--- /dev/null
+The Mill on the Floss\r
+\r
+George Eliot\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Table of Contents\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book I: Boy and Girl\r
+\r
+1. Outside Dorlcote Mill\r
+2. Mr. Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom\r
+3. Mr. Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom\r
+4. Tom Is Expected\r
+5. Tom Comes Home\r
+6. The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming\r
+7. Enter the Aunts and Uncles\r
+8. Mr. Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side\r
+9. To Garum Firs\r
+10. Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected\r
+11. Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow\r
+12. Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at Home\r
+13. Mr. Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life\r
+\r
+\r
+Book II: School-Time\r
+\r
+1. Tom's "First Half"\r
+2. The Christmas Holidays\r
+3. The New Schoolfellow\r
+4. "The Young Idea"\r
+5. Maggie's Second Visit\r
+6. A Love-Scene\r
+7. The Golden Gates Are Passed\r
+\r
+\r
+Book III: The Downfall\r
+\r
+1. What Had Happened at Home\r
+2. Mrs. Tulliver's Teraphim, or Household Gods\r
+3. The Family Council\r
+4. A Vanishing Gleam\r
+5. Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster\r
+6. Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a\r
+ Pocket-Knife\r
+7. How a Hen Takes to Stratagem\r
+8. Daylight on the Wreck\r
+9. An Item Added to the Family Register\r
+\r
+\r
+Book IV: The Valley of Humiliation\r
+\r
+1. A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet\r
+2. The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns\r
+3. A Voice from the Past\r
+\r
+\r
+Book V: Wheat and Tares\r
+\r
+1. In the Red Deeps\r
+2. Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb\r
+3. The Wavering Balance\r
+4. Another Love-Scene\r
+5. The Cloven Tree\r
+6. The Hard-Won Triumph\r
+7. A Day of Reckoning\r
+\r
+\r
+Book VI: The Great Temptation\r
+\r
+1. A Duet in Paradise\r
+2. First Impressions\r
+3. Confidential Moments\r
+4. Brother and Sister\r
+5. Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster\r
+6. Illustrating the Laws of Attraction\r
+7. Philip Re-enters\r
+8. Wakem in a New Light\r
+9. Charity in Full-Dress\r
+10. The Spell Seems Broken\r
+11. In the Lane\r
+12. A Family Party\r
+13. Borne Along by the Tide\r
+14. Waking\r
+\r
+\r
+Book VII: The Final Rescue\r
+\r
+1. The Return to the Mill\r
+2. St. Ogg's Passes Judgment\r
+3. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us\r
+4. Maggie and Lucy\r
+5. The Last Conflict\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book I\r
+\r
+_Boy and Girl_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+Outside Dorlcote Mill\r
+\r
+\r
+A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green\r
+banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its\r
+passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black\r
+ships--laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of\r
+oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal--are borne along to\r
+the town of St. Ogg's, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the\r
+broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the\r
+river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the\r
+transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch\r
+the rich pastures, and the patches of dark earth made ready for the\r
+seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of\r
+the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of last\r
+year's golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the\r
+hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; the\r
+distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their\r
+red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by\r
+the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current\r
+into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing\r
+wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along\r
+the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one\r
+who is deaf and loving. I remember those large dipping willows. I\r
+remember the stone bridge.\r
+\r
+And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the\r
+bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is\r
+far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing\r
+February it is pleasant to look at,--perhaps the chill, damp season\r
+adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as\r
+the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The\r
+stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation,\r
+and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house.\r
+As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate\r
+bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and\r
+branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love\r
+with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads\r
+far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward\r
+appearance they make in the drier world above.\r
+\r
+The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy\r
+deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They\r
+are like a great curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world\r
+beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered wagon coming\r
+home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his\r
+dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will\r
+not touch it till he has fed his horses,--the strong, submissive,\r
+meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from\r
+between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that\r
+awful manner as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch their\r
+shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy\r
+because they are so near home. Look at their grand shaggy feet that\r
+seem to grasp the firm earth, at the patient strength of their necks,\r
+bowed under the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their\r
+struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their\r
+hardly earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks freed\r
+from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond.\r
+Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace,\r
+and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the\r
+trees.\r
+\r
+Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresting\r
+wheel sending out its diamond jets of water. That little girl is\r
+watching it too; she has been standing on just the same spot at the\r
+edge of the water ever since I paused on the bridge. And that queer\r
+white cur with the brown ear seems to be leaping and barking in\r
+ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is jealous because\r
+his playfellow in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is\r
+time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very\r
+bright fire to tempt her: the red light shines out under the deepening\r
+gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms\r
+on the cold stone of this bridge....\r
+\r
+Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the\r
+arms of my chair, and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in\r
+front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years\r
+ago. Before I dozed off, I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs.\r
+Tulliver were talking about, as they sat by the bright fire in the\r
+left-hand parlor, on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom\r
+\r
+\r
+"What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver,--"what I want is to give\r
+Tom a good eddication; an eddication as'll be a bread to him. That was\r
+what I was thinking of when I gave notice for him to leave the academy\r
+at Lady-day. I mean to put him to a downright good school at\r
+Midsummer. The two years at th' academy 'ud ha' done well enough, if\r
+I'd meant to make a miller and farmer of him, for he's had a fine\r
+sight more schoolin' nor _I_ ever got. All the learnin' _my_ father\r
+ever paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at th'\r
+other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, so as he might\r
+be up to the tricks o' these fellows as talk fine and write with a\r
+flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and arbitrations,\r
+and things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad,--I should\r
+be sorry for him to be a raskill,--but a sort o' engineer, or a\r
+surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them\r
+smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a big\r
+watch-chain and a high stool. They're pretty nigh all one, and they're\r
+not far off being even wi' the law, _I_ believe; for Riley looks\r
+Lawyer Wakem i' the face as hard as one cat looks another. _He's_ none\r
+frightened at him."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blond comely woman in a\r
+fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think how long it is since fan-shaped\r
+caps were worn, they must be so near coming in again. At that time,\r
+when Mrs. Tulliver was nearly forty, they were new at St. Ogg's, and\r
+considered sweet things).\r
+\r
+"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best: _I've_ no objections. But hadn't I\r
+better kill a couple o' fowl, and have th' aunts and uncles to dinner\r
+next week, so as you may hear what sister Glegg and sister Pullet have\r
+got to say about it? There's a couple o' fowl _wants_ killing!"\r
+\r
+"You may kill every fowl i' the yard if you like, Bessy; but I shall\r
+ask neither aunt nor uncle what I'm to do wi' my own lad," said Mr.\r
+Tulliver, defiantly.\r
+\r
+"Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, shocked at this sanguinary rhetoric,\r
+"how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? But it's your way to speak\r
+disrespectful o' my family; and sister Glegg throws all the blame\r
+upo' me, though I'm sure I'm as innocent as the babe unborn. For\r
+nobody's ever heard me say as it wasn't lucky for my children to have\r
+aunts and uncles as can live independent. Howiver, if Tom's to go to a\r
+new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and mend him;\r
+else he might as well have calico as linen, for they'd be one as\r
+yallow as th' other before they'd been washed half-a-dozen times. And\r
+then, when the box is goin' back'ard and forrard, I could send the lad\r
+a cake, or a pork-pie, or an apple; for he can do with an extry bit,\r
+bless him! whether they stint him at the meals or no. My children can\r
+eat as much victuals as most, thank God!"\r
+\r
+"Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if\r
+other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "But you mustn't put a spoke\r
+i' the wheel about the washin,' if we can't get a school near enough.\r
+That's the fault I have to find wi' you, Bessy; if you see a stick i'\r
+the road, you're allays thinkin' you can't step over it. You'd want me\r
+not to hire a good wagoner, 'cause he'd got a mole on his face."\r
+\r
+"Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, in mild surprise, "when did I iver\r
+make objections to a man because he'd got a mole on his face? I'm sure\r
+I'm rether fond o' the moles; for my brother, as is dead an' gone, had\r
+a mole on his brow. But I can't remember your iver offering to hire a\r
+wagoner with a mole, Mr. Tulliver. There was John Gibbs hadn't a mole\r
+on his face no more nor you have, an' I was all for having you hire\r
+_him_; an' so you did hire him, an' if he hadn't died o' th'\r
+inflammation, as we paid Dr. Turnbull for attending him, he'd very\r
+like ha' been drivin' the wagon now. He might have a mole somewhere\r
+out o' sight, but how was I to know that, Mr. Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+"No, no, Bessy; I didn't mean justly the mole; I meant it to stand for\r
+summat else; but niver mind--it's puzzling work, talking is. What I'm\r
+thinking on, is how to find the right sort o' school to send Tom to,\r
+for I might be ta'en in again, as I've been wi' th' academy. I'll have\r
+nothing to do wi' a 'cademy again: whativer school I send Tom to, it\r
+sha'n't be a 'cademy; it shall be a place where the lads spend their\r
+time i' summat else besides blacking the family's shoes, and getting\r
+up the potatoes. It's an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school\r
+to pick."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands into\r
+his breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some suggestion there.\r
+Apparently he was not disappointed, for he presently said, "I know\r
+what I'll do: I'll talk it over wi' Riley; he's coming to-morrow, t'\r
+arbitrate about the dam."\r
+\r
+"Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've put the sheets out for the best bed, and\r
+Kezia's got 'em hanging at the fire. They aren't the best sheets, but\r
+they're good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he who he will; for as\r
+for them best Holland sheets, I should repent buying 'em, only they'll\r
+do to lay us out in. An' if you was to die to-morrow, Mr. Tulliver,\r
+they're mangled beautiful, an' all ready, an' smell o' lavender as it\r
+'ud be a pleasure to lay 'em out; an' they lie at the left-hand corner\r
+o' the big oak linen-chest at the back: not as I should trust anybody\r
+to look 'em out but myself."\r
+\r
+As Mrs. Tulliver uttered the last sentence, she drew a bright bunch of\r
+keys from her pocket, and singled out one, rubbing her thumb and\r
+finger up and down it with a placid smile while she looked at the\r
+clear fire. If Mr. Tulliver had been a susceptible man in his conjugal\r
+relation, he might have supposed that she drew out the key to aid her\r
+imagination in anticipating the moment when he would be in a state to\r
+justify the production of the best Holland sheets. Happily he was not\r
+so; he was only susceptible in respect of his right to water-power;\r
+moreover, he had the marital habit of not listening very closely, and\r
+since his mention of Mr. Riley, had been apparently occupied in a\r
+tactile examination of his woollen stockings.\r
+\r
+"I think I've hit it, Bessy," was his first remark after a short\r
+silence. "Riley's as likely a man as any to know o' some school; he's\r
+had schooling himself, an' goes about to all sorts o' places,\r
+arbitratin' and vallyin' and that. And we shall have time to talk it\r
+over to-morrow night when the business is done. I want Tom to be such\r
+a sort o' man as Riley, you know,--as can talk pretty nigh as well as\r
+if it was all wrote out for him, and knows a good lot o' words as\r
+don't mean much, so as you can't lay hold of 'em i' law; and a good\r
+solid knowledge o' business too."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mrs. Tulliver, "so far as talking proper, and knowing\r
+everything, and walking with a bend in his back, and setting his hair\r
+up, I shouldn't mind the lad being brought up to that. But them\r
+fine-talking men from the big towns mostly wear the false\r
+shirt-fronts; they wear a frill till it's all a mess, and then hide it\r
+with a bib; I know Riley does. And then, if Tom's to go and live at\r
+Mudport, like Riley, he'll have a house with a kitchen hardly big\r
+enough to turn in, an' niver get a fresh egg for his breakfast, an'\r
+sleep up three pair o' stairs,--or four, for what I know,--and be\r
+burnt to death before he can get down."\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, "I've no thoughts of his going to\r
+Mudport: I mean him to set up his office at St. Ogg's, close by us,\r
+an' live at home. But," continued Mr. Tulliver after a pause, "what\r
+I'm a bit afraid on is, as Tom hasn't got the right sort o' brains for\r
+a smart fellow. I doubt he's a bit slowish. He takes after your\r
+family, Bessy."\r
+\r
+"Yes, that he does," said Mrs. Tulliver, accepting the last\r
+proposition entirely on its own merits; "he's wonderful for liking a\r
+deal o' salt in his broth. That was my brother's way, and my father's\r
+before him."\r
+\r
+"It seems a bit a pity, though," said Mr. Tulliver, "as the lad should\r
+take after the mother's side instead o' the little wench. That's the\r
+worst on't wi' crossing o' breeds: you can never justly calkilate\r
+what'll come on't. The little un takes after my side, now: she's twice\r
+as 'cute as Tom. Too 'cute for a woman, I'm afraid," continued Mr.\r
+Tulliver, turning his head dubiously first on one side and then on the\r
+other. "It's no mischief much while she's a little un; but an\r
+over-'cute woman's no better nor a long-tailed sheep,--she'll fetch\r
+none the bigger price for that."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it _is_ a mischief while she's a little un, Mr. Tulliver, for it\r
+runs to naughtiness. How to keep her in a clean pinafore two hours\r
+together passes my cunning. An' now you put me i' mind," continued\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, rising and going to the window, "I don't know where she\r
+is now, an' it's pretty nigh tea-time. Ah, I thought so,--wanderin' up\r
+an' down by the water, like a wild thing: She'll tumble in some day."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and shook her\r
+head,--a process which she repeated more than once before she returned\r
+to her chair.\r
+\r
+"You talk o' 'cuteness, Mr. Tulliver," she observed as she sat down,\r
+"but I'm sure the child's half an idiot i' some things; for if I send\r
+her upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets what she's gone for, an'\r
+perhaps 'ull sit down on the floor i' the sunshine an' plait her hair\r
+an' sing to herself like a Bedlam creatur', all the while I'm waiting\r
+for her downstairs. That niver run i' my family, thank God! no more\r
+nor a brown skin as makes her look like a mulatter. I don't like to\r
+fly i' the face o' Providence, but it seems hard as I should have but\r
+one gell, an' her so comical."\r
+\r
+"Pooh, nonsense!" said Mr. Tulliver; "she's a straight, black-eyed\r
+wench as anybody need wish to see. I don't know i' what she's behind\r
+other folks's children; and she can read almost as well as the\r
+parson."\r
+\r
+"But her hair won't curl all I can do with it, and she's so franzy\r
+about having it put i' paper, and I've such work as never was to make\r
+her stand and have it pinched with th' irons."\r
+\r
+"Cut it off--cut it off short," said the father, rashly.\r
+\r
+"How can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? She's too big a gell--gone nine,\r
+and tall of her age--to have her hair cut short; an' there's her\r
+cousin Lucy's got a row o' curls round her head, an' not a hair out o'\r
+place. It seems hard as my sister Deane should have that pretty child;\r
+I'm sure Lucy takes more after me nor my own child does. Maggie,\r
+Maggie," continued the mother, in a tone of half-coaxing fretfulness,\r
+as this small mistake of nature entered the room, "where's the use o'\r
+my telling you to keep away from the water? You'll tumble in and be\r
+drownded some day, an' then you'll be sorry you didn't do as mother\r
+told you."\r
+\r
+Maggie's hair, as she threw off her bonnet, painfully confirmed her\r
+mother's accusation. Mrs. Tulliver, desiring her daughter to have a\r
+curled crop, "like other folks's children," had had it cut too short\r
+in front to be pushed behind the ears; and as it was usually straight\r
+an hour after it had been taken out of paper, Maggie was incessantly\r
+tossing her head to keep the dark, heavy locks out of her gleaming\r
+black eyes,--an action which gave her very much the air of a small\r
+Shetland pony.\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear, oh, dear, Maggie, what are you thinkin' of, to throw your\r
+bonnet down there? Take it upstairs, there's a good gell, an' let your\r
+hair be brushed, an' put your other pinafore on, an' change your\r
+shoes, do, for shame; an' come an' go on with your patchwork, like a\r
+little lady."\r
+\r
+"Oh, mother," said Maggie, in a vehemently cross tone, "I don't _want_\r
+to do my patchwork."\r
+\r
+"What! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane for your aunt\r
+Glegg?"\r
+\r
+"It's foolish work," said Maggie, with a toss of her mane,--"tearing\r
+things to pieces to sew 'em together again. And I don't want to do\r
+anything for my aunt Glegg. I don't like her."\r
+\r
+Exit Maggie, dragging her bonnet by the string, while Mr. Tulliver\r
+laughs audibly.\r
+\r
+"I wonder at you, as you'll laugh at her, Mr. Tulliver," said the\r
+mother, with feeble fretfulness in her tone. "You encourage her i'\r
+naughtiness. An' her aunts will have it as it's me spoils her."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was what is called a good-tempered person,--never cried,\r
+when she was a baby, on any slighter ground than hunger and pins; and\r
+from the cradle upward had been healthy, fair, plump, and dull-witted;\r
+in short, the flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk\r
+and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn\r
+only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously. I\r
+have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of Raphael, with the\r
+blond faces and somewhat stupid expression, kept their placidity\r
+undisturbed when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys got a little\r
+too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given to\r
+feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more\r
+and more ineffectual.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom\r
+\r
+\r
+The gentleman in the ample white cravat and shirt-frill, taking his\r
+brandy-and-water so pleasantly with his good friend Tulliver, is Mr.\r
+Riley, a gentleman with a waxen complexion and fat hands, rather\r
+highly educated for an auctioneer and appraiser, but large-hearted\r
+enough to show a great deal of _bonhomie_ toward simple country\r
+acquaintances of hospitable habits. Mr. Riley spoke of such\r
+acquaintances kindly as "people of the old school."\r
+\r
+The conversation had come to a pause. Mr. Tulliver, not without a\r
+particular reason, had abstained from a seventh recital of the cool\r
+retort by which Riley had shown himself too many for Dix, and how\r
+Wakem had had his comb cut for once in his life, now the business of\r
+the dam had been settled by arbitration, and how there never would\r
+have been any dispute at all about the height of water if everybody\r
+was what they should be, and Old Harry hadn't made the lawyers.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was, on the whole, a man of safe traditional opinions;\r
+but on one or two points he had trusted to his unassisted intellect,\r
+and had arrived at several questionable conclusions; amongst the rest,\r
+that rats, weevils, and lawyers were created by Old Harry. Unhappily\r
+he had no one to tell him that this was rampant Manichæism, else he\r
+might have seen his error. But to-day it was clear that the good\r
+principle was triumphant: this affair of the water-power had been a\r
+tangled business somehow, for all it seemed--look at it one way--as\r
+plain as water's water; but, big a puzzle as it was, it hadn't got the\r
+better of Riley. Mr. Tulliver took his brandy-and-water a little\r
+stronger than usual, and, for a man who might be supposed to have a\r
+few hundreds lying idle at his banker's, was rather incautiously open\r
+in expressing his high estimate of his friend's business talents.\r
+\r
+But the dam was a subject of conversation that would keep; it could\r
+always be taken up again at the same point, and exactly in the same\r
+condition; and there was another subject, as you know, on which Mr.\r
+Tulliver was in pressing want of Mr. Riley's advice. This was his\r
+particular reason for remaining silent for a short space after his\r
+last draught, and rubbing his knees in a meditative manner. He was not\r
+a man to make an abrupt transition. This was a puzzling world, as he\r
+often said, and if you drive your wagon in a hurry, you may light on\r
+an awkward corner. Mr. Riley, meanwhile, was not impatient. Why should\r
+he be? Even Hotspur, one would think, must have been patient in his\r
+slippers on a warm hearth, taking copious snuff, and sipping\r
+gratuitous brandy-and-water.\r
+\r
+"There's a thing I've got i' my head," said Mr. Tulliver at last, in\r
+rather a lower tone than usual, as he turned his head and looked\r
+steadfastly at his companion.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Mr. Riley, in a tone of mild interest. He was a man with\r
+heavy waxen eyelids and high-arched eyebrows, looking exactly the same\r
+under all circumstances. This immovability of face, and the habit of\r
+taking a pinch of snuff before he gave an answer, made him trebly\r
+oracular to Mr. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"It's a very particular thing," he went on; "it's about my boy Tom."\r
+\r
+At the sound of this name, Maggie, who was seated on a low stool close\r
+by the fire, with a large book open on her lap, shook her heavy hair\r
+back and looked up eagerly. There were few sounds that roused Maggie\r
+when she was dreaming over her book, but Tom's name served as well as\r
+the shrillest whistle; in an instant she was on the watch, with\r
+gleaming eyes, like a Skye terrier suspecting mischief, or at all\r
+events determined to fly at any one who threatened it toward Tom.\r
+\r
+"You see, I want to put him to a new school at Midsummer," said Mr.\r
+Tulliver; "he's comin' away from the 'cademy at Lady-day, an' I shall\r
+let him run loose for a quarter; but after that I want to send him to\r
+a downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Riley, "there's no greater advantage you can give him\r
+than a good education. Not," he added, with polite significance,--"not\r
+that a man can't be an excellent miller and farmer, and a shrewd,\r
+sensible fellow into the bargain, without much help from the\r
+schoolmaster."\r
+\r
+"I believe you," said Mr. Tulliver, winking, and turning his head on\r
+one side; "but that's where it is. I don't _mean_ Tom to be a miller\r
+and farmer. I see no fun i' that. Why, if I made him a miller an'\r
+farmer, he'd be expectin' to take to the mill an' the land, an'\r
+a-hinting at me as it was time for me to lay by an' think o' my latter\r
+end. Nay, nay, I've seen enough o' that wi' sons. I'll never pull my\r
+coat off before I go to bed. I shall give Tom an eddication an' put\r
+him to a business, as he may make a nest for himself, an' not want to\r
+push me out o' mine. Pretty well if he gets it when I'm dead an' gone.\r
+I sha'n't be put off wi' spoon-meat afore I've lost my teeth."\r
+\r
+This was evidently a point on which Mr. Tulliver felt strongly; and\r
+the impetus which had given unusual rapidity and emphasis to his\r
+speech showed itself still unexhausted for some minutes afterward in a\r
+defiant motion of the head from side to side, and an occasional "Nay,\r
+nay," like a subsiding growl.\r
+\r
+These angry symptoms were keenly observed by Maggie, and cut her to\r
+the quick. Tom, it appeared, was supposed capable of turning his\r
+father out of doors, and of making the future in some way tragic by\r
+his wickedness. This was not to be borne; and Maggie jumped up from\r
+her stool, forgetting all about her heavy book, which fell with a bang\r
+within the fender, and going up between her father's knees, said, in a\r
+half-crying, half-indignant voice,--\r
+\r
+"Father, Tom wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was out of the room superintending a choice supper-dish,\r
+and Mr. Tulliver's heart was touched; so Maggie was not scolded about\r
+the book. Mr. Riley quietly picked it up and looked at it, while the\r
+father laughed, with a certain tenderness in his hard-lined face, and\r
+patted his little girl on the back, and then held her hands and kept\r
+her between his knees.\r
+\r
+"What! they mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" said Mr. Tulliver,\r
+looking at Maggie with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice,\r
+turning to Mr. Riley, as though Maggie couldn't hear, "She understands\r
+what one's talking about so as never was. And you should hear her\r
+read,--straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. And allays at\r
+her book! But it's bad--it's bad," Mr. Tulliver added sadly, checking\r
+this blamable exultation. "A woman's no business wi' being so clever;\r
+it'll turn to trouble, I doubt. But bless you!"--here the exultation\r
+was clearly recovering the mastery,--"she'll read the books and\r
+understand 'em better nor half the folks as are growed up."\r
+\r
+Maggie's cheeks began to flush with triumphant excitement. She thought\r
+Mr. Riley would have a respect for her now; it had been evident that\r
+he thought nothing of her before.\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley was turning over the leaves of the book, and she could make\r
+nothing of his face, with its high-arched eyebrows; but he presently\r
+looked at her, and said,--\r
+\r
+"Come, come and tell me something about this book; here are some\r
+pictures,--I want to know what they mean."\r
+\r
+Maggie, with deepening color, went without hesitation to Mr. Riley's\r
+elbow and looked over the book, eagerly seizing one corner, and\r
+tossing back her mane, while she said,--\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'll tell you what that means. It's a dreadful picture, isn't it?\r
+But I can't help looking at it. That old woman in the water's a\r
+witch,--they've put her in to find out whether she's a witch or no;\r
+and if she swims she's a witch, and if she's drowned--and killed, you\r
+know--she's innocent, and not a witch, but only a poor silly old\r
+woman. But what good would it do her then, you know, when she was\r
+drowned? Only, I suppose, she'd go to heaven, and God would make it up\r
+to her. And this dreadful blacksmith with his arms akimbo,\r
+laughing,--oh, isn't he ugly?--I'll tell you what he is. He's the\r
+Devil _really_" (here Maggie's voice became louder and more emphatic),\r
+"and not a right blacksmith; for the Devil takes the shape of wicked\r
+men, and walks about and sets people doing wicked things, and he's\r
+oftener in the shape of a bad man than any other, because, you know,\r
+if people saw he was the Devil, and he roared at 'em, they'd run away,\r
+and he couldn't make 'em do what he pleased."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie's with\r
+petrifying wonder.\r
+\r
+"Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?" he burst out at\r
+last.\r
+\r
+"The 'History of the Devil,' by Daniel Defoe,--not quite the right\r
+book for a little girl," said Mr. Riley. "How came it among your\r
+books, Mr. Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+Maggie looked hurt and discouraged, while her father said,--\r
+\r
+"Why, it's one o' the books I bought at Partridge's sale. They was all\r
+bound alike,--it's a good binding, you see,--and I thought they'd be\r
+all good books. There's Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying' among\r
+'em. I read in it often of a Sunday" (Mr. Tulliver felt somehow a\r
+familiarity with that great writer, because his name was Jeremy); "and\r
+there's a lot more of 'em,--sermons mostly, I think,--but they've all\r
+got the same covers, and I thought they were all o' one sample, as you\r
+may say. But it seems one mustn't judge by th' outside. This is a\r
+puzzlin' world."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Riley, in an admonitory, patronizing tone as he\r
+patted Maggie on the head, "I advise you to put by the 'History of the\r
+Devil,' and read some prettier book. Have you no prettier books?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes," said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to vindicate\r
+the variety of her reading. "I know the reading in this book isn't\r
+pretty; but I like the pictures, and I make stories to the pictures\r
+out of my own head, you know. But I've got 'Æsop's Fables,' and a book\r
+about Kangaroos and things, and the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'"\r
+\r
+"Ah, a beautiful book," said Mr. Riley; "you can't read a better."\r
+\r
+"Well, but there's a great deal about the Devil in that," said Maggie,\r
+triumphantly, "and I'll show you the picture of him in his true shape,\r
+as he fought with Christian."\r
+\r
+Maggie ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped on a chair,\r
+and reached down from the small bookcase a shabby old copy of Bunyan,\r
+which opened at once, without the least trouble of search, at the\r
+picture she wanted.\r
+\r
+"Here he is," she said, running back to Mr. Riley, "and Tom colored\r
+him for me with his paints when he was at home last holidays,--the\r
+body all black, you know, and the eyes red, like fire, because he's\r
+all fire inside, and it shines out at his eyes."\r
+\r
+"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily, beginning to feel rather\r
+uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal appearance of a\r
+being powerful enough to create lawyers; "shut up the book, and let's\r
+hear no more o' such talk. It is as I thought--the child 'ull learn\r
+more mischief nor good wi' the books. Go, go and see after your\r
+mother."\r
+\r
+Maggie shut up the book at once, with a sense of disgrace, but not\r
+being inclined to see after her mother, she compromised the matter by\r
+going into a dark corner behind her father's chair, and nursing her\r
+doll, toward which she had an occasional fit of fondness in Tom's\r
+absence, neglecting its toilet, but lavishing so many warm kisses on\r
+it that the waxen cheeks had a wasted, unhealthy appearance.\r
+\r
+"Did you ever hear the like on't?" said Mr. Tulliver, as Maggie\r
+retired. "It's a pity but what she'd been the lad,--she'd ha' been a\r
+match for the lawyers, _she_ would. It's the wonderful'st thing"--here\r
+he lowered his voice--"as I picked the mother because she wasn't o'er\r
+'cute--bein' a good-looking woman too, an' come of a rare family for\r
+managing; but I picked her from her sisters o' purpose, 'cause she was\r
+a bit weak like; for I wasn't agoin' to be told the rights o' things\r
+by my own fireside. But you see when a man's got brains himself,\r
+there's no knowing where they'll run to; an' a pleasant sort o' soft\r
+woman may go on breeding you stupid lads and 'cute wenches, till it's\r
+like as if the world was turned topsy-turvy. It's an uncommon puzzlin'\r
+thing."\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley's gravity gave way, and he shook a little under the\r
+application of his pinch of snuff before he said,--\r
+\r
+"But your lad's not stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last,\r
+busy making fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it."\r
+\r
+"Well, he isn't not to say stupid,--he's got a notion o' things out o'\r
+door, an' a sort o' common sense, as he'd lay hold o' things by the\r
+right handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and he reads but\r
+poorly, and can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me,\r
+an' as shy as can be wi' strangers, an' you never hear him say 'cute\r
+things like the little wench. Now, what I want is to send him to a\r
+school where they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his\r
+pen, and make a smart chap of him. I want my son to be even wi' these\r
+fellows as have got the start o' me with having better schooling. Not\r
+but what, if the world had been left as God made it, I could ha' seen\r
+my way, and held my own wi' the best of 'em; but things have got so\r
+twisted round and wrapped up i' unreasonable words, as aren't a bit\r
+like 'em, as I'm clean at fault, often an' often. Everything winds\r
+about so--the more straightforrad you are, the more you're puzzled."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver took a draught, swallowed it slowly, and shook his head\r
+in a melancholy manner, conscious of exemplifying the truth that a\r
+perfectly sane intellect is hardly at home in this insane world.\r
+\r
+"You're quite in the right of it, Tulliver," observed Mr. Riley.\r
+"Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son's education, than\r
+leave it him in your will. I know I should have tried to do so by a\r
+son of mine, if I'd had one, though, God knows, I haven't your ready\r
+money to play with, Tulliver; and I have a houseful of daughters into\r
+the bargain."\r
+\r
+"I dare say, now, you know of a school as 'ud be just the thing for\r
+Tom," said Mr. Tulliver, not diverted from his purpose by any sympathy\r
+with Mr. Riley's deficiency of ready cash.\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff, and kept Mr. Tulliver in suspense by\r
+a silence that seemed deliberative, before he said,--\r
+\r
+"I know of a very fine chance for any one that's got the necessary\r
+money and that's what you have, Tulliver. The fact is, I wouldn't\r
+recommend any friend of mine to send a boy to a regular school, if he\r
+could afford to do better. But if any one wanted his boy to get\r
+superior instruction and training, where he would be the companion of\r
+his master, and that master a first rate fellow, I know his man. I\r
+wouldn't mention the chance to everybody, because I don't think\r
+everybody would succeed in getting it, if he were to try; but I\r
+mention it to you, Tulliver, between ourselves."\r
+\r
+The fixed inquiring glance with which Mr. Tulliver had been watching\r
+his friend's oracular face became quite eager.\r
+\r
+"Ay, now, let's hear," he said, adjusting himself in his chair with\r
+the complacency of a person who is thought worthy of important\r
+communications.\r
+\r
+"He's an Oxford man," said Mr. Riley, sententiously, shutting his\r
+mouth close, and looking at Mr. Tulliver to observe the effect of this\r
+stimulating information.\r
+\r
+"What! a parson?" said Mr. Tulliver, rather doubtfully.\r
+\r
+"Yes, and an M.A. The bishop, I understand, thinks very highly of him:\r
+why, it was the bishop who got him his present curacy."\r
+\r
+"Ah?" said Mr. Tulliver, to whom one thing was as wonderful as another\r
+concerning these unfamiliar phenomena. "But what can he want wi' Tom,\r
+then?"\r
+\r
+"Why, the fact is, he's fond of teaching, and wishes to keep up his\r
+studies, and a clergyman has but little opportunity for that in his\r
+parochial duties. He's willing to take one or two boys as pupils to\r
+fill up his time profitably. The boys would be quite of the\r
+family,--the finest thing in the world for them; under Stelling's eye\r
+continually."\r
+\r
+"But do you think they'd give the poor lad twice o' pudding?" said\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, who was now in her place again. "He's such a boy for\r
+pudding as never was; an' a growing boy like that,--it's dreadful to\r
+think o' their stintin' him."\r
+\r
+"And what money 'ud he want?" said Mr. Tulliver, whose instinct told\r
+him that the services of this admirable M.A. would bear a high price.\r
+\r
+"Why, I know of a clergyman who asks a hundred and fifty with his\r
+youngest pupils, and he's not to be mentioned with Stelling, the man I\r
+speak of. I know, on good authority, that one of the chief people at\r
+Oxford said, Stelling might get the highest honors if he chose. But he\r
+didn't care about university honors; he's a quiet man--not noisy."\r
+\r
+"Ah, a deal better--a deal better," said Mr. Tulliver; "but a hundred\r
+and fifty's an uncommon price. I never thought o' paying so much as\r
+that."\r
+\r
+"A good education, let me tell you, Tulliver,--a good education is\r
+cheap at the money. But Stelling is moderate in his terms; he's not a\r
+grasping man. I've no doubt he'd take your boy at a hundred, and\r
+that's what you wouldn't get many other clergymen to do. I'll write to\r
+him about it, if you like."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver rubbed his knees, and looked at the carpet in a\r
+meditative manner.\r
+\r
+"But belike he's a bachelor," observed Mrs. Tulliver, in the interval;\r
+"an' I've no opinion o' housekeepers. There was my brother, as is dead\r
+an' gone, had a housekeeper once, an' she took half the feathers out\r
+o' the best bed, an' packed 'em up an' sent 'em away. An' it's unknown\r
+the linen she made away with--Stott her name was. It 'ud break my\r
+heart to send Tom where there's a housekeeper, an' I hope you won't\r
+think of it, Mr. Tulliver."\r
+\r
+"You may set your mind at rest on that score, Mrs. Tulliver," said Mr.\r
+Riley, "for Stelling is married to as nice a little woman as any man\r
+need wish for a wife. There isn't a kinder little soul in the world; I\r
+know her family well. She has very much your complexion,--light curly\r
+hair. She comes of a good Mudport family, and it's not every offer\r
+that would have been acceptable in that quarter. But Stelling's not an\r
+every-day man; rather a particular fellow as to the people he chooses\r
+to be connected with. But I _think_ he would have no objection to take\r
+your son; I _think_ he would not, on my representation."\r
+\r
+"I don't know what he could have _against_ the lad," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, with a slight touch of motherly indignation; "a nice\r
+fresh-skinned lad as anybody need wish to see."\r
+\r
+"But there's one thing I'm thinking on," said Mr. Tulliver, turning\r
+his head on one side and looking at Mr. Riley, after a long perusal of\r
+the carpet. "Wouldn't a parson be almost too high-learnt to bring up a\r
+lad to be a man o' business? My notion o' the parsons was as they'd\r
+got a sort o' learning as lay mostly out o' sight. And that isn't what\r
+I want for Tom. I want him to know figures, and write like print, and\r
+see into things quick, and know what folks mean, and how to wrap\r
+things up in words as aren't actionable. It's an uncommon fine thing,\r
+that is," concluded Mr. Tulliver, shaking his head, "when you can let\r
+a man know what you think of him without paying for it."\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear Tulliver," said Mr. Riley, "you're quite under a mistake\r
+about the clergy; all the best schoolmasters are of the clergy. The\r
+schoolmasters who are not clergymen are a very low set of men\r
+generally."\r
+\r
+"Ay, that Jacobs is, at the 'cademy," interposed Mr. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"To be sure,--men who have failed in other trades, most likely. Now, a\r
+clergyman is a gentleman by profession and education; and besides\r
+that, he has the knowledge that will ground a boy, and prepare him for\r
+entering on any career with credit. There may be some clergymen who\r
+are mere bookmen; but you may depend upon it, Stelling is not one of\r
+them,--a man that's wide awake, let me tell you. Drop him a hint, and\r
+that's enough. You talk of figures, now; you have only to say to\r
+Stelling, 'I want my son to be a thorough arithmetician,' and you may\r
+leave the rest to him."\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley paused a moment, while Mr. Tulliver, some-what reassured as\r
+to clerical tutorship, was inwardly rehearsing to an imaginary Mr.\r
+Stelling the statement, "I want my son to know 'rethmetic."\r
+\r
+"You see, my dear Tulliver," Mr. Riley continued, "when you get a\r
+thoroughly educated man, like Stelling, he's at no loss to take up any\r
+branch of instruction. When a workman knows the use of his tools, he\r
+can make a door as well as a window."\r
+\r
+"Ay, that's true," said Mr. Tulliver, almost convinced now that the\r
+clergy must be the best of schoolmasters.\r
+\r
+"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do for you," said Mr. Riley, "and I\r
+wouldn't do it for everybody. I'll see Stelling's father-in-law, or\r
+drop him a line when I get back to Mudport, to say that you wish to\r
+place your boy with his son-in-law, and I dare say Stelling will write\r
+to you, and send you his terms."\r
+\r
+"But there's no hurry, is there?" said Mrs. Tulliver; "for I hope, Mr.\r
+Tulliver, you won't let Tom begin at his new school before Midsummer.\r
+He began at the 'cademy at the Lady-day quarter, and you see what\r
+good's come of it."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, Bessy, never brew wi' bad malt upo' Michael-masday, else\r
+you'll have a poor tap," said Mr. Tulliver, winking and smiling at Mr.\r
+Riley, with the natural pride of a man who has a buxom wife\r
+conspicuously his inferior in intellect. "But it's true there's no\r
+hurry; you've hit it there, Bessy."\r
+\r
+"It might be as well not to defer the arrangement too long," said Mr.\r
+Riley, quietly, "for Stelling may have propositions from other\r
+parties, and I know he would not take more than two or three boarders,\r
+if so many. If I were you, I think I would enter on the subject with\r
+Stelling at once: there's no necessity for sending the boy before\r
+Midsummer, but I would be on the safe side, and make sure that nobody\r
+forestalls you."\r
+\r
+"Ay, there's summat in that," said Mr. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"Father," broke in Maggie, who had stolen unperceived to her father's\r
+elbow again, listening with parted lips, while she held her doll\r
+topsy-turvy, and crushed its nose against the wood of the\r
+chair,--"father, is it a long way off where Tom is to go? Sha'n't we\r
+ever go to see him?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know, my wench," said the father, tenderly. "Ask Mr. Riley;\r
+he knows."\r
+\r
+Maggie came round promptly in front of Mr. Riley, and said, "How far\r
+is it, please, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, a long, long way off," that gentleman answered, being of opinion\r
+that children, when they are not naughty, should always be spoken to\r
+jocosely. "You must borrow the seven-leagued boots to get to him."\r
+\r
+"That's nonsense!" said Maggie, tossing her head haughtily, and\r
+turning away, with the tears springing in her eyes. She began to\r
+dislike Mr. Riley; it was evident he thought her silly and of no\r
+consequence.\r
+\r
+"Hush, Maggie! for shame of you, asking questions and chattering,"\r
+said her mother. "Come and sit down on your little stool, and hold\r
+your tongue, do. But," added Mrs. Tulliver, who had her own alarm\r
+awakened, "is it so far off as I couldn't wash him and mend him?"\r
+\r
+"About fifteen miles; that's all," said Mr. Riley. "You can drive\r
+there and back in a day quite comfortably. Or--Stelling is a\r
+hospitable, pleasant man--he'd be glad to have you stay."\r
+\r
+"But it's too far off for the linen, I doubt," said Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+sadly.\r
+\r
+The entrance of supper opportunely adjourned this difficulty, and\r
+relieved Mr. Riley from the labor of suggesting some solution or\r
+compromise,--a labor which he would otherwise doubtless have\r
+undertaken; for, as you perceive, he was a man of very obliging\r
+manners. And he had really given himself the trouble of recommending\r
+Mr. Stelling to his friend Tulliver without any positive expectation\r
+of a solid, definite advantage resulting to himself, notwithstanding\r
+the subtle indications to the contrary which might have misled a\r
+too-sagacious observer. For there is nothing more widely misleading\r
+than sagacity if it happens to get on a wrong scent; and sagacity,\r
+persuaded that men usually act and speak from distinct motives, with a\r
+consciously proposed end in view, is certain to waste its energies on\r
+imaginary game.\r
+\r
+Plotting covetousness and deliberate contrivance, in order to compass\r
+a selfish end, are nowhere abundant but in the world of the dramatist:\r
+they demand too intense a mental action for many of our\r
+fellow-parishioners to be guilty of them. It is easy enough to spoil\r
+the lives of our neighbors without taking so much trouble; we can do\r
+it by lazy acquiescence and lazy omission, by trivial falsities for\r
+which we hardly know a reason, by small frauds neutralized by small\r
+extravagances, by maladroit flatteries, and clumsily improvised\r
+insinuations. We live from hand to mouth, most of us, with a small\r
+family of immediate desires; we do little else than snatch a morsel to\r
+satisfy the hungry brood, rarely thinking of seed-corn or the next\r
+year's crop.\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley was a man of business, and not cold toward his own interest,\r
+yet even he was more under the influence of small promptings than of\r
+far-sighted designs. He had no private understanding with the Rev.\r
+Walter Stelling; on the contrary, he knew very little of that M.A. and\r
+his acquirements,--not quite enough, perhaps, to warrant so strong a\r
+recommendation of him as he had given to his friend Tulliver. But he\r
+believed Mr. Stelling to be an excellent classic, for Gadsby had said\r
+so, and Gadsby's first cousin was an Oxford tutor; which was better\r
+ground for the belief even than his own immediate observation would\r
+have been, for though Mr. Riley had received a tincture of the\r
+classics at the great Mudport Free School, and had a sense of\r
+understanding Latin generally, his comprehension of any particular\r
+Latin was not ready. Doubtless there remained a subtle aroma from his\r
+juvenile contact with the "De Senectute" and the fourth book of the\r
+"Æneid," but it had ceased to be distinctly recognizable as classical,\r
+and was only perceived in the higher finish and force of his\r
+auctioneering style. Then, Stelling was an Oxford man, and the Oxford\r
+men were always--no, no, it was the Cambridge men who were always good\r
+mathematicians. But a man who had had a university education could\r
+teach anything he liked; especially a man like Stelling, who had made\r
+a speech at a Mudport dinner on a political occasion, and had\r
+acquitted himself so well that it was generally remarked, this\r
+son-in-law of Timpson's was a sharp fellow. It was to be expected of a\r
+Mudport man, from the parish of St. Ursula, that he would not omit to\r
+do a good turn to a son-in-law of Timpson's, for Timpson was one of\r
+the most useful and influential men in the parish, and had a good deal\r
+of business, which he knew how to put into the right hands. Mr. Riley\r
+liked such men, quite apart from any money which might be diverted,\r
+through their good judgment, from less worthy pockets into his own;\r
+and it would be a satisfaction to him to say to Timpson on his return\r
+home, "I've secured a good pupil for your son-in-law." Timpson had a\r
+large family of daughters; Mr. Riley felt for him; besides, Louisa\r
+Timpson's face, with its light curls, had been a familiar object to\r
+him over the pew wainscot on a Sunday for nearly fifteen years; it was\r
+natural her husband should be a commendable tutor. Moreover, Mr. Riley\r
+knew of no other schoolmaster whom he had any ground for recommending\r
+in preference; why, then, should he not recommend Stelling? His friend\r
+Tulliver had asked him for an opinion; it is always chilling, in\r
+friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give. And if you\r
+deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an\r
+air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in\r
+uttering it, and naturally get fond of it. Thus Mr. Riley, knowing no\r
+harm of Stelling to begin with, and wishing him well, so far as he had\r
+any wishes at all concerning him, had no sooner recommended him than\r
+he began to think with admiration of a man recommended on such high\r
+authority, and would soon have gathered so warm an interest on the\r
+subject, that if Mr. Tulliver had in the end declined to send Tom to\r
+Stelling, Mr. Riley would have thought his "friend of the old school"\r
+a thoroughly pig-headed fellow.\r
+\r
+If you blame Mr. Riley very severely for giving a recommendation on\r
+such slight grounds, I must say you are rather hard upon him. Why\r
+should an auctioneer and appraiser thirty years ago, who had as good\r
+as forgotten his free-school Latin, be expected to manifest a delicate\r
+scrupulosity which is not always exhibited by gentlemen of the learned\r
+professions, even in our present advanced stage of morality?\r
+\r
+Besides, a man with the milk of human kindness in him can scarcely\r
+abstain from doing a good-natured action, and one cannot be\r
+good-natured all round. Nature herself occasionally quarters an\r
+inconvenient parasite on an animal toward whom she has otherwise no\r
+ill will. What then? We admire her care for the parasite. If Mr. Riley\r
+had shrunk from giving a recommendation that was not based on valid\r
+evidence, he would not have helped Mr. Stelling to a paying pupil, and\r
+that would not have been so well for the reverend gentleman. Consider,\r
+too, that all the pleasant little dim ideas and complacencies--of\r
+standing well with Timpson, of dispensing advice when he was asked for\r
+it, of impressing his friend Tulliver with additional respect, of\r
+saying something, and saying it emphatically, with other inappreciably\r
+minute ingredients that went along with the warm hearth and the\r
+brandy-and-water to make up Mr. Riley's consciousness on this\r
+occasion--would have been a mere blank.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+Tom Is Expected\r
+\r
+\r
+It was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not allowed to go\r
+with her father in the gig when he went to fetch Tom home from the\r
+academy; but the morning was too wet, Mrs. Tulliver said, for a little\r
+girl to go out in her best bonnet. Maggie took the opposite view very\r
+strongly, and it was a direct consequence of this difference of\r
+opinion that when her mother was in the act of brushing out the\r
+reluctant black crop Maggie suddenly rushed from under her hands and\r
+dipped her head in a basin of water standing near, in the vindictive\r
+determination that there should be no more chance of curls that day.\r
+\r
+"Maggie, Maggie!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, sitting stout and helpless\r
+with the brushes on her lap, "what is to become of you if you're so\r
+naughty? I'll tell your aunt Glegg and your aunt Pullet when they come\r
+next week, and they'll never love you any more. Oh dear, oh dear! look\r
+at your clean pinafore, wet from top to bottom. Folks 'ull think it's\r
+a judgment on me as I've got such a child,--they'll think I've done\r
+summat wicked."\r
+\r
+Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already out of\r
+hearing, making her way toward the great attic that run under the old\r
+high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black locks as she ran,\r
+like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This attic was Maggie's\r
+favorite retreat on a wet day, when the weather was not too cold; here\r
+she fretted out all her ill humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten\r
+floors and the worm-eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with\r
+cobwebs; and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her\r
+misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden doll, which once\r
+stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of cheeks; but was\r
+now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering. Three\r
+nails driven into the head commemorated as many crises in Maggie's\r
+nine years of earthly struggle; that luxury of vengeance having been\r
+suggested to her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old\r
+Bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than\r
+usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg. But\r
+immediately afterward Maggie had reflected that if she drove many\r
+nails in she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt\r
+when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make\r
+believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even aunt Glegg\r
+would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly\r
+humiliated, so as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she had driven\r
+no more nails in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding and\r
+beating the wooden head against the rough brick of the great chimneys\r
+that made two square pillars supporting the roof. That was what she\r
+did this morning on reaching the attic, sobbing all the while with a\r
+passion that expelled every other form of consciousness,--even the\r
+memory of the grievance that had caused it. As at last the sobs were\r
+getting quieter, and the grinding less fierce, a sudden beam of\r
+sunshine, falling through the wire lattice across the worm-eaten\r
+shelves, made her throw away the Fetish and run to the window. The sun\r
+was really breaking out; the sound of the mill seemed cheerful again;\r
+the granary doors were open; and there was Yap, the queer\r
+white-and-brown terrier, with one ear turned back, trotting about and\r
+sniffing vaguely, as if he were in search of a companion. It was\r
+irresistible. Maggie tossed her hair back and ran downstairs, seized\r
+her bonnet without putting it on, peeped, and then dashed along the\r
+passage lest she should encounter her mother, and was quickly out in\r
+the yard, whirling round like a Pythoness, and singing as she whirled,\r
+"Yap, Yap, Tom's coming home!" while Yap danced and barked round her,\r
+as much as to say, if there was any noise wanted he was the dog for\r
+it.\r
+\r
+"Hegh, hegh, Miss! you'll make yourself giddy, an' tumble down i' the\r
+dirt," said Luke, the head miller, a tall, broad-shouldered man of\r
+forty, black-eyed and black-haired, subdued by a general mealiness,\r
+like an auricula.\r
+\r
+Maggie paused in her whirling and said, staggering a little, "Oh no,\r
+it doesn't make me giddy, Luke; may I go into the mill with you?"\r
+\r
+Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and often came\r
+out with her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness that made her\r
+dark eyes flash out with new fire. The resolute din, the unresting\r
+motion of the great stones, giving her a dim, delicious awe as at the\r
+presence of an uncontrollable force; the meal forever pouring,\r
+pouring; the fine white powder softening all surfaces, and making the\r
+very spidernets look like a faery lace-work; the sweet, pure scent of\r
+the meal,--all helped to make Maggie feel that the mill was a little\r
+world apart from her outside every-day life. The spiders were\r
+especially a subject of speculation with her. She wondered if they had\r
+any relatives outside the mill, for in that case there must be a\r
+painful difficulty in their family intercourse,--a fat and floury\r
+spider, accustomed to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer\r
+a little at a cousin's table where the fly was _au naturel_, and the\r
+lady spiders must be mutually shocked at each other's appearance. But\r
+the part of the mill she liked best was the topmost story,--the\r
+corn-hutch, where there were the great heaps of grain, which she could\r
+sit on and slide down continually. She was in the habit of taking this\r
+recreation as she conversed with Luke, to whom she was very\r
+communicative, wishing him to think well of her understanding, as her\r
+father did.\r
+\r
+Perhaps she felt it necessary to recover her position with him on the\r
+present occasion for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near\r
+which he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was\r
+requisite in mill-society,--\r
+\r
+"I think you never read any book but the Bible, did you, Luke?"\r
+\r
+"Nay, Miss, an' not much o' that," said Luke, with great frankness.\r
+"I'm no reader, I aren't."\r
+\r
+"But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got any _very_\r
+pretty books that would be easy for you to read; but there's 'Pug's\r
+Tour of Europe,'--that would tell you all about the different sorts of\r
+people in the world, and if you didn't understand the reading, the\r
+pictures would help you; they show the looks and ways of the people,\r
+and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you\r
+know, and one sitting on a barrel."\r
+\r
+"Nay, Miss, I'n no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i'\r
+knowin' about _them_."\r
+\r
+"But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our\r
+fellow-creatures."\r
+\r
+"Not much o' fellow-creaturs, I think, Miss; all I know--my old\r
+master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I sow my\r
+wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that war as much\r
+as to say as a Dutchman war a fool, or next door. Nay, nay, I aren't\r
+goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's fools enoo, an' rogues\r
+enoo, wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em."\r
+\r
+"Oh, well," said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly decided\r
+views about Dutchmen, "perhaps you would like 'Animated Nature'\r
+better; that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants and kangaroos,\r
+and the civet-cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting on its tail,--I\r
+forget its name. There are countries full of those creatures, instead\r
+of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you like to know about them,\r
+Luke?"\r
+\r
+"Nay, Miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn; I can't do\r
+wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings folks\r
+to the gallows,--knowin' everything but what they'n got to get their\r
+bread by. An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's printed i' the\r
+books: them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men cry i' the\r
+streets."\r
+\r
+"Why, you're like my brother Tom, Luke," said Maggie, wishing to turn\r
+the conversation agreeably; "Tom's not fond of reading. I love Tom so\r
+dearly, Luke,--better than anybody else in the world. When he grows up\r
+I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I can tell\r
+him everything he doesn't know. But I think Tom's clever, for all he\r
+doesn't like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and rabbit-pens."\r
+\r
+"Ah," said Luke, "but he'll be fine an' vexed, as the rabbits are all\r
+dead."\r
+\r
+"Dead!" screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding seat on the corn.\r
+"Oh dear, Luke! What! the lop-eared one, and the spotted doe that Tom\r
+spent all his money to buy?"\r
+\r
+"As dead as moles," said Luke, fetching his comparison from the\r
+unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall.\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, Luke," said Maggie, in a piteous tone, while the big tears\r
+rolled down her cheek; "Tom told me to take care of 'em, and I forgot.\r
+What _shall_ I do?"\r
+\r
+"Well, you see, Miss, they were in that far tool-house, an' it was\r
+nobody's business to see to 'em. I reckon Master Tom told Harry to\r
+feed 'em, but there's no countin' on Harry; _he's_ an offal creatur as\r
+iver come about the primises, he is. He remembers nothing but his own\r
+inside--an' I wish it 'ud gripe him."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rabbits every day;\r
+but how could I, when they didn't come into my head, you know? Oh, he\r
+will be so angry with me, I know he will, and so sorry about his\r
+rabbits, and so am I sorry. Oh, what _shall_ I do?"\r
+\r
+"Don't you fret, Miss," said Luke, soothingly; "they're nash things,\r
+them lop-eared rabbits; they'd happen ha' died, if they'd been fed.\r
+Things out o' natur niver thrive: God A'mighty doesn't like 'em. He\r
+made the rabbits' ears to lie back, an' it's nothin' but contrairiness\r
+to make 'em hing down like a mastiff dog's. Master Tom 'ull know\r
+better nor buy such things another time. Don't you fret, Miss. Will\r
+you come along home wi' me, and see my wife? I'm a-goin' this minute."\r
+\r
+The invitation offered an agreeable distraction to Maggie's grief, and\r
+her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by Luke's side to\r
+his pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple and pear trees, and\r
+with the added dignity of a lean-to pigsty, at the other end of the\r
+Mill fields. Mrs. Moggs, Luke's wife, was a decidedly agreeable\r
+acquaintance. She exhibited her hospitality in bread and treacle, and\r
+possessed various works of art. Maggie actually forgot that she had\r
+any special cause of sadness this morning, as she stood on a chair to\r
+look at a remarkable series of pictures representing the Prodigal Son\r
+in the costume of Sir Charles Grandison, except that, as might have\r
+been expected from his defective moral character, he had not, like\r
+that accomplished hero, the taste and strength of mind to dispense\r
+with a wig. But the indefinable weight the dead rabbits had left on\r
+her mind caused her to feel more than usual pity for the career of\r
+this weak young man, particularly when she looked at the picture where\r
+he leaned against a tree with a flaccid appearance, his knee-breeches\r
+unbuttoned and his wig awry, while the swine apparently of some\r
+foreign breed, seemed to insult him by their good spirits over their\r
+feast of husks.\r
+\r
+"I'm very glad his father took him back again, aren't you, Luke?" she\r
+said. "For he was very sorry, you know, and wouldn't do wrong again."\r
+\r
+"Eh, Miss," said Luke, "he'd be no great shakes, I doubt, let's\r
+feyther do what he would for him."\r
+\r
+That was a painful thought to Maggie, and she wished much that the\r
+subsequent history of the young man had not been left a blank.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+Tom Comes Home\r
+\r
+\r
+Tom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another\r
+fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the\r
+sound of the gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a\r
+strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound\r
+came,--that quick light bowling of the gig-wheels,--and in spite of\r
+the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to\r
+respect Mrs. Tulliver's curls and cap-strings, she came outside the\r
+door, and even held her hand on Maggie's offending head, forgetting\r
+all the griefs of the morning.\r
+\r
+"There he is, my sweet lad! But, Lord ha' mercy! he's got never a\r
+collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound, and spoilt the\r
+set."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg\r
+and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said,\r
+with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions, "Hallo! Yap--what!\r
+are you there?"\r
+\r
+Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie\r
+hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray\r
+eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he\r
+promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow\r
+morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England, and\r
+at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings,--a\r
+lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips,\r
+indeterminate nose and eyebrows,--a physiognomy in which it seems\r
+impossible to discern anything but the generic character to boyhood;\r
+as different as possible from poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed\r
+to have moulded and colored with the most decided intention. But that\r
+same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the\r
+appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see\r
+through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a\r
+refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish\r
+physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals\r
+some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most\r
+unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious\r
+girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this\r
+pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner, as soon\r
+as his mother was gone out to examine his box and the warm parlor had\r
+taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know\r
+what I've got in _my_ pockets," nodding his head up and down as a\r
+means of rousing her sense of mystery.\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie. "How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls (marbles)\r
+or cobnuts?" Maggie's heart sank a little, because Tom always said it\r
+was "no good" playing with _her_ at those games, she played so badly.\r
+\r
+"Marls! no; I've swopped all my marls with the little fellows, and\r
+cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see\r
+here!" He drew something half out of his right-hand pocket.\r
+\r
+"What is it?" said Maggie, in a whisper. "I can see nothing but a bit\r
+of yellow."\r
+\r
+"Why, it's--a--new--guess, Maggie!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I _can't_ guess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently.\r
+\r
+"Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his\r
+hand back into his pocket and looking determined.\r
+\r
+"No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was\r
+held stiffly in the pocket. "I'm not cross, Tom; it was only because I\r
+can't bear guessing. _Please_ be good to me."\r
+\r
+Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then, it's a new\r
+fish-line--two new uns,--one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I\r
+wouldn't go halves in the toffee and gingerbread on purpose to save\r
+the money; and Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn't.\r
+And here's hooks; see here--I say, _won't_ we go and fish to-morrow\r
+down by the Round Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie and\r
+put the worms on, and everything; won't it be fun?"\r
+\r
+Maggie's answer was to throw her arms round Tom's neck and hug him,\r
+and hold her cheek against his without speaking, while he slowly\r
+unwound some of the line, saying, after a pause,--\r
+\r
+"Wasn't I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You\r
+know, I needn't have bought it, if I hadn't liked."\r
+\r
+"Yes, very, very good--I _do_ love you, Tom."\r
+\r
+Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks\r
+one by one, before he spoke again.\r
+\r
+"And the fellows fought me, because I wouldn't give in about the\r
+toffee."\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it\r
+hurt you?"\r
+\r
+"Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a\r
+large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he\r
+looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he\r
+added,--\r
+\r
+"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know; that's what he got by wanting to\r
+leather _me;_ I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came\r
+a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him, wouldn't you, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no\r
+lions, only in the shows."\r
+\r
+"No; but if we were in the lion countries--I mean in Africa, where\r
+it's very hot; the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the\r
+book where I read it."\r
+\r
+"Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."\r
+\r
+"But if you hadn't got a gun,--we might have gone out, you know, not\r
+thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run\r
+toward us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you\r
+do, Tom?"\r
+\r
+Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, "But the\r
+lion _isn't_ coming. What's the use of talking?"\r
+\r
+"But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him.\r
+"Just think what you would do, Tom."\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly. I shall go and see my\r
+rabbits."\r
+\r
+Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad\r
+truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he\r
+went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at\r
+once his sorrow and his anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all\r
+things; it was quite a different anger from her own.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she said, timidly, when they were out of doors, "how much money\r
+did you give for your rabbits?"\r
+\r
+"Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom, promptly.\r
+\r
+"I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse\r
+upstairs. I'll ask mother to give it you."\r
+\r
+"What for?" said Tom. "I don't want _your_ money, you silly thing.\r
+I've got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy. I always\r
+have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes because I\r
+shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you're\r
+only a girl."\r
+\r
+"Well, but, Tom--if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and a\r
+sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket and spend, you know,\r
+and buy some more rabbits with it?"\r
+\r
+"More rabbits? I don't want any more."\r
+\r
+"Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead."\r
+\r
+Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie.\r
+"You forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry forgot?" he said, his color\r
+heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. "I'll pitch into Harry.\r
+I'll have him turned away. And I don't love you, Maggie. You sha'n't\r
+go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits\r
+every day." He walked on again.\r
+\r
+"Yes, but I forgot--and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom. I'm so very\r
+sorry," said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast.\r
+\r
+"You're a naughty girl," said Tom, severely, "and I'm sorry I bought\r
+you the fish-line. I don't love you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive you, if _you_\r
+forgot anything--I wouldn't mind what you did--I'd forgive you and\r
+love you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, you're silly; but I never _do_ forget things, _I_ don't."\r
+\r
+"Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break," said Maggie,\r
+shaking with sobs, clinging to Tom's arm, and laying her wet cheek on\r
+his shoulder.\r
+\r
+Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone,\r
+"Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren't I a good brother to you?"\r
+\r
+"Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsedly.\r
+\r
+"Didn't I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and mean to buy\r
+it, and saved my money o' purpose, and wouldn't go halves in the\r
+toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn't?"\r
+\r
+"Ye-ye-es--and I--lo-lo-love you so, Tom."\r
+\r
+"But you're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my\r
+lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my\r
+fish-line down when I'd set you to watch it, and you pushed your head\r
+through my kite, all for nothing."\r
+\r
+"But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it."\r
+\r
+"Yes, you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing. And\r
+you're a naughty girl, and you sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow."\r
+\r
+With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the\r
+mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry.\r
+\r
+Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute or two;\r
+then she turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic,\r
+where she sat on the floor and laid her head against the worm-eaten\r
+shelf, with a crushing sense of misery. Tom was come home, and she had\r
+thought how happy she should be; and now he was cruel to her. What use\r
+was anything if Tom didn't love her? Oh, he was very cruel! Hadn't she\r
+wanted to give him the money, and said how very sorry she was? She\r
+knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never been naughty to\r
+Tom--had never _meant_ to be naughty to him.\r
+\r
+"Oh, he is cruel!" Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure in\r
+the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the\r
+attic. She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was\r
+too miserable to be angry.\r
+\r
+These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange,\r
+when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and\r
+the space from summer to summer seems measureless.\r
+\r
+Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must be\r
+tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking of her.\r
+Well, then, she would stay up there and starve herself,--hide herself\r
+behind the tub, and stay there all night,--and then they would all be\r
+frightened, and Tom would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride\r
+of her heart, as she crept behind the tub; but presently she began to\r
+cry again at the idea that they didn't mind her being there. If she\r
+went down again to Tom now--would he forgive her? Perhaps her father\r
+would be there, and he would take her part. But then she wanted Tom to\r
+forgive her because he loved her, not because his father told him. No,\r
+she would never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This\r
+resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind the\r
+tub; but then the need of being loved--the strongest need in poor\r
+Maggie's nature--began to wrestle with her pride, and soon threw it.\r
+She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the long attic, but\r
+just then she heard a quick foot-step on the stairs.\r
+\r
+Tom had been too much interested in his talk with Luke, in going the\r
+round of the premises, walking in and out where he pleased, and\r
+whittling sticks without any particular reason,--except that he didn't\r
+whittle sticks at school,--to think of Maggie and the effect his anger\r
+had produced on her. He meant to punish her, and that business having\r
+been performed, he occupied himself with other matters, like a\r
+practical person. But when he had been called in to tea, his father\r
+said, "Why, where's the little wench?" and Mrs. Tulliver, almost at\r
+the same moment, said, "Where's your little sister?"--both of them\r
+having supposed that Maggie and Tom had been together all the\r
+afternoon.\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Tom. He didn't want to "tell" of Maggie, though\r
+he was angry with her; for Tom Tulliver was a lad of honor.\r
+\r
+"What! hasn't she been playing with you all this while?" said the\r
+father. "She'd been thinking o' nothing but your coming home."\r
+\r
+"I haven't seen her this two hours," says Tom, commencing on the\r
+plumcake.\r
+\r
+"Goodness heart; she's got drownded!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, rising\r
+from her seat and running to the window.\r
+\r
+"How could you let her do so?" she added, as became a fearful woman,\r
+accusing she didn't know whom of she didn't know what.\r
+\r
+"Nay, nay, she's none drownded," said Mr. Tulliver. "You've been\r
+naughty to her, I doubt, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"I'm sure I haven't, father," said Tom, indignantly. "I think she's in\r
+the house."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps up in that attic," said Mrs. Tulliver, "a-singing and talking\r
+to herself, and forgetting all about meal-times."\r
+\r
+"You go and fetch her down, Tom," said Mr. Tulliver, rather\r
+sharply,--his perspicacity or his fatherly fondness for Maggie making\r
+him suspect that the lad had been hard upon "the little un," else she\r
+would never have left his side. "And be good to her, do you hear? Else\r
+I'll let you know better."\r
+\r
+Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a peremptory man,\r
+and, as he said, would never let anybody get hold of his whip-hand;\r
+but he went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plumcake, and\r
+not intending to reprieve Maggie's punishment, which was no more than\r
+she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and had no decided views in\r
+grammar and arithmetic, regarding them for the most part as open\r
+questions, but he was particularly clear and positive on one\r
+point,--namely, that he would punish everybody who deserved it. Why,\r
+he wouldn't have minded being punished himself if he deserved it; but,\r
+then, he never _did_ deserve it.\r
+\r
+It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs, when her\r
+need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down with\r
+her swollen eyes and dishevelled hair to beg for pity. At least her\r
+father would stroke her head and say, "Never mind, my wench." It is a\r
+wonderful subduer, this need of love,--this hunger of the heart,--as\r
+peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to\r
+the yoke, and change the face of the world.\r
+\r
+But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat violently with\r
+the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of the stairs\r
+and said, "Maggie, you're to come down." But she rushed to him and\r
+clung round his neck, sobbing, "Oh, Tom, please forgive me--I can't\r
+bear it--I will always be good--always remember things--do love\r
+me--please, dear Tom!"\r
+\r
+We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we\r
+have quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this\r
+way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one\r
+side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate\r
+in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but\r
+conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilized\r
+society. Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and\r
+so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random\r
+sobbing way; and there were tender fibres in the lad that had been\r
+used to answer to Maggie's fondling, so that he behaved with a\r
+weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much\r
+as she deserved. He actually began to kiss her in return, and say,--\r
+\r
+"Don't cry, then, Magsie; here, eat a bit o' cake."\r
+\r
+Maggie's sobs began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake\r
+and bit a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company, and they\r
+ate together and rubbed each other's cheeks and brows and noses\r
+together, while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two\r
+friendly ponies.\r
+\r
+"Come along, Magsie, and have tea," said Tom at last, when there was\r
+no more cake except what was down-stairs.\r
+\r
+So ended the sorrows of this day, and the next morning Maggie was\r
+trotting with her own fishing-rod in one hand and a handle of the\r
+basket in the other, stepping always, by a peculiar gift, in the\r
+muddiest places, and looking darkly radiant from under her\r
+beaver-bonnet because Tom was good to her. She had told Tom, however,\r
+that she should like him to put the worms on the hook for her,\r
+although she accepted his word when he assured her that worms couldn't\r
+feel (it was Tom's private opinion that it didn't much matter if they\r
+did). He knew all about worms, and fish, and those things; and what\r
+birds were mischievous, and how padlocks opened, and which way the\r
+handles of the gates were to be lifted. Maggie thought this sort of\r
+knowledge was very wonderful,--much more difficult than remembering\r
+what was in the books; and she was rather in awe of Tom's superiority,\r
+for he was the only person who called her knowledge "stuff," and did\r
+not feel surprised at her cleverness. Tom, indeed, was of opinion that\r
+Maggie was a silly little thing; all girls were silly,--they couldn't\r
+throw a stone so as to hit anything, couldn't do anything with a\r
+pocket-knife, and were frightened at frogs. Still, he was very fond of\r
+his sister, and meant always to take care of her, make her his\r
+housekeeper, and punish her when she did wrong.\r
+\r
+They were on their way to the Round Pool,--that wonderful pool, which\r
+the floods had made a long while ago. No one knew how deep it was; and\r
+it was mysterious, too, that it should be almost a perfect round,\r
+framed in with willows and tall reeds, so that the water was only to\r
+be seen when you got close to the brink. The sight of the old favorite\r
+spot always heightened Tom's good humor, and he spoke to Maggie in the\r
+most amicable whispers, as he opened the precious basket and prepared\r
+their tackle. He threw her line for her, and put the rod into her\r
+hand. Maggie thought it probable that the small fish would come to her\r
+hook, and the large ones to Tom's. But she had forgotten all about the\r
+fish, and was looking dreamily at the glassy water, when Tom said, in\r
+a loud whisper, "Look, look, Maggie!" and came running to prevent her\r
+from snatching her line away.\r
+\r
+Maggie was frightened lest she had been doing something wrong, as\r
+usual, but presently Tom drew out her line and brought a large tench\r
+bouncing on the grass.\r
+\r
+Tom was excited.\r
+\r
+"O Magsie, you little duck! Empty the basket."\r
+\r
+Maggie was not conscious of unusual merit, but it was enough that Tom\r
+called her Magsie, and was pleased with her. There was nothing to mar\r
+her delight in the whispers and the dreamy silences, when she listened\r
+to the light dripping sounds of the rising fish, and the gentle\r
+rustling, as if the willows and the reeds and the water had their\r
+happy whisperings also. Maggie thought it would make a very nice\r
+heaven to sit by the pool in that way, and never be scolded. She never\r
+knew she had a bite till Tom told her; but she liked fishing very\r
+much.\r
+\r
+It was one of their happy mornings. They trotted along and sat down\r
+together, with no thought that life would ever change much for them;\r
+they would only get bigger and not go to school, and it would always\r
+be like the holidays; they would always live together and be fond of\r
+each other. And the mill with its booming; the great chestnut-tree\r
+under which they played at houses; their own little river, the Ripple,\r
+where the banks seemed like home, and Tom was always seeing the\r
+water-rats, while Maggie gathered the purple plumy tops of the reeds,\r
+which she forgot and dropped afterward; above all, the great Floss,\r
+along which they wandered with a sense of travel, to see the rushing\r
+spring-tide, the awful Eagle, come up like a hungry monster, or to see\r
+the Great Ash which had once wailed and groaned like a man, these\r
+things would always be just the same to them. Tom thought people were\r
+at a disadvantage who lived on any other spot of the globe; and\r
+Maggie, when she read about Christiana passing "the river over which\r
+there is no bridge," always saw the Floss between the green pastures\r
+by the Great Ash.\r
+\r
+Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were not wrong in\r
+believing that the thoughts and loves of these first years would\r
+always make part of their lives. We could never have loved the earth\r
+so well if we had had no childhood in it,--if it were not the earth\r
+where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to\r
+gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the\r
+grass; the same hips and haws on the autumn's hedgerows; the same\r
+redbreasts that we used to call "God's birds," because they did no\r
+harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony\r
+where everything is known, and _loved_ because it is known?\r
+\r
+The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the young yellow-brown\r
+foliage of the oaks between me and the blue sky, the white\r
+star-flowers and the blue-eyed speedwell and the ground ivy at my\r
+feet, what grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns or splendid\r
+broad-petalled blossoms, could ever thrill such deep and delicate\r
+fibres within me as this home scene? These familiar flowers, these\r
+well-remembered bird-notes, this sky, with its fitful brightness,\r
+these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality\r
+given to it by the capricious hedgerows,--such things as these are the\r
+mother-tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all\r
+the subtle, inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our\r
+childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the\r
+deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more than the faint perception of\r
+wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the\r
+far-off years which still live in us, and transform our perception\r
+into love.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VI\r
+\r
+The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming\r
+\r
+\r
+It was Easter week, and Mrs. Tulliver's cheesecakes were more\r
+exquisitely light than usual. "A puff o' wind 'ud make 'em blow about\r
+like feathers," Kezia the housemaid said, feeling proud to live under\r
+a mistress who could make such pastry; so that no season or\r
+circumstances could have been more propitious for a family party, even\r
+if it had not been advisable to consult sister Glegg and sister Pullet\r
+about Tom's going to school.\r
+\r
+"I'd as lief not invite sister Deane this time," said Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+"for she's as jealous and having as can be, and's allays trying to\r
+make the worst o' my poor children to their aunts and uncles."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," said Mr. Tulliver, "ask her to come. I never hardly get a\r
+bit o' talk with Deane now; we haven't had him this six months. What's\r
+it matter what she says? My children need be beholding to nobody."\r
+\r
+"That's what you allays say, Mr. Tulliver; but I'm sure there's nobody\r
+o' your side, neither aunt nor uncle, to leave 'em so much as a\r
+five-pound note for a leggicy. And there's sister Glegg, and sister\r
+Pullet too, saving money unknown, for they put by all their own\r
+interest and butter-money too; their husbands buy 'em everything."\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was a mild woman, but even a sheep will face about a\r
+little when she has lambs.\r
+\r
+"Tchuh!" said Mr. Tulliver. "It takes a big loaf when there's many to\r
+breakfast. What signifies your sisters' bits o' money when they've got\r
+half-a-dozen nevvies and nieces to divide it among? And your sister\r
+Deane won't get 'em to leave all to one, I reckon, and make the\r
+country cry shame on 'em when they are dead?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know what she won't get 'em to do," said Mrs. Tulliver, "for\r
+my children are so awk'ard wi' their aunts and uncles. Maggie's ten\r
+times naughtier when they come than she is other days, and Tom doesn't\r
+like 'em, bless him!--though it's more nat'ral in a boy than a gell.\r
+And there's Lucy Dean's such a good child,--you may set her on a\r
+stool, and there she'll sit for an hour together, and never offer to\r
+get off. I can't help loving the child as if she was my own; and I'm\r
+sure she's more like _my_ child than sister Deane's, for she'd allays\r
+a very poor color for one of our family, sister Deane had."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, if you're fond o' the child, ask her father and mother to\r
+bring her with 'em. And won't you ask their aunt and uncle Moss too,\r
+and some o' _their_ children?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear, Mr. Tulliver, why, there'd be eight people besides the\r
+children, and I must put two more leaves i' the table, besides\r
+reaching down more o' the dinner-service; and you know as well as I do\r
+as _my_ sisters and _your_ sister don't suit well together."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, do as you like, Bessy," said Mr. Tulliver, taking up his\r
+hat and walking out to the mill. Few wives were more submissive than\r
+Mrs. Tulliver on all points unconnected with her family relations; but\r
+she had been a Miss Dodson, and the Dodsons were a very respectable\r
+family indeed,--as much looked up to as any in their own parish, or\r
+the next to it. The Miss Dodsons had always been thought to hold up\r
+their heads very high, and no one was surprised the two eldest had\r
+married so well,--not at an early age, for that was not the practice\r
+of the Dodson family. There were particular ways of doing everything\r
+in that family: particular ways of bleaching the linen, of making the\r
+cowslip wine, curing the hams, and keeping the bottled gooseberries;\r
+so that no daughter of that house could be indifferent to the\r
+privilege of having been born a Dodson, rather than a Gibson or a\r
+Watson. Funerals were always conducted with peculiar propriety in the\r
+Dodson family: the hat-bands were never of a blue shade, the gloves\r
+never split at the thumb, everybody was a mourner who ought to be, and\r
+there were always scarfs for the bearers. When one of the family was\r
+in trouble or sickness, all the rest went to visit the unfortunate\r
+member, usually at the same time, and did not shrink from uttering the\r
+most disagreeable truths that correct family feeling dictated; if the\r
+illness or trouble was the sufferer's own fault, it was not in the\r
+practice of the Dodson family to shrink from saying so. In short,\r
+there was in this family a peculiar tradition as to what was the right\r
+thing in household management and social demeanor, and the only bitter\r
+circumstance attending this superiority was a painful inability to\r
+approve the condiments or the conduct of families ungoverned by the\r
+Dodson tradition. A female Dodson, when in "strange houses," always\r
+ate dry bread with her tea, and declined any sort of preserves, having\r
+no confidence in the butter, and thinking that the preserves had\r
+probably begun to ferment from want of due sugar and boiling. There\r
+were some Dodsons less like the family than others, that was admitted;\r
+but in so far as they were "kin," they were of necessity better than\r
+those who were "no kin." And it is remarkable that while no individual\r
+Dodson was satisfied with any other individual Dodson, each was\r
+satisfied, not only with him or her self, but with the Dodsons\r
+collectively. The feeblest member of a family--the one who has the\r
+least character--is often the merest epitome of the family habits and\r
+traditions; and Mrs. Tulliver was a thorough Dodson, though a mild\r
+one, as small-beer, so long as it is anything, is only describable as\r
+very weak ale: and though she had groaned a little in her youth under\r
+the yoke of her elder sisters, and still shed occasional tears at\r
+their sisterly reproaches, it was not in Mrs. Tulliver to be an\r
+innovator on the family ideas. She was thankful to have been a Dodson,\r
+and to have one child who took after her own family, at least in his\r
+features and complexion, in liking salt and in eating beans, which a\r
+Tulliver never did.\r
+\r
+In other respects the true Dodson was partly latent in Tom, and he was\r
+as far from appreciating his "kin" on the mother's side as Maggie\r
+herself, generally absconding for the day with a large supply of the\r
+most portable food, when he received timely warning that his aunts and\r
+uncles were coming,--a moral symptom from which his aunt Glegg deduced\r
+the gloomiest views of his future. It was rather hard on Maggie that\r
+Tom always absconded without letting her into the secret, but the\r
+weaker sex are acknowledged to be serious _impedimenta_ in cases of\r
+flight.\r
+\r
+On Wednesday, the day before the aunts and uncles were coming, there\r
+were such various and suggestive scents, as of plumcakes in the oven\r
+and jellies in the hot state, mingled with the aroma of gravy, that it\r
+was impossible to feel altogether gloomy: there was hope in the air.\r
+Tom and Maggie made several inroads into the kitchen, and, like other\r
+marauders, were induced to keep aloof for a time only by being allowed\r
+to carry away a sufficient load of booty.\r
+\r
+"Tom," said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder-tree,\r
+eating their jam-puffs, "shall you run away to-morrow?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Tom, slowly, when he had finished his puff, and was eying\r
+the third, which was to be divided between them,--"no, I sha'n't."\r
+\r
+"Why, Tom? Because Lucy's coming?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Tom, opening his pocket-knife and holding it over the puff,\r
+with his head on one side in a dubitative manner. (It was a difficult\r
+problem to divide that very irregular polygon into two equal parts.)\r
+"What do _I_ care about Lucy? She's only a girl,--_she_ can't play at\r
+bandy."\r
+\r
+"Is it the tipsy-cake, then?" said Maggie, exerting her hypothetic\r
+powers, while she leaned forward toward Tom with her eyes fixed on the\r
+hovering knife.\r
+\r
+"No, you silly, that'll be good the day after. It's the pudden. I know\r
+what the pudden's to be,--apricot roll-up--O my buttons!"\r
+\r
+With this interjection, the knife descended on the puff, and it was in\r
+two, but the result was not satisfactory to Tom, for he still eyed the\r
+halves doubtfully. At last he said,--\r
+\r
+"Shut your eyes, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"What for?"\r
+\r
+"You never mind what for. Shut 'em when I tell you."\r
+\r
+Maggie obeyed.\r
+\r
+"Now, which'll you have, Maggie,--right hand or left?"\r
+\r
+"I'll have that with the jam run out," said Maggie, keeping her eyes\r
+shut to please Tom.\r
+\r
+"Why, you don't like that, you silly. You may have it if it comes to\r
+you fair, but I sha'n't give it you without. Right or left,--you\r
+choose, now. Ha-a-a!" said Tom, in a tone of exasperation, as Maggie\r
+peeped. "You keep your eyes shut, now, else you sha'n't have any."\r
+\r
+Maggie's power of sacrifice did not extend so far; indeed, I fear she\r
+cared less that Tom should enjoy the utmost possible amount of puff,\r
+than that he should be pleased with her for giving him the best bit.\r
+So she shut her eyes quite close, till Tom told her to "say which,"\r
+and then she said, "Left hand."\r
+\r
+"You've got it," said Tom, in rather a bitter tone.\r
+\r
+"What! the bit with the jam run out?"\r
+\r
+"No; here, take it," said Tom, firmly, handing, decidedly the best\r
+piece to Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Oh, please, Tom, have it; I don't mind--I like the other; please take\r
+this."\r
+\r
+"No, I sha'n't," said Tom, almost crossly, beginning on his own\r
+inferior piece.\r
+\r
+Maggie, thinking it was no use to contend further, began too, and ate\r
+up her half puff with considerable relish as well as rapidity. But Tom\r
+had finished first, and had to look on while Maggie ate her last\r
+morsel or two, feeling in himself a capacity for more. Maggie didn't\r
+know Tom was looking at her; she was seesawing on the elder-bough,\r
+lost to almost everything but a vague sense of jam and idleness.\r
+\r
+"Oh, you greedy thing!" said Tom, when she had swallowed the last\r
+morsel. He was conscious of having acted very fairly, and thought she\r
+ought to have considered this, and made up to him for it. He would\r
+have refused a bit of hers beforehand, but one is naturally at a\r
+different point of view before and after one's own share of puff is\r
+swallowed.\r
+\r
+Maggie turned quite pale. "Oh, Tom, why didn't you ask me?"\r
+\r
+"I wasn't going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You might have\r
+thought of it without, when you knew I gave you the best bit."\r
+\r
+"But I wanted you to have it; you know I did," said Maggie, in an\r
+injured tone.\r
+\r
+"Yes, but I wasn't going to do what wasn't fair, like Spouncer. He\r
+always takes the best bit, if you don't punch him for it; and if you\r
+choose the best with your eyes shut, he changes his hands. But if I go\r
+halves, I'll go 'em fair; only I wouldn't be a greedy."\r
+\r
+With this cutting innuendo, Tom jumped down from his bough, and threw\r
+a stone with a "hoigh!" as a friendly attention to Yap, who had also\r
+been looking on while the eatables vanished, with an agitation of his\r
+ears and feelings which could hardly have been without bitterness. Yet\r
+the excellent dog accepted Tom's attention with as much alacrity as if\r
+he had been treated quite generously.\r
+\r
+But Maggie, gifted with that superior power of misery which\r
+distinguishes the human being, and places him at a proud distance from\r
+the most melancholy chimpanzee, sat still on her bough, and gave\r
+herself up to the keen sense of unmerited reproach. She would have\r
+given the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some\r
+of it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very nice, for Maggie's\r
+palate was not at all obtuse, but she would have gone without it many\r
+times over, sooner than Tom should call her greedy and be cross with\r
+her. And he had said he wouldn't have it, and she ate it without\r
+thinking; how could she help it? The tears flowed so plentifully that\r
+Maggie saw nothing around her for the next ten minutes; but by that\r
+time resentment began to give way to the desire of reconciliation, and\r
+she jumped from her bough to look for Tom. He was no longer in the\r
+paddock behind the rickyard; where was he likely to be gone, and Yap\r
+with him? Maggie ran to the high bank against the great holly-tree,\r
+where she could see far away toward the Floss. There was Tom; but her\r
+heart sank again as she saw how far off he was on his way to the great\r
+river, and that he had another companion besides Yap,--naughty Bob\r
+Jakin, whose official, if not natural, function of frightening the\r
+birds was just now at a standstill. Maggie felt sure that Bob was\r
+wicked, without very distinctly knowing why; unless it was because\r
+Bob's mother was a dreadfully large fat woman, who lived at a queer\r
+round house down the river; and once, when Maggie and Tom had wandered\r
+thither, there rushed out a brindled dog that wouldn't stop barking;\r
+and when Bob's mother came out after it, and screamed above the\r
+barking to tell them not to be frightened, Maggie thought she was\r
+scolding them fiercely, and her heart beat with terror. Maggie thought\r
+it very likely that the round house had snakes on the floor, and bats\r
+in the bedroom; for she had seen Bob take off his cap to show Tom a\r
+little snake that was inside it, and another time he had a handful of\r
+young bats: altogether, he was an irregular character, perhaps even\r
+slightly diabolical, judging from his intimacy with snakes and bats;\r
+and to crown all, when Tom had Bob for a companion, he didn't mind\r
+about Maggie, and would never let her go with him.\r
+\r
+It must be owned that Tom was fond of Bob's company. How could it be\r
+otherwise? Bob knew, directly he saw a bird's egg, whether it was a\r
+swallow's, or a tomtit's, or a yellow-hammer's; he found out all the\r
+wasps' nests, and could set all sort of traps; he could climb the\r
+trees like a squirrel, and had quite a magical power of detecting\r
+hedgehogs and stoats; and he had courage to do things that were rather\r
+naughty, such as making gaps in the hedgerows, throwing stones after\r
+the sheep, and killing a cat that was wandering _incognito_.\r
+\r
+Such qualities in an inferior, who could always be treated with\r
+authority in spite of his superior knowingness, had necessarily a\r
+fatal fascination for Tom; and every holiday-time Maggie was sure to\r
+have days of grief because he had gone off with Bob.\r
+\r
+Well! there was no hope for it; he was gone now, and Maggie could\r
+think of no comfort but to sit down by the hollow, or wander by the\r
+hedgerow, and fancy it was all different, refashioning her little\r
+world into just what she should like it to be.\r
+\r
+Maggie's was a troublous life, and this was the form in which she took\r
+her opium.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Tom, forgetting all about Maggie and the sting of reproach\r
+which he had left in her heart, was hurrying along with Bob, whom he\r
+had met accidentally, to the scene of a great rat-catching in a\r
+neighboring barn. Bob knew all about this particular affair, and spoke\r
+of the sport with an enthusiasm which no one who is not either\r
+divested of all manly feeling, or pitiably ignorant of rat-catching,\r
+can fail to imagine. For a person suspected of preternatural\r
+wickedness, Bob was really not so very villanous-looking; there was\r
+even something agreeable in his snub-nosed face, with its close-curled\r
+border of red hair. But then his trousers were always rolled up at the\r
+knee, for the convenience of wading on the slightest notice; and his\r
+virtue, supposing it to exist, was undeniably "virtue in rags," which,\r
+on the authority even of bilious philosophers, who think all\r
+well-dressed merit overpaid, is notoriously likely to remain\r
+unrecognized (perhaps because it is seen so seldom).\r
+\r
+"I know the chap as owns the ferrets," said Bob, in a hoarse treble\r
+voice, as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the river,\r
+like an amphibious animal who foresaw occasion for darting in. "He\r
+lives up the Kennel Yard at Sut Ogg's, he does. He's the biggest\r
+rot-catcher anywhere, he is. I'd sooner, be a rot-catcher nor\r
+anything, I would. The moles is nothing to the rots. But Lors! you mun\r
+ha' ferrets. Dogs is no good. Why, there's that dog, now!" Bob\r
+continued, pointing with an air of disgust toward Yap, "he's no more\r
+good wi' a rot nor nothin'. I see it myself, I did, at the\r
+rot-catchin' i' your feyther's barn."\r
+\r
+Yap, feeling the withering influence of this scorn, tucked his tail in\r
+and shrank close to Tom's leg, who felt a little hurt for him, but had\r
+not the superhuman courage to seem behindhand with Bob in contempt for\r
+a dog who made so poor a figure.\r
+\r
+"No, no," he said, "Yap's no good at sport. I'll have regular good\r
+dogs for rats and everything, when I've done school."\r
+\r
+"Hev ferrets, Measter Tom," said Bob, eagerly,--"them white ferrets\r
+wi' pink eyes; Lors, you might catch your own rots, an' you might put\r
+a rot in a cage wi' a ferret, an' see 'em fight, you might. That's\r
+what I'd do, I know, an' it 'ud be better fun a'most nor seein' two\r
+chaps fight,--if it wasn't them chaps as sold cakes an' oranges at the\r
+Fair, as the things flew out o' their baskets, an' some o' the cakes\r
+was smashed--But they tasted just as good," added Bob, by way of note\r
+or addendum, after a moment's pause.\r
+\r
+"But, I say, Bob," said Tom, in a tone of deliberation, "ferrets are\r
+nasty biting things,--they'll bite a fellow without being set on."\r
+\r
+"Lors! why that's the beauty on 'em. If a chap lays hold o' your\r
+ferret, he won't be long before he hollows out a good un, _he_ won't."\r
+\r
+At this moment a striking incident made the boys pause suddenly in\r
+their walk. It was the plunging of some small body in the water from\r
+among the neighboring bulrushes; if it was not a water-rat, Bob\r
+intimated that he was ready to undergo the most unpleasant\r
+consequences.\r
+\r
+"Hoigh! Yap,--hoigh! there he is," said Tom, clapping his hands, as\r
+the little black snout made its arrowy course to the opposite bank.\r
+"Seize him, lad! seize him!"\r
+\r
+Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined to plunge,\r
+trying whether barking would not answer the purpose just as well.\r
+\r
+"Ugh! you coward!" said Tom, and kicked him over, feeling humiliated\r
+as a sportsman to possess so poor-spirited an animal. Bob abstained\r
+from remark and passed on, choosing, however, to walk in the shallow\r
+edge of the overflowing river by way of change.\r
+\r
+"He's none so full now, the Floss isn't," said Bob, as he kicked the\r
+water up before him, with an agreeable sense of being insolent to it.\r
+"Why, last 'ear, the meadows was all one sheet o' water, they was."\r
+\r
+"Ay, but," said Tom, whose mind was prone to see an opposition between\r
+statements that were really accordant,--"but there was a big flood\r
+once, when the Round Pool was made. _I_ know there was, 'cause father\r
+says so. And the sheep and cows all drowned, and the boats went all\r
+over the fields ever such a way."\r
+\r
+"_I_ don't care about a flood comin'," said Bob; "I don't mind the\r
+water, no more nor the land. I'd swim, _I_ would."\r
+\r
+"Ah, but if you got nothing to eat for ever so long?" said Tom, his\r
+imagination becoming quite active under the stimulus of that dread.\r
+"When I'm a man, I shall make a boat with a wooden house on the top of\r
+it, like Noah's ark, and keep plenty to eat in it,--rabbits and\r
+things,--all ready. And then if the flood came, you know, Bob, I\r
+shouldn't mind. And I'd take you in, if I saw you swimming," he added,\r
+in the tone of a benevolent patron.\r
+\r
+"I aren't frighted," said Bob, to whom hunger did not appear so\r
+appalling. "But I'd get in an' knock the rabbits on th' head when you\r
+wanted to eat 'em."\r
+\r
+"Ah, and I should have halfpence, and we'd play at heads-and-tails,"\r
+said Tom, not contemplating the possibility that this recreation might\r
+have fewer charms for his mature age. "I'd divide fair to begin with,\r
+and then we'd see who'd win."\r
+\r
+"I've got a halfpenny o' my own," said Bob, proudly, coming out of the\r
+water and tossing his halfpenny in the air. "Yeads or tails?"\r
+\r
+"Tails," said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win.\r
+\r
+"It's yeads," said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny as it\r
+fell.\r
+\r
+"It wasn't," said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. "You give me the\r
+halfpenny; I've won it fair."\r
+\r
+"I sha'n't," said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket.\r
+\r
+"Then I'll make you; see if I don't," said Tom.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I can."\r
+\r
+"You can't make me do nothing, you can't," said Bob.\r
+\r
+"No, you can't."\r
+\r
+"I'm master."\r
+\r
+"I don't care for you."\r
+\r
+"But I'll make you care, you cheat," said Tom, collaring Bob and\r
+shaking him.\r
+\r
+"You get out wi' you," said Bob, giving Tom a kick.\r
+\r
+Tom's blood was thoroughly up: he went at Bob with a lunge and threw\r
+him down, but Bob seized hold and kept it like a cat, and pulled Tom\r
+down after him. They struggled fiercely on the ground for a moment or\r
+two, till Tom, pinning Bob down by the shoulders, thought he had the\r
+mastery.\r
+\r
+"_You_, say you'll give me the halfpenny now," he said, with\r
+difficulty, while he exerted himself to keep the command of Bob's\r
+arms.\r
+\r
+But at this moment Yap, who had been running on before, returned\r
+barking to the scene of action, and saw a favorable opportunity for\r
+biting Bob's bare leg not only with inpunity but with honor. The pain\r
+from Yap's teeth, instead of surprising Bob into a relaxation of his\r
+hold, gave it a fiercer tenacity, and with a new exertion of his force\r
+he pushed Tom backward and got uppermost. But now Yap, who could get\r
+no sufficient purchase before, set his teeth in a new place, so that\r
+Bob, harassed in this way, let go his hold of Tom, and, almost\r
+throttling Yap, flung him into the river. By this time Tom was up\r
+again, and before Bob had quite recovered his balance after the act of\r
+swinging Yap, Tom fell upon him, threw him down, and got his knees\r
+firmly on Bob's chest.\r
+\r
+"You give me the halfpenny now," said Tom.\r
+\r
+"Take it," said Bob, sulkily.\r
+\r
+"No, I sha'n't take it; you give it me."\r
+\r
+Bob took the halfpenny out of his pocket, and threw it away from him\r
+on the ground.\r
+\r
+Tom loosed his hold, and left Bob to rise.\r
+\r
+"There the halfpenny lies," he said. "I don't want your halfpenny; I\r
+wouldn't have kept it. But you wanted to cheat; I hate a cheat. I\r
+sha'n't go along with you any more," he added, turning round homeward,\r
+not without casting a regret toward the rat-catching and other\r
+pleasures which he must relinquish along with Bob's society.\r
+\r
+"You may let it alone, then," Bob called out after him. "I shall cheat\r
+if I like; there's no fun i' playing else; and I know where there's a\r
+goldfinch's nest, but I'll take care _you_ don't. An' you're a nasty\r
+fightin' turkey-cock, you are----"\r
+\r
+Tom walked on without looking around, and Yap followed his example,\r
+the cold bath having moderated his passions.\r
+\r
+"Go along wi' you, then, wi' your drowned dog; I wouldn't own such a\r
+dog--_I_ wouldn't," said Bob, getting louder, in a last effort to\r
+sustain his defiance. But Tom was not to be provoked into turning\r
+round, and Bob's voice began to falter a little as he said,--\r
+\r
+"An' I'n gi'en you everything, an' showed you everything, an' niver\r
+wanted nothin' from you. An' there's your horn-handed knife, then as\r
+you gi'en me." Here Bob flung the knife as far as he could after Tom's\r
+retreating footsteps. But it produced no effect, except the sense in\r
+Bob's mind that there was a terrible void in his lot, now that knife\r
+was gone.\r
+\r
+He stood still till Tom had passed through the gate and disappeared\r
+behind the hedge. The knife would do not good on the ground there; it\r
+wouldn't vex Tom; and pride or resentment was a feeble passion in\r
+Bob's mind compared with the love of a pocket-knife. His very fingers\r
+sent entreating thrills that he would go and clutch that familiar\r
+rough buck's-horn handle, which they had so often grasped for mere\r
+affection, as it lay idle in his pocket. And there were two blades,\r
+and they had just been sharpened! What is life without a pocket-knife\r
+to him who has once tasted a higher existence? No; to throw the handle\r
+after the hatchet is a comprehensible act of desperation, but to throw\r
+one's pocket-knife after an implacable friend is clearly in every\r
+sense a hyperbole, or throwing beyond the mark. So Bob shuffled back\r
+to the spot where the beloved knife lay in the dirt, and felt quite a\r
+new pleasure in clutching it again after the temporary separation, in\r
+opening one blade after the other, and feeling their edge with his\r
+well-hardened thumb. Poor Bob! he was not sensitive on the point of\r
+honor, not a chivalrous character. That fine moral aroma would not\r
+have been thought much of by the public opinion of Kennel Yard, which\r
+was the very focus or heart of Bob's world, even if it could have made\r
+itself perceptible there; yet, for all that, he was not utterly a\r
+sneak and a thief as our friend Tom had hastily decided.\r
+\r
+But Tom, you perceive, was rather a Rhadamanthine personage, having\r
+more than the usual share of boy's justice in him,--the justice that\r
+desires to hurt culprits as much as they deserve to be hurt, and is\r
+troubled with no doubts concerning the exact amount of their deserts.\r
+Maggie saw a cloud on his brow when he came home, which checked her\r
+joy at his coming so much sooner than she had expected, and she dared\r
+hardly speak to him as he stood silently throwing the small\r
+gravel-stones into the mill-dam. It is not pleasant to give up a\r
+rat-catching when you have set your mind on it. But if Tom had told\r
+his strongest feeling at that moment, he would have said, "I'd do just\r
+the same again." That was his usual mode of viewing his past actions;\r
+whereas Maggie was always wishing she had done something different.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VII\r
+\r
+Enter the Aunts and Uncles\r
+\r
+\r
+The Dodsons were certainly a handsome family, and Mrs. Glegg was not\r
+the least handsome of the sisters. As she sat in Mrs. Tulliver's\r
+arm-chair, no impartial observer could have denied that for a woman of\r
+fifty she had a very comely face and figure, though Tom and Maggie\r
+considered their aunt Glegg as the type of ugliness. It is true she\r
+despised the advantages of costume, for though, as she often observed,\r
+no woman had better clothes, it was not her way to wear her new things\r
+out before her old ones. Other women, if they liked, might have their\r
+best thread-lace in every wash; but when Mrs. Glegg died, it would be\r
+found that she had better lace laid by in the right-hand drawer of her\r
+wardrobe in the Spotted Chamber than ever Mrs. Wooll of St. Ogg's had\r
+bought in her life, although Mrs. Wooll wore her lace before it was\r
+paid for. So of her curled fronts: Mrs. Glegg had doubtless the\r
+glossiest and crispest brown curls in her drawers, as well as curls in\r
+various degrees of fuzzy laxness; but to look out on the week-day\r
+world from under a crisp and glossy front would be to introduce a most\r
+dreamlike and unpleasant confusion between the sacred and the secular.\r
+Occasionally, indeed, Mrs. Glegg wore one of her third-best fronts on\r
+a week-day visit, but not at a sister's house; especially not at Mrs.\r
+Tulliver's, who, since her marriage, had hurt her sister's feelings\r
+greatly by wearing her own hair, though, as Mrs. Glegg observed to\r
+Mrs. Deane, a mother of a family, like Bessy, with a husband always\r
+going to law, might have been expected to know better. But Bessy was\r
+always weak!\r
+\r
+So if Mrs. Glegg's front to-day was more fuzzy and lax than usual, she\r
+had a design under it: she intended the most pointed and cutting\r
+allusion to Mrs. Tulliver's bunches of blond curls, separated from\r
+each other by a due wave of smoothness on each side of the parting.\r
+Mrs. Tulliver had shed tears several times at sister Glegg's\r
+unkindness on the subject of these unmatronly curls, but the\r
+consciousness of looking the handsomer for them naturally administered\r
+support. Mrs. Glegg chose to wear her bonnet in the house\r
+to-day,--untied and tilted slightly, of course--a frequent practice of\r
+hers when she was on a visit, and happened to be in a severe humor:\r
+she didn't know what draughts there might be in strange houses. For\r
+the same reason she wore a small sable tippet, which reached just to\r
+her shoulders, and was very far from meeting across her well-formed\r
+chest, while her long neck was protected by a _chevaux-de-frise_ of\r
+miscellaneous frilling. One would need to be learned in the fashions\r
+of those times to know how far in the rear of them Mrs. Glegg's\r
+slate-colored silk gown must have been; but from certain\r
+constellations of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy odor about\r
+it suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was probable that it\r
+belonged to a stratum of garments just old enough to have come\r
+recently into wear.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand with the many-doubled\r
+chain round her fingers, and observed to Mrs. Tulliver, who had just\r
+returned from a visit to the kitchen, that whatever it might be by\r
+other people's clocks and watches, it was gone half-past twelve by\r
+hers.\r
+\r
+"I don't know what ails sister Pullet," she continued. "It used to be\r
+the way in our family for one to be as early as another,--I'm sure it\r
+was so in my poor father's time,--and not for one sister to sit half\r
+an hour before the others came. But if the ways o' the family are\r
+altered, it sha'n't be _my_ fault; _I'll_ never be the one to come\r
+into a house when all the rest are going away. I wonder _at_ sister\r
+Deane,--she used to be more like me. But if you'll take my advice,\r
+Bessy, you'll put the dinner forrard a bit, sooner than put it back,\r
+because folks are late as ought to ha' known better."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, there's no fear but what they'll be all here in time,\r
+sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, in her mild-peevish tone. "The dinner\r
+won't be ready till half-past one. But if it's long for you to wait,\r
+let me fetch you a cheesecake and a glass o' wine."\r
+\r
+"Well, Bessy!" said Mrs. Glegg, with a bitter smile and a scarcely\r
+perceptible toss of her head, "I should ha' thought you'd known your\r
+own sister better. I never _did_ eat between meals, and I'm not going\r
+to begin. Not but what I hate that nonsense of having your dinner at\r
+half-past one, when you might have it at one. You was never brought up\r
+in that way, Bessy."\r
+\r
+"Why, Jane, what can I do? Mr. Tulliver doesn't like his dinner before\r
+two o'clock, but I put it half an hour earlier because o' you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I know how it is with husbands,--they're for putting\r
+everything off; they'll put the dinner off till after tea, if they've\r
+got wives as are weak enough to give in to such work; but it's a pity\r
+for you, Bessy, as you haven't got more strength o' mind. It'll be\r
+well if your children don't suffer for it. And I hope you've not gone\r
+and got a great dinner for us,--going to expense for your sisters, as\r
+'ud sooner eat a crust o' dry bread nor help to ruin you with\r
+extravagance. I wonder you don't take pattern by your sister Deane;\r
+she's far more sensible. And here you've got two children to provide\r
+for, and your husband's spent your fortin i' going to law, and's\r
+likely to spend his own too. A boiled joint, as you could make broth\r
+of for the kitchen," Mrs. Glegg added, in a tone of emphatic protest,\r
+"and a plain pudding, with a spoonful o' sugar, and no spice, 'ud be\r
+far more becoming."\r
+\r
+With sister Glegg in this humor, there was a cheerful prospect for the\r
+day. Mrs. Tulliver never went the length of quarrelling with her, any\r
+more than a water-fowl that puts out its leg in a deprecating manner\r
+can be said to quarrel with a boy who throws stones. But this point of\r
+the dinner was a tender one, and not at all new, so that Mrs. Tulliver\r
+could make the same answer she had often made before.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Tulliver says he always _will_ have a good dinner for his friends\r
+while he can pay for it," she said; "and he's a right to do as he\r
+likes in his own house, sister."\r
+\r
+"Well, Bessy, _I_ can't leave your children enough out o' my savings\r
+to keep 'em from ruin. And you mustn't look to having any o' Mr.\r
+Glegg's money, for it's well if I don't go first,--he comes of a\r
+long-lived family; and if he was to die and leave me well for my life,\r
+he'd tie all the money up to go back to his own kin."\r
+\r
+The sound of wheels while Mrs. Glegg was speaking was an interruption\r
+highly welcome to Mrs. Tulliver, who hastened out to receive sister\r
+Pullet; it must be sister Pullet, because the sound was that of a\r
+four-wheel.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg tossed her head and looked rather sour about the mouth at\r
+the thought of the "four-wheel." She had a strong opinion on that\r
+subject.\r
+\r
+Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped before\r
+Mrs. Tulliver's door, and it was apparently requisite that she should\r
+shed a few more before getting out; for though her husband and Mrs.\r
+Tulliver stood ready to support her, she sat still and shook her head\r
+sadly, as she looked through her tears at the vague distance.\r
+\r
+"Why, whativer is the matter, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver. She was not\r
+an imaginative woman, but it occurred to her that the large\r
+toilet-glass in sister Pullet's best bedroom was possibly broken for\r
+the second time.\r
+\r
+There was no reply but a further shake of the head, as Mrs. Pullet\r
+slowly rose and got down from the chaise, not without casting a glance\r
+at Mr. Pullet to see that he was guarding her handsome silk dress from\r
+injury. Mr. Pullet was a small man, with a high nose, small twinkling\r
+eyes, and thin lips, in a fresh-looking suit of black and a white\r
+cravat, that seemed to have been tied very tight on some higher\r
+principle than that of mere personal ease. He bore about the same\r
+relation to his tall, good-looking wife, with her balloon sleeves,\r
+abundant mantle, and a large befeathered and beribboned bonnet, as a\r
+small fishing-smack bears to a brig with all its sails spread.\r
+\r
+It is a pathetic sight and a striking example of the complexity\r
+introduced into the emotions by a high state of civilization, the\r
+sight of a fashionably dressed female in grief. From the sorrow of a\r
+Hottentot to that of a woman in large buckram sleeves, with several\r
+bracelets on each arm, an architectural bonnet, and delicate ribbon\r
+strings, what a long series of gradations! In the enlightened child of\r
+civilization the abandonment characteristic of grief is checked and\r
+varied in the subtlest manner, so as to present an interesting problem\r
+to the analytic mind. If, with a crushed heart and eyes half blinded\r
+by the mist of tears, she were to walk with a too-devious step through\r
+a door-place, she might crush her buckram sleeves too, and the deep\r
+consciousness of this possibility produces a composition of forces by\r
+which she takes a line that just clears the door-post. Perceiving that\r
+the tears are hurrying fast, she unpins her strings and throws them\r
+languidly backward, a touching gesture, indicative, even in the\r
+deepest gloom, of the hope in future dry moments when cap-strings will\r
+once more have a charm. As the tears subside a little, and with her\r
+head leaning backward at the angle that will not injure her bonnet,\r
+she endures that terrible moment when grief, which has made all things\r
+else a weariness, has itself become weary; she looks down pensively at\r
+her bracelets, and adjusts their clasps with that pretty studied\r
+fortuity which would be gratifying to her mind if it were once more in\r
+a calm and healthy state.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet brushed each door-post with great nicety, about the\r
+latitude of her shoulders (at that period a woman was truly ridiculous\r
+to an instructed eye if she did not measure a yard and a half across\r
+the shoulders), and having done that sent the muscles of her face in\r
+quest of fresh tears as she advanced into the parlor where Mrs. Glegg\r
+was seated.\r
+\r
+"Well, sister, you're late; what's the matter?" said Mrs. Glegg,\r
+rather sharply, as they shook hands.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully behind, before\r
+she answered,--\r
+\r
+"She's gone," unconsciously using an impressive figure of rhetoric.\r
+\r
+"It isn't the glass this time, then," thought Mrs. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"Died the day before yesterday," continued Mrs. Pullet; "an' her legs\r
+was as thick as my body,"' she added, with deep sadness, after a\r
+pause. "They'd tapped her no end o' times, and the water--they say you\r
+might ha' swum in it, if you'd liked."\r
+\r
+"Well, Sophy, it's a mercy she's gone, then, whoever she may be," said\r
+Mrs. Glegg, with the promptitude and emphasis of a mind naturally\r
+clear and decided; "but I can't think who you're talking of, for my\r
+part."\r
+\r
+"But _I_ know," said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and shaking her head; "and\r
+there isn't another such a dropsy in the parish. _I_ know as it's old\r
+Mrs. Sutton o' the Twentylands."\r
+\r
+"Well, she's no kin o' yours, nor much acquaintance as I've ever\r
+heared of," said Mrs. Glegg, who always cried just as much as was\r
+proper when anything happened to her own "kin," but not on other\r
+occasions.\r
+\r
+"She's so much acquaintance as I've seen her legs when they was like\r
+bladders. And an old lady as had doubled her money over and over\r
+again, and kept it all in her own management to the last, and had her\r
+pocket with her keys in under her pillow constant. There isn't many\r
+old _par_ish'ners like her, I doubt."\r
+\r
+"And they say she'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a wagon," observed\r
+Mr. Pullet.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Pullet, "she'd another complaint ever so many years\r
+before she had the dropsy, and the doctors couldn't make out what it\r
+was. And she said to me, when I went to see her last Christmas, she\r
+said, 'Mrs. Pullet, if ever you have the dropsy, you'll think o' me.'\r
+She _did_ say so," added Mrs. Pullet, beginning to cry bitterly again;\r
+"those were her very words. And she's to be buried o' Saturday, and\r
+Pullet's bid to the funeral."\r
+\r
+"Sophy," said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her spirit of\r
+rational remonstrance,--"Sophy, I wonder _at_ you, fretting and\r
+injuring your health about people as don't belong to you. Your poor\r
+father never did so, nor your aunt Frances neither, nor any o' the\r
+family as I ever heard of. You couldn't fret no more than this, if\r
+we'd heared as our cousin Abbott had died sudden without making his\r
+will."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet was silent, having to finish her crying, and rather\r
+flattered than indignant at being upbraided for crying too much. It\r
+was not everybody who could afford to cry so much about their\r
+neighbors who had left them nothing; but Mrs. Pullet had married a\r
+gentleman farmer, and had leisure and money to carry her crying and\r
+everything else to the highest pitch of respectability.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Sutton didn't die without making her will, though," said Mr.\r
+Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying something to sanction\r
+his wife's tears; "ours is a rich parish, but they say there's nobody\r
+else to leave as many thousands behind 'em as Mrs. Sutton. And she's\r
+left no leggicies to speak on,--left it all in a lump to her husband's\r
+nevvy."\r
+\r
+"There wasn't much good i' being so rich, then," said Mrs. Glegg, "if\r
+she'd got none but husband's kin to leave it to. It's poor work when\r
+that's all you've got to pinch yourself for. Not as I'm one o' those\r
+as 'ud like to die without leaving more money out at interest than\r
+other folks had reckoned; but it's a poor tale when it must go out o'\r
+your own family."\r
+\r
+"I'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Pullet, who had recovered sufficiently\r
+to take off her veil and fold it carefully, "it's a nice sort o' man\r
+as Mrs. Sutton has left her money to, for he's troubled with the\r
+asthmy, and goes to bed every night at eight o'clock. He told me about\r
+it himself--as free as could be--one Sunday when he came to our\r
+church. He wears a hareskin on his chest, and has a trembling in his\r
+talk,--quite a gentleman sort o' man. I told him there wasn't many\r
+months in the year as I wasn't under the doctor's hands. And he said,\r
+'Mrs. Pullet, I can feel for you.' That was what he said,--the very\r
+words. Ah!" sighed Mrs. Pullet, shaking her head at the idea that\r
+there were but few who could enter fully into her experiences in pink\r
+mixture and white mixture, strong stuff in small bottles, and weak\r
+stuff in large bottles, damp boluses at a shilling, and draughts at\r
+eighteenpence. "Sister, I may as well go and take my bonnet off now.\r
+Did you see as the cap-box was put out?" she added, turning to her\r
+husband.\r
+\r
+Mr. Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had forgotten it, and\r
+hastened out, with a stricken conscience, to remedy the omission.\r
+\r
+"They'll bring it upstairs, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, wishing to go\r
+at once, lest Mrs. Glegg should begin to explain her feelings about\r
+Sophy's being the first Dodson who ever ruined her constitution with\r
+doctor's stuff.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was fond of going upstairs with her sister Pullet, and\r
+looking thoroughly at her cap before she put it on her head, and\r
+discussing millinery in general. This was part of Bessy's weakness\r
+that stirred Mrs. Glegg's sisterly compassion: Bessy went far too well\r
+dressed, considering; and she was too proud to dress her child in the\r
+good clothing her sister Glegg gave her from the primeval strata of\r
+her wardrobe; it was a sin and a shame to buy anything to dress that\r
+child, if it wasn't a pair of shoes. In this particular, however, Mrs.\r
+Glegg did her sister Bessy some injustice, for Mrs. Tulliver had\r
+really made great efforts to induce Maggie to wear a leghorn bonnet\r
+and a dyed silk frock made out of her aunt Glegg's, but the results\r
+had been such that Mrs. Tulliver was obliged to bury them in her\r
+maternal bosom; for Maggie, declaring that the frock smelt of nasty\r
+dye, had taken an opportunity of basting it together with the roast\r
+beef the first Sunday she wore it, and finding this scheme answer, she\r
+had subsequently pumped on the bonnet with its green ribbons, so as to\r
+give it a general resemblance to a sage cheese garnished with withered\r
+lettuces. I must urge in excuse for Maggie, that Tom had laughed at\r
+her in the bonnet, and said she looked like an old Judy. Aunt Pullet,\r
+too, made presents of clothes, but these were always pretty enough to\r
+please Maggie as well as her mother. Of all her sisters, Mrs. Tulliver\r
+certainly preferred her sister Pullet, not without a return of\r
+preference; but Mrs. Pullet was sorry Bessy had those naughty, awkward\r
+children; she would do the best she could by them, but it was a pity\r
+they weren't as good and as pretty as sister Deane's child. Maggie and\r
+Tom, on their part, thought their aunt Pullet tolerable, chiefly\r
+because she was not their aunt Glegg. Tom always declined to go more\r
+than once during his holidays to see either of them. Both his uncles\r
+tipped him that once, of course; but at his aunt Pullet's there were a\r
+great many toads to pelt in the cellar-area, so that he preferred the\r
+visit to her. Maggie shuddered at the toads, and dreamed of them\r
+horribly, but she liked her uncle Pullet's musical snuff-box. Still,\r
+it was agreed by the sisters, in Mrs. Tulliver's absence, that the\r
+Tulliver blood did not mix well with the Dodson blood; that, in fact,\r
+poor Bessy's children were Tullivers, and that Tom, notwithstanding he\r
+had the Dodson complexion, was likely to be as "contrairy" as his\r
+father. As for Maggie, she was the picture of her aunt Moss, Mr.\r
+Tulliver's sister,--a large-boned woman, who had married as poorly as\r
+could be; had no china, and had a husband who had much ado to pay his\r
+rent. But when Mrs. Pullet was alone with Mrs. Tulliver upstairs, the\r
+remarks were naturally to the disadvantage of Mrs. Glegg, and they\r
+agreed, in confidence, that there was no knowing what sort of fright\r
+sister Jane would come out next. But their _tête-à-tête_ was curtailed\r
+by the appearance of Mrs. Deane with little Lucy; and Mrs. Tulliver\r
+had to look on with a silent pang while Lucy's blond curls were\r
+adjusted. It was quite unaccountable that Mrs. Deane, the thinnest and\r
+sallowest of all the Miss Dodsons, should have had this child, who\r
+might have been taken for Mrs. Tulliver's any day. And Maggie always\r
+looked twice as dark as usual when she was by the side of Lucy.\r
+\r
+She did to-day, when she and Tom came in from the garden with their\r
+father and their uncle Glegg. Maggie had thrown her bonnet off very\r
+carelessly, and coming in with her hair rough as well as out of curl,\r
+rushed at once to Lucy, who was standing by her mother's knee.\r
+Certainly the contrast between the cousins was conspicuous, and to\r
+superficial eyes was very much to the disadvantage of Maggie though a\r
+connoisseur might have seen "points" in her which had a higher promise\r
+for maturity than Lucy's natty completeness. It was like the contrast\r
+between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten. Lucy put up\r
+the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed; everything about her\r
+was neat,--her little round neck, with the row of coral beads; her\r
+little straight nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows,\r
+rather darker than her curls, to match hazel eyes, which looked up\r
+with shy pleasure at Maggie, taller by the head, though scarcely a\r
+year older. Maggie always looked at Lucy with delight.\r
+\r
+She was fond of fancying a world where the people never got any larger\r
+than children of their own age, and she made the queen of it just like\r
+Lucy, with a little crown on her head, and a little sceptre in her\r
+hand--only the queen was Maggie herself in Lucy's form.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Lucy," she burst out, after kissing her, "you'll stay with Tom\r
+and me, won't you? Oh, kiss her, Tom."\r
+\r
+Tom, too, had come up to Lucy, but he was not going to kiss her--no;\r
+he came up to her with Maggie, because it seemed easier, on the whole,\r
+than saying, "How do you do?" to all those aunts and uncles. He stood\r
+looking at nothing in particular, with the blushing, awkward air and\r
+semi-smile which are common to shy boys when in company,--very much as\r
+if they had come into the world by mistake, and found it in a degree\r
+of undress that was quite embarrassing.\r
+\r
+"Heyday!" said aunt Glegg, with loud emphasis. "Do little boys and\r
+gells come into a room without taking notice of their uncles and\r
+aunts? That wasn't the way when _I_ was a little gell."\r
+\r
+"Go and speak to your aunts and uncles, my dears," said Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+looking anxious and melancholy. She wanted to whisper to Maggie a\r
+command to go and have her hair brushed.\r
+\r
+"Well, and how do you do? And I hope you're good children, are you?"\r
+said Aunt Glegg, in the same loud, emphatic way, as she took their\r
+hands, hurting them with her large rings, and kissing their cheeks\r
+much against their desire. "Look up, Tom, look up. Boys as go to\r
+boarding-schools should hold their heads up. Look at me now." Tom\r
+declined that pleasure apparently, for he tried to draw his hand away.\r
+"Put your hair behind your ears, Maggie, and keep your frock on your\r
+shoulder."\r
+\r
+Aunt Glegg always spoke to them in this loud, emphatic way, as if she\r
+considered them deaf, or perhaps rather idiotic; it was a means, she\r
+thought, of making them feel that they were accountable creatures, and\r
+might be a salutary check on naughty tendencies. Bessy's children were\r
+so spoiled--they'd need have somebody to make them feel their duty.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dears," said aunt Pullet, in a compassionate voice, "you\r
+grow wonderful fast. I doubt they'll outgrow their strength," she\r
+added, looking over their heads, with a melancholy expression, at\r
+their mother. "I think the gell has too much hair. I'd have it thinned\r
+and cut shorter, sister, if I was you; it isn't good for her health.\r
+It's that as makes her skin so brown, I shouldn't wonder. Don't you\r
+think so, sister Deane?"\r
+\r
+"I can't say, I'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Deane, shutting her lips\r
+close again, and looking at Maggie with a critical eye.\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, "the child's healthy enough; there's\r
+nothing ails her. There's red wheat as well as white, for that matter,\r
+and some like the dark grain best. But it 'ud be as well if Bessy 'ud\r
+have the child's hair cut, so as it 'ud lie smooth."\r
+\r
+A dreadful resolve was gathering in Maggie's breast, but it was\r
+arrested by the desire to know from her aunt Deane whether she would\r
+leave Lucy behind. Aunt Deane would hardly ever let Lucy come to see\r
+them. After various reasons for refusal, Mrs. Deane appealed to Lucy\r
+herself.\r
+\r
+"You wouldn't like to stay behind without mother, should you, Lucy?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, please, mother," said Lucy, timidly, blushing very pink all over\r
+her little neck.\r
+\r
+"Well done, Lucy! Let her stay, Mrs. Deane, let her stay," said Mr.\r
+Deane, a large but alert-looking man, with a type of _physique_ to be\r
+seen in all ranks of English society,--bald crown, red whiskers, full\r
+forehead, and general solidity without heaviness. You may see noblemen\r
+like Mr. Deane, and you may see grocers or day-laborers like him; but\r
+the keenness of his brown eyes was less common than his contour.\r
+\r
+He held a silver snuff-box very tightly in his hand, and now and then\r
+exchanged a pinch with Mr. Tulliver, whose box was only\r
+silver-mounted, so that it was naturally a joke between them that Mr.\r
+Tulliver wanted to exchange snuff-boxes also. Mr. Deane's box had been\r
+given him by the superior partners in the firm to which he belonged,\r
+at the same time that they gave him a share in the business, in\r
+acknowledgment of his valuable services as manager. No man was thought\r
+more highly of in St. Ogg's than Mr. Deane; and some persons were even\r
+of opinion that Miss Susan Dodson, who was once held to have made the\r
+worst match of all the Dodson sisters, might one day ride in a better\r
+carriage, and live in a better house, even than her sister Pullet.\r
+There was no knowing where a man would stop, who had got his foot into\r
+a great mill-owning, shipowning business like that of Guest & Co.,\r
+with a banking concern attached. And Mrs. Deane, as her intimate\r
+female friends observed, was proud and "having" enough; _she_ wouldn't\r
+let her husband stand still in the world for want of spurring.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," said Mrs. Tulliver, beckoning Maggie to her, and whispering\r
+in her ear, as soon as this point of Lucy's staying was settled, "go\r
+and get your hair brushed, do, for shame. I told you not to come in\r
+without going to Martha first, you know I did."\r
+\r
+"Tom come out with me," whispered Maggie, pulling his sleeve as she\r
+passed him; and Tom followed willingly enough.\r
+\r
+"Come upstairs with me, Tom," she whispered, when they were outside\r
+the door. "There's something I want to do before dinner."\r
+\r
+"There's no time to play at anything before dinner," said Tom, whose\r
+imagination was impatient of any intermediate prospect.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, there is time for this; _do_ come, Tom."\r
+\r
+Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother's room, and saw her go at\r
+once to a drawer, from which she took out a large pair of scissors.\r
+\r
+"What are they for, Maggie?" said Tom, feeling his curiosity awakened.\r
+\r
+Maggie answered by seizing her front locks and cutting them straight\r
+across the middle of her forehead.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my buttons! Maggie, you'll catch it!" exclaimed Tom; "you'd\r
+better not cut any more off."\r
+\r
+Snip! went the great scissors again while Tom was speaking, and he\r
+couldn't help feeling it was rather good fun; Maggie would look so\r
+queer.\r
+\r
+"Here, Tom, cut it behind for me," said Maggie, excited by her own\r
+daring, and anxious to finish the deed.\r
+\r
+"You'll catch it, you know," said Tom, nodding his head in an\r
+admonitory manner, and hesitating a little as he took the scissors.\r
+\r
+"Never mind, make haste!" said Maggie, giving a little stamp with her\r
+foot. Her cheeks were quite flushed.\r
+\r
+The black locks were so thick, nothing could be more tempting to a lad\r
+who had already tasted the forbidden pleasure of cutting the pony's\r
+mane. I speak to those who know the satisfaction of making a pair of\r
+scissors meet through a duly resisting mass of hair. One delicious\r
+grinding snip, and then another and another, and the hinder-locks fell\r
+heavily on the floor, and Maggie stood cropped in a jagged, uneven\r
+manner, but with a sense of clearness and freedom, as if she had\r
+emerged from a wood into the open plain.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Maggie," said Tom, jumping round her, and slapping his knees as\r
+he laughed, "Oh, my buttons! what a queer thing you look! Look at\r
+yourself in the glass; you look like the idiot we throw out nutshells\r
+to at school."\r
+\r
+Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly at\r
+her own deliverance from her teasing hair and teasing remarks about\r
+it, and something also of the triumph she should have over her mother\r
+and her aunts by this very decided course of action; she didn't want\r
+her hair to look pretty,--that was out of the question,--she only\r
+wanted people to think her a clever little girl, and not to find fault\r
+with her. But now, when Tom began to laugh at her, and say she was\r
+like an idiot, the affair had quite a new aspect. She looked in the\r
+glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his hands, and Maggie's\r
+cheeks began to pale, and her lips to tremble a little.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Tom.\r
+"Oh, my!"\r
+\r
+"Don't laugh at me, Tom," said Maggie, in a passionate tone, with an\r
+outburst of angry tears, stamping, and giving him a push.\r
+\r
+"Now, then, spitfire!" said Tom. "What did you cut it off for, then? I\r
+shall go down: I can smell the dinner going in."\r
+\r
+He hurried downstairs and left poor Maggie to that bitter sense of the\r
+irrevocable which was almost an every-day experience of her small\r
+soul. She could see clearly enough, now the thing was done, that it\r
+was very foolish, and that she should have to hear and think more\r
+about her hair than ever; for Maggie rushed to her deeds with\r
+passionate impulse, and then saw not only their consequences, but what\r
+would have happened if they had not been done, with all the detail and\r
+exaggerated circumstance of an active imagination. Tom never did the\r
+same sort of foolish things as Maggie, having a wonderful instinctive\r
+discernment of what would turn to his advantage or disadvantage; and\r
+so it happened, that though he was much more wilful and inflexible\r
+than Maggie, his mother hardly ever called him naughty. But if Tom did\r
+make a mistake of that sort, he espoused it, and stood by it: he\r
+"didn't mind." If he broke the lash of his father's gigwhip by lashing\r
+the gate, he couldn't help it,--the whip shouldn't have got caught in\r
+the hinge. If Tom Tulliver whipped a gate, he was convinced, not that\r
+the whipping of gates by all boys was a justifiable act, but that he,\r
+Tom Tulliver, was justifiable in whipping that particular gate, and he\r
+wasn't going to be sorry. But Maggie, as she stood crying before the\r
+glass, felt it impossible that she should go down to dinner and endure\r
+the severe eyes and severe words of her aunts, while Tom and Lucy, and\r
+Martha, who waited at table, and perhaps her father and her uncles,\r
+would laugh at her; for if Tom had laughed at her, of course every one\r
+else would; and if she had only let her hair alone, she could have sat\r
+with Tom and Lucy, and had the apricot pudding and the custard! What\r
+could she do but sob? She sat as helpless and despairing among her\r
+black locks as Ajax among the slaughtered sheep. Very trivial,\r
+perhaps, this anguish seems to weather-worn mortals who have to think\r
+of Christmas bills, dead loves, and broken friendships; but it was not\r
+less bitter to Maggie--perhaps it was even more bitter--than what we\r
+are fond of calling antithetically the real troubles of mature life.\r
+"Ah, my child, you will have real troubles to fret about by and by,"\r
+is the consolation we have almost all of us had administered to us in\r
+our childhood, and have repeated to other children since we have been\r
+grown up. We have all of us sobbed so piteously, standing with tiny\r
+bare legs above our little socks, when we lost sight of our mother or\r
+nurse in some strange place; but we can no longer recall the poignancy\r
+of that moment and weep over it, as we do over the remembered\r
+sufferings of five or ten years ago. Every one of those keen moments\r
+has left its trace, and lives in us still, but such traces have blent\r
+themselves irrecoverably with the firmer texture of our youth and\r
+manhood; and so it comes that we can look on at the troubles of our\r
+children with a smiling disbelief in the reality of their pain. Is\r
+there any one who can recover the experience of his childhood, not\r
+merely with a memory _of_ what he did and what happened to him, of\r
+what he liked and disliked when he was in frock and trousers, but with\r
+an intimate penetration, a revived consciousness of what he felt then,\r
+when it was so long from one Midsummer to another; what he felt when\r
+his school fellows shut him out of their game because he would pitch\r
+the ball wrong out of mere wilfulness; or on a rainy day in the\r
+holidays, when he didn't know how to amuse himself, and fell from\r
+idleness into mischief, from mischief into defiance, and from defiance\r
+into sulkiness; or when his mother absolutely refused to let him have\r
+a tailed coat that "half," although every other boy of his age had\r
+gone into tails already? Surely if we could recall that early\r
+bitterness, and the dim guesses, the strangely perspectiveless\r
+conception of life, that gave the bitterness its intensity, we should\r
+not pooh-pooh the griefs of our children.\r
+\r
+"Miss Maggie, you're to come down this minute," said Kezia, entering\r
+the room hurriedly. "Lawks! what have you been a-doing? I never _see_\r
+such a fright!"\r
+\r
+"Don't, Kezia," said Maggie, angrily. "Go away!"\r
+\r
+"But I tell you you're to come down, Miss, this minute; your mother\r
+says so," said Kezia, going up to Maggie and taking her by the hand to\r
+raise her from the floor.\r
+\r
+"Get away, Kezia; I don't want any dinner," said Maggie, resisting\r
+Kezia's arm. "I sha'n't come."\r
+\r
+"Oh, well, I can't stay. I've got to wait at dinner," said Kezia,\r
+going out again.\r
+\r
+"Maggie, you little silly," said Tom, peeping into the room ten\r
+minutes after, "why don't you come and have your dinner? There's lots\r
+o' goodies, and mother says you're to come. What are you crying for,\r
+you little spooney?"\r
+\r
+Oh, it was dreadful! Tom was so hard and unconcerned; if _he_ had been\r
+crying on the floor, Maggie would have cried too. And there was the\r
+dinner, so nice; and she was _so_ hungry. It was very bitter.\r
+\r
+But Tom was not altogether hard. He was not inclined to cry, and did\r
+not feel that Maggie's grief spoiled his prospect of the sweets; but\r
+he went and put his head near her, and said in a lower, comforting\r
+tone,--\r
+\r
+"Won't you come, then, Magsie? Shall I bring you a bit o' pudding when\r
+I've had mine, and a custard and things?"\r
+\r
+"Ye-e-es," said Maggie, beginning to feel life a little more\r
+tolerable.\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Tom, going away. But he turned again at the door and\r
+said, "But you'd better come, you know. There's the dessert,--nuts,\r
+you know, and cowslip wine."\r
+\r
+Maggie's tears had ceased, and she looked reflective as Tom left her.\r
+His good nature had taken off the keenest edge of her suffering, and\r
+nuts with cowslip wine began to assert their legitimate influence.\r
+\r
+Slowly she rose from amongst her scattered locks, and slowly she made\r
+her way downstairs. Then she stood leaning with one shoulder against\r
+the frame of the dining-parlour door, peeping in when it was ajar. She\r
+saw Tom and Lucy with an empty chair between them, and there were the\r
+custards on a side-table; it was too much. She slipped in and went\r
+toward the empty chair. But she had no sooner sat down than she\r
+repented and wished herself back again.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver gave a little scream as she saw her, and felt such a\r
+"turn" that she dropped the large gravy-spoon into the dish, with the\r
+most serious results to the table-cloth. For Kezia had not betrayed\r
+the reason of Maggie's refusal to come down, not liking to give her\r
+mistress a shock in the moment of carving, and Mrs. Tulliver thought\r
+there was nothing worse in question than a fit of perverseness, which\r
+was inflicting its own punishment by depriving Maggie of half her\r
+dinner.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver's scream made all eyes turn towards the same point as\r
