Mill on the Floss
jft
George Eliot. — Frontispiece.
L
CONTENTS,
PACK
III. THE FAMILY COUNCIL, ....... 216
IV. A VANISHING GLEAM, 282
V. TOM APPLIES HIS KNIFB TO THE OYSTER, .... 236
VL TENDING TO REFUTE THE POPULAR PREJUDICE AGAINST
THE PRESENT OF A POCKET-KNIFE, .... 249
TIL How A HEN TAKES TO STRATAGEM, ..... 256
VIII. DAYLIGHT ON THE WRECK, 268
IX. AN ITEM ADDED TO THE FAMILY REGISTER, . . 277
BOOK IV.— THE VALLEY OP HUMILIATION.
L A VARIATION OF PROTESTANTISM UNKNOWN TO BOSSCET, . 284
IL THE TORN NEST is PIERCED BY THE THORNS, . . . 289
HI. A VOICE FROM THE PAST, 294
BOOK V.— WHEAT AND TABES.
L I» THE RED DEEPS, ........ 810
II. AUNT GLEGG LEARNS THE BREADTH OF BOB'S THUMB, . 322
in. THE WAVERING BALANCE, 340
IV. ANOTHER LOVE-SCENE, ....... 347
V. THE CLOVEN TREE, 353
VI. THE HARD-WON TRIUMPH, . .365
VII. A DAY or RECKONING, . 370
BOOK VI.— THE GREAT TEMPTATION.
L A DUET IN PARADISE, ....... 378
II. FIRST IMPRESSIONS, ........ 887
III. CONFIDENTIAL MOMENTS, ....... 401
IV. BROTHER AND SISTER, ........ 405
V. SHOWING THAT TOM HAD OPENED THE OYSTER, . . 413
VL ILLUSTRATING THE LAWS OF ATTRACTION, .... 417
VTL PHILIP RE-ENTERS, 428
<TIIL WAKEM IN A NEW LIGHT, ....... 442
IX. CHARITY tN FULL-DRESS, ....... 449
X. THE SPELL SEEMS BROKEN, ...... 459
XL IN THE LANE, ......... 466
XII. A FAMILY PARTY, ........ 472
XHI. BORNE ALONG BY THB TIDB, ...... 479
WAKIKO, .......... 493
CONTENTS.
BOOK vn.— THE FINAL RESCUE.
0KAPTKB fAOl
I. THE RETURN TO THE MILL, ...... 604
II. ST. OGO'S PASSES JUDGMENT, ...... 611
ill. SHOWING THAT OLD ACQUAINTANCES ABB CAPABLE OF
SURPRISING Us, . . . . . . . . . 620
iV. MAGGIE AND Leer, ........ 627
V. THE LAST CONFLICT, 684
CONCLUSION, ......... Mi
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
BOOK L-BOY AND GIRL.
CHAPTER L
OUTSIDE DORLCOTE MILL.
A WIDE plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on be-
tween its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing
to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace.
On this mighty tide the black ships — laden with the fresh'
scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or
with the dark glitter of coal — are borne along to the town of
St. Ogg*s, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the
broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and
the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue
under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on
each hand stretch the rich pastures, and the patches of dark
earth made ready for the seed of broad-leaved green crops, or
touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-
sown corn. There is a remnant still of the last year's golden
clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedge-
rows ; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees ;
the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching
their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spread-
ing «sh. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Eipple
flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the
little river is, with its dark changing wavelets ! It seems to
me like a living companion while I wander along the bank,
and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who
is deaf anfl loving. I remember those large dipping willows.
I remember the stone bridge.
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two
here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are
threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in thif
leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at,
— perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly
kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chest-
nuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is
brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and
half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the
house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the deli-
cate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great
trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple
boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white
ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here
among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they
make in the drier world above.
The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a
dreamy deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of
the scene. They are like a great curtain of sound, shutting
one out from the world beyond. And now there is the thun-
der of the huge covered wagon coming home with sacks of
grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his dinner, get-
ting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour ; but he will not
touch it till he has fed his horses, — the strong, submissive,
meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at
him from between their blinkers, that he should crack his
whip at them in that awful manner as if they needed that
hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope tow-
ard the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so
near home. Look at their grand shaggy feet that seem to
grasp the firm earth, at the patient strength of their necks,
bowed under the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their
struggling haunches I I should like well to hear them neigh
over their hardly earned feed of corn, and see them, with their
tnoist necks freed from the harness, dipping their eager nos-
trils into the muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and
down they go again at a swifter pace, and the arch of the cov-
ered wagon disappears at the turning behind the trees.
Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watak
BOY AND GIRL. »
the unresting -wheel sending out its diamond jets of water.
That little girl is watching it too j she has been standing on
just the same spot at the edge of the water ever since I paused
on the bridge. And that queer white cur with the brown ear
Beems to be leaping and barking in ineffectual remonstrance
with the wheel j perhaps he is jealous because his playfellow
in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is time
the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very
bright fire to tempt her : the red light shines out under the
deepening gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave
off resting my arms on the cold stone of this bridge. . . .
Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing
my elbows on the arms of my chair, and dreaming that I was
standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked
one February afternoon many years ago. Before I dozed off,
I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver were
talking about, as they sat by the bright fire in the left-hand
parlor, on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.
CHAPTER H.
MB. TULUVBB, OF DORLCOTE HILL, DECLARES HIS RESOLU-
TION ABOUT TOM.
"WHAT I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver, — "what I
want is to give Tom a good eddication ; an eddication as '11
be a bread to him. That was what I was thinking of when I
gave notice for him to leave the academy at Lady-day. I
mean to put him to a downright good school at Midsummer.
.The two years at th' academy 'ud ha* done well enough, V
I'd meant to make a miller and farmer of him, for he's had
a fine sight more schoolin' nor / ever got. All the learnin*
my father ever paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the
alphabet at th' other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a
Bcholard, so as he might be up to the tricks o' these fellows
as talk fine and write with a flourish. It 'ud be a help to me
vi' these lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. I wouldn't
make a downright lawyer o' the lad, — I should be sorry fag
W THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
him to be a raskill, — but a sort o' engineer, or a surveyor, 01
an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them smartish
businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a big
watch-chain and a high stool. They're pretty nigh all one,
and they're not far off being even wi' the law, / believe ; for
Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as hard as one cat
looks another. He's none frightened at him."
Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blond comely
woman in a fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think how long
it is since fan-shaped caps were worn, they must be so near
coming in again. At that time, when Mrs. Tulliver was
nearly forty, they were new at St. Ogg's, and considered
sweet things).
"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best: I've no objections.
But hadn't I better kill a couple o' fowl, and have th* aunts
and uncles to dinner next week, so as you may hear what sis-
ter Glegg and sister Pullet have got to say about it? There's
a couple o* fowl wants killing ! "
" You may kill every fowl i' the yard if you like, Bessy ;
but I shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what I'm to do wi' my
own lad," said Mr. Tulliver, defiantly.
"Dear heart I" said Mrs. Tulliver, shocked at this sangui-
nary rhetoric, "how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? But it's
your way to speak disrespectful o' my family; and sister
Glegg throws all the blame upo' me, though I'm sure I'm as
innocent as the babe unborn. For nobody's ever heard me
say as it wasn't lucky for my children to have aunts and
uncles as can live independent. Howiver, if Tom's to go to a
new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and
mend him; else he might as well have calico as linen, for
they'd be one as y allow as th* other before they'd been washed
half-a-dozen times. And then, when the box is goin' back-
'ard and f orrard, I could send the lad a cake, or a pork -pie, or
an apple ; for he can do with an extry bit, bless him ! whether
they stint him at the meals or no. My children can eat as
much victuals as most, thank God ! "
" Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's
cart, if other things fit in, " said Mr. Tulliver. " But you
mustn't put a spoke i' the wheel about the washin', if wa
BOY AND GIRL. 11
can't get a school near enough. That's the fault I have to
find wi' you, Bessy ; if you see a stick i* the road, you're allays
thinkin' you can't step over it. You'd want me not to hire a
good wagoner, 'cause he'd got a mole on his face."
"Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, in mild surprise, "when
did I iver make objections to a man because he'd got a mole
on his face? I'm sure I'm rether fond o' the moles; for my
brother, as is dead an' gone, had a mole on his brow. But
I can't remember your iver offering to hire a wagoner with
a mole, Mr. Tulliver. There was John Gibbs hadn't a mole
on his face no more nor you have, an' I was all for having
you hire him; an' so you did hire him, an' if he hadn't died
o' th' inflammation, as we paid Dr. Turnbull for attending
him, he'd very like ha' been drivin* the wagon now. He
might have a. mole somewhere out o' sight, but how was I to
know that, Mr. Tulliver?"
" Xo, no, Bessy ; I didn't mean justly the mole ; I meant it
to stand for summat else ; but niver mind — it's puzzling work,
talking is. What I'm thinking on, is how to find the right
sort o' school to send Tom to, for I might be ta'en in again,
as I've been wi' th' academy. I'll have nothing to do wi' a
'cademy again: whativer school I send Tom to, it sha'n't be
a 'cademy; it shall be a place where the lads spend their
time i' summat else besides blacking the family's shoes, and
getting up the potatoes. It's an uncommon puzzling thing to
know what school to pick."
Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both
hands into his breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some
suggestion there. Apparently he was not disappointed, for
he presently said, "I know what I'll do: I'll talk it over wi'
Kiley; he's coming to-morrow, t' arbitrate about the dam "
" Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've put the sheets out for the best
bed, and Kezia's got 'em hanging at the fire. They aren't
the best sheets, but they're good enough for anybody to sleep
in, be he who he will ; for as for them best Holland sheets, I
should repent buying 'em, only they'll do to lay us out in.
An' if you was to die to-morrow, Mr. Tulliver, they're man-
gled beautiful, an' all ready, an' smell o' lavender as it 'ud
be a pleasure to lay 'em out; ate* they lie at the left-hand
12 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
corner o* the big oak linen-chest at the back : not as I should
trust anybody to look 'em out but myself."
As Mrs. Tulliver uttered the last sentence, she drew a bright
bunch of keys from her pocket, and singled out one, rubbing
her thumb and finger up and down it with a placid smile
while she looked at the clear fire. If Mr. Tulliver had been
a susceptible man in his conjugal relation; he might have sup-
posed that she drew out the key to aid her imagination in.
anticipating the moment when he would be in a state to jus-
tify the production of the best Holland sheets. Happily he
was not so; he was only susceptible in respect of his right to
water-power ; moreover, he had the marital habit of not listen-
ing very closely, and since his mention of Mr. Riley, had been
apparently occupied in a tactile examination of his woollen
stockings.
" I think I've hit it, Bessy," was his first remark after a
short silence. " Riley's as likely a man as any to know o'
some school; he's had schooling himself, an* goes about to
all sorts o' places, arbitratin' and vallyin' and that. And we
shall have time to talk it over to-morrow night when the busi-
ness is done. I want Tom to be such a sort o' man as Riley,
you know, — as can talk pretty nigh as well as if it was all
wrote out for him, and knows a good lot o' words as don't
mean much, so as you can't lay hold of 'em i' law; and a good
solid knowledge o' business too."
" Well," said Mrs. Tulliver, "so far as talking proper, and
knowing everything, and walking with a bend in his back,
and setting his hair up, I shouldn't mind the lad being brought
up to that. But them fine-talking men from the big towns
mostly wear the false shirt-fronts ; they wear a frill till it's
all a mess, and then hide it with a bib; I know Riley does.
And then, if Tom's to go and live at Mudport, like Riley,
he'll have a house with a kitchen hardly big enough to turn
in, an* niver get a fresh egg for his breakfast, an' sleep up
three pair o' stairs, — or four, for what I know, — and be burnt
to death before he can get down."
"No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, "I've no thoughts of his go-
ing to Mudport: I mean him to set up his office at St. Ogg's,
close by us, an' live at home. But, " continued Mr, Tulliver,
BOY AND GIRL. If
after a pause, "what I'm a bit afraid on is, as Tom han't got
the right sort o' brains for a smart fellow. I doubt he's a bit
slowish. He takes after your family, Bessy."
"Yes, that he does," said Mrs. Tulliver, accepting the last
proposition entirely on its own merits ; " he's wonderful for
liking a deal o' salt in his broth. That was my brother's
way, and my father's before him."
"It seems a bit of a pity, though," said Mr. Tulliver, "as
the lad should take after the mother's side istead o' the little
wench. That's the worst on't wi* the crossing o' breeds:
you can never justly calkilate what'll come on't. The little
on takes after my side, now: she's twice as 'cute as Tom.
Too 'cute for a woman, I'm afraid," continued Mr. Tulliver,
turning his head dubiously first on one side and then on the
other. " It's no mischief much while she's a little un; but
an over-'cute woman's no better nor a long-tailed sheep, — •
she'll fetch none the bigger price for that."
" Yes, it is a mischief while she's a little un, Mr. Tulliver,
for it all runs to naughtiness. How to keep her in a clean
pinafore [two hours together passes my cunning. An* now
you put me i* mind," continued Mrs. Tulliver, rising and go-
ing to the window, " I don't know where she is now, an' it's
pretty nigh tea-time. Ah, I thought so, — wanderin' up an'
down by the water, like a wild thing; she'll tumble in some
day.-*
Mrs. Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and
shook her head, — a process which she repeated more than
once before she retmrned to her chair.
"You talk o' 'cuteness, Mr. Tulliver," she observed as she
sat down, "but I'm sure the child's half an idiot i' some
things j for if I send her upstairs to fetch anything, she for-
gets what she's gone for, an' perhaps 'ull sit down on the
floor i* the sunshine an' plait her hair an' sing to herself like
a Bedlam creatur', all the while I'm waiting for her down-
stairs. That niver run i' my family, thank God! no more
nor a brown skin as makes her look like a mulatter, I don'*
tike to fly if the face o' Providence, but it seem? hard as I
•hould have but one geli, an' her so comical."
"Pooh, nonsense 1" said Mr. Tulliyer, "she's a straight,
14 THE MILL OK THE FLOBb-
black-eyed wench as anybody need wish to see. I don't kno*
V what she's behind other folks's children} and she can read
almost as well as the parson. "
" But her hair won't curl all I can do with it, and she's so
franzy about having it put i' paper, and I've such work as
never was to make her stand and have it pinched with th'
irons."
" Cut it off — cut it off short," said the father, rashly.
" How can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? She's too big a gell
—gone nine, and tall of her age — to have her hair cut short j
an* there's her cousin Lucy's got a row o' curls round her
head, an* not a hair out o' place. It seems hard as my sister
Deane should have that pretty child j I'm sure Lucy takes
more after me nor my own child does. Maggie, Maggie,"
continued the mother, in a tone of half -coaxing fretfulness, as
this small mistake of nature entered the room, " where's the
use o' my telling you to keep away from the water? You'll
tumble in and be drownded some day, an' then you'll be sorry
you didn't do as mother told you."
Maggie's hair, as she threw off her bonnet, painfully con-
firmed her mother's accusation. Mrs. Tulliver, desiring her
daughter to have a curled crop, "like other folks's children,"
had had it cut too short in front to be pushed behind the ears ;
and as it was usually straight an hour after it had been taken
out of paper, Maggie was incessantly tossing her head to keep
the dark, heavy locks out of her gleaming black eyes, — an
action which gave her very much the air of a small Shetland
pony.
" Oh, dear, oh, dear, Maggie, what are you thinkin' of, to
throw your bonnet down there? Take it upstairs, there's a
good gell, an* let your hair be brushed, an' put your other
pinafore on, an' change your shoes, do, for shame ; an' come
an' go on with your patchwork, like a little lady."
"Oh, mother," said Maggie, in a vehemently cross tone, "I
don't want to do my patchwerk."
"What! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane
for your aunt Glegg? "
" It's foolish work," said Maggie, with a toss of her mane,
— " tearing things to pieces to sew 'em together again. And
BOY AND GIRL. 15
f don't want to do anything for my aunt Glegg. I don't like
her."
Exit Maggie, dragging her bonnet by the string, while Mr.
Tulliver laughs audibly.
" I wonder at you, as you'll laugh at her, Mr. Tulliver, n
said the mother, with feeble fretfulness in her tone. " You
encourage her i* naughtiness. An* her aunts will have it as
it's me spoils her."
Mrs. Tulliver was what is called a good-tempered person,
— never cried, when she was a baby, on any slighter ground
than hunger and pins ; and from the cradle upward had been
healthy, fair, plump, and dull-witted; in short, the flower of
her family for beauty and amiability. But milk and mildness
are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn only
a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously.
I have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of
Raphael, with the blond faces and somewhat stupid expres-
sion, kept their placidity undisturbed when their strong-
limbed, strong-willed boys got a little too old to do without
clothing. I think they must have been given to feeble re-
monstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more
and more ineffectual.
CHAPTER IIL
MR. RILEY GIVES HIS ADVICE CONCERNING A SCHOOL FOR TOM.
THE gentleman in the ample white cravat and shirt-frill,
taking his brandy-and- water so pleasantly with his good friend
Tulliver, is Mr. Kiley, a gentleman with a waxen complexion
and fat hands, rather highly educated for an auctioneer and
appraiser, but large-hearted enough to show a great deal of
bonhomie toward simple country acquaintances of hospitable
habits. Mr. Riley spoke of such acquaintances kindly as
" people of the old school."
The conversation had come to a pause. Mr. Tulliver, not
without a particular reason, had abstained from a seventh re-
eital of the cool retort by which Eiley had shown himself too
16 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS,
many for Dix, and how Wakem had had his comb cut for onc«
in his life, now the business of the dam had been settled by
arbitration, and how there never would have been any dispute
at all about the height of water if everybody was what they
should be, and Old Harry hadn't made the lawyers. Mr.
