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diff --git a/old/mlfls10.txt b/old/mlfls10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1bddbea --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mlfls10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22010 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot +#6 in our series by George Eliot + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Mill on the Floss + +Author: George Eliot + +Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6688] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on January 13, 2003] +[Date last updated: November 26, 2005] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILL ON THE FLOSS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis Weyant and David Maddock + + + + +The Mill on the Floss + +George Eliot + + + + + +Table of Contents + + + +Book I: Boy and Girl + +1. Outside Dorlcote Mill +2. Mr. Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom +3. Mr. Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom +4. Tom Is Expected +5. Tom Comes Home +6. The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming +7. Enter the Aunts and Uncles +8. Mr. Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side +9. To Garum Firs +10. Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected +11. Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow +12. Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at Home +13. Mr. Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life + + +Book II: School-Time + +1. Tom's "First Half" +2. The Christmas Holidays +3. The New Schoolfellow +4. "The Young Idea" +5. Maggie's Second Visit +6. A Love-Scene +7. The Golden Gates Are Passed + + +Book III: The Downfall + +1. What Had Happened at Home +2. Mrs. Tulliver's Teraphim, or Household Gods +3. The Family Council +4. A Vanishing Gleam +5. Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster +6. Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a + Pocket-Knife +7. How a Hen Takes to Stratagem +8. Daylight on the Wreck +9. An Item Added to the Family Register + + +Book IV: The Valley of Humiliation + +1. A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet +2. The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns +3. A Voice from the Past + + +Book V: Wheat and Tares + +1. In the Red Deeps +2. Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb +3. The Wavering Balance +4. Another Love-Scene +5. The Cloven Tree +6. The Hard-Won Triumph +7. A Day of Reckoning + + +Book VI: The Great Temptation + +1. A Duet in Paradise +2. First Impressions +3. Confidential Moments +4. Brother and Sister +5. Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster +6. Illustrating the Laws of Attraction +7. Philip Re-enters +8. Wakem in a New Light +9. Charity in Full-Dress +10. The Spell Seems Broken +11. In the Lane +12. A Family Party +13. Borne Along by the Tide +14. Waking + + +Book VII: The Final Rescue + +1. The Return to the Mill +2. St. Ogg's Passes Judgment +3. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us +4. Maggie and Lucy +5. The Last Conflict + + + + + +Book I + +_Boy and Girl_ + + + + +Chapter I + +Outside Dorlcote Mill + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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 parlor, on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of. + + + +Chapter II + +Mr. Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom + + +"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_ ever got. All the learnin' _my_ 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_ believe; for Riley looks +Lawyer Wakem i' the face as hard as one cat looks another. _He's_ none +frightened at him." + +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). + +"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best: _I've_ 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 _wants_ killing!" + +"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. + +"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!" + +"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." + +"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 +_him_; 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?" + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Yes, it _is_ 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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Cut it off--cut it off short," said the father, rashly. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"Oh, mother," said Maggie, in a vehemently cross tone, "I don't _want_ +to do my patchwork." + +"What! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane for your aunt +Glegg?" + +"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." + +Exit Maggie, dragging her bonnet by the string, while Mr. Tulliver +laughs audibly. + +"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." + +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. + + + +Chapter III + +Mr. Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom + + +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 _bonhomie_ toward simple country +acquaintances of hospitable habits. Mr. Riley spoke of such +acquaintances kindly as "people of the old school." + +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 Manichaeism, 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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"It's a very particular thing," he went on; "it's about my boy Tom." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I believe you," said Mr. Tulliver, winking, and turning his head on +one side; "but that's where it is. I don't _mean_ 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." + +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. + +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,-- + +"Father, Tom wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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,-- + +"Come, come and tell me something about this book; here are some +pictures,--I want to know what they mean." + +Maggie, with deepening color, 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,-- + +"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 _really_" (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." + +Mr. Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie's with +petrifying wonder. + +"Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?" he burst out at +last. + +"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?" + +Maggie looked hurt and discouraged, while her father said,-- + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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 'AEsop's Fables,' and a book +about Kangaroos and things, and the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" + +"Ah, a beautiful book," said Mr. Riley; "you can't read a better." + +"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." + +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. + +"Here he is," she said, running back to Mr. Riley, "and Tom colored +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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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, _she_ 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." + +Mr. Riley's gravity gave way, and he shook a little under the +application of his pinch of snuff before he said,-- + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff, and kept Mr. Tulliver in suspense by +a silence that seemed deliberative, before he said,-- + +"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." + +The fixed inquiring glance with which Mr. Tulliver had been watching +his friend's oracular face became quite eager. + +"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. + +"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. + +"What! a parson?" said Mr. Tulliver, rather doubtfully. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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 honors if he chose. But he +didn't care about university honors; he's a quiet man--not noisy." + +"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." + +"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." + +Mr. Tulliver rubbed his knees, and looked at the carpet in a +meditative manner. + +"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." + +"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 +every-day man; rather a particular fellow as to the people he chooses +to be connected with. But I _think_ he would have no objection to take +your son; I _think_ he would not, on my representation." + +"I don't know what he could have _against_ the lad," said Mrs. +Tulliver, with a slight touch of motherly indignation; "a nice +fresh-skinned lad as anybody need wish to see." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Ay, that Jacobs is, at the 'cademy," interposed Mr. Tulliver. + +"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." + +Mr. Riley paused a moment, while Mr. Tulliver, some-what reassured as +to clerical tutorship, was inwardly rehearsing to an imaginary Mr. +Stelling the statement, "I want my son to know 'rethmetic." + +"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." + +"Ay, that's true," said Mr. Tulliver, almost convinced now that the +clergy must be the best of schoolmasters. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Ay, ay, Bessy, never brew wi' bad malt upo' Michael-masday, 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." + +"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." + +"Ay, there's summat in that," said Mr. Tulliver. + +"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?" + +"I don't know, my wench," said the father, tenderly. "Ask Mr. Riley; +he knows." + +Maggie came round promptly in front of Mr. Riley, and said, "How far +is it, please, sir?" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"But it's too far off for the linen, I doubt," said Mrs. Tulliver, +sadly. + +The entrance of supper opportunely adjourned this difficulty, and +relieved Mr. Riley from the labor of suggesting some solution or +compromise,--a labor 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. + +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 neighbors 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 neutralized 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. + +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 "De Senectute" and the fourth book of the +"AEneid," but it had ceased to be distinctly recognizable 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 be 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. + +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? + +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. + + + +Chapter IV + +Tom Is Expected + + +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. + +"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." + +Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already out of +hearing, making her way toward the great attic that run 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 +favorite retreat on a wet day, when the weather was not too cold; here +she fretted out all her ill humors, 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. + +"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. + +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?" + +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 every-day 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 _au naturel_, 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. + +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,-- + +"I think you never read any book but the Bible, did you, Luke?" + +"Nay, Miss, an' not much o' that," said Luke, with great frankness. +"I'm no reader, I aren't." + +"But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got any _very_ +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." + +"Nay, Miss, I'n no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i' +knowin' about _them_." + +"But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our +fellow-creatures." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Ah," said Luke, "but he'll be fine an' vexed, as the rabbits are all +dead." + +"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?" + +"As dead as moles," said Luke, fetching his comparison from the +unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall. + +"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 _shall_ I do?" + +"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; _he's_ an offal creatur as +iver come about the primises, he is. He remembers nothing but his own +inside--an' I wish it'ud gripe him." + +"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 _shall_ I do?" + +"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." + +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 decidely 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. + +"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." + +"Eh, Miss," said Luke, "he'd be no great shakes, I doubt, let's +feyther do what he would for him." + +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. + + + +Chapter V + +Tom Comes Home + + +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. + +"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." + +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?" + +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 colored 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. + +"Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner, as soon +as his mother was gone out to examine his box and the warm parlor had +taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know +what I've got in _my_ pockets," nodding his head up and down as a +means of rousing her sense of mystery. + +"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 _her_ at those games, she played so badly. + +"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. + +"What is it?" said Maggie, in a whisper. "I can see nothing but a bit +of yellow." + +"Why, it's--a--new--guess, Maggie!" + +"Oh, I _can't_ guess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently. + +"Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his +hand back into his pocket and looking determined. + +"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. _Please_ be good to me." + +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, _won't_ 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?" + +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,-- + +"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." + +"Yes, very, very good--I _do_ love you, Tom." + +Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks +one by one, before he spoke again. + +"And the fellows fought me, because I wouldn't give in about the +toffee." + +"Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it +hurt you?" + +"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,-- + +"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know; that's what he got by wanting to +leather _me;_ I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered +me." + +"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?" + +"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no +lions, only in the shows." + +"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." + +"Well, I should get a gun and shoot him." + +"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 +toward us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you +do, Tom?" + +Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, "But the +lion _isn't_ coming. What's the use of talking?" + +"But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him. +"Just think what you would do, Tom." + +"Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly. I shall go and see my +rabbits." + +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. + +"Tom," she said, timidly, when they were out of doors, "how much money +did you give for your rabbits?" + +"Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom, promptly. + +"I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse +upstairs. I'll ask mother to give it you." + +"What for?" said Tom. "I don't want _your_ 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." + +"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?" + +"More rabbits? I don't want any more." + +"Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead." + +Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie. +"You forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry forgot?" he said, his color +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. + +"Yes, but I forgot--and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom. I'm so very +sorry," said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast. + +"You're a naughty girl," said Tom, severely, "and I'm sorry I bought +you the fish-line. I don't love you." + +"Oh, Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive you, if _you_ +forgot anything--I wouldn't mind what you did--I'd forgive you and +love you." + +"Yes, you're silly; but I never _do_ forget things, _I_ don't." + +"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. + +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?" + +"Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsedly. + +"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?" + +"Ye-ye-es--and I--lo-lo-love you so, Tom." + +"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." + +"But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it." + +"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." + +With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the +mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry. + +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 _meant_ to be naughty to him. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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 honor. + +"What! hasn't she been playing with you all this while?" said the +father. "She'd been thinking o' nothing but your coming home." + +"I haven't seen her this two hours," says Tom, commencing on the +plumcake. + +"Goodness heart; she's got drownded!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, rising +from her seat and running to the window. + +"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. + +"Nay, nay, she's none drownded," said Mr. Tulliver. "You've been +naughty to her, I doubt, Tom?" + +"I'm sure I haven't, father," said Tom, indignantly. "I think she's in +the house." + +"Perhaps up in that attic," said Mrs. Tulliver, "a-singing and talking +to herself, and forgetting all about meal-times." + +"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." + +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 _did_ deserve it. + +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. + +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!" + +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 behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but +conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilized +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,-- + +"Don't cry, then, Magsie; here, eat a bit o' cake." + +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. + +"Come along, Magsie, and have tea," said Tom at last, when there was +no more cake except what was down-stairs. + +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. + +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 favorite +spot always heightened Tom's good humor, 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. + +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. + +Tom was excited. + +"O Magsie, you little duck! Empty the basket." + +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. + +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 Eagle, 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. + +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 _loved_ because it is known? + +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. + + + +Chapter VI + +The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming + + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"That's what you allays say, Mr. Tulliver; but I'm sure there's nobody +o' your 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. + +"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?" + +"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 Dean's such a good child,--you may set her on a +stool, and there she'llsit 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 _my_ child than sister Deane's, for she'd allays +a very poor color for one of our family, sister Deane had." + +"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' _their_ children?" + +"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 _my_ sisters and _your_ sister don't suit well together." + +"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 demeanor, 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 her self, 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. + +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 _impedimenta_ in cases of +flight. + +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. + +"Tom," said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder-tree, +eating their jam-puffs, "shall you run away to-morrow?" + +"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." + +"Why, Tom? Because Lucy's coming?" + +"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_ care about Lucy? She's only a girl,--_she_ can't play at +bandy." + +"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. + +"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!" + +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,-- + +"Shut your eyes, Maggie." + +"What for?" + +"You never mind what for. Shut 'em when I tell you." + +Maggie obeyed. + +"Now, which'll you have, Maggie,--right hand or left?" + +"I'll have that with the jam run out," said Maggie, keeping her eyes +shut to please Tom. + +"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." + +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." + +"You've got it," said Tom, in rather a bitter tone. + +"What! the bit with the jam run out?" + +"No; here, take it," said Tom, firmly, handing, decidedly the best +piece to Maggie. + +"Oh, please, Tom, have it; I don't mind--I like the other; please take +this." + +"No, I sha'n't," said Tom, almost crossly, beginning on his own +inferior piece. + +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. + +"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. + +Maggie turned quite pale. "Oh, Tom, why didn't you ask me?" + +"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." + +"But I wanted you to have it; you know I did," said Maggie, in an +injured tone. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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 sort 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 _incognito_. + +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. + +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. + +Maggie's was a troublous life, and this was the form in which she took +her opium. + +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 +neighboring 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 +unrecognized (perhaps because it is seen so seldom). + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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, _he_ won't." + +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 neighboring bulrushes; if it was not a water-rat, Bob +intimated that he was ready to undergo the most unpleasant +consequences. + +"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!" + +Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined to plunge, +trying whether barking would not answer the purpose just as well. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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_ 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." + +"_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_ would." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Tails," said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win. + +"It's yeads," said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny as it +fell. + +"It wasn't," said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. "You give me the +halfpenny; I've won it fair." + +"I sha'n't," said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket. + +"Then I'll make you; see if I don't," said Tom. + +"Yes, I can." + +"You can't make me do nothing, you can't," said Bob. + +"No, you can't." + +"I'm master." + +"I don't care for you." + +"But I'll make you care, you cheat," said Tom, collaring Bob and +shaking him. + +"You get out wi' you," said Bob, giving Tom a kick. + +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. + +"_You_, say you'll give me the halfpenny now," he said, with +difficulty, while he exerted himself to keep the command of Bob's +arms. + +But at this moment Yap, who had been running on before, returned +barking to the scene of action, and saw a favorable opportunity for +biting Bob's bare leg not only with inpunity but with honor. 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. + +"You give me the halfpenny now," said Tom. + +"Take it," said Bob, sulkily. + +"No, I sha'n't take it; you give it me." + +Bob took the halfpenny out of his pocket, and threw it away from him +on the ground. + +Tom loosed his hold, and left Bob to rise. + +"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. + +"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 _you_ don't. An' you're a nasty +fightin' turkey-cock, you are----" + +Tom walked on without looking around, and Yap followed his example, +the cold bath having moderated his passions. + +"Go along wi' you, then, wi' your drowned dog; I wouldn't own such a +dog--_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,-- + +"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. + +He stood still till Tom had passed through the gate and disappeared +behind the hedge. The knife would do not 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 +honor, 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. + +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. + + + +Chapter VII + +Enter the Aunts and Uncles + + +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! + +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,--united and tilted slightly, of course--a frequent practice of +hers when she was on a visit, and happened to be in a severe humor: +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 _chevaux-de-frise_ 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-colored 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. + +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. + +"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 _my_ fault; _I'll_ never be the one to come +into a house when all the rest are going away. I wonder _at_ 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." + +"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." + +"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 _did_ 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +With sister Glegg in this humor, 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. + +"Mr. Tulliver says he always _will_ 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." + +"Well, Bessy, _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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +It is a pathetic sight and a striking example of the complexity +introduced into the emotions by a high state of civilization, 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 +civilization 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. + +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 parlor where Mrs. Glegg +was seated. + +"Well, sister, you're late; what's the matter?" said Mrs. Glegg, +rather sharply, as they shook hands. + +Mrs. Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully behind, before +she answered,-- + +"She's gone," unconsciously using an impressive figure of rhetoric. + +"It isn't the glass this time, then," thought Mrs. Tulliver. + +"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." + +"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." + +"But _I_ know," said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and shaking her head; "and +there isn't another such a dropsy in the parish. _I_ know as it's old +Mrs. Sutton o' the Twentylands." + +"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. + +"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 _par_ish'ners like her, I doubt." + +"And they say she'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a wagon," observed +Mr. Pullet. + +"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 _did_ 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." + +"Sophy," said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her spirit of +rational remonstrance,--"Sophy, I wonder _at_ 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." + +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 +neighbors 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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +Mr. Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had forgotten it, and +hastened out, with a stricken conscience, to remedy the omission. + +"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. + +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 _tete-a-tete_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +"Oh, Lucy," she burst out, after kissing her, "you'll stay with Tom +and me, won't you? Oh, kiss her, Tom." + +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. + +"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_ was a little gell." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"I can't say, I'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Deane, shutting her lips +close again, and looking at Maggie with a critical eye. + +"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." + +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. + +"You wouldn't like to stay behind without mother, should you, Lucy?" + +"Yes, please, mother," said Lucy, timidly, blushing very pink all over +her little neck. + +"Well done, Lucy! Let her stay, Mrs. Deane, let her stay," said Mr. +Deane, a large but alert-looking man, with a type of _physique_ 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-laborers like him; but +the keenness of his brown eyes was less common than his contour. + +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, shipowning 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; _she_ wouldn't +let her husband stand still in the world for want of spurring. + +"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." + +"Tom come out with me," whispered Maggie, pulling his sleeve as she +passed him; and Tom followed willingly enough. + +"Come upstairs with me, Tom," she whispered, when they were outside +the door. "There's something I want to do before dinner." + +"There's no time to play at anything before dinner," said Tom, whose +imagination was impatient of any intermediate prospect. + +"Oh yes, there is time for this; _do_ come, Tom." + +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. + +"What are they for, Maggie?" said Tom, feeling his curiosity awakened. + +Maggie answered by seizing her front locks and cutting them straight +across the middle of her forehead. + +"Oh, my buttons! Maggie, you'll catch it!" exclaimed Tom; "you'd +better not cut any more off." + +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. + +"Here, Tom, cut it behind for me," said Maggie, excited by her own +daring, and anxious to finish the deed. + +"You'll catch it, you know," said Tom, nodding his head in an +admonitory manner, and hesitating a little as he took the scissors. + +"Never mind, make haste!" said Maggie, giving a little stamp with her +foot. Her cheeks were quite flushed. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Oh, Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Tom. +"Oh, my!" + +"Don't laugh at me, Tom," said Maggie, in a passionate tone, with an +outburst of angry tears, stamping, and giving him a push. + +"Now, then, spitfire!" said Tom. "What did you cut it off for, then? I +shall go down: I can smell the dinner going in." + +He hurried downstairs and left poor Maggie to that bitter sense of the +irrevocable which was almost an every-day 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. + +"Miss Maggie, you're to come down this minute," said Kezia, entering +the room hurriedly. "Lawks! what have you been a-doing? I never _see_ +such a fright!" + +"Don't, Kezia," said Maggie, angrily. "Go away!" + +"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. + +"Get away, Kezia; I don't want any dinner," said Maggie, resisting +Kezia's arm. "I sha'n't come." + +"Oh, well, I can't stay. I've got to wait at dinner," said Kezia, +going out again. + +"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?" + +Oh, it was dreadful! Tom was so hard and unconcerned; if _he_ had been +crying on the floor, Maggie would have cried too. And there was the +dinner, so nice; and she was _so_ hungry. It was very bitter. + +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,-- + +"Won't you come, then, Magsie? Shall I bring you a bit o' pudding when +I've had mine, and a custard and things?" + +"Ye-e-es," said Maggie, beginning to feel life a little more +tolerable. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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,-- + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"She's a naughty child, as'll break her mother's heart," said Mrs. +Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. _My_ father never brought his children up so, else we +should ha' been a different sort o' family to what we are." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +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 favoring circumstances. And +uncle Pullet had a great natural faculty for ignorance. He was the +first to give utterance to his astonishment. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"What! do you think the parson'll teach him to know a good sample o' +wheat when he sees it, neighbor 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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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 _his_ 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." + +Mrs. Glegg emitted a long sort of guttural sound with closed lips, +that smiled in mingled pity and scorn. + +"It 'ud be a fine deal better for some people," she said, after that +introductory note, "if they'd let the lawyers alone." + +"Is he at the head of a grammar school, then, this clergyman, such as +that at Market Bewley?" said Mr. Deane. + +"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." + +"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. + +"But he'll want the more pay, I doubt," said Mr. Glegg. + +"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." + +"Ay, there's something in that," said Mr. Glegg. "Well well, neighbor +Tulliver, you may be right, you may be right: + + 'When land is gone and money's spent, + Then learning is most excellent.' + +"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, neighbor +Pullet?" Mr. Glegg rubbed his knees, and looked very pleasant. + +"Mr. Glegg, I wonder _at_ you," said his wife. "It's very unbecoming +in a man o' your age and belongings." + +"What's unbecoming, Mrs. G.?" said Mr. Glegg, winking pleasantly at +the company. "My new blue coat as I've got on?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 _his_ +son--the deformed lad--to a clergyman, didn't they, Susan?" (appealing +to his wife). + +"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. + +"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." + +"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 _him_ to a clergyman." + +"Yes," said Mr. Glegg, interpreting Mrs. Pullet's observation with +erroneous plausibility, "you must consider that, neighbor Tulliver; +Wakem's son isn't likely to follow any business. Wakem 'ull make a +gentleman of him, poor fellow." + +"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." + +"Why, I should think that's you, if we're to trust your own tale," +said Mr. Tulliver, beginning to boil up again. + +"Oh, _I_ say nothing," said Mrs. Glegg, sarcastically. "My advice has +never been asked, and I don't give it." + +"It'll be the first time, then," said Mr. Tulliver. "It's the only +thing you're over-ready at giving." + +"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." + +"Come, come, come," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly. But Mr. Tulliver was +not to be hindered of his retort. + +"You've got a bond for it, I reckon," he said; "and you've had your +five per cent, kin or no kin." + +"Sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, pleadingly, "drink your wine, and let me +give you some almonds and raisins." + +"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." + +"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." + +"I should think it _is_ 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." + +"Softly, softly, Jane; be reasonable, be reasonable," said Mr. Glegg. + +But while he was speaking, Mr. Tulliver, who had by no means said +enough to satisfy his anger, burst out again. + +"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_ should never +want to quarrel with any woman if she kept her place." + +"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; _though_ +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." + +"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!" + +"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." + +"Dear heart, dear heart!" said Mr. Glegg in a melancholy tone, as he +followed his wife out of the room. + +"Mr. Tulliver, how could you talk so?" said Mrs. Tulliver, with the +tears in her eyes. + +"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 _me_ again in a hurry." + +"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?" + +"Better not, better not," said Mr. Deane. "You'll make it up another +day." + +"Then, sisters, shall we go and look at the children?" said Mrs. +Tulliver, drying her eyes. + +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. + +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. + + + +Chapter VIII + +Mr. Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side + + +"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. + +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. + +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 _how_ he would +raise it without mortgaging the mill and the house which he had said +he never _would_ 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 _not_ choose. + +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. + +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. + +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 _how_ a thing is to be done before they are strongly +confident that it will be easy. + +For Mr. Tulliver was in a position neither new nor striking, but, like +other every-day 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 neighbor 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 flavor 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 neighbors that _will_ 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 apologized 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 labor 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 _her_ 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 behavior 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. + +"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?" + +"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 humor; +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. + +"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. + +"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?" + +"No, no; I can't get down. I must be going home again directly," said +Mr. Tulliver, looking at the distance. + +"And how's Mrs. Tulliver and the children?" said Mrs. Moss, humbly, +not daring to press her invitation. + +"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." + +"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!" + +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,-- + +"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." + +"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; _she's_ sharp. Come here, Lizzy, my dear, and let your uncle +see you; he hardly knows you, you grow so fast." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +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? + +"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. + +"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!" + +"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?" + +"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. + +He got down, and passed with Mr. Moss into the garden, toward an old +yew-tree arbor, while his sister stood tapping her baby on the back +and looking wistfully after them. + +Their entrance into the yew-tree arbor 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,-- + +"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." + +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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Ay," snarled Mr. Tulliver, "there's folks as things 'ull allays go +awk'ard with; empty sacks 'ull never stand upright." + +"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-laborer works harder." + +"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." + +"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." + +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,-- + +"Well, you must do as you can. _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." + +Mr. Tulliver walked abruptly out of the arbor 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. + +"No, no; good-by," said he, turning his horse's head, and riding away. + +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." + +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: + +"The father's gone to the field, again, if you want him, brother." + +"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." + +Mrs. Moss's tears came again at this unexpected kindness, and she +could say nothing. + +"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." + +"Thank you for that word, brother," said Mrs. Moss, drying her tears; +then turning to Lizzy, she said, "Run now, and fetch the colored egg +for cousin Maggie." Lizzy ran in, and quickly reappeared with a small +paper parcel. + +"It's boiled hard, brother, and colored with thrums, very pretty; it +was done o' purpose for Maggie. Will you please to carry it in your +pocket?" + +"Ay, ay," said Mr. Tulliver, putting it carefully in his side pocket. +"Good-by." + +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. + + + +Chapter IX + +To Garum Firs + + +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. + +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. + +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 every-day pockets to those +actually in wear. + +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." + +"Don't laugh at me, Tom!" she burst out angrily; "I'm not a stupid. I +know a great many things you don't." + +"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_ wish Lucy was _my_ sister." + +"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. + +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. + +"Oh, Tom," said Maggie, at last, going half-way toward him, "I didn't +mean to knock it down, indeed, indeed I didn't." + +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. + +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 _you_ like one?" but Tom was deaf. + +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 characterized 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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, in a +pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap. + +"Has she, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver, with an air of much interest. +"And how do you like it?" + +"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." + +Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious consideration, +which determined her to single out a particular key. + +"I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister," said +Mrs. Tulliver; "but I _should_ like to see what sort of a crown she's +made you." + +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. + +"You must come with me into the best room," said Mrs. Pullet. + +"May the children come too, sister?" inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw +that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager. + +"Well," said aunt Pullet, reflectively, "it'll perhaps be safer for +'em to come; they'll be touching something if we leave 'em behind." + +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. + +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!" + +It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt something +was due to it. + +"You'd like to see it on, sister?" she said sadly. "I'll open the +shutter a bit further." + +"Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister," said Mrs. +Tulliver. + +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. + +"I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on this left +side, sister; what do you think?" said Mrs. Pullet. + +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." + +"That's true," said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and looking at +it contemplatively. + +"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 _chef-d'oeuvre_ made from a piece +of silk she had at home. + +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." + +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. + +"Ah," she said at last, "I may never wear it twice, sister; who +knows?" + +"Don't talk o' that sister," answered Mrs. Tulliver. "I hope you'll +have your health this summer." + +"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." + +"That _would_ 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." + +"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 +characterized 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." + +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. + +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." + +"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 _tete-a-tete_ 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, neighbors' 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." + +The only alleviating circumstance in a _tete-a-tete_ 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. + +"Do you like peppermints, young sir?" required only a tacit answer +when it was accompanied by a presentation of the article in question. + +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 favor 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 blush-all over +her neck while she fingered her necklace, said, "Will you please play +us a tune, uncle?" + +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 neighbors in +Garum. Mr. Pullet had _bought_ 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. + +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?" + +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 behavior. + +"Why don't you sit still, Maggie?" her mother said peevishly. + +"Little gells mustn't come to see me if they behave in that way," said +aunt Pullet. + +"Why, you're too rough, little miss," said uncle Pullet. + +Poor Maggie sat down again, with the music all chased out of her soul, +and the seven small demons all in again. + +Mrs. Tulliver, foreseeing nothing but misbehavior 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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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-hand-kerchief, as was his way when the +conversation took an interesting turn. + +"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." + +"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. + +"Ah, perhaps it 'ud be better for sister Glegg if _she'd_ go to the +doctor sometimes, instead o' chewing Turkey rhubard 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. + +"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." + +"Well, _we've_ 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Well, your husband _is_ 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 favorite sister, and we allays liked the +same patterns." + +"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." + +"_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." + +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. + +"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 neighbors'; 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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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 _would_ have striped things, +and I like spots. You like a spot too, Bessy; we allays hung together +i' that." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Well, you can't expect me to persuade _Jane_ 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 _was_ any of our family +went to a madhouse." + +"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." + +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. + +"Well, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, mournfully, "_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?" + +"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 _him_ 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. + +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. + + + +Chapter X + +Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected + + +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 discolored with mud, holding out two +tiny blackened hands, and making a very piteous face. To account for +this unprecedented apparition in aunt Pullet's parlor, 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 semibelief 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!" + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"What, Tom?" said Lucy, with curiosity. + +"I mean to go to the pond and look at the pike. You may go with me if +you like," said the young sultan. + +"Oh, Tom, _dare_ you?" said Lucy. "Aunt said we mustn't go out of the +garden." + +"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." + +"But _I_ couldn't run," said Lucy, who had never before been exposed +to such severe temptation. + +"Oh, never mind; they won't be cross with _you_," said Tom. "You say I +took you." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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 _must_ 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,-- + +"Now, get away, Maggie; there's no room for you on the grass here. +Nobody asked _you_ to come." + +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 +[Greek text] 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. + +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 _her_, however sorry she might +have been. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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 _corpus +delicti_. + +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. + +Sally, as you are aware, lost no time in presenting Lucy at the parlor +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"Tom, you naughty boy, where's your sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver, in a +distressed voice. + +"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. + +"Why, where did you leave her?" said the mother, looking round. + +"Sitting under the tree, against the pond," said Tom, apparently +indifferent to everything but the string and the turkey-cock. + +"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." + +It was Mrs. Tulliver's way, if she blamed Tom, to refer his +misdemeanor, somehow or other, to Maggie. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Maggie's nowhere about the pond, mother," said Tom; "she's gone +away." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + + + +Chapter XI + +Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow + + +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. + +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 favorable 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 +laborer at a distance. That was fortunate in some respects, as +laborers 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 civilized 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. + +"My little lady, where are you going to?" the gypsy said, in a tone of +coaxing deference. + +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. + +"Not any farther," said Maggie, feeling as if she were saying what she +had rehearsed in a dream. "I'm come to stay with _you_, please." + +"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. + +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,-- + +"What! my pretty lady, are you come to stay with us? Sit ye down and +tell us where you come from." + +It was just like a story; Maggie liked to be called pretty lady and +treated in this way. She sat down and said,-- + +"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." + +"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. + +"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 favor of long hair. And +Maggie had forgotten even her hunger at that moment in the desire to +conciliate gypsy opinion. + +"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?" + +"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?" + +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. + +"Is that where you live, my little lady?" said the old woman, at the +mention of Columbus. + +"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 want my tea +so_." + +The last words burst from Maggie, in spite of herself, with a sudden +drop from patronizing instruction to simple peevishness. + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"We've got no tea nor butter," said the old woman, with something like +a scowl, as if she were getting tired of coaxing. + +"Oh, a little bread and treacle would do," said Maggie. + +"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. + +Maggie felt that it was impossible she should ever be queen of these +people, or ever communicate to them amusing and useful knowledge. + +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,-- + +"This nice little lady's come to live with us; aren't you glad?" + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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 neighborhood of St. Ogg's; +nothing very wonderful ever came there. + +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. + +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 unfavorable 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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"Dorlcote Mill is my home," said Maggie, eagerly. "My father is Mr. +Tulliver; he lives there." + +"What! a big mill a little way this side o' St. Ogg's?" + +"Yes," said Maggie. "Is it far off? I think I should like to walk +there, if you please." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"Ah, you're fondest o' _me_, aren't you?" said the woman. "But I can't +go; you'll go too fast for me." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Oh, stop, stop!" she cried out. "There's my father! Oh, father, +father!" + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Oh yes, father, he's been very good to bring me home," said +Maggie,--"a very kind, good man!" + +"Here, then, my man," said Mr. Tulliver, taking out five shillings. +"It's the best day's work _you_ ever did. I couldn't afford to lose +the little wench; here, lift her up before me." + +"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?" + +"Oh, father," sobbed Maggie, "I ran away because I was so unhappy; Tom +was so angry with me. I couldn't bear it." + +"Pooh, pooh," said Mr. Tulliver, soothingly, "you mustn't think o' +running away from father. What 'ud father do without his little +wench?" + +"Oh no, I never will again, father--never." + +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. + + + +Chapter XII + +Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at Home + + +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. + +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 facade and towers of finest +small brickwork with the trefoil ornament, and the windows and +battlements defined with stone, did not sacreligiously pull down the +ancient half-timbered body with its oak-roofed banqueting-hall. + +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." + +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. + +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 +honors 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. + +Mrs. Glegg had both a front and a back parlor 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 labor 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. + +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 flavor 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 neighbors 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. + +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. + +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 economize 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 apostrophized at last +in that tone peculiar to the wife of one's bosom. + +"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." + +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. + +"Why, Mrs. G., what have I done now?" + +"Done now, Mr. Glegg? _done now?_--I'm sorry for you." + +Not seeing his way to any pertinent answer, Mr. Glegg reverted to his +porridge. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Don't lower yourself with using coarse language to _me_, 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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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,-- + +"I'm glad to hear you'll _thank_ me, Mr. Glegg. It's little thanks _I_ +get for what I do for folks i' this world. Though there's never a +woman o' _your_ 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." + +"You'd better leave finding fault wi' my kin till you've left off +quarrelling with you own, Mrs. G.," said Mr. Glegg, with angry +sarcasm. "I'll trouble you for the milk-jug." + +"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; _you_ may, for +I've known you to do it." + +"Why, what did you call it yesterday, then, leaving your sister's +house in a tantrum?" + +"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 _your_ disgrace." + +"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 _so_." (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.) + +"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----" + +Here Mrs. Glegg's voice intimated that she was going to cry, and +breaking off from speech, she rang the bell violently. + +"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." + +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. + +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 neighborhood, so as no woman can ever hope +to be who has not the praeterite 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 humor 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." + +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. + +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. + + + +Chapter XIII + +Mr. Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life + + +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 behavior +in family matters. Mrs. Pullet's argument, that it would look ill in +the neighborhood 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. + +"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 favors; 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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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 +favors from her, either for himself or his children. + +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 _him_ +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. + +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 if that sense of honor and rectitude which was a proud +tradition in such families,--a tradition which has been the salt of +our provincial society. + +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. + +That evening Tom observed to Maggie: "Oh my! Maggie, aunt Glegg's +beginning to come again; I'm glad I'm going to school. _You'll_ catch +it all now!" + +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. + +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 Oedipus, and in this case +he might plead, like Oedipus, that his deed was inflicted on him +rather than committed by him. + + + + +Book II + +_School-Time_ + + + +Chapter I + +Tom's "First Half" + + +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. _He_ 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. + +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 bash fulness. 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 neighboring 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. + +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 fellowmen. 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 neighboring 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. + +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 +neighborhood and it might further a decision in Mr. Stelling's favor, +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. + +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 +every-day 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 full 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 _not_ 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. + +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 behavior 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. + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +He very soon set down poor Tom as a thoroughly stupid lad; for though +by hard labor 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 +recognize 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 symbolized 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 _were_ 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 +favorite 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? + +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 every-day 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. + +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 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." + +The fact that he got through his supines without mistake the next day, +encouraged him to persevere in this appendix to his prayers, and +neutralized 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 _nodus_ 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. + +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 demeanor 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. + +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 favor on his part to let +Maggie trot by his side on his pleasure excursions. + +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. + +"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." + +Tom wished he had looked rather ill. + +"I don't think I _am_ well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask Mr. +Stelling not to let me do Euclid; it brings on the toothache, I +think." + +(The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever been +subject.) + +"Euclid, my lad,--why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver. + +"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." + +"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." + +"_I'll_ 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?" + +"_You_ 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 _my_ lessons! Why, I learn Latin too! Girls never +learn such things. They're too silly." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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!" + +"Why, you couldn't read one of 'em," said Tom, triumphantly. "They're +all Latin." + +"No, they aren't," said Maggie. "I can read the back of +this,--'History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'" + +"Well, what does that mean? _You_ don't know," said Tom, wagging his +head. + +"But I could soon find out," said Maggie, scornfully. + +"Why, how?" + +"I should look inside, and see what it was about." + +"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_ shall catch it, if you take it out." + +"Oh, very well. Let me see all _your_ books, then," said Maggie, +turning to throw her arms round Tom's neck, and rub his cheek with her +small round nose. + +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. + +"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." + +"What's that?" said Maggie. + +"Oh, it's the Latin for a good scolding," said Tom, not without some +pride in his knowledge. + +"Is she a cross woman?" said Maggie. + +"I believe you!" said Tom, with an emphatic nod. + +"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." + +"Well, _you'll_ be a woman some day," said Tom, "so _you_ needn't +talk." + +"But I shall be a _clever_ woman," said Maggie, with a toss. + +"Oh, I dare say, and a nasty conceited thing. Everybody'll hate you." + +"But you oughtn't to hate me, Tom; it'll be very wicked of you, for I +shall be your sister." + +"Yes, but if you're a nasty disagreeable thing I _shall_ hate you." + +"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?" + +"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. + +"It's nonsense!" she said, "and very ugly stuff; nobody need want to +make it out." + +"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." + +"Oh," said Maggie, pouting, "I dare say I could make it out, if I'd +learned what goes before, as you have." + +"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." + +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. _Mors omnibus est communis_ +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 _such_ 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,-- + +"Now, then, Magsie, give us the Grammar!" + +"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." + +"Oh, I know what you've been doing," said Tom; "you've been reading +the English at the end. Any donkey can do that." + +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. + +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." + +Maggie obeyed, and took the open book. + +"Where do you begin, Tom?" + +"Oh, I begin at _'Appellativa arborum,'_ because I say all over again +what I've been learning this week." + +Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines; and Maggie was beginning +to forget her office of prompter in speculating as to what _mas_ could +mean, which came twice over, when he stuck fast at _Sunt etiam +volucrum_. + +"Don't tell me, Maggie; _Sunt etiam volucrum_--_Sunt etiam +volucrum_--_ut ostrea, cetus_----" + +"No," said Maggie, opening her mouth and shaking her head. + +"_Sunt etiam volucrum_," 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. + +"C, e, u," said Maggie, getting impatient. + +"Oh, I know--hold your tongue," said Tom. "_Ceu passer, hirundo; +Ferarum_--_ferarum_----" Tom took his pencil and made several hard +dots with it on his book-cover--"_ferarum_----" + +"Oh dear, oh dear, Tom," said Maggie, "what a time you are! _Ut_----" + +"_Ut ostrea_----" + +"No, no," said Maggie, "_ut tigris_----" + +"Oh yes, now I can do," said Tom; "it was _tigris, vulpes_, I'd +forgotten: _ut tigris, volupes; et Piscium_." + +With some further stammering and repetition, Tom got through the next +few lines. + +"Now, then," he said, "the next is what I've just learned for +to-morrow. Give me hold of the book a minute." + +After some whispered gabbling, assisted by the beating of his fist on +the table, Tom returned the book. + +"_Mascula nomina in a_," he began. + +"No, Tom," said Maggie, "that doesn't come next. It's _Nomen non +creskens genittivo_----" + +"_Creskens genittivo!_" 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. "_Creskens genittivo!_ What a little silly you are, Maggie!" + +"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?" + +"Phee-e-e-h! I told you girls couldn't learn Latin. It's _Nomen non +crescens genitivo_." + +"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." + +"Oh, well, don't chatter. Let me go on." + +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. + +"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. + +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,-- + +"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." + +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. + +"I'm sure you couldn't do it, now," said Tom; "and I'll just ask Mr. +Stelling if you could." + +"I don't mind," said the little conceited minx, "I'll ask him myself." + +"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?" + +"No, you couldn't," said Tom, indignantly. "Girls can't do Euclid; can +they, sir?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +And Maggie was so oppressed by this dreadful destiny that she had no +spirit for a retort. + +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 epitomized history of the Jews. + +But the dreary half-year _did_ 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. + +But it was worth purchasing, even at the heavy price of the Latin +Grammar, the happiness of seeing the bright light in the parlor 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 +labor 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 color, but the long +companion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joys +were vivid. + + + +Chapter II + +The Christmas Holidays + + +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 color with all the heightening contrast of frost and +snow. + +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 +color; 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 color, 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 unrelenting purpose, still hides that secret in +his own mighty, slow-beating heart. + +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 favorite 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 +parlor-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, it by anything, by superior sliding and snowballs. + +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. + +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 _him_ +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 _a priori_ 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. + +"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." + +"New name? Yes, I should think it _is_ 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 _Pivart_ +him!" added Mr. Tulliver, lifting his glass with a sense that he had +defined his resolution in an unmistakable manner. + +"You won't be forced to go to law with him, I hope, brother?" said +Mrs. Moss, with some anxiety. + +"I don't know what I shall be forced to; but I know what I shall force +_him_ 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?" + +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. + +"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 _that_ comes to." + +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,-- + +"I'm sorry to see brother so put out about this water work." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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 _him_, or--more specifically--that a male Tulliver +was far more than equal to four female Dodsons, even though one of +them was Mrs. Glegg. + +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. + +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. + +"Father," said Tom, one evening near the end of the holidays, "uncle +Glegg says Lawyer Wakem _is_ 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?" + +"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." + +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. + + + +Chapter III + +The New Schoolfellow + + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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 neighbors at home." + +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. + +Mr. Stelling wisely turned away, and closed the door behind him; boys' +shyness only wears off in the absence of their elders. + +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. + +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 neighborhood 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 _him_. +He suddenly walked across the hearth and looked over Philip's paper. + +"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!" + +"Oh, you can do them without learning," said Philip; "I never learned +drawing." + +"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. + +"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." + +"But haven't you been taught _any_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." + +"Yes," said Philip, smiling; "I've been taught Latin and Greek and +mathematics, and writing and such things." + +"Oh, but I say, you don't like Latin, though, do you?" said Tom, +lowering his voice confidentially. + +"Pretty well; I don't care much about it," said Philip. + +"Ah, but perhaps you haven't got into the _Propria quae maribus_," said +Tom, nodding his head sideways, as much as to say, "that was the test; +it was easy talking till you came to _that_." + +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,-- + +"I've done with the grammar; I don't learn that any more." + +"Then you won't have the same lessons as I shall?" said Tom, with a +sense of disappointment. + +"No; but I dare say I can help you. I shall be very glad to help you +if I can." + +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. + +"I say," he said presently, "do you love your father?" + +"Yes," said Philip, coloring deeply; "don't you love yours?" + +"Oh yes--I only wanted to know," said Tom, rather ashamed of himself, +now he saw Philip coloring 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. + +"Shall you learn drawing now?" he said, by way of changing the +subject. + +"No," said Philip. "My father wishes me to give all my time to other +things now." + +"What! Latin and Euclid, and those things?" said Tom. + +"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. + +"And you don't mind that?" said Tom, with strong curiosity. + +"No; I like to know what everybody else knows. I can study what I like +by-and-by." + +"I can't think why anybody should learn Latin," said Tom. "It's no +good." + +"It's part of the education of a gentleman," said Philip. "All +gentlemen learn the same things." + +"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. + +"He learned it when he was a boy, of course," said Philip. "But I dare +say he's forgotten it." + +"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_ +can tell you." + +"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.) + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Oh yes," said Philip; "lots of them, besides the Greek stories. I can +tell you about Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Saladin, and about William +Wallace and Robert Bruce and James Douglas,--I know no end." + +"You're older than I am, aren't you?" said Tom. + +"Why, how old are _you?_ I'm fifteen." + +"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_ could show you how to fish. You _could_ fish, couldn't +you? It's only standing, and sitting still, you know." + +Tom, in his turn, wished to make the balance dip in his favor. 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,-- + +"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." + +"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 honor 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. + + + +Chapter IV + +"The Young Idea" + + +The alterations of feeling in that first dialogue between Tom and +Philip continued to make 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 +humor; 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 favorites +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 humor 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. + +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. + +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 favored 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. + +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 every-day 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. + +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 +_divinae particulum aurae_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Mr. Poulter," Tom would say, at any allusion to the sword, "I wish +you'd bring your sword and do the sword-exercise!" + +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. + +"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?" + +"Head off? Ah! and would, if he'd had three heads." + +"But you had a gun and bayonet besides?" said Tom. "_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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"What! the humpbacked lad?" said Mr. Poulter, contemptuously; "what's +the use of _his_ looking on?" + +"Oh, but he knows a great deal about fighting," said Tom, "and how +they used to fight with bows and arrows, and battle-axes." + +"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. + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +Philip shuddered visibly as he paused from his music. Then turning +red, he said, with violent passion,-- + +"Get away, you lumbering idiot! Don't come bellowing at me; you're not +fit to speak to anything but a cart-horse!" + +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. + +"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 _your_ father's a rogue; everybody says so!" + +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. + +"What's the matter, Wakem? what was that noise about? Who slammed the +door?" + +Philip looked up, and hastily dried his eyes. "It was Tulliver who +came in--to ask me to go out with him." + +"And what are you in trouble about?" said Mrs. Stelling. + +Philip was not her favorite 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. + +He said, in answer to her question, "My toothache came on, and made me +hysterical again." + +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. + +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. + +"Mr. Poulter," said Tom, when the sword was being finally sheathed, "I +wish you'd lend me your sword a little while to keep." + +"No no, young gentleman," said Mr. Poulter, shaking his head +decidedly; "you might do yourself some mischief with it." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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. + +"Well," said Mr. Poulter, with still deeper gravity, "you must keep it +out of sight, you know." + +"Oh yes, I'll keep it under the bed," said Tom, eagerly, "or else at +the bottom of my large box." + +"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." + +"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. + +"But if Mr. Stelling catches you carrying it in?" said Mr. Poulter, +pocketing the crown-piece provisionally while he raised this new +doubt. + +"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. + +If you think a lad of thirteen would 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." + + + +Chapter V + +Maggie's Second Visit + + +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, who 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 _him_, and called him names. But perceiving that his first +advances toward amity were not met, he relapsed into his least +favorable 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. + +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 _her_ 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 _cared_ +more about her loving him. + +"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. _You_ like him, don't +you?" + +"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 _he_ 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." + +"Can't I go too?" said Maggie, who in this first day of meeting again +loved Tom's shadow. + +"No, it's something I'll tell you about by-and-by, not yet," said Tom, +skipping away. + +In the afternoon the boys were at their books in the study, preparing +the morrow's lesson's that they might have a holiday in the evening in +honor 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 _he_ 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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"No, no, Maggie," said Tom, in his most coaxing tone; "It's something +you'll like _ever so_." + +He put his arm round her neck, and she put hers round his waist, and +twined together in this way, they went upstairs. + +"I say, Magsie, you must not tell anybody, you know," said Tom, "else +I shall get fifty lines." + +"Is it alive?" said Maggie, whose imagination had settled for the +moment on the idea that Tom kept a ferret clandestinely. + +"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." + +"Oh, but if you frighten me, I shall," said Maggie, beginning to look +rather serious. + +"You won't be frightened, you silly thing," said Tom. "Go and hide +your face, and mind you don't peep." + +"Of course I sha'n't peep," said Maggie, disdainfully; and she buried +her face in the pillow like a person of strict honor. + +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!" + +Nothing but long meditation and preconcerted arrangement of effects +would 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. + +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." + +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. + +"Oh, Tom, please don't!" exclaimed Maggie, in a tone of suppressed +dread, shrinking away from him into the opposite corner. "I _shall_ +scream--I'm sure I shall! Oh, don't I wish I'd never come upstairs!" + +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,-- + +"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. + +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. + +"Tom, I _will not_ bear it, I _will_ scream," said Maggie, at the +first movement of the sword. "You'll hurt yourself; you'll cut your +head off!" + +"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. + + + +Chapter VI + +A Love-Scene + + +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. + +"I beg your pardon, sir,--but does Mr. Askern say Tulliver will be +lame?" + +"Oh, no; oh, no," said Mr. Stelling, "not permanently; only for a +little while." + +"Did he tell Tulliver so, sir, do you think?" + +"No; nothing was said to him on the subject." + +"Then may I go and tell him, sir?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Don't be a little silly, Magsie," said Tom, tenderly, feeling very +brave now. "I shall soon get well." + +"Good-by, Tulliver," said Philip, putting out his small, delicate +hand, which Tom clasped immediately with his more substantial fingers. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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 _she_ +didn't go with him on the desert island and take care of him. + +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. + +"What are you reading about in Greek?" she said. "It's poetry, I can +see that, because the lines are so short." + +"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. + +"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?" + +Maggie started a little on being roused from her reverie, and said, +"What?" Philip repeated his question. + +"Oh, yes, better," she answered immediately. "No, not better; because +I don't think I _could_ love you better than Tom. But I should be so +sorry,--_so sorry_ for you." + +Philip colored; 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. + +"But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she +added quickly. "I wish you _were_ 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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Do you care as much about me as you do about Yap, Maggie?" said +Philip, smiling rather sadly. + +"Oh, yes, I should think so," said Maggie, laughing. + +"I'm very fond of _you_, Maggie; I shall never forget _you_," 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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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: + +"Should you like me to kiss you, as I do Tom? I will, if you like." + +"Yes, very much; nobody kisses me." + +Maggie put her arm round his neck and kissed him quite earnestly. + +"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." + +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 _do_ love him. And you love him too, Tom, don't you? _Say_ you +love him," she added entreatingly. + +Tom colored 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." + +"Well, well," said Mr. Tulliver, "if he's good to you, try and make +him amends, and be good to _him_. 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." + +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. + + + +Chapter VII + +The Golden Gates Are Passed + + +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_ 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. + +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. + +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 +uninteresting or unintelligible ideas. But each vacation he brought +home larger and larger drawings with the satiny rendering of +landscape, and water-colors 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? + +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; _that_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"No, I came by the coach. I've walked from the turnpike." + +"But how is it you're not at school? The holidays have not begun yet?" + +"Father wanted me at home," said Maggie, with a slight trembling of +the lip. "I came home three or four days ago." + +"Isn't my father well?" said Tom, rather anxiously. + +"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." + +"My father hasn't lost?" said Tom, hastily, springing from the sofa, +and standing before Maggie with his hands suddenly thrust into his +pockets. + +"Yes, dear Tom," said Maggie, looking up at him with trembling. + +Tom was silent a minute or two, with his eyes fixed on the floor. Then +he said: + +"My father will have to pay a good deal of money, then?" + +"Yes," said Maggie, rather faintly. + +"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. + +"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 _would_ burst from her: "Oh, Tom, he will lose the mill and +the land and everything; he will have nothing left." + +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. + +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"; _that_ 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. + +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. + +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: + +"Oh, Tom--dear, dear Tom, don't fret too much; try and bear it well." + +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?" + +"No, Tom, father didn't wish it," said Maggie, her anxiety about _his_ +feeling helping her to master her agitation. What _would_ 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." + +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. + +"And--and--poor father----" + +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. + +"Where's my father?" he said impatiently. "_Tell_ me, Maggie." + +"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----" + +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. + +But Maggie soon checked herself abruptly; a single thought had acted +on her like a startling sound. + +"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. + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The two slight youthful figures soon grew indistinct on the distant +road,--were soon lost behind the projecting hedgerow. + +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. + + + + +Book III + +_The Downfall_ + + + +Chapter I + +What Had Happened at Home + + +When Mr. Tulliver first knew the fact that the law-suit 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 whoses 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 favor 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +But it came at last, and set down the poor anxious girl, no longer the +"little wench," except to her father's fond memory. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +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 +agonized kisses. + +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. + +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. + +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 _her_ 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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + + + +Chapter II + +Mrs. Tulliver's Teraphim, or Household Gods + + +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. + +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 +parlor 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 parlor together. + +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. + +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 begin; it was a touch on the irritated nerve +compared with its spontaneous dull aching. + +"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. + +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. + +"Where's my mother?" she whispered. The servant did not know. + +Maggie hastened out, and said to Tom; "Father is lying quiet; let us +go and look for my mother. I wonder where she is." + +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. + +Tom, preceding Maggie, as they returned along the passage, opened the +door of this room, and immediately said, "Mother!" + +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. + +She dropped them, and started up as Tom spoke. + +"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----" + +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." + +"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." + +Tom was touched to the quick, but there was an angry reaction +immediately. His face flushed as he said: + +"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?" + +"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." + +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,-- + +"And I _did_ 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." + +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. + +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. + +"Don't fret, mother," he said tenderly. "I shall soon be able to get +money; I'll get a situation of some sort." + +"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." + +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--neutralized 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 _your_ 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." + +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. + +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. + +Tom was a little shocked at Maggie's outburst,--telling _him_ 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. + + + +Chapter III + +The Family Council + + +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 +parlor, 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. + +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. + +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." + +Mrs. Deane was the first to arrive; and when she had taken her seat in +the large parlor, 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. + +"Oh, sister, what a world this is!" she exclaimed as she entered; +"what trouble, oh dear!" + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Mrs. G., won't you come nearer the fire?" said her husband, unwilling +to take the more comfortable seat without offering it to her. + +"You see I've seated myself here, Mr. Glegg," returned this superior +woman; "_you_ can roast yourself, if you like." + +"Well," said Mr. Glegg, seating himself good-humoredly, "and how's the +poor man upstairs?" + +"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!" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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_ know what he was," she added, with a +sigh; "his breath was short to that degree as you could hear him two +rooms off." + +"Sophy!" said Mrs. Glegg, with indignant disgust, "you _do_ 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_ shall go back. _One_ can't act without the other, +I suppose; it isn't to be expected as _I_ should do everything." + +"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 _hadn't_ a straight spout, but the spotted damask I was allays fond +on." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 _your_ chany to go for an old song and be broke to pieces, though +yours has got no color 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." + +"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." + +"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 _them_ 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." + +Mrs. Glegg paused, for speaking with much energy for the good of +others is naturally exhausting. + +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: + +"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 _his_ 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." + +"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." + +"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 _ought_ 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." + +"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 _they_ 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"If I'd had _my_ 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 _somebody_ 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." + +"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. + +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. + +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: + +"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." + +"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,-- + + 'When land is gone and money's spent, + Then learning is most excellent.' + +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." + +"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." + +Tom was still standing before the table in the centre of the group. +There was a heightened color 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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"I could work and pay that every year," said Tom, promptly. "I'd do +anything to save my mother from parting with her things." + +"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." + +"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, _you_ 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 _my_ sperrit." + +"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." + +"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 _will_ be so hasty, +Jane, as if I didn't know what was reasonable." + +"Then speak accordingly, Mr. Glegg!" said his wife, with slow, loud +emphasis, bending her head toward him significantly. + +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. + +"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 _you_, 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." + +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. + +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 _use_ 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. + +"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." + +"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_ wouldn't pay anything toward it." + +"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----" + +While Mr. Glegg was speaking, a tall dark figure was seen hurrying +past the window. + +"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. + +"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." + +Mrs. Moss was in too much agitation to resist Mrs. Tulliver's +movement, as she drew her into the parlor 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. + +"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?" + +"Mr. Turnbull thinks he'll get better," said Maggie. "Sit down, aunt +Gritty. Don't fret." + +"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----" + +The poor woman was interrupted by a rising sob. + +"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. + +"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." + +Mrs. Glegg's voice had arrested Mrs. Moss's attention, and looking up, +she said: + +"Yes, there _was_ 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." + +"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." + +"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----" + +"Don't cry so, aunt; don't fret," whispered Maggie, who had kept hold +of Mrs. Moss's hand. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Yes, Mrs. Moss," said Mrs. Glegg, with decision, "yours is a very +unlucky family; the more's the pity for _my_ sister." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 _he_ showed any signs of understanding this trouble, +and caring about poor aunt Moss. Tom was only looking thoughtful, with +his eyes on the tablecloth. + +"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." + +"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?" + +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?" + +"Why," said Tom, coloring, 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----" + +Tom hesitated a little, and then went on. + +"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." + +"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----" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +Mrs. Tulliver had not studied the question of exchange, and was +straining her mind after original ideas on the subject. + +"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." + +"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." + +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: + +"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." + +"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 +_was_ 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?" + +"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." + +"Well done, young man! I didn't think you'd been so sharp," said uncle +Glegg, with much candor. "But perhaps your father _did_ make away with +the note. Let us go and see if we can find it in the chest." + +"It's in my father's room. Let us go too, aunt Gritty," whispered +Maggie. + + + +Chapter IV + +A Vanishing Gleam + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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 recognized +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. + +"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?" + +Tom obeyed, with some trembling; it was the first time his father had +recognized 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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"What! have I had a stroke?" said Mr. Tulliver, anxiously, looking at +Mr. Glegg. + +"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." + +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?" + +"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. + +"Where's your mother?" he said, so preoccupied that he received the +kiss as passively as some quiet animal might have received it. + +"She's downstairs with my aunts, father. Shall I fetch her?" + +"Ay, ay; poor Bessy!" and his eyes turned toward Tom as Maggie left +the room. + +"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." + +Uncle Glegg involuntarily shook his head, and looked more concerned +than ever, but Tom said firmly: + +"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?" + +"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." + +At this moment Maggie re-entered with her mother, who came in much +agitated by the news that her husband was quite himself again. + +"Well, Bessy," he said, as she kissed him, "you must forgive me if +you're worse off than you ever expected to be. 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." + +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----" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +Chapter V + +Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster + + +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. + +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 _he_ 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. + +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. + +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: + +"Why, Master Tom, how's your father this morning?" It was a publican +of St. Ogg's, one of his father's customers. + +Tom disliked being spoken to just then; but he said civilly, "He's +still very ill, thank you." + +"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. + +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. + +"That's Tulliver's son," said the publican to a grocer standing on the +adjacent door-step. + +"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?" + +"Oh! to turn up his nose at his father's customers, and be a fine +gentleman,--not much else, I think." + +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 band, 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. + +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?" + +"Much the same, thank you, uncle," said Tom, feeling nervous. "But I +want to speak to you, please, when you're at liberty." + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"I hope you'll excuse me for troubling you, uncle," said Tom, +coloring, 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." + +"Ah!" said Mr. Deane, reserving his pinch of snuff, and looking at Tom +with new attention, "let us hear." + +"I want to get a situation, uncle, so that I may earn some money," +said Tom, who never fell into circumlocution. + +"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. + +"Why, let me see, how old are you?" said Mr. Deane, as he threw +himself backward again. + +"Sixteen; I mean, I am going in seventeen," said Tom, hoping his uncle +noticed how much beard he had. + +"Let me see; your father had some notion of making you an engineer, I +think?" + +"But I don't think I could get any money at that for a long while, +could I?" + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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?" + +Mr. Deane had not occupied himself with methods of education, and had +no precise conception of what went forward in expensive schools. + +"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 Horae Pauline and Blair's Rhetoric, the last +half." + +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. + +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 Hore Pauline might be something less neutral. On +the whole, this list of acquirements gave him a sort of repulsion +toward poor Tom. + +"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?" + +Tom colored, and burst out, with new energy: + +"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." + +"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." + +"But didn't _you_ 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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"Well, uncle," said Tom, with a slight complaint in his tone, "that's +what I should like to do. Can't _I_ get on in the same way?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +Tom bit his lips hard; he felt as if the tears were rising, and he +would rather die than let them. + +"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----" + +Tom was going to speak, but Mr. Deane put up his hand and said: + +"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." + +Mr. Deane paused and looked hard at Tom, who certainly felt some +inward struggle before he could reply. + +"I would rather do what will be best for me in the end, sir; I would +put up with what was disagreeable." + +"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_ +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 head +of the best firms in St. Ogg's." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"I'd better set about learning book-keeping, hadn't I, uncle?" said +Tom, anxious to prove his readiness to exert himself. + +"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." + +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. + +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 _nunc illas promite vires_ 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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"But didn't he speak kindly, Tom?" + +"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." + +Tom's mouth twitched with a bitter expression as he looked at the +fire. + +"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." + +"_You_ teach! Yes, I dare say. That's always the tone you take," said +Tom. + +"Dear Tom, I was only joking," said Maggie, putting her cheek against +his coat-sleeve. + +"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." + +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: + +"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." + +With the last words the resentment was rising again. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +No wonder, when there is this contrast between the outward and the +inward, that painful collisions come of it. + + + +Chapter VI + +Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a +Pocket-Knife + + +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. + +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 favorite 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 parlor, 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. + +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. + +"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." + +"There's a fire i' the parlor, Master Tom," said Kezia, who objected +to leaving the kitchen in the crisis of toasting. + +"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. + +The bright fire in the parlor was the only light that showed the few +chairs, the bureau, the carpetless floor, and the one table--no, not +the _one_ 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: + +"Why! you don't remember Bob, then, as you gen the pocket-knife to, +Mr. Tom?" + +The rough-handled pocket-knife was taken out in the same moment, and +the largest blade opened by way of irresistible demonstration. + +"What! Bob Jakin?" said Tom, not with any cordial delight, for he felt +a little ashamed of that early intimacy symbolized by the +pocket-knife, and was not at all sure that Bob's motives for recalling +it were entirely admirable. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"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_ 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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"I suppose so," said Tom, with a sort of desperate indifference. "Why +should they buy many books when they bought so little furniture?" + +"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 colored 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!" + +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. + +"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." + +"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!" + +Bob paused, and then said, with defiant decision, as if resolutely +turning his back on that paradisaic picture: + +"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." + +Tom was touched keenly enough to forget his pride and suspicion. + +"You're a very kind fellow, Bob," he said, coloring, 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." + +"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." + +Bob pushed the sovereigns forward, but before Tom could speak Maggie, +clasping her hands, and looking penitently at Bob. said: + +"Oh, I'm so sorry, Bob; I never thought you were so good. Why, I think +you're the kindest person in the world!" + +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." + +"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." + +Tom put out his pink palm, and Bob was not slow to place his hard, +grimy hand within it. + +"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." + +"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 _am_ 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." + +"Now, don't you be up to any tricks, Bob," said Tom, "else you'll get +transported some day." + +"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." + +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: + +"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?" + +"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, +_though_ you wouldn't take the money." + +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. + + + +Chapter VII + +How a Hen Takes to Stratagem + + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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 favor 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. + +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. + +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 liquied, leaving a continual smart. + +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 _ennui_ 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 colors 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _a priori_ 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. + +"Mrs. Tulliver, I think?" said Mr. Wakem. + +"Yes, sir; Miss Elizabeth Dodson as was." + +"Pray be seated. You have some business with me?" + +"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. + +"I hope, sir," she began at last,--"I hope, sir, you're not a-thinking +as _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, _that_ I +niver was, and nobody can say it of me." + +Mrs. Tulliver shook her head a little, and looked at the hem of her +pocket-handkerchief. + +"I've no doubt of what you say, Mrs. Tulliver," said Mr. Wakem, with +cold politeness. "But you have some question to ask me?" + +"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." + +"What does all this mean, Mrs. Tulliver?" said Mr. Wakem rather +sharply. "What do you want to ask me?" + +"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." + +Something like a new thought flashed across Mr. Wakem's face as he +said, "Who told you I meant to buy it?" + +"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." + +"Ah, well, who was it that _did_ say so?" said Wakem, opening his +desk, and moving things about, with the accompaniment of an almost +inaudible whistle. + +"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." + +"What! Guest &Co. would keep the mill in their own hands, I suppose, +and pay your husband wages?" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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----" + +"He's a pig-headed, foul-mouthed fool!" burst out Mr. Wakem, +forgetting himself. + +"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 _do_ say as it's allays unlucky when Dorlcote Mill changes hands, +and the water might all run away, and _then_--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 _that;_ +and my boy, as there isn't a nicer, handsomer, straighter boy nowhere, +went to school with your son----" + +Mr. Wakem rose, opened the door, and called to one of his clerks. + +"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." + +"But if you _would_ 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." + +"Yes, yes, I'll bear it in mind," said Mr. Wakem, hastily, looking +toward the open door. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"Next Friday is the day,--Friday at six o'clock." + +"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." + +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. + +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 +_sang froid_, 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 neighborhood 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? + +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 +favored, to kick that Blue editor to a deeper shade of his favorite +color. 