+her own, and Maggie's cheeks and ears began to burn, while uncle\r
+Glegg, a kind-looking, white-haired old gentleman, said,--\r
+\r
+"Heyday! what little gell's this? Why, I don't know her. Is it some\r
+little gell you've picked up in the road, Kezia?"\r
+\r
+"Why, she's gone and cut her hair herself," said Mr. Tulliver in an\r
+undertone to Mr. Deane, laughing with much enjoyment. Did you ever\r
+know such a little hussy as it is?"\r
+\r
+"Why, little miss, you've made yourself look very funny," said Uncle\r
+Pullet, and perhaps he never in his life made an observation which was\r
+felt to be so lacerating.\r
+\r
+"Fie, for shame!" said aunt Glegg, in her loudest, severest tone of\r
+reproof. "Little gells as cut their own hair should be whipped and fed\r
+on bread and water,--not come and sit down with their aunts and\r
+uncles."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay," said uncle Glegg, meaning to give a playful turn to this\r
+denunciation, "she must be sent to jail, I think, and they'll cut the\r
+rest of her hair off there, and make it all even."\r
+\r
+"She's more like a gypsy nor ever," said aunt Pullet, in a pitying\r
+tone; "it's very bad luck, sister, as the gell should be so brown; the\r
+boy's fair enough. I doubt it'll stand in her way i' life to be so\r
+brown."\r
+\r
+"She's a naughty child, as'll break her mother's heart," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes.\r
+\r
+Maggie seemed to be listening to a chorus of reproach and derision.\r
+Her first flush came from anger, which gave her a transient power of\r
+defiance, and Tom thought she was braving it out, supported by the\r
+recent appearance of the pudding and custard. Under this impression,\r
+he whispered, "Oh, my! Maggie, I told you you'd catch it." He meant to\r
+be friendly, but Maggie felt convinced that Tom was rejoicing in her\r
+ignominy. Her feeble power of defiance left her in an instant, her\r
+heart swelled, and getting up from her chair, she ran to her father,\r
+hid her face on his shoulder, and burst out into loud sobbing.\r
+\r
+"Come, come, my wench," said her father, soothingly, putting his arm\r
+round her, "never mind; you was i' the right to cut it off if it\r
+plagued you; give over crying; father'll take your part."\r
+\r
+Delicious words of tenderness! Maggie never forgot any of these\r
+moments when her father "took her part"; she kept them in her heart,\r
+and thought of them long years after, when every one else said that\r
+her father had done very ill by his children.\r
+\r
+"How your husband does spoil that child, Bessy!" said Mrs. Glegg, in a\r
+loud "aside," to Mrs. Tulliver. "It'll be the ruin of her, if you\r
+don't take care. _My_ father never brought his children up so, else we\r
+should ha' been a different sort o' family to what we are."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver's domestic sorrows seemed at this moment to have reached\r
+the point at which insensibility begins. She took no notice of her\r
+sister's remark, but threw back her capstrings and dispensed the\r
+pudding, in mute resignation.\r
+\r
+With the dessert there came entire deliverance for Maggie, for the\r
+children were told they might have their nuts and wine in the\r
+summer-house, since the day was so mild; and they scampered out among\r
+the budding bushes of the garden with the alacrity of small animals\r
+getting from under a burning glass.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver had her special reason for this permission: now the\r
+dinner was despatched, and every one's mind disengaged, it was the\r
+right moment to communicate Mr. Tulliver's intention concerning Tom,\r
+and it would be as well for Tom himself to be absent. The children\r
+were used to hear themselves talked of as freely as if they were\r
+birds, and could understand nothing, however they might stretch their\r
+necks and listen; but on this occasion Mrs. Tulliver manifested an\r
+unusual discretion, because she had recently had evidence that the\r
+going to school to a clergyman was a sore point with Tom, who looked\r
+at it as very much on a par with going to school to a constable. Mrs.\r
+Tulliver had a sighing sense that her husband would do as he liked,\r
+whatever sister Glegg said, or sister Pullet either; but at least they\r
+would not be able to say, if the thing turned out ill, that Bessy had\r
+fallen in with her husband's folly without letting her own friends\r
+know a word about it.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Tulliver," she said, interrupting her husband in his talk with\r
+Mr. Deane, "it's time now to tell the children's aunts and uncles what\r
+you're thinking of doing with Tom, isn't it?"\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Mr. Tulliver, rather sharply, "I've no objections to\r
+tell anybody what I mean to do with him. I've settled," he added,\r
+looking toward Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane,--"I've settled to send him to\r
+a Mr. Stelling, a parson, down at King's Lorton, there,--an uncommon\r
+clever fellow, I understand, as'll put him up to most things."\r
+\r
+There was a rustling demonstration of surprise in the company, such as\r
+you may have observed in a country congregation when they hear an\r
+allusion to their week-day affairs from the pulpit. It was equally\r
+astonishing to the aunts and uncles to find a parson introduced into\r
+Mr. Tulliver's family arrangements. As for uncle Pullet, he could\r
+hardly have been more thoroughly obfuscated if Mr. Tulliver had said\r
+that he was going to send Tom to the Lord Chancellor; for uncle Pullet\r
+belonged to that extinct class of British yeoman who, dressed in good\r
+broadcloth, paid high rates and taxes, went to church, and ate a\r
+particularly good dinner on Sunday, without dreaming that the British\r
+constitution in Church and State had a traceable origin any more than\r
+the solar system and the fixed stars.\r
+\r
+It is melancholy, but true, that Mr. Pullet had the most confused idea\r
+of a bishop as a sort of a baronet, who might or might not be a\r
+clergyman; and as the rector of his own parish was a man of high\r
+family and fortune, the idea that a clergyman could be a schoolmaster\r
+was too remote from Mr. Pullet's experience to be readily conceivable.\r
+I know it is difficult for people in these instructed times to believe\r
+in uncle Pullet's ignorance; but let them reflect on the remarkable\r
+results of a great natural faculty under favoring circumstances. And\r
+uncle Pullet had a great natural faculty for ignorance. He was the\r
+first to give utterance to his astonishment.\r
+\r
+"Why, what can you be going to send him to a parson for?" he said,\r
+with an amazed twinkling in his eyes, looking at Mr. Glegg and Mr.\r
+Deane, to see if they showed any signs of comprehension.\r
+\r
+"Why, because the parsons are the best schoolmasters, by what I can\r
+make out," said poor Mr. Tulliver, who, in the maze of this puzzling\r
+world, laid hold of any clue with great readiness and tenacity.\r
+"Jacobs at th' academy's no parson, and he's done very bad by the boy;\r
+and I made up my mind, if I send him to school again, it should be to\r
+somebody different to Jacobs. And this Mr. Stelling, by what I can\r
+make out, is the sort o' man I want. And I mean my boy to go to him at\r
+Midsummer," he concluded, in a tone of decision, tapping his snuff-box\r
+and taking a pinch.\r
+\r
+"You'll have to pay a swinging half-yearly bill, then, eh, Tulliver?\r
+The clergymen have highish notions, in general," said Mr. Deane,\r
+taking snuff vigorously, as he always did when wishing to maintain a\r
+neutral position.\r
+\r
+"What! do you think the parson'll teach him to know a good sample o'\r
+wheat when he sees it, neighbor Tulliver?" said Mr. Glegg, who was\r
+fond of his jest, and having retired from business, felt that it was\r
+not only allowable but becoming in him to take a playful view of\r
+things.\r
+\r
+"Why, you see, I've got a plan i' my head about Tom," said Mr.\r
+Tulliver, pausing after that statement and lifting up his glass.\r
+\r
+"Well, if I may be allowed to speak, and it's seldom as I am," said\r
+Mrs. Glegg, with a tone of bitter meaning, "I should like to know what\r
+good is to come to the boy by bringin' him up above his fortin."\r
+\r
+"Why," said Mr. Tulliver, not looking at Mrs. Glegg, but at the male\r
+part of his audience, "you see, I've made up my mind not to bring Tom\r
+up to my own business. I've had my thoughts about it all along, and I\r
+made up my mind by what I saw with Garnett and _his_ son. I mean to\r
+put him to some business as he can go into without capital, and I want\r
+to give him an eddication as he'll be even wi' the lawyers and folks,\r
+and put me up to a notion now an' then."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg emitted a long sort of guttural sound with closed lips,\r
+that smiled in mingled pity and scorn.\r
+\r
+"It 'ud be a fine deal better for some people," she said, after that\r
+introductory note, "if they'd let the lawyers alone."\r
+\r
+"Is he at the head of a grammar school, then, this clergyman, such as\r
+that at Market Bewley?" said Mr. Deane.\r
+\r
+"No, nothing of that," said Mr. Tulliver. "He won't take more than two\r
+or three pupils, and so he'll have the more time to attend to 'em, you\r
+know."\r
+\r
+"Ah, and get his eddication done the sooner; they can't learn much at\r
+a time when there's so many of 'em," said uncle Pullet, feeling that\r
+he was getting quite an insight into this difficult matter.\r
+\r
+"But he'll want the more pay, I doubt," said Mr. Glegg.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, a cool hundred a year, that's all," said Mr. Tulliver, with\r
+some pride at his own spirited course. "But then, you know, it's an\r
+investment; Tom's eddication 'ull be so much capital to him."\r
+\r
+"Ay, there's something in that," said Mr. Glegg. "Well well, neighbor\r
+Tulliver, you may be right, you may be right:\r
+\r
+ 'When land is gone and money's spent,\r
+ Then learning is most excellent.'\r
+\r
+"I remember seeing those two lines wrote on a window at Buxton. But us\r
+that have got no learning had better keep our money, eh, neighbor\r
+Pullet?" Mr. Glegg rubbed his knees, and looked very pleasant.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg, I wonder _at_ you," said his wife. "It's very unbecoming\r
+in a man o' your age and belongings."\r
+\r
+"What's unbecoming, Mrs. G.?" said Mr. Glegg, winking pleasantly at\r
+the company. "My new blue coat as I've got on?"\r
+\r
+"I pity your weakness, Mr. Glegg. I say it's unbecoming to be making a\r
+joke when you see your own kin going headlongs to ruin."\r
+\r
+"If you mean me by that," said Mr. Tulliver, considerably nettled,\r
+"you needn't trouble yourself to fret about me. I can manage my own\r
+affairs without troubling other folks."\r
+\r
+"Bless me!" said Mr. Deane, judiciously introducing a new idea, "why,\r
+now I come to think of it, somebody said Wakem was going to send _his_\r
+son--the deformed lad--to a clergyman, didn't they, Susan?" (appealing\r
+to his wife).\r
+\r
+"I can give no account of it, I'm sure," said Mrs. Deane, closing her\r
+lips very tightly again. Mrs. Deane was not a woman to take part in a\r
+scene where missiles were flying.\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Tulliver, speaking all the more cheerfully, that Mrs.\r
+Glegg might see he didn't mind her, "if Wakem thinks o' sending his\r
+son to a clergyman, depend on it I shall make no mistake i' sending\r
+Tom to one. Wakem's as big a scoundrel as Old Harry ever made, but he\r
+knows the length of every man's foot he's got to deal with. Ay, ay,\r
+tell me who's Wakem's butcher, and I'll tell you where to get your\r
+meat."\r
+\r
+"But lawyer Wakem's son's got a hump-back," said Mrs. Pullet, who felt\r
+as if the whole business had a funereal aspect; "it's more nat'ral to\r
+send _him_ to a clergyman."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Mr. Glegg, interpreting Mrs. Pullet's observation with\r
+erroneous plausibility, "you must consider that, neighbor Tulliver;\r
+Wakem's son isn't likely to follow any business. Wakem 'ull make a\r
+gentleman of him, poor fellow."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., in a tone which implied that her\r
+indignation would fizz and ooze a little, though she was determined to\r
+keep it corked up, "you'd far better hold your tongue. Mr. Tulliver\r
+doesn't want to know your opinion nor mine either. There's folks in\r
+the world as know better than everybody else."\r
+\r
+"Why, I should think that's you, if we're to trust your own tale,"\r
+said Mr. Tulliver, beginning to boil up again.\r
+\r
+"Oh, _I_ say nothing," said Mrs. Glegg, sarcastically. "My advice has\r
+never been asked, and I don't give it."\r
+\r
+"It'll be the first time, then," said Mr. Tulliver. "It's the only\r
+thing you're over-ready at giving."\r
+\r
+"I've been over-ready at lending, then, if I haven't been over-ready\r
+at giving," said Mrs. Glegg. "There's folks I've lent money to, as\r
+perhaps I shall repent o' lending money to kin."\r
+\r
+"Come, come, come," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly. But Mr. Tulliver was\r
+not to be hindered of his retort.\r
+\r
+"You've got a bond for it, I reckon," he said; "and you've had your\r
+five per cent, kin or no kin."\r
+\r
+"Sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, pleadingly, "drink your wine, and let me\r
+give you some almonds and raisins."\r
+\r
+"Bessy, I'm sorry for you," said Mrs. Glegg, very much with the\r
+feeling of a cur that seizes the opportunity of diverting his bark\r
+toward the man who carries no stick. "It's poor work talking o'\r
+almonds and raisins."\r
+\r
+"Lors, sister Glegg, don't be so quarrelsome," said Mrs. Pullet,\r
+beginning to cry a little. "You may be struck with a fit, getting so\r
+red in the face after dinner, and we are but just out o' mourning, all\r
+of us,--and all wi' gowns craped alike and just put by; it's very bad\r
+among sisters."\r
+\r
+"I should think it _is_ bad," said Mrs. Glegg. "Things are come to a\r
+fine pass when one sister invites the other to her house o' purpose to\r
+quarrel with her and abuse her."\r
+\r
+"Softly, softly, Jane; be reasonable, be reasonable," said Mr. Glegg.\r
+\r
+But while he was speaking, Mr. Tulliver, who had by no means said\r
+enough to satisfy his anger, burst out again.\r
+\r
+"Who wants to quarrel with you?" he said. "It's you as can't let\r
+people alone, but must be gnawing at 'em forever. _I_ should never\r
+want to quarrel with any woman if she kept her place."\r
+\r
+"My place, indeed!" said Mrs. Glegg, getting rather more shrill.\r
+"There's your betters, Mr. Tulliver, as are dead and in their grave,\r
+treated me with a different sort o' respect to what you do; _though_\r
+I've got a husband as'll sit by and see me abused by them as 'ud never\r
+ha' had the chance if there hadn't been them in our family as married\r
+worse than they might ha' done."\r
+\r
+"If you talk o' that," said Mr. Tulliver, "my family's as good as\r
+yours, and better, for it hasn't got a damned ill-tempered woman in\r
+it!"\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mrs. Glegg, rising from her chair, "I don't know whether\r
+you think it's a fine thing to sit by and hear me swore at, Mr. Glegg;\r
+but I'm not going to stay a minute longer in this house. You can stay\r
+behind, and come home with the gig, and I'll walk home."\r
+\r
+"Dear heart, dear heart!" said Mr. Glegg in a melancholy tone, as he\r
+followed his wife out of the room.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Tulliver, how could you talk so?" said Mrs. Tulliver, with the\r
+tears in her eyes.\r
+\r
+"Let her go," said Mr. Tulliver, too hot to be damped by any amount of\r
+tears. "Let her go, and the sooner the better; she won't be trying to\r
+domineer over _me_ again in a hurry."\r
+\r
+"Sister Pullet," said Mrs. Tulliver, helplessly, "do you think it 'ud\r
+be any use for you to go after her and try to pacify her?"\r
+\r
+"Better not, better not," said Mr. Deane. "You'll make it up another\r
+day."\r
+\r
+"Then, sisters, shall we go and look at the children?" said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, drying her eyes.\r
+\r
+No proposition could have been more seasonable. Mr. Tulliver felt very\r
+much as if the air had been cleared of obtrusive flies now the women\r
+were out of the room. There were few things he liked better than a\r
+chat with Mr. Deane, whose close application to business allowed the\r
+pleasure very rarely. Mr. Deane, he considered, was the "knowingest"\r
+man of his acquaintance, and he had besides a ready causticity of\r
+tongue that made an agreeable supplement to Mr. Tulliver's own\r
+tendency that way, which had remained in rather an inarticulate\r
+condition. And now the women were gone, they could carry on their\r
+serious talk without frivolous interruption. They could exchange their\r
+views concerning the Duke of Wellington, whose conduct in the Catholic\r
+Question had thrown such an entirely new light on his character; and\r
+speak slightingly of his conduct at the battle of Waterloo, which he\r
+would never have won if there hadn't been a great many Englishmen at\r
+his back, not to speak of Blucher and the Prussians, who, as Mr.\r
+Tulliver had heard from a person of particular knowledge in that\r
+matter, had come up in the very nick of time; though here there was a\r
+slight dissidence, Mr. Deane remarking that he was not disposed to\r
+give much credit to the Prussians,--the build of their vessels,\r
+together with the unsatisfactory character of transactions in Dantzic\r
+beer, inclining him to form rather a low view of Prussian pluck\r
+generally. Rather beaten on this ground, Mr. Tulliver proceeded to\r
+express his fears that the country could never again be what it used\r
+to be; but Mr. Deane, attached to a firm of which the returns were on\r
+the increase, naturally took a more lively view of the present, and\r
+had some details to give concerning the state of the imports,\r
+especially in hides and spelter, which soothed Mr. Tulliver's\r
+imagination by throwing into more distant perspective the period when\r
+the country would become utterly the prey of Papists and Radicals, and\r
+there would be no more chance for honest men.\r
+\r
+Uncle Pullet sat by and listened with twinkling eyes to these high\r
+matters. He didn't understand politics himself,--thought they were a\r
+natural gift,--but by what he could make out, this Duke of Wellington\r
+was no better than he should be.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VIII\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side\r
+\r
+\r
+"Suppose sister Glegg should call her money in; it 'ud be very awkward\r
+for you to have to raise five hundred pounds now," said Mrs. Tulliver\r
+to her husband that evening, as she took a plaintive review of the\r
+day.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver had lived thirteen years with her husband, yet she\r
+retained in all the freshness of her early married life a facility of\r
+saying things which drove him in the opposite direction to the one she\r
+desired. Some minds are wonderful for keeping their bloom in this way,\r
+as a patriarchal goldfish apparently retains to the last its youthful\r
+illusion that it can swim in a straight line beyond the encircling\r
+glass. Mrs. Tulliver was an amiable fish of this kind, and after\r
+running her head against the same resisting medium for thirteen years\r
+would go at it again to-day with undulled alacrity.\r
+\r
+This observation of hers tended directly to convince Mr. Tulliver that\r
+it would not be at all awkward for him to raise five hundred pounds;\r
+and when Mrs. Tulliver became rather pressing to know _how_ he would\r
+raise it without mortgaging the mill and the house which he had said\r
+he never _would_ mortgage, since nowadays people were none so ready to\r
+lend money without security, Mr. Tulliver, getting warm, declared that\r
+Mrs. Glegg might do as she liked about calling in her money, he should\r
+pay it in whether or not. He was not going to be beholden to his\r
+wife's sisters. When a man had married into a family where there was a\r
+whole litter of women, he might have plenty to put up with if he\r
+chose. But Mr. Tulliver did _not_ choose.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver cried a little in a trickling, quiet way as she put on\r
+her nightcap; but presently sank into a comfortable sleep, lulled by\r
+the thought that she would talk everything over with her sister Pullet\r
+to-morrow, when she was to take the children to Garum Firs to tea. Not\r
+that she looked forward to any distinct issue from that talk; but it\r
+seemed impossible that past events should be so obstinate as to remain\r
+unmodified when they were complained against.\r
+\r
+Her husband lay awake rather longer, for he too was thinking of a\r
+visit he would pay on the morrow; and his ideas on the subject were\r
+not of so vague and soothing a kind as those of his amiable partner.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver, when under the influence of a strong feeling, had a\r
+promptitude in action that may seem inconsistent with that painful\r
+sense of the complicated, puzzling nature of human affairs under which\r
+his more dispassionate deliberations were conducted; but it is really\r
+not improbable that there was a direct relation between these\r
+apparently contradictory phenomena, since I have observed that for\r
+getting a strong impression that a skein is tangled there is nothing\r
+like snatching hastily at a single thread. It was owing to this\r
+promptitude that Mr. Tulliver was on horseback soon after dinner the\r
+next day (he was not dyspeptic) on his way to Basset to see his sister\r
+Moss and her husband. For having made up his mind irrevocably that he\r
+would pay Mrs. Glegg her loan of five hundred pounds, it naturally\r
+occurred to him that he had a promissory note for three hundred pounds\r
+lent to his brother-in-law Moss; and if the said brother-in-law could\r
+manage to pay in the money within a given time, it would go far to\r
+lessen the fallacious air of inconvenience which Mr. Tulliver's\r
+spirited step might have worn in the eyes of weak people who require\r
+to know precisely _how_ a thing is to be done before they are strongly\r
+confident that it will be easy.\r
+\r
+For Mr. Tulliver was in a position neither new nor striking, but, like\r
+other every-day things, sure to have a cumulative effect that will be\r
+felt in the long run: he was held to be a much more substantial man\r
+than he really was. And as we are all apt to believe what the world\r
+believes about us, it was his habit to think of failure and ruin with\r
+the same sort of remote pity with which a spare, long-necked man hears\r
+that his plethoric short-necked neighbor is stricken with apoplexy. He\r
+had been always used to hear pleasant jokes about his advantages as a\r
+man who worked his own mill, and owned a pretty bit of land; and these\r
+jokes naturally kept up his sense that he was a man of considerable\r
+substance. They gave a pleasant flavor to his glass on a market-day,\r
+and if it had not been for the recurrence of half-yearly payments, Mr.\r
+Tulliver would really have forgotten that there was a mortgage of two\r
+thousand pounds on his very desirable freehold. That was not\r
+altogether his own fault, since one of the thousand pounds was his\r
+sister's fortune, which he had to pay on her marriage; and a man who\r
+has neighbors that _will_ go to law with him is not likely to pay off\r
+his mortgages, especially if he enjoys the good opinion of\r
+acquaintances who want to borrow a hundred pounds on security too\r
+lofty to be represented by parchment. Our friend Mr. Tulliver had a\r
+good-natured fibre in him, and did not like to give harsh refusals\r
+even to his sister, who had not only come in to the world in that\r
+superfluous way characteristic of sisters, creating a necessity for\r
+mortgages, but had quite thrown herself away in marriage, and had\r
+crowned her mistakes by having an eighth baby. On this point Mr.\r
+Tulliver was conscious of being a little weak; but he apologized to\r
+himself by saying that poor Gritty had been a good-looking wench\r
+before she married Moss; he would sometimes say this even with a\r
+slight tremulousness in his voice. But this morning he was in a mood\r
+more becoming a man of business, and in the course of his ride along\r
+the Basset lanes, with their deep ruts,--lying so far away from a\r
+market-town that the labor of drawing produce and manure was enough to\r
+take away the best part of the profits on such poor land as that\r
+parish was made of,--he got up a due amount of irritation against Moss\r
+as a man without capital, who, if murrain and blight were abroad, was\r
+sure to have his share of them, and who, the more you tried to help\r
+him out of the mud, would sink the further in. It would do him good\r
+rather than harm, now, if he were obliged to raise this three hundred\r
+pounds; it would make him look about him better, and not act so\r
+foolishly about his wool this year as he did the last; in fact, Mr.\r
+Tulliver had been too easy with his brother-in-law, and because he had\r
+let the interest run on for two years, Moss was likely enough to think\r
+that he should never be troubled about the principal. But Mr. Tulliver\r
+was determined not to encourage such shuffling people any longer; and\r
+a ride along the Basset lanes was not likely to enervate a man's\r
+resolution by softening his temper. The deep-trodden hoof-marks, made\r
+in the muddiest days of winter, gave him a shake now and then which\r
+suggested a rash but stimulating snarl at the father of lawyers, who,\r
+whether by means of his hoof or otherwise, had doubtless something to\r
+do with this state of the roads; and the abundance of foul land and\r
+neglected fences that met his eye, though they made no part of his\r
+brother Moss's farm, strongly contributed to his dissatisfaction with\r
+that unlucky agriculturist. If this wasn't Moss's fallow, it might\r
+have been; Basset was all alike; it was a beggarly parish, in Mr.\r
+Tulliver's opinion, and his opinion was certainly not groundless.\r
+Basset had a poor soil, poor roads, a poor non-resident landlord, a\r
+poor non-resident vicar, and rather less than half a curate, also\r
+poor. If any one strongly impressed with the power of the human mind\r
+to triumph over circumstances will contend that the parishioners of\r
+Basset might nevertheless have been a very superior class of people, I\r
+have nothing to urge against that abstract proposition; I only know\r
+that, in point of fact, the Basset mind was in strict keeping with its\r
+circumstances. The muddy lanes, green or clayey, that seemed to the\r
+unaccustomed eye to lead nowhere but into each other, did really lead,\r
+with patience, to a distant high-road; but there were many feet in\r
+Basset which they led more frequently to a centre of dissipation,\r
+spoken of formerly as the "Markis o' Granby," but among intimates as\r
+"Dickison's." A large low room with a sanded floor; a cold scent of\r
+tobacco, modified by undetected beer-dregs; Mr. Dickison leaning\r
+against the door-post with a melancholy pimpled face, looking as\r
+irrelevant to the daylight as a last night's guttered candle,--all\r
+this may not seem a very seductive form of temptation; but the\r
+majority of men in Basset found it fatally alluring when encountered\r
+on their road toward four o'clock on a wintry afternoon; and if any\r
+wife in Basset wished to indicate that her husband was not a\r
+pleasure-seeking man, she could hardly do it more emphatically than by\r
+saying that he didn't spend a shilling at Dickison's from one\r
+Whitsuntide to another. Mrs. Moss had said so of _her_ husband more\r
+than once, when her brother was in a mood to find fault with him, as\r
+he certainly was to-day. And nothing could be less pacifying to Mr.\r
+Tulliver than the behavior of the farmyard gate, which he no sooner\r
+attempted to push open with his riding-stick than it acted as gates\r
+without the upper hinge are known to do, to the peril of shins,\r
+whether equine or human. He was about to get down and lead his horse\r
+through the damp dirt of the hollow farmyard, shadowed drearily by the\r
+large half-timbered buildings, up to the long line of tumble-down\r
+dwelling-houses standing on a raised causeway; but the timely\r
+appearance of a cowboy saved him that frustration of a plan he had\r
+determined on,--namely, not to get down from his horse during this\r
+visit. If a man means to be hard, let him keep in his saddle and speak\r
+from that height, above the level of pleading eyes, and with the\r
+command of a distant horizon. Mrs. Moss heard the sound of the horse's\r
+feet, and, when her brother rode up, was already outside the kitchen\r
+door, with a half-weary smile on her face, and a black-eyed baby in\r
+her arms. Mrs. Moss's face bore a faded resemblance to her brother's;\r
+baby's little fat hand, pressed against her cheek, seemed to show more\r
+strikingly that the cheek was faded.\r
+\r
+"Brother, I'm glad to see you," she said, in an affectionate tone. "I\r
+didn't look for you to-day. How do you do?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, pretty well, Mrs. Moss, pretty well," answered the brother, with\r
+cool deliberation, as if it were rather too forward of her to ask that\r
+question. She knew at once that her brother was not in a good humor;\r
+he never called her Mrs. Moss except when he was angry, and when they\r
+were in company. But she thought it was in the order of nature that\r
+people who were poorly off should be snubbed. Mrs. Moss did not take\r
+her stand on the equality of the human race; she was a patient,\r
+prolific, loving-hearted woman.\r
+\r
+"Your husband isn't in the house, I suppose?" added Mr. Tulliver after\r
+a grave pause, during which four children had run out, like chickens\r
+whose mother has been suddenly in eclipse behind the hen-coop.\r
+\r
+"No," said Mrs. Moss, "but he's only in the potato-field yonders.\r
+Georgy, run to the Far Close in a minute, and tell father your uncle's\r
+come. You'll get down, brother, won't you, and take something?"\r
+\r
+"No, no; I can't get down. I must be going home again directly," said\r
+Mr. Tulliver, looking at the distance.\r
+\r
+"And how's Mrs. Tulliver and the children?" said Mrs. Moss, humbly,\r
+not daring to press her invitation.\r
+\r
+"Oh, pretty well. Tom's going to a new school at Midsummer,--a deal of\r
+expense to me. It's bad work for me, lying out o' my money."\r
+\r
+"I wish you'd be so good as let the children come and see their\r
+cousins some day. My little uns want to see their cousin Maggie so as\r
+never was. And me her godmother, and so fond of her; there's nobody\r
+'ud make a bigger fuss with her, according to what they've got. And I\r
+know she likes to come, for she's a loving child, and how quick and\r
+clever she is, to be sure!"\r
+\r
+If Mrs. Moss had been one of the most astute women in the world,\r
+instead of being one of the simplest, she could have thought of\r
+nothing more likely to propitiate her brother than this praise of\r
+Maggie. He seldom found any one volunteering praise of "the little\r
+wench"; it was usually left entirely to himself to insist on her\r
+merits. But Maggie always appeared in the most amiable light at her\r
+aunt Moss's; it was her Alsatia, where she was out of the reach of\r
+law,--if she upset anything, dirtied her shoes, or tore her frock,\r
+these things were matters of course at her aunt Moss's. In spite of\r
+himself, Mr. Tulliver's eyes got milder, and he did not look away from\r
+his sister as he said,--\r
+\r
+"Ay; she's fonder o' you than o' the other aunts, I think. She takes\r
+after our family: not a bit of her mother's in her."\r
+\r
+"Moss says she's just like what I used to be," said Mrs. Moss, "though\r
+I was never so quick and fond o' the books. But I think my Lizzy's\r
+like her; _she's_ sharp. Come here, Lizzy, my dear, and let your uncle\r
+see you; he hardly knows you, you grow so fast."\r
+\r
+Lizzy, a black-eyed child of seven, looked very shy when her mother\r
+drew her forward, for the small Mosses were much in awe of their uncle\r
+from Dorlcote Mill. She was inferior enough to Maggie in fire and\r
+strength of expression to make the resemblance between the two\r
+entirely flattering to Mr. Tulliver's fatherly love.\r
+\r
+"Ay, they're a bit alike," he said, looking kindly at the little\r
+figure in the soiled pinafore. "They both take after our mother.\r
+You've got enough o' gells, Gritty," he added, in a tone half\r
+compassionate, half reproachful.\r
+\r
+"Four of 'em, bless 'em!" said Mrs. Moss, with a sigh, stroking\r
+Lizzy's hair on each side of her forehead; "as many as there's boys.\r
+They've got a brother apiece."\r
+\r
+"Ah, but they must turn out and fend for themselves," said Mr.\r
+Tulliver, feeling that his severity was relaxing and trying to brace\r
+it by throwing out a wholesome hint "They mustn't look to hanging on\r
+their brothers."\r
+\r
+"No; but I hope their brothers 'ull love the poor things, and remember\r
+they came o' one father and mother; the lads 'ull never be the poorer\r
+for that," said Mrs. Moss, flashing out with hurried timidity, like a\r
+half-smothered fire.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver gave his horse a little stroke on the flank, then checked\r
+it, and said angrily, "Stand still with you!" much to the astonishment\r
+of that innocent animal.\r
+\r
+"And the more there is of 'em, the more they must love one another,"\r
+Mrs. Moss went on, looking at her children with a didactic purpose.\r
+But she turned toward her brother again to say, "Not but what I hope\r
+your boy 'ull allays be good to his sister, though there's but two of\r
+'em, like you and me, brother."\r
+\r
+The arrow went straight to Mr. Tulliver's heart. He had not a rapid\r
+imagination, but the thought of Maggie was very near to him, and he\r
+was not long in seeing his relation to his own sister side by side\r
+with Tom's relation to Maggie. Would the little wench ever be poorly\r
+off, and Tom rather hard upon her?\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, Gritty," said the miller, with a new softness in his tone;\r
+"but I've allays done what I could for you," he added, as if\r
+vindicating himself from a reproach.\r
+\r
+"I'm not denying that, brother, and I'm noways ungrateful," said poor\r
+Mrs. Moss, too fagged by toil and children to have strength left for\r
+any pride. "But here's the father. What a while you've been, Moss!"\r
+\r
+"While, do you call it?" said Mr. Moss, feeling out of breath and\r
+injured. "I've been running all the way. Won't you 'light, Mr.\r
+Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+"Well, I'll just get down and have a bit o' talk with you in the\r
+garden," said Mr. Tulliver, thinking that he should be more likely to\r
+show a due spirit of resolve if his sister were not present.\r
+\r
+He got down, and passed with Mr. Moss into the garden, toward an old\r
+yew-tree arbor, while his sister stood tapping her baby on the back\r
+and looking wistfully after them.\r
+\r
+Their entrance into the yew-tree arbor surprised several fowls that\r
+were recreating themselves by scratching deep holes in the dusty\r
+ground, and at once took flight with much pother and cackling. Mr.\r
+Tulliver sat down on the bench, and tapping the ground curiously here\r
+and there with his stick, as if he suspected some hollowness, opened\r
+the conversation by observing, with something like a snarl in his\r
+tone,--\r
+\r
+"Why, you've got wheat again in that Corner Close, I see; and never a\r
+bit o' dressing on it. You'll do no good with it this year."\r
+\r
+Mr. Moss, who, when he married Miss Tulliver, had been regarded as the\r
+buck of Basset, now wore a beard nearly a week old, and had the\r
+depressed, unexpectant air of a machine-horse. He answered in a\r
+patient-grumbling tone, "Why, poor farmers like me must do as they\r
+can; they must leave it to them as have got money to play with, to put\r
+half as much into the ground as they mean to get out of it."\r
+\r
+"I don't know who should have money to play with, if it isn't them as\r
+can borrow money without paying interest," said Mr. Tulliver, who\r
+wished to get into a slight quarrel; it was the most natural and easy\r
+introduction to calling in money.\r
+\r
+"I know I'm behind with the interest," said Mr. Moss, "but I was so\r
+unlucky wi' the wool last year; and what with the Missis being laid up\r
+so, things have gone awk'arder nor usual."\r
+\r
+"Ay," snarled Mr. Tulliver, "there's folks as things 'ull allays go\r
+awk'ard with; empty sacks 'ull never stand upright."\r
+\r
+"Well, I don't know what fault you've got to find wi' me, Mr.\r
+Tulliver," said Mr. Moss, deprecatingly; "I know there isn't a\r
+day-laborer works harder."\r
+\r
+"What's the use o' that," said Mr. Tulliver, sharply, "when a man\r
+marries, and's got no capital to work his farm but his wife's bit o'\r
+fortin? I was against it from the first; but you'd neither of you\r
+listen to me. And I can't lie out o' my money any longer, for I've got\r
+to pay five hundred o' Mrs. Glegg's, and there'll be Tom an expense to\r
+me. I should find myself short, even saying I'd got back all as is my\r
+own. You must look about and see how you can pay me the three hundred\r
+pound."\r
+\r
+"Well, if that's what you mean," said Mr. Moss, looking blankly before\r
+him, "we'd better be sold up, and ha' done with it; I must part wi'\r
+every head o' stock I've got, to pay you and the landlord too."\r
+\r
+Poor relations are undeniably irritating,--their existence is so\r
+entirely uncalled for on our part, and they are almost always very\r
+faulty people. Mr. Tulliver had succeeded in getting quite as much\r
+irritated with Mr. Moss as he had desired, and he was able to say\r
+angrily, rising from his seat,--\r
+\r
+"Well, you must do as you can. _I_ can't find money for everybody else\r
+as well as myself. I must look to my own business and my own family. I\r
+can't lie out o' my money any longer. You must raise it as quick as\r
+you can."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver walked abruptly out of the arbor as he uttered the last\r
+sentence, and, without looking round at Mr. Moss, went on to the\r
+kitchen door, where the eldest boy was holding his horse, and his\r
+sister was waiting in a state of wondering alarm, which was not\r
+without its alleviations, for baby was making pleasant gurgling\r
+sounds, and performing a great deal of finger practice on the faded\r
+face. Mrs. Moss had eight children, but could never overcome her\r
+regret that the twins had not lived. Mr. Moss thought their removal\r
+was not without its consolations. "Won't you come in, brother?" she\r
+said, looking anxiously at her husband, who was walking slowly up,\r
+while Mr. Tulliver had his foot already in the stirrup.\r
+\r
+"No, no; good-by," said he, turning his horse's head, and riding away.\r
+\r
+No man could feel more resolute till he got outside the yard gate, and\r
+a little way along the deep-rutted lane; but before he reached the\r
+next turning, which would take him out of sight of the dilapidated\r
+farm-buildings, he appeared to be smitten by some sudden thought. He\r
+checked his horse, and made it stand still in the same spot for two or\r
+three minutes, during which he turned his head from side to side in a\r
+melancholy way, as if he were looking at some painful object on more\r
+sides than one. Evidently, after his fit of promptitude, Mr. Tulliver\r
+was relapsing into the sense that this is a puzzling world. He turned\r
+his horse, and rode slowly back, giving vent to the climax of feeling\r
+which had determined this movement by saying aloud, as he struck his\r
+horse, "Poor little wench! she'll have nobody but Tom, belike, when\r
+I'm gone."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver's return into the yard was descried by several young\r
+Mosses, who immediately ran in with the exciting news to their mother,\r
+so that Mrs. Moss was again on the door-step when her brother rode up.\r
+She had been crying, but was rocking baby to sleep in her arms now,\r
+and made no ostentatious show of sorrow as her brother looked at her,\r
+but merely said:\r
+\r
+"The father's gone to the field, again, if you want him, brother."\r
+\r
+"No, Gritty, no," said Mr. Tulliver, in a gentle tone. "Don't you\r
+fret,--that's all,--I'll make a shift without the money a bit, only\r
+you must be as clever and contriving as you can."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Moss's tears came again at this unexpected kindness, and she\r
+could say nothing.\r
+\r
+"Come, come!--the little wench shall come and see you. I'll bring her\r
+and Tom some day before he goes to school. You mustn't fret. I'll\r
+allays be a good brother to you."\r
+\r
+"Thank you for that word, brother," said Mrs. Moss, drying her tears;\r
+then turning to Lizzy, she said, "Run now, and fetch the colored egg\r
+for cousin Maggie." Lizzy ran in, and quickly reappeared with a small\r
+paper parcel.\r
+\r
+"It's boiled hard, brother, and colored with thrums, very pretty; it\r
+was done o' purpose for Maggie. Will you please to carry it in your\r
+pocket?"\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay," said Mr. Tulliver, putting it carefully in his side pocket.\r
+"Good-by."\r
+\r
+And so the respectable miller returned along the Basset lanes rather\r
+more puzzled than before as to ways and means, but still with the\r
+sense of a danger escaped. It had come across his mind that if he were\r
+hard upon his sister, it might somehow tend to make Tom hard upon\r
+Maggie at some distant day, when her father was no longer there to\r
+take her part; for simple people, like our friend Mr. Tulliver, are\r
+apt to clothe unimpeachable feelings in erroneous ideas, and this was\r
+his confused way of explaining to himself that his love and anxiety\r
+for "the little wench" had given him a new sensibility toward his\r
+sister.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IX\r
+\r
+To Garum Firs\r
+\r
+\r
+While the possible troubles of Maggie's future were occupying her\r
+father's mind, she herself was tasting only the bitterness of the\r
+present. Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no\r
+memories of outlived sorrow.\r
+\r
+The fact was, the day had begun ill with Maggie. The pleasure of\r
+having Lucy to look at, and the prospect of the afternoon visit to\r
+Garum Firs, where she would hear uncle Pullet's musical box, had been\r
+marred as early as eleven o'clock by the advent of the hair-dresser\r
+from St. Ogg's, who had spoken in the severest terms of the condition\r
+in which he had found her hair, holding up one jagged lock after\r
+another and saying, "See here! tut, tut, tut!" in a tone of mingled\r
+disgust and pity, which to Maggie's imagination was equivalent to the\r
+strongest expression of public opinion. Mr. Rappit, the hair-dresser,\r
+with his well-anointed coronal locks tending wavily upward, like the\r
+simulated pyramid of flame on a monumental urn, seemed to her at that\r
+moment the most formidable of her contemporaries, into whose street at\r
+St. Ogg's she would carefully refrain from entering through the rest\r
+of her life.\r
+\r
+Moreover, the preparation for a visit being always a serious affair in\r
+the Dodson family, Martha was enjoined to have Mrs. Tulliver's room\r
+ready an hour earlier than usual, that the laying out of the best\r
+clothes might not be deferred till the last moment, as was sometimes\r
+the case in families of lax views, where the ribbon-strings were never\r
+rolled up, where there was little or no wrapping in silver paper, and\r
+where the sense that the Sunday clothes could be got at quite easily\r
+produced no shock to the mind. Already, at twelve o'clock, Mrs.\r
+Tulliver had on her visiting costume, with a protective apparatus of\r
+brown holland, as if she had been a piece of satin furniture in danger\r
+of flies; Maggie was frowning and twisting her shoulders, that she\r
+might if possible shrink away from the prickliest of tuckers, while\r
+her mother was remonstrating, "Don't, Maggie, my dear; don't make\r
+yourself so ugly!" and Tom's cheeks were looking particularly\r
+brilliant as a relief to his best blue suit, which he wore with\r
+becoming calmness, having, after a little wrangling, effected what was\r
+always the one point of interest to him in his toilet: he had\r
+transferred all the contents of his every-day pockets to those\r
+actually in wear.\r
+\r
+As for Lucy, she was just as pretty and neat as she had been\r
+yesterday; no accidents ever happened to her clothes, and she was\r
+never uncomfortable in them, so that she looked with wondering pity at\r
+Maggie, pouting and writhing under the exasperating tucker. Maggie\r
+would certainly have torn it off, if she had not been checked by the\r
+remembrance of her recent humiliation about her hair; as it was, she\r
+confined herself to fretting and twisting, and behaving peevishly\r
+about the card-houses which they were allowed to build till dinner, as\r
+a suitable amusement for boys and girls in their best clothes. Tom\r
+could build perfect pyramids of houses; but Maggie's would never bear\r
+the laying on the roof. It was always so with the things that Maggie\r
+made; and Tom had deduced the conclusion that no girls could ever make\r
+anything. But it happened that Lucy proved wonderfully clever at\r
+building; she handled the cards so lightly, and moved so gently, that\r
+Tom condescended to admire her houses as well as his own, the more\r
+readily because she had asked him to teach her. Maggie, too, would\r
+have admired Lucy's houses, and would have given up her own\r
+unsuccessful building to contemplate them, without ill temper, if her\r
+tucker had not made her peevish, and if Tom had not inconsiderately\r
+laughed when her houses fell, and told her she was "a stupid."\r
+\r
+"Don't laugh at me, Tom!" she burst out angrily; "I'm not a stupid. I\r
+know a great many things you don't."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I dare say, Miss Spitfire! I'd never be such a cross thing as\r
+you, making faces like that. Lucy doesn't do so. I like Lucy better\r
+than you; _I_ wish Lucy was _my_ sister."\r
+\r
+"Then it's very wicked and cruel of you to wish so," said Maggie,\r
+starting up hurriedly from her place on the floor, and upsetting Tom's\r
+wonderful pagoda. She really did not mean it, but the circumstantial\r
+evidence was against her, and Tom turned white with anger, but said\r
+nothing; he would have struck her, only he knew it was cowardly to\r
+strike a girl, and Tom Tulliver was quite determined he would never do\r
+anything cowardly.\r
+\r
+Maggie stood in dismay and terror, while Tom got up from the floor and\r
+walked away, pale, from the scattered ruins of his pagoda, and Lucy\r
+looked on mutely, like a kitten pausing from its lapping.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom," said Maggie, at last, going half-way toward him, "I didn't\r
+mean to knock it down, indeed, indeed I didn't."\r
+\r
+Tom took no notice of her, but took, instead, two or three hard peas\r
+out of his pocket, and shot them with his thumbnail against the\r
+window, vaguely at first, but presently with the distinct aim of\r
+hitting a superannuated blue-bottle which was exposing its imbecility\r
+in the spring sunshine, clearly against the views of Nature, who had\r
+provided Tom and the peas for the speedy destruction of this weak\r
+individual.\r
+\r
+Thus the morning had been made heavy to Maggie, and Tom's persistent\r
+coldness to her all through their walk spoiled the fresh air and\r
+sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look at the half-built bird's nest\r
+without caring to show it Maggie, and peeled a willow switch for Lucy\r
+and himself, without offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, "Maggie,\r
+shouldn't _you_ like one?" but Tom was deaf.\r
+\r
+Still, the sight of the peacock opportunely spreading his tail on the\r
+stackyard wall, just as they reached Garum Firs, was enough to divert\r
+the mind temporarily from personal grievances. And this was only the\r
+beginning of beautiful sights at Garum Firs. All the farmyard life was\r
+wonderful there,--bantams, speckled and top-knotted; Friesland hens,\r
+with their feathers all turned the wrong way; Guinea-fowls that flew\r
+and screamed and dropped their pretty spotted feathers; pouter-pigeons\r
+and a tame magpie; nay, a goat, and a wonderful brindled dog, half\r
+mastiff, half bull-dog, as large as a lion. Then there were white\r
+railings and white gates all about, and glittering weathercocks of\r
+various design, and garden-walks paved with pebbles in beautiful\r
+patterns,--nothing was quite common at Garum Firs; and Tom thought\r
+that the unusual size of the toads there was simply due to the general\r
+unusualness which characterized uncle Pullet's possessions as a\r
+gentleman farmer. Toads who paid rent were naturally leaner. As for\r
+the house, it was not less remarkable; it had a receding centre, and\r
+two wings with battlemented turrets, and was covered with glittering\r
+white stucco.\r
+\r
+Uncle Pullet had seen the expected party approaching from the window,\r
+and made haste to unbar and unchain the front door, kept always in\r
+this fortified condition from fear of tramps, who might be supposed to\r
+know of the glass case of stuffed birds in the hall, and to\r
+contemplate rushing in and carrying it away on their heads. Aunt\r
+Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her sister was\r
+within hearing said, "Stop the children, for God's sake! Bessy; don't\r
+let 'em come up the door-steps; Sally's bringing the old mat and the\r
+duster, to rub their shoes."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet's front-door mats were by no means intended to wipe shoes\r
+on; the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom rebelled\r
+particularly against this shoewiping, which he always considered in\r
+the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as the beginning of\r
+the disagreeables incident to a visit at aunt Pullet's, where he had\r
+once been compelled to sit with towels wrapped round his boots; a fact\r
+which may serve to correct the too-hasty conclusion that a visit to\r
+Garum Firs must have been a great treat to a young gentleman fond of\r
+animals,--fond, that is, of throwing stones at them.\r
+\r
+The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions; it was\r
+the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very handsome\r
+carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare bedroom, so that the ascent\r
+of these glossy steps might have served, in barbarous times, as a\r
+trial by ordeal from which none but the most spotless virtue could\r
+have come off with unbroken limbs. Sophy's weakness about these\r
+polished stairs was always a subject of bitter remonstrance on Mrs.\r
+Glegg's part; but Mrs. Tulliver ventured on no comment, only thinking\r
+to herself it was a mercy when she and the children were safe on the\r
+landing.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, in a\r
+pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap.\r
+\r
+"Has she, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver, with an air of much interest.\r
+"And how do you like it?"\r
+\r
+"It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and putting 'em\r
+in again," said Mrs. Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys from her pocket\r
+and looking at them earnestly, "but it 'ud be a pity for you to go\r
+away without seeing it. There's no knowing what may happen."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious consideration,\r
+which determined her to single out a particular key.\r
+\r
+"I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister," said\r
+Mrs. Tulliver; "but I _should_ like to see what sort of a crown she's\r
+made you."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a very\r
+bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she would find a\r
+new bonnet. Not at all. Such a supposition could only have arisen from\r
+a too-superficial acquaintance with the habits of the Dodson family.\r
+In this wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was seeking something small enough to be\r
+hidden among layers of linen,--it was a door-key.\r
+\r
+"You must come with me into the best room," said Mrs. Pullet.\r
+\r
+"May the children come too, sister?" inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw\r
+that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager.\r
+\r
+"Well," said aunt Pullet, reflectively, "it'll perhaps be safer for\r
+'em to come; they'll be touching something if we leave 'em behind."\r
+\r
+So they went in procession along the bright and slippery corridor,\r
+dimly lighted by the semi-lunar top of the window which rose above the\r
+closed shutter; it was really quite solemn. Aunt Pullet paused and\r
+unlocked a door which opened on something still more solemn than the\r
+passage,--a darkened room, in which the outer light, entering feebly,\r
+showed what looked like the corpses of furniture in white shrouds.\r
+Everything that was not shrouded stood with its legs upward. Lucy laid\r
+hold of Maggie's frock, and Maggie's heart beat rapidly.\r
+\r
+Aunt Pullet half-opened the shutter and then unlocked the wardrobe,\r
+with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in keeping with the\r
+funereal solemnity of the scene. The delicious scent of rose-leaves\r
+that issued from the wardrobe made the process of taking out sheet\r
+after sheet of silver paper quite pleasant to assist at, though the\r
+sight of the bonnet at last was an anticlimax to Maggie, who would\r
+have preferred something more strikingly preternatural. But few things\r
+could have been more impressive to Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all round\r
+it in silence for some moments, and then said emphatically, "Well,\r
+sister, I'll never speak against the full crowns again!"\r
+\r
+It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt something\r
+was due to it.\r
+\r
+"You'd like to see it on, sister?" she said sadly. "I'll open the\r
+shutter a bit further."\r
+\r
+"Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp with a\r
+jutting promontory of curls which was common to the more mature and\r
+judicious women of those times, and placing the bonnet on her head,\r
+turned slowly round, like a draper's lay-figure, that Mrs. Tulliver\r
+might miss no point of view.\r
+\r
+"I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on this left\r
+side, sister; what do you think?" said Mrs. Pullet.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned her\r
+head on one side. "Well, I think it's best as it is; if you meddled\r
+with it, sister, you might repent."\r
+\r
+"That's true," said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and looking at\r
+it contemplatively.\r
+\r
+"How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?" said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility of\r
+getting a humble imitation of this _chef-d'œuvre_ made from a piece\r
+of silk she had at home.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then\r
+whispered, "Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best bonnet\r
+at Garum Church, let the next best be whose it would."\r
+\r
+She began slowly to adjust the trimmings, in preparation for returning\r
+it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts seemed to have taken\r
+a melancholy turn, for she shook her head.\r
+\r
+"Ah," she said at last, "I may never wear it twice, sister; who\r
+knows?"\r
+\r
+"Don't talk o' that sister," answered Mrs. Tulliver. "I hope you'll\r
+have your health this summer."\r
+\r
+"Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon after\r
+I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we can't think\r
+o' wearing crape less nor half a year for him."\r
+\r
+"That _would_ be unlucky," said Mrs. Tulliver, entering thoroughly\r
+into the possibility of an inopportune decease. "There's never so much\r
+pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second year, especially when the\r
+crowns are so chancy,--never two summers alike."\r
+\r
+"Ah, it's the way i' this world," said Mrs. Pullet, returning the\r
+bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a silence\r
+characterized by head-shaking, until they had all issued from the\r
+solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then, beginning to cry,\r
+she said, "Sister, if you should never see that bonnet again till I'm\r
+dead and gone, you'll remember I showed it you this day."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver felt that she ought to be affected, but she was a woman\r
+of sparse tears, stout and healthy; she couldn't cry so much as her\r
+sister Pullet did, and had often felt her deficiency at funerals. Her\r
+effort to bring tears into her eyes issued in an odd contraction of\r
+her face. Maggie, looking on attentively, felt that there was some\r
+painful mystery about her aunt's bonnet which she was considered too\r
+young to understand; indignantly conscious, all the while, that she\r
+could have understood that, as well as everything else, if she had\r
+been taken into confidence.\r
+\r
+When they went down, uncle Pullet observed, with some acumen, that he\r
+reckoned the missis had been showing her bonnet,--that was what had\r
+made them so long upstairs. With Tom the interval had seemed still\r
+longer, for he had been seated in irksome constraint on the edge of a\r
+sofa directly opposite his uncle Pullet, who regarded him with\r
+twinkling gray eyes, and occasionally addressed him as "Young sir."\r
+\r
+"Well, young sir, what do you learn at school?" was a standing\r
+question with uncle Pullet; whereupon Tom always looked sheepish,\r
+rubbed his hands across his face, and answered, "I don't know." It was\r
+altogether so embarrassing to be seated _tête-à-tête_ with uncle\r
+Pullet, that Tom could not even look at the prints on the walls, or\r
+the flycages, or the wonderful flower-pots; he saw nothing but his\r
+uncle's gaiters. Not that Tom was in awe of his uncle's mental\r
+superiority; indeed, he had made up his mind that he didn't want to be\r
+a gentleman farmer, because he shouldn't like to be such a\r
+thin-legged, silly fellow as his uncle Pullet,--a molly-coddle, in\r
+fact. A boy's sheepishness is by no means a sign of overmastering\r
+reverence; and while you are making encouraging advances to him under\r
+the idea that he is overwhelmed by a sense of your age and wisdom, ten\r
+to one he is thinking you extremely queer. The only consolation I can\r
+suggest to you is, that the Greek boys probably thought the same of\r
+Aristotle. It is only when you have mastered a restive horse, or\r
+thrashed a drayman, or have got a gun in your hand, that these shy\r
+juniors feel you to be a truly admirable and enviable character. At\r
+least, I am quite sure of Tom Tulliver's sentiments on these points.\r
+In very tender years, when he still wore a lace border under his\r
+outdoor cap, he was often observed peeping through the bars of a gate\r
+and making minatory gestures with his small forefinger while he\r
+scolded the sheep with an inarticulate burr, intended to strike terror\r
+into their astonished minds; indicating thus early that desire for\r
+mastery over the inferior animals, wild and domestic, including\r
+cockchafers, neighbors' dogs, and small sisters, which in all ages has\r
+been an attribute of so much promise for the fortunes of our race.\r
+Now, Mr. Pullet never rode anything taller than a low pony, and was\r
+the least predatory of men, considering firearms dangerous, as apt to\r
+go off of themselves by nobody's particular desire. So that Tom was\r
+not without strong reasons when, in confidential talk with a chum, he\r
+had described uncle Pullet as a nincompoop, taking care at the same\r
+time to observe that he was a very "rich fellow."\r
+\r
+The only alleviating circumstance in a _tête-à-tête_ with uncle Pullet\r
+was that he kept a variety of lozenges and peppermint-drops about his\r
+person, and when at a loss for conversation, he filled up the void by\r
+proposing a mutual solace of this kind.\r
+\r
+"Do you like peppermints, young sir?" required only a tacit answer\r
+when it was accompanied by a presentation of the article in question.\r
+\r
+The appearance of the little girls suggested to uncle Pullet the\r
+further solace of small sweet-cakes, of which he also kept a stock\r
+under lock and key for his own private eating on wet days; but the\r
+three children had no sooner got the tempting delicacy between their\r
+fingers, than aunt Pullet desired them to abstain from eating it till\r
+the tray and the plates came, since with those crisp cakes they would\r
+make the floor "all over" crumbs. Lucy didn't mind that much, for the\r
+cake was so pretty, she thought it was rather a pity to eat it; but\r
+Tom, watching his opportunity while the elders were talking, hastily\r
+stowed it in his mouth at two bites, and chewed it furtively. As for\r
+Maggie, becoming fascinated, as usual, by a print of Ulysses and\r
+Nausicaa, which uncle Pullet had bought as a "pretty Scripture thing,"\r
+she presently let fall her cake, and in an unlucky movement crushed it\r
+beneath her foot,--a source of so much agitation to aunt Pullet and\r
+conscious disgrace to Maggie, that she began to despair of hearing the\r
+musical snuff-box to-day, till, after some reflection, it occurred to\r
+her that Lucy was in high favor enough to venture on asking for a\r
+tune. So she whispered to Lucy; and Lucy, who always did what she was\r
+desired to do, went up quietly to her uncle's knee, and blush-all over\r
+her neck while she fingered her necklace, said, "Will you please play\r
+us a tune, uncle?"\r
+\r
+Lucy thought it was by reason of some exceptional talent in uncle\r
+Pullet that the snuff-box played such beautiful tunes, and indeed the\r
+thing was viewed in that light by the majority of his neighbors in\r
+Garum. Mr. Pullet had _bought_ the box, to begin with, and he\r
+understood winding it up, and knew which tune it was going to play\r
+beforehand; altogether the possession of this unique "piece of music"\r
+was a proof that Mr. Pullet's character was not of that entire nullity\r
+which might otherwise have been attributed to it. But uncle Pullet,\r
+when entreated to exhibit his accomplishment, never depreciated it by\r
+a too-ready consent. "We'll see about it," was the answer he always\r
+gave, carefully abstaining from any sign of compliance till a suitable\r
+number of minutes had passed. Uncle Pullet had a programme for all\r
+great social occasions, and in this way fenced himself in from much\r
+painful confusion and perplexing freedom of will.\r
+\r
+Perhaps the suspense did heighten Maggie's enjoyment when the fairy\r
+tune began; for the first time she quite forgot that she had a load on\r
+her mind, that Tom was angry with her; and by the time "Hush, ye\r
+pretty warbling choir," had been played, her face wore that bright\r
+look of happiness, while she sat immovable with her hands clasped,\r
+which sometimes comforted her mother with the sense that Maggie could\r
+look pretty now and then, in spite of her brown skin. But when the\r
+magic music ceased, she jumped up, and running toward Tom, put her arm\r
+round his neck and said, "Oh, Tom, isn't it pretty?"\r
+\r
+Lest you should think it showed a revolting insensibility in Tom that\r
+he felt any new anger toward Maggie for this uncalled-for and, to him,\r
+inexplicable caress, I must tell you that he had his glass of cowslip\r
+wine in his hand, and that she jerked him so as to make him spill half\r
+of it. He must have been an extreme milksop not to say angrily, "Look\r
+there, now!" especially when his resentment was sanctioned, as it was,\r
+by general disapprobation of Maggie's behavior.\r
+\r
+"Why don't you sit still, Maggie?" her mother said peevishly.\r
+\r
+"Little gells mustn't come to see me if they behave in that way," said\r
+aunt Pullet.\r
+\r
+"Why, you're too rough, little miss," said uncle Pullet.\r
+\r
+Poor Maggie sat down again, with the music all chased out of her soul,\r
+and the seven small demons all in again.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, foreseeing nothing but misbehavior while the children\r
+remained indoors, took an early opportunity of suggesting that, now\r
+they were rested after their walk, they might go and play out of\r
+doors; and aunt Pullet gave permission, only enjoining them not to go\r
+off the paved walks in the garden, and if they wanted to see the\r
+poultry fed, to view them from a distance on the horse-block; a\r
+restriction which had been imposed ever since Tom had been found\r
+guilty of running after the peacock, with an illusory idea that fright\r
+would make one of its feathers drop off.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver's thoughts had been temporarily diverted from the\r
+quarrel with Mrs. Glegg by millinery and maternal cares, but now the\r
+great theme of the bonnet was thrown into perspective, and the\r
+children were out of the way, yesterday's anxieties recurred.\r
+\r
+"It weighs on my mind so as never was," she said, by way of opening\r
+the subject, "sister Glegg's leaving the house in that way. I'm sure\r
+I'd no wish t' offend a sister."\r
+\r
+"Ah," said aunt Pullet, "there's no accounting for what Jane 'ull do.\r
+I wouldn't speak of it out o' the family, if it wasn't to Dr.\r
+Turnbull; but it's my belief Jane lives too low. I've said so to\r
+Pullet often and often, and he knows it."\r
+\r
+"Why, you said so last Monday was a week, when we came away from\r
+drinking tea with 'em," said Mr. Pullet, beginning to nurse his knee\r
+and shelter it with his pocket-hand-kerchief, as was his way when the\r
+conversation took an interesting turn.\r
+\r
+"Very like I did," said Mrs. Pullet, "for you remember when I said\r
+things, better than I can remember myself. He's got a wonderful\r
+memory, Pullet has," she continued, looking pathetically at her\r
+sister. "I should be poorly off if he was to have a stroke, for he\r
+always remembers when I've got to take my doctor's stuff; and I'm\r
+taking three sorts now."\r
+\r
+"There's the 'pills as before' every other night, and the new drops at\r
+eleven and four, and the 'fervescing mixture 'when agreeable,'"\r
+rehearsed Mr. Pullet, with a punctuation determined by a lozenge on\r
+his tongue.\r
+\r
+"Ah, perhaps it 'ud be better for sister Glegg if _she'd_ go to the\r
+doctor sometimes, instead o' chewing Turkey rhubarb whenever there's\r
+anything the matter with her," said Mrs. Tulliver, who naturally saw\r
+the wide subject of medicine chiefly in relation to Mrs. Glegg.\r
+\r
+"It's dreadful to think on," said aunt Pullet, raising her hands and\r
+letting them fall again, "people playing with their own insides in\r
+that way! And it's flying i' the face o' Providence; for what are the\r
+doctors for, if we aren't to call 'em in? And when folks have got the\r
+money to pay for a doctor, it isn't respectable, as I've told Jane\r
+many a time. I'm ashamed of acquaintance knowing it."\r
+\r
+"Well, _we've_ no call to be ashamed," said Mr. Pullet, "for Doctor\r
+Turnbull hasn't got such another patient as you i' this parish, now\r
+old Mrs. Sutton's gone."\r
+\r
+"Pullet keeps all my physic-bottles, did you know, Bessy?" said Mrs.\r
+Pullet. "He won't have one sold. He says it's nothing but right folks\r
+should see 'em when I'm gone. They fill two o' the long store-room\r
+shelves a'ready; but," she added, beginning to cry a little, "it's\r
+well if they ever fill three. I may go before I've made up the dozen\r
+o' these last sizes. The pill-boxes are in the closet in my\r
+room,--you'll remember that, sister,--but there's nothing to show for\r
+the boluses, if it isn't the bills."\r
+\r
+"Don't talk o' your going, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver; "I should have\r
+nobody to stand between me and sister Glegg if you was gone. And\r
+there's nobody but you can get her to make it up with Mr. Tulliver,\r
+for sister Deane's never o' my side, and if she was, it's not to be\r
+looked for as she can speak like them as have got an independent\r
+fortin."\r
+\r
+"Well, your husband _is_ awk'ard, you know, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet,\r
+good-naturedly ready to use her deep depression on her sister's\r
+account as well as her own. "He's never behaved quite so pretty to our\r
+family as he should do, and the children take after him,--the boy's\r
+very mischievous, and runs away from his aunts and uncles, and the\r
+gell's rude and brown. It's your bad luck, and I'm sorry for you,\r
+Bessy; for you was allays my favorite sister, and we allays liked the\r
+same patterns."\r
+\r
+"I know Tulliver's hasty, and says odd things," said Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+wiping away one small tear from the corner of her eye; "but I'm sure\r
+he's never been the man, since he married me, to object to my making\r
+the friends o' my side o' the family welcome to the house."\r
+\r
+"_I_ don't want to make the worst of you, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet,\r
+compassionately, "for I doubt you'll have trouble enough without that;\r
+and your husband's got that poor sister and her children hanging on\r
+him,--and so given to lawing, they say. I doubt he'll leave you poorly\r
+off when he dies. Not as I'd have it said out o' the family."\r
+\r
+This view of her position was naturally far from cheering to Mrs.\r
+Tulliver. Her imagination was not easily acted on, but she could not\r
+help thinking that her case was a hard one, since it appeared that\r
+other people thought it hard.\r
+\r
+"I'm sure, sister, I can't help myself," she said, urged by the fear\r
+lest her anticipated misfortunes might be held retributive, to take\r
+comprehensive review of her past conduct. "There's no woman strives\r
+more for her children; and I'm sure at scouring-time this Lady-day as\r
+I've had all the bedhangings taken down I did as much as the two gells\r
+put together; and there's the last elder-flower wine I've\r
+made--beautiful! I allays offer it along with the sherry, though\r
+sister Glegg will have it I'm so extravagant; and as for liking to\r
+have my clothes tidy, and not go a fright about the house, there's\r
+nobody in the parish can say anything against me in respect o'\r
+backbiting and making mischief, for I don't wish anybody any harm; and\r
+nobody loses by sending me a porkpie, for my pies are fit to show with\r
+the best o' my neighbors'; and the linen's so in order as if I was to\r
+die to-morrow I shouldn't be ashamed. A woman can do no more nor she\r
+can."\r
+\r
+"But it's all o' no use, you know, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, holding\r
+her head on one side, and fixing her eyes pathetically on her sister,\r
+"if your husband makes away with his money. Not but what if you was\r
+sold up, and other folks bought your furniture, it's a comfort to\r
+think as you've kept it well rubbed. And there's the linen, with your\r
+maiden mark on, might go all over the country. It 'ud be a sad pity\r
+for our family." Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly.\r
+\r
+"But what can I do, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver. "Mr. Tulliver's not a\r
+man to be dictated to,--not if I was to go to the parson and get by\r
+heart what I should tell my husband for the best. And I'm sure I don't\r
+pretend to know anything about putting out money and all that. I could\r
+never see into men's business as sister Glegg does."\r
+\r
+"Well, you're like me in that, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet; "and I think\r
+it 'ud be a deal more becoming o' Jane if she'd have that pier-glass\r
+rubbed oftener,--there was ever so many spots on it last\r
+week,--instead o' dictating to folks as have more comings in than she\r
+ever had, and telling 'em what they're to do with their money. But\r
+Jane and me were allays contrairy; she _would_ have striped things,\r
+and I like spots. You like a spot too, Bessy; we allays hung together\r
+i' that."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Sophy," said Mrs. Tulliver, "I remember our having a blue ground\r
+with a white spot both alike,--I've got a bit in a bed-quilt now; and\r
+if you would but go and see sister Glegg, and persuade her to make it\r
+up with Tulliver, I should take it very kind of you. You was allays a\r
+good sister to me."\r
+\r
+"But the right thing 'ud be for Tulliver to go and make it up with her\r
+himself, and say he was sorry for speaking so rash. If he's borrowed\r
+money of her, he shouldn't be above that," said Mrs. Pullet, whose\r
+partiality did not blind her to principles; she did not forget what\r
+was due to people of independent fortune.\r
+\r
+"It's no use talking o' that," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, almost\r
+peevishly. "If I was to go down on my bare knees on the gravel to\r
+Tulliver, he'd never humble himself."\r
+\r
+"Well, you can't expect me to persuade _Jane_ to beg pardon," said\r
+Mrs. Pullet. "Her temper's beyond everything; it's well if it doesn't\r
+carry her off her mind, though there never _was_ any of our family\r
+went to a madhouse."\r
+\r
+"I'm not thinking of her begging pardon," said Mrs. Tulliver. "But if\r
+she'd just take no notice, and not call her money in; as it's not so\r
+much for one sister to ask of another; time 'ud mend things, and\r
+Tulliver 'ud forget all about it, and they'd be friends again."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, you perceive, was not aware of her husband's\r
+irrevocable determination to pay in the five hundred pounds; at least\r
+such a determination exceeded her powers of belief.\r
+\r
+"Well, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, mournfully, "_I_ don't want to help\r
+you on to ruin. I won't be behindhand i' doing you a good turn, if it\r
+is to be done. And I don't like it said among acquaintance as we've\r
+got quarrels in the family. I shall tell Jane that; and I don't mind\r
+driving to Jane's tomorrow, if Pullet doesn't mind. What do you say,\r
+Mr. Pullet?"\r
+\r
+"I've no objections," said Mr. Pullet, who was perfectly contented\r
+with any course the quarrel might take, so that Mr. Tulliver did not\r
+apply to _him_ for money. Mr. Pullet was nervous about his\r
+investments, and did not see how a man could have any security for his\r
+money unless he turned it into land.\r
+\r
+After a little further discussion as to whether it would not be better\r
+for Mrs. Tulliver to accompany them on a visit to sister Glegg, Mrs.\r
+Pullet, observing that it was tea-time, turned to reach from a drawer\r
+a delicate damask napkin, which she pinned before her in the fashion\r
+of an apron. The door did, in fact, soon open, but instead of the\r
+tea-tray, Sally introduced an object so startling that both Mrs.\r
+Pullet and Mrs. Tulliver gave a scream, causing uncle Pullet to\r
+swallow his lozenge--for the fifth time in his life, as he afterward\r
+noted.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter X\r
+\r
+Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected\r
+\r
+\r
+The startling object which thus made an epoch for uncle Pullet was no\r
+other than little Lucy, with one side of her person, from her small\r
+foot to her bonnet-crown, wet and discolored with mud, holding out two\r
+tiny blackened hands, and making a very piteous face. To account for\r
+this unprecedented apparition in aunt Pullet's parlor, we must return\r
+to the moment when the three children went to play out of doors, and\r
+the small demons who had taken possession of Maggie's soul at an early\r
+period of the day had returned in all the greater force after a\r
+temporary absence. All the disagreeable recollections of the morning\r
+were thick upon her, when Tom, whose displeasure toward her had been\r
+considerably refreshed by her foolish trick of causing him to upset\r
+his cowslip wine, said, "Here, Lucy, you come along with me," and\r
+walked off to the area where the toads were, as if there were no\r
+Maggie in existence. Seeing this, Maggie lingered at a distance\r
+looking like a small Medusa with her snakes cropped. Lucy was\r
+naturally pleased that cousin Tom was so good to her, and it was very\r
+amusing to see him tickling a fat toad with a piece of string when the\r
+toad was safe down the area, with an iron grating over him. Still Lucy\r
+wished Maggie to enjoy the spectacle also, especially as she would\r
+doubtless find a name for the toad, and say what had been his past\r
+history; for Lucy had a delighted semibelief in Maggie's stories about\r
+the live things they came upon by accident,--how Mrs. Earwig had a\r
+wash at home, and one of her children had fallen into the hot copper,\r
+for which reason she was running so fast to fetch the doctor. Tom had\r
+a profound contempt for this nonsense of Maggie's, smashing the earwig\r
+at once as a superfluous yet easy means of proving the entire\r
+unreality of such a story; but Lucy, for the life of her, could not\r
+help fancying there was something in it, and at all events thought it\r
+was very pretty make-believe. So now the desire to know the history of\r
+a very portly toad, added to her habitual affectionateness, made her\r
+run back to Maggie and say, "Oh, there is such a big, funny toad,\r
+Maggie! Do come and see!"\r
+\r
+Maggie said nothing, but turned away from her with a deeper frown. As\r
+long as Tom seemed to prefer Lucy to her, Lucy made part of his\r
+unkindness. Maggie would have thought a little while ago that she\r
+could never be cross with pretty little Lucy, any more than she could\r
+be cruel to a little white mouse; but then, Tom had always been quite\r
+indifferent to Lucy before, and it had been left to Maggie to pet and\r
+make much of her. As it was, she was actually beginning to think that\r
+she should like to make Lucy cry by slapping or pinching her,\r
+especially as it might vex Tom, whom it was of no use to slap, even if\r
+she dared, because he didn't mind it. And if Lucy hadn't been there,\r
+Maggie was sure he would have got friends with her sooner.\r
+\r
+Tickling a fat toad who is not highly sensitive is an amusement that\r
+it is possible to exhaust, and Tom by and by began to look round for\r
+some other mode of passing the time. But in so prim a garden, where\r
+they were not to go off the paved walks, there was not a great choice\r
+of sport. The only great pleasure such a restriction suggested was the\r
+pleasure of breaking it, and Tom began to meditate an insurrectionary\r
+visit to the pond, about a field's length beyond the garden.\r
+\r
+"I say, Lucy," he began, nodding his head up and down with great\r
+significance, as he coiled up his string again, "what do you think I\r
+mean to do?"\r
+\r
+"What, Tom?" said Lucy, with curiosity.\r
+\r
+"I mean to go to the pond and look at the pike. You may go with me if\r
+you like," said the young sultan.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom, _dare_ you?" said Lucy. "Aunt said we mustn't go out of the\r
+garden."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I shall go out at the other end of the garden," said Tom. "Nobody\r
+'ull see us. Besides, I don't care if they do,--I'll run off home."\r
+\r
+"But _I_ couldn't run," said Lucy, who had never before been exposed\r
+to such severe temptation.\r
+\r
+"Oh, never mind; they won't be cross with _you_," said Tom. "You say I\r
+took you."\r
+\r
+Tom walked along, and Lucy trotted by his side, timidly enjoying the\r
+rare treat of doing something naughty,--excited also by the mention of\r
+that celebrity, the pike, about which she was quite uncertain whether\r
+it was a fish or a fowl.\r
+\r
+Maggie saw them leaving the garden, and could not resist the impulse\r
+to follow. Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their\r
+objects than love, and that Tom and Lucy should do or see anything of\r
+which she was ignorant would have been an intolerable idea to Maggie.\r
+So she kept a few yards behind them, unobserved by Tom, who was\r
+presently absorbed in watching for the pike,--a highly interesting\r
+monster; he was said to be so very old, so very large, and to have\r
+such a remarkable appetite. The pike, like other celebrities, did not\r
+show when he was watched for, but Tom caught sight of something in\r
+rapid movement in the water, which attracted him to another spot on\r
+the brink of the pond.\r
+\r
+"Here, Lucy!" he said in a loud whisper, "come here! take care! keep\r
+on the grass!--don't step where the cows have been!" he added,\r
+pointing to a peninsula of dry grass, with trodden mud on each side of\r
+it; for Tom's contemptuous conception of a girl included the attribute\r
+of being unfit to walk in dirty places.\r
+\r
+Lucy came carefully as she was bidden, and bent down to look at what\r
+seemed a golden arrow-head darting through the water. It was a\r
+water-snake, Tom told her; and Lucy at last could see the serpentine\r
+wave of its body, very much wondering that a snake could swim. Maggie\r
+had drawn nearer and nearer; she _must_ see it too, though it was\r
+bitter to her, like everything else, since Tom did not care about her\r
+seeing it. At last she was close by Lucy; and Tom, who had been aware\r
+of her approach, but would not notice it till he was obliged, turned\r
+round and said,--\r
+\r
+"Now, get away, Maggie; there's no room for you on the grass here.\r
+Nobody asked _you_ to come."\r
+\r
+There were passions at war in Maggie at that moment to have made a\r
+tragedy, if tragedies were made by passion only; but the essential\r
+[Greek text] which was present in the passion was wanting to the action;\r
+the utmost Maggie could do, with a fierce thrust of her small brown arm,\r
+was to push poor little pink-and-white Lucy into the cow-trodden mud.\r
+\r
+Then Tom could not restrain himself, and gave Maggie two smart slaps\r
+on the arm as he ran to pick up Lucy, who lay crying helplessly.\r
+Maggie retreated to the roots of a tree a few yards off, and looked on\r
+impenitently. Usually her repentance came quickly after one rash deed,\r
+but now Tom and Lucy had made her so miserable, she was glad to spoil\r
+their happiness,--glad to make everybody uncomfortable. Why should she\r
+be sorry? Tom was very slow to forgive _her_, however sorry she might\r
+have been.\r
+\r
+"I shall tell mother, you know, Miss Mag," said Tom, loudly and\r
+emphatically, as soon as Lucy was up and ready to walk away. It was\r
+not Tom's practice to "tell," but here justice clearly demanded that\r
+Maggie should be visited with the utmost punishment; not that Tom had\r
+learned to put his views in that abstract form; he never mentioned\r
+"justice," and had no idea that his desire to punish might be called\r
+by that fine name. Lucy was too entirely absorbed by the evil that had\r
+befallen her,--the spoiling of her pretty best clothes, and the\r
+discomfort of being wet and dirty,--to think much of the cause, which\r
+was entirely mysterious to her. She could never have guessed what she\r
+had done to make Maggie angry with her; but she felt that Maggie was\r
+very unkind and disagreeable, and made no magnanimous entreaties to\r
+Tom that he would not "tell," only running along by his side and\r
+crying piteously, while Maggie sat on the roots of the tree and looked\r
+after them with her small Medusa face.\r
+\r
+"Sally," said Tom, when they reached the kitchen door, and Sally\r
+looked at them in speechless amaze, with a piece of bread-and-butter\r
+in her mouth and a toasting-fork in her hand,--"Sally, tell mother it\r
+was Maggie pushed Lucy into the mud."\r
+\r
+"But Lors ha' massy, how did you get near such mud as that?" said\r
+Sally, making a wry face, as she stooped down and examined the _corpus\r
+delicti_.\r
+\r
+Tom's imagination had not been rapid and capacious enough to include\r
+this question among the foreseen consequences, but it was no sooner\r
+put than he foresaw whither it tended, and that Maggie would not be\r
+considered the only culprit in the case. He walked quietly away from\r
+the kitchen door, leaving Sally to that pleasure of guessing which\r
+active minds notoriously prefer to ready-made knowledge.\r
+\r
+Sally, as you are aware, lost no time in presenting Lucy at the parlor\r
+door, for to have so dirty an object introduced into the house at\r
+Garum Firs was too great a weight to be sustained by a single mind.\r
+\r
+"Goodness gracious!" aunt Pullet exclaimed, after preluding by an\r
+inarticulate scream; "keep her at the door, Sally! Don't bring her off\r
+the oil-cloth, whatever you do."\r
+\r
+"Why, she's tumbled into some nasty mud," said Mrs. Tulliver, going up\r
+to Lucy to examine into the amount of damage to clothes for which she\r
+felt herself responsible to her sister Deane.\r
+\r
+"If you please, 'um, it was Miss Maggie as pushed her in," said Sally;\r
+"Master Tom's been and said so, and they must ha' been to the pond,\r
+for it's only there they could ha' got into such dirt."\r
+\r
+"There it is, Bessy; it's what I've been telling you," said Mrs.\r
+Pullet, in a tone of prophetic sadness; "it's your children,--there's\r
+no knowing what they'll come to."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was mute, feeling herself a truly wretched mother. As\r
+usual, the thought pressed upon her that people would think she had\r
+done something wicked to deserve her maternal troubles, while Mrs.\r
+Pullet began to give elaborate directions to Sally how to guard the\r
+premises from serious injury in the course of removing the dirt.\r
+Meantime tea was to be brought in by the cook, and the two naughty\r
+children were to have theirs in an ignominious manner in the kitchen.\r
+Mrs. Tulliver went out to speak to these naughty children, supposing\r
+them to be close at hand; but it was not until after some search that\r
+she found Tom leaning with rather a hardened, careless air against the\r
+white paling of the poultry-yard, and lowering his piece of string on\r
+the other side as a means of exasperating the turkey-cock.\r
+\r
+"Tom, you naughty boy, where's your sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver, in a\r
+distressed voice.\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Tom; his eagerness for justice on Maggie had\r
+diminished since he had seen clearly that it could hardly be brought\r
+about without the injustice of some blame on his own conduct.\r
+\r
+"Why, where did you leave her?" said the mother, looking round.\r
+\r
+"Sitting under the tree, against the pond," said Tom, apparently\r
+indifferent to everything but the string and the turkey-cock.\r
+\r
+"Then go and fetch her in this minute, you naughty boy. And how could\r
+you think o' going to the pond, and taking your sister where there was\r
+dirt? You know she'll do mischief if there's mischief to be done."\r
+\r
+It was Mrs. Tulliver's way, if she blamed Tom, to refer his\r
+misdemeanor, somehow or other, to Maggie.\r
+\r
+The idea of Maggie sitting alone by the pond roused an habitual fear\r
+in Mrs. Tulliver's mind, and she mounted the horse-block to satisfy\r
+herself by a sight of that fatal child, while Tom walked--not very\r
+quickly--on his way toward her.\r
+\r
+"They're such children for the water, mine are," she said aloud,\r
+without reflecting that there was no one to hear her; "they'll be\r
+brought in dead and drownded some day. I wish that river was far\r
+enough."\r
+\r
+But when she not only failed to discern Maggie, but presently saw Tom\r
+returning from the pool alone, this hovering fear entered and took\r
+complete possession of her, and she hurried to meet him.\r
+\r
+"Maggie's nowhere about the pond, mother," said Tom; "she's gone\r
+away."\r
+\r
+You may conceive the terrified search for Maggie, and the difficulty\r
+of convincing her mother that she was not in the pond. Mrs. Pullet\r
+observed that the child might come to a worse end if she lived, there\r
+was no knowing; and Mr. Pullet, confused and overwhelmed by this\r
+revolutionary aspect of things,--the tea deferred and the poultry\r
+alarmed by the unusual running to and fro,--took up his spud as an\r
+instrument of search, and reached down a key to unlock the goose-pen,\r
+as a likely place for Maggie to lie concealed in.\r
+\r
+Tom, after a while, started the idea that Maggie was gone home\r
+(without thinking it necessary to state that it was what he should\r
+have done himself under the circumstances), and the suggestion was\r
+seized as a comfort by his mother.\r
+\r
+"Sister, for goodness' sake let 'em put the horse in the carriage and\r
+take me home; we shall perhaps find her on the road. Lucy can't walk\r
+in her dirty clothes," she said, looking at that innocent victim, who\r
+was wrapped up in a shawl, and sitting with naked feet on the sofa.\r
+\r
+Aunt Pullet was quite willing to take the shortest means of restoring\r
+her premises to order and quiet, and it was not long before Mrs.\r
+Tulliver was in the chaise, looking anxiously at the most distant\r
+point before her. What the father would say if Maggie was lost, was a\r
+question that predominated over every other.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XI\r
+\r
+Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow\r
+\r
+\r
+Maggie's intentions, as usual, were on a larger scale than Tom\r
+imagined. The resolution that gathered in her mind, after Tom and Lucy\r
+had walked away, was not so simple as that of going home. No! she\r
+would run away and go to the gypsies, and Tom should never see her any\r
+more. That was by no means a new idea to Maggie; she had been so often\r
+told she was like a gypsy, and "half wild," that when she was\r
+miserable it seemed to her the only way of escaping opprobrium, and\r
+being entirely in harmony with circumstances, would be to live in a\r
+little brown tent on the commons; the gypsies, she considered, would\r
+gladly receive her and pay her much respect on account of her superior\r
+knowledge. She had once mentioned her views on this point to Tom and\r
+suggested that he should stain his face brown, and they should run\r
+away together; but Tom rejected the scheme with contempt, observing\r
+that gypsies were thieves, and hardly got anything to eat and had\r
+nothing to drive but a donkey. To-day however, Maggie thought her\r
+misery had reached a pitch at which gypsydom was her refuge, and she\r
+rose from her seat on the roots of the tree with the sense that this\r
+was a great crisis in her life; she would run straight away till she\r
+came to Dunlow Common, where there would certainly be gypsies; and\r
+cruel Tom, and the rest of her relations who found fault with her,\r
+should never see her any more. She thought of her father as she ran\r
+along, but she reconciled herself to the idea of parting with him, by\r
+determining that she would secretly send him a letter by a small\r
+gypsy, who would run away without telling where she was, and just let\r
+him know that she was well and happy, and always loved him very much.\r
+\r
+Maggie soon got out of breath with running, but by the time Tom got to\r
+the pond again she was at the distance of three long fields, and was\r
+on the edge of the lane leading to the highroad. She stopped to pant a\r
+little, reflecting that running away was not a pleasant thing until\r
+one had got quite to the common where the gypsies were, but her\r
+resolution had not abated; she presently passed through the gate into\r
+the lane, not knowing where it would lead her, for it was not this way\r
+that they came from Dorlcote Mill to Garum Firs, and she felt all the\r
+safer for that, because there was no chance of her being overtaken.\r
+But she was soon aware, not without trembling, that there were two men\r
+coming along the lane in front of her; she had not thought of meeting\r
+strangers, she had been too much occupied with the idea of her friends\r
+coming after her. The formidable strangers were two shabby-looking men\r
+with flushed faces, one of them carrying a bundle on a stick over his\r
+shoulder; but to her surprise, while she was dreading their\r
+disapprobation as a runaway, the man with the bundle stopped, and in a\r
+half-whining, half-coaxing tone asked her if she had a copper to give\r
+a poor man. Maggie had a sixpence in her pocket,--her uncle Glegg's\r
+present,--which she immediately drew out and gave this poor man with a\r
+polite smile, hoping he would feel very kindly toward her as a\r
+generous person. "That's the only money I've got," she said\r
+apologetically. "Thank you, little miss," said the man, in a less\r
+respectful and grateful tone than Maggie anticipated, and she even\r
+observed that he smiled and winked at his companion. She walked on\r
+hurriedly, but was aware that the two men were standing still,\r
+probably to look after her, and she presently heard them laughing\r
+loudly. Suddenly it occurred to her that they might think she was an\r
+idiot; Tom had said that her cropped hair made her look like an idiot,\r
+and it was too painful an idea to be readily forgotten. Besides, she\r
+had no sleeves on,--only a cape and bonnet. It was clear that she was\r
+not likely to make a favorable impression on passengers, and she\r
+thought she would turn into the fields again, but not on the same side\r
+of the lane as before, lest they should still be uncle Pullet's\r
+fields. She turned through the first gate that was not locked, and\r
+felt a delightful sense of privacy in creeping along by the hedgerows,\r
+after her recent humiliating encounter. She was used to wandering\r
+about the fields by herself, and was less timid there than on the\r
+highroad. Sometimes she had to climb over high gates, but that was a\r
+small evil; she was getting out of reach very fast, and she should\r
+probably soon come within sight of Dunlow Common, or at least of some\r
+other common, for she had heard her father say that you couldn't go\r
+very far without coming to a common. She hoped so, for she was getting\r
+rather tired and hungry, and until she reached the gypsies there was\r
+no definite prospect of bread and butter. It was still broad daylight,\r
+for aunt Pullet, retaining the early habits of the Dodson family, took\r
+tea at half-past four by the sun, and at five by the kitchen clock;\r
+so, though it was nearly an hour since Maggie started, there was no\r
+gathering gloom on the fields to remind her that the night would come.\r
+Still, it seemed to her that she had been walking a very great\r
+distance indeed, and it was really surprising that the common did not\r
+come within sight. Hitherto she had been in the rich parish of Garum,\r
+where was a great deal of pasture-land, and she had only seen one\r
+laborer at a distance. That was fortunate in some respects, as\r
+laborers might be too ignorant to understand the propriety of her\r
+wanting to go to Dunlow Common; yet it would have been better if she\r
+could have met some one who would tell her the way without wanting to\r
+know anything about her private business. At last, however, the green\r
+fields came to an end, and Maggie found herself looking through the\r
+bars of a gate into a lane with a wide margin of grass on each side of\r
+it. She had never seen such a wide lane before, and, without her\r
+knowing why, it gave her the impression that the common could not be\r
+far off; perhaps it was because she saw a donkey with a log to his\r
+foot feeding on the grassy margin, for she had seen a donkey with that\r
+pitiable encumbrance on Dunlow Common when she had been across it in\r
+her father's gig. She crept through the bars of the gate and walked on\r
+with new spirit, though not without haunting images of Apollyon, and a\r
+highwayman with a pistol, and a blinking dwarf in yellow with a mouth\r
+from ear to ear, and other miscellaneous dangers. For poor little\r
+Maggie had at once the timidity of an active imagination and the\r
+daring that comes from overmastering impulse. She had rushed into the\r
+adventure of seeking her unknown kindred, the gypsies; and now she was\r
+in this strange lane, she hardly dared look on one side of her, lest\r
+she should see the diabolical blacksmith in his leathern apron\r
+grinning at her with arms akimbo. It was not without a leaping of the\r
+heart that she caught sight of a small pair of bare legs sticking up,\r
+feet uppermost, by the side of a hillock; they seemed something\r
+hideously preternatural,--a diabolical kind of fungus; for she was too\r
+much agitated at the first glance to see the ragged clothes and the\r
+dark shaggy head attached to them. It was a boy asleep, and Maggie\r
+trotted along faster and more lightly, lest she should wake him; it\r
+did not occur to her that he was one of her friends the gypsies, who\r
+in all probability would have very genial manners. But the fact was\r
+so, for at the next bend in the lane Maggie actually saw the little\r
+semicircular black tent with the blue smoke rising before it, which\r
+was to be her refuge from all the blighting obloquy that had pursued\r
+her in civilized life. She even saw a tall female figure by the column\r
+of smoke, doubtless the gypsy-mother, who provided the tea and other\r
+groceries; it was astonishing to herself that she did not feel more\r
+delighted. But it was startling to find the gypsies in a lane, after\r
+all, and not on a common; indeed, it was rather disappointing; for a\r
+mysterious illimitable common, where there were sand-pits to hide in,\r
+and one was out of everybody's reach, had always made part of Maggie's\r
+picture of gypsy life. She went on, however, and thought with some\r
+comfort that gypsies most likely knew nothing about idiots, so there\r
+was no danger of their falling into the mistake of setting her down at\r
+the first glance as an idiot. It was plain she had attracted\r
+attention; for the tall figure, who proved to be a young woman with a\r
+baby on her arm, walked slowly to meet her. Maggie looked up in the\r
+new face rather tremblingly as it approached, and was reassured by the\r
+thought that her aunt Pullet and the rest were right when they called\r
+her a gypsy; for this face, with the bright dark eyes and the long\r
+hair, was really something like what she used to see in the glass\r
+before she cut her hair off.\r
+\r
+"My little lady, where are you going to?" the gypsy said, in a tone of\r
+coaxing deference.\r
+\r
+It was delightful, and just what Maggie expected; the gypsies saw at\r
+once that she was a little lady, and were prepared to treat her\r
+accordingly.\r
+\r
+"Not any farther," said Maggie, feeling as if she were saying what she\r
+had rehearsed in a dream. "I'm come to stay with _you_, please."\r
+\r
+"That's pretty; come, then. Why, what a nice little lady you are, to\r
+be sure!" said the gypsy, taking her by the hand. Maggie thought her\r
+very agreeable, but wished she had not been so dirty.\r
+\r
+There was quite a group round the fire when she reached it. An old\r
+gypsy woman was seated on the ground nursing her knees, and\r
+occasionally poking a skewer into the round kettle that sent forth an\r
+odorous steam; two small shock-headed children were lying prone and\r
+resting on their elbows something like small sphinxes; and a placid\r
+donkey was bending his head over a tall girl, who, lying on her back,\r
+was scratching his nose and indulging him with a bite of excellent\r
+stolen hay. The slanting sunlight fell kindly upon them, and the scene\r
+was really very pretty and comfortable, Maggie thought, only she hoped\r
+they would soon set out the tea-cups. Everything would be quite\r
+charming when she had taught the gypsies to use a washing-basin, and\r
+to feel an interest in books. It was a little confusing, though, that\r
+the young woman began to speak to the old one in a language which\r
+Maggie did not understand, while the tall girl, who was feeding the\r
+donkey, sat up and stared at her without offering any salutation. At\r
+last the old woman said,--\r
+\r
+"What! my pretty lady, are you come to stay with us? Sit ye down and\r
+tell us where you come from."\r
+\r
+It was just like a story; Maggie liked to be called pretty lady and\r
+treated in this way. She sat down and said,--\r
+\r
+"I'm come from home because I'm unhappy, and I mean to be a gypsy.\r
+I'll live with you if you like, and I can teach you a great many\r
+things."\r
+\r
+"Such a clever little lady," said the woman with the baby sitting down\r
+by Maggie, and allowing baby to crawl; "and such a pretty bonnet and\r
+frock," she added, taking off Maggie's bonnet and looking at it while\r
+she made an observation to the old woman, in the unknown language. The\r
+tall girl snatched the bonnet and put it on her own head hind-foremost\r
+with a grin; but Maggie was determined not to show any weakness on\r
+this subject, as if she were susceptible about her bonnet.\r
+\r
+"I don't want to wear a bonnet," she said; "I'd rather wear a red\r
+handkerchief, like yours" (looking at her friend by her side). "My\r
+hair was quite long till yesterday, when I cut it off; but I dare say\r
+it will grow again very soon," she added apologetically, thinking it\r
+probable the gypsies had a strong prejudice in favor of long hair. And\r
+Maggie had forgotten even her hunger at that moment in the desire to\r
+conciliate gypsy opinion.\r
+\r
+"Oh, what a nice little lady!--and rich, I'm sure," said the old\r
+woman. "Didn't you live in a beautiful house at home?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, my home is pretty, and I'm very fond of the river, where we go\r
+fishing, but I'm often very unhappy. I should have liked to bring my\r
+books with me, but I came away in a hurry, you know. But I can tell\r
+you almost everything there is in my books, I've read them so many\r
+times, and that will amuse you. And I can tell you something about\r
+Geography too,--that's about the world we live in,--very useful and\r
+interesting. Did you ever hear about Columbus?"\r
+\r
+Maggie's eyes had begun to sparkle and her cheeks to flush,--she was\r
+really beginning to instruct the gypsies, and gaining great influence\r
+over them. The gypsies themselves were not without amazement at this\r
+talk, though their attention was divided by the contents of Maggie's\r
+pocket, which the friend at her right hand had by this time emptied\r
+without attracting her notice.\r
+\r
+"Is that where you live, my little lady?" said the old woman, at the\r
+mention of Columbus.\r
+\r
+"Oh, no!" said Maggie, with some pity; "Columbus was a very wonderful\r
+man, who found out half the world, and they put chains on him and\r
+treated him very badly, you know; it's in my Catechism of Geography,\r
+but perhaps it's rather too long to tell before tea--_I want my tea\r
+so_."\r
+\r
+The last words burst from Maggie, in spite of herself, with a sudden\r
+drop from patronizing instruction to simple peevishness.\r
+\r
+"Why, she's hungry, poor little lady," said the younger woman. "Give\r
+her some o' the cold victual. You've been walking a good way, I'll be\r
+bound, my dear. Where's your home?"\r
+\r
+"It's Dorlcote Mill, a good way off," said Maggie. "My father is Mr.\r
+Tulliver, but we mustn't let him know where I am, else he'll fetch me\r
+home again. Where does the queen of the gypsies live?"\r
+\r
+"What! do you want to go to her, my little lady?" said the younger\r
+woman. The tall girl meanwhile was constantly staring at Maggie and\r
+grinning. Her manners were certainly not agreeable.\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, "I'm only thinking that if she isn't a very good\r
+queen you might be glad when she died, and you could choose another.\r
+If I was a queen, I'd be a very good queen, and kind to everybody."\r
+\r
+"Here's a bit o' nice victual, then," said the old woman, handing to\r
+Maggie a lump of dry bread, which she had taken from a bag of scraps,\r
+and a piece of cold bacon.\r
+\r
+"Thank you,' said Maggie, looking at the food without taking it; "but\r
+will you give me some bread-and-butter and tea instead? I don't like\r
+bacon."\r
+\r
+"We've got no tea nor butter," said the old woman, with something like\r
+a scowl, as if she were getting tired of coaxing.\r
+\r
+"Oh, a little bread and treacle would do," said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"We han't got no treacle," said the old woman, crossly, whereupon\r
+there followed a sharp dialogue between the two women in their unknown\r
+tongue, and one of the small sphinxes snatched at the bread-and-bacon,\r
+and began to eat it. At this moment the tall girl, who had gone a few\r
+yards off, came back, and said something which produced a strong\r
+effect. The old woman, seeming to forget Maggie's hunger, poked the\r
+skewer into the pot with new vigor, and the younger crept under the\r
+tent and reached out some platters and spoons. Maggie trembled a\r
+little, and was afraid the tears would come into her eyes. Meanwhile\r
+the tall girl gave a shrill cry, and presently came running up the boy\r
+whom Maggie had passed as he was sleeping,--a rough urchin about the\r
+age of Tom. He stared at Maggie, and there ensued much incomprehensible\r
+chattering. She felt very lonely, and was quite sure she should begin to\r
+cry before long; the gypsies didn't seem to mind her at all, and she felt\r
+quite weak among them. But the springing tears were checked by new\r
+terror, when two men came up, whose approach had been the cause\r
+of the sudden excitement. The elder of the two carried a bag, which\r
+he flung down, addressing the women in a loud and scolding tone,\r
+which they answered by a shower of treble sauciness; while a black\r
+cur ran barking up to Maggie, and threw her into a tremor that only\r
+found a new cause in the curses with which the younger man called\r
+the dog off, and gave him a rap with a great stick he held in his hand.\r
+\r
+Maggie felt that it was impossible she should ever be queen of these\r
+people, or ever communicate to them amusing and useful knowledge.\r
+\r
+Both the men now seemed to be inquiring about Maggie, for they looked\r
+at her, and the tone of the conversation became of that pacific kind\r
+which implies curiosity on one side and the power of satisfying it on\r
+the other. At last the younger woman said in her previous deferential,\r
+coaxing tone,--\r
+\r
+"This nice little lady's come to live with us; aren't you glad?"\r
+\r
+"Ay, very glad," said the younger man, who was looking at Maggie's\r
+silver thimble and other small matters that had been taken from her\r
+pocket. He returned them all except the thimble to the younger woman,\r
+with some observation, and she immediately restored them to Maggie's\r
+pocket, while the men seated themselves, and began to attack the\r
+contents of the kettle,--a stew of meat and potatoes,--which had been\r
+taken off the fire and turned out into a yellow platter.\r
+\r
+Maggie began to think that Tom must be right about the gypsies; they\r
+must certainly be thieves, unless the man meant to return her thimble\r
+by and by. She would willingly have given it to him, for she was not\r
+at all attached to her thimble; but the idea that she was among\r
+thieves prevented her from feeling any comfort in the revival of\r
+deference and attention toward her; all thieves, except Robin Hood,\r
+were wicked people. The women saw she was frightened.\r
+\r
+"We've got nothing nice for a lady to eat," said the old woman, in her\r
+coaxing tone. "And she's so hungry, sweet little lady."\r
+\r
+"Here, my dear, try if you can eat a bit o' this," said the younger\r
+woman, handing some of the stew on a brown dish with an iron spoon to\r
+Maggie, who, remembering that the old woman had seemed angry with her\r
+for not liking the bread-and-bacon, dared not refuse the stew, though\r
+fear had chased away her appetite. If her father would but come by in\r
+the gig and take her up! Or even if Jack the Giantkiller, or Mr.\r
+Greatheart, or St. George who slew the dragon on the half-pennies,\r
+would happen to pass that way! But Maggie thought with a sinking heart\r
+that these heroes were never seen in the neighborhood of St. Ogg's;\r
+nothing very wonderful ever came there.\r
+\r
+Maggie Tulliver, you perceive, was by no means that well trained,\r
+well-informed young person that a small female of eight or nine\r
+necessarily is in these days; she had only been to school a year at\r
+St. Ogg's, and had so few books that she sometimes read the\r
+dictionary; so that in travelling over her small mind you would have\r
+found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected knowledge.\r
+She could have informed you that there was such a word as "polygamy,"\r
+and being also acquainted with "polysyllable," she had deduced the\r
+conclusion that "poly" mean "many"; but she had had no idea that\r
+gypsies were not well supplied with groceries, and her thoughts\r
+generally were the oddest mixture of clear-eyed acumen and blind\r
+dreams.\r
+\r
+Her ideas about the gypsies had undergone a rapid modification in the\r
+last five minutes. From having considered them very respectful\r
+companions, amenable to instruction, she had begun to think that they\r
+meant perhaps to kill her as soon as it was dark, and cut up her body\r
+for gradual cooking; the suspicion crossed her that the fierce-eyed\r
+old man was in fact the Devil, who might drop that transparent\r
+disguise at any moment, and turn either into the grinning blacksmith,\r
+or else a fiery-eyed monster with dragon's wings. It was no use trying\r
+to eat the stew, and yet the thing she most dreaded was to offend the\r
+gypsies, by betraying her extremely unfavorable opinion of them; and\r
+she wondered, with a keenness of interest that no theologian could\r
+have exceeded, whether, if the Devil were really present, he would\r
+know her thoughts.\r
+\r
+"What! you don't like the smell of it, my dear," said the young woman,\r
+observing that Maggie did not even take a spoonful of the stew. "Try a\r
+bit, come."\r
+\r
+"No, thank you," said Maggie, summoning all her force for a desperate\r
+effort, and trying to smile in a friendly way. "I haven't time, I\r
+think; it seems getting darker. I think I must go home now, and come\r
+again another day, and then I can bring you a basket with some\r
+jam-tarts and things."\r
+\r
+Maggie rose from her seat as she threw out this illusory prospect,\r
+devoutly hoping that Apollyon was gullible; but her hope sank when the\r
+old gypsy-woman said, "Stop a bit, stop a bit, little lady; we'll take\r
+you home, all safe, when we've done supper; you shall ride home, like\r
+a lady."\r
+\r
+Maggie sat down again, with little faith in this promise, though she\r
+presently saw the tall girl putting a bridle on the donkey, and\r
+throwing a couple of bags on his back.\r
+\r
+"Now, then, little missis," said the younger man, rising, and leading\r
+the donkey forward, "tell us where you live; what's the name o' the\r
+place?"\r
+\r
+"Dorlcote Mill is my home," said Maggie, eagerly. "My father is Mr.\r
+Tulliver; he lives there."\r
+\r
+"What! a big mill a little way this side o' St. Ogg's?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie. "Is it far off? I think I should like to walk\r
+there, if you please."\r
+\r
+"No, no, it'll be getting dark, we must make haste. And the donkey'll\r
+carry you as nice as can be; you'll see."\r
+\r
+He lifted Maggie as he spoke, and set her on the donkey. She felt\r
+relieved that it was not the old man who seemed to be going with her,\r
+but she had only a trembling hope that she was really going home.\r
+\r
+"Here's your pretty bonnet," said the younger woman, putting that\r
+recently despised but now welcome article of costume on Maggie's head;\r
+"and you'll say we've been very good to you, won't you? and what a\r
+nice little lady we said you was."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, thank you," said Maggie, "I'm very much obliged to you. But I\r
+wish you'd go with me too." She thought anything was better than going\r
+with one of the dreadful men alone; it would be more cheerful to be\r
+murdered by a larger party.\r
+\r
+"Ah, you're fondest o' _me_, aren't you?" said the woman. "But I can't\r
+go; you'll go too fast for me."\r
+\r
+It now appeared that the man also was to be seated on the donkey,\r
+holding Maggie before him, and she was as incapable of remonstrating\r
+against this arrangement as the donkey himself, though no nightmare\r
+had ever seemed to her more horrible. When the woman had patted her on\r
+the back, and said "Good-by," the donkey, at a strong hint from the\r
+man's stick, set off at a rapid walk along the lane toward the point\r
+Maggie had come from an hour ago, while the tall girl and the rough\r
+urchin, also furnished with sticks, obligingly escorted them for the\r
+first hundred yards, with much screaming and thwacking.\r
+\r
+Not Leonore, in that preternatural midnight excursion with her phantom\r
+lover, was more terrified than poor Maggie in this entirely natural\r
+ride on a short-paced donkey, with a gypsy behind her, who considered\r
+that he was earning half a crown. The red light of the setting sun\r
+seemed to have a portentous meaning, with which the alarming bray of\r
+the second donkey with the log on its foot must surely have some\r
+connection. Two low thatched cottages--the only houses they passed in\r
+this lane--seemed to add to its dreariness; they had no windows to\r
+speak of, and the doors were closed; it was probable that they were\r
+inhabitated by witches, and it was a relief to find that the donkey\r
+did not stop there.\r
+\r
+At last--oh, sight of joy!--this lane, the longest in the world, was\r
+coming to an end, was opening on a broad highroad, where there was\r
+actually a coach passing! And there was a finger-post at the\r
+corner,--she had surely seen that finger-post before,--"To St. Ogg's,\r
+2 miles." The gypsy really meant to take her home, then; he was\r
+probably a good man, after all, and might have been rather hurt at the\r
+thought that she didn't like coming with him alone. This idea became\r
+stronger as she felt more and more certain that she knew the road\r
+quite well, and she was considering how she might open a conversation\r
+with the injured gypsy, and not only gratify his feelings but efface\r
+the impression of her cowardice, when, as they reached a cross-road.\r
+Maggie caught sight of some one coming on a white-faced horse.\r
+\r
+"Oh, stop, stop!" she cried out. "There's my father! Oh, father,\r
+father!"\r
+\r
+The sudden joy was almost painful, and before her father reached her,\r
+she was sobbing. Great was Mr. Tulliver's wonder, for he had made a\r
+round from Basset, and had not yet been home.\r
+\r
+"Why, what's the meaning o' this?" he said, checking his horse, while\r
+Maggie slipped from the donkey and ran to her father's stirrup.\r
+\r
+"The little miss lost herself, I reckon," said the gypsy. "She'd come\r
+to our tent at the far end o' Dunlow Lane, and I was bringing her\r
+where she said her home was. It's a good way to come after being on\r
+the tramp all day."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, father, he's been very good to bring me home," said\r
+Maggie,--"a very kind, good man!"\r
+\r
+"Here, then, my man," said Mr. Tulliver, taking out five shillings.\r
+"It's the best day's work _you_ ever did. I couldn't afford to lose\r
+the little wench; here, lift her up before me."\r
+\r
+"Why, Maggie, how's this, how's this?" he said, as they rode along,\r
+while she laid her head against her father and sobbed. "How came you\r
+to be rambling about and lose yourself?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, father," sobbed Maggie, "I ran away because I was so unhappy; Tom\r
+was so angry with me. I couldn't bear it."\r
+\r
+"Pooh, pooh," said Mr. Tulliver, soothingly, "you mustn't think o'\r
+running away from father. What 'ud father do without his little\r
+wench?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, I never will again, father--never."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver spoke his mind very strongly when he reached home that\r
+evening; and the effect was seen in the remarkable fact that Maggie\r
+never heard one reproach from her mother, or one taunt from Tom, about\r
+this foolish business of her running away to the gypsies. Maggie was\r
+rather awe-stricken by this unusual treatment, and sometimes thought\r
+that her conduct had been too wicked to be alluded to.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XII\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at Home\r
+\r
+\r
+In order to see Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at home, we must enter the town of\r
+St. Ogg's,--that venerable town with the red fluted roofs and the\r
+broad warehouse gables, where the black ships unlade themselves of\r
+their burthens from the far north, and carry away, in exchange, the\r
+precious inland products, the well-crushed cheese and the soft fleeces\r
+which my refined readers have doubtless become acquainted with through\r
+the medium of the best classic pastorals.\r
+\r
+It is one of those old, old towns which impress one as a continuation\r
+and outgrowth of nature, as much as the nests of the bower-birds or\r
+the winding galleries of the white ants; a town which carries the\r
+traces of its long growth and history like a millennial tree, and has\r
+sprung up and developed in the same spot between the river and the low\r
+hill from the time when the Roman legions turned their backs on it\r
+from the camp on the hillside, and the long-haired sea-kings came up\r
+the river and looked with fierce, eager eyes at the fatness of the\r
+land. It is a town "familiar with forgotten years." The shadow of the\r
+Saxon hero-king still walks there fitfully, reviewing the scenes of\r
+his youth and love-time, and is met by the gloomier shadow of the\r
+dreadful heathen Dane, who was stabbed in the midst of his warriors by\r
+the sword of an invisible avenger, and who rises on autumn evenings\r
+like a white mist from his tumulus on the hill, and hovers in the\r
+court of the old hall by the river-side, the spot where he was thus\r
+miraculously slain in the days before the old hall was built. It was\r
+the Normans who began to build that fine old hall, which is, like the\r
+town, telling of the thoughts and hands of widely sundered\r
+generations; but it is all so old that we look with loving pardon at\r
+its inconsistencies, and are well content that they who built the\r
+stone oriel, and they who built the Gothic façade and towers of finest\r
+small brickwork with the trefoil ornament, and the windows and\r
+battlements defined with stone, did not sacreligiously pull down the\r
+ancient half-timbered body with its oak-roofed banqueting-hall.\r
+\r
+But older even than this old hall is perhaps the bit of wall now built\r
+into the belfry of the parish church, and said to be a remnant of the\r
+original chapel dedicated to St. Ogg, the patron saint of this ancient\r
+town, of whose history I possess several manuscript versions. I\r
+incline to the briefest, since, if it should not be wholly true, it is\r
+at least likely to contain the least falsehood. "Ogg the son of\r
+Beorl," says my private hagiographer, "was a boatman who gained a\r
+scanty living by ferrying passengers across the river Floss. And it\r
+came to pass, one evening when the winds were high, that there sat\r
+moaning by the brink of the river a woman with a child in her arms;\r
+and she was clad in rags, and had a worn and withered look, and she\r
+craved to be rowed across the river. And the men thereabout questioned\r
+her, and said, 'Wherefore dost thou desire to cross the river? Tarry\r
+till the morning, and take shelter here for the night; so shalt thou\r
+be wise and not foolish.' Still she went on to mourn and crave. But\r
+Ogg the son of Beorl came up and said, 'I will ferry thee across; it\r
+is enough that thy heart needs it.' And he ferried her across. And it\r
+came to pass, when she stepped ashore, that her rags were turned into\r
+robes of flowing white, and her face became bright with exceeding\r
+beauty, and there was a glory around it, so that she shed a light on\r
+the water like the moon in its brightness. And she said, 'Ogg, the son\r
+of Beorl, thou art blessed in that thou didst not question and wrangle\r
+with the heart's need, but wast smitten with pity, and didst\r
+straightway relieve the same. And from henceforth whoso steps into thy\r
+boat shall be in no peril from the storm; and whenever it puts forth\r
+to the rescue, it shall save the lives both of men and beasts.' And\r
+when the floods came, many were saved by reason of that blessing on\r
+the boat. But when Ogg the son of Beorl died, behold, in the parting\r
+of his soul, the boat loosed itself from its moorings, and was floated\r
+with the ebbing tide in great swiftness to the ocean, and was seen no\r
+more. Yet it was witnessed in the floods of aftertime, that at the\r
+coming on of eventide, Ogg the son of Beorl was always seen with his\r
+boat upon the wide-spreading waters, and the Blessed Virgin sat in the\r
+prow, shedding a light around as of the moon in its brightness, so\r
+that the rowers in the gathering darkness took heart and pulled anew."\r
+\r
+This legend, one sees, reflects from a far-off time the visitation of\r
+the floods, which, even when they left human life untouched, were\r
+widely fatal to the helpless cattle, and swept as sudden death over\r
+all smaller living things. But the town knew worse troubles even than\r
+the floods,--troubles of the civil wars, when it was a continual\r
+fighting-place, where first Puritans thanked God for the blood of the\r
+Loyalists, and then Loyalists thanked God for the blood of the\r
+Puritans. Many honest citizens lost all their possessions for\r
+conscience' sake in those times, and went forth beggared from their\r
+native town. Doubtless there are many houses standing now on which\r
+those honest citizens turned their backs in sorrow,--quaint-gabled\r
+houses looking on the river, jammed between newer warehouses, and\r
+penetrated by surprising passages, which turn and turn at sharp angles\r
+till they lead you out on a muddy strand overflowed continually by the\r
+rushing tide. Everywhere the brick houses have a mellow look, and in\r
+Mrs. Glegg's day there was no incongruous new-fashioned smartness, no\r
+plate-glass in shop-windows, no fresh stucco-facing or other\r
+fallacious attempt to make fine old red St. Ogg's wear the air of a\r
+town that sprang up yesterday. The shop-windows were small and\r
+unpretending; for the farmers' wives and daughters who came to do\r
+their shopping on market-days were not to be withdrawn from their\r
+regular well-known shops; and the tradesmen had no wares intended for\r
+customers who would go on their way and be seen no more. Ah! even Mrs.\r
+Glegg's day seems far back in the past now, separated from us by\r
+changes that widen the years. War and the rumor of war had then died\r
+out from the minds of men, and if they were ever thought of by the\r
+farmers in drab greatcoats, who shook the grain out of their\r
+sample-bags and buzzed over it in the full market-place, it was as a\r
+state of things that belonged to a past golden age when prices were\r
+high. Surely the time was gone forever when the broad river could\r
+bring up unwelcome ships; Russia was only the place where the linseed\r
+came from,--the more the better,--making grist for the great vertical\r
+millstones with their scythe-like arms, roaring and grinding and\r
+carefully sweeping as if an informing soul were in them. The\r
+Catholics, bad harvests, and the mysterious fluctuations of trade were\r
+the three evils mankind had to fear; even the floods had not been\r
+great of late years. The mind of St. Ogg's did not look extensively\r
+before or after. It inherited a long past without thinking of it, and\r
+had no eyes for the spirits that walk the streets. Since the centuries\r
+when St. Ogg with his boat and the Virgin Mother at the prow had been\r
+seen on the wide water, so many memories had been left behind, and had\r
+gradually vanished like the receding hilltops! And the present time\r
+was like the level plain where men lose their belief in volcanoes and\r
+earthquakes, thinking to-morrow will be as yesterday, and the giant\r
+forces that used to shake the earth are forever laid to sleep. The\r
+days were gone when people could be greatly wrought upon by their\r
+faith, still less change it; the Catholics were formidable because\r
+they would lay hold of government and property, and burn men alive;\r
+not because any sane and honest parishioner of St. Ogg's could be\r
+brought to believe in the Pope. One aged person remembered how a rude\r
+multitude had been swayed when John Wesley preached in the\r
+cattle-market; but for a long while it had not been expected of\r
+preachers that they should shake the souls of men. An occasional burst\r
+of fervor in Dissenting pulpits on the subject of infant baptism was\r
+the only symptom of a zeal unsuited to sober times when men had done\r
+with change. Protestantism sat at ease, unmindful of schisms, careless\r
+of proselytism: Dissent was an inheritance along with a superior pew\r
+and a business connection; and Churchmanship only wondered\r
+contemptuously at Dissent as a foolish habit that clung greatly to\r
+families in the grocery and chandlering lines, though not incompatible\r
+with prosperous wholesale dealing. But with the Catholic Question had\r
+come a slight wind of controversy to break the calm: the elderly\r
+rector had become occasionally historical and argumentative; and Mr.\r
+Spray, the Independent minister, had begun to preach political\r
+sermons, in which he distinguished with much subtlety between his\r
+fervent belief in the right of the Catholics to the franchise and his\r
+fervent belief in their eternal perdition. Most of Mr. Spray's\r
+hearers, however, were incapable of following his subtleties, and many\r
+old-fashioned Dissenters were much pained by his "siding with the\r
+Catholics"; while others thought he had better let politics alone.\r
+Public spirit was not held in high esteem at St. Ogg's, and men who\r
+busied themselves with political questions were regarded with some\r
+suspicion, as dangerous characters; they were usually persons who had\r
+little or no business of their own to manage, or, if they had, were\r
+likely enough to become insolvent.\r
+\r
+This was the general aspect of things at St. Ogg's in Mrs. Glegg's\r
+day, and at that particular period in her family history when she had\r
+had her quarrel with Mr. Tulliver. It was a time when ignorance was\r
+much more comfortable than at present, and was received with all the\r
+honors in very good society, without being obliged to dress itself in\r
+an elaborate costume of knowledge; a time when cheap periodicals were\r
+not, and when country surgeons never thought of asking their female\r
+patients if they were fond of reading, but simply took it for granted\r
+that they preferred gossip; a time when ladies in rich silk gowns wore\r
+large pockets, in which they carried a mutton-bone to secure them\r
+against cramp. Mrs. Glegg carried such a bone, which she had inherited\r
+from her grandmother with a brocaded gown that would stand up empty,\r
+like a suit of armor, and a silver-headed walking-stick; for the\r
+Dodson family had been respectable for many generations.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg had both a front and a back parlor in her excellent house\r
+at St. Ogg's, so that she had two points of view from which she could\r
+observe the weakness of her fellow-beings, and reinforce her\r
+thankfulness for her own exceptional strength of mind. From her front\r
+window she could look down the Tofton Road, leading out of St. Ogg's,\r
+and note the growing tendency to "gadding about" in the wives of men\r
+not retired from business, together with a practice of wearing woven\r
+cotton stockings, which opened a dreary prospect for the coming\r
+generation; and from her back windows she could look down the pleasant\r
+garden and orchard which stretched to the river, and observe the folly\r
+of Mr. Glegg in spending his time among "them flowers and vegetables."\r
+For Mr. Glegg, having retired from active business as a wool-stapler\r
+for the purpose of enjoying himself through the rest of his life, had\r
+found this last occupation so much more severe than his business, that\r
+he had been driven into amateur hard labor as a dissipation, and\r
+habitually relaxed by doing the work of two ordinary gardeners. The\r
+economizing of a gardener's wages might perhaps have induced Mrs.\r
+Glegg to wink at this folly, if it were possible for a healthy female\r
+mind even to simulate respect for a husband's hobby. But it is well\r
+known that this conjugal complacency belongs only to the weaker\r
+portion of the sex, who are scarcely alive to the responsibilities of\r
+a wife as a constituted check on her husband's pleasures, which are\r
+hardly ever of a rational or commendable kind.\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg on his side, too, had a double source of mental occupation,\r
+which gave every promise of being inexhaustible. On the one hand, he\r
+surprised himself by his discoveries in natural history, finding that\r
+his piece of garden-ground contained wonderful caterpillars, slugs,\r
+and insects, which, so far as he had heard, had never before attracted\r
+human observation; and he noticed remarkable coincidences between\r
+these zoological phenomena and the great events of that time,--as, for\r
+example, that before the burning of York Minster there had been\r
+mysterious serpentine marks on the leaves of the rose-trees, together\r
+with an unusual prevalence of slugs, which he had been puzzled to know\r
+the meaning of, until it flashed upon him with this melancholy\r
+conflagration. (Mr. Glegg had an unusual amount of mental activity,\r
+which, when disengaged from the wool business, naturally made itself a\r
+pathway in other directions.) And his second subject of meditation was\r
+the "contrairiness" of the female mind, as typically exhibited in Mrs.\r
+Glegg. That a creature made--in a genealogical sense--out of a man's\r
+rib, and in this particular case maintained in the highest\r
+respectability without any trouble of her own, should be normally in a\r
+state of contradiction to the blandest propositions and even to the\r
+most accommodating concessions, was a mystery in the scheme of things\r
+to which he had often in vain sought a clew in the early chapters of\r
+Genesis. Mr. Glegg had chosen the eldest Miss Dodson as a handsome\r
+embodiment of female prudence and thrift, and being himself of a\r
+money-getting, money-keeping turn, had calculated on much conjugal\r
+harmony. But in that curious compound, the feminine character, it may\r
+easily happen that the flavor is unpleasant in spite of excellent\r
+ingredients; and a fine systematic stinginess may be accompanied with\r
+a seasoning that quite spoils its relish. Now, good Mr. Glegg himself\r
+was stingy in the most amiable manner; his neighbors called him\r
+"near," which always means that the person in question is a lovable\r
+skinflint. If you expressed a preference for cheese-parings, Mr. Glegg\r
+would remember to save them for you, with a good-natured delight in\r
+gratifying your palate, and he was given to pet all animals which\r
+required no appreciable keep. There was no humbug or hypocrisy about\r
+Mr. Glegg; his eyes would have watered with true feeling over the sale\r
+of a widow's furniture, which a five-pound note from his side pocket\r
+would have prevented; but a donation of five pounds to a person "in a\r
+small way of life" would have seemed to him a mad kind of lavishness\r
+rather than "charity," which had always presented itself to him as a\r
+contribution of small aids, not a neutralizing of misfortune. And Mr.\r
+Glegg was just as fond of saving other people's money as his own; he\r
+would have ridden as far round to avoid a turnpike when his expenses\r
+were to be paid for him, as when they were to come out of his own\r
+pocket, and was quite zealous in trying to induce indifferent\r
+acquaintances to adopt a cheap substitute for blacking. This\r
+inalienable habit of saving, as an end in itself, belonged to the\r
+industrious men of business of a former generation, who made their\r
+fortunes slowly, almost as the tracking of the fox belongs to the\r
+harrier,--it constituted them a "race," which is nearly lost in these\r
+days of rapid money-getting, when lavishness comes close on the back\r
+of want. In old-fashioned times an "independence" was hardly ever made\r
+without a little miserliness as a condition, and you would have found\r
+that quality in every provincial district, combined with characters as\r
+various as the fruits from which we can extract acid. The true\r
+Harpagons were always marked and exceptional characters; not so the\r
+worthy tax-payers, who, having once pinched from real necessity,\r
+retained even in the midst of their comfortable retirement, with their\r
+wallfruit and wine-bins, the habit of regarding life as an ingenious\r
+process of nibbling out one's livelihood without leaving any\r
+perceptible deficit, and who would have been as immediately prompted\r
+to give up a newly taxed luxury when they had had their clear five\r
+hundred a year, as when they had only five hundred pounds of capital.\r
+Mr. Glegg was one of these men, found so impracticable by chancellors\r
+of the exchequer; and knowing this, you will be the better able to\r
+understand why he had not swerved from the conviction that he had made\r
+an eligible marriage, in spite of the too-pungent seasoning that\r
+nature had given to the eldest Miss Dodson's virtues. A man with an\r
+affectionate disposition, who finds a wife to concur with his\r
+fundamental idea of life, easily comes to persuade himself that no\r
+other woman would have suited him so well, and does a little daily\r
+snapping and quarrelling without any sense of alienation. Mr. Glegg,\r
+being of a reflective turn, and no longer occupied with wool, had much\r
+wondering meditation on the peculiar constitution of the female mind\r
+as unfolded to him in his domestic life; and yet he thought Mrs.\r
+Glegg's household ways a model for her sex. It struck him as a\r
+pitiable irregularity in other women if they did not roll up their\r
+table-napkins with the same tightness and emphasis as Mrs. Glegg did,\r
+if their pastry had a less leathery consistence, and their damson\r
+cheese a less venerable hardness than hers; nay, even the peculiar\r
+combination of grocery and druglike odors in Mrs. Glegg's private\r
+cupboard impressed him as the only right thing in the way of cupboard\r
+smells. I am not sure that he would not have longed for the\r
+quarrelling again, if it had ceased for an entire week; and it is\r
+certain that an acquiescent, mild wife would have left his meditations\r
+comparatively jejune and barren of mystery.\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg's unmistakable kind-heartedness was shown in this, that it\r
+pained him more to see his wife at variance with others,--even with\r
+Dolly, the servant,--than to be in a state of cavil with her himself;\r
+and the quarrel between her and Mr. Tulliver vexed him so much that it\r
+quite nullified the pleasure he would otherwise have had in the state\r
+of his early cabbages, as he walked in his garden before breakfast the\r
+next morning. Still, he went in to breakfast with some slight hope\r
+that, now Mrs. Glegg had "slept upon it," her anger might be subdued\r
+enough to give way to her usually strong sense of family decorum. She\r
+had been used to boast that there had never been any of those deadly\r
+quarrels among the Dodsons which had disgraced other families; that no\r
+Dodson had ever been "cut off with a shilling," and no cousin of the\r
+Dodsons disowned; as, indeed, why should they be? For they had no\r
+cousins who had not money out at use, or some houses of their own, at\r
+the very least.\r
+\r
+There was one evening-cloud which had always disappeared from Mrs.\r
+Glegg's brow when she sat at the breakfast-table. It was her fuzzy\r
+front of curls; for as she occupied herself in household matters in\r
+the morning it would have been a mere extravagance to put on anything\r
+so superfluous to the making of leathery pastry as a fuzzy curled\r
+front. By half-past ten decorum demanded the front; until then Mrs.\r
+Glegg could economize it, and society would never be any the wiser.\r
+But the absence of that cloud only left it more apparent that the\r
+cloud of severity remained; and Mr. Glegg, perceiving this, as he sat\r
+down to his milkporridge, which it was his old frugal habit to stem\r
+his morning hunger with, prudently resolved to leave the first remark\r
+to Mrs. Glegg, lest, to so delicate an article as a lady's temper, the\r
+slightest touch should do mischief. People who seem to enjoy their ill\r
+temper have a way of keeping it in fine condition by inflicting\r
+privations on themselves. That was Mrs. Glegg's way. She made her tea\r
+weaker than usual this morning, and declined butter. It was a hard\r
+case that a vigorous mood for quarrelling, so highly capable of using\r
+an opportunity, should not meet with a single remark from Mr. Glegg on\r
+which to exercise itself. But by and by it appeared that his silence\r
+would answer the purpose, for he heard himself apostrophized at last\r
+in that tone peculiar to the wife of one's bosom.\r
+\r
+"Well, Mr. Glegg! it's a poor return I get for making you the wife\r
+I've made you all these years. If this is the way I'm to be treated,\r
+I'd better ha' known it before my poor father died, and then, when I'd\r
+wanted a home, I should ha' gone elsewhere, as the choice was offered\r
+me."\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg paused from his porridge and looked up, not with any new\r
+amazement, but simply with that quiet, habitual wonder with which we\r
+regard constant mysteries.\r
+\r
+"Why, Mrs. G., what have I done now?"\r
+\r
+"Done now, Mr. Glegg? _done now?_--I'm sorry for you."\r
+\r
+Not seeing his way to any pertinent answer, Mr. Glegg reverted to his\r
+porridge.\r
+\r
+"There's husbands in the world," continued Mrs. Glegg, after a pause,\r
+"as 'ud have known how to do something different to siding with\r
+everybody else against their own wives. Perhaps I'm wrong and you can\r
+teach me better. But I've allays heard as it's the husband's place to\r
+stand by the wife, instead o' rejoicing and triumphing when folks\r
+insult her."\r
+\r
+"Now, what call have you to say that?" said Mr. Glegg, rather warmly,\r
+for though a kind man, he was not as meek as Moses. "When did I\r
+rejoice or triumph over you?"\r
+\r
+"There's ways o' doing things worse than speaking out plain, Mr.\r
+Glegg. I'd sooner you'd tell me to my face as you make light of me,\r
+than try to make out as everybody's in the right but me, and come to\r
+your breakfast in the morning, as I've hardly slept an hour this\r
+night, and sulk at me as if I was the dirt under your feet."\r
+\r
+"Sulk at you?" said Mr. Glegg, in a tone of angry facetiousness.\r
+"You're like a tipsy man as thinks everybody's had too much but\r
+himself."\r
+\r
+"Don't lower yourself with using coarse language to _me_, Mr. Glegg!\r
+It makes you look very small, though you can't see yourself," said\r
+Mrs. Glegg, in a tone of energetic compassion. "A man in your place\r
+should set an example, and talk more sensible."\r
+\r
+"Yes; but will you listen to sense?" retorted Mr. Glegg, sharply. "The\r
+best sense I can talk to you is what I said last night,--as you're i'\r
+the wrong to think o' calling in your money, when it's safe enough if\r
+you'd let it alone, all because of a bit of a tiff, and I was in hopes\r
+you'd ha' altered your mind this morning. But if you'd like to call it\r
+in, don't do it in a hurry now, and breed more enmity in the family,\r
+but wait till there's a pretty mortgage to be had without any trouble.\r
+You'd have to set the lawyer to work now to find an investment, and\r
+make no end o' expense."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg felt there was really something in this, but she tossed her\r
+head and emitted a guttural interjection to indicate that her silence\r
+was only an armistice, not a peace. And, in fact hostilities soon\r
+broke out again.\r
+\r
+"I'll thank you for my cup o' tea, now, Mrs. G.," said Mr. Glegg,\r
+seeing that she did not proceed to give it him as usual, when he had\r
+finished his porridge. She lifted the teapot with a slight toss of the\r
+head, and said,--\r
+\r
+"I'm glad to hear you'll _thank_ me, Mr. Glegg. It's little thanks _I_\r
+get for what I do for folks i' this world. Though there's never a\r
+woman o' _your_ side o' the family, Mr. Glegg, as is fit to stand up\r
+with me, and I'd say it if I was on my dying bed. Not but what I've\r
+allays conducted myself civil to your kin, and there isn't one of 'em\r
+can say the contrary, though my equils they aren't, and nobody shall\r
+make me say it."\r
+\r
+"You'd better leave finding fault wi' my kin till you've left off\r
+quarrelling with you own, Mrs. G.," said Mr. Glegg, with angry\r
+sarcasm. "I'll trouble you for the milk-jug."\r
+\r
+"That's as false a word as ever you spoke, Mr. Glegg," said the lady,\r
+pouring out the milk with unusual profuseness, as much as to say, if\r
+he wanted milk he should have it with a vengeance. "And you know it's\r
+false. I'm not the woman to quarrel with my own kin; _you_ may, for\r
+I've known you to do it."\r
+\r
+"Why, what did you call it yesterday, then, leaving your sister's\r
+house in a tantrum?"\r
+\r
+"I'd no quarrel wi' my sister, Mr. Glegg, and it's false to say it.\r
+Mr. Tulliver's none o' my blood, and it was him quarrelled with me,\r
+and drove me out o' the house. But perhaps you'd have had me stay and\r
+be swore at, Mr. Glegg; perhaps you was vexed not to hear more abuse\r
+and foul language poured out upo' your own wife. But, let me tell you,\r
+it's _your_ disgrace."\r
+\r
+"Did ever anybody hear the like i' this parish?" said Mr. Glegg,\r
+getting hot. "A woman, with everything provided for her, and allowed\r
+to keep her own money the same as if it was settled on her, and with a\r
+gig new stuffed and lined at no end o' expense, and provided for when\r
+I die beyond anything she could expect--to go on i' this way, biting\r
+and snapping like a mad dog! It's beyond everything, as God A 'mighty\r
+should ha' made women _so_." (These last words were uttered in a tone\r
+of sorrowful agitation. Mr. Glegg pushed his tea from him, and tapped\r
+the table with both his hands.)\r
+\r
+"Well, Mr. Glegg, if those are your feelings, it's best they should be\r
+known," said Mrs. Glegg, taking off her napkin, and folding it in an\r
+excited manner. "But if you talk o' my being provided for beyond what\r
+I could expect, I beg leave to tell you as I'd a right to expect a\r
+many things as I don't find. And as to my being like a mad dog, it's\r
+well if you're not cried shame on by the county for your treatment of\r
+me, for it's what I can't bear, and I won't bear----"\r
+\r
+Here Mrs. Glegg's voice intimated that she was going to cry, and\r
+breaking off from speech, she rang the bell violently.\r
+\r
+"Sally," she said, rising from her chair, and speaking in rather a\r
+choked voice, "light a fire up-stairs, and put the blinds down. Mr.\r
+Glegg, you'll please to order what you'd like for dinner. I shall have\r
+gruel."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg walked across the room to the small book-case, and took\r
+down Baxter's "Saints' Everlasting Rest," which she carried with her\r
+up-stairs. It was the book she was accustomed to lay open before her\r
+on special occasions,--on wet Sunday mornings, or when she heard of a\r
+death in the family, or when, as in this case, her quarrel with Mr.\r
+Glegg had been set an octave higher than usual.\r
+\r
+But Mrs. Glegg carried something else up-stairs with her, which,\r
+together with the "Saints' Rest" and the gruel, may have had some\r
+influence in gradually calming her feelings, and making it possible\r
+for her to endure existence on the ground-floor, shortly before\r
+tea-time. This was, partly, Mr. Glegg's suggestion that she would do\r
+well to let her five hundred lie still until a good investment turned\r
+up; and, further, his parenthetic hint at his handsome provision for\r
+her in case of his death. Mr. Glegg, like all men of his stamp, was\r
+extremely reticent about his will; and Mrs. Glegg, in her gloomier\r
+moments, had forebodings that, like other husbands of whom she had\r
+heard, he might cherish the mean project of heightening her grief at\r
+his death by leaving her poorly off, in which case she was firmly\r
+resolved that she would have scarcely any weeper on her bonnet, and\r
+would cry no more than if he had been a second husband. But if he had\r
+really shown her any testamentary tenderness, it would be affecting to\r
+think of him, poor man, when he was gone; and even his foolish fuss\r
+about the flowers and garden-stuff, and his insistence on the subject\r
+of snails, would be touching when it was once fairly at an end. To\r
+survive Mr. Glegg, and talk eulogistically of him as a man who might\r
+have his weaknesses, but who had done the right thing by her,\r
+not-withstanding his numerous poor relations; to have sums of interest\r
+coming in more frequently, and secrete it in various corners, baffling\r
+to the most ingenious of thieves (for, to Mrs. Glegg's mind, banks and\r
+strong-boxes would have nullified the pleasure of property; she might\r
+as well have taken her food in capsules); finally, to be looked up to\r
+by her own family and the neighborhood, so as no woman can ever hope\r
+to be who has not the præterite and present dignity comprised in being\r
+a "widow well left,"--all this made a flattering and conciliatory view\r
+of the future. So that when good Mr. Glegg, restored to good humor by\r
+much hoeing, and moved by the sight of his wife's empty chair, with\r
+her knitting rolled up in the corner, went up-stairs to her, and\r
+observed that the bell had been tolling for poor Mr. Morton, Mrs.\r
+Glegg answered magnanimously, quite as if she had been an uninjured\r
+woman: "Ah! then, there'll be a good business for somebody to take\r
+to."\r
+\r
+Baxter had been open at least eight hours by this time, for it was\r
+nearly five o'clock; and if people are to quarrel often, it follows as\r
+a corollary that their quarrels cannot be protracted beyond certain\r
+limits.\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Glegg talked quite amicably about the Tullivers that\r
+evening. Mr. Glegg went the length of admitting that Tulliver was a\r
+sad man for getting into hot water, and was like enough to run through\r
+his property; and Mrs. Glegg, meeting this acknowledgment half-way,\r
+declared that it was beneath her to take notice of such a man's\r
+conduct, and that, for her sister's sake, she would let him keep the\r
+five hundred a while longer, for when she put it out on a mortgage she\r
+should only get four per cent.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XIII\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life\r
+\r
+\r
+Owing to this new adjustment of Mrs. Glegg's thoughts, Mrs. Pullet\r
+found her task of mediation the next day surprisingly easy. Mrs.\r
+Glegg, indeed checked her rather sharply for thinking it would be\r
+necessary to tell her elder sister what was the right mode of behavior\r
+in family matters. Mrs. Pullet's argument, that it would look ill in\r
+the neighborhood if people should have it in their power to say that\r
+there was a quarrel in the family, was particularly offensive. If the\r
+family name never suffered except through Mrs. Glegg, Mrs. Pullet\r
+might lay her head on her pillow in perfect confidence.\r
+\r
+"It's not to be expected, I suppose," observed Mrs. Glegg, by way of\r
+winding up the subject, "as I shall go to the mill again before Bessy\r
+comes to see me, or as I shall go and fall down o' my knees to Mr.\r
+Tulliver, and ask his pardon for showing him favors; but I shall bear\r
+no malice, and when Mr. Tulliver speaks civil to me, I'll speak civil\r
+to him. Nobody has any call to tell me what's becoming."\r
+\r
+Finding it unnecessary to plead for the Tullivers, it was natural that\r
+aunt Pullet should relax a little in her anxiety for them, and recur\r
+to the annoyance she had suffered yesterday from the offspring of that\r
+apparently ill-fated house. Mrs. Glegg heard a circumstantial\r
+narrative, to which Mr. Pullet's remarkable memory furnished some\r
+items; and while aunt Pullet pitied poor Bessy's bad luck with her\r
+children, and expressed a half-formed project of paying for Maggie's\r
+being sent to a distant boarding-school, which would not prevent her\r
+being so brown, but might tend to subdue some other vices in her, aunt\r
+Glegg blamed Bessy for her weakness, and appealed to all witnesses who\r
+should be living when the Tulliver children had turned out ill, that\r
+she, Mrs. Glegg, had always said how it would be from the very first,\r
+observing that it was wonderful to herself how all her words came\r
+true.\r
+\r
+"Then I may call and tell Bessy you'll bear no malice, and everything\r
+be as it was before?" Mrs. Pullet said, just before parting.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you may, Sophy," said Mrs. Glegg; "you may tell Mr. Tulliver,\r
+and Bessy too, as I'm not going to behave ill because folks behave ill\r
+to me; I know it's my place, as the eldest, to set an example in every\r
+respect, and I do it. Nobody can say different of me, if they'll keep\r
+to the truth."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg being in this state of satisfaction in her own lofty\r
+magnanimity, I leave you to judge what effect was produced on her by\r
+the reception of a short letter from Mr. Tulliver that very evening,\r
+after Mrs. Pullet's departure, informing her that she needn't trouble\r
+her mind about her five hundred pounds, for it should be paid back to\r
+her in the course of the next month at farthest, together with the\r
+interest due thereon until the time of payment. And furthermore, that\r
+Mr. Tulliver had no wish to behave uncivilly to Mrs. Glegg, and she\r
+was welcome to his house whenever she liked to come, but he desired no\r
+favors from her, either for himself or his children.\r
+\r
+It was poor Mrs. Tulliver who had hastened this catastrophe, entirely\r
+through that irrepressible hopefulness of hers which led her to expect\r
+that similar causes may at any time produce different results. It had\r
+very often occurred in her experience that Mr. Tulliver had done\r
+something because other people had said he was not able to do it, or\r
+had pitied him for his supposed inability, or in any other way piqued\r
+his pride; still, she thought to-day, if she told him when he came in\r
+to tea that sister Pullet was gone to try and make everything up with\r