Tulliver was, on the whole, a man of safe traditional opinions ;
but on one or two points he had trusted to his unassisted in-
tellect, and had arrived at several questionable conclusions;
among the rest, that rats, weevils, and lawyers were created
by Old Harry. Unhappily he had no one to tell him that
this was rampant Manichseism, else he might have seen his
error. But to-day it was clear that the good principle was
triumphant : this affair of the water-power had been a tangled
business somehow, for all it seemed — look at it one way — as
plain as water's water; but, big a puzzle as it was, it hadn't
got the better of Eiley. Mr. Tulliver took his brandy-and-
water a little stronger than usual, and, for a man who might
be supposed to have a few hundreds lying idle at his banker's,
was rather incautiously open in expressing his high estimate
of his friend's business talents.
But the dam was a subject of conversation that would keep;
it could always be taken up again at the same point, and ex-
actly in the same condition ; and there was another subject, as
you know, on which Mr. Tulliver was in pressing want of
Mr. Biley's advice. This was his particular reason for re-
maining silent for a short space after his last draught, and
rubbing his knees in a meditative manner. He was not a
man to make an abrupt transition. This was a puzzling
world, as he often said, and if you drive your wagon in a
hurry, you may light on an awkward corner. Mr. Kiley.
meanwhile, was not impatient. Why should he be? Even
Hotspur, one would think, must have been patient in his slip-
pers on a warm hearth, taking copious snuff, and sipping gra-
tuitous brandy -and- water.
" There's a thing I've got i7 my head," said Mr. Tulliver
at last, in rather a lower tone than usual, as he turned his
head and looked steadfastly at his companion.
"Ah! " said Mr. Biley, in a tone of mild interest. He was
a man with heavy waxen eyelids and high-arched eyebrows,
BOY AND GIRL If
looking exactly the same under all circumstances. This im-
movability of face, and the habit of taking a pinch of snuff
before he gave an answer, made him trebly oracular to Mr.
Tulliver.
"It's a very particular thing," he went on; "it's about my
boy Tom."
At the sound of this name, Maggie, who was seated on a
low stool close by the fire, with a large book open on her lap,
shook her heavy hair back and looked up eagerly. There
were few sounds that roused Maggie when she was dreaming
over her book, but Tom's name served as well as the shrillest
whistle ; in au instant she was on the watch, with gleaming
eyes, like a Skye terrier suspecting mischief, or at all events
determined to fly at any one who threatened it toward Tom.
" You see, I want to put him to a new school at Midsum-
mer," said Mr. Tulliver j "he's comin' away from the 'cad-
emy at Lady -day, an* I shall let him run loose for a quarter;
but after that I want to send him to a downright good school,
where they'll make a scholard of him."
"Well," said Mr. Riley, " there's no greater advantage you
can give him than a good education. Not," he added, with
polite significance, — "not that a man can't be an excellent
miller and farmer, and a shrewd, sensible fellow into the bar-
gain, without much help from the schoolmaster."
"I believe you," said Mr. Tulliver, winking, and turning
his head on one sidej "but that's where it is. I don't mean
Tom to be a miller and farmer. I see no fun i* that. Why,
if I made him a miller an' farmer, he'd be expectin' to take
to the mill an' the land, an' a-hinting at me as it was time for
me to lay by an' think o' my latter end. Kay, nay, I've seen
enough o' that wi' sons. I'll never pull my coat off before I
go to bed. I shall give Tom an eddication an' put him to a
business, as he may make a nest for hi iself, an' not want to
push me out o' mine. Pretty well if he gets it when I'm
dead an* gone. I sha'n't be put off wi' spoon-meat afore I've
lost my teeth."
This was evidently a point on which Mr. Tulliver felt
strongly ; and the impetus which had given unusual rapidity
and emphasis to his speech showed itself still unexhausted fee
8
18 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
minutes afterward in a defiant motion of the bead from
vide to side, and an occasional "Kay, nay," like a subsiding
growL
These angry symptoms were keenly observed by Maggie,
and cat her to the quick. Tom, it appeared, was supposed
capable of turning his father out of doors, and of making the
future in some way tragic by his wickedness. This was not
to be borne; and Maggie jumped up from her stool, forgetting
all about her heavy book, which fell with a bang within the
fender, and going up between her father's knees, said, in a
half -cry ing, half -indignant voice, —
" Father, Tom wouldn't be naughty to you ever j I know
He wouldn't."
Mis. Tulliver was out of the room superintending a choice
supper-dish, and Mr. Tulliver's heart was touched; so Maggie
was not scolded about the book. Mr. Riley quietly picked it
up and looked at it, while the father laughed, with a certain
tenderness in his hard-lined face, and patted his little girl OD
the back, and then held her hands and kept her between his
knees.
"What! they mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" said
Mr. Tulliver, looking at Maggie with a twinkling eye. Then,
in a lower voice, turning to Mr. Eiley, as though Maggie
couldn't hear, M She understands what one's talking about so
as never was. And you should hear her read, — straight off,
as if she knowed it all beforehand. And allays at her book !
But it's bad — it's bad," Mr. Tulliver added sadly, checking
this blamable exultation. " A woman's no business wi' being
so clever; it'll turn to trouble, I doubt. But bless you! " —
here the exultation was clearly recovering the mastery, —
M she'll read the books and understand 'em better nor half the
t'olks as are growed up."
Maggie's cheeks began to flush with triumphant excite-
ment. She thought Mr. Biley would have a respect for her
now; it had been evident that he thought nothing of her
before.
Mr. Eiley was turning over the leaves of the book, and she
could make nothing of his face, with its high-arched eye-
brows; but he presently looked at her, and said, —
HOT A3fD GTBL.
•Gome, come and tell me something about fins book;
are some pictures, — I want to know what they ;
Maggie, with deepening enter, went without
Mr. Biley's elbow and looked over the book, eagerly
one corner, and tossing back her mane, white she said,—
-Oh, FU tell you what that means. If s a dreadfal
tare, isn't it? But I can't help looking at it. That old
woman in the water's a witch, — they've put her in to find out
whether she's a witch, or no; and if she swims she's a witch,
and if she's drowned— and kilted,
and not a witch, but only a poor silly old
good would it do her then, you know, when she was drowaed?
Only, I suppose, she'd go to heaven, and God would
up to her. A*»*l jfr*s dreadful blacksmith, with
akimbo, laughing,— oh, isn't be ugly?— IT1 tefl you what he
is. He's the Devil reuOy" (ben Maggie's voice Ib***^*
louder and more emphatic), "and not a right bin •••lib; for
the Devil takes the shape of wicked men, and walks about
and sots people doing wicked things, and he's oftener in tho
shape of a bad man than, any other, hcranne, you know, if
people saw he was the Devil, and he roared at 'em, tfcej*drsm
away, and he couldn't make 'em do what he planed.*
Mr. Tnffiver had listened to this expositioni of Maggie's
Why, what book is ft the wench has got sold
:v.:5: : .:: :-.~ .:.'-'.
tt The 'History of the DevO,* by Daniel
the right book for a little ghV said Mr. KOsj.
it among your books, Mr. Tulfiver?'
"Way, it's one o> the books I bought at
They was aU bound alike,— it's a good
and I thought they'd be aD good books. There's Jeremy Tay-
lor's' Holy lariag and Dring' among 'em. IieadmKofteR
of a Sunday* (Mr. Tuffiwr felt *whu« a famffiarity wiA
tibat great writer, because his name was Jeremy); * and there's
a lot more of 'em,— sermons mostly, I think,— buttkeyNesB
got the saiK COTIS^ and I thought they were aQo* OMCUT
20 THE MILL ON THE FLOS&
pie, as you may say. But it seems one mustn't judge by thf
outside. This is a puzzlin1 world."
" Well," said Mr. Biley, in an admonitory, patronizing tons
as he patted Maggie on the head, " I advise you to put by the
4 History of the Devil, ' and read some prettier book. Have
you no prettier books? "
"Oh, yes," said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to
vindicate the variety of her reading. " I know the reading in
this book isn't pretty ; but I like the pictures, and I maka
stories to the pictures out of my own head, you know. But
I've got '^sop's Fables,' and a book about Kangaroos and
things, and the ' Pilgrim's Progress.' n
"Ah, a beautiful book," said Mr. Kiley; "you can't read
a better."
** Well, but there's a great deal about the Devil in that,"
said Maggie, triumphantly, " and I'll show you the picture of
him in his true shape, as he fought with Christian."
Maggie ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped
on a chair, and reached down from the small bookcase a shabby
old copy of Bunyan, which opened at once, without the least
trouble of search, at the picture she wanted.
"Here he is," she said, running back to Mr. Biley, "and
Tom colored him for me with his paints when he was at home
last holidays, — the body all black, you know, and the eyes
red, like fire, because he's all fire inside, and it shines out at
his eyes."
"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily, beginning to
feel rather uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal
appearance of a being powerful enough to create lawyers;
4 shut up the book, and let's hear no more o' such talk. It if
as I thought — the child 'ull learn more mischief nor good wi'
the books. Go, go and see after your mother."
Maggie shut up the book at once, with a sense of disgrace,
but not being inclined to see after her mother, she compro-
mised the matter by going into a dark corner behind her
father's chair, and nursing her doll, toward which she had an
occasional fit of fondness in Tom's absence, neglecting its
toilet, but lavishing so many warm kisses on it that the waxou
eheeks had a wasted, unhealthy appearance.
HOT AND GIRL. 21
"Did you ever bear the like on't?" said Mr. Tulliver, as
Maggie retired. " It's a pity but what she'd been the lad, —
she'd ha' been a match for the lawyers, she would. It's the
wonderful'st thing " — here he lowered his voice — " as I picked
the mother because she wasn't o'er 'cute — bein* a good-look-
ing woman too, an' come of a rare family for managing, but
I picked her from her sisters o' purpose, 'cause she was a bit
weak like; for I wasn't agoin' to be told the rights o' things
by my own fireside. But you see when a man's got brains
himself, there's no knowing where they'll run to; an' a pleas-
ant sort o' soft woman may go on breeding you stupid lads
and 'cute wenches, till it's like as if the world was turned
topsy-turvy. It's an uncommon puzzlin' thing."
Mr. Eiley's gravity gave way, and he shook a little under
the application of his pinch of snuff before he said, —
"But your lad's not stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was
here last, busy making fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up
to it."
" Well, he isn't not to say stupid, — he's got a notion o'
things out o' door, an' a sort o' common sense, as he'd lay
hold o' things by the right handle. But he's slow with his
tongue, you see, and he reads but poorly, and can't abide the
books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an' as shy as can
be wi' strangers, an' you never hear him say 'cute things like
the little wench. Notf, what I want is to send him to a school
where they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his
pen, and make a smart chap of him. I want my son to be
even wi' these fellows as have got the start o' me with having
better schooling. Not but what, if the world had been left as
God made it, I could ha' seen my way, and held my own wi'
the best of 'em ; but things have got so twisted round and
wrapped up i' unreasonable words, as aren't a bit like 'em, as
I'm clean at fault, often an* often. Everything winds about
so — the more straightforrard you are, the more you're puzzled."
Mr. Tulliver took a draught, swallowed it slowly, and shook
his head in a melancholy manner, conscious cf exemplifying
the truth that a perfectly sane intellect is hardly at home in
this Insane world.
" You're quite in the right of it, Tulliver, " observed Mr.
23 THE MILL ON TfiB FLOSS,
Riley. " Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son'i
education, than leave it him in your will. I know I should
hare tried to do so by a son of mine, if I'd had one, though,
God knows, I haven't your ready money to play with, Tulli-
verj and I have a houseful of daughters into the bargain."
"I dare say, now, you know of a school as 'ud be just the
thing for Tom, " said Mr. Tulliver, not diverted from his pur-
pose by any sympathy with Mr. Riley's deficiency of ready
eash.
Mr. Eiley took a pinch of snuff, and kept Mr. Tulliver in
suspense by a s'lence that seemed deliberative, before he said, —
" I know of a very fine chance for any one that's got the
necessary money and that's what you have, Tulliver. The
fact is, I wouldn't recommend any friend of mine to send a boy
to a regular chool, if he could afford to do better. But if any
one wanted his boy to get superior instruction and training,
where he would be the companion of his master, and that
master a first ate fellow, I know his man. I wouldn't men-
tion the chance to everybody, because I don't think everybody
would succeed in getting it, if he were to try ; but I mention
it to you, Tulliver between ourselves. "
The fixed inquiring glance with which Mr. Tulliver had
been watching h^s friend's oracular face became quite eager.
"Ay, now, let's lear," he said, adjusting himself in his
chair with the omplacency f a person who is thought worthy
of important communications.
" He's an Oxf r»* nan, " aid Mr. Kiley, sententiously, shut-
ting his mouth closr, and looking at Mr. Tulliver to observe
the effect of this st mulatiag information.
"What! a parson?" said Mr. Tulliver, rather doubtfully.
"Yes, and an M.A. The bi:hop, I understand, thinks very
highly of him: why, it was the bishop who got him his pres-
ent curacy."
"Ah?" said Mr. Tulliver, to whom one thing was as won-
derful as another concerning these unfamiliar phenomena.
" But what can he want wi' Tom, then? "
" Why, the fact is, he's fond of teaching, and wishes to
keep up his studies, and a clergyman has but little opportunity
for that in his parochial duties^ He's willing to take one 01
BOY AND GIRL. 23
two boys as pupils to fill up his time profitably. The boys
would be quite of the family, — the finest thing in the world
for them; under Stelling's eye continually."
" But do you think they'd give the poor lad twice o* pud-
ding? " said Mrs. Tulliver, who was now in her place again.
" He's such a boy for pudding as never was ; an* a growing
boy like that, — it's dreadful to think o' their stintin' him."
"And what money 'ud he want? " said Mr. Tulliver, whose
instinct told him that the services of this admirable M.A.
would bear a high price.
" Why, I know of a clergyman who asks a hundred and fifty
with his youngest pupils, and he's not to be mentioned with
Stelling, the man I speak of. I know, on good authority,
that one of the chief people at Oxford said, Stelling might
get the highest honors if he chose. But he didn't care about
university honors; he's a quiet man — not noisy."
"Ah, a deal better — a deal better," said Mr. Tulliver; "but
a hundred and fifty's an uncommon price. I never thought o'
paying so much as that."
"A good education, let me tell you, Tulliver, — a good edu-
cation is cheap at the money. But Stelling is moderate in his
terms; he* not a grasping man. I've no doubt he'd take your
boy at a hundred, and that's what you wouldn't get many
other clergymen to do. I'll write to him about it, if you like."
Mr. Tulliver rubbed his knees, and looked at the carpet in a
meditative manner.
"But belike he's a bachelor," observed Mrs. Tulliver, in the
interval ; " an* I've no opinion o' housekeepers. There was
my brother, as is dead an' gone, had a housekeeper once, an*
she took half the feathers out o' the best bed, an' packed 'em
up an' sent 'em away. An* it's unknown the linen she made
away with — Stott her name was. It 'ud break my heart to
send Tom where there's a housekeeper, an* I hope you won't
think of it, Mr. Tulliver."
" You may set your mind at rest on that score, Mrs. Tulli-
ver," said Mr. Eiley, "for Stelling is married to as nice a
little woman as any man need wish for a wife. There isn't a
kinder little soul in the world ; I know her family well. She
has very much your complexion, — light curly hair. She comes
24 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
of a good Mudport family, and it's not every offer that would
have been acceptable in that quarter. But Stalling' s not an
every -day man j rather a particular fellow as to the people he
chooses to be connected with. But I think he would have no
objection to take your son; I think he would not, on my repre-
sentation."
" I don't know what he could have against the lad," said
Mrs. Tulliver, with a slight touch of motherly indignation;
"a nice fresh-skinned lad as anybody need wish to see."
"But there's one thing I'm thinking on," said Mr. Tulliver,
turning his head on one side and looking at Mr. Kiley, after a
long perusal of the carpet. " Wouldn't a parson be almost too
high-learnt to bring up a lad to be a man o' business? My
notion o' the parsons was as they'd got a sort o' learning as
lay mostly out o' sight. And that isn't what I want for Tom.
I want him to know figures, and write like print, and see into
things quick, and know what folks mean, and how to wrap
things up in words as aren't actionable. It's an uncommon
fine thing, that is, " concluded Mr. Tulliver, shaking his head,
" when you can let a man know what you think of him with-
out paying for it."
" Oh, my dear Tulliver, " said Mr. Biley, " you're quite under
a mistake about the clergy ; all the best schoolmasters are of
the clergy. The schoolmasters who are not clergymen are a
very low set of men generally."
** Ay, that Jacobs is, at the 'cademy," interposed Mr. Tul-
liver.
"To be sure, — men who have failed in other trades, most
likely. Kow, a clergyman is a gentleman by profession and
education ; and besides that, he has the knowledge that vill
ground a boy, and prepare him for entering on any career with
credit. There may be some clergymen who are mere book-
men ; but you may depend upon it, Stelling is not one of them,
— a man that's wide awake, let me tell you. Drop him a hint,
and that's enough. You talk of figures, now ; you have only
to say to Stelling, ' I want my son to be a thorough arithme-
tician,' and you may leave the rest to him."
Mr. Biley paused a moment, while Mr. Tulliver, somewhat
reassured as to clerical tutorship, was inwardly rehearsing to
BOY AND GIRL. 25
an imaginary Mr. Stalling the statement, " I want my son to
know 'rethmetic."
