnbull came now to meet her; a medical man is the good angel of the +troubled house, and Maggie ran toward the kind old friend, whom she remembered +as long as she could remember anything, with a trembling, questioning look. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t alarm yourself too much, my dear,” he said, taking her +hand. “Your father has had a sudden attack, and has not quite recovered +his memory. But he has been asking for you, and it will do him good to see you. +Keep as quiet as you can; take off your things, and come upstairs with +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie obeyed, with that terrible beating of the heart which makes existence +seem simply a painful pulsation. The very quietness with which Mr Turnbull +spoke had frightened her susceptible imagination. Her father’s eyes were +still turned uneasily toward the door when she entered and met the strange, +yearning, helpless look that had been seeking her in vain. With a sudden flash +and movement, he raised himself in the bed; she rushed toward him, and clasped +him with agonised kisses. +</p> + +<p> +Poor child! it was very early for her to know one of those supreme moments in +life when all we have hoped or delighted in, all we can dread or endure, falls +away from our regard as insignificant; is lost, like a trivial memory, in that +simple, primitive love which knits us to the beings who have been nearest to +us, in their times of helplessness or of anguish. +</p> + +<p> +But that flash of recognition had been too great a strain on the father’s +bruised, enfeebled powers. He sank back again in renewed insensibility and +rigidity, which lasted for many hours, and was only broken by a flickering +return of consciousness, in which he took passively everything that was given +to him, and seemed to have a sort of infantine satisfaction in Maggie’s +near presence,—such satisfaction as a baby has when it is returned to the +nurse’s lap. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver sent for her sisters, and there was much wailing and lifting up +of hands below stairs. Both uncles and aunts saw that the ruin of Bessy and her +family was as complete as they had ever foreboded it, and there was a general +family sense that a judgment had fallen on Mr Tulliver, which it would be an +impiety to counteract by too much kindness. But Maggie heard little of this, +scarcely ever leaving her father’s bedside, where she sat opposite him +with her hand on his. Mrs Tulliver wanted to have Tom fetched home, and seemed +to be thinking more of her boy even than of her husband; but the aunts and +uncles opposed this. Tom was better at school, since Mr Turnbull said there +was no immediate danger, he believed. But at the end of the second day, when +Maggie had become more accustomed to her father’s fits of insensibility, +and to the expectation that he would revive from them, the thought of Tom had +become urgent with <i>her</i> too; and when her mother sate crying at night and +saying, “My poor lad—it’s nothing but right he should come +home,” Maggie said, “Let me go for him, and tell him, mother; +I’ll go to-morrow morning if father doesn’t know me and want me. It +would be so hard for Tom to come home and not know anything about it +beforehand.” +</p> + +<p> +And the next morning Maggie went, as we have seen. Sitting on the coach on +their way home, the brother and sister talked to each other in sad, interrupted +whispers. +</p> + +<p> +“They say Mr Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, +Tom,” said Maggie. “It was the letter with that news in it that +made father ill, they think.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe that scoundrel’s been planning all along to ruin my +father,” said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite +conclusion. “I’ll make him feel for it when I’m a man. Mind +you never speak to Philip again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Tom!” said Maggie, in a tone of sad remonstrance; but she had +no spirit to dispute anything then, still less to vex Tom by opposing him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap22"></a>Chapter II.<br/> +Mrs Tulliver’s Teraphim, or Household Gods</h3> + +<p> +When the coach set down Tom and Maggie, it was five hours since she had started +from home, and she was thinking with some trembling that her father had perhaps +missed her, and asked for “the little wench” in vain. She thought +of no other change that might have happened. +</p> + +<p> +She hurried along the gravel-walk and entered the house before Tom; but in the +entrance she was startled by a strong smell of tobacco. The parlour door was +ajar; that was where the smell came from. It was very strange; could any +visitor be smoking at a time like this? Was her mother there? If so, she must +be told that Tom was come. Maggie, after this pause of surprise, was only in +the act of opening the door when Tom came up, and they both looked into the +parlour together. +</p> + +<p> +There was a coarse, dingy man, of whose face Tom had some vague recollection, +sitting in his father’s chair, smoking, with a jug and glass beside him. +</p> + +<p> +The truth flashed on Tom’s mind in an instant. To “have the bailiff +in the house,” and “to be sold up,” were phrases which he had +been used to, even as a little boy; they were part of the disgrace and misery +of “failing,” of losing all one’s money, and being +ruined,—sinking into the condition of poor working people. It seemed only +natural this should happen, since his father had lost all his property, and he +thought of no more special cause for this particular form of misfortune than +the loss of the lawsuit. But the immediate presence of this disgrace was so +much keener an experience to Tom than the worst form of apprehension, that he +felt at this moment as if his real trouble had only just begun: it was a touch +on the irritated nerve compared with its spontaneous dull aching. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you do, sir?” said the man, taking the pipe out of his +mouth, with rough, embarrassed civility. The two young startled faces made him +a little uncomfortable. +</p> + +<p> +But Tom turned away hastily without speaking; the sight was too hateful. Maggie +had not understood the appearance of this stranger, as Tom had. She followed +him, whispering: “Who can it be, Tom? What is the matter?” Then, +with a sudden undefined dread lest this stranger might have something to do +with a change in her father, she rushed upstairs, checking herself at the +bedroom door to throw off her bonnet, and enter on tiptoe. All was silent +there; her father was lying, heedless of everything around him, with his eyes +closed as when she had left him. A servant was there, but not her mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s my mother?” she whispered. The servant did not know. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie hastened out, and said to Tom; “Father is lying quiet; let us go +and look for my mother. I wonder where she is.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver was not downstairs, not in any of the bedrooms. There was but one +room below the attic which Maggie had left unsearched; it was the storeroom, +where her mother kept all her linen and all the precious “best +things” that were only unwrapped and brought out on special occasions. +</p> + +<p> +Tom, preceding Maggie, as they returned along the passage, opened the door of +this room, and immediately said, “Mother!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver was seated there with all her laid-up treasures. One of the linen +chests was open; the silver teapot was unwrapped from its many folds of paper, +and the best china was laid out on the top of the closed linen-chest; spoons +and skewers and ladles were spread in rows on the shelves; and the poor woman +was shaking her head and weeping, with a bitter tension of the mouth, over the +mark, “Elizabeth Dodson,” on the corner of some tablecloths she +held in her lap. +</p> + +<p> +She dropped them, and started up as Tom spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my boy, my boy!” she said, clasping him round the neck. +“To think as I should live to see this day! We’re +ruined—everything’s going to be sold up—to think as your +father should ha’ married me to bring me to this! We’ve got +nothing—we shall be beggars—we must go to the +workhouse——” +</p> + +<p> +She kissed him, then seated herself again, and took another tablecloth on her +lap, unfolding it a little way to look at the pattern, while the children stood +by in mute wretchedness, their minds quite filled for the moment with the words +“beggars” and “workhouse.” +</p> + +<p> +“To think o’ these cloths as I spun myself,” she went on, +lifting things out and turning them over with an excitement all the more +strange and piteous because the stout blond woman was usually so +passive,—if she had been ruffled before, it was at the surface +merely,—“and Job Haxey wove ’em, and brought the piece home +on his back, as I remember standing at the door and seeing him come, before I +ever thought o’ marrying your father! And the pattern as I chose myself, +and bleached so beautiful, and I marked ’em so as nobody ever saw such +marking,—they must cut the cloth to get it out, for it’s a +particular stitch. And they’re all to be sold, and go into strange +people’s houses, and perhaps be cut with the knives, and wore out before +I’m dead. You’ll never have one of ’em, my boy,” she +said, looking up at Tom with her eyes full of tears, “and I meant +’em for you. I wanted you to have all o’ this pattern. Maggie could +have had the large check—it never shows so well when the dishes are on +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom was touched to the quick, but there was an angry reaction immediately. His +face flushed as he said: +</p> + +<p> +“But will my aunts let them be sold, mother? Do they know about it? +They’ll never let your linen go, will they? Haven’t you sent to +them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I sent Luke directly they’d put the bailies in, and your aunt +Pullet’s been—and, oh dear, oh dear, she cries so and says your +father’s disgraced my family and made it the talk o’ the country; +and she’ll buy the spotted cloths for herself, because she’s never +had so many as she wanted o’ that pattern, and they sha’n’t +go to strangers, but she’s got more checks a’ready nor she can do +with.” (Here Mrs Tulliver began to lay back the tablecloths in the +chest, folding and stroking them automatically.) “And your uncle +Glegg’s been too, and he says things must be bought in for us to lie down +on, but he must talk to your aunt; and they’re all coming to consult. But +I know they’ll none of ’em take my chany,” she added, turning +toward the cups and saucers, “for they all found fault with ’em +when I bought ’em, ’cause o’ the small gold sprig all over +’em, between the flowers. But there’s none of ’em got better +chany, not even your aunt Pullet herself; and I bought it wi’ my own +money as I’d saved ever since I was turned fifteen; and the silver +teapot, too,—your father never paid for ’em. And to think as he +should ha’ married me, and brought me to this.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver burst out crying afresh, and she sobbed with her handkerchief at +her eyes a few moments, but then removing it, she said in a deprecating way, +still half sobbing, as if she were called upon to speak before she could +command her voice,— +</p> + +<p> +“And I <i>did</i> say to him times and times, ‘Whativer you do, +don’t go to law,’ and what more could I do? I’ve had to sit +by while my own fortin’s been spent, and what should ha’ been my +children’s, too. You’ll have niver a penny, my boy—but it +isn’t your poor mother’s fault.” +</p> + +<p> +She put out one arm toward Tom, looking up at him piteously with her helpless, +childish blue eyes. The poor lad went to her and kissed her, and she clung to +him. For the first time Tom thought of his father with some reproach. His +natural inclination to blame, hitherto kept entirely in abeyance toward his +father by the predisposition to think him always right, simply on the ground +that he was Tom Tulliver’s father, was turned into this new channel by +his mother’s plaints; and with his indignation against Wakem there began +to mingle some indignation of another sort. Perhaps his father might have +helped bringing them all down in the world, and making people talk of them with +contempt, but no one should talk long of Tom Tulliver with contempt. +</p> + +<p> +The natural strength and firmness of his nature was beginning to assert itself, +urged by the double stimulus of resentment against his aunts, and the sense +that he must behave like a man and take care of his mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t fret, mother,” he said tenderly. “I shall soon +be able to get money; I’ll get a situation of some sort.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless you, my boy!” said Mrs Tulliver, a little soothed. Then, +looking round sadly, “But I shouldn’t ha’ minded so much if +we could ha’ kept the things wi’ my name on ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie had witnessed this scene with gathering anger. The implied reproaches +against her father—her father, who was lying there in a sort of living +death—neutralised all her pity for griefs about tablecloths and china; +and her anger on her father’s account was heightened by some egoistic +resentment at Tom’s silent concurrence with her mother in shutting her +out from the common calamity. She had become almost indifferent to her +mother’s habitual depreciation of her, but she was keenly alive to any +sanction of it, however passive, that she might suspect in Tom. Poor Maggie was +by no means made up of unalloyed devotedness, but put forth large claims for +herself where she loved strongly. She burst out at last in an agitated, almost +violent tone: “Mother, how can you talk so; as if you cared only for +things with <i>your</i> name on, and not for what has my father’s name +too; and to care about anything but dear father himself!—when he’s +lying there, and may never speak to us again. Tom, you ought to say so too; you +ought not to let any one find fault with my father.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, almost choked with mingled grief and anger, left the room, and took her +old place on her father’s bed. Her heart went out to him with a stronger +movement than ever, at the thought that people would blame him. Maggie hated +blame; she had been blamed all her life, and nothing had come of it but evil +tempers. +</p> + +<p> +Her father had always defended and excused her, and her loving remembrance of +his tenderness was a force within her that would enable her to do or bear +anything for his sake. +</p> + +<p> +Tom was a little shocked at Maggie’s outburst,—telling <i>him</i> +as well as his mother what it was right to do! She ought to have learned better +than have those hectoring, assuming manners, by this time. But he presently +went into his father’s room, and the sight there touched him in a way +that effaced the slighter impressions of the previous hour. When Maggie saw how +he was moved, she went to him and put her arm round his neck as he sat by the +bed, and the two children forgot everything else in the sense that they had one +father and one sorrow. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap23"></a>Chapter III.<br/> +The Family Council</h3> + +<p> +It was at eleven o’clock the next morning that the aunts and uncles came +to hold their consultation. The fire was lighted in the large parlour, and poor +Mrs Tulliver, with a confused impression that it was a great occasion, like a +funeral, unbagged the bell-rope tassels, and unpinned the curtains, adjusting +them in proper folds, looking round and shaking her head sadly at the polished +tops and legs of the tables, which sister Pullet herself could not accuse of +insufficient brightness. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Deane was not coming, he was away on business; but Mrs Deane appeared +punctually in that handsome new gig with the head to it, and the livery-servant +driving it, which had thrown so clear a light on several traits in her +character to some of her female friends in St Ogg’s. Mr Deane had been +advancing in the world as rapidly as Mr Tulliver had been going down in it; +and in Mrs Deane’s house the Dodson linen and plate were beginning to +hold quite a subordinate position, as a mere supplement to the handsomer +articles of the same kind, purchased in recent years,—a change which had +caused an occasional coolness in the sisterly intercourse between her and Mrs +Glegg, who felt that Susan was getting “like the rest,” and there +would soon be little of the true Dodson spirit surviving except in herself, +and, it might be hoped, in those nephews who supported the Dodson name on the +family land, far away in the Wolds. +</p> + +<p> +People who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than those immediately +under our own eyes; and it seems superfluous, when we consider the remote +geographical position of the Ethiopians, and how very little the Greeks had to +do with them, to inquire further why Homer calls them “blameless.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Deane was the first to arrive; and when she had taken her seat in the +large parlour, Mrs Tulliver came down to her with her comely face a little +distorted, nearly as it would have been if she had been crying. She was not a +woman who could shed abundant tears, except in moments when the prospect of +losing her furniture became unusually vivid, but she felt how unfitting it was +to be quite calm under present circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sister, what a world this is!” she exclaimed as she entered; +“what trouble, oh dear!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Deane was a thin-lipped woman, who made small well-considered speeches on +peculiar occasions, repeating them afterward to her husband, and asking him if +she had not spoken very properly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sister,” she said deliberately, “this is a changing +world, and we don’t know to-day what may happen tomorrow. But it’s +right to be prepared for all things, and if trouble’s sent, to remember +as it isn’t sent without a cause. I’m very sorry for you as a +sister, and if the doctor orders jelly for Mr Tulliver, I hope you’ll +let me know. I’ll send it willingly; for it is but right he should have +proper attendance while he’s ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Susan,” said Mrs Tulliver, rather faintly, withdrawing +her fat hand from her sister’s thin one. “But there’s been no +talk o’ jelly yet.” Then after a moment’s pause she added, +“There’s a dozen o’ cut jelly-glasses upstairs—I shall +never put jelly into ’em no more.” +</p> + +<p> +Her voice was rather agitated as she uttered the last words, but the sound of +wheels diverted her thoughts. Mr and Mrs Glegg were come, and were almost +immediately followed by Mr and Mrs Pullet. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Pullet entered crying, as a compendious mode, at all times, of expressing +what were her views of life in general, and what, in brief, were the opinions +she held concerning the particular case before her. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg had on her fuzziest front, and garments which appeared to have had a +recent resurrection from rather a creasy form of burial; a costume selected +with the high moral purpose of instilling perfect humility into Bessy and her +children. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs G., won’t you come nearer the fire?” said her husband, +unwilling to take the more comfortable seat without offering it to her. +</p> + +<p> +“You see I’ve seated myself here, Mr Glegg,” returned this +superior woman; “<i>you</i> can roast yourself, if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mr Glegg, seating himself good-humouredly, “and +how’s the poor man upstairs?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dr Turnbull thought him a deal better this morning,” said Mrs +Tulliver; “he took more notice, and spoke to me; but he’s never +known Tom yet,—looks at the poor lad as if he was a stranger, though he +said something once about Tom and the pony. The doctor says his memory’s +gone a long way back, and he doesn’t know Tom because he’s thinking +of him when he was little. Eh dear, eh dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt it’s the water got on his brain,” said aunt Pullet, +turning round from adjusting her cap in a melancholy way at the pier-glass. +“It’s much if he ever gets up again; and if he does, he’ll +most like be childish, as Mr Carr was, poor man! They fed him with a spoon as +if he’d been a babby for three year. He’d quite lost the use of his +limbs; but then he’d got a Bath chair, and somebody to draw him; and +that’s what you won’t have, I doubt, Bessy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sister Pullet,” said Mrs Glegg, severely, “if I understand +right, we’ve come together this morning to advise and consult about +what’s to be done in this disgrace as has fallen upon the family, and not +to talk o’ people as don’t belong to us. Mr Carr was none of our +blood, nor noways connected with us, as I’ve ever heared.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sister Glegg,” said Mrs Pullet, in a pleading tone, drawing on +her gloves again, and stroking the fingers in an agitated manner, “if +you’ve got anything disrespectful to say o’ Mr Carr, I do beg of +you as you won’t say it to me. <i>I</i> know what he was,” she +added, with a sigh; “his breath was short to that degree as you could +hear him two rooms off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sophy!” said Mrs Glegg, with indignant disgust, “you +<i>do</i> talk o’ people’s complaints till it’s quite +undecent. But I say again, as I said before, I didn’t come away from home +to talk about acquaintances, whether they’d short breath or long. If we +aren’t come together for one to hear what the other ’ull do to save +a sister and her children from the parish, <i>I</i> shall go back. <i>One</i> +can’t act without the other, I suppose; it isn’t to be expected as +<i>I</i> should do everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Jane,” said Mrs Pullet, “I don’t see as +you’ve been so very forrard at doing. So far as I know, this is the first +time as here you’ve been, since it’s been known as the +bailiff’s in the house; and I was here yesterday, and looked at all +Bessy’s linen and things, and I told her I’d buy in the spotted +tablecloths. I couldn’t speak fairer; for as for the teapot as she +doesn’t want to go out o’ the family, it stands to sense I +can’t do with two silver teapots, not if it <i>hadn’t</i> a +straight spout, but the spotted damask I was allays fond on.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish it could be managed so as my teapot and chany and the best +castors needn’t be put up for sale,” said poor Mrs Tulliver, +beseechingly, “and the sugar-tongs the first things ever I bought.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that can’t be helped, you know,” said Mr Glegg. +“If one o’ the family chooses to buy ’em in, they can, but +one thing must be bid for as well as another.” +</p> + +<p> +“And it isn’t to be looked for,” said uncle Pullet, with +unwonted independence of idea, “as your own family should pay more for +things nor they’ll fetch. They may go for an old song by auction.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Mrs Tulliver, “to think o’ my +chany being sold i’ that way, and I bought it when I was married, just as +you did yours, Jane and Sophy; and I know you didn’t like mine, because +o’ the sprig, but I was fond of it; and there’s never been a bit +broke, for I’ve washed it myself; and there’s the tulips on the +cups, and the roses, as anybody might go and look at ’em for pleasure. +You wouldn’t like <i>your</i> chany to go for an old song and be broke to +pieces, though yours has got no colour in it, Jane,—it’s all white +and fluted, and didn’t cost so much as mine. And there’s the +castors, sister Deane, I can’t think but you’d like to have the +castors, for I’ve heard you say they’re pretty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ve no objection to buy some of the best things,” +said Mrs Deane, rather loftily; “we can do with extra things in our +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Best things!” exclaimed Mrs Glegg, with severity, which had +gathered intensity from her long silence. “It drives me past patience to +hear you all talking o’ best things, and buying in this, that, and the +other, such as silver and chany. You must bring your mind to your +circumstances, Bessy, and not be thinking o’ silver and chany; but +whether you shall get so much as a flock-bed to lie on, and a blanket to cover +you, and a stool to sit on. You must remember, if you get ’em, +it’ll be because your friends have bought ’em for you, for +you’re dependent upon <i>them</i> for everything; for your husband lies +there helpless, and hasn’t got a penny i’ the world to call his +own. And it’s for your own good I say this, for it’s right you +should feel what your state is, and what disgrace your husband’s brought +on your own family, as you’ve got to look to for everything, and be +humble in your mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg paused, for speaking with much energy for the good of others is +naturally exhausting. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver, always borne down by the family predominance of sister Jane, who +had made her wear the yoke of a younger sister in very tender years, said +pleadingly: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure, sister, I’ve never asked anybody to do anything, +only buy things as it ’ud be a pleasure to ’em to have, so as they +mightn’t go and be spoiled i’ strange houses. I never asked anybody +to buy the things in for me and my children; though there’s the linen I +spun, and I thought when Tom was born,—I thought one o’ the first +things when he was lying i’ the cradle, as all the things I’d +bought wi’ my own money, and been so careful of, ’ud go to him. But +I’ve said nothing as I wanted my sisters to pay their money for me. What +my husband has done for <i>his</i> sister’s unknown, and we should +ha’ been better off this day if it hadn’t been as he’s lent +money and never asked for it again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come,” said Mr Glegg, kindly, “don’t let us +make things too dark. What’s done can’t be undone. We shall make a +shift among us to buy what’s sufficient for you; though, as Mrs G. says, +they must be useful, plain things. We mustn’t be thinking o’ +what’s unnecessary. A table, and a chair or two, and kitchen things, and +a good bed, and such-like. Why, I’ve seen the day when I shouldn’t +ha’ known myself if I’d lain on sacking i’stead o’ the +floor. We get a deal o’ useless things about us, only because we’ve +got the money to spend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Glegg,” said Mrs G., “if you’ll be kind enough to +let me speak, i’stead o’ taking the words out o’ my +mouth,—I was going to say, Bessy, as it’s fine talking for you to +say as you’ve never asked us to buy anything for you; let me tell you, +you <i>ought</i> to have asked us. Pray, how are you to be purvided for, if +your own family don’t help you? You must go to the parish, if they +didn’t. And you ought to know that, and keep it in mind, and ask us +humble to do what we can for you, i’stead o’ saying, and making a +boast, as you’ve never asked us for anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“You talked o’ the Mosses, and what Mr Tulliver’s done for +’em,” said uncle Pullet, who became unusually suggestive where +advances of money were concerned. “Haven’t <i>they</i> been anear +you? They ought to do something as well as other folks; and if he’s lent +’em money, they ought to be made to pay it back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, to be sure,” said Mrs Deane; “I’ve been thinking +so. How is it Mr and Mrs Moss aren’t here to meet us? It is but right +they should do their share.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear!” said Mrs Tulliver, “I never sent ’em word +about Mr Tulliver, and they live so back’ard among the lanes at Basset, +they niver hear anything only when Mr Moss comes to market. But I niver gave +’em a thought. I wonder Maggie didn’t, though, for she was allays +so fond of her aunt Moss.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t your children come in, Bessy?” said Mrs Pullet, +at the mention of Maggie. “They should hear what their aunts and uncles +have got to say; and Maggie,—when it’s me as have paid for half her +schooling, she ought to think more of her aunt Pullet than of aunt Moss. I may +go off sudden when I get home to-day; there’s no telling.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I’d had <i>my</i> way,” said Mrs Glegg, “the +children ’ud ha’ been in the room from the first. It’s time +they knew who they’ve to look to, and it’s right as <i>somebody</i> +should talk to ’em, and let ’em know their condition i’ life, +and what they’re come down to, and make ’em feel as they’ve +got to suffer for their father’s faults.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll go and fetch ’em, sister,” said Mrs +Tulliver, resignedly. She was quite crushed now, and thought of the treasures +in the storeroom with no other feeling than blank despair. +</p> + +<p> +She went upstairs to fetch Tom and Maggie, who were both in their +father’s room, and was on her way down again, when the sight of the +storeroom door suggested a new thought to her. She went toward it, and left the +children to go down by themselves. +</p> + +<p> +The aunts and uncles appeared to have been in warm discussion when the brother +and sister entered,—both with shrinking reluctance; for though Tom, with +a practical sagacity which had been roused into activity by the strong stimulus +of the new emotions he had undergone since yesterday, had been turning over in +his mind a plan which he meant to propose to one of his aunts or uncles, he +felt by no means amicably toward them, and dreaded meeting them all at once as +he would have dreaded a large dose of concentrated physic, which was but just +endurable in small draughts. As for Maggie, she was peculiarly depressed this +morning; she had been called up, after brief rest, at three o’clock, and +had that strange dreamy weariness which comes from watching in a sick-room +through the chill hours of early twilight and breaking day,—in which the +outside day-light life seems to have no importance, and to be a mere margin to +the hours in the darkened chamber. Their entrance interrupted the conversation. +The shaking of hands was a melancholy and silent ceremony, till uncle Pullet +observed, as Tom approached him: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, young sir, we’ve been talking as we should want your pen and +ink; you can write rarely now, after all your schooling, I should think.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay,” said uncle Glegg, with admonition which he meant to be +kind, “we must look to see the good of all this schooling, as your +father’s sunk so much money in, now,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘When land is gone and money’s spent,<br/> +Then learning is most excellent.’ +</p> + +<p> +Now’s the time, Tom, to let us see the good o’ your learning. Let +us see whether you can do better than I can, as have made my fortin without it. +But I began wi’ doing with little, you see; I could live on a basin +o’ porridge and a crust o’ bread-and-cheese. But I doubt high +living and high learning ’ull make it harder for you, young man, nor it +was for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he must do it,” interposed aunt Glegg, energetically, +“whether it’s hard or no. He hasn’t got to consider +what’s hard; he must consider as he isn’t to trusten to his friends +to keep him in idleness and luxury; he’s got to bear the fruits of his +father’s misconduct, and bring his mind to fare hard and to work hard. +And he must be humble and grateful to his aunts and uncles for what +they’re doing for his mother and father, as must be turned out into the +streets and go to the workhouse if they didn’t help ’em. And his +sister, too,” continued Mrs Glegg, looking severely at Maggie, who had +sat down on the sofa by her aunt Deane, drawn to her by the sense that she was +Lucy’s mother, “she must make up her mind to be humble and work; +for there’ll be no servants to wait on her any more,—she must +remember that. She must do the work o’ the house, and she must respect +and love her aunts as have done so much for her, and saved their money to leave +to their nepheys and nieces.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom was still standing before the table in the centre of the group. There was a +heightened colour in his face, and he was very far from looking humbled, but he +was preparing to say, in a respectful tone, something he had previously +meditated, when the door opened and his mother re-entered. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Mrs Tulliver had in her hands a small tray, on which she had placed her +silver teapot, a specimen teacup and saucer, the castors, and sugar-tongs. +</p> + +<p> +“See here, sister,” she said, looking at Mrs Deane, as she set the +tray on the table, “I thought, perhaps, if you looked at the teapot +again,—it’s a good while since you saw it,—you might like the +pattern better; it makes beautiful tea, and there’s a stand and +everything; you might use it for every day, or else lay it by for Lucy when she +goes to housekeeping. I should be so loath for ’em to buy it at the +Golden Lion,” said the poor woman, her heart swelling, and the tears +coming,—“my teapot as I bought when I was married, and to think of +its being scratched, and set before the travellers and folks, and my letters on +it,—see here, E. D.,—and everybody to see ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, dear, dear!” said aunt Pullet, shaking her head with deep +sadness, “it’s very bad,—to think o’ the family +initials going about everywhere—it niver was so before; you’re a +very unlucky sister, Bessy. But what’s the use o’ buying the +teapot, when there’s the linen and spoons and everything to go, and some +of ’em with your full name,—and when it’s got that straight +spout, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“As to disgrace o’ the family,” said Mrs Glegg, “that +can’t be helped wi’ buying teapots. The disgrace is, for one +o’ the family to ha’ married a man as has brought her to beggary. +The disgrace is, as they’re to be sold up. We can’t hinder the +country from knowing that.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie had started up from the sofa at the allusion to her father, but Tom saw +her action and flushed face in time to prevent her from speaking. “Be +quiet, Maggie,” he said authoritatively, pushing her aside. It was a +remarkable manifestation of self-command and practical judgment in a lad of +fifteen, that when his aunt Glegg ceased, he began to speak in a quiet and +respectful manner, though with a good deal of trembling in his voice; for his +mother’s words had cut him to the quick. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, aunt,” he said, looking straight at Mrs Glegg, “if +you think it’s a disgrace to the family that we should be sold up, +wouldn’t it be better to prevent it altogether? And if you and aunt +Pullet,” he continued, looking at the latter, “think of leaving any +money to me and Maggie, wouldn’t it be better to give it now, and pay the +debt we’re going to be sold up for, and save my mother from parting with +her furniture?” +</p> + +<p> +There was silence for a few moments, for every one, including Maggie, was +astonished at Tom’s sudden manliness of tone. Uncle Glegg was the first +to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, young man, come now! You show some notion o’ things. But +there’s the interest, you must remember; your aunts get five per cent on +their money, and they’d lose that if they advanced it; you haven’t +thought o’ that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I could work and pay that every year,” said Tom, promptly. +“I’d do anything to save my mother from parting with her +things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well done!” said uncle Glegg, admiringly. He had been drawing Tom +out, rather than reflecting on the practicability of his proposal. But he had +produced the unfortunate result of irritating his wife. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mr Glegg!” said that lady, with angry sarcasm. +“It’s pleasant work for you to be giving my money away, as +you’ve pretended to leave at my own disposal. And my money, as was my own +father’s gift, and not yours, Mr Glegg; and I’ve saved it, and +added to it myself, and had more to put out almost every year, and it’s +to go and be sunk in other folks’ furniture, and encourage ’em in +luxury and extravagance as they’ve no means of supporting; and I’m +to alter my will, or have a codicil made, and leave two or three hundred less +behind me when I die,—me as have allays done right and been careful, and +the eldest o’ the family; and my money’s to go and be squandered on +them as have had the same chance as me, only they’ve been wicked and +wasteful. Sister Pullet, <i>you</i> may do as you like, and you may let your +husband rob you back again o’ the money he’s given you, but that +isn’t <i>my</i> sperrit.” +</p> + +<p> +“La, Jane, how fiery you are!” said Mrs Pullet. “I’m +sure you’ll have the blood in your head, and have to be cupped. I’m +sorry for Bessy and her children,—I’m sure I think of ’em +o’ nights dreadful, for I sleep very bad wi’ this new +medicine,—but it’s no use for me to think o’ doing anything, +if you won’t meet me half-way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there’s this to be considered,” said Mr Glegg. +“It’s no use to pay off this debt and save the furniture, when +there’s all the law debts behind, as ’ud take every shilling, and +more than could be made out o’ land and stock, for I’ve made that +out from Lawyer Gore. We’d need save our money to keep the poor man with, +instead o’ spending it on furniture as he can neither eat nor drink. You +<i>will</i> be so hasty, Jane, as if I didn’t know what was +reasonable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then speak accordingly, Mr Glegg!” said his wife, with slow, loud +emphasis, bending her head toward him significantly. +</p> + +<p> +Tom’s countenance had fallen during this conversation, and his lip +quivered; but he was determined not to give way. He would behave like a man. +Maggie, on the contrary, after her momentary delight in Tom’s speech, had +relapsed into her state of trembling indignation. Her mother had been standing +close by Tom’s side, and had been clinging to his arm ever since he had +last spoken; Maggie suddenly started up and stood in front of them, her eyes +flashing like the eyes of a young lioness. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you come, then,” she burst out, “talking and +interfering with us and scolding us, if you don’t mean to do anything to +help my poor mother—your own sister,—if you’ve no feeling for +her when she’s in trouble, and won’t part with anything, though you +would never miss it, to save her from pain? Keep away from us then, and +don’t come to find fault with my father,—he was better than any of +you; he was kind,—he would have helped <i>you</i>, if you had been in +trouble. Tom and I don’t ever want to have any of your money, if you +won’t help my mother. We’d rather not have it! We’ll do +without you.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, having hurled her defiance at aunts and uncles in this way, stood +still, with her large dark eyes glaring at them, as if she were ready to await +all consequences. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver was frightened; there was something portentous in this mad +outbreak; she did not see how life could go on after it. Tom was vexed; it was +no <i>use</i> to talk so. The aunts were silent with surprise for some moments. +At length, in a case of aberration such as this, comment presented itself as +more expedient than any answer. +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t seen the end o’ your trouble wi’ that +child, Bessy,” said Mrs Pullet; “she’s beyond everything for +boldness and unthankfulness. It’s dreadful. I might ha’ let alone +paying for her schooling, for she’s worse nor ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no more than what I’ve allays said,” followed +Mrs Glegg. “Other folks may be surprised, but I’m not. I’ve +said over and over again,—years ago I’ve said,—‘Mark my +words; that child ’ull come to no good; there isn’t a bit of our +family in her.’ And as for her having so much schooling, I never thought +well o’ that. I’d my reasons when I said <i>I</i> wouldn’t +pay anything toward it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come,” said Mr Glegg, “let’s waste no more time +in talking,—let’s go to business. Tom, now, get the pen and +ink——” +</p> + +<p> +While Mr Glegg was speaking, a tall dark figure was seen hurrying past the +window. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there’s Mrs Moss,” said Mrs Tulliver. “The bad +news must ha’ reached her, then”; and she went out to open the +door, Maggie eagerly following her. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s fortunate,” said Mrs Glegg. “She can agree to +the list o’ things to be bought in. It’s but right she should do +her share when it’s her own brother.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Moss was in too much agitation to resist Mrs Tulliver’s movement, +as she drew her into the parlour automatically, without reflecting that it was +hardly kind to take her among so many persons in the first painful moment of +arrival. The tall, worn, dark-haired woman was a strong contrast to the Dodson +sisters as she entered in her shabby dress, with her shawl and bonnet looking +as if they had been hastily huddled on, and with that entire absence of +self-consciousness which belongs to keenly felt trouble. Maggie was clinging to +her arm; and Mrs Moss seemed to notice no one else except Tom, whom she went +straight up to and took by the hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear children,” she burst out, “you’ve no call +to think well o’ me; I’m a poor aunt to you, for I’m one +o’ them as take all and give nothing. How’s my poor brother?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Turnbull thinks he’ll get better,” said Maggie. +“Sit down, aunt Gritty. Don’t fret.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my sweet child, I feel torn i’ two,” said Mrs Moss, +allowing Maggie to lead her to the sofa, but still not seeming to notice the +presence of the rest. “We’ve three hundred pounds o’ my +brother’s money, and now he wants it, and you all want it, poor +things!—and yet we must be sold up to pay it, and there’s my poor +children,—eight of ’em, and the little un of all can’t speak +plain. And I feel as if I was a robber. But I’m sure I’d no thought +as my brother——” +</p> + +<p> +The poor woman was interrupted by a rising sob. +</p> + +<p> +“Three hundred pounds! oh dear, dear,” said Mrs Tulliver, who, +when she had said that her husband had done “unknown” things for +his sister, had not had any particular sum in her mind, and felt a wife’s +irritation at having been kept in the dark. +</p> + +<p> +“What madness, to be sure!” said Mrs Glegg. “A man with a +family! He’d no right to lend his money i’ that way; and without +security, I’ll be bound, if the truth was known.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg’s voice had arrested Mrs Moss’s attention, and looking +up, she said: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, there <i>was</i> security; my husband gave a note for it. +We’re not that sort o’ people, neither of us, as ’ud rob my +brother’s children; and we looked to paying back the money, when the +times got a bit better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but now,” said Mr Glegg, gently, “hasn’t your +husband no way o’ raising this money? Because it ’ud be a little +fortin, like, for these folks, if we can do without Tulliver’s being made +a bankrupt. Your husband’s got stock; it is but right he should raise the +money, as it seems to me,—not but what I’m sorry for you, Mrs +Moss.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir, you don’t know what bad luck my husband’s had with +his stock. The farm’s suffering so as never was for want o’ stock; +and we’ve sold all the wheat, and we’re behind with our +rent,—not but what we’d like to do what’s right, and +I’d sit up and work half the night, if it ’ud be any good; but +there’s them poor children,—four of ’em such little +uns——” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t cry so, aunt; don’t fret,” whispered Maggie, who +had kept hold of Mrs Moss’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Did Mr Tulliver let you have the money all at once?” said Mrs +Tulliver, still lost in the conception of things which had been “going +on” without her knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +“No; at twice,” said Mrs Moss, rubbing her eyes and making an +effort to restrain her tears. “The last was after my bad illness four +years ago, as everything went wrong, and there was a new note made then. What +with illness and bad luck, I’ve been nothing but cumber all my +life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mrs Moss,” said Mrs Glegg, with decision, “yours is a +very unlucky family; the more’s the pity for <i>my</i> sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“I set off in the cart as soon as ever I heard o’ what had +happened,” said Mrs Moss, looking at Mrs Tulliver. “I should +never ha’ stayed away all this while, if you’d thought well to let +me know. And it isn’t as I’m thinking all about ourselves, and +nothing about my brother, only the money was so on my mind, I couldn’t +help speaking about it. And my husband and me desire to do the right thing, +sir,” she added, looking at Mr Glegg, “and we’ll make shift +and pay the money, come what will, if that’s all my brother’s got +to trust to. We’ve been used to trouble, and don’t look for much +else. It’s only the thought o’ my poor children pulls me i’ +two.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there’s this to be thought on, Mrs Moss,” said Mr +Glegg, “and it’s right to warn you,—if Tulliver’s made +a bankrupt, and he’s got a note-of-hand of your husband’s for three +hundred pounds, you’ll be obliged to pay it; th’ assignees +’ull come on you for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, oh dear!” said Mrs Tulliver, thinking of the bankruptcy, +and not of Mrs Moss’s concern in it. Poor Mrs Moss herself listened in +trembling submission, while Maggie looked with bewildered distress at Tom to +see if <i>he</i> showed any signs of understanding this trouble, and caring +about poor aunt Moss. Tom was only looking thoughtful, with his eyes on the +tablecloth. +</p> + +<p> +“And if he isn’t made bankrupt,” continued Mr Glegg, +“as I said before, three hundred pounds ’ud be a little fortin for +him, poor man. We don’t know but what he may be partly helpless, if he +ever gets up again. I’m very sorry if it goes hard with you, Mrs Moss, +but my opinion is, looking at it one way, it’ll be right for you to raise +the money; and looking at it th’ other way, you’ll be obliged to +pay it. You won’t think ill o’ me for speaking the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Uncle,” said Tom, looking up suddenly from his meditative view of +the tablecloth, “I don’t think it would be right for my aunt Moss +to pay the money if it would be against my father’s will for her to pay +it; would it?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Glegg looked surprised for a moment or two before he said: “Why, no, +perhaps not, Tom; but then he’d ha’ destroyed the note, you know. +We must look for the note. What makes you think it ’ud be against his +will?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” said Tom, colouring, but trying to speak firmly, in spite of +a boyish tremor, “I remember quite well, before I went to school to Mr +Stelling, my father said to me one night, when we were sitting by the fire +together, and no one else was in the room——” +</p> + +<p> +Tom hesitated a little, and then went on. +</p> + +<p> +“He said something to me about Maggie, and then he said: +‘I’ve always been good to my sister, though she married against my +will, and I’ve lent Moss money; but I shall never think of distressing +him to pay it; I’d rather lose it. My children must not mind being the +poorer for that.’ And now my father’s ill, and not able to speak +for himself, I shouldn’t like anything to be done contrary to what he +said to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but then, my boy,” said Uncle Glegg, whose good feeling led +him to enter into Tom’s wish, but who could not at once shake off his +habitual abhorrence of such recklessness as destroying securities, or +alienating anything important enough to make an appreciable difference in a +man’s property, “we should have to make away wi’ the note, +you know, if we’re to guard against what may happen, supposing your +father’s made bankrupt——” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Glegg,” interrupted his wife, severely, “mind what +you’re saying. You’re putting yourself very forrard in other +folks’s business. If you speak rash, don’t say it was my +fault.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s such a thing as I never heared of before,” said uncle +Pullet, who had been making haste with his lozenge in order to express his +amazement,—“making away with a note! I should think anybody could +set the constable on you for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but,” said Mrs Tulliver, “if the note’s worth +all that money, why can’t we pay it away, and save my things from going +away? We’ve no call to meddle with your uncle and aunt Moss, Tom, if you +think your father ’ud be angry when he gets well.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver had not studied the question of exchange, and was straining her +mind after original ideas on the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh, pooh, pooh! you women don’t understand these things,” +said uncle Glegg. “There’s no way o’ making it safe for Mr +and Mrs Moss but destroying the note.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I hope you’ll help me do it, uncle,” said Tom, +earnestly. “If my father shouldn’t get well, I should be very +unhappy to think anything had been done against his will that I could hinder. +And I’m sure he meant me to remember what he said that evening. I ought +to obey my father’s wish about his property.” +</p> + +<p> +Even Mrs Glegg could not withhold her approval from Tom’s words; she +felt that the Dodson blood was certainly speaking in him, though, if his father +had been a Dodson, there would never have been this wicked alienation of money. +Maggie would hardly have restrained herself from leaping on Tom’s neck, +if her aunt Moss had not prevented her by herself rising and taking Tom’s +hand, while she said, with rather a choked voice: +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll never be the poorer for this, my dear boy, if there’s +a God above; and if the money’s wanted for your father, Moss and me +’ull pay it, the same as if there was ever such security. We’ll do +as we’d be done by; for if my children have got no other luck, +they’ve got an honest father and mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mr Glegg, who had been meditating after Tom’s +words, “we shouldn’t be doing any wrong by the creditors, supposing +your father <i>was</i> bankrupt. I’ve been thinking o’ that, for +I’ve been a creditor myself, and seen no end o’ cheating. If he +meant to give your aunt the money before ever he got into this sad work +o’ lawing, it’s the same as if he’d made away with the note +himself; for he’d made up his mind to be that much poorer. But +there’s a deal o’ things to be considered, young man,” Mr +Glegg added, looking admonishingly at Tom, “when you come to money +business, and you may be taking one man’s dinner away to make another +man’s breakfast. You don’t understand that, I doubt?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I do,” said Tom, decidedly. “I know if I owe money to +one man, I’ve no right to give it to another. But if my father had made +up his mind to give my aunt the money before he was in debt, he had a right to +do it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well done, young man! I didn’t think you’d been so +sharp,” said uncle Glegg, with much candor. “But perhaps your +father <i>did</i> make away with the note. Let us go and see if we can find it +in the chest.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s in my father’s room. Let us go too, aunt Gritty,” +whispered Maggie. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap24"></a>Chapter IV.<br/> +A Vanishing Gleam</h3> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver, even between the fits of spasmodic rigidity which had recurred at +intervals ever since he had been found fallen from his horse, was usually in so +apathetic a condition that the exits and entrances into his room were not felt +to be of great importance. He had lain so still, with his eyes closed, all this +morning, that Maggie told her aunt Moss she must not expect her father to take +any notice of them. +</p> + +<p> +They entered very quietly, and Mrs Moss took her seat near the head of the +bed, while Maggie sat in her old place on the bed, and put her hand on her +father’s without causing any change in his face. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Glegg and Tom had also entered, treading softly, and were busy selecting +the key of the old oak chest from the bunch which Tom had brought from his +father’s bureau. They succeeded in opening the chest,—which stood +opposite the foot of Mr Tulliver’s bed,—and propping the lid with +the iron holder, without much noise. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a tin box,” whispered Mr Glegg; “he’d +most like put a small thing like a note in there. Lift it out, Tom; but +I’ll just lift up these deeds,—they’re the deeds o’ the +house and mill, I suppose,—and see what there is under ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Glegg had lifted out the parchments, and had fortunately drawn back a +little, when the iron holder gave way, and the heavy lid fell with a loud bang +that resounded over the house. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps there was something in that sound more than the mere fact of the strong +vibration that produced the instantaneous effect on the frame of the prostrate +man, and for the time completely shook off the obstruction of paralysis. The +chest had belonged to his father and his father’s father, and it had +always been rather a solemn business to visit it. All long-known objects, even +a mere window fastening or a particular door-latch, have sounds which are a +sort of recognised voice to us,—a voice that will thrill and awaken, when +it has been used to touch deep-lying fibres. In the same moment, when all the +eyes in the room were turned upon him, he started up and looked at the chest, +the parchments in Mr Glegg’s hand, and Tom holding the tin box, with a +glance of perfect consciousness and recognition. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do with those deeds?” he said, in his +ordinary tone of sharp questioning whenever he was irritated. “Come here, +Tom. What do you do, going to my chest?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom obeyed, with some trembling; it was the first time his father had +recognised him. But instead of saying anything more to him, his father +continued to look with a growing distinctness of suspicion at Mr Glegg and the +deeds. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s been happening, then?” he said sharply. “What +are you meddling with my deeds for? Is Wakem laying hold of everything? Why +don’t you tell me what you’ve been a-doing?” he added +impatiently, as Mr Glegg advanced to the foot of the bed before speaking. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, friend Tulliver,” said Mr Glegg, in a soothing tone. +“Nobody’s getting hold of anything as yet. We only came to look and +see what was in the chest. You’ve been ill, you know, and we’ve had +to look after things a bit. But let’s hope you’ll soon be well +enough to attend to everything yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver looked around him meditatively, at Tom, at Mr Glegg, and at +Maggie; then suddenly appearing aware that some one was seated by his side at +the head of the bed he turned sharply round and saw his sister. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, Gritty!” he said, in the half-sad, affectionate tone in which +he had been wont to speak to her. “What! you’re there, are you? How +could you manage to leave the children?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, brother!” said good Mrs Moss, too impulsive to be prudent, +“I’m thankful I’m come now to see you yourself again; I +thought you’d never know us any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! have I had a stroke?” said Mr Tulliver, anxiously, looking +at Mr Glegg. +</p> + +<p> +“A fall from your horse—shook you a bit,—that’s all, I +think,” said Mr Glegg. “But you’ll soon get over it, +let’s hope.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver fixed his eyes on the bed-clothes, and remained silent for two or +three minutes. A new shadow came over his face. He looked up at Maggie first, +and said in a lower tone, “You got the letter, then, my wench?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, father,” she said, kissing him with a full heart. She felt as +if her father were come back to her from the dead, and her yearning to show him +how she had always loved him could be fulfilled. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s your mother?” he said, so preoccupied that he +received the kiss as passively as some quiet animal might have received it. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s downstairs with my aunts, father. Shall I fetch her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay; poor Bessy!” and his eyes turned toward Tom as Maggie left +the room. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll have to take care of ’em both if I die, you know, +Tom. You’ll be badly off, I doubt. But you must see and pay everybody. +And mind,—there’s fifty pound o’ Luke’s as I put into +the business,—he gave me a bit at a time, and he’s got nothing to +show for it. You must pay him first thing.” +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Glegg involuntarily shook his head, and looked more concerned than ever, +but Tom said firmly: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, father. And haven’t you a note from my uncle Moss for three +hundred pounds? We came to look for that. What do you wish to be done about it, +father?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! I’m glad you thought o’ that, my lad,” said Mr +Tulliver. “I allays meant to be easy about that money, because o’ +your aunt. You mustn’t mind losing the money, if they can’t pay +it,—and it’s like enough they can’t. The note’s in that +box, mind! I allays meant to be good to you, Gritty,” said Mr Tulliver, +turning to his sister; “but you know you aggravated me when you would +have Moss.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment Maggie re-entered with her mother, who came in much agitated by +the news that her husband was quite himself again. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Bessy,” he said, as she kissed him, “you must forgive +me if you’re worse off than you ever expected to be. +</p> + +<p> +But it’s the fault o’ the law,—it’s none o’ +mine,” he added angrily. “It’s the fault o’ raskills. +Tom, you mind this: if ever you’ve got the chance, you make Wakem smart. +If you don’t, you’re a good-for-nothing son. You might horse-whip +him, but he’d set the law on you,—the law’s made to take care +o’ raskills.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver was getting excited, and an alarming flush was on his face. Mr +Glegg wanted to say something soothing, but he was prevented by Mr +Tulliver’s speaking again to his wife. “They’ll make a shift +to pay everything, Bessy,” he said, “and yet leave you your +furniture; and your sisters’ll do something for you—and +Tom’ll grow up—though what he’s to be I don’t +know—I’ve done what I could—I’ve given him a +eddication—and there’s the little wench, she’ll get +married—but it’s a poor tale——” +</p> + +<p> +The sanative effect of the strong vibration was exhausted, and with the last +words the poor man fell again, rigid and insensible. Though this was only a +recurrence of what had happened before, it struck all present as if it had been +death, not only from its contrast with the completeness of the revival, but +because his words had all had reference to the possibility that his death was +near. But with poor Tulliver death was not to be a leap; it was to be a long +descent under thickening shadows. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Turnbull was sent for; but when he heard what had passed, he said this +complete restoration, though only temporary, was a hopeful sign, proving that +there was no permanent lesion to prevent ultimate recovery. +</p> + +<p> +Among the threads of the past which the stricken man had gathered up, he had +omitted the bill of sale; the flash of memory had only lit up prominent ideas, +and he sank into forgetfulness again with half his humiliation unlearned. +</p> + +<p> +But Tom was clear upon two points,—that his uncle Moss’s note must +be destroyed; and that Luke’s money must be paid, if in no other way, out +of his own and Maggie’s money now in the savings bank. There were +subjects, you perceive, on which Tom was much quicker than on the niceties of +classical construction, or the relations of a mathematical demonstration. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap25"></a>Chapter V.<br/> +Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster</h3> + +<p> +The next day, at ten o’clock, Tom was on his way to St Ogg’s, to +see his uncle Deane, who was to come home last night, his aunt had said; and +Tom had made up his mind that his uncle Deane was the right person to ask for +advice about getting some employment. He was in a great way of business; he had +not the narrow notions of uncle Glegg; and he had risen in the world on a scale +of advancement which accorded with Tom’s ambition. +</p> + +<p> +It was a dark, chill, misty morning, likely to end in rain,—one of those +mornings when even happy people take refuge in their hopes. And Tom was very +unhappy; he felt the humiliation as well as the prospective hardships of his +lot with all the keenness of a proud nature; and with all his resolute +dutifulness toward his father there mingled an irrepressible indignation +against him which gave misfortune the less endurable aspect of a wrong. Since +these were the consequences of going to law, his father was really blamable, as +his aunts and uncles had always said he was; and it was a significant +indication of Tom’s character, that though he thought his aunts ought to +do something more for his mother, he felt nothing like Maggie’s violent +resentment against them for showing no eager tenderness and generosity. There +were no impulses in Tom that led him to expect what did not present itself to +him as a right to be demanded. Why should people give away their money +plentifully to those who had not taken care of their own money? Tom saw some +justice in severity; and all the more, because he had confidence in himself +that he should never deserve that just severity. It was very hard upon him that +he should be put at this disadvantage in life by his father’s want of +prudence; but he was not going to complain and to find fault with people +because they did not make everything easy for him. He would ask no one to help +him, more than to give him work and pay him for it. Poor Tom was not without +his hopes to take refuge in under the chill damp imprisonment of the December +fog, which seemed only like a part of his home troubles. At sixteen, the mind +that has the strongest affinity for fact cannot escape illusion and +self-flattery; and Tom, in sketching his future, had no other guide in +arranging his facts than the suggestions of his own brave self-reliance. Both +Mr Glegg and Mr Deane, he knew, had been very poor once; he did not want to +save money slowly and retire on a moderate fortune like his uncle Glegg, but he +would be like his uncle Deane—get a situation in some great house of +business and rise fast. He had scarcely seen anything of his uncle Deane for +the last three years—the two families had been getting wider apart; but +for this very reason Tom was the more hopeful about applying to him. His uncle +Glegg, he felt sure, would never encourage any spirited project, but he had a +vague imposing idea of the resources at his uncle Deane’s command. He had +heard his father say, long ago, how Deane had made himself so valuable to Guest +& Co. that they were glad enough to offer him a share in the business; that +was what Tom resolved <i>he</i> would do. It was intolerable to think of being +poor and looked down upon all one’s life. He would provide for his mother +and sister, and make every one say that he was a man of high character. He +leaped over the years in this way, and, in the haste of strong purpose and +strong desire, did not see how they would be made up of slow days, hours, and +minutes. +</p> + +<p> +By the time he had crossed the stone bridge over the Floss and was entering St +Ogg’s, he was thinking that he would buy his father’s mill and land +again when he was rich enough, and improve the house and live there; he should +prefer it to any smarter, newer place, and he could keep as many horses and +dogs as he liked. +</p> + +<p> +Walking along the street with a firm, rapid step, at this point in his reverie +he was startled by some one who had crossed without his notice, and who said to +him in a rough, familiar voice: +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Master Tom, how’s your father this morning?” It was a +publican of St Ogg’s, one of his father’s customers. +</p> + +<p> +Tom disliked being spoken to just then; but he said civilly, “He’s +still very ill, thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, it’s been a sore chance for you, young man, hasn’t +it,—this lawsuit turning out against him?” said the publican, with +a confused, beery idea of being good-natured. +</p> + +<p> +Tom reddened and passed on; he would have felt it like the handling of a +bruise, even if there had been the most polite and delicate reference to his +position. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s Tulliver’s son,” said the publican to a grocer +standing on the adjacent door-step. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said the grocer, “I thought I knew his features. He +takes after his mother’s family; she was a Dodson. He’s a fine, +straight youth; what’s he been brought up to?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! to turn up his nose at his father’s customers, and be a fine +gentleman,—not much else, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom, roused from his dream of the future to a thorough consciousness of the +present, made all the greater haste to reach the warehouse offices of Guest +& Co., where he expected to find his uncle Deane. But this was Mr +Deane’s morning at the bank, a clerk told him, and with some contempt for +his ignorance; Mr Deane was not to be found in River Street on a Thursday +morning. +</p> + +<p> +At the bank Tom was admitted into the private room where his uncle was, +immediately after sending in his name. Mr Deane was auditing accounts; but he +looked up as Tom entered, and putting out his hand, said, “Well, Tom, +nothing fresh the matter at home, I hope? How’s your father?” +</p> + +<p> +“Much the same, thank you, uncle,” said Tom, feeling nervous. +“But I want to speak to you, please, when you’re at liberty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, sit down,” said Mr Deane, relapsing into his accounts, +in which he and the managing-clerk remained so absorbed for the next half-hour +that Tom began to wonder whether he should have to sit in this way till the +bank closed,—there seemed so little tendency toward a conclusion in the +quiet, monotonous procedure of these sleek, prosperous men of business. Would +his uncle give him a place in the bank? It would be very dull, prosy work, he +thought, writing there forever to the loud ticking of a timepiece. He preferred +some other way of getting rich. But at last there was a change; his uncle took +a pen and wrote something with a flourish at the end. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll just step up to Torry’s now, Mr Spence, will +you?” said Mr Deane, and the clock suddenly became less loud and +deliberate in Tom’s ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Tom,” said Mr Deane, when they were alone, turning his +substantial person a little in his chair, and taking out his snuff-box; +“what’s the business, my boy; what’s the business?” Mr +Deane, who had heard from his wife what had passed the day before, thought Tom +was come to appeal to him for some means of averting the sale. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll excuse me for troubling you, uncle,” said Tom, +colouring, but speaking in a tone which, though, tremulous, had a certain proud +independence in it; “but I thought you were the best person to advise me +what to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Mr Deane, reserving his pinch of snuff, and looking at +Tom with new attention, “let us hear.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to get a situation, uncle, so that I may earn some money,” +said Tom, who never fell into circumlocution. +</p> + +<p> +“A situation?” said Mr Deane, and then took his pinch of snuff +with elaborate justice to each nostril. Tom thought snuff-taking a most +provoking habit. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, let me see, how old are you?” said Mr Deane, as he threw +himself backward again. +</p> + +<p> +“Sixteen; I mean, I am going in seventeen,” said Tom, hoping his +uncle noticed how much beard he had. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me see; your father had some notion of making you an engineer, I +think?” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t think I could get any money at that for a long while, +could I?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true; but people don’t get much money at anything, my +boy, when they’re only sixteen. You’ve had a good deal of +schooling, however; I suppose you’re pretty well up in accounts, eh? You +understand book keeping?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Tom, rather falteringly. “I was in Practice. But +Mr Stelling says I write a good hand, uncle. That’s my writing,” +added Tom, laying on the table a copy of the list he had made yesterday. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! that’s good, that’s good. But, you see, the best hand in +the world’ll not get you a better place than a copying-clerk’s, if +you know nothing of book-keeping,—nothing of accounts. And a +copying-clerk’s a cheap article. But what have you been learning at +school, then?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Deane had not occupied himself with methods of education, and had no +precise conception of what went forward in expensive schools. +</p> + +<p> +“We learned Latin,” said Tom, pausing a little between each item, +as if he were turning over the books in his school-desk to assist his +memory,—“a good deal of Latin; and the last year I did Themes, one +week in Latin and one in English; and Greek and Roman history; and Euclid; and +I began Algebra, but I left it off again; and we had one day every week for +Arithmetic. Then I used to have drawing-lessons; and there were several other +books we either read or learned out of,—English Poetry, and Horæ Paulinæ +and Blair’s Rhetoric, the last half.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Deane tapped his snuff-box again and screwed up his mouth; he felt in the +position of many estimable persons when they had read the New Tariff, and found +how many commodities were imported of which they knew nothing; like a cautious +man of business, he was not going to speak rashly of a raw material in which he +had had no experience. But the presumption was, that if it had been good for +anything, so successful a man as himself would hardly have been ignorant of it. +</p> + +<p> +About Latin he had an opinion, and thought that in case of another war, since +people would no longer wear hair-powder, it would be well to put a tax upon +Latin, as a luxury much run upon by the higher classes, and not telling at all +on the ship-owning department. But, for what he knew, the Horæ Paulinæ might be +something less neutral. On the whole, this list of acquirements gave him a sort +of repulsion toward poor Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said at last, in rather a cold, sardonic tone, +“you’ve had three years at these things,—you must be pretty +strong in ’em. Hadn’t you better take up some line where +they’ll come in handy?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom coloured, and burst out, with new energy: +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather not have any employment of that sort, uncle. I +don’t like Latin and those things. I don’t know what I could do +with them unless I went as usher in a school; and I don’t know them well +enough for that! besides, I would as soon carry a pair of panniers. I +don’t want to be that sort of person. I should like to enter into some +business where I can get on,—a manly business, where I should have to +look after things, and get credit for what I did. And I shall want to keep my +mother and sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, young gentleman,” said Mr Deane, with that tendency to +repress youthful hopes which stout and successful men of fifty find one of +their easiest duties, “that’s sooner said than done,—sooner +said than done.” +</p> + +<p> +“But didn’t <i>you</i> get on in that way, uncle?” said Tom, +a little irritated that Mr Deane did not enter more rapidly into his views. +“I mean, didn’t you rise from one place to another through your +abilities and good conduct?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, sir,” said Mr Deane, spreading himself in his chair a +little, and entering with great readiness into a retrospect of his own career. +“But I’ll tell you how I got on. It wasn’t by getting astride +a stick and thinking it would turn into a horse if I sat on it long enough. I +kept my eyes and ears open, sir, and I wasn’t too fond of my own back, +and I made my master’s interest my own. Why, with only looking into what +went on in the mill, I found out how there was a waste of five hundred a-year +that might be hindered. Why, sir, I hadn’t more schooling to begin with +than a charity boy; but I saw pretty soon that I couldn’t get on far +enough without mastering accounts, and I learned ’em between working +hours, after I’d been unlading. Look here.” Mr Deane opened a book +and pointed to the page. “I write a good hand enough, and I’ll +match anybody at all sorts of reckoning by the head; and I got it all by hard +work, and paid for it out of my own earnings,—often out of my own dinner +and supper. And I looked into the nature of all the things we had to do in the +business, and picked up knowledge as I went about my work, and turned it over +in my head. Why, I’m no mechanic,—I never pretended to be—but +I’ve thought of a thing or two that the mechanics never thought of, and +it’s made a fine difference in our returns. And there isn’t an +article shipped or unshipped at our wharf but I know the quality of it. If I +got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for ’em. If you want to +slip into a round hole, you must make a ball of yourself; that’s where it +is.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Deane tapped his box again. He had been led on by pure enthusiasm in his +subject, and had really forgotten what bearing this retrospective survey had on +his listener. He had found occasion for saying the same thing more than once +before, and was not distinctly aware that he had not his port-wine before him. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, uncle,” said Tom, with a slight complaint in his tone, +“that’s what I should like to do. Can’t <i>I</i> get on in +the same way?” +</p> + +<p> +“In the same way?” said Mr Deane, eyeing Tom with quiet +deliberation. “There go two or three questions to that, Master Tom. That +depends on what sort of material you are, to begin with, and whether +you’ve been put into the right mill. But I’ll tell you what it is. +Your poor father went the wrong way to work in giving you an education. It +wasn’t my business, and I didn’t interfere; but it is as I thought +it would be. You’ve had a sort of learning that’s all very well for +a young fellow like our Mr Stephen Guest, who’ll have nothing to do but +sign checks all his life, and may as well have Latin inside his head as any +other sort of stuffing.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, uncle,” said Tom, earnestly, “I don’t see why the +Latin need hinder me from getting on in business. I shall soon forget it all; +it makes no difference to me. I had to do my lessons at school, but I always +thought they’d never be of any use to me afterward; I didn’t care +about them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, that’s all very well,” said Mr Deane; “but it +doesn’t alter what I was going to say. Your Latin and rigmarole may soon +dry off you, but you’ll be but a bare stick after that. Besides, +it’s whitened your hands and taken the rough work out of you. And what do +you know? Why, you know nothing about book-keeping, to begin with, and not so +much of reckoning as a common shopman. You’ll have to begin at a low +round of the ladder, let me tell you, if you mean to get on in life. It’s +no use forgetting the education your father’s been paying for, if you +don’t give yourself a new un.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom bit his lips hard; he felt as if the tears were rising, and he would rather +die than let them. +</p> + +<p> +“You want me to help you to a situation,” Mr Deane went on; +“well, I’ve no fault to find with that. I’m willing to do +something for you. But you youngsters nowadays think you’re to begin with +living well and working easy; you’ve no notion of running afoot before +you get horseback. Now, you must remember what you are,—you’re a +lad of sixteen, trained to nothing particular. There’s heaps of your +sort, like so many pebbles, made to fit in nowhere. Well, you might be +apprenticed to some business,—a chemist’s and druggist’s +perhaps; your Latin might come in a bit there——” +</p> + +<p> +Tom was going to speak, but Mr Deane put up his hand and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Stop! hear what I’ve got to say. You don’t want to be a +’prentice,—I know, I know,—you want to make more haste, and +you don’t want to stand behind a counter. But if you’re a +copying-clerk, you’ll have to stand behind a desk, and stare at your ink +and paper all day; there isn’t much out-look there, and you won’t +be much wiser at the end of the year than at the beginning. The world +isn’t made of pen, ink, and paper, and if you’re to get on in the +world, young man, you must know what the world’s made of. Now the best +chance for you ’ud be to have a place on a wharf, or in a warehouse, +where you’d learn the smell of things, but you wouldn’t like that, +I’ll be bound; you’d have to stand cold and wet, and be shouldered +about by rough fellows. You’re too fine a gentleman for that.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Deane paused and looked hard at Tom, who certainly felt some inward +struggle before he could reply. +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather do what will be best for me in the end, sir; I would put +up with what was disagreeable.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s well, if you can carry it out. But you must remember it +isn’t only laying hold of a rope, you must go on pulling. It’s the +mistake you lads make that have got nothing either in your brains or your +pocket, to think you’ve got a better start in the world if you stick +yourselves in a place where you can keep your coats clean, and have the +shopwenches take you for fine gentlemen. That wasn’t the way <i>I</i> +started, young man; when I was sixteen, my jacket smelt of tar, and I +wasn’t afraid of handling cheeses. That’s the reason I can wear +good broadcloth now, and have my legs under the same table with the heads of +the best firms in St Ogg’s.” +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Deane tapped his box, and seemed to expand a little under his waistcoat +and gold chain, as he squared his shoulders in the chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there any place at liberty that you know of now, uncle, that I should +do for? I should like to set to work at once,” said Tom, with a slight +tremor in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop a bit, stop a bit; we mustn’t be in too great a hurry. You +must bear in mind, if I put you in a place you’re a bit young for, +because you happen to be my nephew, I shall be responsible for you. And +there’s no better reason, you know, than your being my nephew; because it +remains to be seen whether you’re good for anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope I shall never do you any discredit, uncle,” said Tom, hurt, +as all boys are at the statement of the unpleasant truth that people feel no +ground for trusting them. “I care about my own credit too much for +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well done, Tom, well done! That’s the right spirit, and I never +refuse to help anybody if they’ve a mind to do themselves justice. +There’s a young man of two-and-twenty I’ve got my eye on now. I +shall do what I can for that young man; he’s got some pith in him. But +then, you see, he’s made good use of his time,—a first-rate +calculator,—can tell you the cubic contents of anything in no time, and +put me up the other day to a new market for Swedish bark; he’s uncommonly +knowing in manufactures, that young fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d better set about learning book-keeping, hadn’t I, +uncle?” said Tom, anxious to prove his readiness to exert himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, you can’t do amiss there. But—Ah, Spence, +you’re back again. Well Tom, there’s nothing more to be said just +now, I think, and I must go to business again. Good-by. Remember me to your +mother.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Deane put out his hand, with an air of friendly dismissal, and Tom had not +courage to ask another question, especially in the presence of Mr Spence. So +he went out again into the cold damp air. He had to call at his uncle +Glegg’s about the money in the Savings Bank, and by the time he set out +again the mist had thickened, and he could not see very far before him; but +going along River Street again, he was startled, when he was within two yards +of the projecting side of a shop-window, by the words “Dorlcote +Mill” in large letters on a hand-bill, placed as if on purpose to stare +at him. It was the catalogue of the sale to take place the next week; it was a +reason for hurrying faster out of the town. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Tom formed no visions of the distant future as he made his way homeward; +he only felt that the present was very hard. It seemed a wrong toward him that +his uncle Deane had no confidence in him,—did not see at once that he +should acquit himself well, which Tom himself was as certain of as of the +daylight. Apparently he, Tom Tulliver, was likely to be held of small account +in the world; and for the first time he felt a sinking of heart under the sense +that he really was very ignorant, and could do very little. Who was that +enviable young man that could tell the cubic contents of things in no time, and +make suggestions about Swedish bark! Tom had been used to be so entirely +satisfied with himself, in spite of his breaking down in a demonstration, and +construing <i>nunc illas promite vires</i> as “now promise those +men”; but now he suddenly felt at a disadvantage, because he knew less +than some one else knew. There must be a world of things connected with that +Swedish bark, which, if he only knew them, might have helped him to get on. It +would have been much easier to make a figure with a spirited horse and a new +saddle. +</p> + +<p> +Two hours ago, as Tom was walking to St Ogg’s, he saw the distant future +before him as he might have seen a tempting stretch of smooth sandy beach +beyond a belt of flinty shingles; he was on the grassy bank then, and thought +the shingles might soon be passed. But now his feet were on the sharp stones; +the belt of shingles had widened, and the stretch of sand had dwindled into +narrowness. +</p> + +<p> +“What did my Uncle Deane say, Tom?” said Maggie, putting her arm +through Tom’s as he was warming himself rather drearily by the kitchen +fire. “Did he say he would give you a situation?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he didn’t say that. He didn’t quite promise me anything; +he seemed to think I couldn’t have a very good situation. I’m too +young.” +</p> + +<p> +“But didn’t he speak kindly, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“Kindly? Pooh! what’s the use of talking about that? I +wouldn’t care about his speaking kindly, if I could get a situation. But +it’s such a nuisance and bother; I’ve been at school all this while +learning Latin and things,—not a bit of good to me,—and now my +uncle says I must set about learning book-keeping and calculation, and those +things. He seems to make out I’m good for nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom’s mouth twitched with a bitter expression as he looked at the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a pity we haven’t got Dominie Sampson!” said +Maggie, who couldn’t help mingling some gayety with their sadness. +“If he had taught me book-keeping by double entry and after the Italian +method, as he did Lucy Bertram, I could teach you, Tom.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You</i> teach! Yes, I dare say. That’s always the tone you +take,” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Tom, I was only joking,” said Maggie, putting her cheek +against his coat-sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s always the same, Maggie,” said Tom, with the little +frown he put on when he was about to be justifiably severe. “You’re +always setting yourself up above me and every one else, and I’ve wanted +to tell you about it several times. You ought not to have spoken as you did to +my uncles and aunts; you should leave it to me to take care of my mother and +you, and not put yourself forward. You think you know better than any one, but +you’re almost always wrong. I can judge much better than you can.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Tom! he had just come from being lectured and made to feel his +inferiority; the reaction of his strong, self-asserting nature must take place +somehow; and here was a case in which he could justly show himself dominant. +Maggie’s cheek flushed and her lip quivered with conflicting resentment +and affection, and a certain awe as well as admiration of Tom’s firmer +and more effective character. She did not answer immediately; very angry words +rose to her lips, but they were driven back again, and she said at last: +</p> + +<p> +“You often think I’m conceited, Tom, when I don’t mean what I +say at all in that way. I don’t mean to put myself above you; I know you +behaved better than I did yesterday. But you are always so harsh to me, +Tom.” +</p> + +<p> +With the last words the resentment was rising again. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m not harsh,” said Tom, with severe decision. +“I’m always kind to you, and so I shall be; I shall always take +care of you. But you must mind what I say.” +</p> + +<p> +Their mother came in now, and Maggie rushed away, that her burst of tears, +which she felt must come, might not happen till she was safe upstairs. They +were very bitter tears; everybody in the world seemed so hard and unkind to +Maggie; there was no indulgence, no fondness, such as she imagined when she +fashioned the world afresh in her own thoughts. In books there were people who +were always agreeable or tender, and delighted to do things that made one +happy, and who did not show their kindness by finding fault. The world outside +the books was not a happy one, Maggie felt; it seemed to be a world where +people behaved the best to those they did not pretend to love, and that did not +belong to them. And if life had no love in it, what else was there for Maggie? +Nothing but poverty and the companionship of her mother’s narrow griefs, +perhaps of her father’s heart-cutting childish dependence. There is no +hopelessness so sad as that of early youth, when the soul is made up of wants, +and has no long memories, no superadded life in the life of others; though we +who looked on think lightly of such premature despair, as if our vision of the +future lightened the blind sufferer’s present. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, in her brown frock, with her eyes reddened and her heavy hair pushed +back, looking from the bed where her father lay to the dull walls of this sad +chamber which was the centre of her world, was a creature full of eager, +passionate longings for all that was beautiful and glad; thirsty for all +knowledge; with an ear straining after dreamy music that died away and would +not come near to her; with a blind, unconscious yearning for something that +would link together the wonderful impressions of this mysterious life, and give +her soul a sense of home in it. +</p> + +<p> +No wonder, when there is this contrast between the outward and the inward, that +painful collisions come of it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap26"></a>Chapter VI.<br/> +Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a Pocket-Knife</h3> + +<p> +In that dark time of December, the sale of the household furniture lasted +beyond the middle of the second day. Mr Tulliver, who had begun, in his +intervals of consciousness, to manifest an irritability which often appeared to +have as a direct effect the recurrence of spasmodic rigidity and insensibility, +had lain in this living death throughout the critical hours when the noise of +the sale came nearest to his chamber. Mr Turnbull had decided that it would be +a less risk to let him remain where he was than to remove him to Luke’s +cottage,—a plan which the good Luke had proposed to Mrs Tulliver, +thinking it would be very bad if the master were “to waken up” at +the noise of the sale; and the wife and children had sat imprisoned in the +silent chamber, watching the large prostrate figure on the bed, and trembling +lest the blank face should suddenly show some response to the sounds which fell +on their own ears with such obstinate, painful repetition. +</p> + +<p> +But it was over at last, that time of importunate certainty and eye-straining +suspense. The sharp sound of a voice, almost as metallic as the rap that +followed it, had ceased; the tramping of footsteps on the gravel had died out. +Mrs Tulliver’s blond face seemed aged ten years by the last thirty +hours; the poor woman’s mind had been busy divining when her favourite +things were being knocked down by the terrible hammer; her heart had been +fluttering at the thought that first one thing and then another had gone to be +identified as hers in the hateful publicity of the Golden Lion; and all the +while she had to sit and make no sign of this inward agitation. Such things +bring lines in well-rounded faces, and broaden the streaks of white among the +hairs that once looked as if they had been dipped in pure sunshine. Already, at +three o’clock, Kezia, the good-hearted, bad-tempered housemaid, who +regarded all people that came to the sale as her personal enemies, the dirt on +whose feet was of a peculiarly vile quality, had begun to scrub and swill with +an energy much assisted by a continual low muttering against “folks as +came to buy up other folk’s things,” and made light of +“scrazing” the tops of mahogany tables over which better folks than +themselves had had to—suffer a waste of tissue through evaporation. She +was not scrubbing indiscriminately, for there would be further dirt of the same +atrocious kind made by people who had still to fetch away their purchases; but +she was bent on bringing the parlour, where that “pipe-smoking pig,” +the bailiff, had sat, to such an appearance of scant comfort as could be given +to it by cleanliness and the few articles of furniture bought in for the +family. Her mistress and the young folks should have their tea in it that +night, Kezia was determined. +</p> + +<p> +It was between five and six o’clock, near the usual teatime, when she +came upstairs and said that Master Tom was wanted. The person who wanted him +was in the kitchen, and in the first moments, by the imperfect fire and candle +light, Tom had not even an indefinite sense of any acquaintance with the rather +broad-set but active figure, perhaps two years older than himself, that looked +at him with a pair of blue eyes set in a disc of freckles, and pulled some +curly red locks with a strong intention of respect. A low-crowned +oilskin-covered hat, and a certain shiny deposit of dirt on the rest of the +costume, as of tablets prepared for writing upon, suggested a calling that had +to do with boats; but this did not help Tom’s memory. +</p> + +<p> +“Sarvant, Master Tom,” said he of the red locks, with a smile which +seemed to break through a self-imposed air of melancholy. “You +don’t know me again, I doubt,” he went on, as Tom continued to look +at him inquiringly; “but I’d like to talk to you by yourself a bit, +please.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a fire i’ the parlour, Master Tom,” said Kezia, +who objected to leaving the kitchen in the crisis of toasting. +</p> + +<p> +“Come this way, then,” said Tom, wondering if this young fellow +belonged to Guest & Co.’s Wharf, for his imagination ran continually +toward that particular spot; and uncle Deane might any time be sending for him +to say that there was a situation at liberty. +</p> + +<p> +The bright fire in the parlour was the only light that showed the few chairs, +the bureau, the carpetless floor, and the one table—no, not the +<i>one</i> table; there was a second table, in a corner, with a large Bible and +a few other books upon it. It was this new strange bareness that Tom felt +first, before he thought of looking again at the face which was also lit up by +the fire, and which stole a half-shy, questioning glance at him as the entirely +strange voice said: +</p> + +<p> +“Why! you don’t remember Bob, then, as you gen the pocket-knife to, +Mr Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +The rough-handled pocket-knife was taken out in the same moment, and the +largest blade opened by way of irresistible demonstration. +</p> + +<p> +“What! Bob Jakin?” said Tom, not with any cordial delight, for he +felt a little ashamed of that early intimacy symbolised by the pocket-knife, +and was not at all sure that Bob’s motives for recalling it were entirely +admirable. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, Bob Jakin, if Jakin it must be, ’cause there’s so +many Bobs as you went arter the squerrils with, that day as I plumped right +down from the bough, and bruised my shins a good un—but I got the +squerril tight for all that, an’ a scratter it was. An’ this +littlish blade’s broke, you see, but I wouldn’t hev a new un put +in, ’cause they might be cheatin’ me an’ givin’ me +another knife instid, for there isn’t such a blade i’ the +country,—it’s got used to my hand, like. An’ there was niver +nobody else gen me nothin’ but what I got by my own sharpness, only you, +Mr Tom; if it wasn’t Bill Fawks as gen me the terrier pup istid o’ +drowndin’t it, an’ I had to jaw him a good un afore he’d give +it me.” +</p> + +<p> +Bob spoke with a sharp and rather treble volubility, and got through his long +speech with surprising despatch, giving the blade of his knife an affectionate +rub on his sleeve when he had finished. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Bob,” said Tom, with a slight air of patronage, the +foregoing reminscences having disposed him to be as friendly as was becoming, +though there was no part of his acquaintance with Bob that he remembered better +than the cause of their parting quarrel; “is there anything I can do for +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no, Mr Tom,” answered Bob, shutting up his knife with a +click and returning it to his pocket, where he seemed to be feeling for +something else. “I shouldn’t ha’ come back upon you now +ye’re i’ trouble, an’ folks say as the master, as I used to +frighten the birds for, an’ he flogged me a bit for fun when he catched +me eatin’ the turnip, as they say he’ll niver lift up his head no +more,—I shouldn’t ha’ come now to ax you to gi’ me +another knife ’cause you gen me one afore. If a chap gives me one black +eye, that’s enough for me; I sha’n’t ax him for another afore +I sarve him out; an’ a good turn’s worth as much as a bad un, +anyhow. I shall niver grow down’ards again, Mr Tom, an’ you war +the little chap as I liked the best when <i>I</i> war a little chap, for all +you leathered me, and wouldn’t look at me again. There’s Dick +Brumby, there, I could leather him as much as I’d a mind; but lors! you +get tired o’ leatherin’ a chap when you can niver make him see what +you want him to shy at. I’n seen chaps as ’ud stand starin’ +at a bough till their eyes shot out, afore they’d see as a bird’s +tail warn’t a leaf. It’s poor work goin’ wi’ such raff. +But you war allays a rare un at shying, Mr Tom, an’ I could trusten to +you for droppin’ down wi’ your stick in the nick o’ time at a +runnin’ rat, or a stoat, or that, when I war a-beatin’ the +bushes.” +</p> + +<p> +Bob had drawn out a dirty canvas bag, and would perhaps not have paused just +then if Maggie had not entered the room and darted a look of surprise and +curiosity at him, whereupon he pulled his red locks again with due respect. But +the next moment the sense of the altered room came upon Maggie with a force +that overpowered the thought of Bob’s presence. Her eyes had immediately +glanced from him to the place where the bookcase had hung; there was nothing +now but the oblong unfaded space on the wall, and below it the small table with +the Bible and the few other books. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Tom!” she burst out, clasping her hands, “where are the +books? I thought my uncle Glegg said he would buy them. Didn’t he? Are +those all they’ve left us?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose so,” said Tom, with a sort of desperate indifference. +“Why should they buy many books when they bought so little +furniture?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but, Tom,” said Maggie, her eyes filling with tears, as she +rushed up to the table to see what books had been rescued. “Our dear old +Pilgrim’s Progress that you coloured with your little paints; and that +picture of Pilgrim with a mantle on, looking just like a turtle—oh +dear!” Maggie went on, half sobbing as she turned over the few books, +“I thought we should never part with that while we lived; everything is +going away from us; the end of our lives will have nothing in it like the +beginning!” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie turned away from the table and threw herself into a chair, with the big +tears ready to roll down her cheeks, quite blinded to the presence of Bob, who +was looking at her with the pursuant gaze of an intelligent dumb animal, with +perceptions more perfect than his comprehension. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Bob,” said Tom, feeling that the subject of the books was +unseasonable, “I suppose you just came to see me because we’re in +trouble? That was very good-natured of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you how it is, Master Tom,” said Bob, beginning to +untwist his canvas bag. “You see, I’n been with a barge this two +’ear; that’s how I’n been gettin’ my +livin’,—if it wasn’t when I was tentin’ the furnace, +between whiles, at Torry’s mill. But a fortni’t ago I’d a +rare bit o’ luck,—I allays thought I was a lucky chap, for I niver +set a trap but what I catched something; but this wasn’t trap, it was a +fire i’ Torry’s mill, an’ I doused it, else it ’ud set +th’ oil alight, an’ the genelman gen me ten suvreigns; he gen me +’em himself last week. An’ he said first, I was a sperrited +chap,—but I knowed that afore,—but then he outs wi’ the ten +suvreigns, an’ that war summat new. Here they are, all but one!” +Here Bob emptied the canvas bag on the table. “An’ when I’d +got ’em, my head was all of a boil like a kettle o’ broth, +thinkin’ what sort o’ life I should take to, for there war a many +trades I’d thought on; for as for the barge, I’m clean tired out +wi’t, for it pulls the days out till they’re as long as pigs’ +chitterlings. An’ I thought first I’d ha’ ferrets an’ +dogs, an’ be a rat-catcher; an’ then I thought as I should like a +bigger way o’ life, as I didn’t know so well; for I’n seen to +the bottom o’ rat-catching; an’ I thought, an’ thought, till +at last I settled I’d be a packman,—for they’re knowin’ +fellers, the packmen are,—an’ I’d carry the lightest things I +could i’ my pack; an’ there’d be a use for a feller’s +tongue, as is no use neither wi’ rats nor barges. An’ I should go +about the country far an’ wide, an’ come round the women wi’ +my tongue, an’ get my dinner hot at the public,—lors! it ’ud +be a lovely life!” +</p> + +<p> +Bob paused, and then said, with defiant decision, as if resolutely turning his +back on that paradisaic picture: +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t mind about it, not a chip! An’ I’n changed +one o’ the suvreigns to buy my mother a goose for dinner, an’ +I’n bought a blue plush wescoat, an’ a sealskin cap,—for if I +meant to be a packman, I’d do it respectable. But I don’t mind +about it, not a chip! My yead isn’t a turnip, an’ I shall +p’r’aps have a chance o’ dousing another fire afore long. +I’m a lucky chap. So I’ll thank you to take the nine suvreigns, Mr +Tom, and set yoursen up with ’em somehow, if it’s true as the +master’s broke. They mayn’t go fur enough, but they’ll +help.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom was touched keenly enough to forget his pride and suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a very kind fellow, Bob,” he said, colouring, with +that little diffident tremor in his voice which gave a certain charm even to +Tom’s pride and severity, “and I sha’n’t forget you +again, though I didn’t know you this evening. But I can’t take the +nine sovereigns; I should be taking your little fortune from you, and they +wouldn’t do me much good either.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t they, Mr Tom?” said Bob, regretfully. “Now +don’t say so ’cause you think I want ’em. I aren’t a +poor chap. My mother gets a good penn’orth wi’ picking feathers +an’ things; an’ if she eats nothin’ but +bread-an’-water, it runs to fat. An’ I’m such a lucky chap; +an’ I doubt you aren’t quite so lucky, Mr Tom,—th’ old +master isn’t, anyhow,—an’ so you might take a slice o’ +my luck, an’ no harm done. Lors! I found a leg o’ pork i’ the +river one day; it had tumbled out o’ one o’ them round-sterned +Dutchmen, I’ll be bound. Come, think better on it, Mr Tom, for old +’quinetance’ sake, else I shall think you bear me a grudge.” +</p> + +<p> +Bob pushed the sovereigns forward, but before Tom could speak Maggie, clasping +her hands, and looking penitently at Bob, said: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m so sorry, Bob; I never thought you were so good. Why, I +think you’re the kindest person in the world!” +</p> + +<p> +Bob had not been aware of the injurious opinion for which Maggie was performing +an inward act of penitence, but he smiled with pleasure at this handsome +eulogy,—especially from a young lass who, as he informed his mother that +evening, had “such uncommon eyes, they looked somehow as they made him +feel nohow.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed Bob, I can’t take them,” said Tom; “but +don’t think I feel your kindness less because I say no. I don’t +want to take anything from anybody, but to work my own way. And those +sovereigns wouldn’t help me much—they wouldn’t +really—if I were to take them. Let me shake hands with you +instead.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom put out his pink palm, and Bob was not slow to place his hard, grimy hand +within it. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me put the sovereigns in the bag again,” said Maggie; +“and you’ll come and see us when you’ve bought your pack, +Bob.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like as if I’d come out o’ make believe, o’ +purpose to show ’em you,” said Bob, with an air of discontent, as +Maggie gave him the bag again, “a-taking ’em back i’ this +way. I <i>am</i> a bit of a Do, you know; but it isn’t that sort o’ +Do,—it’s on’y when a feller’s a big rogue, or a big +flat, I like to let him in a bit, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, don’t you be up to any tricks, Bob,” said Tom, +“else you’ll get transported some day.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; not me, Mr Tom,” said Bob, with an air of cheerful +confidence. “There’s no law again’ flea-bites. If I +wasn’t to take a fool in now and then, he’d niver get any wiser. +But, lors! hev a suvreign to buy you and Miss summat, on’y for a +token—just to match my pocket-knife.” +</p> + +<p> +While Bob was speaking he laid down the sovereign, and resolutely twisted up +his bag again. Tom pushed back the gold, and said, “No, indeed, Bob; +thank you heartily, but I can’t take it.” And Maggie, taking it +between her fingers, held it up to Bob and said, more persuasively: +</p> + +<p> +“Not now, but perhaps another time. If ever Tom or my father wants help +that you can give, we’ll let you know; won’t we, Tom? That’s +what you would like,—to have us always depend on you as a friend that we +can go to,—isn’t it, Bob?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Miss, and thank you,” said Bob, reluctantly taking the money; +“that’s what I’d like, anything as you like. An’ I wish +you good-by, Miss, and good-luck, Mr Tom, and thank you for shaking hands +wi’ me, <i>though</i> you wouldn’t take the money.” +</p> + +<p> +Kezia’s entrance, with very black looks, to inquire if she +shouldn’t bring in the tea now, or whether the toast was to get hardened +to a brick, was a seasonable check on Bob’s flux of words, and hastened +his parting bow. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap27"></a>Chapter VII.<br/> +How a Hen Takes to Stratagem</h3> + +<p> +The days passed, and Mr Tulliver showed, at least to the eyes of the medical +man, stronger and stronger symptoms of a gradual return to his normal +condition; the paralytic obstruction was, little by little, losing its +tenacity, and the mind was rising from under it with fitful struggles, like a +living creature making its way from under a great snowdrift, that slides and +slides again, and shuts up the newly made opening. +</p> + +<p> +Time would have seemed to creep to the watchers by the bed, if it had only been +measured by the doubtful, distant hope which kept count of the moments within +the chamber; but it was measured for them by a fast-approaching dread which +made the nights come too quickly. While Mr Tulliver was slowly becoming +himself again, his lot was hastening toward its moment of most palpable change. +The taxing-masters had done their work like any respectable gunsmith +conscientiously preparing the musket, that, duly pointed by a brave arm, will +spoil a life or two. Allocaturs, filing of bills in Chancery, decrees of sale, +are legal chain-shot or bomb-shells that can never hit a solitary mark, but +must fall with widespread shattering. So deeply inherent is it in this life of +ours that men have to suffer for each other’s sins, so inevitably +diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can +conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of +unmerited pain. +</p> + +<p> +By the beginning of the second week in January, the bills were out advertising +the sale, under a decree of Chancery, of Mr Tulliver’s farming and other +stock, to be followed by a sale of the mill and land, held in the proper +after-dinner hour at the Golden Lion. The miller himself, unaware of the lapse +of time, fancied himself still in that first stage of his misfortunes when +expedients might be thought of; and often in his conscious hours talked in a +feeble, disjointed manner of plans he would carry out when he “got +well.” The wife and children were not without hope of an issue that would +at least save Mr Tulliver from leaving the old spot, and seeking an entirely +strange life. For uncle Deane had been induced to interest himself in this +stage of the business. It would not, he acknowledged, be a bad speculation for +Guest & Co. to buy Dorlcote Mill, and carry on the business, which was a +good one, and might be increased by the addition of steam power; in which case +Tulliver might be retained as manager. Still, Mr Deane would say nothing +decided about the matter; the fact that Wakem held the mortgage on the land +might put it into his head to bid for the whole estate, and further, to outbid +the cautious firm of Guest & Co., who did not carry on business on +sentimental grounds. Mr Deane was obliged to tell Mrs Tulliver something to +that effect, when he rode over to the mill to inspect the books in company with +Mrs Glegg; for she had observed that “if Guest & Co. would only think +about it, Mr Tulliver’s father and grandfather had been carrying on +Dorlcote Mill long before the oil-mill of that firm had been so much as thought +of.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Deane, in reply, doubted whether that was precisely the relation between +the two mills which would determine their value as investments. As for uncle +Glegg, the thing lay quite beyond his imagination; the good-natured man felt +sincere pity for the Tulliver family, but his money was all locked up in +excellent mortgages, and he could run no risk; that would be unfair to his own +relatives; but he had made up his mind that Tulliver should have some new +flannel waistcoats which he had himself renounced in favour of a more elastic +commodity, and that he would buy Mrs Tulliver a pound of tea now and then; it +would be a journey which his benevolence delighted in beforehand, to carry the +tea and see her pleasure on being assured it was the best black. +</p> + +<p> +Still, it was clear that Mr Deane was kindly disposed toward the Tullivers. +One day he had brought Lucy, who was come home for the Christmas holidays, and +the little blond angel-head had pressed itself against Maggie’s darker +cheek with many kisses and some tears. These fair slim daughters keep up a +tender spot in the heart of many a respectable partner in a respectable firm, +and perhaps Lucy’s anxious, pitying questions about her poor cousins +helped to make uncle Deane more prompt in finding Tom a temporary place in the +warehouse, and in putting him in the way of getting evening lessons in +book-keeping and calculation. +</p> + +<p> +That might have cheered the lad and fed his hopes a little, if there had not +come at the same time the much-dreaded blow of finding that his father must be +a bankrupt, after all; at least, the creditors must be asked to take less than +their due, which to Tom’s untechnical mind was the same thing as +bankruptcy. His father must not only be said to have “lost his +property,” but to have “failed,”—the word that carried +the worst obloquy to Tom’s mind. For when the defendant’s claim for +costs had been satisfied, there would remain the friendly bill of Mr Gore, and +the deficiency at the bank, as well as the other debts which would make the +assets shrink into unequivocal disproportion; “not more than ten or +twelve shillings in the pound,” predicted Mr Deane, in a decided tone, +tightening his lips; and the words fell on Tom like a scalding liquid, leaving +a continual smart. +</p> + +<p> +He was sadly in want of something to keep up his spirits a little in the +unpleasant newness of his position,—suddenly transported from the easy +carpeted <i>ennui</i> of study-hours at Mr Stelling’s, and the busy +idleness of castle-building in a “last half” at school, to the +companionship of sacks and hides, and bawling men thundering down heavy weights +at his elbow. The first step toward getting on in the world was a chill, dusty, +noisy affair, and implied going without one’s tea in order to stay in St +Ogg’s and have an evening lesson from a one-armed elderly clerk, in a +room smelling strongly of bad tobacco. Tom’s young pink-and-white face +had its colours very much deadened by the time he took off his hat at home, and +sat down with keen hunger to his supper. No wonder he was a little cross if his +mother or Maggie spoke to him. +</p> + +<p> +But all this while Mrs Tulliver was brooding over a scheme by which she, and +no one else, would avert the result most to be dreaded, and prevent Wakem from +entertaining the purpose of bidding for the mill. Imagine a truly respectable +and amiable hen, by some portentous anomaly, taking to reflection and inventing +combinations by which she might prevail on Hodge not to wring her neck, or send +her and her chicks to market; the result could hardly be other than much +cackling and fluttering. Mrs Tulliver, seeing that everything had gone wrong, +had begun to think she had been too passive in life; and that, if she had +applied her mind to business, and taken a strong resolution now and then, it +would have been all the better for her and her family. Nobody, it appeared, had +thought of going to speak to Wakem on this business of the mill; and yet, Mrs +Tulliver reflected, it would have been quite the shortest method of securing +the right end. It would have been of no use, to be sure, for Mr Tulliver to +go,—even if he had been able and willing,—for he had been +“going to law against Wakem” and abusing him for the last ten +years; Wakem was always likely to have a spite against him. And now that Mrs +Tulliver had come to the conclusion that her husband was very much in the wrong +to bring her into this trouble, she was inclined to think that his opinion of +Wakem was wrong too. To be sure, Wakem had “put the bailies in the house, +and sold them up”; but she supposed he did that to please the man that +lent Mr Tulliver the money, for a lawyer had more folks to please than one, +and he wasn’t likely to put Mr Tulliver, who had gone to law with him, +above everybody else in the world. The attorney might be a very reasonable man; +why not? He had married a Miss Clint, and at the time Mrs Tulliver had heard +of that marriage, the summer when she wore her blue satin spencer, and had not +yet any thoughts of Mr Tulliver, she knew no harm of Wakem. And certainly +toward herself, whom he knew to have been a Miss Dodson, it was out of all +possibility that he could entertain anything but good-will, when it was once +brought home to his observation that she, for her part, had never wanted to go +to law, and indeed was at present disposed to take Mr Wakem’s view of +all subjects rather than her husband’s. In fact, if that attorney saw a +respectable matron like herself disposed “to give him good words,” +why shouldn’t he listen to her representations? For she would put the +matter clearly before him, which had never been done yet. And he would never go +and bid for the mill on purpose to spite her, an innocent woman, who thought it +likely enough that she had danced with him in their youth at Squire +Darleigh’s, for at those big dances she had often and often danced with +young men whose names she had forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver hid these reasonings in her own bosom; for when she had thrown +out a hint to Mr Deane and Mr Glegg that she wouldn’t mind going to +speak to Wakem herself, they had said, “No, no, no,” and +“Pooh, pooh,” and “Let Wakem alone,” in the tone of men +who were not likely to give a candid attention to a more definite exposition of +her project; still less dared she mention the plan to Tom and Maggie, for +“the children were always so against everything their mother said”; +and Tom, she observed, was almost as much set against Wakem as his father was. +But this unusual concentration of thought naturally gave Mrs Tulliver an +unusual power of device and determination; and a day or two before the sale, to +be held at the Golden Lion, when there was no longer any time to be lost, she +carried out her plan by a stratagem. There were pickles in question, a large +stock of pickles and ketchup which Mrs Tulliver possessed, and which Mr +Hyndmarsh, the grocer, would certainly purchase if she could transact the +business in a personal interview, so she would walk with Tom to St Ogg’s +that morning; and when Tom urged that she might let the pickles be at +present,—he didn’t like her to go about just yet,—she +appeared so hurt at this conduct in her son, contradicting her about pickles +which she had made after the family receipts inherited from his own +grandmother, who had died when his mother was a little girl, that he gave way, +and they walked together until she turned toward Danish Street, where Mr +Hyndmarsh retailed his grocery, not far from the offices of Mr Wakem. +</p> + +<p> +That gentleman was not yet come to his office; would Mrs Tulliver sit down by +the fire in his private room and wait for him? She had not long to wait before +the punctual attorney entered, knitting his brow with an examining glance at +the stout blond woman who rose, curtsying deferentially,—a tallish man, +with an aquiline nose and abundant iron-gray hair. You have never seen Mr +Wakem before, and are possibly wondering whether he was really as eminent a +rascal, and as crafty, bitter an enemy of honest humanity in general, and of +Mr Tulliver in particular, as he is represented to be in that eidolon or +portrait of him which we have seen to exist in the miller’s mind. +</p> + +<p> +It is clear that the irascible miller was a man to interpret any chance-shot +that grazed him as an attempt on his own life, and was liable to entanglements +in this puzzling world, which, due consideration had to his own infallibility, +required the hypothesis of a very active diabolical agency to explain them. It +is still possible to believe that the attorney was not more guilty toward him +than an ingenious machine, which performs its work with much regularity, is +guilty toward the rash man who, venturing too near it, is caught up by some +fly-wheel or other, and suddenly converted into unexpected mince-meat. +</p> + +<p> +But it is really impossible to decide this question by a glance at his person; +the lines and lights of the human countenance are like other symbols,—not +always easy to read without a key. On an <i>a priori</i> view of Wakem’s +aquiline nose, which offended Mr Tulliver, there was not more rascality than +in the shape of his stiff shirt-collar, though this too along with his nose, +might have become fraught with damnatory meaning when once the rascality was +ascertained. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs Tulliver, I think?” said Mr Wakem. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir; Miss Elizabeth Dodson as was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray be seated. You have some business with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir, yes,” said Mrs Tulliver, beginning to feel alarmed at +her own courage, now she was really in presence of the formidable man, and +reflecting that she had not settled with herself how she should begin. Mr +Wakem felt in his waistcoat pockets, and looked at her in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope, sir,” she began at last,—“I hope, sir, +you’re not a-thinking as <i>I</i> bear you any ill-will because o’ +my husband’s losing his lawsuit, and the bailies being put in, and the +linen being sold,—oh dear!—for I wasn’t brought up in that +way. I’m sure you remember my father, sir, for he was close friends with +Squire Darleigh, and we allays went to the dances there, the Miss +Dodsons,—nobody could be more looked on,—and justly, for there was +four of us, and you’re quite aware as Mrs Glegg and Mrs Deane are my +sisters. And as for going to law and losing money, and having sales before +you’re dead, I never saw anything o’ that before I was married, nor +for a long while after. And I’m not to be answerable for my bad luck +i’ marrying out o’ my own family into one where the goings-on was +different. And as for being drawn in t’ abuse you as other folks abuse +you, sir, <i>that</i> I niver was, and nobody can say it of me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver shook her head a little, and looked at the hem of her +pocket handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve no doubt of what you say, Mrs Tulliver,” said Mr +Wakem, with cold politeness. “But you have some question to ask +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir, yes. But that’s what I’ve said to +myself,—I’ve said you’d had some nat’ral feeling; and +as for my husband, as hasn’t been himself for this two months, I’m +not a-defending him, in no way, for being so hot about th’ +erigation,—not but what there’s worse men, for he never wronged +nobody of a shilling nor a penny, not willingly; and as for his fieriness and +lawing, what could I do? And him struck as if it was with death when he got the +letter as said you’d the hold upo’ the land. But I can’t +believe but what you’ll behave as a gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does all this mean, Mrs Tulliver?” said Mr Wakem rather +sharply. “What do you want to ask me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, sir, if you’ll be so good,” said Mrs Tulliver, +starting a little, and speaking more hurriedly,—“if you’ll be +so good not to buy the mill an’ the land,—the land wouldn’t +so much matter, only my husband ull’ be like mad at your having +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Something like a new thought flashed across Mr Wakem’s face as he said, +“Who told you I meant to buy it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, sir, it’s none o’ my inventing, and I should never +ha’ thought of it; for my husband, as ought to know about the law, he +allays used to say as lawyers had never no call to buy anything,—either +lands or houses,—for they allays got ’em into their hands other +ways. An’ I should think that ’ud be the way with you, sir; and I +niver said as you’d be the man to do contrairy to that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well, who was it that <i>did</i> say so?” said Wakem, opening +his desk, and moving things about, with the accompaniment of an almost +inaudible whistle. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, sir, it was Mr Glegg and Mr Deane, as have all the management; +and Mr Deane thinks as Guest & Co. ’ud buy the mill and let Mr +Tulliver work it for ’em, if you didn’t bid for it and raise the +price. And it ’ud be such a thing for my husband to stay where he is, if +he could get his living: for it was his father’s before him, the mill +was, and his grandfather built it, though I wasn’t fond o’ the +noise of it, when first I was married, for there was no mills in our +family,—not the Dodson’s,—and if I’d known as the mills +had so much to do with the law, it wouldn’t have been me as ’ud +have been the first Dodson to marry one; but I went into it blindfold, that I +did, erigation and everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! Guest & Co. would keep the mill in their own hands, I suppose, +and pay your husband wages?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, sir, it’s hard to think of,” said poor Mrs +Tulliver, a little tear making its way, “as my husband should take wage. +But it ’ud look more like what used to be, to stay at the mill than to go +anywhere else; and if you’ll only think—if you was to bid for the +mill and buy it, my husband might be struck worse than he was before, and niver +get better again as he’s getting now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but if I bought the mill, and allowed your husband to act as my +manager in the same way, how then?” said Mr Wakem. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sir, I doubt he could niver be got to do it, not if the very mill +stood still to beg and pray of him. For your name’s like poison to him, +it’s so as never was; and he looks upon it as you’ve been the ruin +of him all along, ever since you set the law on him about the road through the +meadow,—that’s eight year ago, and he’s been going on ever +since—as I’ve allays told him he was wrong——” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a pig-headed, foul-mouthed fool!” burst out Mr Wakem, +forgetting himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, sir!” said Mrs Tulliver, frightened at a result so +different from the one she had fixed her mind on; “I wouldn’t wish +to contradict you, but it’s like enough he’s changed his mind with +this illness,—he’s forgot a many things he used to talk about. And +you wouldn’t like to have a corpse on your mind, if he was to die; and +they <i>do</i> say as it’s allays unlucky when Dorlcote Mill changes +hands, and the water might all run away, and <i>then</i>—not as I’m +wishing you any ill-luck, sir, for I forgot to tell you as I remember your +wedding as if it was yesterday; Mrs Wakem was a Miss Clint, I know +<i>that;</i> and my boy, as there isn’t a nicer, handsomer, straighter +boy nowhere, went to school with your son——” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Wakem rose, opened the door, and called to one of his clerks. +</p> + +<p> +“You must excuse me for interrupting you, Mrs Tulliver; I have business +that must be attended to; and I think there is nothing more necessary to be +said.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if you <i>would</i> bear it in mind, sir,” said Mrs Tulliver, +rising, “and not run against me and my children; and I’m not +denying Mr Tulliver’s been in the wrong, but he’s been punished +enough, and there’s worse men, for it’s been giving to other folks +has been his fault. He’s done nobody any harm but himself and his +family,—the more’s the pity,—and I go and look at the bare +shelves every day, and think where all my things used to stand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, I’ll bear it in mind,” said Mr Wakem, hastily, +looking toward the open door. +</p> + +<p> +“And if you’d please not to say as I’ve been to speak to you, +for my son ’ud be very angry with me for demeaning myself, I know he +would, and I’ve trouble enough without being scolded by my +children.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Mrs Tulliver’s voice trembled a little, and she could make no +answer to the attorney’s “good morning,” but curtsied and +walked out in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Which day is it that Dorlcote Mill is to be sold? Where’s the +bill?” said Mr Wakem to his clerk when they were alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Next Friday is the day,—Friday at six o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, just run to Winship’s the auctioneer, and see if he’s at +home. I have some business for him; ask him to come up.” +</p> + +<p> +Although, when Mr Wakem entered his office that morning, he had had no +intention of purchasing Dorlcote Mill, his mind was already made up. Mrs +Tulliver had suggested to him several determining motives, and his mental +glance was very rapid; he was one of those men who can be prompt without being +rash, because their motives run in fixed tracks, and they have no need to +reconcile conflicting aims. +</p> + +<p> +To suppose that Wakem had the same sort of inveterate hatred toward Tulliver +that Tulliver had toward him would be like supposing that a pike and a roach +can look at each other from a similar point of view. The roach necessarily +abhors the mode in which the pike gets his living, and the pike is likely to +think nothing further even of the most indignant roach than that he is +excellent good eating; it could only be when the roach choked him that the pike +could entertain a strong personal animosity. If Mr Tulliver had ever seriously +injured or thwarted the attorney, Wakem would not have refused him the +distinction of being a special object of his vindictiveness. But when Mr +Tulliver called Wakem a rascal at the market dinner-table, the attorneys’ +clients were not a whit inclined to withdraw their business from him; and if, +when Wakem himself happened to be present, some jocose cattle-feeder, +stimulated by opportunity and brandy, made a thrust at him by alluding to old +ladies’ wills, he maintained perfect <i>sang froid</i>, and knew quite +well that the majority of substantial men then present were perfectly contented +with the fact that “Wakem was Wakem”; that is to say, a man who +always knew the stepping-stones that would carry him through very muddy bits of +practice. A man who had made a large fortune, had a handsome house among the +trees at Tofton, and decidedly the finest stock of port-wine in the +neighbourhood of St Ogg’s, was likely to feel himself on a level with +public opinion. And I am not sure that even honest Mr Tulliver himself, with +his general view of law as a cockpit, might not, under opposite circumstances, +have seen a fine appropriateness in the truth that “Wakem was +Wakem”; since I have understood from persons versed in history, that +mankind is not disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of great victors when +their victory is on the right side. Tulliver, then, could be no obstruction to +Wakem; on the contrary, he was a poor devil whom the lawyer had defeated +several times; a hot-tempered fellow, who would always give you a handle +against him. Wakem’s conscience was not uneasy because he had used a few +tricks against the miller; why should he hate that unsuccessful plaintiff, that +pitiable, furious bull entangled in the meshes of a net? +</p> + +<p> +Still, among the various excesses to which human nature is subject, moralists +have never numbered that of being too fond of the people who openly revile us. +The successful Yellow candidate for the borough of Old Topping, perhaps, feels +no pursuant meditative hatred toward the Blue editor who consoles his +subscribers with vituperative rhetoric against Yellow men who sell their +country, and are the demons of private life; but he might not be sorry, if law +and opportunity favoured, to kick that Blue editor to a deeper shade of his +favourite colour. Prosperous men take a little vengeance now and then, as they +take a diversion, when it comes easily in their way, and is no hindrance to +business; and such small unimpassioned revenges have an enormous effect in +life, running through all degrees of pleasant infliction, blocking the fit men +out of places, and blackening characters in unpremeditated talk. Still more, to +see people who have been only insignificantly offensive to us reduced in life +and humiliated, without any special effort of ours, is apt to have a soothing, +flattering influence. Providence or some other prince of this world, it +appears, has undertaken the task of retribution for us; and really, by an +agreeable constitution of things, our enemies somehow <i>don’t</i> +prosper. +</p> + +<p> +Wakem was not without this parenthetic vindictiveness toward the +uncomplimentary miller; and now Mrs Tulliver had put the notion into his head, +it presented itself to him as a pleasure to do the very thing that would cause +Mr Tulliver the most deadly mortification,—and a pleasure of a complex +kind, not made up of crude malice, but mingling with it the relish of +self-approbation. To see an enemy humiliated gives a certain contentment, but +this is jejune compared with the highly blent satisfaction of seeing him +humiliated by your benevolent action or concession on his behalf. That is a +sort of revenge which falls into the scale of virtue, and Wakem was not without +an intention of keeping that scale respectably filled. He had once had the +pleasure of putting an old enemy of his into one of the St Ogg’s +alms-houses, to the rebuilding of which he had given a large subscription; and +here was an opportunity of providing for another by making him his own servant. +Such things give a completeness to prosperity, and contribute elements of +agreeable consciousness that are not dreamed of by that short-sighted, +overheated vindictiveness which goes out of its way to wreak itself in direct +injury. And Tulliver, with his rough tongue filed by a sense of obligation, +would make a better servant than any chance-fellow who was cap-in-hand for a +situation. Tulliver was known to be a man of proud honesty, and Wakem was too +acute not to believe in the existence of honesty. He was given to observing +individuals, not to judging of them according to maxims, and no one knew better +than he that all men were not like himself. Besides, he intended to overlook +the whole business of land and mill pretty closely; he was fond of these +practical rural matters. But there were good reasons for purchasing Dorlcote +Mill, quite apart from any benevolent vengeance on the miller. It was really a +capital investment; besides, Guest & Co. were going to bid for it. Mr Guest +and Mr Wakem were on friendly dining terms, and the attorney liked to +predominate over a ship-owner and mill-owner who was a little too loud in the +town affairs as well as in his table-talk. For Wakem was not a mere man of +business; he was considered a pleasant fellow in the upper circles of St +Ogg’s—chatted amusingly over his port-wine, did a little amateur +farming, and had certainly been an excellent husband and father; at church, +when he went there, he sat under the handsomest of mural monuments erected to +the memory of his wife. Most men would have married again under his +circumstances, but he was said to be more tender to his deformed son than most +men were to their best-shapen offspring. Not that Mr Wakem had not other sons +beside Philip; but toward them he held only a chiaroscuro parentage, and +provided for them in a grade of life duly beneath his own. In this fact, +indeed, there lay the clenching motive to the purchase of Dorlcote Mill. While +Mrs Tulliver was talking, it had occurred to the rapid-minded lawyer, among +all the other circumstances of the case, that this purchase would, in a few +years to come, furnish a highly suitable position for a certain favourite lad +whom he meant to bring on in the world. +</p> + +<p> +These were the mental conditions on which Mrs Tulliver had undertaken to act +persuasively, and had failed; a fact which may receive some illustration from +the remark of a great philosopher, that fly-fishers fail in preparing their +bait so as to make it alluring in the right quarter, for want of a due +acquaintance with the subjectivity of fishes. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap28"></a>Chapter VIII.<br/> +Daylight on the Wreck</h3> + +<p> +It was a clear frosty January day on which Mr Tulliver first came downstairs. +The bright sun on the chestnut boughs and the roofs opposite his window had +made him impatiently declare that he would be caged up no longer; he thought +everywhere would be more cheery under this sunshine than his bedroom; for he +knew nothing of the bareness below, which made the flood of sunshine +importunate, as if it had an unfeeling pleasure in showing the empty places, +and the marks where well-known objects once had been. The impression on his +mind that it was but yesterday when he received the letter from Mr Gore was so +continually implied in his talk, and the attempts to convey to him the idea +that many weeks had passed and much had happened since then had been so soon +swept away by recurrent forgetfulness, that even Mr Turnbull had begun to +despair of preparing him to meet the facts by previous knowledge. The full +sense of the present could only be imparted gradually by new +experience,—not by mere words, which must remain weaker than the +impressions left by the <i>old</i> experience. This resolution to come +downstairs was heard with trembling by the wife and children. Mrs Tulliver +said Tom must not go to St Ogg’s at the usual hour, he must wait and see +his father downstairs; and Tom complied, though with an intense inward +shrinking from the painful scene. The hearts of all three had been more deeply +dejected than ever during the last few days. For Guest & Co. had not bought +the mill; both mill and land had been knocked down to Wakem, who had been over +the premises, and had laid before Mr Deane and Mr Glegg, in Mrs +Tulliver’s presence, his willingness to employ Mr Tulliver, in case of +his recovery, as a manager of the business. This proposition had occasioned +much family debating. Uncles and aunts were almost unanimously of opinion that +such an offer ought not to be rejected when there was nothing in the way but a +feeling in Mr Tulliver’s mind, which, as neither aunts nor uncles shared +it, was regarded as entirely unreasonable and childish,—indeed, as a +transferring toward Wakem of that indignation and hatred which Mr Tulliver +ought properly to have directed against himself for his general +quarrelsomeness, and his special exhibition of it in going to law. Here was an +opportunity for Mr Tulliver to provide for his wife and daughter without any +assistance from his wife’s relations, and without that too evident +descent into pauperism which makes it annoying to respectable people to meet +the degraded member of the family by the wayside. Mr Tulliver, Mrs Glegg +considered, must be made to feel, when he came to his right mind, that he could +never humble himself enough; for <i>that</i> had come which she had always +foreseen would come of his insolence in time past “to them as were the +best friends he’d got to look to.” Mr Glegg and Mr Deane were less +stern in their views, but they both of them thought Tulliver had done enough +harm by his hot-tempered crotchets and ought to put them out of the question +when a livelihood was offered him; Wakem showed a right feeling about the +matter,—<i>he</i> had no grudge against Tulliver. +</p> + +<p> +Tom had protested against entertaining the proposition. He shouldn’t like +his father to be under Wakem; he thought it would look mean-spirited; but his +mother’s main distress was the utter impossibility of ever “turning +Mr Tulliver round about Wakem,” or getting him to hear reason; no, they +would all have to go and live in a pigsty on purpose to spite Wakem, who spoke +“so as nobody could be fairer.” Indeed, Mrs Tulliver’s mind +was reduced to such confusion by living in this strange medium of unaccountable +sorrow, against which she continually appealed by asking, “Oh dear, what +<i>have</i> I done to deserve worse than other women?” that Maggie began +to suspect her poor mother’s wits were quite going. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom,” she said, when they were out of their father’s room +together, “we <i>must</i> try to make father understand a little of what +has happened before he goes downstairs. But we must get my mother away. She +will say something that will do harm. Ask Kezia to fetch her down, and keep her +engaged with something in the kitchen.” +</p> + +<p> +Kezia was equal to the task. Having declared her intention of staying till the +master could get about again, “wage or no wage,” she had found a +certain recompense in keeping a strong hand over her mistress, scolding her for +“moithering” herself, and going about all day without changing her +cap, and looking as if she was “mushed.” Altogether, this time of +trouble was rather a Saturnalian time to Kezia; she could scold her betters +with unreproved freedom. On this particular occasion there were drying clothes +to be fetched in; she wished to know if one pair of hands could do everything +in-doors and out, and observed that <i>she</i> should have thought it would be +good for Mrs Tulliver to put on her bonnet, and get a breath of fresh air by +doing that needful piece of work. Poor Mrs Tulliver went submissively +downstairs; to be ordered about by a servant was the last remnant of her +household dignities,—she would soon have no servant to scold her. Mr +Tulliver was resting in his chair a little after the fatigue of dressing, and +Maggie and Tom were seated near him, when Luke entered to ask if he should help +master downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, Luke; stop a bit, sit down,” said Mr Tulliver pointing +his stick toward a chair, and looking at him with that pursuant gaze which +convalescent persons often have for those who have tended them, reminding one +of an infant gazing about after its nurse. For Luke had been a constant +night-watcher by his master’s bed. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s the water now, eh, Luke?” said Mr Tulliver. +“Dix hasn’t been choking you up again, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir, it’s all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, I thought not; he won’t be in a hurry at that again, now +Riley’s been to settle him. That was what I said to Riley +yesterday—I said——” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver leaned forward, resting his elbows on the armchair, and looking on +the ground as if in search of something, striving after vanishing images like a +man struggling against a doze. Maggie looked at Tom in mute distress, their +father’s mind was so far off the present, which would by-and-by thrust +itself on his wandering consciousness! Tom was almost ready to rush away, with +that impatience of painful emotion which makes one of the differences between +youth and maiden, man and woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” said Maggie, laying her hand on his, “don’t +you remember that Mr Riley is dead?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dead?” said Mr Tulliver, sharply, looking in her face with a +strange, examining glance. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he died of apoplexy nearly a year ago. I remember hearing you say +you had to pay money for him; and he left his daughters badly off; one of them +is under-teacher at Miss Firniss’s, where I’ve been to school, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah?” said her father, doubtfully, still looking in her face. But +as soon as Tom began to speak he turned to look at <i>him</i> with the same +inquiring glances, as if he were rather surprised at the presence of these two +young people. Whenever his mind was wandering in the far past, he fell into +this oblivion of their actual faces; they were not those of the lad and the +little wench who belonged to that past. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a long while since you had the dispute with Dix, +father,” said Tom. “I remember your talking about it three years +ago, before I went to school at Mr Stelling’s. I’ve been at school +there three years; don’t you remember?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver threw himself backward again, losing the childlike outward glance +under a rush of new ideas, which diverted him from external impressions. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay,” he said, after a minute or two, “I’ve paid a +deal o’ money—I was determined my son should have a good +eddication; I’d none myself, and I’ve felt the miss of it. And +he’ll want no other fortin, that’s what I say—if Wakem was to +get the better of me again——” +</p> + +<p> +The thought of Wakem roused new vibrations, and after a moment’s pause he +began to look at the coat he had on, and to feel in his side-pocket. Then he +turned to Tom, and said in his old sharp way, “Where have they put +Gore’s letter?” +</p> + +<p> +It was close at hand in a drawer, for he had often asked for it before. +</p> + +<p> +“You know what there is in the letter, father?” said Tom, as he +gave it to him. +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure I do,” said Mr Tulliver, rather angrily. “What +o’ that? If Furley can’t take to the property, somebody else can; +there’s plenty o’ people in the world besides Furley. But +it’s hindering—my not being well—go and tell ’em to get +the horse in the gig, Luke; I can get down to St Ogg’s well +enough—Gore’s expecting me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, dear father!” Maggie burst out entreatingly; “it’s +a very long while since all that; you’ve been ill a great many +weeks,—more than two months; everything is changed.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver looked at them all three alternately with a startled gaze; the +idea that much had happened of which he knew nothing had often transiently +arrested him before, but it came upon him now with entire novelty. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, father,” said Tom, in answer to the gaze. “You +needn’t trouble your mind about business until you are quite well; +everything is settled about that for the present,—about the mill and the +land and the debts.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s settled, then?” said his father, angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you take on too much about it, sir,” said Luke. +“You’d ha’ paid iverybody if you could,—that’s +what I said to Master Tom,—I said you’d ha’ paid iverybody if +you could.” +</p> + +<p> +Good Luke felt, after the manner of contented hard-working men whose lives have +been spent in servitude, that sense of natural fitness in rank which made his +master’s downfall a tragedy to him. He was urged, in his slow way, to say +something that would express his share in the family sorrow; and these words, +which he had used over and over again to Tom when he wanted to decline the full +payment of his fifty pounds out of the children’s money, were the most +ready to his tongue. They were just the words to lay the most painful hold on +his master’s bewildered mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Paid everybody?” he said, with vehement agitation, his face +flushing, and his eye lighting up. “Why—what—have they made +me a <i>bankrupt?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, father, dear father!” said Maggie, who thought that terrible +word really represented the fact; “bear it well, because we love you; +your children will always love you. Tom will pay them all; he says he will, +when he’s a man.” +</p> + +<p> +She felt her father beginning to tremble; his voice trembled too, as he said, +after a few moments: +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, my little wench, but I shall never live twice o’er.” +</p> + +<p> +“But perhaps you will live to see me pay everybody, father,” said +Tom, speaking with a great effort. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, my lad,” said Mr Tulliver, shaking his head slowly, +“but what’s broke can never be whole again; it ’ud be your +doing, not mine.” Then looking up at him, “You’re only +sixteen; it’s an up-hill fight for you, but you mustn’t throw it at +your father; the raskills have been too many for him. I’ve given you a +good eddication,—that’ll start you.” +</p> + +<p> +Something in his throat half choked the last words; the flush, which had +alarmed his children because it had so often preceded a recurrence of +paralysis, had subsided, and his face looked pale and tremulous. Tom said +nothing; he was still struggling against his inclination to rush away. His +father remained quiet a minute or two, but his mind did not seem to be +wandering again. +</p> + +<p> +“Have they sold me up, then?” he said more calmly, as if he were +possessed simply by the desire to know what had happened. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything is sold, father; but we don’t know all about the mill +and the land yet,” said Tom, anxious to ward off any question leading to +the fact that Wakem was the purchaser. +</p> + +<p> +“You must not be surprised to see the room look very bare downstairs, +father,” said Maggie; “but there’s your chair and the bureau; +<i>they’re</i> not gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go; help me down, Luke,—I’ll go and see +everything,” said Mr Tulliver, leaning on his stick, and stretching out +his other hand toward Luke. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sir,” said Luke, as he gave his arm to his master, +“you’ll make up your mind to’t a bit better when you’ve +seen iverything; you’ll get used to’t. That’s what my mother +says about her shortness o’ breath,—she says she’s made +friends wi’t now, though she fought again’ it sore when it just +come on.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie ran on before to see that all was right in the dreary parlour, where the +fire, dulled by the frosty sunshine, seemed part of the general shabbiness. She +turned her father’s chair, and pushed aside the table to make an easy way +for him, and then stood with a beating heart to see him enter and look round +for the first time. Tom advanced before him, carrying the leg-rest, and stood +beside Maggie on the hearth. Of those two young hearts Tom’s suffered the +most unmixed pain, for Maggie, with all her keen susceptibility, yet felt as if +the sorrow made larger room for her love to flow in, and gave breathing-space +to her passionate nature. No true boy feels that; he would rather go and slay +the Nemean lion, or perform any round of heroic labours, than endure perpetual +appeals to his pity, for evils over which he can make no conquest. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver paused just inside the door, resting on Luke, and looking round +him at all the bare places, which for him were filled with the shadows of +departed objects,—the daily companions of his life. His faculties seemed +to be renewing their strength from getting a footing on this demonstration of +the senses. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” he said slowly, moving toward his chair, “they’ve +sold me up—they’ve sold me up.” +</p> + +<p> +Then seating himself, and laying down his stick, while Luke left the room, he +looked round again. +</p> + +<p> +“They’ve left the big Bible,” he said. “It’s got +everything in,—when I was born and married; bring it me, Tom.” +</p> + +<p> +The quarto Bible was laid open before him at the fly-leaf, and while he was +reading with slowly travelling eyes Mrs Tulliver entered the room, but stood +in mute surprise to find her husband down already, and with the great Bible +before him. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” he said, looking at a spot where his finger rested, “my +mother was Margaret Beaton; she died when she was forty-seven,—hers +wasn’t a long-lived family; we’re our mother’s children, +Gritty and me are,—we shall go to our last bed before long.” +</p> + +<p> +He seemed to be pausing over the record of his sister’s birth and +marriage, as if it were suggesting new thoughts to him; then he suddenly looked +up at Tom, and said, in a sharp tone of alarm: +</p> + +<p> +“They haven’t come upo’ Moss for the money as I lent him, +have they?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, father,” said Tom; “the note was burnt.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver turned his eyes on the page again, and presently said: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah—Elizabeth Dodson—it’s eighteen year since I married +her——” +</p> + +<p> +“Come next Ladyday,” said Mrs Tulliver, going up to his side and +looking at the page. +</p> + +<p> +Her husband fixed his eyes earnestly on her face. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Bessy,” he said, “you was a pretty lass +then,—everybody said so,—and I used to think you kept your good +looks rarely. But you’re sorely aged; don’t you bear me +ill-will—I meant to do well by you—we promised one another for +better or for worse——” +</p> + +<p> +“But I never thought it ’ud be so for worse as this,” said +poor Mrs Tulliver, with the strange, scared look that had come over her of +late; “and my poor father gave me away—and to come on so all at +once——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, mother!” said Maggie, “don’t talk in that +way.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I know you won’t let your poor mother speak—that’s +been the way all my life—your father never minded what I said—it +’ud have been o’ no use for me to beg and pray—and it +’ud be no use now, not if I was to go down o’ my hands and +knees——” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say so, Bessy,” said Mr Tulliver, whose pride, in +these first moments of humiliation, was in abeyance to the sense of some +justice in his wife’s reproach. “If there’s anything left as +I could do to make you amends, I wouldn’t say you nay.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then we might stay here and get a living, and I might keep among my own +sisters,—and me been such a good wife to you, and never crossed you from +week’s end to week’s end—and they all say so—they say +it ’ud be nothing but right, only you’re so turned against +Wakem.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mother,” said Tom, severely, “this is not the time to talk +about that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let her be,” said Mr Tulliver. “Say what you mean, +Bessy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, now the mill and the land’s all Wakem’s, and he’s +got everything in his hands, what’s the use o’ setting your face +against him, when he says you may stay here, and speaks as fair as can be, and +says you may manage the business, and have thirty shillings a-week, and a horse +to ride about to market? And where have we got to put our heads? We must go +into one o’ the cottages in the village,—and me and my children +brought down to that,—and all because you must set your mind against +folks till there’s no turning you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver had sunk back in his chair trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“You may do as you like wi’ me, Bessy,” he said, in a low +voice; “I’ve been the bringing of you to poverty—this +world’s too many for me—I’m nought but a bankrupt; it’s +no use standing up for anything now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” said Tom, “I don’t agree with my mother or my +uncles, and I don’t think you ought to submit to be under Wakem. I get a +pound a-week now, and you can find something else to do when you get +well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say no more, Tom, say no more; I’ve had enough for this day. Give +me a kiss, Bessy, and let us bear one another no ill-will; we shall never be +young again—this world’s been too many for me.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap29"></a>Chapter IX.<br/> +An Item Added to the Family Register</h3> + +<p> +That first moment of renunciation and submission was followed by days of +violent struggle in the miller’s mind, as the gradual access of bodily +strength brought with it increasing ability to embrace in one view all the +conflicting conditions under which he found himself. Feeble limbs easily resign +themselves to be tethered, and when we are subdued by sickness it seems +possible to us to fulfil pledges which the old vigor comes back and breaks. +There were times when poor Tulliver thought the fulfilment of his promise to +Bessy was something quite too hard for human nature; he had promised her +without knowing what she was going to say,—she might as well have asked +him to carry a ton weight on his back. But again, there were many feelings +arguing on her side, besides the sense that life had been made hard to her by +having married him. He saw a possibility, by much pinching, of saving money out +of his salary toward paying a second dividend to his creditors, and it would +not be easy elsewhere to get a situation such as he could fill. +</p> + +<p> +He had led an easy life, ordering much and working little, and had no aptitude +for any new business. He must perhaps take to day-labour, and his wife must +have help from her sisters,—a prospect doubly bitter to him, now they had +let all Bessy’s precious things be sold, probably because they liked to +set her against him, by making her feel that he had brought her to that pass. +He listened to their admonitory talk, when they came to urge on him what he was +bound to do for poor Bessy’s sake, with averted eyes, that every now and +then flashed on them furtively when their backs were turned. Nothing but the +dread of needing their help could have made it an easier alternative to take +their advice. +</p> + +<p> +But the strongest influence of all was the love of the old premises where he +had run about when he was a boy, just as Tom had done after him. The Tullivers +had lived on this spot for generations, and he had sat listening on a low stool +on winter evenings while his father talked of the old half-timbered mill that +had been there before the last great floods which damaged it so that his +grandfather pulled it down and built the new one. It was when he got able to +walk about and look at all the old objects that he felt the strain of his +clinging affection for the old home as part of his life, part of himself. He +couldn’t bear to think of himself living on any other spot than this, +where he knew the sound of every gate door, and felt that the shape and colour +of every roof and weather-stain and broken hillock was good, because his +growing senses had been fed on them. Our instructed vagrancy, which has hardly +time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away early to the tropics, and is at +home with palms and banyans,—which is nourished on books of travel and +stretches the theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi,—can hardly get a +dim notion of what an old-fashioned man like Tulliver felt for this spot, where +all his memories centred, and where life seemed like a familiar smooth-handled +tool that the fingers clutch with loving ease. And just now he was living in +that freshened memory of the far-off time which comes to us in the passive +hours of recovery from sickness. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, Luke,” he said one afternoon, as he stood looking over the +orchard gate, “I remember the day they planted those apple-trees. My +father was a huge man for planting,—it was like a merry-making to him to +get a cart full o’ young trees; and I used to stand i’ the cold +with him, and follow him about like a dog.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he turned round, and leaning against the gate-post, looked at the opposite +buildings. +</p> + +<p> +“The old mill ’ud miss me, I think, Luke. There’s a story as +when the mill changes hands, the river’s angry; I’ve heard my +father say it many a time. There’s no telling whether there mayn’t +be summat <i>in</i> the story, for this is a puzzling world, and Old +Harry’s got a finger in it—it’s been too many for me, I +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sir,” said Luke, with soothing sympathy, “what wi’ +the rust on the wheat, an’ the firin’ o’ the ricks an’ +that, as I’ve seen i’ my time,—things often looks comical; +there’s the bacon fat wi’ our last pig run away like +butter,—it leaves nought but a scratchin’.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s just as if it was yesterday, now,” Mr Tulliver went +on, “when my father began the malting. I remember, the day they finished +the malt-house, I thought summat great was to come of it; for we’d a +plum-pudding that day and a bit of a feast, and I said to my mother,—she +was a fine dark-eyed woman, my mother was,—the little wench ’ull be +as like her as two peas.” Here Mr Tulliver put his stick between his +legs, and took out his snuff-box, for the greater enjoyment of this anecdote, +which dropped from him in fragments, as if he every other moment lost narration +in vision. “I was a little chap no higher much than my mother’s +knee,—she was sore fond of us children, Gritty and me,—and so I +said to her, ‘Mother,’ I said, ‘shall we have plum-pudding +<i>every</i> day because o’ the malt-house? She used to tell me o’ +that till her dying day. She was but a young woman when she died, my mother +was. But it’s forty good year since they finished the malt-house, and it +isn’t many days out of ’em all as I haven’t looked out into +the yard there, the first thing in the morning,—all weathers, from +year’s end to year’s end. I should go off my head in a new place. I +should be like as if I’d lost my way. It’s all hard, whichever way +I look at it,—the harness ’ull gall me, but it ’ud be summat +to draw along the old road, instead of a new un.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sir,” said Luke, “you’d be a deal better here nor +in some new place. I can’t abide new places mysen: things is allays +awk’ard,—narrow-wheeled waggins, belike, and the stiles all another +sort, an’ oat-cake i’ some places, tow’rt th’ head +o’ the Floss, there. It’s poor work, changing your +country-side.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I doubt, Luke, they’ll be for getting rid o’ Ben, and +making you do with a lad; and I must help a bit wi’ the mill. +You’ll have a worse place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ne’er mind, sir,” said Luke, “I sha’n’t +plague mysen. I’n been wi’ you twenty year, an’ you +can’t get twenty year wi’ whistlin’ for ’em, no more +nor you can make the trees grow: you mun wait till God A’mighty sends +’em. I can’t abide new victual nor new faces, <i>I</i> +can’t,—you niver know but what they’ll gripe you.” +</p> + +<p> +The walk was finished in silence after this, for Luke had disburthened himself +of thoughts to an extent that left his conversational resources quite barren, +and Mr Tulliver had relapsed from his recollections into a painful meditation +on the choice of hardships before him. Maggie noticed that he was unusually +absent that evening at tea; and afterward he sat leaning forward in his chair, +looking at the ground, moving his lips, and shaking his head from time to time. +Then he looked hard at Mrs Tulliver, who was knitting opposite him, then at +Maggie, who, as she bent over her sewing, was intensely conscious of some drama +going forward in her father’s mind. Suddenly he took up the poker and +broke the large coal fiercely. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear heart, Mr Tulliver, what can you be thinking of?” said his +wife, looking up in alarm; “it’s very wasteful, breaking the coal, +and we’ve got hardly any large coal left, and I don’t know where +the rest is to come from.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think you’re quite so well to-night, are you, +father?” said Maggie; “you seem uneasy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, how is it Tom doesn’t come?” said Mr Tulliver, +impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear heart! is it time? I must go and get his supper,” said Mrs +Tulliver, laying down her knitting, and leaving the room. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nigh upon half-past eight,” said Mr Tulliver. +“He’ll be here soon. Go, go and get the big Bible, and open it at +the beginning, where everything’s set down. And get the pen and +ink.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie obeyed, wondering; but her father gave no further orders, and only sat +listening for Tom’s footfall on the gravel, apparently irritated by the +wind, which had risen, and was roaring so as to drown all other sounds. There +was a strange light in his eyes that rather frightened Maggie; <i>she</i> began +to wish that Tom would come, too. +</p> + +<p> +“There he is, then,” said Mr Tulliver, in an excited way, when the +knock came at last. Maggie went to open the door, but her mother came out of +the kitchen hurriedly, saying, “Stop a bit, Maggie; I’ll open +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Tulliver had begun to be a little frightened at her boy, but she was +jealous of every office others did for him. +</p> + +<p> +“Your supper’s ready by the kitchen-fire, my boy,” she said, +as he took off his hat and coat. “You shall have it by yourself, just as +you like, and I won’t speak to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think my father wants Tom, mother,” said Maggie; “he must +come into the parlour first.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom entered with his usual saddened evening face, but his eyes fell immediately +on the open Bible and the inkstand, and he glanced with a look of anxious +surprise at his father, who was saying,— +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, you’re late; I want you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there anything the matter, father?” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“You sit down, all of you,” said Mr Tulliver, peremptorily. +</p> + +<p> +“And, Tom, sit down here; I’ve got something for you to write +i’ the Bible.” +</p> + +<p> +They all three sat down, looking at him. He began to speak slowly, looking +first at his wife. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve made up my mind, Bessy, and I’ll be as good as my word +to you. There’ll be the same grave made for us to lie down in, and we +mustn’t be bearing one another ill-will. I’ll stop in the old +place, and I’ll serve under Wakem, and I’ll serve him like an +honest man; there’s no Tulliver but what’s honest, mind that, +Tom,”—here his voice rose,—“they’ll have it to +throw up against me as I paid a dividend, but it wasn’t my fault; it was +because there’s raskills in the world. They’ve been too many for +me, and I must give in. I’ll put my neck in harness,—for +you’ve a right to say as I’ve brought you into trouble, +Bessy,—and I’ll serve him as honest as if he was no raskill; +I’m an honest man, though I shall never hold my head up no more. +I’m a tree as is broke—a tree as is broke.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he said, in +a louder yet deeper tone: +</p> + +<p> +“But I won’t forgive him! I know what they say, he never meant me +any harm. That’s the way Old Harry props up the rascals. He’s been +at the bottom of everything; but he’s a fine gentleman,—I know, I +know. I shouldn’t ha’ gone to law, they say. But who made it so as +there was no arbitratin’, and no justice to be got? It signifies nothing +to him, I know that; he’s one o’ them fine gentlemen as get money +by doing business for poorer folks, and when he’s made beggars of +’em he’ll give ’em charity. I won’t forgive him! I wish +he might be punished with shame till his own son ’ud like to forget him. +I wish he may do summat as they’d make him work at the treadmill! But he +won’t,—he’s too big a raskill to let the law lay hold on him. +And you mind this, Tom,—you never forgive him neither, if you mean to be +my son. There’ll maybe come a time when you may make him feel; +it’ll never come to me; I’n got my head under the yoke. Now +write—write it i’ the Bible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, father, what?” said Maggie, sinking down by his knee, pale and +trembling. “It’s wicked to curse and bear malice.” +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t wicked, I tell you,” said her father, fiercely. +“It’s wicked as the raskills should prosper; it’s the +Devil’s doing. Do as I tell you, Tom. Write.” +</p> + +<p> +“What am I to write?” said Tom, with gloomy submission. +</p> + +<p> +“Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under John Wakem, +the man as had helped to ruin him, because I’d promised my wife to make +her what amends I could for her trouble, and because I wanted to die in +th’ old place where I was born and my father was born. Put that i’ +the right words—you know how—and then write, as I don’t +forgive Wakem for all that; and for all I’ll serve him honest, I wish +evil may befall him. Write that.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a dead silence as Tom’s pen moved along the paper; Mrs +Tulliver looked scared, and Maggie trembled like a leaf. +</p> + +<p> +“Now let me hear what you’ve wrote,” said Mr Tulliver. Tom +read aloud slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“Now write—write as you’ll remember what Wakem’s done +to your father, and you’ll make him and his feel it, if ever the day +comes. And sign your name Thomas Tulliver.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, father, dear father!” said Maggie, almost choked with fear. +“You shouldn’t make Tom write that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be quiet, Maggie!” said Tom. “I <i>shall</i> write +it.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="book04"></a>BOOK FOURTH<br/> +THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap30"></a>Chapter I.<br/> +A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet</h3> + +<p> +Journeying down the Rhone on a summer’s day, you have perhaps felt the +sunshine made dreary by those ruined villages which stud the banks in certain +parts of its course, telling how the swift river once rose, like an angry, +destroying god, sweeping down the feeble generations whose breath is in their +nostrils, and making their dwellings a desolation. Strange contrast, you may +have thought, between the effect produced on us by these dismal remnants of +commonplace houses, which in their best days were but the sign of a sordid +life, belonging in all its details to our own vulgar era, and the effect +produced by those ruins on the castled Rhine, which have crumbled and mellowed +into such harmony with the green and rocky steeps that they seem to have a +natural fitness, like the mountain-pine; nay, even in the day when they were +built they must have had this fitness, as if they had been raised by an +earth-born race, who had inherited from their mighty parent a sublime instinct +of form. And that was a day of romance; If those robber-barons were somewhat +grim and drunken ogres, they had a certain grandeur of the wild beast in +them,—they were forest boars with tusks, tearing and rending, not the +ordinary domestic grunter; they represented the demon forces forever in +collision with beauty, virtue, and the gentle uses of life; they made a fine +contrast in the picture with the wandering minstrel, the soft-lipped princess, +the pious recluse, and the timid Israelite. That was a time of colour, when the +sunlight fell on glancing steel and floating banners; a time of adventure and +fierce struggle,—nay, of living, religious art and religious enthusiasm; +for were not cathedrals built in those days, and did not great emperors leave +their Western palaces to die before the infidel strongholds in the sacred East? +Therefore it is that these Rhine castles thrill me with a sense of poetry; they +belong to the grand historic life of humanity, and raise up for me the vision +of an echo. But these dead-tinted, hollow-eyed, angular skeletons of villages +on the Rhone oppress me with the feeling that human life—very much of +it—is a narrow, ugly, grovelling existence, which even calamity does not +elevate, but rather tends to exhibit in all its bare vulgarity of conception; +and I have a cruel conviction that the lives these ruins are the traces of were +part of a gross sum of obscure vitality, that will be swept into the same +oblivion with the generations of ants and beavers. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps something akin to this oppressive feeling may have weighed upon you in +watching this old-fashioned family life on the banks of the Floss, which even +sorrow hardly suffices to lift above the level of the tragi-comic. It is a +sordid life, you say, this of the Tullivers and Dodsons, irradiated by no +sublime principles, no romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith; +moved by none of those wild, uncontrollable passions which create the dark +shadows of misery and crime; without that primitive, rough simplicity of wants, +that hard, submissive, ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of what +nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life. Here one has +conventional worldly notions and habits without instruction and without polish, +surely the most prosaic form of human life; proud respectability in a gig of +unfashionable build; worldliness without side-dishes. Observing these people +narrowly, even when the iron hand of misfortune has shaken them from their +unquestioning hold on the world, one sees little trace of religion, still less +of a distinctively Christian creed. Their belief in the Unseen, so far as it +manifests itself at all, seems to be rather a pagan kind; their moral notions, +though held with strong tenacity, seem to have no standard beyond hereditary +custom. You could not live among such people; you are stifled for want of an +outlet toward something beautiful, great, or noble; you are irritated with +these dull men and women, as a kind of population out of keeping with the earth +on which they live,—with this rich plain where the great river flows +forever onward, and links the small pulse of the old English town with the +beatings of the world’s mighty heart. A vigorous superstition, that +lashes its gods or lashes its own back, seems to be more congruous with the +mystery of the human lot, than the mental condition of these emmet-like Dodsons +and Tullivers. +</p> + +<p> +I share with you this sense of oppressive narrowness; but it is necessary that +we should feel it, if we care to understand how it acted on the lives of Tom +and Maggie,—how it has acted on young natures in many generations, that +in the onward tendency of human things have risen above the mental level of the +generation before them, to which they have been nevertheless tied by the +strongest fibres of their hearts. The suffering, whether of martyr or victim, +which belongs to every historical advance of mankind, is represented in this +way in every town, and by hundreds of obscure hearths; and we need not shrink +from this comparison of small things with great; for does not science tell us +that its highest striving is after the ascertainment of a unity which shall +bind the smallest things with the greatest? In natural science, I have +understood, there is nothing petty to the mind that has a large vision of +relations, and to which every single object suggests a vast sum of conditions. +It is surely the same with the observation of human life. +</p> + +<p> +Certainly the religious and moral ideas of the Dodsons and Tullivers were of +too specific a kind to be arrived at deductively, from the statement that they +were part of the Protestant population of Great Britain. Their theory of life +had its core of soundness, as all theories must have on which decent and +prosperous families have been reared and have flourished; but it had the very +slightest tincture of theology. If, in the maiden days of the Dodson sisters, +their Bibles opened more easily at some parts than others, it was because of +dried tulip-petals, which had been distributed quite impartially, without +preference for the historical, devotional, or doctrinal. Their religion was of +a simple, semi-pagan kind, but there was no heresy in it,—if heresy +properly means choice,—for they didn’t know there was any other +religion, except that of chapel-goers, which appeared to run in families, like +asthma. How <i>should</i> they know? The vicar of their pleasant rural parish +was not a controversialist, but a good hand at whist, and one who had a joke +always ready for a blooming female parishioner. The religion of the Dodsons +consisted in revering whatever was customary and respectable; it was necessary +to be baptised, else one could not be buried in the church-yard, and to take +the sacrament before death, as a security against more dimly understood perils; +but it was of equal necessity to have the proper pall-bearers and well-cured +hams at one’s funeral, and to leave an unimpeachable will. A Dodson would +not be taxed with the omission of anything that was becoming, or that belonged +to that eternal fitness of things which was plainly indicated in the practice +of the most substantial parishioners, and in the family traditions,—such +as obedience to parents, faithfulness to kindred, industry, rigid honesty, +thrift, the thorough scouring of wooden and copper utensils, the hoarding of +coins likely to disappear from the currency, the production of first-rate +commodities for the market, and the general preference of whatever was +home-made. The Dodsons were a very proud race, and their pride lay in the utter +frustration of all desire to tax them with a breach of traditional duty or +propriety. A wholesome pride in many respects, since it identified honour with +perfect integrity, thoroughness of work, and faithfulness to admitted rules; +and society owes some worthy qualities in many of her members to mothers of the +Dodson class, who made their butter and their fromenty well, and would have +felt disgraced to make it otherwise. To be honest and poor was never a Dodson +motto, still less to seem rich though being poor; rather, the family badge was +to be honest and rich, and not only rich, but richer than was supposed. To live +respected, and have the proper bearers at your funeral, was an achievement of +the ends of existence that would be entirely nullified if, on the reading of +your will, you sank in the opinion of your fellow-men, either by turning out to +be poorer than they expected, or by leaving your money in a capricious manner, +without strict regard to degrees of kin. The right thing must always be done +toward kindred. The right thing was to correct them severely, if they were +other than a credit to the family, but still not to alienate from them the +smallest rightful share in the family shoebuckles and other property. A +conspicuous quality in the Dodson character was its genuineness; its vices and +virtues alike were phases of a proud honest egoism, which had a hearty dislike +to whatever made against its own credit and interest, and would be frankly hard +of speech to inconvenient “kin,” but would never forsake or ignore +them,—would not let them want bread, but only require them to eat it with +bitter herbs. +</p> + +<p> +The same sort of traditional belief ran in the Tulliver veins, but it was +carried in richer blood, having elements of generous imprudence, warm +affection, and hot-tempered rashness. Mr Tulliver’s grandfather had been +heard to say that he was descended from one Ralph Tulliver, a wonderfully +clever fellow, who had ruined himself. It is likely enough that the clever +Ralph was a high liver, rode spirited horses, and was very decidedly of his own +opinion. On the other hand, nobody had ever heard of a Dodson who had ruined +himself; it was not the way of that family. +</p> + +<p> +If such were the views of life on which the Dodsons and Tullivers had been +reared in the praiseworthy past of Pitt and high prices, you will infer from +what you already know concerning the state of society in St Ogg’s, that +there had been no highly modifying influence to act on them in their maturer +life. It was still possible, even in that later time of anti-Catholic +preaching, for people to hold many pagan ideas, and believe themselves good +church-people, notwithstanding; so we need hardly feel any surprise at the fact +that Mr Tulliver, though a regular church-goer, recorded his vindictiveness on +the fly-leaf of his Bible. It was not that any harm could be said concerning +the vicar of that charming rural parish to which Dorlcote Mill belonged; he was +a man of excellent family, an irreproachable bachelor, of elegant +pursuits,—had taken honours, and held a fellowship. Mr Tulliver regarded +him with dutiful respect, as he did everything else belonging to the +church-service; but he considered that church was one thing and common-sense +another, and he wanted nobody to tell <i>him</i> what commonsense was. Certain +seeds which are required to find a nidus for themselves under unfavourable +circumstances have been supplied by nature with an apparatus of hooks, so that +they will get a hold on very unreceptive surfaces. The spiritual seed which had +been scattered over Mr Tulliver had apparently been destitute of any +corresponding provision, and had slipped off to the winds again, from a total +absence of hooks. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap31"></a>Chapter II.<br/> +The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns</h3> + +<p> +There is something sustaining in the very agitation that accompanies the first +shocks of trouble, just as an acute pain is often a stimulus, and produces an +excitement which is transient strength. It is in the slow, changed life that +follows; in the time when sorrow has become stale, and has no longer an emotive +intensity that counteracts its pain; in the time when day follows day in dull, +unexpectant sameness, and trial is a dreary routine,—it is then that +despair threatens; it is then that the peremptory hunger of the soul is felt, +and eye and ear are strained after some unlearned secret of our existence, +which shall give to endurance the nature of satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +This time of utmost need was come to Maggie, with her short span of thirteen +years. To the usual precocity of the girl, she added that early experience of +struggle, of conflict between the inward impulse and outward fact, which is the +lot of every imaginative and passionate nature; and the years since she +hammered the nails into her wooden Fetish among the worm-eaten shelves of the +attic had been filled with so eager a life in the triple world of Reality, +Books, and Waking Dreams, that Maggie was strangely old for her years in +everything except in her entire want of that prudence and self-command which +were the qualities that made Tom manly in the midst of his intellectual +boyishness. And now her lot was beginning to have a still, sad monotony, which +threw her more than ever on her inward self. Her father was able to attend to +business again, his affairs were settled, and he was acting as Wakem’s +manager on the old spot. Tom went to and fro every morning and evening, and +became more and more silent in the short intervals at home; what was there to +say? One day was like another; and Tom’s interest in life, driven back +and crushed on every other side, was concentrating itself into the one channel +of ambitious resistance to misfortune. The peculiarities of his father and +mother were very irksome to him, now they were laid bare of all the softening +accompaniments of an easy, prosperous home; for Tom had very clear, prosaic +eyes, not apt to be dimmed by mists of feeling or imagination. Poor Mrs +Tulliver, it seemed, would never recover her old self, her placid household +activity; how could she? The objects among which her mind had moved +complacently were all gone,—all the little hopes and schemes and +speculations, all the pleasant little cares about her treasures which had made +the world quite comprehensible to her for a quarter of a century, since she had +made her first purchase of the sugar-tongs, had been suddenly snatched away +from her, and she remained bewildered in this empty life. Why that should have +happened to her which had not happened to other women remained an insoluble +question by which she expressed her perpetual ruminating comparison of the past +with the present. It was piteous to see the comely woman getting thinner and +more worn under a bodily as well as mental restlessness, which made her often +wander about the empty house after her work was done, until Maggie, becoming +alarmed about her, would seek her, and bring her down by telling her how it +vexed Tom that she was injuring her health by never sitting down and resting +herself. Yet amidst this helpless imbecility there was a touching trait of +humble, self-devoting maternity, which made Maggie feel tenderly toward her +poor mother amidst all the little wearing griefs caused by her mental +feebleness. She would let Maggie do none of the work that was heaviest and most +soiling to the hands, and was quite peevish when Maggie attempted to relieve +her from her grate-brushing and scouring: “Let it alone, my dear; your +hands ’ull get as hard as hard,” she would say; “it’s +your mother’s place to do that. I can’t do the sewing—my eyes +fail me.” And she would still brush and carefully tend Maggie’s +hair, which she had become reconciled to, in spite of its refusal to curl, now +it was so long and massy. Maggie was not her pet child, and, in general, would +have been much better if she had been quite different; yet the womanly heart, +so bruised in its small personal desires, found a future to rest on in the life +of this young thing, and the mother pleased herself with wearing out her own +hands to save the hands that had so much more life in them. +</p> + +<p> +But the constant presence of her mother’s regretful bewilderment was less +painful to Maggie than that of her father’s sullen, incommunicative +depression. As long as the paralysis was upon him, and it seemed as if he might +always be in a childlike condition of dependence,—as long as he was still +only half awakened to his trouble,—Maggie had felt the strong tide of +pitying love almost as an inspiration, a new power, that would make the most +difficult life easy for his sake; but now, instead of childlike dependence, +there had come a taciturn, hard concentration of purpose, in strange contrast +with his old vehement communicativeness and high spirit; and this lasted from +day to day, and from week to week, the dull eye never brightening with any +eagerness or any joy. It is something cruelly incomprehensible to youthful +natures, this sombre sameness in middle-aged and elderly people, whose life has +resulted in disappointment and discontent, to whose faces a smile becomes so +strange that the sad lines all about the lips and brow seem to take no notice +of it, and it hurries away again for want of a welcome. “Why will they +not kindle up and be glad sometimes?” thinks young elasticity. “It +would be so easy if they only liked to do it.” And these leaden clouds +that never part are apt to create impatience even in the filial affection that +streams forth in nothing but tenderness and pity in the time of more obvious +affliction. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver lingered nowhere away from home; he hurried away from market, he +refused all invitations to stay and chat, as in old times, in the houses where +he called on business. He could not be reconciled with his lot. There was no +attitude in which his pride did not feel its bruises; and in all behaviour +toward him, whether kind or cold, he detected an allusion to the change in his +circumstances. Even the days on which Wakem came to ride round the land and +inquire into the business were not so black to him as those market-days on +which he had met several creditors who had accepted a composition from him. To +save something toward the repayment of those creditors was the object toward +which he was now bending all his thoughts and efforts; and under the influence +of this all-compelling demand of his nature, the somewhat profuse man, who +hated to be stinted or to stint any one else in his own house, was gradually +metamorphosed into the keen-eyed grudger of morsels. Mrs Tulliver could not +economise enough to satisfy him, in their food and firing; and he would eat +nothing himself but what was of the coarsest quality. Tom, though depressed and +strongly repelled by his father’s sullenness, and the dreariness of home, +entered thoroughly into his father’s feelings about paying the creditors; +and the poor lad brought his first quarter’s money, with a delicious +sense of achievement, and gave it to his father to put into the tin box which +held the savings. The little store of sovereigns in the tin box seemed to be +the only sight that brought a faint beam of pleasure into the miller’s +eyes,—faint and transient, for it was soon dispelled by the thought that +the time would be long—perhaps longer than his life,—before the +narrow savings could remove the hateful incubus of debt. A deficit of more than +five hundred pounds, with the accumulating interest, seemed a deep pit to fill +with the savings from thirty shillings a-week, even when Tom’s probable +savings were to be added. On this one point there was entire community of +feeling in the four widely differing beings who sat round the dying fire of +sticks, which made a cheap warmth for them on the verge of bedtime. Mrs +Tulliver carried the proud integrity of the Dodsons in her blood, and had been +brought up to think that to wrong people of their money, which was another +phrase for debt, was a sort of moral pillory; it would have been wickedness, to +her mind, to have run counter to her husband’s desire to “do the +right thing,” and retrieve his name. She had a confused, dreamy notion +that, if the creditors were all paid, her plate and linen ought to come back to +her; but she had an inbred perception that while people owed money they were +unable to pay, they couldn’t rightly call anything their own. She +murmured a little that Mr Tulliver so peremptorily refused to receive anything +in repayment from Mr and Mrs Moss; but to all his requirements of household +economy she was submissive to the point of denying herself the cheapest +indulgences of mere flavour; her only rebellion was to smuggle into the kitchen +something that would make rather a better supper than usual for Tom. +</p> + +<p> +These narrow notions about debt, held by the old fashioned Tullivers, may +perhaps excite a smile on the faces of many readers in these days of wide +commercial views and wide philosophy, according to which everything rights +itself without any trouble of ours. The fact that my tradesman is out of pocket +by me is to be looked at through the serene certainty that somebody +else’s tradesman is in pocket by somebody else; and since there must be +bad debts in the world, why, it is mere egoism not to like that we in +particular should make them instead of our fellow-citizens. I am telling the +history of very simple people, who had never had any illuminating doubts as to +personal integrity and honour. +</p> + +<p> +Under all this grim melancholy and narrowing concentration of desire, Mr +Tulliver retained the feeling toward his “little wench” which made +her presence a need to him, though it would not suffice to cheer him. She was +still the desire of his eyes; but the sweet spring of fatherly love was now +mingled with bitterness, like everything else. When Maggie laid down her work +at night, it was her habit to get a low stool and sit by her father’s +knee, leaning her cheek against it. How she wished he would stroke her head, or +give some sign that he was soothed by the sense that he had a daughter who +loved him! But now she got no answer to her little caresses, either from her +father or from Tom,—the two idols of her life. Tom was weary and +abstracted in the short intervals when he was at home, and her father was +bitterly preoccupied with the thought that the girl was growing up, was +shooting up into a woman; and how was she to do well in life? She had a poor +chance for marrying, down in the world as they were. And he hated the thought +of her marrying poorly, as her aunt Gritty had done; <i>that</i> would be a +thing to make him turn in his grave,—the little wench so pulled down by +children and toil, as her aunt Moss was. When uncultured minds, confined to a +narrow range of personal experience, are under the pressure of continued +misfortune, their inward life is apt to become a perpetually repeated round of +sad and bitter thoughts; the same words, the same scenes, are revolved over and +over again, the same mood accompanies them; the end of the year finds them as +much what they were at the beginning as if they were machines set to a +recurrent series of movements. +</p> + +<p> +The sameness of the days was broken by few visitors. Uncles and aunts paid only +short visits now; of course, they could not stay to meals, and the constraint +caused by Mr Tulliver’s savage silence, which seemed to add to the +hollow resonance of the bare, uncarpeted room when the aunts were talking, +heightened the unpleasantness of these family visits on all sides, and tended +to make them rare. As for other acquaintances, there is a chill air surrounding +those who are down in the world, and people are glad to get away from them, as +from a cold room; human beings, mere men and women, without furniture, without +anything to offer you, who have ceased to count as anybody, present an +embarrassing negation of reasons for wishing to see them, or of subjects on +which to converse with them. At that distant day, there was a dreary isolation +in the civilised Christian society of these realms for families that had +dropped below their original level, unless they belonged to a sectarian church, +which gets some warmth of brotherhood by walling in the sacred fire. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap32"></a>Chapter III.<br/> +A Voice from the Past</h3> + +<p> +One afternoon, when the chestnuts were coming into flower, Maggie had brought +her chair outside the front door, and was seated there with a book on her +knees. Her dark eyes had wandered from the book, but they did not seem to be +enjoying the sunshine which pierced the screen of jasmine on the projecting +porch at her right, and threw leafy shadows on her pale round cheek; they +seemed rather to be searching for something that was not disclosed by the +sunshine. It had been a more miserable day than usual; her father, after a +visit of Wakem’s had had a paroxysm of rage, in which for some trifling +fault he had beaten the boy who served in the mill. Once before, since his +illness, he had had a similar paroxysm, in which he had beaten his horse, and +the scene had left a lasting terror in Maggie’s mind. The thought had +risen, that some time or other he might beat her mother if she happened to +speak in her feeble way at the wrong moment. The keenest of all dread with her +was lest her father should add to his present misfortune the wretchedness of +doing something irretrievably disgraceful. The battered school-book of +Tom’s which she held on her knees could give her no fortitude under the +pressure of that dread; and again and again her eyes had filled with tears, as +they wandered vaguely, seeing neither the chestnut-trees, nor the distant +horizon, but only future scenes of home-sorrow. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly she was roused by the sound of the opening gate and of footsteps on +the gravel. It was not Tom who was entering, but a man in a sealskin cap and a +blue plush waistcoat, carrying a pack on his back, and followed closely by a +bullterrier of brindled coat and defiant aspect. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Bob, it’s you!” said Maggie, starting up with a smile of +pleased recognition, for there had been no abundance of kind acts to efface the +recollection of Bob’s generosity; “I’m so glad to see +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Miss,” said Bob, lifting his cap and showing a +delighted face, but immediately relieving himself of some accompanying +embarrassment by looking down at his dog, and saying in a tone of disgust, +“Get out wi’ you, you thunderin’ sawney!” +</p> + +<p> +“My brother is not at home yet, Bob,” said Maggie; “he is +always at St Ogg’s in the daytime.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Miss,” said Bob, “I should be glad to see Mr Tom, but +that isn’t just what I’m come for,—look here!” +</p> + +<p> +Bob was in the act of depositing his pack on the door-step, and with it a row +of small books fastened together with string. +</p> + +<p> +Apparently, however, they were not the object to which he wished to call +Maggie’s attention, but rather something which he had carried under his +arm, wrapped in a red handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“See here!” he said again, laying the red parcel on the others and +unfolding it; “you won’t think I’m a-makin’ too free, +Miss, I hope, but I lighted on these books, and I thought they might make up to +you a bit for them as you’ve lost; for I heared you speak o’ +picturs,—an’ as for picturs, <i>look</i> here!” +</p> + +<p> +The opening of the red handkerchief had disclosed a superannuated +“Keepsake” and six or seven numbers of a “Portrait +Gallery,” in royal octavo; and the emphatic request to look referred to a +portrait of George the Fourth in all the majesty of his depressed cranium and +voluminous neckcloth. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s all sorts o’ genelmen here,” Bob went on, +turning over the leaves with some excitement, “wi’ all sorts +o’ noses,—an’ some bald an’ some wi’ +wigs,—Parlament genelmen, I reckon. An’ here,” he added, +opening the “Keepsake,”—“<i>here’s</i> ladies for +you, some wi’ curly hair and some wi’ smooth, an’ some +a-smiling wi’ their heads o’ one side, an’ some as if they +were goin’ to cry,—look here,—a-sittin’ on the ground +out o’ door, dressed like the ladies I’n seen get out o’ the +carriages at the balls in th’ Old Hall there. My eyes! I wonder what the +chaps wear as go a-courtin’ ’em! I sot up till the clock was gone +twelve last night, a-lookin’ at ’em,—I did,—till they +stared at me out o’ the picturs as if they’d know when I spoke to +’em. But, lors! I shouldn’t know what to say to ’em. +They’ll be more fittin’ company for you, Miss; and the man at the +book-stall, he said they banged iverything for picturs; he said they was a +fust-rate article.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ve bought them for me, Bob?” said Maggie, deeply +touched by this simple kindness. “How very, very good of you! But +I’m afraid you gave a great deal of money for them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not me!” said Bob. “I’d ha’ gev three times the +money if they’ll make up to you a bit for them as was sold away from you, +Miss. For I’n niver forgot how you looked when you fretted about the +books bein’ gone; it’s stuck by me as if it was a pictur +hingin’ before me. An’ when I see’d the book open upo’ +the stall, wi’ the lady lookin’ out of it wi’ eyes a bit like +your’n when you was frettin’,—you’ll excuse my +takin’ the liberty, Miss,—I thought I’d make free to buy it +for you, an’ then I bought the books full o’ genelmen to match; +an’ then”—here Bob took up the small stringed packet of +books—“I thought you might like a bit more print as well as the +picturs, an’ I got these for a sayso,—they’re cram-full +o’ print, an’ I thought they’d do no harm comin’ along +wi’ these bettermost books. An’ I hope you won’t say me nay, +an’ tell me as you won’t have ’em, like Mr Tom did wi’ +the suvreigns.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed, Bob,” said Maggie, “I’m very thankful to +you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don’t think +any one ever did such a kind thing for me before. I haven’t many friends +who care for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hev a dog, Miss!—they’re better friends nor any +Christian,” said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up +with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in +talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of himself, +“his tongue overrun him” when he began to speak. “I +can’t give you Mumps, ’cause he’d break his heart to go away +from me—eh, Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff?” (Mumps declined +to express himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his +tail.) “But I’d get you a pup, Miss, an’ welcome.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn’t keep a dog of +my own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, that’s a pity; else there’s a pup,—if you +didn’t mind about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch +show,—an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi’ her bark +nor half the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. +There’s one chap carries pots,—a poor, low trade as any on the +road,—he says, ‘Why Toby’s nought but a mongrel; +there’s nought to look at in her.’ But I says to him, ‘Why, +what are you yoursen but a mongrel? There wasn’t much pickin’ +o’ <i>your</i> feyther an’ mother, to look at you.’ Not but I +like a bit o’ breed myself, but I can’t abide to see one cur +grinnin’ at another. I wish you good evenin’, Miss,” said +Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his tongue +was acting in an undisciplined manner. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, +Bob?” said Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Miss, thank you—another time. You’ll give my duty to +him, if you please. Eh, he’s a fine growed chap, Mr Tom is; he took to +growin’ i’ the legs, an’ <i>I</i> didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow gone wrong. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t call Mumps a cur, I suppose?” said Maggie, +divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his +master. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Miss, a fine way off that,” said Bob, with pitying smile; +“Mumps is as fine a cross as you’ll see anywhere along the Floss, +an’ I’n been up it wi’ the barge times enow. Why, the gentry +stops to look at him; but you won’t catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry +much,—he minds his own business, he does.” +</p> + +<p> +The expression of Mump’s face, which seemed to be tolerating the +superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory of this +high praise. +</p> + +<p> +“He looks dreadfully surly,” said Maggie. “Would he let me +pat him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does. He +isn’t a dog as ’ull be caught wi’ gingerbread; he’d +smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk +to him by th’ hour together, when I’m walking i’ lone places, +and if I’n done a bit o’ mischief, I allays tell him. I’n got +no secrets but what Mumps knows ’em. He knows about my big thumb, he +does.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your big thumb—what’s that, Bob?” said Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what it is, Miss,” said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a +singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. +“It tells i’ measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, +’cause it’s light for my pack, an’ it’s dear stuff, you +see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb at the end o’ the yard and cut +o’ the hither side of it, and the old women aren’t up +to’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Bob,” said Maggie, looking serious, “that’s +cheating; I don’t like to hear you say that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you, Miss?” said Bob regretfully. “Then +I’m sorry I said it. But I’m so used to talking to Mumps, an’ +he doesn’t mind a bit o’ cheating, when it’s them skinflint +women, as haggle an’ haggle, an’ ’ud like to get their +flannel for nothing, an’ ’ud niver ask theirselves how I got my +dinner out on’t. I niver cheat anybody as doesn’t want to cheat me, +Miss,—lors, I’m a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit o’ +sport, an’ now I don’t go wi’ th’ ferrets, I’n +got no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good evening, +Miss.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come +again to see Tom.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Miss,” said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half +round he said, “I’ll leave off that trick wi’ my big thumb, +if you don’t think well on me for it, Miss; but it ’ud be a pity, +it would. I couldn’t find another trick so good,—an’ what +’ud be the use o’ havin’ a big thumb? It might as well +ha’ been narrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, thus exalted into Bob’s exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of +herself; at which her worshipper’s blue eyes twinkled too, and under +these favouring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. +</p> + +<p> +The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke’s grand dirge +over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a youth and man +to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little +finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had as +respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he had been a knight in +armor calling aloud on her name as he pricked on to the fight. +</p> + +<p> +That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie’s face, and perhaps +only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too dispirited even +to like answering questions about Bob’s present of books, and she carried +them away to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on her one +stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She leaned her cheek against +the window-frame, and thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier +than hers. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened +with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favourite outdoor nooks about +home, which seemed to have done their part with her parents in nurturing and +cherishing her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no smile +from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the poor child had had, was +like an aching nerve to her. There was no music for her any more,—no +piano, no harmonised voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their +passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through her +frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left her now but her little +collection of school-books, which she turned over with a sickening sense that +she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had +often wished for books with <i>more</i> in them; everything she learned there +seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And +now—without the indirect charm of school-emulation—Télémaque was +mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no +flavour in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been +contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott’s +novels and all Byron’s poems!—then, perhaps, she might have found +happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they +were hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no +dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this hard, +real life,—the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull +breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid tasks that +filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure; +the need of some tender, demonstrative love; the cruel sense that Tom +didn’t mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no longer +playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant things that had come to +<i>her</i> more than to others,—she wanted some key that would enable her +to understand, and in understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had +fallen on her young heart. If she had been taught “real learning and +wisdom, such as great men knew,” she thought she should have held the +secrets of life; if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what +wise men knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages +and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a +general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision against +the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield. +</p> + +<p> +In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten +Tom’s school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she found +the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which had been well +thumbed,—the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius, +the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich’s Logic, and the exasperating Euclid. +Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a considerable step in +masculine wisdom,—in that knowledge which made men contented, and even +glad to live. Not that the yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a +certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which +she seemed to see herself honoured for her surprising attainments. And so the +poor child, with her soul’s hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, +began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling +her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and +feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal +to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two she went on resolutely +enough, though with an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out +toward the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain +journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she would take Aldrich out +into the fields, and then look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was +twinkling, or to the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl +rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight,—with a startled sense that +the relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote for +her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the eager heart +gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the +window with her book, her eyes <i>would</i> fix themselves blankly on the +outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with tears, and sometimes, if her mother +was not in the room, the studies would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against +her lot, she fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred +toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to +be; toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by some +thwarting difference,—would flow out over her affections and conscience +like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult for +her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy with wild romances of a +flight from home in search of something less sordid and dreary; she would go to +some great man—Walter Scott, perhaps—and tell him how wretched and +how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her. But, in the +middle of her vision, her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, +and, surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say +complainingly, “Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself?” The voice +pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her own, +and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and forsaking it. +</p> + +<p> +This afternoon, the sight of Bob’s cheerful freckled face had given her +discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the hardship of her life +that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to +feel,—that she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that +something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth. She +wished she could have been like Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or +like Tom, who had something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady +purpose, and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head +against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter, and her +foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as if she had been +the only girl in the civilised world of that day who had come out of her +school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part +of her inherited share in the hard-won treasures of thought which generations +of painful toil have laid up for the race of men, than shreds and patches of +feeble literature and false history, with much futile information about Saxon +and other kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge +of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the habits, +becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission and dependence, +becomes religion,—as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides +herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful of +their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong. +</p> + +<p> +At last Maggie’s eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the +window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly the +leaves of the “Portrait Gallery,” but she soon pushed this aside to +examine the little row of books tied together with string. “Beauties of +the Spectator,” “Rasselas,” “Economy of Human +Life,” “Gregory’s Letters,”—she knew the sort of +matter that was inside all these; the “Christian Year,”—that +seemed to be a hymnbook, and she laid it down again; but <i>Thomas à +Kempis?</i>—the name had come across her in her reading, and she felt the +satisfaction, which every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name +that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book +with some curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some +hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks, +long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and read where the +quiet hand pointed: “Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more +than anything in the world.... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be +here or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor +free from care; for in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place +there will be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way +soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and +everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have inward +peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to mount unto this +height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou +mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and +unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth +himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which +evil being once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace +and tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them that +have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so +many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more +heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little +adversities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest thy impatience +be the cause thereof.... Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of +the divine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are +those ears which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto +the Truth, which teacheth inwardly.” +</p> + +<p> +A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if she had +been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling of beings whose +souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark +to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that she was +reading, seeming rather to listen while a low voice said; +</p> + +<p> +“Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest? +In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to be looked on +as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away, and thou together +with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them, lest thou be entangled and +perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is as nothing. And if +he should do great penances, yet are they but little. And if he should attain +to all knowledge, he is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and +very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is +most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, +and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often +said unto thee, and now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, +and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, +evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear +leave thee, and inordinate love shall die.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see a sudden +vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that would enable her to +renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime height to be reached without the +help of outward things; here was insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won +by means entirely within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to +be heard. It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a +problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing her heart +on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of the universe; and +for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting the position from which +she looked at the gratification of her own desires,—of taking her stand +out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant part of a +divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly +the dialogues with the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of +all strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till +the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination that +could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight forming +plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness; and in the ardor of first +discovery, renunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction which +she had so long been craving in vain. She had not perceived—how could she +until she had lived longer?—the inmost truth of the old monk’s +out-pourings, that renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne +willingly. Maggie was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because +she had found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of +mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages was the +direct communication of a human soul’s belief and experience, and came to +Maggie as an unquestioned message. +</p> + +<p> +I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for which you +need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning +bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly +issued, leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand +that waited for the heart’s prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, +hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to +teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And +so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human +consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and +renounced,—in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, +with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from +ours,—but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same +passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. +</p> + +<p> +In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall into a +tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good society, where +principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are +always presupposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched with +a light and graceful irony. But then good society has its claret and its velvet +carpets, its dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its faëry +ball-rooms; rides off its <i>ennui</i> on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the +club; has to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by +Faraday, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best +houses,—how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But good +society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very expensive +production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous national life +condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating +at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of +carbonic acid, or else, spread over sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses +and huts on the clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. +This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis,—the emphasis of +want, which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance of +good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a chill, +uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under +such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls who have +absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this unpleasurable shape +demanding some solution even to unspeculative minds,—just as you inquire +into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls you there, whereas +eider-down and perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic +belief in alcohol, and seek their <i>ekstasis</i> or outside standing-ground in +gin; but the rest require something that good society calls +“enthusiasm,” something that will present motives in an entire +absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love +when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; +something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes +resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and +then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an +experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being brought +within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her +girl’s face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped +her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid +of established authorities and appointed guides; for they were not at hand, and +her need was pressing. From what you know of her, you will not be surprised +that she threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, +even into her self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in +which she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity. +And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being +excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a flight, and +came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For +example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing, that she might +contribute something toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first +instance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in +St Ogg’s, instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and +could see nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in +Tom’s reproof of her for this unnecessary act. “I don’t like +<i>my</i> sister to do such things,” said Tom, “<i>I’ll</i> +take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that +way.” Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the +worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as +dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom’s rebuke as one of +her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long +night-watchings,—to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove +to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we +all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism,—the path of +martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep +highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy +honours to be gathered and worn. +</p> + +<p> +The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich—that wrinkled fruit of the +tree of knowledge—had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her back on +the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she +flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need +of them; and if they had been her own, she would have burned them, believing +that she would never repent. She read so eagerly and constantly in her three +books, the Bible, Thomas à Kempis, and the “Christian Year” (no +longer rejected as a “hymn-book”), that they filled her mind with a +continual stream of rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see +all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material +for her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts +and other complicated stitchings, falsely called “plain,”—by +no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a +capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental wandering. +</p> + +<p> +Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might have been +pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic +upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft +light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually enriched +colour and outline of her blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her +with a sort of puzzled wonder that Maggie should be “growing up so +good”; it was amazing that this once “contrairy” child was +become so submissive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look +up from her work and find her mother’s eyes fixed upon her; they were +watching and waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some +needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown +girl,—the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety +and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have no personal +adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother about her hair, and submit to +have the abundant black locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, +after the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times. +</p> + +<p> +“Let your mother have that bit o’ pleasure, my dear,” said +Mrs Tulliver; “I’d trouble enough with your hair once.” +</p> + +<p> +So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer their long +day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed a queenly head above +her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. +Mrs Tulliver liked to call the father’s attention to Maggie’s hair +and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusque reply to give. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew well enough what she’d be, before now,—it’s +nothing new to me. But it’s a pity she isn’t made o’ commoner +stuff; she’ll be thrown away, I doubt,—there’ll be nobody to +marry her as is fit for her.” +</p> + +<p> +And Maggie’s graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently +enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when they were +alone together about trouble being turned into a blessing. He took it all as +part of his daughter’s goodness, which made his misfortunes the sadder to +him because they damaged her chance in life. In a mind charged with an eager +purpose and an unsatisfied vindictiveness, there is no room for new feelings; +Mr Tulliver did not want spiritual consolation—he wanted to shake off +the degradation of debt, and to have his revenge. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="book05"></a>BOOK FIFTH<br/> +WHEAT AND TARES.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap33"></a>Chapter I.<br/> +In the Red Deeps</h3> + +<p> +The family sitting-room was a long room with a window at each end; one looking +toward the croft and along the Ripple to the banks of the Floss, the other into +the mill-yard. Maggie was sitting with her work against the latter window when +she saw Mr Wakem entering the yard, as usual, on his fine black horse; but not +alone, as usual. Some one was with him,—a figure in a cloak, on a +handsome pony. Maggie had hardly time to feel that it was Philip come back, +before they were in front of the window, and he was raising his hat to her; +while his father, catching the movement by a side-glance, looked sharply round +at them both. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie hurried away from the window and carried her work upstairs; for Mr +Wakem sometimes came in and inspected the books, and Maggie felt that the +meeting with Philip would be robbed of all pleasure in the presence of the two +fathers. Some day, perhaps, she could see him when they could just shake hands, +and she could tell him that she remembered his goodness to Tom, and the things +he had said to her in the old days, though they could never be friends any +more. It was not at all agitating to Maggie to see Philip again; she retained +her childish gratitude and pity toward him, and remembered his cleverness; and +in the early weeks of her loneliness she had continually recalled the image of +him among the people who had been kind to her in life, often wishing she had +him for a brother and a teacher, as they had fancied it might have been, in +their talk together. But that sort of wishing had been banished along with +other dreams that savored of seeking her own will; and she thought, besides, +that Philip might be altered by his life abroad,—he might have become +worldly, and really not care about her saying anything to him now. And yet his +face was wonderfully little altered,—it was only a larger, more manly +copy of the pale, small-featured boy’s face, with the gray eyes, and the +boyish waving brown hair; there was the old deformity to awaken the old pity; +and after all her meditations, Maggie felt that she really <i>should</i> like +to say a few words to him. He might still be melancholy, as he always used to +be, and like her to look at him kindly. She wondered if he remembered how he +used to like her eyes; with that thought Maggie glanced toward the square +looking-glass which was condemned to hang with its face toward the wall, and +she half started from her seat to reach it down; but she checked herself and +snatched up her work, trying to repress the rising wishes by forcing her memory +to recall snatches of hymns, until she saw Philip and his father returning +along the road, and she could go down again. +</p> + +<p> +It was far on in June now, and Maggie was inclined to lengthen the daily walk +which was her one indulgence; but this day and the following she was so busy +with work which must be finished that she never went beyond the gate, and +satisfied her need of the open air by sitting out of doors. One of her frequent +walks, when she was not obliged to go to St Ogg’s, was to a spot that +lay beyond what was called the “Hill,”—an insignificant rise +of ground crowned by trees, lying along the side of the road which ran by the +gates of Dorlcote Mill. Insignificant I call it, because in height it was +hardly more than a bank; but there may come moments when Nature makes a mere +bank a means toward a fateful result; and that is why I ask you to imagine this +high bank crowned with trees, making an uneven wall for some quarter of a mile +along the left side of Dorlcote Mill and the pleasant fields behind it, bounded +by the murmuring Ripple. Just where this line of bank sloped down again to the +level, a by-road turned off and led to the other side of the rise, where it was +broken into very capricious hollows and mounds by the working of an exhausted +stone-quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now clothed +with brambles and trees, and here and there by a stretch of grass which a few +sheep kept close-nibbled. In her childish days Maggie held this place, called +the Red Deeps, in very great awe, and needed all her confidence in Tom’s +bravery to reconcile her to an excursion thither,—visions of robbers and +fierce animals haunting every hollow. But now it had the charm for her which +any broken ground, any mimic rock and ravine, have for the eyes that rest +habitually on the level; especially in summer, when she could sit on a grassy +hollow under the shadow of a branching ash, stooping aslant from the steep +above her, and listen to the hum of insects, like tiniest bells on the garment +of Silence, or see the sunlight piercing the distant boughs, as if to chase and +drive home the truant heavenly blue of the wild hyacinths. In this June time, +too, the dog-roses were in their glory, and that was an additional reason why +Maggie should direct her walk to the Red Deeps, rather than to any other spot, +on the first day she was free to wander at her will,—a pleasure she loved +so well, that sometimes, in her ardors of renunciation, she thought she ought +to deny herself the frequent indulgence in it. +</p> + +<p> +You may see her now, as she walks down the favourite turning and enters the +Deeps by a narrow path through a group of Scotch firs, her tall figure and old +lavender gown visible through an hereditary black silk shawl of some +wide-meshed net-like material; and now she is sure of being unseen she takes +off her bonnet and ties it over her arm. One would certainly suppose her to be +farther on in life than her seventeenth year—perhaps because of the slow +resigned sadness of the glance from which all search and unrest seem to have +departed; perhaps because her broad-chested figure has the mould of early +womanhood. Youth and health have withstood well the involuntary and voluntary +hardships of her lot, and the nights in which she has lain on the hard floor +for a penance have left no obvious trace; the eyes are liquid, the brown cheek +is firm and round, the full lips are red. With her dark colouring and jet crown +surmounting her tall figure, she seems to have a sort of kinship with the grand +Scotch firs, at which she is looking up as if she loved them well. Yet one has +a sense of uneasiness in looking at her,—a sense of opposing elements, of +which a fierce collision is imminent; surely there is a hushed expression, such +as one often sees in older faces under borderless caps, out of keeping with the +resistant youth, which one expects to flash out in a sudden, passionate glance, +that will dissipate all the quietude, like a damp fire leaping out again when +all seemed safe. +</p> + +<p> +But Maggie herself was not uneasy at this moment. She was calmly enjoying the +free air, while she looked up at the old fir-trees, and thought that those +broken ends of branches were the records of past storms, which had only made +the red stems soar higher. But while her eyes were still turned upward, she +became conscious of a moving shadow cast by the evening sun on the grassy path +before her, and looked down with a startled gesture to see Philip Wakem, who +first raised his hat, and then, blushing deeply, came forward to her and put +out his hand. Maggie, too, coloured with surprise, which soon gave way to +pleasure. She put out her hand and looked down at the deformed figure before +her with frank eyes, filled for the moment with nothing but the memory of her +child’s feelings,—a memory that was always strong in her. She was +the first to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“You startled me,” she said, smiling faintly; “I never meet +any one here. How came you to be walking here? Did you come to meet +<i>me?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +It was impossible not to perceive that Maggie felt herself a child again. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I did,” said Philip, still embarrassed; “I wished to +see you very much. I watched a long while yesterday on the bank near your house +to see if you would come out, but you never came. Then I watched again to-day, +and when I saw the way you took, I kept you in sight and came down the bank, +behind there. I hope you will not be displeased with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Maggie, with simple seriousness, walking on as if she +meant Philip to accompany her, “I’m very glad you came, for I +wished very much to have an opportunity of speaking to you. I’ve never +forgotten how good you were long ago to Tom, and me too; but I was not sure +that you would remember us so well. Tom and I have had a great deal of trouble +since then, and I think <i>that</i> makes one think more of what happened +before the trouble came.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t believe that you have thought of me so much as I have +thought of you,” said Philip, timidly. “Do you know, when I was +away, I made a picture of you as you looked that morning in the study when you +said you would not forget me.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip drew a large miniature-case from his pocket, and opened it. Maggie saw +her old self leaning on a table, with her black locks hanging down behind her +ears, looking into space, with strange, dreamy eyes. It was a water-colour +sketch, of real merit as a portrait. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear,” said Maggie, smiling, and flushed with pleasure, +“what a queer little girl I was! I remember myself with my hair in that +way, in that pink frock. I really <i>was</i> like a gypsy. I dare say I am +now,” she added, after a little pause; “am I like what you expected +me to be?” +</p> + +<p> +The words might have been those of a coquette, but the full, bright glance +Maggie turned on Philip was not that of a coquette. She really did hope he +liked her face as it was now, but it was simply the rising again of her innate +delight in admiration and love. Philip met her eyes and looked at her in +silence for a long moment, before he said quietly, “No, Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +The light died out a little from Maggie’s face, and there was a slight +trembling of the lip. Her eyelids fell lower, but she did not turn away her +head, and Philip continued to look at her. Then he said slowly: +</p> + +<p> +“You are very much more beautiful than I thought you would be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I?” said Maggie, the pleasure returning in a deeper flush. She +turned her face away from him and took some steps, looking straight before her +in silence, as if she were adjusting her consciousness to this new idea. Girls +are so accustomed to think of dress as the main ground of vanity, that, in +abstaining from the looking-glass, Maggie had thought more of abandoning all +care for adornment than of renouncing the contemplation of her face. Comparing +herself with elegant, wealthy young ladies, it had not occurred to her that she +could produce any effect with her person. Philip seemed to like the silence +well. He walked by her side, watching her face, as if that sight left no room +for any other wish. They had passed from among the fir-trees, and had now come +to a green hollow almost surrounded by an amphitheatre of the pale pink +dog-roses. But as the light about them had brightened, Maggie’s face had +lost its glow. +</p> + +<p> +She stood still when they were in the hollows, and looking at Philip again, she +said in a serious, sad voice: +</p> + +<p> +“I wish we could have been friends,—I mean, if it would have been +good and right for us. But that is the trial I have to bear in everything; I +may not keep anything I used to love when I was little. The old books went; and +Tom is different, and my father. It is like death. I must part with everything +I cared for when I was a child. And I must part with you; we must never take +any notice of each other again. That was what I wanted to speak to you for. I +wanted to let you know that Tom and I can’t do as we like about such +things, and that if I behave as if I had forgotten all about you, it is not out +of envy or pride—or—or any bad feeling.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie spoke with more and more sorrowful gentleness as she went on, and her +eyes began to fill with tears. The deepening expression of pain on +Philip’s face gave him a stronger resemblance to his boyish self, and +made the deformity appeal more strongly to her pity. +</p> + +<p> +“I know; I see all that you mean,” he said, in a voice that had +become feebler from discouragement; “I know what there is to keep us +apart on both sides. But it is not right, Maggie,—don’t you be +angry with me, I am so used to call you Maggie in my thoughts,—it is not +right to sacrifice everything to other people’s unreasonable feelings. I +would give up a great deal for <i>my</i> father; but I would not give up a +friendship or—or an attachment of any sort, in obedience to any wish of +his that I didn’t recognise as right.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Maggie, musingly. “Often, when I +have been angry and discontented, it has seemed to me that I was not bound to +give up anything; and I have gone on thinking till it has seemed to me that I +could think away all my duty. But no good has ever come of that; it was an evil +state of mind. I’m quite sure that whatever I might do, I should wish in +the end that I had gone without anything for myself, rather than have made my +father’s life harder to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But would it make his life harder if we were to see each other +sometimes?” said Philip. He was going to say something else, but checked +himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t like it. Don’t ask me why, or +anything about it,” said Maggie, in a distressed tone. “My father +feels so strongly about some things. He is not at all happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“No more am I,” said Philip, impetuously; “I am not +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” said Maggie, gently. “At least—I ought not to +ask—but I’m very, very sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip turned to walk on, as if he had not patience to stand still any longer, +and they went out of the hollow, winding amongst the trees and bushes in +silence. After that last word of Philip’s, Maggie could not bear to +insist immediately on their parting. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been a great deal happier,” she said at last, timidly, +“since I have given up thinking about what is easy and pleasant, and +being discontented because I couldn’t have my own will. Our life is +determined for us; and it makes the mind very free when we give up wishing, and +only think of bearing what is laid upon us, and doing what is given us to +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I can’t give up wishing,” said Philip, impatiently. +“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are +thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, +and we <i>must</i> hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them +until our feelings are deadened? I delight in fine pictures; I long to be able +to paint such. I strive and strive, and can’t produce what I want. That +is pain to me, and always <i>will</i> be pain, until my faculties lose their +keenness, like aged eyes. Then there are many other things I long +for,”—here Philip hesitated a little, and then +said,—“things that other men have, and that will always be denied +me. My life will have nothing great or beautiful in it; I would rather not have +lived.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Philip,” said Maggie, “I wish you didn’t feel +so.” But her heart began to beat with something of Philip’s +discontent. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” said he, turning quickly round and fixing his gray +eyes entreatingly on her face, “I should be contented to live, if you +would let me see you sometimes.” Then, checked by a fear which her face +suggested, he looked away again and said more calmly, “I have no friend +to whom I can tell everything, no one who cares enough about me; and if I could +only see you now and then, and you would let me talk to you a little, and show +me that you cared for me, and that we may always be friends in heart, and help +each other, then I might come to be glad of life.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how can I see you, Philip?” said Maggie, falteringly. (Could +she really do him good? It would be very hard to say “good-by” this +day, and not speak to him again. Here was a new interest to vary the days; it +was so much easier to renounce the interest before it came.) +</p> + +<p> +“If you would let me see you here sometimes,—walk with you +here,—I would be contented if it were only once or twice in a month. +<i>That</i> could injure no one’s happiness, and it would sweeten my +life. Besides,” Philip went on, with all the inventive astuteness of love +at one-and-twenty, “if there is any enmity between those who belong to +us, we ought all the more to try and quench it by our friendship; I mean, that +by our influence on both sides we might bring about a healing of the wounds +that have been made in the past, if I could know everything about them. And I +don’t believe there is any enmity in my own father’s mind; I think +he has proved the contrary.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie shook her head slowly, and was silent, under conflicting thoughts. It +seemed to her inclination, that to see Philip now and then, and keep up the +bond of friendship with him, was something not only innocent, but good; perhaps +she might really help him to find contentment as she had found it. The voice +that said this made sweet music to Maggie; but athwart it there came an urgent, +monotonous warning from another voice which she had been learning to +obey,—the warning that such interviews implied secrecy; implied doing +something she would dread to be discovered in, something that, if discovered, +must cause anger and pain; and that the admission of anything so near +doubleness would act as a spiritual blight. Yet the music would swell out +again, like chimes borne onward by a recurrent breeze, persuading her that the +wrong lay all in the faults and weaknesses of others, and that there was such a +thing as futile sacrifice for one to the injury of another. It was very cruel +for Philip that he should be shrunk from, because of an unjustifiable +vindictiveness toward his father,—poor Philip, whom some people would +shrink from only because he was deformed. The idea that he might become her +lover or that her meeting him could cause disapproval in that light, had not +occurred to her; and Philip saw the absence of this idea clearly enough, saw it +with a certain pang, although it made her consent to his request the less +unlikely. There was bitterness to him in the perception that Maggie was almost +as frank and unconstrained toward him as when she was a child. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say either yes or no,” she said at last, turning +round and walking toward the way she come; “I must wait, lest I should +decide wrongly. I must seek for guidance.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I come again, then, to-morrow, or the next day, or next week?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I had better write,” said Maggie, faltering again. +“I have to go to St Ogg’s sometimes, and I can put the letter in +the post.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no,” said Philip eagerly; “that would not be so well. My +father might see the letter—and—he has not any enmity, I believe, +but he views things differently from me; he thinks a great deal about wealth +and position. Pray let me come here once more. <i>Tell</i> me when it shall be; +or if you can’t tell me, I will come as often as I can till I do see +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it must be so, then,” said Maggie, “for I +can’t be quite certain of coming here any particular evening.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie felt a great relief in adjourning the decision. She was free now to +enjoy the minutes of companionship; she almost thought she might linger a +little; the next time they met she should have to pain Philip by telling him +her determination. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t help thinking,” she said, looking smilingly at him, +after a few moments of silence, “how strange it is that we should have +met and talked to each other, just as if it had been only yesterday when we +parted at Lorton. And yet we must both be very much altered in those five +years,—I think it is five years. How was it you seemed to have a sort of +feeling that I was the same Maggie? I was not quite so sure that you would be +the same; I know you are so clever, and you must have seen and learnt so much +to fill your mind; I was not quite sure you would care about me now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have never had any doubt that you would be the same, whenever I might +see you,” said Philip,—“I mean, the same in everything that +made me like you better than any one else. I don’t want to explain that; +I don’t think any of the strongest effects our natures are susceptible of +can ever be explained. We can neither detect the process by which they are +arrived at, nor the mode in which they act on us. The greatest of painters only +once painted a mysteriously divine child; he couldn’t have told how he +did it, and we can’t tell why we feel it to be divine. I think there are +stores laid up in our human nature that our understandings can make no complete +inventory of. Certain strains of music affect me so strangely; I can never hear +them without their changing my whole attitude of mind for a time, and if the +effect would last, I might be capable of heroisms.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! I know what you mean about music; <i>I</i> feel so,” said +Maggie, clasping her hands with her old impetuosity. “At least,” +she added, in a saddened tone, “I used to feel so when I had any music; I +never have any now except the organ at church.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you long for it, Maggie?” said Philip, looking at her with +affectionate pity. “Ah, you can have very little that is beautiful in +your life. Have you many books? You were so fond of them when you were a little +girl.” +</p> + +<p> +They were come back to the hollow, round which the dog-roses grew, and they +both paused under the charm of the faëry evening light, reflected from the pale +pink clusters. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I have given up books,” said Maggie, quietly, “except a +very, very few.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had already taken from his pocket a small volume, and was looking at the +back as he said: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, this is the second volume, I see, else you might have liked to take +it home with you. I put it in my pocket because I am studying a scene for a +picture.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie had looked at the back too, and saw the title; it revived an old +impression with overmastering force. +</p> + +<p> +“‘The Pirate,’” she said, taking the book from +Philip’s hands. “Oh, I began that once; I read to where Minna is +walking with Cleveland, and I could never get to read the rest. I went on with +it in my own head, and I made several endings; but they were all unhappy. I +could never make a happy ending out of that beginning. Poor Minna! I wonder +what is the real end. For a long while I couldn’t get my mind away from +the Shetland Isles,—I used to feel the wind blowing on me from the rough +sea.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie spoke rapidly, with glistening eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Take that volume home with you, Maggie,” said Philip, watching her +with delight. “I don’t want it now. I shall make a picture of you +instead,—you, among the Scotch firs and the slanting shadows.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie had not heard a word he had said; she was absorbed in a page at which +she had opened. But suddenly she closed the book, and gave it back to Philip, +shaking her head with a backward movement, as if to say “avaunt” to +floating visions. +</p> + +<p> +“Do keep it, Maggie,” said Philip, entreatingly; “it will +give you pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” said Maggie, putting it aside with her hand and +walking on. “It would make me in love with this world again, as I used to +be; it would make me long to see and know many things; it would make me long +for a full life.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you will not always be shut up in your present lot; why should you +starve your mind in that way? It is narrow asceticism; I don’t like to +see you persisting in it, Maggie. Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and +pure.” +</p> + +<p> +“But not for me, not for me,” said Maggie, walking more hurriedly; +“because I should want too much. I must wait; this life will not last +long.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t hurry away from me without saying ‘good-by,’ +Maggie,” said Philip, as they reached the group of Scotch firs, and she +continued still to walk along without speaking. “I must not go any +farther, I think, must I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, I forgot; good-by,” said Maggie, pausing, and putting out +her hand to him. The action brought her feeling back in a strong current to +Philip; and after they had stood looking at each other in silence for a few +moments, with their hands clasped, she said, withdrawing her hand: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very grateful to you for thinking of me all those years. It is +very sweet to have people love us. What a wonderful, beautiful thing it seems +that God should have made your heart so that you could care about a queer +little girl whom you only knew for a few weeks! I remember saying to you that I +thought you cared for me more than Tom did.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Maggie,” said Philip, almost fretfully, “you would never +love me so well as you love your brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps not,” said Maggie, simply; “but then, you know, the +first thing I ever remember in my life is standing with Tom by the side of the +Floss, while he held my hand; everything before that is dark to me. But I shall +never forget you, though we must keep apart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say so, Maggie,” said Philip. “If I kept that +little girl in my mind for five years, didn’t I earn some part in her? +She ought not to take herself quite away from me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if I were free,” said Maggie; “but I am not, I must +submit.” She hesitated a moment, and then added, “And I wanted to +say to you, that you had better not take more notice of my brother than just +bowing to him. He once told me not to speak to you again, and he doesn’t +change his mind—Oh dear, the sun is set. I am too long away. +Good-by.” She gave him her hand once more. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall come here as often as I can till I see you again, Maggie. Have +some feeling for <i>me</i> as well as for others.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, I have,” said Maggie, hurrying away, and quickly +disappearing behind the last fir-tree; though Philip’s gaze after her +remained immovable for minutes as if he saw her still. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie went home, with an inward conflict already begun; Philip went home to do +nothing but remember and hope. You can hardly help blaming him severely. He was +four or five years older than Maggie, and had a full consciousness of his +feeling toward her to aid him in foreseeing the character his contemplated +interviews with her would bear in the opinion of a third person. But you must +not suppose that he was capable of a gross selfishness, or that he could have +been satisfied without persuading himself that he was seeking to infuse some +happiness into Maggie’s life,—seeking this even more than any +direct ends for himself. He could give her sympathy; he could give her help. +There was not the slightest promise of love toward him in her manner; it was +nothing more than the sweet girlish tenderness she had shown him when she was +twelve. Perhaps she would never love him; perhaps no woman ever <i>could</i> +love him. Well, then, he would endure that; he should at least have the +happiness of seeing her, of feeling some nearness to her. And he clutched +passionately the possibility that she <i>might</i> love him; perhaps the +feeling would grow, if she could come to associate him with that watchful +tenderness which her nature would be so keenly alive to. If any woman could +love him, surely Maggie was that woman; there was such wealth of love in her, +and there was no one to claim it all. Then, the pity of it, that a mind like +hers should be withering in its very youth, like a young forest-tree, for want +of the light and space it was formed to flourish in! Could he not hinder that, +by persuading her out of her system of privation? He would be her guardian +angel; he would do anything, bear anything, for her sake—except not +seeing her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap34"></a>Chapter II.<br/> +Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob’s Thumb</h3> + +<p> +While Maggie’s life-struggles had lain almost entirely within her own +soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and the slain shadows forever rising +again, Tom was engaged in a dustier, noisier warfare, grappling with more +substantial obstacles, and gaining more definite conquests. So it has been +since the days of Hecuba, and of Hector, Tamer of horses; inside the gates, the +women with streaming hair and uplifted hands offering prayers, watching the +world’s combat from afar, filling their long, empty days with memories +and fears; outside, the men, in fierce struggle with things divine and human, +quenching memory in the stronger light of purpose, losing the sense of dread +and even of wounds in the hurrying ardor of action. +</p> + +<p> +From what you have seen of Tom, I think he is not a youth of whom you would +prophesy failure in anything he had thoroughly wished; the wagers are likely to +be on his side, notwithstanding his small success in the classics. For Tom had +never desired success in this field of enterprise; and for getting a fine +flourishing growth of stupidity there is nothing like pouring out on a mind a +good amount of subjects in which it feels no interest. But now Tom’s +strong will bound together his integrity, his pride, his family regrets, and +his personal ambition, and made them one force, concentrating his efforts and +surmounting discouragements. His uncle Deane, who watched him closely, soon +began to conceive hopes of him, and to be rather proud that he had brought into +the employment of the firm a nephew who appeared to be made of such good +commercial stuff. The real kindness of placing him in the warehouse first was +soon evident to Tom, in the hints his uncle began to throw out, that after a +time he might perhaps be trusted to travel at certain seasons, and buy in for +the firm various vulgar commodities with which I need not shock refined ears in +this place; and it was doubtless with a view to this result that Mr Deane, +when he expected to take his wine alone, would tell Tom to step in and sit with +him an hour, and would pass that hour in much lecturing and catechising +concerning articles of export and import, with an occasional excursus of more +indirect utility on the relative advantages to the merchants of St Ogg’s +of having goods brought in their own and in foreign bottoms,—a subject on +which Mr Deane, as a ship-owner, naturally threw off a few sparks when he got +warmed with talk and wine. +</p> + +<p> +Already, in the second year, Tom’s salary was raised; but all, except the +price of his dinner and clothes, went home into the tin box; and he shunned +comradeship, lest it should lead him into expenses in spite of himself. Not +that Tom was moulded on the spoony type of the Industrious Apprentice; he had a +very strong appetite for pleasure,—would have liked to be a Tamer of +horses and to make a distinguished figure in all neighbouring eyes, dispensing +treats and benefits to others with well-judged liberality, and being pronounced +one of the finest young fellows of those parts; nay, he determined to achieve +these things sooner or later; but his practical shrewdness told him that the +means to such achievements could only lie for him in present abstinence and +self-denial; there were certain milestones to be passed, and one of the first +was the payment of his father’s debts. Having made up his mind on that +point, he strode along without swerving, contracting some rather saturnine +sternness, as a young man is likely to do who has a premature call upon him for +self-reliance. Tom felt intensely that common cause with his father which +springs from family pride, and was bent on being irreproachable as a son; but +his growing experience caused him to pass much silent criticism on the rashness +and imprudence of his father’s past conduct; their dispositions were not +in sympathy, and Tom’s face showed little radiance during his few home +hours. Maggie had an awe of him, against which she struggled as something +unfair to her consciousness of wider thoughts and deeper motives; but it was of +no use to struggle. A character at unity with itself—that performs what +it intends, subdues every counteracting impulse, and has no visions beyond the +distinctly possible—is strong by its very negations. +</p> + +<p> +You may imagine that Tom’s more and more obvious unlikeness to his father +was well fitted to conciliate the maternal aunts and uncles; and Mr +Deane’s favourable reports and predictions to Mr Glegg concerning +Tom’s qualifications for business began to be discussed amongst them with +various acceptance. He was likely, it appeared, to do the family credit without +causing it any expense and trouble. Mrs Pullet had always thought it strange if +Tom’s excellent complexion, so entirely that of the Dodsons, did not +argue a certainty that he would turn out well; his juvenile errors of running +down the peacock, and general disrespect to his aunts, only indicating a tinge +of Tulliver blood which he had doubtless outgrown. Mr Glegg, who had contracted +a cautious liking for Tom ever since his spirited and sensible behaviour when +the execution was in the house, was now warming into a resolution to further +his prospects actively,—some time, when an opportunity offered of doing +so in a prudent manner, without ultimate loss; but Mrs Glegg observed that she +was not given to speak without book, as some people were; that those who said +least were most likely to find their words made good; and that when the right +moment came, it would be seen who could do something better than talk. Uncle +Pullet, after silent meditation for a period of several lozenges, came +distinctly to the conclusion, that when a young man was likely to do well, it +was better not to meddle with him. +</p> + +<p> +Tom, meanwhile, had shown no disposition to rely on any one but himself, +though, with a natural sensitiveness toward all indications of favourable +opinion, he was glad to see his uncle Glegg look in on him sometimes in a +friendly way during business hours, and glad to be invited to dine at his +house, though he usually preferred declining on the ground that he was not sure +of being punctual. But about a year ago, something had occurred which induced +Tom to test his uncle Glegg’s friendly disposition. +</p> + +<p> +Bob Jakin, who rarely returned from one of his rounds without seeing Tom and +Maggie, awaited him on the bridge as he was coming home from St Ogg’s +one evening, that they might have a little private talk. He took the liberty of +asking if Mr Tom had ever thought of making money by trading a bit on his own +account. Trading, how? Tom wished to know. Why, by sending out a bit of a cargo +to foreign ports; because Bob had a particular friend who had offered to do a +little business for him in that way in Laceham goods, and would be glad to +serve Mr Tom on the same footing. Tom was interested at once, and begged for +full explanation, wondering he had not thought of this plan before. +</p> + +<p> +He was so well pleased with the prospect of a speculation that might change the +slow process of addition into multiplication, that he at once determined to +mention the matter to his father, and get his consent to appropriate some of +the savings in the tin box to the purchase of a small cargo. He would rather +not have consulted his father, but he had just paid his last quarter’s +money into the tin box, and there was no other resource. All the savings were +there; for Mr Tulliver would not consent to put the money out at interest lest +he should lose it. Since he had speculated in the purchase of some corn, and +had lost by it, he could not be easy without keeping the money under his eye. +</p> + +<p> +Tom approached the subject carefully, as he was seated on the hearth with his +father that evening, and Mr Tulliver listened, leaning forward in his +arm-chair and looking up in Tom’s face with a sceptical glance. His first +impulse was to give a positive refusal, but he was in some awe of Tom’s +wishes, and since he had the sense of being an “unlucky” father, he +had lost some of his old peremptoriness and determination to be master. He took +the key of the bureau from his pocket, got out the key of the large chest, and +fetched down the tin box,—slowly, as if he were trying to defer the +moment of a painful parting. Then he seated himself against the table, and +opened the box with that little padlock-key which he fingered in his waistcoat +pocket in all vacant moments. There they were, the dingy bank-notes and the +bright sovereigns, and he counted them out on the table—only a hundred +and sixteen pounds in two years, after all the pinching. +</p> + +<p> +“How much do you want, then?” he said, speaking as if the words +burnt his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose I begin with the thirty-six pounds, father?” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver separated this sum from the rest, and keeping his hand over it, +said: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s as much as I can save out o’ my pay in a year.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, father; it is such slow work, saving out of the little money we +get. And in this way we might double our savings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, my lad,” said the father, keeping his hand on the money, +“but you might lose it,—you might lose a year o’ my +life,—and I haven’t got many.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom was silent. +</p> + +<p> +“And you know I wouldn’t pay a dividend with the first hundred, +because I wanted to see it all in a lump,—and when I see it, I’m +sure on’t. If you trust to luck, it’s sure to be against me. +It’s Old Harry’s got the luck in his hands; and if I lose one year, +I shall never pick it up again; death ’ull o’ertake me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver’s voice trembled, and Tom was silent for a few minutes +before he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give it up, father, since you object to it so +strongly.” +</p> + +<p> +But, unwilling to abandon the scheme altogether, he determined to ask his uncle +Glegg to venture twenty pounds, on condition of receiving five per cent. of the +profits. That was really a very small thing to ask. So when Bob called the next +day at the wharf to know the decision, Tom proposed that they should go +together to his uncle Glegg’s to open the business; for his diffident +pride clung to him, and made him feel that Bobs’ tongue would relieve him +from some embarrassment. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Glegg, at the pleasant hour of four in the afternoon of a hot August day, +was naturally counting his wall-fruit to assure himself that the sum total had +not varied since yesterday. To him entered Tom, in what appeared to Mr Glegg +very questionable companionship,—that of a man with a pack on his +back,—for Bob was equipped for a new journey,—and of a huge +brindled bull-terrier, who walked with a slow, swaying movement from side to +side, and glanced from under his eye-lids with a surly indifference which might +after all be a cover to the most offensive designs. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Glegg’s spectacles, which had been assisting him in counting the +fruit, made these suspicious details alarmingly evident to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Heigh! heigh! keep that dog back, will you?” he shouted, snatching +up a stake and holding it before him as a shield when the visitors were within +three yards of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Get out wi’ you, Mumps,” said Bob, with a kick. +“He’s as quiet as a lamb, sir,”—an observation which +Mumps corroborated by a low growl as he retreated behind his master’s +legs. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what ever does this mean, Tom?” said Mr Glegg. “Have +you brought information about the scoundrels as cut my trees?” If Bob +came in the character of “information,” Mr Glegg saw reasons for +tolerating some irregularity. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” said Tom; “I came to speak to you about a little +matter of business of my own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—well; but what has this dog got to do with it?” said the +old gentleman, getting mild again. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my dog, sir,” said the ready Bob. “An’ +it’s me as put Mr Tom up to the bit o’ business; for Mr +Tom’s been a friend o’ mine iver since I was a little chap; fust +thing iver I did was frightenin’ the birds for th’ old master. +An’ if a bit o’ luck turns up, I’m allays thinkin’ if I +can let Mr Tom have a pull at it. An’ it’s a downright +roarin’ shame, as when he’s got the chance o’ making a bit +o’ money wi’ sending goods out,—ten or twelve per zent clear, +when freight an’ commission’s paid,—as he shouldn’t lay +hold o’ the chance for want o’ money. An’ when there’s +the Laceham goods,—lors! they’re made o’ purpose for folks as +want to send out a little carguy; light, an’ take up no room,—you +may pack twenty pound so as you can’t see the passill; an’ +they’re manifacturs as please fools, so I reckon they aren’t like +to want a market. An’ I’d go to Laceham an’ buy in the goods +for Mr Tom along wi’ my own. An’ there’s the shupercargo +o’ the bit of a vessel as is goin’ to take ’em out. I know +him partic’lar; he’s a solid man, an’ got a family i’ +the town here. Salt, his name is,—an’ a briny chap he is +too,—an’ if you don’t believe me, I can take you to +him.” +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Glegg stood open-mouthed with astonishment at this unembarrassed +loquacity, with which his understanding could hardly keep pace. He looked at +Bob, first over his spectacles, then through them, then over them again; while +Tom, doubtful of his uncle’s impression, began to wish he had not brought +this singular Aaron, or mouthpiece. Bob’s talk appeared less seemly, now +some one besides himself was listening to it. +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to be a knowing fellow,” said Mr Glegg, at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sir, you say true,” returned Bob, nodding his head aside; +“I think my head’s all alive inside like an old cheese, for +I’m so full o’ plans, one knocks another over. If I hadn’t +Mumps to talk to, I should get top-heavy an’ tumble in a fit. I suppose +it’s because I niver went to school much. That’s what I jaw my old +mother for. I says, ‘You should ha’ sent me to school a bit +more,’ I says, ‘an’ then I could ha’ read i’ the +books like fun, an’ kep’ my head cool an’ empty.’ Lors, +she’s fine an’ comfor’ble now, my old mother is; she ates her +baked meat an’ taters as often as she likes. For I’m gettin’ +so full o’ money, I must hev a wife to spend it for me. But it’s +botherin,’ a wife is,—and Mumps mightn’t like her.” +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Glegg, who regarded himself as a jocose man since he had retired from +business, was beginning to find Bob amusing, but he had still a disapproving +observation to make, which kept his face serious. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” he said, “I should think you’re at a loss for +ways o’ spending your money, else you wouldn’t keep that big dog, +to eat as much as two Christians. It’s shameful—shameful!” +But he spoke more in sorrow than in anger, and quickly added: +</p> + +<p> +“But, come now, let’s hear more about this business, Tom. I suppose +you want a little sum to make a venture with. But where’s all your own +money? You don’t spend it all—eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” said Tom, colouring; “but my father is unwilling +to risk it, and I don’t like to press him. If I could get twenty or +thirty pounds to begin with, I could pay five per cent for it, and then I could +gradually make a little capital of my own, and do without a loan.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—ay,” said Mr Glegg, in an approving tone; +“that’s not a bad notion, and I won’t say as I wouldn’t +be your man. But it ’ull be as well for me to see this Salt, as you talk +on. And then—here’s this friend o’ yours offers to buy the +goods for you. Perhaps you’ve got somebody to stand surety for you if the +money’s put into your hands?” added the cautious old gentleman, +looking over his spectacles at Bob. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think that’s necessary, uncle,” said Tom. +“At least, I mean it would not be necessary for me, because I know Bob +well; but perhaps it would be right for you to have some security.” +</p> + +<p> +“You get your percentage out o’ the purchase, I suppose?” +said Mr Glegg, looking at Bob. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” said Bob, rather indignantly; “I didn’t +offer to get a apple for Mr Tom, o’ purpose to hev a bite out of it +myself. When I play folks tricks, there’ll be more fun in ’em nor +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but it’s nothing but right you should have a small +percentage,” said Mr Glegg. “I’ve no opinion o’ +transactions where folks do things for nothing. It allays looks bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” said Bob, whose keenness saw at once what was +implied, “I’ll tell you what I get by’t, an’ it’s +money in my pocket in the end,—I make myself look big, wi’ +makin’ a bigger purchase. That’s what I’m thinking on. Lors! +I’m a ’cute chap,—I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Glegg, Mr Glegg!” said a severe voice from the open parlour +window, “pray are you coming in to tea, or are you going to stand talking +with packmen till you get murdered in the open daylight?” +</p> + +<p> +“Murdered?” said Mr Glegg; “what’s the woman talking +of? Here’s your nephey Tom come about a bit o’ business.” +</p> + +<p> +“Murdered,—yes,—it isn’t many ’sizes ago since a +packman murdered a young woman in a lone place, and stole her thimble, and +threw her body into a ditch.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, nay,” said Mr Glegg, soothingly, “you’re +thinking o’ the man wi’ no legs, as drove a dog-cart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s the same thing, Mr Glegg, only you’re fond +o’ contradicting what I say; and if my nephey’s come about +business, it ’ud be more fitting if you’d bring him into the house, +and let his aunt know about it, instead o’ whispering in corners, in that +plotting, underminding way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well,” said Mr Glegg, “we’ll come in +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t stay here,” said the lady to Bob, in a loud +voice, adapted to the moral, not the physical, distance between them. “We +don’t want anything. I don’t deal wi’ packmen. Mind you shut +the gate after you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop a bit; not so fast,” said Mr Glegg; “I haven’t +done with this young man yet. Come in, Tom; come in,” he added, stepping +in at the French window. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Glegg,” said Mrs G., in a fatal tone, “if you’re +going to let that man and his dog in on my carpet, before my very face, be so +good as to let me know. A wife’s got a right to ask that, I hope.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you be uneasy, mum,” said Bob, touching his cap. He +saw at once that Mrs Glegg was a bit of game worth running down, and longed to +be at the sport; “we’ll stay out upo’ the gravel +here,—Mumps and me will. Mumps knows his company,—he does. I might +hish at him by th’ hour together, before he’d fly at a real +gentlewoman like you. It’s wonderful how he knows which is the +good-looking ladies; and’s partic’lar fond of ’em when +they’ve good shapes. Lors!” added Bob, laying down his pack on the +gravel, “it’s a thousand pities such a lady as you shouldn’t +deal with a packman, i’ stead o’ goin’ into these newfangled +shops, where there’s half-a-dozen fine gents wi’ their chins +propped up wi’ a stiff stock, a-looking like bottles wi’ ornamental +stoppers, an’ all got to get their dinner out of a bit o’ calico; +it stan’s to reason you must pay three times the price you pay a packman, +as is the nat’ral way o’ gettin’ goods,—an’ pays +no rent, an’ isn’t forced to throttle himself till the lies are +squeezed out on him, whether he will or no. But lors! mum, you know what it is +better nor I do,—<i>you</i> can see through them shopmen, I’ll be +bound.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I reckon I can, and through the packmen too,” observed Mrs +Glegg, intending to imply that Bob’s flattery had produced no effect on +<i>her;</i> while her husband, standing behind her with his hands in his +pockets and legs apart, winked and smiled with conjugal delight at the +probability of his wife’s being circumvented. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, to be sure, mum,” said Bob. “Why, you must ha’ +dealt wi’ no end o’ packmen when you war a young lass—before +the master here had the luck to set eyes on you. I know where you lived, I +do,—seen th’ house many a time,—close upon Squire +Darleigh’s,—a stone house wi’ steps——” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that it had,” said Mrs Glegg, pouring out the tea. “You +know something o’ my family, then? Are you akin to that packman with a +squint in his eye, as used to bring th’ Irish linen?” +</p> + +<p> +“Look you there now!” said Bob, evasively. “Didn’t I +know as you’d remember the best bargains you’ve made in your life +was made wi’ packmen? Why, you see even a squintin’ packman’s +better nor a shopman as can see straight. Lors! if I’d had the luck to +call at the stone house wi’ my pack, as lies here,”—stooping +and thumping the bundle emphatically with his fist,—“an’ +th’ handsome young lasses all stannin’ out on the stone steps, it +ud’ ha’ been summat like openin’ a pack, that would. +It’s on’y the poor houses now as a packman calls on, if it +isn’t for the sake o’ the sarvant-maids. They’re paltry +times, these are. Why, mum, look at the printed cottons now, an’ what +they was when you wore ’em,—why, you wouldn’t put such a +thing on now, I can see. It must be first-rate quality, the manifactur as +you’d buy,—summat as ’ud wear as well as your own +faitures.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, better quality nor any you’re like to carry; you’ve got +nothing first-rate but brazenness, I’ll be bound,” said Mrs Glegg, +with a triumphant sense of her insurmountable sagacity. “Mr Glegg, are +you going ever to sit down to your tea? Tom, there’s a cup for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You speak true there, mum,” said Bob. “My pack isn’t +for ladies like you. The time’s gone by for that. Bargains picked up dirt +cheap! A bit o’ damage here an’ there, as can be cut out, or else +niver seen i’ the wearin’, but not fit to offer to rich folks as +can pay for the look o’ things as nobody sees. I’m not the man as +’ud offer t’ open my pack to <i>you</i>, mum; no, no; I’m a +imperent chap, as you say,—these times makes folks imperent,—but +I’m not up to the mark o’ that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what goods do you carry in your pack?” said Mrs Glegg. +“Fine-coloured things, I suppose,—shawls an’ that?” +</p> + +<p> +“All sorts, mum, all sorts,” said Bob,—thumping his bundle; +“but let us say no more about that, if <i>you</i> please. I’m here +upo’ Mr Tom’s business, an’ I’m not the man to take up +the time wi’ my own.” +</p> + +<p> +“And pray, what <i>is</i> this business as is to be kept from me?” +said Mrs Glegg, who, solicited by a double curiosity, was obliged to let the +one-half wait. +</p> + +<p> +“A little plan o’ nephey Tom’s here,” said good-natured +Mr Glegg; “and not altogether a bad ’un, I think. A little plan +for making money; that’s the right sort o’ plan for young folks as +have got their fortin to make, eh, Jane?” +</p> + +<p> +“But I hope it isn’t a plan where he expects iverything to be done +for him by his friends; that’s what the young folks think of mostly +nowadays. And pray, what has this packman got to do wi’ what goes on in +our family? Can’t you speak for yourself, Tom, and let your aunt know +things, as a nephey should?” +</p> + +<p> +“This is Bob Jakin, aunt,” said Tom, bridling the irritation that +aunt Glegg’s voice always produced. “I’ve known him ever +since we were little boys. He’s a very good fellow, and always ready to +do me a kindness. And he has had some experience in sending goods out,—a +small part of a cargo as a private speculation; and he thinks if I could begin +to do a little in the same way, I might make some money. A large interest is +got in that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Large int’rest?” said aunt Glegg, with eagerness; “and +what do you call large int’rest?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ten or twelve per cent, Bob says, after expenses are paid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why wasn’t I let to know o’ such things before, Mr +Glegg?” said Mrs Glegg, turning to her husband, with a deep grating tone +of reproach. “Haven’t you allays told me as there was no getting +more nor five per cent?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh, pooh, nonsense, my good woman,” said Mr Glegg. “You +couldn’t go into trade, could you? You can’t get more than five per +cent with security.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I can turn a bit o’ money for you, an’ welcome, +mum,” said Bob, “if you’d like to risk it,—not as +there’s any risk to speak on. But if you’d a mind to lend a bit +o’ money to Mr Tom, he’d pay you six or seven per zent, an’ +get a trifle for himself as well; an’ a good-natur’d lady like you +’ud like the feel o’ the money better if your nephey took part on +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you say, Mrs G.?” said Mr Glegg. “I’ve a +notion, when I’ve made a bit more inquiry, as I shall perhaps start Tom +here with a bit of a nest-egg,—he’ll pay me int’rest, you +know,—an’ if you’ve got some little sums lyin’ idle +twisted up in a stockin’ toe, or that——” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Glegg, it’s beyond iverything! You’ll go and give +information to the tramps next, as they may come and rob me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, as I was sayin’, if you like to join me wi’ +twenty pounds, you can—I’ll make it fifty. That’ll be a +pretty good nest-egg, eh, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not counting on me, Mr Glegg, I hope,” said his +wife. “You could do fine things wi’ my money, I don’t +doubt.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Mr Glegg, rather snappishly, “then +we’ll do without you. I shall go with you to see this Salt,” he +added, turning to Bob. +</p> + +<p> +“And now, I suppose, you’ll go all the other way, Mr Glegg,” +said Mrs G., “and want to shut me out o’ my own nephey’s +business. I never said I wouldn’t put money into it,—I don’t +say as it shall be twenty pounds, though you’re so ready to say it for +me,—but he’ll see some day as his aunt’s in the right not to +risk the money she’s saved for him till it’s proved as it +won’t be lost.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that’s a pleasant sort o’risk, that is,” said Mr +Glegg, indiscreetly winking at Tom, who couldn’t avoid smiling. But Bob +stemmed the injured lady’s outburst. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, mum,” he said admiringly, “you know what’s +what—you do. An’ it’s nothing but fair. <i>You</i> see how +the first bit of a job answers, an’ then you’ll come down handsome. +Lors, it’s a fine thing to hev good kin. I got my bit of a nest-egg, as +the master calls it, all by my own sharpness,—ten suvreigns it +was,—wi’ dousing the fire at Torry’s mill, an’ +it’s growed an’ growed by a bit an’ a bit, till I’n got +a matter o’ thirty pound to lay out, besides makin’ my mother +comfor’ble. I should get more, on’y I’m such a soft wi’ +the women,—I can’t help lettin’ ’em hev such good +bargains. There’s this bundle, now,” thumping it lustily, +“any other chap ’ud make a pretty penny out on it. But +me!—lors, I shall sell ’em for pretty near what I paid for +’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got a bit of good net, now?” said Mrs Glegg, in a +patronizing tone, moving from the tea-table, and folding her napkin. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, mum, not what you’d think it worth your while to look at. +I’d scorn to show it you. It ’ud be an insult to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But let me see,” said Mrs Glegg, still patronizing. “If +they’re damaged goods, they’re like enough to be a bit the better +quality.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, mum, I know my place,” said Bob, lifting up his pack and +shouldering it. “I’m not going t’ expose the lowness o’ +my trade to a lady like you. Packs is come down i’ the world; it +’ud cut you to th’ heart to see the difference. I’m at your +sarvice, sir, when you’ve a mind to go and see Salt.” +</p> + +<p> +“All in good time,” said Mr Glegg, really unwilling to cut short +the dialogue. “Are you wanted at the wharf, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir; I left Stowe in my place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, put down your pack, and let me see,” said Mrs Glegg, +drawing a chair to the window and seating herself with much dignity. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you ask it, mum,” said Bob, entreatingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Make no more words,” said Mrs Glegg, severely, “but do as I +tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh mum, I’m loth, that I am,” said Bob, slowly depositing +his pack on the step, and beginning to untie it with unwilling fingers. +“But what you order shall be done” (much fumbling in pauses between +the sentences). “It’s not as you’ll buy a single thing on +me,—I’d be sorry for you to do it,—for think o’ them +poor women up i’ the villages there, as niver stir a hundred yards from +home,—it ’ud be a pity for anybody to buy up their bargains. Lors, +it’s as good as a junketing to ’em when they see me wi’ my +pack, an’ I shall niver pick up such bargains for ’em again. Least +ways, I’ve no time now, for I’m off to Laceham. See here +now,” Bob went on, becoming rapid again, and holding up a scarlet woollen +Kerchief with an embroidered wreath in the corner; “here’s a thing +to make a lass’s mouth water, an’ on’y two +shillin’—an’ why? Why, ’cause there’s a bit of a +moth-hole ’i this plain end. Lors, I think the moths an’ the mildew +was sent by Providence o’ purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for the +good-lookin’ women as han’t got much money. If it hadn’t been +for the moths, now, every hankicher on ’em ’ud ha’ gone to +the rich, handsome ladies, like you, mum, at five shillin’ +apiece,—not a farthin’ less; but what does the moth do? Why, it +nibbles off three shillin’ o’ the price i’ no time; an’ +then a packman like me can carry ’t to the poor lasses as live under the +dark thack, to make a bit of a blaze for ’em. Lors, it’s as good as +a fire, to look at such a hankicher!” +</p> + +<p> +Bob held it at a distance for admiration, but Mrs Glegg said sharply: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but nobody wants a fire this time o’ year. Put these coloured +things by; let me look at your nets, if you’ve got ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, mum, I told you how it ’ud be,” said Bob, flinging aside +the coloured things with an air of desperation. “I knowed it ud’ +turn again’ you to look at such paltry articles as I carry. Here’s +a piece o’ figured muslin now, what’s the use o’ you +lookin’ at it? You might as well look at poor folks’s victual, mum; +it ’ud on’y take away your appetite. There’s a yard i’ +the middle on’t as the pattern’s all missed,—lors, why, +it’s a muslin as the Princess Victoree might ha’ wore; but,” +added Bob, flinging it behind him on to the turf, as if to save Mrs +Glegg’s eyes, “it’ll be bought up by the huckster’s +wife at Fibb’s End,—that’s where <i>it’ll</i> +go—ten shillin’ for the whole lot—ten yards, countin’ +the damaged un—five-an’-twenty shillin’ ’ud ha’ +been the price, not a penny less. But I’ll say no more, mum; it’s +nothing to you, a piece o’ muslin like that; you can afford to pay three +times the money for a thing as isn’t half so good. It’s nets +<i>you</i> talked on; well, I’ve got a piece as ’ull serve you to +make fun on——” +</p> + +<p> +“Bring me that muslin,” said Mrs Glegg. “It’s a buff; +I’m partial to buff.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, but a <i>damaged</i> thing,” said Bob, in a tone of +deprecating disgust. “You’d do nothing with it, mum, you’d +give it to the cook, I know you would, an’ it ’ud be a +pity,—she’d look too much like a lady in it; it’s unbecoming +for servants.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fetch it, and let me see you measure it,” said Mrs Glegg, +authoritatively. +</p> + +<p> +Bob obeyed with ostentatious reluctance. +</p> + +<p> +“See what there is over measure!” he said, holding forth the extra +half-yard, while Mrs Glegg was busy examining the damaged yard, and throwing +her head back to see how far the fault would be lost on a distant view. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you six shilling for it,” she said, throwing it +down with the air of a person who mentions an ultimatum. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t I tell you now, mum, as it ’ud hurt your feelings to +look at my pack? That damaged bit’s turned your stomach now; I see it +has,” said Bob, wrapping the muslin up with the utmost quickness, and +apparently about to fasten up his pack. “You’re used to +seein’ a different sort o’ article carried by packmen, when you +lived at the stone house. Packs is come down i’ the world; I told you +that; <i>my</i> goods are for common folks. Mrs Pepper ’ull give me ten +shillin’ for that muslin, an’ be sorry as I didn’t ask her +more. Such articles answer i’ the wearin’,—they keep their +colour till the threads melt away i’ the wash-tub, an’ that +won’t be while <i>I’m</i> a young un.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, seven shilling,” said Mrs Glegg. +</p> + +<p> +“Put it out o’ your mind, mum, now do,” said Bob. +“Here’s a bit o’ net, then, for you to look at before I tie +up my pack, just for you to see what my trade’s come to,—spotted +and sprigged, you see, beautiful but yallow,—’s been lyin’ by +an’ got the wrong colour. I could niver ha’ bought such net, if it +hadn’t been yallow. Lors, it’s took me a deal o’ study to +know the vally o’ such articles; when I begun to carry a pack, I was as +ignirant as a pig; net or calico was all the same to me. I thought them things +the most vally as was the thickest. I was took in dreadful, for I’m a +straightforrard chap,—up to no tricks, mum. I can only say my nose is my +own, for if I went beyond, I should lose myself pretty quick. An’ I gev +five-an’-eightpence for that piece o’ net,—if I was to tell +y’ anything else I should be tellin’ you fibs,—an’ +five-an’-eightpence I shall ask of it, not a penny more, for it’s a +woman’s article, an’ I like to ’commodate the women. +Five-an’-eightpence for six yards,—as cheap as if it was only the +dirt on it as was paid for.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind having three yards of it,’” said Mrs +Glegg. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there’s but six altogether,” said Bob. “No, mum, +it isn’t worth your while; you can go to the shop to-morrow an’ get +the same pattern ready whitened. It’s on’y three times the money; +what’s that to a lady like you?” He gave an emphatic tie to his +bundle. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, lay me out that muslin,” said Mrs Glegg. +“Here’s eight shilling for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>will</i> be jokin’,” said Bob, looking up with a +laughing face; “I see’d you was a pleasant lady when I fust come to +the winder.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, put it me out,” said Mrs Glegg, peremptorily. +</p> + +<p> +“But if I let you have it for ten shillin’, mum, you’ll be so +good as not tell nobody. I should be a laughin’-stock; the trade +’ud hoot me, if they knowed it. I’m obliged to make believe as I +ask more nor I do for my goods, else they’d find out I was a flat. +I’m glad you don’t insist upo’ buyin’ the net, for then +I should ha’ lost my two best bargains for Mrs Pepper o’ +Fibb’s End, an’ she’s a rare customer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me look at the net again,” said Mrs Glegg, yearning after the +cheap spots and sprigs, now they were vanishing. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I can’t deny <i>you</i>, mum,” said Bob handing it +out. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh!, see what a pattern now! Real Laceham goods. Now, this is the sort +o’ article I’m recommendin’ Mr Tom to send out. Lors, +it’s a fine thing for anybody as has got a bit o’ money; these +Laceham goods ’ud make it breed like maggits. If I was a lady wi’ a +bit o’ money!—why, I know one as put thirty pounds into them +goods,—a lady wi’ a cork leg, but as sharp,—you +wouldn’t catch <i>her</i> runnin’ her head into a sack; +<i>she’d</i> see her way clear out o’ anything afore she’d be +in a hurry to start. Well, she let out thirty pound to a young man in the +drapering line, and he laid it out i’ Laceham goods, an’ a +shupercargo o’ my acquinetance (not Salt) took ’em out, an’ +she got her eight per zent fust go off; an’ now you can’t hold her +but she must be sendin’ out carguies wi’ every ship, till +she’s gettin’ as rich as a Jew. Bucks her name is, she +doesn’t live i’ this town. Now then, mum, if you’ll please to +give me the net——” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s fifteen shilling, then, for the two,” said Mrs +Glegg. “But it’s a shameful price.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, mum, you’ll niver say that when you’re upo’ your +knees i’ church i’ five years’ time. I’m makin’ +you a present o’ th’ articles; I am, indeed. That eightpence shaves +off my profits as clean as a razor. Now then, sir,” continued Bob, +shouldering his pack, “if you please, I’ll be glad to go and see +about makin’ Mr Tom’s fortin. Eh, I wish I’d got another +twenty pound to lay out <i>my</i>sen; I shouldn’t stay to say my +Catechism afore I knowed what to do wi’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop a bit, Mr Glegg,” said the lady, as her husband took his +hat, “you never <i>will</i> give me the chance o’ speaking. +You’ll go away now, and finish everything about this business, and come +back and tell me it’s too late for me to speak. As if I wasn’t my +nephey’s own aunt, and the head o’ the family on his mother’s +side! and laid by guineas, all full weight, for him, as he’ll know who to +respect when I’m laid in my coffin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mrs G., say what you mean,” said Mr G., hastily. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, I desire as nothing may be done without my knowing. I +don’t say as I sha’n’t venture twenty pounds, if you make out +as everything’s right and safe. And if I do, Tom,” concluded Mrs +Glegg, turning impressively to her nephew, “I hope you’ll allays +bear it in mind and be grateful for such an aunt. I mean you to pay me +interest, you know; I don’t approve o’ giving; we niver looked for +that in <i>my</i> family.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, aunt,” said Tom, rather proudly. “I prefer having +the money only lent to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; that’s the Dodson sperrit,” said Mrs Glegg, +rising to get her knitting with the sense that any further remark after this +would be bathos. +</p> + +<p> +Salt—that eminently “briny chap”—having been discovered +in a cloud of tobacco-smoke at the Anchor Tavern, Mr Glegg commenced inquiries +which turned out satisfactorily enough to warrant the advance of the +“nest-egg,” to which aunt Glegg contributed twenty pounds; and in +this modest beginning you see the ground of a fact which might otherwise +surprise you; namely, Tom’s accumulation of a fund, unknown to his +father, that promised in no very long time to meet the more tardy process of +saving, and quite cover the deficit. When once his attention had been turned to +this source of gain, Tom determined to make the most of it, and lost no +opportunity of obtaining information and extending his small enterprises. In +not telling his father, he was influenced by that strange mixture of opposite +feelings which often gives equal truth to those who blame an action and those +who admire it,—partly, it was that disinclination to confidence which is +seen between near kindred, that family repulsion which spoils the most sacred +relations of our lives; partly, it was the desire to surprise his father with a +great joy. He did not see that it would have been better to soothe the interval +with a new hope, and prevent the delirium of a too sudden elation. +</p> + +<p> +At the time of Maggie’s first meeting with Philip, Tom had already nearly +a hundred and fifty pounds of his own capital; and while they were walking by +the evening light in the Red Deeps, he, by the same evening light, was riding +into Laceham, proud of being on his first journey on behalf of Guest & Co., +and revolving in his mind all the chances that by the end of another year he +should have doubled his gains, lifted off the obloquy of debt from his +father’s name, and perhaps—for he should be twenty-one—have +got a new start for himself, on a higher platform of employment. Did he not +desire it? He was quite sure that he did. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap35"></a>Chapter III.<br/> +The Wavering Balance</h3> + +<p> +I said that Maggie went home that evening from the Red Deeps with a mental +conflict already begun. You have seen clearly enough, in her interview with +Philip, what that conflict was. Here suddenly was an opening in the rocky wall +which shut in the narrow valley of humiliation, where all her prospect was the +remote, unfathomed sky; and some of the memory-haunting earthly delights were +no longer out of her reach. She might have books, converse, affection; she +might hear tidings of the world from which her mind had not yet lost its sense +of exile; and it would be a kindness to Philip too, who was +pitiable,—clearly not happy. And perhaps here was an opportunity +indicated for making her mind more worthy of its highest service; perhaps the +noblest, completest devoutness could hardly exist without some width of +knowledge; <i>must</i> she always live in this resigned imprisonment? It was so +blameless, so good a thing that there should be friendship between her and +Philip; the motives that forbade it were so unreasonable, so unchristian! But +the severe monotonous warning came again and again,—that she was losing +the simplicity and clearness of her life by admitting a ground of concealment; +and that, by forsaking the simple rule of renunciation, she was throwing +herself under the seductive guidance of illimitable wants. She thought she had +won strength to obey the warning before she allowed herself the next week to +turn her steps in the evening to the Red Deeps. But while she was resolved to +say an affectionate farewell to Philip, how she looked forward to that evening +walk in the still, fleckered shade of the hollows, away from all that was harsh +and unlovely; to the affectionate, admiring looks that would meet her; to the +sense of comradeship that childish memories would give to wiser, older talk; to +the certainty that Philip would care to hear everything she said, which no one +else cared for! It was a half-hour that it would be very hard to turn her back +upon, with the sense that there would be no other like it. Yet she said what +she meant to say; she looked firm as well as sad. +</p> + +<p> +“Philip, I have made up my mind; it is right that we should give each +other up, in everything but memory. I could not see you without +concealment—stay, I know what you are going to say,—it is other +people’s wrong feelings that make concealment necessary; but concealment +is bad, however it may be caused. I feel that it would be bad for me, for us +both. And then, if our secret were discovered, there would be nothing but +misery,—dreadful anger; and then we must part after all, and it would be +harder, when we were used to seeing each other.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s face had flushed, and there was a momentary eagerness of +expression, as if he had been about to resist this decision with all his might. +</p> + +<p> +But he controlled himself, and said, with assumed calmness: “Well, +Maggie, if we must part, let us try and forget it for one half hour; let us +talk together a little while, for the last time.” +</p> + +<p> +He took her hand, and Maggie felt no reason to withdraw it; his quietness made +her all the more sure she had given him great pain, and she wanted to show him +how unwillingly she had given it. They walked together hand in hand in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us sit down in the hollow,” said Philip, “where we stood +the last time. See how the dog-roses have strewed the ground, and spread their +opal petals over it.” +</p> + +<p> +They sat down at the roots of the slanting ash. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve begun my picture of you among the Scotch firs, Maggie,” +said Philip, “so you must let me study your face a little, while you +stay,—since I am not to see it again. Please turn your head this +way.” +</p> + +<p> +This was said in an entreating voice, and it would have been very hard of +Maggie to refuse. The full, lustrous face, with the bright black coronet, +looked down like that of a divinity well pleased to be worshipped, on the +pale-hued, small-featured face that was turned up to it. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be sitting for my second portrait then,” she said, +smiling. “Will it be larger than the other?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, much larger. It is an oil-painting. You will look like a tall +Hamadryad, dark and strong and noble, just issued from one of the fir-trees, +when the stems are casting their afternoon shadows on the grass.” +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to think more of painting than of anything now, Philip?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I do,” said Philip, rather sadly; “but I think of +too many things,—sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great harvest from +any one of them. I’m cursed with susceptibility in every direction, and +effective faculty in none. I care for painting and music; I care for classic +literature, and mediæval literature, and modern literature; I flutter all ways, +and fly in none.” +</p> + +<p> +“But surely that is a happiness to have so many tastes,—to enjoy so +many beautiful things, when they are within your reach,” said Maggie, +musingly. “It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have +one sort of talent,—almost like a carrier-pigeon.” +</p> + +<p> +“It might be a happiness to have many tastes if I were like other +men,” said Philip, bitterly. “I might get some power and +distinction by mere mediocrity, as they do; at least I should get those +middling satisfactions which make men contented to do without great ones. I +might think society at St Ogg’s agreeable then. But nothing could make +life worth the purchase-money of pain to me, but some faculty that would lift +me above the dead level of provincial existence. Yes, there is one +thing,—a passion answers as well as a faculty.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie did not hear the last words; she was struggling against the +consciousness that Philip’s words had set her own discontent vibrating +again as it used to do. +</p> + +<p> +“I understand what you mean,” she said, “though I know so +much less than you do. I used to think I could never bear life if it kept on +being the same every day, and I must always be doing things of no consequence, +and never know anything greater. But, dear Philip, I think we are only like +children that some one who is wiser is taking care of. Is it not right to +resign ourselves entirely, whatever may be denied us? I have found great peace +in that for the last two or three years, even joy in subduing my own +will.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Maggie,” said Philip, vehemently; “and you are shutting +yourself up in a narrow, self-delusive fanaticism, which is only a way of +escaping pain by starving into dulness all the highest powers of your nature. +Joy and peace are not resignation; resignation is the willing endurance of a +pain that is not allayed, that you don’t expect to be allayed. +Stupefaction is not resignation; and it is stupefaction to remain in +ignorance,—to shut up all the avenues by which the life of your +fellow-men might become known to you. I am not resigned; I am not sure that +life is long enough to learn that lesson. <i>You</i> are not resigned; you are +only trying to stupefy yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s lips trembled; she felt there was some truth in what Philip +said, and yet there was a deeper consciousness that, for any immediate +application it had to her conduct, it was no better than falsity. Her double +impression corresponded to the double impulse of the speaker. Philip seriously +believed what he said, but he said it with vehemence because it made an +argument against the resolution that opposed his wishes. But Maggie’s +face, made more childlike by the gathering tears, touched him with a tenderer, +less egotistic feeling. He took her hand and said gently: +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let us think of such things in this short half-hour, Maggie. +Let us only care about being together. We shall be friends in spite of +separation. We shall always think of each other. I shall be glad to live as +long as you are alive, because I shall think there may always come a time when +I can—when you will let me help you in some way.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a dear, good brother you would have been, Philip,” said +Maggie, smiling through the haze of tears. “I think you would have made +as much fuss about me, and been as pleased for me to love you, as would have +satisfied even me. You would have loved me well enough to bear with me, and +forgive me everything. That was what I always longed that Tom should do. I was +never satisfied with a <i>little</i> of anything. That is why it is better for +me to do without earthly happiness altogether. I never felt that I had enough +music,—I wanted more instruments playing together; I wanted voices to be +fuller and deeper. Do you ever sing now, Philip?” she added abruptly, as +if she had forgotten what went before. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, “every day, almost. But my voice is only +middling, like everything else in me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sing me something,—just one song. I <i>may</i> listen to that +before I go,—something you used to sing at Lorton on a Saturday +afternoon, when we had the drawing-room all to ourselves, and I put my apron +over my head to listen.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> know,” said Philip; and Maggie buried her face in her +hands while he sang <i>sotto voce</i>, “Love in her eyes sits +playing,” and then said, “That’s it, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, I won’t stay,” said Maggie, starting up. “It +will only haunt me. Let us walk, Philip. I must go home.” +</p> + +<p> +She moved away, so that he was obliged to rise and follow her. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” he said, in a tone of remonstrance, “don’t +persist in this wilful, senseless privation. It makes me wretched to see you +benumbing and cramping your nature in this way. You were so full of life when +you were a child; I thought you would be a brilliant woman,—all wit and +bright imagination. And it flashes out in your face still, until you draw that +veil of dull quiescence over it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you speak so bitterly to me, Philip?” said Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I foresee it will not end well; you can never carry on this +self-torture.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall have strength given me,” said Maggie, tremulously. +</p> + +<p> +“No, you will not, Maggie; no one has strength given to do what is +unnatural. It is mere cowardice to seek safety in negations. No character +becomes strong in that way. You will be thrown into the world some day, and +then every rational satisfaction of your nature that you deny now will assault +you like a savage appetite.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie started and paused, looking at Philip with alarm in her face. +</p> + +<p> +“Philip, how dare you shake me in this way? You are a tempter.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I am not; but love gives insight, Maggie, and insight often gives +foreboding. <i>Listen</i> to me,—let <i>me</i> supply you with books; do +let me see you sometimes,—be your brother and teacher, as you said at +Lorton. It is less wrong that you should see me than that you should be +committing this long suicide.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie felt unable to speak. She shook her head and walked on in silence, till +they came to the end of the Scotch firs, and she put out her hand in sign of +parting. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you banish me from this place forever, then, Maggie? Surely I may +come and walk in it sometimes? If I meet you by chance, there is no concealment +in that?” +</p> + +<p> +It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become +irrevocable—when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon +us—that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm +conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, +and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie felt her heart leap at this subterfuge of Philip’s, and there +passed over her face that almost imperceptible shock which accompanies any +relief. He saw it, and they parted in silence. +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s sense of the situation was too complete for him not to be +visited with glancing fears lest he had been intervening too presumptuously in +the action of Maggie’s conscience, perhaps for a selfish end. But +no!—he persuaded himself his end was not selfish. He had little hope that +Maggie would ever return the strong feeling he had for her; and it must be +better for Maggie’s future life, when these petty family obstacles to her +freedom had disappeared, that the present should not be entirely sacrificed, +and that she should have some opportunity of culture,—some interchange +with a mind above the vulgar level of those she was now condemned to live with. +If we only look far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can +always find some point in the combination of results by which those actions can +be justified; by adopting the point of view of a Providence who arranges +results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find it possible to +obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is most agreeable to us in +the present moment. And it was in this way that Philip justified his subtle +efforts to overcome Maggie’s true prompting against a concealment that +would introduce doubleness into her own mind, and might cause new misery to +those who had the primary natural claim on her. But there was a surplus of +passion in him that made him half independent of justifying motives. His +longing to see Maggie, and make an element in her life, had in it some of that +savage impulse to snatch an offered joy which springs from a life in which the +mental and bodily constitution have made pain predominate. He had not his full +share in the common good of men; he could not even pass muster with the +insignificant, but must be singled out for pity, and excepted from what was a +matter of course with others. Even to Maggie he was an exception; it was clear +that the thought of his being her lover had never entered her mind. +</p> + +<p> +Do not think too hardly of Philip. Ugly and deformed people have great need of +unusual virtues, because they are likely to be extremely uncomfortable without +them; but the theory that unusual virtues spring by a direct consequence out of +personal disadvantages, as animals get thicker wool in severe climates, is +perhaps a little overstrained. The temptations of beauty are much dwelt upon, +but I fancy they only bear the same relation to those of ugliness, as the +temptation to excess at a feast, where the delights are varied for eye and ear +as well as palate, bears to the temptations that assail the desperation of +hunger. Does not the Hunger Tower stand as the type of the utmost trial to what +is human in us? +</p> + +<p> +Philip had never been soothed by that mother’s love which flows out to us +in the greater abundance because our need is greater, which clings to us the +more tenderly because we are the less likely to be winners in the game of life; +and the sense of his father’s affection and indulgence toward him was +marred by the keener perception of his father’s faults. Kept aloof from +all practical life as Philip had been, and by nature half feminine in +sensitiveness, he had some of the woman’s intolerant repulsion toward +worldliness and the deliberate pursuit of sensual enjoyment; and this one +strong natural tie in his life,—his relation as a son,—was like an +aching limb to him. Perhaps there is inevitably something morbid in a human +being who is in any way unfavourably excepted from ordinary conditions, until +the good force has had time to triumph; and it has rarely had time for that at +two-and-twenty. That force was present in Philip in much strength, but the sun +himself looks feeble through the morning mists. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap36"></a>Chapter IV.<br/> +Another Love-Scene</h3> + +<p> +Early in the following April, nearly a year after that dubious parting you have +just witnessed, you may, if you like, again see Maggie entering the Red Deeps +through the group of Scotch firs. But it is early afternoon and not evening, +and the edge of sharpness in the spring air makes her draw her large shawl +close about her and trip along rather quickly; though she looks round, as +usual, that she may take in the sight of her beloved trees. There is a more +eager, inquiring look in her eyes than there was last June, and a smile is +hovering about her lips, as if some playful speech were awaiting the right +hearer. The hearer was not long in appearing. +</p> + +<p> +“Take back your <i>Corinne</i>,” said Maggie, drawing a book from +under her shawl. “You were right in telling me she would do me no good; +but you were wrong in thinking I should wish to be like her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t you really like to be a tenth Muse, then, Maggie?” +said Philip looking up in her face as we look at a first parting in the clouds +that promises us a bright heaven once more. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said Maggie, laughing. “The Muses were +uncomfortable goddesses, I think,—obliged always to carry rolls and +musical instruments about with them. If I carried a harp in this climate, you +know, I must have a green baize cover for it; and I should be sure to leave it +behind me by mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +“You agree with me in not liking Corinne, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t finish the book,” said Maggie. “As soon as I +came to the blond-haired young lady reading in the park, I shut it up, and +determined to read no further. I foresaw that that light-complexioned girl +would win away all the love from Corinne and make her miserable. I’m +determined to read no more books where the blond-haired women carry away all +the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice against them. If you could +give me some story, now, where the dark woman triumphs, it would restore the +balance. I want to avenge Rebecca and Flora MacIvor and Minna, and all the rest +of the dark unhappy ones. Since you are my tutor, you ought to preserve my mind +from prejudices; you are always arguing against prejudices.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, perhaps you will avenge the dark women in your own person, and +carry away all the love from your cousin Lucy. She is sure to have some +handsome young man of St Ogg’s at her feet now; and you have only to +shine upon him—your fair little cousin will be quite quenched in your +beams.” +</p> + +<p> +“Philip, that is not pretty of you, to apply my nonsense to anything +real,” said Maggie, looking hurt. “As if I, with my old gowns and +want of all accomplishments, could be a rival of dear little Lucy,—who +knows and does all sorts of charming things, and is ten times prettier than I +am,—even if I were odious and base enough to wish to be her rival. +Besides, I never go to aunt Deane’s when any one is there; it is only +because dear Lucy is good, and loves me, that she comes to see me, and will +have me go to see her sometimes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” said Philip, with surprise, “it is not like you to +take playfulness literally. You must have been in St Ogg’s this morning, +and brought away a slight infection of dulness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Maggie, smiling, “if you meant that for a joke, +it was a poor one; but I thought it was a very good reproof. I thought you +wanted to remind me that I am vain, and wish every one to admire me most. But +it isn’t for that that I’m jealous for the dark women,—not +because I’m dark myself; it’s because I always care the most about +the unhappy people. If the blond girl were forsaken, I should like <i>her</i> +best. I always take the side of the rejected lover in the stories.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you would never have the heart to reject one yourself, should you, +Maggie?” said Philip, flushing a little. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Maggie, hesitatingly. Then with a bright +smile, “I think perhaps I could if he were very conceited; and yet, if he +got extremely humiliated afterward, I should relent.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve often wondered, Maggie,” Philip said, with some effort, +“whether you wouldn’t really be more likely to love a man that +other women were not likely to love.” +</p> + +<p> +“That would depend on what they didn’t like him for,” said +Maggie, laughing. “He might be very disagreeable. He might look at me +through an eye-glass stuck in his eye, making a hideous face, as young Torry +does. I should think other women are not fond of that; but I never felt any +pity for young Torry. I’ve never any pity for conceited people, because I +think they carry their comfort about with them.” +</p> + +<p> +“But suppose, Maggie,—suppose it was a man who was not conceited, +who felt he had nothing to be conceited about; who had been marked from +childhood for a peculiar kind of suffering, and to whom you were the day-star +of his life; who loved you, worshipped you, so entirely that he felt it +happiness enough for him if you would let him see you at rare +moments——” +</p> + +<p> +Philip paused with a pang of dread lest his confession should cut short this +very happiness,—a pang of the same dread that had kept his love mute +through long months. A rush of self-consciousness told him that he was besotted +to have said all this. Maggie’s manner this morning had been as +unconstrained and indifferent as ever. +</p> + +<p> +But she was not looking indifferent now. Struck with the unusual emotion in +Philip’s tone, she had turned quickly to look at him; and as he went on +speaking, a great change came over her face,—a flush and slight spasm of +the features, such as we see in people who hear some news that will require +them to readjust their conceptions of the past. She was quite silent, and +walking on toward the trunk of a fallen tree, she sat down, as if she had no +strength to spare for her muscles. She was trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” said Philip, getting more and more alarmed in every fresh +moment of silence, “I was a fool to say it; forget that I’ve said +it. I shall be contented if things can be as they were.” +</p> + +<p> +The distress with which he spoke urged Maggie to say something. “I am so +surprised, Philip; I had not thought of it.” And the effort to say this +brought the tears down too. +</p> + +<p> +“Has it made you hate me, Maggie?” said Philip, impetuously. +“Do you think I’m a presumptuous fool?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Philip!” said Maggie, “how can you think I have such +feelings? As if I were not grateful for <i>any</i> love. But—but I had +never thought of your being my lover. It seemed so far off—like a +dream—only like one of the stories one imagines—that I should ever +have a lover.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then can you bear to think of me as your lover, Maggie?” said +Philip, seating himself by her, and taking her hand, in the elation of a sudden +hope. “<i>Do</i> you love me?” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie turned rather pale; this direct question seemed not easy to answer. But +her eyes met Philip’s, which were in this moment liquid and beautiful +with beseeching love. She spoke with hesitation, yet with sweet, simple, +girlish tenderness. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I could hardly love any one better; there is nothing but what I +love you for.” She paused a little while, and then added: “But it +will be better for us not to say any more about it, won’t it, dear +Philip? You know we couldn’t even be friends, if our friendship were +discovered. I have never felt that I was right in giving way about seeing you, +though it has been so precious to me in some ways; and now the fear comes upon +me strongly again, that it will lead to evil.” +</p> + +<p> +“But no evil has come, Maggie; and if you had been guided by that fear +before, you would only have lived through another dreary, benumbing year, +instead of reviving into your real self.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie shook her head. “It has been very sweet, I know,—all the +talking together, and the books, and the feeling that I had the walk to look +forward to, when I could tell you the thoughts that had come into my head while +I was away from you. But it has made me restless; it has made me think a great +deal about the world; and I have impatient thoughts again,—I get weary of +my home; and then it cuts me to the heart afterward, that I should ever have +felt weary of my father and mother. I think what you call being benumbed was +better—better for me—for then my selfish desires were +benumbed.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip had risen again, and was walking backward and forward impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Maggie, you have wrong ideas of self-conquest, as I’ve often +told you. What you call self-conquest—blinding and deafening yourself to +all but one train of impressions—is only the culture of monomania in a +nature like yours.” +</p> + +<p> +He had spoken with some irritation, but now he sat down by her again and took +her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t think of the past now, Maggie; think only of our love. If +you can really cling to me with all your heart, every obstacle will be overcome +in time; we need only wait. I can live on hope. Look at me, Maggie; tell me +again it is possible for you to love me. Don’t look away from me to that +cloven tree; it is a bad omen.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned her large dark glance upon him with a sad smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Maggie, say one kind word, or else you were better to me at +Lorton. You asked me if I should like you to kiss me,—don’t you +remember?—and you promised to kiss me when you met me again. You never +kept the promise.” +</p> + +<p> +The recollection of that childish time came as a sweet relief to Maggie. It +made the present moment less strange to her. She kissed him almost as simply +and quietly as she had done when she was twelve years old. Philip’s eyes +flashed with delight, but his next words were words of discontent. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t seem happy enough, Maggie; you are forcing yourself to +say you love me, out of pity.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Philip,” said Maggie, shaking her head, in her old childish +way; “I’m telling you the truth. It is all new and strange to me; +but I don’t think I could love any one better than I love you. I should +like always to live with you—to make you happy. I have always been happy +when I have been with you. There is only one thing I will not do for your sake; +I will never do anything to wound my father. You must never ask that from +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Maggie, I will ask nothing; I will bear everything; I’ll wait +another year only for a kiss, if you will only give me the first place in your +heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Maggie, smiling, “I won’t make you wait so +long as that.” But then, looking serious again, she added, as she rose +from her seat,— +</p> + +<p> +“But what would your own father say, Philip? Oh, it is quite impossible +we can ever be more than friends,—brother and sister in secret, as we +have been. Let us give up thinking of everything else.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Maggie, I can’t give you up,—unless you are deceiving +me; unless you really only care for me as if I were your brother. Tell me the +truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I do, Philip. What happiness have I ever had so great as being +with you,—since I was a little girl,—the days Tom was good to me? +And your mind is a sort of world to me; you can tell me all I want to know. I +think I should never be tired of being with you.” +</p> + +<p> +They were walking hand in hand, looking at each other; Maggie, indeed, was +hurrying along, for she felt it time to be gone. But the sense that their +parting was near made her more anxious lest she should have unintentionally +left some painful impression on Philip’s mind. It was one of those +dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive; when feeling, +rising high above its average depth, leaves floodmarks which are never reached +again. +</p> + +<p> +They stopped to part among the Scotch firs. +</p> + +<p> +“Then my life will be filled with hope, Maggie, and I shall be happier +than other men, in spite of all? We <i>do</i> belong to each other—for +always—whether we are apart or together?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Philip; I should like never to part; I should like to make your +life very happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am waiting for something else. I wonder whether it will come.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie smiled, with glistening tears, and then stooped her tall head to kiss +the pale face that was full of pleading, timid love,—like a +woman’s. +</p> + +<p> +She had a moment of real happiness then,—a moment of belief that, if +there were sacrifice in this love, it was all the richer and more satisfying. +</p> + +<p> +She turned away and hurried home, feeling that in the hour since she had +trodden this road before, a new era had begun for her. The tissue of vague +dreams must now get narrower and narrower, and all the threads of thought and +emotion be gradually absorbed in the woof of her actual daily life. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap37"></a>Chapter V.<br/> +The Cloven Tree</h3> + +<p> +Secrets are rarely betrayed or discovered according to any programme our fear +has sketched out. Fear is almost always haunted by terrible dramatic scenes, +which recur in spite of the best-argued probabilities against them; and during +a year that Maggie had had the burthen of concealment on her mind, the +possibility of discovery had continually presented itself under the form of a +sudden meeting with her father or Tom when she was walking with Philip in the +Red Deeps. She was aware that this was not one of the most likely events; but +it was the scene that most completely symbolised her inward dread. Those slight +indirect suggestions which are dependent on apparently trivial coincidences and +incalculable states of mind, are the favourite machinery of Fact, but are not +the stuff in which Imagination is apt to work. +</p> + +<p> +Certainly one of the persons about whom Maggie’s fears were furthest from +troubling themselves was her aunt Pullet, on whom, seeing that she did not live +in St Ogg’s, and was neither sharp-eyed nor sharp-tempered, it would +surely have been quite whimsical of them to fix rather than on aunt Glegg. And +yet the channel of fatality—the pathway of the lightning—was no +other than aunt Pullet. She did not live at St Ogg’s, but the road from +Garum Firs lay by the Red Deeps, at the end opposite that by which Maggie +entered. +</p> + +<p> +The day after Maggie’s last meeting with Philip, being a Sunday on which +Mr Pullet was bound to appear in funeral hatband and scarf at St Ogg’s +church, Mrs Pullet made this the occasion of dining with sister Glegg, and +taking tea with poor sister Tulliver. Sunday was the one day in the week on +which Tom was at home in the afternoon; and today the brighter spirits he had +been in of late had flowed over in unusually cheerful open chat with his +father, and in the invitation, “Come, Magsie, you come too!” when +he strolled out with his mother in the garden to see the advancing +cherry-blossoms. He had been better pleased with Maggie since she had been less +odd and ascetic; he was even getting rather proud of her; several persons had +remarked in his hearing that his sister was a very fine girl. To-day there was +a peculiar brightness in her face, due in reality to an undercurrent of +excitement, which had as much doubt and pain as pleasure in it; but it might +pass for a sign of happiness. +</p> + +<p> +“You look very well, my dear,” said aunt Pullet, shaking her head +sadly, as they sat round the tea-table. “I niver thought your girl +’ud be so good-looking, Bessy. But you must wear pink, my dear; that blue +thing as your aunt Glegg gave you turns you into a crowflower. Jane never +<i>was</i> tasty. Why don’t you wear that gown o’ mine?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is so pretty and so smart, aunt. I think it’s too showy for +me,—at least for my other clothes, that I must wear with it. +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure, it ’ud be unbecoming if it wasn’t well known +you’ve got them belonging to you as can afford to give you such things +when they’ve done with ’em themselves. It stands to reason I must +give my own niece clothes now and then,—such things as <i>I</i> buy every +year, and never wear anything out. And as for Lucy, there’s no giving to +her, for she’s got everything o’ the choicest; sister Deane may +well hold her head up,—though she looks dreadful yallow, poor +thing—I doubt this liver complaint ’ull carry her off. That’s +what this new vicar, this Dr Kenn, said in the funeral sermon to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, he’s a wonderful preacher, by all account,—isn’t +he, Sophy?” said Mrs Tulliver. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Lucy had got a collar on this blessed day,” continued Mrs +Pullet, with her eyes fixed in a ruminating manner, “as I don’t say +I haven’t got as good, but I must look out my best to match it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Lucy’s called the bell o’ St Ogg’s, they say; +that’s a cur’ous word,” observed Mr Pullet, on whom the +mysteries of etymology sometimes fell with an oppressive weight. +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh!” said Mr Tulliver, jealous for Maggie, “she’s a +small thing, not much of a figure. But fine feathers make fine birds. I see +nothing to admire so much in those diminutive women; they look silly by the +side o’ the men,—out o’ proportion. When I chose my wife, I +chose her the right size,—neither too little nor too big.” +</p> + +<p> +The poor wife, with her withered beauty, smiled complacently. +</p> + +<p> +“But the men aren’t <i>all</i> big,” said uncle Pullet, not +without some self-reference; “a young fellow may be good-looking and yet +not be a six-foot, like Master Tom here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, it’s poor talking about littleness and bigness,—anybody +may think it’s a mercy they’re straight,” said aunt Pullet. +“There’s that mismade son o’ Lawyer Wakem’s, I saw him +at church to-day. Dear, dear! to think o’ the property he’s like to +have; and they say he’s very queer and lonely, doesn’t like much +company. I shouldn’t wonder if he goes out of his mind; for we never come +along the road but he’s a-scrambling out o’ the trees and brambles +at the Red Deeps.” +</p> + +<p> +This wide statement, by which Mrs Pullet represented the fact that she had +twice seen Philip at the spot indicated, produced an effect on Maggie which was +all the stronger because Tom sate opposite her, and she was intensely anxious +to look indifferent. At Philip’s name she had blushed, and the blush +deepened every instant from consciousness, until the mention of the Red Deeps +made her feel as if the whole secret were betrayed, and she dared not even hold +her tea-spoon lest she should show how she trembled. She sat with her hands +clasped under the table, not daring to look round. Happily, her father was +seated on the same side with herself, beyond her uncle Pullet, and could not +see her face without stooping forward. Her mother’s voice brought the +first relief, turning the conversation; for Mrs Tulliver was always alarmed +when the name of Wakem was mentioned in her husband’s presence. Gradually +Maggie recovered composure enough to look up; her eyes met Tom’s, but he +turned away his head immediately; and she went to bed that night wondering if +he had gathered any suspicion from her confusion. Perhaps not; perhaps he would +think it was only her alarm at her aunt’s mention of Wakem before her +father; that was the interpretation her mother had put on it. To her father, +Wakem was like a disfiguring disease, of which he was obliged to endure the +consciousness, but was exasperated to have the existence recognised by others; +and no amount of sensitiveness in her about her father could be surprising, +Maggie thought. +</p> + +<p> +But Tom was too keen-sighted to rest satisfied with such an interpretation; he +had seen clearly enough that there was something distinct from anxiety about +her father in Maggie’s excessive confusion. In trying to recall all the +details that could give shape to his suspicions, he remembered only lately +hearing his mother scold Maggie for walking in the Red Deeps when the ground +was wet, and bringing home shoes clogged with red soil; still Tom, retaining +all his old repulsion for Philip’s deformity, shrank from attributing to +his sister the probability of feeling more than a friendly interest in such an +unfortunate exception to the common run of men. Tom’s was a nature which +had a sort of superstitious repugnance to everything exceptional. A love for a +deformed man would be odious in any woman, in a sister intolerable. But if she +had been carrying on any kind of intercourse whatever with Philip, a stop must +be put to it at once; she was disobeying her father’s strongest feelings +and her brother’s express commands, besides compromising herself by +secret meetings. He left home the next morning in that watchful state of mind +which turns the most ordinary course of things into pregnant coincidences. +</p> + +<p> +That afternoon, about half-past three o’clock, Tom was standing on the +wharf, talking with Bob Jakin about the probability of the good ship Adelaide +coming in, in a day or two, with results highly important to both of them. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh,” said Bob, parenthetically, as he looked over the fields on +the other side of the river, “there goes that crooked young Wakem. I know +him or his shadder as far off as I can see ’em; I’m allays lighting +on him o’ that side the river.” +</p> + +<p> +A sudden thought seemed to have darted through Tom’s mind. “I must +go, Bob,” he said; “I’ve something to attend to,” +hurrying off to the warehouse, where he left notice for some one to take his +place; he was called away home on peremptory business. +</p> + +<p> +The swiftest pace and the shortest road took him to the gate, and he was +pausing to open it deliberately, that he might walk into the house with an +appearance of perfect composure, when Maggie came out at the front door in +bonnet and shawl. His conjecture was fulfilled, and he waited for her at the +gate. She started violently when she saw him. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom, how is it you are come home? Is there anything the matter?” +Maggie spoke in a low, tremulous voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m come to walk with you to the Red Deeps, and meet Philip +Wakem,” said Tom, the central fold in his brow, which had become habitual +with him, deepening as he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie stood helpless, pale and cold. By some means, then, Tom knew everything. +At last she said, “I’m not going,” and turned round. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you are; but I want to speak to you first. Where is my +father?” +</p> + +<p> +“Out on horseback.” +</p> + +<p> +“And my mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“In the yard, I think, with the poultry.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can go in, then, without her seeing me?” +</p> + +<p> +They walked in together, and Tom, entering the parlour, said to Maggie, +“Come in here.” +</p> + +<p> +She obeyed, and he closed the door behind her. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Maggie, tell me this instant everything that has passed between you +and Philip Wakem.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does my father know anything?” said Maggie, still trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Tom indignantly. “But he <i>shall</i> know, if you +attempt to use deceit toward me any further.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish to use deceit,” said Maggie, flushing into +resentment at hearing this word applied to her conduct. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me the whole truth, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you know it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind whether I know it or not. Tell me exactly what has happened, +or my father shall know everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell it for my father’s sake, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it becomes you to profess affection for your father, when you have +despised his strongest feelings.” +</p> + +<p> +“You never do wrong, Tom,” said Maggie, tauntingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Not if I know it,” answered Tom, with proud sincerity. +</p> + +<p> +“But I have nothing to say to you beyond this: tell me what has passed +between you and Philip Wakem. When did you first meet him in the Red +Deeps?” +</p> + +<p> +“A year ago,” said Maggie, quietly. Tom’s severity gave her a +certain fund of defiance, and kept her sense of error in abeyance. “You +need ask me no more questions. We have been friendly a year. We have met and +walked together often. He has lent me books.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that all?” said Tom, looking straight at her with his frown. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie paused a moment; then, determined to make an end of Tom’s right to +accuse her of deceit, she said haughtily: +</p> + +<p> +“No, not quite all. On Saturday he told me that he loved me. I +didn’t think of it before then; I had only thought of him as an old +friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you <i>encouraged</i> him?” said Tom, with an expression of +disgust. +</p> + +<p> +“I told him that I loved him too.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom was silent a few moments, looking on the ground and frowning, with his +hands in his pockets. At last he looked up and said coldly,— +</p> + +<p> +“Now, then, Maggie, there are but two courses for you to +take,—either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on my father’s +Bible, that you will never have another meeting or speak another word in +private with Philip Wakem, or you refuse, and I tell my father everything; and +this month, when by my exertions he might be made happy once more, you will +cause him the blow of knowing that you are a disobedient, deceitful daughter, +who throws away her own respectability by clandestine meetings with the son of +a man that has helped to ruin her father. Choose!” Tom ended with cold +decision, going up to the large Bible, drawing it forward, and opening it at +the fly-leaf, where the writing was. +</p> + +<p> +It was a crushing alternative to Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom,” she said, urged out of pride into pleading, +“don’t ask me that. I will promise you to give up all intercourse +with Philip, if you will let me see him once, or even only write to him and +explain everything,—to give it up as long as it would ever cause any pain +to my father. I feel something for Philip too. <i>He</i> is not happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish to hear anything of your feelings; I have said +exactly what I mean. Choose, and quickly, lest my mother should come in.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I give you my word, that will be as strong a bond to me as if I laid +my hand on the Bible. I don’t require that to bind me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do what <i>I</i> require,” said Tom. “I can’t trust +you, Maggie. There is no consistency in you. Put your hand on this Bible, and +say, ‘I renounce all private speech and intercourse with Philip Wakem +from this time forth.’ Else you will bring shame on us all, and grief on +my father; and what is the use of my exerting myself and giving up everything +else for the sake of paying my father’s debts, if you are to bring +madness and vexation on him, just when he might be easy and hold up his head +once more?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Tom, <i>will</i> the debts be paid soon?” said Maggie, +clasping her hands, with a sudden flash of joy across her wretchedness. +</p> + +<p> +“If things turn out as I expect,” said Tom. “But,” he +added, his voice trembling with indignation, “while I have been +contriving and working that my father may have some peace of mind before he +dies,—working for the respectability of our family,—you have done +all you can to destroy both.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie felt a deep movement of compunction; for the moment, her mind ceased to +contend against what she felt to be cruel and unreasonable, and in her +self-blame she justified her brother. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom,” she said in a low voice, “it was wrong of me; but I +was so lonely, and I was sorry for Philip. And I think enmity and hatred are +wicked.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” said Tom. “Your duty was clear enough. Say no +more; but promise, in the words I told you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>must</i> speak to Philip once more.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will go with me now and speak to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I give you my word not to meet him or write to him again without your +knowledge. That is the only thing I will say. I will put my hand on the Bible +if you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say it, then.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie laid her hand on the page of manuscript and repeated the promise. Tom +closed the book, and said, “Now let us go.” +</p> + +<p> +Not a word was spoken as they walked along. Maggie was suffering in +anticipation of what Philip was about to suffer, and dreading the galling words +that would fall on him from Tom’s lips; but she felt it was in vain to +attempt anything but submission. Tom had his terrible clutch on her conscience +and her deepest dread; she writhed under the demonstrable truth of the +character he had given to her conduct, and yet her whole soul rebelled against +it as unfair from its incompleteness. He, meanwhile, felt the impetus of his +indignation diverted toward Philip. He did not know how much of an old boyish +repulsion and of mere personal pride and animosity was concerned in the bitter +severity of the words by which he meant to do the duty of a son and a brother. +Tom was not given to inquire subtly into his own motives any more than into +other matters of an intangible kind; he was quite sure that his own motives as +well as actions were good, else he would have had nothing to do with them. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s only hope was that something might, for the first time, have +prevented Philip from coming. Then there would be delay,—then she might +get Tom’s permission to write to him. Her heart beat with double violence +when they got under the Scotch firs. It was the last moment of suspense, she +thought; Philip always met her soon after she got beyond them. But they passed +across the more open green space, and entered the narrow bushy path by the +mound. Another turning, and they came so close upon him that both Tom and +Philip stopped suddenly within a yard of each other. There was a moment’s +silence, in which Philip darted a look of inquiry at Maggie’s face. He +saw an answer there, in the pale, parted lips, and the terrified tension of the +large eyes. Her imagination, always rushing extravagantly beyond an immediate +impression, saw her tall, strong brother grasping the feeble Philip bodily, +crushing him and trampling on him. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you call this acting the part of a man and a gentleman, sir?” +Tom said, in a voice of harsh scorn, as soon as Philip’s eyes were turned +on him again. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” answered Philip, haughtily. +</p> + +<p> +“Mean? Stand farther from me, lest I should lay hands on you, and +I’ll tell you what I mean. I mean, taking advantage of a young +girl’s foolishness and ignorance to get her to have secret meetings with +you. I mean, daring to trifle with the respectability of a family that has a +good and honest name to support.” +</p> + +<p> +“I deny that,” interrupted Philip, impetuously. “I could +never trifle with anything that affected your sister’s happiness. She is +dearer to me than she is to you; I honour her more than you can ever honour +her; I would give up my life to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk high-flown nonsense to me, sir! Do you mean to pretend +that you didn’t know it would be injurious to her to meet you here week +after week? Do you pretend you had any right to make professions of love to +her, even if you had been a fit husband for her, when neither her father nor +your father would ever consent to a marriage between you? And +<i>you</i>,—<i>you</i> to try and worm yourself into the affections of a +handsome girl who is not eighteen, and has been shut out from the world by her +father’s misfortunes! That’s your crooked notion of honour, is it? +I call it base treachery; I call it taking advantage of circumstances to win +what’s too good for you,—what you’d never get by fair +means.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is manly of you to talk in this way to <i>me</i>,” said Philip, +bitterly, his whole frame shaken by violent emotions. “Giants have an +immemorial right to stupidity and insolent abuse. You are incapable even of +understanding what I feel for your sister. I feel so much for her that I could +even desire to be at friendship with <i>you</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be very sorry to understand your feelings,” said Tom, +with scorching contempt. “What I wish is that you should understand +<i>me</i>,—that I shall take care of <i>my</i> sister, and that if you +dare to make the least attempt to come near her, or to write to her, or to keep +the slightest hold on her mind, your puny, miserable body, that ought to have +put some modesty into your mind, shall not protect you. I’ll thrash you; +I’ll hold you up to public scorn. Who wouldn’t laugh at the idea of +<i>your</i> turning lover to a fine girl?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He burst out, in a +convulsed voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Stay, Maggie!” said Philip, making a strong effort to speak. Then +looking at Tom, “You have dragged your sister here, I suppose, that she +may stand by while you threaten and insult me. These naturally seemed to you +the right means to influence me. But you are mistaken. Let your sister speak. +If she says she is bound to give me up, I shall abide by her wishes to the +slightest word.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was for my father’s sake, Philip,” said Maggie, +imploringly. “Tom threatens to tell my father, and he couldn’t bear +it; I have promised, I have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any +intercourse without my brother’s knowledge.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is enough, Maggie. <i>I</i> shall not change; but I wish you to hold +yourself entirely free. But trust me; remember that I can never seek for +anything but good to what belongs to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Tom, exasperated by this attitude of Philip’s, +“you can talk of seeking good for her and what belongs to her now; did +you seek her good before?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did,—at some risk, perhaps. But I wished her to have a friend +for life,—who would cherish her, who would do her more justice than a +coarse and narrow-minded brother, that she has always lavished her affections +on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my way of befriending her is different from yours; and I’ll +tell you what is my way. I’ll save her from disobeying and disgracing her +father; I’ll save her from throwing herself away on you,—from +making herself a laughing-stock,—from being flouted by a man like +<i>your</i> father, because she’s not good enough for his son. You know +well enough what sort of justice and cherishing you were preparing for her. +I’m not to be imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean. +Come away, Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +He seized Maggie’s right wrist as he spoke, and she put out her left +hand. Philip clasped it an instant, with one eager look, and then hurried away. +</p> + +<p> +Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He was still holding her +wrist tightly, as if he were compelling a culprit from the scene of action. At +last Maggie, with a violent snatch, drew her hand away, and her pent-up, +long-gathered irritation burst into utterance. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t suppose that I think you are right, Tom, or that I bow to +your will. I despise the feelings you have shown in speaking to Philip; I +detest your insulting, unmanly allusions to his deformity. You have been +reproaching other people all your life; you have been always sure you yourself +are right. It is because you have not a mind large enough to see that there is +anything better than your own conduct and your own petty aims.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said Tom, coolly. “I don’t see that your +conduct is better, or your aims either. If your conduct, and Philip +Wakem’s conduct, has been right, why are you ashamed of its being known? +Answer me that. I know what I have aimed at in my conduct, and I’ve +succeeded; pray, what good has your conduct brought to you or any one +else?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to defend myself,” said Maggie, still with +vehemence: “I know I’ve been wrong,—often, continually. But +yet, sometimes when I have done wrong, it has been because I have feelings that +you would be the better for, if you had them. If <i>you</i> were in fault ever, +if you had done anything very wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it brought +you; I should not want punishment to be heaped on you. But you have always +enjoyed punishing me; you have always been hard and cruel to me; even when I +was a little girl, and always loved you better than any one else in the world, +you would let me go crying to bed without forgiving me. You have no pity; you +have no sense of your own imperfection and your own sins. It is a sin to be +hard; it is not fitting for a mortal, for a Christian. You are nothing but a +Pharisee. You thank God for nothing but your own virtues; you think they are +great enough to win you everything else. You have not even a vision of feelings +by the side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Tom, with cold scorn, “if your feelings are so +much better than mine, let me see you show them in some other way than by +conduct that’s likely to disgrace us all,—than by ridiculous +flights first into one extreme and then into another. Pray, how have you shown +your love, that you talk of, either to me or my father? By disobeying and +deceiving us. I have a different way of showing my affection.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you are a man, Tom, and have power, and can do something in the +world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, if you can do nothing, submit to those that can.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I <i>will</i> submit to what I acknowledge and feel to be right. I +will submit even to what is unreasonable from my father, but I will not submit +to it from you. You boast of your virtues as if they purchased you a right to +be cruel and unmanly, as you’ve been to-day. Don’t suppose I would +give up Philip Wakem in obedience to you. The deformity you insult would make +me cling to him and care for him the more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; that is your view of things,” said Tom, more coldly +than ever; “you need say no more to show me what a wide distance there is +between us. Let us remember that in future, and be silent.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom went back to St Ogg’s, to fulfill an appointment with his uncle +Deane, and receive directions about a journey on which he was to set out the +next morning. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie went up to her own room to pour out all that indignant remonstrance, +against which Tom’s mind was close barred, in bitter tears. Then, when +the first burst of unsatisfied anger was gone by, came the recollection of that +quiet time before the pleasure which had ended in to-day’s misery had +perturbed the clearness and simplicity of her life. She used to think in that +time that she had made great conquests, and won a lasting stand on serene +heights above worldly temptations and conflict. And here she was down again in +the thick of a hot strife with her own and others’ passions. Life was not +so short, then, and perfect rest was not so near as she had dreamed when she +was two years younger. There was more struggle for her, and perhaps more +falling. If she had felt that she was entirely wrong, and that Tom had been +entirely right, she could sooner have recovered more inward harmony; but now +her penitence and submission were constantly obstructed by resentment that +would present itself to her no otherwise than as a just indignation. Her heart +bled for Philip; she went on recalling the insults that had been flung at him +with so vivid a conception of what he had felt under them, that it was almost +like a sharp bodily pain to her, making her beat the floor with her foot and +tighten her fingers on her palm. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, how was it that she was now and then conscious of a certain dim +background of relief in the forced separation from Philip? Surely it was only +because the sense of a deliverance from concealment was welcome at any cost. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap38"></a>Chapter VI.<br/> +The Hard-Won Triumph</h3> + +<p> +Three weeks later, when Dorlcote Mill was at its prettiest moment in all the +year,—the great chestnuts in blossom, and the grass all deep and +daisied,—Tom Tulliver came home to it earlier than usual in the evening, +and as he passed over the bridge, he looked with the old deep-rooted affection +at the respectable red brick house, which always seemed cheerful and inviting +outside, let the rooms be as bare and the hearts as sad as they might inside. +There is a very pleasant light in Tom’s blue-gray eyes as he glances at +the house-windows; that fold in his brow never disappears, but it is not +unbecoming; it seems to imply a strength of will that may possibly be without +harshness, when the eyes and mouth have their gentlest expression. His firm +step becomes quicker, and the corners of his mouth rebel against the +compression which is meant to forbid a smile. +</p> + +<p> +The eyes in the parlour were not turned toward the bridge just then, and the +group there was sitting in unexpectant silence,—Mr Tulliver in his +arm-chair, tired with a long ride, and ruminating with a worn look, fixed +chiefly on Maggie, who was bending over her sewing while her mother was making +the tea. +</p> + +<p> +They all looked up with surprise when they heard the well-known foot. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what’s up now, Tom?” said his father. +“You’re a bit earlier than usual.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there was nothing more for me to do, so I came away. Well, +mother!” +</p> + +<p> +Tom went up to his mother and kissed her, a sign of unusual good-humour with +him. Hardly a word or look had passed between him and Maggie in all the three +weeks; but his usual incommunicativeness at home prevented this from being +noticeable to their parents. +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” said Tom, when they had finished tea, “do you know +exactly how much money there is in the tin box?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only a hundred and ninety-three pound,” said Mr Tulliver. +“You’ve brought less o’ late; but young fellows like to have +their own way with their money. Though I didn’t do as I liked before +<i>I</i> was of age.” He spoke with rather timid discontent. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you quite sure that’s the sum, father?” said Tom. +“I wish you would take the trouble to fetch the tin box down. I think you +have perhaps made a mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +“How should I make a mistake?” said his father, sharply. +“I’ve counted it often enough; but I can fetch it, if you +won’t believe me.” +</p> + +<p> +It was always an incident Mr Tulliver liked, in his gloomy life, to fetch the +tin box and count the money. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t go out of the room, mother,” said Tom, as he saw her +moving when his father was gone upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +“And isn’t Maggie to go?” said Mrs Tulliver; “because +somebody must take away the things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just as she likes,” said Tom indifferently. +</p> + +<p> +That was a cutting word to Maggie. Her heart had leaped with the sudden +conviction that Tom was going to tell their father the debts could be paid; and +Tom would have let her be absent when that news was told! But she carried away +the tray and came back immediately. The feeling of injury on her own behalf +could not predominate at that moment. +</p> + +<p> +Tom drew to the corner of the table near his father when the tin box was set +down and opened, and the red evening light falling on them made conspicuous the +worn, sour gloom of the dark-eyed father and the suppressed joy in the face of +the fair-complexioned son. The mother and Maggie sat at the other end of the +table, the one in blank patience, the other in palpitating expectation. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver counted out the money, setting it in order on the table, and then +said, glancing sharply at Tom: +</p> + +<p> +“There now! you see I was right enough.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused, looking at the money with bitter despondency. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s more nor three hundred wanting; it’ll be a fine +while before <i>I</i> can save that. Losing that forty-two pound wi’ the +corn was a sore job. This world’s been too many for me. It’s took +four year to lay <i>this</i> by; it’s much if I’m above ground for +another four year. I must trusten to you to pay ’em,” he went on, +with a trembling voice, “if you keep i’ the same mind now +you’re coming o’ age. But you’re like enough to bury me +first.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked up in Tom’s face with a querulous desire for some assurance. +</p> + +<p> +“No, father,” said Tom, speaking with energetic decision, though +there was tremor discernible in his voice too, “you will live to see the +debts all paid. You shall pay them with your own hand.” +</p> + +<p> +His tone implied something more than mere hopefulness or resolution. A slight +electric shock seemed to pass through Mr Tulliver, and he kept his eyes fixed +on Tom with a look of eager inquiry, while Maggie, unable to restrain herself, +rushed to her father’s side and knelt down by him. Tom was silent a +little while before he went on. +</p> + +<p> +“A good while ago, my uncle Glegg lent me a little money to trade with, +and that has answered. I have three hundred and twenty pounds in the +bank.” +</p> + +<p> +His mother’s arms were round his neck as soon as the last words were +uttered, and she said, half crying: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my boy, I knew you’d make iverything right again, when you got +a man.” +</p> + +<p> +But his father was silent; the flood of emotion hemmed in all power of speech. +Both Tom and Maggie were struck with fear lest the shock of joy might even be +fatal. But the blessed relief of tears came. The broad chest heaved, the +muscles of the face gave way, and the gray-haired man burst into loud sobs. The +fit of weeping gradually subsided, and he sat quiet, recovering the regularity +of his breathing. At last he looked up at his wife and said, in a gentle tone: +</p> + +<p> +“Bessy, you must come and kiss me now—the lad has made you amends. +You’ll see a bit o’ comfort again, belike.” +</p> + +<p> +When she had kissed him, and he had held her hand a minute, his thoughts went +back to the money. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d brought me the money to look at, Tom,” he said, +fingering the sovereigns on the table; “I should ha’ felt +surer.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall see it to-morrow, father,” said Tom. “My uncle +Deane has appointed the creditors to meet to-morrow at the Golden Lion, and he +has ordered a dinner for them at two o’clock. My uncle Glegg and he will +both be there. It was advertised in the ‘Messenger’ on +Saturday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then Wakem knows on’t!” said Mr Tulliver, his eye kindling +with triumphant fire. “Ah!” he went on, with a long-drawn guttural +enunciation, taking out his snuff-box, the only luxury he had left himself, and +tapping it with something of his old air of defiance. “I’ll get +from under <i>his</i> thumb now, though I <i>must</i> leave the old mill. I +thought I could ha’ held out to die here—but I +can’t——we’ve got a glass o’ nothing in the house, +have we, Bessy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mrs Tulliver, drawing out her much-reduced bunch of +keys, “there’s some brandy sister Deane brought me when I was +ill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get it me, then; get it me. I feel a bit weak.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tom, my lad,” he said, in a stronger voice, when he had taken some +brandy-and-water, “you shall make a speech to ’em. I’ll tell +’em it’s you as got the best part o’ the money. They’ll +see I’m honest at last, and ha’ got an honest son. Ah! Wakem +’ud be fine and glad to have a son like mine,—a fine straight +fellow,—i’stead o’ that poor crooked creatur! You’ll +prosper i’ the world, my lad; you’ll maybe see the day when Wakem +and his son ’ull be a round or two below you. You’ll like enough be +ta’en into partnership, as your uncle Deane was before +you,—you’re in the right way for’t; and then there’s +nothing to hinder your getting rich. And if ever you’re rich +enough—mind this—try and get th’ old mill again.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver threw himself back in his chair; his mind, which had so long been +the home of nothing but bitter discontent and foreboding, suddenly filled, by +the magic of joy, with visions of good fortune. But some subtle influence +prevented him from foreseeing the good fortune as happening to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Shake hands wi’ me, my lad,” he said, suddenly putting out +his hand. “It’s a great thing when a man can be proud as he’s +got a good son. I’ve had <i>that</i> luck.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom never lived to taste another moment so delicious as that; and Maggie +couldn’t help forgetting her own grievances. Tom <i>was</i> good; and in +the sweet humility that springs in us all in moments of true admiration and +gratitude, she felt that the faults he had to pardon in her had never been +redeemed, as his faults were. She felt no jealousy this evening that, for the +first time, she seemed to be thrown into the background in her father’s +mind. +</p> + +<p> +There was much more talk before bedtime. Mr Tulliver naturally wanted to hear +all the particulars of Tom’s trading adventures, and he listened with +growing excitement and delight. He was curious to know what had been said on +every occasion; if possible, what had been thought; and Bob Jakin’s part +in the business threw him into peculiar outbursts of sympathy with the +triumphant knowingness of that remarkable packman. Bob’s juvenile +history, so far as it had come under Mr Tulliver’s knowledge, was +recalled with that sense of astonishing promise it displayed, which is +observable in all reminiscences of the childhood of great men. +</p> + +<p> +It was well that there was this interest of narrative to keep under the vague +but fierce sense of triumph over Wakem, which would otherwise have been the +channel his joy would have rushed into with dangerous force. Even as it was, +that feeling from time to time gave threats of its ultimate mastery, in sudden +bursts of irrelevant exclamation. +</p> + +<p> +It was long before Mr Tulliver got to sleep that night; and the sleep, when it +came, was filled with vivid dreams. At half-past five o’clock in the +morning, when Mrs Tulliver was already rising, he alarmed her by starting up +with a sort of smothered shout, and looking round in a bewildered way at the +walls of the bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, Mr Tulliver?” said his wife. He looked +at her, still with a puzzled expression, and said at last: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!—I was dreaming—did I make a noise?—I thought +I’d got hold of him.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap39"></a>Chapter VII.<br/> +A Day of Reckoning</h3> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver was an essentially sober man,—able to take his glass and not +averse to it, but never exceeding the bounds of moderation. He had naturally an +active Hotspur temperament, which did not crave liquid fire to set it aglow; +his impetuosity was usually equal to an exciting occasion without any such +reinforcements; and his desire for the brandy-and-water implied that the too +sudden joy had fallen with a dangerous shock on a frame depressed by four years +of gloom and unaccustomed hard fare. But that first doubtful tottering moment +passed, he seemed to gather strength with his gathering excitement; and the +next day, when he was seated at table with his creditors, his eye kindling and +his cheek flushed with the consciousness that he was about to make an +honourable figure once more, he looked more like the proud, confident, +warm-hearted, and warm-tempered Tulliver of old times than might have seemed +possible to any one who had met him a week before, riding along as had been his +wont for the last four years since the sense of failure and debt had been upon +him,—with his head hanging down, casting brief, unwilling looks on those +who forced themselves on his notice. He made his speech, asserting his honest +principles with his old confident eagerness, alluding to the rascals and the +luck that had been against him, but that he had triumphed over, to some extent, +by hard efforts and the aid of a good son; and winding up with the story of how +Tom had got the best part of the needful money. But the streak of irritation +and hostile triumph seemed to melt for a little while into purer fatherly pride +and pleasure, when, Tom’s health having been proposed, and uncle Deane +having taken occasion to say a few words of eulogy on his general character and +conduct, Tom himself got up and made the single speech of his life. It could +hardly have been briefer. He thanked the gentlemen for the honour they had done +him. He was glad that he had been able to help his father in proving his +integrity and regaining his honest name; and, for his own part, he hoped he +should never undo that work and disgrace that name. But the applause that +followed was so great, and Tom looked so gentlemanly as well as tall and +straight, that Mr Tulliver remarked, in an explanatory manner, to his friends +on his right and left, that he had spent a deal of money on his son’s +education. +</p> + +<p> +The party broke up in very sober fashion at five o’clock. Tom remained in +St Ogg’s to attend to some business, and Mr Tulliver mounted his horse +to go home, and describe the memorable things that had been said and done, to +“poor Bessy and the little wench.” The air of excitement that hung +about him was but faintly due to good cheer or any stimulus but the potent wine +of triumphant joy. He did not choose any back street to-day, but rode slowly, +with uplifted head and free glances, along the principal street all the way to +the bridge. +</p> + +<p> +Why did he not happen to meet Wakem? The want of that coincidence vexed him, +and set his mind at work in an irritating way. Perhaps Wakem was gone out of +town to-day on purpose to avoid seeing or hearing anything of an honourable +action which might well cause him some unpleasant twinges. If Wakem were to +meet him then, Mr Tulliver would look straight at him, and the rascal would +perhaps be forsaken a little by his cool, domineering impudence. He would know +by and by that an honest man was not going to serve <i>him</i> any longer, and +lend his honesty to fill a pocket already over-full of dishonest gains. Perhaps +the luck was beginning to turn; perhaps the Devil didn’t always hold the +best cards in this world. +</p> + +<p> +Simmering in this way, Mr Tulliver approached the yardgates of Dorlcote Mill, +near enough to see a well-known figure coming out of them on a fine black +horse. They met about fifty yards from the gates, between the great chestnuts +and elms and the high bank. +</p> + +<p> +“Tulliver,” said Wakem, abruptly, in a haughtier tone than usual, +“what a fool’s trick you did,—spreading those hard lumps on +that Far Close! I told you how it would be; but you men never learn to farm +with any method.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Tulliver, suddenly boiling up; “get somebody else +to farm for you, then, as’ll ask <i>you</i> to teach him.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have been drinking, I suppose,” said Wakem, really believing +that this was the meaning of Tulliver’s flushed face and sparkling eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’ve not been drinking,” said Tulliver; “I want no +drinking to help me make up my mind as I’ll serve no longer under a +scoundrel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well! you may leave my premises to-morrow, then; hold your insolent +tongue and let me pass.” (Tulliver was backing his horse across the road +to hem Wakem in.) +</p> + +<p> +“No, I <i>sha’n’t</i> let you pass,” said Tulliver, +getting fiercer. “I shall tell you what I think of you first. +You’re too big a raskill to get +hanged—you’re——” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me pass, you ignorant brute, or I’ll ride over you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Tulliver, spurring his horse and raising his whip, made a rush forward; and +Wakem’s horse, rearing and staggering backward, threw his rider from the +saddle and sent him sideways on the ground. Wakem had had the presence of mind +to loose the bridle at once, and as the horse only staggered a few paces and +then stood still, he might have risen and remounted without more inconvenience +than a bruise and a shake. But before he could rise, Tulliver was off his horse +too. The sight of the long-hated predominant man down, and in his power, threw +him into a frenzy of triumphant vengeance, which seemed to give him +preternatural agility and strength. He rushed on Wakem, who was in the act of +trying to recover his feet, grasped him by the left arm so as to press +Wakem’s whole weight on the right arm, which rested on the ground, and +flogged him fiercely across the back with his riding-whip. Wakem shouted for +help, but no help came, until a woman’s scream was heard, and the cry of +“Father, father!” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, Wakem felt, something had arrested Mr Tulliver’s arm; for the +flogging ceased, and the grasp on his own arm was relaxed. +</p> + +<p> +“Get away with you—go!” said Tulliver, angrily. But it was +not to Wakem that he spoke. Slowly the lawyer rose, and, as he turned his head, +saw that Tulliver’s arms were being held by a girl, rather by the fear of +hurting the girl that clung to him with all her young might. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Luke—mother—come and help Mr Wakem!” Maggie +cried, as she heard the longed-for footsteps. +</p> + +<p> +“Help me on to that low horse,” said Wakem to Luke, “then I +shall perhaps manage; though—confound it—I think this arm is +sprained.” +</p> + +<p> +With some difficulty, Wakem was heaved on to Tulliver’s horse. Then he +turned toward the miller and said, with white rage, “You’ll suffer +for this, sir. Your daughter is a witness that you’ve assaulted +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care,” said Mr Tulliver, in a thick, fierce voice; +“go and show your back, and tell ’em I thrashed you. Tell ’em +I’ve made things a bit more even i’ the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ride my horse home with me,” said Wakem to Luke. “By the +Tofton Ferry, not through the town.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father, come in!” said Maggie, imploringly. Then, seeing that +Wakem had ridden off, and that no further violence was possible, she slackened +her hold and burst into hysteric sobs, while poor Mrs Tulliver stood by in +silence, quivering with fear. But Maggie became conscious that as she was +slackening her hold her father was beginning to grasp her and lean on her. The +surprise checked her sobs. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel ill—faintish,” he said. “Help me in, +Bessy—I’m giddy—I’ve a pain i’ the head.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked in slowly, propped by his wife and daughter and tottered into his +arm-chair. The almost purple flush had given way to paleness, and his hand was +cold. +</p> + +<p> +“Hadn’t we better send for the doctor?” said Mrs Tulliver. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed to be too faint and suffering to hear her; but presently, when she +said to Maggie, “Go and seek for somebody to fetch the doctor,” he +looked up at her with full comprehension, and said, “Doctor? No—no +doctor. It’s my head, that’s all. Help me to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +Sad ending to the day that had risen on them all like a beginning of better +times! But mingled seed must bear a mingled crop. +</p> + +<p> +In half an hour after his father had lain down Tom came home. Bob Jakin was +with him, come to congratulate “the old master,” not without some +excusable pride that he had had his share in bringing about Mr Tom’s +good luck; and Tom had thought his father would like nothing better, as a +finish to the day, than a talk with Bob. But now Tom could only spend the +evening in gloomy expectation of the unpleasant consequences that must follow +on this mad outbreak of his father’s long-smothered hate. After the +painful news had been told, he sat in silence; he had not spirit or inclination +to tell his mother and sister anything about the dinner; they hardly cared to +ask it. Apparently the mingled thread in the web of their life was so curiously +twisted together that there could be no joy without a sorrow coming close upon +it. Tom was dejected by the thought that his exemplary effort must always be +baffled by the wrong-doing of others; Maggie was living through, over and over +again, the agony of the moment in which she had rushed to throw herself on her +father’s arm, with a vague, shuddering foreboding of wretched scenes to +come. Not one of the three felt any particular alarm about Mr Tulliver’s +health; the symptoms did not recall his former dangerous attack, and it seemed +only a necessary consequence that his violent passion and effort of strength, +after many hours of unusual excitement, should have made him feel ill. Rest +would probably cure him. +</p> + +<p> +Tom, tired out by his active day, fell asleep soon, and slept soundly; it +seemed to him as if he had only just come to bed, when he waked to see his +mother standing by him in the gray light of early morning. +</p> + +<p> +“My boy, you must get up this minute; I’ve sent for the doctor, and +your father wants you and Maggie to come to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is he worse, mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s been very ill all night with his head, but he doesn’t +say it’s worse; he only said suddenly, ‘Bessy, fetch the boy and +girl. Tell ’em to make haste.’” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie and Tom threw on their clothes hastily in the chill gray light, and +reached their father’s room almost at the same moment. He was watching +for them with an expression of pain on his brow, but with sharpened, anxious +consciousness in his eyes. Mrs Tulliver stood at the foot of the bed, +frightened and trembling, looking worn and aged from disturbed rest. Maggie was +at the bedside first, but her father’s glance was toward Tom, who came +and stood next to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom, my lad, it’s come upon me as I sha’n’t get up +again. This world’s been too many for me, my lad, but you’ve done +what you could to make things a bit even. Shake hands wi’ me again, my +lad, before I go away from you.” +</p> + +<p> +The father and son clasped hands and looked at each other an instant. Then Tom +said, trying to speak firmly,— +</p> + +<p> +“Have you any wish, father—that I can fulfil, +when——” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, my lad—you’ll try and get the old mill back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“And there’s your mother—you’ll try and make her +amends, all you can, for my bad luck—and there’s the little +wench——” +</p> + +<p> +The father turned his eyes on Maggie with a still more eager look, while she, +with a bursting heart, sank on her knees, to be closer to the dear, time-worn +face which had been present with her through long years, as the sign of her +deepest love and hardest trial. +</p> + +<p> +“You must take care of her, Tom—don’t you fret, my +wench—there’ll come somebody as’ll love you and take your +part—and you must be good to her, my lad. I was good to <i>my</i> sister. +Kiss me, Maggie.—Come, Bessy.—You’ll manage to pay for a +brick grave, Tom, so as your mother and me can lie together.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked away from them all when he had said this, and lay silent for some +minutes, while they stood watching him, not daring to move. The morning light +was growing clearer for them, and they could see the heaviness gathering in his +face, and the dulness in his eyes. But at last he looked toward Tom and +said,— +</p> + +<p> +“I had my turn—I beat him. That was nothing but fair. I never +wanted anything but what was fair.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, father, dear father,” said Maggie, an unspeakable anxiety +predominating over her grief, “you forgive him—you forgive every +one now?” +</p> + +<p> +He did not move his eyes to look at her, but he said,— +</p> + +<p> +“No, my wench. I don’t forgive him. What’s forgiving to do? I +can’t love a raskill——” +</p> + +<p> +His voice had become thicker; but he wanted to say more, and moved his lips +again and again, struggling in vain to speak. At length the words forced their +way. +</p> + +<p> +“Does God forgive raskills?—but if He does, He won’t be hard +wi’ me.” +</p> + +<p> +His hands moved uneasily, as if he wanted them to remove some obstruction that +weighed upon him. Two or three times there fell from him some broken +words,— +</p> + +<p> +“This world’s—too many—honest +man—puzzling——” +</p> + +<p> +Soon they merged into mere mutterings; the eyes had ceased to discern; and then +came the final silence. +</p> + +<p> +But not of death. For an hour or more the chest heaved, the loud, hard +breathing continued, getting gradually slower, as the cold dews gathered on the +brow. +</p> + +<p> +At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver’s dimly lighted soul +had forever ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this world. +</p> + +<p> +Help was come now; Luke and his wife were there, and Mr Turnbull had arrived, +too late for everything but to say, “This is death.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom and Maggie went downstairs together into the room where their +father’s place was empty. Their eyes turned to the same spot, and Maggie +spoke,— +</p> + +<p> +“Tom, forgive me—let us always love each other”; and they +clung and wept together. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="book06"></a>BOOK SIXTH<br/> +THE GREAT TEMPTATION.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap40"></a>Chapter I.<br/> +A Duet in Paradise</h3> + +<p> +The well-furnished drawing-room, with the open grand piano, and the pleasant +outlook down a sloping garden to a boat-house by the side of the Floss, is Mr +Deane’s. The neat little lady in mourning, whose light-brown ringlets are +falling over the coloured embroidery with which her fingers are busy, is of +course Lucy Deane; and the fine young man who is leaning down from his chair to +snap the scissors in the extremely abbreviated face of the “King +Charles” lying on the young lady’s feet is no other than Mr +Stephen Guest, whose diamond ring, attar of roses, and air of <i>nonchalant</i> +leisure, at twelve o’clock in the day, are the graceful and odoriferous +result of the largest oil-mill and the most extensive wharf in St Ogg’s. +There is an apparent triviality in the action with the scissors, but your +discernment perceives at once that there is a design in it which makes it +eminently worthy of a large-headed, long-limbed young man; for you see that +Lucy wants the scissors, and is compelled, reluctant as she may be, to shake +her ringlets back, raise her soft hazel eyes, smile playfully down on the face +that is so very nearly on a level with her knee, and holding out her little +shell-pink palm, to say,— +</p> + +<p> +“My scissors, please, if you can renounce the great pleasure of +persecuting my poor Minny.” +</p> + +<p> +The foolish scissors have slipped too far over the knuckles, it seems, and +Hercules holds out his entrapped fingers hopelessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Confound the scissors! The oval lies the wrong way. Please draw them off +for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Draw them off with your other hand,” says Miss Lucy, roguishly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but that’s my left hand; I’m not left-handed.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy laughs, and the scissors are drawn off with gentle touches from tiny tips, +which naturally dispose Mr Stephen for a repetition <i>da capo</i>. +Accordingly, he watches for the release of the scissors, that he may get them +into his possession again. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Lucy, sticking them in her band, “you shall +not have my scissors again,—you have strained them already. Now +don’t set Minny growling again. Sit up and behave properly, and then I +will tell you some news.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is that?” said Stephen, throwing himself back and hanging his +right arm over the corner of his chair. He might have been sitting for his +portrait, which would have represented a rather striking young man of +five-and-twenty, with a square forehead, short dark-brown hair, standing erect, +with a slight wave at the end, like a thick crop of corn, and a half-ardent, +half-sarcastic glance from under his well-marked horizontal eyebrows. “Is +it very important news?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, very. Guess.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are going to change Minny’s diet, and give him three ratafias +soaked in a dessert-spoonful of cream daily?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, Dr Kenn has been preaching against buckram, and you ladies +have all been sending him a roundrobin, saying, ‘This is a hard doctrine; +who can bear it?’” +</p> + +<p> +“For shame!” said Lucy, adjusting her little mouth gravely. +“It is rather dull of you not to guess my news, because it is about +something I mentioned to you not very long ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you have mentioned many things to me not long ago. Does your +feminine tyranny require that when you say the thing you mean is one of several +things, I should know it immediately by that mark?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know you think I am silly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you are perfectly charming.” +</p> + +<p> +“And my silliness is part of my charm?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t say <i>that</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I know you like women to be rather insipid. Philip Wakem betrayed +you; he said so one day when you were not here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know Phil is fierce on that point; he makes it quite a personal +matter. I think he must be love-sick for some unknown lady,—some exalted +Beatrice whom he met abroad.” +</p> + +<p> +“By the by,” said Lucy, pausing in her work, “it has just +occurred to me that I never found out whether my cousin Maggie will object to +see Philip, as her brother does. Tom will not enter a room where Philip is, if +he knows it; perhaps Maggie may be the same, and then we sha’n’t be +able to sing our glees, shall we?” +</p> + +<p> +“What! is your cousin coming to stay with you?” said Stephen, with +a look of slight annoyance. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; that was my news, which you have forgotten. She’s going to +leave her situation, where she has been nearly two years, poor +thing,—ever since her father’s death; and she will stay with me a +month or two,—many months, I hope.” +</p> + +<p> +“And am I bound to be pleased at that news?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, not at all,” said Lucy, with a little air of pique. +“<i>I</i> am pleased, but that, of course, is no reason why <i>you</i> +should be pleased. There is no girl in the world I love so well as my cousin +Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you will be inseparable I suppose, when she comes. There will be no +possibility of a <i>tête-à-tête</i> with you any more, unless you can find an +admirer for her, who will pair off with her occasionally. What is the ground of +dislike to Philip? He might have been a resource.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a family quarrel with Philip’s father. There were very +painful circumstances, I believe. I never quite understood them, or knew them +all. My uncle Tulliver was unfortunate and lost all his property, and I think +he considered Mr Wakem was somehow the cause of it. Mr Wakem bought Dorlcote +Mill, my uncle’s old place, where he always lived. You must remember my +uncle Tulliver, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Stephen, with rather supercilious indifference. +“I’ve always known the name, and I dare say I knew the man by +sight, apart from his name. I know half the names and faces in the +neighbourhood in that detached, disjointed way.” +</p> + +<p> +“He was a very hot-tempered man. I remember, when I was a little girl and +used to go to see my cousins, he often frightened me by talking as if he were +angry. Papa told me there was a dreadful quarrel, the very day before my +uncle’s death, between him and Mr Wakem, but it was hushed up. That was +when you were in London. Papa says my uncle was quite mistaken in many ways; +his mind had become embittered. But Tom and Maggie must naturally feel it very +painful to be reminded of these things. They have had so much, so very much +trouble. Maggie was at school with me six years ago, when she was fetched away +because of her father’s misfortunes, and she has hardly had any pleasure +since, I think. She has been in a dreary situation in a school since +uncle’s death, because she is determined to be independent, and not live +with aunt Pullet; and I could hardly wish her to come to me then, because dear +mamma was ill, and everything was so sad. That is why I want her to come to me +now, and have a long, long holiday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very sweet and angelic of you,” said Stephen, looking at her with +an admiring smile; “and all the more so if she has the conversational +qualities of her mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor aunty! You are cruel to ridicule her. She is very valuable to +<i>me</i>, I know. She manages the house beautifully,—much better than +any stranger would,—and she was a great comfort to me in mamma’s +illness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but in point of companionship one would prefer that she should be +represented by her brandy-cherries and cream-cakes. I think with a shudder that +her daughter will always be present in person, and have no agreeable proxies of +that kind,—a fat, blond girl, with round blue eyes, who will stare at us +silently.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes!” exclaimed Lucy, laughing wickedly, and clapping her +hands, “that is just my cousin Maggie. You must have seen her!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed; I’m only guessing what Mrs Tulliver’s daughter +must be; and then if she is to banish Philip, our only apology for a tenor, +that will be an additional bore.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I hope that may not be. I think I will ask you to call on Philip and +tell him Maggie is coming to-morrow. He is quite aware of Tom’s feeling, +and always keeps out of his way; so he will understand, if you tell him, that I +asked you to warn him not to come until I write to ask him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you had better write a pretty note for me to take; Phil is so +sensitive, you know, the least thing might frighten him off coming at all, and +we had hard work to get him. I can never induce him to come to the park; he +doesn’t like my sisters, I think. It is only your faëry touch that can +lay his ruffled feathers.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen mastered the little hand that was straying toward the table, and +touched it lightly with his lips. Little Lucy felt very proud and happy. She +and Stephen were in that stage of courtship which makes the most exquisite +moment of youth, the freshest blossom-time of passion,—when each is sure +of the other’s love, but no formal declaration has been made, and all is +mutual divination, exalting the most trivial word, the lightest gesture, into +thrills delicate and delicious as wafted jasmine scent. The explicitness of an +engagement wears off this finest edge of susceptibility; it is jasmine gathered +and presented in a large bouquet. +</p> + +<p> +“But it is really odd that you should have hit so exactly on +Maggie’s appearance and manners,” said the cunning Lucy, moving to +reach her desk, “because she might have been like her brother, you know; +and Tom has not round eyes; and he is as far as possible from staring at +people.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I suppose he is like the father; he seems to be as proud as Lucifer. +Not a brilliant companion, though, I should think.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like Tom. He gave me my Minny when I lost Lolo; and papa is very fond +of him: he says Tom has excellent principles. It was through him that his +father was able to pay all his debts before he died.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ah; I’ve heard about that. I heard your father and mine +talking about it a little while ago, after dinner, in one of their interminable +discussions about business. They think of doing something for young Tulliver; +he saved them from a considerable loss by riding home in some marvellous way, +like Turpin, to bring them news about the stoppage of a bank, or something of +that sort. But I was rather drowsy at the time.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen rose from his seat, and sauntered to the piano, humming in falsetto, +“Graceful Consort,” as he turned over the volume of “The +Creation,” which stood open on the desk. +</p> + +<p> +“Come and sing this,” he said, when he saw Lucy rising. +</p> + +<p> +“What, ‘Graceful Consort’? I don’t think it suits your +voice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind; it exactly suits my feeling, which, Philip will have it, is +the grand element of good singing. I notice men with indifferent voices are +usually of that opinion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Philip burst into one of his invectives against ‘The +Creation’ the other day,” said Lucy, seating herself at the piano. +“He says it has a sort of sugared complacency and flattering make-believe +in it, as if it were written for the birthday <i>fête</i> of a German +Grand-Duke.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, pooh! He is the fallen Adam with a soured temper. We are Adam and +Eve unfallen, in Paradise. Now, then,—the recitative, for the sake of the +moral. You will sing the whole duty of woman,—‘And from obedience +grows my pride and happiness.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, I shall not respect an Adam who drags the <i>tempo</i>, as you +will,” said Lucy, beginning to play the duet. +</p> + +<p> +Surely the only courtship unshaken by doubts and fears must be that in which +the lovers can sing together. The sense of mutual fitness that springs from the +two deep notes fulfilling expectation just at the right moment between the +notes of the silvery soprano, from the perfect accord of descending thirds and +fifths, from the preconcerted loving chase of a fugue, is likely enough to +supersede any immediate demand for less impassioned forms of agreement. The +contralto will not care to catechise the bass; the tenor will foresee no +embarrassing dearth of remark in evenings spent with the lovely soprano. In the +provinces, too, where music was so scarce in that remote time, how could the +musical people avoid falling in love with each other? Even political principle +must have been in danger of relaxation under such circumstances; and the +violin, faithful to rotten boroughs, must have been tempted to fraternise in a +demoralizing way with a reforming violoncello. In that case, the +linnet-throated soprano and the full-toned bass singing,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“With thee delight is ever new,<br/> +With thee is life incessant bliss,” +</p> + +<p> +believed what they sang all the more <i>because</i> they sang it. +</p> + +<p> +“Now for Raphael’s great song,” said Lucy, when they had +finished the duet. “You do the ‘heavy beasts’ to +perfection.” +</p> + +<p> +“That sounds complimentary,” said Stephen, looking at his watch. +“By Jove, it’s nearly half-past one! Well, I can just sing +this.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen delivered with admirable ease the deep notes representing the tread of +the heavy beasts; but when a singer has an audience of two, there is room for +divided sentiments. Minny’s mistress was charmed; but Minny, who had +intrenched himself, trembling, in his basket as soon as the music began, found +this thunder so little to his taste that he leaped out and scampered under the +remotest <i>chiffonnier</i>, as the most eligible place in which a small dog +could await the crack of doom. +</p> + +<p> +“Adieu, ‘graceful consort,’” said Stephen, buttoning +his coat across when he had done singing, and smiling down from his tall +height, with the air of rather a patronizing lover, at the little lady on the +music-stool. “My bliss is not incessant, for I must gallop home. I +promised to be there at lunch.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will not be able to call on Philip, then? It is of no consequence; I +have said everything in my note.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will be engaged with your cousin to-morrow, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, we are going to have a little family-party. My cousin Tom will dine +with us; and poor aunty will have her two children together for the first time. +It will be very pretty; I think a great deal about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I may come the next day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes! Come and be introduced to my cousin Maggie; though you can +hardly be said not to have seen her, you have described her so well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, then.” And there was that slight pressure of the hands, +and momentary meeting of the eyes, which will often leave a little lady with a +slight flush and smile on her face that do not subside immediately when the +door is closed, and with an inclination to walk up and down the room rather +than to seat herself quietly at her embroidery, or other rational and improving +occupation. At least this was the effect on Lucy; and you will not, I hope, +consider it an indication of vanity predominating over more tender impulses, +that she just glanced in the chimney-glass as her walk brought her near it. The +desire to know that one has not looked an absolute fright during a few hours of +conversation may be construed as lying within the bounds of a laudable +benevolent consideration for others. And Lucy had so much of this benevolence +in her nature that I am inclined to think her small egoisms were impregnated +with it, just as there are people not altogether unknown to you whose small +benevolences have a predominant and somewhat rank odor of egoism. Even now, +that she is walking up and down with a little triumphant flutter of her girlish +heart at the sense that she is loved by the person of chief consequence in her +small world, you may see in her hazel eyes an ever-present sunny benignity, in +which the momentary harmless flashes of personal vanity are quite lost; and if +she is happy in thinking of her lover, it is because the thought of him mingles +readily with all the gentle affections and good-natured offices with which she +fills her peaceful days. Even now, her mind, with that instantaneous +alternation which makes two currents of feeling or imagination seem +simultaneous, is glancing continually from Stephen to the preparations she has +only half finished in Maggie’s room. Cousin Maggie should be treated as +well as the grandest lady-visitor,—nay, better, for she should have +Lucy’s best prints and drawings in her bedroom, and the very finest +bouquet of spring flowers on her table. Maggie would enjoy all that, she was so +found of pretty things! And there was poor aunt Tulliver, that no one made any +account of, she was to be surprised with the present of a cap of superlative +quality, and to have her health drunk in a gratifying manner, for which Lucy +was going to lay a plot with her father this evening. Clearly, she had not time +to indulge in long reveries about her own happy love-affairs. With this thought +she walked toward the door, but paused there. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, then, Minny?” she said, stooping in +answer to some whimpering of that small quadruped, and lifting his glossy head +against her pink cheek. “Did you think I was going without you? Come, +then, let us go and see Sinbad.” +</p> + +<p> +Sinbad was Lucy’s chestnut horse, that she always fed with her own hand +when he was turned out in the paddock. She was fond of feeding dependent +creatures, and knew the private tastes of all the animals about the house, +delighting in the little rippling sounds of her canaries when their beaks were +busy with fresh seed, and in the small nibbling pleasures of certain animals +which, lest she should appear too trivial, I will here call “the more +familiar rodents.” +</p> + +<p> +Was not Stephen Guest right in his decided opinion that this slim maiden of +eighteen was quite the sort of wife a man would not be likely to repent of +marrying,—a woman who was loving and thoughtful for other women, not +giving them Judas-kisses with eyes askance on their welcome defects, but with +real care and vision for their half-hidden pains and mortifications, with long +ruminating enjoyment of little pleasures prepared for them? Perhaps the +emphasis of his admiration did not fall precisely on this rarest quality in +her; perhaps he approved his own choice of her chiefly because she did not +strike him as a remarkable rarity. A man likes his wife to be pretty; well, +Lucy was pretty, but not to a maddening extent. A man likes his wife to be +accomplished, gentle, affectionate, and not stupid; and Lucy had all these +qualifications. Stephen was not surprised to find himself in love with her, and +was conscious of excellent judgment in preferring her to Miss Leyburn, the +daughter of the county member, although Lucy was only the daughter of his +father’s subordinate partner; besides, he had had to defy and overcome a +slight unwillingness and disappointment in his father and sisters,—a +circumstance which gives a young man an agreeable consciousness of his own +dignity. Stephen was aware that he had sense and independence enough to choose +the wife who was likely to make him happy, unbiassed by any indirect +considerations. He meant to choose Lucy; she was a little darling, and exactly +the sort of woman he had always admired. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap41"></a>Chapter II.<br/> +First Impressions</h3> + +<p> +“He is very clever, Maggie,” said Lucy. She was kneeling on a +footstool at Maggie’s feet, after placing that dark lady in the large +crimson-velvet chair. “I feel sure you will like him. I hope you +will.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be very difficult to please,” said Maggie, smiling, and +holding up one of Lucy’s long curls, that the sunlight might shine +through it. “A gentleman who thinks he is good enough for Lucy must +expect to be sharply criticised.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, he’s a great deal too good for me. And sometimes, when he +is away, I almost think it can’t really be that he loves me. But I can +never doubt it when he is with me, though I couldn’t bear any one but you +to know that I feel in that way, Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, then, if I disapprove of him you can give him up, since you are not +engaged,” said Maggie, with playful gravity. +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather not be engaged. When people are engaged, they begin to +think of being married soon,” said Lucy, too thoroughly preoccupied to +notice Maggie’s joke; “and I should like everything to go on for a +long while just as it is. Sometimes I am quite frightened lest Stephen should +say that he has spoken to papa; and from something that fell from papa the +other day, I feel sure he and Mr Guest are expecting that. And Stephen’s +sisters are very civil to me now. At first, I think they didn’t like his +paying me attention; and that was natural. It <i>does</i> seem out of keeping +that I should ever live in a great place like the Park House, such a little +insignificant thing as I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“But people are not expected to be large in proportion to the houses they +live in, like snails,” said Maggie, laughing. “Pray, are Mr +Guest’s sisters giantesses?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no; and not handsome,—that is, not very,” said Lucy, +half-penitent at this uncharitable remark. “But <i>he</i> is—at +least he is generally considered very handsome.” +</p> + +<p> +“Though you are unable to share that opinion?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know,” said Lucy, blushing pink over brow and +neck. “It is a bad plan to raise expectation; you will perhaps be +disappointed. But I have prepared a charming surprise for <i>him;</i> I shall +have a glorious laugh against him. I shall not tell you what it is, +though.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy rose from her knees and went to a little distance, holding her pretty head +on one side, as if she had been arranging Maggie for a portrait, and wished to +judge of the general effect. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand up a moment, Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is your pleasure now?” said Maggie, smiling languidly as she +rose from her chair and looked down on her slight, aerial cousin, whose figure +was quite subordinate to her faultless drapery of silk and crape. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy kept her contemplative attitude a moment or two in silence, and then +said,— +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t think what witchery it is in you, Maggie, that makes you +look best in shabby clothes; though you really must have a new dress now. But +do you know, last night I was trying to fancy you in a handsome, fashionable +dress, and do what I would, that old limp merino would come back as the only +right thing for you. I wonder if Marie Antoinette looked all the grander when +her gown was darned at the elbows. Now, if <i>I</i> were to put anything shabby +on, I should be quite unnoticeable. I should be a mere rag.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, quite,” said Maggie, with mock gravity. “You would be +liable to be swept out of the room with the cobwebs and carpet-dust, and to +find yourself under the grate, like Cinderella. Mayn’t I sit down +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, now you may,” said Lucy, laughing. Then, with an air of +serious reflection, unfastening her large jet brooch, “But you must +change brooches, Maggie; that little butterfly looks silly on you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But won’t that mar the charming effect of my consistent +shabbiness?” said Maggie, seating herself submissively, while Lucy knelt +again and unfastened the contemptible butterfly. “I wish my mother were +of your opinion, for she was fretting last night because this is my best frock. +I’ve been saving my money to pay for some lessons; I shall never get a +better situation without more accomplishments.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie gave a little sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, don’t put on that sad look again,” said Lucy, pinning +the large brooch below Maggie’s fine throat. “You’re +forgetting that you’ve left that dreary schoolroom behind you, and have +no little girls’ clothes to mend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Maggie. “It is with me as I used to think it +would be with the poor uneasy white bear I saw at the show. I thought he must +have got so stupid with the habit of turning backward and forward in that +narrow space that he would keep doing it if they set him free. One gets a bad +habit of being unhappy.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I shall put you under a discipline of pleasure that will make you +lose that bad habit,” said Lucy, sticking the black butterfly absently in +her own collar, while her eyes met Maggie’s affectionately. +</p> + +<p> +“You dear, tiny thing,” said Maggie, in one of her bursts of loving +admiration, “you enjoy other people’s happiness so much, I believe +you would do without any of your own. I wish I were like you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never been tried in that way,” said Lucy. +“I’ve always been so happy. I don’t know whether I could bear +much trouble; I never had any but poor mamma’s death. You <i>have</i> +been tried, Maggie; and I’m sure you feel for other people quite as much +as I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Lucy,” said Maggie, shaking her head slowly, “I +don’t enjoy their happiness as you do, else I should be more contented. I +do feel for them when they are in trouble; I don’t think I could ever +bear to make any one <i>un</i>happy; and yet I often hate myself, because I get +angry sometimes at the sight of happy people. I think I get worse as I get +older, more selfish. That seems very dreadful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Maggie!” said Lucy, in a tone of remonstrance, “I +don’t believe a word of that. It is all a gloomy fancy, just because you +are depressed by a dull, wearisome life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, perhaps it is,” said Maggie, resolutely clearing away the +clouds from her face with a bright smile, and throwing herself backward in her +chair. “Perhaps it comes from the school diet,—watery rice-pudding +spiced with Pinnock. Let us hope it will give way before my mother’s +custards and this charming Geoffrey Crayon.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie took up the “Sketch Book,” which lay by her on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I look fit to be seen with this little brooch?” said Lucy, +going to survey the effect in the chimney-glass. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, Mr Guest will be obliged to go out of the room again if he sees +you in it. Pray make haste and put another on.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy hurried out of the room, but Maggie did not take the opportunity of +opening her book; she let it fall on her knees, while her eyes wandered to the +window, where she could see the sunshine falling on the rich clumps of spring +flowers and on the long hedge of laurels, and beyond, the silvery breadth of +the dear old Floss, that at this distance seemed to be sleeping in a morning +holiday. The sweet fresh garden-scent came through the open window, and the +birds were busy flitting and alighting, gurgling and singing. Yet +Maggie’s eyes began to fill with tears. The sight of the old scenes had +made the rush of memories so painful that even yesterday she had only been able +to rejoice in her mother’s restored comfort and Tom’s brotherly +friendliness as we rejoice in good news of friends at a distance, rather than +in the presence of a happiness which we share. Memory and imagination urged +upon her a sense of privation too keen to let her taste what was offered in the +transient present. Her future, she thought, was likely to be worse than her +past, for after her years of contented renunciation, she had slipped back into +desire and longing; she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and +harder; she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for, and +despaired of, becoming more and more importunate. The sound of the opening door +roused her, and hastily wiping away her tears, she began to turn over the +leaves of her book. +</p> + +<p> +“There is one pleasure, I know, Maggie, that your deepest dismalness will +never resist,” said Lucy, beginning to speak as soon as she entered the +room. “That is music, and I mean you to have quite a riotous feast of it. +I mean you to get up your playing again, which used to be so much better than +mine, when we were at Laceham.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would have laughed to see me playing the little girls’ tunes +over and over to them, when I took them to practise,” said Maggie, +“just for the sake of fingering the dear keys again. But I don’t +know whether I could play anything more difficult now than ‘Begone, dull +care!’” +</p> + +<p> +“I know what a wild state of joy you used to be in when the glee-men came +round,” said Lucy, taking up her embroidery; “and we might have all +those old glees that you used to love so, if I were certain that you +don’t feel exactly as Tom does about some things.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought there was nothing you might be more certain +of,” said Maggie, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought rather to have said, one particular thing. Because if you feel +just as he does about that, we shall want our third voice. St Ogg’s is +so miserably provided with musical gentlemen. There are really only Stephen and +Philip Wakem who have any knowledge of music, so as to be able to sing a +part.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy had looked up from her work as she uttered the last sentence, and saw that +there was a change in Maggie’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“Does it hurt you to hear the name mentioned, Maggie? If it does, I will +not speak of him again. I know Tom will not see him if he can avoid it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t feel at all as Tom does on that subject,” said +Maggie, rising and going to the window as if she wanted to see more of the +landscape. “I’ve always liked Philip Wakem ever since I was a +little girl, and saw him at Lorton. He was so good when Tom hurt his +foot.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m so glad!” said Lucy. “Then you won’t +mind his coming sometimes, and we can have much more music than we could +without him. I’m very fond of poor Philip, only I wish he were not so +morbid about his deformity. I suppose it <i>is</i> his deformity that makes him +so sad, and sometimes bitter. It is certainly very piteous to see his poor +little crooked body and pale face among great, strong people.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Lucy——” said Maggie, trying to arrest the +prattling stream. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there is the door-bell. That must be Stephen,” Lucy went on, +not noticing Maggie’s faint effort to speak. “One of the things I +most admire in Stephen is that he makes a greater friend of Philip than any +one.” +</p> + +<p> +It was too late for Maggie to speak now; the drawingroom door was opening, and +Minny was already growling in a small way at the entrance of a tall gentleman, +who went up to Lucy and took her hand with a half-polite, half-tender glance +and tone of inquiry, which seemed to indicate that he was unconscious of any +other presence. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me introduce you to my cousin, Miss Tulliver,” said Lucy, +turning with wicked enjoyment toward Maggie, who now approached from the +farther window. “This is Mr Stephen Guest.” +</p> + +<p> +For one instant Stephen could not conceal his astonishment at the sight of this +tall, dark-eyed nymph with her jet-black coronet of hair; the next, Maggie felt +herself, for the first time in her life, receiving the tribute of a very deep +blush and a very deep bow from a person toward whom she herself was conscious +of timidity. +</p> + +<p> +This new experience was very agreeable to her, so agreeable that it almost +effaced her previous emotion about Philip. There was a new brightness in her +eyes, and a very becoming flush on her cheek, as she seated herself. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you perceive what a striking likeness you drew the day before +yesterday,” said Lucy, with a pretty laugh of triumph. She enjoyed her +lover’s confusion; the advantage was usually on his side. +</p> + +<p> +“This designing cousin of yours quite deceived me, Miss Tulliver,” +said Stephen, seating himself by Lucy, and stooping to play with Minny, only +looking at Maggie furtively. “She said you had light hair and blue +eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, it was you who said so,” remonstrated Lucy. “I only +refrained from destroying your confidence in your own second-sight.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could always err in the same way,” said Stephen, +“and find reality so much more beautiful than my preconceptions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you have proved yourself equal to the occasion,” said Maggie, +“and said what it was incumbent on you to say under the +circumstances.” +</p> + +<p> +She flashed a slightly defiant look at him; it was clear to her that he had +been drawing a satirical portrait of her beforehand. Lucy had said he was +inclined to be satirical, and Maggie had mentally supplied the addition, +“and rather conceited.” +</p> + +<p> +“An alarming amount of devil there,” was Stephen’s first +thought. The second, when she had bent over her work, was, “I wish she +would look at me again.” The next was to answer,— +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have their turn to be true. A +man is occasionally grateful when he says ‘Thank you.’ It’s +rather hard upon him that he must use the same words with which all the world +declines a disagreeable invitation, don’t you think so, Miss +Tulliver?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Maggie, looking at him with her direct glance; “if +we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because +they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or +everyday clothes, hung up in a sacred place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then my compliment ought to be eloquent,” said Stephen, really not +quite knowing what he said while Maggie looked at him, “seeing that the +words were so far beneath the occasion.” +</p> + +<p> +“No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of +indifference,” said Maggie, flushing a little. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy was rather alarmed; she thought Stephen and Maggie were not going to like +each other. She had always feared lest Maggie should appear too old and clever +to please that critical gentleman. “Why, dear Maggie,” she +interposed, “you have always pretended that you are too fond of being +admired; and now, I think, you are angry because some one ventures to admire +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said Maggie; “I like too well to feel that I am +admired, but compliments never make me feel that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will never pay you a compliment again, Miss Tulliver,” said +Stephen. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you; that will be a proof of respect.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Maggie! She was so unused to society that she could take nothing as a +matter of course, and had never in her life spoken from the lips merely, so +that she must necessarily appear absurd to more experienced ladies, from the +excessive feeling she was apt to throw into very trivial incidents. But she was +even conscious herself of a little absurdity in this instance. It was true she +had a theoretic objection to compliments, and had once said impatiently to +Philip that she didn’t see why women were to be told with a simper that +they were beautiful, any more than old men were to be told that they were +venerable; still, to be so irritated by a common practice in the case of a +stranger like Mr Stephen Guest, and to care about his having spoken +slightingly of her before he had seen her, was certainly unreasonable, and as +soon as she was silent she began to be ashamed of herself. It did not occur to +her that her irritation was due to the pleasanter emotion which preceded it, +just as when we are satisfied with a sense of glowing warmth an innocent drop +of cold water may fall upon us as a sudden smart. +</p> + +<p> +Stephen was too well bred not to seem unaware that the previous conversation +could have been felt embarrassing, and at once began to talk of impersonal +matters, asking Lucy if she knew when the bazaar was at length to take place, +so that there might be some hope of seeing her rain the influence of her eyes +on objects more grateful than those worsted flowers that were growing under her +fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“Some day next month, I believe,” said Lucy. “But your +sisters are doing more for it than I am; they are to have the largest +stall.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah yes; but they carry on their manufactures in their own sitting-room, +where I don’t intrude on them. I see you are not addicted to the +fashionable vice of fancy-work, Miss Tulliver,” said Stephen, looking at +Maggie’s plain hemming. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Maggie, “I can do nothing more difficult or more +elegant than shirt-making.” +</p> + +<p> +“And your plain sewing is so beautiful, Maggie,” said Lucy, +“that I think I shall beg a few specimens of you to show as fancy-work. +Your exquisite sewing is quite a mystery to me, you used to dislike that sort +of work so much in old days.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a mystery easily explained, dear,” said Maggie, looking up +quietly. “Plain sewing was the only thing I could get money by, so I was +obliged to try and do it well.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy, good and simple as she was, could not help blushing a little. She did not +quite like that Stephen should know that; Maggie need not have mentioned it. +Perhaps there was some pride in the confession,—the pride of poverty that +will not be ashamed of itself. But if Maggie had been the queen of coquettes +she could hardly have invented a means of giving greater piquancy to her beauty +in Stephen’s eyes; I am not sure that the quiet admission of plain sewing +and poverty would have done alone, but assisted by the beauty, they made Maggie +more unlike other women even than she had seemed at first. +</p> + +<p> +“But I can knit, Lucy,” Maggie went on, “if that will be of +any use for your bazaar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, of infinite use. I shall set you to work with scarlet wool +to-morrow. But your sister is the most enviable person,” continued Lucy, +turning to Stephen, “to have the talent of modelling. She is doing a +wonderful bust of Dr Kenn entirely from memory.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, if she can remember to put the eyes very near together, and the +corners of the mouth very far apart, the likeness can hardly fail to be +striking in St Ogg’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now that is very wicked of you,” said Lucy, looking rather hurt. +“I didn’t think you would speak disrespectfully of Dr Kenn.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say anything disrespectful of Dr Kenn? Heaven forbid! But I am not +bound to respect a libellous bust of him. I think Kenn one of the finest +fellows in the world. I don’t care much about the tall candlesticks he +has put on the communion-table, and I shouldn’t like to spoil my temper +by getting up to early prayers every morning. But he’s the only man I +ever knew personally who seems to me to have anything of the real apostle in +him,—a man who has eight hundred a-year and is contented with deal +furniture and boiled beef because he gives away two-thirds of his income. That +was a very fine thing of him,—taking into his house that poor lad +Grattan, who shot his mother by accident. He sacrifices more time than a less +busy man could spare, to save the poor fellow from getting into a morbid state +of mind about it. He takes the lad out with him constantly, I see.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is beautiful,” said Maggie, who had let her work fall, and +was listening with keen interest. “I never knew any one who did such +things.” +</p> + +<p> +“And one admires that sort of action in Kenn all the more,” said +Stephen, “because his manners in general are rather cold and severe. +There’s nothing sugary and maudlin about him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I think he’s a perfect character!” said Lucy, with +pretty enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +“No; there I can’t agree with you,” said Stephen, shaking his +head with sarcastic gravity. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, what fault can you point out in him?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s an Anglican.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, those are the right views, I think,” said Lucy, gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“That settles the question in the abstract,” said Stephen, +“but not from a parliamentary point of view. He has set the Dissenters +and the Church people by the ears; and a rising senator like myself, of whose +services the country is very much in need, will find it inconvenient when he +puts up for the honour of representing St Ogg’s in Parliament.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you really think of that?” said Lucy, her eyes brightening with +a proud pleasure that made her neglect the argumentative interests of +Anglicanism. +</p> + +<p> +“Decidedly, whenever old Mr Leyburn’s public spirit and gout +induce him to give way. My father’s heart is set on it; and gifts like +mine, you know”—here Stephen drew himself up, and rubbed his large +white hands over his hair with playful self-admiration—“gifts like +mine involve great responsibilities. Don’t you think so, Miss +Tulliver?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Maggie, smiling, but not looking up; “so much +fluency and self-possession should not be wasted entirely on private +occasions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I see how much penetration you have,” said Stephen. “You +have discovered already that I am talkative and impudent. Now superficial +people never discern that, owing to my manner, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“She doesn’t look at me when I talk of myself,” he thought, +while his listeners were laughing. “I must try other subjects.” +</p> + +<p> +Did Lucy intend to be present at the meeting of the Book Club next week? was +the next question. Then followed the recommendation to choose Southey’s +“Life of Cowper,” unless she were inclined to be philosophical, and +startle the ladies of St Ogg’s by voting for one of the Bridgewater +Treatises. Of course Lucy wished to know what these alarmingly learned books +were; and as it is always pleasant to improve the minds of ladies by talking to +them at ease on subjects of which they know nothing, Stephen became quite +brilliant in an account of Buckland’s Treatise, which he had just been +reading. He was rewarded by seeing Maggie let her work fall, and gradually get +so absorbed in his wonderful geological story that she sat looking at him, +leaning forward with crossed arms, and with an entire absence of +self-consciousness, as if he had been the snuffiest of old professors, and she +a downy-lipped alumna. He was so fascinated by the clear, large gaze that at +last he forgot to look away from it occasionally toward Lucy; but she, sweet +child, was only rejoicing that Stephen was proving to Maggie how clever he was, +and that they would certainly be good friends after all. +</p> + +<p> +“I will bring you the book, shall I, Miss Tulliver?” said Stephen, +when he found the stream of his recollections running rather shallow. +“There are many illustrations in it that you will like to see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, thank you,” said Maggie, blushing with returning +self-consciousness at this direct address, and taking up her work again. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” Lucy interposed. “I must forbid your plunging +Maggie in books. I shall never get her away from them; and I want her to have +delicious do-nothing days, filled with boating and chatting and riding and +driving; that is the holiday she needs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Apropos!” said Stephen, looking at his watch. “Shall we go +out for a row on the river now? The tide will suit for us to the Tofton way, +and we can walk back.” +</p> + +<p> +That was a delightful proposition to Maggie, for it was years since she had +been on the river. When she was gone to put on her bonnet, Lucy lingered to +give an order to the servant, and took the opportunity of telling Stephen that +Maggie had no objection to seeing Philip, so that it was a pity she had sent +that note the day before yesterday. But she would write another to-morrow and +invite him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll call and beat him up to-morrow,” said Stephen, +“and bring him with me in the evening, shall I? My sisters will want to +call on you when I tell them your cousin is with you. I must leave the field +clear for them in the morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, pray bring him,” said Lucy. “And you <i>will</i> +like Maggie, sha’n’t you?” she added, in a beseeching tone. +“Isn’t she a dear, noble-looking creature?” +</p> + +<p> +“Too tall,” said Stephen, smiling down upon her, “and a +little too fiery. She is not my type of woman, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Gentlemen, you are aware, are apt to impart these imprudent confidences to +ladies concerning their unfavourable opinion of sister fair ones. That is why +so many women have the advantage of knowing that they are secretly repulsive to +men who have self-denyingly made ardent love to them. And hardly anything could +be more distinctively characteristic of Lucy than that she both implicitly +believed what Stephen said, and was determined that Maggie should not know it. +But you, who have a higher logic than the verbal to guide you, have already +foreseen, as the direct sequence to that unfavourable opinion of +Stephen’s, that he walked down to the boathouse calculating, by the aid +of a vivid imagination, that Maggie must give him her hand at least twice in +consequence of this pleasant boating plan, and that a gentleman who wishes +ladies to look at him is advantageously situated when he is rowing them in a +boat. What then? Had he fallen in love with this surprising daughter of Mrs +Tulliver at first sight? Certainly not. Such passions are never heard of in +real life. Besides, he was in love already, and half-engaged to the dearest +little creature in the world; and he was not a man to make a fool of himself in +any way. But when one is five-and-twenty, one has not chalk-stones at +one’s finger-ends that the touch of a handsome girl should be entirely +indifferent. It was perfectly natural and safe to admire beauty and enjoy +looking at it,—at least under such circumstances as the present. And +there was really something very interesting about this girl, with her poverty +and troubles; it was gratifying to see the friendship between the two cousins. +Generally, Stephen admitted, he was not fond of women who had any peculiarity +of character, but here the peculiarity seemed really of a superior kind, and +provided one is not obliged to marry such women, why, they certainly make a +variety in social intercourse. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie did not fulfil Stephen’s hope by looking at him during the first +quarter of an hour; her eyes were too full of the old banks that she knew so +well. She felt lonely, cut off from Philip,—the only person who had ever +seemed to love her devotedly, as she had always longed to be loved. But +presently the rhythmic movement of the oars attracted her, and she thought she +should like to learn how to row. This roused her from her reverie, and she +asked if she might take an oar. It appeared that she required much teaching, +and she became ambitious. The exercise brought the warm blood into her cheeks, +and made her inclined to take her lesson merrily. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not be satisfied until I can manage both oars, and row you and +Lucy,” she said, looking very bright as she stepped out of the boat. +Maggie, we know, was apt to forget the thing she was doing, and she had chosen +an inopportune moment for her remark; her foot slipped, but happily Mr Stephen +Guest held her hand, and kept her up with a firm grasp. +</p> + +<p> +“You have not hurt yourself at all, I hope?” he said, bending to +look in her face with anxiety. It was very charming to be taken care of in that +kind, graceful manner by some one taller and stronger than one’s self. +Maggie had never felt just in the same way before. +</p> + +<p> +When they reached home again, they found uncle and aunt Pullet seated with Mrs +Tulliver in the drawing-room, and Stephen hurried away, asking leave to come +again in the evening. +</p> + +<p> +“And pray bring with you the volume of Purcell that you took away,” +said Lucy. “I want Maggie to hear your best songs.” +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Pullet, under the certainty that Maggie would be invited to go out with +Lucy, probably to Park House, was much shocked at the shabbiness of her +clothes, which when witnessed by the higher society of St Ogg’s, would +be a discredit to the family, that demanded a strong and prompt remedy; and the +consultation as to what would be most suitable to this end from among the +superfluities of Mrs Pullet’s wardrobe was one that Lucy as well as Mrs +Tulliver entered into with some zeal. Maggie must really have an evening dress +as soon as possible, and she was about the same height as aunt Pullet. +</p> + +<p> +“But she’s so much broader across the shoulders than I am, +it’s very ill-convenient,” said Mrs Pullet, “else she might +wear that beautiful black brocade o’ mine without any alteration; and her +arms are beyond everything,” added Mrs Pullet, sorrowfully, as she +lifted Maggie’s large round arm, “She’d never get my sleeves +on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never mind that, aunt; send us the dress,” said Lucy. “I +don’t mean Maggie to have long sleeves, and I have abundance of black +lace for trimming. Her arms will look beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie’s arms <i>are</i> a pretty shape,” said Mrs +Tulliver. “They’re like mine used to be, only mine was never brown; +I wish she’d had <i>our</i> family skin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, aunty!” said Lucy, patting her aunt Tulliver’s +shoulder, “you don’t understand those things. A painter would think +Maggie’s complexion beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe, my dear,” said Mrs Tulliver, submissively. “You know +better than I do. Only when I was young a brown skin wasn’t thought well +on among respectable folks.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said uncle Pullet, who took intense interest in the +ladies’ conversation as he sucked his lozenges. “Though there was a +song about the ‘Nut-brown Maid’ too; I think she was +crazy,—crazy Kate,—but I can’t justly remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, dear!” said Maggie, laughing, but impatient; “I +think that will be the end of <i>my</i> brown skin, if it is always to be +talked about so much.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap42"></a>Chapter III.<br/> +Confidential Moments</h3> + +<p> +When Maggie went up to her bedroom that night, it appeared that she was not at +all inclined to undress. She set down her candle on the first table that +presented itself, and began to walk up and down her room, which was a large +one, with a firm, regular, and rather rapid step, which showed that the +exercise was the instinctive vent of strong excitement. Her eyes and cheeks had +an almost feverish brilliancy; her head was thrown backward, and her hands were +clasped with the palms outward, and with that tension of the arms which is apt +to accompany mental absorption. +</p> + +<p> +Had anything remarkable happened? +</p> + +<p> +Nothing that you are not likely to consider in the highest degree unimportant. +She had been hearing some fine music sung by a fine bass voice,—but then +it was sung in a provincial, amateur fashion, such as would have left a +critical ear much to desire. And she was conscious of having been looked at a +great deal, in rather a furtive manner, from beneath a pair of well-marked +horizontal eyebrows, with a glance that seemed somehow to have caught the +vibratory influence of the voice. Such things could have had no perceptible +effect on a thoroughly well-educated young lady, with a perfectly balanced +mind, who had had all the advantages of fortune, training, and refined society. +But if Maggie had been that young lady, you would probably have known nothing +about her: her life would have had so few vicissitudes that it could hardly +have been written; for the happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no +history. +</p> + +<p> +In poor Maggie’s highly-strung, hungry nature,—just come away from +a third-rate schoolroom, with all its jarring sounds and petty round of +tasks,—these apparently trivial causes had the effect of rousing and +exalting her imagination in a way that was mysterious to herself. It was not +that she thought distinctly of Mr Stephen Guest, or dwelt on the indications +that he looked at her with admiration; it was rather that she felt the +half-remote presence of a world of love and beauty and delight, made up of +vague, mingled images from all the poetry and romance she had ever read, or had +ever woven in her dreamy reveries. Her mind glanced back once or twice to the +time when she had courted privation, when she had thought all longing, all +impatience was subdued; but that condition seemed irrecoverably gone, and she +recoiled from the remembrance of it. No prayer, no striving now, would bring +back that negative peace; the battle of her life, it seemed, was not to be +decided in that short and easy way,—by perfect renunciation at the very +threshold of her youth. +</p> + +<p> +The music was vibrating in her still,—Purcell’s music, with its +wild passion and fancy,—and she could not stay in the recollection of +that bare, lonely past. She was in her brighter aerial world again, when a +little tap came at the door; of course it was her cousin, who entered in ample +white dressing-gown. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Maggie, you naughty child, haven’t you begun to +undress?” said Lucy, in astonishment. “I promised not to come and +talk to you, because I thought you must be tired. But here you are, looking as +if you were ready to dress for a ball. Come, come, get on your dressing-gown +and unplait your hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, <i>you</i> are not very forward,” retorted Maggie, hastily +reaching her own pink cotton gown, and looking at Lucy’s light-brown hair +brushed back in curly disorder. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I have not much to do. I shall sit down and talk to you till I see +you are really on the way to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +While Maggie stood and unplaited her long black hair over her pink drapery, +Lucy sat down near the toilette-table, watching her with affectionate eyes, and +head a little aside, like a pretty spaniel. If it appears to you at all +incredible that young ladies should be led on to talk confidentially in a +situation of this kind, I will beg you to remember that human life furnishes +many exceptional cases. +</p> + +<p> +“You really <i>have</i> enjoyed the music to-night, haven’t you +Maggie?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, that is what prevented me from feeling sleepy. I think I should +have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to +infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on +without effort, when I am filled with music. At other times one is conscious of +carrying a weight.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Stephen has a splendid voice, hasn’t he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, perhaps we are neither of us judges of that,” said Maggie, +laughing, as she seated herself and tossed her long hair back. “You are +not impartial, and <i>I</i> think any barrel-organ splendid.” +</p> + +<p> +“But tell me what you think of him, now. Tell me exactly; good and bad +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I think you should humiliate him a little. A lover should not be so +much at ease, and so self-confident. He ought to tremble more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, Maggie! As if any one could tremble at me! You think he is +conceited, I see that. But you don’t dislike him, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dislike him! No. Am I in the habit of seeing such charming people, that +I should be very difficult to please? Besides, how could I dislike any one that +promised to make you happy, my dear thing!” Maggie pinched Lucy’s +dimpled chin. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall have more music to-morrow evening,” said Lucy, looking +happy already, “for Stephen will bring Philip Wakem with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lucy, I can’t see him,” said Maggie, turning pale. +“At least, I could not see him without Tom’s leave.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is Tom such a tyrant as that?” said Lucy, surprised. +“I’ll take the responsibility, then,—tell him it was my +fault.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, dear,” said Maggie, falteringly, “I promised Tom very +solemnly, before my father’s death,—I promised him I would not +speak to Philip without his knowledge and consent. And I have a great dread of +opening the subject with Tom,—of getting into a quarrel with him +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I never heard of anything so strange and unreasonable. What harm can +poor Philip have done? May I speak to Tom about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, pray don’t, dear,” said Maggie. “I’ll go +to him myself to-morrow, and tell him that you wish Philip to come. I’ve +thought before of asking him to absolve me from my promise, but I’ve not +had the courage to determine on it.” +</p> + +<p> +They were both silent for some moments, and then Lucy said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie, you have secrets from me, and I have none from you.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie looked meditatively away from Lucy. Then she turned to her and said, +“I <i>should</i> like to tell you about Philip. But, Lucy, you must not +betray that you know it to any one—least of all to Philip himself, or to +Mr Stephen Guest.” +</p> + +<p> +The narrative lasted long, for Maggie had never before known the relief of such +an outpouring; she had never before told Lucy anything of her inmost life; and +the sweet face bent toward her with sympathetic interest, and the little hand +pressing hers, encouraged her to speak on. On two points only she was not +expansive. She did not betray fully what still rankled in her mind as +Tom’s great offence,—the insults he had heaped on Philip. Angry as +the remembrance still made her, she could not bear that any one else should +know it at all, both for Tom’s sake and Philip’s. And she could not +bear to tell Lucy of the last scene between her father and Wakem, though it was +this scene which she had ever since felt to be a new barrier between herself +and Philip. She merely said, she saw now that Tom was, on the whole, right in +regarding any prospect of love and marriage between her and Philip as put out +of the question by the relation of the two families. Of course Philip’s +father would never consent. +</p> + +<p> +“There, Lucy, you have had my story,” said Maggie, smiling, with +the tears in her eyes. “You see I am like Sir Andrew Aguecheek. <i>I</i> +was adored once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, now I see how it is you know Shakespeare and everything, and have +learned so much since you left school; which always seemed to me witchcraft +before,—part of your general uncanniness,” said Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +She mused a little with her eyes downward, and then added, looking at Maggie, +“It is very beautiful that you should love Philip; I never thought such a +happiness would befall him. And in my opinion, you ought not to give him up. +There are obstacles now; but they may be done away with in time.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” persisted Lucy; “I can’t help being hopeful +about it. There is something romantic in it,—out of the common +way,—just what everything that happens to you ought to be. And Philip +will adore you like a husband in a fairy tale. Oh, I shall puzzle my small +brain to contrive some plot that will bring everybody into the right mind, so +that you may marry Philip when I marry—somebody else. Wouldn’t that +be a pretty ending to all my poor, poor Maggie’s troubles?” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie tried to smile, but shivered, as if she felt a sudden chill. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, dear, you are cold,” said Lucy. “You must go to bed; and +so must I. I dare not think what time it is.” +</p> + +<p> +They kissed each other, and Lucy went away, possessed of a confidence which had +a strong influence over her subsequent impressions. Maggie had been thoroughly +sincere; her nature had never found it easy to be otherwise. But confidences +are sometimes blinding, even when they are sincere. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap43"></a>Chapter IV.<br/> +Brother and Sister</h3> + +<p> +Maggie was obliged to go to Tom’s lodgings in the middle of the day, when +he would be coming in to dinner, else she would not have found him at home. He +was not lodging with entire strangers. Our friend Bob Jakin had, with +Mumps’s tacit consent, taken not only a wife about eight months ago, but +also one of those queer old houses, pierced with surprising passages, by the +water-side, where, as he observed, his wife and mother could keep themselves +out of mischief by letting out two “pleasure-boats,” in which he +had invested some of his savings, and by taking in a lodger for the parlour and +spare bedroom. Under these circumstances, what could be better for the +interests of all parties, sanitary considerations apart, than that the lodger +should be Mr Tom? +</p> + +<p> +It was Bob’s wife who opened the door to Maggie. She was a tiny woman, +with the general physiognomy of a Dutch doll, looking, in comparison with +Bob’s mother, who filled up the passage in the rear, very much like one +of those human figures which the artist finds conveniently standing near a +colossal statue to show the proportions. The tiny woman curtsied and looked up +at Maggie with some awe as soon as she had opened the door; but the words, +“Is my brother at home?” which Maggie uttered smilingly, made her +turn round with sudden excitement, and say,— +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, mother, mother—tell Bob!—it’s Miss Maggie! Come +in, Miss, for goodness do,” she went on, opening a side door, and +endeavoring to flatten her person against the wall to make the utmost space for +the visitor. +</p> + +<p> +Sad recollections crowded on Maggie as she entered the small parlour, which was +now all that poor Tom had to call by the name of “home,”—that +name which had once, so many years ago, meant for both of them the same sum of +dear familiar objects. But everything was not strange to her in this new room; +the first thing her eyes dwelt on was the large old Bible, and the sight was +not likely to disperse the old memories. She stood without speaking. +</p> + +<p> +“If you please to take the privilege o’ sitting down, Miss,” +said Mrs Jakin, rubbing her apron over a perfectly clean chair, and then +lifting up the corner of that garment and holding it to her face with an air of +embarrassment, as she looked wonderingly at Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +“Bob is at home, then?” said Maggie, recovering herself, and +smiling at the bashful Dutch doll. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Miss; but I think he must be washing and dressing himself; +I’ll go and see,” said Mrs Jakin, disappearing. +</p> + +<p> +But she presently came back walking with new courage a little way behind her +husband, who showed the brilliancy of his blue eyes and regular white teeth in +the doorway, bowing respectfully. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you do, Bob?” said Maggie, coming forward and putting out +her hand to him; “I always meant to pay your wife a visit, and I shall +come another day on purpose for that, if she will let me. But I was obliged to +come to-day to speak to my brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll be in before long, Miss. He’s doin’ finely, Mr +Tom is; he’ll be one o’ the first men +hereabouts,—you’ll see that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Bob, I’m sure he’ll be indebted to you, whatever he +becomes; he said so himself only the other night, when he was talking of +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, Miss, that’s his way o’ takin’ it. But I think the +more on’t when he says a thing, because his tongue doesn’t +overshoot him as mine does. Lors! I’m no better nor a tilted bottle, I +ar’n’t,—I can’t stop mysen when once I begin. But you +look rarely, Miss; it does me good to see you. What do you say now, +Prissy?”—here Bob turned to his wife,—“Isn’t it +all come true as I said? Though there isn’t many sorts o’ goods as +I can’t over-praise when I set my tongue to’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Bob’s small nose seemed to be following the example of her eyes in +turning up reverentially toward Maggie, but she was able now to smile and +curtsey, and say, “I’d looked forrard like aenything to +seein’ you, Miss, for my husband’s tongue’s been +runnin’ on you, like as if he was light-headed, iver since first he come +a-courtin’ on me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well,” said Bob, looking rather silly. “Go an’ +see after the taters, else Mr Tom ’ull have to wait for +’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope Mumps is friendly with Mrs Jakin, Bob,” said Maggie, +smiling. “I remember you used to say he wouldn’t like your +marrying.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, Miss,” said Bob, “he made up his mind to’t when he +see’d what a little un she was. He pretends not to see her mostly, or +else to think as she isn’t full-growed. But about Mr Tom, Miss,” +said Bob, speaking lower and looking serious, “he’s as close as a +iron biler, he is; but I’m a ’cutish chap, an’ when +I’ve left off carrying my pack, an’ am at a loose end, I’ve +got more brains nor I know what to do wi’, an’ I’m forced to +busy myself wi’ other folks’s insides. An’ it worrets me as +Mr Tom’ll sit by himself so glumpish, a-knittin’ his brow, +an’ a-lookin’ at the fire of a night. He should be a bit livelier +now, a fine young fellow like him. My wife says, when she goes in sometimes, +an’ he takes no notice of her, he sits lookin’ into the fire, and +frownin’ as if he was watchin’ folks at work in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“He thinks so much about business,” said Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” said Bob, speaking lower; “but do you think it’s +nothin’ else, Miss? He’s close, Mr Tom is; but I’m a +’cute chap, I am, an’ I thought tow’rt last Christmas as +I’d found out a soft place in him. It was about a little black +spaniel—a rare bit o’ breed—as he made a fuss to get. But +since then summat’s come over him, as he’s set his teeth +again’ things more nor iver, for all he’s had such good luck. +An’ I wanted to tell <i>you</i>, Miss, ’cause I thought you might +work it out of him a bit, now you’re come. He’s a deal too lonely, +and doesn’t go into company enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I have very little power over him, Bob,” said +Maggie, a good deal moved by Bob’s suggestion. It was a totally new idea +to her mind that Tom could have his love troubles. Poor fellow!—and in +love with Lucy too! But it was perhaps a mere fancy of Bob’s too +officious brain. The present of the dog meant nothing more than cousinship and +gratitude. But Bob had already said, “Here’s Mr Tom,” and +the outer door was opening. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no time to spare, Tom,” said Maggie, as soon as Bob left +the room. “I must tell you at once what I came about, else I shall be +hindering you from taking your dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom stood with his back against the chimney-piece, and Maggie was seated +opposite the light. He noticed that she was tremulous, and he had a +presentiment of the subject she was going to speak about. The presentiment made +his voice colder and harder as he said, “What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +This tone roused a spirit of resistance in Maggie, and she put her request in +quite a different form from the one she had predetermined on. She rose from her +seat, and looking straight at Tom, said,— +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to absolve me from my promise about Philip Wakem. Or rather, +I promised you not to see him without telling you. I am come to tell you that I +wish to see him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Tom, still more coldly. +</p> + +<p> +But Maggie had hardly finished speaking in that chill, defiant manner, before +she repented, and felt the dread of alienation from her brother. +</p> + +<p> +“Not for myself, dear Tom. Don’t be angry. I shouldn’t have +asked it, only that Philip, you know, is a friend of Lucy’s and she +wishes him to come, has invited him to come this evening; and I told her I +couldn’t see him without telling you. I shall only see him in the +presence of other people. There will never be anything secret between us +again.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom looked away from Maggie, knitting his brow more strongly for a little +while. Then he turned to her and said, slowly and emphatically,— +</p> + +<p> +“You know what is my feeling on that subject, Maggie. There is no need +for my repeating anything I said a year ago. While my father was living, I felt +bound to use the utmost power over you, to prevent you from disgracing him as +well as yourself, and all of us. But now I must leave you to your own choice. +You wish to be independent; you told me so after my father’s death. My +opinion is not changed. If you think of Philip Wakem as a lover again, you must +give up me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish it, dear Tom, at least as things are; I see that it +would lead to misery. But I shall soon go away to another situation, and I +should like to be friends with him again while I am here. Lucy wishes +it.” +</p> + +<p> +The severity of Tom’s face relaxed a little. +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t mind your seeing him occasionally at my +uncle’s—I don’t want you to make a fuss on the subject. But I +have no confidence in you, Maggie. You would be led away to do anything.” +</p> + +<p> +That was a cruel word. Maggie’s lip began to tremble. +</p> + +<p> +“Why will you say that, Tom? It is very hard of you. Have I not done and +borne everything as well as I could? And I kept my word to +you—when—when——My life has not been a happy one, any +more than yours.” +</p> + +<p> +She was obliged to be childish; the tears would come. When Maggie was not +angry, she was as dependent on kind or cold words as a daisy on the sunshine or +the cloud; the need of being loved would always subdue her, as, in old days, it +subdued her in the worm-eaten attic. The brother’s goodness came +uppermost at this appeal, but it could only show itself in Tom’s fashion. +He put his hand gently on her arm, and said, in the tone of a kind +pedagogue,— +</p> + +<p> +“Now listen to me, Maggie. I’ll tell you what I mean. You’re +always in extremes; you have no judgment and self-command; and yet you think +you know best, and will not submit to be guided. You know I didn’t wish +you to take a situation. My aunt Pullet was willing to give you a good home, +and you might have lived respectably amongst your relations, until I could have +provided a home for you with my mother. And that is what I should like to do. I +wished my sister to be a lady, and I always have taken care of you, as my +father desired, until you were well married. But your ideas and mine never +accord, and you will not give way. Yet you might have sense enough to see that +a brother, who goes out into the world and mixes with men, necessarily knows +better what is right and respectable for his sister than she can know herself. +You think I am not kind; but my kindness can only be directed by what I believe +to be good for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know, dear Tom,” said Maggie, still half-sobbing, but +trying to control her tears. “I know you would do a great deal for me; I +know how you work, and don’t spare yourself. I am grateful to you. But, +indeed, you can’t quite judge for me; our natures are very different. You +don’t know how differently things affect me from what they do you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I <i>do</i> know; I know it too well. I know how differently you +must feel about all that affects our family, and your own dignity as a young +woman, before you could think of receiving secret addresses from Philip Wakem. +If it was not disgusting to me in every other way, I should object to my +sister’s name being associated for a moment with that of a young man +whose father must hate the very thought of us all, and would spurn you. With +any one but you, I should think it quite certain that what you witnessed just +before my father’s death would secure you from ever thinking again of +Philip Wakem as a lover. But I don’t feel certain of it with you; I never +feel certain about anything with <i>you</i>. At one time you take pleasure in a +sort of perverse self-denial, and at another you have not resolution to resist +a thing that you know to be wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a terrible cutting truth in Tom’s words,—that hard rind +of truth which is discerned by unimaginative, unsympathetic minds. Maggie +always writhed under this judgment of Tom’s; she rebelled and was +humiliated in the same moment; it seemed as if he held a glass before her to +show her her own folly and weakness, as if he were a prophetic voice predicting +her future fallings; and yet, all the while, she judged him in return; she said +inwardly that he was narrow and unjust, that he was below feeling those mental +needs which were often the source of the wrong-doing or absurdity that made her +life a planless riddle to him. +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer directly; her heart was too full, and she sat down, leaning +her arm on the table. It was no use trying to make Tom feel that she was near +to him. He always repelled her. Her feeling under his words was complicated by +the allusion to the last scene between her father and Wakem; and at length that +painful, solemn memory surmounted the immediate grievance. No! She did not +think of such things with frivolous indifference, and Tom must not accuse her +of that. She looked up at him with a grave, earnest gaze and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t make you think better of me, Tom, by anything I can say. +But I am not so shut out from all your feelings as you believe me to be. I see +as well as you do that from our position with regard to Philip’s +father—not on other grounds—it would be unreasonable, it would be +wrong, for us to entertain the idea of marriage; and I have given up thinking +of him as a lover. I am telling you the truth, and you have no right to +disbelieve me; I have kept my word to you, and you have never detected me in a +falsehood. I should not only not encourage, I should carefully avoid, any +intercourse with Philip on any other footing than of quiet friendship. You may +think that I am unable to keep my resolutions; but at least you ought not to +treat me with hard contempt on the ground of faults that I have not committed +yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Maggie,” said Tom, softening under this appeal, “I +don’t want to overstrain matters. I think, all things considered, it will +be best for you to see Philip Wakem, if Lucy wishes him to come to the house. I +believe what you say,—at least you believe it yourself, I know; I can +only warn you. I wish to be as good a brother to you as you will let me.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a little tremor in Tom’s voice as he uttered the last words, +and Maggie’s ready affection came back with as sudden a glow as when they +were children, and bit their cake together as a sacrament of conciliation. She +rose and laid her hand on Tom’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Tom, I know you mean to be good. I know you have had a great deal +to bear, and have done a great deal. I should like to be a comfort to you, not +to vex you. You don’t think I’m altogether naughty, now, do +you?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom smiled at the eager face; his smiles were very pleasant to see when they +did come, for the gray eyes could be tender underneath the frown. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +“I may turn out better than you expect.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you will.” +</p> + +<p> +“And may I come some day and make tea for you, and see this extremely +small wife of Bob’s again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but trot away now, for I’ve no more time to spare,” +said Tom, looking at his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“Not to give me a kiss?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom bent to kiss her cheek, and then said,— +</p> + +<p> +“There! Be a good girl. I’ve got a great deal to think of to-day. +I’m going to have a long consultation with my uncle Deane this +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll come to aunt Glegg’s to-morrow? We’re going all +to dine early, that we may go there to tea. You <i>must</i> come; Lucy told me +to say so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, pooh! I’ve plenty else to do,” said Tom, pulling his +bell violently, and bringing down the small bell-rope. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m frightened; I shall run away,” said Maggie, making a +laughing retreat; while Tom, with masculine philosophy, flung the bell-rope to +the farther end of the room; not very far either,—a touch of human +experience which I flatter myself will come home to the bosoms of not a few +substantial or distinguished men who were once at an early stage of their rise +in the world, and were cherishing very large hopes in very small lodgings. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap44"></a>Chapter V.<br/> +Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster</h3> + +<p> +“And now we’ve settled this Newcastle business, Tom,” said +Mr Deane, that same afternoon, as they were seated in the private room at the +Bank together, “there’s another matter I want to talk to you about. +Since you’re likely to have rather a smoky, unpleasant time of it at +Newcastle for the next few weeks, you’ll want a good prospect of some +sort to keep up your spirits.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom waited less nervously than he had done on a former occasion in this +apartment, while his uncle took out his snuff-box and gratified each nostril +with deliberate impartiality. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, Tom,” said Mr Deane at last, throwing himself backward, +“the world goes on at a smarter pace now than it did when I was a young +fellow. Why, sir, forty years ago, when I was much such a strapping youngster +as you, a man expected to pull between the shafts the best part of his life, +before he got the whip in his hand. The looms went slowish, and fashions +didn’t alter quite so fast; I’d a best suit that lasted me six +years. Everything was on a lower scale, sir,—in point of expenditure, I +mean. It’s this steam, you see, that has made the difference; it drives +on every wheel double pace, and the wheel of fortune along with ’em, as +our Mr Stephen Guest said at the anniversary dinner (he hits these things off +wonderfully, considering he’s seen nothing of business). I don’t +find fault with the change, as some people do. Trade, sir, opens a man’s +eyes; and if the population is to get thicker upon the ground, as it’s +doing, the world must use its wits at inventions of one sort or other. I know +I’ve done my share as an ordinary man of business. Somebody has said +it’s a fine thing to make two ears of corn grow where only one grew +before; but, sir, it’s a fine thing, too, to further the exchange of +commodities, and bring the grains of corn to the mouths that are hungry. And +that’s our line of business; and I consider it as honourable a position +as a man can hold, to be connected with it.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom knew that the affair his uncle had to speak of was not urgent; Mr Deane +was too shrewd and practical a man to allow either his reminiscences or his +snuff to impede the progress of trade. Indeed, for the last month or two, there +had been hints thrown out to Tom which enabled him to guess that he was going +to hear some proposition for his own benefit. With the beginning of the last +speech he had stretched out his legs, thrust his hands in his pockets, and +prepared himself for some introductory diffuseness, tending to show that Mr +Deane had succeeded by his own merit, and that what he had to say to young men +in general was, that if they didn’t succeed too it was because of their +own demerit. He was rather surprised, then, when his uncle put a direct +question to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me see,—it’s going on for seven years now since you +applied to me for a situation, eh, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir; I’m three-and-twenty now,” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, it’s as well not to say that, though; for you’d pass for +a good deal older, and age tells well in business. I remember your coming very +well; I remember I saw there was some pluck in you, and that was what made me +give you encouragement. And I’m happy to say I was right; I’m not +often deceived. I was naturally a little shy at pushing my nephew, but +I’m happy to say you’ve done me credit, sir; and if I’d had a +son o’ my own, I shouldn’t have been sorry to see him like +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Deane tapped his box and opened it again, repeating in a tone of some +feeling, “No, I shouldn’t have been sorry to see him like +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very glad I’ve given you satisfaction, sir; I’ve +done my best,” said Tom, in his proud, independent way. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Tom, you’ve given me satisfaction. I don’t speak of +your conduct as a son; though that weighs with me in my opinion of you. But +what I have to do with, as a partner in our firm, is the qualities you’ve +shown as a man o’ business. Ours is a fine business,—a splendid +concern, sir,—and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t go on +growing; there’s a growing capital, and growing outlets for it; but +there’s another thing that’s wanted for the prosperity of every +concern, large or small, and that’s men to conduct it,—men of the +right habits; none o’ your flashy fellows, but such as are to be depended +on. Now this is what Mr Guest and I see clear enough. Three years ago we took +Gell into the concern; we gave him a share in the oil-mill. And why? Why, +because Gell was a fellow whose services were worth a premium. So it will +always be, sir. So it was with me. And though Gell is pretty near ten years +older than you, there are other points in your favour.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom was getting a little nervous as Mr Deane went on speaking; he was +conscious of something he had in his mind to say, which might not be agreeable +to his uncle, simply because it was a new suggestion rather than an acceptance +of the proposition he foresaw. +</p> + +<p> +“It stands to reason,” Mr Deane went on, when he had finished his +new pinch, “that your being my nephew weighs in your favour; but I +don’t deny that if you’d been no relation of mine at all, your +conduct in that affair of Pelley’s bank would have led Mr Guest and +myself to make some acknowledgment of the service you’ve been to us; and, +backed by your general conduct and business ability, it has made us determine +on giving you a share in the business,—a share which we shall be glad to +increase as the years go on. We think that’ll be better, on all grounds, +than raising your salary. It’ll give you more importance, and prepare you +better for taking some of the anxiety off my shoulders by and by. I’m +equal to a good deal o’ work at present, thank God; but I’m getting +older,—there’s no denying that. I told Mr Guest I would open the +subject to you; and when you come back from this northern business, we can go +into particulars. This is a great stride for a young fellow of +three-and-twenty, but I’m bound to say you’ve deserved it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very grateful to Mr Guest and you, sir; of course I feel the +most indebted to <i>you</i>, who first took me into the business, and have +taken a good deal of pains with me since.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom spoke with a slight tremor, and paused after he had said this. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” said Mr Deane. “I don’t spare pains when I +see they’ll be of any use. I gave myself some trouble with Gell, else he +wouldn’t have been what he is.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s one thing I should like to mention to you uncle. +I’ve never spoken to you of it before. If you remember, at the time my +father’s property was sold, there was some thought of your firm buying +the Mill; I know you thought it would be a very good investment, especially if +steam were applied.” +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure, to be sure. But Wakem outbid us; he’d made up his mind +to that. He’s rather fond of carrying everything over other +people’s heads.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps it’s of no use my mentioning it at present,” Tom +went on, “but I wish you to know what I have in my mind about the Mill. +I’ve a strong feeling about it. It was my father’s dying wish that +I should try and get it back again whenever I could; it was in his family for +five generations. I promised my father; and besides that, I’m attached to +the place. I shall never like any other so well. And if it should ever suit +your views to buy it for the firm, I should have a better chance of fulfilling +my father’s wish. I shouldn’t have liked to mention the thing to +you, only you’ve been kind enough to say my services have been of some +value. And I’d give up a much greater chance in life for the sake of +having the Mill again,—I mean having it in my own hands, and gradually +working off the price.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr Deane had listened attentively, and now looked thoughtful. +</p> + +<p> +“I see, I see,” he said, after a while; “the thing would be +possible if there were any chance of Wakem’s parting with the property. +But that I <i>don’t</i> see. He’s put that young Jetsome in the +place; and he had his reasons when he bought it, I’ll be bound.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a loose fish, that young Jetsome,” said Tom. +“He’s taking to drinking, and they say he’s letting the +business go down. Luke told me about it,—our old miller. He says he +sha’n’t stay unless there’s an alteration. I was thinking, if +things went on that way, Wakem might be more willing to part with the Mill. +Luke says he’s getting very sour about the way things are going +on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll turn it over, Tom. I must inquire into the matter, and +go into it with Mr Guest. But, you see, it’s rather striking out a new +branch, and putting you to that, instead of keeping you where you are, which +was what we’d wanted.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be able to manage more than the Mill when things were once set +properly going, sir. I want to have plenty of work. There’s nothing else +I care about much.” +</p> + +<p> +There was something rather sad in that speech from a young man of +three-and-twenty, even in uncle Deane’s business-loving ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh, pooh! you’ll be having a wife to care about one of these +days, if you get on at this pace in the world. But as to this Mill, we +mustn’t reckon on our chickens too early. However, I promise you to bear +it in mind, and when you come back we’ll talk of it again. I am going to +dinner now. Come and breakfast with us to-morrow morning, and say good-bye to +your mother and sister before you start.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap45"></a>Chapter VI.<br/> +Illustrating the Laws of Attraction</h3> + +<p> +It is evident to you now that Maggie had arrived at a moment in her life which +must be considered by all prudent persons as a great opportunity for a young +woman. Launched into the higher society of St Ogg’s, with a striking +person, which had the advantage of being quite unfamiliar to the majority of +beholders, and with such moderate assistance of costume as you have seen +foreshadowed in Lucy’s anxious colloquy with aunt Pullet, Maggie was +certainly at a new starting-point in life. At Lucy’s first evening party, +young Torry fatigued his facial muscles more than usual in order that +“the dark-eyed girl there in the corner” might see him in all the +additional style conferred by his eyeglass; and several young ladies went home +intending to have short sleeves with black lace, and to plait their hair in a +broad coronet at the back of their head,—“That cousin of Miss +Deane’s looked so very well.” In fact, poor Maggie, with all her +inward consciousness of a painful past and her presentiment of a troublous +future, was on the way to become an object of some envy,—a topic of +discussion in the newly established billiard-room, and between fair friends who +had no secrets from each other on the subject of trimmings. The Miss Guests, +who associated chiefly on terms of condescension with the families of St +Ogg’s, and were the glass of fashion there, took some exception to +Maggie’s manners. She had a way of not assenting at once to the +observations current in good society, and of saying that she didn’t know +whether those observations were true or not, which gave her an air of +<i>gaucherie</i>, and impeded the even flow of conversation; but it is a fact +capable of an amiable interpretation that ladies are not the worst disposed +toward a new acquaintance of their own sex because she has points of +inferiority. And Maggie was so entirely without those pretty airs of coquetry +which have the traditional reputation of driving gentlemen to despair that she +won some feminine pity for being so ineffective in spite of her beauty. She had +not had many advantages, poor thing! and it must be admitted there was no +pretension about her; her abruptness and unevenness of manner were plainly the +result of her secluded and lowly circumstances. It was only a wonder that there +was no tinge of vulgarity about her, considering what the rest of poor +Lucy’s relations were—an allusion which always made the Miss Guests +shudder a little. It was not agreeable to think of any connection by marriage +with such people as the Gleggs and the Pullets; but it was of no use to +contradict Stephen when once he had set his mind on anything, and certainly +there was no possible objection to Lucy in herself,—no one could help +liking her. She would naturally desire that the Miss Guests should behave +kindly to this cousin of whom she was so fond, and Stephen would make a great +fuss if they were deficient in civility. Under these circumstances the +invitations to Park House were not wanting; and elsewhere, also, Miss Deane was +too popular and too distinguished a member of society in St Ogg’s for +any attention toward her to be neglected. +</p> + +<p> +Thus Maggie was introduced for the first time to the young lady’s life, +and knew what it was to get up in the morning without any imperative reason for +doing one thing more than another. This new sense of leisure and unchecked +enjoyment amidst the soft-breathing airs and garden-scents of advancing +spring—amidst the new abundance of music, and lingering strolls in the +sunshine, and the delicious dreaminess of gliding on the river—could +hardly be without some intoxicating effect on her, after her years of +privation; and even in the first week Maggie began to be less haunted by her +sad memories and anticipations. Life was certainly very pleasant just now; it +was becoming very pleasant to dress in the evening, and to feel that she was +one of the beautiful things of this spring-time. And there were admiring eyes +always awaiting her now; she was no longer an unheeded person, liable to be +chid, from whom attention was continually claimed, and on whom no one felt +bound to confer any. It was pleasant, too, when Stephen and Lucy were gone out +riding, to sit down at the piano alone, and find that the old fitness between +her fingers and the keys remained, and revived, like a sympathetic kinship not +to be worn out by separation; to get the tunes she had heard the evening +before, and repeat them again and again until she had found out a way of +producing them so as to make them a more pregnant, passionate language to her. +The mere concord of octaves was a delight to Maggie, and she would often take +up a book of studies rather than any melody, that she might taste more keenly +by abstraction the more primitive sensation of intervals. Not that her +enjoyment of music was of the kind that indicates a great specific talent; it +was rather that her sensibility to the supreme excitement of music was only one +form of that passionate sensibility which belonged to her whole nature, and +made her faults and virtues all merge in each other; made her affections +sometimes an impatient demand, but also prevented her vanity from taking the +form of mere feminine coquetry and device, and gave it the poetry of ambition. +But you have known Maggie a long while, and need to be told, not her +characteristics, but her history, which is a thing hardly to be predicted even +from the completest knowledge of characteristics. For the tragedy of our lives +is not created entirely from within. “Character,” says Novalis, in +one of his questionable aphorisms,—“character is destiny.” +But not the whole of our destiny. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was speculative +and irresolute, and we have a great tragedy in consequence. But if his father +had lived to a good old age, and his uncle had died an early death, we can +conceive Hamlet’s having married Ophelia, and got through life with a +reputation of sanity, notwithstanding many soliloquies, and some moody sarcasms +toward the fair daughter of Polonius, to say nothing of the frankest incivility +to his father-in-law. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s destiny, then, is at present hidden, and we must wait for it to +reveal itself like the course of an unmapped river; we only know that the river +is full and rapid, and that for all rivers there is the same final home. Under +the charm of her new pleasures, Maggie herself was ceasing to think, with her +eager prefiguring imagination, of her future lot; and her anxiety about her +first interview with Philip was losing its predominance; perhaps, unconsciously +to herself, she was not sorry that the interview had been deferred. +</p> + +<p> +For Philip had not come the evening he was expected, and Mr Stephen Guest +brought word that he was gone to the coast,—probably, he thought, on a +sketching expedition; but it was not certain when he would return. It was just +like Philip, to go off in that way without telling any one. It was not until +the twelfth day that he returned, to find both Lucy’s notes awaiting him; +he had left before he knew of Maggie’s arrival. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps one had need be nineteen again to be quite convinced of the feelings +that were crowded for Maggie into those twelve days; of the length to which +they were stretched for her by the novelty of her experience in them, and the +varying attitudes of her mind. The early days of an acquaintance almost always +have this importance for us, and fill up a larger space in our memory than +longer subsequent periods, which have been less filled with discovery and new +impressions. There were not many hours in those ten days in which Mr Stephen +Guest was not seated by Lucy’s side, or standing near her at the piano, +or accompanying her on some outdoor excursion; his attentions were clearly +becoming more assiduous, and that was what every one had expected. Lucy was +very happy, all the happier because Stephen’s society seemed to have +become much more interesting and amusing since Maggie had been there. Playful +discussions—sometimes serious ones—were going forward, in which +both Stephen and Maggie revealed themselves, to the admiration of the gentle, +unobtrusive Lucy; and it more than once crossed her mind what a charming +quartet they should have through life when Maggie married Philip. Is it an +inexplicable thing that a girl should enjoy her lover’s society the more +for the presence of a third person, and be without the slightest spasm of +jealousy that the third person had the conversation habitually directed to her? +Not when that girl is as tranquil-hearted as Lucy, thoroughly possessed with a +belief that she knows the state of her companions’ affections, and not +prone to the feelings which shake such a belief in the absence of positive +evidence against it. Besides, it was Lucy by whom Stephen sat, to whom he gave +his arm, to whom he appealed as the person sure to agree with him; and every +day there was the same tender politeness toward her, the same consciousness of +her wants and care to supply them. Was there really the same? It seemed to Lucy +that there was more; and it was no wonder that the real significance of the +change escaped her. It was a subtle act of conscience in Stephen that even he +himself was not aware of. His personal attentions to Maggie were comparatively +slight, and there had even sprung up an apparent distance between them, that +prevented the renewal of that faint resemblance to gallantry into which he had +fallen the first day in the boat. If Stephen came in when Lucy was out of the +room, if Lucy left them together, they never spoke to each other; Stephen, +perhaps, seemed to be examining books or music, and Maggie bent her head +assiduously over her work. Each was oppressively conscious of the other’s +presence, even to the finger-ends. Yet each looked and longed for the same +thing to happen the next day. Neither of them had begun to reflect on the +matter, or silently to ask, “To what does all this tend?” Maggie +only felt that life was revealing something quite new to her; and she was +absorbed in the direct, immediate experience, without any energy left for +taking account of it and reasoning about it. Stephen wilfully abstained from +self-questioning, and would not admit to himself that he felt an influence +which was to have any determining effect on his conduct. And when Lucy came +into the room again, they were once more unconstrained; Maggie could contradict +Stephen, and laugh at him, and he could recommend to her consideration the +example of that most charming heroine, Miss Sophia Western, who had a great +“respect for the understandings of men.” Maggie could look at +Stephen, which, for some reason or other she always avoided when they were +alone; and he could even ask her to play his accompaniment for him, since +Lucy’s fingers were so busy with that bazaar-work, and lecture her on +hurrying the tempo, which was certainly Maggie’s weak point. +</p> + +<p> +One day—it was the day of Philip’s return—Lucy had formed a +sudden engagement to spend the evening with Mrs Kenn, whose delicate state of +health, threatening to become confirmed illness through an attack of +bronchitis, obliged her to resign her functions at the coming bazaar into the +hands of other ladies, of whom she wished Lucy to be one. The engagement had +been formed in Stephen’s presence, and he had heard Lucy promise to dine +early and call at six o’clock for Miss Torry, who brought Mrs +Kenn’s request. +</p> + +<p> +“Here is another of the moral results of this idiotic bazaar,” +Stephen burst forth, as soon as Miss Torry had left the +room,—“taking young ladies from the duties of the domestic hearth +into scenes of dissipation among urn-rugs and embroidered reticules! I should +like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons +for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go +out. If this goes on much longer, the bonds of society will be +dissolved.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it will not go on much longer,” said Lucy, laughing, +“for the bazaar is to take place on Monday week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank Heaven!” said Stephen. “Kenn himself said the other +day that he didn’t like this plan of making vanity do the work of +charity; but just as the British public is not reasonable enough to bear direct +taxation, so St Ogg’s has not got force of motive enough to build and +endow schools without calling in the force of folly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he say so?” said little Lucy, her hazel eyes opening wide with +anxiety. “I never heard him say anything of that kind; I thought he +approved of what we were doing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure he approves <i>you</i>,” said Stephen, smiling at +her affectionately; “your conduct in going out to-night looks vicious, I +own, but I know there is benevolence at the bottom of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you think too well of me,” said Lucy, shaking her head, with a +pretty blush, and there the subject ended. But it was tacitly understood that +Stephen would not come in the evening; and on the strength of that tacit +understanding he made his morning visit the longer, not saying good-bye until +after four. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was seated in the drawing-room, alone, shortly after dinner, with Minny +on her lap, having left her uncle to his wine and his nap, and her mother to +the compromise between knitting and nodding, which, when there was no company, +she always carried on in the dining-room till tea-time. Maggie was stooping to +caress the tiny silken pet, and comforting him for his mistress’s +absence, when the sound of a footstep on the gravel made her look up, and she +saw Mr Stephen Guest walking up the garden, as if he had come straight from +the river. It was very unusual to see him so soon after dinner! He often +complained that their dinner-hour was late at Park House. Nevertheless, there +he was, in his black dress; he had evidently been home, and must have come +again by the river. Maggie felt her cheeks glowing and her heart beating; it +was natural she should be nervous, for she was not accustomed to receive +visitors alone. He had seen her look up through the open window, and raised his +hat as he walked toward it, to enter that way instead of by the door. He +blushed too, and certainly looked as foolish as a young man of some wit and +self-possession can be expected to look, as he walked in with a roll of music +in his hand, and said, with an air of hesitating improvisation,— +</p> + +<p> +“You are surprised to see me again, Miss Tulliver; I ought to apologise +for coming upon you by surprise, but I wanted to come into the town, and I got +our man to row me; so I thought I would bring these things from the ‘Maid +of Artois’ for your cousin; I forgot them this morning. Will you give +them to her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Maggie, who had risen confusedly with Minny in her +arms, and now, not quite knowing what else to do, sat down again. +</p> + +<p> +Stephen laid down his hat, with the music, which rolled on the floor, and sat +down in the chair close by her. He had never done so before, and both he and +Maggie were quite aware that it was an entirely new position. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you pampered minion!” said Stephen, leaning to pull the long +curly ears that drooped over Maggie’s arm. It was not a suggestive +remark, and as the speaker did not follow it up by further development, it +naturally left the conversation at a standstill. It seemed to Stephen like some +action in a dream that he was obliged to do, and wonder at himself all the +while,—to go on stroking Minny’s head. Yet it was very pleasant; he +only wished he dared look at Maggie, and that she would look at him,—let +him have one long look into those deep, strange eyes of hers, and then he would +be satisfied and quite reasonable after that. He thought it was becoming a sort +of monomania with him, to want that long look from Maggie; and he was racking +his invention continually to find out some means by which he could have it +without its appearing singular and entailing subsequent embarrassment. As for +Maggie, she had no distinct thought, only the sense of a presence like that of +a closely hovering broad-winged bird in the darkness, for she was unable to +look up, and saw nothing but Minny’s black wavy coat. +</p> + +<p> +But this must end some time, perhaps it ended very soon, and only <i>seemed</i> +long, as a minute’s dream does. Stephen at last sat upright sideways in +his chair, leaning one hand and arm over the back and looking at Maggie. What +should he say? +</p> + +<p> +“We shall have a splendid sunset, I think; sha’n’t you go out +and see it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Maggie. Then courageously raising her +eyes and looking out of the window, “if I’m not playing cribbage +with my uncle.” +</p> + +<p> +A pause; during which Minny is stroked again, but has sufficient insight not to +be grateful for it, to growl rather. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like sitting alone?” +</p> + +<p> +A rather arch look came over Maggie’s face, and, just glancing at +Stephen, she said, “Would it be quite civil to say +‘yes’?” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>was</i> rather a dangerous question for an intruder to ask,” +said Stephen, delighted with that glance, and getting determined to stay for +another. “But you will have more than half an hour to yourself after I am +gone,” he added, taking out his watch. “I know Mr Deane never +comes in till half-past seven.” +</p> + +<p> +Another pause, during which Maggie looked steadily out of the window, till by a +great effort she moved her head to look down at Minny’s back again, and +said,— +</p> + +<p> +“I wish Lucy had not been obliged to go out. We lose our music.” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall have a new voice to-morrow night,” said Stephen. +“Will you tell your cousin that our friend Philip Wakem is come back? I +saw him as I went home.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie gave a little start,—it seemed hardly more than a vibration that +passed from head to foot in an instant. But the new images summoned by +Philip’s name dispersed half the oppressive spell she had been under. She +rose from her chair with a sudden resolution, and laying Minny on his cushion, +went to reach Lucy’s large work-basket from its corner. Stephen was vexed +and disappointed; he thought perhaps Maggie didn’t like the name of Wakem +to be mentioned to her in that abrupt way, for he now recalled what Lucy had +told him of the family quarrel. It was of no use to stay any longer. Maggie was +seating herself at the table with her work, and looking chill and proud; and +he—he looked like a simpleton for having come. A gratuitous, entirely +superfluous visit of that sort was sure to make a man disagreeable and +ridiculous. Of course it was palpable to Maggie’s thinking that he had +dined hastily in his own room for the sake of setting off again and finding her +alone. +</p> + +<p> +A boyish state of mind for an accomplished young gentleman of five-and-twenty, +not without legal knowledge! But a reference to history, perhaps, may make it +not incredible. +</p> + +<p> +At this moment Maggie’s ball of knitting-wool rolled along the ground, +and she started up to reach it. Stephen rose too, and picking up the ball, met +her with a vexed, complaining look that gave his eyes quite a new expression to +Maggie, whose own eyes met them as he presented the ball to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye,” said Stephen, in a tone that had the same beseeching +discontent as his eyes. He dared not put out his hand; he thrust both hands +into his tail-pockets as he spoke. Maggie thought she had perhaps been rude. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you stay?” she said timidly, not looking away, for +that would have seemed rude again. +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” said Stephen, looking still into the +half-unwilling, half-fascinated eyes, as a thirsty man looks toward the track +of the distant brook. “The boat is waiting for me. You’ll tell your +cousin?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“That I brought the music, I mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that Philip is come back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” (Maggie did not notice Philip’s name this time.) +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you come out a little way into the garden?” said +Stephen, in a still gentler tone; but the next moment he was vexed that she did +not say “No,” for she moved away now toward the open window, and he +was obliged to take his hat and walk by her side. But he thought of something +to make him amends. +</p> + +<p> +“Do take my arm,” he said, in a low tone, as if it were a secret. +</p> + +<p> +There is something strangely winning to most women in that offer of the firm +arm; the help is not wanted physically at that moment, but the sense of help, +the presence of strength that is outside them and yet theirs, meets a continual +want of the imagination. Either on that ground or some other, Maggie took the +arm. And they walked together round the grassplot and under the drooping green +of the laburnums, in the same dim, dreamy state as they had been in a quarter +of an hour before; only that Stephen had had the look he longed for, without +yet perceiving in himself the symptoms of returning reasonableness, and Maggie +had darting thoughts across the dimness,—how came he to be there? Why had +she come out? Not a word was spoken. If it had been, each would have been less +intensely conscious of the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Take care of this step,” said Stephen at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I will go in now,” said Maggie, feeling that the step had come +like a rescue. “Good-evening.” +</p> + +<p> +In an instant she had withdrawn her arm, and was running back to the house. She +did not reflect that this sudden action would only add to the embarrassing +recollections of the last half-hour. She had no thought left for that. She only +threw herself into the low arm-chair, and burst into tears. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Philip, Philip, I wish we were together again—so +quietly—in the Red Deeps.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen looked after her a moment, then went on to the boat, and was soon +landed at the wharf. He spent the evening in the billiard-room, smoking one +cigar after another, and losing “lives” at pool. But he would not +leave off. He was determined not to think,—not to admit any more distinct +remembrance than was urged upon him by the perpetual presence of Maggie. He was +looking at her, and she was on his arm. +</p> + +<p> +But there came the necessity of walking home in the cool starlight, and with it +the necessity of cursing his own folly, and bitterly determining that he would +never trust himself alone with Maggie again. It was all madness; he was in +love, thoroughly attached to Lucy, and engaged,—engaged as strongly as an +honourable man need be. He wished he had never seen this Maggie Tulliver, to be +thrown into a fever by her in this way; she would make a sweet, strange, +troublesome, adorable wife to some man or other, but he would never have chosen +her himself. Did she feel as he did? He hoped she did—not. He ought not +to have gone. He would master himself in future. He would make himself +disagreeable to her, quarrel with her perhaps. Quarrel with her? Was it +possible to quarrel with a creature who had such eyes,—defying and +deprecating, contradicting and clinging, imperious and beseeching,—full +of delicious opposites? To see such a creature subdued by love for one would be +a lot worth having—to another man. +</p> + +<p> +There was a muttered exclamation which ended this inward soliloquy, as Stephen +threw away the end of his last cigar, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, +stalked along at a quieter pace through the shrubbery. It was not of a +benedictory kind. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap46"></a>Chapter VII.<br/> +Philip Re-enters</h3> + +<p> +The next morning was very wet,—the sort of morning on which male +neighbours who have no imperative occupation at home are likely to pay their +fair friends an illimitable visit. The rain, which has been endurable enough +for the walk or ride one way, is sure to become so heavy, and at the same time +so certain to clear up by and by, that nothing but an open quarrel can +abbreviate the visit; latent detestation will not do at all. And if people +happen to be lovers, what can be so delightful, in England, as a rainy morning? +English sunshine is dubious; bonnets are never quite secure; and if you sit +down on the grass, it may lead to catarrhs. But the rain is to be depended on. +You gallop through it in a mackintosh, and presently find yourself in the seat +you like best,—a little above or a little below the one on which your +goddess sits (it is the same thing to the metaphysical mind, and that is the +reason why women are at once worshipped and looked down upon), with a +satisfactory confidence that there will be no lady-callers. +</p> + +<p> +“Stephen will come earlier this morning, I know,” said Lucy; +“he always does when it’s rainy.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie made no answer. She was angry with Stephen; she began to think she +should dislike him; and if it had not been for the rain, she would have gone to +her aunt Glegg’s this morning, and so have avoided him altogether. As it +was, she must find some reason for remaining out of the room with her mother. +</p> + +<p> +But Stephen did not come earlier, and there was another visitor—a nearer +neighbour—who preceded him. When Philip entered the room, he was going +merely to bow to Maggie, feeling that their acquaintance was a secret which he +was bound not to betray; but when she advanced toward him and put out her hand, +he guessed at once that Lucy had been taken into her confidence. It was a +moment of some agitation to both, though Philip had spent many hours in +preparing for it; but like all persons who have passed through life with little +expectation of sympathy, he seldom lost his self-control, and shrank with the +most sensitive pride from any noticeable betrayal of emotion. A little extra +paleness, a little tension of the nostril when he spoke, and the voice pitched +in rather a higher key, that to strangers would seem expressive of cold +indifference, were all the signs Philip usually gave of an inward drama that +was not without its fierceness. But Maggie, who had little more power of +concealing the impressions made upon her than if she had been constructed of +musical strings, felt her eyes getting larger with tears as they took each +other’s hands in silence. They were not painful tears; they had rather +something of the same origin as the tears women and children shed when they +have found some protection to cling to and look back on the threatened danger. +For Philip, who a little while ago was associated continually in Maggie’s +mind with the sense that Tom might reproach her with some justice, had now, in +this short space, become a sort of outward conscience to her, that she might +fly to for rescue and strength. Her tranquil, tender affection for Philip, with +its root deep down in her childhood, and its memories of long quiet talk +confirming by distinct successive impressions the first instinctive +bias,—the fact that in him the appeal was more strongly to her pity and +womanly devotedness than to her vanity or other egoistic excitability of her +nature,—seemed now to make a sort of sacred place, a sanctuary where she +could find refuge from an alluring influence which the best part of herself +must resist; which must bring horrible tumult within, wretchedness without. +This new sense of her relation to Philip nullified the anxious scruples she +would otherwise have felt, lest she should overstep the limit of intercourse +with him that Tom would sanction; and she put out her hand to him, and felt the +tears in her eyes without any consciousness of an inward check. The scene was +just what Lucy expected, and her kind heart delighted in bringing Philip and +Maggie together again; though, even with all <i>her</i> regard for Philip, she +could not resist the impression that her cousin Tom had some excuse for feeling +shocked at the physical incongruity between the two,—a prosaic person +like cousin Tom, who didn’t like poetry and fairy tales. But she began to +speak as soon as possible, to set them at ease. +</p> + +<p> +“This was very good and virtuous of you,” she said, in her pretty +treble, like the low conversational notes of little birds, “to come so +soon after your arrival. And as it is, I think I will pardon you for running +away in an inopportune manner, and giving your friends no notice. Come and sit +down here,” she went on, placing the chair that would suit him best, +“and you shall find yourself treated mercifully.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will never govern well, Miss Deane,” said Philip, as he seated +himself, “because no one will ever believe in your severity. People will +always encourage themselves in misdemeanours by the certainty that you will be +indulgent.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy gave some playful contradiction, but Philip did not hear what it was, for +he had naturally turned toward Maggie, and she was looking at him with that +open, affectionate scrutiny which we give to a friend from whom we have been +long separated. What a moment their parting had been! And Philip felt as if he +were only in the morrow of it. He felt this so keenly,—with such intense, +detailed remembrance, with such passionate revival of all that had been said +and looked in their last conversation,—that with that jealousy and +distrust which in diffident natures is almost inevitably linked with a strong +feeling, he thought he read in Maggie’s glance and manner the evidence of +a change. The very fact that he feared and half expected it would be sure to +make this thought rush in, in the absence of positive proof to the contrary. +</p> + +<p> +“I am having a great holiday, am I not?” said Maggie. “Lucy +is like a fairy godmother; she has turned me from a drudge into a princess in +no time. I do nothing but indulge myself all day long, and she always finds out +what I want before I know it myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure she is the happier for having you, then,” said Philip. +“You must be better than a whole menagerie of pets to her. And you look +well. You are benefiting by the change.” +</p> + +<p> +Artificial conversation of this sort went on a little while, till Lucy, +determined to put an end to it, exclaimed, with a good imitation of annoyance, +that she had forgotten something, and was quickly out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +In a moment Maggie and Philip leaned forward, and the hands were clasped again, +with a look of sad contentment, like that of friends who meet in the memory of +recent sorrow. +</p> + +<p> +“I told my brother I wished to see you, Philip; I asked him to release me +from my promise, and he consented.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, in her impulsiveness, wanted Philip to know at once the position they +must hold toward each other; but she checked herself. The things that had +happened since he had spoken of his love for her were so painful that she +shrank from being the first to allude to them. It seemed almost like an injury +toward Philip even to mention her brother,—her brother, who had insulted +him. But he was thinking too entirely of her to be sensitive on any other point +at that moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Then we can at least be friends, Maggie? There is nothing to hinder that +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Will not your father object?” said Maggie, withdrawing her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I should not give you up on any ground but your own wish, Maggie,” +said Philip, colouring. “There are points on which I should always resist +my father, as I used to tell you. <i>That</i> is one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then there is nothing to hinder our being friends, Philip,—seeing +each other and talking to each other while I am here; I shall soon go away +again. I mean to go very soon, to a new situation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that inevitable, Maggie?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I must not stay here long. It would unfit me for the life I must +begin again at last. I can’t live in dependence,—I can’t live +with my brother, though he is very good to me. He would like to provide for me; +but that would be intolerable to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip was silent a few moments, and then said, in that high, feeble voice +which with him indicated the resolute suppression of emotion,— +</p> + +<p> +“Is there no other alternative, Maggie? Is that life, away from those who +love you, the only one you will allow yourself to look forward to?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Philip,” she said, looking at him pleadingly, as if she +entreated him to believe that she was compelled to this course. “At +least, as things are; I don’t know what may be in years to come. But I +begin to think there can never come much happiness to me from loving; I have +always had so much pain mingled with it. I wish I could make myself a world +outside it, as men do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you are returning to your old thought in a new form, +Maggie,—the thought I used to combat,” said Philip, with a slight +tinge of bitterness. “You want to find out a mode of renunciation that +will be an escape from pain. I tell you again, there is no such escape possible +except by perverting or mutilating one’s nature. What would become of me, +if I tried to escape from pain? Scorn and cynicism would be my only opium; +unless I could fall into some kind of conceited madness, and fancy myself a +favourite of Heaven because I am not a favourite with men.” +</p> + +<p> +The bitterness had taken on some impetuosity as Philip went on speaking; the +words were evidently an outlet for some immediate feeling of his own, as well +as an answer to Maggie. There was a pain pressing on him at that moment. He +shrank with proud delicacy from the faintest allusion to the words of love, of +plighted love that had passed between them. It would have seemed to him like +reminding Maggie of a promise; it would have had for him something of the +baseness of compulsion. He could not dwell on the fact that he himself had not +changed; for that too would have had the air of an appeal. His love for Maggie +was stamped, even more than the rest of his experience, with the exaggerated +sense that he was an exception,—that she, that every one, saw him in the +light of an exception. +</p> + +<p> +But Maggie was conscience-stricken. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Philip,” she said, with her childish contrition when he used +to chide her, “you are right, I know. I do always think too much of my +own feelings, and not enough of others’,—not enough of yours. I had +need have you always to find fault with me and teach me; so many things have +come true that you used to tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was resting her elbow on the table, leaning her head on her hand and +looking at Philip with half-penitent dependent affection, as she said this; +while he was returning her gaze with an expression that, to her consciousness, +gradually became less vague,—became charged with a specific recollection. +Had his mind flown back to something that <i>she</i> now +remembered,—something about a lover of Lucy’s? It was a thought +that made her shudder; it gave new definiteness to her present position, and to +the tendency of what had happened the evening before. She moved her arm from +the table, urged to change her position by that positive physical oppression at +the heart that sometimes accompanies a sudden mental pang. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter, Maggie? Has something happened?” Philip said, +in inexpressible anxiety, his imagination being only too ready to weave +everything that was fatal to them both. +</p> + +<p> +“No, nothing,” said Maggie, rousing her latent will. Philip must +not have that odious thought in his mind; she would banish it from her own. +“Nothing,” she repeated, “except in my own mind. You used to +say I should feel the effect of my starved life, as you called it; and I do. I +am too eager in my enjoyment of music and all luxuries, now they are come to +me.” +</p> + +<p> +She took up her work and occupied herself resolutely, while Philip watched her, +really in doubt whether she had anything more than this general allusion in her +mind. It was quite in Maggie’s character to be agitated by vague +self-reproach. But soon there came a violent well-known ring at the door-bell +resounding through the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a startling announcement!” said Maggie, quite mistress of +herself, though not without some inward flutter. “I wonder where Lucy +is.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy had not been deaf to the signal, and after an interval long enough for a +few solicitous but not hurried inquiries, she herself ushered Stephen in. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, old fellow,” he said, going straight up to Philip and +shaking him heartily by the hand, bowing to Maggie in passing, +“it’s glorious to have you back again; only I wish you’d +conduct yourself a little less like a sparrow with a residence on the +house-top, and not go in and out constantly without letting the servants know. +This is about the twentieth time I’ve had to scamper up those countless +stairs to that painting-room of yours, all to no purpose, because your people +thought you were at home. Such incidents embitter friendship.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve so few visitors, it seems hardly worth while to leave notice +of my exit and entrances,” said Philip, feeling rather oppressed just +then by Stephen’s bright strong presence and strong voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you quite well this morning, Miss Tulliver?” said Stephen, +turning to Maggie with stiff politeness, and putting out his hand with the air +of fulfilling a social duty. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie gave the tips of her fingers, and said, “Quite well, thank +you,” in a tone of proud indifference. Philip’s eyes were watching +them keenly; but Lucy was used to seeing variations in their manner to each +other, and only thought with regret that there was some natural antipathy which +every now and then surmounted their mutual good-will. “Maggie is not the +sort of woman Stephen admires, and she is irritated by something in him which +she interprets as conceit,” was the silent observation that accounted for +everything to guileless Lucy. Stephen and Maggie had no sooner completed this +studied greeting than each felt hurt by the other’s coldness. And +Stephen, while rattling on in questions to Philip about his recent sketching +expedition, was thinking all the more about Maggie because he was not drawing +her into the conversation as he had invariably done before. “Maggie and +Philip are not looking happy,” thought Lucy; “this first interview +has been saddening to them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think we people who have not been galloping,” she said to +Stephen, “are all a little damped by the rain. Let us have some music. We +ought to take advantage of having Philip and you together. Give us the duet in +‘Masaniello’; Maggie has not heard that, and I know it will suit +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, then,” said Stephen, going toward the piano, and giving a +foretaste of the tune in his deep “brum-brum,” very pleasant to +hear. +</p> + +<p> +“You, please, Philip,—you play the accompaniment,” said Lucy, +“and then I can go on with my work. You <i>will</i> like to play, +sha’n’t you?” she added, with a pretty, inquiring look, +anxious, as usual, lest she should have proposed what was not pleasant to +another; but with yearnings toward her unfinished embroidery. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had brightened at the proposition, for there is no feeling, perhaps, +except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in +music,—that does not make a man sing or play the better; and Philip had +an abundance of pent-up feeling at this moment, as complex as any trio or +quartet that was ever meant to express love and jealousy and resignation and +fierce suspicion, all at the same time. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” he said, seating himself at the piano, “it is a +way of eking out one’s imperfect life and being three people at +once,—to sing and make the piano sing, and hear them both all the +while,—or else to sing and paint.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there you are an enviable fellow. I can do nothing with my +hands,” said Stephen. “That has generally been observed in men of +great administrative capacity, I believe,—a tendency to predominance of +the reflective powers in me! Haven’t you observed that, Miss +Tulliver?” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen had fallen by mistake into his habit of playful appeal to Maggie, and +she could not repress the answering flush and epigram. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>have</i> observed a tendency to predominance,” she said, +smiling; and Philip at that moment devoutly hoped that she found the tendency +disagreeable. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come,” said Lucy; “music, music! We will discuss each +other’s qualities another time.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie always tried in vain to go on with her work when music began. She tried +harder than ever to-day; for the thought that Stephen knew how much she cared +for his singing was one that no longer roused a merely playful resistance; and +she knew, too, that it was his habit always to stand so that he could look at +her. But it was of no use; she soon threw her work down, and all her intentions +were lost in the vague state of emotion produced by the inspiring +duet,—emotion that seemed to make her at once strong and weak; strong for +all enjoyment, weak for all resistance. When the strain passed into the minor, +she half started from her seat with the sudden thrill of that change. Poor +Maggie! She looked very beautiful when her soul was being played on in this way +by the inexorable power of sound. You might have seen the slightest perceptible +quivering through her whole frame as she leaned a little forward, clasping her +hands as if to steady herself; while her eyes dilated and brightened into that +wide-open, childish expression of wondering delight which always came back in +her happiest moments. Lucy, who at other times had always been at the piano +when Maggie was looking in this way, could not resist the impulse to steal up +to her and kiss her. Philip, too, caught a glimpse of her now and then round +the open book on the desk, and felt that he had never before seen her under so +strong an influence. +</p> + +<p> +“More, more!” said Lucy, when the duet had been encored. +“Something spirited again. Maggie always says she likes a great rush of +sound.” +</p> + +<p> +“It must be ‘Let us take the road,’ then,” said +Stephen,—“so suitable for a wet morning. But are you prepared to +abandon the most sacred duties of life, and come and sing with us?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said Lucy, laughing. “If you will look out the +‘Beggar’s Opera’ from the large canterbury. It has a dingy +cover.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is a great clue, considering there are about a score covers here of +rival dinginess,” said Stephen, drawing out the canterbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, play something the while, Philip,” said Lucy, noticing that +his fingers were wandering over the keys. “What is that you are falling +into?—something delicious that I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know that?” said Philip, bringing out the tune +more definitely. “It’s from the +‘Sonnambula’—‘Ah! perchè non posso odiarti.’ I +don’t know the opera, but it appears the tenor is telling the heroine +that he shall always love her though she may forsake him. You’ve heard me +sing it to the English words, ‘I love thee still.’” +</p> + +<p> +It was not quite unintentionally that Philip had wandered into this song, which +might be an indirect expression to Maggie of what he could not prevail on +himself to say to her directly. Her ears had been open to what he was saying, +and when he began to sing, she understood the plaintive passion of the music. +That pleading tenor had no very fine qualities as a voice, but it was not quite +new to her; it had sung to her by snatches, in a subdued way, among the grassy +walks and hollows, and underneath the leaning ash-tree in the Red Deeps. There +seemed to be some reproach in the words; did Philip mean that? She wished she +had assured him more distinctly in their conversation that she desired not to +renew the hope of love between them, <i>only</i> because it clashed with her +inevitable circumstances. She was touched, not thrilled by the song; it +suggested distinct memories and thoughts, and brought quiet regret in the place +of excitement. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the way with you tenors,” said Stephen, who was +waiting with music in his hand while Philip finished the song. “You +demoralise the fair sex by warbling your sentimental love and constancy under +all sorts of vile treatment. Nothing short of having your heads served up in a +dish like that mediæval tenor or troubadour, would prevent you from expressing +your entire resignation. I must administer an antidote, while Miss Deane +prepares to tear herself away from her bobbins.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen rolled out, with saucy energy,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Shall I, wasting in despair,<br/> +Die because a woman’s fair?” +</p> + +<p> +and seemed to make all the air in the room alive with a new influence. Lucy, +always proud of what Stephen did, went toward the piano with laughing, admiring +looks at him; and Maggie, in spite of her resistance to the spirit of the song +and to the singer, was taken hold of and shaken by the invisible +influence,—was borne along by a wave too strong for her. +</p> + +<p> +But, angrily resolved not to betray herself, she seized her work, and went on +making false stitches and pricking her fingers with much perseverance, not +looking up or taking notice of what was going forward, until all the three +voices united in “Let us take the road.” +</p> + +<p> +I am afraid there would have been a subtle, stealing gratification in her mind +if she had known how entirely this saucy, defiant Stephen was occupied with +her; how he was passing rapidly from a determination to treat her with +ostentatious indifference to an irritating desire for some sign of inclination +from her,—some interchange of subdued word or look with her. It was not +long before he found an opportunity, when they had passed to the music of +“The Tempest.” Maggie, feeling the need of a footstool, was walking +across the room to get one, when Stephen, who was not singing just then, and +was conscious of all her movements, guessed her want, and flew to anticipate +her, lifting the footstool with an entreating look at her, which made it +impossible not to return a glance of gratitude. And then, to have the footstool +placed carefully by a too self-confident personage,—not <i>any</i> +self-confident personage, but one in particular, who suddenly looks humble and +anxious, and lingers, bending still, to ask if there is not some draught in +that position between the window and the fireplace, and if he may not be +allowed to move the work-table for her,—these things will summon a little +of the too ready, traitorous tenderness into a woman’s eyes, compelled as +she is in her girlish time to learn her life-lessons in very trivial language. +And to Maggie such things had not been everyday incidents, but were a new +element in her life, and found her keen appetite for homage quite fresh. That +tone of gentle solicitude obliged her to look at the face that was bent toward +her, and to say, “No, thank you”; and nothing could prevent that +mutual glance from being delicious to both, as it had been the evening before. +</p> + +<p> +It was but an ordinary act of politeness in Stephen; it had hardly taken two +minutes; and Lucy, who was singing, scarcely noticed it. But to Philip’s +mind, filled already with a vague anxiety that was likely to find a definite +ground for itself in any trivial incident, this sudden eagerness in Stephen, +and the change in Maggie’s face, which was plainly reflecting a beam from +his, seemed so strong a contrast with the previous overwrought signs of +indifference, as to be charged with painful meaning. Stephen’s voice, +pouring in again, jarred upon his nervous susceptibility as if it had been the +clang of sheet-iron, and he felt inclined to make the piano shriek in utter +discord. He had really seen no communicable ground for suspecting any ususual +feeling between Stephen and Maggie; his own reason told him so, and he wanted +to go home at once that he might reflect coolly on these false images, till he +had convinced himself of their nullity. But then, again, he wanted to stay as +long as Stephen stayed,—always to be present when Stephen was present +with Maggie. It seemed to poor Philip so natural, nay, inevitable, that any man +who was near Maggie should fall in love with her! There was no promise of +happiness for her if she were beguiled into loving Stephen Guest; and this +thought emboldened Philip to view his own love for her in the light of a less +unequal offering. He was beginning to play very falsely under this deafening +inward tumult, and Lucy was looking at him in astonishment, when Mrs +Tulliver’s entrance to summon them to lunch came as an excuse for +abruptly breaking off the music. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Mr Philip!” said Mr Deane, when they entered the +dining-room, “I’ve not seen you for a long while. Your +father’s not at home, I think, is he? I went after him to the office the +other day, and they said he was out of town.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s been to Mudport on business for several days,” said +Philip; “but he’s come back now.” +</p> + +<p> +“As fond of his farming hobby as ever, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe so,” said Philip, rather wondering at this sudden +interest in his father’s pursuits. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Mr Deane, “he’s got some land in his own +hands on this side the river as well as the other, I think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he has.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” continued Mr Deane, as he dispensed the pigeonpie, “he +must find farming a heavy item,—an expensive hobby. I never had a hobby +myself, never would give in to that. And the worst of all hobbies are those +that people think they can get money at. They shoot their money down like corn +out of a sack then.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy felt a little nervous under her father’s apparently gratuitous +criticism of Mr Wakem’s expenditure. But it ceased there, and Mr Deane +became unusually silent and meditative during his luncheon. Lucy, accustomed to +watch all indications in her father, and having reasons, which had recently +become strong, for an extra interest in what referred to the Wakems, felt an +unusual curiosity to know what had prompted her father’s questions. His +subsequent silence made her suspect there had been some special reason for them +in his mind. +</p> + +<p> +With this idea in her head, she resorted to her usual plan when she wanted to +tell or ask her father anything particular: she found a reason for her aunt +Tulliver to leave the dining-room after dinner, and seated herself on a small +stool at her father’s knee. Mr Deane, under those circumstances, +considered that he tasted some of the most agreeable moments his merits had +purchased him in life, notwithstanding that Lucy, disliking to have her hair +powdered with snuff, usually began by mastering his snuff-box on such +occasions. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t want to go to sleep yet, papa, <i>do</i> you?” she +said, as she brought up her stool and opened the large fingers that clutched +the snuff-box. +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet,” said Mr Deane, glancing at the reward of merit in the +decanter. “But what do <i>you</i> want?” he added, pinching the +dimpled chin fondly,—“to coax some more sovereigns out of my pocket +for your bazaar? Eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I have no base motives at all to-day. I only want to talk, not to +beg. I want to know what made you ask Philip Wakem about his father’s +farming to-day, papa? It seemed rather odd, because you never hardly say +anything to him about his father; and why should you care about Mr +Wakem’s losing money by his hobby?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something to do with business,” said Mr Deane, waving his hands, +as if to repel intrusion into that mystery. +</p> + +<p> +“But, papa, you always say Mr Wakem has brought Philip up like a girl; +how came you to think you should get any business knowledge out of him? Those +abrupt questions sounded rather oddly. Philip thought them queer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, child!” said Mr Deane, willing to justify his social +demeanour, with which he had taken some pains in his upward progress. +“There’s a report that Wakem’s mill and farm on the other +side of the river—Dorlcote Mill, your uncle Tulliver’s, you +know—isn’t answering so well as it did. I wanted to see if your +friend Philip would let anything out about his father’s being tired of +farming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? Would you buy the mill, papa, if he would part with it?” said +Lucy, eagerly. “Oh, tell me everything; here, you shall have your +snuff-box if you’ll tell me. Because Maggie says all their hearts are set +on Tom’s getting back the mill some time. It was one of the last things +her father said to Tom, that he must get back the mill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush, you little puss,” said Mr Deane, availing himself of the +restored snuff-box. “You must not say a word about this thing; do you +hear? There’s very little chance of their getting the mill or of +anybody’s getting it out of Wakem’s hands. And if he knew that we +wanted it with a view to the Tulliver’s getting it again, he’d be +the less likely to part with it. It’s natural, after what happened. He +behaved well enough to Tulliver before; but a horsewhipping is not likely to be +paid for with sugar-plums.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, papa,” said Lucy, with a little air of solemnity, “will +you trust me? You must not ask me all my reasons for what I’m going to +say, but I have very strong reasons. And I’m very cautious; I am, +indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, let us hear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I believe, if you will let me take Philip Wakem into our +confidence,—let me tell him all about your wish to buy, and what +it’s for; that my cousins wish to have it, and why they wish to have +it,—I believe Philip would help to bring it about. I know he would desire +to do it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see how that can be, child,” said Mr Deane, looking +puzzled. “Why should <i>he</i> care?”—then, with a sudden +penetrating look at his daughter, “You don’t think the poor +lad’s fond of you, and so you can make him do what you like?” (Mr +Deane felt quite safe about his daughter’s affections.) +</p> + +<p> +“No, papa; he cares very little about me,—not so much as I care +about him. But I have a reason for being quite sure of what I say. Don’t +you ask me. And if you ever guess, don’t tell me. Only give me leave to +do as I think fit about it.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy rose from her stool to seat herself on her father’s knee, and kissed +him with that last request. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure you won’t do mischief, now?” he said, looking +at her with delight. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, papa, quite sure. I’m very wise; I’ve got all your +business talents. Didn’t you admire my accompt-book, now, when I showed +it you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, if this youngster will keep his counsel, there won’t +be much harm done. And to tell the truth, I think there’s not much chance +for us any other way. Now, let me go off to sleep.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap47"></a>Chapter VIII.<br/> +Wakem in a New Light</h3> + +<p> +Before three days had passed after the conversation you have just overheard +between Lucy and her father she had contrived to have a private interview with +Philip during a visit of Maggie’s to her aunt Glegg. For a day and a +night Philip turned over in his mind with restless agitation all that Lucy had +told him in that interview, till he had thoroughly resolved on a course of +action. He thought he saw before him now a possibility of altering his position +with respect to Maggie, and removing at least one obstacle between them. He +laid his plan and calculated all his moves with the fervid deliberation of a +chess-player in the days of his first ardor, and was amazed himself at his +sudden genius as a tactician. His plan was as bold as it was thoroughly +calculated. Having watched for a moment when his father had nothing more urgent +on his hands than the newspaper, he went behind him, laid a hand on his +shoulder, and said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Father, will you come up into my sanctum, and look at my new sketches? +I’ve arranged them now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m getting terrible stiff in the joints, Phil, for climbing those +stairs of yours,” said Wakem, looking kindly at his son as he laid down +his paper. “But come along, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is a nice place for you, isn’t it, Phil?—a capital +light that from the roof, eh?” was, as usual, the first thing he said on +entering the painting-room. He liked to remind himself and his son too that his +fatherly indulgence had provided the accommodation. He had been a good father. +Emily would have nothing to reproach him with there, if she came back again +from her grave. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come,” he said, putting his double eye-glass over his nose, +and seating himself to take a general view while he rested, “you’ve +got a famous show here. Upon my word, I don’t see that your things +aren’t as good as that London artist’s—what’s his +name—that Leyburn gave so much money for.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip shook his head and smiled. He had seated himself on his painting-stool, +and had taken a lead pencil in his hand, with which he was making strong marks +to counteract the sense of tremulousness. He watched his father get up, and +walk slowly round, good-naturedly dwelling on the pictures much longer than his +amount of genuine taste for landscape would have prompted, till he stopped +before a stand on which two pictures were placed,—one much larger than +the other, the smaller one in a leather case. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless me! what have you here?” said Wakem, startled by a sudden +transition from landscape to portrait. “I thought you’d left off +figures. Who are these?” +</p> + +<p> +“They are the same person,” said Philip, with calm promptness, +“at different ages.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what person?” said Wakem, sharply fixing his eyes with a +growing look of suspicion on the larger picture. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Tulliver. The small one is something like what she was when I was +at school with her brother at King’s Lorton; the larger one is not quite +so good a likeness of what she was when I came from abroad.” +</p> + +<p> +Wakem turned round fiercely, with a flushed face, letting his eye-glass fall, +and looking at his son with a savage expression for a moment, as if he was +ready to strike that daring feebleness from the stool. But he threw himself +into the armchair again, and thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets, still +looking angrily at his son, however. Philip did not return the look, but sat +quietly watching the point of his pencil. +</p> + +<p> +“And do you mean to say, then, that you have had any acquaintance with +her since you came from abroad?” said Wakem, at last, with that vain +effort which rage always makes to throw as much punishment as it desires to +inflict into words and tones, since blows are forbidden. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I saw a great deal of her for a whole year before her +father’s death. We met often in that thicket—the Red +Deeps—near Dorlcote Mill. I love her dearly; I shall never love any other +woman. I have thought of her ever since she was a little girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on, sir! And you have corresponded with her all this while?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I never told her I loved her till just before we parted, and she +promised her brother not to see me again or to correspond with me. I am not +sure that she loves me or would consent to marry me. But if she would +consent,—if she <i>did</i> love me well enough,—I should marry +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“And this is the return you make me for all the indulgences I’ve +heaped on you?” said Wakem, getting white, and beginning to tremble under +an enraged sense of impotence before Philip’s calm defiance and +concentration of purpose. +</p> + +<p> +“No, father,” said Philip, looking up at him for the first time; +“I don’t regard it as a return. You have been an indulgent father +to me; but I have always felt that it was because you had an affectionate wish +to give me as much happiness as my unfortunate lot would admit, not that it was +a debt you expected me to pay by sacrificing all my chances of happiness to +satisfy feelings of yours which I can never share.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think most sons would share their father’s feelings in this +case,” said Wakem, bitterly. “The girl’s father was an +ignorant mad brute, who was within an inch of murdering me. The whole town +knows it. And the brother is just as insolent, only in a cooler way. He forbade +her seeing you, you say; he’ll break every bone in your body, for your +greater happiness, if you don’t take care. But you seem to have made up +your mind; you have counted the consequences, I suppose. Of course you are +independent of me; you can marry this girl to-morrow, if you like; you are a +man of five-and-twenty,—you can go your way, and I can go mine. We need +have no more to do with each other.” +</p> + +<p> +Wakem rose and walked toward the door, but something held him back, and instead +of leaving the room, he walked up and down it. Philip was slow to reply, and +when he spoke, his tone had a more incisive quietness and clearness than ever. +</p> + +<p> +“No; I can’t marry Miss Tulliver, even if she would have me, if I +have only my own resources to maintain her with. I have been brought up to no +profession. I can’t offer her poverty as well as deformity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, <i>there</i> is a reason for your clinging to me, doubtless,” +said Wakem, still bitterly, though Philip’s last words had given him a +pang; they had stirred a feeling which had been a habit for a quarter of a +century. He threw himself into the chair again. +</p> + +<p> +“I expected all this,” said Philip. “I know these scenes are +often happening between father and son. If I were like other men of my age, I +might answer your angry words by still angrier; we might part; I should marry +the woman I love, and have a chance of being as happy as the rest. But if it +will be a satisfaction to you to annihilate the very object of everything +you’ve done for me, you have an advantage over most fathers; you can +completely deprive me of the only thing that would make my life worth +having.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip paused, but his father was silent. +</p> + +<p> +“You know best what satisfaction you would have, beyond that of +gratifying a ridiculous rancor worthy only of wandering savages.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ridiculous rancor!” Wakem burst out. “What do you mean? Damn +it! is a man to be horsewhipped by a boor and love him for it? Besides, +there’s that cold, proud devil of a son, who said a word to me I shall +not forget when we had the settling. He would be as pleasant a mark for a +bullet as I know, if he were worth the expense.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mean your resentment toward them,” said Philip, who +had his reasons for some sympathy with this view of Tom, “though a +feeling of revenge is not worth much, that you should care to keep it. I mean +your extending the enmity to a helpless girl, who has too much sense and +goodness to share their narrow prejudices. <i>She</i> has never entered into +the family quarrels.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does that signify? We don’t ask what a woman does; we ask +whom she belongs to. It’s altogether a degrading thing to you, to think +of marrying old Tulliver’s daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +For the first time in the dialogue, Philip lost some of his self-control, and +coloured with anger. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Tulliver,” he said, with bitter incisiveness, “has the +only grounds of rank that anything but vulgar folly can suppose to belong to +the middle class; she is thoroughly refined, and her friends, whatever else +they may be, are respected for irreproachable honour and integrity. All St +Ogg’s, I fancy, would pronounce her to be more than my equal.” +</p> + +<p> +Wakem darted a glance of fierce question at his son; but Philip was not looking +at him, and with a certain penitent consciousness went on, in a few moments, as +if in amplification of his last words,— +</p> + +<p> +“Find a single person in St Ogg’s who will not tell you that a +beautiful creature like her would be throwing herself away on a pitiable object +like me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not she!” said Wakem, rising again, and forgetting everything else +in a burst of resentful pride, half fatherly, half personal. “It would be +a deuced fine match for her. It’s all stuff about an accidental +deformity, when a girl’s really attached to a man.” +</p> + +<p> +“But girls are not apt to get attached under those circumstances,” +said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” said Wakem, rather brutally, trying to recover his +previous position, “if she doesn’t care for you, you might have +spared yourself the trouble of talking to me about her, and you might have +spared me the trouble of refusing my consent to what was never likely to +happen.” +</p> + +<p> +Wakem strode to the door, and without looking round again, banged it after him. +</p> + +<p> +Philip was not without confidence that his father would be ultimately wrought +upon as he had expected, by what had passed; but the scene had jarred upon his +nerves, which were as sensitive as a woman’s. He determined not to go +down to dinner; he couldn’t meet his father again that day. It was +Wakem’s habit, when he had no company at home, to go out in the evening, +often as early as half-past seven; and as it was far on in the afternoon now, +Philip locked up his room and went out for a long ramble, thinking he would not +return until his father was out of the house again. He got into a boat, and +went down the river to a favourite village, where he dined, and lingered till +it was late enough for him to return. He had never had any sort of quarrel with +his father before, and had a sickening fear that this contest, just begun, +might go on for weeks; and what might not happen in that time? He would not +allow himself to define what that involuntary question meant. But if he could +once be in the position of Maggie’s accepted, acknowledged lover, there +would be less room for vague dread. He went up to his painting-room again, and +threw himself with a sense of fatigue into the armchair, looking round absently +at the views of water and rock that were ranged around, till he fell into a +doze, in which he fancied Maggie was slipping down a glistening, green, slimy +channel of a waterfall, and he was looking on helpless, till he was awakened by +what seemed a sudden, awful crash. +</p> + +<p> +It was the opening of the door, and he could hardly have dozed more than a few +moments, for there was no perceptible change in the evening light. It was his +father who entered; and when Philip moved to vacate the chair for him, he +said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Sit still. I’d rather walk about.” +</p> + +<p> +He stalked up and down the room once or twice, and then, standing opposite +Philip with his hands thrust in his side pockets, he said, as if continuing a +conversation that had not been broken off,— +</p> + +<p> +“But this girl seems to have been fond of you, Phil, else she +wouldn’t have met you in that way.” +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s heart was beating rapidly, and a transient flush passed over his +face like a gleam. It was not quite easy to speak at once. +</p> + +<p> +“She liked me at King’s Lorton, when she was a little girl, because +I used to sit with her brother a great deal when he had hurt his foot. She had +kept that in her memory, and thought of me as a friend of a long while ago. She +didn’t think of me as a lover when she met me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but you made love to her at last. What did she say then?” +said Wakem, walking about again. +</p> + +<p> +“She said she <i>did</i> love me then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Confound it, then; what else do you want? Is she a jilt?” +</p> + +<p> +“She was very young then,” said Philip, hesitatingly. +“I’m afraid she hardly knew what she felt. I’m afraid our +long separation, and the idea that events must always divide us, may have made +a difference.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she’s in the town. I’ve seen her at church. +Haven’t you spoken to her since you came back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, at Mr Deane’s. But I couldn’t renew my proposals to +her on several grounds. One obstacle would be removed if you would give your +consent,—if you would be willing to think of her as a +daughter-in-law.” +</p> + +<p> +Wakem was silent a little while, pausing before Maggie’s picture. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s not the sort of woman your mother was, though, Phil,” +he said, at last. “I saw her at church,—she’s handsomer than +this,—deuced fine eyes and fine figure, I saw; but rather dangerous and +unmanageable, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s very tender and affectionate, and so simple,—without +the airs and petty contrivances other women have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah?” said Wakem. Then looking round at his son, “But your +mother looked gentler; she had that brown wavy hair and gray eyes, like yours. +You can’t remember her very well. It was a thousand pities I’d no +likeness of her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, shouldn’t you be glad for me to have the same sort of +happiness, father, to sweeten my life for me? There can never be another tie so +strong to you as that which began eight-and-twenty years ago, when you married +my mother, and you have been tightening it ever since.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Phil, you’re the only fellow that knows the best of me,” +said Wakem, giving his hand to his son. “We must keep together if we can. +And now, what am I to do? You must come downstairs and tell me. Am I to go and +call on this dark-eyed damsel?” +</p> + +<p> +The barrier once thrown down in this way, Philip could talk freely to his +father of their entire relation with the Tullivers,—of the desire to get +the mill and land back into the family, and of its transfer to Guest & Co. +as an intermediate step. He could venture now to be persuasive and urgent, and +his father yielded with more readiness than he had calculated on. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> don’t care about the mill,” he said at last, with a +sort of angry compliance. “I’ve had an infernal deal of bother +lately about the mill. Let them pay me for my improvements, that’s all. +But there’s one thing you needn’t ask me. I shall have no direct +transactions with young Tulliver. If you like to swallow him for his +sister’s sake, you may; but I’ve no sauce that will make him go +down.” +</p> + +<p> +I leave you to imagine the agreeable feelings with which Philip went to Mr +Deane the next day, to say that Mr Wakem was ready to open the negotiations, +and Lucy’s pretty triumph as she appealed to her father whether she had +not proved her great business abilities. Mr Deane was rather puzzled, and +suspected that there had been something “going on” among the young +people to which he wanted a clew. But to men of Mr Deane’s stamp, what +goes on among the young people is as extraneous to the real business of life as +what goes on among the birds and butterflies, until it can be shown to have a +malign bearing on monetary affairs. And in this case the bearing appeared to be +entirely propitious. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap48"></a>Chapter IX.<br/> +Charity in Full-Dress</h3> + +<p> +The culmination of Maggie’s career as an admired member of society in St +Ogg’s was certainly the day of the bazaar, when her simple noble beauty, +clad in a white muslin of some soft-floating kind, which I suspect must have +come from the stores of aunt Pullet’s wardrobe, appeared with marked +distinction among the more adorned and conventional women around her. We +perhaps never detect how much of our social demeanour is made up of artificial +airs until we see a person who is at once beautiful and simple; without the +beauty, we are apt to call simplicity awkwardness. The Miss Guests were much +too well-bred to have any of the grimaces and affected tones that belong to +pretentious vulgarity; but their stall being next to the one where Maggie sat, +it seemed newly obvious to-day that Miss Guest held her chin too high, and that +Miss Laura spoke and moved continually with a view to effect. +</p> + +<p> +All well-dressed St Ogg’s and its neighbourhood were there; and it would +have been worth while to come even from a distance, to see the fine old hall, +with its open roof and carved oaken rafters, and great oaken folding-doors, and +light shed down from a height on the many-coloured show beneath; a very quaint +place, with broad faded stripes painted on the walls, and here and there a show +of heraldic animals of a bristly, long-snouted character, the cherished emblems +of a noble family once the seigniors of this now civic hall. A grand arch, cut +in the upper wall at one end, surmounted an oaken orchestra, with an open room +behind it, where hothouse plants and stalls for refreshments were disposed; an +agreeable resort for gentlemen disposed to loiter, and yet to exchange the +occasional crush down below for a more commodious point of view. In fact, the +perfect fitness of this ancient building for an admirable modern purpose, that +made charity truly elegant, and led through vanity up to the supply of a +deficit, was so striking that hardly a person entered the room without +exchanging the remark more than once. Near the great arch over the orchestra +was the stone oriel with painted glass, which was one of the venerable +inconsistencies of the old hall; and it was close by this that Lucy had her +stall, for the convenience of certain large plain articles which she had taken +charge of for Mrs Kenn. Maggie had begged to sit at the open end of the stall, +and to have the sale of these articles rather than of bead-mats and other +elaborate products of which she had but a dim understanding. But it soon +appeared that the gentlemen’s dressing-gowns, which were among her +commodities, were objects of such general attention and inquiry, and excited so +troublesome a curiosity as to their lining and comparative merits, together +with a determination to test them by trying on, as to make her post a very +conspicuous one. The ladies who had commodities of their own to sell, and did +not want dressing-gowns, saw at once the frivolity and bad taste of this +masculine preference for goods which any tailor could furnish; and it is +possible that the emphatic notice of various kinds which was drawn toward Miss +Tulliver on this public occasion, threw a very strong and unmistakable light on +her subsequent conduct in many minds then present. Not that anger, on account +of spurned beauty can dwell in the celestial breasts of charitable ladies, but +rather that the errors of persons who have once been much admired necessarily +take a deeper tinge from the mere force of contrast; and also, that to-day +Maggie’s conspicuous position, for the first time, made evident certain +characteristics which were subsequently felt to have an explanatory bearing. +There was something rather bold in Miss Tulliver’s direct gaze, and +something undefinably coarse in the style of her beauty, which placed her, in +the opinion of all feminine judges, far below her cousin Miss Deane; for the +ladies of St Ogg’s had now completely ceded to Lucy their hypothetic +claims on the admiration of Mr Stephen Guest. +</p> + +<p> +As for dear little Lucy herself, her late benevolent triumph about the Mill, +and all the affectionate projects she was cherishing for Maggie and Philip, +helped to give her the highest spirits to-day, and she felt nothing but +pleasure in the evidence of Maggie’s attractiveness. It is true, she was +looking very charming herself, and Stephen was paying her the utmost attention +on this public occasion; jealously buying up the articles he had seen under her +fingers in the process of making, and gayly helping her to cajole the male +customers into the purchase of the most effeminate futilities. He chose to lay +aside his hat and wear a scarlet fez of her embroidering; but by superficial +observers this was necessarily liable to be interpreted less as a compliment to +Lucy than as a mark of coxcombry. “Guest is a great coxcomb,” young +Torry observed; “but then he is a privileged person in St +Ogg’s—he carries all before him; if another fellow did such things, +everybody would say he made a fool of himself.” +</p> + +<p> +And Stephen purchased absolutely nothing from Maggie, until Lucy said, in +rather a vexed undertone,— +</p> + +<p> +“See, now; all the things of Maggie’s knitting will be gone, and +you will not have bought one. There are those deliciously soft warm things for +the wrists,—do buy them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no,” said Stephen, “they must be intended for imaginative +persons, who can chill themselves on this warm day by thinking of the frosty +Caucasus. Stern reason is my forte, you know. You must get Philip to buy those. +By the way, why doesn’t he come?” +</p> + +<p> +“He never likes going where there are many people, though I enjoined him +to come. He said he would buy up any of my goods that the rest of the world +rejected. But now, do go and buy something of Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; see, she has got a customer; there is old Wakem himself just +coming up.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy’s eyes turned with anxious interest toward Maggie to see how she +went through this first interview, since a sadly memorable time, with a man +toward whom she must have so strange a mixture of feelings; but she was pleased +to notice that Wakem had tact enough to enter at once into talk about the +bazaar wares, and appear interested in purchasing, smiling now and then kindly +at Maggie, and not calling on her to speak much, as if he observed that she was +rather pale and tremulous. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Wakem is making himself particularly amiable to your cousin,” +said Stephen, in an undertone to Lucy; “is it pure magnanimity? You +talked of a family quarrel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that will soon be quite healed, I hope,” said Lucy, becoming a +little indiscreet in her satisfaction, and speaking with an air of +significance. But Stephen did not appear to notice this, and as some +lady-purchasers came up, he lounged on toward Maggie’s end, handling +trifles and standing aloof until Wakem, who had taken out his purse, had +finished his transactions. +</p> + +<p> +“My son came with me,” he overheard Wakem saying, “but he has +vanished into some other part of the building, and has left all these +charitable gallantries to me. I hope you’ll reproach him for his shabby +conduct.” +</p> + +<p> +She returned his smile and bow without speaking, and he turned away, only then +observing Stephen and nodding to him. Maggie, conscious that Stephen was still +there, busied herself with counting money, and avoided looking up. She had been +well pleased that he had devoted himself to Lucy to-day, and had not come near +her. They had begun the morning with an indifferent salutation, and both had +rejoiced in being aloof from each other, like a patient who has actually done +without his opium, in spite of former failures in resolution. And during the +last few days they had even been making up their minds to failures, looking to +the outward events that must soon come to separate them, as a reason for +dispensing with self-conquest in detail. +</p> + +<p> +Stephen moved step by step as if he were being unwillingly dragged, until he +had got round the open end of the stall, and was half hidden by a screen of +draperies. Maggie went on counting her money till she suddenly heard a deep +gentle voice saying, “Aren’t you very tired? Do let me bring you +something,—some fruit or jelly, mayn’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +The unexpected tones shook her like a sudden accidental vibration of a harp +close by her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, thank you,” she said faintly, and only half looking up for +an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“You look so pale,” Stephen insisted, in a more entreating tone. +“I’m sure you’re exhausted. I must disobey you, and bring +something.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed, I couldn’t take it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you angry with me? What have I done? <i>Do</i> look at me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray, go away,” said Maggie, looking at him helplessly, her eyes +glancing immediately from him to the opposite corner of the orchestra, which +was half hidden by the folds of the old faded green curtain. Maggie had no +sooner uttered this entreaty than she was wretched at the admission it implied; +but Stephen turned away at once, and following her upward glance, he saw Philip +Wakem sealed in the half-hidden corner, so that he could command little more +than that angle of the hall in which Maggie sat. An entirely new thought +occurred to Stephen, and linking itself with what he had observed of +Wakem’s manner, and with Lucy’s reply to his observation, it +convinced him that there had been some former relation between Philip and +Maggie beyond that childish one of which he had heard. More than one impulse +made him immediately leave the hall and go upstairs to the refreshment-room, +where, walking up to Philip, he sat down behind him, and put his hand on his +shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you studying for a portrait, Phil,” he said, “or for a +sketch of that oriel window? By George, it makes a capital bit from this dark +corner, with the curtain just marking it off.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been studying expression,” said Philip, curtly. +</p> + +<p> +“What! Miss Tulliver’s? It’s rather of the savage-moody order +to-day, I think,—something of the fallen princess serving behind a +counter. Her cousin sent me to her with a civil offer to get her some +refreshment, but I have been snubbed, as usual. There’s natural antipathy +between us, I suppose; I have seldom the honour to please her.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a hypocrite you are!” said Philip, flushing angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“What! because experience must have told me that I’m universally +pleasing? I admit the law, but there’s some disturbing force here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am going,” said Philip, rising abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“So am I—to get a breath of fresh air; this place gets oppressive. +I think I have done suit and service long enough.” +</p> + +<p> +The two friends walked downstairs together without speaking. Philip turned +through the outer door into the court-yard; but Stephen, saying, “Oh, by +the by, I must call in here,” went on along the passage to one of the +rooms at the other end of the building, which were appropriated to the town +library. He had the room all to himself, and a man requires nothing less than +this when he wants to dash his cap on the table, throw himself astride a chair, +and stare at a high brick wall with a frown which would not have been beneath +the occasion if he had been slaying “the giant Python.” The conduct +that issues from a moral conflict has often so close a resemblance to vice that +the distinction escapes all outward judgments founded on a mere comparison of +actions. It is clear to you, I hope, that Stephen was not a +hypocrite,—capable of deliberate doubleness for a selfish end; and yet +his fluctuations between the indulgence of a feeling and the systematic +concealment of it might have made a good case in support of Philip’s +accusation. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Maggie sat at her stall cold and trembling, with that painful +sensation in the eyes which comes from resolutely repressed tears. Was her life +to be always like this,—always bringing some new source of inward strife? +She heard confusedly the busy, indifferent voices around her, and wished her +mind could flow into that easy babbling current. It was at this moment that Dr +Kenn, who had quite lately come into the hall, and was now walking down the +middle with his hands behind him, taking a general view, fixed his eyes on +Maggie for the first time, and was struck with the expression of pain on her +beautiful face. She was sitting quite still, for the stream of customers had +lessened at this late hour in the afternoon; the gentlemen had chiefly chosen +the middle of the day, and Maggie’s stall was looking rather bare. This, +with her absent, pained expression, finished the contrast between her and her +companions, who were all bright, eager, and busy. He was strongly arrested. Her +face had naturally drawn his attention as a new and striking one at church, and +he had been introduced to her during a short call on business at Mr +Deane’s, but he had never spoken more than three words to her. He walked +toward her now, and Maggie, perceiving some one approaching, roused herself to +look up and be prepared to speak. She felt a childlike, instinctive relief from +the sense of uneasiness in this exertion, when she saw it was Dr Kenn’s +face that was looking at her; that plain, middle-aged face, with a grave, +penetrating kindness in it, seeming to tell of a human being who had reached a +firm, safe strand, but was looking with helpful pity toward the strugglers +still tossed by the waves, had an effect on Maggie at this moment which was +afterward remembered by her as if it had been a promise. The middle-aged, who +have lived through their strongest emotions, but are yet in the time when +memory is still half passionate and not merely contemplative, should surely be +a sort of natural priesthood, whom life has disciplined and consecrated to be +the refuge and rescue of early stumblers and victims of self-despair. Most of +us, at some moment in our young lives, would have welcomed a priest of that +natural order in any sort of canonicals or uncanonicals, but had to scramble +upward into all the difficulties of nineteen entirely without such aid, as +Maggie did. +</p> + +<p> +“You find your office rather a fatiguing one, I fear, Miss +Tulliver,” said Dr Kenn. +</p> + +<p> +“It is, rather,” said Maggie, simply, not being accustomed to +simpler amiable denials of obvious facts. +</p> + +<p> +“But I can tell Mrs Kenn that you have disposed of her goods very +quickly,” he added; “she will be very much obliged to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I have done nothing; the gentlemen came very fast to buy the +dressing-gowns and embroidered waistcoats, but I think any of the other ladies +would have sold more; I didn’t know what to say about them.” +</p> + +<p> +Dr Kenn smiled. “I hope I’m going to have you as a permanent +parishioner now, Miss Tulliver; am I? You have been at a distance from us +hitherto.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been a teacher in a school, and I’m going into another +situation of the same kind very soon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah? I was hoping you would remain among your friends, who are all in +this neighbourhood, I believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>I must go</i>,” said Maggie, earnestly, looking at Dr Kenn +with an expression of reliance, as if she had told him her history in those +three words. It was one of those moments of implicit revelation which will +sometimes happen even between people who meet quite transiently,—on a +mile’s journey, perhaps, or when resting by the wayside. There is always +this possibility of a word or look from a stranger to keep alive the sense of +human brotherhood. +</p> + +<p> +Dr Kenn’s ear and eye took in all the signs that this brief confidence +of Maggie’s was charged with meaning. +</p> + +<p> +“I understand,” he said; “you feel it right to go. But that +will not prevent our meeting again, I hope; it will not prevent my knowing you +better, if I can be of any service to you.” +</p> + +<p> +He put out his hand and pressed hers kindly before he turned away. +</p> + +<p> +“She has some trouble or other at heart,” he thought. “Poor +child! she looks as if she might turn out to be one of +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘The souls by nature pitched too high,<br/> +By suffering plunged too low.’ +</p> + +<p> +“There’s something wonderfully honest in those beautiful +eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +It may be surprising that Maggie, among whose many imperfections an excessive +delight in admiration and acknowledged supremacy were not absent now, any more +than when she was instructing the gypsies with a view toward achieving a royal +position among them, was not more elated on a day when she had had the tribute +of so many looks and smiles, together with that satisfactory consciousness +which had necessarily come from being taken before Lucy’s chevalglass, +and made to look at the full length of her tall beauty, crowned by the night of +her massy hair. Maggie had smiled at herself then, and for the moment had +forgotten everything in the sense of her own beauty. If that state of mind +could have lasted, her choice would have been to have Stephen Guest at her +feet, offering her a life filled with all luxuries, with daily incense of +adoration near and distant, and with all possibilities of culture at her +command. But there were things in her stronger than vanity,—passion and +affection, and long, deep memories of early discipline and effort, of early +claims on her love and pity; and the stream of vanity was soon swept along and +mingled imperceptibly with that wider current which was at its highest force +today, under the double urgency of the events and inward impulses brought by +the last week. +</p> + +<p> +Philip had not spoken to her himself about the removal of obstacles between +them on his father’s side,—he shrank from that; but he had told +everything to Lucy, with the hope that Maggie, being informed through her, +might give him some encouraging sign that their being brought thus much nearer +to each other was a happiness to her. The rush of conflicting feelings was too +great for Maggie to say much when Lucy, with a face breathing playful joy, like +one of Correggio’s cherubs, poured forth her triumphant revelation; and +Lucy could hardly be surprised that she could do little more than cry with +gladness at the thought of her father’s wish being fulfilled, and of +Tom’s getting the Mill again in reward for all his hard striving. The +details of preparation for the bazaar had then come to usurp Lucy’s +attention for the next few days, and nothing had been said by the cousins on +subjects that were likely to rouse deeper feelings. Philip had been to the +house more than once, but Maggie had had no private conversation with him, and +thus she had been left to fight her inward battle without interference. +</p> + +<p> +But when the bazaar was fairly ended, and the cousins were alone again, resting +together at home, Lucy said,— +</p> + +<p> +“You must give up going to stay with your aunt Moss the day after +to-morrow, Maggie; write a note to her, and tell her you have put it off at my +request, and I’ll send the man with it. She won’t be displeased; +you’ll have plenty of time to go by-and-by; and I don’t want you to +go out of the way just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, indeed I must go, dear; I can’t put it off. I wouldn’t +leave aunt Gritty out for the world. And I shall have very little time, for +I’m going away to a new situation on the 25th of June.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie!” said Lucy, almost white with astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t tell you, dear,” said Maggie, making a great effort +to command herself, “because you’ve been so busy. But some time ago +I wrote to our old governess, Miss Firniss, to ask her to let me know if she +met with any situation that I could fill, and the other day I had a letter from +her telling me that I could take three orphan pupils of hers to the coast +during the holidays, and then make trial of a situation with her as teacher. I +wrote yesterday to accept the offer.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy felt so hurt that for some moments she was unable to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” she said at last, “how could you be so unkind to +me—not to tell me—to take <i>such</i> a step—and now!” +She hesitated a little, and then added, “And Philip? I thought everything +was going to be so happy. Oh, Maggie, what is the reason? Give it up; let me +write. There is nothing now to keep you and Philip apart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Maggie, faintly. “There is Tom’s feeling. +He said I must give him up if I married Philip. And I know he will not +change—at least not for a long while—unless something happened to +soften him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I will talk to him; he’s coming back this week. And this good +news about the Mill will soften him. And I’ll talk to him about Philip. +Tom’s always very compliant to me; I don’t think he’s so +obstinate.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I must go,” said Maggie, in a distressed voice. “I must +leave some time to pack. Don’t press me to stay, dear Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy was silent for two or three minutes, looking away and ruminating. At +length she knelt down by her cousin, and looking up in her face with anxious +seriousness, said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie, is it that you don’t love Philip well enough to marry him? +Tell me—trust me.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie held Lucy’s hands tightly in silence a little while. Her own hands +were quite cold. But when she spoke, her voice was quite clear and distinct. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Lucy, I would choose to marry him. I think it would be the best and +highest lot for me,—to make his life happy. He loved me first. No one +else could be quite what he is to me. But I can’t divide myself from my +brother for life. I must go away, and wait. Pray don’t speak to me again +about it.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy obeyed in pain and wonder. The next word she said was,— +</p> + +<p> +“Well, dear Maggie, at least you will go to the dance at Park House +to-morrow, and have some music and brightness, before you go to pay these dull +dutiful visits. Ah! here come aunty and the tea.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap49"></a>Chapter X.<br/> +The Spell Seems Broken</h3> + +<p> +The suite of rooms opening into each other at Park House looked duly brilliant +with lights and flowers and the personal splendors of sixteen couples, with +attendant parents and guardians. The focus of brilliancy was the long +drawing-room, where the dancing went forward, under the inspiration of the +grand piano; the library, into which it opened at one end, had the more sober +illumination of maturity, with caps and cards; and at the other end the pretty +sitting-room, with a conservatory attached, was left as an occasional cool +retreat. Lucy, who had laid aside her black for the first time, and had her +pretty slimness set off by an abundant dress of white crape, was the +acknowledged queen of the occasion; for this was one of the Miss Guests’ +thoroughly condescending parties, including no member of any aristocracy higher +than that of St Ogg’s, and stretching to the extreme limits of +commercial and professional gentility. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie at first refused to dance, saying that she had forgotten all the +figures—it was so many years since she had danced at school; and she was +glad to have that excuse, for it is ill dancing with a heavy heart. But at +length the music wrought in her young limbs, and the longing came; even though +it was the horrible young Torry, who walked up a second time to try and +persuade her. She warned him that she could not dance anything but a +country-dance; but he, of course, was willing to wait for that high felicity, +meaning only to be complimentary when he assured her at several intervals that +it was a “great bore” that she couldn’t waltz, he would have +liked so much to waltz with her. But at last it was the turn of the good +old-fashioned dance which has the least of vanity and the most of merriment in +it, and Maggie quite forgot her troublous life in a childlike enjoyment of that +half-rustic rhythm which seems to banish pretentious etiquette. She felt quite +charitably toward young Torry, as his hand bore her along and held her up in +the dance; her eyes and cheeks had that fire of young joy in them which will +flame out if it can find the least breath to fan it; and her simple black +dress, with its bit of black lace, seemed like the dim setting of a jewel. +</p> + +<p> +Stephen had not yet asked her to dance; had not yet paid her more than a +passing civility. Since yesterday, that inward vision of her which perpetually +made part of his consciousness, had been half screened by the image of Philip +Wakem, which came across it like a blot; there was some attachment between her +and Philip; at least there was an attachment on his side, which made her feel +in some bondage. Here, then, Stephen told himself, was another claim of honour +which called on him to resist the attraction that was continually threatening +to overpower him. He told himself so; and yet he had once or twice felt a +certain savage resistance, and at another moment a shuddering repugnance, to +this intrusion of Philip’s image, which almost made it a new incitement +to rush toward Maggie and claim her for himself. Nevertheless, he had done what +he meant to do this evening,—he had kept aloof from her; he had hardly +looked at her; and he had been gayly assiduous to Lucy. But now his eyes were +devouring Maggie; he felt inclined to kick young Torry out of the dance, and +take his place. Then he wanted the dance to end that he might get rid of his +partner. The possibility that he too should dance with Maggie, and have her +hand in his so long, was beginning to possess him like a thirst. But even now +their hands were meeting in the dance,—were meeting still to the very end +of it, though they were far off each other. +</p> + +<p> +Stephen hardly knew what happened, or in what automatic way he got through the +duties of politeness in the interval, until he was free and saw Maggie seated +alone again, at the farther end of the room. He made his way toward her round +the couples that were forming for the waltz; and when Maggie became conscious +that she was the person he sought, she felt, in spite of all the thoughts that +had gone before, a glowing gladness at heart. Her eyes and cheeks were still +brightened with her childlike enthusiasm in the dance; her whole frame was set +to joy and tenderness; even the coming pain could not seem bitter,—she +was ready to welcome it as a part of life, for life at this moment seemed a +keen, vibrating consciousness poised above pleasure or pain. This one, this +last night, she might expand unrestrainedly in the warmth of the present, +without those chill, eating thoughts of the past and the future. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re going to waltz again,” said Stephen, bending to +speak to her, with that glance and tone of subdued tenderness which young +dreams create to themselves in the summer woods when low, cooing voices fill +the air. Such glances and tones bring the breath of poetry with them into a +room that is half stifling with glaring gas and hard flirtation. +</p> + +<p> +“They are going to waltz again. It is rather dizzy work to look on, and +the room is very warm; shall we walk about a little?” +</p> + +<p> +He took her hand and placed it within his arm, and they walked on into the +sitting-room, where the tables were strewn with engravings for the +accommodation of visitors who would not want to look at them. But no visitors +were here at this moment. They passed on into the conservatory. +</p> + +<p> +“How strange and unreal the trees and flowers look with the lights among +them!” said Maggie, in a low voice. “They look as if they belonged +to an enchanted land, and would never fade away; I could fancy they were all +made of jewels.” +</p> + +<p> +She was looking at the tier of geraniums as she spoke, and Stephen made no +answer; but he was looking at her; and does not a supreme poet blend light and +sound into one, calling darkness mute, and light eloquent? Something strangely +powerful there was in the light of Stephen’s long gaze, for it made +Maggie’s face turn toward it and look upward at it, slowly, like a flower +at the ascending brightness. And they walked unsteadily on, without feeling +that they were walking; without feeling anything but that long, grave, mutual +gaze which has the solemnity belonging to all deep human passion. The hovering +thought that they must and would renounce each other made this moment of mute +confession more intense in its rapture. +</p> + +<p> +But they had reached the end of the conservatory, and were obliged to pause and +turn. The change of movement brought a new consciousness to Maggie; she blushed +deeply, turned away her head, and drew her arm from Stephen’s, going up +to some flowers to smell them. Stephen stood motionless, and still pale. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, may I get this rose?” said Maggie, making a great effort to +say something, and dissipate the burning sense of irretrievable confession. +“I think I am quite wicked with roses; I like to gather them and smell +them till they have no scent left.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen was mute; he was incapable of putting a sentence together, and Maggie +bent her arm a little upward toward the large half-opened rose that had +attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman’s arm? The +unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled elbow, and all +the varied gently lessening curves, down to the delicate wrist, with its +tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm softness. A woman’s arm +touched the soul of a great sculptor two thousand years ago, so that he wrought +an image of it for the Parthenon which moves us still as it clasps lovingly the +timeworn marble of a headless trunk. Maggie’s was such an arm as that, +and it had the warm tints of life. +</p> + +<p> +A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted toward the arm, and showered kisses +on it, clasping the wrist. +</p> + +<p> +But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glared at him like a +wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation. +</p> + +<p> +“How dare you?” She spoke in a deeply shaken, half-smothered voice. +“What right have I given you to insult me?” +</p> + +<p> +She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the sofa, +panting and trembling. +</p> + +<p> +A horrible punishment was come upon her for the sin of allowing a +moment’s happiness that was treachery to Lucy, to Philip, to her own +better soul. That momentary happiness had been smitten with a blight, a +leprosy; Stephen thought more lightly of <i>her</i> than he did of Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +As for Stephen, he leaned back against the framework of the conservatory, dizzy +with the conflict of passions,—love, rage, and confused despair; despair +at his want of self-mastery, and despair that he had offended Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +The last feeling surmounted every other; to be by her side again and entreat +forgiveness was the only thing that had the force of a motive for him, and she +had not been seated more than a few minutes when he came and stood humbly +before her. But Maggie’s bitter rage was unspent. +</p> + +<p> +“Leave me to myself, if you please,” she said, with impetuous +haughtiness, “and for the future avoid me.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen turned away, and walked backward and forward at the other end of the +room. There was the dire necessity of going back into the dancing-room again, +and he was beginning to be conscious of that. They had been absent so short a +time, that when he went in again the waltz was not ended. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, too, was not long before she re-entered. All the pride of her nature +was stung into activity; the hateful weakness which had dragged her within +reach of this wound to her self-respect had at least wrought its own cure. The +thoughts and temptations of the last month should all be flung away into an +unvisited chamber of memory. There was nothing to allure her now; duty would be +easy, and all the old calm purposes would reign peacefully once more. She +re-entered the drawing-room still with some excited brightness in her face, but +with a sense of proud self-command that defied anything to agitate her. She +refused to dance again, but she talked quite readily and calmly with every one +who addressed her. And when they got home that night, she kissed Lucy with a +free heart, almost exulting in this scorching moment, which had delivered her +from the possibility of another word or look that would have the stamp of +treachery toward that gentle, unsuspicious sister. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning Maggie did not set off to Basset quite so soon as she had +expected. Her mother was to accompany her in the carriage, and household +business could not be dispatched hastily by Mrs Tulliver. So Maggie, who had +been in a hurry to prepare herself, had to sit waiting, equipped for the drive, +in the garden. Lucy was busy in the house wrapping up some bazaar presents for +the younger ones at Basset, and when there was a loud ring at the door-bell, +Maggie felt some alarm lest Lucy should bring out Stephen to her; it was sure +to be Stephen. +</p> + +<p> +But presently the visitor came out into the garden alone, and seated himself by +her on the garden-chair. It was not Stephen. +</p> + +<p> +“We can just catch the tips of the Scotch firs, Maggie, from this +seat,” said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +They had taken each other’s hands in silence, but Maggie had looked at +him with a more complete revival of the old childlike affectionate smile than +he had seen before, and he felt encouraged. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said, “I often look at them, and wish I could see +the low sunlight on the stems again. But I have never been that way but +once,—to the churchyard with my mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been there, I go there, continually,” said Philip. “I +have nothing but the past to live upon.” +</p> + +<p> +A keen remembrance and keen pity impelled Maggie to put her hand in +Philip’s. They had so often walked hand in hand! +</p> + +<p> +“I remember all the spots,” she said,—“just where you +told me of particular things, beautiful stories that I had never heard of +before.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will go there again soon, won’t you, Maggie?” said +Philip, getting timid. “The Mill will soon be your brother’s home +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but I shall not be there,” said Maggie. “I shall only +hear of that happiness. I am going away again; Lucy has not told you, +perhaps?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the future will never join on to the past again, Maggie? That book +is quite closed?” +</p> + +<p> +The gray eyes that had so often looked up at her with entreating worship, +looked up at her now, with a last struggling ray of hope in them, and Maggie +met them with her large sincere gaze. +</p> + +<p> +“That book never will be closed, Philip,” she said, with grave +sadness; “I desire no future that will break the ties of the past. But +the tie to my brother is one of the strongest. I can do nothing willingly that +will divide me always from him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that the only reason that would keep us apart forever, Maggie?” +said Philip, with a desperate determination to have a definite answer. +</p> + +<p> +“The only reason,” said Maggie, with calm decision. And she +believed it. At that moment she felt as if the enchanted cup had been dashed to +the ground. The reactionary excitement that gave her a proud self-mastery had +not subsided, and she looked at the future with a sense of calm choice. +</p> + +<p> +They sat hand in hand without looking at each other or speaking for a few +minutes; in Maggie’s mind the first scenes of love and parting were more +present than the actual moment, and she was looking at Philip in the Red Deeps. +</p> + +<p> +Philip felt that he ought to have been thoroughly happy in that answer of hers; +she was as open and transparent as a rock-pool. Why was he not thoroughly +happy? Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that +would detect the subtlest fold of the heart. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap50"></a>Chapter XI.<br/> +In the Lane</h3> + +<p> +Maggie had been four days at her aunt Moss’s giving the early June +sunshine quite a new brightness in the care-dimmed eyes of that affectionate +woman, and making an epoch for her cousins great and small, who were learning +her words and actions by heart, as if she had been a transient avatar of +perfect wisdom and beauty. +</p> + +<p> +She was standing on the causeway with her aunt and a group of cousins feeding +the chickens, at that quiet moment in the life of the farmyards before the +afternoon milking-time. The great buildings round the hollow yard were as +dreary and tumbledown as ever, but over the old garden-wall the straggling +rose-bushes were beginning to toss their summer weight, and the gray wood and +old bricks of the house, on its higher level, had a look of sleepy age in the +broad afternoon sunlight, that suited the quiescent time. Maggie, with her +bonnet over her arm, was smiling down at the hatch of small fluffy chickens, +when her aunt exclaimed,— +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness me! who is that gentleman coming in at the gate?” +</p> + +<p> +It was a gentleman on a tall bay horse; and the flanks and neck of the horse +were streaked black with fast riding. Maggie felt a beating at head and heart, +horrible as the sudden leaping to life of a savage enemy who had feigned death. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is it, my dear?” said Mrs Moss, seeing in Maggie’s face +the evidence that she knew. +</p> + +<p> +“It is Mr Stephen Guest,” said Maggie, rather faintly. “My +cousin Lucy’s—a gentleman who is very intimate at my +cousin’s.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen was already close to them, had jumped off his horse, and now raised his +hat as he advanced. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold the horse, Willy,” said Mrs Moss to the twelve-year-old boy. +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” said Stephen, pulling at the horse’s +impatiently tossing head. “I must be going again immediately. I have a +message to deliver to you, Miss Tulliver, on private business. May I take the +liberty of asking you to walk a few yards with me?” +</p> + +<p> +He had a half-jaded, half-irritated look, such as a man gets when he has been +dogged by some care or annoyance that makes his bed and his dinner of little +use to him. He spoke almost abruptly, as if his errand were too pressing for +him to trouble himself about what would be thought by Mrs Moss of his visit +and request. Good Mrs Moss, rather nervous in the presence of this apparently +haughty gentleman, was inwardly wondering whether she would be doing right or +wrong to invite him again to leave his horse and walk in, when Maggie, feeling +all the embarrassment of the situation, and unable to say anything, put on her +bonnet, and turned to walk toward the gate. +</p> + +<p> +Stephen turned too, and walked by her side, leading his horse. +</p> + +<p> +Not a word was spoken till they were out in the lane, and had walked four or +five yards, when Maggie, who had been looking straight before her all the +while, turned again to walk back, saying, with haughty resentment,— +</p> + +<p> +“There is no need for me to go any farther. I don’t know whether +you consider it gentlemanly and delicate conduct to place me in a position that +forced me to come out with you, or whether you wished to insult me still +further by thrusting an interview upon me in this way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you are angry with me for coming,” said Stephen, +bitterly. “Of course it is of no consequence what a man has to suffer; it +is only your woman’s dignity that you care about.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie gave a slight start, such as might have come from the slightest possible +electric shock. +</p> + +<p> +“As if it were not enough that I’m entangled in this way; that +I’m mad with love for you; that I resist the strongest passion a man can +feel, because I try to be true to other claims; but you must treat me as if I +were a coarse brute, who would willingly offend you. And when, if I had my own +choice, I should ask you to take my hand and my fortune and my whole life, and +do what you liked with them! I know I forgot myself. I took an unwarrantable +liberty. I hate myself for having done it. But I repented immediately; +I’ve been repenting ever since. You ought not to think it unpardonable; a +man who loves with his whole soul, as I do you, is liable to be mastered by his +feelings for a moment; but you know—you must believe—that the worst +pain I could have is to have pained you; that I would give the world to recall +the error.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie dared not speak, dared not turn her head. The strength that had come +from resentment was all gone, and her lips were quivering visibly. She could +not trust herself to utter the full forgiveness that rose in answer to that +confession. +</p> + +<p> +They were come nearly in front of the gate again, and she paused, trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“You must not say these things; I must not hear them,” she said, +looking down in misery, as Stephen came in front of her, to prevent her from +going farther toward the gate. “I’m very sorry for any pain you +have to go through; but it is of no use to speak.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it <i>is</i> of use,” said Stephen, impetuously. “It +would be of use if you would treat me with some sort of pity and consideration, +instead of doing me vile injustice in your mind. I could bear everything more +quietly if I knew you didn’t hate me for an insolent coxcomb. Look at me; +see what a hunted devil I am; I’ve been riding thirty miles every day to +get away from the thought of you.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie did not—dared not—look. She had already seen the harassed +face. But she said gently,— +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think any evil of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, dearest, look at me,” said Stephen, in deepest, tenderest +tones of entreaty. “Don’t go away from me yet. Give me a +moment’s happiness; make me feel you’ve forgiven me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I do forgive you,” said Maggie, shaken by those tones, and +all the more frightened at herself. “But pray let me go in again. Pray go +away.” +</p> + +<p> +A great tear fell from under her lowered eyelids. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t go away from you; I can’t leave you,” said +Stephen, with still more passionate pleading. “I shall come back again if +you send me away with this coldness; I can’t answer for myself. But if +you will go with me only a little way I can live on that. You see plainly +enough that your anger has only made me ten times more unreasonable.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie turned. But Tancred, the bay horse, began to make such spirited +remonstrances against this frequent change of direction, that Stephen, catching +sight of Willy Moss peeping through the gate, called out, “Here! just +come and hold my horse for five minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” said Maggie, hurriedly, “my aunt will think it so +strange.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind,” Stephen answered impatiently; “they don’t +know the people at St Ogg’s. Lead him up and down just here for five +minutes,” he added to Willy, who was now close to them; and then he +turned to Maggie’s side, and they walked on. It was clear that she +<i>must</i> go on now. +</p> + +<p> +“Take my arm,” said Stephen, entreatingly; and she took it, feeling +all the while as if she were sliding downward in a nightmare. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no end to this misery,” she began, struggling to repel +the influence by speech. “It is wicked—base—ever allowing a +word or look that Lucy—that others might not have seen. Think of +Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do think of her—bless her. If I +didn’t——” Stephen had laid his hand on Maggie’s +that rested on his arm, and they both felt it difficult to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“And I have other ties,” Maggie went on, at last, with a desperate +effort, “even if Lucy did not exist.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are engaged to Philip Wakem?” said Stephen, hastily. “Is +it so?” +</p> + +<p> +“I consider myself engaged to him; I don’t mean to marry any one +else.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen was silent again until they had turned out of the sun into a side lane, +all grassy and sheltered. Then he burst out impetuously,— +</p> + +<p> +“It is unnatural, it is horrible. Maggie, if you loved me as I love you, +we should throw everything else to the winds for the sake of belonging to each +other. We should break all these mistaken ties that were made in blindness, and +determine to marry each other.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather die than fall into that temptation,” said Maggie, +with deep, slow distinctness, all the gathered spiritual force of painful years +coming to her aid in this extremity. She drew her arm from his as she spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me, then, that you don’t care for me,” he said, almost +violently. “Tell me that you love some one else better.” +</p> + +<p> +It darted through Maggie’s mind that here was a mode of releasing herself +from outward struggle,—to tell Stephen that her whole heart was +Philip’s. But her lips would not utter that, and she was silent. +</p> + +<p> +“If you do love me, dearest,” said Stephen, gently, taking her hand +again and laying it within his arm, “it is better—it is right that +we should marry each other. We can’t help the pain it will give. It is +come upon us without our seeking; it is natural; it has taken hold of me in +spite of every effort I have made to resist it. God knows, I’ve been +trying to be faithful to tacit engagements, and I’ve only made things +worse; I’d better have given way at first.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was silent. If it were <i>not</i> wrong—if she were once convinced +of that, and need no longer beat and struggle against this current, soft and +yet strong as the summer stream! +</p> + +<p> +“Say ‘yes,’ dearest,” said Stephen, leaning to look +entreatingly in her face. “What could we care about in the whole world +beside, if we belonged to each other?” +</p> + +<p> +Her breath was on his face, his lips were very near hers, but there was a great +dread dwelling in his love for her. +</p> + +<p> +Her lips and eyelids quivered; she opened her eyes full on his for an instant, +like a lovely wild animal timid and struggling under caresses, and then turned +sharp round toward home again. +</p> + +<p> +“And after all,” he went on, in an impatient tone, trying to defeat +his own scruples as well as hers, “I am breaking no positive engagement; +if Lucy’s affections had been withdrawn from me and given to some one +else, I should have felt no right to assert a claim on her. If you are not +absolutely pledged to Philip, we are neither of us bound.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t believe that; it is not your real feeling,” said +Maggie, earnestly. “You feel, as I do, that the real tie lies in the +feelings and expectations we have raised in other minds. Else all pledges might +be broken, when there was no outward penalty. There would be no such thing as +faithfulness.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen was silent; he could not pursue that argument; the opposite conviction +had wrought in him too strongly through his previous time of struggle. But it +soon presented itself in a new form. +</p> + +<p> +“The pledge <i>can’t</i> be fulfilled,” he said, with +impetuous insistence. “It is unnatural; we can only pretend to give +ourselves to any one else. There is wrong in that too; there may be misery in +it for <i>them</i> as well as for us. Maggie, you must see that; you do see +that.” +</p> + +<p> +He was looking eagerly at her face for the least sign of compliance; his large, +firm, gentle grasp was on her hand. She was silent for a few moments, with her +eyes fixed on the ground; then she drew a deep breath, and said, looking up at +him with solemn sadness,— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it is difficult,—life is very difficult! It seems right to me +sometimes that we should follow our strongest feeling; but then, such feelings +continually come across the ties that all our former life has made for +us,—the ties that have made others dependent on us,—and would cut +them in two. If life were quite easy and simple, as it might have been in +Paradise, and we could always see that one being first toward whom—I +mean, if life did not make duties for us before love comes, love would be a +sign that two people ought to belong to each other. But I see—I feel it +is not so now; there are things we must renounce in life; some of us must +resign love. Many things are difficult and dark to me; but I see one thing +quite clearly,—that I must not, cannot, seek my own happiness by +sacrificing others. Love is natural; but surely pity and faithfulness and +memory are natural too. And they would live in me still, and punish me if I did +not obey them. I should be haunted by the suffering I had caused. Our love +would be poisoned. Don’t urge me; help me,—help me, <i>because</i> +I love you.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie had become more and more earnest as she went on; her face had become +flushed, and her eyes fuller and fuller of appealing love. Stephen had the +fibre of nobleness in him that vibrated to her appeal; but in the same +moment—how could it be otherwise?—that pleading beauty gained new +power over him. +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest,” he said, in scarcely more than a whisper, while his arm +stole round her, “I’ll do, I’ll bear anything you wish. +But—one kiss—one—the last—before we part.” +</p> + +<p> +One kiss, and then a long look, until Maggie said tremulously, “Let me +go,—let me make haste back.” +</p> + +<p> +She hurried along, and not another word was spoken. Stephen stood still and +beckoned when they came within sight of Willy and the horse, and Maggie went on +through the gate. Mrs Moss was standing alone at the door of the old porch; +she had sent all the cousins in, with kind thoughtfulness. It might be a joyful +thing that Maggie had a rich and handsome lover, but she would naturally feel +embarrassed at coming in again; and it might <i>not</i> be joyful. In either +case Mrs Moss waited anxiously to receive Maggie by herself. The speaking face +told plainly enough that, if there was joy, it was of a very agitating, dubious +sort. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down here a bit, my dear.” She drew Maggie into the porch, and +sat down on the bench by her; there was no privacy in the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, aunt Gritty, I’m very wretched! I wish I could have died when +I was fifteen. It seemed so easy to give things up then; it is so hard +now.” +</p> + +<p> +The poor child threw her arms round her aunt’s neck, and fell into long, +deep sobs. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap51"></a>Chapter XII.<br/> +A Family Party</h3> + +<p> +Maggie left her good aunt Gritty at the end of the week, and went to Garum Firs +to pay her visit to aunt Pullet according to agreement. In the mean time very +unexpected things had happened, and there was to be a family party at Garum to +discuss and celebrate a change in the fortunes of the Tullivers, which was +likely finally to carry away the shadow of their demerits like the last limb of +an eclipse, and cause their hitherto obscured virtues to shine forth in +full-rounded splendor. It is pleasant to know that a new ministry just come +into office are not the only fellow-men who enjoy a period of high appreciation +and full-blown eulogy; in many respectable families throughout this realm, +relatives becoming creditable meet with a similar cordiality of recognition, +which in its fine freedom from the coercion of any antecedents, suggests the +hopeful possibility that we may some day without any notice find ourselves in +full millennium, with cockatrices who have ceased to bite, and wolves that no +longer show their teeth with any but the blandest intentions. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy came so early as to have the start even of aunt Glegg; for she longed to +have some undisturbed talk with Maggie about the wonderful news. It seemed, did +it not? said Lucy, with her prettiest air of wisdom, as if everything, even +other people’s misfortunes (poor creatures!) were conspiring now to make +poor dear aunt Tulliver, and cousin Tom, and naughty Maggie too, if she were +not obstinately bent on the contrary, as happy as they deserved to be after all +their troubles. To think that the very day—the <i>very +day</i>—after Tom had come back from Newcastle, that unfortunate young +Jetsome, whom Mr Wakem had placed at the Mill, had been pitched off his horse +in a drunken fit, and was lying at St Ogg’s in a dangerous state, so +that Wakem had signified his wish that the new purchasers should enter on the +premises at once! +</p> + +<p> +It was very dreadful for that unhappy young man, but it did seem as if the +misfortune had happened then, rather than at any other time, in order that +cousin Tom might all the sooner have the fit reward of his exemplary +conduct,—papa thought so very highly of him. Aunt Tulliver must certainly +go to the Mill now, and keep house for Tom; that was rather a loss to Lucy in +the matter of household comfort; but then, to think of poor aunty being in her +old place again, and gradually getting comforts about her there! +</p> + +<p> +On this last point Lucy had her cunning projects, and when she and Maggie had +made their dangerous way down the bright stairs into the handsome parlour, +where the very sunbeams seemed cleaner than elsewhere, she directed her +manœuvres, as any other great tactician would have done, against the weaker +side of the enemy. +</p> + +<p> +“Aunt Pullet,” she said, seating herself on the sofa, and +caressingly adjusting that lady’s floating cap-string, “I want you +to make up your mind what linen and things you will give Tom toward +housekeeping; because you are always so generous,—you give such nice +things, you know; and if you set the example, aunt Glegg will follow.” +</p> + +<p> +“That she never can, my dear,” said Mrs Pullet, with unusual +vigor, “for she hasn’t got the linen to follow suit wi’ mine, +I can tell you. She’d niver the taste, not if she’d spend the +money. Big checks and live things, like stags and foxes, all her table-linen +is,—not a spot nor a diamond among ’em. But it’s poor work +dividing one’s linen before one dies,—I niver thought to ha’ +done that, Bessy,” Mrs Pullet continued, shaking her head and looking at +her sister Tulliver, “when you and me chose the double diamont, the first +flax iver we’d spun, and the Lord knows where yours is gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d no choice, I’m sure, sister,” said poor Mrs +Tulliver, accustomed to consider herself in the light of an accused person. +“I’m sure it was no wish o’ mine, iver, as I should lie awake +o’ nights thinking o’ my best bleached linen all over the +country.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take a peppermint, Mrs Tulliver,” said uncle Pullet, feeling that +he was offering a cheap and wholesome form of comfort, which he was +recommending by example. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but, aunt Pullet,” said Lucy, “you’ve so much +beautiful linen. And suppose you had had daughters! Then you must have divided +it when they were married.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t say as I won’t do it,” said Mrs Pullet, +“for now Tom’s so lucky, it’s nothing but right his friends +should look on him and help him. There’s the tablecloths I bought at your +sale, Bessy; it was nothing but good natur’ o’ me to buy ’em, +for they’ve been lying in the chest ever since. But I’m not going +to give Maggie any more o’ my Indy muslin and things, if she’s to +go into service again, when she might stay and keep me company, and do my +sewing for me, if she wasn’t wanted at her brother’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Going into service” was the expression by which the Dodson mind +represented to itself the position of teacher or governess; and Maggie’s +return to that menial condition, now circumstances offered her more eligible +prospects, was likely to be a sore point with all her relatives, besides Lucy. +Maggie in her crude form, with her hair down her back, and altogether in a +state of dubious promise, was a most undesirable niece; but now she was capable +of being at once ornamental and useful. The subject was revived in aunt and +uncle Glegg’s presence, over the tea and muffins. +</p> + +<p> +“Hegh, hegh!” said Mr Glegg, good-naturedly patting Maggie on the +back, “nonsense, nonsense! Don’t let us hear of you taking a place +again, Maggie. Why, you must ha’ picked up half-a-dozen sweethearts at +the bazaar; isn’t there one of ’em the right sort of article? Come, +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Glegg,” said his wife, with that shade of increased politeness +in her severity which she always put on with her crisper fronts, +“you’ll excuse me, but you’re far too light for a man of your +years. It’s respect and duty to her aunts, and the rest of her kin as are +so good to her, should have kept my niece from fixing about going away again +without consulting us; not sweethearts, if I’m to use such a word, though +it was never heared in <i>my</i> family.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what did they call us, when we went to see ’em, then, eh, +neighbour Pullet? They thought us sweet enough then,” said Mr Glegg, +winking pleasantly; while Mr Pullet, at the suggestion of sweetness, took a +little more sugar. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr Glegg,” said Mrs G., “if you’re going to be +undelicate, let me know.” +</p> + +<p> +“La, Jane, your husband’s only joking,” said Mrs Pullet; +“let him joke while he’s got health and strength. There’s +poor Mr Tilt got his mouth drawn all o’ one side, and couldn’t +laugh if he was to try.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll trouble you for the muffineer, then, Mr Glegg,” said +Mrs G., “if I may be so bold to interrupt your joking. Though it’s +other people must see the joke in a niece’s putting a slight on her +mother’s eldest sister, as is the head o’ the family; and only +coming in and out on short visits, all the time she’s been in the town, +and then settling to go away without my knowledge,—as I’d laid caps +out on purpose for her to make ’em up for me,—and me as have +divided my money so equal——” +</p> + +<p> +“Sister,” Mrs Tulliver broke in anxiously, “I’m sure +Maggie never thought o’ going away without staying at your house as well +as the others. Not as it’s my wish she should go away at all, but quite +contrairy. I’m sure I’m innocent. I’ve said over and over +again, ‘My dear, you’ve no call to go away.’ But +there’s ten days or a fortnight Maggie’ll have before she’s +fixed to go; she can stay at your house just as well, and I’ll step in +when I can, and so will Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bessy,” said Mrs Glegg, “if you’d exercise a little +more thought, you might know I should hardly think it was worth while to unpin +a bed, and go to all that trouble now, just at the end o’ the time, when +our house isn’t above a quarter of an hour’s walk from Mr +Deane’s. She can come the first thing in the morning, and go back the +last at night, and be thankful she’s got a good aunt so close to her to +come and sit with. I know <i>I</i> should, when I was her age.” +</p> + +<p> +“La, Jane,” said Mrs Pullet, “it ’ud do your beds good +to have somebody to sleep in ’em. There’s that striped room smells +dreadful mouldy, and the glass mildewed like anything. I’m sure I thought +I should be struck with death when you took me in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there is Tom!” exclaimed Lucy, clapping her hands. +“He’s come on Sindbad, as I told him. I was afraid he was not going +to keep his promise.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie jumped up to kiss Tom as he entered, with strong feeling, at this first +meeting since the prospect of returning to the Mill had been opened to him; and +she kept his hand, leading him to the chair by her side. To have no cloud +between herself and Tom was still a perpetual yearning in her, that had its +root deeper than all change. He smiled at her very kindly this evening, and +said, “Well, Magsie, how’s aunt Moss?” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, sir,” said Mr Glegg putting out his hand. “Why, +you’re such a big man, you carry all before you, it, seems. You’re +come into your luck a good deal earlier than us old folks did; but I wish you +joy, I wish you joy. You’ll get the Mill all for your own again some day, +I’ll be bound. You won’t stop half-way up the hill.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I hope he’ll bear in mind as it’s his mother’s +family as he owes it to,” said Mrs Glegg. “If he hadn’t had +them to take after, he’d ha’ been poorly off. There was never any +failures, nor lawing, nor wastefulness in our family, nor dying without +wills——” +</p> + +<p> +“No, nor sudden deaths,” said aunt Pullet; “allays the doctor +called in. But Tom had the Dodson skin; I said that from the first. And I +don’t know what <i>you</i> mean to do, sister Glegg, but I mean to give +him a tablecloth of all my three biggest sizes but one, besides sheets. I +don’t say what more I shall do; but <i>that</i> I shall do, and if I +should die to-morrow, Mr Pullet, you’ll bear it in mind,—though +you’ll be blundering with the keys, and never remember as that on the +third shelf o’ the left-hand wardrobe, behind the night-caps with the +broad ties,—not the narrow-frilled uns,—is the key of the drawer in +the Blue Room, where the key o’ the Blue Closet is. You’ll make a +mistake, and I shall niver be worthy to know it. You’ve a memory for my +pills and draughts, wonderful,—I’ll allays say that of +you,—but you’re lost among the keys.” This gloomy prospect of +the confusion that would ensue on her decease was very affecting to Mrs +Pullet. +</p> + +<p> +“You carry it too far, Sophy,—that locking in and out,” said +Mrs Glegg, in a tone of some disgust at this folly. “You go beyond your +own family. There’s nobody can say I don’t lock up; but I do +what’s reasonable, and no more. And as for the linen, I shall look out +what’s serviceable, to make a present of to my nephey; I’ve got +cloth as has never been whitened, better worth having than other people’s +fine holland; and I hope he’ll lie down in it and think of his +aunt.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom thanked Mrs Glegg, but evaded any promise to meditate nightly on her +virtues; and Mr Glegg effected a diversion for him by asking about Mr +Deane’s intentions concerning steam. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy had had her far-sighted views in begging Tom to come on Sindbad. It +appeared, when it was time to go home, that the man-servant was to ride the +horse, and cousin Tom was to drive home his mother and Lucy. “You must +sit by yourself, aunty,” said that contriving young lady, “because +I must sit by Tom; I’ve a great deal to say to him.” +</p> + +<p> +In the eagerness of her affectionate anxiety for Maggie, Lucy could not +persuade herself to defer a conversation about her with Tom, who, she thought, +with such a cup of joy before him as this rapid fulfilment of his wish about +the Mill, must become pliant and flexible. Her nature supplied her with no key +to Tom’s; and she was puzzled as well as pained to notice the unpleasant +change on his countenance when she gave him the history of the way in which +Philip had used his influence with his father. She had counted on this +revelation as a great stroke of policy, which was to turn Tom’s heart +toward Philip at once, and, besides that, prove that the elder Wakem was ready +to receive Maggie with all the honours of a daughter-in-law. Nothing was +wanted, then, but for dear Tom, who always had that pleasant smile when he +looked at cousin Lucy, to turn completely round, say the opposite of what he +had always said before, and declare that he, for his part, was delighted that +all the old grievances should be healed, and that Maggie should have Philip +with all suitable despatch; in cousin Lucy’s opinion nothing could be +easier. +</p> + +<p> +But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities that create +severity,—strength of will, conscious rectitude of purpose, narrowness of +imagination and intellect, great power of self-control, and a disposition to +exert control over others,—prejudices come as the natural food of +tendencies which can get no sustenance out of that complex, fragmentary, +doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth. Let a prejudice be bequeathed, +carried in the air, adopted by hearsay, caught in through the +eye,—however it may come, these minds will give it a habitation; it is +something to assert strongly and bravely, something to fill up the void of +spontaneous ideas, something to impose on others with the authority of +conscious right; it is at once a staff and a baton. Every prejudice that will +answer these purposes is self-evident. Our good, upright Tom Tulliver’s +mind was of this class; his inward criticism of his father’s faults did +not prevent him from adopting his father’s prejudice; it was a prejudice +against a man of lax principle and lax life, and it was a meeting-point for all +the disappointed feelings of family and personal pride. Other feelings added +their force to produce Tom’s bitter repugnance to Philip, and to +Maggie’s union with him; and notwithstanding Lucy’s power over her +strong-willed cousin, she got nothing but a cold refusal ever to sanction such +a marriage; “but of course Maggie could do as she liked,—she had +declared her determination to be independent. For Tom’s part, he held +himself bound by his duty to his father’s memory, and by every manly +feeling, never to consent to any relation with the Wakems.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus, all that Lucy had effected by her zealous mediation was to fill +Tom’s mind with the expectation that Maggie’s perverse resolve to +go into a situation again would presently metamorphose itself, as her resolves +were apt to do, into something equally perverse, but entirely +different,—a marriage with Philip Wakem. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap52"></a>Chapter XIII.<br/> +Borne Along by the Tide</h3> + +<p> +In less than a week Maggie was at St Ogg’s again,—outwardly in +much the same position as when her visit there had just begun. It was easy for +her to fill her mornings apart from Lucy without any obvious effort; for she +had her promised visits to pay to her aunt Glegg, and it was natural that she +should give her mother more than usual of her companionship in these last +weeks, especially as there were preparations to be thought of for Tom’s +housekeeping. But Lucy would hear of no pretext for her remaining away in the +evenings; she must always come from aunt Glegg’s before +dinner,—“else what shall I have of you?” said Lucy, with a +tearful pout that could not be resisted. +</p> + +<p> +And Mr Stephen Guest had unaccountably taken to dining at Mr Deane’s as +often as possible, instead of avoiding that, as he used to do. At first he +began his mornings with a resolution that he would not dine there, not even go +in the evening, till Maggie was away. He had even devised a plan of starting +off on a journey in this agreeable June weather; the headaches which he had +constantly been alleging as a ground for stupidity and silence were a +sufficient ostensible motive. But the journey was not taken, and by the fourth +morning no distinct resolution was formed about the evenings; they were only +foreseen as times when Maggie would still be present for a little +while,—when one more touch, one more glance, might be snatched. For why +not? There was nothing to conceal between them; they knew, they had confessed +their love, and they had renounced each other; they were going to part. Honour +and conscience were going to divide them; Maggie, with that appeal from her +inmost soul, had decided it; but surely they might cast a lingering look at +each other across the gulf, before they turned away never to look again till +that strange light had forever faded out of their eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, all this time, moved about with a quiescence and even torpor of manner, +so contrasted with her usual fitful brightness and ardor, that Lucy would have +had to seek some other cause for such a change, if she had not been convinced +that the position in which Maggie stood between Philip and her brother, and the +prospect of her self-imposed wearisome banishment, were quite enough to account +for a large amount of depression. But under this torpor there was a fierce +battle of emotions, such as Maggie in all her life of struggle had never known +or foreboded; it seemed to her as if all the worst evil in her had lain in +ambush till now, and had suddenly started up full-armed, with hideous, +overpowering strength! There were moments in which a cruel selfishness seemed +to be getting possession of her; why should not Lucy, why should not Philip, +suffer? <i>She</i> had had to suffer through many years of her life; and who +had renounced anything for her? And when something like that fulness of +existence—love, wealth, ease, refinement, all that her nature +craved—was brought within her reach, why was she to forego it, that +another might have it,—another, who perhaps needed it less? But amidst +all this new passionate tumult there were the old voices making themselves +heard with rising power, till, from time to time, the tumult seemed quelled. +<i>Was</i> that existence which tempted her the full existence she dreamed? +Where, then, would be all the memories of early striving; all the deep pity for +another’s pain, which had been nurtured in her through years of affection +and hardship; all the divine presentiment of something higher than mere +personal enjoyment, which had made the sacredness of life? She might as well +hope to enjoy walking by maiming her feet, as hope to enjoy an existence in +which she set out by maiming the faith and sympathy that were the best organs +of her soul. And then, if pain were so hard to <i>her</i>, what was it to +others? “Ah, God! preserve me from inflicting—give me strength to +bear it.” How had she sunk into this struggle with a temptation that she +would once have thought herself as secure from as from deliberate crime? When +was that first hateful moment in which she had been conscious of a feeling that +clashed with her truth, affection, and gratitude, and had not shaken it from +her with horror, as if it had been a loathsome thing? And yet, since this +strange, sweet, subduing influence did not, should not, conquer +her,—since it was to remain simply her own suffering,—her mind was +meeting Stephen’s in that thought of his, that they might still snatch +moments of mute confession before the parting came. For was not he suffering +too? She saw it daily—saw it in the sickened look of fatigue with which, +as soon as he was not compelled to exert himself, he relapsed into indifference +toward everything but the possibility of watching her. Could she refuse +sometimes to answer that beseeching look which she felt to be following her +like a low murmur of love and pain? She refused it less and less, till at last +the evening for them both was sometimes made of a moment’s mutual gaze; +they thought of it till it came, and when it had come, they thought of nothing +else. +</p> + +<p> +One other thing Stephen seemed now and then to care for, and that was to sing; +it was a way of speaking to Maggie. Perhaps he was not distinctly conscious +that he was impelled to it by a secret longing—running counter to all his +self-confessed resolves—to deepen the hold he had on her. Watch your own +speech, and notice how it is guided by your less conscious purposes, and you +will understand that contradiction in Stephen. +</p> + +<p> +Philip Wakem was a less frequent visitor, but he came occasionally in the +evening, and it happened that he was there when Lucy said, as they sat out on +the lawn, near sunset,— +</p> + +<p> +“Now Maggie’s tale of visits to aunt Glegg is completed, I mean +that we shall go out boating every day until she goes. She has not had half +enough boating because of these tiresome visits, and she likes it better than +anything. Don’t you, Maggie?” +</p> + +<p> +“Better than any sort of locomotion, I hope you mean,” said Philip, +smiling at Maggie, who was lolling backward in a low garden-chair; “else +she will be selling her soul to that ghostly boatman who haunts the Floss, only +for the sake of being drifted in a boat forever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Should you like to be her boatman?” said Lucy. “Because, if +you would, you can come with us and take an oar. If the Floss were but a quiet +lake instead of a river, we should be independent of any gentleman, for Maggie +can row splendidly. As it is, we are reduced to ask services of knights and +squires, who do not seem to offer them with great alacrity.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked playful reproach at Stephen, who was sauntering up and down, and was +just singing in pianissimo falsetto,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The thirst that from the soul doth rise<br/> +Doth ask a drink divine.” +</p> + +<p> +He took no notice, but still kept aloof; he had done so frequently during +Philip’s recent visits. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t seem inclined for boating,” said Lucy, when he +came to sit down by her on the bench. “Doesn’t rowing suit you +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I hate a large party in a boat,” he said, almost irritably. +“I’ll come when you have no one else.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy coloured, fearing that Philip would be hurt; it was quite a new thing for +Stephen to speak in that way; but he had certainly not been well of late. +Philip coloured too, but less from a feeling of personal offence than from a +vague suspicion that Stephen’s moodiness had some relation to Maggie, who +had started up from her chair as he spoke, and had walked toward the hedge of +laurels to look at the descending sunlight on the river. +</p> + +<p> +“As Miss Deane didn’t know she was excluding others by inviting +me,” said Philip, “I am bound to resign.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed, you shall not,” said Lucy, much vexed. “I +particularly wish for your company to-morrow. The tide will suit at half-past +ten; it will be a delicious time for a couple of hours to row to Luckreth and +walk back, before the sun gets too hot. And how can you object to four people +in a boat?” she added, looking at Stephen. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t object to the people, but the number,” said Stephen, +who had recovered himself, and was rather ashamed of his rudeness. “If I +voted for a fourth at all, of course it would be you, Phil. But we won’t +divide the pleasure of escorting the ladies; we’ll take it alternately. +I’ll go the next day.” +</p> + +<p> +This incident had the effect of drawing Philip’s attention with freshened +solicitude toward Stephen and Maggie; but when they re-entered the house, music +was proposed, and Mrs Tulliver and Mr Deane being occupied with cribbage, +Maggie sat apart near the table where the books and work were placed, doing +nothing, however, but listening abstractedly to the music. Stephen presently +turned to a duet which he insisted that Lucy and Philip should sing; he had +often done the same thing before; but this evening Philip thought he divined +some double intention in every word and look of Stephen’s, and watched +him keenly, angry with himself all the while for this clinging suspicion. For +had not Maggie virtually denied any ground for his doubts on her side? And she +was truth itself; it was impossible not to believe her word and glance when +they had last spoken together in the garden. Stephen might be strongly +fascinated by her (what was more natural?), but Philip felt himself rather base +for intruding on what must be his friend’s painful secret. Still he +watched. Stephen, moving away from the piano, sauntered slowly toward the table +near which Maggie sat, and turned over the newspapers, apparently in mere +idleness. Then he seated himself with his back to the piano, dragging a +newspaper under his elbow, and thrusting his hand through his hair, as if he +had been attracted by some bit of local news in the “Laceham +Courier.” He was in reality looking at Maggie who had not taken the +slightest notice of his approach. She had always additional strength of +resistance when Philip was present, just as we can restrain our speech better +in a spot that we feel to be hallowed. But at last she heard the word +“dearest” uttered in the softest tone of pained entreaty, like that +of a patient who asks for something that ought to have been given without +asking. She had never heard that word since the moments in the lane at Basset, +when it had come from Stephen again and again, almost as involuntarily as if it +had been an inarticulate cry. Philip could hear no word, but he had moved to +the opposite side of the piano, and could see Maggie start and blush, raise her +eyes an instant toward Stephen’s face, but immediately look +apprehensively toward himself. It was not evident to her that Philip had +observed her; but a pang of shame, under the sense of this concealment, made +her move from her chair and walk to her mother’s side to watch the game +at cribbage. +</p> + +<p> +Philip went home soon after in a state of hideous doubt mingled with wretched +certainty. It was impossible for him now to resist the conviction that there +was some mutual consciousness between Stephen and Maggie; and for half the +night his irritable, susceptible nerves were pressed upon almost to frenzy by +that one wretched fact; he could attempt no explanation that would reconcile it +with her words and actions. When, at last, the need for belief in Maggie rose +to its habitual predominance, he was not long in imagining the truth,—she +was struggling, she was banishing herself; this was the clue to all he had seen +since his return. But athwart that belief there came other possibilities that +would not be driven out of sight. His imagination wrought out the whole story; +Stephen was madly in love with her; he must have told her so; she had rejected +him, and was hurrying away. But would he give her up, knowing—Philip felt +the fact with heart-crushing despair—that she was made half helpless by +her feeling toward him? +</p> + +<p> +When the morning came, Philip was too ill to think of keeping his engagement to +go in the boat. In his present agitation he could decide on nothing; he could +only alternate between contradictory intentions. First, he thought he must have +an interview with Maggie, and entreat her to confide in him; then, again, he +distrusted his own interference. Had he not been thrusting himself on Maggie +all along? She had uttered words long ago in her young ignorance; it was enough +to make her hate him that these should be continually present with her as a +bond. And had he any right to ask her for a revelation of feelings which she +had evidently intended to withhold from him? He would not trust himself to see +her, till he had assured himself that he could act from pure anxiety for her, +and not from egoistic irritation. He wrote a brief note to Stephen, and sent it +early by the servant, saying that he was not well enough to fulfil his +engagement to Miss Deane. Would Stephen take his excuse, and fill his place? +</p> + +<p> +Lucy had arranged a charming plan, which had made her quite content with +Stephen’s refusal to go in the boat. She discovered that her father was +to drive to Lindum this morning at ten; Lindum was the very place she wanted to +go to, to make purchases,—important purchases, which must by no means be +put off to another opportunity; and aunt Tulliver must go too, because she was +concerned in some of the purchases. +</p> + +<p> +“You will have your row in the boat just the same, you know,” she +said to Maggie when they went out of the breakfast-room and upstairs together; +“Philip will be here at half-past ten, and it is a delicious morning. Now +don’t say a word against it, you dear dolorous thing. What is the use of +my being a fairy godmother, if you set your face against all the wonders I work +for you? Don’t think of awful cousin Tom; you may disobey him a +little.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie did not persist in objecting. She was almost glad of the plan, for +perhaps it would bring her some strength and calmness to be alone with Philip +again; it was like revisiting the scene of a quieter life, in which the very +struggles were repose, compared with the daily tumult of the present. She +prepared herself for the boat and at half-past ten sat waiting in the +drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +The ring of the door-bell was punctual, and she was thinking with half-sad, +affectionate pleasure of the surprise Philip would have in finding that he was +to be with her alone, when she distinguished a firm, rapid step across the +hall, that was certainly not Philip’s; the door opened, and Stephen Guest +entered. +</p> + +<p> +In the first moment they were both too much agitated to speak; for Stephen had +learned from the servant that the others were gone out. Maggie had started up +and sat down again, with her heart beating violently; and Stephen, throwing +down his cap and gloves, came and sat by her in silence. She thought Philip +would be coming soon; and with great effort—for she trembled +visibly—she rose to go to a distant chair. +</p> + +<p> +“He is not coming,” said Stephen, in a low tone. “I am going +in the boat.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, we can’t go,” said Maggie, sinking into her chair again. +“Lucy did not expect—she would be hurt. Why is not Philip +come?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is not well; he asked me to come instead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy is gone to Lindum,” said Maggie, taking off her bonnet with +hurried, trembling fingers. “We must not go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Stephen, dreamily, looking at her, as he rested +his arm on the back of his chair. “Then we’ll stay here.” +</p> + +<p> +He was looking into her deep, deep eyes, far off and mysterious as the starlit +blackness, and yet very near, and timidly loving. Maggie sat perfectly +still—perhaps for moments, perhaps for minutes—until the helpless +trembling had ceased, and there was a warm glow on her check. +</p> + +<p> +“The man is waiting; he has taken the cushions,” she said. +“Will you go and tell him?” +</p> + +<p> +“What shall I tell him?” said Stephen, almost in a whisper. He was +looking at the lips now. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie made no answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go,” Stephen murmured entreatingly, rising, and taking her +hand to raise her too. “We shall not be long together.” +</p> + +<p> +And they went. Maggie felt that she was being led down the garden among the +roses, being helped with firm, tender care into the boat, having the cushion +and cloak arranged for her feet, and her parasol opened for her (which she had +forgotten), all by this stronger presence that seemed to bear her along without +any act of her own will, like the added self which comes with the sudden +exalting influence of a strong tonic, and she felt nothing else. Memory was +excluded. +</p> + +<p> +They glided rapidly along, Stephen rowing, helped by the backward-flowing tide, +past the Tofton trees and houses; on between the silent sunny fields and +pastures, which seemed filled with a natural joy that had no reproach for +theirs. The breath of the young, unwearied day, the delicious rhythmic dip of +the oars, the fragmentary song of a passing bird heard now and then, as if it +were only the overflowing of brimful gladness, the sweet solitude of a twofold +consciousness that was mingled into one by that grave, untiring gaze which need +not be averted,—what else could there be in their minds for the first +hour? Some low, subdued, languid exclamation of love came from Stephen from +time to time, as he went on rowing idly, half automatically; otherwise they +spoke no word; for what could words have been but an inlet to thought? and +thought did not belong to that enchanted haze in which they were +enveloped,—it belonged to the past and the future that lay outside the +haze. Maggie was only dimly conscious of the banks, as they passed them, and +dwelt with no recognition on the villages; she knew there were several to be +passed before they reached Luckreth, where they always stopped and left the +boat. At all times she was so liable to fits of absence, that she was likely +enough to let her waymarks pass unnoticed. +</p> + +<p> +But at last Stephen, who had been rowing more and more idly, ceased to row, +laid down the oars, folded his arms, and looked down on the water as if +watching the pace at which the boat glided without his help. This sudden change +roused Maggie. She looked at the far-stretching fields, at the banks close by, +and felt that they were entirely strange to her. A terrible alarm took +possession of her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, have we passed Luckreth, where we were to stop?” she +exclaimed, looking back to see if the place were out of sight. No village was +to be seen. She turned around again, with a look of distressed questioning at +Stephen. +</p> + +<p> +He went on watching the water, and said, in a strange, dreamy, absent tone, +“Yes, a long way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what shall I do?” cried Maggie, in an agony. “We shall +not get home for hours, and Lucy? O God, help me!” +</p> + +<p> +She clasped her hands and broke into a sob, like a frightened child; she +thought of nothing but of meeting Lucy, and seeing her look of pained surprise +and doubt, perhaps of just upbraiding. +</p> + +<p> +Stephen moved and sat near her, and gently drew down the clasped hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” he said, in a deep tone of slow decision, “let us +never go home again, till no one can part us,—till we are married.” +</p> + +<p> +The unusual tone, the startling words, arrested Maggie’s sob, and she sat +quite still, wondering; as if Stephen might have seen some possibilities that +would alter everything, and annul the wretched facts. +</p> + +<p> +“See, Maggie, how everything has come without our seeking,—in spite +of all our efforts. We never thought of being alone together again; it has all +been done by others. See how the tide is carrying us out, away from all those +unnatural bonds that we have been trying to make faster round us, and trying in +vain. It will carry us on to Torby, and we can land there, and get some +carriage, and hurry on to York and then to Scotland,—and never pause a +moment till we are bound to each other, so that only death can part us. It is +the only right thing, dearest; it is the only way of escaping from this +wretched entanglement. Everything has concurred to point it out to us. We have +contrived nothing, we have thought of nothing ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen spoke with deep, earnest pleading. Maggie listened, passing from her +startled wonderment to the yearning after that belief that the tide was doing +it all, that she might glide along with the swift, silent stream, and not +struggle any more. But across that stealing influence came the terrible shadow +of past thoughts; and the sudden horror lest now, at last, the moment of fatal +intoxication was close upon her, called up feelings of angry resistance toward +Stephen. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go!” she said, in an agitated tone, flashing an indignant +look at him, and trying to get her hands free. “You have wanted to +deprive me of any choice. You knew we were come too far; you have dared to take +advantage of my thoughtlessness. It is unmanly to bring me into such a +position.” +</p> + +<p> +Stung by this reproach, he released her hands, moved back to his former place, +and folded his arms, in a sort of desperation at the difficulty Maggie’s +words had made present to him. If she would not consent to go on, he must curse +himself for the embarrassment he had led her into. But the reproach was the +unendurable thing; the one thing worse than parting with her was, that she +should feel he had acted unworthily toward her. At last he said, in a tone of +suppressed rage,— +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t notice that we had passed Luckreth till we had got to the +next village; and then it came into my mind that we would go on. I can’t +justify it; I ought to have told you. It is enough to make you hate me, since +you don’t love me well enough to make everything else indifferent to you, +as I do you. Shall I stop the boat and try to get you out here? I’ll tell +Lucy that I was mad, and that you hate me; and you shall be clear of me +forever. No one can blame you, because I have behaved unpardonably to +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was paralyzed; it was easier to resist Stephen’s pleading than +this picture he had called up of himself suffering while she was vindicated; +easier even to turn away from his look of tenderness than from this look of +angry misery, that seemed to place her in selfish isolation from him. He had +called up a state of feeling in which the reasons which had acted on her +conscience seemed to be transmitted into mere self-regard. The indignant fire +in her eyes was quenched, and she began to look at him with timid distress. She +had reproached him for being hurried into irrevocable trespass,—she, who +had been so weak herself. +</p> + +<p> +“As if I shouldn’t feel what happened to you—just the +same,” she said, with reproach of another kind,—the reproach of +love, asking for more trust. This yielding to the idea of Stephen’s +suffering was more fatal than the other yielding, because it was less +distinguishable from that sense of others’ claims which was the moral +basis of her resistance. +</p> + +<p> +He felt all the relenting in her look and tone; it was heaven opening again. He +moved to her side, and took her hand, leaning his elbow on the back of the +boat, and saying nothing. He dreaded to utter another word, he dreaded to make +another movement, that might provoke another reproach or denial from her. Life +hung on her consent; everything else was hopeless, confused, sickening misery. +They glided along in this way, both resting in that silence as in a haven, both +dreading lest their feelings should be divided again,—till they became +aware that the clouds had gathered, and that the slightest perceptible +freshening of the breeze was growing and growing, so that the whole character +of the day was altered. +</p> + +<p> +“You will be chill, Maggie, in this thin dress. Let me raise the cloak +over your shoulders. Get up an instant, dearest.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie obeyed; there was an unspeakable charm in being told what to do, and +having everything decided for her. She sat down again covered with the cloak, +and Stephen took to his oars again, making haste; for they must try to get to +Torby as fast as they could. Maggie was hardly conscious of having said or done +anything decisive. All yielding is attended with a less vivid consciousness +than resistance; it is the partial sleep of thought; it is the submergence of +our own personality by another. Every influence tended to lull her into +acquiescence. That dreamy gliding in the boat which had lasted for four hours, +and had brought some weariness and exhaustion; the recoil of her fatigued +sensations from the impracticable difficulty of getting out of the boat at this +unknown distance from home, and walking for long miles,—all helped to +bring her into more complete subjection to that strong, mysterious charm which +made a last parting from Stephen seem the death of all joy, and made the +thought of wounding him like the first touch of the torturing iron before which +resolution shrank. And then there was the present happiness of being with him, +which was enough to absorb all her languid energy. +</p> + +<p> +Presently Stephen observed a vessel coming after them. Several vessels, among +them the steamer to Mudport, had passed them with the early tide, but for the +last hour they had seen none. He looked more and more eagerly at this vessel, +as if a new thought had come into his mind along with it, and then he looked at +Maggie hesitatingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie, dearest,” he said at last, “if this vessel should be +going to Mudport, or to any convenient place on the coast northward, it would +be our best plan to get them to take us on board. You are fatigued, and it may +soon rain; it may be a wretched business, getting to Torby in this boat. +It’s only a trading vessel, but I dare say you can be made tolerably +comfortable. We’ll take the cushions out of the boat. It is really our +best plan. They’ll be glad enough to take us. I’ve got plenty of +money about me. I can pay them well.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s heart began to beat with reawakened alarm at this new +proposition; but she was silent,—one course seemed as difficult as +another. +</p> + +<p> +Stephen hailed the vessel. It was a Dutch vessel going to Mudport, the English +mate informed him, and, if this wind held, would be there in less than two +days. +</p> + +<p> +“We had got out too far with our boat,” said Stephen. “I was +trying to make for Torby. But I’m afraid of the weather; and this +lady—my wife—will be exhausted with fatigue and hunger. Take us on +board—will you?—and haul up the boat. I’ll pay you +well.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, now really faint and trembling with fear, was taken on board, making +an interesting object of contemplation to admiring Dutchmen. The mate feared +the lady would have a poor time of it on board, for they had no accommodation +for such entirely unlooked-for passengers,—no private cabin larger than +an old-fashioned church-pew. But at least they had Dutch cleanliness, which +makes all other inconveniences tolerable; and the boat cushions were spread +into a couch for Maggie on the poop with all alacrity. But to pace up and down +the deck leaning on Stephen—being upheld by his strength—was the +first change that she needed; then came food, and then quiet reclining on the +cushions, with the sense that no new resolution <i>could</i> be taken that day. +Everything must wait till to-morrow. Stephen sat beside her with her hand in +his; they could only speak to each other in low tones; only look at each other +now and then, for it would take a long while to dull the curiosity of the five +men on board, and reduce these handsome young strangers to that minor degree of +interest which belongs, in a sailor’s regard, to all objects nearer than +the horizon. But Stephen was triumphantly happy. Every other thought or care +was thrown into unmarked perspective by the certainty that Maggie must be his. +The leap had been taken now; he had been tortured by scruples, he had fought +fiercely with overmastering inclination, he had hesitated; but repentance was +impossible. He murmured forth in fragmentary sentences his happiness, his +adoration, his tenderness, his belief that their life together must be heaven, +that her presence with him would give rapture to every common day; that to +satisfy her lightest wish was dearer to him than all other bliss; that +everything was easy for her sake, except to part with her; and now they never +<i>would</i> part; he would belong to her forever, and all that was his was +hers,—had no value for him except as it was hers. Such things, uttered in +low, broken tones by the one voice that has first stirred the fibre of young +passion, have only a feeble effect—on experienced minds at a distance +from them. To poor Maggie they were very near; they were like nectar held close +to thirsty lips; there was, there <i>must</i> be, then, a life for mortals here +below which was not hard and chill,—in which affection would no longer be +self-sacrifice. Stephen’s passionate words made the vision of such a life +more fully present to her than it had ever been before; and the vision for the +time excluded all realities,—all except the returning sun-gleams which +broke out on the waters as the evening approached, and mingled with the +visionary sunlight of promised happiness; all except the hand that pressed +hers, and the voice that spoke to her, and the eyes that looked at her with +grave, unspeakable love. +</p> + +<p> +There was to be no rain, after all; the clouds rolled off to the horizon again, +making the great purple rampart and long purple isles of that wondrous land +which reveals itself to us when the sun goes down,—the land that the +evening star watches over. Maggie was to sleep all night on the poop; it was +better than going below; and she was covered with the warmest wrappings the +ship could furnish. It was still early, when the fatigues of the day brought on +a drowsy longing for perfect rest, and she laid down her head, looking at the +faint, dying flush in the west, where the one golden lamp was getting brighter +and brighter. Then she looked up at Stephen, who was still seated by her, +hanging over her as he leaned his arm against the vessel’s side. Behind +all the delicious visions of these last hours, which had flowed over her like a +soft stream, and made her entirely passive, there was the dim consciousness +that the condition was a transient one, and that the morrow must bring back the +old life of struggle; that there were thoughts which would presently avenge +themselves for this oblivion. But now nothing was distinct to her; she was +being lulled to sleep with that soft stream still flowing over her, with those +delicious visions melting and fading like the wondrous aerial land of the west. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap53"></a>Chapter XIV.<br/> +Waking</h3> + +<p> +When Maggie was gone to sleep, Stephen, weary too with his unaccustomed amount +of rowing, and with the intense inward life of the last twelve hours, but too +restless to sleep, walked and lounged about the deck with his cigar far on into +midnight, not seeing the dark water, hardly conscious there were stars, living +only in the near and distant future. At last fatigue conquered restlessness, +and he rolled himself up in a piece of tarpaulin on the deck near +Maggie’s feet. +</p> + +<p> +She had fallen asleep before nine, and had been sleeping for six hours before +the faintest hint of a midsummer daybreak was discernible. She awoke from that +vivid dreaming which makes the margin of our deeper rest. She was in a boat on +the wide water with Stephen, and in the gathering darkness something like a +star appeared, that grew and grew till they saw it was the Virgin seated in St +Ogg’s boat, and it came nearer and nearer, till they saw the Virgin was +Lucy and the boatman was Philip,—no, not Philip, but her brother, who +rowed past without looking at her; and she rose to stretch out her arms and +call to him, and their own boat turned over with the movement, and they began +to sink, till with one spasm of dread she seemed to awake, and find she was a +child again in the parlour at evening twilight, and Tom was not really angry. +From the soothed sense of that false waking she passed to the real +waking,—to the plash of water against the vessel, and the sound of a +footstep on the deck, and the awful starlit sky. There was a moment of utter +bewilderment before her mind could get disentangled from the confused web of +dreams; but soon the whole terrible truth urged itself upon her. Stephen was +not by her now; she was alone with her own memory and her own dread. The +irrevocable wrong that must blot her life had been committed; she had brought +sorrow into the lives of others,—into the lives that were knit up with +hers by trust and love. The feeling of a few short weeks had hurried her into +the sins her nature had most recoiled from,—breach of faith and cruel +selfishness; she had rent the ties that had given meaning to duty, and had made +herself an outlawed soul, with no guide but the wayward choice of her own +passion. And where would that lead her? Where had it led her now? She had said +she would rather die than fall into that temptation. She felt it now,—now +that the consequences of such a fall had come before the outward act was +completed. There was at least this fruit from all her years of striving after +the highest and best,—that her soul though betrayed, beguiled, ensnared, +could never deliberately consent to a choice of the lower. And a choice of +what? O God! not a choice of joy, but of conscious cruelty and hardness; for +could she ever cease to see before her Lucy and Philip, with their murdered +trust and hopes? Her life with Stephen could have no sacredness; she must +forever sink and wander vaguely, driven by uncertain impulse; for she had let +go the clue of life,—that clue which once in the far-off years her young +need had clutched so strongly. She had renounced all delights then, before she +knew them, before they had come within her reach. Philip had been right when he +told her that she knew nothing of renunciation; she had thought it was quiet +ecstasy; she saw it face to face now,—that sad, patient, loving strength +which holds the clue of life,—and saw that the thorns were forever +pressing on its brow. The yesterday, which could never be revoked,—if she +could have changed it now for any length of inward silent endurance, she would +have bowed beneath that cross with a sense of rest. +</p> + +<p> +Day break came and the reddening eastern light, while her past life was +grasping her in this way, with that tightening clutch which comes in the last +moments of possible rescue. She could see Stephen now lying on the deck still +fast asleep, and with the sight of him there came a wave of anguish that found +its way in a long-suppressed sob. The worst bitterness of parting—the +thought that urged the sharpest inward cry for help—was the pain it must +give to <i>him</i>. But surmounting everything was the horror at her own +possible failure, the dread lest her conscience should be benumbed again, and +not rise to energy till it was too late. Too late! it was too late already not +to have caused misery; too late for everything, perhaps, but to rush away from +the last act of baseness,—the tasting of joys that were wrung from +crushed hearts. +</p> + +<p> +The sun was rising now, and Maggie started up with the sense that a day of +resistance was beginning for her. Her eyelashes were still wet with tears, as, +with her shawl over her head, she sat looking at the slowly rounding sun. +Something roused Stephen too, and getting up from his hard bed, he came to sit +beside her. The sharp instinct of anxious love saw something to give him alarm +in the very first glance. He had a hovering dread of some resistance in +Maggie’s nature that he would be unable to overcome. He had the uneasy +consciousness that he had robbed her of perfect freedom yesterday; there was +too much native honour in him, for him not to feel that, if her will should +recoil, his conduct would have been odious, and she would have a right to +reproach him. +</p> + +<p> +But Maggie did not feel that right; she was too conscious of fatal weakness in +herself, too full of the tenderness that comes with the foreseen need for +inflicting a wound. She let him take her hand when he came to sit down beside +her, and smiled at him, only with rather a sad glance; she could say nothing to +pain him till the moment of possible parting was nearer. And so they drank +their cup of coffee together, and walked about the deck, and heard the +captain’s assurance that they should be in at Mudport by five +o’clock, each with an inward burthen; but in him it was an undefined +fear, which he trusted to the coming hours to dissipate; in her it was a +definite resolve on which she was trying silently to tighten her hold. Stephen +was continually, through the morning, expressing his anxiety at the fatigue and +discomfort she was suffering, and alluded to landing and to the change of +motion and repose she would have in a carriage, wanting to assure himself more +completely by presupposing that everything would be as he had arranged it. For +a long while Maggie contented herself with assuring him that she had had a good +night’s rest, and that she didn’t mind about being on the +vessel,—it was not like being on the open sea, it was only a little less +pleasant than being in a boat on the Floss. But a suppressed resolve will +betray itself in the eyes, and Stephen became more and more uneasy as the day +advanced, under the sense that Maggie had entirely lost her passiveness. He +longed, but did not dare, to speak of their marriage, of where they would go +after it, and the steps he would take to inform his father, and the rest, of +what had happened. He longed to assure himself of a tacit assent from her. But +each time he looked at her, he gathered a stronger dread of the new, quiet +sadness with which she met his eyes. And they were more and more silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Here we are in sight of Mudport,” he said at last. “Now, +dearest,” he added, turning toward her with a look that was half +beseeching, “the worst part of your fatigue is over. On the land we can +command swiftness. In another hour and a half we shall be in a chaise together, +and that will seem rest to you after this.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie felt it was time to speak; it would only be unkind now to assent by +silence. She spoke in the lowest tone, as he had done, but with distinct +decision. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall not be together; we shall have parted.” +</p> + +<p> +The blood rushed to Stephen’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall not,” he said. “I’ll die first.” +</p> + +<p> +It was as he had dreaded—there was a struggle coming. But neither of them +dared to say another word till the boat was let down, and they were taken to +the landing-place. Here there was a cluster of gazers and passengers awaiting +the departure of the steamboat to St Ogg’s. Maggie had a dim sense, when +she had landed, and Stephen was hurrying her along on his arm, that some one +had advanced toward her from that cluster as if he were coming to speak to her. +But she was hurried along, and was indifferent to everything but the coming +trial. +</p> + +<p> +A porter guided them to the nearest inn and posting-house, and Stephen gave the +order for the chaise as they passed through the yard. Maggie took no notice of +this, and only said, “Ask them to show us into a room where we can sit +down.” +</p> + +<p> +When they entered, Maggie did not sit down, and Stephen, whose face had a +desperate determination in it, was about to ring the bell, when she said, in a +firm voice,— +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not going; we must part here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” he said, turning round toward her, and speaking in the +tones of a man who feels a process of torture beginning, “do you mean to +kill me? What is the use of it now? The whole thing is done.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it is not done,” said Maggie. “Too much is +done,—more than we can ever remove the trace of. But I will go no +farther. Don’t try to prevail with me again. I couldn’t choose +yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +What was he to do? He dared not go near her; her anger might leap out, and make +a new barrier. He walked backward and forward in maddening perplexity. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” he said at last, pausing before her, and speaking in a +tone of imploring wretchedness, “have some pity—hear +me—forgive me for what I did yesterday. I will obey you now; I will do +nothing without your full consent. But don’t blight our lives forever by +a rash perversity that can answer no good purpose to any one, that can only +create new evils. Sit down, dearest; wait—think what you are going to do. +Don’t treat me as if you couldn’t trust me.” +</p> + +<p> +He had chosen the most effective appeal; but Maggie’s will was fixed +unswervingly on the coming wrench. She had made up her mind to suffer. +</p> + +<p> +“We must not wait,” she said, in a low but distinct voice; +“we must part at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“We <i>can’t</i> part, Maggie,” said Stephen, more +impetuously. “I can’t bear it. What is the use of inflicting that +misery on me? The blow—whatever it may have been—has been struck +now. Will it help any one else that you should drive me mad?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not begin any future, even for you,” said Maggie, +tremulously, “with a deliberate consent to what ought not to have been. +What I told you at Basset I feel now; I would rather have died than fall into +this temptation. It would have been better if we had parted forever then. But +we must part now.” +</p> + +<p> +“We will <i>not</i> part,” Stephen burst out, instinctively placing +his back against the door, forgetting everything he had said a few moments +before; “I will not endure it. You’ll make me desperate; I +sha’n’t know what I do.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie trembled. She felt that the parting could not be effected suddenly. She +must rely on a slower appeal to Stephen’s better self; she must be +prepared for a harder task than that of rushing away while resolution was +fresh. She sat down. Stephen, watching her with that look of desperation which +had come over him like a lurid light, approached slowly from the door, seated +himself close beside her, and grasped her hand. Her heart beat like the heart +of a frightened bird; but this direct opposition helped her. She felt her +determination growing stronger. +</p> + +<p> +“Remember what you felt weeks ago,” she began, with beseeching +earnestness; “remember what we both felt,—that we owed ourselves to +others, and must conquer every inclination which could make us false to that +debt. We have failed to keep our resolutions; but the wrong remains the +same.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it does <i>not</i> remain the same,” said Stephen. “We +have proved that it was impossible to keep our resolutions. We have proved that +the feeling which draws us toward each other is too strong to be overcome. That +natural law surmounts every other; we can’t help what it clashes +with.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not so, Stephen; I’m quite sure that is wrong. I have tried +to think it again and again; but I see, if we judged in that way, there would +be a warrant for all treachery and cruelty; we should justify breaking the most +sacred ties that can ever be formed on earth. If the past is not to bind us, +where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclination of the +moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there are ties that can’t be kept by mere resolution,” +said Stephen, starting up and walking about again. “What is outward +faithfulness? Would they have thanked us for anything so hollow as constancy +without love?” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie did not answer immediately. She was undergoing an inward as well as an +outward contest. At last she said, with a passionate assertion of her +conviction, as much against herself as against him,— +</p> + +<p> +“That seems right—at first; but when I look further, I’m sure +it is <i>not</i> right. Faithfulness and constancy mean something else besides +doing what is easiest and pleasantest to ourselves. They mean renouncing +whatever is opposed to the reliance others have in us,—whatever would +cause misery to those whom the course of our lives has made dependent on us. If +we—if I had been better, nobler, those claims would have been so strongly +present with me,—I should have felt them pressing on my heart so +continually, just as they do now in the moments when my conscience is +awake,—that the opposite feeling would never have grown in me, as it has +done; it would have been quenched at once, I should have prayed for help so +earnestly, I should have rushed away as we rush from hideous danger. I feel no +excuse for myself, none. I should never have failed toward Lucy and Philip as I +have done, if I had not been weak, selfish, and hard,—able to think of +their pain without a pain to myself that would have destroyed all temptation. +Oh, what is Lucy feeling now? She believed in me—she loved me—she +was so good to me. Think of her——” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s voice was getting choked as she uttered these last words. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>can’t</i> think of her,” said Stephen, stamping as if +with pain. “I can think of nothing but you, Maggie. You demand of a man +what is impossible. I felt that once; but I can’t go back to it now. And +where is the use of <i>your</i> thinking of it, except to torture me? You +can’t save them from pain now; you can only tear yourself from me, and +make my life worthless to me. And even if we could go back, and both fulfil our +engagements,—if that were possible now,—it would be hateful, +horrible, to think of your ever being Philip’s wife,—of your ever +being the wife of a man you didn’t love. We have both been rescued from a +mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +A deep flush came over Maggie’s face, and she couldn’t speak. +Stephen saw this. He sat down again, taking her hand in his, and looking at her +with passionate entreaty. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie! Dearest! If you love me, you are mine. Who can have so great a +claim on you as I have? My life is bound up in your love. There is nothing in +the past that can annul our right to each other; it is the first time we have +either of us loved with our whole heart and soul.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was still silent for a little while, looking down. Stephen was in a +flutter of new hope; he was going to triumph. But she raised her eyes and met +his with a glance that was filled with the anguish of regret, not with +yielding. +</p> + +<p> +“No, not with my whole heart and soul, Stephen,” she said with +timid resolution. “I have never consented to it with my whole mind. There +are memories, and affections, and longings after perfect goodness, that have +such a strong hold on me; they would never quit me for long; they would come +back and be pain to me—repentance. I couldn’t live in peace if I +put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself and God. I have caused sorrow +already—I know—I feel it; but I have never deliberately consented +to it; I have never said, ‘They shall suffer, that I may have joy.’ +It has never been my will to marry you; if you were to win consent from the +momentary triumph of my feeling for you, you would not have my whole soul. If I +could wake back again into the time before yesterday, I would choose to be true +to my calmer affections, and live without the joy of love.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen loosed her hand, and rising impatiently, walked up and down the room in +suppressed rage. +</p> + +<p> +“Good God!” he burst out at last, “what a miserable thing a +woman’s love is to a man’s! I could commit crimes for +you,—and you can balance and choose in that way. But you +<i>don’t</i> love me; if you had a tithe of the feeling for me that I +have for you, it would be impossible to you to think for a moment of +sacrificing me. But it weighs nothing with you that you are robbing me of +<i>my</i> life’s happiness.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie pressed her fingers together almost convulsively as she held them +clasped on her lap. A great terror was upon her, as if she were ever and anon +seeing where she stood by great flashes of lightning, and then again stretched +forth her hands in the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t sacrifice you—I couldn’t sacrifice +you,” she said, as soon as she could speak again; “but I +can’t believe in a good for you, that I feel, that we both feel, is a +wrong toward others. We can’t choose happiness either for ourselves or +for another; we can’t tell where that will lie. We can only choose +whether we will indulge ourselves in the present moment, or whether we will +renounce that, for the sake of obeying the divine voice within us,—for +the sake of being true to all the motives that sanctify our lives. I know this +belief is hard; it has slipped away from me again and again; but I have felt +that if I let it go forever, I should have no light through the darkness of +this life.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Maggie,” said Stephen, seating himself by her again, +“is it possible you don’t see that what happened yesterday has +altered the whole position of things? What infatuation is it, what obstinate +prepossession, that blinds you to that? It is too late to say what we might +have done or what we ought to have done. Admitting the very worst view of what +has been done, it is a fact we must act on now; our position is altered; the +right course is no longer what it was before. We must accept our own actions +and start afresh from them. Suppose we had been married yesterday? It is nearly +the same thing. The effect on others would not have been different. It would +only have made this difference to ourselves,” Stephen added bitterly, +“that you might have acknowledged then that your tie to me was stronger +than to others.” +</p> + +<p> +Again a deep flush came over Maggie’s face, and she was silent. Stephen +thought again that he was beginning to prevail,—he had never yet believed +that he should <i>not</i> prevail; there are possibilities which our minds +shrink from too completely for us to fear them. +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest,” he said, in his deepest, tenderest tone, leaning toward +her, and putting his arm round her, “you <i>are</i> mine now,—the +world believes it; duty must spring out of that now. +</p> + +<p> +“In a few hours you will be legally mine, and those who had claims on us +will submit,—they will see that there was a force which declared against +their claims.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s eyes opened wide in one terrified look at the face that was +close to hers, and she started up, pale again. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I can’t do it,” she said, in a voice almost of agony; +“Stephen, don’t ask me—don’t urge me. I can’t +argue any longer,—I don’t know what is wise; but my heart will not +let me do it. I see,—I feel their trouble now; it is as if it were +branded on my mind. <i>I</i> have suffered, and had no one to pity me; and now +I have made others suffer. It would never leave me; it would embitter your love +to me. I <i>do</i> care for Philip—in a different way; I remember all we +said to each other; I know how he thought of me as the one promise of his life. +He was given to me that I might make his lot less hard; and I have forsaken +him. And Lucy—she has been deceived; she who trusted me more than any +one. I cannot marry you; I cannot take a good for myself that has been wrung +out of their misery. It is not the force that ought to rule us,—this that +we feel for each other; it would rend me away from all that my past life has +made dear and holy to me. I can’t set out on a fresh life, and forget +that; I must go back to it, and cling to it, else I shall feel as if there were +nothing firm beneath my feet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good God, Maggie!” said Stephen, rising too and grasping her arm, +“you rave. How can you go back without marrying me? You don’t know +what will be said, dearest. You see nothing as it really is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I do. But they will believe me. I will confess everything. Lucy +will believe me—she will forgive you, and—and—oh, <i>some</i> +good will come by clinging to the right. Dear, dear Stephen, let me +go!