+sister Glegg, so that he needn't think about paying in the money, it\r
+would give a cheerful effect to the meal. Mr. Tulliver had never\r
+slackened in his resolve to raise the money, but now he at once\r
+determined to write a letter to Mrs. Glegg, which should cut off all\r
+possibility of mistake. Mrs. Pullet gone to beg and pray for _him_\r
+indeed! Mr. Tulliver did not willingly write a letter, and found the\r
+relation between spoken and written language, briefly known as\r
+spelling, one of the most puzzling things in this puzzling world.\r
+Nevertheless, like all fervid writing, the task was done in less time\r
+than usual, and if the spelling differed from Mrs. Glegg's,--why, she\r
+belonged, like himself, to a generation with whom spelling was a\r
+matter of private judgment.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg did not alter her will in consequence of this letter, and\r
+cut off the Tulliver children from their sixth and seventh share in\r
+her thousand pounds; for she had her principles. No one must be able\r
+to say of her when she was dead that she had not divided her money\r
+with perfect fairness among her own kin. In the matter of wills,\r
+personal qualities were subordinate to the great fundamental fact of\r
+blood; and to be determined in the distribution of your property by\r
+caprice, and not make your legacies bear a direct ratio to degrees of\r
+kinship, was a prospective disgrace that would have embittered her\r
+life. This had always been a principle in the Dodson family; it was\r
+one form if that sense of honor and rectitude which was a proud\r
+tradition in such families,--a tradition which has been the salt of\r
+our provincial society.\r
+\r
+But though the letter could not shake Mrs. Glegg's principles, it made\r
+the family breach much more difficult to mend; and as to the effect it\r
+produced on Mrs. Glegg's opinion of Mr. Tulliver, she begged to be\r
+understood from that time forth that she had nothing whatever to say\r
+about him; his state of mind, apparently, was too corrupt for her to\r
+contemplate it for a moment. It was not until the evening before Tom\r
+went to school, at the beginning of August, that Mrs. Glegg paid a\r
+visit to her sister Tulliver, sitting in her gig all the while, and\r
+showing her displeasure by markedly abstaining from all advice and\r
+criticism; for, as she observed to her sister Deane, "Bessy must bear\r
+the consequence o' having such a husband, though I'm sorry for her,"\r
+and Mrs. Deane agreed that Bessy was pitiable.\r
+\r
+That evening Tom observed to Maggie: "Oh my! Maggie, aunt Glegg's\r
+beginning to come again; I'm glad I'm going to school. _You'll_ catch\r
+it all now!"\r
+\r
+Maggie was already so full of sorrow at the thought of Tom's going\r
+away from her, that this playful exultation of his seemed very unkind,\r
+and she cried herself to sleep that night.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver's prompt procedure entailed on him further promptitude in\r
+finding the convenient person who was desirous of lending five hundred\r
+pounds on bond. "It must be no client of Wakem's," he said to himself;\r
+and yet at the end of a fortnight it turned out to the contrary; not\r
+because Mr. Tulliver's will was feeble, but because external fact was\r
+stronger. Wakem's client was the only convenient person to be found.\r
+Mr. Tulliver had a destiny as well as Œdipus, and in this case\r
+he might plead, like Œdipus, that his deed was inflicted on him\r
+rather than committed by him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book II\r
+\r
+_School-Time_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+Tom's "First Half"\r
+\r
+\r
+Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was at King's\r
+Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were\r
+rather severe. At Mr. Jacob's academy life had not presented itself to\r
+him as a difficult problem; there were plenty of fellows to play with,\r
+and Tom being good at all active games,--fighting especially,--had\r
+that precedence among them which appeared to him inseparable from the\r
+personality of Tom Tulliver. Mr. Jacobs himself, familiarly known as\r
+Old Goggles, from his habit of wearing spectacles, imposed no painful\r
+awe; and if it was the property of snuffy old hypocrites like him to\r
+write like copperplate and surround their signatures with arabesques,\r
+to spell without forethought, and to spout "my name is Norval" without\r
+bungling, Tom, for his part, was glad he was not in danger of those\r
+mean accomplishments. He was not going to be a snuffy schoolmaster,\r
+he, but a substantial man, like his father, who used to go hunting\r
+when he was younger, and rode a capital black mare,--as pretty a bit\r
+of horse-flesh as ever you saw; Tom had heard what her points were a\r
+hundred times. _He_ meant to go hunting too, and to be generally\r
+respected. When people were grown up, he considered, nobody inquired\r
+about their writing and spelling; when he was a man, he should be\r
+master of everything, and do just as he liked. It had been very\r
+difficult for him to reconcile himself to the idea that his\r
+school-time was to be prolonged and that he was not to be brought up\r
+to his father's business, which he had always thought extremely\r
+pleasant; for it was nothing but riding about, giving orders, and\r
+going to market; and he thought that a clergyman would give him a\r
+great many Scripture lessons, and probably make him learn the Gospel\r
+and Epistle on a Sunday, as well as the Collect. But in the absence of\r
+specific information, it was impossible for him to imagine that school\r
+and a schoolmaster would be something entirely different from the\r
+academy of Mr. Jacobs. So, not to be at a deficiency, in case of his\r
+finding genial companions, he had taken care to carry with him a small\r
+box of percussion-caps; not that there was anything particular to be\r
+done with them, but they would serve to impress strange boys with a\r
+sense of his familiarity with guns. Thus poor Tom, though he saw very\r
+clearly through Maggie's illusions, was not without illusions of his\r
+own, which were to be cruelly dissipated by his enlarged experience at\r
+King's Lorton.\r
+\r
+He had not been there a fortnight before it was evident to him that\r
+life, complicated not only with the Latin grammar but with a new\r
+standard of English pronunciation, was a very difficult business, made\r
+all the more obscure by a thick mist of bashfulness. Tom, as you have\r
+observed, was never an exception among boys for ease of address; but\r
+the difficulty of enunciating a monosyllable in reply to Mr. or Mrs.\r
+Stelling was so great, that he even dreaded to be asked at table\r
+whether he would have more pudding. As to the percussion-caps, he had\r
+almost resolved, in the bitterness of his heart, that he would throw\r
+them into a neighboring pond; for not only was he the solitary pupil,\r
+but he began even to have a certain scepticism about guns, and a\r
+general sense that his theory of life was undermined. For Mr. Stelling\r
+thought nothing of guns, or horses either, apparently; and yet it was\r
+impossible for Tom to despise Mr. Stelling as he had despised Old\r
+Goggles. If there were anything that was not thoroughly genuine about\r
+Mr. Stelling, it lay quite beyond Tom's power to detect it; it is only\r
+by a wide comparison of facts that the wisest full-grown man can\r
+distinguish well-rolled barrels from mere supernal thunder.\r
+\r
+Mr. Stelling was a well-sized, broad-chested man, not yet thirty, with\r
+flaxen hair standing erect, and large lightish-gray eyes, which were\r
+always very wide open; he had a sonorous bass voice, and an air of\r
+defiant self-confidence inclining to brazenness. He had entered on his\r
+career with great vigor, and intended to make a considerable\r
+impression on his fellowmen. The Rev. Walter Stelling was not a man\r
+who would remain among the "inferior clergy" all his life. He had a\r
+true British determination to push his way in the world,--as a\r
+schoolmaster, in the first place, for there were capital masterships\r
+of grammar-schools to be had, and Mr. Stelling meant to have one of\r
+them; but as a preacher also, for he meant always to preach in a\r
+striking manner, so as to have his congregation swelled by admirers\r
+from neighboring parishes, and to produce a great sensation whenever\r
+he took occasional duty for a brother clergyman of minor gifts. The\r
+style of preaching he had chosen was the extemporaneous, which was\r
+held little short of the miraculous in rural parishes like King's\r
+Lorton. Some passages of Massillon and Bourdaloue, which he knew by\r
+heart, were really very effective when rolled out in Mr. Stelling's\r
+deepest tones; but as comparatively feeble appeals of his own were\r
+delivered in the same loud and impressive manner, they were often\r
+thought quite as striking by his hearers. Mr. Stelling's doctrine was\r
+of no particular school; if anything, it had a tinge of\r
+evangelicalism, for that was "the telling thing" just then in the\r
+diocese to which King's Lorton belonged. In short, Mr. Stelling was a\r
+man who meant to rise in his profession, and to rise by merit,\r
+clearly, since he had no interest beyond what might be promised by a\r
+problematic relationship to a great lawyer who had not yet become Lord\r
+Chancellor. A clergyman who has such vigorous intentions naturally\r
+gets a little into debt at starting; it is not to be expected that he\r
+will live in the meagre style of a man who means to be a poor curate\r
+all his life; and if the few hundreds Mr. Timpson advanced toward his\r
+daughter's fortune did not suffice for the purchase of handsome\r
+furniture, together with a stock of wine, a grand piano, and the\r
+laying out of a superior flower-garden, it followed in the most\r
+rigorous manner, either that these things must be procured by some\r
+other means, or else that the Rev. Mr. Stelling must go without them,\r
+which last alternative would be an absurd procrastination of the\r
+fruits of success, where success was certain. Mr. Stelling was so\r
+broad-chested and resolute that he felt equal to anything; he would\r
+become celebrated by shaking the consciences of his hearers, and he\r
+would by and by edit a Greek play, and invent several new readings. He\r
+had not yet selected the play, for having been married little more\r
+than two years, his leisure time had been much occupied with\r
+attentions to Mrs. Stelling; but he had told that fine woman what he\r
+meant to do some day, and she felt great confidence in her husband, as\r
+a man who understood everything of that sort.\r
+\r
+But the immediate step to future success was to bring on Tom Tulliver\r
+during this first half-year; for, by a singular coincidence, there had\r
+been some negotiation concerning another pupil from the same\r
+neighborhood and it might further a decision in Mr. Stelling's favor,\r
+if it were understood that young Tulliver, who, Mr. Stelling observed\r
+in conjugal privacy, was rather a rough cub, had made prodigious\r
+progress in a short time. It was on this ground that he was severe\r
+with Tom about his lessons; he was clearly a boy whose powers would\r
+never be developed through the medium of the Latin grammar, without\r
+the application of some sternness. Not that Mr. Stelling was a\r
+harsh-tempered or unkind man; quite the contrary. He was jocose with\r
+Tom at table, and corrected his provincialisms and his deportment in\r
+the most playful manner; but poor Tom was only the more cowed and\r
+confused by this double novelty, for he had never been used to jokes\r
+at all like Mr. Stelling's; and for the first time in his life he had\r
+a painful sense that he was all wrong somehow. When Mr. Stelling said,\r
+as the roast-beef was being uncovered, "Now, Tulliver! which would you\r
+rather decline, roast-beef or the Latin for it?" Tom, to whom in his\r
+coolest moments a pun would have been a hard nut, was thrown into a\r
+state of embarrassed alarm that made everything dim to him except the\r
+feeling that he would rather not have anything to do with Latin; of\r
+course he answered, "Roast-beef," whereupon there followed much\r
+laughter and some practical joking with the plates, from which Tom\r
+gathered that he had in some mysterious way refused beef, and, in\r
+fact, made himself appear "a silly." If he could have seen a\r
+fellow-pupil undergo these painful operations and survive them in good\r
+spirits, he might sooner have taken them as a matter of course. But\r
+there are two expensive forms of education, either of which a parent\r
+may procure for his son by sending him as solitary pupil to a\r
+clergyman: one is the enjoyment of the reverend gentleman's undivided\r
+neglect; the other is the endurance of the reverend gentleman's\r
+undivided attention. It was the latter privilege for which Mr.\r
+Tulliver paid a high price in Tom's initiatory months at King's\r
+Lorton.\r
+\r
+That respectable miller and maltster had left Tom behind, and driven\r
+homeward in a state of great mental satisfaction. He considered that\r
+it was a happy moment for him when he had thought of asking Riley's\r
+advice about a tutor for Tom. Mr. Stelling's eyes were so wide open,\r
+and he talked in such an off-hand, matter-of-fact way, answering every\r
+difficult, slow remark of Mr. Tulliver's with, "I see, my good sir, I\r
+see"; "To be sure, to be sure"; "You want your son to be a man who\r
+will make his way in the world,"--that Mr. Tulliver was delighted to\r
+find in him a clergyman whose knowledge was so applicable to the\r
+every-day affairs of this life. Except Counsellor Wylde, whom he had\r
+heard at the last sessions, Mr. Tulliver thought the Rev. Mr Stelling\r
+was the shrewdest fellow he had ever met with,--not unlike Wylde, in\r
+fact; he had the same way of sticking his thumbs in the armholes of\r
+his waistcoat. Mr. Tulliver was not by any means an exception in\r
+mistaking brazenness for shrewdness; most laymen thought Stelling\r
+shrewd, and a man of remarkable powers generally; it was chiefly by\r
+his clerical brethren that he was considered rather a full fellow. But\r
+he told Mr. Tulliver several stories about "Swing" and incendiarism,\r
+and asked his advice about feeding pigs in so thoroughly secular and\r
+judicious a manner, with so much polished glibness of tongue, that the\r
+miller thought, here was the very thing he wanted for Tom. He had no\r
+doubt this first-rate man was acquainted with every branch of\r
+information, and knew exactly what Tom must learn in order to become a\r
+match for the lawyers, which poor Mr. Tulliver himself did _not_ know,\r
+and so was necessarily thrown for self-direction on this wide kind of\r
+inference. It is hardly fair to laugh at him, for I have known much\r
+more highly instructed persons than he make inferences quite as wide,\r
+and not at all wiser.\r
+\r
+As for Mrs. Tulliver, finding that Mrs. Stelling's views as to the\r
+airing of linen and the frequent recurrence of hunger in a growing boy\r
+entirely coincided with her own; moreover, that Mrs. Stelling, though\r
+so young a woman, and only anticipating her second confinement, had\r
+gone through very nearly the same experience as herself with regard to\r
+the behavior and fundamental character of the monthly nurse,--she\r
+expressed great contentment to her husband, when they drove away, at\r
+leaving Tom with a woman who, in spite of her youth, seemed quite\r
+sensible and motherly, and asked advice as prettily as could be.\r
+\r
+"They must be very well off, though," said Mrs. Tulliver, "for\r
+everything's as nice as can be all over the house, and that watered\r
+silk she had on cost a pretty penny. Sister Pullet has got one like\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"Ah," said Mr. Tulliver, "he's got some income besides the curacy, I\r
+reckon. Perhaps her father allows 'em something. There's Tom 'ull be\r
+another hundred to him, and not much trouble either, by his own\r
+account; he says teaching comes natural to him. That's wonderful,\r
+now," added Mr. Tulliver, turning his head on one side, and giving his\r
+horse a meditative tickling on the flank.\r
+\r
+Perhaps it was because teaching came naturally to Mr. Stelling, that\r
+he set about it with that uniformity of method and independence of\r
+circumstances which distinguish the actions of animals understood to\r
+be under the immediate teaching of nature. Mr. Broderip's amiable\r
+beaver, as that charming naturalist tells us, busied himself as\r
+earnestly in constructing a dam, in a room up three pair of stairs in\r
+London, as if he had been laying his foundation in a stream or lake in\r
+Upper Canada. It was "Binny's" function to build; the absence of water\r
+or of possible progeny was an accident for which he was not\r
+accountable. With the same unerring instinct Mr. Stelling set to work\r
+at his natural method of instilling the Eton Grammar and Euclid into\r
+the mind of Tom Tulliver. This, he considered, was the only basis of\r
+solid instruction; all other means of education were mere\r
+charlatanism, and could produce nothing better than smatterers. Fixed\r
+on this firm basis, a man might observe the display of various or\r
+special knowledge made by irregularly educated people with a pitying\r
+smile; all that sort of thing was very well, but it was impossible\r
+these people could form sound opinions. In holding this conviction Mr.\r
+Stelling was not biassed, as some tutors have been, by the excessive\r
+accuracy or extent of his own scholarship; and as to his views about\r
+Euclid, no opinion could have been freer from personal partiality. Mr.\r
+Stelling was very far from being led astray by enthusiasm, either\r
+religious or intellectual; on the other hand, he had no secret belief\r
+that everything was humbug. He thought religion was a very excellent\r
+thing, and Aristotle a great authority, and deaneries and prebends\r
+useful institutions, and Great Britain the providential bulwark of\r
+Protestantism, and faith in the unseen a great support to afflicted\r
+minds; he believed in all these things, as a Swiss hotel-keeper\r
+believes in the beauty of the scenery around him, and in the pleasure\r
+it gives to artistic visitors. And in the same way Mr. Stelling\r
+believed in his method of education; he had no doubt that he was doing\r
+the very best thing for Mr. Tulliver's boy. Of course, when the miller\r
+talked of "mapping" and "summing" in a vague and diffident manner, Mr\r
+Stelling had set his mind at rest by an assurance that he understood\r
+what was wanted; for how was it possible the good man could form any\r
+reasonable judgment about the matter? Mr Stelling's duty was to teach\r
+the lad in the only right way,--indeed he knew no other; he had not\r
+wasted his time in the acquirement of anything abnormal.\r
+\r
+He very soon set down poor Tom as a thoroughly stupid lad; for though\r
+by hard labor he could get particular declensions into his brain,\r
+anything so abstract as the relation between cases and terminations\r
+could by no means get such a lodgment there as to enable him to\r
+recognize a chance genitive or dative. This struck Mr. Stelling as\r
+something more than natural stupidity; he suspected obstinacy, or at\r
+any rate indifference, and lectured Tom severely on his want of\r
+thorough application. "You feel no interest in what you're doing,\r
+sir," Mr. Stelling would say, and the reproach was painfully true. Tom\r
+had never found any difficulty in discerning a pointer from a setter,\r
+when once he had been told the distinction, and his perceptive powers\r
+were not at all deficient. I fancy they were quite as strong as those\r
+of the Rev. Mr. Stelling; for Tom could predict with accuracy what\r
+number of horses were cantering behind him, he could throw a stone\r
+right into the centre of a given ripple, he could guess to a fraction\r
+how many lengths of his stick it would take to reach across the\r
+playground, and could draw almost perfect squares on his slate without\r
+any measurement. But Mr. Stelling took no note of these things; he\r
+only observed that Tom's faculties failed him before the abstractions\r
+hideously symbolized to him in the pages of the Eton Grammar, and that\r
+he was in a state bordering on idiocy with regard to the demonstration\r
+that two given triangles must be equal, though he could discern with\r
+great promptitude and certainty the fact that they _were_ equal.\r
+Whence Mr. Stelling concluded that Tom's brain, being peculiarly\r
+impervious to etymology and demonstrations, was peculiarly in need of\r
+being ploughed and harrowed by these patent implements; it was his\r
+favorite metaphor, that the classics and geometry constituted that\r
+culture of the mind which prepared it for the reception of any\r
+subsequent crop. I say nothing against Mr. Stelling's theory; if we\r
+are to have one regimen for all minds, his seems to me as good as any\r
+other. I only know it turned out as uncomfortably for Tom Tulliver as\r
+if he had been plied with cheese in order to remedy a gastric weakness\r
+which prevented him from digesting it. It is astonishing what a\r
+different result one gets by changing the metaphor! Once call the\r
+brain an intellectual stomach, and one's ingenious conception of the\r
+classics and geometry as ploughs and harrows seems to settle nothing.\r
+But then it is open to some one else to follow great authorities, and\r
+call the mind a sheet of white paper or a mirror, in which case one's\r
+knowledge of the digestive process becomes quite irrelevant. It was\r
+doubtless an ingenious idea to call the camel the ship of the desert,\r
+but it would hardly lead one far in training that useful beast. O\r
+Aristotle! if you had had the advantage of being "the freshest modern"\r
+instead of the greatest ancient, would you not have mingled your\r
+praise of metaphorical speech, as a sign of high intelligence, with a\r
+lamentation that intelligence so rarely shows itself in speech without\r
+metaphor,--that we can so seldom declare what a thing is, except by\r
+saying it is something else?\r
+\r
+Tom Tulliver, being abundant in no form of speech, did not use any\r
+metaphor to declare his views as to the nature of Latin; he never\r
+called it an instrument of torture; and it was not until he had got on\r
+some way in the next half-year, and in the Delectus, that he was\r
+advanced enough to call it a "bore" and "beastly stuff." At present,\r
+in relation to this demand that he should learn Latin declensions and\r
+conjugations, Tom was in a state of as blank unimaginativeness\r
+concerning the cause and tendency of his sufferings, as if he had been\r
+an innocent shrewmouse imprisoned in the split trunk of an ash-tree in\r
+order to cure lameness in cattle. It is doubtless almost incredible to\r
+instructed minds of the present day that a boy of twelve, not\r
+belonging strictly to "the masses," who are now understood to have the\r
+monopoly of mental darkness, should have had no distinct idea how\r
+there came to be such a thing as Latin on this earth; yet so it was\r
+with Tom. It would have taken a long while to make conceivable to him\r
+that there ever existed a people who bought and sold sheep and oxen,\r
+and transacted the every-day affairs of life, through the medium of\r
+this language; and still longer to make him understand why he should\r
+be called upon to learn it, when its connection with those affairs had\r
+become entirely latent. So far as Tom had gained any acquaintance with\r
+the Romans at Mr. Jacob's academy, his knowledge was strictly correct,\r
+but it went no farther than the fact that they were "in the New\r
+Testament"; and Mr. Stelling was not the man to enfeeble and\r
+emasculate his pupil's mind by simplifying and explaining, or to\r
+reduce the tonic effect of etymology by mixing it with smattering,\r
+extraneous information, such as is given to girls.\r
+\r
+Yet, strange to say, under this vigorous treatment Tom became more\r
+like a girl than he had ever been in his life before. He had a large\r
+share of pride, which had hitherto found itself very comfortable in\r
+the world, despising Old Goggles, and reposing in the sense of\r
+unquestioned rights; but now this same pride met with nothing but\r
+bruises and crushings. Tom was too clear-sighted not to be aware that\r
+Mr. Stelling's standard of things was quite different, was certainly\r
+something higher in the eyes of the world than that of the people he\r
+had been living amongst, and that, brought in contact with it, he, Tom\r
+Tulliver, appeared uncouth and stupid; he was by no means indifferent\r
+to this, and his pride got into an uneasy condition which quite\r
+nullified his boyish self-satisfaction, and gave him something of the\r
+girl's susceptibility. He was a very firm, not to say obstinate,\r
+disposition, but there was no brute-like rebellion and recklessness in\r
+his nature; the human sensibilities predominated, and if it had\r
+occurred to him that he could enable himself to show some quickness at\r
+his lessons, and so acquire Mr. Stelling's approbation, by standing on\r
+one leg for an inconvenient length of time, or rapping his head\r
+moderately against the wall, or any voluntary action of that sort, he\r
+would certainly have tried it. But no; Tom had never heard that these\r
+measures would brighten the understanding, or strengthen the verbal\r
+memory; and he was not given to hypothesis and experiment. It did\r
+occur to him that he could perhaps get some help by praying for it;\r
+but as the prayers he said every evening were forms learned by heart,\r
+he rather shrank from the novelty and irregularity of introducing an\r
+extempore passage on a topic of petition for which he was not aware of\r
+any precedent. But one day, when he had broken down, for the fifth\r
+time, in the supines of the third conjugation, and Mr. Stelling,\r
+convinced that this must be carelessness, since it transcended the\r
+bounds of possible stupidity, had lectured him very seriously,\r
+pointing out that if he failed to seize the present golden opportunity\r
+of learning supines, he would have to regret it when he became a\r
+man,--Tom, more miserable than usual, determined to try his sole\r
+resource; and that evening, after his usual form of prayer for his\r
+parents and "little sister" (he had begun to pray for Maggie when she\r
+was a baby), and that he might be able always to keep God's\r
+commandments, he added, in the same low whisper, "and please to make\r
+me always remember my Latin." He paused a little to consider how he\r
+should pray about Euclid--whether he should ask to see what it meant,\r
+or whether there was any other mental state which would be more\r
+applicable to the case. But at last he added: "And make Mr. Stelling\r
+say I sha'n't do Euclid any more. Amen."\r
+\r
+The fact that he got through his supines without mistake the next day,\r
+encouraged him to persevere in this appendix to his prayers, and\r
+neutralized any scepticism that might have arisen from Mr. Stelling's\r
+continued demand for Euclid. But his faith broke down under the\r
+apparent absence of all help when he got into the irregular verbs. It\r
+seemed clear that Tom's despair under the caprices of the present\r
+tense did not constitute a _nodus_ worthy of interference, and since\r
+this was the climax of his difficulties, where was the use of praying\r
+for help any longer? He made up his mind to this conclusion in one of\r
+his dull, lonely evenings, which he spent in the study, preparing his\r
+lessons for the morrow. His eyes were apt to get dim over the page,\r
+though he hated crying, and was ashamed of it; he couldn't help\r
+thinking with some affection even of Spouncer, whom he used to fight\r
+and quarrel with; he would have felt at home with Spouncer, and in a\r
+condition of superiority. And then the mill, and the river, and Yap\r
+pricking up his ears, ready to obey the least sign when Tom said,\r
+"Hoigh!" would all come before him in a sort of calenture, when his\r
+fingers played absently in his pocket with his great knife and his\r
+coil of whipcord, and other relics of the past.\r
+\r
+Tom, as I said, had never been so much like a girl in his life before,\r
+and at that epoch of irregular verbs his spirit was further depressed\r
+by a new means of mental development which had been thought of for him\r
+out of school hours. Mrs. Stelling had lately had her second baby, and\r
+as nothing could be more salutary for a boy than to feel himself\r
+useful, Mrs. Stelling considered she was doing Tom a service by\r
+setting him to watch the little cherub Laura while the nurse was\r
+occupied with the sickly baby. It was quite a pretty employment for\r
+Tom to take little Laura out in the sunniest hour of the autumn day;\r
+it would help to make him feel that Lorton Parsonage was a home for\r
+him, and that he was one of the family. The little cherub Laura, not\r
+being an accomplished walker at present, had a ribbon fastened round\r
+her waist, by which Tom held her as if she had been a little dog\r
+during the minutes in which she chose to walk; but as these were rare,\r
+he was for the most part carrying this fine child round and round the\r
+garden, within sight of Mrs. Stelling's window, according to orders.\r
+If any one considers this unfair and even oppressive toward Tom, I beg\r
+him to consider that there are feminine virtues which are with\r
+difficulty combined, even if they are not incompatible. When the wife\r
+of a poor curate contrives, under all her disadvantages, to dress\r
+extremely well, and to have a style of coiffure which requires that\r
+her nurse shall occasionally officiate as lady's-maid; when, moreover,\r
+her dinner-parties and her drawing-room show that effort at elegance\r
+and completeness of appointment to which ordinary women might imagine\r
+a large income necessary, it would be unreasonable to expect of her\r
+that she should employ a second nurse, or even act as a nurse herself.\r
+Mr. Stelling knew better; he saw that his wife did wonders already,\r
+and was proud of her. It was certainly not the best thing in the world\r
+for young Tulliver's gait to carry a heavy child, but he had plenty of\r
+exercise in long walks with himself, and next half-year Mr. Stelling\r
+would see about having a drilling-master. Among the many means whereby\r
+Mr. Stelling intended to be more fortunate than the bulk of his\r
+fellow-men, he had entirely given up that of having his own way in his\r
+own house. What then? He had married "as kind a little soul as ever\r
+breathed," according to Mr. Riley, who had been acquainted with Mrs.\r
+Stelling's blond ringlets and smiling demeanor throughout her maiden\r
+life, and on the strength of that knowledge would have been ready any\r
+day to pronounce that whatever domestic differences might arise in her\r
+married life must be entirely Mr. Stelling's fault.\r
+\r
+If Tom had had a worse disposition, he would certainly have hated the\r
+little cherub Laura, but he was too kind-hearted a lad for that; there\r
+was too much in him of the fibre that turns to true manliness, and to\r
+protecting pity for the weak. I am afraid he hated Mrs. Stelling, and\r
+contracted a lasting dislike to pale blond ringlets and broad plaits,\r
+as directly associated with haughtiness of manner, and a frequent\r
+reference to other people's "duty." But he couldn't help playing with\r
+little Laura, and liking to amuse her; he even sacrificed his\r
+percussion-caps for her sake, in despair of their ever serving a\r
+greater purpose,--thinking the small flash and bang would delight her,\r
+and thereby drawing down on himself a rebuke from Mrs. Stelling for\r
+teaching her child to play with fire. Laura was a sort of\r
+playfellow--and oh, how Tom longed for playfellows! In his secret\r
+heart he yearned to have Maggie with him, and was almost ready to dote\r
+on her exasperating acts of forgetfulness; though, when he was at\r
+home, he always represented it as a great favor on his part to let\r
+Maggie trot by his side on his pleasure excursions.\r
+\r
+And before this dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually came. Mrs.\r
+Stelling had given a general invitation for the little girl to come\r
+and stay with her brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove over to King's\r
+Lorton late in October, Maggie came too, with the sense that she was\r
+taking a great journey, and beginning to see the world. It was Mr.\r
+Tulliver's first visit to see Tom, for the lad must learn not to think\r
+too much about home.\r
+\r
+"Well, my lad," he said to Tom, when Mr. Stelling had left the room to\r
+announce the arrival to his wife, and Maggie had begun to kiss Tom\r
+freely, "you look rarely! School agrees with you."\r
+\r
+Tom wished he had looked rather ill.\r
+\r
+"I don't think I _am_ well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask Mr.\r
+Stelling not to let me do Euclid; it brings on the toothache, I\r
+think."\r
+\r
+(The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever been\r
+subject.)\r
+\r
+"Euclid, my lad,--why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I don't know; it's definitions, and axioms, and triangles, and\r
+things. It's a book I've got to learn in--there's no sense in it."\r
+\r
+"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, reprovingly; "you mustn't say so. You\r
+must learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right for\r
+you to learn."\r
+\r
+"_I'll_ help you now, Tom," said Maggie, with a little air of\r
+patronizing consolation. "I'm come to stay ever so long, if Mrs.\r
+Stelling asks me. I've brought my box and my pinafores, haven't I,\r
+father?"\r
+\r
+"_You_ help me, you silly little thing!" said Tom, in such high\r
+spirits at this announcement that he quite enjoyed the idea of\r
+confounding Maggie by showing her a page of Euclid. "I should like to\r
+see you doing one of _my_ lessons! Why, I learn Latin too! Girls never\r
+learn such things. They're too silly."\r
+\r
+"I know what Latin is very well," said Maggie, confidently, "Latin's a\r
+language. There are Latin words in the Dictionary. There's bonus, a\r
+gift."\r
+\r
+"Now, you're just wrong there, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, secretly\r
+astonished. "You think you're very wise! But 'bonus' means 'good,' as\r
+it happens,--bonus, bona, bonum."\r
+\r
+"Well, that's no reason why it shouldn't mean 'gift,'" said Maggie,\r
+stoutly. "It may mean several things; almost every word does. There's\r
+'lawn,'--it means the grass-plot, as well as the stuff\r
+pocket-handkerchiefs are made of."\r
+\r
+"Well done, little 'un," said Mr. Tulliver, laughing, while Tom felt\r
+rather disgusted with Maggie's knowingness, though beyond measure\r
+cheerful at the thought that she was going to stay with him. Her\r
+conceit would soon be overawed by the actual inspection of his books.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Stelling, in her pressing invitation, did not mention a longer\r
+time than a week for Maggie's stay; but Mr. Stelling, who took her\r
+between his knees, and asked her where she stole her dark eyes from,\r
+insisted that she must stay a fortnight. Maggie thought Mr. Stelling\r
+was a charming man, and Mr. Tulliver was quite proud to leave his\r
+little wench where she would have an opportunity of showing her\r
+cleverness to appreciating strangers. So it was agreed that she should\r
+not be fetched home till the end of the fortnight.\r
+\r
+"Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie," said Tom, as their\r
+father drove away. "What do you shake and toss your head now for, you\r
+silly?" he continued; for though her hair was now under a new\r
+dispensation, and was brushed smoothly behind her ears, she seemed\r
+still in imagination to be tossing it out of her eyes. "It makes you\r
+look as if you were crazy."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I can't help it," said Maggie, impatiently. "Don't tease me, Tom.\r
+Oh, what books!" she exclaimed, as she saw the bookcases in the study.\r
+"How I should like to have as many books as that!"\r
+\r
+"Why, you couldn't read one of 'em," said Tom, triumphantly. "They're\r
+all Latin."\r
+\r
+"No, they aren't," said Maggie. "I can read the back of\r
+this,--'History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'"\r
+\r
+"Well, what does that mean? _You_ don't know," said Tom, wagging his\r
+head.\r
+\r
+"But I could soon find out," said Maggie, scornfully.\r
+\r
+"Why, how?"\r
+\r
+"I should look inside, and see what it was about."\r
+\r
+"You'd better not, Miss Maggie," said Tom, seeing her hand on the\r
+volume. "Mr. Stelling lets nobody touch his books without leave, and\r
+_I_ shall catch it, if you take it out."\r
+\r
+"Oh, very well. Let me see all _your_ books, then," said Maggie,\r
+turning to throw her arms round Tom's neck, and rub his cheek with her\r
+small round nose.\r
+\r
+Tom, in the gladness of his heart at having dear old Maggie to dispute\r
+with and crow over again, seized her round the waist, and began to\r
+jump with her round the large library table. Away they jumped with\r
+more and more vigor, till Maggie's hair flew from behind her ears, and\r
+twirled about like an animated mop. But the revolutions round the\r
+table became more and more irregular in their sweep, till at last\r
+reaching Mr. Stelling's reading stand, they sent it thundering down\r
+with its heavy lexicons to the floor. Happily it was the ground-floor,\r
+and the study was a one-storied wing to the house, so that the\r
+downfall made no alarming resonance, though Tom stood dizzy and aghast\r
+for a few minutes, dreading the appearance of Mr. or Mrs. Stelling.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I say, Maggie," said Tom at last, lifting up the stand, "we must\r
+keep quiet here, you know. If we break anything Mrs. Stelling'll make\r
+us cry peccavi."\r
+\r
+"What's that?" said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Oh, it's the Latin for a good scolding," said Tom, not without some\r
+pride in his knowledge.\r
+\r
+"Is she a cross woman?" said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"I believe you!" said Tom, with an emphatic nod.\r
+\r
+"I think all women are crosser than men," said Maggie. "Aunt Glegg's a\r
+great deal crosser than uncle Glegg, and mother scolds me more than\r
+father does."\r
+\r
+"Well, _you'll_ be a woman some day," said Tom, "so _you_ needn't\r
+talk."\r
+\r
+"But I shall be a _clever_ woman," said Maggie, with a toss.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I dare say, and a nasty conceited thing. Everybody'll hate you."\r
+\r
+"But you oughtn't to hate me, Tom; it'll be very wicked of you, for I\r
+shall be your sister."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but if you're a nasty disagreeable thing I _shall_ hate you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, but, Tom, you won't! I sha'n't be disagreeable. I shall be very\r
+good to you, and I shall be good to everybody. You won't hate me\r
+really, will you, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, bother! never mind! Come, it's time for me to learn my lessons.\r
+See here! what I've got to do," said Tom, drawing Maggie toward him\r
+and showing her his theorem, while she pushed her hair behind her\r
+ears, and prepared herself to prove her capability of helping him in\r
+Euclid. She began to read with full confidence in her own powers, but\r
+presently, becoming quite bewildered, her face flushed with\r
+irritation. It was unavoidable; she must confess her incompetency, and\r
+she was not fond of humiliation.\r
+\r
+"It's nonsense!" she said, "and very ugly stuff; nobody need want to\r
+make it out."\r
+\r
+"Ah, there, now, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, drawing the book away, and\r
+wagging his head at her, "You see you're not so clever as you thought\r
+you were."\r
+\r
+"Oh," said Maggie, pouting, "I dare say I could make it out, if I'd\r
+learned what goes before, as you have."\r
+\r
+"But that's what you just couldn't, Miss Wisdom," said Tom. "For it's\r
+all the harder when you know what goes before; for then you've got to\r
+say what definition 3 is, and what axiom V. is. But get along with you\r
+now; I must go on with this. Here's the Latin Grammar. See what you\r
+can make of that."\r
+\r
+Maggie found the Latin Grammar quite soothing after her mathematical\r
+mortification; for she delighted in new words, and quickly found that\r
+there was an English Key at the end, which would make her very wise\r
+about Latin, at slight expense. She presently made up her mind to skip\r
+the rules in the Syntax, the examples became so absorbing. These\r
+mysterious sentences, snatched from an unknown context,--like strange\r
+horns of beasts, and leaves of unknown plants, brought from some\r
+far-off region,--gave boundless scope to her imagination, and were all\r
+the more fascinating because they were in a peculiar tongue of their\r
+own, which she could learn to interpret. It was really very\r
+interesting, the Latin Grammar that Tom had said no girls could learn;\r
+and she was proud because she found it interesting. The most\r
+fragmentary examples were her favourites. _Mors omnibus est communis_\r
+would have been jejune, only she liked to know the Latin; but the\r
+fortunate gentleman whom every one congratulated because he had a son\r
+"endowed with _such_ a disposition" afforded her a great deal of\r
+pleasant conjecture, and she was quite lost in the "thick grove\r
+penetrable by no star," when Tom called out,--\r
+\r
+"Now, then, Magsie, give us the Grammar!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom, it's such a pretty book!" she said, as she jumped out of the\r
+large arm-chair to give it him; "it's much prettier than the\r
+Dictionary. I could learn Latin very soon. I don't think it's at all\r
+hard."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I know what you've been doing," said Tom; "you've been reading\r
+the English at the end. Any donkey can do that."\r
+\r
+Tom seized the book and opened it with a determined and business-like\r
+air, as much as to say that he had a lesson to learn which no donkeys\r
+would find themselves equal to. Maggie, rather piqued, turned to the\r
+bookcases to amuse herself with puzzling out the titles.\r
+\r
+Presently Tom called to her: "Here, Magsie, come and hear if I can say\r
+this. Stand at that end of the table, where Mr. Stelling sits when he\r
+hears me."\r
+\r
+Maggie obeyed, and took the open book.\r
+\r
+"Where do you begin, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I begin at _'Appellativa arborum,'_ because I say all over again\r
+what I've been learning this week."\r
+\r
+Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines; and Maggie was beginning\r
+to forget her office of prompter in speculating as to what _mas_ could\r
+mean, which came twice over, when he stuck fast at _Sunt etiam\r
+volucrum_.\r
+\r
+"Don't tell me, Maggie; _Sunt etiam volucrum_--_Sunt etiam\r
+volucrum_--_ut ostrea, cetus_----"\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, opening her mouth and shaking her head.\r
+\r
+"_Sunt etiam volucrum_," said Tom, very slowly, as if the next words\r
+might be expected to come sooner when he gave them this strong hint\r
+that they were waited for.\r
+\r
+"C, e, u," said Maggie, getting impatient.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I know--hold your tongue," said Tom. "_Ceu passer, hirundo;\r
+Ferarum_--_ferarum_----" Tom took his pencil and made several hard\r
+dots with it on his book-cover--"_ferarum_----"\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, oh dear, Tom," said Maggie, "what a time you are! _Ut_----"\r
+\r
+"_Ut ostrea_----"\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Maggie, "_ut tigris_----"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, now I can do," said Tom; "it was _tigris, vulpes_, I'd\r
+forgotten: _ut tigris, volupes; et Piscium_."\r
+\r
+With some further stammering and repetition, Tom got through the next\r
+few lines.\r
+\r
+"Now, then," he said, "the next is what I've just learned for\r
+to-morrow. Give me hold of the book a minute."\r
+\r
+After some whispered gabbling, assisted by the beating of his fist on\r
+the table, Tom returned the book.\r
+\r
+"_Mascula nomina in a_," he began.\r
+\r
+"No, Tom," said Maggie, "that doesn't come next. It's _Nomen non\r
+creskens genittivo_----"\r
+\r
+"_Creskens genittivo!_" exclaimed Tom, with a derisive laugh, for Tom\r
+had learned this omitted passage for his yesterday's lesson, and a\r
+young gentleman does not require an intimate or extensive acquaintance\r
+with Latin before he can feel the pitiable absurdity of a false\r
+quantity. "_Creskens genittivo!_ What a little silly you are, Maggie!"\r
+\r
+"Well, you needn't laugh, Tom, for you didn't remember it at all. I'm\r
+sure it's spelt so; how was I to know?"\r
+\r
+"Phee-e-e-h! I told you girls couldn't learn Latin. It's _Nomen non\r
+crescens genitivo_."\r
+\r
+"Very well, then," said Maggie, pouting. "I can say that as well as you\r
+can. And you don't mind your stops. For you ought to stop twice as\r
+long at a semicolon as you do at a comma, and you make the longest\r
+stops where there ought to be no stop at all."\r
+\r
+"Oh, well, don't chatter. Let me go on."\r
+\r
+They were presently fetched to spend the rest of the evening in the\r
+drawing-room, and Maggie became so animated with Mr. Stelling, who,\r
+she felt sure, admired her cleverness, that Tom was rather amazed and\r
+alarmed at her audacity. But she was suddenly subdued by Mr.\r
+Stelling's alluding to a little girl of whom he had heard that she\r
+once ran away to the gypsies.\r
+\r
+"What a very odd little girl that must be!" said Mrs. Stelling,\r
+meaning to be playful; but a playfulness that turned on her supposed\r
+oddity was not at all to Maggie's taste. She feared that Mr. Stelling,\r
+after all, did not think much of her, and went to bed in rather low\r
+spirits. Mrs. Stelling, she felt, looked at her as if she thought her\r
+hair was very ugly because it hung down straight behind.\r
+\r
+Nevertheless it was a very happy fortnight to Maggie, this visit to\r
+Tom. She was allowed to be in the study while he had his lessons, and\r
+in her various readings got very deep into the examples in the Latin\r
+Grammar. The astronomer who hated women generally caused her so much\r
+puzzling speculation that she one day asked Mr. Stelling if all\r
+astronomers hated women, or whether it was only this particular\r
+astronomer. But forestalling his answer, she said,--\r
+\r
+"I suppose it's all astronomers; because, you know, they live up in\r
+high towers, and if the women came there they might talk and hinder\r
+them from looking at the stars."\r
+\r
+Mr. Stelling liked her prattle immensely, and they were on the best\r
+terms. She told Tom she should like to go to school to Mr. Stelling,\r
+as he did, and learn just the same things. She knew she could do\r
+Euclid, for she had looked into it again, and she saw what A B C\r
+meant; they were the names of the lines.\r
+\r
+"I'm sure you couldn't do it, now," said Tom; "and I'll just ask Mr.\r
+Stelling if you could."\r
+\r
+"I don't mind," said the little conceited minx, "I'll ask him myself."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Stelling," she said, that same evening when they were in the\r
+drawing-room, "couldn't I do Euclid, and all Tom's lessons, if you\r
+were to teach me instead of him?"\r
+\r
+"No, you couldn't," said Tom, indignantly. "Girls can't do Euclid; can\r
+they, sir?"\r
+\r
+"They can pick up a little of everything, I dare say," said Mr.\r
+Stelling. "They've a great deal of superficial cleverness; but they\r
+couldn't go far into anything. They're quick and shallow."\r
+\r
+Tom, delighted with this verdict, telegraphed his triumph by wagging\r
+his head at Maggie, behind Mr. Stelling's chair. As for Maggie, she\r
+had hardly ever been so mortified. She had been so proud to be called\r
+"quick" all her little life, and now it appeared that this quickness\r
+was the brand of inferiority. It would have been better to be slow,\r
+like Tom.\r
+\r
+"Ha, ha! Miss Maggie!" said Tom, when they were alone; "you see it's\r
+not such a fine thing to be quick. You'll never go far into anything,\r
+you know."\r
+\r
+And Maggie was so oppressed by this dreadful destiny that she had no\r
+spirit for a retort.\r
+\r
+But when this small apparatus of shallow quickness was fetched away in\r
+the gig by Luke, and the study was once more quite lonely for Tom, he\r
+missed her grievously. He had really been brighter, and had got\r
+through his lessons better, since she had been there; and she had\r
+asked Mr. Stelling so many questions about the Roman Empire, and\r
+whether there really ever was a man who said, in Latin, "I would not\r
+buy it for a farthing or a rotten nut," or whether that had only been\r
+turned into Latin, that Tom had actually come to a dim understanding\r
+of the fact that there had once been people upon the earth who were so\r
+fortunate as to know Latin without learning it through the medium of\r
+the Eton Grammar. This luminous idea was a great addition to his\r
+historical acquirements during this half-year, which were otherwise\r
+confined to an epitomized history of the Jews.\r
+\r
+But the dreary half-year _did_ come to an end. How glad Tom was to see\r
+the last yellow leaves fluttering before the cold wind! The dark\r
+afternoons and the first December snow seemed to him far livelier than\r
+the August sunshine; and that he might make himself the surer about\r
+the flight of the days that were carrying him homeward, he stuck\r
+twenty-one sticks deep in a corner of the garden, when he was three\r
+weeks from the holidays, and pulled one up every day with a great\r
+wrench, throwing it to a distance with a vigor of will which would\r
+have carried it to limbo, if it had been in the nature of sticks to\r
+travel so far.\r
+\r
+But it was worth purchasing, even at the heavy price of the Latin\r
+Grammar, the happiness of seeing the bright light in the parlor at\r
+home, as the gig passed noiselessly over the snow-covered bridge; the\r
+happiness of passing from the cold air to the warmth and the kisses\r
+and the smiles of that familiar hearth, where the pattern of the rug\r
+and the grate and the fire-irons were "first ideas" that it was no\r
+more possible to criticise than the solidity and extension of matter.\r
+There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where\r
+we were born, where objects became dear to us before we had known the\r
+labor of choice, and where the outer world seemed only an extension of\r
+our own personality; we accepted and loved it as we accepted our own\r
+sense of existence and our own limbs. Very commonplace, even ugly,\r
+that furniture of our early home might look if it were put up to\r
+auction; an improved taste in upholstery scorns it; and is not the\r
+striving after something better and better in our surroundings the\r
+grand characteristic that distinguishes man from the brute, or, to\r
+satisfy a scrupulous accuracy of definition, that distinguishes the\r
+British man from the foreign brute? But heaven knows where that\r
+striving might lead us, if our affections had not a trick of twining\r
+round those old inferior things; if the loves and sanctities of our\r
+life had no deep immovable roots in memory. One's delight in an\r
+elderberry bush overhanging the confused leafage of a hedgerow bank,\r
+as a more gladdening sight than the finest cistus or fuchsia spreading\r
+itself on the softest undulating turf, is an entirely unjustifiable\r
+preference to a nursery-gardener, or to any of those regulated minds\r
+who are free from the weakness of any attachment that does not rest on\r
+a demonstrable superiority of qualities. And there is no better reason\r
+for preferring this elderberry bush than that it stirs an early\r
+memory; that it is no novelty in my life, speaking to me merely\r
+through my present sensibilities to form and color, but the long\r
+companion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joys\r
+were vivid.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+The Christmas Holidays\r
+\r
+\r
+Fine old Christmas, with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his\r
+duty that year in the noblest fashion, and had set off his rich gifts\r
+of warmth and color with all the heightening contrast of frost and\r
+snow.\r
+\r
+Snow lay on the croft and river-bank in undulations softer than the\r
+limbs of infancy; it lay with the neatliest finished border on every\r
+sloping roof, making the dark-red gables stand out with a new depth of\r
+color; it weighed heavily on the laurels and fir-trees, till it fell\r
+from them with a shuddering sound; it clothed the rough turnip-field\r
+with whiteness, and made the sheep look like dark blotches; the gates\r
+were all blocked up with the sloping drifts, and here and there a\r
+disregarded four-footed beast stood as if petrified "in unrecumbent\r
+sadness"; there was no gleam, no shadow, for the heavens, too, were\r
+one still, pale cloud; no sound or motion in anything but the dark\r
+river that flowed and moaned like an unresting sorrow. But old\r
+Christmas smiled as he laid this cruel-seeming spell on the outdoor\r
+world, for he meant to light up home with new brightness, to deepen\r
+all the richness of indoor color, and give a keener edge of delight to\r
+the warm fragrance of food; he meant to prepare a sweet imprisonment\r
+that would strengthen the primitive fellowship of kindred, and make\r
+the sunshine of familiar human faces as welcome as the hidden\r
+day-star. His kindness fell but hardly on the homeless,--fell but\r
+hardly on the homes where the hearth was not very warm, and where the\r
+food had little fragrance; where the human faces had had no sunshine\r
+in them, but rather the leaden, blank-eyed gaze of unexpectant want.\r
+But the fine old season meant well; and if he has not learned the\r
+secret how to bless men impartially, it is because his father Time,\r
+with ever-unrelenting unrelenting purpose, still hides that secret in\r
+his own mighty, slow-beating heart.\r
+\r
+And yet this Christmas day, in spite of Tom's fresh delight in home,\r
+was not, he thought, somehow or other, quite so happy as it had always\r
+been before. The red berries were just as abundant on the holly, and\r
+he and Maggie had dressed all the windows and mantlepieces and\r
+picture-frames on Christmas eve with as much taste as ever, wedding\r
+the thick-set scarlet clusters with branches of the black-berried ivy.\r
+There had been singing under the windows after midnight,--supernatural\r
+singing, Maggie always felt, in spite of Tom's contemptuous insistence\r
+that the singers were old Patch, the parish clerk, and the rest of the\r
+church choir; she trembled with awe when their carolling broke in upon\r
+her dreams, and the image of men in fustian clothes was always thrust\r
+away by the vision of angels resting on the parted cloud. The midnight\r
+chant had helped as usual to lift the morning above the level of\r
+common days; and then there were the smell of hot toast and ale from\r
+the kitchen, at the breakfast hour; the favorite anthem, the green\r
+boughs, and the short sermon gave the appropriate festal character to\r
+the church-going; and aunt and uncle Moss, with all their seven\r
+children, were looking like so many reflectors of the bright\r
+parlor-fire, when the church-goers came back, stamping the snow from\r
+their feet. The plum-pudding was of the same handsome roundness as\r
+ever, and came in with the symbolic blue flames around it, as if it\r
+had been heroically snatched from the nether fires, into which it had\r
+been thrown by dyspeptic Puritans; the dessert was as splendid as\r
+ever, with its golden oranges, brown nuts, and the crystalline light\r
+and dark of apple-jelly and damson cheese; in all these things\r
+Christmas was as it had always been since Tom could remember; it was\r
+only distinguished, if by anything, by superior sliding and snowballs.\r
+\r
+Christmas was cheery, but not so Mr. Tulliver. He was irate and\r
+defiant; and Tom, though he espoused his father's quarrels and shared\r
+his father's sense of injury, was not without some of the feeling that\r
+oppressed Maggie when Mr. Tulliver got louder and more angry in\r
+narration and assertion with the increased leisure of dessert. The\r
+attention that Tom might have concentrated on his nuts and wine was\r
+distracted by a sense that there were rascally enemies in the world,\r
+and that the business of grown-up life could hardly be conducted\r
+without a good deal of quarrelling. Now, Tom was not fond of\r
+quarrelling, unless it could soon be put an end to by a fair stand-up\r
+fight with an adversary whom he had every chance of thrashing; and his\r
+father's irritable talk made him uncomfortable, though he never\r
+accounted to himself for the feeling, or conceived the notion that his\r
+father was faulty in this respect.\r
+\r
+The particular embodiment of the evil principle now exciting Mr.\r
+Tulliver's determined resistance was Mr. Pivart, who, having lands\r
+higher up the Ripple, was taking measures for their irrigation, which\r
+either were, or would be, or were bound to be (on the principle that\r
+water was water), an infringement on Mr. Tulliver's legitimate share\r
+of water-power. Dix, who had a mill on the stream, was a feeble\r
+auxiliary of Old Harry compared with Pivart. Dix had been brought to\r
+his senses by arbitration, and Wakem's advice had not carried _him_\r
+far. No; Dix, Mr. Tulliver considered, had been as good as nowhere in\r
+point of law; and in the intensity of his indignation against Pivart,\r
+his contempt for a baffled adversary like Dix began to wear the air of\r
+a friendly attachment. He had no male audience to-day except Mr. Moss,\r
+who knew nothing, as he said, of the "natur' o' mills," and could only\r
+assent to Mr. Tulliver's arguments on the _a priori_ ground of family\r
+relationship and monetary obligation; but Mr. Tulliver did not talk\r
+with the futile intention of convincing his audience, he talked to\r
+relieve himself; while good Mr. Moss made strong efforts to keep his\r
+eyes wide open, in spite of the sleepiness which an unusually good\r
+dinner produced in his hard-worked frame. Mrs. Moss, more alive to the\r
+subject, and interested in everything that affected her brother,\r
+listened and put in a word as often as maternal preoccupations\r
+allowed.\r
+\r
+"Why, Pivart's a new name hereabout, brother, isn't it?" she said; "he\r
+didn't own the land in father's time, nor yours either, before I was\r
+married."\r
+\r
+"New name? Yes, I should think it _is_ a new name," said Mr. Tulliver,\r
+with angry emphasis. "Dorlcote Mill's been in our family a hundred\r
+year and better, and nobody ever heard of a Pivart meddling with the\r
+river, till this fellow came and bought Bincome's farm out of hand,\r
+before anybody else could so much as say 'snap.' But I'll _Pivart_\r
+him!" added Mr. Tulliver, lifting his glass with a sense that he had\r
+defined his resolution in an unmistakable manner.\r
+\r
+"You won't be forced to go to law with him, I hope, brother?" said\r
+Mrs. Moss, with some anxiety.\r
+\r
+"I don't know what I shall be forced to; but I know what I shall force\r
+_him_ to, with his dikes and erigations, if there's any law to be\r
+brought to bear o' the right side. I know well enough who's at the\r
+bottom of it; he's got Wakem to back him and egg him on. I know Wakem\r
+tells him the law can't touch him for it, but there's folks can handle\r
+the law besides Wakem. It takes a big raskil to beat him; but there's\r
+bigger to be found, as know more o' th' ins and outs o' the law, else\r
+how came Wakem to lose Brumley's suit for him?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was a strictly honest man, and proud of being honest, but\r
+he considered that in law the ends of justice could only be achieved\r
+by employing a stronger knave to frustrate a weaker. Law was a sort of\r
+cock-fight, in which it was the business of injured honesty to get a\r
+game bird with the best pluck and the strongest spurs.\r
+\r
+"Gore's no fool; you needn't tell me that," he observed presently, in\r
+a pugnacious tone, as if poor Gritty had been urging that lawyer's\r
+capabilities; "but, you see, he isn't up to the law as Wakem is. And\r
+water's a very particular thing; you can't pick it up with a\r
+pitchfork. That's why it's been nuts to Old Harry and the lawyers.\r
+It's plain enough what's the rights and the wrongs of water, if you\r
+look at it straight-forrard; for a river's a river, and if you've got\r
+a mill, you must have water to turn it; and it's no use telling me\r
+Pivart's erigation and nonsense won't stop my wheel; I know what\r
+belongs to water better than that. Talk to me o' what th' engineers\r
+say! I say it's common sense, as Pivart's dikes must do me an injury.\r
+But if that's their engineering, I'll put Tom to it by-and-by, and he\r
+shall see if he can't find a bit more sense in th' engineering\r
+business than what _that_ comes to."\r
+\r
+Tom, looking round with some anxiety at this announcement of his\r
+prospects, unthinkingly withdrew a small rattle he was amusing baby\r
+Moss with, whereupon she, being a baby that knew her own mind with\r
+remarkable clearness, instantaneously expressed her sentiments in a\r
+piercing yell, and was not to be appeased even by the restoration of\r
+the rattle, feeling apparently that the original wrong of having it\r
+taken from her remained in all its force. Mrs. Moss hurried away with\r
+her into another room, and expressed to Mrs. Tulliver, who accompanied\r
+her, the conviction that the dear child had good reasons for crying;\r
+implying that if it was supposed to be the rattle that baby clamored\r
+for, she was a misunderstood baby. The thoroughly justifiable yell\r
+being quieted, Mrs. Moss looked at her sister-in-law and said,--\r
+\r
+"I'm sorry to see brother so put out about this water work."\r
+\r
+"It's your brother's way, Mrs. Moss; I'd never anything o' that sort\r
+before I was married," said Mrs. Tulliver, with a half-implied\r
+reproach. She always spoke of her husband as "your brother" to Mrs.\r
+Moss in any case when his line of conduct was not matter of pure\r
+admiration. Amiable Mrs. Tulliver, who was never angry in her life,\r
+had yet her mild share of that spirit without which she could hardly\r
+have been at once a Dodson and a woman. Being always on the defensive\r
+toward her own sisters, it was natural that she should be keenly\r
+conscious of her superiority, even as the weakest Dodson, over a\r
+husband's sister, who, besides being poorly off, and inclined to "hang\r
+on" her brother, had the good-natured submissiveness of a large,\r
+easy-tempered, untidy, prolific woman, with affection enough in her\r
+not only for her own husband and abundant children, but for any number\r
+of collateral relations.\r
+\r
+"I hope and pray he won't go to law," said Mrs. Moss, "for there's\r
+never any knowing where that'll end. And the right doesn't allays win.\r
+This Mr. Pivart's a rich man, by what I can make out, and the rich\r
+mostly get things their own way."\r
+\r
+"As to that," said Mrs. Tulliver, stroking her dress down, "I've seen\r
+what riches are in my own family; for my sisters have got husbands as\r
+can afford to do pretty much what they like. But I think sometimes I\r
+shall be drove off my head with the talk about this law and erigation;\r
+and my sisters lay all the fault to me, for they don't know what it is\r
+to marry a man like your brother; how should they? Sister Pullet has\r
+her own way from morning till night."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mrs. Moss, "I don't think I should like my husband if he\r
+hadn't got any wits of his own, and I had to find head-piece for him.\r
+It's a deal easier to do what pleases one's husband, than to be\r
+puzzling what else one should do."\r
+\r
+"If people come to talk o' doing what pleases their husbands," said\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, with a faint imitation of her sister Glegg, "I'm sure\r
+your brother might have waited a long while before he'd have found a\r
+wife that 'ud have let him have his say in everything, as I do. It's\r
+nothing but law and erigation now, from when we first get up in the\r
+morning till we go to bed at night; and I never contradict him; I only\r
+say, 'Well, Mr. Tulliver, do as you like; but whativer you do, don't\r
+go to law."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence over her\r
+husband. No woman is; she can always incline him to do either what she\r
+wishes, or the reverse; and on the composite impulses that were\r
+threatening to hurry Mr. Tulliver into "law," Mrs. Tulliver's\r
+monotonous pleading had doubtless its share of force; it might even be\r
+comparable to that proverbial feather which has the credit or\r
+discredit of breaking the camel's back; though, on a strictly\r
+impartial view, the blame ought rather to lie with the previous weight\r
+of feathers which had already placed the back in such imminent peril\r
+that an otherwise innocent feather could not settle on it without\r
+mischief. Not that Mrs. Tulliver's feeble beseeching could have had\r
+this feather's weight in virtue of her single personality; but\r
+whenever she departed from entire assent to her husband, he saw in her\r
+the representative of the Dodson family; and it was a guiding\r
+principle with Mr. Tulliver to let the Dodsons know that they were not\r
+to domineer over _him_, or--more specifically--that a male Tulliver\r
+was far more than equal to four female Dodsons, even though one of\r
+them was Mrs. Glegg.\r
+\r
+But not even a direct argument from that typical Dodson female herself\r
+against his going to law could have heightened his disposition toward\r
+it so much as the mere thought of Wakem, continually freshened by the\r
+sight of the too able attorney on market-days. Wakem, to his certain\r
+knowledge, was (metaphorically speaking) at the bottom of Pivart's\r
+irrigation; Wakem had tried to make Dix stand out, and go to law about\r
+the dam; it was unquestionably Wakem who had caused Mr. Tulliver to\r
+lose the suit about the right of road and the bridge that made a\r
+thoroughfare of his land for every vagabond who preferred an\r
+opportunity of damaging private property to walking like an honest man\r
+along the highroad; all lawyers were more or less rascals, but Wakem's\r
+rascality was of that peculiarly aggravated kind which placed itself\r
+in opposition to that form of right embodied in Mr. Tulliver's\r
+interests and opinions. And as an extra touch of bitterness, the\r
+injured miller had recently, in borrowing the five hundred pounds,\r
+been obliged to carry a little business to Wakem's office on his own\r
+account. A hook-nosed glib fellow! as cool as a cucumber,--always\r
+looking so sure of his game! And it was vexatious that Lawyer Gore was\r
+not more like him, but was a bald, round-featured man, with bland\r
+manners and fat hands; a game-cock that you would be rash to bet upon\r
+against Wakem. Gore was a sly fellow. His weakness did not lie on the\r
+side of scrupulosity; but the largest amount of winking, however\r
+significant, is not equivalent to seeing through a stone wall; and\r
+confident as Mr. Tulliver was in his principle that water was water,\r
+and in the direct inference that Pivart had not a leg to stand on in\r
+this affair of irrigation, he had an uncomfortable suspicion that\r
+Wakem had more law to show against this (rationally) irrefragable\r
+inference than Gore could show for it. But then, if they went to law,\r
+there was a chance for Mr. Tulliver to employ Counsellor Wylde on his\r
+side, instead of having that admirable bully against him; and the\r
+prospect of seeing a witness of Wakem's made to perspire and become\r
+confounded, as Mr. Tulliver's witness had once been, was alluring to\r
+the love of retributive justice.\r
+\r
+Much rumination had Mr. Tulliver on these puzzling subjects during his\r
+rides on the gray horse; much turning of the head from side to side,\r
+as the scales dipped alternately; but the probable result was still\r
+out of sight, only to be reached through much hot argument and\r
+iteration in domestic and social life. That initial stage of the\r
+dispute which consisted in the narration of the case and the\r
+enforcement of Mr. Tulliver's views concerning it throughout the\r
+entire circle of his connections would necessarily take time; and at\r
+the beginning of February, when Tom was going to school again, there\r
+were scarcely any new items to be detected in his father's statement\r
+of the case against Pivart, or any more specific indication of the\r
+measures he was bent on taking against that rash contravener of the\r
+principle that water was water. Iteration, like friction, is likely to\r
+generate heat instead of progress, and Mr. Tulliver's heat was\r
+certainly more and more palpable. If there had been no new evidence on\r
+any other point, there had been new evidence that Pivart was as "thick\r
+as mud" with Wakem.\r
+\r
+"Father," said Tom, one evening near the end of the holidays, "uncle\r
+Glegg says Lawyer Wakem _is_ going to send his son to Mr. Stelling. It\r
+isn't true, what they said about his going to be sent to France. You\r
+won't like me to go to school with Wakem's son, shall you?"\r
+\r
+"It's no matter for that, my boy," said Mr. Tulliver; "don't you learn\r
+anything bad of him, that's all. The lad's a poor deformed creatur,\r
+and takes after his mother in the face; I think there isn't much of\r
+his father in him. It's a sign Wakem thinks high o' Mr. Sterling, as\r
+he sends his son to him, and Wakem knows meal from bran."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver in his heart was rather proud of the fact that his son\r
+was to have the same advantages as Wakem's; but Tom was not at all\r
+easy on the point. It would have been much clearer if the lawyer's son\r
+had not been deformed, for then Tom would have had the prospect of\r
+pitching into him with all that freedom which is derived from a high\r
+moral sanction.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+The New Schoolfellow\r
+\r
+\r
+It was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went back to school; a day\r
+quite in keeping with this severe phase of his destiny. If he had not\r
+carried in his pocket a parcel of sugar-candy and a small Dutch doll\r
+for little Laura, there would have been no ray of expected pleasure to\r
+enliven the general gloom. But he liked to think how Laura would put\r
+out her lips and her tiny hands for the bits of sugarcandy; and to\r
+give the greater keenness to these pleasures of imagination, he took\r
+out the parcel, made a small hole in the paper, and bit off a crystal\r
+or two, which had so solacing an effect under the confined prospect\r
+and damp odors of the gig-umbrella, that he repeated the process more\r
+than once on his way.\r
+\r
+"Well, Tulliver, we're glad to see you again," said Mr. Stelling,\r
+heartily. "Take off your wrappings and come into the study till\r
+dinner. You'll find a bright fire there, and a new companion."\r
+\r
+Tom felt in an uncomfortable flutter as he took off his woollen\r
+comforter and other wrappings. He had seen Philip Wakem at St. Ogg's,\r
+but had always turned his eyes away from him as quickly as possible.\r
+He would have disliked having a deformed boy for his companion, even\r
+if Philip had not been the son of a bad man. And Tom did not see how a\r
+bad man's son could be very good. His own father was a good man, and\r
+he would readily have fought any one who said the contrary. He was in\r
+a state of mingled embarrassment and defiance as he followed Mr.\r
+Stelling to the study.\r
+\r
+"Here is a new companion for you to shake hands with, Tulliver," said\r
+that gentleman on entering the study,--"Master Philip Wakem. I shall\r
+leave you to make acquaintance by yourselves. You already know\r
+something of each other, I imagine; for you are neighbors at home."\r
+\r
+Tom looked confused and awkward, while Philip rose and glanced at him\r
+timidly. Tom did not like to go up and put out his hand, and he was\r
+not prepared to say, "How do you do?" on so short a notice.\r
+\r
+Mr. Stelling wisely turned away, and closed the door behind him; boys'\r
+shyness only wears off in the absence of their elders.\r
+\r
+Philip was at once too proud and too timid to walk toward Tom. He\r
+thought, or rather felt, that Tom had an aversion to looking at him;\r
+every one, almost, disliked looking at him; and his deformity was more\r
+conspicuous when he walked. So they remained without shaking hands or\r
+even speaking, while Tom went to the fire and warmed himself, every\r
+now and then casting furtive glances at Philip, who seemed to be\r
+drawing absently first one object and then another on a piece of paper\r
+he had before him. He had seated himself again, and as he drew, was\r
+thinking what he could say to Tom, and trying to overcome his own\r
+repugnance to making the first advances.\r
+\r
+Tom began to look oftener and longer at Philip's face, for he could\r
+see it without noticing the hump, and it was really not a disagreeable\r
+face,--very old-looking, Tom thought. He wondered how much older\r
+Philip was than himself. An anatomist--even a mere physiognomist--\r
+would have seen that the deformity of Philip's spine was not a\r
+congenital hump, but the result of an accident in infancy; but you\r
+do not expect from Tom any acquaintance with such distinctions;\r
+to him, Philip was simply a humpback. He had a vague notion\r
+that the deformity of Wakem's son had some relation to the lawyer's\r
+rascality, of which he had so often heard his father talk with hot\r
+emphasis; and he felt, too, a half-admitted fear of him as probably\r
+a spiteful fellow, who, not being able to fight you, had cunning\r
+ways of doing you a mischief by the sly. There was a humpbacked\r
+tailor in the neighborhood of Mr. Jacobs's academy, who was considered\r
+a very unamiable character, and was much hooted after by public-spirited\r
+boys solely on the ground of his unsatisfactory moral qualities; so\r
+that Tom was not without a basis of fact to go upon. Still, no face\r
+could be more unlike that ugly tailor's than this melancholy boy's\r
+face,--the brown hair round it waved and curled at the ends like a\r
+girl's; Tom thought that truly pitiable. This Wakem was a pale,\r
+puny fellow, and it was quite clear he would not be able to play at\r
+anything worth speaking of; but he handled his pencil in an enviable\r
+manner, and was apparently making one thing after another without\r
+any trouble. What was he drawing? Tom was quite warm now, and wanted\r
+something new to be going forward. It was certainly more agreeable\r
+to have an ill-natured humpback as a companion than to stand looking\r
+out of the study window at the rain, and kicking his foot against\r
+the washboard in solitude; something would happen every day,--\r
+"a quarrel or something"; and Tom thought he should rather like to\r
+show Philip that he had better not try his spiteful tricks on _him_.\r
+He suddenly walked across the hearth and looked over Philip's paper.\r
+\r
+"Why, that's a donkey with panniers, and a spaniel, and partridges in\r
+the corn!" he exclaimed, his tongue being completely loosed by\r
+surprise and admiration. "Oh my buttons! I wish I could draw like\r
+that. I'm to learn drawing this half; I wonder if I shall learn to\r
+make dogs and donkeys!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, you can do them without learning," said Philip; "I never learned\r
+drawing."\r
+\r
+"Never learned?" said Tom, in amazement. "Why, when I make dogs and\r
+horses, and those things, the heads and the legs won't come right;\r
+though I can see how they ought to be very well. I can make houses,\r
+and all sorts of chimneys,--chimneys going all down the wall,--and\r
+windows in the roof, and all that. But I dare say I could do dogs and\r
+horses if I was to try more," he added, reflecting that Philip might\r
+falsely suppose that he was going to "knock under," if he were too\r
+frank about the imperfection of his accomplishments.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes," said Philip, "it's very easy. You've only to look well at\r
+things, and draw them over and over again. What you do wrong once, you\r
+can alter the next time."\r
+\r
+"But haven't you been taught _any_thing?" said Tom, beginning to have\r
+a puzzled suspicion that Philip's crooked back might be the source of\r
+remarkable faculties. "I thought you'd been to school a long while."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Philip, smiling; "I've been taught Latin and Greek and\r
+mathematics, and writing and such things."\r
+\r
+"Oh, but I say, you don't like Latin, though, do you?" said Tom,\r
+lowering his voice confidentially.\r
+\r
+"Pretty well; I don't care much about it," said Philip.\r
+\r
+"Ah, but perhaps you haven't got into the _Propria quæ maribus_," said\r
+Tom, nodding his head sideways, as much as to say, "that was the test;\r
+it was easy talking till you came to _that_."\r
+\r
+Philip felt some bitter complacency in the promising stupidity of this\r
+well-made, active-looking boy; but made polite by his own extreme\r
+sensitiveness, as well as by his desire to conciliate, he checked his\r
+inclination to laugh, and said quietly,--\r
+\r
+"I've done with the grammar; I don't learn that any more."\r
+\r
+"Then you won't have the same lessons as I shall?" said Tom, with a\r
+sense of disappointment.\r
+\r
+"No; but I dare say I can help you. I shall be very glad to help you\r
+if I can."\r
+\r
+Tom did not say "Thank you," for he was quite absorbed in the thought\r
+that Wakem's son did not seem so spiteful a fellow as might have been\r
+expected.\r
+\r
+"I say," he said presently, "do you love your father?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Philip, coloring deeply; "don't you love yours?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes--I only wanted to know," said Tom, rather ashamed of himself,\r
+now he saw Philip coloring and looking uncomfortable. He found much\r
+difficulty in adjusting his attitude of mind toward the son of Lawyer\r
+Wakem, and it had occurred to him that if Philip disliked his father,\r
+that fact might go some way toward clearing up his perplexity.\r
+\r
+"Shall you learn drawing now?" he said, by way of changing the\r
+subject.\r
+\r
+"No," said Philip. "My father wishes me to give all my time to other\r
+things now."\r
+\r
+"What! Latin and Euclid, and those things?" said Tom.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Philip, who had left off using his pencil, and was resting\r
+his head on one hand, while Tom was learning forward on both elbows,\r
+and looking with increasing admiration at the dog and the donkey.\r
+\r
+"And you don't mind that?" said Tom, with strong curiosity.\r
+\r
+"No; I like to know what everybody else knows. I can study what I like\r
+by-and-by."\r
+\r
+"I can't think why anybody should learn Latin," said Tom. "It's no\r
+good."\r
+\r
+"It's part of the education of a gentleman," said Philip. "All\r
+gentlemen learn the same things."\r
+\r
+"What! do you think Sir John Crake, the master of the harriers, knows\r
+Latin?" said Tom, who had often thought he should like to resemble Sir\r
+John Crake.\r
+\r
+"He learned it when he was a boy, of course," said Philip. "But I dare\r
+say he's forgotten it."\r
+\r
+"Oh, well, I can do that, then," said Tom, not with any epigrammatic\r
+intention, but with serious satisfaction at the idea that, as far as\r
+Latin was concerned, there was no hindrance to his resembling Sir John\r
+Crake. "Only you're obliged to remember it while you're at school,\r
+else you've got to learn ever so many lines of 'Speaker.' Mr.\r
+Stelling's very particular--did you know? He'll have you up ten times\r
+if you say 'nam' for 'jam,'--he won't let you go a letter wrong, _I_\r
+can tell you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I don't mind," said Philip, unable to choke a laugh; "I can\r
+remember things easily. And there are some lessons I'm very fond of.\r
+I'm very fond of Greek history, and everything about the Greeks. I\r
+should like to have been a Greek and fought the Persians, and then\r
+have come home and have written tragedies, or else have been listened\r
+to by everybody for my wisdom, like Socrates, and have died a grand\r
+death." (Philip, you perceive, was not without a wish to impress the\r
+well-made barbarian with a sense of his mental superiority.)\r
+\r
+"Why, were the Greeks great fighters?" said Tom, who saw a vista in\r
+this direction. "Is there anything like David and Goliath and Samson\r
+in the Greek history? Those are the only bits I like in the history of\r
+the Jews."\r
+\r
+"Oh, there are very fine stories of that sort about the Greeks,--about\r
+the heroes of early times who killed the wild beasts, as Samson did.\r
+And in the Odyssey--that's a beautiful poem--there's a more wonderful\r
+giant than Goliath,--Polypheme, who had only one eye in the middle of\r
+his forehead; and Ulysses, a little fellow, but very wise and cunning,\r
+got a red-hot pine-tree and stuck it into this one eye, and made him\r
+roar like a thousand bulls."\r
+\r
+"Oh, what fun!" said Tom, jumping away from the table, and stamping\r
+first with one leg and then the other. "I say, can you tell me all\r
+about those stories? Because I sha'n't learn Greek, you know. Shall\r
+I?" he added, pausing in his stamping with a sudden alarm, lest the\r
+contrary might be possible. "Does every gentleman learn Greek? Will\r
+Mr. Stelling make me begin with it, do you think?"\r
+\r
+"No, I should think not, very likely not," said Philip. "But you may\r
+read those stories without knowing Greek. I've got them in English."\r
+\r
+"Oh, but I don't like reading; I'd sooner have you tell them me. But\r
+only the fighting ones, you know. My sister Maggie is always wanting\r
+to tell me stories, but they're stupid things. Girls' stories always\r
+are. Can you tell a good many fighting stories?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes," said Philip; "lots of them, besides the Greek stories. I can\r
+tell you about Richard Cœur-de-Lion and Saladin, and about William\r
+Wallace and Robert Bruce and James Douglas,--I know no end."\r
+\r
+"You're older than I am, aren't you?" said Tom.\r
+\r
+"Why, how old are _you?_ I'm fifteen."\r
+\r
+"I'm only going in fourteen," said Tom. "But I thrashed all the\r
+fellows at Jacob's--that's where I was before I came here. And I beat\r
+'em all at bandy and climbing. And I wish Mr. Stelling would let us go\r
+fishing. _I_ could show you how to fish. You _could_ fish, couldn't\r
+you? It's only standing, and sitting still, you know."\r
+\r
+Tom, in his turn, wished to make the balance dip in his favor. This\r
+hunchback must not suppose that his acquaintance with fighting stories\r
+put him on a par with an actual fighting hero, like Tom Tulliver.\r
+Philip winced under this allusion to his unfitness for active sports,\r
+and he answered almost peevishly,--\r
+\r
+"I can't bear fishing. I think people look like fools sitting watching\r
+a line hour after hour, or else throwing and throwing, and catching\r
+nothing."\r
+\r
+"Ah, but you wouldn't say they looked like fools when they landed a\r
+big pike, I can tell you," said Tom, who had never caught anything\r
+that was "big" in his life, but whose imagination was on the stretch\r
+with indignant zeal for the honor of sport. Wakem's son, it was plain,\r
+had his disagreeable points, and must be kept in due check. Happily\r
+for the harmony of this first interview, they were now called to\r
+dinner, and Philip was not allowed to develop farther his unsound\r
+views on the subject of fishing. But Tom said to himself, that was\r
+just what he should have expected from a hunchback.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+"The Young Idea"\r
+\r
+\r
+The alterations of feeling in that first dialogue between Tom and\r
+Philip continued to make their intercourse even after many weeks of\r
+schoolboy intimacy. Tom never quite lost the feeling that Philip,\r
+being the son of a "rascal," was his natural enemy; never thoroughly\r
+overcame his repulsion to Philip's deformity. He was a boy who adhered\r
+tenaciously to impressions once received; as with all minds in which\r
+mere perception predominates over thought and emotion, the external\r
+remained to him rigidly what it was in the first instance. But then it\r
+was impossible not to like Philip's company when he was in a good\r
+humor; he could help one so well in one's Latin exercises, which Tom\r
+regarded as a kind of puzzle that could only be found out by a lucky\r
+chance; and he could tell such wonderful fighting stories about Hal of\r
+the Wynd, for example, and other heroes who were especial favorites\r
+with Tom, because they laid about them with heavy strokes. He had\r
+small opinion of Saladin, whose cimeter could cut a cushion in two in\r
+an instant; who wanted to cut cushions? That was a stupid story, and\r
+he didn't care to hear it again. But when Robert Bruce, on the black\r
+pony, rose in his stirrups, and lifting his good battle-axe, cracked\r
+at once the helmet and the skull of the too hasty knight at\r
+Bannockburn, then Tom felt all the exaltation of sympathy, and if he\r
+had had a cocoanut at hand, he would have cracked it at once with the\r
+poker. Philip in his happier moods indulged Tom to the top of his\r
+bent, heightening the crash and bang and fury of every fight with all\r
+the artillery of epithets and similes at his command. But he was not\r
+always in a good humor or happy mood. The slight spurt of peevish\r
+susceptibility which had escaped him in their first interview was a\r
+symptom of a perpetually recurring mental ailment, half of it nervous\r
+irritability, half of it the heart-bitterness produced by the sense of\r
+his deformity. In these fits of susceptibility every glance seemed to\r
+him to be charged either with offensive pity or with ill-repressed\r
+disgust; at the very least it was an indifferent glance, and Philip\r
+felt indifference as a child of the south feels the chill air of a\r
+northern spring. Poor Tom's blundering patronage when they were out of\r
+doors together would sometimes make him turn upon the well-meaning lad\r
+quite savagely; and his eyes, usually sad and quiet, would flash with\r
+anything but playful lightning. No wonder Tom retained his suspicions\r
+of the humpback.\r
+\r
+But Philip's self-taught skill in drawing was another link between\r
+them; for Tom found, to his disgust, that his new drawing-master gave\r
+him no dogs and donkeys to draw, but brooks and rustic bridges and\r
+ruins, all with a general softness of black-lead surface, indicating\r
+that nature, if anything, was rather satiny; and as Tom's feeling for\r
+the picturesque in landscape was at present quite latent, it is not\r
+surprising that Mr. Goodrich's productions seemed to him an\r
+uninteresting form of art. Mr. Tulliver, having a vague intention that\r
+Tom should be put to some business which included the drawing out of\r
+plans and maps, had complained to Mr. Riley, when he saw him at\r
+Mudport, that Tom seemed to be learning nothing of that sort;\r
+whereupon that obliging adviser had suggested that Tom should have\r
+drawing-lessons. Mr. Tulliver must not mind paying extra for drawing;\r
+let Tom be made a good draughtsman, and he would be able to turn his\r
+pencil to any purpose. So it was ordered that Tom should have\r
+drawing-lessons; and whom should Mr. Stelling have selected as a\r
+master if not Mr. Goodrich, who was considered quite at the head of\r
+his profession within a circuit of twelve miles round King's Lorton?\r
+By which means Tom learned to make an extremely fine point to his\r
+pencil, and to represent landscape with a "broad generality," which,\r
+doubtless from a narrow tendency in his mind to details, he thought\r
+extremely dull.\r
+\r
+All this, you remember, happened in those dark ages when there were no\r
+schools of design; before schoolmasters were invariably men of\r
+scrupulous integrity, and before the clergy were all men of enlarged\r
+minds and varied culture. In those less favored days, it is no fable\r
+that there were other clergymen besides Mr. Stelling who had narrow\r
+intellects and large wants, and whose income, by a logical confusion\r
+to which Fortune, being a female as well as blindfold, is peculiarly\r
+liable, was proportioned not to their wants but to their intellect,\r
+with which income has clearly no inherent relation. The problem these\r
+gentlemen had to solve was to readjust the proportion between their\r
+wants and their income; and since wants are not easily starved to\r
+death, the simpler method appeared to be to raise their income. There\r
+was but one way of doing this; any of those low callings in which men\r
+are obliged to do good work at a low price were forbidden to\r
+clergymen; was it their fault if their only resource was to turn out\r
+very poor work at a high price? Besides, how should Mr. Stelling be\r
+expected to know that education was a delicate and difficult business,\r
+any more than an animal endowed with a power of boring a hole through\r
+a rock should be expected to have wide views of excavation? Mr.\r
+Stelling's faculties had been early trained to boring in a straight\r
+line, and he had no faculty to spare. But among Tom's contemporaries,\r
+whose fathers cast their sons on clerical instruction to find them\r
+ignorant after many days, there were many far less lucky than Tom\r
+Tulliver. Education was almost entirely a matter of luck--usually of\r
+ill-luck--in those distant days. The state of mind in which you take a\r
+billiard-cue or a dice-box in your hand is one of sober certainty\r
+compared with that of old-fashioned fathers, like Mr. Tulliver, when\r
+they selected a school or a tutor for their sons. Excellent men, who\r
+had been forced all their lives to spell on an impromptu-phonetic\r
+system, and having carried on a successful business in spite of this\r
+disadvantage, had acquired money enough to give their sons a better\r
+start in life than they had had themselves, must necessarily take\r
+their chance as to the conscience and the competence of the\r
+schoolmaster whose circular fell in their way, and appeared to promise\r
+so much more than they would ever have thought of asking for,\r
+including the return of linen, fork, and spoon. It was happy for them\r
+if some ambitious draper of their acquaintance had not brought up his\r
+son to the Church, and if that young gentleman, at the age of\r
+four-and-twenty, had not closed his college dissipations by an\r
+imprudent marriage; otherwise, these innocent fathers, desirous of\r
+doing the best for their offspring, could only escape the draper's son\r
+by happening to be on the foundation of a grammar-school as yet\r
+unvisited by commissioners, where two or three boys could have, all to\r
+themselves, the advantages of a large and lofty building, together\r
+with a head-master, toothless, dim-eyed and deaf, whose erudite\r
+indistinctness and inattention were engrossed by them at the rate of\r
+three hundred pounds a-head,--a ripe scholar, doubtless, when first\r
+appointed; but all ripeness beneath the sun has a further stage less\r
+esteemed in the market.\r
+\r
+Tom Tulliver, then, compared with many other British youths of his\r
+time who have since had to scramble through life with some fragments\r
+of more or less relevant knowledge, and a great deal of strictly\r
+relevant ignorance, was not so very unlucky. Mr. Stelling was a\r
+broad-chested, healthy man, with the bearing of a gentleman, a\r
+conviction that a growing boy required a sufficiency of beef, and a\r
+certain hearty kindness in him that made him like to see Tom looking\r
+well and enjoying his dinner; not a man of refined conscience, or with\r
+any deep sense of the infinite issues belonging to every-day duties,\r
+not quite competent to his high offices; but incompetent gentlemen\r
+must live, and without private fortune it is difficult to see how they\r
+could all live genteelly if they had nothing to do with education or\r
+government. Besides, it was the fault of Tom's mental constitution\r
+that his faculties could not be nourished on the sort of knowledge Mr.\r
+Stelling had to communicate. A boy born with a deficient power of\r
+apprehending signs and abstractions must suffer the penalty of his\r
+congenital deficiency, just as if he had been born with one leg\r
+shorter than the other. A method of education sanctioned by the long\r
+practice of our venerable ancestors was not to give way before the\r
+exceptional dulness of a boy who was merely living at the time then\r
+present. And Mr. Stelling was convinced that a boy so stupid at signs\r
+and abstractions must be stupid at everything else, even if that\r
+reverend gentleman could have taught him everything else. It was the\r
+practice of our venerable ancestors to apply that ingenious instrument\r
+the thumb-screw, and to tighten and tighten it in order to elicit\r
+non-existent facts; they had a fixed opinion to begin with, that the\r
+facts were existent, and what had they to do but to tighten the\r
+thumb-screw? In like manner, Mr. Stelling had a fixed opinion that all\r
+boys with any capacity could learn what it was the only regular thing\r
+to teach; if they were slow, the thumb-screw must be tightened,--the\r
+exercises must be insisted on with increased severity, and a page of\r
+Virgil be awarded as a penalty, to encourage and stimulate a too\r
+languid inclination to Latin verse.\r
+\r
+The thumb-screw was a little relaxed, however, during this second\r
+half-year. Philip was so advanced in his studies, and so apt, that Mr.\r
+Stelling could obtain credit by his facility, which required little\r
+help, much more easily than by the troublesome process of overcoming\r
+Tom's dulness. Gentlemen with broad chests and ambitious intentions do\r
+sometimes disappoint their friends by failing to carry the world\r
+before them. Perhaps it is that high achievements demand some other\r
+unusual qualification besides an unusual desire for high prizes;\r
+perhaps it is that these stalwart gentlemen are rather indolent, their\r
+_divinæ particulum auræ_ being obstructed from soaring by a too hearty\r
+appetite. Some reason or other there was why Mr. Stelling deferred the\r
+execution of many spirited projects,--why he did not begin the editing\r
+of his Greek play, or any other work of scholarship, in his leisure\r
+hours, but, after turning the key of his private study with much\r
+resolution, sat down to one of Theodore Hook's novels. Tom was\r
+gradually allowed to shuffle through his lessons with less rigor, and\r
+having Philip to help him, he was able to make some show of having\r
+applied his mind in a confused and blundering way, without being\r
+cross-examined into a betrayal that his mind had been entirely neutral\r
+in the matter. He thought school much more bearable under this\r
+modification of circumstances; and he went on contentedly enough,\r
+picking up a promiscuous education chiefly from things that were not\r
+intended as education at all. What was understood to be his education\r
+was simply the practice of reading, writing, and spelling, carried on\r
+by an elaborate appliance of unintelligible ideas, and by much failure\r
+in the effort to learn by rote.\r
+\r
+Nevertheless, there was a visible improvement in Tom under this\r
+training; perhaps because he was not a boy in the abstract, existing\r
+solely to illustrate the evils of a mistaken education, but a boy made\r
+of flesh and blood, with dispositions not entirely at the mercy of\r
+circumstances.\r
+\r
+There was a great improvement in his bearing, for example; and some\r
+credit on this score was due to Mr. Poulter, the village schoolmaster,\r
+who, being an old Peninsular soldier, was employed to drill Tom,--a\r
+source of high mutual pleasure. Mr. Poulter, who was understood by the\r
+company at the Black Swan to have once struck terror into the hearts\r
+of the French, was no longer personally formidable. He had rather a\r
+shrunken appearance, and was tremulous in the mornings, not from age,\r
+but from the extreme perversity of the King's Lorton boys, which\r
+nothing but gin could enable him to sustain with any firmness. Still,\r
+he carried himself with martial erectness, had his clothes\r
+scrupulously brushed, and his trousers tightly strapped; and on the\r
+Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, when he came to Tom, he was always\r
+inspired with gin and old memories, which gave him an exceptionally\r
+spirited air, as of a superannuated charger who hears the drum. The\r
+drilling-lessons were always protracted by episodes of warlike\r
+narrative, much more interesting to Tom than Philip's stories out of\r
+the Iliad; for there were no cannon in the Iliad, and besides, Tom had\r
+felt some disgust on learning that Hector and Achilles might possibly\r
+never have existed. But the Duke of Wellington was really alive, and\r
+Bony had not been long dead; therefore Mr. Poulter's reminiscences of\r
+the Peninsular War were removed from all suspicion of being mythical.\r
+Mr. Poulter, it appeared, had been a conspicuous figure at Talavera,\r
+and had contributed not a little to the peculiar terror with which his\r
+regiment of infantry was regarded by the enemy. On afternoons when his\r
+memory was more stimulated than usual, he remembered that the Duke of\r
+Wellington had (in strict privacy, lest jealousies should be awakened)\r
+expressed his esteem for that fine fellow Poulter. The very surgeon\r
+who attended him in the hospital after he had received his\r
+gunshot-wound had been profoundly impressed with the superiority of\r
+Mr. Poulter's flesh,--no other flesh would have healed in anything\r
+like the same time. On less personal matters connected with the\r
+important warfare in which he had been engaged, Mr. Poulter was more\r
+reticent, only taking care not to give the weight of his authority to\r
+any loose notions concerning military history. Any one who pretended\r
+to a knowledge of what occurred at the siege of Badajos was especially\r
+an object of silent pity to Mr. Poulter; he wished that prating person\r
+had been run down, and had the breath trampled out of him at the first\r
+go-off, as he himself had,--he might talk about the siege of Badajos\r
+then! Tom did not escape irritating his drilling-master occasionally,\r
+by his curiosity concerning other military matters than Mr. Poulter's\r
+personal experience.\r
+\r
+"And General Wolfe, Mr. Poulter,--wasn't he a wonderful fighter?" said\r
+Tom, who held the notion that all the martial heroes commemorated on\r
+the public-house signs were engaged in the war with Bony.\r
+\r
+"Not at all!" said Mr. Poulter, contemptuously. "Nothing o' the sort!\r
+Heads up!" he added, in a tone of stern command, which delighted Tom,\r
+and made him feel as if he were a regiment in his own person.\r
+\r
+"No, no!" Mr. Poulter would continue, on coming to a pause in his\r
+discipline; "they'd better not talk to me about General Wolfe. He did\r
+nothing but die of his wound; that's a poor haction, I consider. Any\r
+other man 'ud have died o' the wounds I've had. One of my sword-cuts\r
+'ud ha' killed a fellow like General Wolfe."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Poulter," Tom would say, at any allusion to the sword, "I wish\r
+you'd bring your sword and do the sword-exercise!"\r
+\r
+For a long while Mr. Poulter only shook his head in a significant\r
+manner at this request, and smiled patronizingly, as Jupiter may have\r
+done when Semele urged her too ambitious request. But one afternoon,\r
+when a sudden shower of heavy rain had detained Mr. Poulter twenty\r
+minutes longer than usual at the Black Swan, the sword was\r
+brought,--just for Tom to look at.\r
+\r
+"And this is the real sword you fought with in all the battles, Mr.\r
+Poulter?" said Tom, handling the hilt. "Has it ever cut a Frenchman's\r
+head off?"\r
+\r
+"Head off? Ah! and would, if he'd had three heads."\r
+\r
+"But you had a gun and bayonet besides?" said Tom. "_I_ should like\r
+the gun and bayonet best, because you could shoot 'em first and spear\r
+'em after. Bang! Ps-s-s-s!" Tom gave the requisite pantomime to\r
+indicate the double enjoyment of pulling the trigger and thrusting the\r
+spear.\r
+\r
+"Ah, but the sword's the thing when you come to close fighting," said\r
+Mr. Poulter, involuntarily falling in with Tom's enthusiasm, and\r
+drawing the sword so suddenly that Tom leaped back with much agility.\r
+\r
+"Oh, but, Mr. Poulter, if you're going to do the exercise," said Tom,\r
+a little conscious that he had not stood his ground as became an\r
+Englishman, "let me go and call Philip. He'll like to see you, you\r
+know."\r
+\r
+"What! the humpbacked lad?" said Mr. Poulter, contemptuously; "what's\r
+the use of _his_ looking on?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, but he knows a great deal about fighting," said Tom, "and how\r
+they used to fight with bows and arrows, and battle-axes."\r
+\r
+"Let him come, then. I'll show him something different from his bows\r
+and arrows," said Mr. Poulter, coughing and drawing himself up, while\r
+he gave a little preliminary play to his wrist.\r
+\r
+Tom ran in to Philip, who was enjoying his afternoon's holiday at the\r
+piano, in the drawing-room, picking out tunes for himself and singing\r
+them. He was supremely happy, perched like an amorphous bundle on the\r
+high stool, with his head thrown back, his eyes fixed on the opposite\r
+cornice, and his lips wide open, sending forth, with all his might,\r
+impromptu syllables to a tune of Arne's which had hit his fancy.\r
+\r
+"Come, Philip," said Tom, bursting in; "don't stay roaring 'la la'\r
+there; come and see old Poulter do his sword-exercise in the\r
+carriage-house!"\r
+\r
+The jar of this interruption, the discord of Tom's tones coming across\r
+the notes to which Philip was vibrating in soul and body, would have\r
+been enough to unhinge his temper, even if there had been no question\r
+of Poulter the drilling-master; and Tom, in the hurry of seizing\r
+something to say to prevent Mr. Poulter from thinking he was afraid of\r
+the sword when he sprang away from it, had alighted on this\r
+proposition to fetch Philip, though he knew well enough that Philip\r
+hated to hear him mention his drilling-lessons. Tom would never have\r
+done so inconsiderate a thing except under the severe stress of his\r
+personal pride.\r
+\r
+Philip shuddered visibly as he paused from his music. Then turning\r
+red, he said, with violent passion,--\r
+\r
+"Get away, you lumbering idiot! Don't come bellowing at me; you're not\r
+fit to speak to anything but a cart-horse!"\r
+\r
+It was not the first time Philip had been made angry by him, but Tom\r
+had never before been assailed with verbal missiles that he understood\r
+so well.\r
+\r
+"I'm fit to speak to something better than you, you poor-spirited\r
+imp!" said Tom, lighting up immediately at Philip's fire. "You know I\r
+won't hit you, because you're no better than a girl. But I'm an honest\r
+man's son, and _your_ father's a rogue; everybody says so!"\r
+\r
+Tom flung out of the room, and slammed the door after him, made\r
+strangely heedless by his anger; for to slam doors within the hearing\r
+of Mrs. Stelling, who was probably not far off, was an offence only to\r
+be wiped out by twenty lines of Virgil. In fact, that lady did\r
+presently descend from her room, in double wonder at the noise and the\r
+subsequent cessation of Philip's music. She found him sitting in a\r
+heap on the hassock, and crying bitterly.\r
+\r
+"What's the matter, Wakem? what was that noise about? Who slammed the\r
+door?"\r
+\r
+Philip looked up, and hastily dried his eyes. "It was Tulliver who\r
+came in--to ask me to go out with him."\r
+\r
+"And what are you in trouble about?" said Mrs. Stelling.\r
+\r
+Philip was not her favorite of the two pupils; he was less obliging\r
+than Tom, who was made useful in many ways. Still, his father paid\r
+more than Mr. Tulliver did, and she meant him to feel that she behaved\r
+exceedingly well to him. Philip, however, met her advances toward a\r
+good understanding very much as a caressed mollusk meets an invitation\r
+to show himself out of his shell. Mrs. Stelling was not a loving,\r
+tender-hearted woman; she was a woman whose skirt sat well, who\r
+adjusted her waist and patted her curls with a preoccupied air when\r
+she inquired after your welfare. These things, doubtless, represent a\r
+great social power, but it is not the power of love; and no other\r
+power could win Philip from his personal reserve.\r
+\r
+He said, in answer to her question, "My toothache came on, and made me\r
+hysterical again."\r
+\r
+This had been the fact once, and Philip was glad of the recollection;\r
+it was like an inspiration to enable him to excuse his crying. He had\r
+to accept eau-de-Cologne and to refuse creosote in consequence; but\r
+that was easy.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Tom, who had for the first time sent a poisoned arrow into\r
+Philip's heart, had returned to the carriage-house, where he found Mr.\r
+Poulter, with a fixed and earnest eye, wasting the perfections of his\r
+sword-exercise on probably observant but inappreciative rats. But Mr.\r
+Poulter was a host in himself; that is to say, he admired himself more\r
+than a whole army of spectators could have admired him. He took no\r
+notice of Tom's return, being too entirely absorbed in the cut and\r
+thrust,--the solemn one, two, three, four; and Tom, not without a\r
+slight feeling of alarm at Mr. Poulter's fixed eye and hungry-looking\r
+sword, which seemed impatient for something else to cut besides the\r
+air, admired the performance from as great a distance as possible. It\r
+was not until Mr. Poulter paused and wiped the perspiration from his\r
+forehead, that Tom felt the full charm of the sword-exercise, and\r
+wished it to be repeated.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Poulter," said Tom, when the sword was being finally sheathed, "I\r
+wish you'd lend me your sword a little while to keep."\r
+\r
+"No no, young gentleman," said Mr. Poulter, shaking his head\r
+decidedly; "you might do yourself some mischief with it."\r
+\r
+"No, I'm sure I wouldn't; I'm sure I'd take care and not hurt myself.\r
+I shouldn't take it out of the sheath much, but I could ground arms\r
+with it, and all that."\r
+\r
+"No, no, it won't do, I tell you; it won't do," said Mr. Poulter,\r
+preparing to depart. "What 'ud Mr. Stelling say to me?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I say, do, Mr. Poulter! I'd give you my five-shilling piece if\r
+you'd let me keep the sword a week. Look here!" said Tom, reaching out\r
+the attractively large round of silver. The young dog calculated the\r
+effect as well as if he had been a philosopher.\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Poulter, with still deeper gravity, "you must keep it\r
+out of sight, you know."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, I'll keep it under the bed," said Tom, eagerly, "or else at\r
+the bottom of my large box."\r
+\r
+"And let me see, now, whether you can draw it out of the sheath\r
+without hurting yourself." That process having been gone through more\r
+than once, Mr. Poulter felt that he had acted with scrupulous\r
+conscientiousness, and said, "Well, now, Master Tulliver, if I take\r
+the crown-piece, it is to make sure as you'll do no mischief with the\r
+sword."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, indeed, Mr. Poulter," said Tom, delightedly handing him the\r
+crown-piece, and grasping the sword, which, he thought, might have\r
+been lighter with advantage.\r
+\r
+"But if Mr. Stelling catches you carrying it in?" said Mr. Poulter,\r
+pocketing the crown-piece provisionally while he raised this new\r
+doubt.\r
+\r
+"Oh, he always keeps in his upstairs study on Saturday afternoon,"\r
+said Tom, who disliked anything sneaking, but was not disinclined to a\r
+little stratagem in a worthy cause. So he carried off the sword in\r
+triumph mixed with dread--dread that he might encounter Mr. or Mrs.\r
+Stelling--to his bedroom, where, after some consideration, he hid it\r
+in the closet behind some hanging clothes. That night he fell asleep\r
+in the thought that he would astonish Maggie with it when she\r
+came,--tie it round his waist with his red comforter, and make her\r
+believe that the sword was his own, and that he was going to be a\r
+soldier. There was nobody but Maggie who would be silly enough to\r
+believe him, or whom he dared allow to know he had a sword; and Maggie\r
+was really coming next week to see Tom, before she went to a\r
+boarding-school with Lucy.\r
+\r
+If you think a lad of thirteen would have been so childish, you must\r
+be an exceptionally wise man, who, although you are devoted to a civil\r
+calling, requiring you to look bland rather than formidable, yet\r
+never, since you had a beard, threw yourself into a martial attitude,\r
+and frowned before the looking-glass. It is doubtful whether our\r
+soldiers would be maintained if there were not pacific people at home\r
+who like to fancy themselves soldiers. War, like other dramatic\r
+spectacles, might possibly cease for want of a "public."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+Maggie's Second Visit\r
+\r
+\r
+This last breach between the two lads was not readily mended, and for\r
+some time they spoke to each other no more than was necessary. Their\r
+natural antipathy of temperament made resentment an easy passage to\r
+hatred, and in Philip the transition seemed to have begun; there was\r
+no malignity in his disposition, but there was a susceptibility that\r
+made him peculiarly liable to a strong sense of repulsion. The ox--we\r
+may venture to assert it on the authority of a great classic--is not\r
+given to use his teeth as an instrument of attack, and Tom was an\r
+excellent bovine lad, who ran at questionable objects in a truly\r
+ingenious bovine manner; but he had blundered on Philip's tenderest\r
+point, and had caused him as much acute pain as if he had studied the\r
+means with the nicest precision and the most envenomed spite. Tom saw\r
+no reason why they should not make up this quarrel as they had done\r
+many others, by behaving as if nothing had happened; for though he had\r
+never before said to Philip that his father was a rogue, this idea had\r
+so habitually made part of his feeling as to the relation between\r
+himself and his dubious schoolfellow, who he could neither like nor\r
+dislike, that the mere utterance did not make such an epoch to him as\r
+it did to Philip. And he had a right to say so when Philip hectored\r
+over _him_, and called him names. But perceiving that his first\r
+advances toward amity were not met, he relapsed into his least\r
+favorable disposition toward Philip, and resolved never to appeal to\r
+him either about drawing or exercise again. They were only so far\r
+civil to each other as was necessary to prevent their state of feud\r
+from being observed by Mr. Stelling, who would have "put down" such\r
+nonsense with great vigor.\r
+\r
+When Maggie came, however, she could not help looking with growing\r
+interest at the new schoolfellow, although he was the son of that\r
+wicked Lawyer Wakem, who made her father so angry. She had arrived in\r
+the middle of school-hours, and had sat by while Philip went through\r
+his lessons with Mr. Stelling. Tom, some weeks ago, had sent her word\r
+that Philip knew no end of stories,--not stupid stories like hers; and\r
+she was convinced now from her own observation that he must be very\r
+clever; she hoped he would think _her_ rather clever too, when she\r
+came to talk to him. Maggie, moreover, had rather a tenderness for\r
+deformed things; she preferred the wry-necked lambs, because it seemed\r
+to her that the lambs which were quite strong and well made wouldn't\r
+mind so much about being petted; and she was especially fond of\r
+petting objects that would think it very delightful to be petted by\r
+her. She loved Tom very dearly, but she often wished that he _cared_\r
+more about her loving him.\r
+\r
+"I think Philip Wakem seems a nice boy, Tom," she said, when they went\r
+out of the study together into the garden, to pass the interval before\r
+dinner. "He couldn't choose his father, you know; and I've read of\r
+very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had bad\r
+children. And if Philip is good, I think we ought to be the more sorry\r
+for him because his father is not a good man. _You_ like him, don't\r
+you?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, he's a queer fellow," said Tom, curtly, "and he's as sulky as can\r
+be with me, because I told him his father was a rogue. And I'd a right\r
+to tell him so, for it was true; and _he_ began it, with calling me\r
+names. But you stop here by yourself a bit, Maggie, will you? I've got\r
+something I want to do upstairs."\r
+\r
+"Can't I go too?" said Maggie, who in this first day of meeting again\r
+loved Tom's shadow.\r
+\r
+"No, it's something I'll tell you about by-and-by, not yet," said Tom,\r
+skipping away.\r
+\r
+In the afternoon the boys were at their books in the study, preparing\r
+the morrow's lesson's that they might have a holiday in the evening in\r
+honor of Maggie's arrival. Tom was hanging over his Latin grammar,\r
+moving his lips inaudibly like a strict but impatient Catholic\r
+repeating his tale of paternosters; and Philip, at the other end of\r
+the room, was busy with two volumes, with a look of contented\r
+diligence that excited Maggie's curiosity; he did not look at all as\r
+if he were learning a lesson. She sat on a low stool at nearly a right\r
+angle with the two boys, watching first one and then the other; and\r
+Philip, looking off his book once toward the fire-place, caught the\r
+pair of questioning dark eyes fixed upon him. He thought this sister\r
+of Tulliver's seemed a nice little thing, quite unlike her brother; he\r
+wished _he_ had a little sister. What was it, he wondered, that made\r
+Maggie's dark eyes remind him of the stories about princesses being\r
+turned into animals? I think it was that her eyes were full of\r
+unsatisfied intelligence, and unsatisfied beseeching affection.\r
+\r
+"I say, Magsie," said Tom at last, shutting his books and putting them\r
+away with the energy and decision of a perfect master in the art of\r
+leaving off, "I've done my lessons now. Come upstairs with me."\r
+\r
+"What is it?" said Maggie, when they were outside the door, a slight\r
+suspicion crossing her mind as she remembered Tom's preliminary visit\r
+upstairs. "It isn't a trick you're going to play me, now?"\r
+\r
+"No, no, Maggie," said Tom, in his most coaxing tone; "It's something\r
+you'll like _ever so_."\r
+\r
+He put his arm round her neck, and she put hers round his waist, and\r
+twined together in this way, they went upstairs.\r
+\r
+"I say, Magsie, you must not tell anybody, you know," said Tom, "else\r
+I shall get fifty lines."\r
+\r
+"Is it alive?" said Maggie, whose imagination had settled for the\r
+moment on the idea that Tom kept a ferret clandestinely.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I sha'n't tell you," said he. "Now you go into that corner and\r
+hide your face, while I reach it out," he added, as he locked the\r
+bedroom door behind them. "I'll tell you when to turn round. You\r
+mustn't squeal out, you know."\r
+\r
+"Oh, but if you frighten me, I shall," said Maggie, beginning to look\r
+rather serious.\r
+\r
+"You won't be frightened, you silly thing," said Tom. "Go and hide\r
+your face, and mind you don't peep."\r
+\r
+"Of course I sha'n't peep," said Maggie, disdainfully; and she buried\r
+her face in the pillow like a person of strict honor.\r
+\r
+But Tom looked round warily as he walked to the closet; then he\r
+stepped into the narrow space, and almost closed the door. Maggie kept\r
+her face buried without the aid of principle, for in that\r
+dream-suggestive attitude she had soon forgotten where she was, and\r
+her thoughts were busy with the poor deformed boy, who was so clever,\r
+when Tom called out, "Now then, Magsie!"\r
+\r
+Nothing but long meditation and preconcerted arrangement of effects\r
+would have enabled Tom to present so striking a figure as he did to\r
+Maggie when she looked up. Dissatisfied with the pacific aspect of a\r
+face which had no more than the faintest hint of flaxen eyebrow,\r
+together with a pair of amiable blue-gray eyes and round pink cheeks\r
+that refused to look formidable, let him frown as he would before the\r
+looking-glass (Philip had once told him of a man who had a horseshoe\r
+frown, and Tom had tried with all his frowning might to make a\r
+horseshoe on his forehead), he had had recourse to that unfailing\r
+source of the terrible, burnt cork, and had made himself a pair of\r
+black eyebrows that met in a satisfactory manner over his nose, and\r
+were matched by a less carefully adjusted blackness about the chin. He\r
+had wound a red handkerchief round his cloth cap to give it the air of\r
+a turban, and his red comforter across his breast as a scarf,--an\r
+amount of red which, with the tremendous frown on his brow, and the\r
+decision with which he grasped the sword, as he held it with its point\r
+resting on the ground, would suffice to convey an approximate idea of\r
+his fierce and bloodthirsty disposition.\r
+\r
+Maggie looked bewildered for a moment, and Tom enjoyed that moment\r
+keenly; but in the next she laughed, clapped her hands together, and\r
+said, "Oh, Tom, you've made yourself like Bluebeard at the show."\r
+\r
+It was clear she had not been struck with the presence of the\r
+sword,--it was not unsheathed. Her frivolous mind required a more\r
+direct appeal to its sense of the terrible, and Tom prepared for his\r
+master-stroke. Frowning with a double amount of intention, if not of\r
+corrugation, he (carefully) drew the sword from its sheath, and\r
+pointed it at Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom, please don't!" exclaimed Maggie, in a tone of suppressed\r
+dread, shrinking away from him into the opposite corner. "I _shall_\r
+scream--I'm sure I shall! Oh, don't I wish I'd never come upstairs!"\r
+\r
+The corners of Tom's mouth showed an inclination to a smile of\r
+complacency that was immediately checked as inconsistent with the\r
+severity of a great warrior. Slowly he let down the scabbard on the\r
+floor, lest it should make too much noise, and then said sternly,--\r
+\r
+"I'm the Duke of Wellington! March!" stamping forward with the right\r
+leg a little bent, and the sword still pointing toward Maggie, who,\r
+trembling, and with tear-filled eyes, got upon the bed, as the only\r
+means of widening the space between them.\r
+\r
+Tom, happy in this spectator of his military performances, even though\r
+the spectator was only Maggie, proceeded, with the utmost exertion of\r
+his force, to such an exhibition of the cut and thrust as would\r
+necessarily be expected of the Duke of Wellington.\r
+\r
+"Tom, I _will not_ bear it, I _will_ scream," said Maggie, at the\r
+first movement of the sword. "You'll hurt yourself; you'll cut your\r
+head off!"\r
+\r
+"One--two," said Tom, resolutely, though at "two" his wrist trembled a\r
+little. "Three" came more slowly, and with it the sword swung\r
+downward, and Maggie gave a loud shriek. The sword had fallen, with\r
+its edge on Tom's foot, and in a moment after he had fallen too.\r
+Maggie leaped from the bed, still shrieking, and immediately there was\r
+a rush of footsteps toward the room. Mr. Stelling, from his upstairs\r
+study, was the first to enter. He found both the children on the\r
+floor. Tom had fainted, and Maggie was shaking him by the collar of\r
+his jacket, screaming, with wild eyes. She thought he was dead, poor\r
+child! and yet she shook him, as if that would bring him back to life.\r
+In another minute she was sobbing with joy because Tom opened his\r
+eyes. She couldn't sorrow yet that he had hurt his foot; it seemed as\r
+if all happiness lay in his being alive.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VI\r
+\r
+A Love-Scene\r
+\r
+\r
+Poor Tom bore his severe pain heroically, and was resolute in not\r
+"telling" of Mr. Poulter more than was unavoidable; the five-shilling\r
+piece remained a secret even to Maggie. But there was a terrible dread\r
+weighing on his mind, so terrible that he dared not even ask the\r
+question which might bring the fatal "yes"; he dared not ask the\r
+surgeon or Mr. Stelling, "Shall I be lame, Sir?" He mastered himself\r
+so as not to cry out at the pain; but when his foot had been dressed,\r
+and he was left alone with Maggie seated by his bedside, the children\r
+sobbed together, with their heads laid on the same pillow. Tom was\r
+thinking of himself walking about on crutches, like the wheelwright's\r
+son; and Maggie, who did not guess what was in his mind, sobbed for\r
+company. It had not occurred to the surgeon or to Mr. Stelling to\r
+anticipate this dread in Tom's mind, and to reassure him by hopeful\r
+words. But Philip watched the surgeon out of the house, and waylaid\r
+Mr. Stelling to ask the very question that Tom had not dared to ask\r
+for himself.\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon, sir,--but does Mr. Askern say Tulliver will be\r
+lame?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, no; oh, no," said Mr. Stelling, "not permanently; only for a\r
+little while."\r
+\r
+"Did he tell Tulliver so, sir, do you think?"\r
+\r
+"No; nothing was said to him on the subject."\r
+\r
+"Then may I go and tell him, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, to be sure; now you mention it, I dare say he may be troubling\r
+about that. Go to his bedroom, but be very quiet at present."\r
+\r
+It had been Philip's first thought when he heard of the\r
+accident,--"Will Tulliver be lame? It will be very hard for him if he\r
+is"; and Tom's hitherto unforgiven offences were washed out by that\r
+pity. Philip felt that they were no longer in a state of repulsion,\r
+but were being drawn into a common current of suffering and sad\r
+privation. His imagination did not dwell on the outward calamity and\r
+its future effect on Tom's life, but it made vividly present to him\r
+the probable state of Tom's feeling. Philip had only lived fourteen\r
+years, but those years had, most of them, been steeped in the sense of\r
+a lot irremediably hard.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Askern says you'll soon be all right again, Tulliver, did you\r
+know?" he said rather timidly, as he stepped gently up to Tom's bed.\r
+"I've just been to ask Mr. Stelling, and he says you'll walk as well\r
+as ever again by-and-day."\r
+\r
+Tom looked up with that momentary stopping of the breath which comes\r
+with a sudden joy; then he gave a long sigh, and turned his blue-gray\r
+eyes straight on Philip's face, as he had not done for a fortnight or\r
+more. As for Maggie, this intimation of a possibility she had not\r
+thought of before affected her as a new trouble; the bare idea of\r
+Tom's being always lame overpowered the assurance that such a\r
+misfortune was not likely to befall him, and she clung to him and\r
+cried afresh.\r
+\r
+"Don't be a little silly, Magsie," said Tom, tenderly, feeling very\r
+brave now. "I shall soon get well."\r
+\r
+"Good-by, Tulliver," said Philip, putting out his small, delicate\r
+hand, which Tom clasped immediately with his more substantial fingers.\r
+\r
+"I say," said Tom, "ask Mr. Stelling to let you come and sit with me\r
+sometimes, till I get up again, Wakem; and tell me about Robert Bruce,\r
+you know."\r
+\r
+After that, Philip spent all his time out of school-hours with Tom and\r
+Maggie. Tom liked to hear fighting stories as much as ever, but he\r
+insisted strongly on the fact that those great fighters who did so\r
+many wonderful things and came off unhurt, wore excellent armor from\r
+head to foot, which made fighting easy work, he considered. He should\r
+not have hurt his foot if he had had an iron shoe on. He listened with\r
+great interest to a new story of Philip's about a man who had a very\r
+bad wound in his foot, and cried out so dreadfully with the pain that\r
+his friends could bear with him no longer, but put him ashore on a\r
+desert island, with nothing but some wonderful poisoned arrows to kill\r
+animals with for food.\r
+\r
+"I didn't roar out a bit, you know," Tom said, "and I dare say my foot\r
+was as bad as his. It's cowardly to roar."\r
+\r
+But Maggie would have it that when anything hurt you very much, it was\r
+quite permissible to cry out, and it was cruel of people not to bear\r
+it. She wanted to know if Philoctetes had a sister, and why _she_\r
+didn't go with him on the desert island and take care of him.\r
+\r
+One day, soon after Philip had told this story, he and Maggie were in\r
+the study alone together while Tom's foot was being dressed. Philip\r
+was at his books, and Maggie, after sauntering idly round the room,\r
+not caring to do anything in particular, because she would soon go to\r
+Tom again, went and leaned on the table near Philip to see what he was\r
+doing, for they were quite old friends now, and perfectly at home with\r
+each other.\r
+\r
+"What are you reading about in Greek?" she said. "It's poetry, I can\r
+see that, because the lines are so short."\r
+\r
+"It's about Philoctetes, the lame man I was telling you of yesterday,"\r
+he answered, resting his head on his hand, and looking at her as if he\r
+were not at all sorry to be interrupted. Maggie, in her absent way,\r
+continued to lean forward, resting on her arms and moving her feet\r
+about, while her dark eyes got more and more fixed and vacant, as if\r
+she had quite forgotten Philip and his book.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," said Philip, after a minute or two, still leaning on his\r
+elbow and looking at her, "if you had had a brother like me, do you\r
+think you should have loved him as well as Tom?"\r
+\r
+Maggie started a little on being roused from her reverie, and said,\r
+"What?" Philip repeated his question.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, better," she answered immediately. "No, not better; because\r
+I don't think I _could_ love you better than Tom. But I should be so\r
+sorry,--_so sorry_ for you."\r
+\r
+Philip colored; he had meant to imply, would she love him as well in\r
+spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly, he\r
+winced under her pity. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake.\r
+Hitherto she had instinctively behaved as if she were quite\r
+unconscious of Philip's deformity; her own keen sensitiveness and\r
+experience under family criticism sufficed to teach her this as well\r
+as if she had been directed by the most finished breeding.\r
+\r
+"But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she\r
+added quickly. "I wish you _were_ my brother. I'm very fond of you.\r
+And you would stay at home with me when Tom went out, and you would\r
+teach me everything; wouldn't you,--Greek and everything?"\r
+\r
+"But you'll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie," said Philip, "and\r
+then you'll forget all about me, and not care for me any more. And\r
+then I shall see you when you're grown up, and you'll hardly take any\r
+notice of me."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no, I sha'n't forget you, I'm sure," said Maggie, shaking her\r
+head very seriously. "I never forget anything, and I think about\r
+everybody when I'm away from them. I think about poor Yap; he's got a\r
+lump in his throat, and Luke says he'll die. Only don't you tell Tom.\r
+because it will vex him so. You never saw Yap; he's a queer little\r
+dog,--nobody cares about him but Tom and me."\r
+\r
+"Do you care as much about me as you do about Yap, Maggie?" said\r
+Philip, smiling rather sadly.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, I should think so," said Maggie, laughing.\r
+\r
+"I'm very fond of _you_, Maggie; I shall never forget _you_," said\r
+Philip, "and when I'm very unhappy, I shall always think of you, and\r
+wish I had a sister with dark eyes, just like yours."\r
+\r
+"Why do you like my eyes?" said Maggie, well pleased. She had never\r
+heard any one but her father speak of her eyes as if they had merit.\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Philip. "They're not like any other eyes. They\r
+seem trying to speak,--trying to speak kindly. I don't like other\r
+people to look at me much, but I like you to look at me, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"Why, I think you're fonder of me than Tom is," said Maggie, rather\r
+sorrowfully. Then, wondering how she could convince Philip that she\r
+could like him just as well, although he was crooked, she said:\r
+\r
+"Should you like me to kiss you, as I do Tom? I will, if you like."\r
+\r
+"Yes, very much; nobody kisses me."\r
+\r
+Maggie put her arm round his neck and kissed him quite earnestly.\r
+\r
+"There now," she said, "I shall always remember you, and kiss you when\r
+I see you again, if it's ever so long. But I'll go now, because I\r
+think Mr. Askern's done with Tom's foot."\r
+\r
+When their father came the second time, Maggie said to him, "Oh,\r
+father, Philip Wakem is so very good to Tom; he is such a clever boy,\r
+and I _do_ love him. And you love him too, Tom, don't you? _Say_ you\r
+love him," she added entreatingly.\r
+\r
+Tom colored a little as he looked at his father, and said: "I sha'n't\r
+be friends with him when I leave school, father; but we've made it up\r
+now, since my foot has been bad, and he's taught me to play at\r
+draughts, and I can beat him."\r
+\r
+"Well, well," said Mr. Tulliver, "if he's good to you, try and make\r
+him amends, and be good to _him_. He's a poor crooked creature, and\r
+takes after his dead mother. But don't you be getting too thick with\r
+him; he's got his father's blood in him too. Ay, ay, the gray colt may\r
+chance to kick like his black sire."\r
+\r
+The jarring natures of the two boys effected what Mr. Tulliver's\r
+admonition alone might have failed to effect; in spite of Philip's new\r
+kindness, and Tom's answering regard in this time of his trouble, they\r
+never became close friends. When Maggie was gone, and when Tom\r
+by-and-by began to walk about as usual, the friendly warmth that had\r
+been kindled by pity and gratitude died out by degrees, and left them\r
+in their old relation to each other. Philip was often peevish and\r
+contemptuous; and Tom's more specific and kindly impressions gradually\r
+melted into the old background of suspicion and dislike toward him as\r
+a queer fellow, a humpback, and the son of a rogue. If boys and men\r
+are to be welded together in the glow of transient feeling, they must\r
+be made of metal that will mix, else they inevitably fall asunder when\r
+the heat dies out.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VII\r
+\r
+The Golden Gates Are Passed\r
+\r
+\r
+So Tom went on even to the fifth half-year--till he was turned\r
+sixteen--at King's Lorton, while Maggie was growing with a rapidity\r
+which her aunts considered highly reprehensible, at Miss Firniss's\r
+boarding-school in the ancient town of Laceham on the Floss, with\r
+cousin Lucy for her companion. In her early letters to Tom she had\r
+always sent her love to Philip, and asked many questions about him,\r
+which were answered by brief sentences about Tom's toothache, and a\r
+turf-house which he was helping to build in the garden, with other\r
+items of that kind. She was pained to hear Tom say in the holidays\r
+that Philip was as queer as ever again, and often cross. They were no\r
+longer very good friends, she perceived; and when she reminded Tom\r
+that he ought always to love Philip for being so good to him when his\r
+foot was bad, he answered: "Well, it isn't my fault; _I_ don't do\r
+anything to him." She hardly ever saw Philip during the remainder of\r
+their school-life; in the Midsummer holidays he was always away at the\r
+seaside, and at Christmas she could only meet him at long intervals in\r
+the street of St. Ogg's. When they did meet, she remembered her\r
+promise to kiss him, but, as a young lady who had been at a\r
+boarding-school, she knew now that such a greeting was out of the\r
+question, and Philip would not expect it. The promise was void, like\r
+so many other sweet, illusory promises of our childhood; void as\r
+promises made in Eden before the seasons were divided, and when the\r
+starry blossoms grew side by side with the ripening peach,--impossible\r
+to be fulfilled when the golden gates had been passed.\r
+\r
+But when their father was actually engaged in the long-threatened\r
+lawsuit, and Wakem, as the agent at once of Pivart and Old Harry, was\r
+acting against him, even Maggie felt, with some sadness, that they\r
+were not likely ever to have any intimacy with Philip again; the very\r
+name of Wakem made her father angry, and she had once heard him say\r
+that if that crook-backed son lived to inherit his father's ill-gotten\r
+gains, there would be a curse upon him. "Have as little to do with him\r
+at school as you can, my lad," he said to Tom; and the command was\r
+obeyed the more easily because Mr. Sterling by this time had two\r
+additional pupils; for though this gentleman's rise in the world was\r
+not of that meteor-like rapidity which the admirers of his\r
+extemporaneous eloquence had expected for a preacher whose voice\r
+demanded so wide a sphere, he had yet enough of growing prosperity to\r
+enable him to increase his expenditure in continued disproportion to\r
+his income.\r
+\r
+As for Tom's school course, it went on with mill-like monotony, his\r
+mind continuing to move with a slow, half-stifled pulse in a medium\r
+uninteresting or unintelligible ideas. But each vacation he brought\r
+home larger and larger drawings with the satiny rendering of\r
+landscape, and water-colors in vivid greens, together with manuscript\r
+books full of exercises and problems, in which the handwriting was all\r
+the finer because he gave his whole mind to it. Each vacation he\r
+brought home a new book or two, indicating his progress through\r
+different stages of history, Christian doctrine, and Latin literature;\r
+and that passage was not entirely without results, besides the\r
+possession of the books. Tom's ear and tongue had become accustomed to\r
+a great many words and phrases which are understood to be signs of an\r
+educated condition; and though he had never really applied his mind to\r
+any one of his lessons, the lessons had left a deposit of vague,\r
+fragmentary, ineffectual notions. Mr. Tulliver, seeing signs of\r
+acquirement beyond the reach of his own criticism, thought it was\r
+probably all right with Tom's education; he observed, indeed, that\r
+there were no maps, and not enough "summing"; but he made no formal\r
+complaint to Mr. Stelling. It was a puzzling business, this schooling;\r
+and if he took Tom away, where could he send him with better effect?\r
+\r
+By the time Tom had reached his last quarter at King's Lorton, the\r
+years had made striking changes in him since the day we saw him\r
+returning from Mr. Jacobs's academy. He was a tall youth now, carrying\r
+himself without the least awkwardness, and speaking without more\r
+shyness than was a becoming symptom of blended diffidence and pride;\r
+he wore his tail-coat and his stand-up collars, and watched the down\r
+on his lip with eager impatience, looking every day at his virgin\r
+razor, with which he had provided himself in the last holidays. Philip\r
+had already left,--at the autumn quarter,--that he might go to the\r
+south for the winter, for the sake of his health; and this change\r
+helped to give Tom the unsettled, exultant feeling that usually\r
+belongs to the last months before leaving school. This quarter, too,\r
+there was some hope of his father's lawsuit being decided; _that_ made\r
+the prospect of home more entirely pleasurable. For Tom, who had\r
+gathered his view of the case from his father's conversation, had no\r
+doubt that Pivart would be beaten.\r
+\r
+Tom had not heard anything from home for some weeks,--a fact which did\r
+not surprise him, for his father and mother were not apt to manifest\r
+their affection in unnecessary letters,--when, to his great surprise,\r
+on the morning of a dark, cold day near the end of November, he was\r
+told, soon after entering the study at nine o'clock, that his sister\r
+was in the drawing-room. It was Mrs. Stelling who had come into the\r
+study to tell him, and she left him to enter the drawing-room alone.\r
+\r
+Maggie, too, was tall now, with braided and coiled hair; she was\r
+almost as tall as Tom, though she was only thirteen; and she really\r
+looked older than he did at that moment. She had thrown off her\r
+bonnet, her heavy braids were pushed back from her forehead, as if it\r
+would not bear that extra load, and her young face had a strangely\r
+worn look, as her eyes turned anxiously toward the door. When Tom\r
+entered she did not speak, but only went up to him, put her arms round\r
+his neck, and kissed him earnestly. He was used to various moods of\r
+hers, and felt no alarm at the unusual seriousness of her greeting.\r
+\r
+"Why, how is it you're come so early this cold morning, Maggie? Did\r
+you come in the gig?" said Tom, as she backed toward the sofa, and\r
+drew him to her side.\r
+\r
+"No, I came by the coach. I've walked from the turnpike."\r
+\r
+"But how is it you're not at school? The holidays have not begun yet?"\r
+\r
+"Father wanted me at home," said Maggie, with a slight trembling of\r
+the lip. "I came home three or four days ago."\r
+\r
+"Isn't my father well?" said Tom, rather anxiously.\r
+\r
+"Not quite," said Maggie. "He's very unhappy, Tom. The lawsuit is\r
+ended, and I came to tell you because I thought it would be better for\r
+you to know it before you came home, and I didn't like only to send\r
+you a letter."\r
+\r
+"My father hasn't lost?" said Tom, hastily, springing from the sofa,\r
+and standing before Maggie with his hands suddenly thrust into his\r
+pockets.\r
+\r
+"Yes, dear Tom," said Maggie, looking up at him with trembling.\r
+\r
+Tom was silent a minute or two, with his eyes fixed on the floor. Then\r
+he said:\r
+\r
+"My father will have to pay a good deal of money, then?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie, rather faintly.\r
+\r
+"Well, it can't be helped," said Tom, bravely, not translating the\r
+loss of a large sum of money into any tangible results. "But my\r
+father's very much vexed, I dare say?" he added, looking at Maggie,\r
+and thinking that her agitated face was only part of her girlish way\r
+of taking things.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie, again faintly. Then, urged to fuller speech by\r
+Tom's freedom from apprehension, she said loudly and rapidly, as if\r
+the words _would_ burst from her: "Oh, Tom, he will lose the mill and\r
+the land and everything; he will have nothing left."\r
+\r
+Tom's eyes flashed out one look of surprise at her, before he turned\r
+pale, and trembled visibly. He said nothing, but sat down on the sofa\r
+again, looking vaguely out of the opposite window.\r
+\r
+Anxiety about the future had never entered Tom's mind. His father had\r
+always ridden a good horse, kept a good house, and had the cheerful,\r
+confident air of a man who has plenty of property to fall back upon.\r
+Tom had never dreamed that his father would "fail"; _that_ was a form\r
+of misfortune which he had always heard spoken of as a deep disgrace,\r
+and disgrace was an idea that he could not associate with any of his\r
+relations, least of all with his father. A proud sense of family\r
+respectability was part of the very air Tom had been born and brought\r
+up in. He knew there were people in St. Ogg's who made a show without\r
+money to support it, and he had always heard such people spoken of by\r
+his own friends with contempt and reprobation. He had a strong belief,\r
+which was a lifelong habit, and required no definite evidence to rest\r
+on, that his father could spend a great deal of money if he chose; and\r
+since his education at Mr. Stelling's had given him a more expensive\r
+view of life, he had often thought that when he got older he would\r
+make a figure in the world, with his horse and dogs and saddle, and\r
+other accoutrements of a fine young man, and show himself equal to any\r
+of his contemporaries at St. Ogg's, who might consider themselves a\r
+grade above him in society because their fathers were professional\r
+men, or had large oil-mills. As to the prognostics and headshaking of\r
+his aunts and uncles, they had never produced the least effect on him,\r
+except to make him think that aunts and uncles were disagreeable\r
+society; he had heard them find fault in much the same way as long as\r
+he could remember. His father knew better than they did.\r
+\r
+The down had come on Tom's lip, yet his thoughts and expectations had\r
+been hitherto only the reproduction, in changed forms, of the boyish\r
+dreams in which he had lived three years ago. He was awakened now with\r
+a violent shock.\r
+\r
+Maggie was frightened at Tom's pale, trembling silence. There was\r
+something else to tell him,--something worse. She threw her arms round\r
+him at last, and said, with a half sob:\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom--dear, dear Tom, don't fret too much; try and bear it well."\r
+\r
+Tom turned his cheek passively to meet her entreating kisses, and\r
+there gathered a moisture in his eyes, which he just rubbed away with\r
+his hand. The action seemed to rouse him, for he shook himself and\r
+said: "I shall go home, with you, Maggie. Didn't my father say I was\r
+to go?"\r
+\r
+"No, Tom, father didn't wish it," said Maggie, her anxiety about _his_\r
+feeling helping her to master her agitation. What _would_ he do when\r
+she told him all? "But mother wants you to come,--poor mother!--she\r
+cries so. Oh, Tom, it's very dreadful at home."\r
+\r
+Maggie's lips grew whiter, and she began to tremble almost as Tom had\r
+done. The two poor things clung closer to each other, both\r
+trembling,--the one at an unshapen fear, the other at the image of a\r
+terrible certainty. When Maggie spoke, it was hardly above a whisper.\r
+\r
+"And--and--poor father----"\r
+\r
+Maggie could not utter it. But the suspense was intolerable to Tom. A\r
+vague idea of going to prison, as a consequence of debt, was the shape\r
+his fears had begun to take.\r
+\r
+"Where's my father?" he said impatiently. "_Tell_ me, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"He's at home," said Maggie, finding it easier to reply to that\r
+question. "But," she added, after a pause, "not himself--he fell off\r
+his horse. He has known nobody but me ever since--he seems to have\r
+lost his senses. O father, father----"\r
+\r
+With these last words, Maggie's sobs burst forth with the more\r
+violence for the previous struggle against them. Tom felt that\r
+pressure of the heart which forbids tears; he had no distinct vision\r
+of their troubles as Maggie had, who had been at home; he only felt\r
+the crushing weight of what seemed unmitigated misfortune. He\r
+tightened his arm almost convulsively round Maggie as she sobbed, but\r
+his face looked rigid and tearless, his eyes blank,--as if a black\r
+curtain of cloud had suddenly fallen on his path.\r
+\r
+But Maggie soon checked herself abruptly; a single thought had acted\r
+on her like a startling sound.\r
+\r
+"We must set out, Tom, we must not stay. Father will miss me; we must\r
+be at the turnpike at ten to meet the coach." She said this with hasty\r
+decision, rubbing her eyes, and rising to seize her bonnet.\r
+\r
+Tom at once felt the same impulse, and rose too. "Wait a minute,\r
+Maggie," he said. "I must speak to Mr. Stelling, and then we'll go."\r
+\r
+He thought he must go to the study where the pupils were; but on his\r
+way he met Mr. Stelling, who had heard from his wife that Maggie\r
+appeared to be in trouble when she asked for her brother, and now that\r
+he thought the brother and sister had been alone long enough, was\r
+coming to inquire and offer his sympathy.\r
+\r
+"Please, sir, I must go home," Tom said abruptly, as he met Mr.\r
+Stelling in the passage. "I must go back with my sister directly. My\r
+father's lost his lawsuit--he's lost all his property--and he's very\r
+ill."\r
+\r
+Mr. Stelling felt like a kind-hearted man; he foresaw a probable money\r
+loss for himself, but this had no appreciable share in his feeling,\r
+while he looked with grave pity at the brother and sister for whom\r
+youth and sorrow had begun together. When he knew how Maggie had come,\r
+and how eager she was to get home again, he hurried their departure,\r
+only whispering something to Mrs. Stelling, who had followed him, and\r
+who immediately left the room.\r
+\r
+Tom and Maggie were standing on the door-step, ready to set out, when\r
+Mrs. Stelling came with a little basket, which she hung on Maggie's\r
+arm, saying: "Do remember to eat something on the way, dear." Maggie's\r
+heart went out toward this woman whom she had never liked, and she\r
+kissed her silently. It was the first sign within the poor child of\r
+that new sense which is the gift of sorrow,--that susceptibility to\r
+the bare offices of humanity which raises them into a bond of loving\r
+fellowship, as to haggard men among the ice-bergs the mere presence of\r
+an ordinary comrade stirs the deep fountains of affection.\r
+\r
+Mr. Stelling put his hand on Tom's shoulder and said: "God bless you,\r
+my boy; let me know how you get on." Then he pressed Maggie's hand;\r
+but there were no audible good-byes. Tom had so often thought how\r
+joyful he should be the day he left school "for good"! And now his\r
+school years seemed like a holiday that had come to an end.\r
+\r
+The two slight youthful figures soon grew indistinct on the distant\r
+road,--were soon lost behind the projecting hedgerow.\r
+\r
+They had gone forth together into their life of sorrow, and they would\r
+never more see the sunshine undimmed by remembered cares. They had\r
+entered the thorny wilderness, and the golden gates of their childhood\r
+had forever closed behind them.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book III\r
+\r
+_The Downfall_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+What Had Happened at Home\r
+\r
+\r
+When Mr. Tulliver first knew the fact that the lawsuit was decided\r
+against him, and that Pivart and Wakem were triumphant, every one who\r
+happened to observe him at the time thought that, for so confident and\r
+hot-tempered a man, he bore the blow remarkably well. He thought so\r
+himself; he thought he was going to show that if Wakem or anybody else\r
+considered him crushed, they would find themselves mistaken. He could\r
+not refuse to see that the costs of this protracted suit would take\r
+more than he possessed to pay them; but he appeared to himself to be\r
+full of expedients by which he could ward off any results but such as\r
+were tolerable, and could avoid the appearance of breaking down in the\r
+world. All the obstinacy and defiance of his nature, driven out of\r
+their old channel, found a vent for themselves in the immediate\r
+formation of plans by which he would meet his difficulties, and remain\r
+Mr. Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill in spite of them. There was such a rush\r
+of projects in his brain, that it was no wonder his face was flushed\r
+when he came away from his talk with his attorney, Mr. Gore, and\r
+mounted his horse to ride home from Lindum. There was Furley, who held\r
+the mortgage on the land,--a reasonable fellow, who would see his own\r
+interest, Mr. Tulliver was convinced, and who would be glad not only\r
+to purchase the whole estate, including the mill and homestead, but\r
+would accept Mr. Tulliver as tenant, and be willing to advance money\r
+to be repaid with high interest out of the profits of the business,\r
+which would be made over to him, Mr. Tulliver only taking enough\r
+barely to maintain himself and his family. Who would neglect such a\r
+profitable investment? Certainly not Furley, for Mr. Tulliver had\r
+determined that Furley should meet his plans with the utmost alacrity;\r
+and there are men whoses brains have not yet been dangerously heated\r
+by the loss of a lawsuit, who are apt to see in their own interest or\r
+desires a motive for other men's actions. There was no doubt (in the\r
+miller's mind) that Furley would do just what was desirable; and if he\r
+did--why, things would not be so very much worse. Mr. Tulliver and his\r
+family must live more meagrely and humbly, but it would only be till\r
+the profits of the business had paid off Furley's advances, and that\r
+might be while Mr. Tulliver had still a good many years of life before\r
+him. It was clear that the costs of the suit could be paid without his\r
+being obliged to turn out of his old place, and look like a ruined\r
+man. It was certainly an awkward moment in his affairs. There was that\r
+suretyship for poor Riley, who had died suddenly last April, and left\r
+his friend saddled with a debt of two hundred and fifty pounds,--a\r
+fact which had helped to make Mr. Tulliver's banking book less\r
+pleasant reading than a man might desire toward Christmas. Well! he\r
+had never been one of those poor-spirited sneaks who would refuse to\r
+give a helping hand to a fellow-traveller in this puzzling world. The\r
+really vexatious business was the fact that some months ago the\r
+creditor who had lent him the five hundred pounds to repay Mrs. Glegg\r
+had become uneasy about his money (set on by Wakem, of course), and\r
+Mr. Tulliver, still confident that he should gain his suit, and\r
+finding it eminently inconvenient to raise the said sum until that\r
+desirable issue had taken place, had rashly acceded to the demand that\r
+he should give a bill of sale on his household furniture and some\r
+other effects, as security in lieu of the bond. It was all one, he had\r
+said to himself; he should soon pay off the money, and there was no\r
+harm in giving that security any more than another. But now the\r
+consequences of this bill of sale occurred to him in a new light, and\r
+he remembered that the time was close at hand when it would be\r
+enforced unless the money were repaid. Two months ago he would have\r
+declared stoutly that he would never be beholden to his wife's\r
+friends; but now he told himself as stoutly that it was nothing but\r
+right and natural that Bessy should go to the Pullets and explain the\r
+thing to them; they would hardly let Bessy's furniture be sold, and it\r
+might be security to Pullet if he advanced the money,--there would,\r
+after all, be no gift or favor in the matter. Mr. Tulliver would never\r
+have asked for anything from so poor-spirited a fellow for himself,\r
+but Bessy might do so if she liked.\r
+\r