"You see, my dear Tulliver," Mr. Kiley continued, "when
you get a thoroughly educated man, like Stelling, he's at no
loss to take up any branch of instruction. When a workman
knows the use of his tools, he can make a door as well as a
window."
"Ay, that's true," said Mr. Tulliver, almost convinced now
that the clergy must be the best of schoolmasters.
" Well, I'll tell you what I'll do for you," said Mr. Riley,
*' and I wouldn't do it for everybody. I'll see Stelling's father-
in-law, or drop him a line when I get back to Mudport, to say
that you wish to place your boy with his son-in-law, and I
dare say Stelling will write to you, and send you his terms."
" But there's no hurry, is there? " said Mrs. Tulliver; " for I
hope, Mr. Tulliver, you won't let Tom begin at his new school
before Midsummer. He began at the 'cademy at the Lady-day
quarter, and you see what good's come of it."
" Ay, ay, Bessy, never brew wi* bad malt upo* Michaelmas-
day, else you'll have a poor tap," said Mr. Tulliver, winking
and smiling at Mr. Riley, with the natural pride of a man who
has a buxom wife conspicuously his inferior in intellect. " But
it's true there's no hurry; you've hit it there, Bessy."
" It might be as well not to defer the arrangement too long, "
said Mr. Riley, quietly, " for Stelling may have propositions
from other parties, and I know he would not take more than
two or three boarders, if so many. If I were you, I think I
would enter on the subject with Stelling at once: there's no
necessity for sending the boy before Midsummer, but I would
be on the safe side, and make sure that nobody forestalls
you." j
u Ay, there's summat in that, " said Mr. Tulliver.
" Father, " broke in Maggie, who had stolen un perceived to
her father's elbow again, listening with parted lips, while she
held her doll topsy-turvy, and crushed its nose against the
wood of the chair, — " father, is it a long way off where Tom
is to go? Sha'n't we ever go to see him? "
"I don't know, my wench," said the father, tenderly.
" Ask Mr. Riley j he knows/'
26 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Maggie came round promptly in front of Mr. Bfley, and
said, "How far is it, please, sir?"
" Oh, a long, long way off," that gentleman answered, being
of opinion that children, when they are not naughty, should
always be spoken to jocosely. " You must borrow the seven-
leagued boots to get to him."
" That's nonsense! " said Maggie, tossing her head haught-
ily, and turning away, with the tears springing in her eyes.
She began to dislike Mr. Kiley ; it was evident he thought
her silly and of no consequence.
"Hush, Maggie! for shame of you, asking questions and
chattering, " said her mother. " Come and sit down on your
little stool, and hold your tongue, do. But, " added Mrs. Tul-
liver, who had her own alarm awakened, " is it so far off as I
couldn't wash him and mend him?"
"About fifteen miles; that's all," said Mr. Kiley. "You
can drive there and back in a day quite comfortably. Or —
Stelling is a hospitable, pleasant man — he'd be glad to have
you stay."
" But it's too far off for the linen, I doubt," said Mrs. Tul-
liver, sadly.
The entrance of supper opportunely adjourned this difficulty,
and relieved Mr. Eiley from the labor of suggesting some
solution or compromise, — a labor which he would otherwise
doubtless have undertaken; for, as you perceive, he was a
man of very obliging manners. And he had really given him-
self the trouble of recommending Mr. Stelling to his friend
Tulliver without any positive expectation of a solid, definite
advantage resulting to himself, notwithstanding the subtle in-
dications to the contrary which might have misled a too-saga-
cious observer. For there is nothing more widely misleading
than sagacity if it happens to get on a wrong scent; and
sagacity, persuaded that men usually act and speak from dis-
tinct motives, with a consciously proposed end in view, is
certain to waste its energies on imaginary game. Plotting
covetousness and deliberate contrivance, in order to compass
a selfish end, are nowhere abundant but in the world of the
dramatist: they demand too intense a mental action for many
of our fellow-parishioners to be guilty of them. It is easy
BOY AND GIRL. 27
enough to spoil the lives of our neighbors without taking so
much trouble; we cau do it by lazy acquiescence and lazy
omission, by trivial falsities for which we hardly know a rea-
son, by small frauds neutralized by small extravagances, by
maladroit flatteries, and clumsily improvised insinuations.
We live from hand to mouth, most of us, with a small family
of immediate desires j we do little else than snatch a morsel to
satisfy the hungry brood, rarely thinking of seed-corn or the
next year's crop.
Mr. Biley was a man of business, and not cold toward his
own interest, yet even he was more under the influence of
small promptings than of far-sighted designs. He had
private understanding with the Eev. Walter Stelling ; on th
contrary, he knew very little of that M.A. and his acquire-
ments,— not quite enough, perhaps, to warrant so strong a
recommendation of him as he had given to his friend Tulliver.
But he believed Mr. Stelling to be an excellent classic, for
Gadsby had said so, and Gadsby's first cousin was an Oxford
tutor; which was better ground for the belief even than his
own immediate observation would have been, for though Mr.
Kiley had received a tincture of the classics at the great Mud-
port Free School, and had a sense of understanding Latin
generally, his'comprehension of any particular Latin was not
ready. Doubtless there remained a subtle aroma from his
juvenile contact with the " De Senectute " and the fourth book
of the " JSneid, " but it had ceased to be distinctly recogniz-
able as classical, and was only perceived in the higher finish
and force of his auctioneering style. Then, Stelling was an
Oxford man, and the Oxford men were always — no, no, it was
the Cambridge men who were always good mathematicians.
But a man who had had a university education could teach
anything he liked ; especially a man like Stelling, who had
made a speech at a Mudport dinner on a political occasion,
and had acquitted himself so well that it was generally re-
marked, this son-in-law of Timpson's was a sharp fellow. It
was to be expected of a Mudport man, from the parish of St.
Ursula, that he would not omit to do a good turn to a son-in-
law of Timpson's, for Timpson was one of the most useful and
influential men in the parisl^ and had a good deal of business,
28 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
which he knew how to put into the right hands. Mr. Bile*
liked such men, quite aparfr from any money which might b«
diverted, through their good judgment, from less worthy
pockets into his own ; and it would be a satisfaction to him to
say to Timpson on his return home, "I've secured a good
pupil for your son-in-law." Timpson had a large family of
daughters ; Mr. Riley felt for him ; besides, Louisa Timpson'a
face, with its light curls, had been a familiar object to him
over the pew wainscot on a Sunday for nearly fifteen years;
it was natural her husband should be a commendable tutor.
Moreover, Mr. Biley knew of no other schoolmaster whom he
had any ground for recommending in preference j why, then,
should he not recommend Stelling? His friend Tulliver had
asked him for an opinion; it is always chilling, in friendly in-
tercourse, to say you have no opinion to give. And if you de-
liver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with
an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make
it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it. Thus
Mr. Eiley, knowing no harm of Stelling to begin with, and
wishing him well, so far as he had any wishes at all concern-
ing him, had no sooner recommended him than he began to
think with admiration of a man recommended on such high
authority, and would soon have gathered so warm an interest
on the subject, that if Mr. Tulliver had in the end declined
to send Tom to Stelling, Mr. Biley would have thought his
" friend of the old school n a thoroughly pig-headed fellow.
If you blame Mr. Riley very severely for giving a recom-
mendation on such slight grounds, I must say yon are rather
hard upon him. Why should an auctioneer and appraiser
thirty years ago, who had as good as forgotten his free-school
Latin, be expected to manifest a delicate scrupulosity which
.s not always exhibited by gentlemen of the learned profes-
sions, even in our present advanced stage of morality?
Besides, a man with the milk of human kindness in him can
scarcely abstain from doing a good-natured action, and one
cannot be good-natured all round. Nature herself occasionally
quarters an inconvenient parasite on an animal toward whom
she has otherwise no ill will. What then? We admire her
care for the parasite. If Mr. Riley had shrunk from giving
BOY AND GIRL. 29
* recommendation that was not based on valid evidence, ho
would not have helped Mr. Stelling to a paying pupil, and
that would not have been so well for the reverend gentleman.
Consider, too, that all the pleasant little dim ideas and com-
placencies— of standing well with Timpson, of dispensing ad-
vice when he was asked for it, of impressing his friend Tulli-
ver with additional respect, of saying something, and saying
it emphatically, with other inappreciably minute ingredients
that went along with the warm hearth and the brandy-and-
water to make up Mr. Riley's consciousness on this occasion
—would have been a mere blank.
CHAPTER IV.
fOM 18 EXPECTED.
IT was ft heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not
allowed to go with her father in the gig when he went to fetch
Tom home from the academy ; but the morning was too wet,
Mrs. Tulliver said, for a little girl to go out in her best bonnet.
Maggie took the opposite view very strongly, and it was a
direct consequence of this difference of opinion that when her
mother was in the act of brushin gout the reluctant black crop
Maggie suddenly rushed from under her hands and dipped her
head in a basin of water standing near, in the vindictive de-
termination that there should be no more chance of curls that
day.
"Maggie, Maggie!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, sitting stout
£nd helpless with the brushes on her .lap, "what is to become
of you if you're so naughty? I'll tell your aunt Glegg and
your aunt Pullet when they come next week, and they'll never
love you any more. Oh dear, oh dear 1 look at your clean pina-
fore, wet from top to bottom. Folks 'ull think if a a judg-
ment on me as I've got such a child, — they'll think I've done
•ummat wicked."
Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already
out of hearing, making her way toward the great attic that
run under the old high-pitched roof, shaking the water froa
80 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
her Dlack locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier escaped from
his bath. This attic was Maggie's favorite retreat on a wet
day, when the weather was not too cold ; here she fretted out
all her ill humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten floors
and the worm-eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned
with cobwebs ; and here she kept a Fetish which she punished
for all her misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden
doll, which once stared with the roundest of eyes above the red-
dest of cheeks; but was now entirely defaced by a long career
of vicarious suffering. Three nails driven into the head com*
memorated as many crises in Maggie's nine years of earthly
struggle ; that luxury of vengeance having been suggested to
her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old Bible.
The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than
usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg.
But immediately afterward Maggie had reflected that if she
drove many nails in she would not be so well able to fancy
that the head was hurt when she knocked it against the wall,
nor to comfort it, and make believe to poultice it, when her
fury was abated j for even aunt Glegg would be pitiable when
she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so
as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she had driven no
more nails in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding
and beating the wooden head against the rough brick of the
great chimneys that made two square pillars supporting the
roof. That was what she did this morning on reaching the
attic, sobbing all the while with a passion that expelled every
other form of consciousness, — even the memory of the griev-
ance that had caused it. As at last the sobs were getting
quieter, and the grinding Jess fierce, a sudden beam of sun-
shine, falling through the wire lattice across the worm-eaten
shelves, made her throw away the Fetish and run to the win-
dow. The sun was really breaking out j the sound of the mill
seemed cheerful again; the granary doors were open; and
there was Yap, the queer white-and-brown terrier, with one
ear turned back, trotting about and sniffing vaguely, as if he
were in search of a companion. It was irresistible. Maggie
tossed her hair back and ran downstairs, seized her bonnet
without putting it on, peeped, ana then dashed along the paa-
BOY AND GIRL. 31
sage lest she should encounter her mother, and was quickly
out in the yard, whirling round like a Pythoness, and singing
as she whirled, " Yap, Yap, Tom's coming home!" while Yap
danced and barked round her, as much as to say, if there was
any noise wanted he was the dog for it.
"Hegh, hegh, Miss! you'll make yourself giddy, an* tum-
ble down i' the dirt, " said Luke, the head miller, a tall, broad-
shouldered man of forty, black-eyed and black-haired, sub-
dued by a general mealiness, like an auricula.
Maggie paused in her whirling and said, staggering a little,
"Oh no, it doesn't make me giddy, Luke; may I go into the
mill with you? "
Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and
often came out with her black hair powdered to a soft white-
ness that made her dark eyes flash out with new fire. The
resolute din, the unresting motion of the great stones, giving
her a dim, delicious awe as at the presence of an uncontrol-
lable force ; the meal forever pouring, pouring ; the fine white
powder softening all surfaces, and making the very spider-nets
look like a faery lace-work ; the sweet, pure scent of the meal,
— all helped to make Maggie feel that the mill was a little
world apart from her outside every-day life. The spiders were
especially a subject of speculation with her. She wondered if
they had any relatives outside the mill, for in that case there
must be a painful difficulty in their family intercourse, — a fat
and floury spider, accustomed to take his fly well dusted with
meal, must suffer a little at a cousin's table where the fly was
au naturel, and the lady spiders must be mutually shocked at
each other's appearance. But the part of the mill she liked
best was the topmost story, — the corn-hutch, where there were
the great heaps of grain, which she could sit on and slide
down continually. She was in the habit of taking this recrea-
tion as she conversed with Luke, to whom she was very com-
municative, wishing him to think well of her understanding,
as her father did.
Perhaps she felt it necessary to recover her position with
him on the present occasion, for, as she sat sliding on the heap
of grain near which he was busying himself, she said, at that
pitch which was requisite in mill-society,—
32 THE MILL ON THE FLOS&
" I think you never lead any book but the Bible, did you,
Luke?"
"Nay, Miss, an* not much o* that," said Luke, with great
frankness. " I'm no reader, I aren't."
" But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got
any very pretty books that would be easy for you to read; but
there's ' Pug's Tour of Europe/ — that would tell you all about
the different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn't
understand the reading, the pictures would help you; they
show the looks and ways of the people, and what they do.
There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know,
and one sitting on a barrel."
"Kay, Miss, I'n no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't
much good i' knowin' about them."
"But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know
about our fellow-creatures."
" Not much o' f ellow-creaturs, I think, Miss ; all I know—-
my old master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he,
*If e'er I sow my wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,'
says he ; an' that war as much as to say as a Dutchman war
a fool, or next door. Nay, nay, I aren't goin' to bother niyseu
about Dutchmen. There's fools enoo, an' rogues enoo, wi'out
lookin' i' books for *em."
"Oh, well," said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unex-
pectedly decided views about Dutchmen, " perhaps you would
like 'Animated Nature* better; that's not Dutchmen, you
know, but elephants and kangaroos, and the civet-cat, and
the suufish, and a bird sitting on its tail, — I forget its name.
There are countries full of those creatures, instead of horses
and cows, you know. Shouldn't you like to knew about
them, Luke?"
" Nay, Miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an* corn ; I
can't do wr* knowin' so many things besides my work.
That's what brings folks to the gallows, — knowin' everything
but what they 'n got to get their bread by. An' they' re mostly
lies, I think, what's printed i' the books: them printed sheets
are, anyhow, as the men cry i' the streets."
"Why, you're like my brother Tom, Luke," said Maggie,
wishing to turn the conversation agreeably j " Tom's not fond
BOY AND GIRL. 83
of reading. I love Tom so dearly, Luke, — better than wiy
body else in the world. When he grows up I shall keep hia
house, and we shall always live together. I can tell hin»
everything he doesn't know. But I think Tom's clever, for
all he doesn't like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and
rabbit-pens."
"Ah," said Luke, "but he'll be fine an* vexed, as the rab-
bits are all dead."
"Dead I" screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding
seat on the corn. "Oh dear, Luke! What I the lop-eared
one, and the spotted doe that Tom spent all his money to buy? "
"As dead as moles," said Luke, fetching his comparison
from the unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall.
" Oh dear, Luke, " said Maggie, in a piteous tone, while the
big tears rolled down her cheek ; " Tom told me to take care
of 'em, and I forgot. What shall I do?"
" Well, you see, Miss, they were in that far tool-house, an*
it was nobody's business to see to 'em. I reckon Master Tom
told Harry to feed 'em, but there's no countin' on Harry; Ae'a
an offal creatur as iver come about the primises, he is. He
remembers nothing but his own inside — an' I wish it *ud gripe
him."
" Oh, Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rab-
bits every day; but how could I, when they didn't come into
my head, you know? Oh, he will be so angry with me, I
know he will, and so sorry about his rabbits, and so am I
sorry. Oh, what shall I do? "
"Don't you fret, Miss," said Luke, soothingly; "they're
nash things, them lop-eared rabbits; they'd happen ha' died,
if they'd been fed. Things out o''natur niver thrive; God
A'mighty doesn't like 'em. He made the rabbits' ears to lie
back, an* it's nothin' but contrairiness to make 'em hing
down like a mastiff dog's. Master Tom 'ull know better nor
buy such things another time. Don't you fret, Miss. Will
you come along home wi' me, and see my wife? I'm a-goin'
this minute.'-*
The invitation offered au agreeable distraction to Maggie?e
grief, and her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by
loike'a side to his pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple
9
34 THE MILL ON THE FLOS&
and pear trees, and with the added dignity of a lean-to pig*
8ty, at the other end of the Mill fields. Mrs. Moggs, Luke's
wife, was a decidedly agreeable acquaintance. She exhibited
her hospitality in bread and treacle, and possessed various
works of art. Maggie actually forgot that she had any special
cause of sadness this morning, as she stood on a chair to look
at a remarkable series of pictures representing the Prodigal
Son in the costume of Sir Charles Grandison, except that, as
might have been expected from his defective moral character,
he had not, like that accomplished hero, the taste and strength
of mind to dispense with a wig. But the indefinable weight
the dead rabbits had left on her mind caused her to feel more
than usual pity for the career of this weak young man, particu-
larly when she looked at the picture where he leaned against
a tree with a flaccid appearance, his knee-breeches unbuttoned
and his wig awry, while the swine, apparently of some foreign
breed, seemed to insult him by their good spirits over their
feast of husks.
" I'm very glad his father took him back again, aren't you,
Luke?" she said. "For he was very sorry, you know, and
wouldn't do wrong again."