—don’t drag me into deeper remorse. My whole soul has never +consented; it does not consent now.” +</p> + +<p> +Stephen let go her arm, and sank back on his chair, half-stunned by despairing +rage. He was silent a few moments, not looking at her; while her eyes were +turned toward him yearningly, in alarm at this sudden change. At last he said, +still without looking at her,— +</p> + +<p> +“Go, then,—leave me; don’t torture me any longer,—I +can’t bear it.” +</p> + +<p> +Involuntarily she leaned toward him and put out her hand to touch his. But he +shrank from it as if it had been burning iron, and said again,— +</p> + +<p> +“Leave me.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was not conscious of a decision as she turned away from that gloomy +averted face, and walked out of the room; it was like an automatic action that +fulfils a forgotten intention. What came after? A sense of stairs descended as +if in a dream, of flagstones, of a chaise and horses standing, then a street, +and a turning into another street where a stage-coach was standing, taking in +passengers, and the darting thought that that coach would take her away, +perhaps toward home. But she could ask nothing yet; she only got into the +coach. +</p> + +<p> +Home—where her mother and brother were, Philip, Lucy, the scene of her +very cares and trials—was the haven toward which her mind tended; the +sanctuary where sacred relics lay, where she would be rescued from more +falling. The thought of Stephen was like a horrible throbbing pain, which yet, +as such pains do, seemed to urge all other thoughts into activity. But among +her thoughts, what others would say and think of her conduct was hardly +present. Love and deep pity and remorseful anguish left no room for that. +</p> + +<p> +The coach was taking her to York, farther away from home; but she did not learn +that until she was set down in the old city at midnight. It was no matter; she +could sleep there, and start home the next day. She had her purse in her +pocket, with all her money in it,—a bank-note and a sovereign; she had +kept it in her pocket from forgetfulness, after going out to make purchases the +day before yesterday. +</p> + +<p> +Did she lie down in the gloomy bedroom of the old inn that night with her will +bent unwaveringly on the path of penitent sacrifice? The great struggles of +life are not so easy as that; the great problems of life are not so clear. In +the darkness of that night she saw Stephen’s face turned toward her in +passionate, reproachful misery; she lived through again all the tremulous +delights of his presence with her that made existence an easy floating in a +stream of joy, instead of a quiet resolved endurance and effort. The love she +had renounced came back upon her with a cruel charm; she felt herself opening +her arms to receive it once more; and then it seemed to slip away and fade and +vanish, leaving only the dying sound of a deep, thrilling voice that said, +“Gone, forever gone.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="book07"></a>BOOK SEVENTH<br/> +THE FINAL RESCUE.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap54"></a>Chapter I.<br/> +The Return to the Mill</h3> + +<p> +Between four and five o’clock on the afternoon of the fifth day from that +on which Stephen and Maggie had left St Ogg’s, Tom Tulliver was standing +on the gravel walk outside the old house at Dorlcote Mill. He was master there +now; he had half fulfilled his father’s dying wish, and by years of +steady self-government and energetic work he had brought himself near to the +attainment of more than the old respectability which had been the proud +inheritance of the Dodsons and Tullivers. +</p> + +<p> +But Tom’s face, as he stood in the hot, still sunshine of that summer +afternoon, had no gladness, no triumph in it. His mouth wore its bitterest +expression, his severe brow its hardest and deepest fold, as he drew down his +hat farther over his eyes to shelter them from the sun, and thrusting his hands +deep into his pockets, began to walk up and down the gravel. No news of his +sister had been heard since Bob Jakin had come back in the steamer from +Mudport, and put an end to all improbable suppositions of an accident on the +water by stating that he had seen her land from a vessel with Mr Stephen +Guest. Would the next news be that she was married,—or what? Probably +that she was not married; Tom’s mind was set to the expectation of the +worst that could happen,—not death, but disgrace. +</p> + +<p> +As he was walking with his back toward the entrance gate, and his face toward +the rushing mill-stream, a tall, dark-eyed figure, that we know well, +approached the gate, and paused to look at him with a fast-beating heart. Her +brother was the human being of whom she had been most afraid from her childhood +upward; afraid with that fear which springs in us when we love one who is +inexorable, unbending, unmodifiable, with a mind that we can never mould +ourselves upon, and yet that we cannot endure to alienate from us. +</p> + +<p> +That deep-rooted fear was shaking Maggie now; but her mind was unswervingly +bent on returning to her brother, as the natural refuge that had been given +her. In her deep humiliation under the retrospect of her own weakness,—in +her anguish at the injury she had inflicted,—she almost desired to endure +the severity of Tom’s reproof, to submit in patient silence to that +harsh, disapproving judgment against which she had so often rebelled; it seemed +no more than just to her now,—who was weaker than she was? She craved +that outward help to her better purpose which would come from complete, +submissive confession; from being in the presence of those whose looks and +words would be a reflection of her own conscience. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie had been kept on her bed at York for a day with that prostrating +headache which was likely to follow on the terrible strain of the previous day +and night. There was an expression of physical pain still about her brow and +eyes, and her whole appearance, with her dress so long unchanged, was worn and +distressed. She lifted the latch of the gate and walked in slowly. Tom did not +hear the gate; he was just then close upon the roaring dam; but he presently +turned, and lifting up his eyes, saw the figure whose worn look and loneliness +seemed to him a confirmation of his worst conjectures. He paused, trembling and +white with disgust and indignation. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie paused too, three yards before him. She felt the hatred in his face, +felt it rushing through her fibres; but she must speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom,” she began faintly, “I am come back to you,—I am +come back home—for refuge—to tell you everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will find no home with me,” he answered, with tremulous rage. +“You have disgraced us all. You have disgraced my father’s name. +You have been a curse to your best friends. You have been base, deceitful; no +motives are strong enough to restrain you. I wash my hands of you forever. You +don’t belong to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Their mother had come to the door now. She stood paralyzed by the double shock +of seeing Maggie and hearing Tom’s words. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom,” said Maggie, with more courage, “I am perhaps not so +guilty as you believe me to be. I never meant to give way to my feelings. I +struggled against them. I was carried too far in the boat to come back on +Tuesday. I came back as soon as I could.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t believe in you any more,” said Tom, gradually +passing from the tremulous excitement of the first moment to cold +inflexibility. “You have been carrying on a clandestine relation with +Stephen Guest,—as you did before with another. He went to see you at my +aunt Moss’s; you walked alone with him in the lanes; you must have +behaved as no modest girl would have done to her cousin’s lover, else +that could never have happened. The people at Luckreth saw you pass; you passed +all the other places; you knew what you were doing. You have been using Philip +Wakem as a screen to deceive Lucy,—the kindest friend you ever had. Go +and see the return you have made her. She’s ill; unable to speak. My +mother can’t go near her, lest she should remind her of you.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was half stunned,—too heavily pressed upon by her anguish even to +discern any difference between her actual guilt and her brother’s +accusations, still less to vindicate herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom,” she said, crushing her hands together under her cloak, in +the effort to speak again, “whatever I have done, I repent it bitterly. I +want to make amends. I will endure anything. I want to be kept from doing wrong +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>will</i> keep you?” said Tom, with cruel bitterness. +“Not religion; not your natural feelings of gratitude and honour. And +he—he would deserve to be shot, if it were not——But you are +ten times worse than he is. I loathe your character and your conduct. You +struggled with your feelings, you say. Yes! <i>I</i> have had feelings to +struggle with; but I conquered them. I have had a harder life than you have +had; but I have found <i>my</i> comfort in doing my duty. But I will sanction +no such character as yours; the world shall know that <i>I</i> feel the +difference between right and wrong. If you are in want, I will provide for you; +let my mother know. But you shall not come under my roof. It is enough that I +have to bear the thought of your disgrace; the sight of you is hateful to +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Slowly Maggie was turning away with despair in her heart. But the poor +frightened mother’s love leaped out now, stronger than all dread. +</p> + +<p> +“My child! I’ll go with you. You’ve got a mother.” +</p> + +<p> +Oh, the sweet rest of that embrace to the heart-stricken Maggie! More helpful +than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us. +</p> + +<p> +Tom turned and walked into the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in, my child,” Mrs Tulliver whispered. “He’ll +let you stay and sleep in my bed. He won’t deny that if I ask him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, mother,” said Maggie, in a low tone, like a moan. “I +will never go in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then wait for me outside. I’ll get ready and come with you.” +</p> + +<p> +When his mother appeared with her bonnet on, Tom came out to her in the +passage, and put money into her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“My house is yours, mother, always,” he said. “You will come +and let me know everything you want; you will come back to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Mrs Tulliver took the money, too frightened to say anything. The only +thing clear to her was the mother’s instinct that she would go with her +unhappy child. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was waiting outside the gate; she took her mother’s hand and they +walked a little way in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother,” said Maggie, at last, “we will go to Luke’s +cottage. Luke will take me in. He was very good to me when I was a little +girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s got no room for us, my dear, now; his wife’s got so +many children. I don’t know where to go, if it isn’t to one +o’ your aunts; and I hardly durst,” said poor Mrs Tulliver, quite +destitute of mental resources in this extremity. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was silent a little while, and then said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go to Bob Jakin’s, mother; his wife will have room for us, +if they have no other lodger.” +</p> + +<p> +So they went on their way to St Ogg’s, to the old house by the +river-side. +</p> + +<p> +Bob himself was at home, with a heaviness at heart which resisted even the new +joy and pride of possessing a two-months’-old baby, quite the liveliest +of its age that had ever been born to prince or packman. He would perhaps not +so thoroughly have understood all the dubiousness of Maggie’s appearance +with Mr Stephen Guest on the quay at Mudport if he had not witnessed the +effect it produced on Tom when he went to report it; and since then, the +circumstances which in any case gave a disastrous character to her elopement +had passed beyond the more polite circles of St Ogg’s, and had become +matter of common talk, accessible to the grooms and errand-boys. So that when +he opened the door and saw Maggie standing before him in her sorrow and +weariness, he had no questions to ask except one which he dared only ask +himself,—where was Mr Stephen Guest? Bob, for his part, hoped he might +be in the warmest department of an asylum understood to exist in the other +world for gentlemen who are likely to be in fallen circumstances there. +</p> + +<p> +The lodgings were vacant, and both Mrs Jakin the larger and Mrs Jakin the +less were commanded to make all things comfortable for “the old Missis +and the young Miss”; alas that she was still “Miss!” The +ingenious Bob was sorely perplexed as to how this result could have come about; +how Mr Stephen Guest could have gone away from her, or could have let her go +away from him, when he had the chance of keeping her with him. But he was +silent, and would not allow his wife to ask him a question; would not present +himself in the room, lest it should appear like intrusion and a wish to pry; +having the same chivalry toward dark-eyed Maggie as in the days when he had +bought her the memorable present of books. +</p> + +<p> +But after a day or two Mrs Tulliver was gone to the Mill again for a few hours +to see to Tom’s household matters. Maggie had wished this; after the +first violent outburst of feeling which came as soon as she had no longer any +active purpose to fulfil, she was less in need of her mother’s presence; +she even desired to be alone with her grief. But she had been solitary only a +little while in the old sitting-room that looked on the river, when there came +a tap at the door, and turning round her sad face as she said “Come +in,” she saw Bob enter, with the baby in his arms and Mumps at his heels. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll go back, if it disturbs you, Miss,” said Bob. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Maggie, in a low voice, wishing she could smile. +</p> + +<p> +Bob, closing the door behind him, came and stood before her. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, we’ve got a little un, Miss, and I want’d you to +look at it, and take it in your arms, if you’d be so good. For we made +free to name it after you, and it ’ud be better for your takin’ a +bit o’ notice on it.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie could not speak, but she put out her arms to receive the tiny baby, +while Mumps snuffed at it anxiously, to ascertain that this transference was +all right. Maggie’s heart had swelled at this action and speech of +Bob’s; she knew well enough that it was a way he had chosen to show his +sympathy and respect. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, Bob,” she said presently, and he sat down in silence, +finding his tongue unmanageable in quite a new fashion, refusing to say what he +wanted it to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Bob,” she said, after a few moments, looking down at the baby, and +holding it anxiously, as if she feared it might slip from her mind and her +fingers, “I have a favour to ask of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you speak so, Miss,” said Bob, grasping the skin of +Mumps’s neck; “if there’s anything I can do for you, I should +look upon it as a day’s earnings.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to go to Dr Kenn’s, and ask to speak to him, and tell +him that I am here, and should be very grateful if he would come to me while my +mother is away. She will not come back till evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, Miss, I’d do it in a minute,—it is but a step,—but +Dr Kenn’s wife lies dead; she’s to be buried to-morrow; died the +day I come from Mudport. It’s all the more pity she should ha’ died +just now, if you want him. I hardly like to go a-nigh him yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, Bob,” said Maggie, “we must let it be,—till +after a few days, perhaps, when you hear that he is going about again. But +perhaps he may be going out of town—to a distance,” she added, with +a new sense of despondency at this idea. +</p> + +<p> +“Not he, Miss,” said Bob. “<i>He’ll</i> none go away. +He isn’t one o’ them gentlefolks as go to cry at +waterin’-places when their wives die; he’s got summat else to do. +He looks fine and sharp after the parish, he does. He christened the little un; +an’ he was <i>at</i> me to know what I did of a Sunday, as I didn’t +come to church. But I told him I was upo’ the travel three parts o’ +the Sundays,—an’ then I’m so used to bein’ on my legs, +I can’t sit so long on end,—‘an’ lors, sir,’ says +I, ‘a packman can do wi’ a small ’lowance o’ church; it +tastes strong,’ says I; ‘there’s no call to lay it on +thick.’ Eh, Miss, how good the little un is wi’ you! It’s +like as if it knowed you; it partly does, I’ll be bound,—like the +birds know the mornin’.” +</p> + +<p> +Bob’s tongue was now evidently loosed from its unwonted bondage, and +might even be in danger of doing more work than was required of it. But the +subjects on which he longed to be informed were so steep and difficult of +approach, that his tongue was likely to run on along the level rather than to +carry him on that unbeaten road. He felt this, and was silent again for a +little while, ruminating much on the possible forms in which he might put a +question. At last he said, in a more timid voice than usual,— +</p> + +<p> +“Will you give me leave to ask you only one thing, Miss?” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie was rather startled, but she answered, “Yes, Bob, if it is about +myself—not about any one else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Miss, it’s this. <i>Do</i> you owe anybody a grudge?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not any one,” said Maggie, looking up at him inquiringly. +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, lors, Miss,” said Bob, pinching Mumps’s neck harder than +ever. “I wish you did, an’ tell me; I’d leather him till I +couldn’t see—I would—an’ the Justice might do what he +liked to me arter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Bob,” said Maggie, smiling faintly, “you’re a very +good friend to me. But I shouldn’t like to punish any one, even if +they’d done me wrong; I’ve done wrong myself too often.” +</p> + +<p> +This view of things was puzzling to Bob, and threw more obscurity than ever +over what could possibly have happened between Stephen and Maggie. But further +questions would have been too intrusive, even if he could have framed them +suitably, and he was obliged to carry baby away again to an expectant mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Happen you’d like Mumps for company, Miss,” he said when he +had taken the baby again. “He’s rare company, Mumps is; he knows +iverything, an’ makes no bother about it. If I tell him, he’ll lie +before you an’ watch you, as still,—just as he watches my pack. +You’d better let me leave him a bit; he’ll get fond on you. Lors, +it’s a fine thing to hev a dumb brute fond on you; it’ll stick to +you, an’ make no jaw.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, do leave him, please,” said Maggie. “I think I should +like to have Mumps for a friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mumps, lie down there,” said Bob, pointing to a place in front of +Maggie, “and niver do you stir till you’re spoke to.” +</p> + +<p> +Mumps lay down at once, and made no sign of restlessness when his master left +the room. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap55"></a>Chapter II.<br/> +St Ogg’s Passes Judgment</h3> + +<p> +It was soon known throughout St Ogg’s that Miss Tulliver was come back; +she had not, then, eloped in order to be married to Mr Stephen Guest,—at +all events, Mr Stephen Guest had not married her; which came to the same +thing, so far as her culpability was concerned. We judge others according to +results; how else?—not knowing the process by which results are arrived +at. If Miss Tulliver, after a few months of well-chosen travel, had returned as +Mrs Stephen Guest, with a post-marital <i>trousseau</i>, and all the +advantages possessed even by the most unwelcome wife of an only son, public +opinion, which at St Ogg’s, as else where, always knew what to think, +would have judged in strict consistency with those results. Public opinion, in +these cases, is always of the feminine gender,—not the world, but the +world’s wife; and she would have seen that two handsome young +people—the gentleman of quite the first family in St +Ogg’s—having found themselves in a false position, had been led +into a course which, to say the least of it, was highly injudicious, and +productive of sad pain and disappointment, especially to that sweet young +thing, Miss Deane. Mr Stephen Guest had certainly not behaved well; but then, +young men were liable to those sudden infatuated attachments; and bad as it +might seem in Mrs Stephen Guest to admit the faintest advances from her +cousin’s lover (indeed it <i>had</i> been said that she was actually +engaged to young Wakem,—old Wakem himself had mentioned it), still, she +was very young,—“and a deformed young man, you know!—and +young Guest so very fascinating; and, they say, he positively worships her (to +be sure, that can’t last!), and he ran away with her in the boat quite +against her will, and what could she do? She couldn’t come back then; no +one would have spoken to her; and how very well that maize-coloured satinette +becomes her complexion! It seems as if the folds in front were quite come in; +several of her dresses are made so,—they say he thinks nothing too +handsome to buy for her. Poor Miss Deane! She is very pitiable; but then there +was no positive engagement; and the air at the coast will do her good. After +all, if young Guest felt no more for her than <i>that</i> it was better for her +not to marry him. What a wonderful marriage for a girl like Miss +Tulliver,—quite romantic? Why, young Guest will put up for the borough at +the next election. Nothing like commerce nowadays! That young Wakem nearly went +out of his mind; he always <i>was</i> rather queer; but he’s gone abroad +again to be out of the way,—quite the best thing for a deformed young +man. Miss Unit declares she will never visit Mr and Mrs Stephen +Guest,—such nonsense! pretending to be better than other people. Society +couldn’t be carried on if we inquired into private conduct in that +way,—and Christianity tells us to think no evil,—and my belief is, +that Miss Unit had no cards sent her.” +</p> + +<p> +But the results, we know, were not of a kind to warrant this extenuation of the +past. Maggie had returned without a <i>trousseau</i>, without a +husband,—in that degraded and outcast condition to which error is well +known to lead; and the world’s wife, with that fine instinct which is +given her for the preservation of Society, saw at once that Miss +Tulliver’s conduct had been of the most aggravated kind. Could anything +be more detestable? A girl so much indebted to her friends—whose mother +as well as herself had received so much kindness from the Deanes—to lay +the design of winning a young man’s affections away from her own cousin, +who had behaved like a sister to her! Winning his affections? That was not the +phrase for such a girl as Miss Tulliver; it would have been more correct to say +that she had been actuated by mere unwomanly boldness and unbridled passion. +There was always something questionable about her. That connection with young +Wakem, which, they said, had been carried on for years, looked very +ill,—disgusting, in fact! But with a girl of that disposition! To the +world’s wife there had always been something in Miss Tulliver’s +very <i>physique</i> that a refined instinct felt to be prophetic of harm. As +for poor Mr Stephen Guest, he was rather pitiable than otherwise; a young man +of five-and-twenty is not to be too severely judged in these cases,—he is +really very much at the mercy of a designing, bold girl. And it was clear that +he had given way in spite of himself: he had shaken her off as soon as he +could; indeed, their having parted so soon looked very black +indeed—<i>for her</i>. To be sure, he had written a letter, laying all +the blame on himself, and telling the story in a romantic fashion so as to try +and make her appear quite innocent; of course he would do that! But the refined +instinct of the world’s wife was not to be deceived; +providentially!—else what would become of Society? Why, her own brother +had turned her from his door; he had seen enough, you might be sure, before he +would do that. A truly respectable young man, Mr Tom Tulliver; quite likely to +rise in the world! His sister’s disgrace was naturally a heavy blow to +him. It was to be hoped that she would go out of the neighbourhood,—to +America, or anywhere,—so as to purify the air of St Ogg’s from the +stain of her presence, extremely dangerous to daughters there! No good could +happen to her; it was only to be hoped she would repent, and that God would +have mercy on her: He had not the care of society on His hands, as the +world’s wife had. +</p> + +<p> +It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these +inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen’s letter came, +telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to +Holland,—had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money,—was +incapable of any resolution at present. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety +to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the +world of St Ogg’s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor +heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. +If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to +her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from +them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother’s lips. +Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again +and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even +into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never +glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in +her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another +influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she +craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from +more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous +possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense +of a sure refuge. +</p> + +<p> +But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too +strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her +bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning +to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at +Bob’s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, +and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St +Ogg’s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his +parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance +that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with +yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her +mother called every day at Mr Deane’s to learn how Lucy was; the report +was always sad,—nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity +which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had +learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what +related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister +Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the +Mill in Mrs Tulliver’s absence, though he had said nothing of what had +passed on the occasion. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on +walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but +the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the +first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind +was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting +people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no +sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from +Bob’s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and +this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or +left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old +acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a +little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her +self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to +me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was +about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the +billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little +with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of <i>nonchalance</i> +which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie’s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in +the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of +her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt +to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; +there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may +come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the +street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more +needful for the righteous to bestow. +</p> + +<p> +She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn’s study, +where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning +his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child +was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, +placing a chair for Maggie,— +</p> + +<p> +“I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am +glad you did.” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the +bazaar, and said, “I want to tell you everything.” But her eyes +filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her +humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. +</p> + +<p> +“Do tell me everything,” Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his +grave, firm voice. “Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been +granted, which may enable him to help you.” +</p> + +<p> +In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the +greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told +the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only +the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of +Stephen’s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the +confirmation of Maggie’s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, +“<i>Oh, I must go</i>,” had remained with him as the sign that she +was undergoing some inward conflict. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her +mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When +she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on +his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. +At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie,— +</p> + +<p> +“Your prompting to go to your nearest friends,—to remain where all +the ties of your life have been formed,—is a true prompting, to which the +Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms +to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them +until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the +feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together +by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline +and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed,—they can hardly be said to +exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, +contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; +and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately +recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human +needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense +of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems +tending toward the relaxation of ties,—toward the substitution of wayward +choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your +conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss +Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about +you—what my advice to you—would be, if they sprang from my own +feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances.” +</p> + +<p> +Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive +benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of +his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was +persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and +frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be +some effective help in his words. He went on. +</p> + +<p> +“Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from +anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed +concerning your conduct,—conceptions which will have a baneful effect, +even in spite of known evidence to disprove them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I do,—I begin to see,” said Maggie, unable to repress +this utterance of her recent pain. “I know I shall be insulted. I shall +be thought worse than I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“You perhaps do not yet know,” said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more +personal pity, “that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one +who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a +return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all +difficult.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, where is he?” said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that +no presence could have hindered. +</p> + +<p> +“He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He +has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter +to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her.” +</p> + +<p> +Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. +</p> + +<p> +“That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions +concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the +experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, +makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the +painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of +a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely +to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your +life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. +For this reason—and for this only—I ask you to consider whether it +will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according +to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if I could but stop here!” said Maggie. “I have no heart +to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a +lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered +me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in +some way to Lucy—to others; I could convince them that I’m sorry. +And,” she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, “I +will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to +retract them. If I must go away at last, because—because others wish it, +I will not go now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, “if you +determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position +gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office +as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your +peace of mind and welfare.” +</p> + +<p> +“The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my +bread and be independent,” said Maggie. “I shall not want much. I +can go on lodging where I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must think over the subject maturely,” said Dr Kenn, “and +in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall +come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind.” +</p> + +<p> +When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, +and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and +difficulty. The tone of Stephen’s letter, which he had read, and the +actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the +idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and +the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg’s on any other +supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable +prospective difficulty over Maggie’s stay there. On the other hand, he +entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, +and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state +of Maggie’s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a +desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on +which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His +experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be +lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the +former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this +irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable +because each immediate step was clogged with evil. +</p> + +<p> +The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to +no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has +come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that +will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he +had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will +fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their +perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which +eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed,—the truth, that moral +judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened +by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual +lot. +</p> + +<p> +All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of +maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our +life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas +of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that +spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular +representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by +general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made +patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, +impartiality,—without any care to assure themselves whether they have the +insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life +vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is +human. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap56"></a>Chapter III.<br/> +Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us</h3> + +<p> +When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected +line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs +Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured +that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and +legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest +point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and +gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in +severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was +compelled. If you were not to stand by your “kin” as long as there +was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? +Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to +alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg +had always augured ill of Maggie’s future at a time when other people +were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for +her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out +from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become +unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs +Glegg’s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons +before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal +strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas +of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She +quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for +Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and +fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for +advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter’s +“Saints’ Rest” from morning till night, denying herself to +all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen’s +letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she +laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do +nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any +number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened +before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never +enter St Ogg’s again, because “acquaintances” knew of it +all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her +with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to +that ill-advised person! +</p> + +<p> +Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in +proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other +immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to +shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the +judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of +facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their +imperfection, that Maggie’s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too +strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He +would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his +days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits +of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a +slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, +remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the +wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived +its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had +clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common +duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to +him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature +than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of +clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished,—she was not a woman +to deny that; she knew what conduct was,—but punished in proportion to +the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by +people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were +better. +</p> + +<p> +“Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear,” said poor +Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, “as I didn’t go to her +before; she said it wasn’t for her to come to me first. But she spoke +like a sister, too; <i>having</i> she allays was, and hard to please,—oh +dear!—but she’s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you +yet, my child. For she says, for all she’s been so set again’ +having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting +her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you’ll +go to her dutiful, and she’ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you +when they’ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn’t bear to +see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, +‘<i>I</i> won’t throw ill words at her; there’s them out +o’ th’ family ’ull be ready enough to do that. But I’ll +give her good advice; an’ she must be humble.’ It’s wonderful +o’ Jane; for I’m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at +me,—if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or +whativer it was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, mother,” said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all +the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, “tell her I’m very +grateful; I’ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can’t see any +one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I’ve been to him,—he will advise me, +and help me to get some occupation. I can’t live with any one, or be +dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear +nothing of Philip—Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has +mentioned him?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, my dear; but I’ve been to Lucy’s, and I saw your uncle, +and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o’ +Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she’s on the turn +to be better. What a world this is,—what trouble, oh dear! The law was +the first beginning, and it’s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, +just when the luck seemed on the turn.” This was the first lamentation +that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by +the interview with sister Glegg. +</p> + +<p> +“My poor, poor mother!” Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with +pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother’s neck; +“I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been +happy if it hadn’t been for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, my dear,” said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young +cheek; “I must put up wi’ my children,—I shall never have no +more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There’s +nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur’ went long ago. And +you’d got to be very good once; I can’t think how it’s turned +out the wrong way so!” +</p> + +<p> +Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; +anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned +courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He +did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an +accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, +apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the +catastrophe to his son’s hopes after he had done violence to his own +strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this +concession in St Ogg’s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when +any one asked him a question about his son. +</p> + +<p> +But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the +calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town +for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination +began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did +he believe about her? +</p> + +<p> +At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which +she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name,—a hand in which her +name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. +Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs +that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“Maggie,—I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I +know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any +other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from +you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; +that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never +possessed; but through all the suggestions—almost murderous +suggestions—of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your +truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that +you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy’s sake +and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for <i>you;</i> and +that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would +not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong +attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your +characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which +makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in +your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am +wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which +his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other +hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning +and the beauty it bears for him.<br/> + “I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with +selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you +long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; +how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me +on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed +meaning to the foregoing pain,—the promise of another self that would +lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, +ever-satisfied want?<br/> + “But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the +next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to +sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your +marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. +There is something stronger in you than your love for him.<br/> + “I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in +its utmost agony—even in those terrible throes that love must suffer +before it can be disembodied of selfish desire—my love for you sufficed +to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst +of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast +of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and +might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you,—to wait and +endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you +of,—that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy +a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want +you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was +nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing +you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You +have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is +to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The +new life I have found in caring for your joy and sorrow more than for what is +directly my own, has transformed the spirit of rebellious murmuring into that +willing endurance which is the birth of strong sympathy. I think nothing but +such complete and intense love could have initiated me into that enlarged life +which grows and grows by appropriating the life of others; for before, I was +always dragged back from it by ever-present painful self-consciousness. I even +think sometimes that this gift of transferred life which has come to me in +loving you, may be a new power to me.<br/> + “Then, dear one, in spite of all, you have been the blessing of my life. +Let no self-reproach weigh on you because of me. It is I who should rather +reproach myself for having urged my feelings upon you, and hurried you into +words that you have felt as fetters. You meant to be true to those words; you +<i>have</i> been true. I can measure your sacrifice by what I have known in +only one half-hour of your presence with me, when I dreamed that you might love +me best. But, Maggie, I have no just claim on you for more than affectionate +remembrance.<br/> + “For some time I have shrunk from writing to you, because I have shrunk +even from the appearance of wishing to thrust myself before you, and so +repeating my original error. But you will not misconstrue me. I know that we +must keep apart for a long while; cruel tongues would force us apart, if +nothing else did. But I shall not go away. The place where you are is the one +where my mind must live, wherever I might travel. And remember that I am +unchangeably yours,—yours not with selfish wishes, but with a devotion +that excludes such wishes.<br/> + “God comfort you, my loving, large-souled Maggie. If every one else has +misconceived you, remember that you have never been doubted by him whose heart +recognised you ten years ago.<br/> + “Do not believe any one who says I am ill, because I am not seen out of +doors. I have only had nervous headaches,—no worse than I have sometimes +had them before. But the overpowering heat inclines me to be perfectly +quiescent in the daytime. I am strong enough to obey any word which shall tell +me that I can serve you by word or deed.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Yours to the last,<br/> +“<i>Philip Wakem</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +As Maggie knelt by the bed sobbing, with that letter pressed under her, her +feelings again and again gathered themselves in a whispered cry, always in the +same words,— +</p> + +<p> +“O God, is there any happiness in love that could make me forget +<i>their</i> pain?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap57"></a>Chapter IV.<br/> +Maggie and Lucy</h3> + +<p> +By the end of the week Dr Kenn had made up his mind that there was only one +way in which he could secure to Maggie a suitable living at St Ogg’s. +Even with his twenty years’ experience as a parish priest, he was aghast +at the obstinate continuance of imputations against her in the face of +evidence. Hitherto he had been rather more adored and appealed to than was +quite agreeable to him; but now, in attempting to open the ears of women to +reason, and their consciences to justice, on behalf of Maggie Tulliver, he +suddenly found himself as powerless as he was aware he would have been if he +had attempted to influence the shape of bonnets. Dr Kenn could not be +contradicted; he was listened to in silence; but when he left the room, a +comparison of opinions among his hearers yielded much the same result as +before. Miss Tulliver had undeniably acted in a blamable manner, even Dr Kenn +did not deny that; how, then, could he think so lightly of her as to put that +favourable interpretation on everything she had done? Even on the supposition +that required the utmost stretch of belief,—namely, that none of the +things said about Miss Tulliver were true,—still, since they <i>had</i> +been said about her, they had cast an odor round her which must cause her to be +shrunk from by every woman who had to take care of her own reputation—and +of Society. To have taken Maggie by the hand and said, “I will not +believe unproved evil of you; my lips shall not utter it; my ears shall be +closed against it; I, too, am an erring mortal, liable to stumble, apt to come +short of my most earnest efforts; your lot has been harder than mine, your +temptation greater; let us help each other to stand and walk without more +falling,”—to have done this would have demanded courage, deep pity, +self-knowledge, generous trust; would have demanded a mind that tasted no +piquancy in evil-speaking, that felt no self-exaltation in condemning, that +cheated itself with no large words into the belief that life can have any moral +end, any high religion, which excludes the striving after perfect truth, +justice, and love toward the individual men and women who come across our own +path. The ladies of St Ogg’s were not beguiled by any wide speculative +conceptions; but they had their favourite abstraction, called Society, which +served to make their consciences perfectly easy in doing what satisfied their +own egoism,—thinking and speaking the worst of Maggie Tulliver, and +turning their backs upon her. It was naturally disappointing to Dr Kenn, after +two years of superfluous incense from his feminine parishioners, to find them +suddenly maintaining their views in opposition to his; but then they maintained +them in opposition to a higher Authority, which they had venerated longer. That +Authority had furnished a very explicit answer to persons who might inquire +where their social duties began, and might be inclined to take wide views as to +the starting-point. The answer had not turned on the ultimate good of Society, +but on “a certain man” who was found in trouble by the wayside. +</p> + +<p> +Not that St Ogg’s was empty of women with some tenderness of heart and +conscience; probably it had as fair a proportion of human goodness in it as any +other small trading town of that day. But until every good man is brave, we +must expect to find many good women timid,—too timid even to believe in +the correctness of their own best promptings, when these would place them in a +minority. And the men at St Ogg’s were not all brave, by any means; some +of them were even fond of scandal, and to an extent that might have given their +conversation an effeminate character, if it had not been distinguished by +masculine jokes, and by an occasional shrug of the shoulders at the mutual +hatred of women. It was the general feeling of the masculine mind at St +Ogg’s that women were not to be interfered with in their treatment of +each other. +</p> + +<p> +And thus every direction in which Dr Kenn had turned, in the hope of procuring +some kind recognition and some employment for Maggie, proved a disappointment +to him. Mrs James Torry could not think of taking Maggie as a nursery +governess, even temporarily,—a young woman about whom “such things +had been said,” and about whom “gentlemen joked”; and Miss +Kirke, who had a spinal complaint, and wanted a reader and companion, felt +quite sure that Maggie’s mind must be of a quality with which she, for +her part, could not risk <i>any</i> contact. Why did not Miss Tulliver accept +the shelter offered her by her aunt Glegg? It did not become a girl like her to +refuse it. Or else, why did she not go out of the neighbourhood, and get a +situation where she was not known? (It was not, apparently, of so much +importance that she should carry her dangerous tendencies into strange families +unknown at St Ogg’s.) She must be very bold and hardened to wish to stay +in a parish where she was so much stared at and whispered about. +</p> + +<p> +Dr Kenn, having great natural firmness, began, in the presence of this +opposition, as every firm man would have done, to contract a certain strength +of determination over and above what would have been called forth by the end in +view. He himself wanted a daily governess for his younger children; and though +he had hesitated in the first instance to offer this position to Maggie, the +resolution to protest with the utmost force of his personal and priestly +character against her being crushed and driven away by slander, was now +decisive. Maggie gratefully accepted an employment that gave her duties as well +as a support; her days would be filled now, and solitary evenings would be a +welcome rest. She no longer needed the sacrifice her mother made in staying +with her, and Mrs Tulliver was persuaded to go back to the Mill. +</p> + +<p> +But now it began to be discovered that Dr Kenn, exemplary as he had hitherto +appeared, had his crotchets, possibly his weaknesses. The masculine mind of St +Ogg’s smiled pleasantly, and did not wonder that Kenn liked to see a fine +pair of eyes daily, or that he was inclined to take so lenient a view of the +past; the feminine mind, regarded at that period as less powerful, took a more +melancholy view of the case. If Dr Kenn should be beguiled into marrying that +Miss Tulliver! It was not safe to be too confident, even about the best of men; +an apostle had fallen, and wept bitterly afterwards; and though Peter’s +denial was not a close precedent, his repentance was likely to be. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie had not taken her daily walks to the Rectory for many weeks, before the +dreadful possibility of her some time or other becoming the Rector’s wife +had been talked of so often in confidence, that ladies were beginning to +discuss how they should behave to her in that position. For Dr Kenn, it had +been understood, had sat in the schoolroom half an hour one morning, when Miss +Tulliver was giving her lessons,—nay, he had sat there every morning; he +had once walked home with her,—he almost <i>always</i> walked home with +her,—and if not, he went to see her in the evening. What an artful +creature she was! What a <i>mother</i> for those children! It was enough to +make poor Mrs Kenn turn in her grave, that they should be put under the care +of this girl only a few weeks after her death. Would he be so lost to propriety +as to marry her before the year was out? The masculine mind was sarcastic, and +thought <i>not</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The Miss Guests saw an alleviation to the sorrow of witnessing a folly in their +Rector; at least their brother would be safe; and their knowledge of +Stephen’s tenacity was a constant ground of alarm to them, lest he should +come back and marry Maggie. They were not among those who disbelieved their +brother’s letter; but they had no confidence in Maggie’s adherence +to her renunciation of him; they suspected that she had shrunk rather from the +elopement than from the marriage, and that she lingered in St Ogg’s, +relying on his return to her. They had always thought her disagreeable; they +now thought her artful and proud; having quite as good grounds for that +judgment as you and I probably have for many strong opinions of the same kind. +Formerly they had not altogether delighted in the contemplated match with Lucy, +but now their dread of a marriage between Stephen and Maggie added its momentum +to their genuine pity and indignation on behalf of the gentle forsaken girl, in +making them desire that he should return to her. As soon as Lucy was able to +leave home, she was to seek relief from the oppressive heat of this August by +going to the coast with the Miss Guests; and it was in their plans that Stephen +should be induced to join them. On the very first hint of gossip concerning +Maggie and Dr Kenn, the report was conveyed in Miss Guest’s letter to +her brother. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie had frequent tidings through her mother, or aunt Glegg, or Dr Kenn, of +Lucy’s gradual progress toward recovery, and her thoughts tended +continually toward her uncle Deane’s house; she hungered for an interview +with Lucy, if it were only for five minutes, to utter a word of penitence, to +be assured by Lucy’s own eyes and lips that she did not believe in the +willing treachery of those whom she had loved and trusted. But she knew that +even if her uncle’s indignation had not closed his house against her, the +agitation of such an interview would have been forbidden to Lucy. Only to have +seen her without speaking would have been some relief; for Maggie was haunted +by a face cruel in its very gentleness; a face that had been turned on hers +with glad, sweet looks of trust and love from the twilight time of memory; +changed now to a sad and weary face by a first heart-stroke. And as the days +passed on, that pale image became more and more distinct; the picture grew and +grew into more speaking definiteness under the avenging hand of remorse; the +soft hazel eyes, in their look of pain, were bent forever on Maggie, and +pierced her the more because she could see no anger in them. But Lucy was not +yet able to go to church, or any place where Maggie could see her; and even the +hope of that departed, when the news was told her by aunt Glegg, that Lucy was +really going away in a few days to Scarborough with the Miss Guests, who had +been heard to say that they expected their brother to meet them there. +</p> + +<p> +Only those who have known what hardest inward conflict is, can know what Maggie +felt as she sat in her loneliness the evening after hearing that news from Mrs +Glegg,—only those who have known what it is to dread their own selfish +desires as the watching mother would dread the sleeping-potion that was to +still her own pain. +</p> + +<p> +She sat without candle in the twilight, with the window wide open toward the +river; the sense of oppressive heat adding itself undistinguishably to the +burthen of her lot. Seated on a chair against the window, with her arm on the +windowsill she was looking blankly at the flowing river, swift with the +backward-rushing tide, struggling to see still the sweet face in its +unreproaching sadness, that seemed now from moment to moment to sink away and +be hidden behind a form that thrust itself between, and made darkness. Hearing +the door open, she thought Mrs Jakin was coming in with her supper, as usual; +and with that repugnance to trivial speech which comes with languor and +wretchedness, she shrank from turning round and saying she wanted nothing; good +little Mrs Jakin would be sure to make some well-meant remarks. But the next +moment, without her having discerned the sound of a footstep, she felt a light +hand on her shoulder, and heard a voice close to her saying, +“Maggie!” +</p> + +<p> +The face was there,—changed, but all the sweeter; the hazel eyes were +there, with their heart-piercing tenderness. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie!” the soft voice said. “Lucy!” answered a voice +with a sharp ring of anguish in it; and Lucy threw her arms round +Maggie’s neck, and leaned her pale cheek against the burning brow. +</p> + +<p> +“I stole out,” said Lucy, almost in a whisper, while she sat down +close to Maggie and held her hand, “when papa and the rest were away. +Alice is come with me. I asked her to help me. But I must only stay a little +while, because it is so late.” +</p> + +<p> +It was easier to say that at first than to say anything else. They sat looking +at each other. It seemed as if the interview must end without more speech, for +speech was very difficult. Each felt that there would be something scorching in +the words that would recall the irretrievable wrong. But soon, as Maggie +looked, every distinct thought began to be overflowed by a wave of loving +penitence, and words burst forth with a sob. +</p> + +<p> +“God bless you for coming, Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +The sobs came thick on each other after that. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie, dear, be comforted,” said Lucy now, putting her cheek +against Maggie’s again. “Don’t grieve.” And she sat +still, hoping to soothe Maggie with that gentle caress. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t mean to deceive you, Lucy,” said Maggie, as soon as +she could speak. “It always made me wretched that I felt what I +didn’t like you to know. It was because I thought it would all be +conquered, and you might never see anything to wound you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know, dear,” said Lucy. “I know you never meant to make me +unhappy. It is a trouble that has come on us all; you have more to bear than I +have—and you gave him up, when—you did what it must have been very +hard to do.” +</p> + +<p> +They were silent again a little while, sitting with clasped hands, and cheeks +leaned together. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy,” Maggie began again, “<i>he</i> struggled too. He +wanted to be true to you. He will come back to you. Forgive him—he will +be happy then——” +</p> + +<p> +These words were wrung forth from Maggie’s deepest soul, with an effort +like the convulsed clutch of a drowning man. Lucy trembled and was silent. +</p> + +<p> +A gentle knock came at the door. It was Alice, the maid, who entered and +said,— +</p> + +<p> +“I daren’t stay any longer, Miss Deane. They’ll find it out, +and there’ll be such anger at your coming out so late.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy rose and said, “Very well, Alice,—in a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m to go away on Friday, Maggie,” she added, when Alice had +closed the door again. “When I come back, and am strong, they will let me +do as I like. I shall come to you when I please then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy,” said Maggie, with another great effort, “I pray to +God continually that I may never be the cause of sorrow to you any more.” +</p> + +<p> +She pressed the little hand that she held between hers, and looked up into the +face that was bent over hers. Lucy never forgot that look. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie,” she said, in a low voice, that had the solemnity of +confession in it, “you are better than I am. I +can’t——” +</p> + +<p> +She broke off there, and said no more. But they clasped each other again in a +last embrace. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap58"></a>Chapter V.<br/> +The Last Conflict</h3> + +<p> +In the second week of September, Maggie was again sitting in her lonely room, +battling with the old shadowy enemies that were forever slain and rising again. +It was past midnight, and the rain was beating heavily against the window, +driven with fitful force by the rushing, loud-moaning wind. For the day after +Lucy’s visit there had been a sudden change in the weather; the heat and +drought had given way to cold variable winds, and heavy falls of rain at +intervals; and she had been forbidden to risk the contemplated journey until +the weather should become more settled. In the counties higher up the Floss the +rains had been continuous, and the completion of the harvest had been arrested. +And now, for the last two days, the rains on this lower course of the river had +been incessant, so that the old men had shaken their heads and talked of sixty +years ago, when the same sort of weather, happening about the equinox, brought +on the great floods, which swept the bridge away, and reduced the town to great +misery. But the younger generation, who had seen several small floods, thought +lightly of these sombre recollections and forebodings; and Bob Jakin, naturally +prone to take a hopeful view of his own luck, laughed at his mother when she +regretted their having taken a house by the riverside, observing that but for +that they would have had no boats, which were the most lucky of possessions in +case of a flood that obliged them to go to a distance for food. +</p> + +<p> +But the careless and the fearful were alike sleeping in their beds now. There +was hope that the rain would abate by the morrow; threatenings of a worse kind, +from sudden thaws after falls of snow, had often passed off, in the experience +of the younger ones; and at the very worst, the banks would be sure to break +lower down the river when the tide came in with violence, and so the waters +would be carried off, without causing more than temporary inconvenience, and +losses that would be felt only by the poorer sort, whom charity would relieve. +</p> + +<p> +All were in their beds now, for it was past midnight; all except some solitary +watchers such as Maggie. She was seated in her little parlour toward the river, +with one candle, that left everything dim in the room except a letter which lay +before her on the table. That letter, which had come to her to-day, was one of +the causes that had kept her up far on into the night, unconscious how the +hours were going, careless of seeking rest, with no image of rest coming across +her mind, except of that far, far off rest from which there would be no more +waking for her into this struggling earthly life. +</p> + +<p> +Two days before Maggie received that letter, she had been to the Rectory for +the last time. The heavy rain would have prevented her from going since; but +there was another reason. Dr Kenn, at first enlightened only by a few hints as +to the new turn which gossip and slander had taken in relation to Maggie, had +recently been made more fully aware of it by an earnest remonstrance from one +of his male parishioners against the indiscretion of persisting in the attempt +to overcome the prevalent feeling in the parish by a course of resistance. Dr +Kenn, having a conscience void of offence in the matter, was still inclined to +persevere,—was still averse to give way before a public sentiment that +was odious and contemptible; but he was finally wrought upon by the +consideration of the peculiar responsibility attached to his office, of +avoiding the appearance of evil,—an “appearance” that is +always dependent on the average quality of surrounding minds. Where these minds +are low and gross, the area of that “appearance” is proportionately +widened. Perhaps he was in danger of acting from obstinacy; perhaps it was his +duty to succumb. Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which +is the most painful course; and to recede was always painful to Dr Kenn. He +made up his mind that he must advise Maggie to go away from St Ogg’s for +a time; and he performed that difficult task with as much delicacy as he could, +only stating in vague terms that he found his attempt to countenance her stay +was a source of discord between himself and his parishioners, that was likely +to obstruct his usefulness as a clergyman. He begged her to allow him to write +to a clerical friend of his, who might possibly take her into his own family as +governess; and, if not, would probably know of some other available position +for a young woman in whose welfare Dr Kenn felt a strong interest. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Maggie listened with a trembling lip; she could say nothing but a faint +“Thank you, I shall be grateful”; and she walked back to her +lodgings, through the driving rain, with a new sense of desolation. She must be +a lonely wanderer; she must go out among fresh faces, that would look at her +wonderingly, because the days did not seem joyful to her; she must begin a new +life, in which she would have to rouse herself to receive new impressions; and +she was so unspeakably, sickeningly weary! There was no home, no help for the +erring; even those who pitied were constrained to hardness. But ought she to +complain? Ought she to shrink in this way from the long penance of life, which +was all the possibility she had of lightening the load to some other sufferers, +and so changing that passionate error into a new force of unselfish human love? +All the next day she sat in her lonely room, with a window darkened by the +cloud and the driving rain, thinking of that future, and wrestling for +patience; for what repose could poor Maggie ever win except by wrestling? +</p> + +<p> +And on the third day—this day of which she had just sat out the +close—the letter had come which was lying on the table before her. +</p> + +<p> +The letter was from Stephen. He was come back from Holland; he was at Mudport +again, unknown to any of his friends, and had written to her from that place, +enclosing the letter to a person whom he trusted in St Ogg’s. From +beginning to end it was a passionate cry of reproach; an appeal against her +useless sacrifice of him, of herself, against that perverted notion of right +which led her to crush all his hopes, for the sake of a mere idea, and not any +substantial good,—<i>his</i> hopes, whom she loved, and who loved her +with that single overpowering passion, that worship, which a man never gives to +a woman more than once in his life. +</p> + +<p> +“They have written to me that you are to marry Kenn. As if I should +believe that! Perhaps they have told you some such fables about me. Perhaps +they tell you I’ve been ‘travelling.’ My body has been +dragged about somewhere; but <i>I</i> have never travelled from the hideous +place where you left me; where I started up from the stupor of helpless rage to +find you gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Maggie! whose pain can have been like mine? Whose injury is like mine? +Who besides me has met that long look of love that has burnt itself into my +soul, so that no other image can come there? Maggie, call me back to you! Call +me back to life and goodness! I am banished from both now. I have no motives; I +am indifferent to everything. Two months have only deepened the certainty that +I can never care for life without you. Write me one word; say +‘Come!’ In two days I should be with you. Maggie, have you +forgotten what it was to be together,—to be within reach of a look, to be +within hearing of each other’s voice?” +</p> + +<p> +When Maggie first read this letter she felt as if her real temptation had only +just begun. At the entrance of the chill dark cavern, we turn with unworn +courage from the warm light; but how, when we have trodden far in the damp +darkness, and have begun to be faint and weary; how, if there is a sudden +opening above us, and we are invited back again to the life-nourishing day? The +leap of natural longing from under the pressure of pain is so strong, that all +less immediate motives are likely to be forgotten—till the pain has been +escaped from. +</p> + +<p> +For hours Maggie felt as if her struggle had been in vain. For hours every +other thought that she strove to summon was thrust aside by the image of +Stephen waiting for the single word that would bring him to her. She did not +<i>read</i> the letter: she heard him uttering it, and the voice shook her with +its old strange power. All the day before she had been filled with the vision +of a lonely future through which she must carry the burthen of regret, upheld +only by clinging faith. And here, close within her reach, urging itself upon +her even as a claim, was another future, in which hard endurance and effort +were to be exchanged for easy, delicious leaning on another’s loving +strength! And yet that promise of joy in the place of sadness did not make the +dire force of the temptation to Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +It was Stephen’s tone of misery, it was the doubt in the justice of her +own resolve, that made the balance tremble, and made her once start from her +seat to reach the pen and paper, and write “Come!” +</p> + +<p> +But close upon that decisive act, her mind recoiled; and the sense of +contradiction with her past self in her moments of strength and clearness came +upon her like a pang of conscious degradation. No, she must wait; she must +pray; the light that had forsaken her would come again; she should feel again +what she had felt when she had fled away, under an inspiration strong enough to +conquer agony,—to conquer love; she should feel again what she had felt +when Lucy stood by her, when Philip’s letter had stirred all the fibres +that bound her to the calmer past. +</p> + +<p> +She sat quite still, far on into the night, with no impulse to change her +attitude, without active force enough even for the mental act of prayer; only +waiting for the light that would surely come again. It came with the memories +that no passion could long quench; the long past came back to her, and with it +the fountains of self-renouncing pity and affection, of faithfulness and +resolve. The words that were marked by the quiet hand in the little old book +that she had long ago learned by heart, rushed even to her lips, and found a +vent for themselves in a low murmur that was quite lost in the loud driving of +the rain against the window and the loud moan and roar of the wind. “I +have received the Cross, I have received it from Thy hand; I will bear it, and +bear it till death, as Thou hast laid it upon me.” +</p> + +<p> +But soon other words rose that could find no utterance but in a +sob,—“Forgive me, Stephen! It will pass away. You will come back to +her.” +</p> + +<p> +She took up the letter, held it to the candle, and let it burn slowly on the +hearth. To-morrow she would write to him the last word of parting. +</p> + +<p> +“I will bear it, and bear it till death. But how long it will be before +death comes! I am so young, so healthy. How shall I have patience and strength? +Am I to struggle and fall and repent again? Has life other trials as hard for +me still?” +</p> + +<p> +With that cry of self-despair, Maggie fell on her knees against the table, and +buried her sorrow-stricken face. Her soul went out to the Unseen Pity that +would be with her to the end. Surely there was something being taught her by +this experience of great need; and she must be learning a secret of human +tenderness and long-suffering, that the less erring could hardly know? “O +God, if my life is to be long, let me live to bless and +comfort——” +</p> + +<p> +At that moment Maggie felt a startling sensation of sudden cold about her knees +and feet; it was water flowing under her. She started up; the stream was +flowing under the door that led into the passage. She was not bewildered for an +instant; she knew it was the flood! +</p> + +<p> +The tumult of emotion she had been enduring for the last twelve hours seemed to +have left a great calm in her; without screaming, she hurried with the candle +upstairs to Bob Jakin’s bedroom. The door was ajar; she went in and shook +him by the shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Bob, the flood is come! it is in the house; let us see if we can make +the boats safe.” +</p> + +<p> +She lighted his candle, while the poor wife, snatching up her baby, burst into +screams; and then she hurried down again to see if the waters were rising fast. +There was a step down into the room at the door leading from the staircase; she +saw that the water was already on a level with the step. While she was looking, +something came with a tremendous crash against the window, and sent the leaded +panes and the old wooden framework inward in shivers, the water pouring in +after it. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the boat!” cried Maggie. “Bob, come down to get the +boats!” +</p> + +<p> +And without a moment’s shudder of fear, she plunged through the water, +which was rising fast to her knees, and by the glimmering light of the candle +she had left on the stairs, she mounted on to the window-sill, and crept into +the boat, which was left with the prow lodging and protruding through the +window. Bob was not long after her, hurrying without shoes or stockings, but +with the lanthorn in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, they’re both here,—both the boats,” said Bob, as +he got into the one where Maggie was. “It’s wonderful this +fastening isn’t broke too, as well as the mooring.” +</p> + +<p> +In the excitement of getting into the other boat, unfastening it, and mastering +an oar, Bob was not struck with the danger Maggie incurred. We are not apt to +fear for the fearless, when we are companions in their danger, and Bob’s +mind was absorbed in possible expedients for the safety of the helpless +indoors. The fact that Maggie had been up, had waked him, and had taken the +lead in activity, gave Bob a vague impression of her as one who would help to +protect, not need to be protected. She too had got possession of an oar, and +had pushed off, so as to release the boat from the overhanging window-frame. +</p> + +<p> +“The water’s rising so fast,” said Bob, “I doubt +it’ll be in at the chambers before long,—th’ house is so low. +I’ve more mind to get Prissy and the child and the mother into the boat, +if I could, and trusten to the water,—for th’ old house is none so +safe. And if I let go the boat—but <i>you</i>,” he exclaimed, +suddenly lifting the light of his lanthorn on Maggie, as she stood in the rain +with the oar in her hand and her black hair streaming. +</p> + +<p> +Maggie had no time to answer, for a new tidal current swept along the line of +the houses, and drove both the boats out on to the wide water, with a force +that carried them far past the meeting current of the river. +</p> + +<p> +In the first moments Maggie felt nothing, thought of nothing, but that she had +suddenly passed away from that life which she had been dreading; it was the +transition of death, without its agony,—and she was alone in the darkness +with God. +</p> + +<p> +The whole thing had been so rapid, so dreamlike, that the threads of ordinary +association were broken; she sank down on the seat clutching the oar +mechanically, and for a long while had no distinct conception of her position. +The first thing that waked her to fuller consciousness was the cessation of the +rain, and a perception that the darkness was divided by the faintest light, +which parted the overhanging gloom from the immeasurable watery level below. +She was driven out upon the flood,—that awful visitation of God which her +father used to talk of; which had made the nightmare of her childish dreams. +And with that thought there rushed in the vision of the old home, and Tom, and +her mother,—they had all listened together. +</p> + +<p> +“O God, where am I? Which is the way home?” she cried out, in the +dim loneliness. +</p> + +<p> +What was happening to them at the Mill? The flood had once nearly destroyed it. +They might be in danger, in distress,—her mother and her brother, alone +there, beyond reach of help! Her whole soul was strained now on that thought; +and she saw the long-loved faces looking for help into the darkness, and +finding none. +</p> + +<p> +She was floating in smooth water now,—perhaps far on the overflooded +fields. There was no sense of present danger to check the outgoing of her mind +to the old home; and she strained her eyes against the curtain of gloom that +she might seize the first sight of her whereabout,—that she might catch +some faint suggestion of the spot toward which all her anxieties tended. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, how welcome, the widening of that dismal watery level, the gradual +uplifting of the cloudy firmament, the slowly defining blackness of objects +above the glassy dark! Yes, she must be out on the fields; those were the tops +of hedgerow trees. Which way did the river lie? Looking behind her, she saw the +lines of black trees; looking before her, there were none; then the river lay +before her. She seized an oar and began to paddle the boat forward with the +energy of wakening hope; the dawning seemed to advance more swiftly, now she +was in action; and she could soon see the poor dumb beasts crowding piteously +on a mound where they had taken refuge. Onward she paddled and rowed by turns +in the growing twilight; her wet clothes clung round her, and her streaming +hair was dashed about by the wind, but she was hardly conscious of any bodily +sensations,—except a sensation of strength, inspired by mighty emotion. +Along with the sense of danger and possible rescue for those long-remembered +beings at the old home, there was an undefined sense of reconcilement with her +brother; what quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist +in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our +life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs? +Vaguely Maggie felt this, in the strong resurgent love toward her brother that +swept away all the later impressions of hard, cruel offence and +misunderstanding, and left only the deep, underlying, unshakable memories of +early union. +</p> + +<p> +But now there was a large dark mass in the distance, and near to her Maggie +could discern the current of the river. The dark mass must be—yes, it +was—St Ogg’s. Ah, now she knew which way to look for the first +glimpse of the well-known trees—the gray willows, the now yellowing +chestnuts—and above them the old roof! But there was no colour, no shape +yet; all was faint and dim. More and more strongly the energies seemed to come +and put themselves forth, as if her life were a stored-up force that was being +spent in this hour, unneeded for any future. +</p> + +<p> +She must get her boat into the current of the Floss, else she would never be +able to pass the Ripple and approach the house; this was the thought that +occurred to her, as she imagined with more and more vividness the state of +things round the old home. But then she might be carried very far down, and be +unable to guide her boat out of the current again. For the first time distinct +ideas of danger began to press upon her; but there was no choice of courses, no +room for hesitation, and she floated into the current. Swiftly she went now +without effort; more and more clearly in the lessening distance and the growing +light she began to discern the objects that she knew must be the well-known +trees and roofs; nay, she was not far off a rushing, muddy current that must be +the strangely altered Ripple. +</p> + +<p> +Great God! there were floating masses in it, that might dash against her boat +as she passed, and cause her to perish too soon. What were those masses? +</p> + +<p> +For the first time Maggie’s heart began to beat in an agony of dread. She +sat helpless, dimly conscious that she was being floated along, more intensely +conscious of the anticipated clash. But the horror was transient; it passed +away before the oncoming warehouses of St Ogg’s. She had passed the +mouth of the Ripple, then; <i>now</i>, she must use all her skill and power to +manage the boat and get it if possible out of the current. She could see now +that the bridge was broken down; she could see the masts of a stranded vessel +far out over the watery field. But no boats were to be seen moving on the +river,—such as had been laid hands on were employed in the flooded +streets. +</p> + +<p> +With new resolution, Maggie seized her oar, and stood up again to paddle; but +the now ebbing tide added to the swiftness of the river, and she was carried +along beyond the bridge. She could hear shouts from the windows overlooking the +river, as if the people there were calling to her. It was not till she had +passed on nearly to Tofton that she could get the boat clear of the current. +Then with one yearning look toward her uncle Deane’s house that lay +farther down the river, she took to both her oars and rowed with all her might +across the watery fields, back toward the Mill. Colour was beginning to awake +now, and as she approached the Dorlcote fields, she could discern the tints of +the trees, could see the old Scotch firs far to the right, and the home +chestnuts,—oh, how deep they lay in the water,—deeper than the +trees on this side the hill! And the roof of the Mill—where was it? Those +heavy fragments hurrying down the Ripple,—what had they meant? But it was +not the house,—the house stood firm; drowned up to the first story, but +still firm,—or was it broken in at the end toward the Mill? +</p> + +<p> +With panting joy that she was there at last,—joy that overcame all +distress,—Maggie neared the front of the house. At first she heard no +sound; she saw no object moving. Her boat was on a level with the upstairs +window. She called out in a loud, piercing voice,— +</p> + +<p> +“Tom, where are you? Mother, where are you? Here is Maggie!” +</p> + +<p> +Soon, from the window of the attic in the central gable, she heard Tom’s +voice,— +</p> + +<p> +“Who is it? Have you brought a boat?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is I, Tom,—Maggie. Where is mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is not here; she went to Garum the day before yesterday. I’ll +come down to the lower window.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alone, Maggie?” said Tom, in a voice of deep astonishment, as he +opened the middle window, on a level with the boat. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Tom; God has taken care of me, to bring me to you. Get in quickly. +Is there no one else?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Tom, stepping into the boat; “I fear the man is +drowned; he was carried down the Ripple, I think, when part of the Mill fell +with the crash of trees and stones against it; I’ve shouted again and +again, and there has been no answer. Give me the oars, Maggie.” +</p> + +<p> +It was not till Tom had pushed off and they were on the wide water,—he +face to face with Maggie,—that the full meaning of what had happened +rushed upon his mind. It came with so overpowering a force,—it was such a +new revelation to his spirit, of the depths in life that had lain beyond his +vision, which he had fancied so keen and clear,—that he was unable to ask +a question. They sat mutely gazing at each other,—Maggie with eyes of +intense life looking out from a weary, beaten face; Tom pale, with a certain +awe and humiliation. Thought was busy though the lips were silent; and though +he could ask no question, he guessed a story of almost miraculous, divinely +protected effort. But at last a mist gathered over the blue-gray eyes, and the +lips found a word they could utter,—the old childish +“Magsie!” +</p> + +<p> +Maggie could make no answer but a long, deep sob of that mysterious, wondrous +happiness that is one with pain. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as she could speak, she said, “We will go to Lucy, Tom; +we’ll go and see if she is safe, and then we can help the rest.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom rowed with untired vigor, and with a different speed from poor +Maggie’s. The boat was soon in the current of the river again, and soon +they would be at Tofton. +</p> + +<p> +“Park House stands high up out of the flood,” said Maggie. +“Perhaps they have got Lucy there.” +</p> + +<p> +Nothing else was said; a new danger was being carried toward them by the river. +Some wooden machinery had just given way on one of the wharves, and huge +fragments were being floated along. The sun was rising now, and the wide area +of watery desolation was spread out in dreadful clearness around them; in +dreadful clearness floated onward the hurrying, threatening masses. A large +company in a boat that was working its way along under the Tofton houses +observed their danger, and shouted, “Get out of the current!” +</p> + +<p> +But that could not be done at once; and Tom, looking before him, saw death +rushing on them. Huge fragments, clinging together in fatal fellowship, made +one wide mass across the stream. +</p> + +<p> +“It is coming, Maggie!” Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing +the oars, and clasping her. +</p> + +<p> +The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and the huge mass +was hurrying on in hideous triumph. +</p> + +<p> +But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a black speck on the golden water. +</p> + +<p> +The boat reappeared, but brother and sister had gone down in an embrace never +to be parted; living through again in one supreme moment the days when they had +clasped their little hands in love, and roamed the daisied fields together. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3>Conclusion</h3> + +<p> +Nature repairs her ravages,—repairs them with her sunshine, and with +human labour. The desolation wrought by that flood had left little visible +trace on the face of the earth, five years after. The fifth autumn was rich in +golden cornstacks, rising in thick clusters among the distant hedgerows; the +wharves and warehouses on the Floss were busy again, with echoes of eager +voices, with hopeful lading and unlading. +</p> + +<p> +And every man and woman mentioned in this history was still living, except +those whose end we know. +</p> + +<p> +Nature repairs her ravages, but not all. The uptorn trees are not rooted again; +the parted hills are left scarred; if there is a new growth, the trees are not +the same as the old, and the hills underneath their green vesture bear the +marks of the past rending. To the eyes that have dwelt on the past, there is no +thorough repair. +</p> + +<p> +Dorlcote Mill was rebuilt. And Dorlcote churchyard—where the brick grave +that held a father whom we know, was found with the stone laid prostrate upon +it after the flood—had recovered all its grassy order and decent quiet. +</p> + +<p> +Near that brick grave there was a tomb erected, very soon after the flood, for +two bodies that were found in close embrace; and it was visited at different +moments by two men who both felt that their keenest joy and keenest sorrow were +forever buried there. +</p> + +<p> +One of them visited the tomb again with a sweet face beside him; but that was +years after. +</p> + +<p> +The other was always solitary. His great companionship was among the trees of +the Red Deeps, where the buried joy seemed still to hover, like a revisiting +spirit. +</p> + +<p> +The tomb bore the names of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, and below the names it was +written,— +</p> + +<p> +“In their death they were not divided.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILL ON THE FLOSS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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