+It is precisely the proudest and most obstinate men who are the most\r
+liable to shift their position and contradict themselves in this\r
+sudden manner; everything is easier to them than to face the simple\r
+fact that they have been thoroughly defeated, and must begin life\r
+anew. And Mr. Tulliver, you perceive, though nothing more than a\r
+superior miller and maltster, was as proud and obstinate as if he had\r
+been a very lofty personage, in whom such dispositions might be a\r
+source of that conspicuous, far-echoing tragedy, which sweeps the\r
+stage in regal robes, and makes the dullest chronicler sublime. The\r
+pride and obstinacy of millers and other insignificant people, whom\r
+you pass unnoticingly on the road every day, have their tragedy too;\r
+but it is of that unwept, hidden sort that goes on from generation to\r
+generation, and leaves no record,--such tragedy, perhaps, as lies in\r
+the conflicts of young souls, hungry for joy, under a lot made\r
+suddenly hard to them, under the dreariness of a home where the\r
+morning brings no promise with it, and where the unexpectant\r
+discontent of worn and disappointed parents weighs on the children\r
+like a damp, thick air, in which all the functions of life are\r
+depressed; or such tragedy as lies in the slow or sudden death that\r
+follows on a bruised passion, though it may be a death that finds only\r
+a parish funeral. There are certain animals to which tenacity of\r
+position is a law of life,--they can never flourish again, after a\r
+single wrench: and there are certain human beings to whom predominance\r
+is a law of life,--they can only sustain humiliation so long as they\r
+can refuse to believe in it, and, in their own conception, predominate\r
+still.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was still predominating, in his own imagination, as he\r
+approached St. Ogg's, through which he had to pass on his way\r
+homeward. But what was it that suggested to him, as he saw the Laceham\r
+coach entering the town, to follow it to the coach-office, and get the\r
+clerk there to write a letter, requiring Maggie to come home the very\r
+next day? Mr. Tulliver's own hand shook too much under his excitement\r
+for him to write himself, and he wanted the letter to be given to the\r
+coachman to deliver at Miss Firniss's school in the morning. There was\r
+a craving which he would not account for to himself, to have Maggie\r
+near him, without delay,--she must come back by the coach to-morrow.\r
+\r
+To Mrs. Tulliver, when he got home, he would admit no difficulties,\r
+and scolded down her burst of grief on hearing that the lawsuit was\r
+lost, by angry assertions that there was nothing to grieve about. He\r
+said nothing to her that night about the bill of sale and the\r
+application to Mrs. Pullet, for he had kept her in ignorance of the\r
+nature of that transaction, and had explained the necessity for taking\r
+an inventory of the goods as a matter connected with his will. The\r
+possession of a wife conspicuously one's inferior in intellect is,\r
+like other high privileges, attended with a few inconveniences, and,\r
+among the rest, with the occasional necessity for using a little\r
+deception.\r
+\r
+The next day Mr. Tulliver was again on horseback in the afternoon, on\r
+his way to Mr. Gore's office at St. Ogg's. Gore was to have seen\r
+Furley in the morning, and to have sounded him in relation to Mr.\r
+Tulliver's affairs. But he had not gone half-way when he met a clerk\r
+from Mr. Gore's office, who was bringing a letter to Mr. Tulliver. Mr.\r
+Gore had been prevented by a sudden call of business from waiting at\r
+his office to see Mr. Tulliver, according to appointment, but would be\r
+at his office at eleven to-morrow morning, and meanwhile had sent some\r
+important information by letter.\r
+\r
+"Oh!" said Mr. Tulliver, taking the letter, but not opening it. "Then\r
+tell Gore I'll see him to-morrow at eleven"; and he turned his horse.\r
+\r
+The clerk, struck with Mr. Tulliver's glistening, excited glance,\r
+looked after him for a few moments, and then rode away. The reading of\r
+a letter was not the affair of an instant to Mr. Tulliver; he took in\r
+the sense of a statement very slowly through the medium of written or\r
+even printed characters; so he had put the letter in his pocket,\r
+thinking he would open it in his armchair at home. But by-and-by it\r
+occurred to him that there might be something in the letter Mrs.\r
+Tulliver must not know about, and if so, it would be better to keep it\r
+out of her sight altogether. He stopped his horse, took out the\r
+letter, and read it. It was only a short letter; the substance was,\r
+that Mr. Gore had ascertained, on secret, but sure authority, that\r
+Furley had been lately much straitened for money, and had parted with\r
+his securities,--among the rest, the mortgage on Mr. Tulliver's\r
+property, which he had transferred to----Wakem.\r
+\r
+In half an hour after this Mr. Tulliver's own wagoner found him lying\r
+by the roadside insensible, with an open letter near him, and his gray\r
+horse snuffing uneasily about him.\r
+\r
+When Maggie reached home that evening, in obedience to her father's\r
+call, he was no longer insensible. About an hour before he had become\r
+conscious, and after vague, vacant looks around him, had muttered\r
+something about "a letter," which he presently repeated impatiently.\r
+At the instance of Mr. Turnbull, the medical man, Gore's letter was\r
+brought and laid on the bed, and the previous impatience seemed to be\r
+allayed. The stricken man lay for some time with his eyes fixed on the\r
+letter, as if he were trying to knit up his thoughts by its help. But\r
+presently a new wave of memory seemed to have come and swept the other\r
+away; he turned his eyes from the letter to the door, and after\r
+looking uneasily, as if striving to see something his eyes were too\r
+dim for, he said, "The little wench."\r
+\r
+He repeated the words impatiently from time to time, appearing\r
+entirely unconscious of everything except this one importunate want,\r
+and giving no sign of knowing his wife or any one else; and poor Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, her feeble faculties almost paralyzed by this sudden\r
+accumulation of troubles, went backward and forward to the gate to see\r
+if the Laceham coach were coming, though it was not yet time.\r
+\r
+But it came at last, and set down the poor anxious girl, no longer the\r
+"little wench," except to her father's fond memory.\r
+\r
+"Oh, mother, what is the matter?" Maggie said, with pale lips, as her\r
+mother came toward her crying. She didn't think her father was ill,\r
+because the letter had come at his dictation from the office at St.\r
+Ogg's.\r
+\r
+But Mr. Turnbull came now to meet her; a medical man is the good angel\r
+of the troubled house, and Maggie ran toward the kind old friend, whom\r
+she remembered as long as she could remember anything, with a\r
+trembling, questioning look.\r
+\r
+"Don't alarm yourself too much, my dear," he said, taking her hand.\r
+"Your father has had a sudden attack, and has not quite recovered his\r
+memory. But he has been asking for you, and it will do him good to see\r
+you. Keep as quiet as you can; take off your things, and come upstairs\r
+with me."\r
+\r
+Maggie obeyed, with that terrible beating of the heart which makes\r
+existence seem simply a painful pulsation. The very quietness with\r
+which Mr. Turnbull spoke had frightened her susceptible imagination.\r
+Her father's eyes were still turned uneasily toward the door when she\r
+entered and met the strange, yearning, helpless look that had been\r
+seeking her in vain. With a sudden flash and movement, he raised\r
+himself in the bed; she rushed toward him, and clasped him with\r
+agonized kisses.\r
+\r
+Poor child! it was very early for her to know one of those supreme\r
+moments in life when all we have hoped or delighted in, all we can\r
+dread or endure, falls away from our regard as insignificant; is lost,\r
+like a trivial memory, in that simple, primitive love which knits us\r
+to the beings who have been nearest to us, in their times of\r
+helplessness or of anguish.\r
+\r
+But that flash of recognition had been too great a strain on the\r
+father's bruised, enfeebled powers. He sank back again in renewed\r
+insensibility and rigidity, which lasted for many hours, and was only\r
+broken by a flickering return of consciousness, in which he took\r
+passively everything that was given to him, and seemed to have a sort\r
+of infantine satisfaction in Maggie's near presence,--such\r
+satisfaction as a baby has when it is returned to the nurse's lap.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver sent for her sisters, and there was much wailing and\r
+lifting up of hands below stairs. Both uncles and aunts saw that the\r
+ruin of Bessy and her family was as complete as they had ever\r
+foreboded it, and there was a general family sense that a judgment had\r
+fallen on Mr. Tulliver, which it would be an impiety to counteract by\r
+too much kindness. But Maggie heard little of this, scarcely ever\r
+leaving her father's bedside, where she sat opposite him with her hand\r
+on his. Mrs. Tulliver wanted to have Tom fetched home, and seemed to\r
+be thinking more of her boy even than of her husband; but the aunts\r
+and uncles opposed this. Tom was better at school, since Mr. Turnbull\r
+said there was no immediate danger, he believed. But at the end of the\r
+second day, when Maggie had become more accustomed to her father's\r
+fits of insensibility, and to the expectation that he would revive\r
+from them, the thought of Tom had become urgent with _her_ too; and\r
+when her mother sate crying at night and saying, "My poor lad--it's\r
+nothing but right he should come home," Maggie said, "Let me go for\r
+him, and tell him, mother; I'll go to-morrow morning if father doesn't\r
+know me and want me. It would be so hard for Tom to come home and not\r
+know anything about it beforehand."\r
+\r
+And the next morning Maggie went, as we have seen. Sitting on the\r
+coach on their way home, the brother and sister talked to each other\r
+in sad, interrupted whispers.\r
+\r
+"They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"\r
+said Maggie. "It was the letter with that news in it that made father\r
+ill, they think."\r
+\r
+"I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin my\r
+father," said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite\r
+conclusion. "I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you never\r
+speak to Philip again."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom!" said Maggie, in a tone of sad remonstrance; but she had no\r
+spirit to dispute anything then, still less to vex Tom by opposing\r
+him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver's Teraphim, or Household Gods\r
+\r
+\r
+When the coach set down Tom and Maggie, it was five hours since she\r
+had started from home, and she was thinking with some trembling that\r
+her father had perhaps missed her, and asked for "the little wench" in\r
+vain. She thought of no other change that might have happened.\r
+\r
+She hurried along the gravel-walk and entered the house before Tom;\r
+but in the entrance she was startled by a strong smell of tobacco. The\r
+parlor door was ajar; that was where the smell came from. It was very\r
+strange; could any visitor be smoking at a time like this? Was her\r
+mother there? If so, she must be told that Tom was come. Maggie, after\r
+this pause of surprise, was only in the act of opening the door when\r
+Tom came up, and they both looked into the parlor together.\r
+\r
+There was a coarse, dingy man, of whose face Tom had some vague\r
+recollection, sitting in his father's chair, smoking, with a jug and\r
+glass beside him.\r
+\r
+The truth flashed on Tom's mind in an instant. To "have the bailiff in\r
+the house," and "to be sold up," were phrases which he had been used\r
+to, even as a little boy; they were part of the disgrace and misery of\r
+"failing," of losing all one's money, and being ruined,--sinking into\r
+the condition of poor working people. It seemed only natural this\r
+should happen, since his father had lost all his property, and he\r
+thought of no more special cause for this particular form of\r
+misfortune than the loss of the lawsuit. But the immediate presence of\r
+this disgrace was so much keener an experience to Tom than the worst\r
+form of apprehension, that he felt at this moment as if his real\r
+trouble had only just begin; it was a touch on the irritated nerve\r
+compared with its spontaneous dull aching.\r
+\r
+"How do you do, sir?" said the man, taking the pipe out of his mouth,\r
+with rough, embarrassed civility. The two young startled faces made\r
+him a little uncomfortable.\r
+\r
+But Tom turned away hastily without speaking; the sight was too\r
+hateful. Maggie had not understood the appearance of this stranger, as\r
+Tom had. She followed him, whispering: "Who can it be, Tom? What is\r
+the matter?" Then, with a sudden undefined dread lest this stranger\r
+might have something to do with a change in her father, she rushed\r
+upstairs, checking herself at the bedroom door to throw off her\r
+bonnet, and enter on tiptoe. All was silent there; her father was\r
+lying, heedless of everything around him, with his eyes closed as when\r
+she had left him. A servant was there, but not her mother.\r
+\r
+"Where's my mother?" she whispered. The servant did not know.\r
+\r
+Maggie hastened out, and said to Tom; "Father is lying quiet; let us\r
+go and look for my mother. I wonder where she is."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was not downstairs, not in any of the bedrooms. There\r
+was but one room below the attic which Maggie had left unsearched; it\r
+was the storeroom, where her mother kept all her linen and all the\r
+precious "best things" that were only unwrapped and brought out on\r
+special occasions.\r
+\r
+Tom, preceding Maggie, as they returned along the passage, opened the\r
+door of this room, and immediately said, "Mother!"\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was seated there with all her laid-up treasures. One of\r
+the linen chests was open; the silver teapot was unwrapped from its\r
+many folds of paper, and the best china was laid out on the top of the\r
+closed linen-chest; spoons and skewers and ladles were spread in rows\r
+on the shelves; and the poor woman was shaking her head and weeping,\r
+with a bitter tension of the mouth, over the mark, "Elizabeth Dodson,"\r
+on the corner of some tablecloths she held in her lap.\r
+\r
+She dropped them, and started up as Tom spoke.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my boy, my boy!" she said, clasping him round the neck. "To think\r
+as I should live to see this day! We're ruined--everything's going to\r
+be sold up--to think as your father should ha' married me to bring me\r
+to this! We've got nothing--we shall be beggars--we must go to the\r
+workhouse----"\r
+\r
+She kissed him, then seated herself again, and took another tablecloth\r
+on her lap, unfolding it a little way to look at the pattern, while\r
+the children stood by in mute wretchedness, their minds quite filled\r
+for the moment with the words "beggars" and "workhouse."\r
+\r
+"To think o' these cloths as I spun myself," she went on, lifting\r
+things out and turning them over with an excitement all the more\r
+strange and piteous because the stout blond woman was usually so\r
+passive,--if she had been ruffled before, it was at the surface\r
+merely,--"and Job Haxey wove 'em, and brought the piece home on his\r
+back, as I remember standing at the door and seeing him come, before I\r
+ever thought o' marrying your father! And the pattern as I chose\r
+myself, and bleached so beautiful, and I marked 'em so as nobody ever\r
+saw such marking,--they must cut the cloth to get it out, for it's a\r
+particular stitch. And they're all to be sold, and go into strange\r
+people's houses, and perhaps be cut with the knives, and wore out\r
+before I'm dead. You'll never have one of 'em, my boy," she said,\r
+looking up at Tom with her eyes full of tears, "and I meant 'em for\r
+you. I wanted you to have all o' this pattern. Maggie could have had\r
+the large check--it never shows so well when the dishes are on it."\r
+\r
+Tom was touched to the quick, but there was an angry reaction\r
+immediately. His face flushed as he said:\r
+\r
+"But will my aunts let them be sold, mother? Do they know about it?\r
+They'll never let your linen go, will they? Haven't you sent to them?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I sent Luke directly they'd put the bailies in, and your aunt\r
+Pullet's been--and, oh dear, oh dear, she cries so and says your\r
+father's disgraced my family and made it the talk o' the country; and\r
+she'll buy the spotted cloths for herself, because she's never had so\r
+many as she wanted o' that pattern, and they sha'n't go to strangers,\r
+but she's got more checks a'ready nor she can do with." (Here Mrs.\r
+Tulliver began to lay back the tablecloths in the chest, folding and\r
+stroking them automatically.) "And your uncle Glegg's been too, and he\r
+says things must be bought in for us to lie down on, but he must talk\r
+to your aunt; and they're all coming to consult. But I know they'll\r
+none of 'em take my chany," she added, turning toward the cups and\r
+saucers, "for they all found fault with 'em when I bought 'em, 'cause\r
+o' the small gold sprig all over 'em, between the flowers. But there's\r
+none of 'em got better chany, not even your aunt Pullet herself; and I\r
+bought it wi' my own money as I'd saved ever since I was turned\r
+fifteen; and the silver teapot, too,--your father never paid for 'em.\r
+And to think as he should ha' married me, and brought me to this."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver burst out crying afresh, and she sobbed with her\r
+handkerchief at her eyes a few moments, but then removing it, she said\r
+in a deprecating way, still half sobbing, as if she were called upon\r
+to speak before she could command her voice,--\r
+\r
+"And I _did_ say to him times and times, 'Whativer you do, don't go to\r
+law,' and what more could I do? I've had to sit by while my own\r
+fortin's been spent, and what should ha' been my children's, too.\r
+You'll have niver a penny, my boy--but it isn't your poor mother's\r
+fault."\r
+\r
+She put out one arm toward Tom, looking up at him piteously with her\r
+helpless, childish blue eyes. The poor lad went to her and kissed her,\r
+and she clung to him. For the first time Tom thought of his father\r
+with some reproach. His natural inclination to blame, hitherto kept\r
+entirely in abeyance toward his father by the predisposition to think\r
+him always right, simply on the ground that he was Tom Tulliver's\r
+father, was turned into this new channel by his mother's plaints; and\r
+with his indignation against Wakem there began to mingle some\r
+indignation of another sort. Perhaps his father might have helped\r
+bringing them all down in the world, and making people talk of them\r
+with contempt, but no one should talk long of Tom Tulliver with\r
+contempt.\r
+\r
+The natural strength and firmness of his nature was beginning to\r
+assert itself, urged by the double stimulus of resentment against his\r
+aunts, and the sense that he must behave like a man and take care of\r
+his mother.\r
+\r
+"Don't fret, mother," he said tenderly. "I shall soon be able to get\r
+money; I'll get a situation of some sort."\r
+\r
+"Bless you, my boy!" said Mrs. Tulliver, a little soothed. Then,\r
+looking round sadly, "But I shouldn't ha' minded so much if we could\r
+ha' kept the things wi' my name on 'em."\r
+\r
+Maggie had witnessed this scene with gathering anger. The implied\r
+reproaches against her father--her father, who was lying there in a\r
+sort of living death--neutralized all her pity for griefs about\r
+tablecloths and china; and her anger on her father's account was\r
+heightened by some egoistic resentment at Tom's silent concurrence\r
+with her mother in shutting her out from the common calamity. She had\r
+become almost indifferent to her mother's habitual depreciation of\r
+her, but she was keenly alive to any sanction of it, however passive,\r
+that she might suspect in Tom. Poor Maggie was by no means made up of\r
+unalloyed devotedness, but put forth large claims for herself where\r
+she loved strongly. She burst out at last in an agitated, almost\r
+violent tone: "Mother, how can you talk so; as if you cared only for\r
+things with _your_ name on, and not for what has my father's name too;\r
+and to care about anything but dear father himself!--when he's lying\r
+there, and may never speak to us again. Tom, you ought to say so too;\r
+you ought not to let any one find fault with my father."\r
+\r
+Maggie, almost choked with mingled grief and anger, left the room, and\r
+took her old place on her father's bed. Her heart went out to him with\r
+a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blame\r
+him. Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed all her life, and nothing\r
+had come of it but evil tempers.\r
+\r
+Her father had always defended and excused her, and her loving\r
+remembrance of his tenderness was a force within her that would enable\r
+her to do or bear anything for his sake.\r
+\r
+Tom was a little shocked at Maggie's outburst,--telling _him_ as well\r
+as his mother what it was right to do! She ought to have learned\r
+better than have those hectoring, assuming manners, by this time. But\r
+he presently went into his father's room, and the sight there touched\r
+him in a way that effaced the slighter impressions of the previous\r
+hour. When Maggie saw how he was moved, she went to him and put her\r
+arm round his neck as he sat by the bed, and the two children forgot\r
+everything else in the sense that they had one father and one sorrow.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+The Family Council\r
+\r
+\r
+It was at eleven o'clock the next morning that the aunts and uncles\r
+came to hold their consultation. The fire was lighted in the large\r
+parlor, and poor Mrs. Tulliver, with a confused impression that it was\r
+a great occasion, like a funeral, unbagged the bell-rope tassels, and\r
+unpinned the curtains, adjusting them in proper folds, looking round\r
+and shaking her head sadly at the polished tops and legs of the\r
+tables, which sister Pullet herself could not accuse of insufficient\r
+brightness.\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane was not coming, he was away on business; but Mrs. Deane\r
+appeared punctually in that handsome new gig with the head to it, and\r
+the livery-servant driving it, which had thrown so clear a light on\r
+several traits in her character to some of her female friends in St.\r
+Ogg's. Mr. Deane had been advancing in the world as rapidly as Mr.\r
+Tulliver had been going down in it; and in Mrs. Deane's house the\r
+Dodson linen and plate were beginning to hold quite a subordinate\r
+position, as a mere supplement to the handsomer articles of the same\r
+kind, purchased in recent years,--a change which had caused an\r
+occasional coolness in the sisterly intercourse between her and Mrs.\r
+Glegg, who felt that Susan was getting "like the rest," and there\r
+would soon be little of the true Dodson spirit surviving except in\r
+herself, and, it might be hoped, in those nephews who supported the\r
+Dodson name on the family land, far away in the Wolds.\r
+\r
+People who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than those\r
+immediately under our own eyes; and it seems superfluous, when we\r
+consider the remote geographical position of the Ethiopians, and how\r
+very little the Greeks had to do with them, to inquire further why\r
+Homer calls them "blameless."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Deane was the first to arrive; and when she had taken her seat in\r
+the large parlor, Mrs. Tulliver came down to her with her comely face\r
+a little distorted, nearly as it would have been if she had been\r
+crying. She was not a woman who could shed abundant tears, except in\r
+moments when the prospect of losing her furniture became unusually\r
+vivid, but she felt how unfitting it was to be quite calm under\r
+present circumstances.\r
+\r
+"Oh, sister, what a world this is!" she exclaimed as she entered;\r
+"what trouble, oh dear!"\r
+\r
+Mrs. Deane was a thin-lipped woman, who made small well-considered\r
+speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating them afterward to her\r
+husband, and asking him if she had not spoken very properly.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sister," she said deliberately, "this is a changing world, and\r
+we don't know to-day what may happen tomorrow. But it's right to be\r
+prepared for all things, and if trouble's sent, to remember as it\r
+isn't sent without a cause. I'm very sorry for you as a sister, and if\r
+the doctor orders jelly for Mr. Tulliver, I hope you'll let me know.\r
+I'll send it willingly; for it is but right he should have proper\r
+attendance while he's ill."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, Susan," said Mrs. Tulliver, rather faintly, withdrawing\r
+her fat hand from her sister's thin one. "But there's been no talk o'\r
+jelly yet." Then after a moment's pause she added, "There's a dozen o'\r
+cut jelly-glasses upstairs--I shall never put jelly into 'em no more."\r
+\r
+Her voice was rather agitated as she uttered the last words, but the\r
+sound of wheels diverted her thoughts. Mr. and Mrs. Glegg were come,\r
+and were almost immediately followed by Mr. and Mrs. Pullet.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet entered crying, as a compendious mode, at all times, of\r
+expressing what were her views of life in general, and what, in brief,\r
+were the opinions she held concerning the particular case before her.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg had on her fuzziest front, and garments which appeared to\r
+have had a recent resurrection from rather a creasy form of burial; a\r
+costume selected with the high moral purpose of instilling perfect\r
+humility into Bessy and her children.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. G., won't you come nearer the fire?" said her husband, unwilling\r
+to take the more comfortable seat without offering it to her.\r
+\r
+"You see I've seated myself here, Mr. Glegg," returned this superior\r
+woman; "_you_ can roast yourself, if you like."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Glegg, seating himself good-humoredly, "and how's the\r
+poor man upstairs?"\r
+\r
+"Dr. Turnbull thought him a deal better this morning," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver; "he took more notice, and spoke to me; but he's never known\r
+Tom yet,--looks at the poor lad as if he was a stranger, though he\r
+said something once about Tom and the pony. The doctor says his\r
+memory's gone a long way back, and he doesn't know Tom because he's\r
+thinking of him when he was little. Eh dear, eh dear!"\r
+\r
+"I doubt it's the water got on his brain," said aunt Pullet, turning\r
+round from adjusting her cap in a melancholy way at the pier-glass.\r
+"It's much if he ever gets up again; and if he does, he'll most like\r
+be childish, as Mr. Carr was, poor man! They fed him with a spoon as\r
+if he'd been a babby for three year. He'd quite lost the use of his\r
+limbs; but then he'd got a Bath chair, and somebody to draw him; and\r
+that's what you won't have, I doubt, Bessy."\r
+\r
+"Sister Pullet," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "if I understand right,\r
+we've come together this morning to advise and consult about what's to\r
+be done in this disgrace as has fallen upon the family, and not to\r
+talk o' people as don't belong to us. Mr. Carr was none of our blood,\r
+nor noways connected with us, as I've ever heared."\r
+\r
+"Sister Glegg," said Mrs. Pullet, in a pleading tone, drawing on her\r
+gloves again, and stroking the fingers in an agitated manner, "if\r
+you've got anything disrespectful to say o' Mr. Carr, I do beg of you\r
+as you won't say it to me. _I_ know what he was," she added, with a\r
+sigh; "his breath was short to that degree as you could hear him two\r
+rooms off."\r
+\r
+"Sophy!" said Mrs. Glegg, with indignant disgust, "you _do_ talk o'\r
+people's complaints till it's quite undecent. But I say again, as I\r
+said before, I didn't come away from home to talk about acquaintances,\r
+whether they'd short breath or long. If we aren't come together for\r
+one to hear what the other 'ull do to save a sister and her children\r
+from the parish, _I_ shall go back. _One_ can't act without the other,\r
+I suppose; it isn't to be expected as _I_ should do everything."\r
+\r
+"Well, Jane," said Mrs. Pullet, "I don't see as you've been so very\r
+forrard at doing. So far as I know, this is the first time as here\r
+you've been, since it's been known as the bailiff's in the house; and\r
+I was here yesterday, and looked at all Bessy's linen and things, and\r
+I told her I'd buy in the spotted tablecloths. I couldn't speak\r
+fairer; for as for the teapot as she doesn't want to go out o' the\r
+family, it stands to sense I can't do with two silver teapots, not if\r
+it _hadn't_ a straight spout, but the spotted damask I was allays fond\r
+on."\r
+\r
+"I wish it could be managed so as my teapot and chany and the best\r
+castors needn't be put up for sale," said poor Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+beseechingly, "and the sugar-tongs the first things ever I bought."\r
+\r
+"But that can't be helped, you know," said Mr. Glegg. "If one o' the\r
+family chooses to buy 'em in, they can, but one thing must be bid for\r
+as well as another."\r
+\r
+"And it isn't to be looked for," said uncle Pullet, with unwonted\r
+independence of idea, "as your own family should pay more for things\r
+nor they'll fetch. They may go for an old song by auction."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, oh dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, "to think o' my chany being\r
+sold i' that way, and I bought it when I was married, just as you did\r
+yours, Jane and Sophy; and I know you didn't like mine, because o' the\r
+sprig, but I was fond of it; and there's never been a bit broke, for\r
+I've washed it myself; and there's the tulips on the cups, and the\r
+roses, as anybody might go and look at 'em for pleasure. You wouldn't\r
+like _your_ chany to go for an old song and be broke to pieces, though\r
+yours has got no color in it, Jane,--it's all white and fluted, and\r
+didn't cost so much as mine. And there's the castors, sister Deane, I\r
+can't think but you'd like to have the castors, for I've heard you say\r
+they're pretty."\r
+\r
+"Well, I've no objection to buy some of the best things," said Mrs.\r
+Deane, rather loftily; "we can do with extra things in our house."\r
+\r
+"Best things!" exclaimed Mrs. Glegg, with severity, which had gathered\r
+intensity from her long silence. "It drives me past patience to hear\r
+you all talking o' best things, and buying in this, that, and the\r
+other, such as silver and chany. You must bring your mind to your\r
+circumstances, Bessy, and not be thinking o' silver and chany; but\r
+whether you shall get so much as a flock-bed to lie on, and a blanket\r
+to cover you, and a stool to sit on. You must remember, if you get\r
+'em, it'll be because your friends have bought 'em for you, for you're\r
+dependent upon _them_ for everything; for your husband lies there\r
+helpless, and hasn't got a penny i' the world to call his own. And\r
+it's for your own good I say this, for it's right you should feel what\r
+your state is, and what disgrace your husband's brought on your own\r
+family, as you've got to look to for everything, and be humble in your\r
+mind."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg paused, for speaking with much energy for the good of\r
+others is naturally exhausting.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, always borne down by the family predominance of sister\r
+Jane, who had made her wear the yoke of a younger sister in very\r
+tender years, said pleadingly:\r
+\r
+"I'm sure, sister, I've never asked anybody to do anything, only buy\r
+things as it 'ud be a pleasure to 'em to have, so as they mightn't go\r
+and be spoiled i' strange houses. I never asked anybody to buy the\r
+things in for me and my children; though there's the linen I spun, and\r
+I thought when Tom was born,--I thought one o' the first things when\r
+he was lying i' the cradle, as all the things I'd bought wi' my own\r
+money, and been so careful of, 'ud go to him. But I've said nothing as\r
+I wanted my sisters to pay their money for me. What my husband has\r
+done for _his_ sister's unknown, and we should ha' been better off\r
+this day if it hadn't been as he's lent money and never asked for it\r
+again."\r
+\r
+"Come, come," said Mr. Glegg, kindly, "don't let us make things too\r
+dark. What's done can't be undone. We shall make a shift among us to\r
+buy what's sufficient for you; though, as Mrs. G. says, they must be\r
+useful, plain things. We mustn't be thinking o' what's unnecessary. A\r
+table, and a chair or two, and kitchen things, and a good bed, and\r
+such-like. Why, I've seen the day when I shouldn't ha' known myself if\r
+I'd lain on sacking i'stead o' the floor. We get a deal o' useless\r
+things about us, only because we've got the money to spend."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., "if you'll be kind enough to let me speak,\r
+i'stead o' taking the words out o' my mouth,--I was going to say,\r
+Bessy, as it's fine talking for you to say as you've never asked us to\r
+buy anything for you; let me tell you, you _ought_ to have asked us.\r
+Pray, how are you to be purvided for, if your own family don't help\r
+you? You must go to the parish, if they didn't. And you ought to know\r
+that, and keep it in mind, and ask us humble to do what we can for\r
+you, i'stead o' saying, and making a boast, as you've never asked us\r
+for anything."\r
+\r
+"You talked o' the Mosses, and what Mr. Tulliver's done for 'em," said\r
+uncle Pullet, who became unusually suggestive where advances of money\r
+were concerned. "Haven't _they_ been anear you? They ought to do\r
+something as well as other folks; and if he's lent 'em money, they\r
+ought to be made to pay it back."\r
+\r
+"Yes, to be sure," said Mrs. Deane; "I've been thinking so. How is it\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Moss aren't here to meet us? It is but right they should\r
+do their share."\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Tulliver, "I never sent 'em word about Mr.\r
+Tulliver, and they live so back'ard among the lanes at Basset, they\r
+niver hear anything only when Mr. Moss comes to market. But I niver\r
+gave 'em a thought. I wonder Maggie didn't, though, for she was allays\r
+so fond of her aunt Moss."\r
+\r
+"Why don't your children come in, Bessy?" said Mrs. Pullet, at the\r
+mention of Maggie. "They should hear what their aunts and uncles have\r
+got to say; and Maggie,--when it's me as have paid for half her\r
+schooling, she ought to think more of her aunt Pullet than of aunt\r
+Moss. I may go off sudden when I get home to-day; there's no telling."\r
+\r
+"If I'd had _my_ way," said Mrs. Glegg, "the children 'ud ha' been in\r
+the room from the first. It's time they knew who they've to look to,\r
+and it's right as _somebody_ should talk to 'em, and let 'em know\r
+their condition i' life, and what they're come down to, and make 'em\r
+feel as they've got to suffer for their father's faults."\r
+\r
+"Well, I'll go and fetch 'em, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, resignedly.\r
+She was quite crushed now, and thought of the treasures in the\r
+storeroom with no other feeling than blank despair.\r
+\r
+She went upstairs to fetch Tom and Maggie, who were both in their\r
+father's room, and was on her way down again, when the sight of the\r
+storeroom door suggested a new thought to her. She went toward it, and\r
+left the children to go down by themselves.\r
+\r
+The aunts and uncles appeared to have been in warm discussion when the\r
+brother and sister entered,--both with shrinking reluctance; for\r
+though Tom, with a practical sagacity which had been roused into\r
+activity by the strong stimulus of the new emotions he had undergone\r
+since yesterday, had been turning over in his mind a plan which he\r
+meant to propose to one of his aunts or uncles, he felt by no means\r
+amicably toward them, and dreaded meeting them all at once as he would\r
+have dreaded a large dose of concentrated physic, which was but just\r
+endurable in small draughts. As for Maggie, she was peculiarly\r
+depressed this morning; she had been called up, after brief rest, at\r
+three o'clock, and had that strange dreamy weariness which comes from\r
+watching in a sick-room through the chill hours of early twilight and\r
+breaking day,--in which the outside day-light life seems to have no\r
+importance, and to be a mere margin to the hours in the darkened\r
+chamber. Their entrance interrupted the conversation. The shaking of\r
+hands was a melancholy and silent ceremony, till uncle Pullet\r
+observed, as Tom approached him:\r
+\r
+"Well, young sir, we've been talking as we should want your pen and\r
+ink; you can write rarely now, after all your schooling, I should\r
+think."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay," said uncle Glegg, with admonition which he meant to be kind,\r
+"we must look to see the good of all this schooling, as your father's\r
+sunk so much money in, now,--\r
+\r
+ 'When land is gone and money's spent,\r
+ Then learning is most excellent.'\r
+\r
+Now's the time, Tom, to let us see the good o' your learning. Let us\r
+see whether you can do better than I can, as have made my fortin\r
+without it. But I began wi' doing with little, you see; I could live\r
+on a basin o' porridge and a crust o' bread-and-cheese. But I doubt\r
+high living and high learning 'ull make it harder for you, young man,\r
+nor it was for me."\r
+\r
+"But he must do it," interposed aunt Glegg, energetically, "whether\r
+it's hard or no. He hasn't got to consider what's hard; he must\r
+consider as he isn't to trusten to his friends to keep him in idleness\r
+and luxury; he's got to bear the fruits of his father's misconduct,\r
+and bring his mind to fare hard and to work hard. And he must be\r
+humble and grateful to his aunts and uncles for what they're doing for\r
+his mother and father, as must be turned out into the streets and go\r
+to the workhouse if they didn't help 'em. And his sister, too,"\r
+continued Mrs. Glegg, looking severely at Maggie, who had sat down on\r
+the sofa by her aunt Deane, drawn to her by the sense that she was\r
+Lucy's mother, "she must make up her mind to be humble and work; for\r
+there'll be no servants to wait on her any more,--she must remember\r
+that. She must do the work o' the house, and she must respect and love\r
+her aunts as have done so much for her, and saved their money to leave\r
+to their nepheys and nieces."\r
+\r
+Tom was still standing before the table in the centre of the group.\r
+There was a heightened color in his face, and he was very far from\r
+looking humbled, but he was preparing to say, in a respectful tone,\r
+something he had previously meditated, when the door opened and his\r
+mother re-entered.\r
+\r
+Poor Mrs. Tulliver had in her hands a small tray, on which she had\r
+placed her silver teapot, a specimen teacup and saucer, the castors,\r
+and sugar-tongs.\r
+\r
+"See here, sister," she said, looking at Mrs. Deane, as she set the\r
+tray on the table, "I thought, perhaps, if you looked at the teapot\r
+again,--it's a good while since you saw it,--you might like the\r
+pattern better; it makes beautiful tea, and there's a stand and\r
+everything; you might use it for every day, or else lay it by for Lucy\r
+when she goes to housekeeping. I should be so loath for 'em to buy it\r
+at the Golden Lion," said the poor woman, her heart swelling, and the\r
+tears coming,--"my teapot as I bought when I was married, and to think\r
+of its being scratched, and set before the travellers and folks, and\r
+my letters on it,--see here, E. D.,--and everybody to see 'em."\r
+\r
+"Ah, dear, dear!" said aunt Pullet, shaking her head with deep\r
+sadness, "it's very bad,--to think o' the family initials going about\r
+everywhere--it niver was so before; you're a very unlucky sister,\r
+Bessy. But what's the use o' buying the teapot, when there's the linen\r
+and spoons and everything to go, and some of 'em with your full\r
+name,--and when it's got that straight spout, too."\r
+\r
+"As to disgrace o' the family," said Mrs. Glegg, "that can't be helped\r
+wi' buying teapots. The disgrace is, for one o' the family to ha'\r
+married a man as has brought her to beggary. The disgrace is, as\r
+they're to be sold up. We can't hinder the country from knowing that."\r
+\r
+Maggie had started up from the sofa at the allusion to her father, but\r
+Tom saw her action and flushed face in time to prevent her from\r
+speaking. "Be quiet, Maggie," he said authoritatively, pushing her\r
+aside. It was a remarkable manifestation of self-command and practical\r
+judgment in a lad of fifteen, that when his aunt Glegg ceased, he\r
+began to speak in a quiet and respectful manner, though with a good\r
+deal of trembling in his voice; for his mother's words had cut him to\r
+the quick.\r
+\r
+"Then, aunt," he said, looking straight at Mrs. Glegg, "if you think\r
+it's a disgrace to the family that we should be sold up, wouldn't it\r
+be better to prevent it altogether? And if you and aunt Pullet," he\r
+continued, looking at the latter, "think of leaving any money to me\r
+and Maggie, wouldn't it be better to give it now, and pay the debt\r
+we're going to be sold up for, and save my mother from parting with\r
+her furniture?"\r
+\r
+There was silence for a few moments, for every one, including Maggie,\r
+was astonished at Tom's sudden manliness of tone. Uncle Glegg was the\r
+first to speak.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, young man, come now! You show some notion o' things. But\r
+there's the interest, you must remember; your aunts get five per cent\r
+on their money, and they'd lose that if they advanced it; you haven't\r
+thought o' that."\r
+\r
+"I could work and pay that every year," said Tom, promptly. "I'd do\r
+anything to save my mother from parting with her things."\r
+\r
+"Well done!" said uncle Glegg, admiringly. He had been drawing Tom\r
+out, rather than reflecting on the practicability of his proposal. But\r
+he had produced the unfortunate result of irritating his wife.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mr. Glegg!" said that lady, with angry sarcasm. "It's pleasant\r
+work for you to be giving my money away, as you've pretended to leave\r
+at my own disposal. And my money, as was my own father's gift, and not\r
+yours, Mr. Glegg; and I've saved it, and added to it myself, and had\r
+more to put out almost every year, and it's to go and be sunk in other\r
+folks' furniture, and encourage 'em in luxury and extravagance as\r
+they've no means of supporting; and I'm to alter my will, or have a\r
+codicil made, and leave two or three hundred less behind me when I\r
+die,--me as have allays done right and been careful, and the eldest o'\r
+the family; and my money's to go and be squandered on them as have had\r
+the same chance as me, only they've been wicked and wasteful. Sister\r
+Pullet, _you_ may do as you like, and you may let your husband rob you\r
+back again o' the money he's given you, but that isn't _my_ sperrit."\r
+\r
+"La, Jane, how fiery you are!" said Mrs. Pullet. "I'm sure you'll have\r
+the blood in your head, and have to be cupped. I'm sorry for Bessy and\r
+her children,--I'm sure I think of 'em o' nights dreadful, for I sleep\r
+very bad wi' this new medicine,--but it's no use for me to think o'\r
+doing anything, if you won't meet me half-way."\r
+\r
+"Why, there's this to be considered," said Mr. Glegg. "It's no use to\r
+pay off this debt and save the furniture, when there's all the law\r
+debts behind, as 'ud take every shilling, and more than could be made\r
+out o' land and stock, for I've made that out from Lawyer Gore. We'd\r
+need save our money to keep the poor man with, instead o' spending it\r
+on furniture as he can neither eat nor drink. You _will_ be so hasty,\r
+Jane, as if I didn't know what was reasonable."\r
+\r
+"Then speak accordingly, Mr. Glegg!" said his wife, with slow, loud\r
+emphasis, bending her head toward him significantly.\r
+\r
+Tom's countenance had fallen during this conversation, and his lip\r
+quivered; but he was determined not to give way. He would behave like\r
+a man. Maggie, on the contrary, after her momentary delight in Tom's\r
+speech, had relapsed into her state of trembling indignation. Her\r
+mother had been standing close by Tom's side, and had been clinging to\r
+his arm ever since he had last spoken; Maggie suddenly started up and\r
+stood in front of them, her eyes flashing like the eyes of a young\r
+lioness.\r
+\r
+"Why do you come, then," she burst out, "talking and interfering with\r
+us and scolding us, if you don't mean to do anything to help my poor\r
+mother--your own sister,--if you've no feeling for her when she's in\r
+trouble, and won't part with anything, though you would never miss it,\r
+to save her from pain? Keep away from us then, and don't come to find\r
+fault with my father,--he was better than any of you; he was kind,--he\r
+would have helped _you_, if you had been in trouble. Tom and I don't\r
+ever want to have any of your money, if you won't help my mother. We'd\r
+rather not have it! We'll do without you."\r
+\r
+Maggie, having hurled her defiance at aunts and uncles in this way,\r
+stood still, with her large dark eyes glaring at them, as if she were\r
+ready to await all consequences.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was frightened; there was something portentous in this\r
+mad outbreak; she did not see how life could go on after it. Tom was\r
+vexed; it was no _use_ to talk so. The aunts were silent with surprise\r
+for some moments. At length, in a case of aberration such as this,\r
+comment presented itself as more expedient than any answer.\r
+\r
+"You haven't seen the end o' your trouble wi' that child, Bessy," said\r
+Mrs. Pullet; "she's beyond everything for boldness and unthankfulness.\r
+It's dreadful. I might ha' let alone paying for her schooling, for\r
+she's worse nor ever."\r
+\r
+"It's no more than what I've allays said," followed Mrs. Glegg. "Other\r
+folks may be surprised, but I'm not. I've said over and over\r
+again,--years ago I've said,--'Mark my words; that child 'ull come to\r
+no good; there isn't a bit of our family in her.' And as for her\r
+having so much schooling, I never thought well o' that. I'd my reasons\r
+when I said _I_ wouldn't pay anything toward it."\r
+\r
+"Come, come," said Mr. Glegg, "let's waste no more time in\r
+talking,--let's go to business. Tom, now, get the pen and ink----"\r
+\r
+While Mr. Glegg was speaking, a tall dark figure was seen hurrying\r
+past the window.\r
+\r
+"Why, there's Mrs. Moss," said Mrs. Tulliver. "The bad news must ha'\r
+reached her, then"; and she went out to open the door, Maggie eagerly\r
+following her.\r
+\r
+"That's fortunate," said Mrs. Glegg. "She can agree to the list o'\r
+things to be bought in. It's but right she should do her share when\r
+it's her own brother."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Moss was in too much agitation to resist Mrs. Tulliver's\r
+movement, as she drew her into the parlor automatically, without\r
+reflecting that it was hardly kind to take her among so many persons\r
+in the first painful moment of arrival. The tall, worn, dark-haired\r
+woman was a strong contrast to the Dodson sisters as she entered in\r
+her shabby dress, with her shawl and bonnet looking as if they had\r
+been hastily huddled on, and with that entire absence of\r
+self-consciousness which belongs to keenly felt trouble. Maggie was\r
+clinging to her arm; and Mrs. Moss seemed to notice no one else except\r
+Tom, whom she went straight up to and took by the hand.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear children," she burst out, "you've no call to think well\r
+o' me; I'm a poor aunt to you, for I'm one o' them as take all and\r
+give nothing. How's my poor brother?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Turnbull thinks he'll get better," said Maggie. "Sit down, aunt\r
+Gritty. Don't fret."\r
+\r
+"Oh, my sweet child, I feel torn i' two," said Mrs. Moss, allowing\r
+Maggie to lead her to the sofa, but still not seeming to notice the\r
+presence of the rest. "We've three hundred pounds o' my brother's\r
+money, and now he wants it, and you all want it, poor things!--and yet\r
+we must be sold up to pay it, and there's my poor children,--eight of\r
+'em, and the little un of all can't speak plain. And I feel as if I\r
+was a robber. But I'm sure I'd no thought as my brother----"\r
+\r
+The poor woman was interrupted by a rising sob.\r
+\r
+"Three hundred pounds! oh dear, dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, who, when\r
+she had said that her husband had done "unknown" things for his\r
+sister, had not had any particular sum in her mind, and felt a wife's\r
+irritation at having been kept in the dark.\r
+\r
+"What madness, to be sure!" said Mrs. Glegg. "A man with a family!\r
+He'd no right to lend his money i' that way; and without security,\r
+I'll be bound, if the truth was known."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg's voice had arrested Mrs. Moss's attention, and looking up,\r
+she said:\r
+\r
+"Yes, there _was_ security; my husband gave a note for it. We're not\r
+that sort o' people, neither of us, as 'ud rob my brother's children;\r
+and we looked to paying back the money, when the times got a bit\r
+better."\r
+\r
+"Well, but now," said Mr. Glegg, gently, "hasn't your husband no way\r
+o' raising this money? Because it 'ud be a little fortin, like, for\r
+these folks, if we can do without Tulliver's being made a bankrupt.\r
+Your husband's got stock; it is but right he should raise the money,\r
+as it seems to me,--not but what I'm sorry for you, Mrs. Moss."\r
+\r
+"Oh, sir, you don't know what bad luck my husband's had with his\r
+stock. The farm's suffering so as never was for want o' stock; and\r
+we've sold all the wheat, and we're behind with our rent,--not but\r
+what we'd like to do what's right, and I'd sit up and work half the\r
+night, if it 'ud be any good; but there's them poor children,--four of\r
+'em such little uns----"\r
+\r
+"Don't cry so, aunt; don't fret," whispered Maggie, who had kept hold\r
+of Mrs. Moss's hand.\r
+\r
+"Did Mr. Tulliver let you have the money all at once?" said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, still lost in the conception of things which had been "going\r
+on" without her knowledge.\r
+\r
+"No; at twice," said Mrs. Moss, rubbing her eyes and making an effort\r
+to restrain her tears. "The last was after my bad illness four years\r
+ago, as everything went wrong, and there was a new note made then.\r
+What with illness and bad luck, I've been nothing but cumber all my\r
+life."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mrs. Moss," said Mrs. Glegg, with decision, "yours is a very\r
+unlucky family; the more's the pity for _my_ sister."\r
+\r
+"I set off in the cart as soon as ever I heard o' what had happened,"\r
+said Mrs. Moss, looking at Mrs. Tulliver. "I should never ha' stayed\r
+away all this while, if you'd thought well to let me know. And it\r
+isn't as I'm thinking all about ourselves, and nothing about my\r
+brother, only the money was so on my mind, I couldn't help speaking\r
+about it. And my husband and me desire to do the right thing, sir,"\r
+she added, looking at Mr. Glegg, "and we'll make shift and pay the\r
+money, come what will, if that's all my brother's got to trust to.\r
+We've been used to trouble, and don't look for much else. It's only\r
+the thought o' my poor children pulls me i' two."\r
+\r
+"Why, there's this to be thought on, Mrs. Moss," said Mr. Glegg, "and\r
+it's right to warn you,--if Tulliver's made a bankrupt, and he's got a\r
+note-of-hand of your husband's for three hundred pounds, you'll be\r
+obliged to pay it; th' assignees 'ull come on you for it."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, oh dear!" said Mrs. Tulliver, thinking of the bankruptcy,\r
+and not of Mrs. Moss's concern in it. Poor Mrs. Moss herself listened\r
+in trembling submission, while Maggie looked with bewildered distress\r
+at Tom to see if _he_ showed any signs of understanding this trouble,\r
+and caring about poor aunt Moss. Tom was only looking thoughtful, with\r
+his eyes on the tablecloth.\r
+\r
+"And if he isn't made bankrupt," continued Mr. Glegg, "as I said\r
+before, three hundred pounds 'ud be a little fortin for him, poor man.\r
+We don't know but what he may be partly helpless, if he ever gets up\r
+again. I'm very sorry if it goes hard with you, Mrs. Moss, but my\r
+opinion is, looking at it one way, it'll be right for you to raise the\r
+money; and looking at it th' other way, you'll be obliged to pay it.\r
+You won't think ill o' me for speaking the truth."\r
+\r
+"Uncle," said Tom, looking up suddenly from his meditative view of the\r
+tablecloth, "I don't think it would be right for my aunt Moss to pay\r
+the money if it would be against my father's will for her to pay it;\r
+would it?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg looked surprised for a moment or two before he said: "Why,\r
+no, perhaps not, Tom; but then he'd ha' destroyed the note, you know.\r
+We must look for the note. What makes you think it 'ud be against his\r
+will?"\r
+\r
+"Why," said Tom, coloring, but trying to speak firmly, in spite of a\r
+boyish tremor, "I remember quite well, before I went to school to Mr.\r
+Stelling, my father said to me one night, when we were sitting by the\r
+fire together, and no one else was in the room----"\r
+\r
+Tom hesitated a little, and then went on.\r
+\r
+"He said something to me about Maggie, and then he said: 'I've always\r
+been good to my sister, though she married against my will, and I've\r
+lent Moss money; but I shall never think of distressing him to pay it;\r
+I'd rather lose it. My children must not mind being the poorer for\r
+that.' And now my father's ill, and not able to speak for himself, I\r
+shouldn't like anything to be done contrary to what he said to me."\r
+\r
+"Well, but then, my boy," said Uncle Glegg, whose good feeling led him\r
+to enter into Tom's wish, but who could not at once shake off his\r
+habitual abhorrence of such recklessness as destroying securities, or\r
+alienating anything important enough to make an appreciable difference\r
+in a man's property, "we should have to make away wi' the note, you\r
+know, if we're to guard against what may happen, supposing your\r
+father's made bankrupt----"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," interrupted his wife, severely, "mind what you're saying.\r
+You're putting yourself very forrard in other folks's business. If you\r
+speak rash, don't say it was my fault."\r
+\r
+"That's such a thing as I never heared of before," said uncle Pullet,\r
+who had been making haste with his lozenge in order to express his\r
+amazement,--"making away with a note! I should think anybody could set\r
+the constable on you for it."\r
+\r
+"Well, but," said Mrs. Tulliver, "if the note's worth all that money,\r
+why can't we pay it away, and save my things from going away? We've no\r
+call to meddle with your uncle and aunt Moss, Tom, if you think your\r
+father 'ud be angry when he gets well."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver had not studied the question of exchange, and was\r
+straining her mind after original ideas on the subject.\r
+\r
+"Pooh, pooh, pooh! you women don't understand these things," said\r
+uncle Glegg. "There's no way o' making it safe for Mr. and Mrs. Moss\r
+but destroying the note."\r
+\r
+"Then I hope you'll help me do it, uncle," said Tom, earnestly. "If my\r
+father shouldn't get well, I should be very unhappy to think anything\r
+had been done against his will that I could hinder. And I'm sure he\r
+meant me to remember what he said that evening. I ought to obey my\r
+father's wish about his property."\r
+\r
+Even Mrs. Glegg could not withhold her approval from Tom's words; she\r
+felt that the Dodson blood was certainly speaking in him, though, if\r
+his father had been a Dodson, there would never have been this wicked\r
+alienation of money. Maggie would hardly have restrained herself from\r
+leaping on Tom's neck, if her aunt Moss had not prevented her by\r
+herself rising and taking Tom's hand, while she said, with rather a\r
+choked voice:\r
+\r
+"You'll never be the poorer for this, my dear boy, if there's a God\r
+above; and if the money's wanted for your father, Moss and me 'ull pay\r
+it, the same as if there was ever such security. We'll do as we'd be\r
+done by; for if my children have got no other luck, they've got an\r
+honest father and mother."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Glegg, who had been meditating after Tom's words, "we\r
+shouldn't be doing any wrong by the creditors, supposing your father\r
+_was_ bankrupt. I've been thinking o' that, for I've been a creditor\r
+myself, and seen no end o' cheating. If he meant to give your aunt the\r
+money before ever he got into this sad work o' lawing, it's the same\r
+as if he'd made away with the note himself; for he'd made up his mind\r
+to be that much poorer. But there's a deal o' things to be considered,\r
+young man," Mr. Glegg added, looking admonishingly at Tom, "when you\r
+come to money business, and you may be taking one man's dinner away to\r
+make another man's breakfast. You don't understand that, I doubt?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do," said Tom, decidedly. "I know if I owe money to one man,\r
+I've no right to give it to another. But if my father had made up his\r
+mind to give my aunt the money before he was in debt, he had a right\r
+to do it."\r
+\r
+"Well done, young man! I didn't think you'd been so sharp," said uncle\r
+Glegg, with much candor. "But perhaps your father _did_ make away with\r
+the note. Let us go and see if we can find it in the chest."\r
+\r
+"It's in my father's room. Let us go too, aunt Gritty," whispered\r
+Maggie.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+A Vanishing Gleam\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver, even between the fits of spasmodic rigidity which had\r
+recurred at intervals ever since he had been found fallen from his\r
+horse, was usually in so apathetic a condition that the exits and\r
+entrances into his room were not felt to be of great importance. He\r
+had lain so still, with his eyes closed, all this morning, that Maggie\r
+told her aunt Moss she must not expect her father to take any notice\r
+of them.\r
+\r
+They entered very quietly, and Mrs. Moss took her seat near the head\r
+of the bed, while Maggie sat in her old place on the bed, and put her\r
+hand on her father's without causing any change in his face.\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg and Tom had also entered, treading softly, and were busy\r
+selecting the key of the old oak chest from the bunch which Tom had\r
+brought from his father's bureau. They succeeded in opening the\r
+chest,--which stood opposite the foot of Mr. Tulliver's bed,--and\r
+propping the lid with the iron holder, without much noise.\r
+\r
+"There's a tin box," whispered Mr. Glegg; "he'd most like put a small\r
+thing like a note in there. Lift it out, Tom; but I'll just lift up\r
+these deeds,--they're the deeds o' the house and mill, I suppose,--and\r
+see what there is under 'em."\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg had lifted out the parchments, and had fortunately drawn\r
+back a little, when the iron holder gave way, and the heavy lid fell\r
+with a loud bang that resounded over the house.\r
+\r
+Perhaps there was something in that sound more than the mere fact of\r
+the strong vibration that produced the instantaneous effect on the\r
+frame of the prostrate man, and for the time completely shook off the\r
+obstruction of paralysis. The chest had belonged to his father and his\r
+father's father, and it had always been rather a solemn business to\r
+visit it. All long-known objects, even a mere window fastening or a\r
+particular door-latch, have sounds which are a sort of recognized\r
+voice to us,--a voice that will thrill and awaken, when it has been\r
+used to touch deep-lying fibres. In the same moment, when all the eyes\r
+in the room were turned upon him, he started up and looked at the\r
+chest, the parchments in Mr. Glegg's hand, and Tom holding the tin\r
+box, with a glance of perfect consciousness and recognition.\r
+\r
+"What are you going to do with those deeds?" he said, in his ordinary\r
+tone of sharp questioning whenever he was irritated. "Come here, Tom.\r
+What do you do, going to my chest?"\r
+\r
+Tom obeyed, with some trembling; it was the first time his father had\r
+recognized him. But instead of saying anything more to him, his father\r
+continued to look with a growing distinctness of suspicion at Mr.\r
+Glegg and the deeds.\r
+\r
+"What's been happening, then?" he said sharply. "What are you meddling\r
+with my deeds for? Is Wakem laying hold of everything? Why don't you\r
+tell me what you've been a-doing?" he added impatiently, as Mr. Glegg\r
+advanced to the foot of the bed before speaking.\r
+\r
+"No, no, friend Tulliver," said Mr. Glegg, in a soothing tone.\r
+"Nobody's getting hold of anything as yet. We only came to look and\r
+see what was in the chest. You've been ill, you know, and we've had to\r
+look after things a bit. But let's hope you'll soon be well enough to\r
+attend to everything yourself."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver looked around him meditatively, at Tom, at Mr. Glegg, and\r
+at Maggie; then suddenly appearing aware that some one was seated by\r
+his side at the head of the bed he turned sharply round and saw his\r
+sister.\r
+\r
+"Eh, Gritty!" he said, in the half-sad, affectionate tone in which he\r
+had been wont to speak to her. "What! you're there, are you? How could\r
+you manage to leave the children?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, brother!" said good Mrs. Moss, too impulsive to be prudent, "I'm\r
+thankful I'm come now to see you yourself again; I thought you'd never\r
+know us any more."\r
+\r
+"What! have I had a stroke?" said Mr. Tulliver, anxiously, looking at\r
+Mr. Glegg.\r
+\r
+"A fall from your horse--shook you a bit,--that's all, I think," said\r
+Mr. Glegg. "But you'll soon get over it, let's hope."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver fixed his eyes on the bed-clothes, and remained silent\r
+for two or three minutes. A new shadow came over his face. He looked\r
+up at Maggie first, and said in a lower tone, "You got the letter,\r
+then, my wench?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, father," she said, kissing him with a full heart. She felt as if\r
+her father were come back to her from the dead, and her yearning to\r
+show him how she had always loved him could be fulfilled.\r
+\r
+"Where's your mother?" he said, so preoccupied that he received the\r
+kiss as passively as some quiet animal might have received it.\r
+\r
+"She's downstairs with my aunts, father. Shall I fetch her?"\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay; poor Bessy!" and his eyes turned toward Tom as Maggie left\r
+the room.\r
+\r
+"You'll have to take care of 'em both if I die, you know, Tom. You'll\r
+be badly off, I doubt. But you must see and pay everybody. And\r
+mind,--there's fifty pound o' Luke's as I put into the business,--he\r
+gave me a bit at a time, and he's got nothing to show for it. You must\r
+pay him first thing."\r
+\r
+Uncle Glegg involuntarily shook his head, and looked more concerned\r
+than ever, but Tom said firmly:\r
+\r
+"Yes, father. And haven't you a note from my uncle Moss for three\r
+hundred pounds? We came to look for that. What do you wish to be done\r
+about it, father?"\r
+\r
+"Ah! I'm glad you thought o' that, my lad," said Mr. Tulliver. "I\r
+allays meant to be easy about that money, because o' your aunt. You\r
+mustn't mind losing the money, if they can't pay it,--and it's like\r
+enough they can't. The note's in that box, mind! I allays meant to be\r
+good to you, Gritty," said Mr. Tulliver, turning to his sister; "but\r
+you know you aggravated me when you would have Moss."\r
+\r
+At this moment Maggie re-entered with her mother, who came in much\r
+agitated by the news that her husband was quite himself again.\r
+\r
+"Well, Bessy," he said, as she kissed him, "you must forgive me if\r
+you're worse off than you ever expected to be. But it's the fault o'\r
+the law,--it's none o' mine," he added angrily. "It's the fault o'\r
+raskills. Tom, you mind this: if ever you've got the chance, you make\r
+Wakem smart. If you don't, you're a good-for-nothing son. You might\r
+horse-whip him, but he'd set the law on you,--the law's made to take\r
+care o' raskills."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was getting excited, and an alarming flush was on his\r
+face. Mr. Glegg wanted to say something soothing, but he was prevented\r
+by Mr. Tulliver's speaking again to his wife. "They'll make a shift to\r
+pay everything, Bessy," he said, "and yet leave you your furniture;\r
+and your sisters'll do something for you--and Tom'll grow up--though\r
+what he's to be I don't know--I've done what I could--I've given him a\r
+eddication--and there's the little wench, she'll get married--but it's\r
+a poor tale----"\r
+\r
+The sanative effect of the strong vibration was exhausted, and with\r
+the last words the poor man fell again, rigid and insensible. Though\r
+this was only a recurrence of what had happened before, it struck all\r
+present as if it had been death, not only from its contrast with the\r
+completeness of the revival, but because his words had all had\r
+reference to the possibility that his death was near. But with poor\r
+Tulliver death was not to be a leap; it was to be a long descent under\r
+thickening shadows.\r
+\r
+Mr. Turnbull was sent for; but when he heard what had passed, he said\r
+this complete restoration, though only temporary, was a hopeful sign,\r
+proving that there was no permanent lesion to prevent ultimate\r
+recovery.\r
+\r
+Among the threads of the past which the stricken man had gathered up,\r
+he had omitted the bill of sale; the flash of memory had only lit up\r
+prominent ideas, and he sank into forgetfulness again with half his\r
+humiliation unlearned.\r
+\r
+But Tom was clear upon two points,--that his uncle Moss's note must be\r
+destroyed; and that Luke's money must be paid, if in no other way, out\r
+of his own and Maggie's money now in the savings bank. There were\r
+subjects, you perceive, on which Tom was much quicker than on the\r
+niceties of classical construction, or the relations of a mathematical\r
+demonstration.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster\r
+\r
+\r
+The next day, at ten o'clock, Tom was on his way to St. Ogg's, to see\r
+his uncle Deane, who was to come home last night, his aunt had said;\r
+and Tom had made up his mind that his uncle Deane was the right person\r
+to ask for advice about getting some employment. He was in a great way\r
+of business; he had not the narrow notions of uncle Glegg; and he had\r
+risen in the world on a scale of advancement which accorded with Tom's\r
+ambition.\r
+\r
+It was a dark, chill, misty morning, likely to end in rain,--one of\r
+those mornings when even happy people take refuge in their hopes. And\r
+Tom was very unhappy; he felt the humiliation as well as the\r
+prospective hardships of his lot with all the keenness of a proud\r
+nature; and with all his resolute dutifulness toward his father there\r
+mingled an irrepressible indignation against him which gave misfortune\r
+the less endurable aspect of a wrong. Since these were the\r
+consequences of going to law, his father was really blamable, as his\r
+aunts and uncles had always said he was; and it was a significant\r
+indication of Tom's character, that though he thought his aunts ought\r
+to do something more for his mother, he felt nothing like Maggie's\r
+violent resentment against them for showing no eager tenderness and\r
+generosity. There were no impulses in Tom that led him to expect what\r
+did not present itself to him as a right to be demanded. Why should\r
+people give away their money plentifully to those who had not taken\r
+care of their own money? Tom saw some justice in severity; and all the\r
+more, because he had confidence in himself that he should never\r
+deserve that just severity. It was very hard upon him that he should\r
+be put at this disadvantage in life by his father's want of prudence;\r
+but he was not going to complain and to find fault with people because\r
+they did not make everything easy for him. He would ask no one to help\r
+him, more than to give him work and pay him for it. Poor Tom was not\r
+without his hopes to take refuge in under the chill damp imprisonment\r
+of the December fog, which seemed only like a part of his home\r
+troubles. At sixteen, the mind that has the strongest affinity for\r
+fact cannot escape illusion and self-flattery; and Tom, in sketching\r
+his future, had no other guide in arranging his facts than the\r
+suggestions of his own brave self-reliance. Both Mr. Glegg and Mr.\r
+Deane, he knew, had been very poor once; he did not want to save money\r
+slowly and retire on a moderate fortune like his uncle Glegg, but he\r
+would be like his uncle Deane--get a situation in some great house of\r
+business and rise fast. He had scarcely seen anything of his uncle\r
+Deane for the last three years--the two families had been getting\r
+wider apart; but for this very reason Tom was the more hopeful about\r
+applying to him. His uncle Glegg, he felt sure, would never encourage\r
+any spirited project, but he had a vague imposing idea of the\r
+resources at his uncle Deane's command. He had heard his father say,\r
+long ago, how Deane had made himself so valuable to Guest & Co. that\r
+they were glad enough to offer him a share in the business; that was\r
+what Tom resolved _he_ would do. It was intolerable to think of being\r
+poor and looked down upon all one's life. He would provide for his\r
+mother and sister, and make every one say that he was a man of high\r
+character. He leaped over the years in this way, and, in the haste of\r
+strong purpose and strong desire, did not see how they would be made\r
+up of slow days, hours, and minutes.\r
+\r
+By the time he had crossed the stone bridge over the Floss and was\r
+entering St. Ogg's, he was thinking that he would buy his father's\r
+mill and land again when he was rich enough, and improve the house and\r
+live there; he should prefer it to any smarter, newer place, and he\r
+could keep as many horses and dogs as he liked.\r
+\r
+Walking along the street with a firm, rapid step, at this point in his\r
+reverie he was startled by some one who had crossed without his\r
+notice, and who said to him in a rough, familiar voice:\r
+\r
+"Why, Master Tom, how's your father this morning?" It was a publican\r
+of St. Ogg's, one of his father's customers.\r
+\r
+Tom disliked being spoken to just then; but he said civilly, "He's\r
+still very ill, thank you."\r
+\r
+"Ay, it's been a sore chance for you, young man, hasn't it,--this\r
+lawsuit turning out against him?" said the publican, with a confused,\r
+beery idea of being good-natured.\r
+\r
+Tom reddened and passed on; he would have felt it like the handling of\r
+a bruise, even if there had been the most polite and delicate\r
+reference to his position.\r
+\r
+"That's Tulliver's son," said the publican to a grocer standing on the\r
+adjacent door-step.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said the grocer, "I thought I knew his features. He takes after\r
+his mother's family; she was a Dodson. He's a fine, straight youth;\r
+what's he been brought up to?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! to turn up his nose at his father's customers, and be a fine\r
+gentleman,--not much else, I think."\r
+\r
+Tom, roused from his dream of the future to a thorough consciousness\r
+of the present, made all the greater haste to reach the warehouse\r
+offices of Guest & Co., where he expected to find his uncle Deane. But\r
+this was Mr. Deane's morning at the band, a clerk told him, and with\r
+some contempt for his ignorance; Mr. Deane was not to be found in\r
+River Street on a Thursday morning.\r
+\r
+At the bank Tom was admitted into the private room where his uncle\r
+was, immediately after sending in his name. Mr. Deane was auditing\r
+accounts; but he looked up as Tom entered, and putting out his hand,\r
+said, "Well, Tom, nothing fresh the matter at home, I hope? How's your\r
+father?"\r
+\r
+"Much the same, thank you, uncle," said Tom, feeling nervous. "But I\r
+want to speak to you, please, when you're at liberty."\r
+\r
+"Sit down, sit down," said Mr. Deane, relapsing into his accounts, in\r
+which he and the managing-clerk remained so absorbed for the next\r
+half-hour that Tom began to wonder whether he should have to sit in\r
+this way till the bank closed,--there seemed so little tendency toward\r
+a conclusion in the quiet, monotonous procedure of these sleek,\r
+prosperous men of business. Would his uncle give him a place in the\r
+bank? It would be very dull, prosy work, he thought, writing there\r
+forever to the loud ticking of a timepiece. He preferred some other\r
+way of getting rich. But at last there was a change; his uncle took a\r
+pen and wrote something with a flourish at the end.\r
+\r
+"You'll just step up to Torry's now, Mr. Spence, will you?" said Mr.\r
+Deane, and the clock suddenly became less loud and deliberate in Tom's\r
+ears.\r
+\r
+"Well, Tom," said Mr. Deane, when they were alone, turning his\r
+substantial person a little in his chair, and taking out his\r
+snuff-box; "what's the business, my boy; what's the business?" Mr.\r
+Deane, who had heard from his wife what had passed the day before,\r
+thought Tom was come to appeal to him for some means of averting the\r
+sale.\r
+\r
+"I hope you'll excuse me for troubling you, uncle," said Tom,\r
+coloring, but speaking in a tone which, though, tremulous, had a\r
+certain proud independence in it; "but I thought you were the best\r
+person to advise me what to do."\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Mr. Deane, reserving his pinch of snuff, and looking at Tom\r
+with new attention, "let us hear."\r
+\r
+"I want to get a situation, uncle, so that I may earn some money,"\r
+said Tom, who never fell into circumlocution.\r
+\r
+"A situation?" said Mr. Deane, and then took his pinch of snuff with\r
+elaborate justice to each nostril. Tom thought snuff-taking a most\r
+provoking habit.\r
+\r
+"Why, let me see, how old are you?" said Mr. Deane, as he threw\r
+himself backward again.\r
+\r
+"Sixteen; I mean, I am going in seventeen," said Tom, hoping his uncle\r
+noticed how much beard he had.\r
+\r
+"Let me see; your father had some notion of making you an engineer, I\r
+think?"\r
+\r
+"But I don't think I could get any money at that for a long while,\r
+could I?"\r
+\r
+"That's true; but people don't get much money at anything, my boy,\r
+when they're only sixteen. You've had a good deal of schooling,\r
+however; I suppose you're pretty well up in accounts, eh? You\r
+understand book keeping?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Tom, rather falteringly. "I was in Practice. But Mr.\r
+Stelling says I write a good hand, uncle. That's my writing," added\r
+Tom, laying on the table a copy of the list he had made yesterday.\r
+\r
+"Ah! that's good, that's good. But, you see, the best hand in the\r
+world'll not get you a better place than a copying-clerk's, if you\r
+know nothing of book-keeping,--nothing of accounts. And a\r
+copying-clerk's a cheap article. But what have you been learning at\r
+school, then?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane had not occupied himself with methods of education, and had\r
+no precise conception of what went forward in expensive schools.\r
+\r
+"We learned Latin," said Tom, pausing a little between each item, as\r
+if he were turning over the books in his school-desk to assist his\r
+memory,--"a good deal of Latin; and the last year I did Themes, one\r
+week in Latin and one in English; and Greek and Roman history; and\r
+Euclid; and I began Algebra, but I left it off again; and we had one\r
+day every week for Arithmetic. Then I used to have drawing-lessons;\r
+and there were several other books we either read or learned out\r
+of,--English Poetry, and Horæ Paulinæ and Blair's Rhetoric, the last\r
+half."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane tapped his snuff-box again and screwed up his mouth; he felt\r
+in the position of many estimable persons when they had read the New\r
+Tariff, and found how many commodities were imported of which they\r
+knew nothing; like a cautious man of business, he was not going to\r
+speak rashly of a raw material in which he had had no experience. But\r
+the presumption was, that if it had been good for anything, so\r
+successful a man as himself would hardly have been ignorant of it.\r
+\r
+About Latin he had an opinion, and thought that in case of another\r
+war, since people would no longer wear hair-powder, it would be well\r
+to put a tax upon Latin, as a luxury much run upon by the higher\r
+classes, and not telling at all on the ship-owning department. But,\r
+for what he knew, the Horæ Paulinæ might be something less neutral. On\r
+the whole, this list of acquirements gave him a sort of repulsion\r
+toward poor Tom.\r
+\r
+"Well," he said at last, in rather a cold, sardonic tone, "you've had\r
+three years at these things,--you must be pretty strong in 'em. Hadn't\r
+you better take up some line where they'll come in handy?"\r
+\r
+Tom colored, and burst out, with new energy:\r
+\r
+"I'd rather not have any employment of that sort, uncle. I don't like\r
+Latin and those things. I don't know what I could do with them unless\r
+I went as usher in a school; and I don't know them well enough for\r
+that! besides, I would as soon carry a pair of panniers. I don't want\r
+to be that sort of person. I should like to enter into some business\r
+where I can get on,--a manly business, where I should have to look\r
+after things, and get credit for what I did. And I shall want to keep\r
+my mother and sister."\r
+\r
+"Ah, young gentleman," said Mr. Deane, with that tendency to repress\r
+youthful hopes which stout and successful men of fifty find one of\r
+their easiest duties, "that's sooner said than done,--sooner said than\r
+done."\r
+\r
+"But didn't _you_ get on in that way, uncle?" said Tom, a little\r
+irritated that Mr. Deane did not enter more rapidly into his views. "I\r
+mean, didn't you rise from one place to another through your abilities\r
+and good conduct?"\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, sir," said Mr. Deane, spreading himself in his chair a\r
+little, and entering with great readiness into a retrospect of his own\r
+career. "But I'll tell you how I got on. It wasn't by getting astride\r
+a stick and thinking it would turn into a horse if I sat on it long\r
+enough. I kept my eyes and ears open, sir, and I wasn't too fond of my\r
+own back, and I made my master's interest my own. Why, with only\r
+looking into what went on in the mill, I found out how there was a\r
+waste of five hundred a-year that might be hindered. Why, sir, I\r
+hadn't more schooling to begin with than a charity boy; but I saw\r
+pretty soon that I couldn't get on far enough without mastering\r
+accounts, and I learned 'em between working hours, after I'd been\r
+unlading. Look here." Mr. Deane opened a book and pointed to the page.\r
+"I write a good hand enough, and I'll match anybody at all sorts of\r
+reckoning by the head; and I got it all by hard work, and paid for it\r
+out of my own earnings,--often out of my own dinner and supper. And I\r
+looked into the nature of all the things we had to do in the business,\r
+and picked up knowledge as I went about my work, and turned it over in\r
+my head. Why, I'm no mechanic,--I never pretended to be--but I've\r
+thought of a thing or two that the mechanics never thought of, and\r
+it's made a fine difference in our returns. And there isn't an article\r
+shipped or unshipped at our wharf but I know the quality of it. If I\r
+got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for 'em. If you want\r
+to slip into a round hole, you must make a ball of yourself; that's\r
+where it is."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane tapped his box again. He had been led on by pure enthusiasm\r
+in his subject, and had really forgotten what bearing this\r
+retrospective survey had on his listener. He had found occasion for\r
+saying the same thing more than once before, and was not distinctly\r
+aware that he had not his port-wine before him.\r
+\r
+"Well, uncle," said Tom, with a slight complaint in his tone, "that's\r
+what I should like to do. Can't _I_ get on in the same way?"\r
+\r
+"In the same way?" said Mr. Deane, eyeing Tom with quiet deliberation.\r
+"There go two or three questions to that, Master Tom. That depends on\r
+what sort of material you are, to begin with, and whether you've been\r
+put into the right mill. But I'll tell you what it is. Your poor\r
+father went the wrong way to work in giving you an education. It\r
+wasn't my business, and I didn't interfere; but it is as I thought it\r
+would be. You've had a sort of learning that's all very well for a\r
+young fellow like our Mr. Stephen Guest, who'll have nothing to do but\r
+sign checks all his life, and may as well have Latin inside his head\r
+as any other sort of stuffing."\r
+\r
+"But, uncle," said Tom, earnestly, "I don't see why the Latin need\r
+hinder me from getting on in business. I shall soon forget it all; it\r
+makes no difference to me. I had to do my lessons at school, but I\r
+always thought they'd never be of any use to me afterward; I didn't\r
+care about them."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, that's all very well," said Mr. Deane; "but it doesn't alter\r
+what I was going to say. Your Latin and rigmarole may soon dry off\r
+you, but you'll be but a bare stick after that. Besides, it's whitened\r
+your hands and taken the rough work out of you. And what do you know?\r
+Why, you know nothing about book-keeping, to begin with, and not so\r
+much of reckoning as a common shopman. You'll have to begin at a low\r
+round of the ladder, let me tell you, if you mean to get on in life.\r
+It's no use forgetting the education your father's been paying for, if\r
+you don't give yourself a new un."\r
+\r
+Tom bit his lips hard; he felt as if the tears were rising, and he\r
+would rather die than let them.\r
+\r
+"You want me to help you to a situation," Mr. Deane went on; "well,\r
+I've no fault to find with that. I'm willing to do something for you.\r
+But you youngsters nowadays think you're to begin with living well and\r
+working easy; you've no notion of running afoot before you get\r
+horseback. Now, you must remember what you are,--you're a lad of\r
+sixteen, trained to nothing particular. There's heaps of your sort,\r
+like so many pebbles, made to fit in nowhere. Well, you might be\r
+apprenticed to some business,--a chemist's and druggist's perhaps;\r
+your Latin might come in a bit there----"\r
+\r
+Tom was going to speak, but Mr. Deane put up his hand and said:\r
+\r
+"Stop! hear what I've got to say. You don't want to be a 'prentice,--I\r
+know, I know,--you want to make more haste, and you don't want to\r
+stand behind a counter. But if you're a copying-clerk, you'll have to\r
+stand behind a desk, and stare at your ink and paper all day; there\r
+isn't much out-look there, and you won't be much wiser at the end of\r
+the year than at the beginning. The world isn't made of pen, ink, and\r
+paper, and if you're to get on in the world, young man, you must know\r
+what the world's made of. Now the best chance for you 'ud be to have a\r
+place on a wharf, or in a warehouse, where you'd learn the smell of\r
+things, but you wouldn't like that, I'll be bound; you'd have to stand\r
+cold and wet, and be shouldered about by rough fellows. You're too\r
+fine a gentleman for that."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane paused and looked hard at Tom, who certainly felt some\r
+inward struggle before he could reply.\r
+\r
+"I would rather do what will be best for me in the end, sir; I would\r
+put up with what was disagreeable."\r
+\r
+"That's well, if you can carry it out. But you must remember it isn't\r
+only laying hold of a rope, you must go on pulling. It's the mistake\r
+you lads make that have got nothing either in your brains or your\r
+pocket, to think you've got a better start in the world if you stick\r
+yourselves in a place where you can keep your coats clean, and have\r
+the shopwenches take you for fine gentlemen. That wasn't the way _I_\r
+started, young man; when I was sixteen, my jacket smelt of tar, and I\r
+wasn't afraid of handling cheeses. That's the reason I can wear good\r
+broadcloth now, and have my legs under the same table with the head\r
+of the best firms in St. Ogg's."\r
+\r
+Uncle Deane tapped his box, and seemed to expand a little under his\r
+waistcoat and gold chain, as he squared his shoulders in the chair.\r
+\r
+"Is there any place at liberty that you know of now, uncle, that I\r
+should do for? I should like to set to work at once," said Tom, with a\r
+slight tremor in his voice.\r
+\r
+"Stop a bit, stop a bit; we mustn't be in too great a hurry. You must\r
+bear in mind, if I put you in a place you're a bit young for, because\r
+you happen to be my nephew, I shall be responsible for you. And\r
+there's no better reason, you know, than your being my nephew; because\r
+it remains to be seen whether you're good for anything."\r
+\r
+"I hope I shall never do you any discredit, uncle," said Tom, hurt, as\r
+all boys are at the statement of the unpleasant truth that people feel\r
+no ground for trusting them. "I care about my own credit too much for\r
+that."\r
+\r
+"Well done, Tom, well done! That's the right spirit, and I never\r
+refuse to help anybody if they've a mind to do themselves justice.\r
+There's a young man of two-and-twenty I've got my eye on now. I shall\r
+do what I can for that young man; he's got some pith in him. But then,\r
+you see, he's made good use of his time,--a first-rate calculator,--\r
+can tell you the cubic contents of anything in no time, and put me up\r
+the other day to a new market for Swedish bark; he's uncommonly\r
+knowing in manufactures, that young fellow."\r
+\r
+"I'd better set about learning book-keeping, hadn't I, uncle?" said\r
+Tom, anxious to prove his readiness to exert himself.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, you can't do amiss there. But--Ah, Spence, you're back\r
+again. Well Tom, there's nothing more to be said just now, I think,\r
+and I must go to business again. Good-by. Remember me to your mother."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane put out his hand, with an air of friendly dismissal, and Tom\r
+had not courage to ask another question, especially in the presence of\r
+Mr. Spence. So he went out again into the cold damp air. He had to\r
+call at his uncle Glegg's about the money in the Savings Bank, and by\r
+the time he set out again the mist had thickened, and he could not see\r
+very far before him; but going along River Street again, he was\r
+startled, when he was within two yards of the projecting side of a\r
+shop-window, by the words "Dorlcote Mill" in large letters on a\r
+hand-bill, placed as if on purpose to stare at him. It was the\r
+catalogue of the sale to take place the next week; it was a reason for\r
+hurrying faster out of the town.\r
+\r
+Poor Tom formed no visions of the distant future as he made his way\r
+homeward; he only felt that the present was very hard. It seemed a\r
+wrong toward him that his uncle Deane had no confidence in him,--did\r
+not see at once that he should acquit himself well, which Tom himself\r
+was as certain of as of the daylight. Apparently he, Tom Tulliver, was\r
+likely to be held of small account in the world; and for the first\r
+time he felt a sinking of heart under the sense that he really was\r
+very ignorant, and could do very little. Who was that enviable young\r
+man that could tell the cubic contents of things in no time, and make\r
+suggestions about Swedish bark! Tom had been used to be so entirely\r
+satisfied with himself, in spite of his breaking down in a\r
+demonstration, and construing _nunc illas promite vires_ as "now\r
+promise those men"; but now he suddenly felt at a disadvantage,\r
+because he knew less than some one else knew. There must be a world of\r
+things connected with that Swedish bark, which, if he only knew them,\r
+might have helped him to get on. It would have been much easier to\r
+make a figure with a spirited horse and a new saddle.\r
+\r
+Two hours ago, as Tom was walking to St. Ogg's, he saw the distant\r
+future before him as he might have seen a tempting stretch of smooth\r
+sandy beach beyond a belt of flinty shingles; he was on the grassy\r
+bank then, and thought the shingles might soon be passed. But now his\r
+feet were on the sharp stones; the belt of shingles had widened, and\r
+the stretch of sand had dwindled into narrowness.\r
+\r
+"What did my Uncle Deane say, Tom?" said Maggie, putting her arm\r
+through Tom's as he was warming himself rather drearily by the kitchen\r
+fire. "Did he say he would give you a situation?"\r
+\r
+"No, he didn't say that. He didn't quite promise me anything; he\r
+seemed to think I couldn't have a very good situation. I'm too young."\r
+\r
+"But didn't he speak kindly, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"Kindly? Pooh! what's the use of talking about that? I wouldn't care\r
+about his speaking kindly, if I could get a situation. But it's such a\r
+nuisance and bother; I've been at school all this while learning Latin\r
+and things,--not a bit of good to me,--and now my uncle says I must\r
+set about learning book-keeping and calculation, and those things. He\r
+seems to make out I'm good for nothing."\r
+\r
+Tom's mouth twitched with a bitter expression as he looked at the\r
+fire.\r
+\r
+"Oh, what a pity we haven't got Dominie Sampson!" said Maggie, who\r
+couldn't help mingling some gayety with their sadness. "If he had\r
+taught me book-keeping by double entry and after the Italian method,\r
+as he did Lucy Bertram, I could teach you, Tom."\r
+\r
+"_You_ teach! Yes, I dare say. That's always the tone you take," said\r
+Tom.\r
+\r
+"Dear Tom, I was only joking," said Maggie, putting her cheek against\r
+his coat-sleeve.\r
+\r
+"But it's always the same, Maggie," said Tom, with the little frown he\r
+put on when he was about to be justifiably severe. "You're always\r
+setting yourself up above me and every one else, and I've wanted to\r
+tell you about it several times. You ought not to have spoken as you\r
+did to my uncles and aunts; you should leave it to me to take care of\r
+my mother and you, and not put yourself forward. You think you know\r
+better than any one, but you're almost always wrong. I can judge much\r
+better than you can."\r
+\r
+Poor Tom! he had just come from being lectured and made to feel his\r
+inferiority; the reaction of his strong, self-asserting nature must\r
+take place somehow; and here was a case in which he could justly show\r
+himself dominant. Maggie's cheek flushed and her lip quivered with\r
+conflicting resentment and affection, and a certain awe as well as\r
+admiration of Tom's firmer and more effective character. She did not\r
+answer immediately; very angry words rose to her lips, but they were\r
+driven back again, and she said at last:\r
+\r
+"You often think I'm conceited, Tom, when I don't mean what I say at\r
+all in that way. I don't mean to put myself above you; I know you\r
+behaved better than I did yesterday. But you are always so harsh to\r
+me, Tom."\r
+\r
+With the last words the resentment was rising again.\r
+\r
+"No, I'm not harsh," said Tom, with severe decision. "I'm always kind\r
+to you, and so I shall be; I shall always take care of you. But you\r
+must mind what I say."\r
+\r
+Their mother came in now, and Maggie rushed away, that her burst of\r
+tears, which she felt must come, might not happen till she was safe\r
+upstairs. They were very bitter tears; everybody in the world seemed\r
+so hard and unkind to Maggie; there was no indulgence, no fondness,\r
+such as she imagined when she fashioned the world afresh in her own\r
+thoughts. In books there were people who were always agreeable or\r
+tender, and delighted to do things that made one happy, and who did\r
+not show their kindness by finding fault. The world outside the books\r
+was not a happy one, Maggie felt; it seemed to be a world where people\r
+behaved the best to those they did not pretend to love, and that did\r
+not belong to them. And if life had no love in it, what else was there\r
+for Maggie? Nothing but poverty and the companionship of her mother's\r
+narrow griefs, perhaps of her father's heart-cutting childish\r
+dependence. There is no hopelessness so sad as that of early youth,\r
+when the soul is made up of wants, and has no long memories, no\r
+superadded life in the life of others; though we who looked on think\r
+lightly of such premature despair, as if our vision of the future\r
+lightened the blind sufferer's present.\r
+\r
+Maggie, in her brown frock, with her eyes reddened and her heavy hair\r
+pushed back, looking from the bed where her father lay to the dull\r
+walls of this sad chamber which was the centre of her world, was a\r
+creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that was beautiful\r
+and glad; thirsty for all knowledge; with an ear straining after\r
+dreamy music that died away and would not come near to her; with a\r
+blind, unconscious yearning for something that would link together the\r
+wonderful impressions of this mysterious life, and give her soul a\r
+sense of home in it.\r
+\r
+No wonder, when there is this contrast between the outward and the\r
+inward, that painful collisions come of it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VI\r
+\r
+Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a\r
+Pocket-Knife\r
+\r
+\r
+In that dark time of December, the sale of the household furniture\r
+lasted beyond the middle of the second day. Mr. Tulliver, who had\r
+begun, in his intervals of consciousness, to manifest an irritability\r
+which often appeared to have as a direct effect the recurrence of\r
+spasmodic rigidity and insensibility, had lain in this living death\r
+throughout the critical hours when the noise of the sale came nearest\r
+to his chamber. Mr. Turnbull had decided that it would be a less risk\r
+to let him remain where he was than to remove him to Luke's\r
+cottage,--a plan which the good Luke had proposed to Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+thinking it would be very bad if the master were "to waken up" at the\r
+noise of the sale; and the wife and children had sat imprisoned in the\r
+silent chamber, watching the large prostrate figure on the bed, and\r
+trembling lest the blank face should suddenly show some response to\r
+the sounds which fell on their own ears with such obstinate, painful\r
+repetition.\r
+\r
+But it was over at last, that time of importunate certainty and\r
+eye-straining suspense. The sharp sound of a voice, almost as metallic\r
+as the rap that followed it, had ceased; the tramping of footsteps on\r
+the gravel had died out. Mrs. Tulliver's blond face seemed aged ten\r
+years by the last thirty hours; the poor woman's mind had been busy\r
+divining when her favorite things were being knocked down by the\r
+terrible hammer; her heart had been fluttering at the thought that\r
+first one thing and then another had gone to be identified as hers in\r
+the hateful publicity of the Golden Lion; and all the while she had to\r
+sit and make no sign of this inward agitation. Such things bring lines\r
+in well-rounded faces, and broaden the streaks of white among the\r
+hairs that once looked as if they had been dipped in pure sunshine.\r
+Already, at three o'clock, Kezia, the good-hearted, bad-tempered\r
+housemaid, who regarded all people that came to the sale as her\r
+personal enemies, the dirt on whose feet was of a peculiarly vile\r
+quality, had begun to scrub and swill with an energy much assisted by\r
+a continual low muttering against "folks as came to buy up other\r
+folk's things," and made light of "scrazing" the tops of mahogany\r
+tables over which better folks than themselves had had to--suffer a\r
+waste of tissue through evaporation. She was not scrubbing\r
+indiscriminately, for there would be further dirt of the same\r
+atrocious kind made by people who had still to fetch away their\r
+purchases; but she was bent on bringing the parlor, where that\r
+"pipe-smoking pig," the bailiff, had sat, to such an appearance of\r
+scant comfort as could be given to it by cleanliness and the few\r
+articles of furniture bought in for the family. Her mistress and the\r
+young folks should have their tea in it that night, Kezia was\r
+determined.\r
+\r
+It was between five and six o'clock, near the usual teatime, when she\r
+came upstairs and said that Master Tom was wanted. The person who\r
+wanted him was in the kitchen, and in the first moments, by the\r
+imperfect fire and candle light, Tom had not even an indefinite sense\r
+of any acquaintance with the rather broad-set but active figure,\r
+perhaps two years older than himself, that looked at him with a pair\r
+of blue eyes set in a disc of freckles, and pulled some curly red\r
+locks with a strong intention of respect. A low-crowned\r
+oilskin-covered hat, and a certain shiny deposit of dirt on the rest\r
+of the costume, as of tablets prepared for writing upon, suggested a\r
+calling that had to do with boats; but this did not help Tom's memory.\r
+\r
+"Sarvant, Master Tom," said he of the red locks, with a smile which\r
+seemed to break through a self-imposed air of melancholy. "You don't\r
+know me again, I doubt," he went on, as Tom continued to look at him\r
+inquiringly; "but I'd like to talk to you by yourself a bit, please."\r
+\r
+"There's a fire i' the parlor, Master Tom," said Kezia, who objected\r
+to leaving the kitchen in the crisis of toasting.\r
+\r
+"Come this way, then," said Tom, wondering if this young fellow\r
+belonged to Guest & Co.'s Wharf, for his imagination ran continually\r
+toward that particular spot; and uncle Deane might any time be sending\r
+for him to say that there was a situation at liberty.\r
+\r
+The bright fire in the parlor was the only light that showed the few\r
+chairs, the bureau, the carpetless floor, and the one table--no, not\r
+the _one_ table; there was a second table, in a corner, with a large\r
+Bible and a few other books upon it. It was this new strange bareness\r
+that Tom felt first, before he thought of looking again at the face\r
+which was also lit up by the fire, and which stole a half-shy,\r
+questioning glance at him as the entirely strange voice said:\r
+\r
+"Why! you don't remember Bob, then, as you gen the pocket-knife to,\r
+Mr. Tom?"\r
+\r
+The rough-handled pocket-knife was taken out in the same moment, and\r
+the largest blade opened by way of irresistible demonstration.\r
+\r
+"What! Bob Jakin?" said Tom, not with any cordial delight, for he felt\r
+a little ashamed of that early intimacy symbolized by the\r
+pocket-knife, and was not at all sure that Bob's motives for recalling\r
+it were entirely admirable.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, Bob Jakin, if Jakin it must be, 'cause there's so many Bobs\r
+as you went arter the squerrils with, that day as I plumped right down\r
+from the bough, and bruised my shins a good un--but I got the squerril\r
+tight for all that, an' a scratter it was. An' this littlish blade's\r
+broke, you see, but I wouldn't hev a new un put in, 'cause they might\r
+be cheatin' me an' givin' me another knife instid, for there isn't\r
+such a blade i' the country,--it's got used to my hand, like. An'\r
+there was niver nobody else gen me nothin' but what I got by my own\r
+sharpness, only you, Mr. Tom; if it wasn't Bill Fawks as gen me the\r
+terrier pup istid o' drowndin't it, an' I had to jaw him a good un\r
+afore he'd give it me."\r
+\r
+Bob spoke with a sharp and rather treble volubility, and got through\r
+his long speech with surprising despatch, giving the blade of his\r
+knife an affectionate rub on his sleeve when he had finished.\r
+\r
+"Well, Bob," said Tom, with a slight air of patronage, the foregoing\r
+reminscences having disposed him to be as friendly as was becoming,\r
+though there was no part of his acquaintance with Bob that he\r
+remembered better than the cause of their parting quarrel; "is there\r
+anything I can do for you?"\r
+\r
+"Why, no, Mr. Tom," answered Bob, shutting up his knife with a click\r
+and returning it to his pocket, where he seemed to be feeling for\r
+something else. "I shouldn't ha' come back upon you now ye're i'\r
+trouble, an' folks say as the master, as I used to frighten the birds\r
+for, an' he flogged me a bit for fun when he catched me eatin' the\r
+turnip, as they say he'll niver lift up his head no more,--I shouldn't\r
+ha' come now to ax you to gi' me another knife 'cause you gen me one\r
+afore. If a chap gives me one black eye, that's enough for me; I\r
+sha'n't ax him for another afore I sarve him out; an' a good turn's\r
+worth as much as a bad un, anyhow. I shall niver grow down'ards again,\r
+Mr. Tom, an' you war the little chap as I liked the best when _I_ war\r
+a little chap, for all you leathered me, and wouldn't look at me\r
+again. There's Dick Brumby, there, I could leather him as much as I'd\r
+a mind; but lors! you get tired o' leatherin' a chap when you can\r
+niver make him see what you want him to shy at. I'n seen chaps as 'ud\r
+stand starin' at a bough till their eyes shot out, afore they'd see as\r
+a bird's tail warn't a leaf. It's poor work goin' wi' such raff. But\r
+you war allays a rare un at shying, Mr. Tom, an' I could trusten to\r
+you for droppin' down wi' your stick in the nick o' time at a runnin'\r
+rat, or a stoat, or that, when I war a-beatin' the bushes."\r
+\r
+Bob had drawn out a dirty canvas bag, and would perhaps not have\r
+paused just then if Maggie had not entered the room and darted a look\r
+of surprise and curiosity at him, whereupon he pulled his red locks\r
+again with due respect. But the next moment the sense of the altered\r
+room came upon Maggie with a force that overpowered the thought of\r
+Bob's presence. Her eyes had immediately glanced from him to the place\r
+where the bookcase had hung; there was nothing now but the oblong\r
+unfaded space on the wall, and below it the small table with the Bible\r
+and the few other books.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom!" she burst out, clasping her hands, "where are the books? I\r
+thought my uncle Glegg said he would buy them. Didn't he? Are those\r
+all they've left us?"\r
+\r
+"I suppose so," said Tom, with a sort of desperate indifference. "Why\r
+should they buy many books when they bought so little furniture?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, but, Tom," said Maggie, her eyes filling with tears, as she\r
+rushed up to the table to see what books had been rescued. "Our dear\r
+old Pilgrim's Progress that you colored with your little paints; and\r
+that picture of Pilgrim with a mantle on, looking just like a\r
+turtle--oh dear!" Maggie went on, half sobbing as she turned over the\r
+few books, "I thought we should never part with that while we lived;\r
+everything is going away from us; the end of our lives will have\r
+nothing in it like the beginning!"\r
+\r
+Maggie turned away from the table and threw herself into a chair, with\r
+the big tears ready to roll down her cheeks, quite blinded to the\r
+presence of Bob, who was looking at her with the pursuant gaze of an\r
+intelligent dumb animal, with perceptions more perfect than his\r
+comprehension.\r
+\r
+"Well, Bob," said Tom, feeling that the subject of the books was\r
+unseasonable, "I suppose you just came to see me because we're in\r
+trouble? That was very good-natured of you."\r
+\r
+"I'll tell you how it is, Master Tom," said Bob, beginning to untwist\r
+his canvas bag. "You see, I'n been with a barge this two 'ear; that's\r
+how I'n been gettin' my livin',--if it wasn't when I was tentin' the\r
+furnace, between whiles, at Torry's mill. But a fortni't ago I'd a\r
+rare bit o' luck,--I allays thought I was a lucky chap, for I niver\r
+set a trap but what I catched something; but this wasn't trap, it was\r
+a fire i' Torry's mill, an' I doused it, else it 'ud set th' oil\r
+alight, an' the genelman gen me ten suvreigns; he gen me 'em himself\r
+last week. An' he said first, I was a sperrited chap,--but I knowed\r
+that afore,--but then he outs wi' the ten suvreigns, an' that war\r
+summat new. Here they are, all but one!" Here Bob emptied the canvas\r
+bag on the table. "An' when I'd got 'em, my head was all of a boil\r
+like a kettle o' broth, thinkin' what sort o' life I should take to,\r
+for there war a many trades I'd thought on; for as for the barge, I'm\r
+clean tired out wi't, for it pulls the days out till they're as long\r
+as pigs' chitterlings. An' I thought first I'd ha' ferrets an' dogs,\r
+an' be a rat-catcher; an' then I thought as I should like a bigger way\r
+o' life, as I didn't know so well; for I'n seen to the bottom o'\r
+rat-catching; an' I thought, an' thought, till at last I settled I'd\r
+be a packman,--for they're knowin' fellers, the packmen are,--an' I'd\r
+carry the lightest things I could i' my pack; an' there'd be a use for\r
+a feller's tongue, as is no use neither wi' rats nor barges. An' I\r
+should go about the country far an' wide, an' come round the women wi'\r
+my tongue, an' get my dinner hot at the public,--lors! it 'ud be a\r
+lovely life!"\r
+\r
+Bob paused, and then said, with defiant decision, as if resolutely\r
+turning his back on that paradisaic picture:\r
+\r
+"But I don't mind about it, not a chip! An' I'n changed one o' the\r
+suvreigns to buy my mother a goose for dinner, an' I'n bought a blue\r
+plush wescoat, an' a sealskin cap,--for if I meant to be a packman,\r
+I'd do it respectable. But I don't mind about it, not a chip! My yead\r
+isn't a turnip, an' I shall p'r'aps have a chance o' dousing another\r
+fire afore long. I'm a lucky chap. So I'll thank you to take the nine\r
+suvreigns, Mr. Tom, and set yoursen up with 'em somehow, if it's true\r
+as the master's broke. They mayn't go fur enough, but they'll help."\r
+\r
+Tom was touched keenly enough to forget his pride and suspicion.\r
+\r
+"You're a very kind fellow, Bob," he said, coloring, with that little\r
+diffident tremor in his voice which gave a certain charm even to Tom's\r
+pride and severity, "and I sha'n't forget you again, though I didn't\r
+know you this evening. But I can't take the nine sovereigns; I should\r
+be taking your little fortune from you, and they wouldn't do me much\r
+good either."\r
+\r
+"Wouldn't they, Mr. Tom?" said Bob, regretfully. "Now don't say so\r
+'cause you think I want 'em. I aren't a poor chap. My mother gets a\r
+good penn'orth wi' picking feathers an' things; an' if she eats\r
+nothin' but bread-an'-water, it runs to fat. An' I'm such a lucky\r
+chap; an' I doubt you aren't quite so lucky, Mr. Tom,--th' old master\r
+isn't, anyhow,--an' so you might take a slice o' my luck, an' no harm\r
+done. Lors! I found a leg o' pork i' the river one day; it had tumbled\r
+out o' one o' them round-sterned Dutchmen, I'll be bound. Come, think\r
+better on it, Mr. Tom, for old 'quinetance' sake, else I shall think\r
+you bear me a grudge."\r
+\r
+Bob pushed the sovereigns forward, but before Tom could speak Maggie,\r
+clasping her hands, and looking penitently at Bob, said:\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'm so sorry, Bob; I never thought you were so good. Why, I think\r
+you're the kindest person in the world!"\r
+\r
+Bob had not been aware of the injurious opinion for which Maggie was\r
+performing an inward act of penitence, but he smiled with pleasure at\r
+this handsome eulogy,--especially from a young lass who, as he\r
+informed his mother that evening, had "such uncommon eyes, they looked\r
+somehow as they made him feel nohow."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed Bob, I can't take them," said Tom; "but don't think I feel\r
+your kindness less because I say no. I don't want to take anything\r
+from anybody, but to work my own way. And those sovereigns wouldn't\r
+help me much--they wouldn't really--if I were to take them. Let me\r
+shake hands with you instead."\r
+\r
+Tom put out his pink palm, and Bob was not slow to place his hard,\r
+grimy hand within it.\r
+\r
+"Let me put the sovereigns in the bag again," said Maggie; "and you'll\r
+come and see us when you've bought your pack, Bob."\r
+\r
+"It's like as if I'd come out o' make believe, o' purpose to show 'em\r
+you," said Bob, with an air of discontent, as Maggie gave him the bag\r
+again, "a-taking 'em back i' this way. I _am_ a bit of a Do, you know;\r
+but it isn't that sort o' Do,--it's on'y when a feller's a big rogue,\r
+or a big flat, I like to let him in a bit, that's all."\r
+\r
+"Now, don't you be up to any tricks, Bob," said Tom, "else you'll get\r
+transported some day."\r
+\r
+"No, no; not me, Mr. Tom," said Bob, with an air of cheerful\r
+confidence. "There's no law again' flea-bites. If I wasn't to take a\r
+fool in now and then, he'd niver get any wiser. But, lors! hev a\r
+suvreign to buy you and Miss summat, on'y for a token--just to match\r
+my pocket-knife."\r
+\r
+While Bob was speaking he laid down the sovereign, and resolutely\r
+twisted up his bag again. Tom pushed back the gold, and said, "No,\r
+indeed, Bob; thank you heartily, but I can't take it." And Maggie,\r
+taking it between her fingers, held it up to Bob and said, more\r
+persuasively:\r
+\r
+"Not now, but perhaps another time. If ever Tom or my father wants\r
+help that you can give, we'll let you know; won't we, Tom? That's what\r
+you would like,--to have us always depend on you as a friend that we\r
+can go to,--isn't it, Bob?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Miss, and thank you," said Bob, reluctantly taking the money;\r
+"that's what I'd like, anything as you like. An' I wish you good-by,\r
+Miss, and good-luck, Mr. Tom, and thank you for shaking hands wi' me,\r
+_though_ you wouldn't take the money."\r
+\r
+Kezia's entrance, with very black looks, to inquire if she shouldn't\r
+bring in the tea now, or whether the toast was to get hardened to a\r
+brick, was a seasonable check on Bob's flux of words, and hastened his\r
+parting bow.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VII\r
+\r
+How a Hen Takes to Stratagem\r
+\r
+\r
+The days passed, and Mr. Tulliver showed, at least to the eyes of the\r
+medical man, stronger and stronger symptoms of a gradual return to his\r
+normal condition; the paralytic obstruction was, little by little,\r
+losing its tenacity, and the mind was rising from under it with fitful\r
+struggles, like a living creature making its way from under a great\r
+snowdrift, that slides and slides again, and shuts up the newly made\r
+opening.\r
+\r
+Time would have seemed to creep to the watchers by the bed, if it had\r
+only been measured by the doubtful, distant hope which kept count of\r
+the moments within the chamber; but it was measured for them by a\r
+fast-approaching dread which made the nights come too quickly. While\r
+Mr. Tulliver was slowly becoming himself again, his lot was hastening\r
+toward its moment of most palpable change. The taxing-masters had done\r
+their work like any respectable gunsmith conscientiously preparing the\r
+musket, that, duly pointed by a brave arm, will spoil a life or two.\r
+Allocaturs, filing of bills in Chancery, decrees of sale, are legal\r
+chain-shot or bomb-shells that can never hit a solitary mark, but must\r
+fall with widespread shattering. So deeply inherent is it in this life\r
+of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably\r
+diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and\r
+we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in\r
+pulsations of unmerited pain.\r
+\r
+By the beginning of the second week in January, the bills were out\r
+advertising the sale, under a decree of Chancery, of Mr. Tulliver's\r
+farming and other stock, to be followed by a sale of the mill and\r
+land, held in the proper after-dinner hour at the Golden Lion. The\r
+miller himself, unaware of the lapse of time, fancied himself still in\r
+that first stage of his misfortunes when expedients might be thought\r
+of; and often in his conscious hours talked in a feeble, disjointed\r
+manner of plans he would carry out when he "got well." The wife and\r
+children were not without hope of an issue that would at least save\r
+Mr. Tulliver from leaving the old spot, and seeking an entirely\r
+strange life. For uncle Deane had been induced to interest himself in\r
+this stage of the business. It would not, he acknowledged, be a bad\r
+speculation for Guest & Co. to buy Dorlcote Mill, and carry on the\r
+business, which was a good one, and might be increased by the addition\r
+of steam power; in which case Tulliver might be retained as manager.\r
+Still, Mr. Deane would say nothing decided about the matter; the fact\r
+that Wakem held the mortgage on the land might put it into his head to\r
+bid for the whole estate, and further, to outbid the cautious firm of\r
+Guest &Co., who did not carry on business on sentimental grounds. Mr.\r
+Deane was obliged to tell Mrs. Tulliver something to that effect, when\r
+he rode over to the mill to inspect the books in company with Mrs.\r
+Glegg; for she had observed that "if Guest &Co. would only think about\r
+it, Mr. Tulliver's father and grandfather had been carrying on\r
+Dorlcote Mill long before the oil-mill of that firm had been so much\r
+as thought of."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane, in reply, doubted whether that was precisely the relation\r
+between the two mills which would determine their value as\r
+investments. As for uncle Glegg, the thing lay quite beyond his\r
+imagination; the good-natured man felt sincere pity for the Tulliver\r
+family, but his money was all locked up in excellent mortgages, and he\r
+could run no risk; that would be unfair to his own relatives; but he\r
+had made up his mind that Tulliver should have some new flannel\r
+waistcoats which he had himself renounced in favor of a more elastic\r
+commodity, and that he would buy Mrs. Tulliver a pound of tea now and\r
+then; it would be a journey which his benevolence delighted in\r
+beforehand, to carry the tea and see her pleasure on being assured it\r
+was the best black.\r
+\r
+Still, it was clear that Mr. Deane was kindly disposed toward the\r
+Tullivers. One day he had brought Lucy, who was come home for the\r
+Christmas holidays, and the little blond angel-head had pressed itself\r
+against Maggie's darker cheek with many kisses and some tears. These\r
+fair slim daughters keep up a tender spot in the heart of many a\r
+respectable partner in a respectable firm, and perhaps Lucy's anxious,\r
+pitying questions about her poor cousins helped to make uncle Deane\r
+more prompt in finding Tom a temporary place in the warehouse, and in\r
+putting him in the way of getting evening lessons in book-keeping and\r
+calculation.\r
+\r
+That might have cheered the lad and fed his hopes a little, if there\r
+had not come at the same time the much-dreaded blow of finding that\r
+his father must be a bankrupt, after all; at least, the creditors must\r
+be asked to take less than their due, which to Tom's untechnical mind\r
+was the same thing as bankruptcy. His father must not only be said to\r
+have "lost his property," but to have "failed,"--the word that carried\r
+the worst obloquy to Tom's mind. For when the defendant's claim for\r
+costs had been satisfied, there would remain the friendly bill of Mr.\r
+Gore, and the deficiency at the bank, as well as the other debts which\r
+would make the assets shrink into unequivocal disproportion; "not more\r
+than ten or twelve shillings in the pound," predicted Mr. Deane, in a\r
+decided tone, tightening his lips; and the words fell on Tom like a\r
+scalding liquied, leaving a continual smart.\r
+\r
+He was sadly in want of something to keep up his spirits a little in\r
+the unpleasant newness of his position,--suddenly transported from the\r
+easy carpeted _ennui_ of study-hours at Mr. Stelling's, and the busy\r
+idleness of castle-building in a "last half" at school, to the\r
+companionship of sacks and hides, and bawling men thundering down\r
+heavy weights at his elbow. The first step toward getting on in the\r
+world was a chill, dusty, noisy affair, and implied going without\r
+one's tea in order to stay in St. Ogg's and have an evening lesson\r
+from a one-armed elderly clerk, in a room smelling strongly of bad\r
+tobacco. Tom's young pink-and-white face had its colors very much\r
+deadened by the time he took off his hat at home, and sat down with\r
+keen hunger to his supper. No wonder he was a little cross if his\r
+mother or Maggie spoke to him.\r
+\r
+But all this while Mrs. Tulliver was brooding over a scheme by which\r
+she, and no one else, would avert the result most to be dreaded, and\r
+prevent Wakem from entertaining the purpose of bidding for the mill.\r
+Imagine a truly respectable and amiable hen, by some portentous\r
+anomaly, taking to reflection and inventing combinations by which she\r
+might prevail on Hodge not to wring her neck, or send her and her\r
+chicks to market; the result could hardly be other than much cackling\r
+and fluttering. Mrs. Tulliver, seeing that everything had gone wrong,\r
+had begun to think she had been too passive in life; and that, if she\r
+had applied her mind to business, and taken a strong resolution now\r
+and then, it would have been all the better for her and her family.\r
+Nobody, it appeared, had thought of going to speak to Wakem on this\r
+business of the mill; and yet, Mrs. Tulliver reflected, it would have\r
+been quite the shortest method of securing the right end. It would\r
+have been of no use, to be sure, for Mr. Tulliver to go,--even if he\r
+had been able and willing,--for he had been "going to law against\r
+Wakem" and abusing him for the last ten years; Wakem was always likely\r
+to have a spite against him. And now that Mrs. Tulliver had come to\r
+the conclusion that her husband was very much in the wrong to bring\r
+her into this trouble, she was inclined to think that his opinion of\r
+Wakem was wrong too. To be sure, Wakem had "put the bailies in the\r
+house, and sold them up"; but she supposed he did that to please the\r
+man that lent Mr. Tulliver the money, for a lawyer had more folks to\r
+please than one, and he wasn't likely to put Mr. Tulliver, who had\r
+gone to law with him, above everybody else in the world. The attorney\r
+might be a very reasonable man; why not? He had married a Miss Clint,\r
+and at the time Mrs. Tulliver had heard of that marriage, the summer\r
+when she wore her blue satin spencer, and had not yet any thoughts of\r
+Mr. Tulliver, she knew no harm of Wakem. And certainly toward herself,\r
+whom he knew to have been a Miss Dodson, it was out of all possibility\r
+that he could entertain anything but good-will, when it was once\r
+brought home to his observation that she, for her part, had never\r
+wanted to go to law, and indeed was at present disposed to take Mr.\r
+Wakem's view of all subjects rather than her husband's. In fact, if\r
+that attorney saw a respectable matron like herself disposed "to give\r
+him good words," why shouldn't he listen to her representations? For\r
+she would put the matter clearly before him, which had never been done\r
+yet. And he would never go and bid for the mill on purpose to spite\r
+her, an innocent woman, who thought it likely enough that she had\r
+danced with him in their youth at Squire Darleigh's, for at those big\r
+dances she had often and often danced with young men whose names she\r
+had forgotten.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver hid these reasonings in her own bosom; for when she had\r
+thrown out a hint to Mr. Deane and Mr. Glegg that she wouldn't mind\r
+going to speak to Wakem herself, they had said, "No, no, no," and\r
+"Pooh, pooh," and "Let Wakem alone," in the tone of men who were not\r
+likely to give a candid attention to a more definite exposition of her\r
+project; still less dared she mention the plan to Tom and Maggie, for\r
+"the children were always so against everything their mother said";\r
+and Tom, she observed, was almost as much set against Wakem as his\r
+father was. But this unusual concentration of thought naturally gave\r
+Mrs. Tulliver an unusual power of device and determination: and a day\r
+or two before the sale, to be held at the Golden Lion, when there was\r
+no longer any time to be lost, she carried out her plan by a\r
+stratagem. There were pickles in question, a large stock of pickles\r
+and ketchup which Mrs. Tulliver possessed, and which Mr. Hyndmarsh,\r
+the grocer, would certainly purchase if she could transact the\r
+business in a personal interview, so she would walk with Tom to St.\r
+Ogg's that morning; and when Tom urged that she might let the pickles\r
+be at present,--he didn't like her to go about just yet,--she appeared\r
+so hurt at this conduct in her son, contradicting her about pickles\r
+which she had made after the family receipts inherited from his own\r
+grandmother, who had died when his mother was a little girl, that he\r
+gave way, and they walked together until she turned toward Danish\r
+Street, where Mr. Hyndmarsh retailed his grocery, not far from the\r
+offices of Mr. Wakem.\r
+\r
+That gentleman was not yet come to his office; would Mrs. Tulliver sit\r
+down by the fire in his private room and wait for him? She had not\r
+long to wait before the punctual attorney entered, knitting his brow\r
+with an examining glance at the stout blond woman who rose, curtsying\r
+deferentially,--a tallish man, with an aquiline nose and abundant\r
+iron-gray hair. You have never seen Mr. Wakem before, and are possibly\r
+wondering whether he was really as eminent a rascal, and as crafty,\r
+bitter an enemy of honest humanity in general, and of Mr. Tulliver in\r
+particular, as he is represented to be in that eidolon or portrait of\r
+him which we have seen to exist in the miller's mind.\r
+\r
+It is clear that the irascible miller was a man to interpret any\r
+chance-shot that grazed him as an attempt on his own life, and was\r
+liable to entanglements in this puzzling world, which, due\r
+consideration had to his own infallibility, required the hypothesis of\r
+a very active diabolical agency to explain them. It is still possible\r
+to believe that the attorney was not more guilty toward him than an\r
+ingenious machine, which performs its work with much regularity, is\r
+guilty toward the rash man who, venturing too near it, is caught up by\r
+some fly-wheel or other, and suddenly converted into unexpected\r
+mince-meat.\r
+\r
+But it is really impossible to decide this question by a glance at his\r
+person; the lines and lights of the human countenance are like other\r
+symbols,--not always easy to read without a key. On an _a priori_ view\r
+of Wakem's aquiline nose, which offended Mr. Tulliver, there was not\r
+more rascality than in the shape of his stiff shirt-collar, though\r
+this too along with his nose, might have become fraught with damnatory\r
+meaning when once the rascality was ascertained.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Tulliver, I think?" said Mr. Wakem.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir; Miss Elizabeth Dodson as was."\r
+\r
+"Pray be seated. You have some business with me?"\r
+\r
+"Well, sir, yes," said Mrs. Tulliver, beginning to feel alarmed at her\r
+own courage, now she was really in presence of the formidable man, and\r
+reflecting that she had not settled with herself how she should begin.\r
+Mr. Wakem felt in his waistcoat pockets, and looked at her in silence.\r
+\r
+"I hope, sir," she began at last,--"I hope, sir, you're not a-thinking\r
+as _I_ bear you any ill-will because o' my husband's losing his\r
+lawsuit, and the bailies being put in, and the linen being sold,--oh\r
+dear!--for I wasn't brought up in that way. I'm sure you remember my\r
+father, sir, for he was close friends with Squire Darleigh, and we\r
+allays went to the dances there, the Miss Dodsons,--nobody could be\r
+more looked on,--and justly, for there was four of us, and you're\r
+quite aware as Mrs. Glegg and Mrs. Deane are my sisters. And as for\r
+going to law and losing money, and having sales before you're dead, I\r
+never saw anything o' that before I was married, nor for a long while\r
+after. And I'm not to be answerable for my bad luck i' marrying out o'\r
+my own family into one where the goings-on was different. And as for\r
+being drawn in t' abuse you as other folks abuse you, sir, _that_ I\r
+niver was, and nobody can say it of me."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver shook her head a little, and looked at the hem of her\r
+pocket-handkerchief.\r
+\r
+"I've no doubt of what you say, Mrs. Tulliver," said Mr. Wakem, with\r
+cold politeness. "But you have some question to ask me?"\r
+\r
+"Well, sir, yes. But that's what I've said to myself,--I've said you'd\r
+had some nat'ral feeling; and as for my husband, as hasn't been\r
+himself for this two months, I'm not a-defending him, in no way, for\r
+being so hot about th' erigation,--not but what there's worse men, for\r
+he never wronged nobody of a shilling nor a penny, not willingly; and\r
+as for his fieriness and lawing, what could I do? And him struck as if\r
+it was with death when he got the letter as said you'd the hold upo'\r
+the land. But I can't believe but what you'll behave as a gentleman."\r
+\r
+"What does all this mean, Mrs. Tulliver?" said Mr. Wakem rather\r
+sharply. "What do you want to ask me?"\r
+\r
+"Why, sir, if you'll be so good," said Mrs. Tulliver, starting a\r
+little, and speaking more hurriedly,--"if you'll be so good not to buy\r
+the mill an' the land,--the land wouldn't so much matter, only my\r
+husband ull' be like mad at your having it."\r
+\r
+Something like a new thought flashed across Mr. Wakem's face as he\r
+said, "Who told you I meant to buy it?"\r
+\r
+"Why, sir, it's none o' my inventing, and I should never ha' thought\r
+of it; for my husband, as ought to know about the law, he allays used\r
+to say as lawyers had never no call to buy anything,--either lands or\r
+houses,--for they allays got 'em into their hands other ways. An' I\r
+should think that 'ud be the way with you, sir; and I niver said as\r
+you'd be the man to do contrairy to that."\r
+\r
+"Ah, well, who was it that _did_ say so?" said Wakem, opening his\r
+desk, and moving things about, with the accompaniment of an almost\r
+inaudible whistle.\r
+\r
+"Why, sir, it was Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane, as have all the management;\r
+and Mr. Deane thinks as Guest &Co. 'ud buy the mill and let Mr.\r
+Tulliver work it for 'em, if you didn't bid for it and raise the\r
+price. And it 'ud be such a thing for my husband to stay where he is,\r
+if he could get his living: for it was his father's before him, the\r
+mill was, and his grandfather built it, though I wasn't fond o' the\r
+noise of it, when first I was married, for there was no mills in our\r
+family,--not the Dodson's,--and if I'd known as the mills had so much\r
+to do with the law, it wouldn't have been me as 'ud have been the\r
+first Dodson to marry one; but I went into it blindfold, that I did,\r
+erigation and everything."\r
+\r
+"What! Guest &Co. would keep the mill in their own hands, I suppose,\r
+and pay your husband wages?"\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, sir, it's hard to think of," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, a\r
+little tear making its way, "as my husband should take wage. But it\r
+'ud look more like what used to be, to stay at the mill than to go\r
+anywhere else; and if you'll only think--if you was to bid for the\r
+mill and buy it, my husband might be struck worse than he was before,\r
+and niver get better again as he's getting now."\r
+\r
+"Well, but if I bought the mill, and allowed your husband to act as my\r
+manager in the same way, how then?" said Mr. Wakem.\r
+\r
+"Oh, sir, I doubt he could niver be got to do it, not if the very mill\r
+stood still to beg and pray of him. For your name's like poison to\r
+him, it's so as never was; and he looks upon it as you've been the\r
+ruin of him all along, ever since you set the law on him about the\r
+road through the meadow,--that's eight year ago, and he's been going\r
+on ever since--as I've allays told him he was wrong----"\r
+\r
+"He's a pig-headed, foul-mouthed fool!" burst out Mr. Wakem,\r
+forgetting himself.\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, sir!" said Mrs. Tulliver, frightened at a result so\r
+different from the one she had fixed her mind on; "I wouldn't wish to\r
+contradict you, but it's like enough he's changed his mind with this\r
+illness,--he's forgot a many things he used to talk about. And you\r
+wouldn't like to have a corpse on your mind, if he was to die; and\r
+they _do_ say as it's allays unlucky when Dorlcote Mill changes hands,\r
+and the water might all run away, and _then_--not as I'm wishing you\r
+any ill-luck, sir, for I forgot to tell you as I remember your wedding\r
+as if it was yesterday; Mrs. Wakem was a Miss Clint, I know _that;_\r
+and my boy, as there isn't a nicer, handsomer, straighter boy nowhere,\r
+went to school with your son----"\r
+\r
+Mr. Wakem rose, opened the door, and called to one of his clerks.\r
+\r
+"You must excuse me for interrupting you, Mrs. Tulliver; I have\r
+business that must be attended to; and I think there is nothing more\r
+necessary to be said."\r
+\r
+"But if you _would_ bear it in mind, sir," said Mrs. Tulliver, rising,\r
+"and not run against me and my children; and I'm not denying Mr.\r
+Tulliver's been in the wrong, but he's been punished enough, and\r
+there's worse men, for it's been giving to other folks has been his\r
+fault. He's done nobody any harm but himself and his family,--the\r
+more's the pity,--and I go and look at the bare shelves every day, and\r
+think where all my things used to stand."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I'll bear it in mind," said Mr. Wakem, hastily, looking\r
+toward the open door.\r
+\r
+"And if you'd please not to say as I've been to speak to you, for my\r
+son 'ud be very angry with me for demeaning myself, I know he would,\r
+and I've trouble enough without being scolded by my children."\r
+\r
+Poor Mrs. Tulliver's voice trembled a little, and she could make no\r
+answer to the attorney's "good morning," but curtsied and walked out\r
+in silence.\r
+\r
+"Which day is it that Dorlcote Mill is to be sold? Where's the bill?"\r
+said Mr. Wakem to his clerk when they were alone.\r
+\r
+"Next Friday is the day,--Friday at six o'clock."\r
+\r
+"Oh, just run to Winship's the auctioneer, and see if he's at home. I\r
+have some business for him; ask him to come up."\r
+\r
+Although, when Mr. Wakem entered his office that morning, he had had\r
+no intention of purchasing Dorlcote Mill, his mind was already made\r
+up. Mrs. Tulliver had suggested to him several determining motives,\r
+and his mental glance was very rapid; he was one of those men who can\r
+be prompt without being rash, because their motives run in fixed\r
+tracks, and they have no need to reconcile conflicting aims.\r
+\r
+To suppose that Wakem had the same sort of inveterate hatred toward\r
+Tulliver that Tulliver had toward him would be like supposing that a\r
+pike and a roach can look at each other from a similar point of view.\r
+The roach necessarily abhors the mode in which the pike gets his\r
+living, and the pike is likely to think nothing further even of the\r
+most indignant roach than that he is excellent good eating; it could\r
+only be when the roach choked him that the pike could entertain a\r
+strong personal animosity. If Mr. Tulliver had ever seriously injured\r
+or thwarted the attorney, Wakem would not have refused him the\r
+distinction of being a special object of his vindictiveness. But when\r
+Mr. Tulliver called Wakem a rascal at the market dinner-table, the\r
+attorneys' clients were not a whit inclined to withdraw their business\r
+from him; and if, when Wakem himself happened to be present, some\r
+jocose cattle-feeder, stimulated by opportunity and brandy, made a\r
+thrust at him by alluding to old ladies' wills, he maintained perfect\r
+_sang froid_, and knew quite well that the majority of substantial men\r
+then present were perfectly contented with the fact that "Wakem was\r
+Wakem"; that is to say, a man who always knew the stepping-stones that\r
+would carry him through very muddy bits of practice. A man who had\r
+made a large fortune, had a handsome house among the trees at Tofton,\r
+and decidedly the finest stock of port-wine in the neighborhood of St.\r
+Ogg's, was likely to feel himself on a level with public opinion. And\r
+I am not sure that even honest Mr. Tulliver himself, with his general\r
+view of law as a cockpit, might not, under opposite circumstances,\r
+have seen a fine appropriateness in the truth that "Wakem was Wakem";\r
+since I have understood from persons versed in history, that mankind\r
+is not disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of great victors\r
+when their victory is on the right side. Tulliver, then, could be no\r
+obstruction to Wakem; on the contrary, he was a poor devil whom the\r
+lawyer had defeated several times; a hot-tempered fellow, who would\r
+always give you a handle against him. Wakem's conscience was not\r
+uneasy because he had used a few tricks against the miller; why should\r
+he hate that unsuccessful plaintiff, that pitiable, furious bull\r
+entangled in the meshes of a net?\r
+\r
+Still, among the various excesses to which human nature is subject,\r
+moralists have never numbered that of being too fond of the people who\r
+openly revile us. The successful Yellow candidate for the borough of\r
+Old Topping, perhaps, feels no pursuant meditative hatred toward the\r
+Blue editor who consoles his subscribers with vituperative rhetoric\r
+against Yellow men who sell their country, and are the demons of\r
+private life; but he might not be sorry, if law and opportunity\r
+favored, to kick that Blue editor to a deeper shade of his favorite\r
+color. Prosperous men take a little vengeance now and then, as they\r
+take a diversion, when it comes easily in their way, and is no\r
+hindrance to business; and such small unimpassioned revenges have an\r
+enormous effect in life, running through all degrees of pleasant\r
+infliction, blocking the fit men out of places, and blackening\r
+characters in unpremeditated talk. Still more, to see people who have\r
+been only insignificantly offensive to us reduced in life and\r
+humiliated, without any special effort of ours, is apt to have a\r
+soothing, flattering influence. Providence or some other prince of\r
+this world, it appears, has undertaken the task of retribution for us;\r
+and really, by an agreeable constitution of things, our enemies\r
+somehow _don't_ prosper.\r
+\r
+Wakem was not without this parenthetic vindictiveness toward the\r
+uncomplimentary miller; and now Mrs. Tulliver had put the notion into\r
+his head, it presented itself to him as a pleasure to do the very\r
+thing that would cause Mr. Tulliver the most deadly mortification,--\r
+and a pleasure of a complex kind, not made up of crude malice, but\r
+mingling with it the relish of self-approbation. To see an enemy\r
+humiliated gives a certain contentment, but this is jejune compared\r
+with the highly blent satisfaction of seeing him humiliated by your\r
+benevolent action or concession on his behalf. That is a sort of\r
+revenge which falls into the scale of virtue, and Wakem was not without\r
+an intention of keeping that scale respectably filled. He had once\r
+had the pleasure of putting an old enemy of his into one of the St.\r
+Ogg's alms-houses, to the rebuilding of which he had given a large\r
+subscription; and here was an opportunity of providing for another by\r
+making him his own servant. Such things give a completeness to\r
+prosperity, and contribute elements of agreeable consciousness that\r
+are not dreamed of by that short-sighted, overheated vindictiveness\r
+which goes out its way to wreak itself in direct injury. And Tulliver,\r
+with his rough tongue filed by a sense of obligation, would make a\r
+better servant than any chance-fellow who was cap-in-hand for a\r
+situation. Tulliver was known to be a man of proud honesty, and Wakem\r
+was too acute not to believe in the existence of honesty. He was given\r
+too observing individuals, not to judging of them according to maxims,\r
+and no one knew better than he that all men were not like himself.\r
+Besides, he intended to overlook the whole business of land and mill\r
+pretty closely; he was fond of these practical rural matters. But\r
+there were good reasons for purchasing Dorlcote Mill, quite apart from\r
+any benevolent vengeance on the miller. It was really a capital\r
+investment; besides, Guest &Co. were going to bid for it. Mr. Guest\r
+and Mr. Wakem were on friendly dining terms, and the attorney liked to\r
+predominate over a ship-owner and mill-owner who was a little too loud\r
+in the town affairs as well as in his table-talk. For Wakem was not a\r
+mere man of business; he was considered a pleasant fellow in the upper\r
+circles of St. Ogg's--chatted amusingly over his port-wine, did a\r
+little amateur farming, and had certainly been an excellent husband\r
+and father; at church, when he went there, he sat under the handsomest\r
+of mural monuments erected to the memory of his wife. Most men would\r
+have married again under his circumstances, but he was said to be more\r
+tender to his deformed son than most men were to their best-shapen\r
+offspring. Not that Mr. Wakem had not other sons beside Philip; but\r
+toward them he held only a chiaroscuro parentage, and provided for\r
+them in a grade of life duly beneath his own. In this fact, indeed,\r
+there lay the clenching motive to the purchase of Dorlcote Mill. While\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was talking, it had occurred to the rapid-minded lawyer,\r
+among all the other circumstances of the case, that this purchase\r
+would, in a few years to come, furnish a highly suitable position for\r
+a certain favorite lad whom he meant to bring on in the world.\r
+\r
+These were the mental conditions on which Mrs. Tulliver had undertaken\r
+to act persuasively, and had failed; a fact which may receive some\r
+illustration from the remark of a great philosopher, that fly-fishers\r
+fail in preparing their bait so as to make it alluring in the right\r
+quarter, for want of a due acquaintance with the subjectivity of\r
+fishes.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VIII\r
+\r
+Daylight on the Wreck\r
+\r
+\r
+It was a clear frosty January day on which Mr. Tulliver first came\r
+downstairs. The bright sun on the chestnut boughs and the roofs\r
+opposite his window had made him impatiently declare that he would be\r
+caged up no longer; he thought everywhere would be more cheery under\r
+this sunshine than his bedroom; for he knew nothing of the bareness\r
+below, which made the flood of sunshine importunate, as if it had an\r
+unfeeling pleasure in showing the empty places, and the marks where\r
+well-known objects once had been. The impression on his mind that it\r
+was but yesterday when he received the letter from Mr. Gore was so\r
+continually implied in his talk, and the attempts to convey to him the\r
+idea that many weeks had passed and much had happened since then had\r
+been so soon swept away by recurrent forgetfulness, that even Mr.\r
+Turnbull had begun to despair of preparing him to meet the facts by\r
+previous knowledge. The full sense of the present could only be\r
+imparted gradually by new experience,--not by mere words, which must\r
+remain weaker than the impressions left by the _old_ experience. This\r
+resolution to come downstairs was heard with trembling by the wife and\r
+children. Mrs. Tulliver said Tom must not go to St. Ogg's at the usual\r
+hour, he must wait and see his father downstairs; and Tom complied,\r
+though with an intense inward shrinking from the painful scene. The\r
+hearts of all three had been more deeply dejected than ever during the\r
+last few days. For Guest & Co. had not bought the mill; both mill and\r
+land had been knocked down to Wakem, who had been over the premises,\r
+and had laid before Mr. Deane and Mr. Glegg, in Mrs. Tulliver's\r
+presence, his willingness to employ Mr. Tulliver, in case of his\r
+recovery, as a manager of the business. This proposition had\r
+occasioned much family debating. Uncles and aunts were almost\r
+unanimously of opinion that such an offer ought not to be rejected\r
+when there was nothing in the way but a feeling in Mr. Tulliver's\r
+mind, which, as neither aunts nor uncles shared it, was regarded as\r
+entirely unreasonable and childish,--indeed, as a transferring toward\r
+Wakem of that indignation and hatred which Mr. Tulliver ought properly\r
+to have directed against himself for his general quarrelsomeness, and\r
+his special exhibition of it in going to law. Here was an opportunity\r
+for Mr. Tulliver to provide for his wife and daughter without any\r
+assistance from his wife's relations, and without that too evident\r
+descent into pauperism which makes it annoying to respectable people\r
+to meet the degraded member of the family by the wayside. Mr.\r
+Tulliver, Mrs. Glegg considered, must be made to feel, when he came to\r
+his right mind, that he could never humble himself enough; for _that_\r
+had come which she had always foreseen would come of his insolence in\r
+time past "to them as were the best friends he'd got to look to." Mr\r
+Glegg and Mr. Deane were less stern in their views, but they both of\r
+them thought Tulliver had done enough harm by his hot-tempered\r
+crotchets and ought to put them out of the question when a livelihood\r
+was offered him; Wakem showed a right feeling about the matter,--_he_\r
+had no grudge against Tulliver.\r
+\r
+Tom had protested against entertaining the proposition. He shouldn't\r
+like his father to be under Wakem; he thought it would look\r
+mean-spirited; but his mother's main distress was the utter\r
+impossibility of ever "turning Mr. Tulliver round about Wakem," or\r
+getting him to hear reason; no, they would all have to go and live in\r
+a pigsty on purpose to spite Wakem, who spoke "so as nobody could be\r
+fairer." Indeed, Mrs. Tulliver's mind was reduced to such confusion by\r
+living in this strange medium of unaccountable sorrow, against which\r
+she continually appealed by asking, "Oh dear, what _have_ I done to\r
+deserve worse than other women?" that Maggie began to suspect her poor\r
+mother's wits were quite going.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she said, when they were out of their father's room together,\r
+"we _must_ try to make father understand a little of what has happened\r
+before he goes downstairs. But we must get my mother away. She will\r
+say something that will do harm. Ask Kezia to fetch her down, and keep\r
+her engaged with something in the kitchen."\r
+\r
+Kezia was equal to the task. Having declared her intention of staying\r
+till the master could get about again, "wage or no wage," she had\r
+found a certain recompense in keeping a strong hand over her mistress,\r
+scolding her for "moithering" herself, and going about all day without\r
+changing her cap, and looking as if she was "mushed." Altogether, this\r
+time of trouble was rather a Saturnalian time to Kezia; she could\r
+scold her betters with unreproved freedom. On this particular occasion\r
+there were drying clothes to be fetched in; she wished to know if one\r
+pair of hands could do everything in-doors and out, and observed that\r
+_she_ should have thought it would be good for Mrs. Tulliver to put on\r
+her bonnet, and get a breath of fresh air by doing that needful piece\r
+of work. Poor Mrs. Tulliver went submissively downstairs; to be\r
+ordered about by a servant was the last remnant of her household\r
+dignities,--she would soon have no servant to scold her. Mr. Tulliver\r
+was resting in his chair a little after the fatigue of dressing, and\r
+Maggie and Tom were seated near him, when Luke entered to ask if he\r
+should help master downstairs.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, Luke; stop a bit, sit down," said Mr. Tulliver pointing his\r
+stick toward a chair, and looking at him with that pursuant gaze which\r
+convalescent persons often have for those who have tended them,\r
+reminding one of an infant gazing about after its nurse. For Luke had\r
+been a constant night-watcher by his master's bed.\r
+\r
+"How's the water now, eh, Luke?" said Mr. Tulliver. "Dix hasn't been\r
+choking you up again, eh?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir, it's all right."\r
+\r
+"Ay, I thought not; he won't be in a hurry at that again, now Riley's\r
+been to settle him. That was what I said to Riley yesterday--I\r
+said----"\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver leaned forward, resting his elbows on the armchair, and\r
+looking on the ground as if in search of something, striving after\r
+vanishing images like a man struggling against a doze. Maggie looked\r
+at Tom in mute distress, their father's mind was so far off the\r
+present, which would by-and-by thrust itself on his wandering\r
+consciousness! Tom was almost ready to rush away, with that impatience\r
+of painful emotion which makes one of the differences between youth\r
+and maiden, man and woman.\r
+\r
+"Father," said Maggie, laying her hand on his, "don't you remember\r
+that Mr. Riley is dead?"\r
+\r
+"Dead?" said Mr. Tulliver, sharply, looking in her face with a\r
+strange, examining glance.\r
+\r
+"Yes, he died of apoplexy nearly a year ago. I remember hearing you\r
+say you had to pay money for him; and he left his daughters badly off;\r
+one of them is under-teacher at Miss Firniss's, where I've been to\r
+school, you know."\r
+\r
+"Ah?" said her father, doubtfully, still looking in her face. But as\r
+soon as Tom began to speak he turned to look at _him_ with the same\r
+inquiring glances, as if he were rather surprised at the presence of\r
+these two young people. Whenever his mind was wandering in the far\r
+past, he fell into this oblivion of their actual faces; they were not\r
+those of the lad and the little wench who belonged to that past.\r
+\r
+"It's a long while since you had the dispute with Dix, father," said\r
+Tom. "I remember your talking about it three years ago, before I went\r
+to school at Mr. Stelling's. I've been at school there three years;\r
+don't you remember?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver threw himself backward again, losing the childlike\r
+outward glance under a rush of new ideas, which diverted him from\r
+external impressions.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay," he said, after a minute or two, "I've paid a deal o'\r
+money--I was determined my son should have a good eddication; I'd none\r
+myself, and I've felt the miss of it. And he'll want no other fortin,\r
+that's what I say--if Wakem was to get the better of me again----"\r
+\r
+The thought of Wakem roused new vibrations, and after a moment's pause\r
+he began to look at the coat he had on, and to feel in his\r
+side-pocket. Then he turned to Tom, and said in his old sharp way,\r
+"Where have they put Gore's letter?"\r
+\r
+It was close at hand in a drawer, for he had often asked for it\r
+before.\r
+\r
+"You know what there is in the letter, father?" said Tom, as he gave\r
+it to him.\r
+\r
+"To be sure I do," said Mr. Tulliver, rather angrily. "What o' that?\r
+If Furley can't take to the property, somebody else can; there's\r
+plenty o' people in the world besides Furley. But it's hindering--my\r
+not being well--go and tell 'em to get the horse in the gig, Luke; I\r
+can get down to St. Ogg's well enough--Gore's expecting me."\r
+\r
+"No, dear father!" Maggie burst out entreatingly; "it's a very long\r
+while since all that; you've been ill a great many weeks,--more than\r
+two months; everything is changed."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver looked at them all three alternately with a startled\r
+gaze; the idea that much had happened of which he knew nothing had\r
+often transiently arrested him before, but it came upon him now with\r
+entire novelty.\r
+\r
+"Yes, father," said Tom, in answer to the gaze. "You needn't trouble\r
+your mind about business until you are quite well; everything is\r
+settled about that for the present,--about the mill and the land and\r
+the debts."\r
+\r
+"What's settled, then?" said his father, angrily.\r
+\r
+"Don't you take on too much bout it, sir," said Luke. "You'd ha' paid\r
+iverybody if you could,--that's what I said to Master Tom,--I said\r
+you'd ha' paid iverybody if you could."\r
+\r
+Good Luke felt, after the manner of contented hard-working men whose\r
+lives have been spent in servitude, that sense of natural fitness in\r
+rank which made his master's downfall a tragedy to him. He was urged,\r
+in his slow way, to say something that would express his share in the\r
+family sorrow; and these words, which he had used over and over again\r
+to Tom when he wanted to decline the full payment of his fifty pounds\r
+out of the children's money, were the most ready to his tongue. They\r
+were just the words to lay the most painful hold on his master's\r
+bewildered mind.\r
+\r
+"Paid everybody?" he said, with vehement agitation, his face flushing,\r
+and his eye lighting up. "Why--what--have they made me a _bankrupt?_"\r
+\r
+"Oh, father, dear father!" said Maggie, who thought that terrible word\r
+really represented the fact; "bear it well, because we love you; your\r
+children will always love you. Tom will pay them all; he says he will,\r
+when he's a man."\r
+\r
+She felt her father beginning to tremble; his voice trembled too, as\r
+he said, after a few moments:\r