"Eh, Miss," said Luke, "he'd be no great shakes, I doubt,
let's feyther do what he would for him."
That was a painful thought to Maggie, and she wished much
that the subsequent history of the young man had not been
left a blank.
CHAPTER V.
TOM COMES HOME.
TOM was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was
another fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late
enough for the sound of the gig- wheels to be expected ; for if
Mrs. Tulliver had a strong feeling, it was fondness for her
boy. At last the sound came, — that quick light bowling of
the gig- wheels, — and in spite of the wind, which was blowing
the clouds about, and was not likely to respect Mrs. Tulliver' s
curls and cap-strings, she came, outside the door, and evea
BOY AND GIRL. 88
held her hand on Maggie's offending head, forgetting all the
griefs of the morning.
"There he is, my sweet lad I But, Lord ha* mercy I he's
got never a collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound,
and spoilt the set."
Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open } Maggie jumped
first on one leg and then on the other ; while Tom descended
from the gig, and said, with masculine reticence as to the ten-
der emotions, "Hallo! Yap — what! are you there? "
Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough,
though Maggie hung on his neck in rather a strangling fash-
ion, while his blue-gray eyes wandered toward the croft and
the lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he
would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow morning. He
was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England, and
at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as gos-
lings,— a lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses,
full lips, indeterminate nose and eyebrows, — a physiognomy
in which it seems impossible to discern anything but the
generic character of boyhood; as different as possible from
poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed to have moulded
and colored with the most decided intention. But that same
Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the ap-
pearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see
through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly pre-
paring a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these
average boyish physiognomies that she seeir>s to turn off by
the gross, she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible pur-
poses, some of her most unmodifiable characters ; and the dark-
eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out toi
be a passive being compared with this pink-and-white bit of
masculinity with the indeterminate features.
" Maggie, " said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a cor-
ner, as soon as his mother was gone out to examine his bov
and the warm parlor had taken off the chill he had felt from
th« long drive, " you don't know what I've got in my pockets, "
nodding his head up and down as a means of rousing her sense
of mystery.
"No," said Maggie. "How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it
•o THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
marls (marbles) or cobnuts?" Maggie* s heart sank a littl^
because Tom always said it was " no good " playing with he*
at those games, she played so badly.
"Marls I no; I've swopped all my marls with the little fel-
lows, and cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts
are green. But see here! " He drew something half out of
his right-hand pocket.
" What is it? " said Maggie, in a whisper. " I can see notk
jng but a bit of yellow."
"Why, it's — a — new — guess, Maggie!"
"Oh, I can't guess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently.
"Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom,
thrusting his hand back into his pocket and looking deter-
mined.
"No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the
arm that was held stiffly in the pocket. " I'm not cross, Tom-
it was only because I can't bear guessing. Please be good to
me."
Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then, it's a
new fish-line — two new uns, — one for you, Maggie, all to
yourself. I wouldn't go halves in the toffee and gingerbread
on purpose to save the money; and Gibson and Spouncer
fought with me because I wouldn't. And here's hooks; see
here — I say, won't we go and fish to-morrow down by the
Bound Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie,
and put the worms on, and everything; won't it be fun? "
Maggie's answer was to throw her arms round Tom's neck
and hug him, and hold her cheek against his without speaking,
while he slowly unwound some of the line, saying, after a
pause, —
" Wasn't I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to your-
self? You know, I needn't have bought it, if I hadn't liked."
"Yes, very, very good — I do love you, Tom."
Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking
at the hooks one by one, before he spoke again.
"And the fellows fought me, because I wouldn't give in
about the toffee."
" Oh, dear ! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom*
Didn't it hurt you?"
BOY AND GIRL, ST
"Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again,
taking out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest
blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger
along it. Then he added, —
"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know; thaf s what he got
by wanting to leather me; I wasn't going to go halves because
anybody leathered me."
"Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Sam-
son. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight
idm, wouldn't you, Tom?"
"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing?
There's no lions, only in the shows."
"No; but if we were in the lion countries — I mean in
Africa, where it's very hot ; the lions eat people there. I can
show it you in the book where I read it."
" Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."
"But if you hadn't got a gun, — we might have gone out,
you know, not thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a
great lion might run toward us roaring, and we couldn't get
away from him. What should you do, Tom? "
Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, say-
ing, " But the lion Isn't coming. What's the use of talking?"
"But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, fol-
lowing him. "Just think what you would do, Tom."
"Oh, don't bother, Maggie I you're such a silly. I shall go
and see my rabbits."
Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not
tell the sad truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trem-
bling silence as he went out, thinking how she could tell him
the news so as to soften at once his sorrow and his anger; for
Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all things; it was quite a dif-
ferent auger from her own.
"Torn," she said, timidly, when they were out of doors,
* how much money did you give for your rabbits? n
"Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom, promptly.
* I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel
purse upstairs. I'll ask mother to give it you."
" What for? n said Tom. " I don't want your money, you
silly thing. Fve got a great deal more money than you, be«
W THE MILL OH THE FLOSS.
cause Fm a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sove*
eigns for my Christmas boxes because I shall be a man, and
you only have five-shilling pieces, because you're only a girl."
" Well, but, Tom — if mother would let me give you two half*
crowns and a sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket
and spend, you know, and buy some more rabbits with it? "
" More rabbits? I don't want any more."
"Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead."
Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round
toward Maggie. "You forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry
forgot?" he said, his color heightening for a moment, but
soon subsiding. " I' 11 pitch into Harry. I' 11 have him turned
away. And I don't love you, Maggie. You sha'n't go fish-
ing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits
every day." He walked on again.
"Yes, but I forgot — and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom.
I'm so very sorry, " said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast.
" You're a naughty girl," said Tom, severely, "and I'm
sorry I bought you the fish-line. I don't love you."
"Oh, Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive
you, if you forgot anything — I wouldn't mind what you did
— I'd forgive you and love you."
"Yes, you're a silly; but I never do forget things, 1
don't."
"Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break," said
Maggie, shaking with sobs, clinging to Tom's arm, and laying
her wet cheek on his shoulder.
Tom shook her off," and stopped again, saying in a pereinp-
tory tone, "Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren't I a good
brother to you?"
"Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling eon-
vulsedly.
" Didn't I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and
mean to buy it, and saved my money o' purpose, and wouldn't
go halves in the toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I
wouldn't? "
" Ye-ye-es — and I — lo-lo-lovo you so, Tom."
"But you're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the
paint off my lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you
BOY AND GIRL. 81
let the boat drag my fish-line down when I'd set you to watch
it, and you pushed your head through my kite, all for nothing."
"But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it."
"Yes, you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you
were doing. And you're a naughty girl, and you sha'n't go
fishing with me to-morrow."
With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie
toward the mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain
to him of Harry.
Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a min»
ute or twoj then she turned round and ran into the house, and
up to her attic, where she sat on the floor and laid her head
against the worm-eaten shelf, with a crushing sense of misery.
Tom was come home, and she had thought how happy she
should be; and now he was cruel to her. What use was any-
thing if Tom didn't love her? Oh, he was very cruel 1 Hadn't
she wanted to give him the money, and said how very sorry
she was? She knew she was naughty to her mother, but she
had never been naughty to Tom — had never meant to be
naughty to him.
"Oh, he is cruel I" Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched
pleasure in the hollow resonance that came through the long
empty space of the attic. She never thought of beating or
grinding her Fetish ; she was too miserable to be angry.
These bitter sorrows of childhood ! when sorrow is all new
and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond
the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer
seems measureless.
Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it
must be tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not
thinking of her. Well, then, she would stay up there and
starve herself, — hide herself behind the tub, and stay there
all night, — and then they would all be frightened, and Tom
would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride of her
heart, as she crept behind the tub; but presently she began to
cry again at the idea that they didn't mind her being there.
If she went down again to Tom now- -would he forgive her?
Perhaps her father would be there, and he would take her
part. But then she wanted Tom to forgive her because he
40 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
loved her. not because his father told him. No, she woul
never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This resolit
tion lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind thv
tub ; but then the need of being loved — the strongest need in
poor Maggie's nature — began to wrestle with her pride, and
soon threw it. She crept from behind her tub into the twi-
light of the long attic, but just then she heard a quick foot-
step on the stairs.
Tom had been too much interested in his talk with Luke, in
going the round of the premises, walking in and out where he
pleased, and whittling sticks without any particular reason^—
except that he didn't whittle sticks at school, — to think of
Maggie and the effect his anger had produced on her. He
toeant to punish her, and that business having been performed,
he occupied himself with other matters, like a practical per-
son. But when he had been called in to tea, his father said,
"Why, where's the little wench?" and Mrs. Tulliver, almost
at the same moment, said, " Where's your little sister? " —
both of them having supposed that Maggie and Tom had been
together all the afternoon.
"I don't know," said Tom. He didn't want to "tell" of
Maggie, though he was angry with her ; for Tom Tulliver wa?
a lad of honor.
" What! hasn't she been playing with you all this while? "
said the father. " She'd been thinking o* nothing but youi
coming home."
"I haven't seen her this two hours," says Tom, commenc-
ing on the plumcake.
"Goodness heart! she's got drowndedl" exclaimed Mrs.
Tulliver, rising from her seat and running to the window.
"How could you let her do so?" she added, as became a fear-
ful woman, accusing she didn't know whom of she didn't
know what.
"Nay, nay, she's none drownded," said Mr. Tulliver.
"You've been naughty to her, I doubt, Tom?"
"I'm sure I haven't, father," said Tom, indignantly. "1
think she's in the house."
"Perhaps up in that attic," said Mrs. Tulliver, "a-singing
and talking to herselfj and forgetting all about meal-times."
BOY AND GIRL. 41
" You go ana fetch her down, Tom, " said Mr. Tulliver,
rather sharply, — his perspicacity or his fatherly fondness foi
Maggie making him suspect that the lad had been hard upon
" the little un, " else she would never have left his side. " And
be good to her, do you hear? Else I'll let you know better."
Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a
peremptory man, and, as he said, would never let anybody
get hold of his whip-hand; but he went out rather sullenly,
carrying his piece of plumcake, and not intending to reprieve
Maggie's punishment, which was no more than she deserved.
Tom was only thirteen, and had no decided views in grammar
and arithmetic, regarding them for the most part as open
questions, but he was particularly clear and positive on one
point, — namely, that he would punish everybody who de-
Served it. Why, he wouldn't have minded being punished
kimself if he deserved it ; but, then, ha never did deserve it.
It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs,
fcrhen her need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she
Was going down with her swollen eyes and dishevelled hair to
beg for pity. At least her father would stroke her head and
say, "Nevermind, my wench." It is a wonderful subduer,
this need of love, — this hunger of the heart, — as peremptory
as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to
the yoke, and change the face of the world.
But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat vio-
lently with the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at
the top of the stairs and said, "Maggie, you're to come down."
But she rushed to him and clung round his neck, sobbing,
" Oh, Tom, please forgive me — I can't bear it — I will always
be good — always remember things — do love me — please, dear
Tom!"
We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep
apart when we have quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred
phrases, and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, show-
ing much firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on
the other. We no longer approximate in our behavior to the
mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselvei
in every respect like members of a highly civilized society.
Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and
42 THE MILL OX THE FLOSS.
*o she could mb her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a
random sobbing way ; and there were tender fibres in the lad
that had been used to answer to Maggie's fondling, so that he
behaved with a weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution
to punish her as much as she deserved. He actually began to
kiss her in return, and say, —
"Don't cry, then, Magsie; here, eat a bit o' cake."
Maggie's sobs began to subside, and she put out her mouth
for the cake and bit a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just
for company, and they ate together and rubbed each other's
cheeks and brows and noses together, while they ate, with a
humiliating resemblance to two friendly ponies.
"Come along, Magsie, and have tea," said Tom at last,
•when there was no more cake except what was down-stairs.
So ended the sorrows of this day, and the next morning Mag-
gie was trotting with her own fishing-rod in one hand and a
handle of the basket in the other, stepping always, by a pecul-
iar gift, in the muddiest places, and looking darkly radiant
from under her beaver-bonnet because Tom was good to her.
She had told Tom, however, that she should like him to put
the worms on the hook for her, although she accepted his
word when he assured her that worms couldn't feel (it was
Tom's private opinion that it didn't much matter if they did) .
He knew all about worms, and fish, and those things ; and
what birds were mischievous, and how padlocks opened, and
which way the handles of the gates were to be lifted. Maggie
thought this sort of knowledge was very wonderful, — much
more difficult than remembering what was in the books; and
she was rather in awe of Tom's superiority, for he was the
only person who called her knowledge "stuff," and did not
feel surprised at her cleverness. Tom, indeed, was of opin-
ion that Maggie was a silly little thing; all girls were silly, —
they couldn't throw a stone so as to hit anything, couldn't do
anything with a pocket-knife, and were frightened at frogs.
Still, he was very fond of his sister, and meant always to take
care of her, make her his housekeeper, and punish her when
she did wrong.
They were on their way to the Round Pool, — that wonder-
ful pool, which the floods had made along while ago. No one
EOT
fcaev bow deep It vae; and it was my*n~u*n, too, tint it
•boald be alauct a perfect round, fianed in witfc willow ad
tall reeds, so thai the waia w* <»ly to Le seen vfcen jo« got
dose to tbe brink. The sight of tie old favorite spot always
•i i^hli anil TM'I jnnil •••.», unl Tin rpnfrr fir Migitr « flrr
pn-pared their tackk. He tfarw ker fine for Iwr, ndpot UK
rod iocitolier band. Mag^ia ttmgfrt it fnbobla fittttiMtaan
fish raddecMetober book, and tibe large QMS to
Bttsbebad forgotten aU about tibe fish,
<ir*a.~' ~ s.1 HT z_i.;.:~ T"i.:^-r.
per, 'Look, look, Haggler
: _• :;:r:-r.:.; _:^. i:-"^"
44 THE MILL ON THE FLOSB.
a sense of travel, to see tlie rushing spring-tide, the awfrik
Eagre, come up like a hungry monster, or to see the Great
Ash which had once wailed and groaned like a man, these
things would always be just the same to them. Tom thought
people were at a disadvantage who lived on any other spot of
,the globe ; and Maggie, when she read about Christiana pass-
,ing "the river over which there is no bridge," always saw the
Floss between the green pastures by the Great Ash.
Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were
not wrong in believing that the thoughts and loves of these
first years would always make part of their lives. We could
never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood
in it, — if it were not the earth where the same flowers come
np again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny
fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass j the same
hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows ; the same redbreasts
that we used to call " God's birds," because they did no harm
to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet
monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is
known?
The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the young
yellow-brown foliage of the oaks between me and the blue sky,
the white star-flowers and the blue-eyed speedwell and the
ground ivy at my feet, what grove of tropic palms, what strange
ferns or splendid broad-petalled blossoms, could ever thrill such
deep and delicate fibres within me as this home scene? These
familiar flowers, these well-remembered bird-notes, this sky,
with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields,
>ach with a sort of personality given to it by the capricious
iedgerows, — such things as these are the mother-tongue of
our imagination, the language that is laden with all the
subtle, inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our child-
hood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the
deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more than the faint
perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine
and the grass in the far-off years which still live ia us, and
transform our perception into love,
BOY AND GIRL, 45
CHAPTER VL
THB AUNTS AND UNCLES ABB COMING.
. IT was Easter week, and Mrs. Tulliver's cheesecakes were
more exquisitely light than usual. "A puff o' wind 'ud make
i;em blow about like feathers," Kezia the housemaid said,
feeling proud to live under a mistress who could make such
pastry j so that no season or circumstances could have been
more propitious for a family party, even if it had not been
advisable to consult sister Glegg and sister Pullet about Tom's
going to school.
"I'd as lief not invite sister Deane this time," said Mra.
Tulliver, " for she's as jealous and having as can be, and's
allays trying to make the worst o' my poor children to their
aunts and uncles."
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Tulliver, "ask her to come. I never
hardly get a bit o' talk with Deane now ; we haven't had him
this six months. What's it matter what she says? My chil-
dren need be beholding to nobody."
"That's what you allays say, Mr. Tulliver; but I'm sure
there's nobody o' your side, neither aunt nor uncle, to leave
'em so much as a five -pound note for a leggicy. And there's
sister Glegg, and sister Pullet too, saving money unknown,
for they put by all their own interest and butter-money too;
their husbands buy 'em everything." Mrs. Tulliver was a
mild woman, but even a sheep will face about a little when
she has lambs.
" Tchuh I " said Mr. Tulliver. " It takes a big loaf when
there's many to breakfast. What signifies your sisteis* bits
o' money when they've got half-a-dozen nevvies and nieces to
divide it among? And your sister Deane won't get 'em to
leave all to one, I reckon, and make the country cry shame
on 'em when they are dead?"
"I don't know what she won't get 'em to do," said Mrs.
Tulliver, "for my children are so awk'ard wi' their aunta
and uncles. Maggie's ten times naughtier when they
M THE MILL OK THE FLOSS.
than she is other days, and Tom doesn't like 'em, bless him!
— though it's more nat'ral in a boy than a gell. And there's
Lucy Deane's such a good child, — you may set her on a stool,
and there she'll sit for an hour together, and never offer to
get off. I can't help loving the child as if she was my own;
and I'm sure she's more like my child than sister Deane's,
for she'd allays a very poor color for one of our family, sister
Deane had."
" Well, well, if you're fond o' the child, ask her father and
mother to bring her with 'em. And won't you ask their aunt
and uncle Moss too, and some o' their children? "
"Oh, dear, Mr. Tulliver, why, there' d be eight people be-
sides the children, and I must put two more leaves i' the table,
besides reaching down more o' the dinner-service; and you
know as well as I do as my sisters and your sister don't suit
well together."