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 _don't_ prosper. + +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 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 +too 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 favorite lad whom he meant to bring on in the world. + +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. + + + +Chapter VIII + +Daylight on the Wreck + + +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 _old_ 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 _that_ +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,--_he_ +had no grudge against Tulliver. + +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 _have_ I done to +deserve worse than other women?" that Maggie began to suspect her poor +mother's wits were quite going. + +"Tom," she said, when they were out of their father's room together, +"we _must_ 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." + +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 +_she_ 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. + +"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. + +"How's the water now, eh, Luke?" said Mr. Tulliver. "Dix hasn't been +choking you up again, eh?" + +"No, sir, it's all right." + +"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----" + +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. + +"Father," said Maggie, laying her hand on his, "don't you remember +that Mr. Riley is dead?" + +"Dead?" said Mr. Tulliver, sharply, looking in her face with a +strange, examining glance. + +"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." + +"Ah?" said her father, doubtfully, still looking in her face. But as +soon as Tom began to speak he turned to look at _him_ 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. + +"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?" + +Mr. Tulliver threw himself backward again, losing the childlike +outward glance under a rush of new ideas, which diverted him from +external impressions. + +"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----" + +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?" + +It was close at hand in a drawer, for he had often asked for it +before. + +"You know what there is in the letter, father?" said Tom, as he gave +it to him. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"What's settled, then?" said his father, angrily. + +"Don't you take on too much bout 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." + +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. + +"Paid everybody?" he said, with vehement agitation, his face flushing, +and his eye lighting up. "Why--what--have they made me a _bankrupt?_" + +"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." + +She felt her father beginning to tremble; his voice trembled too, as +he said, after a few moments: + +"Ay, my little wench, but I shall never live twice o'er." + +"But perhaps you will live to see me pay everybody, father," said Tom, +speaking with a great effort. + +"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." + +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. + +"Have they sold me up, then?" he said more clamly, as if he were +possessed simply by the desire to know what had happened. + +"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. + +"You must not be surprised to see the room look very bare downstairs, +father," said Maggie; "but there's your chair and the bureau; +_they're_ not gone." + +"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. + +"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." + +Maggie ran on before to see that all was right in the dreary parlor, +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 labors, than endure perpetual appeals to his pity, for evils +over which he can make no conquest. + +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. + +"Ah!" he said slowly, moving toward his chair, "they've sold me +up--they've sold me up." + +Then seating himself, and laying down his stick, while Luke left the +room, he looked round again. + +"They've left the big Bible," he said. "It's got everything in,--when +I was born and married; bring it me, Tom." + +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. + +"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." + +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: + +"They haven't come upo' Moss for the money as I lent him, have they?" + +"No, father," said Tom; "the note was burnt." + +Mr. Tulliver turned his eyes on the page again, and presently said: + +"Ah--Elizabeth Dodson--it's eighteen year since I married her----" + +"Come next Ladyday," said Mrs. Tulliver, going up to his side and +looking at the page. + +Her husband fixed his eyes earnestly on her face. + +"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----" + +"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----" + +"Oh, mother!" said Maggie, "don't talk in that way." + +"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----" + +"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. "It there's anything left as I could do to +make you amends, I wouldn't say you nay." + +"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." + +"Mother," said Tom, severely, "this is not the time to talk about +that." + +"Let her be," said Mr. Tulliver. "Say what you mean, Bessy." + +"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." + +Mr. Tulliver had sunk back in his chair trembling. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + + + +Chapter IX + +An Item Added to the Family Register + + +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. + +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-labor, 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. + +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 color of every roof and weather-stain and broken hillock was good, +because his growing senses had been fed on them. Our instructed +vagrancy, which was 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. + +"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." + +Then he turned round, and leaning against the gate-post, looked at the +opposite buildings. + +"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 _in_ +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." + +"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'." + +"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 _every_ 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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_ +can't,--you niver know but what they'll gripe you." + +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. + +"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." + +"I don't think you're quite so well to-night, are you, father?" said +Maggie; "you seem uneasy." + +"Why, how is it Tom doesn't come?" said Mr. Tulliver, impatiently. + +"Dear heart, is it time? I must go and get his supper," said Mrs. +Tulliver, laying down her knitting, and leaving the room. + +"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." + +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; _she_ began to wish that Tom would come, too. + +"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." + +Mrs. Tulliver had begun to be a little frightened at her boy, but she +was jealous of every office others did for him. + +"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." + +"I think my father wants Tom, mother," said Maggie; "he must come into +the parlor first." + +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,-- + +"Come, come, you're late; I want you." + +"Is there anything the matter, father?" said Tom. + +"You sit down, all of you," said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily. + +"And, Tom, sit down here; I've got something for you to write i' the +Bible." + +They all three sat down, looking at him. He began to speak slowly, +looking first at his wife. + +"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." + +He paused and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he +said, in a louder yet deeper tone: + +"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." + +"Oh, father, what?" said Maggie, sinking down by his knee, pale and +trembling. "It's wicked to curse and bear malice." + +"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." + +"What am I to write?" said Tom, with gloomy submission. + +"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." + +There was a dead silence as Tom's pen moved along the paper; Mrs. +Tulliver looked scared, and Maggie trembled like a leaf. + +"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr. Tulliver, Tom read aloud +slowly. + +"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." + +"Oh no, father, dear father!" said Maggie, almost choked with fear. +"You shouldn't make Tom write that." + +"Be quiet, Maggie!" said Tom. "I _shall_ write it." + + + + +Book IV + +_The Valley of Humiliation_ + + + +Chapter I + +A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet + + +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 color, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _should_ 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 +baptized, 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 honor 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. + +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. + +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 honors, 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 _him_ what +commonsense was. Certain seeds which are required to find a nidus for +themselves under unfavorable 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. + + + +Chapter II + +The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 behavior 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 economize 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 flavor; her only +rebellion was to smuggle into the kitchen something that would make +rather a better supper than usual for Tom. + +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 +honor. + +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; +_that_ 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. + +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 civilized 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. + + + +Chapter III + +A Voice from the Past + + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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!" + +"My brother is not at home yet, Bob," said Maggie; "he is always at +St. Ogg's in the daytime." + +"Well, Miss," said Bob, "I should be glad to see Mr. Tom, but that +isn't just what I'm come for,--look here!" + +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. + +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. + +"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, _look_ here!" + +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. + +"There's all sorts o' genelmen here," Bob went on, turning over the +leaves with some excitement, "wi' all sorts o' nones,--an' some bald +an' some wi' wigs,--Parlament genelmen, I reckon. An' here," he added, +opening the "Keepsake,"--"_here's_ 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn't keep a dog of my +own." + +"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' _your_ 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. + +"Won't you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob?" +said Maggie. + +"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_ didn't." + +The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow +gone wrong. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"He looks dreadfully surly," said Maggie. "Would he let me pat him?" + +"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." + +"Your big thumb--what's that, Bob?" said Maggie. + +"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." + +"But Bob," said Maggie, looking serious, "that's cheating; I don't +like to hear you say that." + +"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." + +"Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come +again to see Tom." + +"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." + +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 favoring auspices he touched his cap and walked away. + +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. + +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. + +Maggie's sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened +with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favorite 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 +harmonized 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 +_more_ 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--Telemaque was mere bran; so were the hard, +dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavor 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 _her_ 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. + +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 honored 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 _would_ 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. + +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 gril in the civilized 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. + +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 _Thomas a Kempis?_--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." + +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; + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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 faery ball-rooms; +rides off its _ennui_ 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 _ekstasis_ 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 _my_ +sister to do such things," said Tom, "_I'll_ 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 honors to be gathered and worn. + +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 a +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. + +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 color 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. + +"Let your mother have that bit o' pleasure, my dear," said Mrs. +Tulliver; "I'd trouble enough with your hair once." + +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 +brusk reply to give. + +"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." + +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. + + + + +Book V + +_Wheat and Tares_ + + + +Chapter I + +In the Red Deeps + + +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. + +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 +_should_ 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. + +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. + +You may see her now, as she walks down the favorite 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 coloring 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. + +But Maggie herself was not uneasy at this moment. She was clamly +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, colored 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. + +"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 _me?_" + +It was impossible not to perceive that Maggie felt herself a child +again. + +"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." + +"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 _that_ makes one think more of what +happened before the trouble came." + +"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." + +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-color sketch, of real merit as a portrait. + +"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 _was_ like a gypsy. I dare say I am now," +she added, after a little pause; "am I like what you expected me to +be?" + +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." + +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: + +"You are very much more beautiful than I thought you would be." + +"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. + +She stood still when they were in the hollows, and looking at Philip +again, she said in a serious, sad voice: + +"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." + +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. + +"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 _my_ 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 recognize as right." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"No more am I," said Philip, impetuously; "I am not happy." + +"Why?" said Maggie, gently. "At least--I ought not to ask--but I'm +very, very sorry." + +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. + +"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." + +"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 _must_ 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 _will_ 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." + +"Oh, Philip," said Maggie, "I wish you didn't feel so." But her heart +began to beat with something of Philip's discontent. + +"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." + +"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.) + +"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. _That_ +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." + +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. + +"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." + +"May I come again, then, to-morrow, or the next day, or next week?" + +"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." + +"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. _Tell_ 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." + +"I think it must be so, then," said Maggie, "for I can't be quite +certain of coming here any particular evening." + +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. + +"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." + +"I have never had any doubt that you would be the same, whenever I +migh 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." + +"Ah! I know what you mean about music; _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." + +"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." + +They were come back to the hollow, round which the dog-roses grew, and +they both paused under the charm of the faery evening light, reflected +from the pale pink clusters. + +"No, I have given up books," said Maggie, quietly, "except a very, +very few." + +Philip had already taken from his pocket a small volume, and was +looking at the back as he said: + +"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." + +Maggie had looked at the back too, and saw the title; it revived an +old impression with overmastering force. + +"'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." + +Maggie spoke rapidly, with glistening eyes. + +"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." + +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. + +"Do keep it, Maggie," said Philip, entreatingly; "it will give you +pleasure." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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: + +"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." + +"Ah, Maggie," said Philip, almost fretfully, "you would never love me +so well as you love your brother." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"I shall come here as often as I can till I see you again, Maggie. +Have some feeling for _me_ as well as for others." + +"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. + +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 _could_ 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 +_might_ 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. + + + +Chapter II + +Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb + + +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. + +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. + +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 neighboring 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 no 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. + +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 favorable 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 behavior +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. + +Tom, meanwhile, had shown no disposition to rely on any one but +himself, though, with a natural sensitiveness toward all indications +of favorable 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"How much do you want, then?" he said, speaking as if the words burnt +his lips. + +"Suppose I begin with the thirty-six pounds, father?" said Tom. + +Mr. Tulliver separated this sum from the rest, and keeping his hand +over it, said: + +"It's as much as I can save out o' my pay in a year." + +"Yes, father; it is such slow work, saving out of the little money we +get. And in this way we might double our savings." + +"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." + +Tom was silent. + +"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." + +Mr. Tulliver's voice trembled, and Tom was silent for a few minutes +before he said: + +"I'll give it up, father, since you object to it so strongly." + +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. + +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. + +Mr. Glegg's spectacles, which had been assisting him in counting the +fruit, made these suspicious details alarmingly evident to him. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"No, sir," said Tom; "I came to speak to you about a little matter of +business of my own." + +"Ay--well; but what has this dog got to do with it?" said the old +gentleman, getting mild again. + +"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." + +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. + +"You seem to be a knowing fellow," said Mr. Glegg, at last. + +"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." + +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. + +"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: + +"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?" + +"No, sir," said Tom, coloring; "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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"You get your percentage out o' the purchase, I suppose?" said Mr. +Glegg, looking at Bob. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Mr. Glegg, Mr. Glegg!" said a severe voice from the open parlor +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?" + +"Murdered?" said Mr. Glegg; "what's the woman talking of? Here's your +nephey Tom come about a bit o' business." + +"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." + +"Nay, nay," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly, "you're thinking o' the man +wi' no legs, as drove a dog-cart." + +"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." + +"Well, well," said Mr. Glegg, "we'll come in now." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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,--_you_ can see through them shopmen, I'll be bound." + +"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 _her;_ 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. + +"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----" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 +_you_, 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." + +"Why, what goods do you carry in your pack?" said Mrs. Glegg. +"Fine-colored things, I suppose,--shawls an' that?" + +"All sorts, mum, all sorts," said Bob,--thumping his bundle; "but let +us say no more about that, if _you_ please. I'm here upo' Mr. Tom's +business, an' I'm not the man to take up the time wi' my own." + +"And pray, what _is_ 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. + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Large int'rest?" said aunt Glegg, with eagerness; "and what do you +call large int'rest?" + +"Ten or twelve per cent, Bob says, after expenses are paid." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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----" + +"Mr. Glegg, it's beyond iverything! You'll go and give information to +the tramps next, as they may come and rob me." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"Ay, mum," he said admiringly, "you know what's what--you do. An' it's +nothing but fair. _You_ 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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"All in good time," said Mr. Glegg, really unwilling to cut short the +dialogue. "Are you wanted at the wharf, Tom?" + +"No, sir; I left Stowe in my place." + +"Come, put down your pack, and let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, drawing a +chair to the window and seating herself with much dignity. + +"Don't you ask it, mum," said Bob, entreatingly. + +"Make no more words," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "but do as I tell +you." + +"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!" + +Bob held it at a distance for admiration, but Mrs. Glegg said sharply: + +"Yes, but nobody wants a fire this time o' year. Put these colored +things by; let me look at your nets, if you've got 'em." + +"Eh, mum, I told you how it 'ud be," said Bob, flinging aside the +colored 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 _it'll_ 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 +_you_ talked on; well, I've got a piece as 'ull serve you to make fun +on----" + +"Bring me that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "It's a buff; I'm partial to +buff." + +"Eh, but a _damaged_ 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." + +"Fetch it, and let me see you measure it," said Mrs. Glegg, +authoritatively. + +Bob obeyed with ostentatious reluctance. + +"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. + +"I'll give you six shilling for it," she said, throwing it down with +the air of a person who mentions an ultimatum. + +"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; _my_ +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 color till the threads melt +away i' the wash-tub, an' that won't be while _I'm_ a young un." + +"Well, seven shilling," said Mrs. Glegg. + +"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 color. 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.'" + +"I don't mind having three yards of it,'" said Mrs. Glegg. + +"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. + +"Come, lay me out that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "Here's eight +shilling for it." + +"You _will_ 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." + +"Well, put it me out," said Mrs. Glegg, peremptorily. + +"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." + +"Let me look at the net again," said Mrs. Glegg, yearning after the +cheap spots and sprigs, now they were vanishing. + +"Well, I can't deny _you_, mum," said Bob handing it out. + +"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 _her_ runnin' her +head into a sack; _she'd_ 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----" + +"Here's fifteen shilling, then, for the two," said Mrs. Glegg. "But +it's a shameful price." + +"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 _my_sen; I shouldn't stay to say +my Catechism afore I knowed what to do wi't." + +"Stop a bit, Mr. Glegg," said the lady, as her husband took his hat, +"you never _will_ 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." + +"Well, Mrs. G., say what you mean," said Mr. G., hastily. + +"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 _my_ +family." + +"Thank you, aunt," said Tom, rather proudly. "I prefer having the +money only lent to me." + +"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. + +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 on 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. + +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. + + + +Chapter III + +The Wavering Balance + + +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; _must_ 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. + +"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." + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +They sat down at the roots of the slanting ash. + +"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." + +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. + +"I shall be sitting for my second portrait then," she said, smiling. +"Will it be larger than the other?" + +"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." + +"You seem to think more of painting than of anything now, Philip?" + +"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 mediaeval literature, and modern literature; I +flutter all ways, and fly in none." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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. _You_ are not +resigned; you are only trying to stupefy yourself." + +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: + +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." + +"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 _little_ 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. + +"Yes," he said, "every day, almost. But my voice is only middling, +like everything else in me." + +"Oh, sing me something,--just one song. I _may_ 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." + +"_I_ know," said Philip; and Maggie buried her face in her hands while +he sang _sotto voce_, "Love in her eyes sits playing," and then said, +"That's it, isn't it?" + +"Oh no, I won't stay," said Maggie, starting up. "It will only haunt +me. Let us walk, Philip. I must go home." + +She moved away, so that he was obliged to rise and follow her. + +"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." + +"Why do you speak so bitterly to me, Philip?" said Maggie. + +"Because I foresee it will not end well; you can never carry on this +self-torture." + +"I shall have strength given me," said Maggie, tremulously. + +"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." + +Maggie started and paused, looking at Philip with alarm in her face. + +"Philip, how dare you shake me in this way? You are a tempter." + +"No, I am not; but love gives insight, Maggie, and insight often gives +foreboding. _Listen_ to me,--let _me_ 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." + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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 unfavorably 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. + + + +Chapter IV + +Another Love-Scene + + +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. + +"Take back your _Corinne_," 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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"You agree with me in not liking Corinne, then?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 _her_ +best. I always take the side of the rejected lover in the stories." + +"Then you would never have the heart to reject one yourself, should +you, Maggie?" said Philip, flushing a little. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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----" + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Has it made you hate me, Maggie?" said Philip, impetuously. "Do you +think I'm a presumptuous fool?" + +"Oh, Philip!" said Maggie, "how can you think I have such feelings? As +if I were not grateful for _any_ 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." + +"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. "_Do_ you love me?" + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +Philip had risen again, and was walking backward and forward +impatiently. + +"No, Maggie, you have wrong ideas of self-conquest, as I've often told +you. What you call self-conquest--binding and deafening yourself to +all but one train of impressions--is only the culture of monomania in +a nature like yours." + +He had spoken with some irritation, but now he sat down by her again +and took her hand. + +"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." + +She turned her large dark glance upon him with a sad smile. + +"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." + +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. + +"You don't seem happy enough, Maggie; you are forcing yourself to say +you love me, out of pity." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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,-- + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +They stopped to part among the Scotch firs. + +"Then my life will be filled with hope, Maggie, and I shall be happier +than other men, in spite of all? We _do_ belong to each other--for +always--whether we are apart or together?" + +"Yes, Philip; I should like never to part; I should like to make your +life very happy." + +"I am waiting for something else. I wonder whether it will come." + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +Chapter V + +The Cloven Tree + + +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 symbolized her inward dread. Those slight +indirect suggestions which are dependent on apparently trivial +coincidences and incalculable states of mind, are the favorite +machinery of Fact, but are not the stuff in which Imagination is apt +to work. + +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. + +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. + +"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 _was_ tasty. Why don't you wear that gown o' mine?" + +"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. + +"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_ 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." + +"Ah, he's a wonderful preacher, by all account,--isn't he, Sophy?" +said Mrs. Tulliver. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +The poor wife, with her withered beauty, smiled complacently. + +"But the men aren't _all_ 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. + +"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." + +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 in 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 recognized by +others; and no amount of sensitiveness in her about her father could +be surprising, Maggie thought. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"Tom, how is it you are come home? Is there anything the matter?" +Maggie spoke in a low, tremulous voice. + +"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. + +Maggie stood helpless, pale and cold. By some means, then, Tom knew +everything. At last she said, "I'm, not going," and turned round. + +"Yes, you are; but I want to speak to you first. Where is my father?" + +"Out on horseback." + +"And my mother?" + +"In the yard, I think, with the poultry." + +"I can go in, then, without her seeing me?" + +They walked in together, and Tom, entering the parlor, said to Maggie, +"Come in here." + +She obeyed, and he closed the door behind her. + +"Now, Maggie, tell me this instant everything that has passed between +you and Philip Wakem." + +"Does my father know anything?" said Maggie, still trembling. + +"No," said Tom indignantly. "But he _shall_ know, if you attempt to +use deceit toward me any further." + +"I don't wish to use deceit," said Maggie, flushing into resentment at +hearing this word applied to her conduct. + +"Tell me the whole truth, then." + +"Perhaps you know it." + +"Never mind whether I know it or not. Tell me exactly what has +happened, or my father shall know everything." + +"I tell it for my father's sake, then." + +"Yes, it becomes you to profess affection for your father, when you +have despised his strongest feelings." + +"You never do wrong, Tom," said Maggie, tauntingly. + +"Not if I know it," answered Tom, with proud sincerity. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Is that all?" said Tom, looking straight at her with his frown. + +Maggie paused a moment; then, determined to make an end of Tom's right +to accuse her of deceit, she said haughtily: + +"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." + +"And you _encouraged_ him?" said Tom, with an expression of disgust. + +"I told him that I loved him too." + +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,-- + +"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. + +It was a crushing alternative to Maggie. + +"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. _He_ is not happy." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Do what _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?" + +"Oh, Tom, _will_ the debts be paid soon?" said Maggie, clasping her +hands, with a sudden flash of joy across her wretchedness. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"Nonsense!" said Tom. "Your duty was clear enough. Say no more; but +promise, in the words I told you." + +"I _must_ speak to Philip once more." + +"You will go with me now and speak to him." + +"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." + +"Say it, then." + +Maggie laid her hand on the page of manuscript and repeated the +promise. Tom closed the book, and said, "Now let us go." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"What do you mean?" answered Philip, haughtily. + +"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." + +"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 honor her more than you can ever honor her; I +would give up my life to her." + +"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 _you_,--_you_ 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 honor, 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." + +"It is manly of you to talk in this way to _me_," 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 _you_." + +"I should be very sorry to understand your feelings," said Tom, with +scorching contempt. "What I wish is that you should understand +_me_,--that I shall take care of _my_ 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 _your_ turning lover to a fine girl?" + +Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He burst out, in a +convulsed voice. + +"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." + +"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." + +"It is enough, Maggie. _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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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 _your_ +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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 _you_ 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!" + +"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." + +"Because you are a man, Tom, and have power, and can do something in +the world." + +"Then, if you can do nothing, submit to those that can." + +"So I _will_ 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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +Chapter VI + +The Hard-Won Triumph + + +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. + +The eyes in the parlor 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. + +They all looked up with surprise when they heard the well-known foot. + +"Why, what's up now, Tom?" said his father. "You're a bit earlier than +usual." + +"Oh, there was nothing more for me to do, so I came away. Well, +mother!" + +Tom went up to his mother and kissed her, a sign of unusual good-humor +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. + +"Father," said Tom, when they had finished tea, "do you know exactly +how much money there is in the tin box?" + +"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_ was of +age." He spoke with rather timid discontent. + +"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." + +"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." + +It was always an incident Mr. Tulliver liked, in his gloomy life, to +fetch the tin box and count the money. + +"Don't go out of the room, mother," said Tom, as he saw her moving +when his father was gone upstairs. + +"And isn't Maggie to go?" said Mrs. Tulliver; "because somebody must +take away the things." + +"Just as she likes," said Tom indifferently. + +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. + +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. + +Mr. Tulliver counted out the money, setting it in order on the table, +and then said, glancing sharply at Tom: + +"There now! you see I was right enough." + +He paused, looking at the money with bitter despondency. + +"There's more nor three hundred wanting; it'll be a fine while before +_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 +_this_ 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." + +He looked up in Tom's face with a querulous desire for some assurance. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +His mother's arms were round his neck as soon as the last words were +uttered, and she said, half crying: + +"Oh, my boy, I knew you'd make iverything right again, when you got a +man." + +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: + +"Bessy, you must come and kiss me now--the lad has made you amends. +You'll see a bit o' comfort again, belike." + +When she had kissed him, and he had held her hand a minute, his +thoughts went back to the money. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 _his_ thumb now, though I _must_ 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?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Tulliver, drawing out her much-reduced bunch of keys, +"there's some brandy sister Deane brought me when I was ill." + +"Get it me, then; get it me. I feel a bit weak." + +"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." + +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. + +"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 _that_ luck." + +Tom never lived to taste another moment so delicious as that; and +Maggie couldn't help forgetting her own grievances. Tom _was_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"What's the matter, Mr. Tulliver?" said his wife. He looked at her, +still with a puzzled expression, and said at last: + +"Ah!--I was dreaming--did I make a noise?--I thought I'd got hold of +him." + + + +Chapter VII + +A Day of Reckoning + + +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 honorable 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 gentlmen for the honor +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. + +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. + +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 honorable 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 _him_ 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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Oh!" said Tulliver, suddenly boiling up; "get somebody else to farm +for you, then, as'll ask _you_ to teach him." + +"You have been drinking, I suppose," said Wakem, really believing that +this was the meaning of Tulliver's flushed face and sparkling eyes. + +"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." + +"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.) + +"No, I _sha'n't_ 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----" + +"Let me pass, you ignorant brute, or I'll ride over you." + +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!" + +Suddenly, Wakem felt, something had arrested Mr. Tulliver's arm; for +the flogging ceased, and the grasp on his own arm was relaxed. + +"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. + +"Oh, Luke--mother--come and help Mr. Wakem!" Maggie cried, as she +heard the longed-for footsteps. + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"Ride my horse home with me," said Wakem to Luke. "By the Tofton +Ferry, not through the town." + +"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. + +"I feel ill--faintish," he said. "Help me in, Bessy--I'm giddy--I've a +pain i' the head." + +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. + +"Hadn't we better send for the doctor?" said Mrs. Tulliver. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Is he worse, mother?" + +"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.'" + +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. + +"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." + +The father and son clasped hands and looked at each other an instant. +Then Tom said, trying to speak firmly,-- + +"Have you any wish, father--that I can fulfil, when----" + +"Ay, my lad--you'll try and get the old mill back." + +"Yes, father." + +"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----" + +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. + +"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 _my_ 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." + +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,-- + +"I had my turn--I beat him. That was nothing but fair. I never wanted +anything but what was fair." + +"But, father, dear father," said Maggie, an unspeakable anxiety +predominating over her grief, "you forgive him--you forgive every one +now?" + +He did not move his eyes to look at her, but he said,-- + +"No, my wench. I don't forgive him. What's forgiving to do? I can't +love a raskill----" + +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. + +"Does God forgive raskills?--but if He does, He won't be hard wi' me." + +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,-- + +"This world's--too many--honest man--puzzling----" + +Soon they merged into mere mutterings; the eyes had ceased to discern; +and then came the final silence. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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,-- + +"Tom, forgive me--let us always love each other"; and they clung and +wept together. + + + + +Book VI + +_The Great Temptation_ + + + +Chapter I + +A Duet in Paradise + + +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 colored 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 _nonchalant_ 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,-- + +"My scissors, please, if you can renounce the great pleasure of +persecuting my poor Minny." + +The foolish scissors have slipped too far over the knuckles, it seems, +and Hercules holds out his entrapped fingers hopelessly. + +"Confound the scissors! The oval lies the wrong way. Please draw them +off for me." + +"Draw them off with your other hand," says Miss Lucy, roguishly. + +"Oh, but that's my left hand; I'm not left-handed." + +Lucy laughs, and the scissors are drawn off with gentle touches from +tiny tips, which naturally dispose Mr. Stephen for a repetition _da +capo_. Accordingly, he watches for the release of the scissors, that +he may get them into his possession again. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Yes, very. Guess." + +"You are going to change Minny's diet, and give him three ratafias +soaked in a dessert-spoonful of cream daily?" + +"Quite wrong." + +"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?'" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Yes, I know you think I am silly." + +"I think you are perfectly charming." + +"And my silliness is part of my charm?" + +"I didn't say _that_." + +"But I know you like women to be rather insipid. Philip Wakem betrayed +you; he said so one day when you were not here." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"What! is your cousin coming to stay with you?" said Stephen, with a +look of slight annoyance. + +"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." + +"And am I bound to be pleased at that news?" + +"Oh no, not at all," said Lucy, with a little air of pique. "_I_ am +pleased, but that, of course, is no reason why _you_ should be +pleased. There is no girl in the world I love so well as my cousin +Maggie." + +"And you will be inseparable I suppose, when she comes. There will be +no possibility of a _tete-a-tete_ 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." + +"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?" + +"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 neighborhood in +that detached, disjointed way." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Poor aunty! You are cruel to ridicule her. She is very valuable to +_me_, 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." + +"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." + +"Oh yes!" exclaimed Lucy, laughing wickedly, and clapping her hands, +"that is just my cousin Maggie. You must have seen her!" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 +faery touch that can lay his ruffled feathers." + +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. + +"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." + +"Oh, I suppose he is like the father; he seems to be as proud as +Lucifer. Not a brilliant companion, though, I should think." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"Come and sing this," he said, when he saw Lucy rising. + +"What, 'Graceful Consort'? I don't think it suits your voice." + +"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." + +"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 _fete_ of a German Grand-Duke." + +"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.'" + +"Oh no, I shall not respect an Adam who drags the _tempo_, as you +will," said Lucy, beginning to play the duet. + +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 fraternize in a demoralizing way with a reforming +violoncello. In that case, the linnet-throated soprano and the +full-toned bass singing,-- + + "With thee delight is ever new, + With thee is life incessant bliss," + +believed what they sang all the more _because_ they sang it. + +"Now for Raphael's great song," said Lucy, when they had finished the +duet. "You do the 'heavy beasts' to perfection." + +"That sounds complimentary," said Stephen, looking at his watch. "By +Jove, it's nearly half-past one! Well, I can just sing this." + +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 _chiffonnier_, as +the most eligible place in which a small dog could await the crack of +doom. + +"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." + +"You will not be able to call on Philip, then? It is of no +consequence; I have said everything in my note." + +"You will be engaged with your cousin to-morrow, I suppose?" + +"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." + +"But I may come the next day?" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + + + +Chapter II + +First Impressions + + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Oh, then, if I disapprove of him you can give him up, since you are +not engaged," said Maggie, with playful gravity. + +"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 _does_ 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." + +"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?" + +"Oh no; and not handsome,--that is, not very," said Lucy, +half-penitent at this uncharitable remark. "But _he_ is--at least he +is generally considered very handsome." + +"Though you are unable to share that opinion?" + +"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 _him;_ I shall have a +glorious laugh against him. I shall not tell you what it is, though." + +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. + +"Stand up a moment, Maggie." + +"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. + +Lucy kept her contemplative attitude a moment or two in silence, and +then said,-- + +"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_ were to put anything shabby on, I should be quite +unnoticeable. I should be a mere rag." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +Maggie gave a little sigh. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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 _have_ been tried, Maggie; and I'm sure +you feel for other people quite as much as I do." + +"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 _un_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." + +"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." + +"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." + +Maggie took up the "Sketch Book," which lay by her on the table. + +"Do I look fit to be seen with this little brooch?" said Lucy, going +to survey the effect in the chimney-glass. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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!'" + +"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." + +"I should have thought there was nothing you might be more certain +of," said Maggie, smiling. + +"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." + +Lucy had looked up from her work as she uttered the last sentence, and +saw that there was a change in Maggie's face. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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 _is_ 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." + +"But, Lucy----" said Maggie, trying to arrest the prattling stream. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Nay, it was you who said so," remonstrated Lucy. "I only refrained +from destroying your confidence in your own second-sight." + +"I wish I could always err in the same way," said Stephen, "and find +reality so much more beautiful than my preconceptions." + +"Now you have proved yourself equal to the occasion," said Maggie, +"and said what it was incumbent on you to say under the +circumstances." + +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." + +"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,-- + +"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?" + +"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 every-day clothes, hung up in a sacred place." + +"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." + +"No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of +indifference," said Maggie, flushing a little. + +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." + +"Not at all," said Maggie; "I like too well to feel that I am admired, +but compliments never make me feel that." + +"I will never pay you a compliment again, Miss Tulliver," said +Stephen. + +"Thank you; that will be a proof of respect." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"No," said Maggie, "I can do nothing more difficult or more elegant +than shirt-making." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"But I can knit, Lucy," Maggie went on, "if that will be of any use +for your bazaar." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Now that is very wicked of you," said Lucy, looking rather hurt. "I +didn't think you would speak disrespectfully of Dr. Kenn." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Oh, I think he's a perfect character!" said Lucy, with pretty +enthusiasm. + +"No; there I can't agree with you," said Stephen, shaking his head +with sarcastic gravity. + +"Now, what fault can you point out in him?" + +"He's an Anglican." + +"Well, those are the right views, I think," said Lucy, gravely. + +"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 honor of representing St. Ogg's in +Parliament." + +"Do you really think of that?" said Lucy, her eyes brightening with a +proud pleasure that made her neglect the argumentative interests of +Anglicanism. + +"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?" + +"Yes," said Maggie, smiling, but not looking up; "so much fluency and +self-possession should not be wasted entirely on private occasions." + +"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." + +"She doesn't look at me when I talk of myself," he thought, while his +listeners were laughing. "I must try other subjects." + +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. + +"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." + +"Oh, thank you," said Maggie, blushing with returning +self-consciousness at this direct address, and taking up her work +again. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"Oh yes, pray bring him," said Lucy. "And you _will_ like Maggie, +sha'n't you?" she added, in a beseeching tone. "Isn't she a dear, +noble-looking creature?" + +"Too tall," said Stephen, smiling down upon her, "and a little too +fiery. She is not my type of woman, you know." + +Gentlemen, you are aware, are apt to impart these imprudent +confidences to ladies concerning their unfavorable 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 unfavorable 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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +"And pray bring with you the volume of Purcell that you took away," +said Lucy. "I want Maggie to hear your best songs." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Maggie's arms _are_ a pretty shape," said Mrs. Tulliver. "They're +like mine used to be, only mine was never brown; I wish she'd had +_our_ family skin." + +"Nonsense, aunty!" said Lucy, patting her aunt Tulliver's shoulder, +"you don't understand those things. A painter would think Maggie's +complexion beautiful." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Oh dear, dear!" said Maggie, laughing, but impatient; "I think that +will be the end of _my_ brown skin, if it is always to be talked about +so much." + + + +Chapter III + +Confidential Moments + + +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. + +Had anything remarkable happened? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Well, _you_ 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. + +"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." + +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. + +"You really _have_ enjoyed the music to-night, haven't you Maggie?" + +"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." + +"And Stephen has a splendid voice, hasn't he?" + +"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_ think any barrel-organ splendid." + +"But tell me what you think of him, now. Tell me exactly; good and bad +too." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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. + +"We shall have more music to-morrow evening," said Lucy, looking happy +already, "for Stephen will bring Philip Wakem with him." + +"Oh, Lucy, I can't see him," said Maggie, turning pale. "At least, I +could not see him without Tom's leave." + +"Is Tom such a tyrant as that?" said Lucy, surprised. "I'll take the +responsibility, then,--tell him it was my fault." + +"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." + +"But I never heard of anything so strange and unreasonable. What harm +can poor Philip have done? May I speak to Tom about it?" + +"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." + +They were both silent for some moments, and then Lucy said,-- + +"Maggie, you have secrets from me, and I have none from you." + +Maggie looked meditatively away from Lucy. Then she turned to her and +said, "I _should_ 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." + +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, no 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. + +"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_ was +adored once." + +"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. + +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." + +Maggie shook her head. + +"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?" + +Maggie tried to smile, but shivered, as if she felt a sudden chill. + +"Ah, dear, you are cold," said Lucy. "You must go to bed; and so must +I. I dare not think what time it is." + +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. + + + +Chapter IV + +Brother and Sister + + +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 parlor 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? + +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,-- + +"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. + +Sad recollections crowded on Maggie as she entered the small parlor, +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. + +"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. + +"Bob is at home, then?" said Maggie, recovering herself, and smiling +at the bashful Dutch doll. + +"Yes, Miss; but I think he must be washing and dressing himself; I'll +go and see," said Mrs. Jakin, disappearing. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +"Well, well," said Bob, looking rather silly. "Go an' see after the +taters, else Mr. Tom 'ull have to wait for 'em." + +"I hope Mumps is friendly with Mrs. Jakin, Bob," said Maggie, smiling. +"I remember you used to say he wouldn't like your marrying." + +"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." + +"He thinks so much about business," said Maggie. + +"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 _you_, 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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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?" + +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,-- + +"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." + +"Very well," said Tom, still more coldly. + +But Maggie had hardly finished speaking in that chill, defiant manner, +before she repented, and felt the dread of alienation from her +brother. + +"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." + +Tom looked away from Maggie, knitting his brow more strongly for a +little while. Then he turned to her and said, slowly and +emphatically,-- + +"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." + +"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." + +The severity of Tom's face relaxed a little. + +"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." + +That was a cruel word. Maggie's lip began to tremble. + +"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." + +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,-- + +"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." + +"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." + +"Yes, I _do_ 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 _you_. 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." + +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. + +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,-- + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"No, Maggie." + +"I may turn out better than you expect." + +"I hope you will." + +"And may I come some day and make tea for you, and see this extremely +small wife of Bob's again?" + +"Yes; but trot away now, for I've no more time to spare," said Tom, +looking at his watch. + +"Not to give me a kiss?" + +Tom bent to kiss her cheek, and then said,-- + +"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." + +"You'll come to aunt Glegg's to-morrow? We're going all to dine early, +that we may go there to tea. You _must_ come; Lucy told me to say so." + +"Oh, pooh! I've plenty else to do," said Tom, pulling his bell +violently, and bringing down the small bell-rope. + +"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. + + + +Chapter V + +Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster + + +"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." + +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. + +"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 honorable a position as a man can +hold, to be connected with it." + +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. + +"Let me see,--it's going on for seven years now since you applied to +me for a situation, eh, Tom?" + +"Yes, sir; I'm three-and-twenty now," said Tom. + +"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." + +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." + +"I'm very glad I've given you satisfaction, sir; I've done my best," +said Tom, in his proud, independent way. + +"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 favor." + +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. + +"It stands to reason," Mr. Deane went on, when he had finished his new +pinch, "that your being my nephew weighs in your favor; 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." + +"I'm very grateful to Mr. Guest and you, sir; of course I feel the +most indebted to _you_, who first took me into the business, and have +taken a good deal of pains with me since." + +Tom spoke with a slight tremor, and paused after he had said this. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +Mr. Deane had listened attentively, and now looked thoughtful. + +"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 _don't_ see. He's put that young Jetsome in the place; and he +had his reasons when he bought it, I'll be bound." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +There was something rather sad in that speech from a young man of +three-and-twenty, even in uncle Deane's business-loving ears. + +"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." + + + +Chapter VI + +Illustrating the Laws of Attraction + +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 +_gaucherie_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Well, it will not go on much longer," said Lucy, laughing, "for the +bazaar is to take place on Monday week." + +"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." + +"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." + +"I'm sure he approves _you_," 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." + +"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. + +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,-- + +"You are surprised to see me again, Miss Tulliver; I ought to +apologize 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?" + +"Yes," said Maggie, who had risen confusedly with Minny in her arms, +and now, not quite knowing what else to do, sat down again. + +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. + +"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. + +But this must end some time, perhaps it ended very soon, and only +_seemed_ 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? + +"We shall have a splendid sunset, I think; sha'n't you go out and see +it?" + +"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." + +A pause; during which Minny is stroked again, but has sufficient +insight not to be grateful for it, to growl rather. + +"Do you like sitting alone?" + +A rather arch look came over Maggie's face, and, just glancing at +Stephen, she said, "Would it be quite civil to say've s'?" + +"It _was_ 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." + +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,-- + +"I wish Lucy had not been obliged to go out. We lose our music." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Won't you stay?" she said timidly, not looking away, for that would +have seemed rude again. + +"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?" + +"Yes." + +"That I brought the music, I mean?" + +"Yes." + +"And that Philip is come back?" + +"Yes." (Maggie did not notice Philip's name this time.) + +"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. + +"Do take my arm," he said, in a low tone, as if it were a secret. + +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. + +"Take care of this step," said Stephen at last. + +"Oh, I will go in now," said Maggie, feeling that the step had come +like a rescue. "Good-evening." + +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. + +"Oh, Philip, Philip, I wish we were together again--so quietly--in the +Red Deeps." + +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. + +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 honorable 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. + +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. + + + +Chapter VII + +Philip Re-enters + + +The next morning was very wet,--the sort of morning on which male +neighbors 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. + +"Stephen will come earlier this morning, I know," said Lucy; "he +always does when it's rainy." + +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. + +But Stephen did not come earlier, and there was another visitor--a +nearer neighbor--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 _her_ 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. + +"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." + +"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 misdemeanors by the certainty that +you will be indulgent." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"I told my brother I wished to see you, Philip; I asked him to release +me from my promise, and he consented." + +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 alude 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. + +"Then we can at least be friends, Maggie? There is nothing to hinder +that now?" + +"Will not your father object?" said Maggie, withdrawing her hand. + +"I should not give you up on any ground but your own wish, Maggie," +said Philip, coloring. "There are points on which I should always +resist my father, as I used to tell you. _That_ is one." + +"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." + +"Is that inevitable, Maggie?" + +"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." + +Philip was silent a few moments, and then said, in that high, feeble +voice which with him indicated the resolute suppression of emotion,-- + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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 favorite of Heaven because I am not a +favorite with men." + +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. + +But Maggie was conscience-stricken. + +"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." + +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 _she_ 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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Oh, what a startling announcement!" said Maggie, quite mistress of +herself, though not without some inward flutter. "I wonder where Lucy +is." + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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. + +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." + +"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." + +"Come, then," said Stephen, going toward the piano, and giving a +foretaste of the tune in his deep "brum-brum," very pleasant to hear. + +"You, please, Philip,--you play the accompaniment," said Lucy, "and +then I can go on with my work. You _will_ 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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +Stephen had fallen by mistake into his habit of playful appeal to +Maggie, and she could not repress the answering flush and epigram. + +"I _have_ observed a tendency to predominance," she said, smiling; and +Philip at that moment devoutly hoped that she found the tendency +disagreeable. + +"Come, come," said Lucy; "music, music! We will discuss each other's +qualities another time." + +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. + +"More, more!" said Lucy, when the duet had been encored. "Something +spirited again. Maggie always says she likes a great rush of sound." + +"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?" + +"Oh, yes," said Lucy, laughing. "If you will look out the 'Beggar's +Opera' from the large canterbury. It has a dingy cover." + +"That is a great clue, considering there are about a score covers here +of rival dinginess," said Stephen, drawing out the canterbury. + +"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." + +"Don't you know that?" said Philip, bringing out the tune more +definitely. "It's from the 'Sonnambula'--'Ah! perche 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.'" + +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, _only_ 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. + +"That's the way with you tenors," said Stephen, who was waiting with +music in his hand while Philip finished the song. "You demoralize 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 mediaeval 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." + +Stephen rolled out, with saucy energy,-- + + "Shall I, wasting in despair, + Die because a woman's fair?" + +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. + +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." + +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 _any_ +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 every-day 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. + +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. + +"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." + +"He's been to Mudport on business for several days," said Philip; "but +he's come back now." + +"As fond of his farming hobby as ever, eh?" + +"I believe so," said Philip, rather wondering at this sudden interest +in his father's pursuits. + +"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?" + +"Yes, he has." + +"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." + +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 unsual 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. + +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 leaving 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. + +"You don't want to go to sleep yet, papa, _do_ you?" she said, as she +brought up her stool and opened the large fingers that clutched the +snuff-box. + +"Not yet," said Mr. Deane, glancing at the reward of merit in the +decanter. "But what do _you_ want?" he added, pinching the dimpled +chin fondly,--"to coax some more sovereigns out of my pocket for your +bazaar? Eh?" + +"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?" + +"Something to do with business," said Mr. Deane, waving his hands, as +if to repel intrusion into that mystery. + +"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." + +"Nonsense, child!" said Mr. Deane, willing to justify his social +demeanor, 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Well, let us hear." + +"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." + +"I don't see how that can be, child," said Mr. Deane, looking puzzled. +"Why should _he_ 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.) + +"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." + +Lucy rose from her stool to seat herself on her father's knee, and +kissed him with that last request. + +"Are you sure you won't do mischief, now?" he said, looking at her +with delight. + +"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?" + +"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." + + + +Chapter VIII + +Wakem in a New Light + + +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,-- + +"Father, will you come up into my sanctum, and look at my new +sketches? I've arranged them now." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"They are the same person," said Philip, with calm promptness, "at +different ages." + +"And what person?" said Wakem, sharply fixing his eyes with a growing +look of suspicion on the larger picture. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Go on, sir! And you have corresponded with her all this while?" + +"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 _did_ love me well enough,--I should marry +her." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"Ah, _there_ 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. + +"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." + +Philip paused, but his father was silent. + +"You know best what satisfaction you would have, beyond that of +gratifying a ridiculous rancor worthy only of wandering savages." + +"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." + +"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. _She_ has never entered +into the family quarrels." + +"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." + +For the first time in the dialogue, Philip lost some of his +self-control, and colored with anger. + +"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 honor and +integrity. All St. Ogg's, I fancy, would pronounce her to be more than +my equal." + +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,-- + +"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." + +"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." + +"But girls are not apt to get attached under those circumstances," +said Philip. + +"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." + +Wakem strode to the door, and without looking round again, banged it +after him. + +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 favorite 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. + +It was the opening of the door, and he could hardly have dozen 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,-- + +"Sit still. I'd rather walk about." + +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,-- + +"But this girl seems to have been fond of you, Phil, else she wouldn't +have met you in that way." + +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. + +"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." + +"Well, but you made love to her at last. What did she say then?" said +Wakem, walking about again. + +"She said she _did_ love me then." + +"Confound it, then; what else do you want? Is she a jilt?" + +"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." + +"But she's in the town. I've seen her at church. Haven't you spoken to +her since you came back?" + +"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." + +Wakem was silent a little while, pausing before Maggie's picture. + +"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?" + +"She's very tender and affectionate, and so simple,--without the airs +and petty contrivances other women have." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +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. + +"_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." + +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. + + + +Chapter IX + +Charity in Full-Dress + + +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 demeanor 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. + +All well-dressed St. Ogg's and its neighborhood 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-colored 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. + +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." + +And Stephen purchased absolutely nothing from Maggie, until Lucy said, +in rather a vexed undertone,-- + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"No, no; see, she has got a customer; there is old Wakem himself just +coming up." + +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. + +"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." + +"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 t transactions. + +"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." + +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. + +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 tried? Do +let me bring you something,--some fruit or jelly, mayn't I?" + +The unexpected tones shook her like a sudden accidental vibration of a +harp close by her. + +"Oh no, thank you," she said faintly, and only half looking up for an +instant. + +"You look so pale," Stephen insisted, in a more entreating tone. "I'm +sure you're exhausted. I must disobey you, and bring something." + +"No, indeed, I couldn't take it." + +"Are you angry with me? What have I done? _Do_ look at me." + +"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 though 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. + +"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." + +"I have been studying expression," said Philip, curtly. + +"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 honor to please +her." + +"What a hypocrite you are!" said Philip, flushing angrily. + +"What! because experience must have told me that I'm universally +pleasing? I admit the law, but there's some disturbing force here." + +"I am going," said Philip, rising abruptly. + +"So am I--to get a breath of fresh air; this place gets oppressive. I +think I have done suit and service long enough." + +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. + +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. + +"You find your office rather a fatiguing one, I fear, Miss Tulliver," +said Dr. Kenn. + +"It is, rather," said Maggie, simply, not being accustomed to simpler +amiable denials of obvious facts. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +"I have been a teacher in a school, and I'm going into another +situation of the same kind very soon." + +"Ah? I was hoping you would remain among your friends, who are all in +this neighborhood, I believe." + +"Oh, _I must go_," 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. + +Dr. Kenn's ear and eye took in all the signs that this brief +confidence of Maggie's was charged with meaning. + +"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." + +He put out his hand and pressed hers kindly before he turned away. + +"She has some trouble or other at heart," he thought. "Poor child! she +looks as if she might turn out to be one of + + 'The souls by nature pitched too high, + By suffering plunged too low.' + +"There's something wonderfully honest in those beautiful eyes." + +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. + +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. + +But when the bazaar was fairly ended, and the cousins were alone +again, resting together at home, Lucy said,-- + +"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." + +"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." + +"Maggie!" said Lucy, almost white with astonishment. + +"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." + +Lucy felt so hurt that for some moments she was unable to speak. + +"Maggie," she said at last, "how could you be so unkind to me--not to +tell me--to take _such_ 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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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,-- + +"Maggie, is it that you don't love Philip well enough to marry him? +Tell me--trust me." + +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. + +"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." + +Lucy obeyed in pain and wonder. The next word she said was,-- + +"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." + + + +Chapter X + +The Spell Seems Broken + + +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. + +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. + +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 honor 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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted toward the arm, and +showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist. + +But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glared at him +like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation. + +"How dare you?" She spoke in a deeply shaken, half-smothered voice. +"What right have I given you to insult me?" + +She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the +sofa, panting and trembling. + +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 _her_ than he did of Lucy. + +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. + +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. + +"Leave me to myself, if you please," she said, with impetuous +haughtiness, "and for the future avoid me." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But presently the visitor came out into the garden alone, and seated +himself by her on the garden-chair. It was not Stephen. + +"We can just catch the tips of the Scotch firs, Maggie, from this +seat," said Philip. + +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. + +"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." + +"I have been there, I go there, continually," said Philip. "I have +nothing but the past to live upon." + +A keen remembrance and keen pity impelled Maggie to put her hand in +Philip's. They had so often walked hand in hand! + +"I remember all the spots," she said,--"just where you told me of +particular things, beautiful stories that I had never heard of +before." + +"You will go there again soon, won't you, Maggie?" said Philip, +getting timid. "The Mill will soon be your brother's home again." + +"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?" + +"Then the future will never join on to the past again, Maggie? That +book is quite closed?" + +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. + +"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." + +"Is that the only reason that would keep us apart forever, Maggie?" +said Philip, with a desperate determination to have a definite answer. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + + + +Chapter XI + +In the Lane + + +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. + +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,-- + +"Goodness me! who is that gentleman coming in at the gate?" + +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. + +"Who is it, my dear?" said Mrs. Moss, seeing in Maggie's face the +evidence that she knew. + +"It is Mr. Stephen Guest," said Maggie, rather faintly. "My cousin +Lucy's--a gentleman who is very intimate at my cousin's." + +Stephen was already close to them, had jumped off his horse, and now +raised his hat as he advanced. + +"Hold the horse, Willy," said Mrs. Moss to the twelve-year-old boy. + +"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?" + +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. + +Stephen turned too, and walked by her side, leading his horse. + +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,-- + +"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." + +"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." + +Maggie gave a slight start, such as might have come from the slightest +possible electric shock. + +"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." + +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. + +They were come nearly in front of the gate again, and she paused, +trembling. + +"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." + +"Yes, it _is_ 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." + +Maggie did not--dared not--look. She had already seen the harassed +face. But she said gently,-- + +"I don't think any evil of you." + +"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." + +"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." + +A great tear fell from under her lowered eyelids. + +"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." + +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." + +"Oh, no," said Maggie, hurriedly, "my aunt will think it so strange." + +"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 _must_ go on +now. + +"Take my arm," said Stephen, entreatingly; and she took it, feeling +all the while as if she were sliding downward in a nightmare. + +"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." + +"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. + +"And I have other ties," Maggie went on, at last, with a desperate +effort, "even if Lucy did not exist." + +"You are engaged to Philip Wakem?" said Stephen, hastily. "Is it so?" + +"I consider myself engaged to him; I don't mean to marry any one +else." + +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,-- + +"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." + +"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. + +"Tell me, then, that you don't care for me," he said, almost +violently. "Tell me that you love some one else better." + +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. + +"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." + +Maggie was silent. If it were _not_ 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! + +"Say've s' 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?" + +Her breath was on his face, his lips were very near hers, but there +was a great dread dwelling in his love for her. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"The pledge _can't_ 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 _them_ +as well as for us. Maggie, you must see that; you do see that." + +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,-- + +"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, _because_ I love you." + +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. + +"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." + +One kiss, and then a long look, until Maggie said tremulously, "Let me +go,--let me make haste back." + +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 _not_ 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. + +"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. + +"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." + +The poor child threw her arms round her aunt's neck, and fell into +long, deep sobs. + + + +Chapter XII + +A Family Party + + +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. + +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 _very day_--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! + +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! + +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 parlor, where the very sunbeams seemed cleaner than +elsewhere, she directed her manoeuvres, as any other great tactician +would have done, against the weaker side of the enemy. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +"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 _my_ family." + +"Why, what did they call us, when we went to see 'em, then, eh, +neighbor 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. + +"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., "if you're going to be undelicate, let me +know." + +"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." + +"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----" + +"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." + +"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_ should, when I was her age." + +"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." + +"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." + +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?" + +"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." + +"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----" + +"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 _you_ 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 _that_ 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. + +"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." + +Tom thanked Mrs. Glegg, but evaded any promise to meditate nightly on +her virtues; and Mrs. Glegg effected a diversion for him by asking +about Mr. Deane's intentions concerning steam. + +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." + +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 honors 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. + +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." + +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. + + + +Chapter XIII + +Borne Along by the Tide + + +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. + +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. +Honor 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. + +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? _She_ 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. _Was_ 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 _her_, 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. + +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. + +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,-- + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +She looked playful reproach at Stephen, who was sauntering up and +down, and was just singing in pianissimo falsetto,-- + + "The thirst that from the soul doth rise + Doth ask a drink divine." + +He took no notice, but still kept aloof; he had done so frequently +during Philip's recent visits. + +"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?" + +"Oh, I hate a large party in a boat," he said, almost irritably. "I'll +come when you have no one else." + +Lucy colored, 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 colored 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. + +"As Miss Deane didn't know she was excluding others by inviting me," +said Philip, "I am bound to resign." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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? + +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? + +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. + +"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 it 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"He is not coming," said Stephen, in a low tone. "I am going in the +boat." + +"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?" + +"He is not well; he asked me to come instead." + +"Lucy is gone to Lindum," said Maggie, taking off her bonnet with +hurried, trembling fingers. "We must not go." + +"Very well," said Stephen, dreamily, looking at her, as he rested his +arm on the back of his chair. "Then we'll stay here." + +He was looking into her deep, deep eyes, far off and mysterious at 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. + +"The man is waiting; he has taken the cushions," she said. "Will you +go and tell him?" + +"What shall I tell him?" said Stephen, almost in a whisper. He was +looking at the lips now. + +Maggie made no answer. + +"Let us go," Stephen murmured entreatingly, rising, and taking her +hand to raise her too. "We shall not be long together." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +He went on watching the water, and said, in a strange, dreamy, absent +tone, "Yes, a long way." + +"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Maggie, in an agony. "We shall not get +home for hours, and Lucy? O God, help me!" + +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. + +Stephen moved and sat near her, and gently drew down the clasped +hands. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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,-- + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"You will be chill, Maggie, in this thin dress. Let me raise the cloak +over your shoulders. Get up an instant, dearest." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +Maggie's heart began to beat with reawakened alarm at this new +proposition; but she was silent,--one course seemed as difficult as +another. + +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. + +"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." + +Maggie, now really faint and trembling with fear, was t aken 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 +_could_ 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 _would_ 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 _must_ 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. + +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. + + + +Chapter XIV + +Waking + + +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. + +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 parlor 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. + +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 _him_. 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. + +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 +honor 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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"We shall not be together; we shall have parted." + +The blood rushed to Stephen's face. + +"We shall not," he said. "I'll die first." + +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. + +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." + +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,-- + +"I'm not going; we must part here." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"We must not wait," she said, in a low but distinct voice; "we must +part at once." + +"We _can't_ 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?" + +"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." + +"We will _not_ 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." + +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. + +"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." + +"No, it does _not_ 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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +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,-- + +"That seems right--at first; but when I look further, I'm sure it is +_not_ 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----" + +Maggie's voice was getting choked as she uttered these last words. + +"I _can't_ 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 _your_ 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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +Stephen loosed her hand, and rising impatiently, walked up and down +the room in suppressed rage. + +"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 _don't_ 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 _my_ life's +happiness." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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 _not_ prevail; there are possibilities +which our minds shrink from too completely for us to fear them. + +"Dearest," he said, in his deepest, tenderest tone, leaning toward +her, and putting his arm round her, "you _are_ mine now,--the world +believes it; duty must spring out of that now. + +"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." + +Maggie's eyes opened wide in one terrified look at the face that was +close to hers, and she started up, pale again. + +"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_ 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 +_do_ 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." + +"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." + +"Yes, I do. But they will believe me. I will confess everything. Lucy +will believe me--she will forgive you, and--and--oh, _some_ 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." + +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,-- + +"Go, then,--leave me; don't torture me any longer,--I can't bear it." + +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,-- + +"Leave me." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + + + + +Book VII + +_The Final Rescue_ + + + +Chapter I + +The Return to the Mill + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Maggie paused too, three yards before him. She felt the hatred in his +face, felt it rushing through her fibres; but she must speak. + +"Tom," she began faintly, "I am come back to you,--I am come back +home--for refuge--to tell you everything." + +"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." + +Their mother had come to the door now. She stood paralyzed by the +double shock of seeing Maggie and hearing Tom's words. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"What _will_ keep you?" said Tom, with cruel bitterness. "Not +religion; not your natural feelings of gratitude and honor. 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_ have had feelings to +struggle with; but I conquered them. I have had a harder life than you +have had; but I have found _my_ comfort in doing my duty. But I will +sanction no such character as yours; the world shall know that _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." + +Slowly Maggie was turning away with despair in her heart. But the poor +frightened mother's love leaped out now, stronger than all dread. + +"My child! I'll go with you. You've got a mother." + +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. + +Tom turned and walked into the house. + +"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." + +"No, mother," said Maggie, in a low tone, like a moan. "I will never +go in." + +"Then wait for me outside. I'll get ready and come with you." + +When his mother appeared with her bonnet on, Tom came out to her in +the passage, and put money into her hands. + +"My house is yours, mother, always," he said. "You will come and let +me know everything you want; you will come back to me." + +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. + +Maggie was waiting outside the gate; she took her mother's hand and +they walked a little way in silence. + +"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." + +"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. + +Maggie was silent a little while, and then said,-- + +"Let us go to Bob Jakin's, mother; his wife will have room for us, if +they have no other lodger." + +So they went on their way to St. Ogg's, to the old house by the +river-side. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"We'll go back, if it disturbs you, Miss," said Bob. + +"No," said Maggie, in a low voice, wishing she could smile. + +Bob, closing the door behind him, came and stood before her. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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 favor to ask of you." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"Not he, Miss," said Bob. "_He'll_ 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 _at_ 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'." + +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,-- + +"Will you give me leave to ask you only one thing, Miss?" + +Maggie was rather startled, but she answered, "Yes, Bob, if it is +about myself--not about any one else." + +"Well, Miss, it's this. _Do_ you owe anybody a grudge?" + +"No, not any one," said Maggie, looking up at him inquiringly. "Why?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"Yes, do leave him, please," said Maggie. "I think I should like to +have Mumps for a friend." + +"Mumps, lie down there," said Bob, pointing to a place in front of +Maggie, "and niver do you stir till you're spoke to." + +Mumps lay down at once, and made no sign of restlessness when his +master left the room. + + + +Chapter II + +St. Ogg's Passes Judgment + + +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 _trousseau_, 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 _had_ 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-colored 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 _that_ 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 _was_ 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." + +But the results, we know, were not of a kind to warrant this +extenuation of the past. Maggie had returned without a _trousseau_, +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 _physique_ 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--_for her_. 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 neighborhood,--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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _nonchalance_ which he +might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. + +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. + +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,-- + +"I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am +glad you did." + +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. + +"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." + +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, "_Oh, I must go_," had remained with +him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. + +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,-- + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Oh, where is he?" said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no +presence could have hindered. + +"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." + +Dr. Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +Chapter III + +Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us + + +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 honor 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 honor 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! + +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. + +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. + +"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; _having_ 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_ 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." + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"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!" + +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. + +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? + +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. + + "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 _you;_ 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. + + "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? + + "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. + + "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 color 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. + + "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 _have_ 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. + + "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. + + "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 recognized you ten years ago. + + "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. + + "Yours to the last, + "_Philip Wakem_." + +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,-- + +"O God, is there any happiness in love that could make me forget +_their_ pain?" + + + +Chapter IV + +Maggie and Lucy + + +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 favorable 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 _had_ 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 +favorite 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. + +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. + +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 _any_ 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 neighborhood, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _always_ walked home with her,--and if not, he +went to see her in the evening. What an artful creature she was! What +a _mother_ 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 _not_. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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!" + +The face was there,--changed, but all the sweeter; the hazel eyes were +there, with their heart-piercing tenderness. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"God bless you for coming, Lucy." + +The sobs came thick on each other after that. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +They were silent again a little while, sitting with clasped hands, and +cheeks leaned together. + +"Lucy," Maggie began again, "_he_ struggled too. He wanted to be true +to you. He will come back to you. Forgive him--he will be happy +then----" + +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. + +A gentle knock came at the door. It was Alice, the maid, who entered +and said,-- + +"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." + +Lucy rose and said, "Very well, Alice,--in a minute." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"Maggie," she said, in a low voice, that had the solemnity of +confession in it, "you are better than I am. I can't----" + +She broke off there, and said no more. But they clasped each other +again in a last embrace. + + + +Chapter V + +The Last Conflict + + +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. + +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. + +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 parlor +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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,--_his_ +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. + +"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_ 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. + +"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?" + +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. + +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 _read_ 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. + +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!" + +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. + +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." + +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." + +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. + +"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?" + +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----" + +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! + +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. + +"Bob, the flood is come! it is in the house; let us see if we can make +the boats safe." + +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. + +"It is the boat!" cried Maggie. "Bob, come down to get the boats!" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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 _you_," 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"O God, where am I? Which is the way home?" she cried out, in the dim +loneliness. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +color, 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. + +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. + +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? + +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; _now_, 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. + +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. Color 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? + +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,-- + +"Tom, where are you? Mother, where are you? Here is Maggie!" + +Soon, from the window of the attic in the central gable, she heard +Tom's voice,-- + +"Who is it? Have you brought a boat?" + +"It is I, Tom,--Maggie. Where is mother?" + +"She is not here; she went to Garum the day before yesterday. I'll +come down to the lower window." + +"Alone, Maggie?" said Tom, in a voice of deep astonishment, as he +opened the middle window, on a level with the boat. + +"Yes, Tom; God has taken care of me, to bring me to you. Get in +quickly. Is there no one else?" + +"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." + +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!" + +Maggie could make no answer but a long, deep sob of that mysterious, +wondrous happiness that is one with pain. + +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." + +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. + +"Park House stands high up out of the flood," said Maggie. "Perhaps +they have got Lucy there." + +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!" + +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. + +"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the +oars, and clasping her. + +The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and the +huge mass was hurrying on in hideous triumph. + +But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a black speck on the golden +water. + +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. + +Conclusion + +Nature repairs her ravages,--repairs them with her sunshine, and with +human labor. 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. + +And every man and woman mentioned in this history was still living, +except those whose end we know. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +One of them visited the tomb again with a sweet face beside him; but +that was years after. + +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. + +The tomb bore the names of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, and below the +names it was written,-- + + "In their death they were not divided." + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILL ON THE FLOSS *** + +This file should be named mlfls10.txt or mlfls10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, mlfls11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mlfls10a.txt + +Produced by Curtis Weyant and David Maddock + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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