+\r
+"Ay, my little wench, but I shall never live twice o'er."\r
+\r
+"But perhaps you will live to see me pay everybody, father," said Tom,\r
+speaking with a great effort.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my lad," said Mr. Tulliver, shaking his head slowly, "but what's\r
+broke can never be whole again; it 'ud be your doing, not mine." Then\r
+looking up at him, "You're only sixteen; it's an up-hill fight for\r
+you, but you mustn't throw it at your father; the raskills have been\r
+too many for him. I've given you a good eddication,--that'll start\r
+you."\r
+\r
+Something in his throat half choked the last words; the flush, which\r
+had alarmed his children because it had so often preceded a recurrence\r
+of paralysis, had subsided, and his face looked pale and tremulous.\r
+Tom said nothing; he was still struggling against his inclination to\r
+rush away. His father remained quiet a minute or two, but his mind did\r
+not seem to be wandering again.\r
+\r
+"Have they sold me up, then?" he said more calmly, as if he were\r
+possessed simply by the desire to know what had happened.\r
+\r
+"Everything is sold, father; but we don't know all about the mill and\r
+the land yet," said Tom, anxious to ward off any question leading to\r
+the fact that Wakem was the purchaser.\r
+\r
+"You must not be surprised to see the room look very bare downstairs,\r
+father," said Maggie; "but there's your chair and the bureau;\r
+_they're_ not gone."\r
+\r
+"Let us go; help me down, Luke,--I'll go and see everything," said Mr.\r
+Tulliver, leaning on his stick, and stretching out his other hand\r
+toward Luke.\r
+\r
+"Ay, sir," said Luke, as he gave his arm to his master, "you'll make\r
+up your mind to't a bit better when you've seen iverything; you'll get\r
+used to't. That's what my mother says about her shortness o'\r
+breath,--she says she's made friends wi't now, though she fought\r
+again' it sore when it just come on."\r
+\r
+Maggie ran on before to see that all was right in the dreary parlor,\r
+where the fire, dulled by the frosty sunshine, seemed part of the\r
+general shabbiness. She turned her father's chair, and pushed aside\r
+the table to make an easy way for him, and then stood with a beating\r
+heart to see him enter and look round for the first time. Tom advanced\r
+before him, carrying the leg-rest, and stood beside Maggie on the\r
+hearth. Of those two young hearts Tom's suffered the most unmixed\r
+pain, for Maggie, with all her keen susceptibility, yet felt as if the\r
+sorrow made larger room for her love to flow in, and gave\r
+breathing-space to her passionate nature. No true boy feels that; he\r
+would rather go and slay the Nemean lion, or perform any round of\r
+heroic labors, than endure perpetual appeals to his pity, for evils\r
+over which he can make no conquest.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver paused just inside the door, resting on Luke, and looking\r
+round him at all the bare places, which for him were filled with the\r
+shadows of departed objects,--the daily companions of his life. His\r
+faculties seemed to be renewing their strength from getting a footing\r
+on this demonstration of the senses.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" he said slowly, moving toward his chair, "they've sold me\r
+up--they've sold me up."\r
+\r
+Then seating himself, and laying down his stick, while Luke left the\r
+room, he looked round again.\r
+\r
+"They've left the big Bible," he said. "It's got everything in,--when\r
+I was born and married; bring it me, Tom."\r
+\r
+The quarto Bible was laid open before him at the fly-leaf, and while\r
+he was reading with slowly travelling eyes Mrs. Tulliver entered the\r
+room, but stood in mute surprise to find her husband down already, and\r
+with the great Bible before him.\r
+\r
+"Ah," he said, looking at a spot where his finger rested, "my mother\r
+was Margaret Beaton; she died when she was forty-seven,--hers wasn't a\r
+long-lived family; we're our mother's children, Gritty and me are,--we\r
+shall go to our last bed before long."\r
+\r
+He seemed to be pausing over the record of his sister's birth and\r
+marriage, as if it were suggesting new thoughts to him; then he\r
+suddenly looked up at Tom, and said, in a sharp tone of alarm:\r
+\r
+"They haven't come upo' Moss for the money as I lent him, have they?"\r
+\r
+"No, father," said Tom; "the note was burnt."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver turned his eyes on the page again, and presently said:\r
+\r
+"Ah--Elizabeth Dodson--it's eighteen year since I married her----"\r
+\r
+"Come next Ladyday," said Mrs. Tulliver, going up to his side and\r
+looking at the page.\r
+\r
+Her husband fixed his eyes earnestly on her face.\r
+\r
+"Poor Bessy," he said, "you was a pretty lass then,--everybody said\r
+so,--and I used to think you kept your good looks rarely. But you're\r
+sorely aged; don't you bear me ill-will--I meant to do well by you--we\r
+promised one another for better or for worse----"\r
+\r
+"But I never thought it 'ud be so for worse as this," said poor Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, with the strange, scared look that had come over her of\r
+late; "and my poor father gave me away--and to come on so all at\r
+once----"\r
+\r
+"Oh, mother!" said Maggie, "don't talk in that way."\r
+\r
+"No, I know you won't let your poor mother speak--that's been the way\r
+all my life--your father never minded what I said--it 'ud have been o'\r
+no use for me to beg and pray--and it 'ud be no use now, not if I was\r
+to go down o' my hands and knees----"\r
+\r
+"Don't say so, Bessy," said Mr. Tulliver, whose pride, in these first\r
+moments of humiliation, was in abeyance to the sense of some justice\r
+in his wife's reproach. "It there's anything left as I could do to\r
+make you amends, I wouldn't say you nay."\r
+\r
+"Then we might stay here and get a living, and I might keep among my\r
+own sisters,--and me been such a good wife to you, and never crossed\r
+you from week's end to week's end--and they all say so--they say it\r
+'ud be nothing but right, only you're so turned against Wakem."\r
+\r
+"Mother," said Tom, severely, "this is not the time to talk about\r
+that."\r
+\r
+"Let her be," said Mr. Tulliver. "Say what you mean, Bessy."\r
+\r
+"Why, now the mill and the land's all Wakem's, and he's got everything\r
+in his hands, what's the use o' setting your face against him, when he\r
+says you may stay here, and speaks as fair as can be, and says you may\r
+manage the business, and have thirty shillings a-week, and a horse to\r
+ride about to market? And where have we got to put our heads? We must\r
+go into one o' the cottages in the village,--and me and my children\r
+brought down to that,--and all because you must set your mind against\r
+folks till there's no turning you."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver had sunk back in his chair trembling.\r
+\r
+"You may do as you like wi' me, Bessy," he said, in a low voice; "I've\r
+been the bringing of you to poverty--this world's too many for me--I'm\r
+nought but a bankrupt; it's no use standing up for anything now."\r
+\r
+"Father," said Tom, "I don't agree with my mother or my uncles, and I\r
+don't think you ought to submit to be under Wakem. I get a pound\r
+a-week now, and you can find something else to do when you get well."\r
+\r
+"Say no more, Tom, say no more; I've had enough for this day. Give me\r
+a kiss, Bessy, and let us bear one another no ill-will; we shall never\r
+be young again--this world's been too many for me."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IX\r
+\r
+An Item Added to the Family Register\r
+\r
+\r
+That first moment of renunciation and submission was followed by days\r
+of violent struggle in the miller's mind, as the gradual access of\r
+bodily strength brought with it increasing ability to embrace in one\r
+view all the conflicting conditions under which he found himself.\r
+Feeble limbs easily resign themselves to be tethered, and when we are\r
+subdued by sickness it seems possible to us to fulfil pledges which\r
+the old vigor comes back and breaks. There were times when poor\r
+Tulliver thought the fulfilment of his promise to Bessy was something\r
+quite too hard for human nature; he had promised her without knowing\r
+what she was going to say,--she might as well have asked him to carry\r
+a ton weight on his back. But again, there were many feelings arguing\r
+on her side, besides the sense that life had been made hard to her by\r
+having married him. He saw a possibility, by much pinching, of saving\r
+money out of his salary toward paying a second dividend to his\r
+creditors, and it would not be easy elsewhere to get a situation such\r
+as he could fill.\r
+\r
+He had led an easy life, ordering much and working little, and had no\r
+aptitude for any new business. He must perhaps take to day-labor, and\r
+his wife must have help from her sisters,--a prospect doubly bitter to\r
+him, now they had let all Bessy's precious things be sold, probably\r
+because they liked to set her against him, by making her feel that he\r
+had brought her to that pass. He listened to their admonitory talk,\r
+when they came to urge on him what he was bound to do for poor Bessy's\r
+sake, with averted eyes, that every now and then flashed on them\r
+furtively when their backs were turned. Nothing but the dread of\r
+needing their help could have made it an easier alternative to take\r
+their advice.\r
+\r
+But the strongest influence of all was the love of the old premises\r
+where he had run about when he was a boy, just as Tom had done after\r
+him. The Tullivers had lived on this spot for generations, and he had\r
+sat listening on a low stool on winter evenings while his father\r
+talked of the old half-timbered mill that had been there before the\r
+last great floods which damaged it so that his grandfather pulled it\r
+down and built the new one. It was when he got able to walk about and\r
+look at all the old objects that he felt the strain of his clinging\r
+affection for the old home as part of his life, part of himself. He\r
+couldn't bear to think of himself living on any other spot than this,\r
+where he knew the sound of every gate door, and felt that the shape\r
+and color of every roof and weather-stain and broken hillock was good,\r
+because his growing senses had been fed on them. Our instructed\r
+vagrancy, which was hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs\r
+away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and\r
+banyans,--which is nourished on books of travel and stretches the\r
+theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi,--can hardly get a dim\r
+notion of what an old-fashioned man like Tulliver felt for this spot,\r
+where all his memories centred, and where life seemed like a familiar\r
+smooth-handled tool that the fingers clutch with loving ease. And just\r
+now he was living in that freshened memory of the far-off time which\r
+comes to us in the passive hours of recovery from sickness.\r
+\r
+"Ay, Luke," he said one afternoon, as he stood looking over the\r
+orchard gate, "I remember the day they planted those apple-trees. My\r
+father was a huge man for planting,--it was like a merry-making to him\r
+to get a cart full o' young trees; and I used to stand i' the cold\r
+with him, and follow him about like a dog."\r
+\r
+Then he turned round, and leaning against the gate-post, looked at the\r
+opposite buildings.\r
+\r
+"The old mill 'ud miss me, I think, Luke. There's a story as when the\r
+mill changes hands, the river's angry; I've heard my father say it\r
+many a time. There's no telling whether there mayn't be summat _in_\r
+the story, for this is a puzzling world, and Old Harry's got a finger\r
+in it--it's been too many for me, I know."\r
+\r
+"Ay, sir," said Luke, with soothing sympathy, "what wi' the rust on\r
+the wheat, an' the firin' o' the ricks an' that, as I've seen i' my\r
+time,--things often looks comical; there's the bacon fat wi' our last\r
+pig run away like butter,--it leaves nought but a scratchin'."\r
+\r
+"It's just as if it was yesterday, now," Mr. Tulliver went on, "when\r
+my father began the malting. I remember, the day they finished the\r
+malt-house, I thought summat great was to come of it; for we'd a\r
+plum-pudding that day and a bit of a feast, and I said to my\r
+mother,--she was a fine dark-eyed woman, my mother was,--the little\r
+wench 'ull be as like her as two peas." Here Mr. Tulliver put his\r
+stick between his legs, and took out his snuff-box, for the greater\r
+enjoyment of this anecdote, which dropped from him in fragments, as if\r
+he every other moment lost narration in vision. "I was a little chap\r
+no higher much than my mother's knee,--she was sore fond of us\r
+children, Gritty and me,--and so I said to her, 'Mother,' I said,\r
+'shall we have plum-pudding _every_ day because o' the malt-house? She\r
+used to tell me o' that till her dying day. She was but a young woman\r
+when she died, my mother was. But it's forty good year since they\r
+finished the malt-house, and it isn't many days out of 'em all as I\r
+haven't looked out into the yard there, the first thing in the\r
+morning,--all weathers, from year's end to year's end. I should go off\r
+my head in a new place. I should be like as if I'd lost my way. It's\r
+all hard, whichever way I look at it,--the harness 'ull gall me, but\r
+it 'ud be summat to draw along the old road, instead of a new un."\r
+\r
+"Ay, sir," said Luke, "you'd be a deal better here nor in some new\r
+place. I can't abide new places mysen: things is allays\r
+awk'ard,--narrow-wheeled waggins, belike, and the stiles all another\r
+sort, an' oat-cake i' some places, tow'rt th' head o' the Floss,\r
+there. It's poor work, changing your country-side."\r
+\r
+"But I doubt, Luke, they'll be for getting rid o' Ben, and making you\r
+do with a lad; and I must help a bit wi' the mill. You'll have a worse\r
+place."\r
+\r
+"Ne'er mind, sir," said Luke, "I sha'n't plague mysen. I'n been wi'\r
+you twenty year, an' you can't get twenty year wi' whistlin' for 'em,\r
+no more nor you can make the trees grow: you mun wait till God\r
+A'mighty sends 'em. I can't abide new victual nor new faces, _I_\r
+can't,--you niver know but what they'll gripe you."\r
+\r
+The walk was finished in silence after this, for Luke had disburthened\r
+himself of thoughts to an extent that left his conversational\r
+resources quite barren, and Mr. Tulliver had relapsed from his\r
+recollections into a painful meditation on the choice of hardships\r
+before him. Maggie noticed that he was unusually absent that evening\r
+at tea; and afterward he sat leaning forward in his chair, looking at\r
+the ground, moving his lips, and shaking his head from time to time.\r
+Then he looked hard at Mrs. Tulliver, who was knitting opposite him,\r
+then at Maggie, who, as she bent over her sewing, was intensely\r
+conscious of some drama going forward in her father's mind. Suddenly\r
+he took up the poker and broke the large coal fiercely.\r
+\r
+"Dear heart, Mr. Tulliver, what can you be thinking of?" said his\r
+wife, looking up in alarm; "it's very wasteful, breaking the coal, and\r
+we've got hardly any large coal left, and I don't know where the rest\r
+is to come from."\r
+\r
+"I don't think you're quite so well to-night, are you, father?" said\r
+Maggie; "you seem uneasy."\r
+\r
+"Why, how is it Tom doesn't come?" said Mr. Tulliver, impatiently.\r
+\r
+"Dear heart, is it time? I must go and get his supper," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, laying down her knitting, and leaving the room.\r
+\r
+"It's nigh upon half-past eight," said Mr. Tulliver. "He'll be here\r
+soon. Go, go and get the big Bible, and open it at the beginning,\r
+where everything's set down. And get the pen and ink."\r
+\r
+Maggie obeyed, wondering; but her father gave no further orders, and\r
+only sat listening for Tom's footfall on the gravel, apparently\r
+irritated by the wind, which had risen, and was roaring so as to drown\r
+all other sounds. There was a strange light in his eyes that rather\r
+frightened Maggie; _she_ began to wish that Tom would come, too.\r
+\r
+"There he is, then," said Mr. Tulliver, in an excited way, when the\r
+knock came at last. Maggie went to open the door, but her mother came\r
+out of the kitchen hurriedly, saying, "Stop a bit, Maggie; I'll open\r
+it."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver had begun to be a little frightened at her boy, but she\r
+was jealous of every office others did for him.\r
+\r
+"Your supper's ready by the kitchen-fire, my boy," she said, as he\r
+took off his hat and coat. "You shall have it by yourself, just as you\r
+like, and I won't speak to you."\r
+\r
+"I think my father wants Tom, mother," said Maggie; "he must come into\r
+the parlor first."\r
+\r
+Tom entered with his usual saddened evening face, but his eyes fell\r
+immediately on the open Bible and the inkstand, and he glanced with a\r
+look of anxious surprise at his father, who was saying,--\r
+\r
+"Come, come, you're late; I want you."\r
+\r
+"Is there anything the matter, father?" said Tom.\r
+\r
+"You sit down, all of you," said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily.\r
+\r
+"And, Tom, sit down here; I've got something for you to write i' the\r
+Bible."\r
+\r
+They all three sat down, looking at him. He began to speak slowly,\r
+looking first at his wife.\r
+\r
+"I've made up my mind, Bessy, and I'll be as good as my word to you.\r
+There'll be the same grave made for us to lie down in, and we mustn't\r
+be bearing one another ill-will. I'll stop in the old place, and I'll\r
+serve under Wakem, and I'll serve him like an honest man; there's no\r
+Tulliver but what's honest, mind that, Tom,"--here his voice\r
+rose,--"they'll have it to throw up against me as I paid a dividend,\r
+but it wasn't my fault; it was because there's raskills in the world.\r
+They've been too many for me, and I must give in. I'll put my neck in\r
+harness,--for you've a right to say as I've brought you into trouble,\r
+Bessy,--and I'll serve him as honest as if he was no raskill; I'm an\r
+honest man, though I shall never hold my head up no more. I'm a tree\r
+as is broke--a tree as is broke."\r
+\r
+He paused and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he\r
+said, in a louder yet deeper tone:\r
+\r
+"But I won't forgive him! I know what they say, he never meant me any\r
+harm. That's the way Old Harry props up the rascals. He's been at the\r
+bottom of everything; but he's a fine gentleman,--I know, I know. I\r
+shouldn't ha' gone to law, they say. But who made it so as there was\r
+no arbitratin', and no justice to be got? It signifies nothing to him,\r
+I know that; he's one o' them fine gentlemen as get money by doing\r
+business for poorer folks, and when he's made beggars of 'em he'll\r
+give 'em charity. I won't forgive him! I wish he might be punished\r
+with shame till his own son 'ud like to forget him. I wish he may do\r
+summat as they'd make him work at the treadmill! But he won't,--he's\r
+too big a raskill to let the law lay hold on him. And you mind this,\r
+Tom,--you never forgive him neither, if you mean to be my son.\r
+There'll maybe come a time when you may make him feel; it'll never\r
+come to me; I'n got my head under the yoke. Now write--write it i' the\r
+Bible."\r
+\r
+"Oh, father, what?" said Maggie, sinking down by his knee, pale and\r
+trembling. "It's wicked to curse and bear malice."\r
+\r
+"It isn't wicked, I tell you," said her father, fiercely. "It's wicked\r
+as the raskills should prosper; it's the Devil's doing. Do as I tell\r
+you, Tom. Write."\r
+\r
+"What am I to write?" said Tom, with gloomy submission.\r
+\r
+"Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under John Wakem,\r
+the man as had helped to ruin him, because I'd promised my wife to\r
+make her what amends I could for her trouble, and because I wanted to\r
+die in th' old place where I was born and my father was born. Put that\r
+i' the right words--you know how--and then write, as I don't forgive\r
+Wakem for all that; and for all I'll serve him honest, I wish evil may\r
+befall him. Write that."\r
+\r
+There was a dead silence as Tom's pen moved along the paper; Mrs.\r
+Tulliver looked scared, and Maggie trembled like a leaf.\r
+\r
+"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr. Tulliver, Tom read aloud\r
+slowly.\r
+\r
+"Now write--write as you'll remember what Wakem's done to your father,\r
+and you'll make him and his feel it, if ever the day comes. And sign\r
+your name Thomas Tulliver."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, father, dear father!" said Maggie, almost choked with fear.\r
+"You shouldn't make Tom write that."\r
+\r
+"Be quiet, Maggie!" said Tom. "I _shall_ write it."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book IV\r
+\r
+_The Valley of Humiliation_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet\r
+\r
+\r
+Journeying down the Rhone on a summer's day, you have perhaps felt the\r
+sunshine made dreary by those ruined villages which stud the banks in\r
+certain parts of its course, telling how the swift river once rose,\r
+like an angry, destroying god, sweeping down the feeble generations\r
+whose breath is in their nostrils, and making their dwellings a\r
+desolation. Strange contrast, you may have thought, between the\r
+effect produced on us by these dismal remnants of commonplace\r
+houses, which in their best days were but the sign of a sordid life,\r
+belonging in all its details to our own vulgar era, and the effect\r
+produced by those ruins on the castled Rhine, which have crumbled and\r
+mellowed into such harmony with the green and rocky steeps that they\r
+seem to have a natural fitness, like the mountain-pine; nay, even in\r
+the day when they were built they must have had this fitness, as if\r
+they had been raised by an earth-born race, who had inherited from\r
+their mighty parent a sublime instinct of form. And that was a day of\r
+romance; If those robber-barons were somewhat grim and drunken ogres,\r
+they had a certain grandeur of the wild beast in them,--they were\r
+forest boars with tusks, tearing and rending, not the ordinary\r
+domestic grunter; they represented the demon forces forever in\r
+collision with beauty, virtue, and the gentle uses of life; they made\r
+a fine contrast in the picture with the wandering minstrel, the\r
+soft-lipped princess, the pious recluse, and the timid Israelite. That\r
+was a time of color, when the sunlight fell on glancing steel and\r
+floating banners; a time of adventure and fierce struggle,--nay, of\r
+living, religious art and religious enthusiasm; for were not\r
+cathedrals built in those days, and did not great emperors leave their\r
+Western palaces to die before the infidel strongholds in the sacred\r
+East? Therefore it is that these Rhine castles thrill me with a sense\r
+of poetry; they belong to the grand historic life of humanity, and\r
+raise up for me the vision of an echo. But these dead-tinted,\r
+hollow-eyed, angular skeletons of villages on the Rhone oppress me\r
+with the feeling that human life--very much of it--is a narrow, ugly,\r
+grovelling existence, which even calamity does not elevate, but rather\r
+tends to exhibit in all its bare vulgarity of conception; and I have a\r
+cruel conviction that the lives these ruins are the traces of were\r
+part of a gross sum of obscure vitality, that will be swept into the\r
+same oblivion with the generations of ants and beavers.\r
+\r
+Perhaps something akin to this oppressive feeling may have weighed\r
+upon you in watching this old-fashioned family life on the banks of\r
+the Floss, which even sorrow hardly suffices to lift above the level\r
+of the tragi-comic. It is a sordid life, you say, this of the\r
+Tullivers and Dodsons, irradiated by no sublime principles, no\r
+romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith; moved by none of\r
+those wild, uncontrollable passions which create the dark shadows of\r
+misery and crime; without that primitive, rough simplicity of wants,\r
+that hard, submissive, ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of\r
+what nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life. Here\r
+one has conventional worldly notions and habits without instruction\r
+and without polish, surely the most prosaic form of human life; proud\r
+respectability in a gig of unfashionable build; worldliness without\r
+side-dishes. Observing these people narrowly, even when the iron hand\r
+of misfortune has shaken them from their unquestioning hold on the\r
+world, one sees little trace of religion, still less of a\r
+distinctively Christian creed. Their belief in the Unseen, so far as\r
+it manifests itself at all, seems to be rather a pagan kind; their\r
+moral notions, though held with strong tenacity, seem to have no\r
+standard beyond hereditary custom. You could not live among such\r
+people; you are stifled for want of an outlet toward something\r
+beautiful, great, or noble; you are irritated with these dull men and\r
+women, as a kind of population out of keeping with the earth on which\r
+they live,--with this rich plain where the great river flows forever\r
+onward, and links the small pulse of the old English town with the\r
+beatings of the world's mighty heart. A vigorous superstition, that\r
+lashes its gods or lashes its own back, seems to be more congruous\r
+with the mystery of the human lot, than the mental condition of these\r
+emmet-like Dodsons and Tullivers.\r
+\r
+I share with you this sense of oppressive narrowness; but it is\r
+necessary that we should feel it, if we care to understand how it\r
+acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie,--how it has acted on young\r
+natures in many generations, that in the onward tendency of human\r
+things have risen above the mental level of the generation before\r
+them, to which they have been nevertheless tied by the strongest\r
+fibres of their hearts. The suffering, whether of martyr or victim,\r
+which belongs to every historical advance of mankind, is represented\r
+in this way in every town, and by hundreds of obscure hearths; and we\r
+need not shrink from this comparison of small things with great; for\r
+does not science tell us that its highest striving is after the\r
+ascertainment of a unity which shall bind the smallest things with the\r
+greatest? In natural science, I have understood, there is nothing\r
+petty to the mind that has a large vision of relations, and to which\r
+every single object suggests a vast sum of conditions. It is surely\r
+the same with the observation of human life.\r
+\r
+Certainly the religious and moral ideas of the Dodsons and Tullivers\r
+were of too specific a kind to be arrived at deductively, from the\r
+statement that they were part of the Protestant population of Great\r
+Britain. Their theory of life had its core of soundness, as all\r
+theories must have on which decent and prosperous families have been\r
+reared and have flourished; but it had the very slightest tincture of\r
+theology. If, in the maiden days of the Dodson sisters, their Bibles\r
+opened more easily at some parts than others, it was because of dried\r
+tulip-petals, which had been distributed quite impartially, without\r
+preference for the historical, devotional, or doctrinal. Their\r
+religion was of a simple, semi-pagan kind, but there was no heresy in\r
+it,--if heresy properly means choice,--for they didn't know there was\r
+any other religion, except that of chapel-goers, which appeared to run\r
+in families, like asthma. How _should_ they know? The vicar of their\r
+pleasant rural parish was not a controversialist, but a good hand at\r
+whist, and one who had a joke always ready for a blooming female\r
+parishioner. The religion of the Dodsons consisted in revering\r
+whatever was customary and respectable; it was necessary to be\r
+baptized, else one could not be buried in the church-yard, and to take\r
+the sacrament before death, as a security against more dimly\r
+understood perils; but it was of equal necessity to have the proper\r
+pall-bearers and well-cured hams at one's funeral, and to leave an\r
+unimpeachable will. A Dodson would not be taxed with the omission of\r
+anything that was becoming, or that belonged to that eternal fitness\r
+of things which was plainly indicated in the practice of the most\r
+substantial parishioners, and in the family traditions,--such as\r
+obedience to parents, faithfulness to kindred, industry, rigid\r
+honesty, thrift, the thorough scouring of wooden and copper utensils,\r
+the hoarding of coins likely to disappear from the currency, the\r
+production of first-rate commodities for the market, and the general\r
+preference of whatever was home-made. The Dodsons were a very proud\r
+race, and their pride lay in the utter frustration of all desire to\r
+tax them with a breach of traditional duty or propriety. A wholesome\r
+pride in many respects, since it identified honor with perfect\r
+integrity, thoroughness of work, and faithfulness to admitted rules;\r
+and society owes some worthy qualities in many of her members to\r
+mothers of the Dodson class, who made their butter and their fromenty\r
+well, and would have felt disgraced to make it otherwise. To be honest\r
+and poor was never a Dodson motto, still less to seem rich though\r
+being poor; rather, the family badge was to be honest and rich, and\r
+not only rich, but richer than was supposed. To live respected, and\r
+have the proper bearers at your funeral, was an achievement of the\r
+ends of existence that would be entirely nullified if, on the reading\r
+of your will, you sank in the opinion of your fellow-men, either by\r
+turning out to be poorer than they expected, or by leaving your money\r
+in a capricious manner, without strict regard to degrees of kin. The\r
+right thing must always be done toward kindred. The right thing was to\r
+correct them severely, if they were other than a credit to the family,\r
+but still not to alienate from them the smallest rightful share in the\r
+family shoebuckles and other property. A conspicuous quality in the\r
+Dodson character was its genuineness; its vices and virtues alike were\r
+phases of a proud honest egoism, which had a hearty dislike to\r
+whatever made against its own credit and interest, and would be\r
+frankly hard of speech to inconvenient "kin," but would never forsake\r
+or ignore them,--would not let them want bread, but only require them\r
+to eat it with bitter herbs.\r
+\r
+The same sort of traditional belief ran in the Tulliver veins, but it\r
+was carried in richer blood, having elements of generous imprudence,\r
+warm affection, and hot-tempered rashness. Mr. Tulliver's grandfather\r
+had been heard to say that he was descended from one Ralph Tulliver, a\r
+wonderfully clever fellow, who had ruined himself. It is likely enough\r
+that the clever Ralph was a high liver, rode spirited horses, and was\r
+very decidedly of his own opinion. On the other hand, nobody had ever\r
+heard of a Dodson who had ruined himself; it was not the way of that\r
+family.\r
+\r
+If such were the views of life on which the Dodsons and Tullivers had\r
+been reared in the praiseworthy past of Pitt and high prices, you will\r
+infer from what you already know concerning the state of society in\r
+St. Ogg's, that there had been no highly modifying influence to act on\r
+them in their maturer life. It was still possible, even in that later\r
+time of anti-Catholic preaching, for people to hold many pagan ideas,\r
+and believe themselves good church-people, notwithstanding; so we need\r
+hardly feel any surprise at the fact that Mr. Tulliver, though a\r
+regular church-goer, recorded his vindictiveness on the fly-leaf of\r
+his Bible. It was not that any harm could be said concerning the vicar\r
+of that charming rural parish to which Dorlcote Mill belonged; he was\r
+a man of excellent family, an irreproachable bachelor, of elegant\r
+pursuits,--had taken honors, and held a fellowship. Mr. Tulliver\r
+regarded him with dutiful respect, as he did everything else belonging\r
+to the church-service; but he considered that church was one thing and\r
+common-sense another, and he wanted nobody to tell _him_ what\r
+commonsense was. Certain seeds which are required to find a nidus for\r
+themselves under unfavorable circumstances have been supplied by\r
+nature with an apparatus of hooks, so that they will get a hold on\r
+very unreceptive surfaces. The spiritual seed which had been scattered\r
+over Mr. Tulliver had apparently been destitute of any corresponding\r
+provision, and had slipped off to the winds again, from a total\r
+absence of hooks.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns\r
+\r
+\r
+There is something sustaining in the very agitation that accompanies\r
+the first shocks of trouble, just as an acute pain is often a\r
+stimulus, and produces an excitement which is transient strength. It\r
+is in the slow, changed life that follows; in the time when sorrow has\r
+become stale, and has no longer an emotive intensity that counteracts\r
+its pain; in the time when day follows day in dull, unexpectant\r
+sameness, and trial is a dreary routine,--it is then that despair\r
+threatens; it is then that the peremptory hunger of the soul is felt,\r
+and eye and ear are strained after some unlearned secret of our\r
+existence, which shall give to endurance the nature of satisfaction.\r
+\r
+This time of utmost need was come to Maggie, with her short span of\r
+thirteen years. To the usual precocity of the girl, she added that\r
+early experience of struggle, of conflict between the inward impulse\r
+and outward fact, which is the lot of every imaginative and passionate\r
+nature; and the years since she hammered the nails into her wooden\r
+Fetish among the worm-eaten shelves of the attic had been filled with\r
+so eager a life in the triple world of Reality, Books, and Waking\r
+Dreams, that Maggie was strangely old for her years in everything\r
+except in her entire want of that prudence and self-command which were\r
+the qualities that made Tom manly in the midst of his intellectual\r
+boyishness. And now her lot was beginning to have a still, sad\r
+monotony, which threw her more than ever on her inward self. Her\r
+father was able to attend to business again, his affairs were settled,\r
+and he was acting as Wakem's manager on the old spot. Tom went to and\r
+fro every morning and evening, and became more and more silent in the\r
+short intervals at home; what was there to say? One day was like\r
+another; and Tom's interest in life, driven back and crushed on every\r
+other side, was concentrating itself into the one channel of ambitious\r
+resistance to misfortune. The peculiarities of his father and mother\r
+were very irksome to him, now they were laid bare of all the softening\r
+accompaniments of an easy, prosperous home; for Tom had very clear,\r
+prosaic eyes, not apt to be dimmed by mists of feeling or imagination.\r
+Poor Mrs. Tulliver, it seemed, would never recover her old self, her\r
+placid household activity; how could she? The objects among which her\r
+mind had moved complacently were all gone,--all the little hopes and\r
+schemes and speculations, all the pleasant little cares about her\r
+treasures which had made the world quite comprehensible to her for a\r
+quarter of a century, since she had made her first purchase of the\r
+sugar-tongs, had been suddenly snatched away from her, and she\r
+remained bewildered in this empty life. Why that should have happened\r
+to her which had not happened to other women remained an insoluble\r
+question by which she expressed her perpetual ruminating comparison of\r
+the past with the present. It was piteous to see the comely woman\r
+getting thinner and more worn under a bodily as well as mental\r
+restlessness, which made her often wander about the empty house after\r
+her work was done, until Maggie, becoming alarmed about her, would\r
+seek her, and bring her down by telling her how it vexed Tom that she\r
+was injuring her health by never sitting down and resting herself. Yet\r
+amidst this helpless imbecility there was a touching trait of humble,\r
+self-devoting maternity, which made Maggie feel tenderly toward her\r
+poor mother amidst all the little wearing griefs caused by her mental\r
+feebleness. She would let Maggie do none of the work that was heaviest\r
+and most soiling to the hands, and was quite peevish when Maggie\r
+attempted to relieve her from her grate-brushing and scouring: "Let it\r
+alone, my dear; your hands 'ull get as hard as hard," she would say;\r
+"it's your mother's place to do that. I can't do the sewing--my eyes\r
+fail me." And she would still brush and carefully tend Maggie's hair,\r
+which she had become reconciled to, in spite of its refusal to curl,\r
+now it was so long and massy. Maggie was not her pet child, and, in\r
+general, would have been much better if she had been quite different;\r
+yet the womanly heart, so bruised in its small personal desires, found\r
+a future to rest on in the life of this young thing, and the mother\r
+pleased herself with wearing out her own hands to save the hands that\r
+had so much more life in them.\r
+\r
+But the constant presence of her mother's regretful bewilderment was\r
+less painful to Maggie than that of her father's sullen,\r
+incommunicative depression. As long as the paralysis was upon him, and\r
+it seemed as if he might always be in a childlike condition of\r
+dependence,--as long as he was still only half awakened to his\r
+trouble,--Maggie had felt the strong tide of pitying love almost as an\r
+inspiration, a new power, that would make the most difficult life easy\r
+for his sake; but now, instead of childlike dependence, there had come\r
+a taciturn, hard concentration of purpose, in strange contrast with\r
+his old vehement communicativeness and high spirit; and this lasted\r
+from day to day, and from week to week, the dull eye never brightening\r
+with any eagerness or any joy. It is something cruelly incomprehensible\r
+to youthful natures, this sombre sameness in middle-aged and elderly\r
+people, whose life has resulted in disappointment and discontent, to\r
+whose faces a smile becomes so strange that the sad lines all about\r
+the lips and brow seem to take no notice of it, and it hurries away\r
+again for want of a welcome. "Why will they not kindle up and be\r
+glad sometimes?" thinks young elasticity. "It would be so easy if they\r
+only liked to do it." And these leaden clouds that never part are apt\r
+to create impatience even in the filial affection that streams forth in\r
+nothing but tenderness and pity in the time of more obvious affliction.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver lingered nowhere away from home; he hurried away from\r
+market, he refused all invitations to stay and chat, as in old times,\r
+in the houses where he called on business. He could not be reconciled\r
+with his lot. There was no attitude in which his pride did not feel\r
+its bruises; and in all behavior toward him, whether kind or cold, he\r
+detected an allusion to the change in his circumstances. Even the days\r
+on which Wakem came to ride round the land and inquire into the\r
+business were not so black to him as those market-days on which he had\r
+met several creditors who had accepted a composition from him. To save\r
+something toward the repayment of those creditors was the object\r
+toward which he was now bending all his thoughts and efforts; and\r
+under the influence of this all-compelling demand of his nature, the\r
+somewhat profuse man, who hated to be stinted or to stint any one else\r
+in his own house, was gradually metamorphosed into the keen-eyed\r
+grudger of morsels. Mrs. Tulliver could not economize enough to\r
+satisfy him, in their food and firing; and he would eat nothing\r
+himself but what was of the coarsest quality. Tom, though depressed\r
+and strongly repelled by his father's sullenness, and the dreariness\r
+of home, entered thoroughly into his father's feelings about paying\r
+the creditors; and the poor lad brought his first quarter's money,\r
+with a delicious sense of achievement, and gave it to his father to\r
+put into the tin box which held the savings. The little store of\r
+sovereigns in the tin box seemed to be the only sight that brought a\r
+faint beam of pleasure into the miller's eyes,--faint and transient,\r
+for it was soon dispelled by the thought that the time would be\r
+long--perhaps longer than his life,--before the narrow savings could\r
+remove the hateful incubus of debt. A deficit of more than five\r
+hundred pounds, with the accumulating interest, seemed a deep pit to\r
+fill with the savings from thirty shillings a-week, even when Tom's\r
+probable savings were to be added. On this one point there was entire\r
+community of feeling in the four widely differing beings who sat round\r
+the dying fire of sticks, which made a cheap warmth for them on the\r
+verge of bedtime. Mrs. Tulliver carried the proud integrity of the\r
+Dodsons in her blood, and had been brought up to think that to wrong\r
+people of their money, which was another phrase for debt, was a sort\r
+of moral pillory; it would have been wickedness, to her mind, to have\r
+run counter to her husband's desire to "do the right thing," and\r
+retrieve his name. She had a confused, dreamy notion that, if the\r
+creditors were all paid, her plate and linen ought to come back to\r
+her; but she had an inbred perception that while people owed money\r
+they were unable to pay, they couldn't rightly call anything their\r
+own. She murmured a little that Mr. Tulliver so peremptorily refused\r
+to receive anything in repayment from Mr. and Mrs. Moss; but to all\r
+his requirements of household economy she was submissive to the point\r
+of denying herself the cheapest indulgences of mere flavor; her only\r
+rebellion was to smuggle into the kitchen something that would make\r
+rather a better supper than usual for Tom.\r
+\r
+These narrow notions about debt, held by the old fashioned Tullivers,\r
+may perhaps excite a smile on the faces of many readers in these days\r
+of wide commercial views and wide philosophy, according to which\r
+everything rights itself without any trouble of ours. The fact that my\r
+tradesman is out of pocket by me is to be looked at through the serene\r
+certainty that somebody else's tradesman is in pocket by somebody\r
+else; and since there must be bad debts in the world, why, it is mere\r
+egoism not to like that we in particular should make them instead of\r
+our fellow-citizens. I am telling the history of very simple people,\r
+who had never had any illuminating doubts as to personal integrity and\r
+honor.\r
+\r
+Under all this grim melancholy and narrowing concentration of desire,\r
+Mr. Tulliver retained the feeling toward his "little wench" which made\r
+her presence a need to him, though it would not suffice to cheer him.\r
+She was still the desire of his eyes; but the sweet spring of fatherly\r
+love was now mingled with bitterness, like everything else. When\r
+Maggie laid down her work at night, it was her habit to get a low\r
+stool and sit by her father's knee, leaning her cheek against it. How\r
+she wished he would stroke her head, or give some sign that he was\r
+soothed by the sense that he had a daughter who loved him! But now she\r
+got no answer to her little caresses, either from her father or from\r
+Tom,--the two idols of her life. Tom was weary and abstracted in the\r
+short intervals when he was at home, and her father was bitterly\r
+preoccupied with the thought that the girl was growing up, was\r
+shooting up into a woman; and how was she to do well in life? She had\r
+a poor chance for marrying, down in the world as they were. And he\r
+hated the thought of her marrying poorly, as her aunt Gritty had done;\r
+_that_ would be a thing to make him turn in his grave,--the little\r
+wench so pulled down by children and toil, as her aunt Moss was. When\r
+uncultured minds, confined to a narrow range of personal experience,\r
+are under the pressure of continued misfortune, their inward life is\r
+apt to become a perpetually repeated round of sad and bitter thoughts;\r
+the same words, the same scenes, are revolved over and over again, the\r
+same mood accompanies them; the end of the year finds them as much\r
+what they were at the beginning as if they were machines set to a\r
+recurrent series of movements.\r
+\r
+The sameness of the days was broken by few visitors. Uncles and aunts\r
+paid only short visits now; of course, they could not stay to meals,\r
+and the constraint caused by Mr. Tulliver's savage silence, which\r
+seemed to add to the hollow resonance of the bare, uncarpeted room\r
+when the aunts were talking, heightened the unpleasantness of these\r
+family visits on all sides, and tended to make them rare. As for other\r
+acquaintances, there is a chill air surrounding those who are down in\r
+the world, and people are glad to get away from them, as from a cold\r
+room; human beings, mere men and women, without furniture, without\r
+anything to offer you, who have ceased to count as anybody, present an\r
+embarrassing negation of reasons for wishing to see them, or of\r
+subjects on which to converse with them. At that distant day, there\r
+was a dreary isolation in the civilized Christian society of these\r
+realms for families that had dropped below their original level,\r
+unless they belonged to a sectarian church, which gets some warmth of\r
+brotherhood by walling in the sacred fire.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+A Voice from the Past\r
+\r
+\r
+One afternoon, when the chestnuts were coming into flower, Maggie had\r
+brought her chair outside the front door, and was seated there with a\r
+book on her knees. Her dark eyes had wandered from the book, but they\r
+did not seem to be enjoying the sunshine which pierced the screen of\r
+jasmine on the projecting porch at her right, and threw leafy shadows\r
+on her pale round cheek; they seemed rather to be searching for\r
+something that was not disclosed by the sunshine. It had been a more\r
+miserable day than usual; her father, after a visit of Wakem's had had\r
+a paroxysm of rage, in which for some trifling fault he had beaten the\r
+boy who served in the mill. Once before, since his illness, he had had\r
+a similar paroxysm, in which he had beaten his horse, and the scene\r
+had left a lasting terror in Maggie's mind. The thought had risen,\r
+that some time or other he might beat her mother if she happened to\r
+speak in her feeble way at the wrong moment. The keenest of all dread\r
+with her was lest her father should add to his present misfortune the\r
+wretchedness of doing something irretrievably disgraceful. The\r
+battered school-book of Tom's which she held on her knees could give\r
+her no fortitude under the pressure of that dread; and again and again\r
+her eyes had filled with tears, as they wandered vaguely, seeing\r
+neither the chestnut-trees, nor the distant horizon, but only future\r
+scenes of home-sorrow.\r
+\r
+Suddenly she was roused by the sound of the opening gate and of\r
+footsteps on the gravel. It was not Tom who was entering, but a man in\r
+a sealskin cap and a blue plush waistcoat, carrying a pack on his\r
+back, and followed closely by a bullterrier of brindled coat and\r
+defiant aspect.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Bob, it's you!" said Maggie, starting up with a smile of pleased\r
+recognition, for there had been no abundance of kind acts to efface\r
+the recollection of Bob's generosity; "I'm so glad to see you."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, Miss," said Bob, lifting his cap and showing a delighted\r
+face, but immediately relieving himself of some accompanying\r
+embarrassment by looking down at his dog, and saying in a tone of\r
+disgust, "Get out wi' you, you thunderin' sawney!"\r
+\r
+"My brother is not at home yet, Bob," said Maggie; "he is always at\r
+St. Ogg's in the daytime."\r
+\r
+"Well, Miss," said Bob, "I should be glad to see Mr. Tom, but that\r
+isn't just what I'm come for,--look here!"\r
+\r
+Bob was in the act of depositing his pack on the door-step, and with\r
+it a row of small books fastened together with string.\r
+\r
+Apparently, however, they were not the object to which he wished to\r
+call Maggie's attention, but rather something which he had carried\r
+under his arm, wrapped in a red handkerchief.\r
+\r
+"See here!" he said again, laying the red parcel on the others and\r
+unfolding it; "you won't think I'm a-makin' too free, Miss, I hope,\r
+but I lighted on these books, and I thought they might make up to you\r
+a bit for them as you've lost; for I heared you speak o' picturs,--an'\r
+as for picturs, _look_ here!"\r
+\r
+The opening of the red handkerchief had disclosed a superannuated\r
+"Keepsake" and six or seven numbers of a "Portrait Gallery," in royal\r
+octavo; and the emphatic request to look referred to a portrait of\r
+George the Fourth in all the majesty of his depressed cranium and\r
+voluminous neckcloth.\r
+\r
+"There's all sorts o' genelmen here," Bob went on, turning over the\r
+leaves with some excitement, "wi' all sorts o' nones,--an' some bald\r
+an' some wi' wigs,--Parlament genelmen, I reckon. An' here," he added,\r
+opening the "Keepsake,"--"_here's_ ladies for you, some wi' curly hair\r
+and some wi' smooth, an' some a-smiling wi' their heads o' one side,\r
+an' some as if they were goin' to cry,--look here,--a-sittin' on the\r
+ground out o' door, dressed like the ladies I'n seen get out o' the\r
+carriages at the balls in th' Old Hall there. My eyes! I wonder what\r
+the chaps wear as go a-courtin' 'em! I sot up till the clock was gone\r
+twelve last night, a-lookin' at 'em,--I did,--till they stared at me\r
+out o' the picturs as if they'd know when I spoke to 'em. But, lors! I\r
+shouldn't know what to say to 'em. They'll be more fittin' company for\r
+you, Miss; and the man at the book-stall, he said they banged\r
+iverything for picturs; he said they was a fust-rate article."\r
+\r
+"And you've bought them for me, Bob?" said Maggie, deeply touched by\r
+this simple kindness. "How very, very good of you! But I'm afraid you\r
+gave a great deal of money for them."\r
+\r
+"Not me!" said Bob. "I'd ha' gev three times the money if they'll make\r
+up to you a bit for them as was sold away from you, Miss. For I'n\r
+niver forgot how you looked when you fretted about the books bein'\r
+gone; it's stuck by me as if it was a pictur hingin' before me. An'\r
+when I see'd the book open upo' the stall, wi' the lady lookin' out of\r
+it wi' eyes a bit like your'n when you was frettin',--you'll excuse my\r
+takin' the liberty, Miss,--I thought I'd make free to buy it for you,\r
+an' then I bought the books full o' genelmen to match; an' then"--here\r
+Bob took up the small stringed packet of books--"I thought you might\r
+like a bit more print as well as the picturs, an' I got these for a\r
+sayso,--they're cram-full o' print, an' I thought they'd do no harm\r
+comin' along wi' these bettermost books. An' I hope you won't say me\r
+nay, an' tell me as you won't have 'em, like Mr. Tom did wi' the\r
+suvreigns."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, Bob," said Maggie, "I'm very thankful to you for thinking\r
+of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don't think any one ever did\r
+such a kind thing for me before. I haven't many friends who care for\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"Hev a dog, Miss!--they're better friends nor any Christian," said\r
+Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the\r
+intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in\r
+talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of\r
+himself, "his tongue overrun him" when he began to speak. "I can't\r
+give you Mumps, 'cause he'd break his heart to go away from me--eh,\r
+Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff?" (Mumps declined to express\r
+himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his\r
+tail.) "But I'd get you a pup, Miss, an' welcome."\r
+\r
+"No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn't keep a dog of my\r
+own."\r
+\r
+"Eh, that's a pity; else there's a pup,--if you didn't mind about it\r
+not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show,--an\r
+uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi' her bark nor half\r
+the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There's\r
+one chap carries pots,--a poor, low trade as any on the road,--he\r
+says, 'Why Toby's nought but a mongrel; there's nought to look at in\r
+her.' But I says to him, 'Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel?\r
+There wasn't much pickin' o' _your_ feyther an' mother, to look at\r
+you.' Not but I like a bit o' breed myself, but I can't abide to see\r
+one cur grinnin' at another. I wish you good evenin', Miss," said Bob,\r
+abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his\r
+tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner.\r
+\r
+"Won't you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob?"\r
+said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Miss, thank you--another time. You'll give my duty to him, if\r
+you please. Eh, he's a fine growed chap, Mr. Tom is; he took to\r
+growin' i' the legs, an' _I_ didn't."\r
+\r
+The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow\r
+gone wrong.\r
+\r
+"You don't call Mumps a cur, I suppose?" said Maggie, divining that\r
+any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master.\r
+\r
+"No, Miss, a fine way off that," said Bob, with pitying smile; "Mumps\r
+is as fine a cross as you'll see anywhere along the Floss, an' I'n\r
+been up it wi' the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at\r
+him; but you won't catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much,--he minds\r
+his own business, he does."\r
+\r
+The expression of Mump's face, which seemed to be tolerating the\r
+superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory\r
+of this high praise.\r
+\r
+"He looks dreadfully surly," said Maggie. "Would he let me pat him?"\r
+\r
+"Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does.\r
+He isn't a dog as 'ull be caught wi' gingerbread; he'd smell a thief a\r
+good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him\r
+by th' hour together, when I'm walking i' lone places, and if I'n done\r
+a bit o' mischief, I allays tell him. I'n got no secrets but what\r
+Mumps knows 'em. He knows about my big thumb, he does."\r
+\r
+"Your big thumb--what's that, Bob?" said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"That's what it is, Miss," said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly\r
+broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. "It\r
+tells i' measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, 'cause\r
+it's light for my pack, an' it's dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb\r
+tells. I clap my thumb at the end o' the yard and cut o' the hither\r
+side of it, and the old women aren't up to't."\r
+\r
+"But Bob," said Maggie, looking serious, "that's cheating; I don't\r
+like to hear you say that."\r
+\r
+"Don't you, Miss?" said Bob regretfully. "Then I'm sorry I said it.\r
+But I'm so used to talking to Mumps, an' he doesn't mind a bit o'\r
+cheating, when it's them skinflint women, as haggle an' haggle, an'\r
+'ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an' 'ud niver ask\r
+theirselves how I got my dinner out on't. I niver cheat anybody as\r
+doesn't want to cheat me, Miss,--lors, I'm a honest chap, I am; only I\r
+must hev a bit o' sport, an' now I don't go wi' th' ferrets, I'n got\r
+no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good\r
+evening, Miss."\r
+\r
+"Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come\r
+again to see Tom."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Miss," said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round\r
+he said, "I'll leave off that trick wi' my big thumb, if you don't\r
+think well on me for it, Miss; but it 'ud be a pity, it would. I\r
+couldn't find another trick so good,--an' what 'ud be the use o'\r
+havin' a big thumb? It might as well ha' been narrow."\r
+\r
+Maggie, thus exalted into Bob's exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of\r
+herself; at which her worshipper's blue eyes twinkled too, and under\r
+these favoring auspices he touched his cap and walked away.\r
+\r
+The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke's grand dirge\r
+over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a\r
+youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch\r
+so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the\r
+pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed\r
+maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name\r
+as he pricked on to the fight.\r
+\r
+That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie's face, and perhaps\r
+only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too\r
+dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob's present of\r
+books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down\r
+there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at\r
+them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and\r
+thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers.\r
+\r
+Maggie's sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened\r
+with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favorite outdoor\r
+nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her\r
+parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the\r
+home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every\r
+affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching\r
+nerve to her. There was no music for her any more,--no piano, no\r
+harmonized voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their\r
+passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration\r
+through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left\r
+her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned\r
+over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all\r
+barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with\r
+_more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of\r
+long threads that snapped immediately. And now--without the indirect\r
+charm of school-emulation--Télémaque was mere bran; so were the hard,\r
+dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavor in them, no\r
+strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with\r
+absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott's novels and all\r
+Byron's poems!--then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough\r
+to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were\r
+hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no\r
+dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this\r
+hard, real life,--the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull\r
+breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid\r
+tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of\r
+weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love;\r
+the cruel sense that Tom didn't mind what she thought or felt, and\r
+that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all\r
+pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others,--she\r
+wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in\r
+understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her\r
+young heart. If she had been taught "real learning and wisdom, such as\r
+great men knew," she thought she should have held the secrets of life;\r
+if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men\r
+knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages\r
+and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as\r
+a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision\r
+against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield.\r
+\r
+In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten\r
+Tom's school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she\r
+found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which\r
+had been well thumbed,--the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus,\r
+a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich's Logic, and the\r
+exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a\r
+considerable step in masculine wisdom,--in that knowledge which made\r
+men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for\r
+effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and\r
+then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see\r
+herself honored for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child,\r
+with her soul's hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to\r
+nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling\r
+her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism,\r
+and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was\r
+quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two\r
+she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of\r
+heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found\r
+it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her\r
+early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then\r
+look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to\r
+the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled\r
+forth on its anxious, awkward flight,--with a startled sense that the\r
+relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote\r
+for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the\r
+eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow,\r
+when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix\r
+themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with\r
+tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies\r
+would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted\r
+under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her\r
+father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be;\r
+toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by\r
+some thwarting difference,--would flow out over her affections and\r
+conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it\r
+was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be\r
+busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something\r
+less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man--Walter Scott,\r
+perhaps--and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he\r
+would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision,\r
+her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and,\r
+surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say\r
+complainingly, "Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself?" The voice\r
+pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides\r
+her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and\r
+forsaking it.\r
+\r
+This afternoon, the sight of Bob's cheerful freckled face had given\r
+her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the\r
+hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of\r
+larger wants than others seemed to feel,--that she had to endure this\r
+wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was\r
+greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like\r
+Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had\r
+something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose,\r
+and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head\r
+against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter,\r
+and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as\r
+if she had been the only girl in the civilized world of that day who\r
+had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable\r
+struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won\r
+treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up\r
+for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and\r
+false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other\r
+kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge\r
+of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the\r
+habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission\r
+and dependence, becomes religion,--as lonely in her trouble as if\r
+every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over\r
+by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was\r
+keen and impulse strong.\r
+\r
+At last Maggie's eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the\r
+window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly\r
+the leaves of the "Portrait Gallery," but she soon pushed this aside\r
+to examine the little row of books tied together with string.\r
+"Beauties of the Spectator," "Rasselas," "Economy of Human Life,"\r
+"Gregory's Letters,"--she knew the sort of matter that was inside all\r
+these; the "Christian Year,"--that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she\r
+laid it down again; but _Thomas à Kempis?_--the name had come across\r
+her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one\r
+knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary\r
+in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some\r
+curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some\r
+hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong\r
+pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf\r
+to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: "Know that the love of\r
+thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou\r
+seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own\r
+will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for\r
+in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will\r
+be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way\r
+soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and\r
+everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have\r
+inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to\r
+mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the\r
+axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden\r
+inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly\r
+good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all\r
+dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being\r
+once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and\r
+tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them\r
+that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously\r
+afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore\r
+to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest\r
+the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little\r
+unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed\r
+are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and\r
+listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears\r
+which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto\r
+the Truth, which teacheth inwardly."\r
+\r
+A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if\r
+she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling\r
+of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She\r
+went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to\r
+point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen\r
+while a low voice said;\r
+\r
+"Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy\r
+rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are\r
+to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass\r
+away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them,\r
+lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his\r
+substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances,\r
+yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he\r
+is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent\r
+devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most\r
+necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave\r
+himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of\r
+self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the\r
+same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much\r
+inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations,\r
+and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee,\r
+and inordinate love shall die."\r
+\r
+Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see\r
+a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that\r
+would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime\r
+height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was\r
+insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely\r
+within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard.\r
+It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a\r
+problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing\r
+her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity\r
+of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of\r
+shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of\r
+her own desires,--of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at\r
+her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She\r
+read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with\r
+the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all\r
+strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading\r
+till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an\r
+imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the\r
+deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire\r
+devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed\r
+to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been\r
+craving in vain. She had not perceived--how could she until she had\r
+lived longer?--the inmost truth of the old monk's out-pourings, that\r
+renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie\r
+was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had\r
+found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of\r
+mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages\r
+was the direct communication of a human soul's belief and experience,\r
+and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message.\r
+\r
+I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for\r
+which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to\r
+this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive\r
+sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were\r
+before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart's\r
+prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish,\r
+struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach\r
+endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones.\r
+And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and\r
+human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and\r
+suffered and renounced,--in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and\r
+tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion\r
+of speech different from ours,--but under the same silent far-off\r
+heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the\r
+same failures, the same weariness.\r
+\r
+In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall\r
+into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good\r
+society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely\r
+moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible\r
+but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then\r
+good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its\r
+dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its faëry ball-rooms;\r
+rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has\r
+to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday,\r
+and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best\r
+houses,--how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But\r
+good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very\r
+expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous\r
+national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping\r
+itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving\r
+under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over\r
+sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or\r
+chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide\r
+national life is based entirely on emphasis,--the emphasis of want,\r
+which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance\r
+of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a\r
+chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long\r
+corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads\r
+of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this\r
+unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative\r
+minds,--just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when\r
+anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French\r
+springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol,\r
+and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the\r
+rest require something that good society calls "enthusiasm," something\r
+that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes;\r
+something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs\r
+ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something,\r
+clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation\r
+for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then\r
+that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an\r
+experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being\r
+brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that\r
+Maggie, with her girl's face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and\r
+a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith\r
+for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed\r
+guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From\r
+what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some\r
+exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her\r
+self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which\r
+she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity.\r
+And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by\r
+being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a\r
+flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled\r
+in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain\r
+sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin\r
+box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of\r
+self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St. Ogg's,\r
+instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see\r
+nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in\r
+Tom's reproof of her for this unnecessary act. "I don't like _my_\r
+sister to do such things," said Tom, "_I'll_ take care that the debts\r
+are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way." Surely there\r
+was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and\r
+self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross,\r
+overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom's rebuke as one of her\r
+outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her\r
+long night-watchings,--to her who had always loved him so; and then\r
+she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing.\r
+That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of\r
+egoism,--the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches\r
+grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and\r
+self-blame, where there are no leafy honors to be gathered and worn.\r
+\r
+The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich--that wrinkled fruit of the\r
+tree of knowledge--had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her\r
+back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her\r
+first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she\r
+had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she\r
+would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She\r
+read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas à\r
+Kempis, and the "Christian Year" (no longer rejected as a\r
+"hymn-book"), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of\r
+rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature\r
+and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for\r
+her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making\r
+shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called "plain,"--by\r
+no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had\r
+a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental\r
+wandering.\r
+\r
+Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might\r
+have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers,\r
+notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet\r
+shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as\r
+added loveliness with the gradually enriched color and outline of her\r
+blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of\r
+puzzled wonder that Maggie should be "growing up so good"; it was\r
+amazing that this once "contrairy" child was become so submissive, so\r
+backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work\r
+and find her mother's eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and\r
+waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some\r
+needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown\r
+girl,--the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her\r
+anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to\r
+have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother\r
+about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited\r
+into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion\r
+of those antiquated times.\r
+\r
+"Let your mother have that bit o' pleasure, my dear," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver; "I'd trouble enough with your hair once."\r
+\r
+So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer\r
+their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed\r
+a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to\r
+look at herself in the glass. Mrs. Tulliver liked to call the father's\r
+attention to Maggie's hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a\r
+brusk reply to give.\r
+\r
+"I knew well enough what she'd be, before now,--it's nothing new to\r
+me. But it's a pity she isn't made o' commoner stuff; she'll be thrown\r
+away, I doubt,--there'll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her."\r
+\r
+And Maggie's graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently\r
+enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when\r
+they were alone together about trouble being turned into a blessing.\r
+He took it all as part of his daughter's goodness, which made his\r
+misfortunes the sadder to him because they damaged her chance in life.\r
+In a mind charged with an eager purpose and an unsatisfied\r
+vindictiveness, there is no room for new feelings; Mr. Tulliver did\r
+not want spiritual consolation--he wanted to shake off the degradation\r
+of debt, and to have his revenge.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book V\r
+\r
+_Wheat and Tares_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+In the Red Deeps\r
+\r
+\r
+The family sitting-room was a long room with a window at each end; one\r
+looking toward the croft and along the Ripple to the banks of the\r
+Floss, the other into the mill-yard. Maggie was sitting with her work\r
+against the latter window when she saw Mr. Wakem entering the yard, as\r
+usual, on his fine black horse; but not alone, as usual. Some one was\r
+with him,--a figure in a cloak, on a handsome pony. Maggie had hardly\r
+time to feel that it was Philip come back, before they were in front\r
+of the window, and he was raising his hat to her; while his father,\r
+catching the movement by a side-glance, looked sharply round at them\r
+both.\r
+\r
+Maggie hurried away from the window and carried her work upstairs; for\r
+Mr. Wakem sometimes came in and inspected the books, and Maggie felt\r
+that the meeting with Philip would be robbed of all pleasure in the\r
+presence of the two fathers. Some day, perhaps, she could see him when\r
+they could just shake hands, and she could tell him that she\r
+remembered his goodness to Tom, and the things he had said to her in\r
+the old days, though they could never be friends any more. It was not\r
+at all agitating to Maggie to see Philip again; she retained her\r
+childish gratitude and pity toward him, and remembered his cleverness;\r
+and in the early weeks of her loneliness she had continually recalled\r
+the image of him among the people who had been kind to her in life,\r
+often wishing she had him for a brother and a teacher, as they had\r
+fancied it might have been, in their talk together. But that sort of\r
+wishing had been banished along with other dreams that savored of\r
+seeking her own will; and she thought, besides, that Philip might be\r
+altered by his life abroad,--he might have become worldly, and really\r
+not care about her saying anything to him now. And yet his face was\r
+wonderfully little altered,--it was only a larger, more manly copy of\r
+the pale, small-featured boy's face, with the gray eyes, and the\r
+boyish waving brown hair; there was the old deformity to awaken the\r
+old pity; and after all her meditations, Maggie felt that she really\r
+_should_ like to say a few words to him. He might still be melancholy,\r
+as he always used to be, and like her to look at him kindly. She\r
+wondered if he remembered how he used to like her eyes; with that\r
+thought Maggie glanced toward the square looking-glass which was\r
+condemned to hang with its face toward the wall, and she half started\r
+from her seat to reach it down; but she checked herself and snatched\r
+up her work, trying to repress the rising wishes by forcing her memory\r
+to recall snatches of hymns, until she saw Philip and his father\r
+returning along the road, and she could go down again.\r
+\r
+It was far on in June now, and Maggie was inclined to lengthen the\r
+daily walk which was her one indulgence; but this day and the\r
+following she was so busy with work which must be finished that she\r
+never went beyond the gate, and satisfied her need of the open air by\r
+sitting out of doors. One of her frequent walks, when she was not\r
+obliged to go to St. Ogg's, was to a spot that lay beyond what was\r
+called the "Hill,"--an insignificant rise of ground crowned by trees,\r
+lying along the side of the road which ran by the gates of Dorlcote\r
+Mill. Insignificant I call it, because in height it was hardly more\r
+than a bank; but there may come moments when Nature makes a mere bank\r
+a means toward a fateful result; and that is why I ask you to imagine\r
+this high bank crowned with trees, making an uneven wall for some\r
+quarter of a mile along the left side of Dorlcote Mill and the\r
+pleasant fields behind it, bounded by the murmuring Ripple. Just where\r
+this line of bank sloped down again to the level, a by-road turned off\r
+and led to the other side of the rise, where it was broken into very\r
+capricious hollows and mounds by the working of an exhausted\r
+stone-quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now\r
+clothed with brambles and trees, and here and there by a stretch of\r
+grass which a few sheep kept close-nibbled. In her childish days\r
+Maggie held this place, called the Red Deeps, in very great awe, and\r
+needed all her confidence in Tom's bravery to reconcile her to an\r
+excursion thither,--visions of robbers and fierce animals haunting\r
+every hollow. But now it had the charm for her which any broken\r
+ground, any mimic rock and ravine, have for the eyes that rest\r
+habitually on the level; especially in summer, when she could sit on a\r
+grassy hollow under the shadow of a branching ash, stooping aslant\r
+from the steep above her, and listen to the hum of insects, like\r
+tiniest bells on the garment of Silence, or see the sunlight piercing\r
+the distant boughs, as if to chase and drive home the truant heavenly\r
+blue of the wild hyacinths. In this June time, too, the dog-roses were\r
+in their glory, and that was an additional reason why Maggie should\r
+direct her walk to the Red Deeps, rather than to any other spot, on\r
+the first day she was free to wander at her will,--a pleasure she\r
+loved so well, that sometimes, in her ardors of renunciation, she\r
+thought she ought to deny herself the frequent indulgence in it.\r
+\r
+You may see her now, as she walks down the favorite turning and enters\r
+the Deeps by a narrow path through a group of Scotch firs, her tall\r
+figure and old lavender gown visible through an hereditary black silk\r
+shawl of some wide-meshed net-like material; and now she is sure of\r
+being unseen she takes off her bonnet and ties it over her arm. One\r
+would certainly suppose her to be farther on in life than her\r
+seventeenth year--perhaps because of the slow resigned sadness of the\r
+glance from which all search and unrest seem to have departed; perhaps\r
+because her broad-chested figure has the mould of early womanhood.\r
+Youth and health have withstood well the involuntary and voluntary\r
+hardships of her lot, and the nights in which she has lain on the hard\r
+floor for a penance have left no obvious trace; the eyes are liquid,\r
+the brown cheek is firm and round, the full lips are red. With her\r
+dark coloring and jet crown surmounting her tall figure, she seems to\r
+have a sort of kinship with the grand Scotch firs, at which she is\r
+looking up as if she loved them well. Yet one has a sense of\r
+uneasiness in looking at her,--a sense of opposing elements, of which\r
+a fierce collision is imminent; surely there is a hushed expression,\r
+such as one often sees in older faces under borderless caps, out of\r
+keeping with the resistant youth, which one expects to flash out in a\r
+sudden, passionate glance, that will dissipate all the quietude, like\r
+a damp fire leaping out again when all seemed safe.\r
+\r
+But Maggie herself was not uneasy at this moment. She was calmly\r
+enjoying the free air, while she looked up at the old fir-trees, and\r
+thought that those broken ends of branches were the records of past\r
+storms, which had only made the red stems soar higher. But while her\r
+eyes were still turned upward, she became conscious of a moving shadow\r
+cast by the evening sun on the grassy path before her, and looked down\r
+with a startled gesture to see Philip Wakem, who first raised his hat,\r
+and then, blushing deeply, came forward to her and put out his hand.\r
+Maggie, too, colored with surprise, which soon gave way to pleasure.\r
+She put out her hand and looked down at the deformed figure before her\r
+with frank eyes, filled for the moment with nothing but the memory of\r
+her child's feelings,--a memory that was always strong in her. She was\r
+the first to speak.\r
+\r
+"You startled me," she said, smiling faintly; "I never meet any one\r
+here. How came you to be walking here? Did you come to meet _me?_"\r
+\r
+It was impossible not to perceive that Maggie felt herself a child\r
+again.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I did," said Philip, still embarrassed; "I wished to see you\r
+very much. I watched a long while yesterday on the bank near your\r
+house to see if you would come out, but you never came. Then I watched\r
+again to-day, and when I saw the way you took, I kept you in sight and\r
+came down the bank, behind there. I hope you will not be displeased\r
+with me."\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, with simple seriousness, walking on as if she meant\r
+Philip to accompany her, "I'm very glad you came, for I wished very\r
+much to have an opportunity of speaking to you. I've never forgotten\r
+how good you were long ago to Tom, and me too; but I was not sure that\r
+you would remember us so well. Tom and I have had a great deal of\r
+trouble since then, and I think _that_ makes one think more of what\r
+happened before the trouble came."\r
+\r
+"I can't believe that you have thought of me so much as I have thought\r
+of you," said Philip, timidly. "Do you know, when I was away, I made a\r
+picture of you as you looked that morning in the study when you said\r
+you would not forget me."\r
+\r
+Philip drew a large miniature-case from his pocket, and opened it.\r
+Maggie saw her old self leaning on a table, with her black locks\r
+hanging down behind her ears, looking into space, with strange, dreamy\r
+eyes. It was a water-color sketch, of real merit as a portrait.\r
+\r
+"Oh dear," said Maggie, smiling, and flushed with pleasure, "what a\r
+queer little girl I was! I remember myself with my hair in that way,\r
+in that pink frock. I really _was_ like a gypsy. I dare say I am now,"\r
+she added, after a little pause; "am I like what you expected me to\r
+be?"\r
+\r
+The words might have been those of a coquette, but the full, bright\r
+glance Maggie turned on Philip was not that of a coquette. She really\r
+did hope he liked her face as it was now, but it was simply the rising\r
+again of her innate delight in admiration and love. Philip met her\r
+eyes and looked at her in silence for a long moment, before he said\r
+quietly, "No, Maggie."\r
+\r
+The light died out a little from Maggie's face, and there was a slight\r
+trembling of the lip. Her eyelids fell lower, but she did not turn\r
+away her head, and Philip continued to look at her. Then he said\r
+slowly:\r
+\r
+"You are very much more beautiful than I thought you would be."\r
+\r
+"Am I?" said Maggie, the pleasure returning in a deeper flush. She\r
+turned her face away from him and took some steps, looking straight\r
+before her in silence, as if she were adjusting her consciousness to\r
+this new idea. Girls are so accustomed to think of dress as the main\r
+ground of vanity, that, in abstaining from the looking-glass, Maggie\r
+had thought more of abandoning all care for adornment than of\r
+renouncing the contemplation of her face. Comparing herself with\r
+elegant, wealthy young ladies, it had not occurred to her that she\r
+could produce any effect with her person. Philip seemed to like the\r
+silence well. He walked by her side, watching her face, as if that\r
+sight left no room for any other wish. They had passed from among the\r
+fir-trees, and had now come to a green hollow almost surrounded by an\r
+amphitheatre of the pale pink dog-roses. But as the light about them\r
+had brightened, Maggie's face had lost its glow.\r
+\r
+She stood still when they were in the hollows, and looking at Philip\r
+again, she said in a serious, sad voice:\r
+\r
+"I wish we could have been friends,--I mean, if it would have been\r
+good and right for us. But that is the trial I have to bear in\r
+everything; I may not keep anything I used to love when I was little.\r
+The old books went; and Tom is different, and my father. It is like\r
+death. I must part with everything I cared for when I was a child. And\r
+I must part with you; we must never take any notice of each other\r
+again. That was what I wanted to speak to you for. I wanted to let you\r
+know that Tom and I can't do as we like about such things, and that if\r
+I behave as if I had forgotten all about you, it is not out of envy or\r
+pride--or--or any bad feeling."\r
+\r
+Maggie spoke with more and more sorrowful gentleness as she went on,\r
+and her eyes began to fill with tears. The deepening expression of\r
+pain on Philip's face gave him a stronger resemblance to his boyish\r
+self, and made the deformity appeal more strongly to her pity.\r
+\r
+"I know; I see all that you mean," he said, in a voice that had become\r
+feebler from discouragement; "I know what there is to keep us apart on\r
+both sides. But it is not right, Maggie,--don't you be angry with me,\r
+I am so used to call you Maggie in my thoughts,--it is not right to\r
+sacrifice everything to other people's unreasonable feelings. I would\r
+give up a great deal for _my_ father; but I would not give up a\r
+friendship or--or an attachment of any sort, in obedience to any wish\r
+of his that I didn't recognize as right."\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Maggie, musingly. "Often, when I have been angry\r
+and discontented, it has seemed to me that I was not bound to give up\r
+anything; and I have gone on thinking till it has seemed to me that I\r
+could think away all my duty. But no good has ever come of that; it\r
+was an evil state of mind. I'm quite sure that whatever I might do, I\r
+should wish in the end that I had gone without anything for myself,\r
+rather than have made my father's life harder to him."\r
+\r
+"But would it make his life harder if we were to see each other\r
+sometimes?" said Philip. He was going to say something else, but\r
+checked himself.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't like it. Don't ask me why, or anything about\r
+it," said Maggie, in a distressed tone. "My father feels so strongly\r
+about some things. He is not at all happy."\r
+\r
+"No more am I," said Philip, impetuously; "I am not happy."\r
+\r
+"Why?" said Maggie, gently. "At least--I ought not to ask--but I'm\r
+very, very sorry."\r
+\r
+Philip turned to walk on, as if he had not patience to stand still any\r
+longer, and they went out of the hollow, winding amongst the trees and\r
+bushes in silence. After that last word of Philip's, Maggie could not\r
+bear to insist immediately on their parting.\r
+\r
+"I've been a great deal happier," she said at last, timidly, "since I\r
+have given up thinking about what is easy and pleasant, and being\r
+discontented because I couldn't have my own will. Our life is\r
+determined for us; and it makes the mind very free when we give up\r
+wishing, and only think of bearing what is laid upon us, and doing\r
+what is given us to do."\r
+\r
+"But I can't give up wishing," said Philip, impatiently. "It seems to\r
+me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly\r
+alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and\r
+we _must_ hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them\r
+until our feelings are deadened? I delight in fine pictures; I long to\r
+be able to paint such. I strive and strive, and can't produce what I\r
+want. That is pain to me, and always _will_ be pain, until my\r
+faculties lose their keenness, like aged eyes. Then there are many\r
+other things I long for,"--here Philip hesitated a little, and then\r
+said,--"things that other men have, and that will always be denied me.\r
+My life will have nothing great or beautiful in it; I would rather not\r
+have lived."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Philip," said Maggie, "I wish you didn't feel so." But her heart\r
+began to beat with something of Philip's discontent.\r
+\r
+"Well, then," said he, turning quickly round and fixing his gray eyes\r
+entreatingly on her face, "I should be contented to live, if you would\r
+let me see you sometimes." Then, checked by a fear which her face\r
+suggested, he looked away again and said more calmly, "I have no\r
+friend to whom I can tell everything, no one who cares enough about\r
+me; and if I could only see you now and then, and you would let me\r
+talk to you a little, and show me that you cared for me, and that we\r
+may always be friends in heart, and help each other, then I might come\r
+to be glad of life."\r
+\r
+"But how can I see you, Philip?" said Maggie, falteringly. (Could she\r
+really do him good? It would be very hard to say "good-by" this day,\r
+and not speak to him again. Here was a new interest to vary the days;\r
+it was so much easier to renounce the interest before it came.)\r
+\r
+"If you would let me see you here sometimes,--walk with you here,--I\r
+would be contented if it were only once or twice in a month. _That_\r
+could injure no one's happiness, and it would sweeten my life.\r
+Besides," Philip went on, with all the inventive astuteness of love at\r
+one-and-twenty, "if there is any enmity between those who belong to\r
+us, we ought all the more to try and quench it by our friendship; I\r
+mean, that by our influence on both sides we might bring about a\r
+healing of the wounds that have been made in the past, if I could know\r
+everything about them. And I don't believe there is any enmity in my\r
+own father's mind; I think he has proved the contrary."\r
+\r
+Maggie shook her head slowly, and was silent, under conflicting\r
+thoughts. It seemed to her inclination, that to see Philip now and\r
+then, and keep up the bond of friendship with him, was something not\r
+only innocent, but good; perhaps she might really help him to find\r
+contentment as she had found it. The voice that said this made sweet\r
+music to Maggie; but athwart it there came an urgent, monotonous\r
+warning from another voice which she had been learning to obey,--the\r
+warning that such interviews implied secrecy; implied doing something\r
+she would dread to be discovered in, something that, if discovered,\r
+must cause anger and pain; and that the admission of anything so near\r
+doubleness would act as a spiritual blight. Yet the music would swell\r
+out again, like chimes borne onward by a recurrent breeze, persuading\r
+her that the wrong lay all in the faults and weaknesses of others, and\r
+that there was such a thing as futile sacrifice for one to the injury\r
+of another. It was very cruel for Philip that he should be shrunk\r
+from, because of an unjustifiable vindictiveness toward his\r
+father,--poor Philip, whom some people would shrink from only because\r
+he was deformed. The idea that he might become her lover or that her\r
+meeting him could cause disapproval in that light, had not occurred to\r
+her; and Philip saw the absence of this idea clearly enough, saw it\r
+with a certain pang, although it made her consent to his request the\r
+less unlikely. There was bitterness to him in the perception that\r
+Maggie was almost as frank and unconstrained toward him as when she\r
+was a child.\r
+\r
+"I can't say either yes or no," she said at last, turning round and\r
+walking toward the way she come; "I must wait, lest I should decide\r
+wrongly. I must seek for guidance."\r
+\r
+"May I come again, then, to-morrow, or the next day, or next week?"\r
+\r
+"I think I had better write," said Maggie, faltering again. "I have to\r
+go to St. Ogg's sometimes, and I can put the letter in the post."\r
+\r
+"Oh no," said Philip eagerly; "that would not be so well. My father\r
+might see the letter--and--he has not any enmity, I believe, but he\r
+views things differently from me; he thinks a great deal about wealth\r
+and position. Pray let me come here once more. _Tell_ me when it shall\r
+be; or if you can't tell me, I will come as often as I can till I do\r
+see you."\r
+\r
+"I think it must be so, then," said Maggie, "for I can't be quite\r
+certain of coming here any particular evening."\r
+\r
+Maggie felt a great relief in adjourning the decision. She was free\r
+now to enjoy the minutes of companionship; she almost thought she\r
+might linger a little; the next time they met she should have to pain\r
+Philip by telling him her determination.\r
+\r
+"I can't help thinking," she said, looking smilingly at him, after a\r
+few moments of silence, "how strange it is that we should have met and\r
+talked to each other, just as if it had been only yesterday when we\r
+parted at Lorton. And yet we must both be very much altered in those\r
+five years,--I think it is five years. How was it you seemed to have a\r
+sort of feeling that I was the same Maggie? I was not quite so sure\r
+that you would be the same; I know you are so clever, and you must\r
+have seen and learnt so much to fill your mind; I was not quite sure\r
+you would care about me now."\r
+\r
+"I have never had any doubt that you would be the same, whenever I\r
+might see you," said Philip,--"I mean, the same in everything that made\r
+me like you better than any one else. I don't want to explain that; I\r
+don't think any of the strongest effects our natures are susceptible\r
+of can ever be explained. We can neither detect the process by which\r
+they are arrived at, nor the mode in which they act on us. The\r
+greatest of painters only once painted a mysteriously divine child; he\r
+couldn't have told how he did it, and we can't tell why we feel it to\r
+be divine. I think there are stores laid up in our human nature that\r
+our understandings can make no complete inventory of. Certain strains\r
+of music affect me so strangely; I can never hear them without their\r
+changing my whole attitude of mind for a time, and if the effect would\r
+last, I might be capable of heroisms."\r
+\r
+"Ah! I know what you mean about music; _I_ feel so," said Maggie,\r
+clasping her hands with her old impetuosity. "At least," she added, in\r
+a saddened tone, "I used to feel so when I had any music; I never have\r
+any now except the organ at church."\r
+\r
+"And you long for it, Maggie?" said Philip, looking at her with\r
+affectionate pity. "Ah, you can have very little that is beautiful in\r
+your life. Have you many books? You were so fond of them when you were\r
+a little girl."\r
+\r
+They were come back to the hollow, round which the dog-roses grew, and\r
+they both paused under the charm of the faëry evening light, reflected\r
+from the pale pink clusters.\r
+\r
+"No, I have given up books," said Maggie, quietly, "except a very,\r
+very few."\r
+\r
+Philip had already taken from his pocket a small volume, and was\r
+looking at the back as he said:\r
+\r
+"Ah, this is the second volume, I see, else you might have liked to\r
+take it home with you. I put it in my pocket because I am studying a\r
+scene for a picture."\r
+\r
+Maggie had looked at the back too, and saw the title; it revived an\r
+old impression with overmastering force.\r
+\r
+"'The Pirate,'" she said, taking the book from Philip's hands. "Oh, I\r
+began that once; I read to where Minna is walking with Cleveland, and\r
+I could never get to read the rest. I went on with it in my own head,\r
+and I made several endings; but they were all unhappy. I could never\r
+make a happy ending out of that beginning. Poor Minna! I wonder what\r
+is the real end. For a long while I couldn't get my mind away from the\r
+Shetland Isles,--I used to feel the wind blowing on me from the rough\r
+sea."\r
+\r
+Maggie spoke rapidly, with glistening eyes.\r
+\r
+"Take that volume home with you, Maggie," said Philip, watching her\r
+with delight. "I don't want it now. I shall make a picture of you\r
+instead,--you, among the Scotch firs and the slanting shadows."\r
+\r
+Maggie had not heard a word he had said; she was absorbed in a page at\r
+which she had opened. But suddenly she closed the book, and gave it\r
+back to Philip, shaking her head with a backward movement, as if to\r
+say "avaunt" to floating visions.\r
+\r
+"Do keep it, Maggie," said Philip, entreatingly; "it will give you\r
+pleasure."\r
+\r
+"No, thank you," said Maggie, putting it aside with her hand and\r
+walking on. "It would make me in love with this world again, as I used\r
+to be; it would make me long to see and know many things; it would\r
+make me long for a full life."\r
+\r
+"But you will not always be shut up in your present lot; why should\r
+you starve your mind in that way? It is narrow asceticism; I don't\r
+like to see you persisting in it, Maggie. Poetry and art and knowledge\r
+are sacred and pure."\r
+\r
+"But not for me, not for me," said Maggie, walking more hurriedly;\r
+"because I should want too much. I must wait; this life will not last\r
+long."\r
+\r
+"Don't hurry away from me without saying 'good-by,' Maggie," said\r
+Philip, as they reached the group of Scotch firs, and she continued\r
+still to walk along without speaking. "I must not go any farther, I\r
+think, must I?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, I forgot; good-by," said Maggie, pausing, and putting out her\r
+hand to him. The action brought her feeling back in a strong current\r
+to Philip; and after they had stood looking at each other in silence\r
+for a few moments, with their hands clasped, she said, withdrawing her\r
+hand:\r
+\r
+"I'm very grateful to you for thinking of me all those years. It is\r
+very sweet to have people love us. What a wonderful, beautiful thing\r
+it seems that God should have made your heart so that you could care\r
+about a queer little girl whom you only knew for a few weeks! I\r
+remember saying to you that I thought you cared for me more than Tom\r
+did."\r
+\r
+"Ah, Maggie," said Philip, almost fretfully, "you would never love me\r
+so well as you love your brother."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps not," said Maggie, simply; "but then, you know, the first\r
+thing I ever remember in my life is standing with Tom by the side of\r
+the Floss, while he held my hand; everything before that is dark to\r
+me. But I shall never forget you, though we must keep apart."\r
+\r
+"Don't say so, Maggie," said Philip. "If I kept that little girl in my\r
+mind for five years, didn't I earn some part in her? She ought not to\r
+take herself quite away from me."\r
+\r
+"Not if I were free," said Maggie; "but I am not, I must submit." She\r
+hesitated a moment, and then added, "And I wanted to say to you, that\r
+you had better not take more notice of my brother than just bowing to\r
+him. He once told me not to speak to you again, and he doesn't change\r
+his mind--Oh dear, the sun is set. I am too long away. Good-by." She\r
+gave him her hand once more.\r
+\r
+"I shall come here as often as I can till I see you again, Maggie.\r
+Have some feeling for _me_ as well as for others."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I have," said Maggie, hurrying away, and quickly\r
+disappearing behind the last fir-tree; though Philip's gaze after her\r
+remained immovable for minutes as if he saw her still.\r
+\r
+Maggie went home, with an inward conflict already begun; Philip went\r
+home to do nothing but remember and hope. You can hardly help blaming\r
+him severely. He was four or five years older than Maggie, and had a\r
+full consciousness of his feeling toward her to aid him in foreseeing\r
+the character his contemplated interviews with her would bear in the\r
+opinion of a third person. But you must not suppose that he was\r
+capable of a gross selfishness, or that he could have been satisfied\r
+without persuading himself that he was seeking to infuse some\r
+happiness into Maggie's life,--seeking this even more than any direct\r
+ends for himself. He could give her sympathy; he could give her help.\r
+There was not the slightest promise of love toward him in her manner;\r
+it was nothing more than the sweet girlish tenderness she had shown\r
+him when she was twelve. Perhaps she would never love him; perhaps no\r
+woman ever _could_ love him. Well, then, he would endure that; he\r
+should at least have the happiness of seeing her, of feeling some\r
+nearness to her. And he clutched passionately the possibility that she\r
+_might_ love him; perhaps the feeling would grow, if she could come to\r
+associate him with that watchful tenderness which her nature would be\r
+so keenly alive to. If any woman could love him, surely Maggie was\r
+that woman; there was such wealth of love in her, and there was no one\r
+to claim it all. Then, the pity of it, that a mind like hers should be\r
+withering in its very youth, like a young forest-tree, for want of the\r
+light and space it was formed to flourish in! Could he not hinder\r
+that, by persuading her out of her system of privation? He would be\r
+her guardian angel; he would do anything, bear anything, for her\r
+sake--except not seeing her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb\r
+\r
+\r
+While Maggie's life-struggles had lain almost entirely within her own\r
+soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and the slain shadows forever\r
+rising again, Tom was engaged in a dustier, noisier warfare, grappling\r
+with more substantial obstacles, and gaining more definite conquests.\r
+So it has been since the days of Hecuba, and of Hector, Tamer of\r
+horses; inside the gates, the women with streaming hair and uplifted\r
+hands offering prayers, watching the world's combat from afar, filling\r
+their long, empty days with memories and fears; outside, the men, in\r
+fierce struggle with things divine and human, quenching memory in the\r
+stronger light of purpose, losing the sense of dread and even of\r
+wounds in the hurrying ardor of action.\r
+\r
+From what you have seen of Tom, I think he is not a youth of whom you\r
+would prophesy failure in anything he had thoroughly wished; the\r
+wagers are likely to be on his side, notwithstanding his small success\r
+in the classics. For Tom had never desired success in this field of\r
+enterprise; and for getting a fine flourishing growth of stupidity\r
+there is nothing like pouring out on a mind a good amount of subjects\r
+in which it feels no interest. But now Tom's strong will bound\r
+together his integrity, his pride, his family regrets, and his\r
+personal ambition, and made them one force, concentrating his efforts\r
+and surmounting discouragements. His uncle Deane, who watched him\r
+closely, soon began to conceive hopes of him, and to be rather proud\r
+that he had brought into the employment of the firm a nephew who\r
+appeared to be made of such good commercial stuff. The real kindness\r
+of placing him in the warehouse first was soon evident to Tom, in the\r
+hints his uncle began to throw out, that after a time he might perhaps\r
+be trusted to travel at certain seasons, and buy in for the firm\r
+various vulgar commodities with which I need not shock refined ears in\r
+this place; and it was doubtless with a view to this result that Mr.\r
+Deane, when he expected to take his wine alone, would tell Tom to step\r
+in and sit with him an hour, and would pass that hour in much\r
+lecturing and catechising concerning articles of export and import,\r
+with an occasional excursus of more indirect utility on the relative\r
+advantages to the merchants of St. Ogg's of having goods brought in\r
+their own and in foreign bottoms,--a subject on which Mr. Deane, as a\r
+ship-owner, naturally threw off a few sparks when he got warmed with\r
+talk and wine.\r
+\r
+Already, in the second year, Tom's salary was raised; but all, except\r
+the price of his dinner and clothes, went home into the tin box; and\r
+he shunned comradeship, lest it should lead him into expenses in spite\r
+of himself. Not that Tom was moulded on the spoony type of the\r
+Industrious Apprentice; he had a very strong appetite for\r
+pleasure,--would have liked to be a Tamer of horses and to make a\r
+distinguished figure in all neighboring eyes, dispensing treats and\r
+benefits to others with well-judged liberality, and being pronounced\r
+one of the finest young fellows of those parts; nay, he determined to\r
+achieve these things sooner or later; but his practical shrewdness\r
+told him that the means no such achievements could only lie for him in\r
+present abstinence and self-denial; there were certain milestones to\r
+be passed, and one of the first was the payment of his father's debts.\r
+Having made up his mind on that point, he strode along without\r
+swerving, contracting some rather saturnine sternness, as a young man\r
+is likely to do who has a premature call upon him for self-reliance.\r
+Tom felt intensely that common cause with his father which springs\r
+from family pride, and was bent on being irreproachable as a son; but\r
+his growing experience caused him to pass much silent criticism on the\r
+rashness and imprudence of his father's past conduct; their\r
+dispositions were not in sympathy, and Tom's face showed little\r
+radiance during his few home hours. Maggie had an awe of him, against\r
+which she struggled as something unfair to her consciousness of wider\r
+thoughts and deeper motives; but it was of no use to struggle. A\r
+character at unity with itself--that performs what it intends, subdues\r
+every counteracting impulse, and has no visions beyond the distinctly\r
+possible--is strong by its very negations.\r
+\r
+You may imagine that Tom's more and more obvious unlikeness to his\r
+father was well fitted to conciliate the maternal aunts and uncles;\r
+and Mr. Deane's favorable reports and predictions to Mr. Glegg\r
+concerning Tom's qualifications for business began to be discussed\r
+amongst them with various acceptance. He was likely, it appeared, to\r
+do the family credit without causing it any expense and trouble. Mrs.\r
+Pullet had always thought it strange if Tom's excellent complexion, so\r
+entirely that of the Dodsons, did not argue a certainty that he would\r
+turn out well; his juvenile errors of running down the peacock, and\r
+general disrespect to his aunts, only indicating a tinge of Tulliver\r
+blood which he had doubtless outgrown. Mr. Glegg, who had contracted a\r
+cautious liking for Tom ever since his spirited and sensible behavior\r
+when the execution was in the house, was now warming into a resolution\r
+to further his prospects actively,--some time, when an opportunity\r
+offered of doing so in a prudent manner, without ultimate loss; but\r
+Mrs. Glegg observed that she was not given to speak without book, as\r
+some people were; that those who said least were most likely to find\r
+their words made good; and that when the right moment came, it would\r
+be seen who could do something better than talk. Uncle Pullet, after\r
+silent meditation for a period of several lozenges, came distinctly to\r
+the conclusion, that when a young man was likely to do well, it was\r
+better not to meddle with him.\r
+\r
+Tom, meanwhile, had shown no disposition to rely on any one but\r
+himself, though, with a natural sensitiveness toward all indications\r
+of favorable opinion, he was glad to see his uncle Glegg look in on\r
+him sometimes in a friendly way during business hours, and glad to be\r
+invited to dine at his house, though he usually preferred declining on\r
+the ground that he was not sure of being punctual. But about a year\r
+ago, something had occurred which induced Tom to test his uncle\r
+Glegg's friendly disposition.\r
+\r
+Bob Jakin, who rarely returned from one of his rounds without seeing\r
+Tom and Maggie, awaited him on the bridge as he was coming home from\r
+St. Ogg's one evening, that they might have a little private talk. He\r
+took the liberty of asking if Mr. Tom had ever thought of making money\r
+by trading a bit on his own account. Trading, how? Tom wished to know.\r
+Why, by sending out a bit of a cargo to foreign ports; because Bob had\r
+a particular friend who had offered to do a little business for him in\r
+that way in Laceham goods, and would be glad to serve Mr. Tom on the\r
+same footing. Tom was interested at once, and begged for full\r
+explanation, wondering he had not thought of this plan before.\r
+\r
+He was so well pleased with the prospect of a speculation that might\r
+change the slow process of addition into multiplication, that he at\r
+once determined to mention the matter to his father, and get his\r
+consent to appropriate some of the savings in the tin box to the\r
+purchase of a small cargo. He would rather not have consulted his\r
+father, but he had just paid his last quarter's money into the tin\r
+box, and there was no other resource. All the savings were there; for\r
+Mr. Tulliver would not consent to put the money out at interest lest\r
+he should lose it. Since he had speculated in the purchase of some\r
+corn, and had lost by it, he could not be easy without keeping the\r
+money under his eye.\r
+\r
+Tom approached the subject carefully, as he was seated on the hearth\r
+with his father that evening, and Mr. Tulliver listened, leaning\r
+forward in his arm-chair and looking up in Tom's face with a sceptical\r
+glance. His first impulse was to give a positive refusal, but he was\r
+in some awe of Tom's wishes, and since he had the sense of being an\r
+"unlucky" father, he had lost some of his old peremptoriness and\r
+determination to be master. He took the key of the bureau from his\r
+pocket, got out the key of the large chest, and fetched down the tin\r
+box,--slowly, as if he were trying to defer the moment of a painful\r
+parting. Then he seated himself against the table, and opened the box\r
+with that little padlock-key which he fingered in his waistcoat pocket\r
+in all vacant moments. There they were, the dingy bank-notes and the\r
+bright sovereigns, and he counted them out on the table--only a\r
+hundred and sixteen pounds in two years, after all the pinching.\r
+\r
+"How much do you want, then?" he said, speaking as if the words burnt\r
+his lips.\r
+\r
+"Suppose I begin with the thirty-six pounds, father?" said Tom.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver separated this sum from the rest, and keeping his hand\r
+over it, said:\r
+\r
+"It's as much as I can save out o' my pay in a year."\r
+\r
+"Yes, father; it is such slow work, saving out of the little money we\r
+get. And in this way we might double our savings."\r
+\r
+"Ay, my lad," said the father, keeping his hand on the money, "but you\r
+might lose it,--you might lose a year o' my life,--and I haven't got\r
+many."\r
+\r
+Tom was silent.\r
+\r
+"And you know I wouldn't pay a dividend with the first hundred,\r
+because I wanted to see it all in a lump,--and when I see it, I'm sure\r
+on't. If you trust to luck, it's sure to be against me. It's Old\r
+Harry's got the luck in his hands; and if I lose one year, I shall\r
+never pick it up again; death 'ull o'ertake me."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver's voice trembled, and Tom was silent for a few minutes\r
+before he said:\r
+\r
+"I'll give it up, father, since you object to it so strongly."\r
+\r
+But, unwilling to abandon the scheme altogether, he determined to ask\r
+his uncle Glegg to venture twenty pounds, on condition of receiving\r
+five per cent. of the profits. That was really a very small thing to\r
+ask. So when Bob called the next day at the wharf to know the\r
+decision, Tom proposed that they should go together to his uncle\r
+Glegg's to open the business; for his diffident pride clung to him,\r
+and made him feel that Bobs' tongue would relieve him from some\r
+embarrassment.\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg, at the pleasant hour of four in the afternoon of a hot\r
+August day, was naturally counting his wall-fruit to assure himself\r
+that the sum total had not varied since yesterday. To him entered Tom,\r
+in what appeared to Mr. Glegg very questionable companionship,--that\r
+of a man with a pack on his back,--for Bob was equipped for a new\r
+journey,--and of a huge brindled bull-terrier, who walked with a slow,\r
+swaying movement from side to side, and glanced from under his\r
+eye-lids with a surly indifference which might after all be a cover to\r
+the most offensive designs.\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg's spectacles, which had been assisting him in counting the\r
+fruit, made these suspicious details alarmingly evident to him.\r
+\r
+"Heigh! heigh! keep that dog back, will you?" he shouted, snatching up\r
+a stake and holding it before him as a shield when the visitors were\r
+within three yards of him.\r
+\r
+"Get out wi' you, Mumps," said Bob, with a kick. "He's as quiet as a\r
+lamb, sir,"--an observation which Mumps corroborated by a low growl as\r
+he retreated behind his master's legs.\r
+\r
+"Why, what ever does this mean, Tom?" said Mr. Glegg. "Have you\r
+brought information about the scoundrels as cut my trees?" If Bob came\r
+in the character of "information," Mr. Glegg saw reasons for\r
+tolerating some irregularity.\r
+\r
+"No, sir," said Tom; "I came to speak to you about a little matter of\r
+business of my own."\r
+\r
+"Ay--well; but what has this dog got to do with it?" said the old\r
+gentleman, getting mild again.\r
+\r
+"It's my dog, sir," said the ready Bob. "An' it's me as put Mr. Tom up\r
+to the bit o' business; for Mr. Tom's been a friend o' mine iver since\r
+I was a little chap; fust thing iver I did was frightenin' the birds\r
+for th' old master. An' if a bit o' luck turns up, I'm allays thinkin'\r
+if I can let Mr. Tom have a pull at it. An' it's a downright roarin'\r
+shame, as when he's got the chance o' making a bit o' money wi'\r
+sending goods out,--ten or twelve per zent clear, when freight an'\r
+commission's paid,--as he shouldn't lay hold o' the chance for want o'\r
+money. An' when there's the Laceham goods,--lors! they're made o'\r
+purpose for folks as want to send out a little carguy; light, an' take\r
+up no room,--you may pack twenty pound so as you can't see the\r
+passill; an' they're manifacturs as please fools, so I reckon they\r
+aren't like to want a market. An' I'd go to Laceham an' buy in the\r
+goods for Mr. Tom along wi' my own. An' there's the shupercargo o' the\r
+bit of a vessel as is goin' to take 'em out. I know him partic'lar;\r
+he's a solid man, an' got a family i' the town here. Salt, his name\r
+is,--an' a briny chap he is too,--an' if you don't believe me, I can\r
+take you to him."\r
+\r
+Uncle Glegg stood open-mouthed with astonishment at this unembarrassed\r
+loquacity, with which his understanding could hardly keep pace. He\r
+looked at Bob, first over his spectacles, then through them, then over\r
+them again; while Tom, doubtful of his uncle's impression, began to\r
+wish he had not brought this singular Aaron, or mouthpiece. Bob's talk\r
+appeared less seemly, now some one besides himself was listening to\r
+it.\r
+\r
+"You seem to be a knowing fellow," said Mr. Glegg, at last.\r
+\r
+"Ay, sir, you say true," returned Bob, nodding his head aside; "I\r
+think my head's all alive inside like an old cheese, for I'm so full\r
+o' plans, one knocks another over. If I hadn't Mumps to talk to, I\r
+should get top-heavy an' tumble in a fit. I suppose it's because I\r
+niver went to school much. That's what I jaw my old mother for. I\r
+says, 'You should ha' sent me to school a bit more,' I says, 'an' then\r
+I could ha' read i' the books like fun, an' kep' my head cool an'\r
+empty.' Lors, she's fine an' comfor'ble now, my old mother is; she\r
+ates her baked meat an' taters as often as she likes. For I'm gettin'\r
+so full o' money, I must hev a wife to spend it for me. But it's\r
+botherin,' a wife is,--and Mumps mightn't like her."\r
+\r
+Uncle Glegg, who regarded himself as a jocose man since he had retired\r
+from business, was beginning to find Bob amusing, but he had still a\r
+disapproving observation to make, which kept his face serious.\r
+\r
+"Ah," he said, "I should think you're at a loss for ways o' spending\r
+your money, else you wouldn't keep that big dog, to eat as much as two\r
+Christians. It's shameful--shameful!" But he spoke more in sorrow than\r
+in anger, and quickly added:\r
+\r
+"But, come now, let's hear more about this business, Tom. I suppose\r
+you want a little sum to make a venture with. But where's all your own\r
+money? You don't spend it all--eh?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir," said Tom, coloring; "but my father is unwilling to risk it,\r
+and I don't like to press him. If I could get twenty or thirty pounds\r
+to begin with, I could pay five per cent for it, and then I could\r
+gradually make a little capital of my own, and do without a loan."\r
+\r
+"Ay--ay," said Mr. Glegg, in an approving tone; "that's not a bad\r
+notion, and I won't say as I wouldn't be your man. But it 'ull be as\r
+well for me to see this Salt, as you talk on. And then--here's this\r
+friend o' yours offers to buy the goods for you. Perhaps you've got\r
+somebody to stand surety for you if the money's put into your hands?"\r
+added the cautious old gentleman, looking over his spectacles at Bob.\r
+\r
+"I don't think that's necessary, uncle," said Tom. "At least, I mean\r
+it would not be necessary for me, because I know Bob well; but perhaps\r
+it would be right for you to have some security."\r
+\r
+"You get your percentage out o' the purchase, I suppose?" said Mr.\r
+Glegg, looking at Bob.\r
+\r
+"No, sir," said Bob, rather indignantly; "I didn't offer to get a\r
+apple for Mr. Tom, o' purpose to hev a bite out of it myself. When I\r
+play folks tricks, there'll be more fun in 'em nor that."\r
+\r
+"Well, but it's nothing but right you should have a small percentage,"\r
+said Mr. Glegg. "I've no opinion o' transactions where folks do things\r
+for nothing. It allays looks bad."\r
+\r
+"Well, then," said Bob, whose keenness saw at once what was implied,\r
+"I'll tell you what I get by't, an' it's money in my pocket in the\r
+end,--I make myself look big, wi' makin' a bigger purchase. That's\r
+what I'm thinking on. Lors! I'm a 'cute chap,--I am."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg, Mr. Glegg!" said a severe voice from the open parlor\r
+window, "pray are you coming in to tea, or are you going to stand\r
+talking with packmen till you get murdered in the open daylight?"\r
+\r
+"Murdered?" said Mr. Glegg; "what's the woman talking of? Here's your\r
+nephey Tom come about a bit o' business."\r
+\r
+"Murdered,--yes,--it isn't many 'sizes ago since a packman murdered a\r
+young woman in a lone place, and stole her thimble, and threw her body\r
+into a ditch."\r
+\r
+"Nay, nay," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly, "you're thinking o' the man\r
+wi' no legs, as drove a dog-cart."\r
+\r
+"Well, it's the same thing, Mr. Glegg, only you're fond o'\r
+contradicting what I say; and if my nephey's come about business, it\r
+'ud be more fitting if you'd bring him into the house, and let his\r
+aunt know about it, instead o' whispering in corners, in that\r
+plotting, underminding way."\r
+\r
+"Well, well," said Mr. Glegg, "we'll come in now."\r
+\r
+"You needn't stay here," said the lady to Bob, in a loud voice,\r
+adapted to the moral, not the physical, distance between them. "We\r
+don't want anything. I don't deal wi' packmen. Mind you shut the gate\r
+after you."\r
+\r
+"Stop a bit; not so fast," said Mr. Glegg; "I haven't done with this\r
+young man yet. Come in, Tom; come in," he added, stepping in at the\r
+French window.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., in a fatal tone, "if you're going to let\r
+that man and his dog in on my carpet, before my very face, be so good\r
+as to let me know. A wife's got a right to ask that, I hope."\r
+\r
+"Don't you be uneasy, mum," said Bob, touching his cap. He saw at once\r
+that Mrs. Glegg was a bit of game worth running down, and longed to be\r
+at the sport; "we'll stay out upo' the gravel here,--Mumps and me\r
+will. Mumps knows his company,--he does. I might hish at him by th'\r
+hour together, before he'd fly at a real gentlewoman like you. It's\r
+wonderful how he knows which is the good-looking ladies; and's\r
+partic'lar fond of 'em when they've good shapes. Lors!" added Bob,\r
+laying down his pack on the gravel, "it's a thousand pities such a\r
+lady as you shouldn't deal with a packman, i' stead o' goin' into\r
+these newfangled shops, where there's half-a-dozen fine gents wi'\r
+their chins propped up wi' a stiff stock, a-looking like bottles wi'\r
+ornamental stoppers, an' all got to get their dinner out of a bit o'\r
+calico; it stan's to reason you must pay three times the price you pay\r
+a packman, as is the nat'ral way o' gettin' goods,--an' pays no rent,\r
+an' isn't forced to throttle himself till the lies are squeezed out on\r
+him, whether he will or no. But lors! mum, you know what it is better\r
+nor I do,--_you_ can see through them shopmen, I'll be bound."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I reckon I can, and through the packmen too," observed Mrs.\r
+Glegg, intending to imply that Bob's flattery had produced no effect\r
+on _her;_ while her husband, standing behind her with his hands in his\r
+pockets and legs apart, winked and smiled with conjugal delight at the\r
+probability of his wife's being circumvented.\r
+\r
+"Ay, to be sure, mum," said Bob. "Why, you must ha' dealt wi' no end\r
+o' packmen when you war a young lass--before the master here had the\r
+luck to set eyes on you. I know where you lived, I do,--seen th' house\r
+many a time,--close upon Squire Darleigh's,--a stone house wi'\r
+steps----"\r
+\r
+"Ah, that it had," said Mrs. Glegg, pouring out the tea. "You know\r
+something o' my family, then? Are you akin to that packman with a\r
+squint in his eye, as used to bring th' Irish linen?"\r
+\r
+"Look you there now!" said Bob, evasively. "Didn't I know as you'd\r
+remember the best bargains you've made in your life was made wi'\r
+packmen? Why, you see even a squintin' packman's better nor a shopman\r
+as can see straight. Lors! if I'd had the luck to call at the stone\r
+house wi' my pack, as lies here,"--stooping and thumping the bundle\r
+emphatically with his fist,--"an' th' handsome young lasses all\r
+stannin' out on the stone steps, it ud' ha' been summat like openin' a\r
+pack, that would. It's on'y the poor houses now as a packman calls on,\r
+if it isn't for the sake o' the sarvant-maids. They're paltry times,\r
+these are. Why, mum, look at the printed cottons now, an' what they\r
+was when you wore 'em,--why, you wouldn't put such a thing on now, I\r
+can see. It must be first-rate quality, the manifactur as you'd\r
+buy,--summat as 'ud wear as well as your own faitures."\r
+\r
+"Yes, better quality nor any you're like to carry; you've got nothing\r
+first-rate but brazenness, I'll be bound," said Mrs. Glegg, with a\r
+triumphant sense of her insurmountable sagacity. "Mr. Glegg, are you\r
+going ever to sit down to your tea? Tom, there's a cup for you."\r
+\r
+"You speak true there, mum," said Bob. "My pack isn't for ladies like\r
+you. The time's gone by for that. Bargains picked up dirt cheap! A bit\r
+o' damage here an' there, as can be cut out, or else niver seen i' the\r
+wearin', but not fit to offer to rich folks as can pay for the look o'\r
+things as nobody sees. I'm not the man as 'ud offer t' open my pack to\r
+_you_, mum; no, no; I'm a imperent chap, as you say,--these times\r
+makes folks imperent,--but I'm not up to the mark o' that."\r
+\r
+"Why, what goods do you carry in your pack?" said Mrs. Glegg.\r
+"Fine-colored things, I suppose,--shawls an' that?"\r
+\r
+"All sorts, mum, all sorts," said Bob,--thumping his bundle; "but let\r
+us say no more about that, if _you_ please. I'm here upo' Mr. Tom's\r
+business, an' I'm not the man to take up the time wi' my own."\r
+\r
+"And pray, what _is_ this business as is to be kept from me?" said\r
+Mrs. Glegg, who, solicited by a double curiosity, was obliged to let\r
+the one-half wait.\r
+\r
+"A little plan o' nephey Tom's here," said good-natured Mr. Glegg;\r
+"and not altogether a bad 'un, I think. A little plan for making\r
+money; that's the right sort o' plan for young folks as have got their\r
+fortin to make, eh, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"But I hope it isn't a plan where he expects iverything to be done for\r
+him by his friends; that's what the young folks think of mostly\r
+nowadays. And pray, what has this packman got to do wi' what goes on\r
+in our family? Can't you speak for yourself, Tom, and let your aunt\r
+know things, as a nephey should?"\r
+\r
+"This is Bob Jakin, aunt," said Tom, bridling the irritation that aunt\r
+Glegg's voice always produced. "I've known him ever since we were\r
+little boys. He's a very good fellow, and always ready to do me a\r
+kindness. And he has had some experience in sending goods out,--a\r
+small part of a cargo as a private speculation; and he thinks if I\r
+could begin to do a little in the same way, I might make some money. A\r
+large interest is got in that way."\r
+\r
+"Large int'rest?" said aunt Glegg, with eagerness; "and what do you\r
+call large int'rest?"\r
+\r
+"Ten or twelve per cent, Bob says, after expenses are paid."\r
+\r
+"Then why wasn't I let to know o' such things before, Mr. Glegg?" said\r
+Mrs. Glegg, turning to her husband, with a deep grating tone of\r
+reproach. "Haven't you allays told me as there was no getting more nor\r
+five per cent?"\r
+\r
+"Pooh, pooh, nonsense, my good woman," said Mr. Glegg. "You couldn't\r
+go into trade, could you? You can't get more than five per cent with\r
+security."\r
+\r
+"But I can turn a bit o' money for you, an' welcome, mum," said Bob,\r
+"if you'd like to risk it,--not as there's any risk to speak on. But\r
+if you'd a mind to lend a bit o' money to Mr. Tom, he'd pay you six or\r
+seven per zent, an' get a trifle for himself as well; an' a\r
+good-natur'd lady like you 'ud like the feel o' the money better if\r
+your nephey took part on it."\r
+\r
+"What do you say, Mrs. G.?" said Mr. Glegg. "I've a notion, when I've\r
+made a bit more inquiry, as I shall perhaps start Tom here with a bit\r
+of a nest-egg,--he'll pay me int'rest, you know,--an' if you've got\r
+some little sums lyin' idle twisted up in a stockin' toe, or that----"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg, it's beyond iverything! You'll go and give information to\r
+the tramps next, as they may come and rob me."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, as I was sayin', if you like to join me wi' twenty\r
+pounds, you can--I'll make it fifty. That'll be a pretty good\r
+nest-egg, eh, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"You're not counting on me, Mr. Glegg, I hope," said his wife. "You\r
+could do fine things wi' my money, I don't doubt."\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Mr. Glegg, rather snappishly, "then we'll do without\r
+you. I shall go with you to see this Salt," he added, turning to Bob.\r
+\r
+"And now, I suppose, you'll go all the other way, Mr. Glegg," said\r
+Mrs. G., "and want to shut me out o' my own nephey's business. I never\r
+said I wouldn't put money into it,--I don't say as it shall be twenty\r
+pounds, though you're so ready to say it for me,--but he'll see some\r
+day as his aunt's in the right not to risk the money she's saved for\r
+him till it's proved as it won't be lost."\r
+\r
+"Ay, that's a pleasant sort o'risk, that is," said Mr. Glegg,\r
+indiscreetly winking at Tom, who couldn't avoid smiling. But Bob\r
+stemmed the injured lady's outburst.\r
+\r
+"Ay, mum," he said admiringly, "you know what's what--you do. An' it's\r
+nothing but fair. _You_ see how the first bit of a job answers, an'\r
+then you'll come down handsome. Lors, it's a fine thing to hev good\r
+kin. I got my bit of a nest-egg, as the master calls it, all by my own\r
+sharpness,--ten suvreigns it was,--wi' dousing the fire at Torry's\r
+mill, an' it's growed an' growed by a bit an' a bit, till I'n got a\r
+matter o' thirty pound to lay out, besides makin' my mother\r
+comfor'ble. I should get more, on'y I'm such a soft wi' the women,--I\r
+can't help lettin' 'em hev such good bargains. There's this bundle,\r
+now," thumping it lustily, "any other chap 'ud make a pretty penny out\r
+on it. But me!--lors, I shall sell 'em for pretty near what I paid for\r
+'em."\r
+\r
+"Have you got a bit of good net, now?" said Mrs. Glegg, in a\r
+patronizing tone, moving from the tea-table, and folding her napkin.\r
+\r
+"Eh, mum, not what you'd think it worth your while to look at. I'd\r
+scorn to show it you. It 'ud be an insult to you."\r
+\r
+"But let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, still patronizing. "If they're\r
+damaged goods, they're like enough to be a bit the better quality."\r
+\r
+"No, mum, I know my place," said Bob, lifting up his pack and\r
+shouldering it. "I'm not going t' expose the lowness o' my trade to a\r
+lady like you. Packs is come down i' the world; it 'ud cut you to th'\r
+heart to see the difference. I'm at your sarvice, sir, when you've a\r
+mind to go and see Salt."\r
+\r
+"All in good time," said Mr. Glegg, really unwilling to cut short the\r
+dialogue. "Are you wanted at the wharf, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir; I left Stowe in my place."\r
+\r
+"Come, put down your pack, and let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, drawing a\r
+chair to the window and seating herself with much dignity.\r
+\r
+"Don't you ask it, mum," said Bob, entreatingly.\r
+\r
+"Make no more words," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "but do as I tell\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"Eh mum, I'm loth, that I am," said Bob, slowly depositing his pack on\r
+the step, and beginning to untie it with unwilling fingers. "But what\r
+you order shall be done" (much fumbling in pauses between the\r
+sentences). "It's not as you'll buy a single thing on me,--I'd be\r
+sorry for you to do it,--for think o' them poor women up i' the\r
+villages there, as niver stir a hundred yards from home,--it 'ud be a\r
+pity for anybody to buy up their bargains. Lors, it's as good as a\r
+junketing to 'em when they see me wi' my pack, an' I shall niver pick\r
+up such bargains for 'em again. Least ways, I've no time now, for I'm\r
+off to Laceham. See here now," Bob went on, becoming rapid again, and\r
+holding up a scarlet woollen Kerchief with an embroidered wreath in\r
+the corner; "here's a thing to make a lass's mouth water, an' on'y two\r
+shillin'--an' why? Why, 'cause there's a bit of a moth-hole 'i this\r
+plain end. Lors, I think the moths an' the mildew was sent by\r
+Providence o' purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for the good-lookin'\r
+women as han't got much money. If it hadn't been for the moths, now,\r
+every hankicher on 'em 'ud ha' gone to the rich, handsome ladies, like\r
+you, mum, at five shillin' apiece,--not a farthin' less; but what does\r
+the moth do? Why, it nibbles off three shillin' o' the price i' no\r
+time; an' then a packman like me can carry 't to the poor lasses as\r
+live under the dark thack, to make a bit of a blaze for 'em. Lors,\r
+it's as good as a fire, to look at such a hankicher!"\r
+\r
+Bob held it at a distance for admiration, but Mrs. Glegg said sharply:\r
+\r
+"Yes, but nobody wants a fire this time o' year. Put these colored\r
+things by; let me look at your nets, if you've got 'em."\r
+\r
+"Eh, mum, I told you how it 'ud be," said Bob, flinging aside the\r
+colored things with an air of desperation. "I knowed it ud' turn\r
+again' you to look at such paltry articles as I carry. Here's a piece\r
+o' figured muslin now, what's the use o' you lookin' at it? You might\r
+as well look at poor folks's victual, mum; it 'ud on'y take away your\r
+appetite. There's a yard i' the middle on't as the pattern's all\r
+missed,--lors, why, it's a muslin as the Princess Victoree might ha'\r
+wore; but," added Bob, flinging it behind him on to the turf, as if to\r
+save Mrs. Glegg's eyes, "it'll be bought up by the huckster's wife at\r
+Fibb's End,--that's where _it'll_ go--ten shillin' for the whole\r
+lot--ten yards, countin' the damaged un--five-an'-twenty shillin' 'ud\r
+ha' been the price, not a penny less. But I'll say no more, mum; it's\r
+nothing to you, a piece o' muslin like that; you can afford to pay\r
+three times the money for a thing as isn't half so good. It's nets\r
+_you_ talked on; well, I've got a piece as 'ull serve you to make fun\r
+on----"\r
+\r
+"Bring me that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "It's a buff; I'm partial to\r
+buff."\r
+\r
+"Eh, but a _damaged_ thing," said Bob, in a tone of deprecating\r
+disgust. "You'd do nothing with it, mum, you'd give it to the cook, I\r
+know you would, an' it 'ud be a pity,--she'd look too much like a lady\r
+in it; it's unbecoming for servants."\r
+\r
+"Fetch it, and let me see you measure it," said Mrs. Glegg,\r
+authoritatively.\r
+\r
+Bob obeyed with ostentatious reluctance.\r
+\r
+"See what there is over measure!" he said, holding forth the extra\r
+half-yard, while Mrs. Glegg was busy examining the damaged yard, and\r
+throwing her head back to see how far the fault would be lost on a\r
+distant view.\r
+\r
+"I'll give you six shilling for it," she said, throwing it down with\r
+the air of a person who mentions an ultimatum.\r
+\r
+"Didn't I tell you now, mum, as it 'ud hurt your feelings to look at\r
+my pack? That damaged bit's turned your stomach now; I see it has,"\r
+said Bob, wrapping the muslin up with the utmost quickness, and\r
+apparently about to fasten up his pack. "You're used to seein' a\r
+different sort o' article carried by packmen, when you lived at the\r
+stone house. Packs is come down i' the world; I told you that; _my_\r
+goods are for common folks. Mrs. Pepper 'ull give me ten shillin' for\r
+that muslin, an' be sorry as I didn't ask her more. Such articles\r
+answer i' the wearin',--they keep their color till the threads melt\r
+away i' the wash-tub, an' that won't be while _I'm_ a young un."\r
+\r
+"Well, seven shilling," said Mrs. Glegg.\r
+\r
+"Put it out o' your mind, mum, now do," said Bob. "Here's a bit o'\r
+net, then, for you to look at before I tie up my pack, just for you to\r
+see what my trade's come to,--spotted and sprigged, you see, beautiful\r
+but yallow,--'s been lyin' by an' got the wrong color. I could niver\r
+ha' bought such net, if it hadn't been yallow. Lors, it's took me a\r
+deal o' study to know the vally o' such articles; when I begun to\r
+carry a pack, I was as ignirant as a pig; net or calico was all the\r
+same to me. I thought them things the most vally as was the thickest.\r
+I was took in dreadful, for I'm a straightforrard chap,--up to no\r
+tricks, mum. I can only say my nose is my own, for if I went beyond, I\r
+should lose myself pretty quick. An' I gev five-an'-eightpence for\r
+that piece o' net,--if I was to tell y' anything else I should be\r
+tellin' you fibs,--an' five-an'-eightpence I shall ask of it, not a\r
+penny more, for it's a woman's article, an' I like to 'commodate the\r
+women. Five-an'-eightpence for six yards,--as cheap as if it was only\r
+the dirt on it as was paid for.'"\r
+\r
+"I don't mind having three yards of it,'" said Mrs. Glegg.\r
+\r
+"Why, there's but six altogether," said Bob. "No, mum, it isn't worth\r
+your while; you can go to the shop to-morrow an' get the same pattern\r
+ready whitened. It's on'y three times the money; what's that to a lady\r
+like you?" He gave an emphatic tie to his bundle.\r
+\r
+"Come, lay me out that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "Here's eight\r
+shilling for it."\r
+\r
+"You _will_ be jokin'," said Bob, looking up with a laughing face; "I\r
+see'd you was a pleasant lady when I fust come to the winder."\r
+\r
+"Well, put it me out," said Mrs. Glegg, peremptorily.\r
+\r
+"But if I let you have it for ten shillin', mum, you'll be so good as\r
+not tell nobody. I should be a laughin'-stock; the trade 'ud hoot me,\r
+if they knowed it. I'm obliged to make believe as I ask more nor I do\r
+for my goods, else they'd find out I was a flat. I'm glad you don't\r
+insist upo' buyin' the net, for then I should ha' lost my two best\r
+bargains for Mrs. Pepper o' Fibb's End, an' she's a rare customer."\r
+\r
+"Let me look at the net again," said Mrs. Glegg, yearning after the\r
+cheap spots and sprigs, now they were vanishing.\r
+\r
+"Well, I can't deny _you_, mum," said Bob handing it out.\r
+\r
+"Eh!, see what a pattern now! Real Laceham goods. Now, this is the\r
+sort o' article I'm recommendin' Mr. Tom to send out. Lors, it's a\r
+fine thing for anybody as has got a bit o' money; these Laceham goods\r
+'ud make it breed like maggits. If I was a lady wi' a bit o'\r
+money!--why, I know one as put thirty pounds into them goods,--a lady\r
+wi' a cork leg, but as sharp,--you wouldn't catch _her_ runnin' her\r
+head into a sack; _she'd_ see her way clear out o' anything afore\r
+she'd be in a hurry to start. Well, she let out thirty pound to a\r
+young man in the drapering line, and he laid it out i' Laceham goods,\r
+an' a shupercargo o' my acquinetance (not Salt) took 'em out, an' she\r
+got her eight per zent fust go off; an' now you can't hold her but she\r
+must be sendin' out carguies wi' every ship, till she's gettin' as\r
+rich as a Jew. Bucks her name is, she doesn't live i' this town. Now\r
+then, mum, if you'll please to give me the net----"\r
+\r
+"Here's fifteen shilling, then, for the two," said Mrs. Glegg. "But\r
+it's a shameful price."\r
+\r
+"Nay, mum, you'll niver say that when you're upo' your knees i' church\r
+i' five years' time. I'm makin' you a present o' th' articles; I am,\r
+indeed. That eightpence shaves off my profits as clean as a razor. Now\r
+then, sir," continued Bob, shouldering his pack, "if you please, I'll\r
+be glad to go and see about makin' Mr. Tom's fortin. Eh, I wish I'd\r
+got another twenty pound to lay out _my_sen; I shouldn't stay to say\r
+my Catechism afore I knowed what to do wi't."\r
+\r
+"Stop a bit, Mr. Glegg," said the lady, as her husband took his hat,\r
+"you never _will_ give me the chance o' speaking. You'll go away now,\r
+and finish everything about this business, and come back and tell me\r
+it's too late for me to speak. As if I wasn't my nephey's own aunt,\r
+and the head o' the family on his mother's side! and laid by guineas,\r
+all full weight, for him, as he'll know who to respect when I'm laid\r
+in my coffin."\r
+\r
+"Well, Mrs. G., say what you mean," said Mr. G., hastily.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, I desire as nothing may be done without my knowing. I\r
+don't say as I sha'n't venture twenty pounds, if you make out as\r
+everything's right and safe. And if I do, Tom," concluded Mrs. Glegg,\r
+turning impressively to her nephew, "I hope you'll allays bear it in\r
+mind and be grateful for such an aunt. I mean you to pay me interest,\r
+you know; I don't approve o' giving; we niver looked for that in _my_\r
+family."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, aunt," said Tom, rather proudly. "I prefer having the\r
+money only lent to me."\r
+\r
+"Very well; that's the Dodson sperrit," said Mrs. Glegg, rising to get\r
+her knitting with the sense that any further remark after this would\r
+be bathos.\r
+\r
+Salt--that eminently "briny chap"--having been discovered in a cloud\r
+of tobacco-smoke at the Anchor Tavern, Mr. Glegg commenced inquiries\r
+which turned out satisfactorily enough to warrant the advance of the\r
+"nest-egg," to which aunt Glegg contributed twenty pounds; and in this\r
+modest beginning you see the ground of a fact which might otherwise\r
+surprise you; namely, Tom's accumulation of a fund, unknown to his\r
+father, that promised in no very long time to meet the more tardy\r
+process of saving, and quite cover the deficit. When once his\r
+attention had been turned to this source of gain, Tom determined to\r
+make the most of it, and lost no opportunity of obtaining information\r
+and extending his small enterprises. In not telling his father, he was\r
+influenced by that strange mixture of opposite feelings which often\r
+gives equal truth to those who blame an action and those who admire\r
+it,--partly, it was that disinclination to confidence which is seen\r
+between near kindred, that family repulsion which spoils the most\r
+sacred relations of our lives; partly, it was the desire to surprise\r
+his father with a great joy. He did not see that it would have been\r
+better to soothe the interval with a new hope, and prevent the\r
+delirium of a too sudden elation.\r
+\r
+At the time of Maggie's first meeting with Philip, Tom had already\r
+nearly a hundred and fifty pounds of his own capital; and while they\r
+were walking by the evening light in the Red Deeps, he, by the same\r
+evening light, was riding into Laceham, proud of being on his first\r
+journey on behalf of Guest & Co., and revolving in his mind all the\r
+chances that by the end of another year he should have doubled his\r
+gains, lifted off the obloquy of debt from his father's name, and\r
+perhaps--for he should be twenty-one--have got a new start for\r
+himself, on a higher platform of employment. Did he not desire it? He\r
+was quite sure that he did.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+The Wavering Balance\r
+\r
+\r
+I said that Maggie went home that evening from the Red Deeps with a\r
+mental conflict already begun. You have seen clearly enough, in her\r
+interview with Philip, what that conflict was. Here suddenly was an\r
+opening in the rocky wall which shut in the narrow valley of\r
+humiliation, where all her prospect was the remote, unfathomed sky;\r
+and some of the memory-haunting earthly delights were no longer out of\r
+her reach. She might have books, converse, affection; she might hear\r
+tidings of the world from which her mind had not yet lost its sense of\r
+exile; and it would be a kindness to Philip too, who was\r
+pitiable,--clearly not happy. And perhaps here was an opportunity\r
+indicated for making her mind more worthy of its highest service;\r
+perhaps the noblest, completest devoutness could hardly exist without\r
+some width of knowledge; _must_ she always live in this resigned\r
+imprisonment? It was so blameless, so good a thing that there should\r
+be friendship between her and Philip; the motives that forbade it were\r
+so unreasonable, so unchristian! But the severe monotonous warning\r
+came again and again,--that she was losing the simplicity and\r
+clearness of her life by admitting a ground of concealment; and that,\r
+by forsaking the simple rule of renunciation, she was throwing herself\r
+under the seductive guidance of illimitable wants. She thought she had\r
+won strength to obey the warning before she allowed herself the next\r
+week to turn her steps in the evening to the Red Deeps. But while she\r
+was resolved to say an affectionate farewell to Philip, how she looked\r
+forward to that evening walk in the still, fleckered shade of the\r
+hollows, away from all that was harsh and unlovely; to the\r
+affectionate, admiring looks that would meet her; to the sense of\r
+comradeship that childish memories would give to wiser, older talk; to\r
+the certainty that Philip would care to hear everything she said,\r
+which no one else cared for! It was a half-hour that it would be very\r
+hard to turn her back upon, with the sense that there would be no\r
+other like it. Yet she said what she meant to say; she looked firm as\r
+well as sad.\r
+\r
+"Philip, I have made up my mind; it is right that we should give each\r
+other up, in everything but memory. I could not see you without\r
+concealment--stay, I know what you are going to say,--it is other\r
+people's wrong feelings that make concealment necessary; but\r
+concealment is bad, however it may be caused. I feel that it would be\r
+bad for me, for us both. And then, if our secret were discovered,\r
+there would be nothing but misery,--dreadful anger; and then we must\r
+part after all, and it would be harder, when we were used to seeing\r
+each other."\r
+\r
+Philip's face had flushed, and there was a momentary eagerness of\r
+expression, as if he had been about to resist this decision with all\r
+his might.\r
+\r
+But he controlled himself, and said, with assumed calmness: "Well,\r
+Maggie, if we must part, let us try and forget it for one half hour;\r
+let us talk together a little while, for the last time."\r
+\r
+He took her hand, and Maggie felt no reason to withdraw it; his\r
+quietness made her all the more sure she had given him great pain, and\r