" Well, well, do as you like, Bessy, " said Mr. Tulliver,
taking up his hat and walking out to the mill. Few wives
were more submissive than Mrs. Tulliver on all points uncon-
nected with her family relations; but she had been a Miss
Dodson, and the Dodsons were a very respectable family in-
deed,— as much looked up to as any in their own parish, or
the next to it. The Miss Dodsons had always been thought
to hold up their heads very high, and no one was surprised
the two eldest had married so well, — not at an early age, for
that was not the practice of the Dodson family. There were
particular ways of doing everything in that family : particular
ways of bleaching the linen, of making the cowslip wine, cur-
ing the hams, and keeping the bottled gooseberries ; so that
no daughter of that house could be indifferent to the privilege
of having been born a Dodson, rather than a Gibson or a Wat-
son. Funerals were always conducted with peculiar propriety
in the Dodson family : the hat-bands were never of a blue
shade, the gloves never split at the thumb, everybody was a
mourner who ought to be, and there were always scarfs for the
bearers. When one of the family was in trouble or sickness,
all the rest went to visit the unfortunate member, usually at
the same time, and did not shrink from uttering the most dis»
agreeable truths that correct family feeling dictated; if tho
EOT AND GIHL. «7
illness or trouble was the sufferer's own fault, it was not in
the practice of the Dodson family to shrink from saying so.
In short, there was in this family a peculiar tradition as to
what was the right thing in household management and social
demeanor, and the only bitter circumstance attending this
superiority was a painful inability to approve the condiments
or the conduct of families ungoverned by the Dodson tradition.
A female Dodson, when in "strange houses," always ate dry
bread with her tea, and declined any sort of preserves, having
no confidence in the butter, and thinking that the preserves
had probably begun to ferment from want of due sugar and
boiling. There were some Dodson s less like the family than
others, that was admitted ; but in so far as they were " kin,"
they were of necessity better than those who were "no kin."
And it is remarkable that while no individual Dodson was
satisfied with any other individual Dodson, each was satisfied,
not only with him or her self, but with the Dodsons collec-
tively. The feeblest member of a family — the one who has
the least character — is often the merest epitome of the family
habits and traditions ; and Mrs. Tulliver was a thorough Dod-
son, though a mild one, as small-beer, so long as it is any-
thing, is only describable as very weak ale : and though she
had groaned a little in her youth under the yoke of her elder sis-
ters, and still shed occasional tears at their sisterly reproaches,
it was not in Mrs. Tulliver to be an innovator on the family
ideas. She was thankful to have been a Dodson, and to have
one child who took after her own family, at least in his fea-
tures and complexion, in liking salt and in eating beans, which
a Tulliver never did.
In other respects the true Dodson was partly latent in Tom,y
and he was as far from appreciating his " kin " on the mother's
side as Maggie herself, generally absconding for the day with
a large supply of the most portable food, when he received
timely warning that his aunts and uncles were coming, — a
moral symptom from which his aunt Glegg deduced the gloom-
iest views of his future. It was rather hard on Maggie that
Tom always absconded without letting her into the secret, but
the weaker sex are acknowledged to be serious impedimenta in
cases of flight.
48 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
On Wednesday, the day before the aunts and uncles wer«
coming, there were such various and suggestive scents, as oi
plumcakes in the oven and jellies in the hot state, mingled
with the aroma of gravy, that it was impossible to feel alto-
gether gloomy : there was hope in the air. Tom and Maggie
made several inroads into the kitchen, and, like other maraud-
ers, were induced to keep aloof for a time only by being
allowed to carry away a sufficient load of booty.
" Tom," said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder-
tree, eating their jam-puffs, "shall you run away to-mor-
tow?"
"No," said Tom, slowly, when he had finished his puff, and
was eying the third, which was to be divided between them,
~«no, Isha'n't."
"Why, Tom? Because Lucy's coming? "
"No," said Tom, opening his pocket-knife and holding it
over the puff, with his head on one side in a dubitative man-
ner. (It was a difficult problem to divide that very irregular
polygon into two equal parts.) " What do /care about Lucy?
She's only a girl, — she can't play at bandy."
"Is it the tipsy-cake, then?" said Maggie, exerting her
hypothetic powers, while she leaned forward toward Tom with
her eyes fixed on the hovering knife.
"No, you silly, that'll be good the day after. It's the
pudden. I know what the pudden's to be, — apricot roll-up—
O my buttons! "
With this interjection, the knife descended on the puff, and
it was in two, but the result was not satisfactory to Tom, foi
he still eyed the halves doubtfully. At last he said, —
" Shut your eyes, Maggie."
"What for?"
" You never mind what for. Shut 'em when I tell you."
Maggie obeyed.
"Now, which'll you have, Maggie, — right hand or left?"
'I'll have that with the jam run out," said Maggie, keep-
ing her eyes shut to please Tom.
"Why, you don't like that, you silly. You may have it
if it comes to you fair, but I sha'n't give it you without.
Eight or left, — you choose, now. Ha-a-a!" said Tom, in a
BOY ATTD GIRL. 49
tone of exasperation, as Maggie peeped. "You keep you!
eyes shut, now, else you sha'n't have any."
Maggie's power of sacrifice did not extend so far; indeed,
I fear she cared less that Tom should enjoy the utmost possi-
ble amount of puff, than that he should be pleased with her
for giving him the best bit. So she shut her eyes quite close,
till Tom told her to "say "which," and then she said, "Left
hand."
" You've got it," said Tom, in rather a bitter tone.
"What! the bit with the jam run out?"
"No; here, take it," said Tom, firmly, handing decidedly
the best piece to Maggie.
"Oh, please, Tom, have it; I don't mind — I like the other;
please take this."
" No, I sha'n't," said Tom, almost crossly, beginning on hia
own inferior piece.
Maggie, thinking it was no use to contend further, began
too, and ate up her half puff with considerable relish as well
as rapidity. But Tom had finished first, and had* to look on
while Maggie ate her last morsel or two, feeling in himself a
capacity for more. Maggie didn't know Tom was looking at
her; she was seesawing on the elder-bough, lost to almost
everything but a vague sense of jam and idleness.
"Oh, you greedy thing!" said Tom, when she had swal-
lowed the last morsel. He was conscious of having acted
very fairly, and thought she ought to have considered this,
and made up to him for it. He would have refused a bit of
hers beforehand, but one is naturally at a different point of
view before and after one's own share of puff is swallowed.
Maggie turned quite pale. " Oh, Tom, why didn't you ask
me?"
"I wasn't going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You
might have thought of it without, when you knew I gave you
the best bit."
" But I wanted you to have it j you know I did," said Mag-
gie, in an injured tone.
"Yes, but I wasn't going to do what wasn't fair, like
Spouncer. He always takes the best bit, if you don't punch
him fer it: and if you choose the best with your eyes shut, he
60 THE MILL ON THE FLOS8.
changes his hands. But if I go halves, I'll go 'em fair; only
I wouldn't be a greedy."
With this cutting innuendo, Tom jumped down from his
bough, and threw a stone with a " hoigh ! " as a friendly atten-
tion to Yap, who had also been looking on while the eatables
vanished, with an agitation of his ears and feelings which,
could hardly have been without bitterness. Yet the excellent
dog accepted Tom's attention with as much alacrity as if he
had been treated quite generously.
But Maggie, gifted with that superior power of misery
which distinguishes the human being, and places him at a
proud distance from the most melancholy chimpanzee, sat still
on her bough, and gave herself up to the keen sense of un-
merited reproach. She would have given the world not to
have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some of it for Tom.
Not but that the puff was very nice, for Maggie's palate was
not at all obtuse, but she would have gone without it many
times over, sooner than Tom should call her greedy and be
cross with her. And he had said he wouldn't have it, and
she ate it without thinking ; how could she help it? The tears
flowed so plentifully that Maggie saw nothing around her for
the next ten minutes ; but by that time resentment began to
give way to the desire of reconciliation, and she jumped from
her bough to look for Tom. He was no longer hi the paddock
behind the rickyard; where was he likely to be gone, and
Yap with him? Maggie ran to the high bank against the
great holly-tree, where she could see far away toward the
Floss. There was Tom ; but her heart sank again as she saw
how far off he was on his way to the great river, and that he
had another companion besides Yap, — naughty Bob Jakin,
whose official, if not natural, function of frightening the birds
was just now at a standstill. Maggie felt sure that Bob was
wicked, without very distinctly knowing why ; unless it was
because Bob's mother was a dreadfully large fat woman, who
lived at a queer round house down the river; and once, when
Maggie and Tom had wandered thither, there rushed out a
brindled dog that wouldn't stop barking; and when Bob's
mother came out after it, and screamed above the barking to
tell them not to be frightened, Maggie thought she wad scold*
BOY AND GIRL. M
ing them fiercely, and her heart beat with terror. Maggit
thought it very likely that the round house had snakes on the
floor, and bats in the bedroom ; for she had seen Bob take off
his cap to show Tom a little snake that was inside it, and
another time he had a handful of young bats : altogether, he
was an irregular character, perhaps even slightly diabolical,
judging from his intimacy with snakes and bats ; and to crown
all, when Tom had Bob for a companion, he didn't mind about
Maggie, and would never let her go with him.
It must be owned that Tom was fond of Bob's company.
How could it be otherwise? Bob knew, directly he saw a
bird's egg, whether it was a swallow's, or a tomtit's, or a yel-
low-hammer's; he found out all the wasps' nests, and could
set all sort of traps j he could climb the trees like a squirrel,
and had quite a magical power of detecting hedgehogs and
stoats; and he had courage to do things that were rather
naughty, such as making gaps in the hedgerows, throwing
stones after the sheep, and killing a cat that was wandering
incognito. Such qualities in an inferior, who could always be
treated with authority in spite of his superior knowingness,
had necessarily a fatal fascination for Tom ; and every holiday-
time Maggie was sure to have days of grief because he had
gone off with Bob.
Well! there was no hope for it; he was gone now, and
Maggie could think of no comfort but to sit down by the hol-
low, or wander by the hedgerow, and fancy it was all differ-
ent, refashioning her little world into just what she should
like it to be.
Maggie's was a troublous life, and this was the form in
which she took her opium.
Meanwhile Tom, forgetting all about Maggie and the sting
of reproach which he had left in her heart, was hurrying
along with Bob, whom he had met accidentally, to the scene
of a great rat-catching in a neighboring barn. Bob knew all
about this particular affair, and spoke of the sport with an
enthusiasm which, no one who is not either divested of all
manly feeling, or pitiably ignorant of rat-catching, can fail to
imagine. For a person suspected of preternatural wickedness,
Bob was really not so very villanous-looking ; there was even
62 THE MILL ON THE FLO8&
something agreeable in his snub-nosed face, with its close*
curled border of red hair. But then his trousers were always
rolled up at the knee, for the convenience of wading on the
slightest notice; and his virtue, supposing it to exist, was un-
deniably "virtue in rags," which, on the authority even of
bilious philosophers, who think all well-dressed merit over-
paid, is notoriously likely to remain unrecognized (perhaps
because it is seen so seldom).
"I know the chap as owns the ferrets," said Bob, in a
hoarse treble voice, as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes
fixed on the river, like an amphibioi^s animal who foresaw
occasion for darting in. " He lives up the Kennel Yard at Sut
Ogg's, he does. He's the bigges ^-catcher anywhere, he is.
I'd sooner be a rot-catcher nor anyuiiing, I would. The moles
is nothing to the rots. But Lors ! you inun ha' ferrets. Dogs
is no good. Why, there's that dog, now ! " Bob continued,
pointing with an air of disgust toward Yap, " he's no more
good wi' a rot nor nothin'. I see it myself, I did, at the rot-
catchin* i' your feyther's barn."
Yap, feeling the withering influence of this scorn, tucked
his tail in and shrank close to Tom's leg, who felt a little hurt
for him, but had not the superhuman courage to seem behind-
hand with Bob in contempt for a dog who made so poor a
figure.
"No, no," he said, "Yap's no good at sport. I'll have
regular good dogs for rats and everything, when I've done
school."
"Hev ferrets, Measter Tom," said Bob, eagerly, — "them
white ferrets wi' pink eyes; Lors, you might catch your own
rots, an* you might put a rot in a cage wi' a ferret, an' see
'em fight, you might. That's what I'd do, I know, an' it 'ud
k* better fun a'most nor seein' two chaps fight, — if it wasn't
them chaps as sold cakes an* oranges at the Fair, as the things
Jew out o* their baskets, an* some o* the cakes was smashed
—But they tasted just as good," added Bob, by way of note
or addendum, after a moment's pause.
"But, I say, Bob," said Tom, in a tone of deliberation,
"ferrets are nasty biting things, — they'll bite a fellow with-
tut being set on."
BOY AND GIRL. 53
" Lors I why, that's the beauty on 'em. If a chap lays hold
D* your ferret, he won't be long before he hollows out a good
on, he won't."
At this moment a striking incident made the boys pause
suddenly in their walk. It was the plunging of some small
body in the water from among the neighboring bulrushes ; if
it was not a water-rat, Bob intimated that he was ready to un-
dergo the most unpleasant consequences.
"Hoigh! Yap, — hoigh! there he is," said Tom, clapping
his hands, as the little black snout made its arrowy course to
the opposite bank. " Seize him, lad! seize him! "
Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined
to plunge, trying whether barking would not answer the pur-
pose just as well.
" Ugh ! you coward ! " said Tom, and kicked him over, feel-
ing humiliated as a sportsman to possess so poor-spirited an
animal. Bob abstained from remark and passed on, choosing,
however, to walk in the shallow edge of the overflowing river
by way of change.
"He's none so full now, the Floss isn't," said Bob, as he
kicked the water up before him, with an agreeable sense of
being insolent to it. " Why, last 'ear, the meadows was all
one sheet o' water, they was."
"Ay, but," said Tom, whose mind was prone to see an op»
position between statements that were really accordant, —
" but there was a big flood once, when the Bound Pool was
made, /know there was, 'cause father says so. And the
sheep and cows were all drowned, and the boats went all over
the fields ever such a way."
"/ don't care about a flood comin'," said Bobj "I don't
mind the water, no more nor the land. I'd swim, 1 would."
" Ah, but if you got nothing to eat for ever so long? " said
Tom, his imagination becoming quite active under the stimu-
lus of that dread. " When I'm a man, I shall make a boat
with a wooden house on the top of it, like Noah's ark, and
keep plenty to eat in it, — rabbits and things, — all ready.
And then if the flood came, you know, Bob, I shouldn't mind.
And I'd take you in, if I saw you swimming," ha added, in
the tone of a benevolent patron.
54 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"I aren't frighted," said Bob, to whom hunger did not
appear so appalling. " But I'd get in an' knock the rabbits
on th' head when you wanted to eat 'em."
"Ah, and I should have halfpence, and we'd play at heads-
and- tails," said Tom, not contemplating the possibility that
this recreation might have fewer charms for his mature age.
"I'd divide fair to begin with, and then we'd see who'd win.''
"I've got a halfpenny o' my own," said Bob, proudly, com-
ing out of the water and tossing his halfpenny io the air.
"Yeads or tails?"
"Tails," said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win.
"It's yeads," said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny
as it fell.
"It wasn't," said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. "You
give me the halfpenny; I've won it fair."
"I sha'n't," said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket.
"Then I'll make you; see if I don't," said Tom.
"You can't make me do nothing, you can't," said Bob.
"Yes, lean."
"No, you can't."
"I'm master."
"I don't care for you."
"But I'll make you care, you cheat," said Tom, collaring
Bob and shaking him.
" You get out wi' you," said Bob, giving Tom a kick.
Tom's blood was thoroughly up: he went at Bob with a
lunge and threw him down, but Bob seized hold and kept it
like a cat, and pulled Tom down after him. They struggled
fiercely oa the ground for a moment or two, till Tom, pinning
Bob down by the shoulders, thought he had the mastery.
" You, say you'll give me the half penny now, " he said, with
difficulty, while he exerted himself to keep the command of
Bob's arms.
But at this moment Yap, who had been running on before,
returned barking to the scene of action, and saw a favorable
opportunity for biting Bob's bare leg not only with impunity
but with honor. The pain from Yap's teeth, instead of sur-
prising Bob into a relaxation of his hold, gave it a fiercei
tenacity, and with a new exertion of his force he pushed Tom
BOY AND GIRL, 85
backward and got uppermost. But now Yap, who could get
no sufficient purchase before, set his teeth in a new place, so
that Bob, harassed in this way, let go his hold of Tom, and,
almost throttling Yap, flung him into the river. By this time
Tom was up again, and before Bob had quite recovered his
balance after the act of swinging Yap, Tom fell upon him,
threw him down, and got his knees firmly on Bob's chest.
" You give me the halfpenny now, " said Tom.
"Take it," said Bob, sulkily.
"No, I eha'n't take it; you give it me."
Bob took the halfpenny out of his pocket, and threw it
away from him on the ground.
Tom loosed his hold, and left Bob to rise.
" There the halfpenny lies, " he said. " I don't want your
halfpenny; I wouldn't have kept it. But you wanted to
cheat ; I hate a cheat. I sha'n' t go along with you any more, "
he added, turning round homeward, not without casting a re-
gret toward the rat-catching and other pleasures which he must
relinquish along with Bob's society.
u You may let it alone, then," Bob called out after him.
"I shall cheat if I like; there's no fun i' playing else; and I
know where there's a goldfinch's nest, but I'll take care yoti
don't. An* you're a nasty fightin' turkey-cock, you are *
Tom walked on without looking roundf and Yap followed his
example, the cold bath having moderated his passions.