+she wanted to show him how unwillingly she had given it. They walked\r
+together hand in hand in silence.\r
+\r
+"Let us sit down in the hollow," said Philip, "where we stood the last\r
+time. See how the dog-roses have strewed the ground, and spread their\r
+opal petals over it."\r
+\r
+They sat down at the roots of the slanting ash.\r
+\r
+"I've begun my picture of you among the Scotch firs, Maggie," said\r
+Philip, "so you must let me study your face a little, while you\r
+stay,--since I am not to see it again. Please turn your head this\r
+way."\r
+\r
+This was said in an entreating voice, and it would have been very hard\r
+of Maggie to refuse. The full, lustrous face, with the bright black\r
+coronet, looked down like that of a divinity well pleased to be\r
+worshipped, on the pale-hued, small-featured face that was turned up\r
+to it.\r
+\r
+"I shall be sitting for my second portrait then," she said, smiling.\r
+"Will it be larger than the other?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, much larger. It is an oil-painting. You will look like a tall\r
+Hamadryad, dark and strong and noble, just issued from one of the\r
+fir-trees, when the stems are casting their afternoon shadows on the\r
+grass."\r
+\r
+"You seem to think more of painting than of anything now, Philip?"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps I do," said Philip, rather sadly; "but I think of too many\r
+things,--sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great harvest from any one\r
+of them. I'm cursed with susceptibility in every direction, and\r
+effective faculty in none. I care for painting and music; I care for\r
+classic literature, and mediæval literature, and modern literature; I\r
+flutter all ways, and fly in none."\r
+\r
+"But surely that is a happiness to have so many tastes,--to enjoy so\r
+many beautiful things, when they are within your reach," said Maggie,\r
+musingly. "It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to\r
+have one sort of talent,--almost like a carrier-pigeon."\r
+\r
+"It might be a happiness to have many tastes if I were like other\r
+men," said Philip, bitterly. "I might get some power and distinction\r
+by mere mediocrity, as they do; at least I should get those middling\r
+satisfactions which make men contented to do without great ones. I\r
+might think society at St. Ogg's agreeable then. But nothing could\r
+make life worth the purchase-money of pain to me, but some faculty\r
+that would lift me above the dead level of provincial existence. Yes,\r
+there is one thing,--a passion answers as well as a faculty."\r
+\r
+Maggie did not hear the last words; she was struggling against the\r
+consciousness that Philip's words had set her own discontent vibrating\r
+again as it used to do.\r
+\r
+"I understand what you mean," she said, "though I know so much less\r
+than you do. I used to think I could never bear life if it kept on\r
+being the same every day, and I must always be doing things of no\r
+consequence, and never know anything greater. But, dear Philip, I\r
+think we are only like children that some one who is wiser is taking\r
+care of. Is it not right to resign ourselves entirely, whatever may be\r
+denied us? I have found great peace in that for the last two or three\r
+years, even joy in subduing my own will."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Maggie," said Philip, vehemently; "and you are shutting yourself\r
+up in a narrow, self-delusive fanaticism, which is only a way of\r
+escaping pain by starving into dulness all the highest powers of your\r
+nature. Joy and peace are not resignation; resignation is the willing\r
+endurance of a pain that is not allayed, that you don't expect to be\r
+allayed. Stupefaction is not resignation; and it is stupefaction to\r
+remain in ignorance,--to shut up all the avenues by which the life of\r
+your fellow-men might become known to you. I am not resigned; I am not\r
+sure that life is long enough to learn that lesson. _You_ are not\r
+resigned; you are only trying to stupefy yourself."\r
+\r
+Maggie's lips trembled; she felt there was some truth in what Philip\r
+said, and yet there was a deeper consciousness that, for any immediate\r
+application it had to her conduct, it was no better than falsity. Her\r
+double impression corresponded to the double impulse of the speaker.\r
+Philip seriously believed what he said, but he said it with vehemence\r
+because it made an argument against the resolution that opposed his\r
+wishes. But Maggie's face, made more childlike by the gathering tears,\r
+touched him with a tenderer, less egotistic feeling. He took her hand\r
+and said gently:\r
+\r
+"Don't let us think of such things in this short half-hour, Maggie. Let\r
+us only care about being together. We shall be friends in spite of\r
+separation. We shall always think of each other. I shall be glad to\r
+live as long as you are alive, because I shall think there may always\r
+come a time when I can--when you will let me help you in some way."\r
+\r
+"What a dear, good brother you would have been, Philip," said Maggie,\r
+smiling through the haze of tears. "I think you would have made as\r
+much fuss about me, and been as pleased for me to love you, as would\r
+have satisfied even me. You would have loved me well enough to bear\r
+with me, and forgive me everything. That was what I always longed that\r
+Tom should do. I was never satisfied with a _little_ of anything. That\r
+is why it is better for me to do without earthly happiness altogether.\r
+I never felt that I had enough music,--I wanted more instruments\r
+playing together; I wanted voices to be fuller and deeper. Do you ever\r
+sing now, Philip?" she added abruptly, as if she had forgotten what\r
+went before.\r
+\r
+"Yes," he said, "every day, almost. But my voice is only middling,\r
+like everything else in me."\r
+\r
+"Oh, sing me something,--just one song. I _may_ listen to that before\r
+I go,--something you used to sing at Lorton on a Saturday afternoon,\r
+when we had the drawing-room all to ourselves, and I put my apron over\r
+my head to listen."\r
+\r
+"_I_ know," said Philip; and Maggie buried her face in her hands while\r
+he sang _sotto voce_, "Love in her eyes sits playing," and then said,\r
+"That's it, isn't it?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, I won't stay," said Maggie, starting up. "It will only haunt\r
+me. Let us walk, Philip. I must go home."\r
+\r
+She moved away, so that he was obliged to rise and follow her.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," he said, in a tone of remonstrance, "don't persist in this\r
+wilful, senseless privation. It makes me wretched to see you benumbing\r
+and cramping your nature in this way. You were so full of life when\r
+you were a child; I thought you would be a brilliant woman,--all wit\r
+and bright imagination. And it flashes out in your face still, until\r
+you draw that veil of dull quiescence over it."\r
+\r
+"Why do you speak so bitterly to me, Philip?" said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Because I foresee it will not end well; you can never carry on this\r
+self-torture."\r
+\r
+"I shall have strength given me," said Maggie, tremulously.\r
+\r
+"No, you will not, Maggie; no one has strength given to do what is\r
+unnatural. It is mere cowardice to seek safety in negations. No\r
+character becomes strong in that way. You will be thrown into the\r
+world some day, and then every rational satisfaction of your nature\r
+that you deny now will assault you like a savage appetite."\r
+\r
+Maggie started and paused, looking at Philip with alarm in her face.\r
+\r
+"Philip, how dare you shake me in this way? You are a tempter."\r
+\r
+"No, I am not; but love gives insight, Maggie, and insight often gives\r
+foreboding. _Listen_ to me,--let _me_ supply you with books; do let me\r
+see you sometimes,--be your brother and teacher, as you said at\r
+Lorton. It is less wrong that you should see me than that you should\r
+be committing this long suicide."\r
+\r
+Maggie felt unable to speak. She shook her head and walked on in\r
+silence, till they came to the end of the Scotch firs, and she put out\r
+her hand in sign of parting.\r
+\r
+"Do you banish me from this place forever, then, Maggie? Surely I may\r
+come and walk in it sometimes? If I meet you by chance, there is no\r
+concealment in that?"\r
+\r
+It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become\r
+irrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon\r
+us--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and\r
+firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long\r
+struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.\r
+\r
+Maggie felt her heart leap at this subterfuge of Philip's, and there\r
+passed over her face that almost imperceptible shock which accompanies\r
+any relief. He saw it, and they parted in silence.\r
+\r
+Philip's sense of the situation was too complete for him not to be\r
+visited with glancing fears lest he had been intervening too\r
+presumptuously in the action of Maggie's conscience, perhaps for a\r
+selfish end. But no!--he persuaded himself his end was not selfish. He\r
+had little hope that Maggie would ever return the strong feeling he\r
+had for her; and it must be better for Maggie's future life, when\r
+these petty family obstacles to her freedom had disappeared, that the\r
+present should not be entirely sacrificed, and that she should have\r
+some opportunity of culture,--some interchange with a mind above the\r
+vulgar level of those she was now condemned to live with. If we only\r
+look far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can always\r
+find some point in the combination of results by which those actions\r
+can be justified; by adopting the point of view of a Providence who\r
+arranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find\r
+it possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is\r
+most agreeable to us in the present moment. And it was in this way\r
+that Philip justified his subtle efforts to overcome Maggie's true\r
+prompting against a concealment that would introduce doubleness into\r
+her own mind, and might cause new misery to those who had the primary\r
+natural claim on her. But there was a surplus of passion in him that\r
+made him half independent of justifying motives. His longing to see\r
+Maggie, and make an element in her life, had in it some of that savage\r
+impulse to snatch an offered joy which springs from a life in which\r
+the mental and bodily constitution have made pain predominate. He had\r
+not his full share in the common good of men; he could not even pass\r
+muster with the insignificant, but must be singled out for pity, and\r
+excepted from what was a matter of course with others. Even to Maggie\r
+he was an exception; it was clear that the thought of his being her\r
+lover had never entered her mind.\r
+\r
+Do not think too hardly of Philip. Ugly and deformed people have great\r
+need of unusual virtues, because they are likely to be extremely\r
+uncomfortable without them; but the theory that unusual virtues spring\r
+by a direct consequence out of personal disadvantages, as animals get\r
+thicker wool in severe climates, is perhaps a little overstrained. The\r
+temptations of beauty are much dwelt upon, but I fancy they only bear\r
+the same relation to those of ugliness, as the temptation to excess at\r
+a feast, where the delights are varied for eye and ear as well as\r
+palate, bears to the temptations that assail the desperation of\r
+hunger. Does not the Hunger Tower stand as the type of the utmost\r
+trial to what is human in us?\r
+\r
+Philip had never been soothed by that mother's love which flows out to\r
+us in the greater abundance because our need is greater, which clings\r
+to us the more tenderly because we are the less likely to be winners\r
+in the game of life; and the sense of his father's affection and\r
+indulgence toward him was marred by the keener perception of his\r
+father's faults. Kept aloof from all practical life as Philip had\r
+been, and by nature half feminine in sensitiveness, he had some of the\r
+woman's intolerant repulsion toward worldliness and the deliberate\r
+pursuit of sensual enjoyment; and this one strong natural tie in his\r
+life,--his relation as a son,--was like an aching limb to him. Perhaps\r
+there is inevitably something morbid in a human being who is in any\r
+way unfavorably excepted from ordinary conditions, until the good\r
+force has had time to triumph; and it has rarely had time for that at\r
+two-and-twenty. That force was present in Philip in much strength, but\r
+the sun himself looks feeble through the morning mists.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+Another Love-Scene\r
+\r
+\r
+Early in the following April, nearly a year after that dubious parting\r
+you have just witnessed, you may, if you like, again see Maggie\r
+entering the Red Deeps through the group of Scotch firs. But it is\r
+early afternoon and not evening, and the edge of sharpness in the\r
+spring air makes her draw her large shawl close about her and trip\r
+along rather quickly; though she looks round, as usual, that she may\r
+take in the sight of her beloved trees. There is a more eager,\r
+inquiring look in her eyes than there was last June, and a smile is\r
+hovering about her lips, as if some playful speech were awaiting the\r
+right hearer. The hearer was not long in appearing.\r
+\r
+"Take back your _Corinne_," said Maggie, drawing a book from under her\r
+shawl. "You were right in telling me she would do me no good; but you\r
+were wrong in thinking I should wish to be like her."\r
+\r
+"Wouldn't you really like to be a tenth Muse, then, Maggie?" said\r
+Philip looking up in her face as we look at a first parting in the\r
+clouds that promises us a bright heaven once more.\r
+\r
+"Not at all," said Maggie, laughing. "The Muses were uncomfortable\r
+goddesses, I think,--obliged always to carry rolls and musical\r
+instruments about with them. If I carried a harp in this climate, you\r
+know, I must have a green baize cover for it; and I should be sure to\r
+leave it behind me by mistake."\r
+\r
+"You agree with me in not liking Corinne, then?"\r
+\r
+"I didn't finish the book," said Maggie. "As soon as I came to the\r
+blond-haired young lady reading in the park, I shut it up, and\r
+determined to read no further. I foresaw that that light-complexioned\r
+girl would win away all the love from Corinne and make her miserable.\r
+I'm determined to read no more books where the blond-haired women\r
+carry away all the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice\r
+against them. If you could give me some story, now, where the dark\r
+woman triumphs, it would restore the balance. I want to avenge Rebecca\r
+and Flora MacIvor and Minna, and all the rest of the dark unhappy\r
+ones. Since you are my tutor, you ought to preserve my mind from\r
+prejudices; you are always arguing against prejudices."\r
+\r
+"Well, perhaps you will avenge the dark women in your own person, and\r
+carry away all the love from your cousin Lucy. She is sure to have\r
+some handsome young man of St. Ogg's at her feet now; and you have\r
+only to shine upon him--your fair little cousin will be quite quenched\r
+in your beams."\r
+\r
+"Philip, that is not pretty of you, to apply my nonsense to anything\r
+real," said Maggie, looking hurt. "As if I, with my old gowns and want\r
+of all accomplishments, could be a rival of dear little Lucy,--who\r
+knows and does all sorts of charming things, and is ten times prettier\r
+than I am,--even if I were odious and base enough to wish to be her\r
+rival. Besides, I never go to aunt Deane's when any one is there; it\r
+is only because dear Lucy is good, and loves me, that she comes to see\r
+me, and will have me go to see her sometimes."\r
+\r
+"Maggie," said Philip, with surprise, "it is not like you to take\r
+playfulness literally. You must have been in St. Ogg's this morning,\r
+and brought away a slight infection of dulness."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Maggie, smiling, "if you meant that for a joke, it was a\r
+poor one; but I thought it was a very good reproof. I thought you\r
+wanted to remind me that I am vain, and wish every one to admire me\r
+most. But it isn't for that that I'm jealous for the dark women,--not\r
+because I'm dark myself; it's because I always care the most about the\r
+unhappy people. If the blond girl were forsaken, I should like _her_\r
+best. I always take the side of the rejected lover in the stories."\r
+\r
+"Then you would never have the heart to reject one yourself, should\r
+you, Maggie?" said Philip, flushing a little.\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Maggie, hesitatingly. Then with a bright smile,\r
+"I think perhaps I could if he were very conceited; and yet, if he got\r
+extremely humiliated afterward, I should relent."\r
+\r
+"I've often wondered, Maggie," Philip said, with some effort, "whether\r
+you wouldn't really be more likely to love a man that other women were\r
+not likely to love."\r
+\r
+"That would depend on what they didn't like him for," said Maggie,\r
+laughing. "He might be very disagreeable. He might look at me through\r
+an eye-glass stuck in his eye, making a hideous face, as young Torry\r
+does. I should think other women are not fond of that; but I never\r
+felt any pity for young Torry. I've never any pity for conceited\r
+people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them."\r
+\r
+"But suppose, Maggie,--suppose it was a man who was not conceited, who\r
+felt he had nothing to be conceited about; who had been marked from\r
+childhood for a peculiar kind of suffering, and to whom you were the\r
+day-star of his life; who loved you, worshipped you, so entirely that\r
+he felt it happiness enough for him if you would let him see you at\r
+rare moments----"\r
+\r
+Philip paused with a pang of dread lest his confession should cut\r
+short this very happiness,--a pang of the same dread that had kept his\r
+love mute through long months. A rush of self-consciousness told him\r
+that he was besotted to have said all this. Maggie's manner this\r
+morning had been as unconstrained and indifferent as ever.\r
+\r
+But she was not looking indifferent now. Struck with the unusual\r
+emotion in Philip's tone, she had turned quickly to look at him; and\r
+as he went on speaking, a great change came over her face,--a flush\r
+and slight spasm of the features, such as we see in people who hear\r
+some news that will require them to readjust their conceptions of the\r
+past. She was quite silent, and walking on toward the trunk of a\r
+fallen tree, she sat down, as if she had no strength to spare for her\r
+muscles. She was trembling.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," said Philip, getting more and more alarmed in every fresh\r
+moment of silence, "I was a fool to say it; forget that I've said it.\r
+I shall be contented if things can be as they were."\r
+\r
+The distress with which he spoke urged Maggie to say something. "I am\r
+so surprised, Philip; I had not thought of it." And the effort to say\r
+this brought the tears down too.\r
+\r
+"Has it made you hate me, Maggie?" said Philip, impetuously. "Do you\r
+think I'm a presumptuous fool?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, Philip!" said Maggie, "how can you think I have such feelings? As\r
+if I were not grateful for _any_ love. But--but I had never thought of\r
+your being my lover. It seemed so far off--like a dream--only like one\r
+of the stories one imagines--that I should ever have a lover."\r
+\r
+"Then can you bear to think of me as your lover, Maggie?" said Philip,\r
+seating himself by her, and taking her hand, in the elation of a\r
+sudden hope. "_Do_ you love me?"\r
+\r
+Maggie turned rather pale; this direct question seemed not easy to\r
+answer. But her eyes met Philip's, which were in this moment liquid\r
+and beautiful with beseeching love. She spoke with hesitation, yet\r
+with sweet, simple, girlish tenderness.\r
+\r
+"I think I could hardly love any one better; there is nothing but what\r
+I love you for." She paused a little while, and then added: "But it\r
+will be better for us not to say any more about it, won't it, dear\r
+Philip? You know we couldn't even be friends, if our friendship were\r
+discovered. I have never felt that I was right in giving way about\r
+seeing you, though it has been so precious to me in some ways; and now\r
+the fear comes upon me strongly again, that it will lead to evil."\r
+\r
+"But no evil has come, Maggie; and if you had been guided by that fear\r
+before, you would only have lived through another dreary, benumbing\r
+year, instead of reviving into your real self."\r
+\r
+Maggie shook her head. "It has been very sweet, I know,--all the\r
+talking together, and the books, and the feeling that I had the walk\r
+to look forward to, when I could tell you the thoughts that had come\r
+into my head while I was away from you. But it has made me restless;\r
+it has made me think a great deal about the world; and I have\r
+impatient thoughts again,--I get weary of my home; and then it cuts me\r
+to the heart afterward, that I should ever have felt weary of my\r
+father and mother. I think what you call being benumbed was\r
+better--better for me--for then my selfish desires were benumbed."\r
+\r
+Philip had risen again, and was walking backward and forward\r
+impatiently.\r
+\r
+"No, Maggie, you have wrong ideas of self-conquest, as I've often told\r
+you. What you call self-conquest--binding and deafening yourself to\r
+all but one train of impressions--is only the culture of monomania in\r
+a nature like yours."\r
+\r
+He had spoken with some irritation, but now he sat down by her again\r
+and took her hand.\r
+\r
+"Don't think of the past now, Maggie; think only of our love. If you\r
+can really cling to me with all your heart, every obstacle will be\r
+overcome in time; we need only wait. I can live on hope. Look at me,\r
+Maggie; tell me again it is possible for you to love me. Don't look\r
+away from me to that cloven tree; it is a bad omen."\r
+\r
+She turned her large dark glance upon him with a sad smile.\r
+\r
+"Come, Maggie, say one kind word, or else you were better to me at\r
+Lorton. You asked me if I should like you to kiss me,--don't you\r
+remember?--and you promised to kiss me when you met me again. You\r
+never kept the promise."\r
+\r
+The recollection of that childish time came as a sweet relief to\r
+Maggie. It made the present moment less strange to her. She kissed him\r
+almost as simply and quietly as she had done when she was twelve years\r
+old. Philip's eyes flashed with delight, but his next words were words\r
+of discontent.\r
+\r
+"You don't seem happy enough, Maggie; you are forcing yourself to say\r
+you love me, out of pity."\r
+\r
+"No, Philip," said Maggie, shaking her head, in her old childish way;\r
+"I'm telling you the truth. It is all new and strange to me; but I\r
+don't think I could love any one better than I love you. I should like\r
+always to live with you--to make you happy. I have always been happy\r
+when I have been with you. There is only one thing I will not do for\r
+your sake; I will never do anything to wound my father. You must never\r
+ask that from me."\r
+\r
+"No, Maggie, I will ask nothing; I will bear everything; I'll wait\r
+another year only for a kiss, if you will only give me the first place\r
+in your heart."\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, smiling, "I won't make you wait so long as that."\r
+But then, looking serious again, she added, as she rose from her\r
+seat,--\r
+\r
+"But what would your own father say, Philip? Oh, it is quite\r
+impossible we can ever be more than friends,--brother and sister in\r
+secret, as we have been. Let us give up thinking of everything else."\r
+\r
+"No, Maggie, I can't give you up,--unless you are deceiving me; unless\r
+you really only care for me as if I were your brother. Tell me the\r
+truth."\r
+\r
+"Indeed I do, Philip. What happiness have I ever had so great as being\r
+with you,--since I was a little girl,--the days Tom was good to me?\r
+And your mind is a sort of world to me; you can tell me all I want to\r
+know. I think I should never be tired of being with you."\r
+\r
+They were walking hand in hand, looking at each other; Maggie, indeed,\r
+was hurrying along, for she felt it time to be gone. But the sense\r
+that their parting was near made her more anxious lest she should have\r
+unintentionally left some painful impression on Philip's mind. It was\r
+one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and\r
+deceptive; when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves\r
+floodmarks which are never reached again.\r
+\r
+They stopped to part among the Scotch firs.\r
+\r
+"Then my life will be filled with hope, Maggie, and I shall be happier\r
+than other men, in spite of all? We _do_ belong to each other--for\r
+always--whether we are apart or together?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Philip; I should like never to part; I should like to make your\r
+life very happy."\r
+\r
+"I am waiting for something else. I wonder whether it will come."\r
+\r
+Maggie smiled, with glistening tears, and then stooped her tall head\r
+to kiss the pale face that was full of pleading, timid love,--like a\r
+woman's.\r
+\r
+She had a moment of real happiness then,--a moment of belief that, if\r
+there were sacrifice in this love, it was all the richer and more\r
+satisfying.\r
+\r
+She turned away and hurried home, feeling that in the hour since she\r
+had trodden this road before, a new era had begun for her. The tissue\r
+of vague dreams must now get narrower and narrower, and all the\r
+threads of thought and emotion be gradually absorbed in the woof of\r
+her actual daily life.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+The Cloven Tree\r
+\r
+\r
+Secrets are rarely betrayed or discovered according to any programme\r
+our fear has sketched out. Fear is almost always haunted by terrible\r
+dramatic scenes, which recur in spite of the best-argued probabilities\r
+against them; and during a year that Maggie had had the burthen of\r
+concealment on her mind, the possibility of discovery had continually\r
+presented itself under the form of a sudden meeting with her father or\r
+Tom when she was walking with Philip in the Red Deeps. She was aware\r
+that this was not one of the most likely events; but it was the scene\r
+that most completely symbolized her inward dread. Those slight\r
+indirect suggestions which are dependent on apparently trivial\r
+coincidences and incalculable states of mind, are the favorite\r
+machinery of Fact, but are not the stuff in which Imagination is apt\r
+to work.\r
+\r
+Certainly one of the persons about whom Maggie's fears were furthest\r
+from troubling themselves was her aunt Pullet, on whom, seeing that\r
+she did not live in St. Ogg's, and was neither sharp-eyed nor\r
+sharp-tempered, it would surely have been quite whimsical of them to\r
+fix rather than on aunt Glegg. And yet the channel of fatality--the\r
+pathway of the lightning--was no other than aunt Pullet. She did not\r
+live at St. Ogg's, but the road from Garum Firs lay by the Red Deeps,\r
+at the end opposite that by which Maggie entered.\r
+\r
+The day after Maggie's last meeting with Philip, being a Sunday on\r
+which Mr. Pullet was bound to appear in funeral hatband and scarf at\r
+St. Ogg's church, Mrs. Pullet made this the occasion of dining with\r
+sister Glegg, and taking tea with poor sister Tulliver. Sunday was the\r
+one day in the week on which Tom was at home in the afternoon; and\r
+today the brighter spirits he had been in of late had flowed over in\r
+unusually cheerful open chat with his father, and in the invitation,\r
+"Come, Magsie, you come too!" when he strolled out with his mother in\r
+the garden to see the advancing cherry-blossoms. He had been better\r
+pleased with Maggie since she had been less odd and ascetic; he was\r
+even getting rather proud of her; several persons had remarked in his\r
+hearing that his sister was a very fine girl. To-day there was a\r
+peculiar brightness in her face, due in reality to an undercurrent of\r
+excitement, which had as much doubt and pain as pleasure in it; but it\r
+might pass for a sign of happiness.\r
+\r
+"You look very well, my dear," said aunt Pullet, shaking her head\r
+sadly, as they sat round the tea-table. "I niver thought your girl 'ud\r
+be so good-looking, Bessy. But you must wear pink, my dear; that blue\r
+thing as your aunt Glegg gave you turns you into a crowflower. Jane\r
+never _was_ tasty. Why don't you wear that gown o' mine?"\r
+\r
+"It is so pretty and so smart, aunt. I think it's too showy for\r
+me,--at least for my other clothes, that I must wear with it.\r
+\r
+"To be sure, it 'ud be unbecoming if it wasn't well known you've got\r
+them belonging to you as can afford to give you such things when\r
+they've done with 'em themselves. It stands to reason I must give my\r
+own niece clothes now and then,--such things as _I_ buy every year,\r
+and never wear anything out. And as for Lucy, there's no giving to\r
+her, for she's got everything o' the choicest; sister Deane may well\r
+hold her head up,--though she looks dreadful yallow, poor thing--I\r
+doubt this liver complaint 'ull carry her off. That's what this new\r
+vicar, this Dr. Kenn, said in the funeral sermon to-day."\r
+\r
+"Ah, he's a wonderful preacher, by all account,--isn't he, Sophy?"\r
+said Mrs. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"Why, Lucy had got a collar on this blessed day," continued Mrs.\r
+Pullet, with her eyes fixed in a ruminating manner, "as I don't say I\r
+haven't got as good, but I must look out my best to match it."\r
+\r
+"Miss Lucy's called the bell o' St. Ogg's, they say; that's a cur'ous\r
+word," observed Mr. Pullet, on whom the mysteries of etymology\r
+sometimes fell with an oppressive weight.\r
+\r
+"Pooh!" said Mr. Tulliver, jealous for Maggie, "she's a small thing,\r
+not much of a figure. But fine feathers make fine birds. I see nothing\r
+to admire so much in those diminutive women; they look silly by the\r
+side o' the men,--out o' proportion. When I chose my wife, I chose her\r
+the right size,--neither too little nor too big."\r
+\r
+The poor wife, with her withered beauty, smiled complacently.\r
+\r
+"But the men aren't _all_ big," said uncle Pullet, not without some\r
+self-reference; "a young fellow may be good-looking and yet not be a\r
+six-foot, like Master Tom here.\r
+\r
+"Ah, it's poor talking about littleness and bigness,--anybody may\r
+think it's a mercy they're straight," said aunt Pullet. "There's that\r
+mismade son o' Lawyer Wakem's, I saw him at church to-day. Dear, dear!\r
+to think o' the property he's like to have; and they say he's very\r
+queer and lonely, doesn't like much company. I shouldn't wonder if he\r
+goes out of his mind; for we never come along the road but he's\r
+a-scrambling out o' the trees and brambles at the Red Deeps."\r
+\r
+This wide statement, by which Mrs. Pullet represented the fact that\r
+she had twice seen Philip at the spot indicated, produced an effect on\r
+Maggie which was all the stronger because Tom sate opposite her, and\r
+she was intensely anxious to look indifferent. At Philip's name she\r
+had blushed, and the blush deepened every instant from consciousness,\r
+until the mention of the Red Deeps made her feel as if the whole\r
+secret were betrayed, and she dared not even hold her tea-spoon lest\r
+she should show how she trembled. She sat with her hands clasped under\r
+the table, not daring to look round. Happily, her father was seated on\r
+the same side with herself, beyond her uncle Pullet, and could not see\r
+her face without stooping forward. Her mother's voice brought the\r
+first relief, turning the conversation; for Mrs. Tulliver was always\r
+alarmed when the name of Wakem was mentioned in her husband's\r
+presence. Gradually Maggie recovered composure enough to look up; her\r
+eyes met Tom's, but he turned away his head immediately; and she went\r
+to bed that night wondering if he had gathered any suspicion from her\r
+confusion. Perhaps not; perhaps he would think it was only her alarm\r
+at her aunt's mention of Wakem before her father; that was the\r
+interpretation her mother had put in it. To her father, Wakem was like\r
+a disfiguring disease, of which he was obliged to endure the\r
+consciousness, but was exasperated to have the existence recognized by\r
+others; and no amount of sensitiveness in her about her father could\r
+be surprising, Maggie thought.\r
+\r
+But Tom was too keen-sighted to rest satisfied with such an\r
+interpretation; he had seen clearly enough that there was something\r
+distinct from anxiety about her father in Maggie's excessive\r
+confusion. In trying to recall all the details that could give shape\r
+to his suspicions, he remembered only lately hearing his mother scold\r
+Maggie for walking in the Red Deeps when the ground was wet, and\r
+bringing home shoes clogged with red soil; still Tom, retaining all\r
+his old repulsion for Philip's deformity, shrank from attributing to\r
+his sister the probability of feeling more than a friendly interest in\r
+such an unfortunate exception to the common run of men. Tom's was a\r
+nature which had a sort of superstitious repugnance to everything\r
+exceptional. A love for a deformed man would be odious in any woman,\r
+in a sister intolerable. But if she had been carrying on any kind of\r
+intercourse whatever with Philip, a stop must be put to it at once;\r
+she was disobeying her father's strongest feelings and her brother's\r
+express commands, besides compromising herself by secret meetings. He\r
+left home the next morning in that watchful state of mind which turns\r
+the most ordinary course of things into pregnant coincidences.\r
+\r
+That afternoon, about half-past three o'clock, Tom was standing on the\r
+wharf, talking with Bob Jakin about the probability of the good ship\r
+Adelaide coming in, in a day or two, with results highly important to\r
+both of them.\r
+\r
+"Eh," said Bob, parenthetically, as he looked over the fields on the\r
+other side of the river, "there goes that crooked young Wakem. I know\r
+him or his shadder as far off as I can see 'em; I'm allays lighting on\r
+him o' that side the river."\r
+\r
+A sudden thought seemed to have darted through Tom's mind. "I must go,\r
+Bob," he said; "I've something to attend to," hurrying off to the\r
+warehouse, where he left notice for some one to take his place; he was\r
+called away home on peremptory business.\r
+\r
+The swiftest pace and the shortest road took him to the gate, and he\r
+was pausing to open it deliberately, that he might walk into the house\r
+with an appearance of perfect composure, when Maggie came out at the\r
+front door in bonnet and shawl. His conjecture was fulfilled, and he\r
+waited for her at the gate. She started violently when she saw him.\r
+\r
+"Tom, how is it you are come home? Is there anything the matter?"\r
+Maggie spoke in a low, tremulous voice.\r
+\r
+"I'm come to walk with you to the Red Deeps, and meet Philip Wakem,"\r
+said Tom, the central fold in his brow, which had become habitual with\r
+him, deepening as he spoke.\r
+\r
+Maggie stood helpless, pale and cold. By some means, then, Tom knew\r
+everything. At last she said, "I'm not going," and turned round.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you are; but I want to speak to you first. Where is my father?"\r
+\r
+"Out on horseback."\r
+\r
+"And my mother?"\r
+\r
+"In the yard, I think, with the poultry."\r
+\r
+"I can go in, then, without her seeing me?"\r
+\r
+They walked in together, and Tom, entering the parlor, said to Maggie,\r
+"Come in here."\r
+\r
+She obeyed, and he closed the door behind her.\r
+\r
+"Now, Maggie, tell me this instant everything that has passed between\r
+you and Philip Wakem."\r
+\r
+"Does my father know anything?" said Maggie, still trembling.\r
+\r
+"No," said Tom indignantly. "But he _shall_ know, if you attempt to\r
+use deceit toward me any further."\r
+\r
+"I don't wish to use deceit," said Maggie, flushing into resentment at\r
+hearing this word applied to her conduct.\r
+\r
+"Tell me the whole truth, then."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps you know it."\r
+\r
+"Never mind whether I know it or not. Tell me exactly what has\r
+happened, or my father shall know everything."\r
+\r
+"I tell it for my father's sake, then."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it becomes you to profess affection for your father, when you\r
+have despised his strongest feelings."\r
+\r
+"You never do wrong, Tom," said Maggie, tauntingly.\r
+\r
+"Not if I know it," answered Tom, with proud sincerity.\r
+\r
+"But I have nothing to say to you beyond this: tell me what has passed\r
+between you and Philip Wakem. When did you first meet him in the Red\r
+Deeps?"\r
+\r
+"A year ago," said Maggie, quietly. Tom's severity gave her a certain\r
+fund of defiance, and kept her sense of error in abeyance. "You need\r
+ask me no more questions. We have been friendly a year. We have met\r
+and walked together often. He has lent me books."\r
+\r
+"Is that all?" said Tom, looking straight at her with his frown.\r
+\r
+Maggie paused a moment; then, determined to make an end of Tom's right\r
+to accuse her of deceit, she said haughtily:\r
+\r
+"No, not quite all. On Saturday he told me that he loved me. I didn't\r
+think of it before then; I had only thought of him as an old friend."\r
+\r
+"And you _encouraged_ him?" said Tom, with an expression of disgust.\r
+\r
+"I told him that I loved him too."\r
+\r
+Tom was silent a few moments, looking on the ground and frowning, with\r
+his hands in his pockets. At last he looked up and said coldly,--\r
+\r
+"Now, then, Maggie, there are but two courses for you to take,--either\r
+you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on my father's Bible, that you\r
+will never have another meeting or speak another word in private with\r
+Philip Wakem, or you refuse, and I tell my father everything; and this\r
+month, when by my exertions he might be made happy once more, you will\r
+cause him the blow of knowing that you are a disobedient, deceitful\r
+daughter, who throws away her own respectability by clandestine\r
+meetings with the son of a man that has helped to ruin her father.\r
+Choose!" Tom ended with cold decision, going up to the large Bible,\r
+drawing it forward, and opening it at the fly-leaf, where the writing\r
+was.\r
+\r
+It was a crushing alternative to Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she said, urged out of pride into pleading, "don't ask me that.\r
+I will promise you to give up all intercourse with Philip, if you will\r
+let me see him once, or even only write to him and explain\r
+everything,--to give it up as long as it would ever cause any pain to\r
+my father. I feel something for Philip too. _He_ is not happy."\r
+\r
+"I don't wish to hear anything of your feelings; I have said exactly\r
+what I mean. Choose, and quickly, lest my mother should come in."\r
+\r
+"If I give you my word, that will be as strong a bond to me as if I\r
+laid my hand on the Bible. I don't require that to bind me."\r
+\r
+"Do what _I_ require," said Tom. "I can't trust you, Maggie. There is\r
+no consistency in you. Put your hand on this Bible, and say, 'I\r
+renounce all private speech and intercourse with Philip Wakem from\r
+this time forth.' Else you will bring shame on us all, and grief on my\r
+father; and what is the use of my exerting myself and giving up\r
+everything else for the sake of paying my father's debts, if you are\r
+to bring madness and vexation on him, just when he might be easy and\r
+hold up his head once more?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom, _will_ the debts be paid soon?" said Maggie, clasping her\r
+hands, with a sudden flash of joy across her wretchedness.\r
+\r
+"If things turn out as I expect," said Tom. "But," he added, his voice\r
+trembling with indignation, "while I have been contriving and working\r
+that my father may have some peace of mind before he dies,--working\r
+for the respectability of our family,--you have done all you can to\r
+destroy both."\r
+\r
+Maggie felt a deep movement of compunction; for the moment, her mind\r
+ceased to contend against what she felt to be cruel and unreasonable,\r
+and in her self-blame she justified her brother.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she said in a low voice, "it was wrong of me; but I was so\r
+lonely, and I was sorry for Philip. And I think enmity and hatred are\r
+wicked."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense!" said Tom. "Your duty was clear enough. Say no more; but\r
+promise, in the words I told you."\r
+\r
+"I _must_ speak to Philip once more."\r
+\r
+"You will go with me now and speak to him."\r
+\r
+"I give you my word not to meet him or write to him again without your\r
+knowledge. That is the only thing I will say. I will put my hand on\r
+the Bible if you like."\r
+\r
+"Say it, then."\r
+\r
+Maggie laid her hand on the page of manuscript and repeated the\r
+promise. Tom closed the book, and said, "Now let us go."\r
+\r
+Not a word was spoken as they walked along. Maggie was suffering in\r
+anticipation of what Philip was about to suffer, and dreading the\r
+galling words that would fall on him from Tom's lips; but she felt it\r
+was in vain to attempt anything but submission. Tom had his terrible\r
+clutch on her conscience and her deepest dread; she writhed under the\r
+demonstrable truth of the character he had given to her conduct, and\r
+yet her whole soul rebelled against it as unfair from its\r
+incompleteness. He, meanwhile, felt the impetus of his indignation\r
+diverted toward Philip. He did not know how much of an old boyish\r
+repulsion and of mere personal pride and animosity was concerned in\r
+the bitter severity of the words by which he meant to do the duty of a\r
+son and a brother. Tom was not given to inquire subtly into his own\r
+motives any more than into other matters of an intangible kind; he was\r
+quite sure that his own motives as well as actions were good, else he\r
+would have had nothing to do with them.\r
+\r
+Maggie's only hope was that something might, for the first time, have\r
+prevented Philip from coming. Then there would be delay,--then she\r
+might get Tom's permission to write to him. Her heart beat with double\r
+violence when they got under the Scotch firs. It was the last moment\r
+of suspense, she thought; Philip always met her soon after she got\r
+beyond them. But they passed across the more open green space, and\r
+entered the narrow bushy path by the mound. Another turning, and they\r
+came so close upon him that both Tom and Philip stopped suddenly\r
+within a yard of each other. There was a moment's silence, in which\r
+Philip darted a look of inquiry at Maggie's face. He saw an answer\r
+there, in the pale, parted lips, and the terrified tension of the\r
+large eyes. Her imagination, always rushing extravagantly beyond an\r
+immediate impression, saw her tall, strong brother grasping the feeble\r
+Philip bodily, crushing him and trampling on him.\r
+\r
+"Do you call this acting the part of a man and a gentleman, sir?" Tom\r
+said, in a voice of harsh scorn, as soon as Philip's eyes were turned\r
+on him again.\r
+\r
+"What do you mean?" answered Philip, haughtily.\r
+\r
+"Mean? Stand farther from me, lest I should lay hands on you, and I'll\r
+tell you what I mean. I mean, taking advantage of a young girl's\r
+foolishness and ignorance to get her to have secret meetings with you.\r
+I mean, daring to trifle with the respectability of a family that has\r
+a good and honest name to support."\r
+\r
+"I deny that," interrupted Philip, impetuously. "I could never trifle\r
+with anything that affected your sister's happiness. She is dearer to\r
+me than she is to you; I honor her more than you can ever honor her; I\r
+would give up my life to her."\r
+\r
+"Don't talk high-flown nonsense to me, sir! Do you mean to pretend\r
+that you didn't know it would be injurious to her to meet you here\r
+week after week? Do you pretend you had any right to make professions\r
+of love to her, even if you had been a fit husband for her, when\r
+neither her father nor your father would ever consent to a marriage\r
+between you? And _you_,--_you_ to try and worm yourself into the\r
+affections of a handsome girl who is not eighteen, and has been shut\r
+out from the world by her father's misfortunes! That's your crooked\r
+notion of honor, is it? I call it base treachery; I call it taking\r
+advantage of circumstances to win what's too good for you,--what you'd\r
+never get by fair means."\r
+\r
+"It is manly of you to talk in this way to _me_," said Philip,\r
+bitterly, his whole frame shaken by violent emotions. "Giants have an\r
+immemorial right to stupidity and insolent abuse. You are incapable\r
+even of understanding what I feel for your sister. I feel so much for\r
+her that I could even desire to be at friendship with _you_."\r
+\r
+"I should be very sorry to understand your feelings," said Tom, with\r
+scorching contempt. "What I wish is that you should understand\r
+_me_,--that I shall take care of _my_ sister, and that if you dare to\r
+make the least attempt to come near her, or to write to her, or to\r
+keep the slightest hold on her mind, your puny, miserable body, that\r
+ought to have put some modesty into your mind, shall not protect you.\r
+I'll thrash you; I'll hold you up to public scorn. Who wouldn't laugh\r
+at the idea of _your_ turning lover to a fine girl?"\r
+\r
+Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He burst out, in a\r
+convulsed voice.\r
+\r
+"Stay, Maggie!" said Philip, making a strong effort to speak. Then\r
+looking at Tom, "You have dragged your sister here, I suppose, that\r
+she may stand by while you threaten and insult me. These naturally\r
+seemed to you the right means to influence me. But you are mistaken.\r
+Let your sister speak. If she says she is bound to give me up, I shall\r
+abide by her wishes to the slightest word."\r
+\r
+"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, imploringly. "Tom\r
+threatens to tell my father, and he couldn't bear it; I have promised,\r
+I have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without\r
+my brother's knowledge."\r
+\r
+"It is enough, Maggie. _I_ shall not change; but I wish you to hold\r
+yourself entirely free. But trust me; remember that I can never seek\r
+for anything but good to what belongs to you."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Tom, exasperated by this attitude of Philip's, "you can\r
+talk of seeking good for her and what belongs to her now; did you seek\r
+her good before?"\r
+\r
+"I did,--at some risk, perhaps. But I wished her to have a friend for\r
+life,--who would cherish her, who would do her more justice than a\r
+coarse and narrow-minded brother, that she has always lavished her\r
+affections on."\r
+\r
+"Yes, my way of befriending her is different from yours; and I'll tell\r
+you what is my way. I'll save her from disobeying and disgracing her\r
+father; I'll save her from throwing herself away on you,--from making\r
+herself a laughing-stock,--from being flouted by a man like _your_\r
+father, because she's not good enough for his son. You know well\r
+enough what sort of justice and cherishing you were preparing for her.\r
+I'm not to be imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean.\r
+Come away, Maggie."\r
+\r
+He seized Maggie's right wrist as he spoke, and she put out her left\r
+hand. Philip clasped it an instant, with one eager look, and then\r
+hurried away.\r
+\r
+Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He was still\r
+holding her wrist tightly, as if he were compelling a culprit from the\r
+scene of action. At last Maggie, with a violent snatch, drew her hand\r
+away, and her pent-up, long-gathered irritation burst into utterance.\r
+\r
+"Don't suppose that I think you are right, Tom, or that I bow to your\r
+will. I despise the feelings you have shown in speaking to Philip; I\r
+detest your insulting, unmanly allusions to his deformity. You have\r
+been reproaching other people all your life; you have been always sure\r
+you yourself are right. It is because you have not a mind large enough\r
+to see that there is anything better than your own conduct and your\r
+own petty aims."\r
+\r
+"Certainly," said Tom, coolly. "I don't see that your conduct is\r
+better, or your aims either. If your conduct, and Philip Wakem's\r
+conduct, has been right, why are you ashamed of its being known?\r
+Answer me that. I know what I have aimed at in my conduct, and I've\r
+succeeded; pray, what good has your conduct brought to you or any one\r
+else?"\r
+\r
+"I don't want to defend myself," said Maggie, still with vehemence: "I\r
+know I've been wrong,--often, continually. But yet, sometimes when I\r
+have done wrong, it has been because I have feelings that you would be\r
+the better for, if you had them. If _you_ were in fault ever, if you\r
+had done anything very wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it\r
+brought you; I should not want punishment to be heaped on you. But you\r
+have always enjoyed punishing me; you have always been hard and cruel\r
+to me; even when I was a little girl, and always loved you better than\r
+any one else in the world, you would let me go crying to bed without\r
+forgiving me. You have no pity; you have no sense of your own\r
+imperfection and your own sins. It is a sin to be hard; it is not\r
+fitting for a mortal, for a Christian. You are nothing but a Pharisee.\r
+You thank God for nothing but your own virtues; you think they are\r
+great enough to win you everything else. You have not even a vision of\r
+feelings by the side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness!"\r
+\r
+"Well," said Tom, with cold scorn, "if your feelings are so much\r
+better than mine, let me see you show them in some other way than by\r
+conduct that's likely to disgrace us all,--than by ridiculous flights\r
+first into one extreme and then into another. Pray, how have you shown\r
+your love, that you talk of, either to me or my father? By disobeying\r
+and deceiving us. I have a different way of showing my affection."\r
+\r
+"Because you are a man, Tom, and have power, and can do something in\r
+the world."\r
+\r
+"Then, if you can do nothing, submit to those that can."\r
+\r
+"So I _will_ submit to what I acknowledge and feel to be right. I will\r
+submit even to what is unreasonable from my father, but I will not\r
+submit to it from you. You boast of your virtues as if they purchased\r
+you a right to be cruel and unmanly, as you've been to-day. Don't\r
+suppose I would give up Philip Wakem in obedience to you. The\r
+deformity you insult would make me cling to him and care for him the\r
+more."\r
+\r
+"Very well; that is your view of things." said Tom, more coldly than\r
+ever; "you need say no more to show me what a wide distance there is\r
+between us. Let us remember that in future, and be silent."\r
+\r
+Tom went back to St. Ogg's, to fulfill an appointment with his uncle\r
+Deane, and receive directions about a journey on which he was to set\r
+out the next morning.\r
+\r
+Maggie went up to her own room to pour out all that indignant\r
+remonstrance, against which Tom's mind was close barred, in bitter\r
+tears. Then, when the first burst of unsatisfied anger was gone by,\r
+came the recollection of that quiet time before the pleasure which had\r
+ended in to-day's misery had perturbed the clearness and simplicity of\r
+her life. She used to think in that time that she had made great\r
+conquests, and won a lasting stand on serene heights above worldly\r
+temptations and conflict. And here she was down again in the thick of\r
+a hot strife with her own and others' passions. Life was not so short,\r
+then, and perfect rest was not so near as she had dreamed when she was\r
+two years younger. There was more struggle for her, and perhaps more\r
+falling. If she had felt that she was entirely wrong, and that Tom had\r
+been entirely right, she could sooner have recovered more inward\r
+harmony; but now her penitence and submission were constantly\r
+obstructed by resentment that would present itself to her no otherwise\r
+than as a just indignation. Her heart bled for Philip; she went on\r
+recalling the insults that had been flung at him with so vivid a\r
+conception of what he had felt under them, that it was almost like a\r
+sharp bodily pain to her, making her beat the floor with her foot and\r
+tighten her fingers on her palm.\r
+\r
+And yet, how was it that she was now and then conscious of a certain\r
+dim background of relief in the forced separation from Philip? Surely\r
+it was only because the sense of a deliverance from concealment was\r
+welcome at any cost.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VI\r
+\r
+The Hard-Won Triumph\r
+\r
+\r
+Three weeks later, when Dorlcote Mill was at its prettiest moment in\r
+all the year,--the great chestnuts in blossom, and the grass all deep\r
+and daisied,--Tom Tulliver came home to it earlier than usual in the\r
+evening, and as he passed over the bridge, he looked with the old\r
+deep-rooted affection at the respectable red brick house, which always\r
+seemed cheerful and inviting outside, let the rooms be as bare and the\r
+hearts as sad as they might inside. There is a very pleasant light in\r
+Tom's blue-gray eyes as he glances at the house-windows; that fold in\r
+his brow never disappears, but it is not unbecoming; it seems to imply\r
+a strength of will that may possibly be without harshness, when the\r
+eyes and mouth have their gentlest expression. His firm step becomes\r
+quicker, and the corners of his mouth rebel against the compression\r
+which is meant to forbid a smile.\r
+\r
+The eyes in the parlor were not turned toward the bridge just then,\r
+and the group there was sitting in unexpectant silence,--Mr. Tulliver\r
+in his arm-chair, tired with a long ride, and ruminating with a worn\r
+look, fixed chiefly on Maggie, who was bending over her sewing while\r
+her mother was making the tea.\r
+\r
+They all looked up with surprise when they heard the well-known foot.\r
+\r
+"Why, what's up now, Tom?" said his father. "You're a bit earlier than\r
+usual."\r
+\r
+"Oh, there was nothing more for me to do, so I came away. Well,\r
+mother!"\r
+\r
+Tom went up to his mother and kissed her, a sign of unusual good-humor\r
+with him. Hardly a word or look had passed between him and Maggie in\r
+all the three weeks; but his usual incommunicativeness at home\r
+prevented this from being noticeable to their parents.\r
+\r
+"Father," said Tom, when they had finished tea, "do you know exactly\r
+how much money there is in the tin box?"\r
+\r
+"Only a hundred and ninety-three pound," said Mr. Tulliver. "You've\r
+brought less o' late; but young fellows like to have their own way\r
+with their money. Though I didn't do as I liked before _I_ was of\r
+age." He spoke with rather timid discontent.\r
+\r
+"Are you quite sure that's the sum, father?" said Tom. "I wish you\r
+would take the trouble to fetch the tin box down. I think you have\r
+perhaps made a mistake."\r
+\r
+"How should I make a mistake?" said his father, sharply. "I've counted\r
+it often enough; but I can fetch it, if you won't believe me."\r
+\r
+It was always an incident Mr. Tulliver liked, in his gloomy life, to\r
+fetch the tin box and count the money.\r
+\r
+"Don't go out of the room, mother," said Tom, as he saw her moving\r
+when his father was gone upstairs.\r
+\r
+"And isn't Maggie to go?" said Mrs. Tulliver; "because somebody must\r
+take away the things."\r
+\r
+"Just as she likes," said Tom indifferently.\r
+\r
+That was a cutting word to Maggie. Her heart had leaped with the\r
+sudden conviction that Tom was going to tell their father the debts\r
+could be paid; and Tom would have let her be absent when that news was\r
+told! But she carried away the tray and came back immediately. The\r
+feeling of injury on her own behalf could not predominate at that\r
+moment.\r
+\r
+Tom drew to the corner of the table near his father when the tin box\r
+was set down and opened, and the red evening light falling on them\r
+made conspicuous the worn, sour gloom of the dark-eyed father and the\r
+suppressed joy in the face of the fair-complexioned son. The mother\r
+and Maggie sat at the other end of the table, the one in blank\r
+patience, the other in palpitating expectation.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver counted out the money, setting it in order on the table,\r
+and then said, glancing sharply at Tom:\r
+\r
+"There now! you see I was right enough."\r
+\r
+He paused, looking at the money with bitter despondency.\r
+\r
+"There's more nor three hundred wanting; it'll be a fine while before\r
+_I_ can save that. Losing that forty-two pound wi' the corn was a sore\r
+job. This world's been too many for me. It's took four year to lay\r
+_this_ by; it's much if I'm above ground for another four year. I must\r
+trusten to you to pay 'em," he went on, with a trembling voice, "if\r
+you keep i' the same mind now you're coming o' age. But you're like\r
+enough to bury me first."\r
+\r
+He looked up in Tom's face with a querulous desire for some assurance.\r
+\r
+"No, father," said Tom, speaking with energetic decision, though there\r
+was tremor discernible in his voice too, "you will live to see the\r
+debts all paid. You shall pay them with your own hand."\r
+\r
+His tone implied something more than mere hopefulness or resolution. A\r
+slight electric shock seemed to pass through Mr. Tulliver, and he kept\r
+his eyes fixed on Tom with a look of eager inquiry, while Maggie,\r
+unable to restrain herself, rushed to her father's side and knelt down\r
+by him. Tom was silent a little while before he went on.\r
+\r
+"A good while ago, my uncle Glegg lent me a little money to trade\r
+with, and that has answered. I have three hundred and twenty pounds in\r
+the bank."\r
+\r
+His mother's arms were round his neck as soon as the last words were\r
+uttered, and she said, half crying:\r
+\r
+"Oh, my boy, I knew you'd make iverything right again, when you got a\r
+man."\r
+\r
+But his father was silent; the flood of emotion hemmed in all power of\r
+speech. Both Tom and Maggie were struck with fear lest the shock of\r
+joy might even be fatal. But the blessed relief of tears came. The\r
+broad chest heaved, the muscles of the face gave way, and the\r
+gray-haired man burst into loud sobs. The fit of weeping gradually\r
+subsided, and he sat quiet, recovering the regularity of his\r
+breathing. At last he looked up at his wife and said, in a gentle\r
+tone:\r
+\r
+"Bessy, you must come and kiss me now--the lad has made you amends.\r
+You'll see a bit o' comfort again, belike."\r
+\r
+When she had kissed him, and he had held her hand a minute, his\r
+thoughts went back to the money.\r
+\r
+"I wish you'd brought me the money to look at, Tom," he said,\r
+fingering the sovereigns on the table; "I should ha' felt surer."\r
+\r
+"You shall see it to-morrow, father," said Tom. "My uncle Deane has\r
+appointed the creditors to meet to-morrow at the Golden Lion, and he\r
+has ordered a dinner for them at two o'clock. My uncle Glegg and he\r
+will both be there. It was advertised in the 'Messenger' on Saturday."\r
+\r
+"Then Wakem knows on't!" said Mr. Tulliver, his eye kindling with\r
+triumphant fire. "Ah!" he went on, with a long-drawn guttural\r
+enunciation, taking out his snuff-box, the only luxury he had left\r
+himself, and tapping it with something of his old air of defiance.\r
+"I'll get from under _his_ thumb now, though I _must_ leave the old\r
+mill. I thought I could ha' held out to die here--but I can't----we've\r
+got a glass o' nothing in the house, have we, Bessy?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Mrs. Tulliver, drawing out her much-reduced bunch of keys,\r
+"there's some brandy sister Deane brought me when I was ill."\r
+\r
+"Get it me, then; get it me. I feel a bit weak."\r
+\r
+"Tom, my lad," he said, in a stronger voice, when he had taken some\r
+brandy-and-water, "you shall make a speech to 'em. I'll tell 'em it's\r
+you as got the best part o' the money. They'll see I'm honest at last,\r
+and ha' got an honest son. Ah! Wakem 'ud be fine and glad to have a\r
+son like mine,--a fine straight fellow,--i'stead o' that poor crooked\r
+creatur! You'll prosper i' the world, my lad; you'll maybe see the day\r
+when Wakem and his son 'ull be a round or two below you. You'll like\r
+enough be ta'en into partnership, as your uncle Deane was before\r
+you,--you're in the right way for't; and then there's nothing to\r
+hinder your getting rich. And if ever you're rich enough--mind\r
+this--try and get th' old mill again."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver threw himself back in his chair; his mind, which had so\r
+long been the home of nothing but bitter discontent and foreboding,\r
+suddenly filled, by the magic of joy, with visions of good fortune.\r
+But some subtle influence prevented him from foreseeing the good\r
+fortune as happening to himself.\r
+\r
+"Shake hands wi' me, my lad," he said, suddenly putting out his hand.\r
+"It's a great thing when a man can be proud as he's got a good son.\r
+I've had _that_ luck."\r
+\r
+Tom never lived to taste another moment so delicious as that; and\r
+Maggie couldn't help forgetting her own grievances. Tom _was_ good;\r
+and in the sweet humility that springs in us all in moments of true\r
+admiration and gratitude, she felt that the faults he had to pardon in\r
+her had never been redeemed, as his faults were. She felt no jealousy\r
+this evening that, for the first time, she seemed to be thrown into\r
+the background in her father's mind.\r
+\r
+There was much more talk before bedtime. Mr. Tulliver naturally wanted\r
+to hear all the particulars of Tom's trading adventures, and he\r
+listened with growing excitement and delight. He was curious to know\r
+what had been said on every occasion; if possible, what had been\r
+thought; and Bob Jakin's part in the business threw him into peculiar\r
+outbursts of sympathy with the triumphant knowingness of that\r
+remarkable packman. Bob's juvenile history, so far as it had come\r
+under Mr. Tulliver's knowledge, was recalled with that sense of\r
+astonishing promise it displayed, which is observable in all\r
+reminiscences of the childhood of great men.\r
+\r
+It was well that there was this interest of narrative to keep under\r
+the vague but fierce sense of triumph over Wakem, which would\r
+otherwise have been the channel his joy would have rushed into with\r
+dangerous force. Even as it was, that feeling from time to time gave\r
+threats of its ultimate mastery, in sudden bursts of irrelevant\r
+exclamation.\r
+\r
+It was long before Mr. Tulliver got to sleep that night; and the\r
+sleep, when it came, was filled with vivid dreams. At half-past five\r
+o'clock in the morning, when Mrs. Tulliver was already rising, he\r
+alarmed her by starting up with a sort of smothered shout, and looking\r
+round in a bewildered way at the walls of the bedroom.\r
+\r
+"What's the matter, Mr. Tulliver?" said his wife. He looked at her,\r
+still with a puzzled expression, and said at last:\r
+\r
+"Ah!--I was dreaming--did I make a noise?--I thought I'd got hold of\r
+him."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VII\r
+\r
+A Day of Reckoning\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was an essentially sober man,--able to take his glass and\r
+not averse to it, but never exceeding the bounds of moderation. He had\r
+naturally an active Hotspur temperament, which did not crave liquid\r
+fire to set it aglow; his impetuosity was usually equal to an exciting\r
+occasion without any such reinforcements; and his desire for the\r
+brandy-and-water implied that the too sudden joy had fallen with a\r
+dangerous shock on a frame depressed by four years of gloom and\r
+unaccustomed hard fare. But that first doubtful tottering moment\r
+passed, he seemed to gather strength with his gathering excitement;\r
+and the next day, when he was seated at table with his creditors, his\r
+eye kindling and his cheek flushed with the consciousness that he was\r
+about to make an honorable figure once more, he looked more like the\r
+proud, confident, warm-hearted, and warm-tempered Tulliver of old\r
+times than might have seemed possible to any one who had met him a\r
+week before, riding along as had been his wont for the last four years\r
+since the sense of failure and debt had been upon him,--with his head\r
+hanging down, casting brief, unwilling looks on those who forced\r
+themselves on his notice. He made his speech, asserting his honest\r
+principles with his old confident eagerness, alluding to the rascals\r
+and the luck that had been against him, but that he had triumphed\r
+over, to some extent, by hard efforts and the aid of a good son; and\r
+winding up with the story of how Tom had got the best part of the\r
+needful money. But the streak of irritation and hostile triumph seemed\r
+to melt for a little while into purer fatherly pride and pleasure,\r
+when, Tom's health having been proposed, and uncle Deane having taken\r
+occasion to say a few words of eulogy on his general character and\r
+conduct, Tom himself got up and made the single speech of his life. It\r
+could hardly have been briefer. He thanked the gentlemen for the honor\r
+they had done him. He was glad that he had been able to help his\r
+father in proving his integrity and regaining his honest name; and,\r
+for his own part, he hoped he should never undo that work and disgrace\r
+that name. But the applause that followed was so great, and Tom looked\r
+so gentlemanly as well as tall and straight, that Mr. Tulliver\r
+remarked, in an explanatory manner, to his friends on his right and\r
+left, that he had spent a deal of money on his son's education.\r
+\r
+The party broke up in very sober fashion at five o'clock. Tom remained\r
+in St. Ogg's to attend to some business, and Mr. Tulliver mounted his\r
+horse to go home, and describe the memorable things that had been said\r
+and done, to "poor Bessy and the little wench." The air of excitement\r
+that hung about him was but faintly due to good cheer or any stimulus\r
+but the potent wine of triumphant joy. He did not choose any back\r
+street to-day, but rode slowly, with uplifted head and free glances,\r
+along the principal street all the way to the bridge.\r
+\r
+Why did he not happen to meet Wakem? The want of that coincidence\r
+vexed him, and set his mind at work in an irritating way. Perhaps\r
+Wakem was gone out of town to-day on purpose to avoid seeing or\r
+hearing anything of an honorable action which might well cause him\r
+some unpleasant twinges. If Wakem were to meet him then, Mr. Tulliver\r
+would look straight at him, and the rascal would perhaps be forsaken a\r
+little by his cool, domineering impudence. He would know by and by\r
+that an honest man was not going to serve _him_ any longer, and lend\r
+his honesty to fill a pocket already over-full of dishonest gains.\r
+Perhaps the luck was beginning to turn; perhaps the Devil didn't\r
+always hold the best cards in this world.\r
+\r
+Simmering in this way, Mr. Tulliver approached the yardgates of\r
+Dorlcote Mill, near enough to see a well-known figure coming out of\r
+them on a fine black horse. They met about fifty yards from the gates,\r
+between the great chestnuts and elms and the high bank.\r
+\r
+"Tulliver," said Wakem, abruptly, in a haughtier tone than usual,\r
+"what a fool's trick you did,--spreading those hard lumps on that Far\r
+Close! I told you how it would be; but you men never learn to farm\r
+with any method."\r
+\r
+"Oh!" said Tulliver, suddenly boiling up; "get somebody else to farm\r
+for you, then, as'll ask _you_ to teach him."\r
+\r
+"You have been drinking, I suppose," said Wakem, really believing that\r
+this was the meaning of Tulliver's flushed face and sparkling eyes.\r
+\r
+"No, I've not been drinking," said Tulliver; "I want no drinking to\r
+help me make up my mind as I'll serve no longer under a scoundrel."\r
+\r
+"Very well! you may leave my premises to-morrow, then; hold your\r
+insolent tongue and let me pass." (Tulliver was backing his horse\r
+across the road to hem Wakem in.)\r
+\r
+"No, I _sha'n't_ let you pass," said Tulliver, getting fiercer. "I\r
+shall tell you what I think of you first. You're too big a raskill to\r
+get hanged--you're----"\r
+\r
+"Let me pass, you ignorant brute, or I'll ride over you."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver, spurring his horse and raising his whip, made a rush\r
+forward; and Wakem's horse, rearing and staggering backward, threw his\r
+rider from the saddle and sent him sideways on the ground. Wakem had\r
+had the presence of mind to loose the bridle at once, and as the horse\r
+only staggered a few paces and then stood still, he might have risen\r
+and remounted without more inconvenience than a bruise and a shake.\r
+But before he could rise, Tulliver was off his horse too. The sight of\r
+the long-hated predominant man down, and in his power, threw him into\r
+a frenzy of triumphant vengeance, which seemed to give him\r
+preternatural agility and strength. He rushed on Wakem, who was in the\r
+act of trying to recover his feet, grasped him by the left arm so as\r
+to press Wakem's whole weight on the right arm, which rested on the\r
+ground, and flogged him fiercely across the back with his riding-whip.\r
+Wakem shouted for help, but no help came, until a woman's scream was\r
+heard, and the cry of "Father, father!"\r
+\r
+Suddenly, Wakem felt, something had arrested Mr. Tulliver's arm; for\r
+the flogging ceased, and the grasp on his own arm was relaxed.\r
+\r
+"Get away with you--go!" said Tulliver, angrily. But it was not to\r
+Wakem that he spoke. Slowly the lawyer rose, and, as he turned his\r
+head, saw that Tulliver's arms were being held by a girl, rather by\r
+the fear of hurting the girl that clung to him with all her young\r
+might.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Luke--mother--come and help Mr. Wakem!" Maggie cried, as she\r
+heard the longed-for footsteps.\r
+\r
+"Help me on to that low horse," said Wakem to Luke, "then I shall\r
+perhaps manage; though--confound it--I think this arm is sprained."\r
+\r
+With some difficulty, Wakem was heaved on to Tulliver's horse. Then he\r
+turned toward the miller and said, with white rage, "You'll suffer for\r
+this, sir. Your daughter is a witness that you've assaulted me."\r
+\r
+"I don't care," said Mr. Tulliver, in a thick, fierce voice; "go and\r
+show your back, and tell 'em I thrashed you. Tell 'em I've made things\r
+a bit more even i' the world."\r
+\r
+"Ride my horse home with me," said Wakem to Luke. "By the Tofton\r
+Ferry, not through the town."\r
+\r
+"Father, come in!" said Maggie, imploringly. Then, seeing that Wakem\r
+had ridden off, and that no further violence was possible, she\r
+slackened her hold and burst into hysteric sobs, while poor Mrs.\r
+Tulliver stood by in silence, quivering with fear. But Maggie became\r
+conscious that as she was slackening her hold her father was beginning\r
+to grasp her and lean on her. The surprise checked her sobs.\r
+\r
+"I feel ill--faintish," he said. "Help me in, Bessy--I'm giddy--I've a\r
+pain i' the head."\r
+\r
+He walked in slowly, propped by his wife and daughter and tottered\r
+into his arm-chair. The almost purple flush had given way to paleness,\r
+and his hand was cold.\r
+\r
+"Hadn't we better send for the doctor?" said Mrs. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+He seemed to be too faint and suffering to hear her; but presently,\r
+when she said to Maggie, "Go and seek for somebody to fetch the\r
+doctor," he looked up at her with full comprehension, and said,\r
+"Doctor? No--no doctor. It's my head, that's all. Help me to bed."\r
+\r
+Sad ending to the day that had risen on them all like a beginning of\r
+better times! But mingled seed must bear a mingled crop.\r
+\r
+In half an hour after his father had lain down Tom came home. Bob\r
+Jakin was with him, come to congratulate "the old master," not without\r
+some excusable pride that he had had his share in bringing about Mr.\r
+Tom's good luck; and Tom had thought his father would like nothing\r
+better, as a finish to the day, than a talk with Bob. But now Tom\r
+could only spend the evening in gloomy expectation of the unpleasant\r
+consequences that must follow on this mad outbreak of his father's\r
+long-smothered hate. After the painful news had been told, he sat in\r
+silence; he had not spirit or inclination to tell his mother and\r
+sister anything about the dinner; they hardly cared to ask it.\r
+Apparently the mingled thread in the web of their life was so\r
+curiously twisted together that there could be no joy without a sorrow\r
+coming close upon it. Tom was dejected by the thought that his\r
+exemplary effort must always be baffled by the wrong-doing of others;\r
+Maggie was living through, over and over again, the agony of the\r
+moment in which she had rushed to throw herself on her father's arm,\r
+with a vague, shuddering foreboding of wretched scenes to come. Not\r
+one of the three felt any particular alarm about Mr. Tulliver's\r
+health; the symptoms did not recall his former dangerous attack, and\r
+it seemed only a necessary consequence that his violent passion and\r
+effort of strength, after many hours of unusual excitement, should\r
+have made him feel ill. Rest would probably cure him.\r
+\r
+Tom, tired out by his active day, fell asleep soon, and slept soundly;\r
+it seemed to him as if he had only just come to bed, when he waked to\r
+see his mother standing by him in the gray light of early morning.\r
+\r
+"My boy, you must get up this minute; I've sent for the doctor, and\r
+your father wants you and Maggie to come to him."\r
+\r
+"Is he worse, mother?"\r
+\r
+"He's been very ill all night with his head, but he doesn't say it's\r
+worse; he only said suddenly, 'Bessy, fetch the boy and girl. Tell 'em\r
+to make haste.'"\r
+\r
+Maggie and Tom threw on their clothes hastily in the chill gray light,\r
+and reached their father's room almost at the same moment. He was\r
+watching for them with an expression of pain on his brow, but with\r
+sharpened, anxious consciousness in his eyes. Mrs. Tulliver stood at\r
+the foot of the bed, frightened and trembling, looking worn and aged\r
+from disturbed rest. Maggie was at the bedside first, but her father's\r
+glance was toward Tom, who came and stood next to her.\r
+\r
+"Tom, my lad, it's come upon me as I sha'n't get up again. This\r
+world's been too many for me, my lad, but you've done what you could\r
+to make things a bit even. Shake hands wi' me again, my lad, before I\r
+go away from you."\r
+\r
+The father and son clasped hands and looked at each other an instant.\r
+Then Tom said, trying to speak firmly,--\r
+\r
+"Have you any wish, father--that I can fulfil, when----"\r
+\r
+"Ay, my lad--you'll try and get the old mill back."\r
+\r
+"Yes, father."\r
+\r
+"And there's your mother--you'll try and make her amends, all you can,\r
+for my bad luck--and there's the little wench----"\r
+\r
+The father turned his eyes on Maggie with a still more eager look,\r
+while she, with a bursting heart, sank on her knees, to be closer to\r
+the dear, time-worn face which had been present with her through long\r
+years, as the sign of her deepest love and hardest trial.\r
+\r
+"You must take care of her, Tom--don't you fret, my wench--there'll\r
+come somebody as'll love you and take your part--and you must be good\r
+to her, my lad. I was good to _my_ sister. Kiss me, Maggie.--Come,\r
+Bessy.--You'll manage to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your mother\r
+and me can lie together."\r
+\r
+He looked away from them all when he had said this, and lay silent for\r
+some minutes, while they stood watching him, not daring to move. The\r
+morning light was growing clearer for them, and they could see the\r
+heaviness gathering in his face, and the dulness in his eyes. But at\r
+last he looked toward Tom and said,--\r
+\r
+"I had my turn--I beat him. That was nothing but fair. I never wanted\r
+anything but what was fair."\r
+\r
+"But, father, dear father," said Maggie, an unspeakable anxiety\r
+predominating over her grief, "you forgive him--you forgive every one\r
+now?"\r
+\r
+He did not move his eyes to look at her, but he said,--\r
+\r
+"No, my wench. I don't forgive him. What's forgiving to do? I can't\r
+love a raskill----"\r
+\r
+His voice had become thicker; but he wanted to say more, and moved his\r
+lips again and again, struggling in vain to speak. At length the words\r
+forced their way.\r
+\r
+"Does God forgive raskills?--but if He does, He won't be hard wi' me."\r
+\r
+His hands moved uneasily, as if he wanted them to remove some\r
+obstruction that weighed upon him. Two or three times there fell from\r
+him some broken words,--\r
+\r
+"This world's--too many--honest man--puzzling----"\r
+\r
+Soon they merged into mere mutterings; the eyes had ceased to discern;\r
+and then came the final silence.\r
+\r
+But not of death. For an hour or more the chest heaved, the loud, hard\r
+breathing continued, getting gradually slower, as the cold dews\r
+gathered on the brow.\r
+\r
+At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly lighted\r
+soul had forever ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this\r
+world.\r
+\r
+Help was come now; Luke and his wife were there, and Mr. Turnbull had\r
+arrived, too late for everything but to say, "This is death."\r
+\r
+Tom and Maggie went downstairs together into the room where their\r
+father's place was empty. Their eyes turned to the same spot, and\r
+Maggie spoke,--\r
+\r
+"Tom, forgive me--let us always love each other"; and they clung and\r
+wept together.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book VI\r
+\r
+_The Great Temptation_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+A Duet in Paradise\r
+\r
+\r
+The well-furnished drawing-room, with the open grand piano, and the\r
+pleasant outlook down a sloping garden to a boat-house by the side of\r
+the Floss, is Mr. Deane's. The neat little lady in mourning, whose\r
+light-brown ringlets are falling over the colored embroidery with\r
+which her fingers are busy, is of course Lucy Deane; and the fine\r
+young man who is leaning down from his chair to snap the scissors in\r
+the extremely abbreviated face of the "King Charles" lying on the\r
+young lady's feet is no other than Mr. Stephen Guest, whose diamond\r
+ring, attar of roses, and air of _nonchalant_ leisure, at twelve\r
+o'clock in the day, are the graceful and odoriferous result of the\r
+largest oil-mill and the most extensive wharf in St. Ogg's. There is\r
+an apparent triviality in the action with the scissors, but your\r
+discernment perceives at once that there is a design in it which makes\r
+it eminently worthy of a large-headed, long-limbed young man; for you\r
+see that Lucy wants the scissors, and is compelled, reluctant as she\r
+may be, to shake her ringlets back, raise her soft hazel eyes, smile\r
+playfully down on the face that is so very nearly on a level with her\r
+knee, and holding out her little shell-pink palm, to say,--\r
+\r
+"My scissors, please, if you can renounce the great pleasure of\r
+persecuting my poor Minny."\r
+\r
+The foolish scissors have slipped too far over the knuckles, it seems,\r
+and Hercules holds out his entrapped fingers hopelessly.\r
+\r
+"Confound the scissors! The oval lies the wrong way. Please draw them\r
+off for me."\r
+\r
+"Draw them off with your other hand," says Miss Lucy, roguishly.\r
+\r
+"Oh, but that's my left hand; I'm not left-handed."\r
+\r
+Lucy laughs, and the scissors are drawn off with gentle touches from\r
+tiny tips, which naturally dispose Mr. Stephen for a repetition _da\r
+capo_. Accordingly, he watches for the release of the scissors, that\r
+he may get them into his possession again.\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Lucy, sticking them in her band, "you shall not have my\r
+scissors again,--you have strained them already. Now don't set Minny\r
+growling again. Sit up and behave properly, and then I will tell you\r
+some news."\r
+\r
+"What is that?" said Stephen, throwing himself back and hanging his\r
+right arm over the corner of his chair. He might have been sitting for\r
+his portrait, which would have represented a rather striking young man\r
+of five-and-twenty, with a square forehead, short dark-brown hair,\r
+standing erect, with a slight wave at the end, like a thick crop of\r
+corn, and a half-ardent, half-sarcastic glance from under his\r
+well-marked horizontal eyebrows. "Is it very important news?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very. Guess."\r
+\r
+"You are going to change Minny's diet, and give him three ratafias\r
+soaked in a dessert-spoonful of cream daily?"\r
+\r
+"Quite wrong."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, Dr. Kenn has been preaching against buckram, and you\r
+ladies have all been sending him a roundrobin, saying, 'This is a hard\r
+doctrine; who can bear it?'"\r
+\r
+"For shame!" said Lucy, adjusting her little mouth gravely. "It is\r
+rather dull of you not to guess my news, because it is about something\r
+I mentioned to you not very long ago."\r
+\r
+"But you have mentioned many things to me not long ago. Does your\r
+feminine tyranny require that when you say the thing you mean is one\r
+of several things, I should know it immediately by that mark?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I know you think I am silly."\r
+\r
+"I think you are perfectly charming."\r
+\r
+"And my silliness is part of my charm?"\r
+\r
+"I didn't say _that_."\r
+\r
+"But I know you like women to be rather insipid. Philip Wakem betrayed\r
+you; he said so one day when you were not here."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I know Phil is fierce on that point; he makes it quite a personal\r
+matter. I think he must be love-sick for some unknown lady,--some\r
+exalted Beatrice whom he met abroad."\r
+\r
+"By the by," said Lucy, pausing in her work, "it has just occurred to\r
+me that I never found out whether my cousin Maggie will object to see\r
+Philip, as her brother does. Tom will not enter a room where Philip\r
+is, if he knows it; perhaps Maggie may be the same, and then we\r
+sha'n't be able to sing our glees, shall we?"\r
+\r
+"What! is your cousin coming to stay with you?" said Stephen, with a\r
+look of slight annoyance.\r
+\r
+"Yes; that was my news, which you have forgotten. She's going to leave\r
+her situation, where she has been nearly two years, poor thing,--ever\r
+since her father's death; and she will stay with me a month or\r
+two,--many months, I hope."\r
+\r
+"And am I bound to be pleased at that news?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, not at all," said Lucy, with a little air of pique. "_I_ am\r
+pleased, but that, of course, is no reason why _you_ should be\r
+pleased. There is no girl in the world I love so well as my cousin\r
+Maggie."\r
+\r
+"And you will be inseparable I suppose, when she comes. There will be\r
+no possibility of a _tête-à-tête_ with you any more, unless you can\r
+find an admirer for her, who will pair off with her occasionally. What\r
+is the ground of dislike to Philip? He might have been a resource."\r
+\r
+"It is a family quarrel with Philip's father. There were very painful\r
+circumstances, I believe. I never quite understood them, or knew them\r
+all. My uncle Tulliver was unfortunate and lost all his property, and\r
+I think he considered Mr. Wakem was somehow the cause of it. Mr. Wakem\r
+bought Dorlcote Mill, my uncle's old place, where he always lived. You\r
+must remember my uncle Tulliver, don't you?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Stephen, with rather supercilious indifference. "I've\r
+always known the name, and I dare say I knew the man by sight, apart\r
+from his name. I know half the names and faces in the neighborhood in\r
+that detached, disjointed way."\r
+\r
+"He was a very hot-tempered man. I remember, when I was a little girl\r
+and used to go to see my cousins, he often frightened me by talking as\r
+if he were angry. Papa told me there was a dreadful quarrel, the very\r
+day before my uncle's death, between him and Mr. Wakem, but it was\r
+hushed up. That was when you were in London. Papa says my uncle was\r
+quite mistaken in many ways; his mind had become embittered. But Tom\r
+and Maggie must naturally feel it very painful to be reminded of these\r
+things. They have had so much, so very much trouble. Maggie was at\r
+school with me six years ago, when she was fetched away because of her\r
+father's misfortunes, and she has hardly had any pleasure since, I\r
+think. She has been in a dreary situation in a school since uncle's\r
+death, because she is determined to be independent, and not live with\r
+aunt Pullet; and I could hardly wish her to come to me then, because\r
+dear mamma was ill, and everything was so sad. That is why I want her\r
+to come to me now, and have a long, long holiday."\r
+\r
+"Very sweet and angelic of you," said Stephen, looking at her with an\r
+admiring smile; "and all the more so if she has the conversational\r
+qualities of her mother."\r
+\r
+"Poor aunty! You are cruel to ridicule her. She is very valuable to\r
+_me_, I know. She manages the house beautifully,--much better than any\r
+stranger would,--and she was a great comfort to me in mamma's\r
+illness."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but in point of companionship one would prefer that she should\r
+be represented by her brandy-cherries and cream-cakes. I think with a\r
+shudder that her daughter will always be present in person, and have\r
+no agreeable proxies of that kind,--a fat, blond girl, with round blue\r
+eyes, who will stare at us silently."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes!" exclaimed Lucy, laughing wickedly, and clapping her hands,\r
+"that is just my cousin Maggie. You must have seen her!"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed; I'm only guessing what Mrs. Tulliver's daughter must be;\r
+and then if she is to banish Philip, our only apology for a tenor,\r
+that will be an additional bore."\r
+\r
+"But I hope that may not be. I think I will ask you to call on Philip\r
+and tell him Maggie is coming to-morrow. He is quite aware of Tom's\r
+feeling, and always keeps out of his way; so he will understand, if\r
+you tell him, that I asked you to warn him not to come until I write\r
+to ask him."\r
+\r
+"I think you had better write a pretty note for me to take; Phil is so\r
+sensitive, you know, the least thing might frighten him off coming at\r
+all, and we had hard work to get him. I can never induce him to come\r
+to the park; he doesn't like my sisters, I think. It is only your\r
+faëry touch that can lay his ruffled feathers."\r
+\r
+Stephen mastered the little hand that was straying toward the table,\r
+and touched it lightly with his lips. Little Lucy felt very proud and\r
+happy. She and Stephen were in that stage of courtship which makes the\r
+most exquisite moment of youth, the freshest blossom-time of\r
+passion,--when each is sure of the other's love, but no formal\r
+declaration has been made, and all is mutual divination, exalting the\r
+most trivial word, the lightest gesture, into thrills delicate and\r
+delicious as wafted jasmine scent. The explicitness of an engagement\r
+wears off this finest edge of susceptibility; it is jasmine gathered\r
+and presented in a large bouquet.\r
+\r
+"But it is really odd that you should have hit so exactly on Maggie's\r
+appearance and manners," said the cunning Lucy, moving to reach her\r
+desk, "because she might have been like her brother, you know; and Tom\r
+has not round eyes; and he is as far as possible from staring at\r
+people."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I suppose he is like the father; he seems to be as proud as\r
+Lucifer. Not a brilliant companion, though, I should think."\r
+\r
+"I like Tom. He gave me my Minny when I lost Lolo; and papa is very\r
+fond of him: he says Tom has excellent principles. It was through him\r
+that his father was able to pay all his debts before he died."\r
+\r
+"Oh, ah; I've heard about that. I heard your father and mine talking\r
+about it a little while ago, after dinner, in one of their\r
+interminable discussions about business. They think of doing something\r
+for young Tulliver; he saved them from a considerable loss by riding\r
+home in some marvellous way, like Turpin, to bring them news about the\r
+stoppage of a bank, or something of that sort. But I was rather drowsy\r
+at the time."\r
+\r
+Stephen rose from his seat, and sauntered to the piano, humming in\r
+falsetto, "Graceful Consort," as he turned over the volume of "The\r
+Creation," which stood open on the desk.\r
+\r
+"Come and sing this," he said, when he saw Lucy rising.\r
+\r
+"What, 'Graceful Consort'? I don't think it suits your voice."\r
+\r
+"Never mind; it exactly suits my feeling, which, Philip will have it,\r
+is the grand element of good singing. I notice men with indifferent\r
+voices are usually of that opinion."\r
+\r
+"Philip burst into one of his invectives against 'The Creation' the\r
+other day," said Lucy, seating herself at the piano. "He says it has a\r
+sort of sugared complacency and flattering make-believe in it, as if\r
+it were written for the birthday _fête_ of a German Grand-Duke."\r
+\r
+"Oh, pooh! He is the fallen Adam with a soured temper. We are Adam and\r
+Eve unfallen, in Paradise. Now, then,--the recitative, for the sake of\r
+the moral. You will sing the whole duty of woman,--'And from obedience\r
+grows my pride and happiness.'"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, I shall not respect an Adam who drags the _tempo_, as you\r
+will," said Lucy, beginning to play the duet.\r
+\r
+Surely the only courtship unshaken by doubts and fears must be that in\r
+which the lovers can sing together. The sense of mutual fitness that\r
+springs from the two deep notes fulfilling expectation just at the\r
+right moment between the notes of the silvery soprano, from the\r
+perfect accord of descending thirds and fifths, from the preconcerted\r
+loving chase of a fugue, is likely enough to supersede any immediate\r
+demand for less impassioned forms of agreement. The contralto will not\r
+care to catechise the bass; the tenor will foresee no embarrassing\r
+dearth of remark in evenings spent with the lovely soprano. In the\r
+provinces, too, where music was so scarce in that remote time, how\r
+could the musical people avoid falling in love with each other? Even\r
+political principle must have been in danger of relaxation under such\r
+circumstances; and the violin, faithful to rotten boroughs, must have\r
+been tempted to fraternize in a demoralizing way with a reforming\r
+violoncello. In that case, the linnet-throated soprano and the\r
+full-toned bass singing,--\r
+\r
+ "With thee delight is ever new,\r
+ With thee is life incessant bliss,"\r
+\r
+believed what they sang all the more _because_ they sang it.\r
+\r
+"Now for Raphael's great song," said Lucy, when they had finished the\r
+duet. "You do the 'heavy beasts' to perfection."\r
+\r
+"That sounds complimentary," said Stephen, looking at his watch. "By\r
+Jove, it's nearly half-past one! Well, I can just sing this."\r
+\r
+Stephen delivered with admirable ease the deep notes representing the\r
+tread of the heavy beasts; but when a singer has an audience of two,\r
+there is room for divided sentiments. Minny's mistress was charmed;\r
+but Minny, who had intrenched himself, trembling, in his basket as\r
+soon as the music began, found this thunder so little to his taste\r
+that he leaped out and scampered under the remotest _chiffonnier_, as\r
+the most eligible place in which a small dog could await the crack of\r
+doom.\r
+\r
+"Adieu, 'graceful consort,'" said Stephen, buttoning his coat across\r
+when he had done singing, and smiling down from his tall height, with\r
+the air of rather a patronizing lover, at the little lady on the\r
+music-stool. "My bliss is not incessant, for I must gallop home. I\r
+promised to be there at lunch."\r
+\r
+"You will not be able to call on Philip, then? It is of no\r
+consequence; I have said everything in my note."\r
+\r
+"You will be engaged with your cousin to-morrow, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, we are going to have a little family-party. My cousin Tom will\r
+dine with us; and poor aunty will have her two children together for\r
+the first time. It will be very pretty; I think a great deal about\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"But I may come the next day?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes! Come and be introduced to my cousin Maggie; though you can\r
+hardly be said not to have seen her, you have described her so well."\r
+\r
+"Good-bye, then." And there was that slight pressure of the hands, and\r
+momentary meeting of the eyes, which will often leave a little lady\r
+with a slight flush and smile on her face that do not subside\r
+immediately when the door is closed, and with an inclination to walk\r
+up and down the room rather than to seat herself quietly at her\r
+embroidery, or other rational and improving occupation. At least this\r
+was the effect on Lucy; and you will not, I hope, consider it an\r
+indication of vanity predominating over more tender impulses, that she\r
+just glanced in the chimney-glass as her walk brought her near it. The\r
+desire to know that one has not looked an absolute fright during a few\r
+hours of conversation may be construed as lying within the bounds of a\r
+laudable benevolent consideration for others. And Lucy had so much of\r
+this benevolence in her nature that I am inclined to think her small\r
+egoisms were impregnated with it, just as there are people not\r
+altogether unknown to you whose small benevolences have a predominant\r
+and somewhat rank odor of egoism. Even now, that she is walking up and\r
+down with a little triumphant flutter of her girlish heart at the\r
+sense that she is loved by the person of chief consequence in her\r
+small world, you may see in her hazel eyes an ever-present sunny\r
+benignity, in which the momentary harmless flashes of personal vanity\r
+are quite lost; and if she is happy in thinking of her lover, it is\r
+because the thought of him mingles readily with all the gentle\r
+affections and good-natured offices with which she fills her peaceful\r
+days. Even now, her mind, with that instantaneous alternation which\r
+makes two currents of feeling or imagination seem simultaneous, is\r
+glancing continually from Stephen to the preparations she has only\r
+half finished in Maggie's room. Cousin Maggie should be treated as\r
+well as the grandest lady-visitor,--nay, better, for she should have\r
+Lucy's best prints and drawings in her bedroom, and the very finest\r
+bouquet of spring flowers on her table. Maggie would enjoy all that,\r
+she was so found of pretty things! And there was poor aunt Tulliver,\r
+that no one made any account of, she was to be surprised with the\r
+present of a cap of superlative quality, and to have her health drunk\r
+in a gratifying manner, for which Lucy was going to lay a plot with\r
+her father this evening. Clearly, she had not time to indulge in long\r
+reveries about her own happy love-affairs. With this thought she\r
+walked toward the door, but paused there.\r
+\r
+"What's the matter, then, Minny?" she said, stooping in answer to some\r
+whimpering of that small quadruped, and lifting his glossy head\r
+against her pink cheek. "Did you think I was going without you? Come,\r
+then, let us go and see Sinbad."\r
+\r
+Sinbad was Lucy's chestnut horse, that she always fed with her own\r
+hand when he was turned out in the paddock. She was fond of feeding\r
+dependent creatures, and knew the private tastes of all the animals\r
+about the house, delighting in the little rippling sounds of her\r
+canaries when their beaks were busy with fresh seed, and in the small\r
+nibbling pleasures of certain animals which, lest she should appear\r
+too trivial, I will here call "the more familiar rodents."\r
+\r
+Was not Stephen Guest right in his decided opinion that this slim\r
+maiden of eighteen was quite the sort of wife a man would not be\r
+likely to repent of marrying,--a woman who was loving and thoughtful\r
+for other women, not giving them Judas-kisses with eyes askance on\r
+their welcome defects, but with real care and vision for their\r
+half-hidden pains and mortifications, with long ruminating enjoyment\r
+of little pleasures prepared for them? Perhaps the emphasis of his\r
+admiration did not fall precisely on this rarest quality in her;\r
+perhaps he approved his own choice of her chiefly because she did not\r
+strike him as a remarkable rarity. A man likes his wife to be pretty;\r
+well, Lucy was pretty, but not to a maddening extent. A man likes his\r
+wife to be accomplished, gentle, affectionate, and not stupid; and\r
+Lucy had all these qualifications. Stephen was not surprised to find\r
+himself in love with her, and was conscious of excellent judgment in\r
+preferring her to Miss Leyburn, the daughter of the county member,\r
+although Lucy was only the daughter of his father's subordinate\r
+partner; besides, he had had to defy and overcome a slight\r
+unwillingness and disappointment in his father and sisters,--a\r
+circumstance which gives a young man an agreeable consciousness of his\r
+own dignity. Stephen was aware that he had sense and independence\r
+enough to choose the wife who was likely to make him happy, unbiassed\r
+by any indirect considerations. He meant to choose Lucy; she was a\r
+little darling, and exactly the sort of woman he had always admired.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+First Impressions\r
+\r
+\r
+"He is very clever, Maggie," said Lucy. She was kneeling on a\r
+footstool at Maggie's feet, after placing that dark lady in the large\r
+crimson-velvet chair. "I feel sure you will like him. I hope you\r
+will."\r
+\r
+"I shall be very difficult to please," said Maggie, smiling, and\r
+holding up one of Lucy's long curls, that the sunlight might shine\r
+through it. "A gentleman who thinks he is good enough for Lucy must\r
+expect to be sharply criticised."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, he's a great deal too good for me. And sometimes, when he is\r
+away, I almost think it can't really be that he loves me. But I can\r
+never doubt it when he is with me, though I couldn't bear any one but\r
+you to know that I feel in that way, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"Oh, then, if I disapprove of him you can give him up, since you are\r
+not engaged," said Maggie, with playful gravity.\r
+\r
+"I would rather not be engaged. When people are engaged, they begin to\r
+think of being married soon," said Lucy, too thoroughly preoccupied to\r
+notice Maggie's joke; "and I should like everything to go on for a\r
+long while just as it is. Sometimes I am quite frightened lest Stephen\r
+should say that he has spoken to papa; and from something that fell\r
+from papa the other day, I feel sure he and Mr. Guest are expecting\r
+that. And Stephen's sisters are very civil to me now. At first, I\r
+think they didn't like his paying me attention; and that was natural.\r
+It _does_ seem out of keeping that I should ever live in a great place\r
+like the Park House, such a little insignificant thing as I am."\r
+\r
+"But people are not expected to be large in proportion to the houses\r
+they live in, like snails," said Maggie, laughing. "Pray, are Mr.\r
+Guest's sisters giantesses?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no; and not handsome,--that is, not very," said Lucy,\r
+half-penitent at this uncharitable remark. "But _he_ is--at least he\r
+is generally considered very handsome."\r
+\r
+"Though you are unable to share that opinion?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I don't know," said Lucy, blushing pink over brow and neck. "It\r
+is a bad plan to raise expectation; you will perhaps be disappointed.\r
+But I have prepared a charming surprise for _him;_ I shall have a\r
+glorious laugh against him. I shall not tell you what it is, though."\r
+\r
+Lucy rose from her knees and went to a little distance, holding her\r
+pretty head on one side, as if she had been arranging Maggie for a\r
+portrait, and wished to judge of the general effect.\r
+\r
+"Stand up a moment, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"What is your pleasure now?" said Maggie, smiling languidly as she\r
+rose from her chair and looked down on her slight, aerial cousin,\r
+whose figure was quite subordinate to her faultless drapery of silk\r
+and crape.\r
+\r
+Lucy kept her contemplative attitude a moment or two in silence, and\r
+then said,--\r
+\r
+"I can't think what witchery it is in you, Maggie, that makes you look\r
+best in shabby clothes; though you really must have a new dress now.\r
+But do you know, last night I was trying to fancy you in a handsome,\r
+fashionable dress, and do what I would, that old limp merino would\r
+come back as the only right thing for you. I wonder if Marie\r
+Antoinette looked all the grander when her gown was darned at the\r
+elbows. Now, if _I_ were to put anything shabby on, I should be quite\r
+unnoticeable. I should be a mere rag."\r
+\r
+"Oh, quite," said Maggie, with mock gravity. "You would be liable to\r
+be swept out of the room with the cobwebs and carpet-dust, and to find\r
+yourself under the grate, like Cinderella. Mayn't I sit down now?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, now you may," said Lucy, laughing. Then, with an air of serious\r
+reflection, unfastening her large jet brooch, "But you must change\r
+brooches, Maggie; that little butterfly looks silly on you."\r
+\r
+"But won't that mar the charming effect of my consistent shabbiness?"\r
+said Maggie, seating herself submissively, while Lucy knelt again and\r
+unfastened the contemptible butterfly. "I wish my mother were of your\r
+opinion, for she was fretting last night because this is my best\r
+frock. I've been saving my money to pay for some lessons; I shall\r
+never get a better situation without more accomplishments."\r
+\r
+Maggie gave a little sigh.\r
+\r
+"Now, don't put on that sad look again," said Lucy, pinning the large\r
+brooch below Maggie's fine throat. "You're forgetting that you've left\r
+that dreary schoolroom behind you, and have no little girls' clothes\r
+to mend."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie. "It is with me as I used to think it would be with\r
+the poor uneasy white bear I saw at the show. I thought he must have\r
+got so stupid with the habit of turning backward and forward in that\r
+narrow space that he would keep doing it if they set him free. One\r
+gets a bad habit of being unhappy."\r
+\r
+"But I shall put you under a discipline of pleasure that will make you\r
+lose that bad habit," said Lucy, sticking the black butterfly absently\r
+in her own collar, while her eyes met Maggie's affectionately.\r
+\r
+"You dear, tiny thing," said Maggie, in one of her bursts of loving\r
+admiration, "you enjoy other people's happiness so much, I believe you\r
+would do without any of your own. I wish I were like you."\r
+\r
+"I've never been tried in that way," said Lucy. "I've always been so\r
+happy. I don't know whether I could bear much trouble; I never had any\r
+but poor mamma's death. You _have_ been tried, Maggie; and I'm sure\r
+you feel for other people quite as much as I do."\r
+\r
+"No, Lucy," said Maggie, shaking her head slowly, "I don't enjoy their\r
+happiness as you do, else I should be more contented. I do feel for\r
+them when they are in trouble; I don't think I could ever bear to make\r
+any one _un_happy; and yet I often hate myself, because I get angry\r
+sometimes at the sight of happy people. I think I get worse as I get\r
+older, more selfish. That seems very dreadful."\r
+\r
+"Now, Maggie!" said Lucy, in a tone of remonstrance, "I don't believe\r
+a word of that. It is all a gloomy fancy, just because you are\r
+depressed by a dull, wearisome life."\r
+\r
+"Well, perhaps it is," said Maggie, resolutely clearing away the\r
+clouds from her face with a bright smile, and throwing herself\r
+backward in her chair. "Perhaps it comes from the school diet,--watery\r
+rice-pudding spiced with Pinnock. Let us hope it will give way before\r
+my mother's custards and this charming Geoffrey Crayon."\r
+\r
+Maggie took up the "Sketch Book," which lay by her on the table.\r
+\r
+"Do I look fit to be seen with this little brooch?" said Lucy, going\r
+to survey the effect in the chimney-glass.\r
+\r
+"Oh no, Mr. Guest will be obliged to go out of the room again if he\r
+sees you in it. Pray make haste and put another on."\r
+\r
+Lucy hurried out of the room, but Maggie did not take the opportunity\r
+of opening her book; she let it fall on her knees, while her eyes\r
+wandered to the window, where she could see the sunshine falling on\r
+the rich clumps of spring flowers and on the long hedge of laurels,\r
+and beyond, the silvery breadth of the dear old Floss, that at this\r
+distance seemed to be sleeping in a morning holiday. The sweet fresh\r
+garden-scent came through the open window, and the birds were busy\r
+flitting and alighting, gurgling and singing. Yet Maggie's eyes began\r
+to fill with tears. The sight of the old scenes had made the rush of\r
+memories so painful that even yesterday she had only been able to\r
+rejoice in her mother's restored comfort and Tom's brotherly\r
+friendliness as we rejoice in good news of friends at a distance,\r
+rather than in the presence of a happiness which we share. Memory and\r
+imagination urged upon her a sense of privation too keen to let her\r
+taste what was offered in the transient present. Her future, she\r
+thought, was likely to be worse than her past, for after her years of\r
+contented renunciation, she had slipped back into desire and longing;\r
+she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder;\r
+she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for,\r
+and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate. The sound of the\r
+opening door roused her, and hastily wiping away her tears, she began\r
+to turn over the leaves of her book.\r
+\r
+"There is one pleasure, I know, Maggie, that your deepest dismalness\r
+will never resist," said Lucy, beginning to speak as soon as she\r
+entered the room. "That is music, and I mean you to have quite a\r
+riotous feast of it. I mean you to get up your playing again, which\r
+used to be so much better than mine, when we were at Laceham."\r
+\r
+"You would have laughed to see me playing the little girls' tunes over\r
+and over to them, when I took them to practise," said Maggie, "just\r
+for the sake of fingering the dear keys again. But I don't know\r
+whether I could play anything more difficult now than 'Begone, dull\r
+care!'"\r
+\r
+"I know what a wild state of joy you used to be in when the glee-men\r
+came round," said Lucy, taking up her embroidery; "and we might have\r
+all those old glees that you used to love so, if I were certain that\r
+you don't feel exactly as Tom does about some things."\r
+\r
+"I should have thought there was nothing you might be more certain\r
+of," said Maggie, smiling.\r
+\r
+"I ought rather to have said, one particular thing. Because if you\r
+feel just as he does about that, we shall want our third voice. St.\r
+Ogg's is so miserably provided with musical gentlemen. There are\r
+really only Stephen and Philip Wakem who have any knowledge of music,\r
+so as to be able to sing a part."\r
+\r
+Lucy had looked up from her work as she uttered the last sentence, and\r
+saw that there was a change in Maggie's face.\r
+\r
+"Does it hurt you to hear the name mentioned, Maggie? If it does, I\r
+will not speak of him again. I know Tom will not see him if he can\r
+avoid it."\r
+\r
+"I don't feel at all as Tom does on that subject," said Maggie, rising\r
+and going to the window as if she wanted to see more of the landscape.\r
+"I've always liked Philip Wakem ever since I was a little girl, and\r
+saw him at Lorton. He was so good when Tom hurt his foot."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Lucy. "Then you won't mind his coming\r
+sometimes, and we can have much more music than we could without him.\r
+I'm very fond of poor Philip, only I wish he were not so morbid about\r
+his deformity. I suppose it _is_ his deformity that makes him so sad,\r
+and sometimes bitter. It is certainly very piteous to see his poor\r
+little crooked body and pale face among great, strong people."\r
+\r
+"But, Lucy----" said Maggie, trying to arrest the prattling stream.\r
+\r
+"Ah, there is the door-bell. That must be Stephen," Lucy went on, not\r
+noticing Maggie's faint effort to speak. "One of the things I most\r
+admire in Stephen is that he makes a greater friend of Philip than any\r
+one."\r
+\r
+It was too late for Maggie to speak now; the drawingroom door was\r
+opening, and Minny was already growling in a small way at the entrance\r
+of a tall gentleman, who went up to Lucy and took her hand with a\r
+half-polite, half-tender glance and tone of inquiry, which seemed to\r
+indicate that he was unconscious of any other presence.\r
+\r
+"Let me introduce you to my cousin, Miss Tulliver," said Lucy, turning\r
+with wicked enjoyment toward Maggie, who now approached from the\r
+farther window. "This is Mr. Stephen Guest."\r
+\r
+For one instant Stephen could not conceal his astonishment at the\r
+sight of this tall, dark-eyed nymph with her jet-black coronet of\r
+hair; the next, Maggie felt herself, for the first time in her life,\r
+receiving the tribute of a very deep blush and a very deep bow from a\r
+person toward whom she herself was conscious of timidity.\r
+\r
+This new experience was very agreeable to her, so agreeable that it\r
+almost effaced her previous emotion about Philip. There was a new\r
+brightness in her eyes, and a very becoming flush on her cheek, as she\r
+seated herself.\r
+\r
+"I hope you perceive what a striking likeness you drew the day before\r
+yesterday," said Lucy, with a pretty laugh of triumph. She enjoyed her\r
+lover's confusion; the advantage was usually on his side.\r
+\r
+"This designing cousin of yours quite deceived me, Miss Tulliver,"\r
+said Stephen, seating himself by Lucy, and stooping to play with\r
+Minny, only looking at Maggie furtively. "She said you had light hair\r
+and blue eyes."\r
+\r
+"Nay, it was you who said so," remonstrated Lucy. "I only refrained\r
+from destroying your confidence in your own second-sight."\r
+\r
+"I wish I could always err in the same way," said Stephen, "and find\r
+reality so much more beautiful than my preconceptions."\r
+\r
+"Now you have proved yourself equal to the occasion," said Maggie,\r
+"and said what it was incumbent on you to say under the\r
+circumstances."\r
+\r
+She flashed a slightly defiant look at him; it was clear to her that\r
+he had been drawing a satirical portrait of her beforehand. Lucy had\r
+said he was inclined to be satirical, and Maggie had mentally supplied\r
+the addition, "and rather conceited."\r
+\r
+"An alarming amount of devil there," was Stephen's first thought. The\r
+second, when she had bent over her work, was, "I wish she would look\r
+at me again." The next was to answer,--\r
+\r
+"I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have their turn to be true.\r
+A man is occasionally grateful when he says 'Thank you.' It's rather\r
+hard upon him that he must use the same words with which all the world\r
+declines a disagreeable invitation, don't you think so, Miss\r
+Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, looking at him with her direct glance; "if we use\r
+common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because\r
+they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners,\r
+or every-day clothes, hung up in a sacred place."\r
+\r
+"Then my compliment ought to be eloquent," said Stephen, really not\r
+quite knowing what he said while Maggie looked at him, "seeing that\r
+the words were so far beneath the occasion."\r
+\r
+"No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of\r
+indifference," said Maggie, flushing a little.\r
+\r
+Lucy was rather alarmed; she thought Stephen and Maggie were not going\r
+to like each other. She had always feared lest Maggie should appear\r
+too old and clever to please that critical gentleman. "Why, dear\r
+Maggie," she interposed, "you have always pretended that you are too\r
+fond of being admired; and now, I think, you are angry because some\r
+one ventures to admire you."\r
+\r
+"Not at all," said Maggie; "I like too well to feel that I am admired,\r
+but compliments never make me feel that."\r
+\r
+"I will never pay you a compliment again, Miss Tulliver," said\r
+Stephen.\r
+\r
+"Thank you; that will be a proof of respect."\r
+\r
+Poor Maggie! She was so unused to society that she could take nothing\r
+as a matter of course, and had never in her life spoken from the lips\r
+merely, so that she must necessarily appear absurd to more experienced\r
+ladies, from the excessive feeling she was apt to throw into very\r
+trivial incidents. But she was even conscious herself of a little\r
+absurdity in this instance. It was true she had a theoretic objection\r
+to compliments, and had once said impatiently to Philip that she\r
+didn't see why women were to be told with a simper that they were\r
+beautiful, any more than old men were to be told that they were\r
+venerable; still, to be so irritated by a common practice in the case\r
+of a stranger like Mr. Stephen Guest, and to care about his having\r
+spoken slightingly of her before he had seen her, was certainly\r
+unreasonable, and as soon as she was silent she began to be ashamed of\r
+herself. It did not occur to her that her irritation was due to the\r
+pleasanter emotion which preceded it, just as when we are satisfied\r
+with a sense of glowing warmth an innocent drop of cold water may fall\r
+upon us as a sudden smart.\r
+\r
+Stephen was too well bred not to seem unaware that the previous\r
+conversation could have been felt embarrassing, and at once began to\r
+talk of impersonal matters, asking Lucy if she knew when the bazaar\r
+was at length to take place, so that there might be some hope of\r
+seeing her rain the influence of her eyes on objects more grateful\r
+than those worsted flowers that were growing under her fingers.\r
+\r
+"Some day next month, I believe," said Lucy. "But your sisters are\r
+doing more for it than I am; they are to have the largest stall."\r
+\r
+"Ah yes; but they carry on their manufactures in their own\r
+sitting-room, where I don't intrude on them. I see you are not\r
+addicted to the fashionable vice of fancy-work, Miss Tulliver," said\r
+Stephen, looking at Maggie's plain hemming.\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, "I can do nothing more difficult or more elegant\r
+than shirt-making."\r
+\r
+"And your plain sewing is so beautiful, Maggie," said Lucy, "that I\r
+think I shall beg a few specimens of you to show as fancy-work. Your\r
+exquisite sewing is quite a mystery to me, you used to dislike that\r
+sort of work so much in old days."\r
+\r
+"It is a mystery easily explained, dear," said Maggie, looking up\r
+quietly. "Plain sewing was the only thing I could get money by, so I\r
+was obliged to try and do it well."\r
+\r
+Lucy, good and simple as she was, could not help blushing a little.\r
+She did not quite like that Stephen should know that; Maggie need not\r
+have mentioned it. Perhaps there was some pride in the confession,--\r
+the pride of poverty that will not be ashamed of itself. But if Maggie\r
+had been the queen of coquettes she could hardly have invented a means\r
+of giving greater piquancy to her beauty in Stephen's eyes; I am not\r
+sure that the quiet admission of plain sewing and poverty would have\r
+done alone, but assisted by the beauty, they made Maggie more unlike\r
+other women even than she had seemed at first.\r
+\r
+"But I can knit, Lucy," Maggie went on, "if that will be of any use\r
+for your bazaar."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, of infinite use. I shall set you to work with scarlet wool\r
+to-morrow. But your sister is the most enviable person," continued\r
+Lucy, turning to Stephen, "to have the talent of modelling. She is\r
+doing a wonderful bust of Dr. Kenn entirely from memory."\r
+\r
+"Why, if she can remember to put the eyes very near together, and the\r
+corners of the mouth very far apart, the likeness can hardly fail to\r
+be striking in St. Ogg's."\r
+\r
+"Now that is very wicked of you," said Lucy, looking rather hurt. "I\r
+didn't think you would speak disrespectfully of Dr. Kenn."\r
+\r
+"I say anything disrespectful of Dr. Kenn? Heaven forbid! But I am not\r
+bound to respect a libellous bust of him. I think Kenn one of the\r
+finest fellows in the world. I don't care much about the tall\r
+candlesticks he has put on the communion-table, and I shouldn't like\r
+to spoil my temper by getting up to early prayers every morning. But\r
+he's the only man I ever knew personally who seems to me to have\r
+anything of the real apostle in him,--a man who has eight hundred\r
+a-year and is contented with deal furniture and boiled beef because he\r
+gives away two-thirds of his income. That was a very fine thing of\r
+him,--taking into his house that poor lad Grattan, who shot his mother\r
+by accident. He sacrifices more time than a less busy man could spare,\r
+to save the poor fellow from getting into a morbid state of mind about\r
+it. He takes the lad out with him constantly, I see."\r
+\r
+"That is beautiful," said Maggie, who had let her work fall, and was\r
+listening with keen interest. "I never knew any one who did such things."\r
+\r
+"And one admires that sort of action in Kenn all the more," said\r
+Stephen, "because his manners in general are rather cold and severe.\r
+There's nothing sugary and maudlin about him."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I think he's a perfect character!" said Lucy, with pretty\r
+enthusiasm.\r
+\r
+"No; there I can't agree with you," said Stephen, shaking his head\r
+with sarcastic gravity.\r
+\r
+"Now, what fault can you point out in him?"\r
+\r
+"He's an Anglican."\r
+\r
+"Well, those are the right views, I think," said Lucy, gravely.\r
+\r
+"That settles the question in the abstract," said Stephen, "but not\r
+from a parliamentary point of view. He has set the Dissenters and the\r
+Church people by the ears; and a rising senator like myself, of whose\r
+services the country is very much in need, will find it inconvenient\r
+when he puts up for the honor of representing St. Ogg's in\r
+Parliament."\r
+\r
+"Do you really think of that?" said Lucy, her eyes brightening with a\r
+proud pleasure that made her neglect the argumentative interests of\r
+Anglicanism.\r
+\r
+"Decidedly, whenever old Mr. Leyburn's public spirit and gout induce\r
+him to give way. My father's heart is set on it; and gifts like mine,\r
+you know"--here Stephen drew himself up, and rubbed his large white\r
+hands over his hair with playful self-admiration--"gifts like mine\r
+involve great responsibilities. Don't you think so, Miss Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie, smiling, but not looking up; "so much fluency and\r
+self-possession should not be wasted entirely on private occasions."\r
+\r
+"Ah, I see how much penetration you have," said Stephen. "You have\r
+discovered already that I am talkative and impudent. Now superficial\r
+people never discern that, owing to my manner, I suppose."\r
+\r
+"She doesn't look at me when I talk of myself," he thought, while his\r
+listeners were laughing. "I must try other subjects."\r
+\r
+Did Lucy intend to be present at the meeting of the Book Club next\r
+week? was the next question. Then followed the recommendation to\r
+choose Southey's "Life of Cowper," unless she were inclined to be\r
+philosophical, and startle the ladies of St. Ogg's by voting for one\r
+of the Bridgewater Treatises. Of course Lucy wished to know what these\r
+alarmingly learned books were; and as it is always pleasant to improve\r
+the minds of ladies by talking to them at ease on subjects of which\r
+they know nothing, Stephen became quite brilliant in an account of\r
+Buckland's Treatise, which he had just been reading. He was rewarded\r
+by seeing Maggie let her work fall, and gradually get so absorbed in\r
+his wonderful geological story that she sat looking at him, leaning\r
+forward with crossed arms, and with an entire absence of\r
+self-consciousness, as if he had been the snuffiest of old professors,\r
+and she a downy-lipped alumna. He was so fascinated by the clear,\r
+large gaze that at last he forgot to look away from it occasionally\r
+toward Lucy; but she, sweet child, was only rejoicing that Stephen was\r
+proving to Maggie how clever he was, and that they would certainly be\r
+good friends after all.\r
+\r
+"I will bring you the book, shall I, Miss Tulliver?" said Stephen,\r
+when he found the stream of his recollections running rather shallow.\r
+"There are many illustrations in it that you will like to see."\r
+\r
+"Oh, thank you," said Maggie, blushing with returning\r
+self-consciousness at this direct address, and taking up her work\r
+again.\r
+\r
+"No, no," Lucy interposed. "I must forbid your plunging Maggie in\r
+books. I shall never get her away from them; and I want her to have\r
+delicious do-nothing days, filled with boating and chatting and riding\r
+and driving; that is the holiday she needs."\r
+\r
+"Apropos!" said Stephen, looking at his watch. "Shall we go out for a\r
+row on the river now? The tide will suit for us to the Tofton way, and\r
+we can walk back."\r
+\r
+That was a delightful proposition to Maggie, for it was years since\r
+she had been on the river. When she was gone to put on her bonnet,\r
+Lucy lingered to give an order to the servant, and took the\r
+opportunity of telling Stephen that Maggie had no objection to seeing\r
+Philip, so that it was a pity she had sent that note the day before\r
+yesterday. But she would write another to-morrow and invite him.\r
+\r
+"I'll call and beat him up to-morrow," said Stephen, "and bring him\r
+with me in the evening, shall I? My sisters will want to call on you\r
+when I tell them your cousin is with you. I must leave the field clear\r
+for them in the morning."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, pray bring him," said Lucy. "And you _will_ like Maggie,\r
+sha'n't you?" she added, in a beseeching tone. "Isn't she a dear,\r
+noble-looking creature?"\r
+\r
+"Too tall," said Stephen, smiling down upon her, "and a little too\r
+fiery. She is not my type of woman, you know."\r
+\r
+Gentlemen, you are aware, are apt to impart these imprudent\r
+confidences to ladies concerning their unfavorable opinion of sister\r
+fair ones. That is why so many women have the advantage of knowing\r
+that they are secretly repulsive to men who have self-denyingly made\r
+ardent love to them. And hardly anything could be more distinctively\r
+characteristic of Lucy than that she both implicitly believed what\r
+Stephen said, and was determined that Maggie should not know it. But\r
+you, who have a higher logic than the verbal to guide you, have\r
+already foreseen, as the direct sequence to that unfavorable opinion\r
+of Stephen's, that he walked down to the boathouse calculating, by the\r
+aid of a vivid imagination, that Maggie must give him her hand at\r
+least twice in consequence of this pleasant boating plan, and that a\r
+gentleman who wishes ladies to look at him is advantageously situated\r
+when he is rowing them in a boat. What then? Had he fallen in love\r
+with this surprising daughter of Mrs. Tulliver at first sight?\r
+Certainly not. Such passions are never heard of in real life. Besides,\r
+he was in love already, and half-engaged to the dearest little\r
+creature in the world; and he was not a man to make a fool of himself\r
+in any way. But when one is five-and-twenty, one has not chalk-stones\r
+at one's finger-ends that the touch of a handsome girl should be\r
+entirely indifferent. It was perfectly natural and safe to admire\r
+beauty and enjoy looking at it,--at least under such circumstances as\r
+the present. And there was really something very interesting about\r
+this girl, with her poverty and troubles; it was gratifying to see the\r
+friendship between the two cousins. Generally, Stephen admitted, he\r
+was not fond of women who had any peculiarity of character, but here\r
+the peculiarity seemed really of a superior kind, and provided one is\r
+not obliged to marry such women, why, they certainly make a variety in\r
+social intercourse.\r
+\r
+Maggie did not fulfil Stephen's hope by looking at him during the\r
+first quarter of an hour; her eyes were too full of the old banks that\r
+she knew so well. She felt lonely, cut off from Philip,--the only\r
+person who had ever seemed to love her devotedly, as she had always\r
+longed to be loved. But presently the rhythmic movement of the oars\r
+attracted her, and she thought she should like to learn how to row.\r
+This roused her from her reverie, and she asked if she might take an\r
+oar. It appeared that she required much teaching, and she became\r
+ambitious. The exercise brought the warm blood into her cheeks, and\r
+made her inclined to take her lesson merrily.\r
+\r
+"I shall not be satisfied until I can manage both oars, and row you\r
+and Lucy," she said, looking very bright as she stepped out of the\r
+boat. Maggie, we know, was apt to forget the thing she was doing, and\r
+she had chosen an inopportune moment for her remark; her foot slipped,\r
+but happily Mr. Stephen Guest held her hand, and kept her up with a\r
+firm grasp.\r
+\r
+"You have not hurt yourself at all, I hope?" he said, bending to look\r
+in her face with anxiety. It was very charming to be taken care of in\r
+that kind, graceful manner by some one taller and stronger than one's\r
+self. Maggie had never felt just in the same way before.\r
+\r
+When they reached home again, they found uncle and aunt Pullet seated\r
+with Mrs. Tulliver in the drawing-room, and Stephen hurried away,\r
+asking leave to come again in the evening.\r
+\r
+"And pray bring with you the volume of Purcell that you took away,"\r
+said Lucy. "I want Maggie to hear your best songs."\r
+\r
+Aunt Pullet, under the certainty that Maggie would be invited to go\r
+out with Lucy, probably to Park House, was much shocked at the\r
+shabbiness of her clothes, which when witnessed by the higher society\r
+of St. Ogg's, would be a discredit to the family, that demanded a\r
+strong and prompt remedy; and the consultation as to what would be\r
+most suitable to this end from among the superfluities of Mrs.\r
+Pullet's wardrobe was one that Lucy as well as Mrs. Tulliver entered\r
+into with some zeal. Maggie must really have an evening dress as soon\r
+as possible, and she was about the same height as aunt Pullet.\r
+\r
+"But she's so much broader across the shoulders than I am, it's very\r
+ill-convenient," said Mrs. Pullet, "else she might wear that beautiful\r
+black brocade o' mine without any alteration; and her arms are beyond\r
+everything," added Mrs. Pullet, sorrowfully, as she lifted Maggie's\r
+large round arm, "She'd never get my sleeves on."\r
+\r
+"Oh, never mind that, aunt; send us the dress," said Lucy. "I don't\r
+mean Maggie to have long sleeves, and I have abundance of black lace\r
+for trimming. Her arms will look beautiful."\r
+\r
+"Maggie's arms _are_ a pretty shape," said Mrs. Tulliver. "They're\r
+like mine used to be, only mine was never brown; I wish she'd had\r
+_our_ family skin."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, aunty!" said Lucy, patting her aunt Tulliver's shoulder,\r
+"you don't understand those things. A painter would think Maggie's\r
+complexion beautiful."\r
+\r
+"Maybe, my dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, submissively. "You know better\r
+than I do. Only when I was young a brown skin wasn't thought well on\r
+among respectable folks."\r
+\r
+"No," said uncle Pullet, who took intense interest in the ladies'\r
+conversation as he sucked his lozenges. "Though there was a song about\r
+the 'Nut-brown Maid' too; I think she was crazy,--crazy Kate,--but I\r
+can't justly remember."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, dear!" said Maggie, laughing, but impatient; "I think that\r
+will be the end of _my_ brown skin, if it is always to be talked about\r
+so much."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+Confidential Moments\r
+\r
+\r
+When Maggie went up to her bedroom that night, it appeared that she\r
+was not at all inclined to undress. She set down her candle on the\r
+first table that presented itself, and began to walk up and down her\r
+room, which was a large one, with a firm, regular, and rather rapid\r
+step, which showed that the exercise was the instinctive vent of\r
+strong excitement. Her eyes and cheeks had an almost feverish\r
+brilliancy; her head was thrown backward, and her hands were clasped\r
+with the palms outward, and with that tension of the arms which is apt\r
+to accompany mental absorption.\r
+\r
+Had anything remarkable happened?\r
+\r
+Nothing that you are not likely to consider in the highest degree\r
+unimportant. She had been hearing some fine music sung by a fine bass\r
+voice,--but then it was sung in a provincial, amateur fashion, such as\r
+would have left a critical ear much to desire. And she was conscious\r
+of having been looked at a great deal, in rather a furtive manner,\r
+from beneath a pair of well-marked horizontal eyebrows, with a glance\r
+that seemed somehow to have caught the vibratory influence of the\r
+voice. Such things could have had no perceptible effect on a\r
+thoroughly well-educated young lady, with a perfectly balanced mind,\r
+who had had all the advantages of fortune, training, and refined\r
+society. But if Maggie had been that young lady, you would probably\r
+have known nothing about her: her life would have had so few\r
+vicissitudes that it could hardly have been written; for the happiest\r
+women, like the happiest nations, have no history.\r
+\r
+In poor Maggie's highly-strung, hungry nature,--just come away from a\r
+third-rate schoolroom, with all its jarring sounds and petty round of\r
+tasks,--these apparently trivial causes had the effect of rousing and\r
+exalting her imagination in a way that was mysterious to herself. It\r
+was not that she thought distinctly of Mr. Stephen Guest, or dwelt on\r
+the indications that he looked at her with admiration; it was rather\r
+that she felt the half-remote presence of a world of love and beauty\r
+and delight, made up of vague, mingled images from all the poetry and\r
+romance she had ever read, or had ever woven in her dreamy reveries.\r
+Her mind glanced back once or twice to the time when she had courted\r
+privation, when she had thought all longing, all impatience was\r
+subdued; but that condition seemed irrecoverably gone, and she\r
+recoiled from the remembrance of it. No prayer, no striving now, would\r
+bring back that negative peace; the battle of her life, it seemed, was\r
+not to be decided in that short and easy way,--by perfect renunciation\r
+at the very threshold of her youth.\r
+\r
+The music was vibrating in her still,--Purcell's music, with its wild\r
+passion and fancy,--and she could not stay in the recollection of that\r
+bare, lonely past. She was in her brighter aerial world again, when a\r
+little tap came at the door; of course it was her cousin, who entered\r
+in ample white dressing-gown.\r
+\r
+"Why, Maggie, you naughty child, haven't you begun to undress?" said\r
+Lucy, in astonishment. "I promised not to come and talk to you,\r
+because I thought you must be tired. But here you are, looking as if\r
+you were ready to dress for a ball. Come, come, get on your\r
+dressing-gown and unplait your hair."\r
+\r
+"Well, _you_ are not very forward," retorted Maggie, hastily reaching\r
+her own pink cotton gown, and looking at Lucy's light-brown hair\r
+brushed back in curly disorder.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I have not much to do. I shall sit down and talk to you till I\r
+see you are really on the way to bed."\r
+\r
+While Maggie stood and unplaited her long black hair over her pink\r
+drapery, Lucy sat down near the toilette-table, watching her with\r
+affectionate eyes, and head a little aside, like a pretty spaniel. If\r
+it appears to you at all incredible that young ladies should be led on\r
+to talk confidentially in a situation of this kind, I will beg you to\r
+remember that human life furnishes many exceptional cases.\r
+\r
+"You really _have_ enjoyed the music to-night, haven't you Maggie?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, that is what prevented me from feeling sleepy. I think I\r
+should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of\r
+music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas into my\r
+brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with\r
+music. At other times one is conscious of carrying a weight."\r
+\r
+"And Stephen has a splendid voice, hasn't he?"\r
+\r
+"Well, perhaps we are neither of us judges of that," said Maggie,\r
+laughing, as she seated herself and tossed her long hair back. "You\r
+are not impartial, and _I_ think any barrel-organ splendid."\r
+\r
+"But tell me what you think of him, now. Tell me exactly; good and bad\r
+too."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I think you should humiliate him a little. A lover should not be\r
+so much at ease, and so self-confident. He ought to tremble more."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, Maggie! As if any one could tremble at me! You think he is\r
+conceited, I see that. But you don't dislike him, do you?"\r
+\r
+"Dislike him! No. Am I in the habit of seeing such charming people,\r
+that I should be very difficult to please? Besides, how could I\r
+dislike any one that promised to make you happy, my dear thing!"\r
+Maggie pinched Lucy's dimpled chin.\r
+\r
+"We shall have more music to-morrow evening," said Lucy, looking happy\r
+already, "for Stephen will bring Philip Wakem with him."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Lucy, I can't see him," said Maggie, turning pale. "At least, I\r
+could not see him without Tom's leave."\r
+\r
+"Is Tom such a tyrant as that?" said Lucy, surprised. "I'll take the\r
+responsibility, then,--tell him it was my fault."\r
+\r
+"But, dear," said Maggie, falteringly, "I promised Tom very solemnly,\r
+before my father's death,--I promised him I would not speak to Philip\r
+without his knowledge and consent. And I have a great dread of opening\r
+the subject with Tom,--of getting into a quarrel with him again."\r
+\r
+"But I never heard of anything so strange and unreasonable. What harm\r
+can poor Philip have done? May I speak to Tom about it?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, pray don't, dear," said Maggie. "I'll go to him myself\r
+to-morrow, and tell him that you wish Philip to come. I've thought\r
+before of asking him to absolve me from my promise, but I've not had\r
+the courage to determine on it."\r
+\r
+They were both silent for some moments, and then Lucy said,--\r
+\r
+"Maggie, you have secrets from me, and I have none from you."\r
+\r
+Maggie looked meditatively away from Lucy. Then she turned to her and\r
+said, "I _should_ like to tell you about Philip. But, Lucy, you must\r
+not betray that you know it to any one--least of all to Philip\r
+himself, or to Mr. Stephen Guest."\r
+\r
+The narrative lasted long, for Maggie had never before known the\r
+relief of such an outpouring; she had never before told Lucy anything\r
+of her inmost life; and the sweet face bent toward her with\r
+sympathetic interest, and the little hand pressing hers, encouraged\r
+her to speak on. On two points only she was not expansive. She did not\r
+betray fully what still rankled in her mind as Tom's great\r
+offence,--the insults he had heaped on Philip. Angry as the\r
+remembrance still made her, she could not bear that any one else\r
+should know it at all, both for Tom's sake and Philip's. And she could\r
+not bear to tell Lucy of the last scene between her father and Wakem,\r
+though it was this scene which she had ever since felt to be a new\r
+barrier between herself and Philip. She merely said, she saw now that\r
+Tom was, on the whole, right in regarding any prospect of love and\r
+marriage between her and Philip as put out of the question by the\r
+relation of the two families. Of course Philip's father would never\r
+consent.\r
+\r
+"There, Lucy, you have had my story," said Maggie, smiling, with the\r
+tears in her eyes. "You see I am like Sir Andrew Aguecheek. _I_ was\r
+adored once."\r
+\r
+"Ah, now I see how it is you know Shakespeare and everything, and have\r
+learned so much since you left school; which always seemed to me\r
+witchcraft before,--part of your general uncanniness," said Lucy.\r
+\r
+She mused a little with her eyes downward, and then added, looking at\r
+Maggie, "It is very beautiful that you should love Philip; I never\r
+thought such a happiness would befall him. And in my opinion, you\r
+ought not to give him up. There are obstacles now; but they may be\r
+done away with in time."\r
+\r
+Maggie shook her head.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," persisted Lucy; "I can't help being hopeful about it.\r
+There is something romantic in it,--out of the common way,--just what\r
+everything that happens to you ought to be. And Philip will adore you\r
+like a husband in a fairy tale. Oh, I shall puzzle my small brain to\r
+contrive some plot that will bring everybody into the right mind, so\r
+that you may marry Philip when I marry--somebody else. Wouldn't that\r
+be a pretty ending to all my poor, poor Maggie's troubles?"\r
+\r
+Maggie tried to smile, but shivered, as if she felt a sudden chill.\r
+\r
+"Ah, dear, you are cold," said Lucy. "You must go to bed; and so must\r
+I. I dare not think what time it is."\r
+\r
+They kissed each other, and Lucy went away, possessed of a confidence\r
+which had a strong influence over her subsequent impressions. Maggie\r
+had been thoroughly sincere; her nature had never found it easy to be\r
+otherwise. But confidences are sometimes blinding, even when they are\r
+sincere.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+Brother and Sister\r
+\r
+\r
+Maggie was obliged to go to Tom's lodgings in the middle of the day,\r
+when he would be coming in to dinner, else she would not have found\r
+him at home. He was not lodging with entire strangers. Our friend Bob\r
+Jakin had, with Mumps's tacit consent, taken not only a wife about\r
+eight months ago, but also one of those queer old houses, pierced with\r
+surprising passages, by the water-side, where, as he observed, his\r
+wife and mother could keep themselves out of mischief by letting out\r
+two "pleasure-boats," in which he had invested some of his savings,\r
+and by taking in a lodger for the parlor and spare bedroom. Under\r
+these circumstances, what could be better for the interests of all\r
+parties, sanitary considerations apart, than that the lodger should be\r
+Mr. Tom?\r
+\r
+It was Bob's wife who opened the door to Maggie. She was a tiny woman,\r
+with the general physiognomy of a Dutch doll, looking, in comparison\r
+with Bob's mother, who filled up the passage in the rear, very much\r
+like one of those human figures which the artist finds conveniently\r
+standing near a colossal statue to show the proportions. The tiny\r
+woman curtsied and looked up at Maggie with some awe as soon as she\r
+had opened the door; but the words, "Is my brother at home?" which\r
+Maggie uttered smilingly, made her turn round with sudden excitement,\r
+and say,--\r
+\r
+"Eh, mother, mother--tell Bob!--it's Miss Maggie! Come in, Miss, for\r
+goodness do," she went on, opening a side door, and endeavoring to\r
+flatten her person against the wall to make the utmost space for the\r
+visitor.\r
+\r
+Sad recollections crowded on Maggie as she entered the small parlor,\r
+which was now all that poor Tom had to call by the name of\r
+"home,"--that name which had once, so many years ago, meant for both\r
+of them the same sum of dear familiar objects. But everything was not\r
+strange to her in this new room; the first thing her eyes dwelt on was\r
+the large old Bible, and the sight was not likely to disperse the old\r
+memories. She stood without speaking.\r
+\r
+"If you please to take the privilege o' sitting down, Miss," said Mrs.\r
+Jakin, rubbing her apron over a perfectly clean chair, and then\r
+lifting up the corner of that garment and holding it to her face with\r
+an air of embarrassment, as she looked wonderingly at Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Bob is at home, then?" said Maggie, recovering herself, and smiling\r
+at the bashful Dutch doll.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Miss; but I think he must be washing and dressing himself; I'll\r
+go and see," said Mrs. Jakin, disappearing.\r
+\r
+But she presently came back walking with new courage a little way\r
+behind her husband, who showed the brilliancy of his blue eyes and\r
+regular white teeth in the doorway, bowing respectfully.\r
+\r
+"How do you do, Bob?" said Maggie, coming forward and putting out her\r
+hand to him; "I always meant to pay your wife a visit, and I shall\r
+come another day on purpose for that, if she will let me. But I was\r
+obliged to come to-day to speak to my brother."\r
+\r
+"He'll be in before long, Miss. He's doin' finely, Mr. Tom is; he'll\r
+be one o' the first men hereabouts,--you'll see that."\r
+\r
+"Well, Bob, I'm sure he'll be indebted to you, whatever he becomes; he\r
+said so himself only the other night, when he was talking of you."\r
+\r
+"Eh, Miss, that's his way o' takin' it. But I think the more on't when\r
+he says a thing, because his tongue doesn't overshoot him as mine\r
+does. Lors! I'm no better nor a tilted bottle, I ar'n't,--I can't stop\r
+mysen when once I begin. But you look rarely, Miss; it does me good to\r
+see you. What do you say now, Prissy?"--here Bob turned to his\r
+wife,--"Isn't it all come true as I said? Though there isn't many\r
+sorts o' goods as I can't over-praise when I set my tongue to't."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bob's small nose seemed to be following the example of her eyes\r
+in turning up reverentially toward Maggie, but she was able now to\r
+smile and curtsey, and say, "I'd looked forrard like aenything to\r
+seein' you, Miss, for my husband's tongue's been runnin' on you, like\r
+as if he was light-headed, iver since first he come a-courtin' on me."\r
+\r
+"Well, well," said Bob, looking rather silly. "Go an' see after the\r
+taters, else Mr. Tom 'ull have to wait for 'em."\r
+\r
+"I hope Mumps is friendly with Mrs. Jakin, Bob," said Maggie, smiling.\r
+"I remember you used to say he wouldn't like your marrying."\r
+\r
+"Eh, Miss," said Bob, "he made up his mind to't when he see'd what a\r
+little un she was. He pretends not to see her mostly, or else to think\r
+as she isn't full-growed. But about Mr. Tom, Miss," said Bob, speaking\r
+lower and looking serious, "he's as close as a iron biler, he is; but\r
+I'm a 'cutish chap, an' when I've left off carrying my pack, an' am at\r
+a loose end, I've got more brains nor I know what to do wi', an' I'm\r
+forced to busy myself wi' other folks's insides. An' it worrets me as\r
+Mr. Tom'll sit by himself so glumpish, a-knittin' his brow, an'\r
+a-lookin' at the fire of a night. He should be a bit livelier now, a\r
+fine young fellow like him. My wife says, when she goes in sometimes,\r
+an' he takes no notice of her, he sits lookin' into the fire, and\r
+frownin' as if he was watchin' folks at work in it."\r
+\r
+"He thinks so much about business," said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Ay," said Bob, speaking lower; "but do you think it's nothin' else,\r
+Miss? He's close, Mr. Tom is; but I'm a 'cute chap, I am, an' I\r
+thought tow'rt last Christmas as I'd found out a soft place in him. It\r
+was about a little black spaniel--a rare bit o' breed--as he made a\r
+fuss to get. But since then summat's come over him, as he's set his\r
+teeth again' things more nor iver, for all he's had such good luck.\r
+An' I wanted to tell _you_, Miss, 'cause I thought you might work it\r
+out of him a bit, now you're come. He's a deal too lonely, and doesn't\r
+go into company enough."\r
+\r
+"I'm afraid I have very little power over him, Bob," said Maggie, a\r
+good deal moved by Bob's suggestion. It was a totally new idea to her\r
+mind that Tom could have his love troubles. Poor fellow!--and in love\r
+with Lucy too! But it was perhaps a mere fancy of Bob's too officious\r
+brain. The present of the dog meant nothing more than cousinship and\r
+gratitude. But Bob had already said, "Here's Mr. Tom," and the outer\r
+door was opening.\r
+\r
+"There is no time to spare, Tom," said Maggie, as soon as Bob left the\r
+room. "I must tell you at once what I came about, else I shall be\r
+hindering you from taking your dinner."\r
+\r
+Tom stood with his back against the chimney-piece, and Maggie was\r
+seated opposite the light. He noticed that she was tremulous, and he\r
+had a presentiment of the subject she was going to speak about. The\r
+presentiment made his voice colder and harder as he said, "What is\r
+it?"\r
+\r
+This tone roused a spirit of resistance in Maggie, and she put her\r
+request in quite a different form from the one she had predetermined\r
+on. She rose from her seat, and looking straight at Tom, said,--\r
+\r
+"I want you to absolve me from my promise about Philip Wakem. Or\r
+rather, I promised you not to see him without telling you. I am come\r
+to tell you that I wish to see him."\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Tom, still more coldly.\r
+\r
+But Maggie had hardly finished speaking in that chill, defiant manner,\r
+before she repented, and felt the dread of alienation from her\r
+brother.\r
+\r
+"Not for myself, dear Tom. Don't be angry. I shouldn't have asked it,\r
+only that Philip, you know, is a friend of Lucy's and she wishes him\r
+to come, has invited him to come this evening; and I told her I\r
+couldn't see him without telling you. I shall only see him in the\r
+presence of other people. There will never be anything secret between\r
+us again."\r
+\r
+Tom looked away from Maggie, knitting his brow more strongly for a\r
+little while. Then he turned to her and said, slowly and\r
+emphatically,--\r
+\r
+"You know what is my feeling on that subject, Maggie. There is no need\r
+for my repeating anything I said a year ago. While my father was\r
+living, I felt bound to use the utmost power over you, to prevent you\r
+from disgracing him as well as yourself, and all of us. But now I must\r
+leave you to your own choice. You wish to be independent; you told me\r
+so after my father's death. My opinion is not changed. If you think of\r
+Philip Wakem as a lover again, you must give up me."\r
+\r
+"I don't wish it, dear Tom, at least as things are; I see that it\r
+would lead to misery. But I shall soon go away to another situation,\r
+and I should like to be friends with him again while I am here. Lucy\r
+wishes it."\r
+\r
+The severity of Tom's face relaxed a little.\r
+\r
+"I shouldn't mind your seeing him occasionally at my uncle's--I don't\r
+want you to make a fuss on the subject. But I have no confidence in\r
+you, Maggie. You would be led away to do anything."\r
+\r
+That was a cruel word. Maggie's lip began to tremble.\r
+\r
+"Why will you say that, Tom? It is very hard of you. Have I not done\r
+and borne everything as well as I could? And I kept my word to\r
+you--when--when----My life has not been a happy one, any more than\r
+yours."\r
+\r
+She was obliged to be childish; the tears would come. When Maggie was\r
+not angry, she was as dependent on kind or cold words as a daisy on\r
+the sunshine or the cloud; the need of being loved would always subdue\r
+her, as, in old days, it subdued her in the worm-eaten attic. The\r
+brother's goodness came uppermost at this appeal, but it could only\r
+show itself in Tom's fashion. He put his hand gently on her arm, and\r
+said, in the tone of a kind pedagogue,--\r
+\r
+"Now listen to me, Maggie. I'll tell you what I mean. You're always in\r
+extremes; you have no judgment and self-command; and yet you think you\r
+know best, and will not submit to be guided. You know I didn't wish\r
+you to take a situation. My aunt Pullet was willing to give you a good\r
+home, and you might have lived respectably amongst your relations,\r
+until I could have provided a home for you with my mother. And that is\r
+what I should like to do. I wished my sister to be a lady, and I\r
+always have taken care of you, as my father desired, until you were\r
+well married. But your ideas and mine never accord, and you will not\r
+give way. Yet you might have sense enough to see that a brother, who\r
+goes out into the world and mixes with men, necessarily knows better\r
+what is right and respectable for his sister than she can know\r
+herself. You think I am not kind; but my kindness can only be directed\r
+by what I believe to be good for you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I know, dear Tom," said Maggie, still half-sobbing, but trying\r
+to control her tears. "I know you would do a great deal for me; I know\r
+how you work, and don't spare yourself. I am grateful to you. But,\r
+indeed, you can't quite judge for me; our natures are very different.\r
+You don't know how differently things affect me from what they do\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I _do_ know; I know it too well. I know how differently you must\r
+feel about all that affects our family, and your own dignity as a\r
+young woman, before you could think of receiving secret addresses from\r
+Philip Wakem. If it was not disgusting to me in every other way, I\r
+should object to my sister's name being associated for a moment with\r
+that of a young man whose father must hate the very thought of us all,\r
+and would spurn you. With any one but you, I should think it quite\r
+certain that what you witnessed just before my father's death would\r
+secure you from ever thinking again of Philip Wakem as a lover. But I\r
+don't feel certain of it with you; I never feel certain about anything\r
+with _you_. At one time you take pleasure in a sort of perverse\r
+self-denial, and at another you have not resolution to resist a thing\r
+that you know to be wrong."\r
+\r
+There was a terrible cutting truth in Tom's words,--that hard rind of\r
+truth which is discerned by unimaginative, unsympathetic minds. Maggie\r
+always writhed under this judgment of Tom's; she rebelled and was\r
+humiliated in the same moment; it seemed as if he held a glass before\r