" Go along wi' you, then, wi' your drowned dog; I wouldn't
own such a dog — /wouldn't," said Bob, getting louder, in a
last effort to sustain his defiance. But Tom was not to be
provoked into turning round, and Bob's voice began to falter;
a little as he said, — '
"An* I'n gi'en you everything, an' showed you everything,
an' niver wanted nothin* from you. An* there's your horn-
handed knife, then, as you gi'en me." Here Bob flung the
knife as far as he could after Tom's retreating footsteps. But
it produced no effect, except the sense in Bob's mind that
there was a terrible void in his lot, now that knife was gone.
He stood still till Tom had passed through the gate and dis-
appeared behind the hedge. The knife would do no good on
the ground there; it wouldn't vex IVu; and pride or resent*
56 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
ment was a feeble passion in Bob's mind compared with the
love of a pocket-knife. Ilis very fingers sent entreating thrills
that he would go and Clutch that familiar rough buck's-horn
handle, which they had so often grasped for mere affection,
as it lay idle in his pocket. And there were two blades, and
,,they had just been sharpened! What is life without a pocket-
knife to him who has once tasted a higher existence? No; to
throw the handle after the hatchet is a comprehensible act of
desperation, but to throw one's pocket-knife after an implacable
friend is clearly in every sense a hyperbole, or throwing be-
yond the mark. So Bob shuffled back to the spot where the
beloved knife lay in the dirt, and felt quite a new pleasure in
clutching it again after the temporary separation, in opening
one blade after the other, and feeling their edge with his well-
hardened thumb. Poor Bob! he was not sensitive on the
point of honor, not a chivalrous character. That fine moral
aroma would not have been thought much of by the public
opinion of Kennel Yard, which was the very focus or heart of
Bob's world, even if it could have made itself perceptible
there ; yet, for all that, he was not utterly a sneak and a thief
as our friend Tom had hastily decided.
But Tom, you perceive, was rather a Rhadamanthine per-
sonage, having more than the usual share of boy's justice in
him, — the justice that desires to hurt culprits as much as they
deserve to be hurt, and is troubled with no doubts concerning
the exact amount of their deserts. Maggie saw a cloud on his
brow when he came home, which checked her joy at his com-
ing so much sooner than she had expected, and she dared
hardly speak to him as he stood silently throwing the small
igravel-stones into the mill-dam. It is not pleasant to give up
i rat-catching when you have set your mind on it. But if
Tom had told his strongest feeling at that moment, he would
have said, " I'd do just the same again." That was his usual
mode of viewing his past actions ; whereas Maggie was always
wishing she had done something different.
BOY AND GIRL, 5T
CHAPTER VIL
ENTEB THE AUNTS AND UNCLES.
THE Dodsons were certainly a handsome family, and Mrs.
Glegg was not the least handsome of the sisters. As she sat
in Mrs. Tulliver's arm-chair, no impartial observer could have
denied that for a woman of fifty she had a very comely face^
and figure, though Tom and Maggie considered their aunt
Glegg as the type of ugliness. It is true she despised the ad-
vantages of costume, for though, as she often observed, no
woman had better clothes, it was not her way to wear her new
things out before her old ones. Other women, if they liked,
might have their best thread-lace in every wash; but when
Mrs. Glegg died, it would be found that she had better lace
laid by in the right-hand drawer of her wardrobe in the Spotted
Chamber than ever Mrs. Wooll of St. Ogg's had bought in her
life, although Mi s. Wooll wore her lace before it was paid for.
So of her curled fronts : Mrs. Glegg had doubtless the glossi-
est and crispest brown curls in her drawers, as well as curls
in various degrees of fuzzy laxness ; but to look out on the
week-day world from under a crisp and glossy front would be
to introduce a most dreamlike and unpleasant confusion be-
tween the sacred and the secular. Occasionally, indeed, Mrs.
Glegg wore one of her third-best fronts on a week-day visit,
but not at a sister's house ; especially not at Mrs. Tulliver's,
who, since her marriage, had hurt her sister's feelings greatly
by wearing her own hair, though, as Mrs. Glegg observed to
Mrs. Deane, a mother of a family, like Bessy, with a husband
always going to law, might have been expected to know better.
But Bessy was always weak f
So if Mrs. Glegg's front to-day was more fuzzy and lax
than usual, she had a design under it : she intended the most
pointed and cutting allusion to Mrs. Tulliver's bunches of
blond curls, separated from each other by a due wave of
smoothness on each side of the parting. Mrs. Tulliver had
•hed tears several times at^sister Glegg's unkindness on the
08 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
subject of these unmatronly curls, but the consciousness of
looking the handsomer for them naturally administered sup-
port. Mrs. Glegg chose to wear her bonnet in the house to-
day,— untied and tilted slightly, of course, — a frequent prac-
tice of hers when she was on a visit, and happened to be in a
severe humor: she didn't know what draughts there might be
in strange houses. For the same reason she wore a small sable
tippet, which reached just to her shoulders, and was very far
from meeting across her well-formed chest, while her long
neck was protected by a chevaiix-de-frise of miscellaneous frill-
ing. One would need to be learned in the fashions of those
times to know how far in the rear of them Mrs. Glegg' s slate-
colored silk gown must have been ; but from certain constella-
tions of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy odor about
it suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was probable that it
belonged to a stratum of garments just old enough to have
come recently into wear.
Mrs. Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand with the
many-doubled chain round her fingers, and observed to Mrs,
Tulliver, who had just returned from a visit to the kitchen,
that whatever it might be by other people's clocks and watches,
it was gone half-past twelve by hers.
" I don't know what ails sister Pullet," she continued. " It
used to be the way in our family for one to be as early as
another, — I'm sure it was so in my poor father's time, — and
not for one sister to sit half an hour before the others came.
But if the ways o' the family are altered, it sha'n't be my
fault ; Fll never be the one to come into a house when all the
rest are going away. I wonder at sister Deane, — she used to
be more like me. But if you'll take my advice, Bessy, you'll
put the dinner forrard a bit, sooner than put it back, because
folks are late as ought to ha' known better."
"Oh dear, there's no fear but what they'll be all here in
time, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, in her mild-peevish tone.
" The dinner won't be ready till half -past one. But if it's long
for you to wait, let me fetch you a cheesecake and a glass o*
wine."
" Well, Bessy ! " said Mrs. Glegg, with a bitter smile and a
scarcely percept\Tc3e tc^s of her head* " I should ha' thought
BOY AND GIRL. 59
you'd known your own sister better. I never did eat between
meals, and I'm not going to begin. Not but what I hate that
nonsense of having your dinner at half-past one, when you
might have it at one. You was never brought up in that way,
Bessy."
" Why, Jane, what can I do? Mr. Tulliver doesn't like his
dinner before two o'clock, but I put it half an hour earliei
because o' you."
"Yes, yes, I know how it is with husbands, — they're foi
putting everything off; they'll put the dinner off till after
tea, if they've got wives as are weak enough to give in to such
work; but it's a pity for you, Bessy, as you haven't got more
strength o' mind. It'll be well if your children don't suffer
for it. And I hope you've not gone and got a great dinner
for us, — going to expense for your sisters, as 'ud sooner eat a
crust o' dry bread nor help to ruin you with extravagance. I
•wonder you don't take pattern by your sister Deane; she's
far more sensible. And here you've got two children to pro-
vide for, and your husband's spent your fortin i' going to law,
and's likely to spend his own too. A boiled joint, as you
could make broth of for the kitchen, " Mrs. Glegg added, in a
tone of emphatic protest, " and a plain pudding, with a spoon-
ful o' sugar, and no spice, 'ud be far more becoming."
With sister Glegg in this humor, there was a cheerful pros-
pect for the day. Mrs. Tulliver never "went the length of
quarrelling with her, any more than a water-fowl that puts
out its leg in a deprecating manner can be said to quarrel with
a boy who throws stones. But this point of the dinner was a
tender one, and not at all new, so that Mrs. Tulliver could
make the same answer she had often made before.
" Mr. Tulliver says he always will have a good dinner for
his friends while he can pay for it," she said; "and he's a
right to do as he likes in his own house, sister."
" Well, Bessy, / can't leave your children enough out o' my
savings to keep 'em from ruin. And you mustn't look to
having any o' Mr. Glegg's money, for it's well if I don't go
first, — he comes of a long-lived family; and if he was to die
and leave me well for my life, he'd tie all the money up to go
back to his own kin."
60 THE MTT.T, ON THE FLOSS.
The sound of wheels while Mrs. Glegg was speaking was wa
interruption highly welcome to Mrs. Tulliver, who hastened
out to receive sister Pullet; it must be sister Pullet, because
the sound was that of a four-wheel.
Mrs. Glegg tossed her head and looked rather sour about
tibe month at the thought of the "four-wheel." She had a
strong opinion on that subject.
Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped
be: re lira. T-;lI:vc:'s c :•: :, n4 it was apparently requisite
that she should shed a few more before getting out ; for though
her husband and Mrs. Tulliver stood ready to support her, she
sat still and shook her head sadly, as she looked through her
tears at the vague distance.
" Why, whativer is the matter, sister? " said Mrs. Tulliver.
She was not an imaginative woman, but it occurred to her that
the large toilet-glass in sister Pullet's best bedroom was pos-
sibly broken for the second time.
There was no reply but a further shake of the head, as Mrs.
Pallet slowly rose and got down from the chaise, not without
casting a glance at Mr. Pullet to see that he was guarding her
handsome silk dress from injury. Mr. Pullet was a small
man, with a high nose, small twinkling eves, and thin lips, in
a fresh-looking suit of black and a white cravat, that seemed
to have been tied very tight on some higher principle than
that of mere personal ease. He bore about the same relation
to his tall, good-looking wife, with her balloon sleeves, abun-
dant mantle, and a large befeathered and beribboned bonnet,
as a small fishing-smack bears to a brig with all its sails
spread.
It is a pathetic sight and a striking example of the com-
plexity introduced into the emotions by a high state of civili-
zation, the sight of a fashionably dressed female in grief.
From the sorrow of a Hottentot to that of a woman in large
buckram sleeves, with several bracelets on each arm, an archi-
tectural bonnet, and delicate ribbon strings, what a long series
of gradations! In the enlightened child of civilization the
abandonment characteristic of grief is checked and varied in
the subtlest manner, so as to present an interesting problem
to the analytic mind. If, with a crushed heart and eyes half
BOY ATTD GIRL. 61
blinded by the mist of tears, she were to walk with a too*
devious step through a door-place, she might crush her buckram
sleeves too, and the deep consciousness of this possibility pro-
duces a composition of forces by which she takes a line that
just clears the door-post. Perceiving that the tears are hurry-
ing fast, she unpins her strings and throws them languidly
backward, a touching gesture, indicative, even in the deepest
gloom, of the hope in future dry moments when cap-strings
will once more have a charm. As the tears subside a little,
and with her head leaning backward at the angle that will not
injure her bonnet, she endures that terrible moment when
grief, which has made all things else a weariness, has itself
become weary ; she looks down pensively at her bracelets, and
adjusts their clasps with that pretty studied fortuity which
would be gratifying to her mind if it were once more in a calm
and healthy state.
Mrs. Pullet brushed each door-post with great nicety, about
the latitude of her shoulders (at that period a woman was truly
ridiculous to an instructed eye if she did not measure a yard
and a half across the shoulders), and having done that sent
the muscles of her face in quest of fresh tears as she advanced
into the parlor where Mrs. Glegg was seated.
"Well, sister, you're late; what's the matter?" said Mrs.
Glegg, rather sharply, as they shook hands.
Mrs. Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully be-
hind, before she answered, —
*' She's gone," unconsciously using an impressive figure of
rhetoric.
"It isn't the glass this time, then," thought Mrs. Tulliver.
"Died the day before yesterday," continued Mrs. Pullet;
" an' her legs was as thick as my body, " she added, with deep
sadness, after a pause. " They'd tapped her no end o' times,
and the water — they sa you might ha* swum in it, if you'd
liked."
" Well, Sophy, it's ; mercy she's gone, then, whoever she
may be, " said Mrs. Glefeg, with the promptitude and emphasis
of a mind naturally clear and decided; "but I can't think who
you're talking of, for my part."
" But / know," said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and sliaking her
W THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
head j " and there isn't another such a dropsy in the parish,
/know as it's old Mrs. Sutton o* the Twenty lands."
" Well, she's no kin o* yours, nor much acquaintance as I've
ever heared of," said Mrs. Glegg, who always cried just as
touch as was proper when anything happened to her own
"kin," but not on other occasions.
" She' s so much acquaintance as I've seen her legs when
they was like bladders. And an old lady as had doubled her
money over and over again, and kept it all in her own man-
agement to the last, and had her pocket with her keys in
under her pillow constant. There isn't many old parish' nera
like her, I doubt."
"And they say she'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a
wagon," observed Mr. Pullet.
"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Pullet, "she'd another complaint ever
so many years before she had the dropsy, and the doctors
couldn't make out what it was. And she said to me, when I
went to see her last Christmas, she said, ' Mrs. Pullet, if ever
you have the dropsy, you'll think o' me.' She did say so,"
added Mrs. Pullet, beginning to cry bitterly again ; " those
were her very words. And she's to be buried o' Saturday,
and Pullet's bid to the funeral."
"Sophy," said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her
spirit of rational remonstrance, — " Sophy, I wonder at you, fret-
ting and injuring your health about people as don't belong to
you. Your poor father never did so, nor your aunt Frances
neither, nor any o' the family as I ever heared of. You
couldn't fret no more than this, if we'd heared as our cousin
Abbott had died sudden without making his will."
Mrs. Pullet was silent, having to finish her crying, and
rather flattered than indignant at being upbraided for crying
too much. It was not everybody who could afford to cry so
much about their neighbors who had left them nothing ; but
Mrs. Pullet had married a gentleman farmer, and had leisure
and money to carry her crying and everything else to the high-
est pitch of respectability.
"Mrs. Sutton didn't die without making her will, though,"
said Mr. Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying
something to sanction &3 wife's tears j "ours is a ric
BOY AND GIRL. 63
but they say there* s nobody else to leave as many thousands
behind 'em as Mrs. Sutton. And she's left no leggicies to
speak on, — left it all in a lump to her husband's nevvy."
"There wasn't much good i' being so rich, then," said Mrs.
Glegg, " if she'd got none but husband's kin to leave it to.
It's poor work when that's all you've got to pinch yourself
for. Not as I'm one o' those as *ud like to die without leav-
ing more money out at interest than other folks had reckoned ;
but it's a poor tale when it must go out o' your own family."
"I'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Pullet, who had recovered
sufficiently to take off her veil and fold it carefully, " it's a
nice sort o' man as Mrs. Sutton has left her money to, for he's
troubled with the asthmy, and goes to bed every night at eight
o'clock. He told me about it himself — as free as could be —
one Sunday when he came to our church. He wears a hare-
skin on his chest, and has a trembling in his talk, — quite a
gentleman sort o' man. I told him there wasn't many months
in the year as I wasn't under the doctor's hands. And he
said, 'Mrs. Pullet, I can feel for you.' That was what he
said, — the very words. Ah!" sighed Mrs. Pullet, shaking
her head at the idea that there were but few who could enter
fully into her experiences in pink mixture and white mixture,
etrong stuff in small bottles, and weak stuff in large bottles,
damp boluses at a shilling, and draughts at eighteenpence.
" Sister, I may as well go and take my bonnet off now. Did
you see as the cap-box was put out?" she added, turning to
her husband.
Mr. Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had for-
gotten it, and hastened out, with a stricken conscience, to
remedy the omission.
"They'll bring it upstairs, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, wish-
ing to go at once, lest Mrs. Glegg should begin to explain her
feelings about Sophy's being the first Dodson who ever ruined
her constitution with doctor's stuff.
Mrs. Tulliver was fond of going upstairs with her sister
Pullet, and looking thoroughly at her cap before she put it on
her head, and discussing millinery in general. This was part
of Bessy's weakness that stirred Mrs. Glegg's sisterly com-
passion: Bessy went far too well dressed, considering j and
64 TEE HILL ON THE FLOSS.
she was too proud to dress her child in the good clothing her
iiater Glegg gave her from the primeval strata of her ward-
robe j it was a sin and a shame to buy anything to dress that
child, if it "wasn't a pair of shoes. In this particular, how-
ever, Mrs. Glegg did her sister Bessy some injustice, for Mrs.
Tulliver had really made great efforts to induce Maggie to
wear 'a leghorn bonnet and a dyed silk frock made out of her
aunt Glegg's, but the results had been such that Mrs. Tulli-
ver was obliged to bury them in her maternal bosom; for
Maggie, declaring that the frock smelt of nasty dye, had taken,
an opportunity of basting it together with the roast beef the!
first Sunday she wore it, and finding this scheme answer, she
had subsequently pumped on the bonnet with its green rib-
bons, so as to give it a general resemblance to a sage cheese
garnished with withered lettuces. I must urge in excuse for
Maggie, that Tom had laughed at her in the bonnet, and said
she looked like an old Judy. Aunt Pullet, too, made presents
of clothes, but these were always pretty enough to please Mag-
gie as well as her mother. Of all her sisters, Mrs. Tulliver
certainly preferred her sister Pullet, not without a return of
preference} but Mrs. Pullet was sorry Bessy had those
naughty, awkward children ; she would do the best she could
by them, but it was a pity they weren't as good aud as pretty
as sister Deane's child. Maggie and Tom, on their part,
thought their aunt Pullet tolerable, chiefly because she was
not their aunt Glegg. Tom always declined to go more than
once during his holidays to see either of them. Both his
uncles tipped him that once, of course ; but at his aunt Pul-
let's there were a great many toads to pelt in the cellar-area,
so that he preferred the visit to her. Maggie shuddered at
the toads, and dreamed of them horribly, but she liked her
uncle Pullet's musical snuff-box. Still, it was agreed by the
sisters, in Mrs. Tulliver's absence, that the Tulliver blood did
not mix well with the Dodson blood; that, in fact, poor
Bessy's children were Tullivers, and that Tom, notwithstand-
ing he had the Dodson complexion, was likely to be as " con-
trairy " as his father. As for Maggie, she was the picture of
her aunt Moss, Mr. Tulliver's sister, — a large-boned woman,
had married as poorly as could bej had no china, and
EOT AND GIRL. 65
had a husband who had much ado to pay his rent. But -when
Mrs. Pullet was alone with Mrs. Tulliver upstairs, the re-
marks were naturally 'to the disadvantage of Mrs. Glegg, and
they agreed, in confidence, that there was no knowing what
sort of fright sister Jane would come out next. But their
tete-a-tete was curtailed by the appearance of Mrs. Deane with
little Lucy; and Mrs. Tulliver had to look on with a sileut
pang while Lucy's blond curls were adjusted. It was quite
unaccountable that Mrs. Deane, the thinnest and sallowest of
all the Miss Dodsons, should have had this child, who might
have been taken for Mrs. Tulliver's any day. And Maggie
always looked twice as dark as usual when she was by the
eide of Lucy.
She did to-day, when she and Tom came in from the garden
with their father and their uncle Glegg. Maggie had thrown
her bonnet off very carelessly, and coming in with her hair
rough as well as out of curl, rushed at once.to Lucy, who was
standing by her mother's knee. Certainly the contrast be-
tween the cousins was conspicuous, and to superficial eyes was
very much to the disadvantage of Maggie, though a connois-
seur might have seen " points " in her which had a higher
promise for maturity than Lucy's natty completeness. It was
like the contrast between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy
and a white kitten. Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud
mouth to be kissed; every thing about her was neat, — her little
round neck, with the row of coral beads ; her little straight
nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows, rather
darker than her curls, to match her hazel eyes, which looked
up with shy pleasure at Maggie, taller by the head, though
scarcely a year older. Maggie always looked at Lucy with
delight. She was fond of fancying a world where the people
never got any larger than children of their own age, and she
made the queen of it just like Lucy, with a little crown on her
head, and a little sceptre in her hand — only the queen was
Maggie herself in Lucy's form.
"Oh, Lucy," she burst out, after kissing her, "you'll etay
with Tom and me, won't you? Oh, kiss her, Tom."
Tom, too, had come up to Lucy, but he was not going to
ciss her — no; be came up to her with Maggie, because it
•6 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS,
seemed easier, on the whole, than saying, "How do you dof *
to all those aunts and uncles. He stood looking at nothing in
particular, with the blushing, awkward air and semi-smile
which are common to shy boys when in company, — very much
as if they had come into the world by mistake, and found it in
a degree of undress that was quite embarrassing.
"Heyday I" said aunt Glegg, with loud emphasis. "Do
little boys and gells come into a room without taking notice o*
their uncles and aunts? That wasn't the way when / was a
little gell."
" Go and speak to your aunts and. uncles, my dears," said
Mrs. Tulliver, looking anxious and melancholy. She wanted to
•whisper to Maggie a command to go and have her hair brushed.
"Well, and how do you do? And I hope you're good chil-
dren, are you?" said aunt Glegg, in the same loud, emphatic
way, as she took their hands, hurting them with her large
rings, and kissing their cheeks much against their desire.
"Look up, Tom, look up. Boys as go to boarding-schools
should hold their heads up. Look at me now." Tom de-
clined that pleasure apparently, for he tried to draw his hand
away. " Put your hair behind your ears, Maggie, and keep
your frock on your shoulder."
Aunt Glegg always spoke to them in this loud, emphatio
way, as if she considered them deaf, or perhaps rather idiotic;
it was a means, she thought, of making them feel that they
were accountable creatures, and might be a salutary check on
naughty tendencies. Bessy's children were so spoiled — they'd
need have somebody to make them feel their duty.
"Well, my. dears," said aunt Pullet, in a compassionate
voice, "you grow wonderful fast. I doubt they'll outgrow
their strength," she added, looking over their heads, with a
melancholy expression, at their mother. "I think the gel]
has too much hair. I'd have it thinned and cut shorter, sis-
ter, if I was you: it isn't good for her health. It's that as
makes her skin so brown, I shouldn't wonder. Don't you
think so, sister Deane? "
"I can't say, I'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Deane, shutting
her lips close again, and looking at Maggie with a critical eye.
"No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, "the child's healthy enough j
BOY AND GIRL. «T
there's nothing a3s her. There's red wheat as well as white,
for that matter, and some like the dark grain best. But it
'ud be as well if Bessy 'ud have the child's hair cut, BO as it
'ud lie smooth."
A dreadful resolve was gathering in Maggie's breast, but
it was arrested by the desire to know from her aunt Deane
whether she would leave Lucy behind. Aunt Deane would
hardly ever let Lucy come to see them. After various rea-
sons for refusal, Mrs. Deane appealed to Lucy herself.
" You wouldn't like to stay behind without mother, should
you, Lucy?"
"Yes, please, mother," said Lucy, timidly, blushing very
pink all over her little neck.
" Well done, Lucy t Let her stay, Mrs. Deane, let her
stay," said Mr. Deane, a large but alert-looking man, with a
type of physique to be seen in all ranks of English society,—-
bald crown, red whiskers, full forehead, and general solidity
without heaviness. You may see noblemen like Mr. Deane,
and you may see grocers or day -laborers like him ; but the
keenness of his brown eyes was less common than his contour.
He held a silver snuff-box very tightly in his hand, and now
and then exchanged a pinch with Mr. Tulliver, whose box was
only silver-mounted, so that it was naturally a joke between
them that Mr. Tulliver wanted to exchange snuff-boxes also.
Mr. Deane's box had been given him by the superior partners
in the firm to which he belonged, at the same time that they
gave hin a share in the business, in acknowledgment of his
valuable services as manager. No man was thought more
highly of in St. Ogg's than Mr. Deane ; and some persons
were even of opinion that Miss Susan Dodson, who was once
held to have made the worst match of all the Dodson sisters,
might one day ride in a better carriage, and live in a better
house, even than her sister Pullet. There was no knowing
where a man would stop, who had got his foot into a great
mill-owning, ship-owning business like that of Guest & Co.,
with a banking concern attached. And Mrs. Deane, as her
intimate female friends observed, was proud and "having"
enough; she wouldn't let her husband stand still in the world
for want of spurring.
68 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Maggie," said Mrs. Tulliver, beckoning Maggie to her,
and whispering in her ear, as soon as this point of Lucy's
staying was settled, " go and get your hair brushed, do, for
shame. I told you not to come in without going to Martha
first} you know I did."
" Tom, come out with me, " whispered Maggie, pulling his
sleeve as she passed him ; and Tom followed willingly enough.
"Come upstairs with me, Tom,'* she whispered, when they
were outside the door. "There's something I want to do
before dinner."
" There's no time to play at anything before dinner, " said
Tom, whose imagination was impatient of any intermediate
prospect.
"Oh yes, there is time for this; do come, Tom."
Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother's room, and
saw her go at once to a drawer, from which she took out a
large pair of scissors.
" What are they for, Maggie? " said Tom, feeling his curi-
osity awakened.
Maggie answered by seizing her front locks and cutting
them straight across the middle of her forehead.
" Oh, my buttons I Maggie, you'll catch itl " exclaimed Torn}
"you'd better not cut any more off."
Snip I went the great scissors again while Tom was speaking,
and he couldn't help feeling it was rather good fun} Maggie
would look so queer.
"Here, Tom, cut it behind for me," said Maggie, excited
by her own daring, and anxious to finish the deed.
"You'll catch it, you know," said Tom, nodding his head
in an admonitory manner, and hesitating a little as he tools
the scissors.
"Nevermind, make haste!" said Maggie, giving a little
stamp with her foot. Her cheeks were quite flushed.
The black locks were so thick, nothing could be more tempt-
ing to a lad who had already tasted the forbidden pleasure of
cutting the pony's mane. I speak to those who know the
satisfaction of making a pair of shears meet through a duly
resisting mass of hair. One delicious grinding snip, and
tnen another and another, and the hinder-locks fell heavily on
BOY AND OIKL.
the floor, and Maggie stood cropped in a jagged, uneven moa-
ner, but with a sense of clearness and freedom, as if she had
emerged from a wood into the open plain.
"Oh, Maggie, " said Tom, jumping round her, and slapping
Ms knees as he laughed, " Oh, my buttons I what a queer thing
you look I Look at yourself in the glass; you look like the
idiot we throw out nutshells to at school."
Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought before-
hand chiefly of her own deliverance from her teasing hair and
teasing remarks about it, and something also of the triumph
she should have over her mother and her aunts by this very
decided course of action; she didn't want her hair to look
pretty, — that was out of the question, — she only wanted peo-
ple to think her a clever little girl, and not to find fault with
her. But now, when Tom began to laugh at her, and say she
was like the idiot, the affair had quite a new aspect. She
looked in the glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his
hands, and Maggie's flushed cheeks began to pale, and her
lips to tremble a little.
" Oh, Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly,"
said Tom, "Oh, myl"
"Don't laugh at me, Tom," said -Maggie, in a passionate
tone, with an outburst of angry tears, stamping, and giving
him a push.
"Now, then, spitfire! " said Tom. "What did you cut it
off for, then? I shall go down: I can smell the dinner going
in."
He hurried downstairs and left poor Maggie to that bitter
sense of the irrevocable which was almost an every-day ex«
perience of her small soul. She could see clearly enough, now
the thing was done, that it was very foolish, and that she
should have to hear and think more about her hair than ever;
for Maggie rushed to her deeds with passionate impulse, and
then saw not only their consequences, but what would have
happened if they had not been done, with all the detail and
exaggerated circumstance of an active imagination. Tom never
did the same sort of foolish things as Maggie, having a won-
derful instinctive discernment of what would turn to his ad-
vantage or disadvantage; and so it happened, that though he
TO THF- MILL OS THE FLOSS.
was much more wilful and inflexible than Maggie, his mothef
hardly ever called him naughty. But if Tom did make a mis-
take of that sort, he espoused it, and stood by it : he " didn't
mind." If he broke the lash of his father's gig-whip by lash-
ing the gate, he couldn't help it, — the whip shouldn't have
got caught in the hinge. If Tom Tulliver whipped a gate,
he was convinced, not that the whipping of gates by all boys
was a justifiable act, but that he, Tom Tulliver, was justifi-
able in whipping that particular gate, and he wasn't going to
be sorry. But Maggie, as she stood crying before the glass,
felt it impossible that she should go down to dinner and en-
dure the severe eyes and severe words of her aunts, while Tom
and Lucy, and Martha, who waited at table, and perhaps her
father and her uncles, would laugh at her; for if Tom had
laughed at her, of course every one else would ; and if she had
only let her hair alone, she could have sat with Tom and Lucy,
and had the apricot pudding and the custard! What could
she do but sob? She sat as helpless and despairing among
her black locks as Ajax among the slaughtered sheep. Very
trivial, perhaps, this anguish seems to weather-worn mortals
who have to think of Christmas bills, dead loves, and broken
friendships ; but it was not less bitter to Maggie — perhaps it
was even more bitter — than what we are fond of calling anti-
thetically the real troubles of mature life. " Ah, my child,
you will have real troubles to fret about by and by," is the
consolation we have almost all of us had administered to us in
our childhood, and have repeated to other children since we
have been grown up. We have all of us sobbed so piteously,
standing with tiny bare legs above our little socks, when we
lost sight of our mother or nurse in some strange place; but
we can no longer recall the poignancy of that moment and
weep over it, as we do over the remembered sufferings of rive
or ten years ago. Every one of those keen moments has left
its trace, and lives in us still, but such traces have blent them-
selves irrecoverably with the firmer texture of our youth and
manhood; and so it comes that we can look on at the troubles
of our children with a smiling disbelief in the reality of their
pain. Is there any one who can recover the experience of hia
childhood, not merely with a memory of what he did and
BOY AND GIRL. tt
tthat happened to him, of what he liked and disliked when
he was in frock and trousers, but with an intimate penetration,
a revived consciousness of what he felt then, when it was sa
long from one Midsummer to another; what he felt when his
schoolfellows shut him out of their game because he would
pitch the ball wrong out of mere wilf ulness.; or on a rainy day
in the holidays, when he didn't know how to amuse himself,
and fell from idleness into mischief, from mischief into defi-
ance, and from defiance into sulkiness ; or when his mother
absolutely refused to let him have a tailed coat that "half,"
although every other boy of his age had gone into tails already?
Surely if we could recall that early bitterness, and the din:
guesses, the strangely perspectiveless conception of life that
gave the bitterness its intensity, we should not pooh-pooh th«r
griefs of our children.
"Miss Maggie, you're to come down this minute," said
Kezia, entering the room hurriedly. "Lawks I what have you
been a-doing? I niver see such a fright! "
" Don't, Kezia," said Maggie, angrily. " Go away! "
"But I tell you you're to come down, Miss, this minute ,
your mother says so," said Kezia, going up to Maggie and
taking her by the hand to raise her from the floor.
" Get away, Kezia; I don't want any dinner/' said Maggie,
resisting Kezia's arm. " I sha'n't come."
" Oh, well, I can't stay. I've got to wait at dinner," said
Kezia, going out again.
"Maggie, you little silly," said Tom, peeping into the room
ten minutes after, " why don't you come and have your din-
ner? There's lots o' goodies, and mother says you're to come,
What are you crying for, you little spooney?"
Oh, it was dreadful ! Tom was so hard and unconcerned j
if lie had been crying on the floor, Maggie would have cried
too. And there was the dinner, so nice; and she was go
hungry. It was very bitter.
But Tom was not altogether hard. He was not inclined to
cry, and did not feel that Maggie's grief spoiled his prospect
of the sweets; but he went and put his head near her, and
iaid in a lower, comforting tone, — •
" Won't you come, tnen, Magsic? Shall I brio? you a
ft THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
bit o* pudding when I've had mine, and a custard and
things?"
" Ye-e-es," said Maggie, beginning to feel life a little more
tolerable.
" Very well," said Tom, going away. But he turned again
at the door and .said, " But you'd better come, you know.
There's the dessert, — nuts, you know, and cowslip wine."
Maggie's tears had ceased, and she looked reflective as Tom
left her. His good nature had taken off the keenest edge of
her suffering, and nuts with cowslip wine began to assert their
legitimate influence.
Slowly she rose from amongst her scattered locks, and
slowly she made her way downstairs. Then she stood leaning
with one shoulder against the frame of the dining-parlor door,
peeping in when it was ajar. She saw Tom and Lucy with an
empty chair between them, and there were the custards on a
side-table; it was too much. She slipped in and went toward
the empty chair. But she had no sooner sat down than she
repented and wished herself back again.
Mrs. Tulliver gave a little scream as she saw her, and felt
such a "turn" that she dropped the large gravy-spoon into
the dish, with the most serious results to the table-cloth. For
Kezia had not betrayed the reason of Maggie's refusal to come
down, not liking to give her mistress a shock in the moment
of carving, and Mrs. Tulliver thought there was nothing worse
in question than a fit of perverseness, which was inflicting its
own punishment by depriving Maggie of half her dinner.
Mrs. Tulliver's scream made all eyes turn toward the same
point as her own, and Maggie's cheeks and ears began to burn,
while uncle Glegg, a kind-looking, white-haired old gentle-
man, said,— -
" Heyday! what little gell's this? Why, I don't know her.
Is it some little gell you've picked up in the road, Kezia?"
" Why, she's gone and cut her hair herself, " said Mr. Tul-
liver in an undertone to Mr. Deane, laughing with much en-
joyment. Did you ever know such a little hussy as it is? "
" Why, little miss, you've made yourself look very funny,"
Baid uncle Pullet, and perhaps he never in his life made ac
observation which was felt to be so lacerating.
BOY AND GIRL. T3
"Fie, for shame!" said aunt Glegg, in her loudest, severest
toiie of reproof. " Little gells as cut their own hair should be
whipped and fed on bread and water, — not come and sit down
with their aunts and uncles."
" Ay, ay," said uncle Glegg, meaning to give a playful turn
to this denunciation, " she must be sent to jail, I think, and
they'll cut the rest of her hair off there, and make it all even."
" She's more like a gypsy nor ever," said aunt Pullet, in f-
pitying tone; " it's very bad luck, sister, as the gell should
be so brown ; the boy's fair enough. I doubt it'll stand in
her way i* life to be so brown."
" She's a naughty child, as'll break her mother's heart,"
said Mrs. Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes.
Maggie seemed to be listening to a chorus of reproach and
derision. Her first flush came from anger, which gave her a
transient power of defiance, and Tom thought she was brav-
ing it out, supported by the recent appearance of the pudding
and custard. Under this impression, he whispered, "Oh,
my! Maggie, I told you you'd catch it." He meant to be
friendly, but Maggie felt convinced that Tom was rejoicing
in her ignominy. Her feeble power of defiance left her in an
instant, her heart swelled, and getting up from her chair, she
ran to her father, hid her face on his shoulder, and burst out
into loud sobbing.
" Come, come, my wench, " said her father, soothingly, put-
ting his arm round her, "never mind; you was i' the right to
cut it off if it plagued you ; give over crying ; father'll take
your part."