+her to show her her own folly and weakness, as if he were a prophetic\r
+voice predicting her future fallings; and yet, all the while, she\r
+judged him in return; she said inwardly that he was narrow and unjust,\r
+that he was below feeling those mental needs which were often the\r
+source of the wrong-doing or absurdity that made her life a planless\r
+riddle to him.\r
+\r
+She did not answer directly; her heart was too full, and she sat down,\r
+leaning her arm on the table. It was no use trying to make Tom feel\r
+that she was near to him. He always repelled her. Her feeling under\r
+his words was complicated by the allusion to the last scene between\r
+her father and Wakem; and at length that painful, solemn memory\r
+surmounted the immediate grievance. No! She did not think of such\r
+things with frivolous indifference, and Tom must not accuse her of\r
+that. She looked up at him with a grave, earnest gaze and said,--\r
+\r
+"I can't make you think better of me, Tom, by anything I can say. But\r
+I am not so shut out from all your feelings as you believe me to be. I\r
+see as well as you do that from our position with regard to Philip's\r
+father--not on other grounds--it would be unreasonable, it would be\r
+wrong, for us to entertain the idea of marriage; and I have given up\r
+thinking of him as a lover. I am telling you the truth, and you have\r
+no right to disbelieve me; I have kept my word to you, and you have\r
+never detected me in a falsehood. I should not only not encourage, I\r
+should carefully avoid, any intercourse with Philip on any other\r
+footing than of quiet friendship. You may think that I am unable to\r
+keep my resolutions; but at least you ought not to treat me with hard\r
+contempt on the ground of faults that I have not committed yet."\r
+\r
+"Well, Maggie," said Tom, softening under this appeal, "I don't want\r
+to overstrain matters. I think, all things considered, it will be best\r
+for you to see Philip Wakem, if Lucy wishes him to come to the house.\r
+I believe what you say,--at least you believe it yourself, I know; I\r
+can only warn you. I wish to be as good a brother to you as you will\r
+let me."\r
+\r
+There was a little tremor in Tom's voice as he uttered the last words,\r
+and Maggie's ready affection came back with as sudden a glow as when\r
+they were children, and bit their cake together as a sacrament of\r
+conciliation. She rose and laid her hand on Tom's shoulder.\r
+\r
+"Dear Tom, I know you mean to be good. I know you have had a great\r
+deal to bear, and have done a great deal. I should like to be a\r
+comfort to you, not to vex you. You don't think I'm altogether\r
+naughty, now, do you?"\r
+\r
+Tom smiled at the eager face; his smiles were very pleasant to see\r
+when they did come, for the gray eyes could be tender underneath the\r
+frown.\r
+\r
+"No, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"I may turn out better than you expect."\r
+\r
+"I hope you will."\r
+\r
+"And may I come some day and make tea for you, and see this extremely\r
+small wife of Bob's again?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; but trot away now, for I've no more time to spare," said Tom,\r
+looking at his watch.\r
+\r
+"Not to give me a kiss?"\r
+\r
+Tom bent to kiss her cheek, and then said,--\r
+\r
+"There! Be a good girl. I've got a great deal to think of to-day. I'm\r
+going to have a long consultation with my uncle Deane this afternoon."\r
+\r
+"You'll come to aunt Glegg's to-morrow? We're going all to dine early,\r
+that we may go there to tea. You _must_ come; Lucy told me to say so."\r
+\r
+"Oh, pooh! I've plenty else to do," said Tom, pulling his bell\r
+violently, and bringing down the small bell-rope.\r
+\r
+"I'm frightened; I shall run away," said Maggie, making a laughing\r
+retreat; while Tom, with masculine philosophy, flung the bell-rope to\r
+the farther end of the room; not very far either,--a touch of human\r
+experience which I flatter myself will come home to the bosoms of not\r
+a few substantial or distinguished men who were once at an early stage\r
+of their rise in the world, and were cherishing very large hopes in\r
+very small lodgings.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster\r
+\r
+\r
+"And now we've settled this Newcastle business, Tom," said Mr. Deane,\r
+that same afternoon, as they were seated in the private room at the\r
+Bank together, "there's another matter I want to talk to you about.\r
+Since you're likely to have rather a smoky, unpleasant time of it at\r
+Newcastle for the next few weeks, you'll want a good prospect of some\r
+sort to keep up your spirits."\r
+\r
+Tom waited less nervously than he had done on a former occasion in\r
+this apartment, while his uncle took out his snuff-box and gratified\r
+each nostril with deliberate impartiality.\r
+\r
+"You see, Tom," said Mr. Deane at last, throwing himself backward,\r
+"the world goes on at a smarter pace now than it did when I was a\r
+young fellow. Why, sir, forty years ago, when I was much such a\r
+strapping youngster as you, a man expected to pull between the shafts\r
+the best part of his life, before he got the whip in his hand. The\r
+looms went slowish, and fashions didn't alter quite so fast; I'd a\r
+best suit that lasted me six years. Everything was on a lower scale,\r
+sir,--in point of expenditure, I mean. It's this steam, you see, that\r
+has made the difference; it drives on every wheel double pace, and the\r
+wheel of fortune along with 'em, as our Mr. Stephen Guest said at the\r
+anniversary dinner (he hits these things off wonderfully, considering\r
+he's seen nothing of business). I don't find fault with the change, as\r
+some people do. Trade, sir, opens a man's eyes; and if the population\r
+is to get thicker upon the ground, as it's doing, the world must use\r
+its wits at inventions of one sort or other. I know I've done my share\r
+as an ordinary man of business. Somebody has said it's a fine thing to\r
+make two ears of corn grow where only one grew before; but, sir, it's\r
+a fine thing, too, to further the exchange of commodities, and bring\r
+the grains of corn to the mouths that are hungry. And that's our line\r
+of business; and I consider it as honorable a position as a man can\r
+hold, to be connected with it."\r
+\r
+Tom knew that the affair his uncle had to speak of was not urgent; Mr.\r
+Deane was too shrewd and practical a man to allow either his\r
+reminiscences or his snuff to impede the progress of trade. Indeed,\r
+for the last month or two, there had been hints thrown out to Tom\r
+which enabled him to guess that he was going to hear some proposition\r
+for his own benefit. With the beginning of the last speech he had\r
+stretched out his legs, thrust his hands in his pockets, and prepared\r
+himself for some introductory diffuseness, tending to show that Mr.\r
+Deane had succeeded by his own merit, and that what he had to say to\r
+young men in general was, that if they didn't succeed too it was\r
+because of their own demerit. He was rather surprised, then, when his\r
+uncle put a direct question to him.\r
+\r
+"Let me see,--it's going on for seven years now since you applied to\r
+me for a situation, eh, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir; I'm three-and-twenty now," said Tom.\r
+\r
+"Ah, it's as well not to say that, though; for you'd pass for a good\r
+deal older, and age tells well in business. I remember your coming\r
+very well; I remember I saw there was some pluck in you, and that was\r
+what made me give you encouragement. And I'm happy to say I was right;\r
+I'm not often deceived. I was naturally a little shy at pushing my\r
+nephew, but I'm happy to say you've done me credit, sir; and if I'd\r
+had a son o' my own, I shouldn't have been sorry to see him like you."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane tapped his box and opened it again, repeating in a tone of\r
+some feeling, "No, I shouldn't have been sorry to see him like you."\r
+\r
+"I'm very glad I've given you satisfaction, sir; I've done my best,"\r
+said Tom, in his proud, independent way.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Tom, you've given me satisfaction. I don't speak of your conduct\r
+as a son; though that weighs with me in my opinion of you. But what I\r
+have to do with, as a partner in our firm, is the qualities you've\r
+shown as a man o' business. Ours is a fine business,--a splendid\r
+concern, sir,--and there's no reason why it shouldn't go on growing;\r
+there's a growing capital, and growing outlets for it; but there's\r
+another thing that's wanted for the prosperity of every concern, large\r
+or small, and that's men to conduct it,--men of the right habits; none\r
+o' your flashy fellows, but such as are to be depended on. Now this is\r
+what Mr. Guest and I see clear enough. Three years ago we took Gell\r
+into the concern; we gave him a share in the oil-mill. And why? Why,\r
+because Gell was a fellow whose services were worth a premium. So it\r
+will always be, sir. So it was with me. And though Gell is pretty near\r
+ten years older than you, there are other points in your favor."\r
+\r
+Tom was getting a little nervous as Mr. Deane went on speaking; he was\r
+conscious of something he had in his mind to say, which might not be\r
+agreeable to his uncle, simply because it was a new suggestion rather\r
+than an acceptance of the proposition he foresaw.\r
+\r
+"It stands to reason," Mr. Deane went on, when he had finished his new\r
+pinch, "that your being my nephew weighs in your favor; but I don't\r
+deny that if you'd been no relation of mine at all, your conduct in\r
+that affair of Pelley's bank would have led Mr. Guest and myself to\r
+make some acknowledgment of the service you've been to us; and, backed\r
+by your general conduct and business ability, it has made us determine\r
+on giving you a share in the business,--a share which we shall be glad\r
+to increase as the years go on. We think that'll be better, on all\r
+grounds, than raising your salary. It'll give you more importance, and\r
+prepare you better for taking some of the anxiety off my shoulders by\r
+and by. I'm equal to a good deal o' work at present, thank God; but\r
+I'm getting older,--there's no denying that. I told Mr. Guest I would\r
+open the subject to you; and when you come back from this northern\r
+business, we can go into particulars. This is a great stride for a\r
+young fellow of three-and-twenty, but I'm bound to say you've deserved\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"I'm very grateful to Mr. Guest and you, sir; of course I feel the\r
+most indebted to _you_, who first took me into the business, and have\r
+taken a good deal of pains with me since."\r
+\r
+Tom spoke with a slight tremor, and paused after he had said this.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," said Mr. Deane. "I don't spare pains when I see they'll be\r
+of any use. I gave myself some trouble with Gell, else he wouldn't\r
+have been what he is."\r
+\r
+"But there's one thing I should like to mention to you uncle. I've\r
+never spoken to you of it before. If you remember, at the time my\r
+father's property was sold, there was some thought of your firm buying\r
+the Mill; I know you thought it would be a very good investment,\r
+especially if steam were applied."\r
+\r
+"To be sure, to be sure. But Wakem outbid us; he'd made up his mind to\r
+that. He's rather fond of carrying everything over other people's\r
+heads."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps it's of no use my mentioning it at present," Tom went on,\r
+"but I wish you to know what I have in my mind about the Mill. I've a\r
+strong feeling about it. It was my father's dying wish that I should\r
+try and get it back again whenever I could; it was in his family for\r
+five generations. I promised my father; and besides that, I'm attached\r
+to the place. I shall never like any other so well. And if it should\r
+ever suit your views to buy it for the firm, I should have a better\r
+chance of fulfilling my father's wish. I shouldn't have liked to\r
+mention the thing to you, only you've been kind enough to say my\r
+services have been of some value. And I'd give up a much greater\r
+chance in life for the sake of having the Mill again,--I mean having\r
+it in my own hands, and gradually working off the price."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane had listened attentively, and now looked thoughtful.\r
+\r
+"I see, I see," he said, after a while; "the thing would be possible\r
+if there were any chance of Wakem's parting with the property. But\r
+that I _don't_ see. He's put that young Jetsome in the place; and he\r
+had his reasons when he bought it, I'll be bound."\r
+\r
+"He's a loose fish, that young Jetsome," said Tom. "He's taking to\r
+drinking, and they say he's letting the business go down. Luke told me\r
+about it,--our old miller. He says he sha'n't stay unless there's an\r
+alteration. I was thinking, if things went on that way, Wakem might be\r
+more willing to part with the Mill. Luke says he's getting very sour\r
+about the way things are going on."\r
+\r
+"Well, I'll turn it over, Tom. I must inquire into the matter, and go\r
+into it with Mr. Guest. But, you see, it's rather striking out a new\r
+branch, and putting you to that, instead of keeping you where you are,\r
+which was what we'd wanted."\r
+\r
+"I should be able to manage more than the Mill when things were once\r
+set properly going, sir. I want to have plenty of work. There's\r
+nothing else I care about much."\r
+\r
+There was something rather sad in that speech from a young man of\r
+three-and-twenty, even in uncle Deane's business-loving ears.\r
+\r
+"Pooh, pooh! you'll be having a wife to care about one of these days,\r
+if you get on at this pace in the world. But as to this Mill, we\r
+mustn't reckon on our chickens too early. However, I promise you to\r
+bear it in mind, and when you come back we'll talk of it again. I am\r
+going to dinner now. Come and breakfast with us to-morrow morning, and\r
+say good-bye to your mother and sister before you start."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VI\r
+\r
+Illustrating the Laws of Attraction\r
+\r
+It is evident to you now that Maggie had arrived at a moment in her\r
+life which must be considered by all prudent persons as a great\r
+opportunity for a young woman. Launched into the higher society of St.\r
+Ogg's, with a striking person, which had the advantage of being quite\r
+unfamiliar to the majority of beholders, and with such moderate\r
+assistance of costume as you have seen foreshadowed in Lucy's anxious\r
+colloquy with aunt Pullet, Maggie was certainly at a new\r
+starting-point in life. At Lucy's first evening party, young Torry\r
+fatigued his facial muscles more than usual in order that "the\r
+dark-eyed girl there in the corner" might see him in all the\r
+additional style conferred by his eyeglass; and several young ladies\r
+went home intending to have short sleeves with black lace, and to\r
+plait their hair in a broad coronet at the back of their head,--"That\r
+cousin of Miss Deane's looked so very well." In fact, poor Maggie,\r
+with all her inward consciousness of a painful past and her\r
+presentiment of a troublous future, was on the way to become an object\r
+of some envy,--a topic of discussion in the newly established\r
+billiard-room, and between fair friends who had no secrets from each\r
+other on the subject of trimmings. The Miss Guests, who associated\r
+chiefly on terms of condescension with the families of St. Ogg's, and\r
+were the glass of fashion there, took some exception to Maggie's\r
+manners. She had a way of not assenting at once to the observations\r
+current in good society, and of saying that she didn't know whether\r
+those observations were true or not, which gave her an air of\r
+_gaucherie_, and impeded the even flow of conversation; but it is a\r
+fact capable of an amiable interpretation that ladies are not the\r
+worst disposed toward a new acquaintance of their own sex because she\r
+has points of inferiority. And Maggie was so entirely without those\r
+pretty airs of coquetry which have the traditional reputation of\r
+driving gentlemen to despair that she won some feminine pity for being\r
+so ineffective in spite of her beauty. She had not had many\r
+advantages, poor thing! and it must be admitted there was no\r
+pretension about her; her abruptness and unevenness of manner were\r
+plainly the result of her secluded and lowly circumstances. It was\r
+only a wonder that there was no tinge of vulgarity about her,\r
+considering what the rest of poor Lucy's relations were--an allusion\r
+which always made the Miss Guests shudder a little. It was not\r
+agreeable to think of any connection by marriage with such people as\r
+the Gleggs and the Pullets; but it was of no use to contradict Stephen\r
+when once he had set his mind on anything, and certainly there was no\r
+possible objection to Lucy in herself,--no one could help liking her.\r
+She would naturally desire that the Miss Guests should behave kindly\r
+to this cousin of whom she was so fond, and Stephen would make a great\r
+fuss if they were deficient in civility. Under these circumstances the\r
+invitations to Park House were not wanting; and elsewhere, also, Miss\r
+Deane was too popular and too distinguished a member of society in St.\r
+Ogg's for any attention toward her to be neglected.\r
+\r
+Thus Maggie was introduced for the first time to the young lady's\r
+life, and knew what it was to get up in the morning without any\r
+imperative reason for doing one thing more than another. This new\r
+sense of leisure and unchecked enjoyment amidst the soft-breathing\r
+airs and garden-scents of advancing spring--amidst the new abundance\r
+of music, and lingering strolls in the sunshine, and the delicious\r
+dreaminess of gliding on the river--could hardly be without some\r
+intoxicating effect on her, after her years of privation; and even in\r
+the first week Maggie began to be less haunted by her sad memories and\r
+anticipations. Life was certainly very pleasant just now; it was\r
+becoming very pleasant to dress in the evening, and to feel that she\r
+was one of the beautiful things of this spring-time. And there were\r
+admiring eyes always awaiting her now; she was no longer an unheeded\r
+person, liable to be chid, from whom attention was continually\r
+claimed, and on whom no one felt bound to confer any. It was pleasant,\r
+too, when Stephen and Lucy were gone out riding, to sit down at the\r
+piano alone, and find that the old fitness between her fingers and the\r
+keys remained, and revived, like a sympathetic kinship not to be worn\r
+out by separation; to get the tunes she had heard the evening before,\r
+and repeat them again and again until she had found out a way of\r
+producing them so as to make them a more pregnant, passionate language\r
+to her. The mere concord of octaves was a delight to Maggie, and she\r
+would often take up a book of studies rather than any melody, that she\r
+might taste more keenly by abstraction the more primitive sensation of\r
+intervals. Not that her enjoyment of music was of the kind that\r
+indicates a great specific talent; it was rather that her sensibility\r
+to the supreme excitement of music was only one form of that\r
+passionate sensibility which belonged to her whole nature, and made\r
+her faults and virtues all merge in each other; made her affections\r
+sometimes an impatient demand, but also prevented her vanity from\r
+taking the form of mere feminine coquetry and device, and gave it the\r
+poetry of ambition. But you have known Maggie a long while, and need\r
+to be told, not her characteristics, but her history, which is a thing\r
+hardly to be predicted even from the completest knowledge of\r
+characteristics. For the tragedy of our lives is not created entirely\r
+from within. "Character," says Novalis, in one of his questionable\r
+aphorisms,--"character is destiny." But not the whole of our destiny.\r
+Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was speculative and irresolute, and we have\r
+a great tragedy in consequence. But if his father had lived to a good\r
+old age, and his uncle had died an early death, we can conceive\r
+Hamlet's having married Ophelia, and got through life with a\r
+reputation of sanity, notwithstanding many soliloquies, and some moody\r
+sarcasms toward the fair daughter of Polonius, to say nothing of the\r
+frankest incivility to his father-in-law.\r
+\r
+Maggie's destiny, then, is at present hidden, and we must wait for it\r
+to reveal itself like the course of an unmapped river; we only know\r
+that the river is full and rapid, and that for all rivers there is the\r
+same final home. Under the charm of her new pleasures, Maggie herself\r
+was ceasing to think, with her eager prefiguring imagination, of her\r
+future lot; and her anxiety about her first interview with Philip was\r
+losing its predominance; perhaps, unconsciously to herself, she was\r
+not sorry that the interview had been deferred.\r
+\r
+For Philip had not come the evening he was expected, and Mr. Stephen\r
+Guest brought word that he was gone to the coast,--probably, he\r
+thought, on a sketching expedition; but it was not certain when he\r
+would return. It was just like Philip, to go off in that way without\r
+telling any one. It was not until the twelfth day that he returned, to\r
+find both Lucy's notes awaiting him; he had left before he knew of\r
+Maggie's arrival.\r
+\r
+Perhaps one had need be nineteen again to be quite convinced of the\r
+feelings that were crowded for Maggie into those twelve days; of the\r
+length to which they were stretched for her by the novelty of her\r
+experience in them, and the varying attitudes of her mind. The early\r
+days of an acquaintance almost always have this importance for us, and\r
+fill up a larger space in our memory than longer subsequent periods,\r
+which have been less filled with discovery and new impressions. There\r
+were not many hours in those ten days in which Mr. Stephen Guest was\r
+not seated by Lucy's side, or standing near her at the piano, or\r
+accompanying her on some outdoor excursion; his attentions were\r
+clearly becoming more assiduous, and that was what every one had\r
+expected. Lucy was very happy, all the happier because Stephen's\r
+society seemed to have become much more interesting and amusing since\r
+Maggie had been there. Playful discussions--sometimes serious\r
+ones--were going forward, in which both Stephen and Maggie revealed\r
+themselves, to the admiration of the gentle, unobtrusive Lucy; and it\r
+more than once crossed her mind what a charming quartet they should\r
+have through life when Maggie married Philip. Is it an inexplicable\r
+thing that a girl should enjoy her lover's society the more for the\r
+presence of a third person, and be without the slightest spasm of\r
+jealousy that the third person had the conversation habitually\r
+directed to her? Not when that girl is as tranquil-hearted as Lucy,\r
+thoroughly possessed with a belief that she knows the state of her\r
+companions' affections, and not prone to the feelings which shake such\r
+a belief in the absence of positive evidence against it. Besides, it\r
+was Lucy by whom Stephen sat, to whom he gave his arm, to whom he\r
+appealed as the person sure to agree with him; and every day there was\r
+the same tender politeness toward her, the same consciousness of her\r
+wants and care to supply them. Was there really the same? It seemed to\r
+Lucy that there was more; and it was no wonder that the real\r
+significance of the change escaped her. It was a subtle act of\r
+conscience in Stephen that even he himself was not aware of. His\r
+personal attentions to Maggie were comparatively slight, and there had\r
+even sprung up an apparent distance between them, that prevented the\r
+renewal of that faint resemblance to gallantry into which he had\r
+fallen the first day in the boat. If Stephen came in when Lucy was out\r
+of the room, if Lucy left them together, they never spoke to each\r
+other; Stephen, perhaps, seemed to be examining books or music, and\r
+Maggie bent her head assiduously over her work. Each was oppressively\r
+conscious of the other's presence, even to the finger-ends. Yet each\r
+looked and longed for the same thing to happen the next day. Neither\r
+of them had begun to reflect on the matter, or silently to ask, "To\r
+what does all this tend?" Maggie only felt that life was revealing\r
+something quite new to her; and she was absorbed in the direct,\r
+immediate experience, without any energy left for taking account of it\r
+and reasoning about it. Stephen wilfully abstained from\r
+self-questioning, and would not admit to himself that he felt an\r
+influence which was to have any determining effect on his conduct. And\r
+when Lucy came into the room again, they were once more unconstrained;\r
+Maggie could contradict Stephen, and laugh at him, and he could\r
+recommend to her consideration the example of that most charming\r
+heroine, Miss Sophia Western, who had a great "respect for the\r
+understandings of men." Maggie could look at Stephen, which, for some\r
+reason or other she always avoided when they were alone; and he could\r
+even ask her to play his accompaniment for him, since Lucy's fingers\r
+were so busy with that bazaar-work, and lecture her on hurrying the\r
+tempo, which was certainly Maggie's weak point.\r
+\r
+One day--it was the day of Philip's return--Lucy had formed a sudden\r
+engagement to spend the evening with Mrs. Kenn, whose delicate state\r
+of health, threatening to become confirmed illness through an attack\r
+of bronchitis, obliged her to resign her functions at the coming\r
+bazaar into the hands of other ladies, of whom she wished Lucy to be\r
+one. The engagement had been formed in Stephen's presence, and he had\r
+heard Lucy promise to dine early and call at six o'clock for Miss\r
+Torry, who brought Mrs. Kenn's request.\r
+\r
+"Here is another of the moral results of this idiotic bazaar," Stephen\r
+burst forth, as soon as Miss Torry had left the room,--"taking young\r
+ladies from the duties of the domestic hearth into scenes of\r
+dissipation among urn-rugs and embroidered reticules! I should like to\r
+know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make\r
+reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for\r
+bachelors to go out. If this goes on much longer, the bonds of society\r
+will be dissolved."\r
+\r
+"Well, it will not go on much longer," said Lucy, laughing, "for the\r
+bazaar is to take place on Monday week."\r
+\r
+"Thank Heaven!" said Stephen. "Kenn himself said the other day that he\r
+didn't like this plan of making vanity do the work of charity; but\r
+just as the British public is not reasonable enough to bear direct\r
+taxation, so St. Ogg's has not got force of motive enough to build and\r
+endow schools without calling in the force of folly."\r
+\r
+"Did he say so?" said little Lucy, her hazel eyes opening wide with\r
+anxiety. "I never heard him say anything of that kind; I thought he\r
+approved of what we were doing."\r
+\r
+"I'm sure he approves _you_," said Stephen, smiling at her\r
+affectionately; "your conduct in going out to-night looks vicious, I\r
+own, but I know there is benevolence at the bottom of it."\r
+\r
+"Oh, you think too well of me," said Lucy, shaking her head, with a\r
+pretty blush, and there the subject ended. But it was tacitly\r
+understood that Stephen would not come in the evening; and on the\r
+strength of that tacit understanding he made his morning visit the\r
+longer, not saying good-bye until after four.\r
+\r
+Maggie was seated in the drawing-room, alone, shortly after dinner,\r
+with Minny on her lap, having left her uncle to his wine and his nap,\r
+and her mother to the compromise between knitting and nodding, which,\r
+when there was no company, she always carried on in the dining-room\r
+till tea-time. Maggie was stooping to caress the tiny silken pet, and\r
+comforting him for his mistress's absence, when the sound of a\r
+footstep on the gravel made her look up, and she saw Mr. Stephen Guest\r
+walking up the garden, as if he had come straight from the river. It\r
+was very unusual to see him so soon after dinner! He often complained\r
+that their dinner-hour was late at Park House. Nevertheless, there he\r
+was, in his black dress; he had evidently been home, and must have\r
+come again by the river. Maggie felt her cheeks glowing and her heart\r
+beating; it was natural she should be nervous, for she was not\r
+accustomed to receive visitors alone. He had seen her look up through\r
+the open window, and raised his hat as he walked toward it, to enter\r
+that way instead of by the door. He blushed too, and certainly looked\r
+as foolish as a young man of some wit and self-possession can be\r
+expected to look, as he walked in with a roll of music in his hand,\r
+and said, with an air of hesitating improvisation,--\r
+\r
+"You are surprised to see me again, Miss Tulliver; I ought to\r
+apologize for coming upon you by surprise, but I wanted to come into\r
+the town, and I got our man to row me; so I thought I would bring\r
+these things from the 'Maid of Artois' for your cousin; I forgot them\r
+this morning. Will you give them to her?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie, who had risen confusedly with Minny in her arms,\r
+and now, not quite knowing what else to do, sat down again.\r
+\r
+Stephen laid down his hat, with the music, which rolled on the floor,\r
+and sat down in the chair close by her. He had never done so before,\r
+and both he and Maggie were quite aware that it was an entirely new\r
+position.\r
+\r
+"Well, you pampered minion!" said Stephen, leaning to pull the long\r
+curly ears that drooped over Maggie's arm. It was not a suggestive\r
+remark, and as the speaker did not follow it up by further\r
+development, it naturally left the conversation at a standstill. It\r
+seemed to Stephen like some action in a dream that he was obliged to\r
+do, and wonder at himself all the while,--to go on stroking Minny's\r
+head. Yet it was very pleasant; he only wished he dared look at\r
+Maggie, and that she would look at him,--let him have one long look\r
+into those deep, strange eyes of hers, and then he would be satisfied\r
+and quite reasonable after that. He thought it was becoming a sort of\r
+monomania with him, to want that long look from Maggie; and he was\r
+racking his invention continually to find out some means by which he\r
+could have it without its appearing singular and entailing subsequent\r
+embarrassment. As for Maggie, she had no distinct thought, only the\r
+sense of a presence like that of a closely hovering broad-winged bird\r
+in the darkness, for she was unable to look up, and saw nothing but\r
+Minny's black wavy coat.\r
+\r
+But this must end some time, perhaps it ended very soon, and only\r
+_seemed_ long, as a minute's dream does. Stephen at last sat upright\r
+sideways in his chair, leaning one hand and arm over the back and\r
+looking at Maggie. What should he say?\r
+\r
+"We shall have a splendid sunset, I think; sha'n't you go out and see\r
+it?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Maggie. Then courageously raising her eyes and\r
+looking out of the window, "if I'm not playing cribbage with my\r
+uncle."\r
+\r
+A pause; during which Minny is stroked again, but has sufficient\r
+insight not to be grateful for it, to growl rather.\r
+\r
+"Do you like sitting alone?"\r
+\r
+A rather arch look came over Maggie's face, and, just glancing at\r
+Stephen, she said, "Would it be quite civil to say 'yes'?"\r
+\r
+"It _was_ rather a dangerous question for an intruder to ask," said\r
+Stephen, delighted with that glance, and getting determined to stay\r
+for another. "But you will have more than half an hour to yourself\r
+after I am gone," he added, taking out his watch. "I know Mr. Deane\r
+never comes in till half-past seven."\r
+\r
+Another pause, during which Maggie looked steadily out of the window,\r
+till by a great effort she moved her head to look down at Minny's back\r
+again, and said,--\r
+\r
+"I wish Lucy had not been obliged to go out. We lose our music."\r
+\r
+"We shall have a new voice to-morrow night," said Stephen. "Will you\r
+tell your cousin that our friend Philip Wakem is come back? I saw him\r
+as I went home."\r
+\r
+Maggie gave a little start,--it seemed hardly more than a vibration\r
+that passed from head to foot in an instant. But the new images\r
+summoned by Philip's name dispersed half the oppressive spell she had\r
+been under. She rose from her chair with a sudden resolution, and\r
+laying Minny on his cushion, went to reach Lucy's large work-basket\r
+from its corner. Stephen was vexed and disappointed; he thought\r
+perhaps Maggie didn't like the name of Wakem to be mentioned to her in\r
+that abrupt way, for he now recalled what Lucy had told him of the\r
+family quarrel. It was of no use to stay any longer. Maggie was\r
+seating herself at the table with her work, and looking chill and\r
+proud; and he--he looked like a simpleton for having come. A\r
+gratuitous, entirely superfluous visit of that sort was sure to make a\r
+man disagreeable and ridiculous. Of course it was palpable to Maggie's\r
+thinking that he had dined hastily in his own room for the sake of\r
+setting off again and finding her alone.\r
+\r
+A boyish state of mind for an accomplished young gentleman of\r
+five-and-twenty, not without legal knowledge! But a reference to\r
+history, perhaps, may make it not incredible.\r
+\r
+At this moment Maggie's ball of knitting-wool rolled along the ground,\r
+and she started up to reach it. Stephen rose too, and picking up the\r
+ball, met her with a vexed, complaining look that gave his eyes quite\r
+a new expression to Maggie, whose own eyes met them as he presented\r
+the ball to her.\r
+\r
+"Good-bye," said Stephen, in a tone that had the same beseeching\r
+discontent as his eyes. He dared not put out his hand; he thrust both\r
+hands into his tail-pockets as he spoke. Maggie thought she had\r
+perhaps been rude.\r
+\r
+"Won't you stay?" she said timidly, not looking away, for that would\r
+have seemed rude again.\r
+\r
+"No, thank you," said Stephen, looking still into the half-unwilling,\r
+half-fascinated eyes, as a thirsty man looks toward the track of the\r
+distant brook. "The boat is waiting for me. You'll tell your cousin?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"That I brought the music, I mean?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"And that Philip is come back?"\r
+\r
+"Yes." (Maggie did not notice Philip's name this time.)\r
+\r
+"Won't you come out a little way into the garden?" said Stephen, in a\r
+still gentler tone; but the next moment he was vexed that she did not\r
+say "No," for she moved away now toward the open window, and he was\r
+obliged to take his hat and walk by her side. But he thought of\r
+something to make him amends.\r
+\r
+"Do take my arm," he said, in a low tone, as if it were a secret.\r
+\r
+There is something strangely winning to most women in that offer of\r
+the firm arm; the help is not wanted physically at that moment, but\r
+the sense of help, the presence of strength that is outside them and\r
+yet theirs, meets a continual want of the imagination. Either on that\r
+ground or some other, Maggie took the arm. And they walked together\r
+round the grassplot and under the drooping green of the laburnums, in\r
+the same dim, dreamy state as they had been in a quarter of an hour\r
+before; only that Stephen had had the look he longed for, without yet\r
+perceiving in himself the symptoms of returning reasonableness, and\r
+Maggie had darting thoughts across the dimness,--how came he to be\r
+there? Why had she come out? Not a word was spoken. If it had been,\r
+each would have been less intensely conscious of the other.\r
+\r
+"Take care of this step," said Stephen at last.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I will go in now," said Maggie, feeling that the step had come\r
+like a rescue. "Good-evening."\r
+\r
+In an instant she had withdrawn her arm, and was running back to the\r
+house. She did not reflect that this sudden action would only add to\r
+the embarrassing recollections of the last half-hour. She had no\r
+thought left for that. She only threw herself into the low arm-chair,\r
+and burst into tears.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Philip, Philip, I wish we were together again--so quietly--in the\r
+Red Deeps."\r
+\r
+Stephen looked after her a moment, then went on to the boat, and was\r
+soon landed at the wharf. He spent the evening in the billiard-room,\r
+smoking one cigar after another, and losing "lives" at pool. But he\r
+would not leave off. He was determined not to think,--not to admit any\r
+more distinct remembrance than was urged upon him by the perpetual\r
+presence of Maggie. He was looking at her, and she was on his arm.\r
+\r
+But there came the necessity of walking home in the cool starlight,\r
+and with it the necessity of cursing his own folly, and bitterly\r
+determining that he would never trust himself alone with Maggie again.\r
+It was all madness; he was in love, thoroughly attached to Lucy, and\r
+engaged,--engaged as strongly as an honorable man need be. He wished\r
+he had never seen this Maggie Tulliver, to be thrown into a fever by\r
+her in this way; she would make a sweet, strange, troublesome,\r
+adorable wife to some man or other, but he would never have chosen her\r
+himself. Did she feel as he did? He hoped she did--not. He ought not\r
+to have gone. He would master himself in future. He would make himself\r
+disagreeable to her, quarrel with her perhaps. Quarrel with her? Was\r
+it possible to quarrel with a creature who had such eyes,--defying and\r
+deprecating, contradicting and clinging, imperious and beseeching,--\r
+full of delicious opposites? To see such a creature subdued by love\r
+for one would be a lot worth having--to another man.\r
+\r
+There was a muttered exclamation which ended this inward soliloquy, as\r
+Stephen threw away the end of his last cigar, and thrusting his hands\r
+into his pockets, stalked along at a quieter pace through the\r
+shrubbery. It was not of a benedictory kind.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VII\r
+\r
+Philip Re-enters\r
+\r
+\r
+The next morning was very wet,--the sort of morning on which male\r
+neighbors who have no imperative occupation at home are likely to pay\r
+their fair friends an illimitable visit. The rain, which has been\r
+endurable enough for the walk or ride one way, is sure to become so\r
+heavy, and at the same time so certain to clear up by and by, that\r
+nothing but an open quarrel can abbreviate the visit; latent\r
+detestation will not do at all. And if people happen to be lovers,\r
+what can be so delightful, in England, as a rainy morning? English\r
+sunshine is dubious; bonnets are never quite secure; and if you sit\r
+down on the grass, it may lead to catarrhs. But the rain is to be\r
+depended on. You gallop through it in a mackintosh, and presently find\r
+yourself in the seat you like best,--a little above or a little below\r
+the one on which your goddess sits (it is the same thing to the\r
+metaphysical mind, and that is the reason why women are at once\r
+worshipped and looked down upon), with a satisfactory confidence that\r
+there will be no lady-callers.\r
+\r
+"Stephen will come earlier this morning, I know," said Lucy; "he\r
+always does when it's rainy."\r
+\r
+Maggie made no answer. She was angry with Stephen; she began to think\r
+she should dislike him; and if it had not been for the rain, she would\r
+have gone to her aunt Glegg's this morning, and so have avoided him\r
+altogether. As it was, she must find some reason for remaining out of\r
+the room with her mother.\r
+\r
+But Stephen did not come earlier, and there was another visitor--a\r
+nearer neighbor--who preceded him. When Philip entered the room, he\r
+was going merely to bow to Maggie, feeling that their acquaintance was\r
+a secret which he was bound not to betray; but when she advanced\r
+toward him and put out her hand, he guessed at once that Lucy had been\r
+taken into her confidence. It was a moment of some agitation to both,\r
+though Philip had spent many hours in preparing for it; but like all\r
+persons who have passed through life with little expectation of\r
+sympathy, he seldom lost his self-control, and shrank with the most\r
+sensitive pride from any noticeable betrayal of emotion. A little\r
+extra paleness, a little tension of the nostril when he spoke, and the\r
+voice pitched in rather a higher key, that to strangers would seem\r
+expressive of cold indifference, were all the signs Philip usually\r
+gave of an inward drama that was not without its fierceness. But\r
+Maggie, who had little more power of concealing the impressions made\r
+upon her than if she had been constructed of musical strings, felt her\r
+eyes getting larger with tears as they took each other's hands in\r
+silence. They were not painful tears; they had rather something of the\r
+same origin as the tears women and children shed when they have found\r
+some protection to cling to and look back on the threatened danger.\r
+For Philip, who a little while ago was associated continually in\r
+Maggie's mind with the sense that Tom might reproach her with some\r
+justice, had now, in this short space, become a sort of outward\r
+conscience to her, that she might fly to for rescue and strength. Her\r
+tranquil, tender affection for Philip, with its root deep down in her\r
+childhood, and its memories of long quiet talk confirming by distinct\r
+successive impressions the first instinctive bias,--the fact that in\r
+him the appeal was more strongly to her pity and womanly devotedness\r
+than to her vanity or other egoistic excitability of her\r
+nature,--seemed now to make a sort of sacred place, a sanctuary where\r
+she could find refuge from an alluring influence which the best part\r
+of herself must resist; which must bring horrible tumult within,\r
+wretchedness without. This new sense of her relation to Philip\r
+nullified the anxious scruples she would otherwise have felt, lest she\r
+should overstep the limit of intercourse with him that Tom would\r
+sanction; and she put out her hand to him, and felt the tears in her\r
+eyes without any consciousness of an inward check. The scene was just\r
+what Lucy expected, and her kind heart delighted in bringing Philip\r
+and Maggie together again; though, even with all _her_ regard for\r
+Philip, she could not resist the impression that her cousin Tom had\r
+some excuse for feeling shocked at the physical incongruity between\r
+the two,--a prosaic person like cousin Tom, who didn't like poetry and\r
+fairy tales. But she began to speak as soon as possible, to set them\r
+at ease.\r
+\r
+"This was very good and virtuous of you," she said, in her pretty\r
+treble, like the low conversational notes of little birds, "to come so\r
+soon after your arrival. And as it is, I think I will pardon you for\r
+running away in an inopportune manner, and giving your friends no\r
+notice. Come and sit down here," she went on, placing the chair that\r
+would suit him best, "and you shall find yourself treated mercifully."\r
+\r
+"You will never govern well, Miss Deane," said Philip, as he seated\r
+himself, "because no one will ever believe in your severity. People\r
+will always encourage themselves in misdemeanors by the certainty that\r
+you will be indulgent."\r
+\r
+Lucy gave some playful contradiction, but Philip did not hear what it\r
+was, for he had naturally turned toward Maggie, and she was looking at\r
+him with that open, affectionate scrutiny which we give to a friend\r
+from whom we have been long separated. What a moment their parting had\r
+been! And Philip felt as if he were only in the morrow of it. He felt\r
+this so keenly,--with such intense, detailed remembrance, with such\r
+passionate revival of all that had been said and looked in their last\r
+conversation,--that with that jealousy and distrust which in diffident\r
+natures is almost inevitably linked with a strong feeling, he thought\r
+he read in Maggie's glance and manner the evidence of a change. The\r
+very fact that he feared and half expected it would be sure to make\r
+this thought rush in, in the absence of positive proof to the\r
+contrary.\r
+\r
+"I am having a great holiday, am I not?" said Maggie. "Lucy is like a\r
+fairy godmother; she has turned me from a drudge into a princess in no\r
+time. I do nothing but indulge myself all day long, and she always\r
+finds out what I want before I know it myself."\r
+\r
+"I am sure she is the happier for having you, then," said Philip. "You\r
+must be better than a whole menagerie of pets to her. And you look\r
+well. You are benefiting by the change."\r
+\r
+Artificial conversation of this sort went on a little while, till\r
+Lucy, determined to put an end to it, exclaimed, with a good imitation\r
+of annoyance, that she had forgotten something, and was quickly out of\r
+the room.\r
+\r
+In a moment Maggie and Philip leaned forward, and the hands were\r
+clasped again, with a look of sad contentment, like that of friends\r
+who meet in the memory of recent sorrow.\r
+\r
+"I told my brother I wished to see you, Philip; I asked him to release\r
+me from my promise, and he consented."\r
+\r
+Maggie, in her impulsiveness, wanted Philip to know at once the\r
+position they must hold toward each other; but she checked herself.\r
+The things that had happened since he had spoken of his love for her\r
+were so painful that she shrank from being the first to allude to them.\r
+It seemed almost like an injury toward Philip even to mention her\r
+brother,--her brother, who had insulted him. But he was thinking too\r
+entirely of her to be sensitive on any other point at that moment.\r
+\r
+"Then we can at least be friends, Maggie? There is nothing to hinder\r
+that now?"\r
+\r
+"Will not your father object?" said Maggie, withdrawing her hand.\r
+\r
+"I should not give you up on any ground but your own wish, Maggie,"\r
+said Philip, coloring. "There are points on which I should always\r
+resist my father, as I used to tell you. _That_ is one."\r
+\r
+"Then there is nothing to hinder our being friends, Philip,--seeing\r
+each other and talking to each other while I am here; I shall soon go\r
+away again. I mean to go very soon, to a new situation."\r
+\r
+"Is that inevitable, Maggie?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; I must not stay here long. It would unfit me for the life I must\r
+begin again at last. I can't live in dependence,--I can't live with my\r
+brother, though he is very good to me. He would like to provide for\r
+me; but that would be intolerable to me."\r
+\r
+Philip was silent a few moments, and then said, in that high, feeble\r
+voice which with him indicated the resolute suppression of emotion,--\r
+\r
+"Is there no other alternative, Maggie? Is that life, away from those\r
+who love you, the only one you will allow yourself to look forward\r
+to?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Philip," she said, looking at him pleadingly, as if she\r
+entreated him to believe that she was compelled to this course. "At\r
+least, as things are; I don't know what may be in years to come. But I\r
+begin to think there can never come much happiness to me from loving;\r
+I have always had so much pain mingled with it. I wish I could make\r
+myself a world outside it, as men do."\r
+\r
+"Now you are returning to your old thought in a new form, Maggie,--the\r
+thought I used to combat," said Philip, with a slight tinge of\r
+bitterness. "You want to find out a mode of renunciation that will be\r
+an escape from pain. I tell you again, there is no such escape\r
+possible except by perverting or mutilating one's nature. What would\r
+become of me, if I tried to escape from pain? Scorn and cynicism would\r
+be my only opium; unless I could fall into some kind of conceited\r
+madness, and fancy myself a favorite of Heaven because I am not a\r
+favorite with men."\r
+\r
+The bitterness had taken on some impetuosity as Philip went on\r
+speaking; the words were evidently an outlet for some immediate\r
+feeling of his own, as well as an answer to Maggie. There was a pain\r
+pressing on him at that moment. He shrank with proud delicacy from the\r
+faintest allusion to the words of love, of plighted love that had\r
+passed between them. It would have seemed to him like reminding Maggie\r
+of a promise; it would have had for him something of the baseness of\r
+compulsion. He could not dwell on the fact that he himself had not\r
+changed; for that too would have had the air of an appeal. His love\r
+for Maggie was stamped, even more than the rest of his experience,\r
+with the exaggerated sense that he was an exception,--that she, that\r
+every one, saw him in the light of an exception.\r
+\r
+But Maggie was conscience-stricken.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Philip," she said, with her childish contrition when he used to\r
+chide her, "you are right, I know. I do always think too much of my\r
+own feelings, and not enough of others',--not enough of yours. I had\r
+need have you always to find fault with me and teach me; so many\r
+things have come true that you used to tell me."\r
+\r
+Maggie was resting her elbow on the table, leaning her head on her\r
+hand and looking at Philip with half-penitent dependent affection, as\r
+she said this; while he was returning her gaze with an expression\r
+that, to her consciousness, gradually became less vague,--became\r
+charged with a specific recollection. Had his mind flown back to\r
+something that _she_ now remembered,--something about a lover of\r
+Lucy's? It was a thought that made her shudder; it gave new\r
+definiteness to her present position, and to the tendency of what had\r
+happened the evening before. She moved her arm from the table, urged\r
+to change her position by that positive physical oppression at the\r
+heart that sometimes accompanies a sudden mental pang.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter, Maggie? Has something happened?" Philip said, in\r
+inexpressible anxiety, his imagination being only too ready to weave\r
+everything that was fatal to them both.\r
+\r
+"No, nothing," said Maggie, rousing her latent will. Philip must not\r
+have that odious thought in his mind; she would banish it from her\r
+own. "Nothing," she repeated, "except in my own mind. You used to say\r
+I should feel the effect of my starved life, as you called it; and I\r
+do. I am too eager in my enjoyment of music and all luxuries, now they\r
+are come to me."\r
+\r
+She took up her work and occupied herself resolutely, while Philip\r
+watched her, really in doubt whether she had anything more than this\r
+general allusion in her mind. It was quite in Maggie's character to be\r
+agitated by vague self-reproach. But soon there came a violent\r
+well-known ring at the door-bell resounding through the house.\r
+\r
+"Oh, what a startling announcement!" said Maggie, quite mistress of\r
+herself, though not without some inward flutter. "I wonder where Lucy\r
+is."\r
+\r
+Lucy had not been deaf to the signal, and after an interval long\r
+enough for a few solicitous but not hurried inquiries, she herself\r
+ushered Stephen in.\r
+\r
+"Well, old fellow," he said, going straight up to Philip and shaking\r
+him heartily by the hand, bowing to Maggie in passing, "it's glorious\r
+to have you back again; only I wish you'd conduct yourself a little\r
+less like a sparrow with a residence on the house-top, and not go in\r
+and out constantly without letting the servants know. This is about\r
+the twentieth time I've had to scamper up those countless stairs to\r
+that painting-room of yours, all to no purpose, because your people\r
+thought you were at home. Such incidents embitter friendship."\r
+\r
+"I've so few visitors, it seems hardly worth while to leave notice of\r
+my exit and entrances," said Philip, feeling rather oppressed just\r
+then by Stephen's bright strong presence and strong voice.\r
+\r
+"Are you quite well this morning, Miss Tulliver?" said Stephen,\r
+turning to Maggie with stiff politeness, and putting out his hand with\r
+the air of fulfilling a social duty.\r
+\r
+Maggie gave the tips of her fingers, and said, "Quite well, thank\r
+you," in a tone of proud indifference. Philip's eyes were watching\r
+them keenly; but Lucy was used to seeing variations in their manner to\r
+each other, and only thought with regret that there was some natural\r
+antipathy which every now and then surmounted their mutual good-will.\r
+"Maggie is not the sort of woman Stephen admires, and she is irritated\r
+by something in him which she interprets as conceit," was the silent\r
+observation that accounted for everything to guileless Lucy. Stephen\r
+and Maggie had no sooner completed this studied greeting than each\r
+felt hurt by the other's coldness. And Stephen, while rattling on in\r
+questions to Philip about his recent sketching expedition, was\r
+thinking all the more about Maggie because he was not drawing her into\r
+the conversation as he had invariably done before. "Maggie and Philip\r
+are not looking happy," thought Lucy; "this first interview has been\r
+saddening to them."\r
+\r
+"I think we people who have not been galloping," she said to Stephen,\r
+"are all a little damped by the rain. Let us have some music. We ought\r
+to take advantage of having Philip and you together. Give us the duet\r
+in 'Masaniello'; Maggie has not heard that, and I know it will suit\r
+her."\r
+\r
+"Come, then," said Stephen, going toward the piano, and giving a\r
+foretaste of the tune in his deep "brum-brum," very pleasant to hear.\r
+\r
+"You, please, Philip,--you play the accompaniment," said Lucy, "and\r
+then I can go on with my work. You _will_ like to play, sha'n't you?"\r
+she added, with a pretty, inquiring look, anxious, as usual, lest she\r
+should have proposed what was not pleasant to another; but with\r
+yearnings toward her unfinished embroidery.\r
+\r
+Philip had brightened at the proposition, for there is no feeling,\r
+perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find\r
+relief in music,--that does not make a man sing or play the better;\r
+and Philip had an abundance of pent-up feeling at this moment, as\r
+complex as any trio or quartet that was ever meant to express love and\r
+jealousy and resignation and fierce suspicion, all at the same time.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes," he said, seating himself at the piano, "it is a way of\r
+eking out one's imperfect life and being three people at once,--to\r
+sing and make the piano sing, and hear them both all the while,--or\r
+else to sing and paint."\r
+\r
+"Ah, there you are an enviable fellow. I can do nothing with my\r
+hands," said Stephen. "That has generally been observed in men of\r
+great administrative capacity, I believe,--a tendency to predominance\r
+of the reflective powers in me! Haven't you observed that, Miss\r
+Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+Stephen had fallen by mistake into his habit of playful appeal to\r
+Maggie, and she could not repress the answering flush and epigram.\r
+\r
+"I _have_ observed a tendency to predominance," she said, smiling; and\r
+Philip at that moment devoutly hoped that she found the tendency\r
+disagreeable.\r
+\r
+"Come, come," said Lucy; "music, music! We will discuss each other's\r
+qualities another time."\r
+\r
+Maggie always tried in vain to go on with her work when music began.\r
+She tried harder than ever to-day; for the thought that Stephen knew\r
+how much she cared for his singing was one that no longer roused a\r
+merely playful resistance; and she knew, too, that it was his habit\r
+always to stand so that he could look at her. But it was of no use;\r
+she soon threw her work down, and all her intentions were lost in the\r
+vague state of emotion produced by the inspiring duet,--emotion that\r
+seemed to make her at once strong and weak; strong for all enjoyment,\r
+weak for all resistance. When the strain passed into the minor, she\r
+half started from her seat with the sudden thrill of that change. Poor\r
+Maggie! She looked very beautiful when her soul was being played on in\r
+this way by the inexorable power of sound. You might have seen the\r
+slightest perceptible quivering through her whole frame as she leaned\r
+a little forward, clasping her hands as if to steady herself; while\r
+her eyes dilated and brightened into that wide-open, childish\r
+expression of wondering delight which always came back in her happiest\r
+moments. Lucy, who at other times had always been at the piano when\r
+Maggie was looking in this way, could not resist the impulse to steal\r
+up to her and kiss her. Philip, too, caught a glimpse of her now and\r
+then round the open book on the desk, and felt that he had never\r
+before seen her under so strong an influence.\r
+\r
+"More, more!" said Lucy, when the duet had been encored. "Something\r
+spirited again. Maggie always says she likes a great rush of sound."\r
+\r
+"It must be 'Let us take the road,' then," said Stephen,--"so suitable\r
+for a wet morning. But are you prepared to abandon the most sacred\r
+duties of life, and come and sing with us?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes," said Lucy, laughing. "If you will look out the 'Beggar's\r
+Opera' from the large canterbury. It has a dingy cover."\r
+\r
+"That is a great clue, considering there are about a score covers here\r
+of rival dinginess," said Stephen, drawing out the canterbury.\r
+\r
+"Oh, play something the while, Philip," said Lucy, noticing that his\r
+fingers were wandering over the keys. "What is that you are falling\r
+into?--something delicious that I don't know."\r
+\r
+"Don't you know that?" said Philip, bringing out the tune more\r
+definitely. "It's from the 'Sonnambula'--'Ah! perchè non posso\r
+odiarti.' I don't know the opera, but it appears the tenor is telling\r
+the heroine that he shall always love her though she may forsake him.\r
+You've heard me sing it to the English words, 'I love thee still.'"\r
+\r
+It was not quite unintentionally that Philip had wandered into this\r
+song, which might be an indirect expression to Maggie of what he could\r
+not prevail on himself to say to her directly. Her ears had been open\r
+to what he was saying, and when he began to sing, she understood the\r
+plaintive passion of the music. That pleading tenor had no very fine\r
+qualities as a voice, but it was not quite new to her; it had sung to\r
+her by snatches, in a subdued way, among the grassy walks and hollows,\r
+and underneath the leaning ash-tree in the Red Deeps. There seemed to\r
+be some reproach in the words; did Philip mean that? She wished she\r
+had assured him more distinctly in their conversation that she desired\r
+not to renew the hope of love between them, _only_ because it clashed\r
+with her inevitable circumstances. She was touched, not thrilled by\r
+the song; it suggested distinct memories and thoughts, and brought\r
+quiet regret in the place of excitement.\r
+\r
+"That's the way with you tenors," said Stephen, who was waiting with\r
+music in his hand while Philip finished the song. "You demoralize the\r
+fair sex by warbling your sentimental love and constancy under all\r
+sorts of vile treatment. Nothing short of having your heads served up\r
+in a dish like that mediæval tenor or troubadour, would prevent you\r
+from expressing your entire resignation. I must administer an\r
+antidote, while Miss Deane prepares to tear herself away from her\r
+bobbins."\r
+\r
+Stephen rolled out, with saucy energy,--\r
+\r
+ "Shall I, wasting in despair,\r
+ Die because a woman's fair?"\r
+\r
+and seemed to make all the air in the room alive with a new influence.\r
+Lucy, always proud of what Stephen did, went toward the piano with\r
+laughing, admiring looks at him; and Maggie, in spite of her\r
+resistance to the spirit of the song and to the singer, was taken hold\r
+of and shaken by the invisible influence,--was borne along by a wave\r
+too strong for her.\r
+\r
+But, angrily resolved not to betray herself, she seized her work, and\r
+went on making false stitches and pricking her fingers with much\r
+perseverance, not looking up or taking notice of what was going\r
+forward, until all the three voices united in "Let us take the road."\r
+\r
+I am afraid there would have been a subtle, stealing gratification in\r
+her mind if she had known how entirely this saucy, defiant Stephen was\r
+occupied with her; how he was passing rapidly from a determination to\r
+treat her with ostentatious indifference to an irritating desire for\r
+some sign of inclination from her,--some interchange of subdued word\r
+or look with her. It was not long before he found an opportunity, when\r
+they had passed to the music of "The Tempest." Maggie, feeling the\r
+need of a footstool, was walking across the room to get one, when\r
+Stephen, who was not singing just then, and was conscious of all her\r
+movements, guessed her want, and flew to anticipate her, lifting the\r
+footstool with an entreating look at her, which made it impossible not\r
+to return a glance of gratitude. And then, to have the footstool\r
+placed carefully by a too self-confident personage,--not _any_\r
+self-confident personage, but one in particular, who suddenly looks\r
+humble and anxious, and lingers, bending still, to ask if there is not\r
+some draught in that position between the window and the fireplace,\r
+and if he may not be allowed to move the work-table for her,--these\r
+things will summon a little of the too ready, traitorous tenderness\r
+into a woman's eyes, compelled as she is in her girlish time to learn\r
+her life-lessons in very trivial language. And to Maggie such things\r
+had not been every-day incidents, but were a new element in her life,\r
+and found her keen appetite for homage quite fresh. That tone of\r
+gentle solicitude obliged her to look at the face that was bent toward\r
+her, and to say, "No, thank you"; and nothing could prevent that\r
+mutual glance from being delicious to both, as it had been the evening\r
+before.\r
+\r
+It was but an ordinary act of politeness in Stephen; it had hardly\r
+taken two minutes; and Lucy, who was singing, scarcely noticed it. But\r
+to Philip's mind, filled already with a vague anxiety that was likely\r
+to find a definite ground for itself in any trivial incident, this\r
+sudden eagerness in Stephen, and the change in Maggie's face, which\r
+was plainly reflecting a beam from his, seemed so strong a contrast\r
+with the previous overwrought signs of indifference, as to be charged\r
+with painful meaning. Stephen's voice, pouring in again, jarred upon\r
+his nervous susceptibility as if it had been the clang of sheet-iron,\r
+and he felt inclined to make the piano shriek in utter discord. He had\r
+really seen no communicable ground for suspecting any ususual feeling\r
+between Stephen and Maggie; his own reason told him so, and he wanted\r
+to go home at once that he might reflect coolly on these false images,\r
+till he had convinced himself of their nullity. But then, again, he\r
+wanted to stay as long as Stephen stayed,--always to be present when\r
+Stephen was present with Maggie. It seemed to poor Philip so natural,\r
+nay, inevitable, that any man who was near Maggie should fall in love\r
+with her! There was no promise of happiness for her if she were\r
+beguiled into loving Stephen Guest; and this thought emboldened Philip\r
+to view his own love for her in the light of a less unequal offering.\r
+He was beginning to play very falsely under this deafening inward\r
+tumult, and Lucy was looking at him in astonishment, when Mrs.\r
+Tulliver's entrance to summon them to lunch came as an excuse for\r
+abruptly breaking off the music.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Mr. Philip!" said Mr. Deane, when they entered the dining-room,\r
+"I've not seen you for a long while. Your father's not at home, I\r
+think, is he? I went after him to the office the other day, and they\r
+said he was out of town."\r
+\r
+"He's been to Mudport on business for several days," said Philip; "but\r
+he's come back now."\r
+\r
+"As fond of his farming hobby as ever, eh?"\r
+\r
+"I believe so," said Philip, rather wondering at this sudden interest\r
+in his father's pursuits.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Mr. Deane, "he's got some land in his own hands on this\r
+side the river as well as the other, I think?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, he has."\r
+\r
+"Ah!" continued Mr. Deane, as he dispensed the pigeonpie, "he must\r
+find farming a heavy item,--an expensive hobby. I never had a hobby\r
+myself, never would give in to that. And the worst of all hobbies are\r
+those that people think they can get money at. They shoot their money\r
+down like corn out of a sack then."\r
+\r
+Lucy felt a little nervous under her father's apparently gratuitous\r
+criticism of Mr. Wakem's expenditure. But it ceased there, and Mr.\r
+Deane became unusually silent and meditative during his luncheon.\r
+Lucy, accustomed to watch all indications in her father, and having\r
+reasons, which had recently become strong, for an extra interest in\r
+what referred to the Wakems, felt an unusual curiosity to know what had\r
+prompted her father's questions. His subsequent silence made her\r
+suspect there had been some special reason for them in his mind.\r
+\r
+With this idea in her head, she resorted to her usual plan when she\r
+wanted to tell or ask her father anything particular: she found a\r
+reason for her aunt Tulliver to leaving the dining-room after dinner,\r
+and seated herself on a small stool at her father's knee. Mr. Deane,\r
+under those circumstances, considered that he tasted some of the most\r
+agreeable moments his merits had purchased him in life,\r
+notwithstanding that Lucy, disliking to have her hair powdered with\r
+snuff, usually began by mastering his snuff-box on such occasions.\r
+\r
+"You don't want to go to sleep yet, papa, _do_ you?" she said, as she\r
+brought up her stool and opened the large fingers that clutched the\r
+snuff-box.\r
+\r
+"Not yet," said Mr. Deane, glancing at the reward of merit in the\r
+decanter. "But what do _you_ want?" he added, pinching the dimpled\r
+chin fondly,--"to coax some more sovereigns out of my pocket for your\r
+bazaar? Eh?"\r
+\r
+"No, I have no base motives at all to-day. I only want to talk, not to\r
+beg. I want to know what made you ask Philip Wakem about his father's\r
+farming to-day, papa? It seemed rather odd, because you never hardly\r
+say anything to him about his father; and why should you care about\r
+Mr. Wakem's losing money by his hobby?"\r
+\r
+"Something to do with business," said Mr. Deane, waving his hands, as\r
+if to repel intrusion into that mystery.\r
+\r
+"But, papa, you always say Mr. Wakem has brought Philip up like a\r
+girl; how came you to think you should get any business knowledge out\r
+of him? Those abrupt questions sounded rather oddly. Philip thought\r
+them queer."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, child!" said Mr. Deane, willing to justify his social\r
+demeanor, with which he had taken some pains in his upward progress.\r
+"There's a report that Wakem's mill and farm on the other side of the\r
+river--Dorlcote Mill, your uncle Tulliver's, you know--isn't answering\r
+so well as it did. I wanted to see if your friend Philip would let\r
+anything out about his father's being tired of farming."\r
+\r
+"Why? Would you buy the mill, papa, if he would part with it?" said\r
+Lucy, eagerly. "Oh, tell me everything; here, you shall have your\r
+snuff-box if you'll tell me. Because Maggie says all their hearts are\r
+set on Tom's getting back the mill some time. It was one of the last\r
+things her father said to Tom, that he must get back the mill."\r
+\r
+"Hush, you little puss," said Mr. Deane, availing himself of the\r
+restored snuff-box. "You must not say a word about this thing; do you\r
+hear? There's very little chance of their getting the mill or of\r
+anybody's getting it out of Wakem's hands. And if he knew that we\r
+wanted it with a view to the Tulliver's getting it again, he'd be the\r
+less likely to part with it. It's natural, after what happened. He\r
+behaved well enough to Tulliver before; but a horsewhipping is not\r
+likely to be paid for with sugar-plums."\r
+\r
+"Now, papa," said Lucy, with a little air of solemnity, "will you\r
+trust me? You must not ask me all my reasons for what I'm going to\r
+say, but I have very strong reasons. And I'm very cautious; I am,\r
+indeed."\r
+\r
+"Well, let us hear."\r
+\r
+"Why, I believe, if you will let me take Philip Wakem into our\r
+confidence,--let me tell him all about your wish to buy, and what it's\r
+for; that my cousins wish to have it, and why they wish to have it,--I\r
+believe Philip would help to bring it about. I know he would desire to\r
+do it."\r
+\r
+"I don't see how that can be, child," said Mr. Deane, looking puzzled.\r
+"Why should _he_ care?"--then, with a sudden penetrating look at his\r
+daughter, "You don't think the poor lad's fond of you, and so you can\r
+make him do what you like?" (Mr. Deane felt quite safe about his\r
+daughter's affections.)\r
+\r
+"No, papa; he cares very little about me,--not so much as I care about\r
+him. But I have a reason for being quite sure of what I say. Don't you\r
+ask me. And if you ever guess, don't tell me. Only give me leave to do\r
+as I think fit about it."\r
+\r
+Lucy rose from her stool to seat herself on her father's knee, and\r
+kissed him with that last request.\r
+\r
+"Are you sure you won't do mischief, now?" he said, looking at her\r
+with delight.\r
+\r
+"Yes, papa, quite sure. I'm very wise; I've got all your business\r
+talents. Didn't you admire my accompt-book, now, when I showed it\r
+you?"\r
+\r
+"Well, well, if this youngster will keep his counsel, there won't be\r
+much harm done. And to tell the truth, I think there's not much chance\r
+for us any other way. Now, let me go off to sleep."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VIII\r
+\r
+Wakem in a New Light\r
+\r
+\r
+Before three days had passed after the conversation you have just\r
+overheard between Lucy and her father she had contrived to have a\r
+private interview with Philip during a visit of Maggie's to her aunt\r
+Glegg. For a day and a night Philip turned over in his mind with\r
+restless agitation all that Lucy had told him in that interview, till\r
+he had thoroughly resolved on a course of action. He thought he saw\r
+before him now a possibility of altering his position with respect to\r
+Maggie, and removing at least one obstacle between them. He laid his\r
+plan and calculated all his moves with the fervid deliberation of a\r
+chess-player in the days of his first ardor, and was amazed himself at\r
+his sudden genius as a tactician. His plan was as bold as it was\r
+thoroughly calculated. Having watched for a moment when his father had\r
+nothing more urgent on his hands than the newspaper, he went behind\r
+him, laid a hand on his shoulder, and said,--\r
+\r
+"Father, will you come up into my sanctum, and look at my new\r
+sketches? I've arranged them now."\r
+\r
+"I'm getting terrible stiff in the joints, Phil, for climbing those\r
+stairs of yours," said Wakem, looking kindly at his son as he laid\r
+down his paper. "But come along, then."\r
+\r
+"This is a nice place for you, isn't it, Phil?--a capital light that\r
+from the roof, eh?" was, as usual, the first thing he said on entering\r
+the painting-room. He liked to remind himself and his son too that his\r
+fatherly indulgence had provided the accommodation. He had been a good\r
+father. Emily would have nothing to reproach him with there, if she\r
+came back again from her grave.\r
+\r
+"Come, come," he said, putting his double eye-glass over his nose, and\r
+seating himself to take a general view while he rested, "you've got a\r
+famous show here. Upon my word, I don't see that your things aren't as\r
+good as that London artist's--what's his name--that Leyburn gave so\r
+much money for."\r
+\r
+Philip shook his head and smiled. He had seated himself on his\r
+painting-stool, and had taken a lead pencil in his hand, with which he\r
+was making strong marks to counteract the sense of tremulousness. He\r
+watched his father get up, and walk slowly round, good-naturedly\r
+dwelling on the pictures much longer than his amount of genuine taste\r
+for landscape would have prompted, till he stopped before a stand on\r
+which two pictures were placed,--one much larger than the other, the\r
+smaller one in a leather case.\r
+\r
+"Bless me! what have you here?" said Wakem, startled by a sudden\r
+transition from landscape to portrait. "I thought you'd left off\r
+figures. Who are these?"\r
+\r
+"They are the same person," said Philip, with calm promptness, "at\r
+different ages."\r
+\r
+"And what person?" said Wakem, sharply fixing his eyes with a growing\r
+look of suspicion on the larger picture.\r
+\r
+"Miss Tulliver. The small one is something like what she was when I\r
+was at school with her brother at King's Lorton; the larger one is not\r
+quite so good a likeness of what she was when I came from abroad."\r
+\r
+Wakem turned round fiercely, with a flushed face, letting his\r
+eye-glass fall, and looking at his son with a savage expression for a\r
+moment, as if he was ready to strike that daring feebleness from the\r
+stool. But he threw himself into the armchair again, and thrust his\r
+hands into his trouser-pockets, still looking angrily at his son,\r
+however. Philip did not return the look, but sat quietly watching the\r
+point of his pencil.\r
+\r
+"And do you mean to say, then, that you have had any acquaintance with\r
+her since you came from abroad?" said Wakem, at last, with that vain\r
+effort which rage always makes to throw as much punishment as it\r
+desires to inflict into words and tones, since blows are forbidden.\r
+\r
+"Yes; I saw a great deal of her for a whole year before her father's\r
+death. We met often in that thicket--the Red Deeps--near Dorlcote\r
+Mill. I love her dearly; I shall never love any other woman. I have\r
+thought of her ever since she was a little girl."\r
+\r
+"Go on, sir! And you have corresponded with her all this while?"\r
+\r
+"No. I never told her I loved her till just before we parted, and she\r
+promised her brother not to see me again or to correspond with me. I\r
+am not sure that she loves me or would consent to marry me. But if she\r
+would consent,--if she _did_ love me well enough,--I should marry\r
+her."\r
+\r
+"And this is the return you make me for all the indulgences I've\r
+heaped on you?" said Wakem, getting white, and beginning to tremble\r
+under an enraged sense of impotence before Philip's calm defiance and\r
+concentration of purpose.\r
+\r
+"No, father," said Philip, looking up at him for the first time; "I\r
+don't regard it as a return. You have been an indulgent father to me;\r
+but I have always felt that it was because you had an affectionate\r
+wish to give me as much happiness as my unfortunate lot would admit,\r
+not that it was a debt you expected me to pay by sacrificing all my\r
+chances of happiness to satisfy feelings of yours which I can never\r
+share."\r
+\r
+"I think most sons would share their father's feelings in this case,"\r
+said Wakem, bitterly. "The girl's father was an ignorant mad brute,\r
+who was within an inch of murdering me. The whole town knows it. And\r
+the brother is just as insolent, only in a cooler way. He forbade her\r
+seeing you, you say; he'll break every bone in your body, for your\r
+greater happiness, if you don't take care. But you seem to have made\r
+up your mind; you have counted the consequences, I suppose. Of course\r
+you are independent of me; you can marry this girl to-morrow, if you\r
+like; you are a man of five-and-twenty,--you can go your way, and I\r
+can go mine. We need have no more to do with each other."\r
+\r
+Wakem rose and walked toward the door, but something held him back,\r
+and instead of leaving the room, he walked up and down it. Philip was\r
+slow to reply, and when he spoke, his tone had a more incisive\r
+quietness and clearness than ever.\r
+\r
+"No; I can't marry Miss Tulliver, even if she would have me, if I have\r
+only my own resources to maintain her with. I have been brought up to\r
+no profession. I can't offer her poverty as well as deformity."\r
+\r
+"Ah, _there_ is a reason for your clinging to me, doubtless," said\r
+Wakem, still bitterly, though Philip's last words had given him a\r
+pang; they had stirred a feeling which had been a habit for a quarter\r
+of a century. He threw himself into the chair again.\r
+\r
+"I expected all this," said Philip. "I know these scenes are often\r
+happening between father and son. If I were like other men of my age,\r
+I might answer your angry words by still angrier; we might part; I\r
+should marry the woman I love, and have a chance of being as happy as\r
+the rest. But if it will be a satisfaction to you to annihilate the\r
+very object of everything you've done for me, you have an advantage\r
+over most fathers; you can completely deprive me of the only thing\r
+that would make my life worth having."\r
+\r
+Philip paused, but his father was silent.\r
+\r
+"You know best what satisfaction you would have, beyond that of\r
+gratifying a ridiculous rancor worthy only of wandering savages."\r
+\r
+"Ridiculous rancor!" Wakem burst out. "What do you mean? Damn it! is a\r
+man to be horsewhipped by a boor and love him for it? Besides, there's\r
+that cold, proud devil of a son, who said a word to me I shall not\r
+forget when we had the settling. He would be as pleasant a mark for a\r
+bullet as I know, if he were worth the expense."\r
+\r
+"I don't mean your resentment toward them," said Philip, who had his\r
+reasons for some sympathy with this view of Tom, "though a feeling of\r
+revenge is not worth much, that you should care to keep it. I mean\r
+your extending the enmity to a helpless girl, who has too much sense\r
+and goodness to share their narrow prejudices. _She_ has never entered\r
+into the family quarrels."\r
+\r
+"What does that signify? We don't ask what a woman does; we ask whom\r
+she belongs to. It's altogether a degrading thing to you, to think of\r
+marrying old Tulliver's daughter."\r
+\r
+For the first time in the dialogue, Philip lost some of his\r
+self-control, and colored with anger.\r
+\r
+"Miss Tulliver," he said, with bitter incisiveness, "has the only\r
+grounds of rank that anything but vulgar folly can suppose to belong\r
+to the middle class; she is thoroughly refined, and her friends,\r
+whatever else they may be, are respected for irreproachable honor and\r
+integrity. All St. Ogg's, I fancy, would pronounce her to be more than\r
+my equal."\r
+\r
+Wakem darted a glance of fierce question at his son; but Philip was\r
+not looking at him, and with a certain penitent consciousness went on,\r
+in a few moments, as if in amplification of his last words,--\r
+\r
+"Find a single person in St. Ogg's who will not tell you that a\r
+beautiful creature like her would be throwing herself away on a\r
+pitiable object like me."\r
+\r
+"Not she!" said Wakem, rising again, and forgetting everything else in\r
+a burst of resentful pride, half fatherly, half personal. "It would be\r
+a deuced fine match for her. It's all stuff about an accidental\r
+deformity, when a girl's really attached to a man."\r
+\r
+"But girls are not apt to get attached under those circumstances,"\r
+said Philip.\r
+\r
+"Well, then," said Wakem, rather brutally, trying to recover his\r
+previous position, "if she doesn't care for you, you might have spared\r
+yourself the trouble of talking to me about her, and you might have\r
+spared me the trouble of refusing my consent to what was never likely\r
+to happen."\r
+\r
+Wakem strode to the door, and without looking round again, banged it\r
+after him.\r
+\r
+Philip was not without confidence that his father would be ultimately\r
+wrought upon as he had expected, by what had passed; but the scene had\r
+jarred upon his nerves, which were as sensitive as a woman's. He\r
+determined not to go down to dinner; he couldn't meet his father again\r
+that day. It was Wakem's habit, when he had no company at home, to go\r
+out in the evening, often as early as half-past seven; and as it was\r
+far on in the afternoon now, Philip locked up his room and went out\r
+for a long ramble, thinking he would not return until his father was\r
+out of the house again. He got into a boat, and went down the river to\r
+a favorite village, where he dined, and lingered till it was late\r
+enough for him to return. He had never had any sort of quarrel with\r
+his father before, and had a sickening fear that this contest, just\r
+begun, might go on for weeks; and what might not happen in that time?\r
+He would not allow himself to define what that involuntary question\r
+meant. But if he could once be in the position of Maggie's accepted,\r
+acknowledged lover, there would be less room for vague dread. He went\r
+up to his painting-room again, and threw himself with a sense of\r
+fatigue into the armchair, looking round absently at the views of\r
+water and rock that were ranged around, till he fell into a doze, in\r
+which he fancied Maggie was slipping down a glistening, green, slimy\r
+channel of a waterfall, and he was looking on helpless, till he was\r
+awakened by what seemed a sudden, awful crash.\r
+\r
+It was the opening of the door, and he could hardly have dozed more\r
+than a few moments, for there was no perceptible change in the evening\r
+light. It was his father who entered; and when Philip moved to vacate\r
+the chair for him, he said,--\r
+\r
+"Sit still. I'd rather walk about."\r
+\r
+He stalked up and down the room once or twice, and then, standing\r
+opposite Philip with his hands thrust in his side pockets, he said, as\r
+if continuing a conversation that had not been broken off,--\r
+\r
+"But this girl seems to have been fond of you, Phil, else she wouldn't\r
+have met you in that way."\r
+\r
+Philip's heart was beating rapidly, and a transient flush passed over\r
+his face like a gleam. It was not quite easy to speak at once.\r
+\r
+"She liked me at King's Lorton, when she was a little girl, because I\r
+used to sit with her brother a great deal when he had hurt his foot.\r
+She had kept that in her memory, and thought of me as a friend of a\r
+long while ago. She didn't think of me as a lover when she met me."\r
+\r
+"Well, but you made love to her at last. What did she say then?" said\r
+Wakem, walking about again.\r
+\r
+"She said she _did_ love me then."\r
+\r
+"Confound it, then; what else do you want? Is she a jilt?"\r
+\r
+"She was very young then," said Philip, hesitatingly. "I'm afraid she\r
+hardly knew what she felt. I'm afraid our long separation, and the\r
+idea that events must always divide us, may have made a difference."\r
+\r
+"But she's in the town. I've seen her at church. Haven't you spoken to\r
+her since you came back?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, at Mr. Deane's. But I couldn't renew my proposals to her on\r
+several grounds. One obstacle would be removed if you would give your\r
+consent,--if you would be willing to think of her as a daughter-in-law."\r
+\r
+Wakem was silent a little while, pausing before Maggie's picture.\r
+\r
+"She's not the sort of woman your mother was, though, Phil," he said,\r
+at last. "I saw her at church,--she's handsomer than this,--deuced\r
+fine eyes and fine figure, I saw; but rather dangerous and\r
+unmanageable, eh?"\r
+\r
+"She's very tender and affectionate, and so simple,--without the airs\r
+and petty contrivances other women have."\r
+\r
+"Ah?" said Wakem. Then looking round at his son, "But your mother\r
+looked gentler; she had that brown wavy hair and gray eyes, like\r
+yours. You can't remember her very well. It was a thousand pities I'd\r
+no likeness of her."\r
+\r
+"Then, shouldn't you be glad for me to have the same sort of\r
+happiness, father, to sweeten my life for me? There can never be\r
+another tie so strong to you as that which began eight-and-twenty\r
+years ago, when you married my mother, and you have been tightening it\r
+ever since."\r
+\r
+"Ah, Phil, you're the only fellow that knows the best of me," said\r
+Wakem, giving his hand to his son. "We must keep together if we can.\r
+And now, what am I to do? You must come downstairs and tell me. Am I\r
+to go and call on this dark-eyed damsel?"\r
+\r
+The barrier once thrown down in this way, Philip could talk freely to\r
+his father of their entire relation with the Tullivers,--of the desire\r
+to get the mill and land back into the family, and of its transfer to\r
+Guest & Co. as an intermediate step. He could venture now to be\r
+persuasive and urgent, and his father yielded with more readiness than\r
+he had calculated on.\r
+\r
+"_I_ don't care about the mill," he said at last, with a sort of angry\r
+compliance. "I've had an infernal deal of bother lately about the\r
+mill. Let them pay me for my improvements, that's all. But there's one\r
+thing you needn't ask me. I shall have no direct transactions with\r
+young Tulliver. If you like to swallow him for his sister's sake, you\r
+may; but I've no sauce that will make him go down."\r
+\r
+I leave you to imagine the agreeable feelings with which Philip went\r
+to Mr. Deane the next day, to say that Mr. Wakem was ready to open the\r
+negotiations, and Lucy's pretty triumph as she appealed to her father\r
+whether she had not proved her great business abilities. Mr. Deane was\r
+rather puzzled, and suspected that there had been something "going on"\r
+among the young people to which he wanted a clew. But to men of Mr.\r
+Deane's stamp, what goes on among the young people is as extraneous to\r
+the real business of life as what goes on among the birds and\r
+butterflies, until it can be shown to have a malign bearing on\r
+monetary affairs. And in this case the bearing appeared to be entirely\r
+propitious.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IX\r
+\r
+Charity in Full-Dress\r
+\r
+\r
+The culmination of Maggie's career as an admired member of society in\r
+St. Ogg's was certainly the day of the bazaar, when her simple noble\r
+beauty, clad in a white muslin of some soft-floating kind, which I\r
+suspect must have come from the stores of aunt Pullet's wardrobe,\r
+appeared with marked distinction among the more adorned and\r
+conventional women around her. We perhaps never detect how much of our\r
+social demeanor is made up of artificial airs until we see a person\r
+who is at once beautiful and simple; without the beauty, we are apt to\r
+call simplicity awkwardness. The Miss Guests were much too well-bred\r
+to have any of the grimaces and affected tones that belong to\r
+pretentious vulgarity; but their stall being next to the one where\r
+Maggie sat, it seemed newly obvious to-day that Miss Guest held her\r
+chin too high, and that Miss Laura spoke and moved continually with a\r
+view to effect.\r
+\r
+All well-dressed St. Ogg's and its neighborhood were there; and it\r
+would have been worth while to come even from a distance, to see the\r
+fine old hall, with its open roof and carved oaken rafters, and great\r
+oaken folding-doors, and light shed down from a height on the\r
+many-colored show beneath; a very quaint place, with broad faded\r
+stripes painted on the walls, and here and there a show of heraldic\r
+animals of a bristly, long-snouted character, the cherished emblems of\r
+a noble family once the seigniors of this now civic hall. A grand\r
+arch, cut in the upper wall at one end, surmounted an oaken orchestra,\r
+with an open room behind it, where hothouse plants and stalls for\r
+refreshments were disposed; an agreeable resort for gentlemen disposed\r
+to loiter, and yet to exchange the occasional crush down below for a\r
+more commodious point of view. In fact, the perfect fitness of this\r
+ancient building for an admirable modern purpose, that made charity\r
+truly elegant, and led through vanity up to the supply of a deficit,\r
+was so striking that hardly a person entered the room without\r
+exchanging the remark more than once. Near the great arch over the\r
+orchestra was the stone oriel with painted glass, which was one of the\r
+venerable inconsistencies of the old hall; and it was close by this\r
+that Lucy had her stall, for the convenience of certain large plain\r
+articles which she had taken charge of for Mrs. Kenn. Maggie had\r
+begged to sit at the open end of the stall, and to have the sale of\r
+these articles rather than of bead-mats and other elaborate products\r
+of which she had but a dim understanding. But it soon appeared that\r
+the gentlemen's dressing-gowns, which were among her commodities, were\r
+objects of such general attention and inquiry, and excited so\r
+troublesome a curiosity as to their lining and comparative merits,\r
+together with a determination to test them by trying on, as to make\r
+her post a very conspicuous one. The ladies who had commodities of\r
+their own to sell, and did not want dressing-gowns, saw at once the\r
+frivolity and bad taste of this masculine preference for goods which\r
+any tailor could furnish; and it is possible that the emphatic notice\r
+of various kinds which was drawn toward Miss Tulliver on this public\r
+occasion, threw a very strong and unmistakable light on her subsequent\r
+conduct in many minds then present. Not that anger, on account of\r
+spurned beauty can dwell in the celestial breasts of charitable\r
+ladies, but rather that the errors of persons who have once been much\r
+admired necessarily take a deeper tinge from the mere force of\r
+contrast; and also, that to-day Maggie's conspicuous position, for the\r
+first time, made evident certain characteristics which were\r
+subsequently felt to have an explanatory bearing. There was something\r
+rather bold in Miss Tulliver's direct gaze, and something undefinably\r
+coarse in the style of her beauty, which placed her, in the opinion of\r
+all feminine judges, far below her cousin Miss Deane; for the ladies\r
+of St. Ogg's had now completely ceded to Lucy their hypothetic claims\r
+on the admiration of Mr. Stephen Guest.\r
+\r
+As for dear little Lucy herself, her late benevolent triumph about the\r
+Mill, and all the affectionate projects she was cherishing for Maggie\r
+and Philip, helped to give her the highest spirits to-day, and she\r
+felt nothing but pleasure in the evidence of Maggie's attractiveness.\r
+It is true, she was looking very charming herself, and Stephen was\r
+paying her the utmost attention on this public occasion; jealously\r
+buying up the articles he had seen under her fingers in the process of\r
+making, and gayly helping her to cajole the male customers into the\r
+purchase of the most effeminate futilities. He chose to lay aside his\r
+hat and wear a scarlet fez of her embroidering; but by superficial\r
+observers this was necessarily liable to be interpreted less as a\r
+compliment to Lucy than as a mark of coxcombry. "Guest is a great\r
+coxcomb," young Torry observed; "but then he is a privileged person in\r
+St. Ogg's--he carries all before him; if another fellow did such\r
+things, everybody would say he made a fool of himself."\r
+\r
+And Stephen purchased absolutely nothing from Maggie, until Lucy said,\r
+in rather a vexed undertone,--\r
+\r
+"See, now; all the things of Maggie's knitting will be gone, and you\r
+will not have bought one. There are those deliciously soft warm things\r
+for the wrists,--do buy them."\r
+\r
+"Oh no," said Stephen, "they must be intended for imaginative persons,\r
+who can chill themselves on this warm day by thinking of the frosty\r
+Caucasus. Stern reason is my forte, you know. You must get Philip to\r
+buy those. By the way, why doesn't he come?"\r
+\r
+"He never likes going where there are many people, though I enjoined\r
+him to come. He said he would buy up any of my goods that the rest of\r
+the world rejected. But now, do go and buy something of Maggie."\r
+\r
+"No, no; see, she has got a customer; there is old Wakem himself just\r
+coming up."\r
+\r
+Lucy's eyes turned with anxious interest toward Maggie to see how she\r
+went through this first interview, since a sadly memorable time, with\r
+a man toward whom she must have so strange a mixture of feelings; but\r
+she was pleased to notice that Wakem had tact enough to enter at once\r
+into talk about the bazaar wares, and appear interested in purchasing,\r
+smiling now and then kindly at Maggie, and not calling on her to speak\r
+much, as if he observed that she was rather pale and tremulous.\r
+\r
+"Why, Wakem is making himself particularly amiable to your cousin,"\r
+said Stephen, in an undertone to Lucy; "is it pure magnanimity? You\r
+talked of a family quarrel."\r
+\r
+"Oh, that will soon be quite healed, I hope," said Lucy, becoming a\r
+little indiscreet in her satisfaction, and speaking with an air of\r
+significance. But Stephen did not appear to notice this, and as some\r
+lady-purchasers came up, he lounged on toward Maggie's end, handling\r
+trifles and standing aloof until Wakem, who had taken out his purse,\r
+had finished his transactions.\r
+\r
+"My son came with me," he overheard Wakem saying, "but he has vanished\r
+into some other part of the building, and has left all these\r
+charitable gallantries to me. I hope you'll reproach him for his\r
+shabby conduct."\r
+\r
+She returned his smile and bow without speaking, and he turned away,\r
+only then observing Stephen and nodding to him. Maggie, conscious that\r
+Stephen was still there, busied herself with counting money, and\r
+avoided looking up. She had been well pleased that he had devoted\r
+himself to Lucy to-day, and had not come near her. They had begun the\r
+morning with an indifferent salutation, and both had rejoiced in being\r
+aloof from each other, like a patient who has actually done without\r
+his opium, in spite of former failures in resolution. And during the\r
+last few days they had even been making up their minds to failures,\r
+looking to the outward events that must soon come to separate them, as\r
+a reason for dispensing with self-conquest in detail.\r
+\r
+Stephen moved step by step as if he were being unwillingly dragged,\r
+until he had got round the open end of the stall, and was half hidden\r
+by a screen of draperies. Maggie went on counting her money till she\r
+suddenly heard a deep gentle voice saying, "Aren't you very tried? Do\r
+let me bring you something,--some fruit or jelly, mayn't I?"\r
+\r
+The unexpected tones shook her like a sudden accidental vibration of a\r
+harp close by her.\r
+\r
+"Oh no, thank you," she said faintly, and only half looking up for an\r
+instant.\r
+\r
+"You look so pale," Stephen insisted, in a more entreating tone. "I'm\r
+sure you're exhausted. I must disobey you, and bring something."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, I couldn't take it."\r
+\r
+"Are you angry with me? What have I done? _Do_ look at me."\r
+\r
+"Pray, go away," said Maggie, looking at him helplessly, her eyes\r
+glancing immediately from him to the opposite corner of the orchestra,\r
+which was half hidden by the folds of the old faded green curtain.\r
+Maggie had no sooner uttered this entreaty than she was wretched at\r
+the admission it implied; but Stephen turned away at once, and\r
+following her upward glance, he saw Philip Wakem sealed in the\r
+half-hidden corner, so that he could command little more than that\r
+angle of the hall in which Maggie sat. An entirely new though occurred\r
+to Stephen, and linking itself with what he had observed of Wakem's\r
+manner, and with Lucy's reply to his observation, it convinced him\r
+that there had been some former relation between Philip and Maggie\r
+beyond that childish one of which he had heard. More than one impulse\r
+made him immediately leave the hall and go upstairs to the\r
+refreshment-room, where, walking up to Philip, he sat down behind him,\r
+and put his hand on his shoulder.\r
+\r
+"Are you studying for a portrait, Phil," he said, "or for a sketch of\r
+that oriel window? By George, it makes a capital bit from this dark\r
+corner, with the curtain just marking it off."\r
+\r
+"I have been studying expression," said Philip, curtly.\r
+\r
+"What! Miss Tulliver's? It's rather of the savage-moody order to-day,\r
+I think,--something of the fallen princess serving behind a counter.\r
+Her cousin sent me to her with a civil offer to get her some\r
+refreshment, but I have been snubbed, as usual. There's natural\r
+antipathy between us, I suppose; I have seldom the honor to please\r
+her."\r
+\r
+"What a hypocrite you are!" said Philip, flushing angrily.\r
+\r
+"What! because experience must have told me that I'm universally\r
+pleasing? I admit the law, but there's some disturbing force here."\r
+\r
+"I am going," said Philip, rising abruptly.\r
+\r
+"So am I--to get a breath of fresh air; this place gets oppressive. I\r
+think I have done suit and service long enough."\r
+\r
+The two friends walked downstairs together without speaking. Philip\r
+turned through the outer door into the court-yard; but Stephen,\r
+saying, "Oh, by the by, I must call in here," went on along the\r
+passage to one of the rooms at the other end of the building, which\r
+were appropriated to the town library. He had the room all to himself,\r
+and a man requires nothing less than this when he wants to dash his\r
+cap on the table, throw himself astride a chair, and stare at a high\r
+brick wall with a frown which would not have been beneath the occasion\r
+if he had been slaying "the giant Python." The conduct that issues\r
+from a moral conflict has often so close a resemblance to vice that\r
+the distinction escapes all outward judgments founded on a mere\r
+comparison of actions. It is clear to you, I hope, that Stephen was\r
+not a hypocrite,--capable of deliberate doubleness for a selfish end;\r
+and yet his fluctuations between the indulgence of a feeling and the\r
+systematic concealment of it might have made a good case in support of\r
+Philip's accusation.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile, Maggie sat at her stall cold and trembling, with that\r
+painful sensation in the eyes which comes from resolutely repressed\r
+tears. Was her life to be always like this,--always bringing some new\r
+source of inward strife? She heard confusedly the busy, indifferent\r
+voices around her, and wished her mind could flow into that easy\r
+babbling current. It was at this moment that Dr. Kenn, who had quite\r
+lately come into the hall, and was now walking down the middle with\r
+his hands behind him, taking a general view, fixed his eyes on Maggie\r
+for the first time, and was struck with the expression of pain on her\r
+beautiful face. She was sitting quite still, for the stream of\r
+customers had lessened at this late hour in the afternoon; the\r
+gentlemen had chiefly chosen the middle of the day, and Maggie's stall\r
+was looking rather bare. This, with her absent, pained expression,\r
+finished the contrast between her and her companions, who were all\r
+bright, eager, and busy. He was strongly arrested. Her face had\r
+naturally drawn his attention as a new and striking one at church, and\r
+he had been introduced to her during a short call on business at Mr.\r
+Deane's, but he had never spoken more than three words to her. He\r
+walked toward her now, and Maggie, perceiving some one approaching,\r
+roused herself to look up and be prepared to speak. She felt a\r
+childlike, instinctive relief from the sense of uneasiness in this\r
+exertion, when she saw it was Dr. Kenn's face that was looking at her;\r
+that plain, middle-aged face, with a grave, penetrating kindness in\r
+it, seeming to tell of a human being who had reached a firm, safe\r
+strand, but was looking with helpful pity toward the strugglers still\r
+tossed by the waves, had an effect on Maggie at this moment which was\r
+afterward remembered by her as if it had been a promise. The\r
+middle-aged, who have lived through their strongest emotions, but are\r
+yet in the time when memory is still half passionate and not merely\r
+contemplative, should surely be a sort of natural priesthood, whom\r
+life has disciplined and consecrated to be the refuge and rescue of\r
+early stumblers and victims of self-despair. Most of us, at some\r
+moment in our young lives, would have welcomed a priest of that\r
+natural order in any sort of canonicals or uncanonicals, but had to\r
+scramble upward into all the difficulties of nineteen entirely without\r
+such aid, as Maggie did.\r
+\r
+"You find your office rather a fatiguing one, I fear, Miss Tulliver,"\r
+said Dr. Kenn.\r
+\r
+"It is, rather," said Maggie, simply, not being accustomed to simpler\r
+amiable denials of obvious facts.\r
+\r
+"But I can tell Mrs. Kenn that you have disposed of her goods very\r
+quickly," he added; "she will be very much obliged to you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I have done nothing; the gentlemen came very fast to buy the\r
+dressing-gowns and embroidered waistcoats, but I think any of the\r
+other ladies would have sold more; I didn't know what to say about\r
+them."\r
+\r
+Dr. Kenn smiled. "I hope I'm going to have you as a permanent\r
+parishioner now, Miss Tulliver; am I? You have been at a distance from\r
+us hitherto."\r
+\r
+"I have been a teacher in a school, and I'm going into another\r
+situation of the same kind very soon."\r
+\r
+"Ah? I was hoping you would remain among your friends, who are all in\r
+this neighborhood, I believe."\r
+\r
+"Oh, _I must go_," said Maggie, earnestly, looking at Dr. Kenn with an\r
+expression of reliance, as if she had told him her history in those\r
+three words. It was one of those moments of implicit revelation which\r
+will sometimes happen even between people who meet quite\r
+transiently,--on a mile's journey, perhaps, or when resting by the\r
+wayside. There is always this possibility of a word or look from a\r
+stranger to keep alive the sense of human brotherhood.\r
+\r
+Dr. Kenn's ear and eye took in all the signs that this brief\r
+confidence of Maggie's was charged with meaning.\r
+\r
+"I understand," he said; "you feel it right to go. But that will not\r
+prevent our meeting again, I hope; it will not prevent my knowing you\r
+better, if I can be of any service to you."\r
+\r
+He put out his hand and pressed hers kindly before he turned away.\r
+\r
+"She has some trouble or other at heart," he thought. "Poor child! she\r
+looks as if she might turn out to be one of\r
+\r
+ 'The souls by nature pitched too high,\r
+ By suffering plunged too low.'\r
+\r
+"There's something wonderfully honest in those beautiful eyes."\r
+\r
+It may be surprising that Maggie, among whose many imperfections an\r
+excessive delight in admiration and acknowledged supremacy were not\r
+absent now, any more than when she was instructing the gypsies with a\r
+view toward achieving a royal position among them, was not more elated\r
+on a day when she had had the tribute of so many looks and smiles,\r
+together with that satisfactory consciousness which had necessarily\r
+come from being taken before Lucy's chevalglass, and made to look at\r
+the full length of her tall beauty, crowned by the night of her massy\r
+hair. Maggie had smiled at herself then, and for the moment had\r
+forgotten everything in the sense of her own beauty. If that state of\r
+mind could have lasted, her choice would have been to have Stephen\r
+Guest at her feet, offering her a life filled with all luxuries, with\r
+daily incense of adoration near and distant, and with all\r
+possibilities of culture at her command. But there were things in her\r
+stronger than vanity,--passion and affection, and long, deep memories\r
+of early discipline and effort, of early claims on her love and pity;\r
+and the stream of vanity was soon swept along and mingled\r
+imperceptibly with that wider current which was at its highest force\r
+today, under the double urgency of the events and inward impulses\r
+brought by the last week.\r
+\r
+Philip had not spoken to her himself about the removal of obstacles\r
+between them on his father's side,--he shrank from that; but he had\r
+told everything to Lucy, with the hope that Maggie, being informed\r
+through her, might give him some encouraging sign that their being\r
+brought thus much nearer to each other was a happiness to her. The\r
+rush of conflicting feelings was too great for Maggie to say much when\r
+Lucy, with a face breathing playful joy, like one of Correggio's\r
+cherubs, poured forth her triumphant revelation; and Lucy could hardly\r
+be surprised that she could do little more than cry with gladness at\r
+the thought of her father's wish being fulfilled, and of Tom's getting\r
+the Mill again in reward for all his hard striving. The details of\r
+preparation for the bazaar had then come to usurp Lucy's attention for\r
+the next few days, and nothing had been said by the cousins on\r
+subjects that were likely to rouse deeper feelings. Philip had been to\r
+the house more than once, but Maggie had had no private conversation\r
+with him, and thus she had been left to fight her inward battle\r
+without interference.\r
+\r
+But when the bazaar was fairly ended, and the cousins were alone\r
+again, resting together at home, Lucy said,--\r
+\r
+"You must give up going to stay with your aunt Moss the day after\r
+to-morrow, Maggie; write a note to her, and tell her you have put it\r
+off at my request, and I'll send the man with it. She won't be\r
+displeased; you'll have plenty of time to go by-and-by; and I don't\r
+want you to go out of the way just now."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed I must go, dear; I can't put it off. I wouldn't leave\r
+aunt Gritty out for the world. And I shall have very little time, for\r
+I'm going away to a new situation on the 25th of June."\r
+\r
+"Maggie!" said Lucy, almost white with astonishment.\r
+\r
+"I didn't tell you, dear," said Maggie, making a great effort to\r
+command herself, "because you've been so busy. But some time ago I\r
+wrote to our old governess, Miss Firniss, to ask her to let me know if\r
+she met with any situation that I could fill, and the other day I had\r
+a letter from her telling me that I could take three orphan pupils of\r
+hers to the coast during the holidays, and then make trial of a\r
+situation with her as teacher. I wrote yesterday to accept the offer."\r
+\r
+Lucy felt so hurt that for some moments she was unable to speak.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," she said at last, "how could you be so unkind to me--not to\r
+tell me--to take _such_ a step--and now!" She hesitated a little, and\r
+then added, "And Philip? I thought everything was going to be so\r
+happy. Oh, Maggie, what is the reason? Give it up; let me write. There\r
+is nothing now to keep you and Philip apart."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie, faintly. "There is Tom's feeling. He said I must\r
+give him up if I married Philip. And I know he will not change--at\r
+least not for a long while--unless something happened to soften him."\r
+\r
+"But I will talk to him; he's coming back this week. And this good\r
+news about the Mill will soften him. And I'll talk to him about\r
+Philip. Tom's always very compliant to me; I don't think he's so\r
+obstinate."\r
+\r
+"But I must go," said Maggie, in a distressed voice. "I must leave\r
+some time to pack. Don't press me to stay, dear Lucy."\r
+\r
+Lucy was silent for two or three minutes, looking away and ruminating.\r
+At length she knelt down by her cousin, and looking up in her face\r
+with anxious seriousness, said,--\r
+\r
+"Maggie, is it that you don't love Philip well enough to marry him?\r
+Tell me--trust me."\r
+\r
+Maggie held Lucy's hands tightly in silence a little while. Her own\r
+hands were quite cold. But when she spoke, her voice was quite clear\r
+and distinct.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Lucy, I would choose to marry him. I think it would be the best\r
+and highest lot for me,--to make his life happy. He loved me first. No\r
+one else could be quite what he is to me. But I can't divide myself\r
+from my brother for life. I must go away, and wait. Pray don't speak\r
+to me again about it."\r
+\r
+Lucy obeyed in pain and wonder. The next word she said was,--\r
+\r
+"Well, dear Maggie, at least you will go to the dance at Park House\r
+to-morrow, and have some music and brightness, before you go to pay\r
+these dull dutiful visits. Ah! here come aunty and the tea."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter X\r
+\r
+The Spell Seems Broken\r
+\r
+\r
+The suite of rooms opening into each other at Park House looked duly\r
+brilliant with lights and flowers and the personal splendors of\r
+sixteen couples, with attendant parents and guardians. The focus of\r
+brilliancy was the long drawing-room, where the dancing went forward,\r
+under the inspiration of the grand piano; the library, into which it\r
+opened at one end, had the more sober illumination of maturity, with\r
+caps and cards; and at the other end the pretty sitting-room, with a\r
+conservatory attached, was left as an occasional cool retreat. Lucy,\r
+who had laid aside her black for the first time, and had her pretty\r
+slimness set off by an abundant dress of white crape, was the\r
+acknowledged queen of the occasion; for this was one of the Miss\r
+Guests' thoroughly condescending parties, including no member of any\r
+aristocracy higher than that of St. Ogg's, and stretching to the\r
+extreme limits of commercial and professional gentility.\r
+\r
+Maggie at first refused to dance, saying that she had forgotten all\r
+the figures--it was so many years since she had danced at school; and\r
+she was glad to have that excuse, for it is ill dancing with a heavy\r
+heart. But at length the music wrought in her young limbs, and the\r
+longing came; even though it was the horrible young Torry, who walked\r
+up a second time to try and persuade her. She warned him that she\r
+could not dance anything but a country-dance; but he, of course, was\r
+willing to wait for that high felicity, meaning only to be\r
+complimentary when he assured her at several intervals that it was a\r
+"great bore" that she couldn't waltz, he would have liked so much to\r
+waltz with her. But at last it was the turn of the good old-fashioned\r
+dance which has the least of vanity and the most of merriment in it,\r
+and Maggie quite forgot her troublous life in a childlike enjoyment of\r
+that half-rustic rhythm which seems to banish pretentious etiquette.\r
+She felt quite charitably toward young Torry, as his hand bore her\r
+along and held her up in the dance; her eyes and cheeks had that fire\r
+of young joy in them which will flame out if it can find the least\r
+breath to fan it; and her simple black dress, with its bit of black\r
+lace, seemed like the dim setting of a jewel.\r
+\r
+Stephen had not yet asked her to dance; had not yet paid her more than\r
+a passing civility. Since yesterday, that inward vision of her which\r
+perpetually made part of his consciousness, had been half screened by\r
+the image of Philip Wakem, which came across it like a blot; there was\r
+some attachment between her and Philip; at least there was an\r
+attachment on his side, which made her feel in some bondage. Here,\r
+then, Stephen told himself, was another claim of honor which called on\r
+him to resist the attraction that was continually threatening to\r
+overpower him. He told himself so; and yet he had once or twice felt a\r
+certain savage resistance, and at another moment a shuddering\r
+repugnance, to this intrusion of Philip's image, which almost made it\r
+a new incitement to rush toward Maggie and claim her for himself.\r
+Nevertheless, he had done what he meant to do this evening,--he had\r
+kept aloof from her; he had hardly looked at her; and he had been\r
+gayly assiduous to Lucy. But now his eyes were devouring Maggie; he\r
+felt inclined to kick young Torry out of the dance, and take his\r
+place. Then he wanted the dance to end that he might get rid of his\r
+partner. The possibility that he too should dance with Maggie, and\r
+have her hand in his so long, was beginning to possess him like a\r
+thirst. But even now their hands were meeting in the dance,--were\r
+meeting still to the very end of it, though they were far off each\r
+other.\r
+\r
+Stephen hardly knew what happened, or in what automatic way he got\r
+through the duties of politeness in the interval, until he was free\r
+and saw Maggie seated alone again, at the farther end of the room. He\r
+made his way toward her round the couples that were forming for the\r
+waltz; and when Maggie became conscious that she was the person he\r
+sought, she felt, in spite of all the thoughts that had gone before, a\r
+glowing gladness at heart. Her eyes and cheeks were still brightened\r
+with her childlike enthusiasm in the dance; her whole frame was set to\r
+joy and tenderness; even the coming pain could not seem bitter,--she\r
+was ready to welcome it as a part of life, for life at this moment\r
+seemed a keen, vibrating consciousness poised above pleasure or pain.\r
+This one, this last night, she might expand unrestrainedly in the\r
+warmth of the present, without those chill, eating thoughts of the\r
+past and the future.\r
+\r
+"They're going to waltz again," said Stephen, bending to speak to her,\r
+with that glance and tone of subdued tenderness which young dreams\r
+create to themselves in the summer woods when low, cooing voices fill\r
+the air. Such glances and tones bring the breath of poetry with them\r
+into a room that is half stifling with glaring gas and hard\r
+flirtation.\r
+\r
+"They are going to waltz again. It is rather dizzy work to look on,\r
+and the room is very warm; shall we walk about a little?"\r
+\r
+He took her hand and placed it within his arm, and they walked on into\r
+the sitting-room, where the tables were strewn with engravings for the\r
+accommodation of visitors who would not want to look at them. But no\r
+visitors were here at this moment. They passed on into the\r
+conservatory.\r
+\r
+"How strange and unreal the trees and flowers look with the lights\r
+among them!" said Maggie, in a low voice. "They look as if they\r
+belonged to an enchanted land, and would never fade away; I could\r
+fancy they were all made of jewels."\r
+\r
+She was looking at the tier of geraniums as she spoke, and Stephen\r
+made no answer; but he was looking at her; and does not a supreme poet\r
+blend light and sound into one, calling darkness mute, and light\r
+eloquent? Something strangely powerful there was in the light of\r
+Stephen's long gaze, for it made Maggie's face turn toward it and look\r
+upward at it, slowly, like a flower at the ascending brightness. And\r
+they walked unsteadily on, without feeling that they were walking;\r
+without feeling anything but that long, grave, mutual gaze which has\r
+the solemnity belonging to all deep human passion. The hovering\r
+thought that they must and would renounce each other made this moment\r
+of mute confession more intense in its rapture.\r
+\r
+But they had reached the end of the conservatory, and were obliged to\r
+pause and turn. The change of movement brought a new consciousness to\r
+Maggie; she blushed deeply, turned away her head, and drew her arm\r
+from Stephen's, going up to some flowers to smell them. Stephen stood\r
+motionless, and still pale.\r
+\r
+"Oh, may I get this rose?" said Maggie, making a great effort to say\r
+something, and dissipate the burning sense of irretrievable\r
+confession. "I think I am quite wicked with roses; I like to gather\r
+them and smell them till they have no scent left."\r
+\r
+Stephen was mute; he was incapable of putting a sentence together, and\r
+Maggie bent her arm a little upward toward the large half-opened rose\r
+that had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm?\r
+The unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled\r
+elbow, and all the varied gently lessening curves, down to the\r
+delicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the\r
+firm softness. A woman's arm touched the soul of a great sculptor two\r
+thousand years ago, so that he wrought an image of it for the\r
+Parthenon which moves us still as it clasps lovingly the timeworn\r
+marble of a headless trunk. Maggie's was such an arm as that, and it\r
+had the warm tints of life.\r
+\r
+A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted toward the arm, and\r
+showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist.\r
+\r
+But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glared at him\r
+like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation.\r
+\r
+"How dare you?" She spoke in a deeply shaken, half-smothered voice.\r
+"What right have I given you to insult me?"\r
+\r
+She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the\r
+sofa, panting and trembling.\r
+\r
+A horrible punishment was come upon her for the sin of allowing a\r
+moment's happiness that was treachery to Lucy, to Philip, to her own\r
+better soul. That momentary happiness had been smitten with a blight,\r
+a leprosy; Stephen thought more lightly of _her_ than he did of Lucy.\r
+\r
+As for Stephen, he leaned back against the framework of the\r
+conservatory, dizzy with the conflict of passions,--love, rage, and\r
+confused despair; despair at his want of self-mastery, and despair\r
+that he had offended Maggie.\r
+\r
+The last feeling surmounted every other; to be by her side again and\r
+entreat forgiveness was the only thing that had the force of a motive\r
+for him, and she had not been seated more than a few minutes when he\r
+came and stood humbly before her. But Maggie's bitter rage was\r
+unspent.\r
+\r
+"Leave me to myself, if you please," she said, with impetuous\r
+haughtiness, "and for the future avoid me."\r
+\r
+Stephen turned away, and walked backward and forward at the other end\r
+of the room. There was the dire necessity of going back into the\r
+dancing-room again, and he was beginning to be conscious of that. They\r
+had been absent so short a time, that when he went in again the waltz\r
+was not ended.\r
+\r
+Maggie, too, was not long before she re-entered. All the pride of her\r
+nature was stung into activity; the hateful weakness which had dragged\r
+her within reach of this wound to her self-respect had at least\r
+wrought its own cure. The thoughts and temptations of the last month\r
+should all be flung away into an unvisited chamber of memory. There\r
+was nothing to allure her now; duty would be easy, and all the old\r
+calm purposes would reign peacefully once more. She re-entered the\r
+drawing-room still with some excited brightness in her face, but with\r
+a sense of proud self-command that defied anything to agitate her. She\r
+refused to dance again, but she talked quite readily and calmly with\r
+every one who addressed her. And when they got home that night, she\r
+kissed Lucy with a free heart, almost exulting in this scorching\r
+moment, which had delivered her from the possibility of another word\r
+or look that would have the stamp of treachery toward that gentle,\r
+unsuspicious sister.\r
+\r
+The next morning Maggie did not set off to Basset quite so soon as she\r
+had expected. Her mother was to accompany her in the carriage, and\r
+household business could not be dispatched hastily by Mrs. Tulliver.\r
+So Maggie, who had been in a hurry to prepare herself, had to sit\r
+waiting, equipped for the drive, in the garden. Lucy was busy in the\r
+house wrapping up some bazaar presents for the younger ones at Basset,\r
+and when there was a loud ring at the door-bell, Maggie felt some\r
+alarm lest Lucy should bring out Stephen to her; it was sure to be\r
+Stephen.\r
+\r
+But presently the visitor came out into the garden alone, and seated\r
+himself by her on the garden-chair. It was not Stephen.\r
+\r
+"We can just catch the tips of the Scotch firs, Maggie, from this\r
+seat," said Philip.\r
+\r
+They had taken each other's hands in silence, but Maggie had looked at\r
+him with a more complete revival of the old childlike affectionate\r
+smile than he had seen before, and he felt encouraged.\r
+\r
+"Yes," she said, "I often look at them, and wish I could see the low\r
+sunlight on the stems again. But I have never been that way but\r
+once,--to the churchyard with my mother."\r
+\r
+"I have been there, I go there, continually," said Philip. "I have\r
+nothing but the past to live upon."\r
+\r
+A keen remembrance and keen pity impelled Maggie to put her hand in\r
+Philip's. They had so often walked hand in hand!\r
+\r
+"I remember all the spots," she said,--"just where you told me of\r
+particular things, beautiful stories that I had never heard of\r
+before."\r
+\r
+"You will go there again soon, won't you, Maggie?" said Philip,\r
+getting timid. "The Mill will soon be your brother's home again."\r
+\r
+"Yes; but I shall not be there," said Maggie. "I shall only hear of\r
+that happiness. I am going away again; Lucy has not told you,\r
+perhaps?"\r
+\r
+"Then the future will never join on to the past again, Maggie? That\r
+book is quite closed?"\r
+\r
+The gray eyes that had so often looked up at her with entreating\r
+worship, looked up at her now, with a last struggling ray of hope in\r
+them, and Maggie met them with her large sincere gaze.\r
+\r
+"That book never will be closed, Philip," she said, with grave\r
+sadness; "I desire no future that will break the ties of the past. But\r
+the tie to my brother is one of the strongest. I can do nothing\r
+willingly that will divide me always from him."\r
+\r
+"Is that the only reason that would keep us apart forever, Maggie?"\r
+said Philip, with a desperate determination to have a definite answer.\r
+\r
+"The only reason," said Maggie, with calm decision. And she believed\r
+it. At that moment she felt as if the enchanted cup had been dashed to\r
+the ground. The reactionary excitement that gave her a proud\r
+self-mastery had not subsided, and she looked at the future with a\r
+sense of calm choice.\r
+\r
+They sat hand in hand without looking at each other or speaking for a\r
+few minutes; in Maggie's mind the first scenes of love and parting\r
+were more present than the actual moment, and she was looking at\r
+Philip in the Red Deeps.\r
+\r
+Philip felt that he ought to have been thoroughly happy in that answer\r
+of hers; she was as open and transparent as a rock-pool. Why was he\r
+not thoroughly happy? Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short\r
+of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XI\r
+\r
+In the Lane\r
+\r
+\r
+Maggie had been four days at her aunt Moss's giving the early June\r
+sunshine quite a new brightness in the care-dimmed eyes of that\r
+affectionate woman, and making an epoch for her cousins great and\r
+small, who were learning her words and actions by heart, as if she had\r
+been a transient avatar of perfect wisdom and beauty.\r
+\r
+She was standing on the causeway with her aunt and a group of cousins\r
+feeding the chickens, at that quiet moment in the life of the\r
+farmyards before the afternoon milking-time. The great buildings round\r
+the hollow yard were as dreary and tumbledown as ever, but over the\r
+old garden-wall the straggling rose-bushes were beginning to toss\r
+their summer weight, and the gray wood and old bricks of the house, on\r
+its higher level, had a look of sleepy age in the broad afternoon\r
+sunlight, that suited the quiescent time. Maggie, with her bonnet over\r
+her arm, was smiling down at the hatch of small fluffy chickens, when\r
+her aunt exclaimed,--\r
+\r
+"Goodness me! who is that gentleman coming in at the gate?"\r
+\r
+It was a gentleman on a tall bay horse; and the flanks and neck of the\r
+horse were streaked black with fast riding. Maggie felt a beating at\r
+head and heart, horrible as the sudden leaping to life of a savage\r
+enemy who had feigned death.\r
+\r
+"Who is it, my dear?" said Mrs. Moss, seeing in Maggie's face the\r
+evidence that she knew.\r
+\r
+"It is Mr. Stephen Guest," said Maggie, rather faintly. "My cousin\r
+Lucy's--a gentleman who is very intimate at my cousin's."\r
+\r
+Stephen was already close to them, had jumped off his horse, and now\r
+raised his hat as he advanced.\r
+\r
+"Hold the horse, Willy," said Mrs. Moss to the twelve-year-old boy.\r
+\r
+"No, thank you," said Stephen, pulling at the horse's impatiently\r
+tossing head. "I must be going again immediately. I have a message to\r
+deliver to you, Miss Tulliver, on private business. May I take the\r
+liberty of asking you to walk a few yards with me?"\r
+\r
+He had a half-jaded, half-irritated look, such as a man gets when he\r
+has been dogged by some care or annoyance that makes his bed and his\r
+dinner of little use to him. He spoke almost abruptly, as if his\r
+errand were too pressing for him to trouble himself about what would\r
+be thought by Mrs. Moss of his visit and request. Good Mrs. Moss,\r
+rather nervous in the presence of this apparently haughty gentleman,\r
+was inwardly wondering whether she would be doing right or wrong to\r
+invite him again to leave his horse and walk in, when Maggie, feeling\r
+all the embarrassment of the situation, and unable to say anything,\r
+put on her bonnet, and turned to walk toward the gate.\r
+\r
+Stephen turned too, and walked by her side, leading his horse.\r
+\r
+Not a word was spoken till they were out in the lane, and had walked\r
+four or five yards, when Maggie, who had been looking straight before\r
+her all the while, turned again to walk back, saying, with haughty\r
+resentment,--\r
+\r
+"There is no need for me to go any farther. I don't know whether you\r
+consider it gentlemanly and delicate conduct to place me in a position\r
+that forced me to come out with you, or whether you wished to insult\r
+me still further by thrusting an interview upon me in this way."\r
+\r
+"Of course you are angry with me for coming," said Stephen, bitterly.\r
+"Of course it is of no consequence what a man has to suffer; it is\r
+only your woman's dignity that you care about."\r
+\r
+Maggie gave a slight start, such as might have come from the slightest\r
+possible electric shock.\r
+\r
+"As if it were not enough that I'm entangled in this way; that I'm mad\r
+with love for you; that I resist the strongest passion a man can feel,\r
+because I try to be true to other claims; but you must treat me as if\r
+I were a coarse brute, who would willingly offend you. And when, if I\r
+had my own choice, I should ask you to take my hand and my fortune and\r
+my whole life, and do what you liked with them! I know I forgot\r
+myself. I took an unwarrantable liberty. I hate myself for having done\r
+it. But I repented immediately; I've been repenting ever since. You\r
+ought not to think it unpardonable; a man who loves with his whole\r
+soul, as I do you, is liable to be mastered by his feelings for a\r
+moment; but you know--you must believe--that the worst pain I could\r
+have is to have pained you; that I would give the world to recall the\r
+error."\r
+\r
+Maggie dared not speak, dared not turn her head. The strength that had\r
+come from resentment was all gone, and her lips were quivering\r
+visibly. She could not trust herself to utter the full forgiveness\r
+that rose in answer to that confession.\r
+\r
+They were come nearly in front of the gate again, and she paused,\r
+trembling.\r
+\r
+"You must not say these things; I must not hear them," she said,\r
+looking down in misery, as Stephen came in front of her, to prevent\r
+her from going farther toward the gate. "I'm very sorry for any pain\r
+you have to go through; but it is of no use to speak."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it _is_ of use," said Stephen, impetuously. "It would be of use\r
+if you would treat me with some sort of pity and consideration,\r
+instead of doing me vile injustice in your mind. I could bear\r
+everything more quietly if I knew you didn't hate me for an insolent\r
+coxcomb. Look at me; see what a hunted devil I am; I've been riding\r
+thirty miles every day to get away from the thought of you."\r
+\r
+Maggie did not--dared not--look. She had already seen the harassed\r
+face. But she said gently,--\r
+\r
+"I don't think any evil of you."\r
+\r
+"Then, dearest, look at me," said Stephen, in deepest, tenderest tones\r
+of entreaty. "Don't go away from me yet. Give me a moment's happiness;\r
+make me feel you've forgiven me."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do forgive you," said Maggie, shaken by those tones, and all\r
+the more frightened at herself. "But pray let me go in again. Pray go\r
+away."\r
+\r
+A great tear fell from under her lowered eyelids.\r
+\r
+"I can't go away from you; I can't leave you," said Stephen, with\r
+still more passionate pleading. "I shall come back again if you send\r
+me away with this coldness; I can't answer for myself. But if you will\r
+go with me only a little way I can live on that. You see plainly\r
+enough that your anger has only made me ten times more unreasonable."\r
+\r
+Maggie turned. But Tancred, the bay horse, began to make such spirited\r
+remonstrances against this frequent change of direction, that Stephen,\r
+catching sight of Willy Moss peeping through the gate, called out,\r
+"Here! just come and hold my horse for five minutes."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no," said Maggie, hurriedly, "my aunt will think it so strange."\r
+\r
+"Never mind," Stephen answered impatiently; "they don't know the\r
+people at St. Ogg's. Lead him up and down just here for five minutes,"\r
+he added to Willy, who was now close to them; and then he turned to\r
+Maggie's side, and they walked on. It was clear that she _must_ go on\r
+now.\r
+\r
+"Take my arm," said Stephen, entreatingly; and she took it, feeling\r
+all the while as if she were sliding downward in a nightmare.\r
+\r
+"There is no end to this misery," she began, struggling to repel the\r
+influence by speech. "It is wicked--base--ever allowing a word or look\r
+that Lucy--that others might not have seen. Think of Lucy."\r
+\r
+"I do think of her--bless her. If I didn't----" Stephen had laid his\r
+hand on Maggie's that rested on his arm, and they both felt it\r
+difficult to speak.\r
+\r
+"And I have other ties," Maggie went on, at last, with a desperate\r
+effort, "even if Lucy did not exist."\r
+\r
+"You are engaged to Philip Wakem?" said Stephen, hastily. "Is it so?"\r
+\r
+"I consider myself engaged to him; I don't mean to marry any one\r
+else."\r
+\r
+Stephen was silent again until they had turned out of the sun into a\r
+side lane, all grassy and sheltered. Then he burst out impetuously,--\r
+\r
+"It is unnatural, it is horrible. Maggie, if you loved me as I love\r
+you, we should throw everything else to the winds for the sake of\r
+belonging to each other. We should break all these mistaken ties that\r
+were made in blindness, and determine to marry each other."\r
+\r
+"I would rather die than fall into that temptation," said Maggie, with\r
+deep, slow distinctness, all the gathered spiritual force of painful\r
+years coming to her aid in this extremity. She drew her arm from his\r
+as she spoke.\r
+\r
+"Tell me, then, that you don't care for me," he said, almost\r
+violently. "Tell me that you love some one else better."\r
+\r
+It darted through Maggie's mind that here was a mode of releasing\r
+herself from outward struggle,--to tell Stephen that her whole heart\r
+was Philip's. But her lips would not utter that, and she was silent.\r
+\r
+"If you do love me, dearest," said Stephen, gently, taking her hand\r
+again and laying it within his arm, "it is better--it is right that we\r
+should marry each other. We can't help the pain it will give. It is\r
+come upon us without our seeking; it is natural; it has taken hold of\r
+me in spite of every effort I have made to resist it. God knows, I've\r
+been trying to be faithful to tacit engagements, and I've only made\r
+things worse; I'd better have given way at first."\r
+\r
+Maggie was silent. If it were _not_ wrong--if she were once convinced\r
+of that, and need no longer beat and struggle against this current,\r
+soft and yet strong as the summer stream!\r
+\r
+"Say 'yes,' dearest," said Stephen, leaning to look entreatingly in\r
+her face. "What could we care about in the whole world beside, if we\r
+belonged to each other?"\r
+\r
+Her breath was on his face, his lips were very near hers, but there\r
+was a great dread dwelling in his love for her.\r
+\r
+Her lips and eyelids quivered; she opened her eyes full on his for an\r
+instant, like a lovely wild animal timid and struggling under\r
+caresses, and then turned sharp round toward home again.\r
+\r
+"And after all," he went on, in an impatient tone, trying to defeat\r
+his own scruples as well as hers, "I am breaking no positive\r
+engagement; if Lucy's affections had been withdrawn from me and given\r
+to some one else, I should have felt no right to assert a claim on\r
+her. If you are not absolutely pledged to Philip, we are neither of us\r
+bound."\r
+\r
+"You don't believe that; it is not your real feeling," said Maggie,\r
+earnestly. "You feel, as I do, that the real tie lies in the feelings\r
+and expectations we have raised in other minds. Else all pledges might\r
+be broken, when there was no outward penalty. There would be no such\r
+thing as faithfulness."\r
+\r
+Stephen was silent; he could not pursue that argument; the opposite\r
+conviction had wrought in him too strongly through his previous time\r
+of struggle. But it soon presented itself in a new form.\r
+\r
+"The pledge _can't_ be fulfilled," he said, with impetuous insistence.\r
+"It is unnatural; we can only pretend to give ourselves to any one\r
+else. There is wrong in that too; there may be misery in it for _them_\r
+as well as for us. Maggie, you must see that; you do see that."\r
+\r
+He was looking eagerly at her face for the least sign of compliance;\r
+his large, firm, gentle grasp was on her hand. She was silent for a\r
+few moments, with her eyes fixed on the ground; then she drew a deep\r
+breath, and said, looking up at him with solemn sadness,--\r
+\r
+"Oh, it is difficult,--life is very difficult! It seems right to me\r
+sometimes that we should follow our strongest feeling; but then, such\r
+feelings continually come across the ties that all our former life has\r
+made for us,--the ties that have made others dependent on us,--and\r
+would cut them in two. If life were quite easy and simple, as it might\r
+have been in Paradise, and we could always see that one being first\r
+toward whom--I mean, if life did not make duties for us before love\r
+comes, love would be a sign that two people ought to belong to each\r
+other. But I see--I feel it is not so now; there are things we must\r
+renounce in life; some of us must resign love. Many things are\r
+difficult and dark to me; but I see one thing quite clearly,--that I\r
+must not, cannot, seek my own happiness by sacrificing others. Love is\r
+natural; but surely pity and faithfulness and memory are natural too.\r
+And they would live in me still, and punish me if I did not obey them.\r
+I should be haunted by the suffering I had caused. Our love would be\r
+poisoned. Don't urge me; help me,--help me, _because_ I love you."\r
+\r
+Maggie had become more and more earnest as she went on; her face had\r
+become flushed, and her eyes fuller and fuller of appealing love.\r
+Stephen had the fibre of nobleness in him that vibrated to her appeal;\r
+but in the same moment--how could it be otherwise?--that pleading\r
+beauty gained new power over him.\r
+\r
+"Dearest," he said, in scarcely more than a whisper, while his arm\r
+stole round her, "I'll do, I'll bear anything you wish. But--one\r
+kiss--one--the last--before we part."\r
+\r
+One kiss, and then a long look, until Maggie said tremulously, "Let me\r
+go,--let me make haste back."\r
+\r
+She hurried along, and not another word was spoken. Stephen stood\r
+still and beckoned when they came within sight of Willy and the horse,\r
+and Maggie went on through the gate. Mrs. Moss was standing alone at\r
+the door of the old porch; she had sent all the cousins in, with kind\r
+thoughtfulness. It might be a joyful thing that Maggie had a rich and\r
+handsome lover, but she would naturally feel embarrassed at coming in\r
+again; and it might _not_ be joyful. In either case Mrs. Moss waited\r
+anxiously to receive Maggie by herself. The speaking face told plainly\r
+enough that, if there was joy, it was of a very agitating, dubious\r
+sort.\r
+\r
+"Sit down here a bit, my dear." She drew Maggie into the porch, and\r
+sat down on the bench by her; there was no privacy in the house.\r
+\r
+"Oh, aunt Gritty, I'm very wretched! I wish I could have died when I\r
+was fifteen. It seemed so easy to give things up then; it is so hard\r
+now."\r
+\r
+The poor child threw her arms round her aunt's neck, and fell into\r
+long, deep sobs.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XII\r
+\r
+A Family Party\r
+\r
+\r
+Maggie left her good aunt Gritty at the end of the week, and went to\r
+Garum Firs to pay her visit to aunt Pullet according to agreement. In\r
+the mean time very unexpected things had happened, and there was to be\r
+a family party at Garum to discuss and celebrate a change in the\r
+fortunes of the Tullivers, which was likely finally to carry away the\r
+shadow of their demerits like the last limb of an eclipse, and cause\r
+their hitherto obscured virtues to shine forth in full-rounded\r
+splendor. It is pleasant to know that a new ministry just come into\r
+office are not the only fellow-men who enjoy a period of high\r
+appreciation and full-blown eulogy; in many respectable families\r
+throughout this realm, relatives becoming creditable meet with a\r
+similar cordiality of recognition, which in its fine freedom from the\r
+coercion of any antecedents, suggests the hopeful possibility that we\r
+may some day without any notice find ourselves in full millennium,\r
+with cockatrices who have ceased to bite, and wolves that no longer\r
+show their teeth with any but the blandest intentions.\r
+\r
+Lucy came so early as to have the start even of aunt Glegg; for she\r
+longed to have some undisturbed talk with Maggie about the wonderful\r
+news. It seemed, did it not? said Lucy, with her prettiest air of\r
+wisdom, as if everything, even other people's misfortunes (poor\r
+creatures!) were conspiring now to make poor dear aunt Tulliver, and\r
+cousin Tom, and naughty Maggie too, if she were not obstinately bent\r
+on the contrary, as happy as they deserved to be after all their\r
+troubles. To think that the very day--the _very day_--after Tom had\r
+come back from Newcastle, that unfortunate young Jetsome, whom Mr.\r
+Wakem had placed at the Mill, had been pitched off his horse in a\r
+drunken fit, and was lying at St. Ogg's in a dangerous state, so that\r
+Wakem had signified his wish that the new purchasers should enter on\r
+the premises at once!\r
+\r
+It was very dreadful for that unhappy young man, but it did seem as if\r
+the misfortune had happened then, rather than at any other time, in\r
+order that cousin Tom might all the sooner have the fit reward of his\r
+exemplary conduct,--papa thought so very highly of him. Aunt Tulliver\r
+must certainly go to the Mill now, and keep house for Tom; that was\r
+rather a loss to Lucy in the matter of household comfort; but then, to\r
+think of poor aunty being in her old place again, and gradually\r
+getting comforts about her there!\r
+\r
+On this last point Lucy had her cunning projects, and when she and\r
+Maggie had made their dangerous way down the bright stairs into the\r
+handsome parlor, where the very sunbeams seemed cleaner than\r
+elsewhere, she directed her manœuvres, as any other great tactician\r
+would have done, against the weaker side of the enemy.\r
+\r
+"Aunt Pullet," she said, seating herself on the sofa, and caressingly\r
+adjusting that lady's floating cap-string, "I want you to make up your\r
+mind what linen and things you will give Tom toward housekeeping;\r
+because you are always so generous,--you give such nice things, you\r
+know; and if you set the example, aunt Glegg will follow."\r
+\r
+"That she never can, my dear," said Mrs. Pullet, with unusual vigor,\r
+"for she hasn't got the linen to follow suit wi' mine, I can tell you.\r
+She'd niver the taste, not if she'd spend the money. Big checks and\r
+live things, like stags and foxes, all her table-linen is,--not a spot\r
+nor a diamond among 'em. But it's poor work dividing one's linen\r
+before one dies,--I niver thought to ha' done that, Bessy," Mrs.\r
+Pullet continued, shaking her head and looking at her sister Tulliver,\r
+"when you and me chose the double diamont, the first flax iver we'd\r
+spun, and the Lord knows where yours is gone."\r
+\r
+"I'd no choice, I'm sure, sister," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, accustomed\r
+to consider herself in the light of an accused person. "I'm sure it\r
+was no wish o' mine, iver, as I should lie awake o' nights thinking o'\r
+my best bleached linen all over the country."\r
+\r
+"Take a peppermint, Mrs. Tulliver," said uncle Pullet, feeling that he\r
+was offering a cheap and wholesome form of comfort, which he was\r
+recommending by example.\r
+\r
+"Oh, but, aunt Pullet," said Lucy, "you've so much beautiful linen.\r
+And suppose you had had daughters! Then you must have divided it when\r
+they were married."\r
+\r
+"Well, I don't say as I won't do it," said Mrs. Pullet, "for now Tom's\r
+so lucky, it's nothing but right his friends should look on him and\r
+help him. There's the tablecloths I bought at your sale, Bessy; it was\r
+nothing but good natur' o' me to buy 'em, for they've been lying in\r
+the chest ever since. But I'm not going to give Maggie any more o' my\r
+Indy muslin and things, if she's to go into service again, when she\r
+might stay and keep me company, and do my sewing for me, if she wasn't\r
+wanted at her brother's."\r
+\r
+"Going into service" was the expression by which the Dodson mind\r
+represented to itself the position of teacher or governess; and\r
+Maggie's return to that menial condition, now circumstances offered\r
+her more eligible prospects, was likely to be a sore point with all\r
+her relatives, besides Lucy. Maggie in her crude form, with her hair\r
+down her back, and altogether in a state of dubious promise, was a\r
+most undesirable niece; but now she was capable of being at once\r
+ornamental and useful. The subject was revived in aunt and uncle\r
+Glegg's presence, over the tea and muffins.\r
+\r
+"Hegh, hegh!" said Mr. Glegg, good-naturedly patting Maggie on the\r
+back, "nonsense, nonsense! Don't let us hear of you taking a place\r
+again, Maggie. Why, you must ha' picked up half-a-dozen sweethearts at\r
+the bazaar; isn't there one of 'em the right sort of article? Come,\r
+now?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," said his wife, with that shade of increased politeness in\r
+her severity which she always put on with her crisper fronts, "you'll\r
+excuse me, but you're far too light for a man of your years. It's\r
+respect and duty to her aunts, and the rest of her kin as are so good\r
+to her, should have kept my niece from fixing about going away again\r
+without consulting us; not sweethearts, if I'm to use such a word,\r
+though it was never heared in _my_ family."\r
+\r
+"Why, what did they call us, when we went to see 'em, then, eh,\r
+neighbor Pullet? They thought us sweet enough then," said Mr. Glegg,\r
+winking pleasantly; while Mr. Pullet, at the suggestion of sweetness,\r
+took a little more sugar.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., "if you're going to be undelicate, let me\r
+know."\r
+\r
+"La, Jane, your husband's only joking," said Mrs. Pullet; "let him\r
+joke while he's got health and strength. There's poor Mr. Tilt got his\r
+mouth drawn all o' one side, and couldn't laugh if he was to try."\r
+\r
+"I'll trouble you for the muffineer, then, Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G.,\r
+"if I may be so bold to interrupt your joking. Though it's other\r
+people must see the joke in a niece's putting a slight on her mother's\r
+eldest sister, as is the head o' the family; and only coming in and\r
+out on short visits, all the time she's been in the town, and then\r
+settling to go away without my knowledge,--as I'd laid caps out on\r
+purpose for her to make 'em up for me,--and me as have divided my\r
+money so equal----"\r
+\r
+"Sister," Mrs. Tulliver broke in anxiously, "I'm sure Maggie never\r
+thought o' going away without staying at your house as well as the\r
+others. Not as it's my wish she should go away at all, but quite\r
+contrairy. I'm sure I'm innocent. I've said over and over again, 'My\r
+dear, you've no call to go away.' But there's ten days or a fortnight\r
+Maggie'll have before she's fixed to go; she can stay at your house\r
+just as well, and I'll step in when I can, and so will Lucy."\r
+\r
+"Bessy," said Mrs. Glegg, "if you'd exercise a little more thought,\r
+you might know I should hardly think it was worth while to unpin a\r
+bed, and go to all that trouble now, just at the end o' the time, when\r
+our house isn't above a quarter of an hour's walk from Mr. Deane's.\r
+She can come the first thing in the morning, and go back the last at\r
+night, and be thankful she's got a good aunt so close to her to come\r
+and sit with. I know _I_ should, when I was her age."\r
+\r
+"La, Jane," said Mrs. Pullet, "it 'ud do your beds good to have\r
+somebody to sleep in 'em. There's that striped room smells dreadful\r
+mouldy, and the glass mildewed like anything. I'm sure I thought I\r
+should be struck with death when you took me in."\r
+\r
+"Oh, there is Tom!" exclaimed Lucy, clapping her hands. "He's come on\r
+Sindbad, as I told him. I was afraid he was not going to keep his\r
+promise."\r
+\r
+Maggie jumped up to kiss Tom as he entered, with strong feeling, at\r
+this first meeting since the prospect of returning to the Mill had\r
+been opened to him; and she kept his hand, leading him to the chair by\r
+her side. To have no cloud between herself and Tom was still a\r
+perpetual yearning in her, that had its root deeper than all change.\r
+He smiled at her very kindly this evening, and said, "Well, Magsie,\r
+how's aunt Moss?"\r
+\r
+"Come, come, sir," said Mr. Glegg putting out his hand. "Why, you're\r
+such a big man, you carry all before you, it, seems. You're come into\r
+your luck a good deal earlier than us old folks did; but I wish you\r
+joy, I wish you joy. You'll get the Mill all for your own again some\r
+day, I'll be bound. You won't stop half-way up the hill."\r
+\r
+"But I hope he'll bear in mind as it's his mother's family as he owes\r
+it to," said Mrs. Glegg. "If he hadn't had them to take after, he'd\r
+ha' been poorly off. There was never any failures, nor lawing, nor\r
+wastefulness in our family, nor dying without wills----"\r
+\r
+"No, nor sudden deaths," said aunt Pullet; "allays the doctor called\r
+in. But Tom had the Dodson skin; I said that from the first. And I\r
+don't know what _you_ mean to do, sister Glegg, but I mean to give him\r
+a tablecloth of all my three biggest sizes but one, besides sheets. I\r
+don't say what more I shall do; but _that_ I shall do, and if I should\r
+die to-morrow, Mr. Pullet, you'll bear it in mind,--though you'll be\r
+blundering with the keys, and never remember as that on the third\r
+shelf o' the left-hand wardrobe, behind the night-caps with the broad\r
+ties,--not the narrow-frilled uns,--is the key of the drawer in the\r
+Blue Room, where the key o' the Blue Closet is. You'll make a mistake,\r
+and I shall niver be worthy to know it. You've a memory for my pills\r
+and draughts, wonderful,--I'll allays say that of you,--but you're\r
+lost among the keys." This gloomy prospect of the confusion that would\r
+ensue on her decease was very affecting to Mrs. Pullet.\r
+\r
+"You carry it too far, Sophy,--that locking in and out," said Mrs.\r
+Glegg, in a tone of some disgust at this folly. "You go beyond your\r
+own family. There's nobody can say I don't lock up; but I do what's\r
+reasonable, and no more. And as for the linen, I shall look out what's\r
+serviceable, to make a present of to my nephey; I've got cloth as has\r
+never been whitened, better worth having than other people's fine\r
+holland; and I hope he'll lie down in it and think of his aunt."\r
+\r
+Tom thanked Mrs. Glegg, but evaded any promise to meditate nightly on\r
+her virtues; and Mrs. Glegg effected a diversion for him by asking\r
+about Mr. Deane's intentions concerning steam.\r
+\r
+Lucy had had her far-sighted views in begging Tom to come on Sindbad.\r
+It appeared, when it was time to go home, that the man-servant was to\r
+ride the horse, and cousin Tom was to drive home his mother and Lucy.\r
+"You must sit by yourself, aunty," said that contriving young lady,\r
+"because I must sit by Tom; I've a great deal to say to him."\r
+\r
+In the eagerness of her affectionate anxiety for Maggie, Lucy could\r
+not persuade herself to defer a conversation about her with Tom, who,\r
+she thought, with such a cup of joy before him as this rapid\r
+fulfilment of his wish about the Mill, must become pliant and\r
+flexible. Her nature supplied her with no key to Tom's; and she was\r
+puzzled as well as pained to notice the unpleasant change on his\r
+countenance when she gave him the history of the way in which Philip\r
+had used his influence with his father. She had counted on this\r
+revelation as a great stroke of policy, which was to turn Tom's heart\r
+toward Philip at once, and, besides that, prove that the elder Wakem\r
+was ready to receive Maggie with all the honors of a daughter-in-law.\r
+Nothing was wanted, then, but for dear Tom, who always had that\r
+pleasant smile when he looked at cousin Lucy, to turn completely\r
+round, say the opposite of what he had always said before, and declare\r
+that he, for his part, was delighted that all the old grievances\r
+should be healed, and that Maggie should have Philip with all suitable\r
+despatch; in cousin Lucy's opinion nothing could be easier.\r
+\r
+But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities\r
+that create severity,--strength of will, conscious rectitude of\r
+purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great power of\r
+self-control, and a disposition to exert control over others,--prejudices\r
+come as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenance\r
+out of that complex, fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which\r
+we call truth. Let a prejudice be bequeathed, carried in the air,\r
+adopted by hearsay, caught in through the eye,--however it may come,\r
+these minds will give it a habitation; it is something to assert\r
+strongly and bravely, something to fill up the void of spontaneous\r
+ideas, something to impose on others with the authority of conscious\r
+right; it is at once a staff and a baton. Every prejudice that will\r
+answer these purposes is self-evident. Our good, upright Tom Tulliver's\r
+mind was of this class; his inward criticism of his father's faults\r
+did not prevent him from adopting his father's prejudice; it was a\r
+prejudice against a man of lax principle and lax life, and it was a\r
+meeting-point for all the disappointed feelings of family and personal\r
+pride. Other feelings added their force to produce Tom's bitter\r
+repugnance to Philip, and to Maggie's union with him; and\r
+notwithstanding Lucy's power over her strong-willed cousin, she got\r
+nothing but a cold refusal ever to sanction such a marriage; "but of\r
+course Maggie could do as she liked,--she had declared her\r
+determination to be independent. For Tom's part, he held himself bound\r
+by his duty to his father's memory, and by every manly feeling, never\r
+to consent to any relation with the Wakems."\r
+\r
+Thus, all that Lucy had effected by her zealous mediation was to fill\r
+Tom's mind with the expectation that Maggie's perverse resolve to go\r
+into a situation again would presently metamorphose itself, as her\r
+resolves were apt to do, into something equally perverse, but entirely\r
+different,--a marriage with Philip Wakem.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XIII\r
+\r
+Borne Along by the Tide\r
+\r
+\r
+In less than a week Maggie was at St. Ogg's again,--outwardly in much\r
+the same position as when her visit there had just begun. It was easy\r
+for her to fill her mornings apart from Lucy without any obvious\r
+effort; for she had her promised visits to pay to her aunt Glegg, and\r
+it was natural that she should give her mother more than usual of her\r
+companionship in these last weeks, especially as there were\r
+preparations to be thought of for Tom's housekeeping. But Lucy would\r
+hear of no pretext for her remaining away in the evenings; she must\r
+always come from aunt Glegg's before dinner,--"else what shall I have\r
+of you?" said Lucy, with a tearful pout that could not be resisted.\r
+\r
+And Mr. Stephen Guest had unaccountably taken to dining at Mr. Deane's\r
+as often as possible, instead of avoiding that, as he used to do. At\r
+first he began his mornings with a resolution that he would not dine\r
+there, not even go in the evening, till Maggie was away. He had even\r
+devised a plan of starting off on a journey in this agreeable June\r
+weather; the headaches which he had constantly been alleging as a\r
+ground for stupidity and silence were a sufficient ostensible motive.\r
+But the journey was not taken, and by the fourth morning no distinct\r
+resolution was formed about the evenings; they were only foreseen as\r
+times when Maggie would still be present for a little while,--when one\r
+more touch, one more glance, might be snatched. For why not? There was\r
+nothing to conceal between them; they knew, they had confessed their\r
+love, and they had renounced each other; they were going to part.\r
+Honor and conscience were going to divide them; Maggie, with that\r
+appeal from her inmost soul, had decided it; but surely they might\r
+cast a lingering look at each other across the gulf, before they\r
+turned away never to look again till that strange light had forever\r
+faded out of their eyes.\r
+\r
+Maggie, all this time, moved about with a quiescence and even torpor\r
+of manner, so contrasted with her usual fitful brightness and ardor,\r
+that Lucy would have had to seek some other cause for such a change,\r
+if she had not been convinced that the position in which Maggie stood\r
+between Philip and her brother, and the prospect of her self-imposed\r
+wearisome banishment, were quite enough to account for a large amount\r
+of depression. But under this torpor there was a fierce battle of\r
+emotions, such as Maggie in all her life of struggle had never known\r
+or foreboded; it seemed to her as if all the worst evil in her had\r
+lain in ambush till now, and had suddenly started up full-armed, with\r
+hideous, overpowering strength! There were moments in which a cruel\r
+selfishness seemed to be getting possession of her; why should not\r
+Lucy, why should not Philip, suffer? _She_ had had to suffer through\r
+many years of her life; and who had renounced anything for her? And\r
+when something like that fulness of existence--love, wealth, ease,\r
+refinement, all that her nature craved--was brought within her reach,\r
+why was she to forego it, that another might have it,--another, who\r
+perhaps needed it less? But amidst all this new passionate tumult\r
+there were the old voices making themselves heard with rising power,\r
+till, from time to time, the tumult seemed quelled. _Was_ that\r
+existence which tempted her the full existence she dreamed? Where,\r
+then, would be all the memories of early striving; all the deep pity\r
+for another's pain, which had been nurtured in her through years of\r
+affection and hardship; all the divine presentiment of something\r
+higher than mere personal enjoyment, which had made the sacredness of\r
+life? She might as well hope to enjoy walking by maiming her feet, as\r
+hope to enjoy an existence in which she set out by maiming the faith\r
+and sympathy that were the best organs of her soul. And then, if pain\r
+were so hard to _her_, what was it to others? "Ah, God! preserve me\r
+from inflicting--give me strength to bear it." How had she sunk into\r
+this struggle with a temptation that she would once have thought\r
+herself as secure from as from deliberate crime? When was that first\r
+hateful moment in which she had been conscious of a feeling that\r
+clashed with her truth, affection, and gratitude, and had not shaken\r
+it from her with horror, as if it had been a loathsome thing? And yet,\r
+since this strange, sweet, subduing influence did not, should not,\r
+conquer her,--since it was to remain simply her own suffering,--her\r
+mind was meeting Stephen's in that thought of his, that they might\r
+still snatch moments of mute confession before the parting came. For\r
+was not he suffering too? She saw it daily--saw it in the sickened\r
+look of fatigue with which, as soon as he was not compelled to exert\r
+himself, he relapsed into indifference toward everything but the\r
+possibility of watching her. Could she refuse sometimes to answer that\r
+beseeching look which she felt to be following her like a low murmur\r
+of love and pain? She refused it less and less, till at last the\r
+evening for them both was sometimes made of a moment's mutual gaze;\r
+they thought of it till it came, and when it had come, they thought of\r
+nothing else.\r
+\r
+One other thing Stephen seemed now and then to care for, and that was\r
+to sing; it was a way of speaking to Maggie. Perhaps he was not\r
+distinctly conscious that he was impelled to it by a secret\r
+longing--running counter to all his self-confessed resolves--to deepen\r
+the hold he had on her. Watch your own speech, and notice how it is\r
+guided by your less conscious purposes, and you will understand that\r
+contradiction in Stephen.\r
+\r
+Philip Wakem was a less frequent visitor, but he came occasionally in\r
+the evening, and it happened that he was there when Lucy said, as they\r
+sat out on the lawn, near sunset,--\r
+\r
+"Now Maggie's tale of visits to aunt Glegg is completed, I mean that\r
+we shall go out boating every day until she goes. She has not had half\r
+enough boating because of these tiresome visits, and she likes it\r
+better than anything. Don't you, Maggie?"\r
+\r
+"Better than any sort of locomotion, I hope you mean," said Philip,\r
+smiling at Maggie, who was lolling backward in a low garden-chair;\r
+"else she will be selling her soul to that ghostly boatman who haunts\r
+the Floss, only for the sake of being drifted in a boat forever."\r
+\r
+"Should you like to be her boatman?" said Lucy. "Because, if you\r
+would, you can come with us and take an oar. If the Floss were but a\r
+quiet lake instead of a river, we should be independent of any\r
+gentleman, for Maggie can row splendidly. As it is, we are reduced to\r
+ask services of knights and squires, who do not seem to offer them\r
+with great alacrity."\r
+\r
+She looked playful reproach at Stephen, who was sauntering up and\r
+down, and was just singing in pianissimo falsetto,--\r
+\r
+ "The thirst that from the soul doth rise\r
+ Doth ask a drink divine."\r
+\r
+He took no notice, but still kept aloof; he had done so frequently\r
+during Philip's recent visits.\r
+\r
+"You don't seem inclined for boating," said Lucy, when he came to sit\r
+down by her on the bench. "Doesn't rowing suit you now?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I hate a large party in a boat," he said, almost irritably. "I'll\r
+come when you have no one else."\r
+\r
+Lucy colored, fearing that Philip would be hurt; it was quite a new\r
+thing for Stephen to speak in that way; but he had certainly not been\r
+well of late. Philip colored too, but less from a feeling of personal\r
+offence than from a vague suspicion that Stephen's moodiness had some\r
+relation to Maggie, who had started up from her chair as he spoke, and\r
+had walked toward the hedge of laurels to look at the descending\r
+sunlight on the river.\r
+\r
+"As Miss Deane didn't know she was excluding others by inviting me,"\r
+said Philip, "I am bound to resign."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, you shall not," said Lucy, much vexed. "I particularly\r
+wish for your company to-morrow. The tide will suit at half-past ten;\r
+it will be a delicious time for a couple of hours to row to Luckreth\r
+and walk back, before the sun gets too hot. And how can you object to\r
+four people in a boat?" she added, looking at Stephen.\r
+\r
+"I don't object to the people, but the number," said Stephen, who had\r
+recovered himself, and was rather ashamed of his rudeness. "If I voted\r
+for a fourth at all, of course it would be you, Phil. But we won't\r
+divide the pleasure of escorting the ladies; we'll take it\r
+alternately. I'll go the next day."\r
+\r
+This incident had the effect of drawing Philip's attention with\r
+freshened solicitude toward Stephen and Maggie; but when they\r
+re-entered the house, music was proposed, and Mrs. Tulliver and Mr.\r
+Deane being occupied with cribbage, Maggie sat apart near the table\r
+where the books and work were placed, doing nothing, however, but\r
+listening abstractedly to the music. Stephen presently turned to a\r
+duet which he insisted that Lucy and Philip should sing; he had often\r
+done the same thing before; but this evening Philip thought he divined\r
+some double intention in every word and look of Stephen's, and watched\r
+him keenly, angry with himself all the while for this clinging\r
+suspicion. For had not Maggie virtually denied any ground for his\r
+doubts on her side? And she was truth itself; it was impossible not to\r
+believe her word and glance when they had last spoken together in the\r
+garden. Stephen might be strongly fascinated by her (what was more\r
+natural?), but Philip felt himself rather base for intruding on what\r
+must be his friend's painful secret. Still he watched. Stephen, moving\r
+away from the piano, sauntered slowly toward the table near which\r
+Maggie sat, and turned over the newspapers, apparently in mere\r
+idleness. Then he seated himself with his back to the piano, dragging\r
+a newspaper under his elbow, and thrusting his hand through his hair,\r
+as if he had been attracted by some bit of local news in the "Laceham\r
+Courier." He was in reality looking at Maggie who had not taken the\r
+slightest notice of his approach. She had always additional strength\r
+of resistance when Philip was present, just as we can restrain our\r
+speech better in a spot that we feel to be hallowed. But at last she\r
+heard the word "dearest" uttered in the softest tone of pained\r
+entreaty, like that of a patient who asks for something that ought to\r
+have been given without asking. She had never heard that word since\r
+the moments in the lane at Basset, when it had come from Stephen again\r
+and again, almost as involuntarily as if it had been an inarticulate\r
+cry. Philip could hear no word, but he had moved to the opposite side\r
+of the piano, and could see Maggie start and blush, raise her eyes an\r
+instant toward Stephen's face, but immediately look apprehensively\r
+toward himself. It was not evident to her that Philip had observed\r
+her; but a pang of shame, under the sense of this concealment, made\r
+her move from her chair and walk to her mother's side to watch the\r
+game at cribbage.\r
+\r
+Philip went home soon after in a state of hideous doubt mingled with\r
+wretched certainty. It was impossible for him now to resist the\r
+conviction that there was some mutual consciousness between Stephen\r
+and Maggie; and for half the night his irritable, susceptible nerves\r
+were pressed upon almost to frenzy by that one wretched fact; he could\r
+attempt no explanation that would reconcile it with her words and\r
+actions. When, at last, the need for belief in Maggie rose to its\r
+habitual predominance, he was not long in imagining the truth,--she\r
+was struggling, she was banishing herself; this was the clue to all he\r
+had seen since his return. But athwart that belief there came other\r
+possibilities that would not be driven out of sight. His imagination\r
+wrought out the whole story; Stephen was madly in love with her; he\r
+must have told her so; she had rejected him, and was hurrying away.\r
+But would he give her up, knowing--Philip felt the fact with\r
+heart-crushing despair--that she was made half helpless by her feeling\r
+toward him?\r
+\r
+When the morning came, Philip was too ill to think of keeping his\r
+engagement to go in the boat. In his present agitation he could decide\r
+on nothing; he could only alternate between contradictory intentions.\r
+First, he thought he must have an interview with Maggie, and entreat\r
+her to confide in him; then, again, he distrusted his own\r
+interference. Had he not been thrusting himself on Maggie all along?\r
+She had uttered words long ago in her young ignorance; it was enough\r
+to make her hate him that these should be continually present with her\r
+as a bond. And had he any right to ask her for a revelation of\r
+feelings which she had evidently intended to withhold from him? He\r
+would not trust himself to see her, till he had assured himself that\r
+he could act from pure anxiety for her, and not from egoistic\r
+irritation. He wrote a brief note to Stephen, and sent it early by the\r
+servant, saying that he was not well enough to fulfil his engagement\r
+to Miss Deane. Would Stephen take his excuse, and fill his place?\r
+\r
+Lucy had arranged a charming plan, which had made her quite content\r
+with Stephen's refusal to go in the boat. She discovered that her\r
+father was to drive to Lindum this morning at ten; Lindum was the very\r
+place she wanted to go to, to make purchases,--important purchases,\r
+which must by no means be put off to another opportunity; and aunt\r
+Tulliver must go too, because she was concerned in some of the\r
+purchases.\r
+\r
+"You will have your row in the boat just the same, you know," she said\r
+to Maggie when they went out of the breakfast-room and upstairs\r
+together; "Philip will be here it half-past ten, and it is a delicious\r
+morning. Now don't say a word against it, you dear dolorous thing.\r
+What is the use of my being a fairy godmother, if you set your face\r
+against all the wonders I work for you? Don't think of awful cousin\r
+Tom; you may disobey him a little."\r
+\r
+Maggie did not persist in objecting. She was almost glad of the plan,\r
+for perhaps it would bring her some strength and calmness to be alone\r
+with Philip again; it was like revisiting the scene of a quieter life,\r
+in which the very struggles were repose, compared with the daily\r
+tumult of the present. She prepared herself for the boat and at\r
+half-past ten sat waiting in the drawing-room.\r
+\r
+The ring of the door-bell was punctual, and she was thinking with\r
+half-sad, affectionate pleasure of the surprise Philip would have in\r
+finding that he was to be with her alone, when she distinguished a\r
+firm, rapid step across the hall, that was certainly not Philip's; the\r
+door opened, and Stephen Guest entered.\r
+\r
+In the first moment they were both too much agitated to speak; for\r
+Stephen had learned from the servant that the others were gone out.\r
+Maggie had started up and sat down again, with her heart beating\r
+violently; and Stephen, throwing down his cap and gloves, came and sat\r
+by her in silence. She thought Philip would be coming soon; and with\r
+great effort--for she trembled visibly--she rose to go to a distant\r
+chair.\r
+\r
+"He is not coming," said Stephen, in a low tone. "I am going in the\r
+boat."\r
+\r
+"Oh, we can't go," said Maggie, sinking into her chair again. "Lucy\r
+did not expect--she would be hurt. Why is not Philip come?"\r
+\r
+"He is not well; he asked me to come instead."\r
+\r
+"Lucy is gone to Lindum," said Maggie, taking off her bonnet with\r
+hurried, trembling fingers. "We must not go."\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Stephen, dreamily, looking at her, as he rested his\r
+arm on the back of his chair. "Then we'll stay here."\r
+\r
+He was looking into her deep, deep eyes, far off and mysterious at the\r
+starlit blackness, and yet very near, and timidly loving. Maggie sat\r
+perfectly still--perhaps for moments, perhaps for minutes--until the\r
+helpless trembling had ceased, and there was a warm glow on her check.\r
+\r
+"The man is waiting; he has taken the cushions," she said. "Will you\r
+go and tell him?"\r
+\r
+"What shall I tell him?" said Stephen, almost in a whisper. He was\r
+looking at the lips now.\r
+\r
+Maggie made no answer.\r
+\r
+"Let us go," Stephen murmured entreatingly, rising, and taking her\r
+hand to raise her too. "We shall not be long together."\r
+\r
+And they went. Maggie felt that she was being led down the garden\r
+among the roses, being helped with firm, tender care into the boat,\r
+having the cushion and cloak arranged for her feet, and her parasol\r
+opened for her (which she had forgotten), all by this stronger\r
+presence that seemed to bear her along without any act of her own\r
+will, like the added self which comes with the sudden exalting\r
+influence of a strong tonic, and she felt nothing else. Memory was\r
+excluded.\r
+\r
+They glided rapidly along, Stephen rowing, helped by the\r
+backward-flowing tide, past the Tofton trees and houses; on between\r
+the silent sunny fields and pastures, which seemed filled with a\r
+natural joy that had no reproach for theirs. The breath of the young,\r
+unwearied day, the delicious rhythmic dip of the oars, the fragmentary\r
+song of a passing bird heard now and then, as if it were only the\r
+overflowing of brimful gladness, the sweet solitude of a twofold\r
+consciousness that was mingled into one by that grave, untiring gaze\r
+which need not be averted,--what else could there be in their minds\r
+for the first hour? Some low, subdued, languid exclamation of love\r
+came from Stephen from time to time, as he went on rowing idly, half\r
+automatically; otherwise they spoke no word; for what could words have\r
+been but an inlet to thought? and thought did not belong to that\r
+enchanted haze in which they were enveloped,--it belonged to the past\r
+and the future that lay outside the haze. Maggie was only dimly\r
+conscious of the banks, as they passed them, and dwelt with no\r
+recognition on the villages; she knew there were several to be passed\r
+before they reached Luckreth, where they always stopped and left the\r
+boat. At all times she was so liable to fits of absence, that she was\r
+likely enough to let her waymarks pass unnoticed.\r
+\r
+But at last Stephen, who had been rowing more and more idly, ceased to\r
+row, laid down the oars, folded his arms, and looked down on the water\r
+as if watching the pace at which the boat glided without his help.\r
+This sudden change roused Maggie. She looked at the far-stretching\r
+fields, at the banks close by, and felt that they were entirely\r
+strange to her. A terrible alarm took possession of her.\r
+\r
+"Oh, have we passed Luckreth, where we were to stop?" she exclaimed,\r
+looking back to see if the place were out of sight. No village was to\r
+be seen. She turned around again, with a look of distressed\r
+questioning at Stephen.\r
+\r
+He went on watching the water, and said, in a strange, dreamy, absent\r
+tone, "Yes, a long way."\r
+\r
+"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Maggie, in an agony. "We shall not get\r
+home for hours, and Lucy? O God, help me!"\r
+\r
+She clasped her hands and broke into a sob, like a frightened child;\r
+she thought of nothing but of meeting Lucy, and seeing her look of\r
+pained surprise and doubt, perhaps of just upbraiding.\r
+\r
+Stephen moved and sat near her, and gently drew down the clasped\r
+hands.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," he said, in a deep tone of slow decision, "let us never go\r
+home again, till no one can part us,--till we are married."\r
+\r
+The unusual tone, the startling words, arrested Maggie's sob, and she\r
+sat quite still, wondering; as if Stephen might have seen some\r
+possibilities that would alter everything, and annul the wretched\r
+facts.\r
+\r
+"See, Maggie, how everything has come without our seeking,--in spite\r
+of all our efforts. We never thought of being alone together again; it\r
+has all been done by others. See how the tide is carrying us out, away\r
+from all those unnatural bonds that we have been trying to make faster\r
+round us, and trying in vain. It will carry us on to Torby, and we can\r
+land there, and get some carriage, and hurry on to York and then to\r
+Scotland,--and never pause a moment till we are bound to each other,\r
+so that only death can part us. It is the only right thing, dearest;\r
+it is the only way of escaping from this wretched entanglement.\r
+Everything has concurred to point it out to us. We have contrived\r
+nothing, we have thought of nothing ourselves."\r
+\r
+Stephen spoke with deep, earnest pleading. Maggie listened, passing\r
+from her startled wonderment to the yearning after that belief that\r
+the tide was doing it all, that she might glide along with the swift,\r
+silent stream, and not struggle any more. But across that stealing\r
+influence came the terrible shadow of past thoughts; and the sudden\r
+horror lest now, at last, the moment of fatal intoxication was close\r
+upon her, called up feelings of angry resistance toward Stephen.\r
+\r
+"Let me go!" she said, in an agitated tone, flashing an indignant look\r
+at him, and trying to get her hands free. "You have wanted to deprive\r
+me of any choice. You knew we were come too far; you have dared to\r
+take advantage of my thoughtlessness. It is unmanly to bring me into\r
+such a position."\r
+\r
+Stung by this reproach, he released her hands, moved back to his\r
+former place, and folded his arms, in a sort of desperation at the\r
+difficulty Maggie's words had made present to him. If she would not\r
+consent to go on, he must curse himself for the embarrassment he had\r
+led her into. But the reproach was the unendurable thing; the one\r
+thing worse than parting with her was, that she should feel he had\r
+acted unworthily toward her. At last he said, in a tone of suppressed\r
+rage,--\r
+\r
+"I didn't notice that we had passed Luckreth till we had got to the\r
+next village; and then it came into my mind that we would go on. I\r
+can't justify it; I ought to have told you. It is enough to make you\r
+hate me, since you don't love me well enough to make everything else\r
+indifferent to you, as I do you. Shall I stop the boat and try to get\r
+you out here? I'll tell Lucy that I was mad, and that you hate me; and\r
+you shall be clear of me forever. No one can blame you, because I have\r
+behaved unpardonably to you."\r
+\r
+Maggie was paralyzed; it was easier to resist Stephen's pleading than\r
+this picture he had called up of himself suffering while she was\r
+vindicated; easier even to turn away from his look of tenderness than\r
+from this look of angry misery, that seemed to place her in selfish\r
+isolation from him. He had called up a state of feeling in which the\r
+reasons which had acted on her conscience seemed to be transmitted\r
+into mere self-regard. The indignant fire in her eyes was quenched,\r
+and she began to look at him with timid distress. She had reproached\r
+him for being hurried into irrevocable trespass,--she, who had been so\r
+weak herself.\r
+\r
+"As if I shouldn't feel what happened to you--just the same," she\r
+said, with reproach of another kind,--the reproach of love, asking for\r
+more trust. This yielding to the idea of Stephen's suffering was more\r
+fatal than the other yielding, because it was less distinguishable\r
+from that sense of others' claims which was the moral basis of her\r
+resistance.\r
+\r
+He felt all the relenting in her look and tone; it was heaven opening\r
+again. He moved to her side, and took her hand, leaning his elbow on\r
+the back of the boat, and saying nothing. He dreaded to utter another\r
+word, he dreaded to make another movement, that might provoke another\r
+reproach or denial from her. Life hung on her consent; everything else\r
+was hopeless, confused, sickening misery. They glided along in this\r
+way, both resting in that silence as in a haven, both dreading lest\r
+their feelings should be divided again,--till they became aware that\r
+the clouds had gathered, and that the slightest perceptible freshening\r
+of the breeze was growing and growing, so that the whole character of\r
+the day was altered.\r
+\r
+"You will be chill, Maggie, in this thin dress. Let me raise the cloak\r
+over your shoulders. Get up an instant, dearest."\r
+\r
+Maggie obeyed; there was an unspeakable charm in being told what to\r
+do, and having everything decided for her. She sat down again covered\r
+with the cloak, and Stephen took to his oars again, making haste; for\r
+they must try to get to Torby as fast as they could. Maggie was hardly\r
+conscious of having said or done anything decisive. All yielding is\r
+attended with a less vivid consciousness than resistance; it is the\r
+partial sleep of thought; it is the submergence of our own personality\r
+by another. Every influence tended to lull her into acquiescence. That\r
+dreamy gliding in the boat which had lasted for four hours, and had\r
+brought some weariness and exhaustion; the recoil of her fatigued\r
+sensations from the impracticable difficulty of getting out of the\r
+boat at this unknown distance from home, and walking for long\r
+miles,--all helped to bring her into more complete subjection to that\r
+strong, mysterious charm which made a last parting from Stephen seem\r
+the death of all joy, and made the thought of wounding him like the\r
+first touch of the torturing iron before which resolution shrank. And\r
+then there was the present happiness of being with him, which was\r
+enough to absorb all her languid energy.\r
+\r
+Presently Stephen observed a vessel coming after them. Several\r
+vessels, among them the steamer to Mudport, had passed them with the\r
+early tide, but for the last hour they had seen none. He looked more\r
+and more eagerly at this vessel, as if a new thought had come into his\r
+mind along with it, and then he looked at Maggie hesitatingly.\r
+\r
+"Maggie, dearest," he said at last, "if this vessel should be going to\r
+Mudport, or to any convenient place on the coast northward, it would\r
+be our best plan to get them to take us on board. You are fatigued,\r
+and it may soon rain; it may be a wretched business, getting to Torby\r
+in this boat. It's only a trading vessel, but I dare say you can be\r
+made tolerably comfortable. We'll take the cushions out of the boat.\r
+It is really our best plan. They'll be glad enough to take us. I've\r
+got plenty of money about me. I can pay them well."\r
+\r
+Maggie's heart began to beat with reawakened alarm at this new\r
+proposition; but she was silent,--one course seemed as difficult as\r
+another.\r
+\r
+Stephen hailed the vessel. It was a Dutch vessel going to Mudport, the\r
+English mate informed him, and, if this wind held, would be there in\r
+less than two days.\r
+\r
+"We had got out too far with our boat," said Stephen. "I was trying to\r
+make for Torby. But I'm afraid of the weather; and this lady--my\r
+wife--will be exhausted with fatigue and hunger. Take us on\r
+board--will you?--and haul up the boat. I'll pay you well."\r
+\r
+Maggie, now really faint and trembling with fear, was taken on board,\r
+making an interesting object of contemplation to admiring Dutchmen.\r
+The mate feared the lady would have a poor time of it on board, for\r
+they had no accommodation for such entirely unlooked-for\r
+passengers,--no private cabin larger than an old-fashioned church-pew.\r
+But at least they had Dutch cleanliness, which makes all other\r
+inconveniences tolerable; and the boat cushions were spread into a\r
+couch for Maggie on the poop with all alacrity. But to pace up and\r
+down the deck leaning on Stephen--being upheld by his strength--was\r
+the first change that she needed; then came food, and then quiet\r
+reclining on the cushions, with the sense that no new resolution\r
+_could_ be taken that day. Everything must wait till to-morrow.\r
+Stephen sat beside her with her hand in his; they could only speak to\r
+each other in low tones; only look at each other now and then, for it\r
+would take a long while to dull the curiosity of the five men on\r
+board, and reduce these handsome young strangers to that minor degree\r
+of interest which belongs, in a sailor's regard, to all objects nearer\r
+than the horizon. But Stephen was triumphantly happy. Every other\r
+thought or care was thrown into unmarked perspective by the certainty\r
+that Maggie must be his. The leap had been taken now; he had been\r
+tortured by scruples, he had fought fiercely with overmastering\r
+inclination, he had hesitated; but repentance was impossible. He\r
+murmured forth in fragmentary sentences his happiness, his adoration,\r
+his tenderness, his belief that their life together must be heaven,\r
+that her presence with him would give rapture to every common day;\r
+that to satisfy her lightest wish was dearer to him than all other\r
+bliss; that everything was easy for her sake, except to part with her;\r
+and now they never _would_ part; he would belong to her forever, and\r
+all that was his was hers,--had no value for him except as it was\r
+hers. Such things, uttered in low, broken tones by the one voice that\r
+has first stirred the fibre of young passion, have only a feeble\r
+effect--on experienced minds at a distance from them. To poor Maggie\r
+they were very near; they were like nectar held close to thirsty lips;\r
+there was, there _must_ be, then, a life for mortals here below which\r
+was not hard and chill,--in which affection would no longer be\r
+self-sacrifice. Stephen's passionate words made the vision of such a\r
+life more fully present to her than it had ever been before; and the\r
+vision for the time excluded all realities,--all except the returning\r
+sun-gleams which broke out on the waters as the evening approached,\r
+and mingled with the visionary sunlight of promised happiness; all\r
+except the hand that pressed hers, and the voice that spoke to her,\r
+and the eyes that looked at her with grave, unspeakable love.\r
+\r
+There was to be no rain, after all; the clouds rolled off to the\r
+horizon again, making the great purple rampart and long purple isles\r
+of that wondrous land which reveals itself to us when the sun goes\r
+down,--the land that the evening star watches over. Maggie was to\r
+sleep all night on the poop; it was better than going below; and she\r
+was covered with the warmest wrappings the ship could furnish. It was\r
+still early, when the fatigues of the day brought on a drowsy longing\r
+for perfect rest, and she laid down her head, looking at the faint,\r
+dying flush in the west, where the one golden lamp was getting\r
+brighter and brighter. Then she looked up at Stephen, who was still\r
+seated by her, hanging over her as he leaned his arm against the\r
+vessel's side. Behind all the delicious visions of these last hours,\r
+which had flowed over her like a soft stream, and made her entirely\r
+passive, there was the dim consciousness that the condition was a\r
+transient one, and that the morrow must bring back the old life of\r
+struggle; that there were thoughts which would presently avenge\r
+themselves for this oblivion. But now nothing was distinct to her; she\r
+was being lulled to sleep with that soft stream still flowing over\r
+her, with those delicious visions melting and fading like the wondrous\r
+aerial land of the west.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XIV\r
+\r
+Waking\r
+\r
+\r
+When Maggie was gone to sleep, Stephen, weary too with his\r
+unaccustomed amount of rowing, and with the intense inward life of the\r
+last twelve hours, but too restless to sleep, walked and lounged about\r
+the deck with his cigar far on into midnight, not seeing the dark\r
+water, hardly conscious there were stars, living only in the near and\r
+distant future. At last fatigue conquered restlessness, and he rolled\r
+himself up in a piece of tarpaulin on the deck near Maggie's feet.\r
+\r
+She had fallen asleep before nine, and had been sleeping for six hours\r
+before the faintest hint of a midsummer daybreak was discernible. She\r
+awoke from that vivid dreaming which makes the margin of our deeper\r
+rest. She was in a boat on the wide water with Stephen, and in the\r
+gathering darkness something like a star appeared, that grew and grew\r
+till they saw it was the Virgin seated in St. Ogg's boat, and it came\r
+nearer and nearer, till they saw the Virgin was Lucy and the boatman\r
+was Philip,--no, not Philip, but her brother, who rowed past without\r
+looking at her; and she rose to stretch out her arms and call to him,\r
+and their own boat turned over with the movement, and they began to\r
+sink, till with one spasm of dread she seemed to awake, and find she\r
+was a child again in the parlor at evening twilight, and Tom was not\r
+really angry. From the soothed sense of that false waking she passed\r
+to the real waking,--to the plash of water against the vessel, and the\r
+sound of a footstep on the deck, and the awful starlit sky. There was\r
+a moment of utter bewilderment before her mind could get disentangled\r
+from the confused web of dreams; but soon the whole terrible truth\r
+urged itself upon her. Stephen was not by her now; she was alone with\r
+her own memory and her own dread. The irrevocable wrong that must blot\r
+her life had been committed; she had brought sorrow into the lives of\r
+others,--into the lives that were knit up with hers by trust and love.\r
+The feeling of a few short weeks had hurried her into the sins her\r
+nature had most recoiled from,--breach of faith and cruel selfishness;\r
+she had rent the ties that had given meaning to duty, and had made\r
+herself an outlawed soul, with no guide but the wayward choice of her\r
+own passion. And where would that lead her? Where had it led her now?\r
+She had said she would rather die than fall into that temptation. She\r
+felt it now,--now that the consequences of such a fall had come before\r
+the outward act was completed. There was at least this fruit from all\r
+her years of striving after the highest and best,--that her soul\r
+though betrayed, beguiled, ensnared, could never deliberately consent\r
+to a choice of the lower. And a choice of what? O God! not a choice of\r
+joy, but of conscious cruelty and hardness; for could she ever cease\r
+to see before her Lucy and Philip, with their murdered trust and\r
+hopes? Her life with Stephen could have no sacredness; she must\r
+forever sink and wander vaguely, driven by uncertain impulse; for she\r
+had let go the clue of life,--that clue which once in the far-off\r
+years her young need had clutched so strongly. She had renounced all\r
+delights then, before she knew them, before they had come within her\r
+reach. Philip had been right when he told her that she knew nothing of\r
+renunciation; she had thought it was quiet ecstasy; she saw it face to\r
+face now,--that sad, patient, loving strength which holds the clue of\r
+life,--and saw that the thorns were forever pressing on its brow. The\r
+yesterday, which could never be revoked,--if she could have changed it\r
+now for any length of inward silent endurance, she would have bowed\r
+beneath that cross with a sense of rest.\r
+\r
+Day break came and the reddening eastern light, while her past life\r
+was grasping her in this way, with that tightening clutch which comes\r
+in the last moments of possible rescue. She could see Stephen now\r
+lying on the deck still fast asleep, and with the sight of him there\r
+came a wave of anguish that found its way in a long-suppressed sob.\r
+The worst bitterness of parting--the thought that urged the sharpest\r
+inward cry for help--was the pain it must give to _him_. But\r
+surmounting everything was the horror at her own possible failure, the\r
+dread lest her conscience should be benumbed again, and not rise to\r
+energy till it was too late. Too late! it was too late already not to\r
+have caused misery; too late for everything, perhaps, but to rush away\r
+from the last act of baseness,--the tasting of joys that were wrung\r
+from crushed hearts.\r
+\r
+The sun was rising now, and Maggie started up with the sense that a\r
+day of resistance was beginning for her. Her eyelashes were still wet\r
+with tears, as, with her shawl over her head, she sat looking at the\r
+slowly rounding sun. Something roused Stephen too, and getting up from\r
+his hard bed, he came to sit beside her. The sharp instinct of anxious\r
+love saw something to give him alarm in the very first glance. He had\r
+a hovering dread of some resistance in Maggie's nature that he would\r
+be unable to overcome. He had the uneasy consciousness that he had\r
+robbed her of perfect freedom yesterday; there was too much native\r
+honor in him, for him not to feel that, if her will should recoil, his\r
+conduct would have been odious, and she would have a right to reproach\r
+him.\r
+\r
+But Maggie did not feel that right; she was too conscious of fatal\r
+weakness in herself, too full of the tenderness that comes with the\r
+foreseen need for inflicting a wound. She let him take her hand when\r
+he came to sit down beside her, and smiled at him, only with rather a\r
+sad glance; she could say nothing to pain him till the moment of\r
+possible parting was nearer. And so they drank their cup of coffee\r
+together, and walked about the deck, and heard the captain's assurance\r
+that they should be in at Mudport by five o'clock, each with an inward\r
+burthen; but in him it was an undefined fear, which he trusted to the\r
+coming hours to dissipate; in her it was a definite resolve on which\r
+she was trying silently to tighten her hold. Stephen was continually,\r
+through the morning, expressing his anxiety at the fatigue and\r
+discomfort she was suffering, and alluded to landing and to the change\r
+of motion and repose she would have in a carriage, wanting to assure\r
+himself more completely by presupposing that everything would be as he\r
+had arranged it. For a long while Maggie contented herself with\r
+assuring him that she had had a good night's rest, and that she didn't\r
+mind about being on the vessel,--it was not like being on the open\r
+sea, it was only a little less pleasant than being in a boat on the\r
+Floss. But a suppressed resolve will betray itself in the eyes, and\r
+Stephen became more and more uneasy as the day advanced, under the\r
+sense that Maggie had entirely lost her passiveness. He longed, but\r
+did not dare, to speak of their marriage, of where they would go after\r
+it, and the steps he would take to inform his father, and the rest, of\r
+what had happened. He longed to assure himself of a tacit assent from\r
+her. But each time he looked at her, he gathered a stronger dread of\r
+the new, quiet sadness with which she met his eyes. And they were more\r
+and more silent.\r
+\r
+"Here we are in sight of Mudport," he said at last. "Now, dearest," he\r
+added, turning toward her with a look that was half beseeching, "the\r
+worst part of your fatigue is over. On the land we can command\r
+swiftness. In another hour and a half we shall be in a chaise\r
+together, and that will seem rest to you after this."\r
+\r
+Maggie felt it was time to speak; it would only be unkind now to\r
+assent by silence. She spoke in the lowest tone, as he had done, but\r
+with distinct decision.\r
+\r
+"We shall not be together; we shall have parted."\r
+\r
+The blood rushed to Stephen's face.\r
+\r
+"We shall not," he said. "I'll die first."\r
+\r
+It was as he had dreaded--there was a struggle coming. But neither of\r
+them dared to say another word till the boat was let down, and they\r
+were taken to the landing-place. Here there was a cluster of gazers\r
+and passengers awaiting the departure of the steamboat to St. Ogg's.\r
+Maggie had a dim sense, when she had landed, and Stephen was hurrying\r
+her along on his arm, that some one had advanced toward her from that\r
+cluster as if he were coming to speak to her. But she was hurried\r
+along, and was indifferent to everything but the coming trial.\r
+\r
+A porter guided them to the nearest inn and posting-house, and Stephen\r
+gave the order for the chaise as they passed through the yard. Maggie\r
+took no notice of this, and only said, "Ask them to show us into a\r
+room where we can sit down."\r
+\r
+When they entered, Maggie did not sit down, and Stephen, whose face\r
+had a desperate determination in it, was about to ring the bell, when\r
+she said, in a firm voice,--\r
+\r
+"I'm not going; we must part here."\r
+\r
+"Maggie," he said, turning round toward her, and speaking in the tones\r
+of a man who feels a process of torture beginning, "do you mean to\r
+kill me? What is the use of it now? The whole thing is done."\r
+\r
+"No, it is not done," said Maggie. "Too much is done,--more than we\r
+can ever remove the trace of. But I will go no farther. Don't try to\r
+prevail with me again. I couldn't choose yesterday."\r
+\r
+What was he to do? He dared not go near her; her anger might leap out,\r
+and make a new barrier. He walked backward and forward in maddening\r
+perplexity.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," he said at last, pausing before her, and speaking in a tone\r
+of imploring wretchedness, "have some pity--hear me--forgive me for\r
+what I did yesterday. I will obey you now; I will do nothing without\r
+your full consent. But don't blight our lives forever by a rash\r
+perversity that can answer no good purpose to any one, that can only\r
+create new evils. Sit down, dearest; wait--think what you are going to\r
+do. Don't treat me as if you couldn't trust me."\r
+\r
+He had chosen the most effective appeal; but Maggie's will was fixed\r
+unswervingly on the coming wrench. She had made up her mind to suffer.\r
+\r
+"We must not wait," she said, in a low but distinct voice; "we must\r
+part at once."\r
+\r
+"We _can't_ part, Maggie," said Stephen, more impetuously. "I can't\r
+bear it. What is the use of inflicting that misery on me? The\r
+blow--whatever it may have been--has been struck now. Will it help any\r
+one else that you should drive me mad?"\r
+\r
+"I will not begin any future, even for you," said Maggie, tremulously,\r
+"with a deliberate consent to what ought not to have been. What I told\r
+you at Basset I feel now; I would rather have died than fall into this\r
+temptation. It would have been better if we had parted forever then.\r
+But we must part now."\r
+\r
+"We will _not_ part," Stephen burst out, instinctively placing his\r
+back against the door, forgetting everything he had said a few moments\r
+before; "I will not endure it. You'll make me desperate; I sha'n't\r
+know what I do."\r
+\r
+Maggie trembled. She felt that the parting could not be effected\r
+suddenly. She must rely on a slower appeal to Stephen's better self;\r
+she must be prepared for a harder task than that of rushing away while\r
+resolution was fresh. She sat down. Stephen, watching her with that\r
+look of desperation which had come over him like a lurid light,\r
+approached slowly from the door, seated himself close beside her, and\r
+grasped her hand. Her heart beat like the heart of a frightened bird;\r
+but this direct opposition helped her. She felt her determination\r
+growing stronger.\r
+\r
+"Remember what you felt weeks ago," she began, with beseeching\r
+earnestness; "remember what we both felt,--that we owed ourselves to\r
+others, and must conquer every inclination which could make us false\r
+to that debt. We have failed to keep our resolutions; but the wrong\r
+remains the same."\r
+\r
+"No, it does _not_ remain the same," said Stephen. "We have proved\r
+that it was impossible to keep our resolutions. We have proved that\r
+the feeling which draws us toward each other is too strong to be\r
+overcome. That natural law surmounts every other; we can't help what\r
+it clashes with."\r
+\r
+"It is not so, Stephen; I'm quite sure that is wrong. I have tried to\r
+think it again and again; but I see, if we judged in that way, there\r
+would be a warrant for all treachery and cruelty; we should justify\r
+breaking the most sacred ties that can ever be formed on earth. If the\r
+past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but\r
+the inclination of the moment."\r
+\r
+"But there are ties that can't be kept by mere resolution," said\r
+Stephen, starting up and walking about again. "What is outward\r
+faithfulness? Would they have thanked us for anything so hollow as\r
+constancy without love?"\r
+\r
+Maggie did not answer immediately. She was undergoing an inward as\r
+well as an outward contest. At last she said, with a passionate\r
+assertion of her conviction, as much against herself as against him,--\r
+\r
+"That seems right--at first; but when I look further, I'm sure it is\r
+_not_ right. Faithfulness and constancy mean something else besides\r
+doing what is easiest and pleasantest to ourselves. They mean\r
+renouncing whatever is opposed to the reliance others have in\r
+us,--whatever would cause misery to those whom the course of our lives\r
+has made dependent on us. If we--if I had been better, nobler, those\r
+claims would have been so strongly present with me,--I should have\r
+felt them pressing on my heart so continually, just as they do now in\r
+the moments when my conscience is awake,--that the opposite feeling\r
+would never have grown in me, as it has done; it would have been\r
+quenched at once, I should have prayed for help so earnestly, I should\r
+have rushed away as we rush from hideous danger. I feel no excuse for\r
+myself, none. I should never have failed toward Lucy and Philip as I\r
+have done, if I had not been weak, selfish, and hard,--able to think\r
+of their pain without a pain to myself that would have destroyed all\r
+temptation. Oh, what is Lucy feeling now? She believed in me--she\r
+loved me--she was so good to me. Think of her----"\r
+\r
+Maggie's voice was getting choked as she uttered these last words.\r
+\r
+"I _can't_ think of her," said Stephen, stamping as if with pain. "I\r
+can think of nothing but you, Maggie. You demand of a man what is\r
+impossible. I felt that once; but I can't go back to it now. And where\r
+is the use of _your_ thinking of it, except to torture me? You can't\r
+save them from pain now; you can only tear yourself from me, and make\r
+my life worthless to me. And even if we could go back, and both fulfil\r
+our engagements,--if that were possible now,--it would be hateful,\r
+horrible, to think of your ever being Philip's wife,--of your ever\r
+being the wife of a man you didn't love. We have both been rescued\r
+from a mistake."\r
+\r
+A deep flush came over Maggie's face, and she couldn't speak. Stephen\r
+saw this. He sat down again, taking her hand in his, and looking at\r
+her with passionate entreaty.\r
+\r
+"Maggie! Dearest! If you love me, you are mine. Who can have so great\r
+a claim on you as I have? My life is bound up in your love. There is\r
+nothing in the past that can annul our right to each other; it is the\r
+first time we have either of us loved with our whole heart and soul."\r
+\r
+Maggie was still silent for a little while, looking down. Stephen was\r
+in a flutter of new hope; he was going to triumph. But she raised her\r
+eyes and met his with a glance that was filled with the anguish of\r
+regret, not with yielding.\r
+\r
+"No, not with my whole heart and soul, Stephen," she said with timid\r
+resolution. "I have never consented to it with my whole mind. There\r
+are memories, and affections, and longings after perfect goodness,\r
+that have such a strong hold on me; they would never quit me for long;\r
+they would come back and be pain to me--repentance. I couldn't live in\r
+peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself and God. I\r
+have caused sorrow already--I know--I feel it; but I have never\r
+deliberately consented to it; I have never said, 'They shall suffer,\r
+that I may have joy.' It has never been my will to marry you; if you\r
+were to win consent from the momentary triumph of my feeling for you,\r
+you would not have my whole soul. If I could wake back again into the\r
+time before yesterday, I would choose to be true to my calmer\r
+affections, and live without the joy of love."\r
+\r
+Stephen loosed her hand, and rising impatiently, walked up and down\r
+the room in suppressed rage.\r
+\r
+"Good God!" he burst out at last, "what a miserable thing a woman's\r
+love is to a man's! I could commit crimes for you,--and you can\r
+balance and choose in that way. But you _don't_ love me; if you had a\r
+tithe of the feeling for me that I have for you, it would be\r
+impossible to you to think for a moment of sacrificing me. But it\r
+weighs nothing with you that you are robbing me of _my_ life's\r
+happiness."\r
+\r
+Maggie pressed her fingers together almost convulsively as she held\r
+them clasped on her lap. A great terror was upon her, as if she were\r
+ever and anon seeing where she stood by great flashes of lightning,\r
+and then again stretched forth her hands in the darkness.\r
+\r
+"No, I don't sacrifice you--I couldn't sacrifice you," she said, as\r
+soon as she could speak again; "but I can't believe in a good for you,\r
+that I feel, that we both feel, is a wrong toward others. We can't\r
+choose happiness either for ourselves or for another; we can't tell\r
+where that will lie. We can only choose whether we will indulge\r
+ourselves in the present moment, or whether we will renounce that, for\r
+the sake of obeying the divine voice within us,--for the sake of being\r
+true to all the motives that sanctify our lives. I know this belief is\r
+hard; it has slipped away from me again and again; but I have felt\r
+that if I let it go forever, I should have no light through the\r
+darkness of this life."\r
+\r
+"But, Maggie," said Stephen, seating himself by her again, "is it\r
+possible you don't see that what happened yesterday has altered the\r
+whole position of things? What infatuation is it, what obstinate\r
+prepossession, that blinds you to that? It is too late to say what we\r
+might have done or what we ought to have done. Admitting the very\r
+worst view of what has been done, it is a fact we must act on now; our\r
+position is altered; the right course is no longer what it was before.\r
+We must accept our own actions and start afresh from them. Suppose we\r
+had been married yesterday? It is nearly the same thing. The effect on\r
+others would not have been different. It would only have made this\r
+difference to ourselves," Stephen added bitterly, "that you might have\r
+acknowledged then that your tie to me was stronger than to others."\r
+\r
+Again a deep flush came over Maggie's face, and she was silent.\r
+Stephen thought again that he was beginning to prevail,--he had never\r
+yet believed that he should _not_ prevail; there are possibilities\r
+which our minds shrink from too completely for us to fear them.\r
+\r
+"Dearest," he said, in his deepest, tenderest tone, leaning toward\r
+her, and putting his arm round her, "you _are_ mine now,--the world\r
+believes it; duty must spring out of that now.\r
+\r
+"In a few hours you will be legally mine, and those who had claims on\r
+us will submit,--they will see that there was a force which declared\r
+against their claims."\r
+\r
+Maggie's eyes opened wide in one terrified look at the face that was\r
+close to hers, and she started up, pale again.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I can't do it," she said, in a voice almost of agony; "Stephen,\r
+don't ask me--don't urge me. I can't argue any longer,--I don't know\r
+what is wise; but my heart will not let me do it. I see,--I feel their\r
+trouble now; it is as if it were branded on my mind. _I_ have\r
+suffered, and had no one to pity me; and now I have made others\r
+suffer. It would never leave me; it would embitter your love to me. I\r
+_do_ care for Philip--in a different way; I remember all we said to\r
+each other; I know how he thought of me as the one promise of his\r
+life. He was given to me that I might make his lot less hard; and I\r
+have forsaken him. And Lucy--she has been deceived; she who trusted me\r
+more than any one. I cannot marry you; I cannot take a good for myself\r
+that has been wrung out of their misery. It is not the force that\r
+ought to rule us,--this that we feel for each other; it would rend me\r
+away from all that my past life has made dear and holy to me. I can't\r
+set out on a fresh life, and forget that; I must go back to it, and\r
+cling to it, else I shall feel as if there were nothing firm beneath\r
+my feet."\r
+\r
+"Good God, Maggie!" said Stephen, rising too and grasping her arm,\r
+"you rave. How can you go back without marrying me? You don't know\r
+what will be said, dearest. You see nothing as it really is."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do. But they will believe me. I will confess everything. Lucy\r
+will believe me--she will forgive you, and--and--oh, _some_ good will\r
+come by clinging to the right. Dear, dear Stephen, let me go!--don't\r
+drag me into deeper remorse. My whole soul has never consented; it\r
+does not consent now."\r
+\r
+Stephen let go her arm, and sank back on his chair, half-stunned by\r
+despairing rage. He was silent a few moments, not looking at her;\r
+while her eyes were turned toward him yearningly, in alarm at this\r
+sudden change. At last he said, still without looking at her,--\r
+\r
+"Go, then,--leave me; don't torture me any longer,--I can't bear it."\r
+\r
+Involuntarily she leaned toward him and put out her hand to touch his.\r
+But he shrank from it as if it had been burning iron, and said\r
+again,--\r
+\r
+"Leave me."\r
+\r
+Maggie was not conscious of a decision as she turned away from that\r
+gloomy averted face, and walked out of the room; it was like an\r
+automatic action that fulfils a forgotten intention. What came after?\r
+A sense of stairs descended as if in a dream, of flagstones, of a\r
+chaise and horses standing, then a street, and a turning into another\r
+street where a stage-coach was standing, taking in passengers, and the\r
+darting thought that that coach would take her away, perhaps toward\r
+home. But she could ask nothing yet; she only got into the coach.\r
+\r
+Home--where her mother and brother were, Philip, Lucy, the scene of\r
+her very cares and trials--was the haven toward which her mind tended;\r
+the sanctuary where sacred relics lay, where she would be rescued from\r
+more falling. The thought of Stephen was like a horrible throbbing\r
+pain, which yet, as such pains do, seemed to urge all other thoughts\r
+into activity. But among her thoughts, what others would say and think\r
+of her conduct was hardly present. Love and deep pity and remorseful\r
+anguish left no room for that.\r
+\r
+The coach was taking her to York, farther away from home; but she did\r
+not learn that until she was set down in the old city at midnight. It\r
+was no matter; she could sleep there, and start home the next day. She\r
+had her purse in her pocket, with all her money in it,--a bank-note\r
+and a sovereign; she had kept it in her pocket from forgetfulness,\r
+after going out to make purchases the day before yesterday.\r
+\r
+Did she lie down in the gloomy bedroom of the old inn that night with\r
+her will bent unwaveringly on the path of penitent sacrifice? The\r
+great struggles of life are not so easy as that; the great problems of\r
+life are not so clear. In the darkness of that night she saw Stephen's\r
+face turned toward her in passionate, reproachful misery; she lived\r
+through again all the tremulous delights of his presence with her that\r
+made existence an easy floating in a stream of joy, instead of a quiet\r
+resolved endurance and effort. The love she had renounced came back\r
+upon her with a cruel charm; she felt herself opening her arms to\r
+receive it once more; and then it seemed to slip away and fade and\r
+vanish, leaving only the dying sound of a deep, thrilling voice that\r
+said, "Gone, forever gone."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book VII\r
+\r
+_The Final Rescue_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+The Return to the Mill\r
+\r
+\r
+Between four and five o'clock on the afternoon of the fifth day from\r
+that on which Stephen and Maggie had left St. Ogg's, Tom Tulliver was\r
+standing on the gravel walk outside the old house at Dorlcote Mill. He\r
+was master there now; he had half fulfilled his father's dying wish,\r
+and by years of steady self-government and energetic work he had\r
+brought himself near to the attainment of more than the old\r
+respectability which had been the proud inheritance of the Dodsons and\r
+Tullivers.\r
+\r
+But Tom's face, as he stood in the hot, still sunshine of that summer\r
+afternoon, had no gladness, no triumph in it. His mouth wore its\r
+bitterest expression, his severe brow its hardest and deepest fold, as\r
+he drew down his hat farther over his eyes to shelter them from the\r
+sun, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, began to walk up\r
+and down the gravel. No news of his sister had been heard since Bob\r
+Jakin had come back in the steamer from Mudport, and put an end to all\r
+improbable suppositions of an accident on the water by stating that he\r
+had seen her land from a vessel with Mr. Stephen Guest. Would the next\r
+news be that she was married,--or what? Probably that she was not\r
+married; Tom's mind was set to the expectation of the worst that could\r
+happen,--not death, but disgrace.\r
+\r
+As he was walking with his back toward the entrance gate, and his face\r
+toward the rushing mill-stream, a tall, dark-eyed figure, that we know\r
+well, approached the gate, and paused to look at him with a\r
+fast-beating heart. Her brother was the human being of whom she had\r
+been most afraid from her childhood upward; afraid with that fear\r
+which springs in us when we love one who is inexorable, unbending,\r
+unmodifiable, with a mind that we can never mould ourselves upon, and\r
+yet that we cannot endure to alienate from us.\r
+\r
+That deep-rooted fear was shaking Maggie now; but her mind was\r
+unswervingly bent on returning to her brother, as the natural refuge\r
+that had been given her. In her deep humiliation under the retrospect\r
+of her own weakness,--in her anguish at the injury she had\r
+inflicted,--she almost desired to endure the severity of Tom's\r
+reproof, to submit in patient silence to that harsh, disapproving\r
+judgment against which she had so often rebelled; it seemed no more\r
+than just to her now,--who was weaker than she was? She craved that\r
+outward help to her better purpose which would come from complete,\r
+submissive confession; from being in the presence of those whose looks\r
+and words would be a reflection of her own conscience.\r
+\r
+Maggie had been kept on her bed at York for a day with that\r
+prostrating headache which was likely to follow on the terrible strain\r
+of the previous day and night. There was an expression of physical\r
+pain still about her brow and eyes, and her whole appearance, with her\r
+dress so long unchanged, was worn and distressed. She lifted the latch\r
+of the gate and walked in slowly. Tom did not hear the gate; he was\r
+just then close upon the roaring dam; but he presently turned, and\r
+lifting up his eyes, saw the figure whose worn look and loneliness\r
+seemed to him a confirmation of his worst conjectures. He paused,\r
+trembling and white with disgust and indignation.\r
+\r
+Maggie paused too, three yards before him. She felt the hatred in his\r
+face, felt it rushing through her fibres; but she must speak.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she began faintly, "I am come back to you,--I am come back\r
+home--for refuge--to tell you everything."\r
+\r
+"You will find no home with me," he answered, with tremulous rage.\r
+"You have disgraced us all. You have disgraced my father's name. You\r
+have been a curse to your best friends. You have been base, deceitful;\r
+no motives are strong enough to restrain you. I wash my hands of you\r
+forever. You don't belong to me."\r
+\r
+Their mother had come to the door now. She stood paralyzed by the\r
+double shock of seeing Maggie and hearing Tom's words.\r
+\r
+"Tom," said Maggie, with more courage, "I am perhaps not so guilty as\r
+you believe me to be. I never meant to give way to my feelings. I\r
+struggled against them. I was carried too far in the boat to come back\r
+on Tuesday. I came back as soon as I could."\r
+\r
+"I can't believe in you any more," said Tom, gradually passing from\r
+the tremulous excitement of the first moment to cold inflexibility.\r
+"You have been carrying on a clandestine relation with Stephen\r
+Guest,--as you did before with another. He went to see you at my aunt\r
+Moss's; you walked alone with him in the lanes; you must have behaved\r
+as no modest girl would have done to her cousin's lover, else that\r
+could never have happened. The people at Luckreth saw you pass; you\r
+passed all the other places; you knew what you were doing. You have\r
+been using Philip Wakem as a screen to deceive Lucy,--the kindest\r
+friend you ever had. Go and see the return you have made her. She's\r
+ill; unable to speak. My mother can't go near her, lest she should\r
+remind her of you."\r
+\r
+Maggie was half stunned,--too heavily pressed upon by her anguish even\r
+to discern any difference between her actual guilt and her brother's\r
+accusations, still less to vindicate herself.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she said, crushing her hands together under her cloak, in the\r
+effort to speak again, "whatever I have done, I repent it bitterly. I\r
+want to make amends. I will endure anything. I want to be kept from\r
+doing wrong again."\r
+\r
+"What _will_ keep you?" said Tom, with cruel bitterness. "Not\r
+religion; not your natural feelings of gratitude and honor. And he--he\r
+would deserve to be shot, if it were not----But you are ten times\r
+worse than he is. I loathe your character and your conduct. You\r
+struggled with your feelings, you say. Yes! _I_ have had feelings to\r
+struggle with; but I conquered them. I have had a harder life than you\r
+have had; but I have found _my_ comfort in doing my duty. But I will\r
+sanction no such character as yours; the world shall know that _I_\r
+feel the difference between right and wrong. If you are in want, I\r
+will provide for you; let my mother know. But you shall not come under\r
+my roof. It is enough that I have to bear the thought of your\r
+disgrace; the sight of you is hateful to me."\r
+\r
+Slowly Maggie was turning away with despair in her heart. But the poor\r
+frightened mother's love leaped out now, stronger than all dread.\r
+\r
+"My child! I'll go with you. You've got a mother."\r
+\r
+Oh, the sweet rest of that embrace to the heart-stricken Maggie! More\r
+helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will\r
+not forsake us.\r
+\r
+Tom turned and walked into the house.\r
+\r
+"Come in, my child," Mrs. Tulliver whispered. "He'll let you stay and\r
+sleep in my bed. He won't deny that if I ask him."\r
+\r
+"No, mother," said Maggie, in a low tone, like a moan. "I will never\r
+go in."\r
+\r
+"Then wait for me outside. I'll get ready and come with you."\r
+\r
+When his mother appeared with her bonnet on, Tom came out to her in\r
+the passage, and put money into her hands.\r
+\r
+"My house is yours, mother, always," he said. "You will come and let\r
+me know everything you want; you will come back to me."\r
+\r
+Poor Mrs. Tulliver took the money, too frightened to say anything. The\r
+only thing clear to her was the mother's instinct that she would go\r
+with her unhappy child.\r
+\r
+Maggie was waiting outside the gate; she took her mother's hand and\r
+they walked a little way in silence.\r
+\r
+"Mother," said Maggie, at last, "we will go to Luke's cottage. Luke\r
+will take me in. He was very good to me when I was a little girl."\r
+\r
+"He's got no room for us, my dear, now; his wife's got so many\r
+children. I don't know where to go, if it isn't to one o' your aunts;\r
+and I hardly durst," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, quite destitute of\r
+mental resources in this extremity.\r
+\r
+Maggie was silent a little while, and then said,--\r
+\r
+"Let us go to Bob Jakin's, mother; his wife will have room for us, if\r
+they have no other lodger."\r
+\r
+So they went on their way to St. Ogg's, to the old house by the\r
+river-side.\r
+\r
+Bob himself was at home, with a heaviness at heart which resisted even\r
+the new joy and pride of possessing a two-months'-old baby, quite the\r
+liveliest of its age that had ever been born to prince or packman. He\r
+would perhaps not so thoroughly have understood all the dubiousness of\r
+Maggie's appearance with Mr. Stephen Guest on the quay at Mudport if\r
+he had not witnessed the effect it produced on Tom when he went to\r
+report it; and since then, the circumstances which in any case gave a\r
+disastrous character to her elopement had passed beyond the more\r
+polite circles of St. Ogg's, and had become matter of common talk,\r
+accessible to the grooms and errand-boys. So that when he opened the\r
+door and saw Maggie standing before him in her sorrow and weariness,\r
+he had no questions to ask except one which he dared only ask\r
+himself,--where was Mr. Stephen Guest? Bob, for his part, hoped he\r
+might be in the warmest department of an asylum understood to exist in\r
+the other world for gentlemen who are likely to be in fallen\r
+circumstances there.\r
+\r
+The lodgings were vacant, and both Mrs. Jakin the larger and Mrs.\r
+Jakin the less were commanded to make all things comfortable for "the\r
+old Missis and the young Miss"; alas that she was still "Miss!" The\r
+ingenious Bob was sorely perplexed as to how this result could have\r
+come about; how Mr. Stephen Guest could have gone away from her, or\r
+could have let her go away from him, when he had the chance of keeping\r
+her with him. But he was silent, and would not allow his wife to ask\r
+him a question; would not present himself in the room, lest it should\r
+appear like intrusion and a wish to pry; having the same chivalry\r
+toward dark-eyed Maggie as in the days when he had bought her the\r
+memorable present of books.\r
+\r
+But after a day or two Mrs. Tulliver was gone to the Mill again for a\r
+few hours to see to Tom's household matters. Maggie had wished this;\r
+after the first violent outburst of feeling which came as soon as she\r
+had no longer any active purpose to fulfil, she was less in need of\r
+her mother's presence; she even desired to be alone with her grief.\r
+But she had been solitary only a little while in the old sitting-room\r
+that looked on the river, when there came a tap at the door, and\r
+turning round her sad face as she said "Come in," she saw Bob enter,\r
+with the baby in his arms and Mumps at his heels.\r
+\r
+"We'll go back, if it disturbs you, Miss," said Bob.\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, in a low voice, wishing she could smile.\r
+\r
+Bob, closing the door behind him, came and stood before her.\r
+\r
+"You see, we've got a little un, Miss, and I want'd you to look at it,\r
+and take it in your arms, if you'd be so good. For we made free to\r
+name it after you, and it 'ud be better for your takin' a bit o'\r
+notice on it."\r
+\r
+Maggie could not speak, but she put out her arms to receive the tiny\r
+baby, while Mumps snuffed at it anxiously, to ascertain that this\r
+transference was all right. Maggie's heart had swelled at this action\r
+and speech of Bob's; she knew well enough that it was a way he had\r
+chosen to show his sympathy and respect.\r
+\r
+"Sit down, Bob," she said presently, and he sat down in silence,\r
+finding his tongue unmanageable in quite a new fashion, refusing to\r
+say what he wanted it to say.\r
+\r
+"Bob," she said, after a few moments, looking down at the baby, and\r
+holding it anxiously, as if she feared it might slip from her mind and\r
+her fingers, "I have a favor to ask of you."\r
+\r
+"Don't you speak so, Miss," said Bob, grasping the skin of Mumps's\r
+neck; "if there's anything I can do for you, I should look upon it as\r
+a day's earnings."\r
+\r
+"I want you to go to Dr. Kenn's, and ask to speak to him, and tell him\r
+that I am here, and should be very grateful if he would come to me\r
+while my mother is away. She will not come back till evening."\r
+\r
+"Eh, Miss, I'd do it in a minute,--it is but a step,--but Dr. Kenn's\r
+wife lies dead; she's to be buried to-morrow; died the day I come from\r
+Mudport. It's all the more pity she should ha' died just now, if you\r
+want him. I hardly like to go a-nigh him yet."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, Bob," said Maggie, "we must let it be,--till after a few days,\r
+perhaps, when you hear that he is going about again. But perhaps he\r
+may be going out of town--to a distance," she added, with a new sense\r
+of despondency at this idea.\r
+\r
+"Not he, Miss," said Bob. "_He'll_ none go away. He isn't one o' them\r
+gentlefolks as go to cry at waterin'-places when their wives die; he's\r
+got summat else to do. He looks fine and sharp after the parish, he\r
+does. He christened the little un; an' he was _at_ me to know what I\r
+did of a Sunday, as I didn't come to church. But I told him I was upo'\r
+the travel three parts o' the Sundays,--an' then I'm so used to bein'\r
+on my legs, I can't sit so long on end,--'an' lors, sir,' says I, 'a\r
+packman can do wi' a small 'lowance o' church; it tastes strong,' says\r
+I; 'there's no call to lay it on thick.' Eh, Miss, how good the little\r
+un is wi' you! It's like as if it knowed you; it partly does, I'll be\r
+bound,--like the birds know the mornin'."\r
+\r
+Bob's tongue was now evidently loosed from its unwonted bondage, and\r
+might even be in danger of doing more work than was required of it.\r
+But the subjects on which he longed to be informed were so steep and\r
+difficult of approach, that his tongue was likely to run on along the\r
+level rather than to carry him on that unbeaten road. He felt this,\r
+and was silent again for a little while, ruminating much on the\r
+possible forms in which he might put a question. At last he said, in a\r
+more timid voice than usual,--\r
+\r
+"Will you give me leave to ask you only one thing, Miss?"\r
+\r
+Maggie was rather startled, but she answered, "Yes, Bob, if it is\r
+about myself--not about any one else."\r
+\r
+"Well, Miss, it's this. _Do_ you owe anybody a grudge?"\r
+\r
+"No, not any one," said Maggie, looking up at him inquiringly. "Why?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, lors, Miss," said Bob, pinching Mumps's neck harder than ever. "I\r
+wish you did, an' tell me; I'd leather him till I couldn't see--I\r
+would--an' the Justice might do what he liked to me arter."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Bob," said Maggie, smiling faintly, "you're a very good friend to\r
+me. But I shouldn't like to punish any one, even if they'd done me\r
+wrong; I've done wrong myself too often."\r
+\r
+This view of things was puzzling to Bob, and threw more obscurity than\r
+ever over what could possibly have happened between Stephen and\r
+Maggie. But further questions would have been too intrusive, even if\r
+he could have framed them suitably, and he was obliged to carry baby\r
+away again to an expectant mother.\r
+\r
+"Happen you'd like Mumps for company, Miss," he said when he had taken\r
+the baby again. "He's rare company, Mumps is; he knows iverything, an'\r
+makes no bother about it. If I tell him, he'll lie before you an'\r
+watch you, as still,--just as he watches my pack. You'd better let me\r
+leave him a bit; he'll get fond on you. Lors, it's a fine thing to hev\r
+a dumb brute fond on you; it'll stick to you, an' make no jaw."\r
+\r
+"Yes, do leave him, please," said Maggie. "I think I should like to\r
+have Mumps for a friend."\r
+\r
+"Mumps, lie down there," said Bob, pointing to a place in front of\r
+Maggie, "and niver do you stir till you're spoke to."\r
+\r
+Mumps lay down at once, and made no sign of restlessness when his\r
+master left the room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+St. Ogg's Passes Judgment\r
+\r
+\r
+It was soon known throughout St. Ogg's that Miss Tulliver was come\r
+back; she had not, then, eloped in order to be married to Mr. Stephen\r
+Guest,--at all events, Mr. Stephen Guest had not married her; which\r
+came to the same thing, so far as her culpability was concerned. We\r
+judge others according to results; how else?--not knowing the process\r
+by which results are arrived at. If Miss Tulliver, after a few months\r
+of well-chosen travel, had returned as Mrs. Stephen Guest, with a\r
+post-marital _trousseau_, and all the advantages possessed even by the\r
+most unwelcome wife of an only son, public opinion, which at St.\r
+Ogg's, as else where, always knew what to think, would have judged in\r
+strict consistency with those results. Public opinion, in these cases,\r
+is always of the feminine gender,--not the world, but the world's\r
+wife; and she would have seen that two handsome young people--the\r
+gentleman of quite the first family in St. Ogg's--having found\r
+themselves in a false position, had been led into a course which, to\r
+say the least of it, was highly injudicious, and productive of sad\r
+pain and disappointment, especially to that sweet young thing, Miss\r
+Deane. Mr. Stephen Guest had certainly not behaved well; but then,\r
+young men were liable to those sudden infatuated attachments; and bad\r
+as it might seem in Mrs. Stephen Guest to admit the faintest advances\r
+from her cousin's lover (indeed it _had_ been said that she was\r
+actually engaged to young Wakem,--old Wakem himself had mentioned it),\r
+still, she was very young,--"and a deformed young man, you know!--and\r
+young Guest so very fascinating; and, they say, he positively worships\r
+her (to be sure, that can't last!), and he ran away with her in the\r
+boat quite against her will, and what could she do? She couldn't come\r
+back then; no one would have spoken to her; and how very well that\r
+maize-colored satinette becomes her complexion! It seems as if the\r
+folds in front were quite come in; several of her dresses are made\r
+so,--they say he thinks nothing too handsome to buy for her. Poor Miss\r
+Deane! She is very pitiable; but then there was no positive\r
+engagement; and the air at the coast will do her good. After all, if\r
+young Guest felt no more for her than _that_ it was better for her not\r
+to marry him. What a wonderful marriage for a girl like Miss\r
+Tulliver,--quite romantic? Why, young Guest will put up for the\r
+borough at the next election. Nothing like commerce nowadays! That\r
+young Wakem nearly went out of his mind; he always _was_ rather queer;\r
+but he's gone abroad again to be out of the way,--quite the best thing\r
+for a deformed young man. Miss Unit declares she will never visit Mr.\r
+and Mrs. Stephen Guest,--such nonsense! pretending to be better than\r
+other people. Society couldn't be carried on if we inquired into\r
+private conduct in that way,--and Christianity tells us to think no\r
+evil,--and my belief is, that Miss Unit had no cards sent her."\r
+\r
+But the results, we know, were not of a kind to warrant this\r
+extenuation of the past. Maggie had returned without a _trousseau_,\r
+without a husband,--in that degraded and outcast condition to which\r
+error is well known to lead; and the world's wife, with that fine\r
+instinct which is given her for the preservation of Society, saw at\r
+once that Miss Tulliver's conduct had been of the most aggravated\r
+kind. Could anything be more detestable? A girl so much indebted to\r
+her friends--whose mother as well as herself had received so much\r
+kindness from the Deanes--to lay the design of winning a young man's\r
+affections away from her own cousin, who had behaved like a sister to\r
+her! Winning his affections? That was not the phrase for such a girl\r
+as Miss Tulliver; it would have been more correct to say that she had\r
+been actuated by mere unwomanly boldness and unbridled passion. There\r
+was always something questionable about her. That connection with\r
+young Wakem, which, they said, had been carried on for years, looked\r
+very ill,--disgusting, in fact! But with a girl of that disposition!\r
+To the world's wife there had always been something in Miss Tulliver's\r
+very _physique_ that a refined instinct felt to be prophetic of harm.\r
+As for poor Mr. Stephen Guest, he was rather pitiable than otherwise;\r
+a young man of five-and-twenty is not to be too severely judged in\r
+these cases,--he is really very much at the mercy of a designing, bold\r
+girl. And it was clear that he had given way in spite of himself: he\r
+had shaken her off as soon as he could; indeed, their having parted so\r
+soon looked very black indeed--_for her_. To be sure, he had written a\r
+letter, laying all the blame on himself, and telling the story in a\r
+romantic fashion so as to try and make her appear quite innocent; of\r
+course he would do that! But the refined instinct of the world's wife\r
+was not to be deceived; providentially!--else what would become of\r
+Society? Why, her own brother had turned her from his door; he had\r
+seen enough, you might be sure, before he would do that. A truly\r
+respectable young man, Mr. Tom Tulliver; quite likely to rise in the\r
+world! His sister's disgrace was naturally a heavy blow to him. It was\r
+to be hoped that she would go out of the neighborhood,--to America, or\r
+anywhere,--so as to purify the air of St. Ogg's from the stain of her\r
+presence, extremely dangerous to daughters there! No good could happen\r
+to her; it was only to be hoped she would repent, and that God would\r
+have mercy on her: He had not the care of society on His hands, as the\r
+world's wife had.\r
+\r
+It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of\r
+these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen's\r
+letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone\r
+across to Holland,--had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for\r
+money,--was incapable of any resolution at present.\r
+\r
+Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing\r
+anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her\r
+conduct by the world of St. Ogg's; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy,\r
+Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of\r
+mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and\r
+injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their\r
+worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable\r
+since the words she had heard from her brother's lips. Across all her\r
+anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and\r
+again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread\r
+even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness\r
+never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every\r
+sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to\r
+vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one\r
+act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot,\r
+was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness\r
+haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace\r
+conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge.\r
+\r
+But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence\r
+was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that\r
+she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell\r
+back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough\r
+to pay for her lodging at Bob's. She meant to persuade her mother to\r
+return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or\r
+other she would maintain herself at St. Ogg's. Dr. Kenn would perhaps\r
+help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the\r
+bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had\r
+sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with\r
+yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to\r
+him. Her mother called every day at Mr. Deane's to learn how Lucy was;\r
+the report was always sad,--nothing had yet roused her from the feeble\r
+passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs.\r
+Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would\r
+speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she\r
+summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know\r
+everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs.\r
+Tulliver's absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on\r
+the occasion.\r
+\r
+As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had\r
+resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr. Kenn; he was\r
+in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such\r
+circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door\r
+since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of\r
+her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and\r
+being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed\r
+beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob's\r
+dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and\r
+this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to\r
+right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs. and Miss\r
+Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her\r
+strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks\r
+were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for\r
+resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are\r
+very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group\r
+of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and\r
+she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass\r
+at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he\r
+might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid.\r
+\r
+Maggie's pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in\r
+the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took\r
+strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her\r
+besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward\r
+Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find\r
+something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice;\r
+the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can\r
+inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for\r
+the righteous to bestow.\r
+\r
+She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr. Kenn's\r
+study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little\r
+appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a\r
+girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the\r
+door was closed, Dr. Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie,--\r
+\r
+"I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am\r
+glad you did."\r
+\r
+Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at\r
+the bazaar, and said, "I want to tell you everything." But her eyes\r
+filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement\r
+of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more.\r
+\r
+"Do tell me everything," Dr. Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his\r
+grave, firm voice. "Think of me as one to whom a long experience has\r
+been granted, which may enable him to help you."\r
+\r
+In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon\r
+with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the\r
+confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the\r
+beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr. Kenn had been\r
+made acquainted with the contents of Stephen's letter, and he had\r
+believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie's statement.\r
+That involuntary plaint of hers, "_Oh, I must go_," had remained with\r
+him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict.\r
+\r
+Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back\r
+to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of\r
+the past. When she had ended, Dr. Kenn was silent for some minutes;\r
+there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down\r
+the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again,\r
+and said, looking at Maggie,--\r
+\r
+"Your prompting to go to your nearest friends,--to remain where all\r
+the ties of your life have been formed,--is a true prompting, to which\r
+the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds,\r
+opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the\r
+last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And\r
+the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that\r
+every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood\r
+under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian\r
+fraternity are entirely relaxed,--they can hardly be said to exist in\r
+the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial,\r
+contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of\r
+schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the\r
+Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution\r
+which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at\r
+observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility\r
+among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the\r
+relaxation of ties,--toward the substitution of wayward choice for the\r
+adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your\r
+conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point,\r
+Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish\r
+about you--what my advice to you--would be, if they sprang from my own\r
+feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances."\r
+\r
+Dr. Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of\r
+effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in\r
+the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his\r
+benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might\r
+have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly,\r
+quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He\r
+went on.\r
+\r
+"Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from\r
+anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be\r
+formed concerning your conduct,--conceptions which will have a baneful\r
+effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I do,--I begin to see," said Maggie, unable to repress this\r
+utterance of her recent pain. "I know I shall be insulted. I shall be\r
+thought worse than I am."\r
+\r
+"You perhaps do not yet know," said Dr. Kenn, with a touch of more\r
+personal pity, "that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one\r
+who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult\r
+path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most\r
+of all difficult."\r
+\r
+"Oh, where is he?" said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no\r
+presence could have hindered.\r
+\r
+"He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father.\r
+He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of\r
+that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her."\r
+\r
+Dr. Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on.\r
+\r
+"That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions\r
+concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not\r
+only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the\r
+last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which\r
+will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The\r
+persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as\r
+yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you,\r
+because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here\r
+will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions.\r
+For this reason--and for this only--I ask you to consider whether it\r
+will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance,\r
+according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to\r
+obtain one for you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, if I could but stop here!" said Maggie. "I have no heart to begin\r
+a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a\r
+lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who\r
+offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could\r
+perhaps atone in some way to Lucy--to others; I could convince them\r
+that I'm sorry. And," she added, with some of the old proud fire\r
+flashing out, "I will not go away because people say false things of\r
+me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last,\r
+because--because others wish it, I will not go now."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Dr. Kenn, after some consideration, "if you determine on\r
+that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position\r
+gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of\r
+my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a\r
+deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare."\r
+\r
+"The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get\r
+my bread and be independent," said Maggie. "I shall not want much. I\r
+can go on lodging where I am."\r
+\r
+"I must think over the subject maturely," said Dr. Kenn, "and in a few\r
+days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall\r
+come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind."\r
+\r
+When Maggie had left him, Dr. Kenn stood ruminating with his hands\r
+behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of\r
+doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen's letter, which he had read,\r
+and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him\r
+powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie\r
+as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St.\r
+Ogg's on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw\r
+an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie's stay there. On\r
+the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had\r
+known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service\r
+to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie's heart and conscience\r
+which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her\r
+conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had\r
+acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His\r
+experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility\r
+to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to\r
+restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling\r
+submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a\r
+darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was\r
+clogged with evil.\r
+\r
+The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is\r
+clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question\r
+whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the\r
+possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must\r
+accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a\r
+trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all\r
+cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their\r
+perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to\r
+which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed,--the truth, that\r
+moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked\r
+and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances\r
+that mark the individual lot.\r
+\r
+All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to\r
+the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the\r
+mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and\r
+that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all\r
+the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing\r
+insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular\r
+representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment\r
+solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice\r
+by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting\r
+patience, discrimination, impartiality,--without any care to assure\r
+themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly\r
+earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough\r
+to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us\r
+\r
+\r
+When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an\r
+unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not\r
+been heard of, Mrs. Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down\r
+her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far\r
+more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done\r
+anything to wound the family honor in the tenderest point. When at\r
+last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from\r
+him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe\r
+reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was\r
+compelled. If you were not to stand by your "kin" as long as there was\r
+a shred of honor attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by?\r
+Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force\r
+you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and\r
+though Mrs. Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie's future at a time\r
+when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a\r
+jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of\r
+her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of\r
+the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace.\r
+The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs. Glegg's experience;\r
+nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was\r
+a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of\r
+character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of\r
+clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money\r
+matters. She quarrelled with Mr. Glegg, whose kindness, flowing\r
+entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of\r
+Maggie as Mr. Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister\r
+Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help,\r
+shut herself up in her own room with Baxter's "Saints' Rest" from\r
+morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr. Glegg\r
+brought from Mr. Deane the news of Stephen's letter. Then Mrs. Glegg\r
+felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside\r
+Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs. Pullet could do\r
+nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had\r
+died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which\r
+had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act,\r
+and Mrs. Pullet could never enter St. Ogg's again, because\r
+"acquaintances" knew of it all, Mrs. Glegg only hoped that Mrs. Wooll,\r
+or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her\r
+own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person!\r
+\r
+Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in\r
+proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom,\r
+like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under\r
+that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been\r
+able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He\r
+thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by\r
+his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that\r
+Maggie's nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked\r
+with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act\r
+on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days\r
+bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the\r
+limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over\r
+him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be\r
+severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance\r
+lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a\r
+repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their\r
+early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers\r
+together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a\r
+common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to\r
+him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger\r
+nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the\r
+character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal\r
+pride.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished,--she was not a\r
+woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was,--but punished in\r
+proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were\r
+cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show\r
+that their own kin were better.\r
+\r
+"Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear," said poor Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, "as I didn't go to her before;\r
+she said it wasn't for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a\r
+sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please,--oh\r
+dear!--but she's said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you\r
+yet, my child. For she says, for all she's been so set again' having\r
+one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and\r
+putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house,\r
+if you'll go to her dutiful, and she'll uphold you against folks as\r
+say harm of you when they've no call. And I told her I thought you\r
+couldn't bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with\r
+trouble; but she said, '_I_ won't throw ill words at her; there's them\r
+out o' th' family 'ull be ready enough to do that. But I'll give her\r
+good advice; an' she must be humble.' It's wonderful o' Jane; for I'm\r
+sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me,--if it was the\r
+raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it\r
+was."\r
+\r
+"Oh, mother," said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the\r
+contact her bruised mind would have to bear, "tell her I'm very\r
+grateful; I'll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can't see any one\r
+just yet, except Dr. Kenn. I've been to him,--he will advise me, and\r
+help me to get some occupation. I can't live with any one, or be\r
+dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did\r
+you hear nothing of Philip--Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one\r
+that has mentioned him?"\r
+\r
+"No, my dear; but I've been to Lucy's, and I saw your uncle, and he\r
+says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o' Miss\r
+Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she's on the turn to\r
+be better. What a world this is,--what trouble, oh dear! The law was\r
+the first beginning, and it's gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden,\r
+just when the luck seemed on the turn?" This was the first lamentation\r
+that Mrs. Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been\r
+revived by the interview with sister Glegg.\r
+\r
+"My poor, poor mother!" Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity\r
+and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother's neck; "I was\r
+always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been\r
+happy if it hadn't been for me."\r
+\r
+"Eh, my dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young\r
+cheek; "I must put up wi' my children,--I shall never have no more;\r
+and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There's nothing\r
+else much to be fond on, for my furnitur' went long ago. And you'd got\r
+to be very good once; I can't think how it's turned out the wrong way\r
+so!"\r
+\r
+Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of\r
+Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and\r
+she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr. Kenn, on his\r
+next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The\r
+elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the\r
+disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a\r
+good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his\r
+son's hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by\r
+conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in\r
+St. Ogg's; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one\r
+asked him a question about his son.\r
+\r
+But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known\r
+through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was\r
+gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this\r
+suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently\r
+in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her?\r
+\r
+At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a\r
+hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name,--a hand\r
+in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare\r
+which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in\r
+violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in\r
+solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow.\r
+\r
+ "Maggie,--I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I\r
+ know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this\r
+ before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The\r
+ night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen\r
+ what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another\r
+ whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but\r
+ through all the suggestions--almost murderous suggestions--of rage\r
+ and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness.\r
+ I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that\r
+ you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for\r
+ Lucy's sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not\r
+ fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of\r
+ resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I\r
+ believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which\r
+ drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters,\r
+ and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which\r
+ makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration\r
+ of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of\r
+ in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the\r
+ artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with\r
+ love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would\r
+ never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and\r
+ the beauty it bears for him.\r
+\r
+ "I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled\r
+ with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious\r
+ delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even\r
+ to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss\r
+ of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the\r
+ promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to\r
+ the foregoing pain,--the promise of another self that would lift my\r
+ aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing,\r
+ ever-satisfied want?\r
+\r
+ "But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came\r
+ before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he\r
+ had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited\r
+ with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love\r
+ and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something\r
+ stronger in you than your love for him.\r
+\r
+ "I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even\r
+ in its utmost agony--even in those terrible throes that love must\r
+ suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire--my love for\r
+ you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any\r
+ other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to\r
+ come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not\r
+ bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need\r
+ me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you,--to wait and\r
+ endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you\r
+ of,--that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been\r
+ too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered\r
+ in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the\r
+ grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation;\r
+ I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I\r
+ have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been\r
+ to my affections what light, what color is to my eyes, what music\r
+ is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid\r
+ consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your joy and\r
+ sorrow more than for what is directly my own, has transformed the\r
+ spirit of rebellious murmuring into that willing endurance which is\r
+ the birth of strong sympathy. I think nothing but such complete and\r
+ intense love could have initiated me into that enlarged life which\r
+ grows and grows by appropriating the life of others; for before, I\r
+ was always dragged back from it by ever-present painful\r
+ self-consciousness. I even think sometimes that this gift of\r
+ transferred life which has come to me in loving you, may be a new\r
+ power to me.\r
+\r
+ "Then, dear one, in spite of all, you have been the blessing of my\r
+ life. Let no self-reproach weigh on you because of me. It is I who\r
+ should rather reproach myself for having urged my feelings upon\r
+ you, and hurried you into words that you have felt as fetters. You\r
+ meant to be true to those words; you _have_ been true. I can\r
+ measure your sacrifice by what I have known in only one half-hour\r
+ of your presence with me, when I dreamed that you might love me\r
+ best. But, Maggie, I have no just claim on you for more than\r
+ affectionate remembrance.\r
+\r
+ "For some time I have shrunk from writing to you, because I have\r
+ shrunk even from the appearance of wishing to thrust myself before\r
+ you, and so repeating my original error. But you will not\r
+ misconstrue me. I know that we must keep apart for a long while;\r
+ cruel tongues would force us apart, if nothing else did. But I\r
+ shall not go away. The place where you are is the one where my mind\r
+ must live, wherever I might travel. And remember that I am\r
+ unchangeably yours,--yours not with selfish wishes, but with a\r
+ devotion that excludes such wishes.\r
+\r
+ "God comfort you, my loving, large-souled Maggie. If every one else\r
+ has misconceived you, remember that you have never been doubted by\r
+ him whose heart recognized you ten years ago.\r
+\r
+ "Do not believe any one who says I am ill, because I am not seen\r
+ out of doors. I have only had nervous headaches,--no worse than I\r
+ have sometimes had them before. But the overpowering heat inclines\r
+ me to be perfectly quiescent in the daytime. I am strong enough to\r
+ obey any word which shall tell me that I can serve you by word or\r
+ deed.\r
+\r
+ "Yours to the last,\r
+ "_Philip Wakem_."\r
+\r
+As Maggie knelt by the bed sobbing, with that letter pressed under\r
+her, her feelings again and again gathered themselves in a whispered\r
+cry, always in the same words,--\r
+\r
+"O God, is there any happiness in love that could make me forget\r
+_their_ pain?"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+Maggie and Lucy\r
+\r
+\r
+By the end of the week Dr. Kenn had made up his mind that there was\r
+only one way in which he could secure to Maggie a suitable living at\r
+St. Ogg's. Even with his twenty years' experience as a parish priest,\r
+he was aghast at the obstinate continuance of imputations against her\r
+in the face of evidence. Hitherto he had been rather more adored and\r
+appealed to than was quite agreeable to him; but now, in attempting to\r
+open the ears of women to reason, and their consciences to justice, on\r
+behalf of Maggie Tulliver, he suddenly found himself as powerless as\r
+he was aware he would have been if he had attempted to influence the\r
+shape of bonnets. Dr. Kenn could not be contradicted; he was listened\r
+to in silence; but when he left the room, a comparison of opinions\r
+among his hearers yielded much the same result as before. Miss\r
+Tulliver had undeniably acted in a blamable manner, even Dr. Kenn did\r
+not deny that; how, then, could he think so lightly of her as to put\r
+that favorable interpretation on everything she had done? Even on the\r
+supposition that required the utmost stretch of belief,--namely, that\r
+none of the things said about Miss Tulliver were true,--still, since\r
+they _had_ been said about her, they had cast an odor round her which\r
+must cause her to be shrunk from by every woman who had to take care\r
+of her own reputation--and of Society. To have taken Maggie by the\r
+hand and said, "I will not believe unproved evil of you; my lips shall\r
+not utter it; my ears shall be closed against it; I, too, am an erring\r
+mortal, liable to stumble, apt to come short of my most earnest\r
+efforts; your lot has been harder than mine, your temptation greater;\r
+let us help each other to stand and walk without more falling,"--to\r
+have done this would have demanded courage, deep pity, self-knowledge,\r
+generous trust; would have demanded a mind that tasted no piquancy in\r
+evil-speaking, that felt no self-exaltation in condemning, that\r
+cheated itself with no large words into the belief that life can have\r
+any moral end, any high religion, which excludes the striving after\r
+perfect truth, justice, and love toward the individual men and women\r
+who come across our own path. The ladies of St. Ogg's were not\r
+beguiled by any wide speculative conceptions; but they had their\r
+favorite abstraction, called Society, which served to make their\r
+consciences perfectly easy in doing what satisfied their own\r
+egoism,--thinking and speaking the worst of Maggie Tulliver, and\r
+turning their backs upon her. It was naturally disappointing to Dr.\r
+Kenn, after two years of superfluous incense from his feminine\r
+parishioners, to find them suddenly maintaining their views in\r
+opposition to his; but then they maintained them in opposition to a\r
+higher Authority, which they had venerated longer. That Authority had\r
+furnished a very explicit answer to persons who might inquire where\r
+their social duties began, and might be inclined to take wide views as\r
+to the starting-point. The answer had not turned on the ultimate good\r
+of Society, but on "a certain man" who was found in trouble by the\r
+wayside.\r
+\r
+Not that St. Ogg's was empty of women with some tenderness of heart\r
+and conscience; probably it had as fair a proportion of human goodness\r
+in it as any other small trading town of that day. But until every\r
+good man is brave, we must expect to find many good women timid,--too\r
+timid even to believe in the correctness of their own best promptings,\r
+when these would place them in a minority. And the men at St. Ogg's\r
+were not all brave, by any means; some of them were even fond of\r
+scandal, and to an extent that might have given their conversation an\r
+effeminate character, if it had not been distinguished by masculine\r
+jokes, and by an occasional shrug of the shoulders at the mutual\r
+hatred of women. It was the general feeling of the masculine mind at\r
+St. Ogg's that women were not to be interfered with in their treatment\r
+of each other.\r
+\r
+And thus every direction in which Dr. Kenn had turned, in the hope of\r
+procuring some kind recognition and some employment for Maggie, proved\r
+a disappointment to him. Mrs. James Torry could not think of taking\r
+Maggie as a nursery governess, even temporarily,--a young woman about\r
+whom "such things had been said," and about whom "gentlemen joked";\r
+and Miss Kirke, who had a spinal complaint, and wanted a reader and\r
+companion, felt quite sure that Maggie's mind must be of a quality\r
+with which she, for her part, could not risk _any_ contact. Why did\r
+not Miss Tulliver accept the shelter offered her by her aunt Glegg? It\r
+did not become a girl like her to refuse it. Or else, why did she not\r
+go out of the neighborhood, and get a situation where she was not\r
+known? (It was not, apparently, of so much importance that she should\r
+carry her dangerous tendencies into strange families unknown at St.\r
+Ogg's.) She must be very bold and hardened to wish to stay in a parish\r
+where she was so much stared at and whispered about.\r
+\r
+Dr. Kenn, having great natural firmness, began, in the presence of\r
+this opposition, as every firm man would have done, to contract a\r
+certain strength of determination over and above what would have been\r
+called forth by the end in view. He himself wanted a daily governess\r
+for his younger children; and though he had hesitated in the first\r
+instance to offer this position to Maggie, the resolution to protest\r
+with the utmost force of his personal and priestly character against\r
+her being crushed and driven away by slander, was now decisive. Maggie\r
+gratefully accepted an employment that gave her duties as well as a\r
+support; her days would be filled now, and solitary evenings would be\r
+a welcome rest. She no longer needed the sacrifice her mother made in\r
+staying with her, and Mrs. Tulliver was persuaded to go back to the\r
+Mill.\r
+\r
+But now it began to be discovered that Dr. Kenn, exemplary as he had\r
+hitherto appeared, had his crotchets, possibly his weaknesses. The\r
+masculine mind of St. Ogg's smiled pleasantly, and did not wonder that\r
+Kenn liked to see a fine pair of eyes daily, or that he was inclined\r
+to take so lenient a view of the past; the feminine mind, regarded at\r
+that period as less powerful, took a more melancholy view of the case.\r
+If Dr. Kenn should be beguiled into marrying that Miss Tulliver! It\r
+was not safe to be too confident, even about the best of men; an\r
+apostle had fallen, and wept bitterly afterwards; and though Peter's\r
+denial was not a close precedent, his repentance was likely to be.\r
+\r
+Maggie had not taken her daily walks to the Rectory for many weeks,\r
+before the dreadful possibility of her some time or other becoming the\r
+Rector's wife had been talked of so often in confidence, that ladies\r
+were beginning to discuss how they should behave to her in that\r
+position. For Dr. Kenn, it had been understood, had sat in the\r
+schoolroom half an hour one morning, when Miss Tulliver was giving her\r
+lessons,--nay, he had sat there every morning; he had once walked home\r
+with her,--he almost _always_ walked home with her,--and if not, he\r
+went to see her in the evening. What an artful creature she was! What\r
+a _mother_ for those children! It was enough to make poor Mrs. Kenn\r
+turn in her grave, that they should be put under the care of this girl\r
+only a few weeks after her death. Would he be so lost to propriety as\r
+to marry her before the year was out? The masculine mind was\r
+sarcastic, and thought _not_.\r
+\r
+The Miss Guests saw an alleviation to the sorrow of witnessing a folly\r
+in their Rector; at least their brother would be safe; and their\r
+knowledge of Stephen's tenacity was a constant ground of alarm to\r
+them, lest he should come back and marry Maggie. They were not among\r
+those who disbelieved their brother's letter; but they had no\r
+confidence in Maggie's adherence to her renunciation of him; they\r
+suspected that she had shrunk rather from the elopement than from the\r
+marriage, and that she lingered in St. Ogg's, relying on his return to\r
+her. They had always thought her disagreeable; they now thought her\r
+artful and proud; having quite as good grounds for that judgment as\r
+you and I probably have for many strong opinions of the same kind.\r
+Formerly they had not altogether delighted in the contemplated match\r
+with Lucy, but now their dread of a marriage between Stephen and\r
+Maggie added its momentum to their genuine pity and indignation on\r
+behalf of the gentle forsaken girl, in making them desire that he\r
+should return to her. As soon as Lucy was able to leave home, she was\r
+to seek relief from the oppressive heat of this August by going to the\r
+coast with the Miss Guests; and it was in their plans that Stephen\r
+should be induced to join them. On the very first hint of gossip\r
+concerning Maggie and Dr. Kenn, the report was conveyed in Miss\r
+Guest's letter to her brother.\r
+\r
+Maggie had frequent tidings through her mother, or aunt Glegg, or Dr.\r
+Kenn, of Lucy's gradual progress toward recovery, and her thoughts\r
+tended continually toward her uncle Deane's house; she hungered for an\r
+interview with Lucy, if it were only for five minutes, to utter a word\r
+of penitence, to be assured by Lucy's own eyes and lips that she did\r
+not believe in the willing treachery of those whom she had loved and\r
+trusted. But she knew that even if her uncle's indignation had not\r
+closed his house against her, the agitation of such an interview would\r
+have been forbidden to Lucy. Only to have seen her without speaking\r
+would have been some relief; for Maggie was haunted by a face cruel in\r
+its very gentleness; a face that had been turned on hers with glad,\r
+sweet looks of trust and love from the twilight time of memory;\r
+changed now to a sad and weary face by a first heart-stroke. And as\r
+the days passed on, that pale image became more and more distinct; the\r
+picture grew and grew into more speaking definiteness under the\r
+avenging hand of remorse; the soft hazel eyes, in their look of pain,\r
+were bent forever on Maggie, and pierced her the more because she\r
+could see no anger in them. But Lucy was not yet able to go to church,\r
+or any place where Maggie could see her; and even the hope of that\r
+departed, when the news was told her by aunt Glegg, that Lucy was\r
+really going away in a few days to Scarborough with the Miss Guests,\r
+who had been heard to say that they expected their brother to meet\r
+them there.\r
+\r
+Only those who have known what hardest inward conflict is, can know\r
+what Maggie felt as she sat in her loneliness the evening after\r
+hearing that news from Mrs. Glegg,--only those who have known what it\r
+is to dread their own selfish desires as the watching mother would\r
+dread the sleeping-potion that was to still her own pain.\r
+\r
+She sat without candle in the twilight, with the window wide open\r
+toward the river; the sense of oppressive heat adding itself\r
+undistinguishably to the burthen of her lot. Seated on a chair against\r
+the window, with her arm on the windowsill she was looking blankly at\r
+the flowing river, swift with the backward-rushing tide, struggling to\r
+see still the sweet face in its unreproaching sadness, that seemed now\r
+from moment to moment to sink away and be hidden behind a form that\r
+thrust itself between, and made darkness. Hearing the door open, she\r
+thought Mrs. Jakin was coming in with her supper, as usual; and with\r
+that repugnance to trivial speech which comes with languor and\r
+wretchedness, she shrank from turning round and saying she wanted\r
+nothing; good little Mrs. Jakin would be sure to make some well-meant\r
+remarks. But the next moment, without her having discerned the sound\r
+of a footstep, she felt a light hand on her shoulder, and heard a\r
+voice close to her saying, "Maggie!"\r
+\r
+The face was there,--changed, but all the sweeter; the hazel eyes were\r
+there, with their heart-piercing tenderness.\r
+\r
+"Maggie!" the soft voice said. "Lucy!" answered a voice with a sharp\r
+ring of anguish in it; and Lucy threw her arms round Maggie's neck,\r
+and leaned her pale cheek against the burning brow.\r
+\r
+"I stole out," said Lucy, almost in a whisper, while she sat down\r
+close to Maggie and held her hand, "when papa and the rest were away.\r
+Alice is come with me. I asked her to help me. But I must only stay a\r
+little while, because it is so late."\r
+\r
+It was easier to say that at first than to say anything else. They sat\r
+looking at each other. It seemed as if the interview must end without\r
+more speech, for speech was very difficult. Each felt that there would\r
+be something scorching in the words that would recall the\r
+irretrievable wrong. But soon, as Maggie looked, every distinct\r
+thought began to be overflowed by a wave of loving penitence, and\r
+words burst forth with a sob.\r
+\r
+"God bless you for coming, Lucy."\r
+\r
+The sobs came thick on each other after that.\r
+\r
+"Maggie, dear, be comforted," said Lucy now, putting her cheek against\r
+Maggie's again. "Don't grieve." And she sat still, hoping to soothe\r
+Maggie with that gentle caress.\r
+\r
+"I didn't mean to deceive you, Lucy," said Maggie, as soon as she\r
+could speak. "It always made me wretched that I felt what I didn't\r
+like you to know. It was because I thought it would all be conquered,\r
+and you might never see anything to wound you."\r
+\r
+"I know, dear," said Lucy. "I know you never meant to make me unhappy.\r
+It is a trouble that has come on us all; you have more to bear than I\r
+have--and you gave him up, when--you did what it must have been very\r
+hard to do."\r
+\r
+They were silent again a little while, sitting with clasped hands, and\r
+cheeks leaned together.\r
+\r
+"Lucy," Maggie began again, "_he_ struggled too. He wanted to be true\r
+to you. He will come back to you. Forgive him--he will be happy\r
+then----"\r
+\r
+These words were wrung forth from Maggie's deepest soul, with an\r
+effort like the convulsed clutch of a drowning man. Lucy trembled and\r
+was silent.\r
+\r
+A gentle knock came at the door. It was Alice, the maid, who entered\r
+and said,--\r
+\r
+"I daren't stay any longer, Miss Deane. They'll find it out, and\r
+there'll be such anger at your coming out so late."\r
+\r
+Lucy rose and said, "Very well, Alice,--in a minute."\r
+\r
+"I'm to go away on Friday, Maggie," she added, when Alice had closed\r
+the door again. "When I come back, and am strong, they will let me do\r
+as I like. I shall come to you when I please then."\r
+\r
+"Lucy," said Maggie, with another great effort, "I pray to God\r
+continually that I may never be the cause of sorrow to you any more."\r
+\r
+She pressed the little hand that she held between hers, and looked up\r
+into the face that was bent over hers. Lucy never forgot that look.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," she said, in a low voice, that had the solemnity of\r
+confession in it, "you are better than I am. I can't----"\r
+\r
+She broke off there, and said no more. But they clasped each other\r
+again in a last embrace.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+The Last Conflict\r
+\r
+\r
+In the second week of September, Maggie was again sitting in her\r
+lonely room, battling with the old shadowy enemies that were forever\r
+slain and rising again. It was past midnight, and the rain was beating\r
+heavily against the window, driven with fitful force by the rushing,\r
+loud-moaning wind. For the day after Lucy's visit there had been a\r
+sudden change in the weather; the heat and drought had given way to\r
+cold variable winds, and heavy falls of rain at intervals; and she had\r
+been forbidden to risk the contemplated journey until the weather\r
+should become more settled. In the counties higher up the Floss the\r
+rains had been continuous, and the completion of the harvest had been\r
+arrested. And now, for the last two days, the rains on this lower\r
+course of the river had been incessant, so that the old men had shaken\r
+their heads and talked of sixty years ago, when the same sort of\r
+weather, happening about the equinox, brought on the great floods,\r
+which swept the bridge away, and reduced the town to great misery. But\r
+the younger generation, who had seen several small floods, thought\r
+lightly of these sombre recollections and forebodings; and Bob Jakin,\r
+naturally prone to take a hopeful view of his own luck, laughed at his\r
+mother when she regretted their having taken a house by the riverside,\r
+observing that but for that they would have had no boats, which were\r
+the most lucky of possessions in case of a flood that obliged them to\r
+go to a distance for food.\r
+\r
+But the careless and the fearful were alike sleeping in their beds\r
+now. There was hope that the rain would abate by the morrow;\r
+threatenings of a worse kind, from sudden thaws after falls of snow,\r
+had often passed off, in the experience of the younger ones; and at\r
+the very worst, the banks would be sure to break lower down the river\r
+when the tide came in with violence, and so the waters would be\r
+carried off, without causing more than temporary inconvenience, and\r
+losses that would be felt only by the poorer sort, whom charity would\r
+relieve.\r
+\r
+All were in their beds now, for it was past midnight; all except some\r
+solitary watchers such as Maggie. She was seated in her little parlor\r
+toward the river, with one candle, that left everything dim in the\r
+room except a letter which lay before her on the table. That letter,\r
+which had come to her to-day, was one of the causes that had kept her\r
+up far on into the night, unconscious how the hours were going,\r
+careless of seeking rest, with no image of rest coming across her\r
+mind, except of that far, far off rest from which there would be no\r
+more waking for her into this struggling earthly life.\r
+\r
+Two days before Maggie received that letter, she had been to the\r
+Rectory for the last time. The heavy rain would have prevented her\r
+from going since; but there was another reason. Dr. Kenn, at first\r
+enlightened only by a few hints as to the new turn which gossip and\r
+slander had taken in relation to Maggie, had recently been made more\r
+fully aware of it by an earnest remonstrance from one of his male\r
+parishioners against the indiscretion of persisting in the attempt to\r
+overcome the prevalent feeling in the parish by a course of\r
+resistance. Dr. Kenn, having a conscience void of offence in the\r
+matter, was still inclined to persevere,--was still averse to give way\r
+before a public sentiment that was odious and contemptible; but he was\r
+finally wrought upon by the consideration of the peculiar\r
+responsibility attached to his office, of avoiding the appearance of\r
+evil,--an "appearance" that is always dependent on the average quality\r
+of surrounding minds. Where these minds are low and gross, the area of\r
+that "appearance" is proportionately widened. Perhaps he was in danger\r
+of acting from obstinacy; perhaps it was his duty to succumb.\r
+Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the\r
+most painful course; and to recede was always painful to Dr. Kenn. He\r
+made up his mind that he must advise Maggie to go away from St. Ogg's\r
+for a time; and he performed that difficult task with as much delicacy\r
+as he could, only stating in vague terms that he found his attempt to\r
+countenance her stay was a source of discord between himself and his\r
+parishioners, that was likely to obstruct his usefulness as a\r
+clergyman. He begged her to allow him to write to a clerical friend of\r
+his, who might possibly take her into his own family as governess;\r
+and, if not, would probably know of some other available position for\r
+a young woman in whose welfare Dr. Kenn felt a strong interest.\r
+\r
+Poor Maggie listened with a trembling lip; she could say nothing but a\r
+faint "Thank you, I shall be grateful"; and she walked back to her\r
+lodgings, through the driving rain, with a new sense of desolation.\r
+She must be a lonely wanderer; she must go out among fresh faces, that\r
+would look at her wonderingly, because the days did not seem joyful to\r
+her; she must begin a new life, in which she would have to rouse\r
+herself to receive new impressions; and she was so unspeakably,\r
+sickeningly weary! There was no home, no help for the erring; even\r
+those who pitied were constrained to hardness. But ought she to\r
+complain? Ought she to shrink in this way from the long penance of\r
+life, which was all the possibility she had of lightening the load to\r
+some other sufferers, and so changing that passionate error into a new\r
+force of unselfish human love? All the next day she sat in her lonely\r
+room, with a window darkened by the cloud and the driving rain,\r
+thinking of that future, and wrestling for patience; for what repose\r
+could poor Maggie ever win except by wrestling?\r
+\r
+And on the third day--this day of which she had just sat out the\r
+close--the letter had come which was lying on the table before her.\r
+\r
+The letter was from Stephen. He was come back from Holland; he was at\r
+Mudport again, unknown to any of his friends, and had written to her\r
+from that place, enclosing the letter to a person whom he trusted in\r
+St. Ogg's. From beginning to end it was a passionate cry of reproach;\r
+an appeal against her useless sacrifice of him, of herself, against\r
+that perverted notion of right which led her to crush all his hopes,\r
+for the sake of a mere idea, and not any substantial good,--_his_\r
+hopes, whom she loved, and who loved her with that single overpowering\r
+passion, that worship, which a man never gives to a woman more than\r
+once in his life.\r
+\r
+"They have written to me that you are to marry Kenn. As if I should\r
+believe that! Perhaps they have told you some such fables about me.\r
+Perhaps they tell you I've been 'travelling.' My body has been dragged\r
+about somewhere; but _I_ have never travelled from the hideous place\r
+where you left me; where I started up from the stupor of helpless rage\r
+to find you gone.\r
+\r
+"Maggie! whose pain can have been like mine? Whose injury is like\r
+mine? Who besides me has met that long look of love that has burnt\r
+itself into my soul, so that no other image can come there? Maggie,\r
+call me back to you! Call me back to life and goodness! I am banished\r
+from both now. I have no motives; I am indifferent to everything. Two\r
+months have only deepened the certainty that I can never care for life\r
+without you. Write me one word; say 'Come!' In two days I should be\r
+with you. Maggie, have you forgotten what it was to be together,--to\r
+be within reach of a look, to be within hearing of each other's\r
+voice?"\r
+\r
+When Maggie first read this letter she felt as if her real temptation\r
+had only just begun. At the entrance of the chill dark cavern, we turn\r
+with unworn courage from the warm light; but how, when we have trodden\r
+far in the damp darkness, and have begun to be faint and weary; how,\r
+if there is a sudden opening above us, and we are invited back again\r
+to the life-nourishing day? The leap of natural longing from under the\r
+pressure of pain is so strong, that all less immediate motives are\r
+likely to be forgotten--till the pain has been escaped from.\r
+\r
+For hours Maggie felt as if her struggle had been in vain. For hours\r
+every other thought that she strove to summon was thrust aside by the\r
+image of Stephen waiting for the single word that would bring him to\r
+her. She did not _read_ the letter: she heard him uttering it, and the\r
+voice shook her with its old strange power. All the day before she had\r
+been filled with the vision of a lonely future through which she must\r
+carry the burthen of regret, upheld only by clinging faith. And here,\r
+close within her reach, urging itself upon her even as a claim, was\r
+another future, in which hard endurance and effort were to be\r
+exchanged for easy, delicious leaning on another's loving strength!\r
+And yet that promise of joy in the place of sadness did not make the\r
+dire force of the temptation to Maggie.\r
+\r
+It was Stephen's tone of misery, it was the doubt in the justice of\r
+her own resolve, that made the balance tremble, and made her once\r
+start from her seat to reach the pen and paper, and write "Come!"\r
+\r
+But close upon that decisive act, her mind recoiled; and the sense of\r
+contradiction with her past self in her moments of strength and\r
+clearness came upon her like a pang of conscious degradation. No, she\r
+must wait; she must pray; the light that had forsaken her would come\r
+again; she should feel again what she had felt when she had fled away,\r
+under an inspiration strong enough to conquer agony,--to conquer love;\r
+she should feel again what she had felt when Lucy stood by her, when\r
+Philip's letter had stirred all the fibres that bound her to the\r
+calmer past.\r
+\r
+She sat quite still, far on into the night, with no impulse to change\r
+her attitude, without active force enough even for the mental act of\r
+prayer; only waiting for the light that would surely come again. It\r
+came with the memories that no passion could long quench; the long\r
+past came back to her, and with it the fountains of self-renouncing\r
+pity and affection, of faithfulness and resolve. The words that were\r
+marked by the quiet hand in the little old book that she had long ago\r
+learned by heart, rushed even to her lips, and found a vent for\r
+themselves in a low murmur that was quite lost in the loud driving of\r
+the rain against the window and the loud moan and roar of the wind. "I\r
+have received the Cross, I have received it from Thy hand; I will bear\r
+it, and bear it till death, as Thou hast laid it upon me."\r
+\r
+But soon other words rose that could find no utterance but in a\r
+sob,--"Forgive me, Stephen! It will pass away. You will come back to\r
+her."\r
+\r
+She took up the letter, held it to the candle, and let it burn slowly\r
+on the hearth. To-morrow she would write to him the last word of\r
+parting.\r
+\r
+"I will bear it, and bear it till death. But how long it will be\r
+before death comes! I am so young, so healthy. How shall I have\r
+patience and strength? Am I to struggle and fall and repent again? Has\r
+life other trials as hard for me still?"\r
+\r
+With that cry of self-despair, Maggie fell on her knees against the\r
+table, and buried her sorrow-stricken face. Her soul went out to the\r
+Unseen Pity that would be with her to the end. Surely there was\r
+something being taught her by this experience of great need; and she\r
+must be learning a secret of human tenderness and long-suffering, that\r
+the less erring could hardly know? "O God, if my life is to be long,\r
+let me live to bless and comfort----"\r
+\r
+At that moment Maggie felt a startling sensation of sudden cold about\r
+her knees and feet; it was water flowing under her. She started up;\r
+the stream was flowing under the door that led into the passage. She\r
+was not bewildered for an instant; she knew it was the flood!\r
+\r
+The tumult of emotion she had been enduring for the last twelve hours\r
+seemed to have left a great calm in her; without screaming, she\r
+hurried with the candle upstairs to Bob Jakin's bedroom. The door was\r
+ajar; she went in and shook him by the shoulder.\r
+\r
+"Bob, the flood is come! it is in the house; let us see if we can make\r
+the boats safe."\r
+\r
+She lighted his candle, while the poor wife, snatching up her baby,\r
+burst into screams; and then she hurried down again to see if the\r
+waters were rising fast. There was a step down into the room at the\r
+door leading from the staircase; she saw that the water was already on\r
+a level with the step. While she was looking, something came with a\r
+tremendous crash against the window, and sent the leaded panes and the\r
+old wooden framework inward in shivers, the water pouring in after it.\r
+\r
+"It is the boat!" cried Maggie. "Bob, come down to get the boats!"\r
+\r
+And without a moment's shudder of fear, she plunged through the water,\r
+which was rising fast to her knees, and by the glimmering light of the\r
+candle she had left on the stairs, she mounted on to the window-sill,\r
+and crept into the boat, which was left with the prow lodging and\r
+protruding through the window. Bob was not long after her, hurrying\r
+without shoes or stockings, but with the lanthorn in his hand.\r
+\r
+"Why, they're both here,--both the boats," said Bob, as he got into\r
+the one where Maggie was. "It's wonderful this fastening isn't broke\r
+too, as well as the mooring."\r
+\r
+In the excitement of getting into the other boat, unfastening it, and\r
+mastering an oar, Bob was not struck with the danger Maggie incurred.\r
+We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in\r
+their danger, and Bob's mind was absorbed in possible expedients for\r
+the safety of the helpless indoors. The fact that Maggie had been up,\r
+had waked him, and had taken the lead in activity, gave Bob a vague\r
+impression of her as one who would help to protect, not need to be\r
+protected. She too had got possession of an oar, and had pushed off,\r
+so as to release the boat from the overhanging window-frame.\r
+\r
+"The water's rising so fast," said Bob, "I doubt it'll be in at the\r
+chambers before long,--th' house is so low. I've more mind to get\r
+Prissy and the child and the mother into the boat, if I could, and\r
+trusten to the water,--for th' old house is none so safe. And if I let\r
+go the boat--but _you_," he exclaimed, suddenly lifting the light of\r
+his lanthorn on Maggie, as she stood in the rain with the oar in her\r
+hand and her black hair streaming.\r
+\r
+Maggie had no time to answer, for a new tidal current swept along the\r
+line of the houses, and drove both the boats out on to the wide water,\r
+with a force that carried them far past the meeting current of the\r
+river.\r
+\r
+In the first moments Maggie felt nothing, thought of nothing, but that\r
+she had suddenly passed away from that life which she had been\r
+dreading; it was the transition of death, without its agony,--and she\r
+was alone in the darkness with God.\r
+\r
+The whole thing had been so rapid, so dreamlike, that the threads of\r
+ordinary association were broken; she sank down on the seat clutching\r
+the oar mechanically, and for a long while had no distinct conception\r
+of her position. The first thing that waked her to fuller\r
+consciousness was the cessation of the rain, and a perception that the\r
+darkness was divided by the faintest light, which parted the\r
+overhanging gloom from the immeasurable watery level below. She was\r
+driven out upon the flood,--that awful visitation of God which her\r
+father used to talk of; which had made the nightmare of her childish\r
+dreams. And with that thought there rushed in the vision of the old\r
+home, and Tom, and her mother,--they had all listened together.\r
+\r
+"O God, where am I? Which is the way home?" she cried out, in the dim\r
+loneliness.\r
+\r
+What was happening to them at the Mill? The flood had once nearly\r
+destroyed it. They might be in danger, in distress,--her mother and\r
+her brother, alone there, beyond reach of help! Her whole soul was\r
+strained now on that thought; and she saw the long-loved faces looking\r
+for help into the darkness, and finding none.\r
+\r
+She was floating in smooth water now,--perhaps far on the overflooded\r
+fields. There was no sense of present danger to check the outgoing of\r
+her mind to the old home; and she strained her eyes against the\r
+curtain of gloom that she might seize the first sight of her\r
+whereabout,--that she might catch some faint suggestion of the spot\r
+toward which all her anxieties tended.\r
+\r
+Oh, how welcome, the widening of that dismal watery level, the gradual\r
+uplifting of the cloudy firmament, the slowly defining blackness of\r
+objects above the glassy dark! Yes, she must be out on the fields;\r
+those were the tops of hedgerow trees. Which way did the river lie?\r
+Looking behind her, she saw the lines of black trees; looking before\r
+her, there were none; then the river lay before her. She seized an oar\r
+and began to paddle the boat forward with the energy of wakening hope;\r
+the dawning seemed to advance more swiftly, now she was in action; and\r
+she could soon see the poor dumb beasts crowding piteously on a mound\r
+where they had taken refuge. Onward she paddled and rowed by turns in\r
+the growing twilight; her wet clothes clung round her, and her\r
+streaming hair was dashed about by the wind, but she was hardly\r
+conscious of any bodily sensations,--except a sensation of strength,\r
+inspired by mighty emotion. Along with the sense of danger and\r
+possible rescue for those long-remembered beings at the old home,\r
+there was an undefined sense of reconcilement with her brother; what\r
+quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in\r
+the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of\r
+our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive\r
+mortal needs? Vaguely Maggie felt this, in the strong resurgent love\r
+toward her brother that swept away all the later impressions of hard,\r
+cruel offence and misunderstanding, and left only the deep,\r
+underlying, unshakable memories of early union.\r
+\r
+But now there was a large dark mass in the distance, and near to her\r
+Maggie could discern the current of the river. The dark mass must\r
+be--yes, it was--St. Ogg's. Ah, now she knew which way to look for the\r
+first glimpse of the well-known trees--the gray willows, the now\r
+yellowing chestnuts--and above them the old roof! But there was no\r
+color, no shape yet; all was faint and dim. More and more strongly the\r
+energies seemed to come and put themselves forth, as if her life were\r
+a stored-up force that was being spent in this hour, unneeded for any\r
+future.\r
+\r
+She must get her boat into the current of the Floss, else she would\r
+never be able to pass the Ripple and approach the house; this was the\r
+thought that occurred to her, as she imagined with more and more\r
+vividness the state of things round the old home. But then she might\r
+be carried very far down, and be unable to guide her boat out of the\r
+current again. For the first time distinct ideas of danger began to\r
+press upon her; but there was no choice of courses, no room for\r
+hesitation, and she floated into the current. Swiftly she went now\r
+without effort; more and more clearly in the lessening distance and\r
+the growing light she began to discern the objects that she knew must\r
+be the well-known trees and roofs; nay, she was not far off a rushing,\r
+muddy current that must be the strangely altered Ripple.\r
+\r
+Great God! there were floating masses in it, that might dash against\r
+her boat as she passed, and cause her to perish too soon. What were\r
+those masses?\r
+\r
+For the first time Maggie's heart began to beat in an agony of dread.\r
+She sat helpless, dimly conscious that she was being floated along,\r
+more intensely conscious of the anticipated clash. But the horror was\r
+transient; it passed away before the oncoming warehouses of St. Ogg's.\r
+She had passed the mouth of the Ripple, then; _now_, she must use all\r
+her skill and power to manage the boat and get it if possible out of\r
+the current. She could see now that the bridge was broken down; she\r
+could see the masts of a stranded vessel far out over the watery\r
+field. But no boats were to be seen moving on the river,--such as had\r
+been laid hands on were employed in the flooded streets.\r
+\r
+With new resolution, Maggie seized her oar, and stood up again to\r
+paddle; but the now ebbing tide added to the swiftness of the river,\r
+and she was carried along beyond the bridge. She could hear shouts\r
+from the windows overlooking the river, as if the people there were\r
+calling to her. It was not till she had passed on nearly to Tofton\r
+that she could get the boat clear of the current. Then with one\r
+yearning look toward her uncle Deane's house that lay farther down the\r
+river, she took to both her oars and rowed with all her might across\r
+the watery fields, back toward the Mill. Color was beginning to awake\r
+now, and as she approached the Dorlcote fields, she could discern the\r
+tints of the trees, could see the old Scotch firs far to the right,\r
+and the home chestnuts,--oh, how deep they lay in the water,--deeper\r
+than the trees on this side the hill! And the roof of the Mill--where\r
+was it? Those heavy fragments hurrying down the Ripple,--what had they\r
+meant? But it was not the house,--the house stood firm; drowned up to\r
+the first story, but still firm,--or was it broken in at the end\r
+toward the Mill?\r
+\r
+With panting joy that she was there at last,--joy that overcame all\r
+distress,--Maggie neared the front of the house. At first she heard no\r
+sound; she saw no object moving. Her boat was on a level with the\r
+upstairs window. She called out in a loud, piercing voice,--\r
+\r
+"Tom, where are you? Mother, where are you? Here is Maggie!"\r
+\r
+Soon, from the window of the attic in the central gable, she heard\r
+Tom's voice,--\r
+\r
+"Who is it? Have you brought a boat?"\r
+\r
+"It is I, Tom,--Maggie. Where is mother?"\r
+\r
+"She is not here; she went to Garum the day before yesterday. I'll\r
+come down to the lower window."\r
+\r
+"Alone, Maggie?" said Tom, in a voice of deep astonishment, as he\r
+opened the middle window, on a level with the boat.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Tom; God has taken care of me, to bring me to you. Get in\r
+quickly. Is there no one else?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Tom, stepping into the boat; "I fear the man is drowned; he\r
+was carried down the Ripple, I think, when part of the Mill fell with\r
+the crash of trees and stones against it; I've shouted again and\r
+again, and there has been no answer. Give me the oars, Maggie."\r
+\r
+It was not till Tom had pushed off and they were on the wide\r
+water,--he face to face with Maggie,--that the full meaning of what\r
+had happened rushed upon his mind. It came with so overpowering a\r
+force,--it was such a new revelation to his spirit, of the depths in\r
+life that had lain beyond his vision, which he had fancied so keen and\r
+clear,--that he was unable to ask a question. They sat mutely gazing\r
+at each other,--Maggie with eyes of intense life looking out from a\r
+weary, beaten face; Tom pale, with a certain awe and humiliation.\r
+Thought was busy though the lips were silent; and though he could ask\r
+no question, he guessed a story of almost miraculous, divinely\r
+protected effort. But at last a mist gathered over the blue-gray eyes,\r
+and the lips found a word they could utter,--the old childish\r
+"Magsie!"\r
+\r
+Maggie could make no answer but a long, deep sob of that mysterious,\r
+wondrous happiness that is one with pain.\r
+\r
+As soon as she could speak, she said, "We will go to Lucy, Tom; we'll\r
+go and see if she is safe, and then we can help the rest."\r
+\r
+Tom rowed with untired vigor, and with a different speed from poor\r
+Maggie's. The boat was soon in the current of the river again, and\r
+soon they would be at Tofton.\r
+\r
+"Park House stands high up out of the flood," said Maggie. "Perhaps\r
+they have got Lucy there."\r
+\r
+Nothing else was said; a new danger was being carried toward them by\r
+the river. Some wooden machinery had just given way on one of the\r
+wharves, and huge fragments were being floated along. The sun was\r
+rising now, and the wide area of watery desolation was spread out in\r
+dreadful clearness around them; in dreadful clearness floated onward\r
+the hurrying, threatening masses. A large company in a boat that was\r
+working its way along under the Tofton houses observed their danger,\r
+and shouted, "Get out of the current!"\r
+\r
+But that could not be done at once; and Tom, looking before him, saw\r
+death rushing on them. Huge fragments, clinging together in fatal\r
+fellowship, made one wide mass across the stream.\r
+\r
+"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the\r
+oars, and clasping her.\r
+\r
+The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and the\r
+huge mass was hurrying on in hideous triumph.\r
+\r
+But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a black speck on the golden\r
+water.\r
+\r
+The boat reappeared, but brother and sister had gone down in an\r
+embrace never to be parted; living through again in one supreme moment\r
+the days when they had clasped their little hands in love, and roamed\r
+the daisied fields together.\r
+\r
+Conclusion\r
+\r
+Nature repairs her ravages,--repairs them with her sunshine, and with\r
+human labor. The desolation wrought by that flood had left little\r
+visible trace on the face of the earth, five years after. The fifth\r
+autumn was rich in golden cornstacks, rising in thick clusters among\r
+the distant hedgerows; the wharves and warehouses on the Floss were\r
+busy again, with echoes of eager voices, with hopeful lading and\r
+unlading.\r
+\r
+And every man and woman mentioned in this history was still living,\r
+except those whose end we know.\r
+\r
+Nature repairs her ravages, but not all. The uptorn trees are not\r
+rooted again; the parted hills are left scarred; if there is a new\r
+growth, the trees are not the same as the old, and the hills\r
+underneath their green vesture bear the marks of the past rending. To\r
+the eyes that have dwelt on the past, there is no thorough repair.\r
+\r
+Dorlcote Mill was rebuilt. And Dorlcote churchyard--where the brick\r
+grave that held a father whom we know, was found with the stone laid\r
+prostrate upon it after the flood--had recovered all its grassy order\r
+and decent quiet.\r
+\r
+Near that brick grave there was a tomb erected, very soon after the\r
+flood, for two bodies that were found in close embrace; and it was\r
+visited at different moments by two men who both felt that their\r
+keenest joy and keenest sorrow were forever buried there.\r
+\r
+One of them visited the tomb again with a sweet face beside him; but\r
+that was years after.\r
+\r
+The other was always solitary. His great companionship was among the\r
+trees of the Red Deeps, where the buried joy seemed still to hover,\r
+like a revisiting spirit.\r
+\r
+The tomb bore the names of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, and below the\r
+names it was written,--\r
+\r
+ "In their death they were not divided."\r
projects / gender-roles-text-analysis.git / blobdiff