Delicious words of tenderness! Maggie never forgot any of
these moments when her father " took her part " ; she kept
them in her heart, and thought of them long years after, when
every one else said that her father had done very ill by his
children.
" How your husband does spoil that child, Bessy ! " said
Mrs. Glegg, in a loud "aside," to Mrs. Tulliver. "It'll be
the ruin of her, if you don't take care. My father never
brought his children up so, else we should ha' been a different
sort o' family to what we are."
Mrs. Tulliver'3 domestic sorrows seemed at this moment to
74 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
hare reached the point at which insensibility begins. She
took no notice of her sister's remark, but threw back her cap*
strings and dispensed the pudding, in mute resignation.
With the dessert there came entire deliverance for Maggie,
for the children were told they might have their nuts and wine
in the summer-house, since the day was so mild; and they
scampered out among the budding bushes of the garden with
the alacrity of small animals getting from under a burning-
glass.
Mrs. Tulliver had her special reason for this permission :
now the dinner was despatched, and every one's mind disen-
gaged, it was the right moment to communicate Mr. Tulliver's
intention concerning Tom, and it would be as well for Tom
himself to be absent. The children were used to hear them-
selves talked of as freely as if they were birds, and could un-
derstand nothing, however they might stretch their necks and
listen; but on this occasion Mrs. Tulliver manifested an un-
usual discretion, because she had recently had evidence that
the going to school to a clergyman was a sore point with Tom,
who looked at it as very much on a par with going to school
to a constable. Mrs. Tulliver had a sighing sense that her
husband would do as he liked, whatever sister Glegg said, or
sister Pullet either ; but at least they would not be able to say,
if the thing turned out ill, that Bessy had fallen in with her
husband's folly without letting her own friends know a word
about it.
" Mr. Tulliver, " she said, interrupting her husband in his
talk with Mr. Deane, "it's time now to tell the children's
aunts and uncles what you're thinking of doing with Tom,
isn't it? "
"Very well," said Mr. Tulliver, rather sharply, "I've no
objections to tell anybody what I mean to do with him. I've
settled, " he added, looking toward Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane,
— " I've settled to send him to a Mr. Stelling, a parson, down
at King's Lorton, there, — an uncommon clever fellow, I un-
derstand, as'll put him up to most things."
There was a rustling demonstration of surprise in the com*
pany, such as you may have observed in a country congrega-
tion when they hear an allusion to their week'day affairs
BOY AND GIRL. 75
from the pulpit. It was equally astonishing to the aunts and
uncles to find a parson introduced into Mr. Tulliver's family
arrangements. As for uncle Pullet, he could hardly have
been more thoroughly obfuscated if Mr. Tulliver had said that
he was going to send Tom to the Lord Chancellor ; for uncla
Pullet belonged to that extinct class of British yoemen who,
dressed in good broadcloth, paid high rates and taxes, went to
church, and ate a particularly good dinner on Sunday, without
dreaming that the British constitution in Church and State
had a traceable origin any more than the solar system and the
fixed stars. It is melancholy, but true, that Mr. Pullet had
the most confused idea of a bishop as a sort of a baronet, who
might or might not be a clergyman; and as the rector of his
own parish was a man of high family and fortune, the idea
that a clergyman could be a schoolmaster was too remote from
Mr. Pullet's experience to be readily conceivable. I know it
is difficult for people in these instructed times to believe in
uncle Pullet's ignorance; but let them reflect on the remark-
able results of a great natural faculty under favoring circum-
stances. And uncle Pullet had a great natural faculty for igno-
rance. He was the first to give utterance to his astonishment.
" Why, what can you be going to send him to a parson for? "
he said, with an amazed twinkling in his eyes, looking at Mr.
Glegg and Mr. Deane, to see if they showed any signs of com-
prehension.
" Why, because the parsons are the best schoolmasters, by
what I can make out," said poor Mr. Tulliver, who, in the
maze of this puzzling world, laid hold of any clue with great
readiness and tenacity. "Jacobs at th' academy's no parson,
and he's done very bad by the boy ; and I made up my mind,
if I sent him to school again, it should be to somebody differ-
ent to Jacobs. And this Mr. Stelling, by what I can mak(
out, is the sort o* man I want. And I mean my boy to go to
him at Midsummer," he concluded, in a tone of decision, tap-
ping his snuff-box and taking a pinch.
" You'll have to pay a swinging half-yearly bill, then, eh,
Tulliver? The clergymen have highish notions, in general,*
said Mr. Deane, taking snuff vigorously, as he always did vixen
wishing to maintain a neutral position.
TB THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" What! do you think tho parson'll te*ach him to know a
good sample o' wheat when he sees it, neighbor Tulliver? "
said Mr. Glegg, who was fond of his jest, and having retired
from business, felt that it was not only allowable but becom-
ing in him to take a playful view of things.
" Why, you see, I've got a plan i* my head about Tom,"
'said Mr. Tulliver, pausing after that statement and lifting up
his glass.
" Well, if I may be allowed to speak, and it's seldom as I
am," said Mrs. Glegg, with a tone of bitter meaning, "I
should like to know what good is to come to the boy by
bringin* him up above his fortin."
" Why," said Mr. Tulliver, not looking at Mrs. Glegg, but
at the male part of his audience, " you see, I've made up my
mind not to bring Tom up to my own business. I've had my
thoughts about it all along, and I made up my mind by what
I saw with Garnett and his son. I mean to put .\im to some
business as he can go into without capital, and I want to give
him an eddication as he'll be even wi' the lawyer* and folks,
and put me up to a notion now an' then."
Mrs. Glegg emitted a long .sort of guttural sound with closed
lips, that smiled in mingled pitf and scorn.
"It 'ud be a fine deal better for some people," she sai4,
after that introductory note, "if they'd let the lawyers
alone."
"Is he at the head of a grammar school, then, this clergy-
man, such as that at Market Bewley? " said Mr. Deane.
" No, nothing o' that, " said Mr. Gulliver. " He won't take
jtiore than two or three pupils, and so he'll have the more time
-|o attend to 'em, you know."
"Ah, and get his eddication done tbe sooner; they can't
learn much at a time when there's so many of 'em," said
uncle Pullet, feeling that he was getting quite an insight into
this difficult matter.
"But he'll want the more pay, I doubt," said Mr. Glegg.
"Ay, ay, a cool hundred a year, that's all," said Mr. Tulli-
ver, with some pride at his own spirited course. " But then,
you know, it's an investment; Tom's eddication 'oik be at
much capital to him.*
BOY AND GIRL. 77
"Ay, there's something in that," said Mr. Glegg. "Well,
well, neighbor Tulliver, you may be right, you may be right:
' When land Is gone and money's spent,
Then learning is most excellent.1
\1 remember seeing those two lines wrote on a window at
Buxton. But us that have got no learning had better keep
our money, eh, neighbor Pullet?" Mr. Glegg rubbed his
knees, and looked very pleasant. i
"Mr. Glegg, I wonder a£you," said his wife. "It's very
unbecoming in a man o' your age and belongings."
" What's unbecoming, Mrs. G. ? " said Mr. Glegg, winking
pleasantly at the company. " My new blue coat as I've got
on?"
" I pity your weakness, Mr. Glegg. I say it's unbecoming
to be making a joke when you see your own kin going head-
longs to ruin."
"If you mean me by that," said Mr. Tulliver, considerably
nettled, "you needn't trouble yourself to fret about me. I
can manage my own affairs without troubling other folks."
"Bless me! " said Mr. Deane, judiciously introducing a new
idea, " why, now I come to think of it, somebody said Wakem
was going to send his son — the deformed lad — to a clergyman,
didn't they, Susan?" (appealing to his wife).
"I can give no account of it, I'm sure," said Mrs. Deane,
closing her lips very tightly again. Mrs. Deane was not a
woman to take part in a scene where missiles were flying.
" Well, " said Mr. Tulliver, speaking all the more cheerfully,
that Mrs. Glegg might see he didn't mind her, " if Wakem
;hiuks o' sending his son to a clergyman, depend on it I shall
nake no mistake i' sending Tom to one. Wakem's as big a
scoundrel as Old Harry ever made, but he knows the length
of every man's foot he's got to deal with. Ay, ay, tell me
who's Wakem's butcher, and I'll tell you where to get your
meat."
"But lawyer Wakem's son's got a hump-back," said Mrs.
Pullet, who felt as if the whole business had a funereal aspect;
"it's more nat'ral to send him to a clergyman."
"Yes," said Mr. Glegg, interpreting Mrs. Pullet's observa-
78 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
tion with erroneous plausibility, "you must consider that,
neighbor Tulliverj Wakem's son isn't likely to follow any
business. Wakem 'ull make a gentleman of him, poor fellow."
"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., in a tone which implied that
her indignation would fizz and ooze a little, though she was
determined to keep it corked up, "you'd far better hold your
tongue. Mr. Tulliver doesn't want to know your opinion nor
mine neither. There's folks in the world as know better than
everybody else."
" Why, I should think that's you, if we're to trust your
own tale, " said Mr. Tulliver, beginning to boil up again.
" Oh, 1 say nothing, " said Mrs. Glegg, sarcastically. " My
advice has never been asked, and I don't give it."
"It'll be the first time, then," said Mr. Tulliver. "It's
the only thing you're over-ready at giving."
"I've been over-ready at lending, then, if I haven't been
over-ready at giving," said Mrs. Glegg. "There's folks I've
lent money to, as perhaps I shall repent o* lending money to
kin."
" Come, come, come," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly. But Mr.
Tulliver was not to be hindered of his retort.
" You've got a bond for it, I reckon," he said; " and you'v j
had your five per cent, kin or no kin."
" Sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, pleadingly, " drink your wine,
and let me give you some almonds and raisins."
"Bessy, I'm sorry for you," said Mrs. Glegg, very much
with the feeling of a cur that seizes the opportunity of divert-
ing his bark toward the man who carries no stick. " It's poor
work talking o' almonds and raisins."
"Lors, sister Glegg, don't be so quarrelsome," said Mrs.
Pullet, beginning to cry a little. " You may be struck with a
fit, getting so red in the face after dinner, and we are but just
out o' mourning, all of us, — and all wi' gowns craped 'alike
and just put by; it's very bad among sisters."
"I should think it is bad," said Mrs. Glegg. "Things are
come to a fine pass when one sister invites the other to her
house o' purpose to quarrel with her and abuse her."
"Softly, softly, Jane; be reasonable, be reasonable," said
Mr. Glegg.
BOY A1STD GIRL. 7S
But while he was speaking, Mr. Tulliver, who had by n«
deans said enough to satisfy his anger, burst out again.
" Who wants to quarrel with you? " he said. " It's you as
can't let people alone, but must be gnawing at 'em forever,
/ should never want to quarrel with any woman if she kept
her place."
"My place, indeed!" said Mrs. Glegg, getting rather more
shrill. " There's your betters, Mr. Tulliver, as are dead and
in their grave, treated me with a different sort o' respect to
what you do; though I've got a husband as'll sit by and see
me abused by them as 'ud never ha* had the chance if there
hadn't been them in our family as married worse than they
might ha' done."
"If you talk o' that," said Mr. Tulliver, *my family's as
good as yours, and better, for it hasn't got a damned ill-tem-
pered woman in it! "
"Well," said Mrs. Glegg, rising from her chair, "I don't
know whether you think it's a fine thing to sit by and hear
me swore at, Mr. Glegg j but I'm not going to stay a minute
longer in this house. You can stay behind, and come home
with the gig, and I'll walk home."
" Dear heart, dear heart! " said Mr. Glegg in a melancholy
tone, as he followed his wife out of the room.
" Mr. Tulliver, how could you talk so? " said Mrs. Tulliver,
with the tears in her eyes.
"Let her go," said Mr. Tulliver, too hot to be damped by
any amount of tears. " Let her go, and the sooner the better $
she won't be trying to domineer over me again in a hurry."
"Sister Pullet," said Mrs. Tulliver, helplessly, "do you
think it 'ud be any use for you to go after her and try to
pacify her? "
"Better not, better not," said Mr. Deane. "You'll make
it up another day."
u Then, sisters, shall we go and look at the children? " said
Mrs. Tulliver, drying her eyes.
No proposition could have been more seasonable. Mt.
Tulliver felt very much as if the air had been cleared of ob-
trusive flies now the women were out of the room. There were
few things he liked better than a chat with Mr. Deaue, whose
60
close application Co business allowed the pleasure very rarely,
Mr. Deaue, He considered, was the "knowingest" man of hia
acquaintance, and he had besides a ready causticity of tongue
that made an agreeable supplement to Mr. Tulliver's own ten-
dency that way, which had remained in rather an inarticulate
condition. And now the women were gone, they could carry
on their serious talk without frivolous interruption. They
could exchange their views concerning the Duke of Welling-
ton, whose conduct in the Catholic Question had thrown such
an entirely new light on his character; and speak slightingly
of his conduct at the battle of Waterloo, which he would never
have won if there hadn't been a great many Englishmen at
his back, not to speak of Blucher and the Prussians, who, as
Mr. Tulliver had heard from a person of particular knowledge
in that matter, had come up in the very nick of time ; though
here there was a slight dissidence, Mr. Deane remarking that
he was not disposed to give much credit to the Prussians, —
the build of their vessels, together with the unsatisfactory
character of transactions in Dantzic beer, inclining him to form
rather a low view of Prussian pluck generally. Bather beaten
on this ground, Mr. Tulliver proceeded to express his fears
that the country could never again be what it used to be ; but
Mr. Deane, attached to a firm of which the returns were on
the increase, naturally took a more lively view of the present,
and had some details to give concerning the state of the im-
ports, especially in hides and spelter, which soothed Mr. Tul-
liver's imagination by throwing into more distant perspective
the period when the country would become utterly the prey of
Papists and Eadicals, and there would be no more chance for
honest men.
Uncle Pullet sat by and listened with twinkling eyes to
these high matters. He didn't understand politics himself,—*
thought they were a natural gift, — but by what he could make
out, this Duke of Wellington waa no better than he should b&
BOY AND GIRL. <1
CHAPTER VHL
TULLITF.B SHOWS HIS WEAKER 8IDB.
" SUPPOSE sister Glegg should call her money in ; it 'ud be
very awkward for you to have to raise five hundred pounds
now," said Mrs. Tulliver to her husband that evening, as she
took a plaintive review of the day.
Mrs. Tulliver had lived thirteen years with her husband,
yet she retained in all the freshness of her early married life
a facility of saying things which drove him in the opposite
direction to the one she desired. Some minds are wonderful
for keeping their bloom in this way, as a patriarchal goldfish
apparently retains to the last its youthful illusion that it can
swim in a straight line beyond the encircling glass. Mrs.
Tulliver was an amiable fish of this kind, and after running
her head against the same resisting medium for thirteen years
would go at it again to-day with undulled alacrity.
This observation of hers tended directly to convince Mr.
Tulliver that it would not be at all awkward for him to raise
five hundred pounds ; and when Mrs. Tulliver became rather
pressing to know how he would raise it without mortgaging
the mill and the house which he had said he never would
mortgage, since nowadays people were none so ready to lend
money without security, Mr. Tulliver, getting warm, declared
that Mrs. Glegg might do as she liked about calling in her
money, he should pay it in whether or not. He was not going
to be beholden to his wife's sisters. When a man had married
into a family where there was a whole litter of women, he
might have plenty to put up with if he chose. But Mr. Tul-
liver did not choose.
Mrs. Tulliver cried a little in a trickling, quiet way as she
pnt on her nightcap ; but presently sank into a comfortable
sleep, lulled by the thought that she would talk everything
over with her sister Pullet to-morrow, when she was to take
the children to Garum Firs to tea. Not that she looked for-
ward to any distinct issue from that talk; but it seemed ink"
6
W THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
possible that past events should be so obstinate as to remain
unmodified when they were complained against.
Her husband lay awake rather longer, for he too was think-
ing of a visit he "would pay on the morrow; and his ideas on
the subject were not of so vague and soothing a kind as those
of his amiable partner.
Mr. Tulliver, when under the influence of a strong feeling,
had a promptitude in action that may seem inconsistent with
that painful sense of the complicated, puzzling nature of
human affairs under which his more dispassionate delibera-
tions were conducted ; but it is really not improbable that there
was a direct relation between these apparently contradictory
phenomena, since I have observed that for getting a strong
impression that a skein is tangled there is nothing like snatch-
ing hastily at a single thread. It was owing to this prompti-
tude that Mr. Tulliver was on horseback soon after dinner the
next day (he was not dyspeptic) on his way to Basset to see
his sister Moss and her husband. For having made up his
mind irrevocably that he would pay Mrs. Glegg her loan of
five hundred pounds, it naturally occurred to him that he had
a promissory note for three hundred pounds lent to his brother-
in-law Moss ; and if the said brother-in-law could manage to
pay in the money within a given time, it would go far to lessen
the fallacious air of inconvenience which Mr. Tulliver's spirited
step might have worn in the eyes of weak people who require
to know precisely how a thing is to be done before they are
strongly confident that it will be easy.
For Mr. Tulliver was in a position neither new nor striking,
but, like other everyday things, sure to have a cumulative
effect that will be felt in the long run : he was held to be a
much more substantial man than he really was. And as we
are all apt to believe what the world believes about us, it was
his habit to think of failure and ruin with the same sort of
remote pity with which a spare, long-necked man hears that
his plethoric short-necked neighbor is stricken with apoplexy.
He had been always used to hear pleasant jokes about his ad-
vantages as a man who worked his own mill, and owned a
pretty bit of land; and these jokes naturally kept up his sense
that he was a man of considerable substance. They gave 9
BOY AND GIRL. M
pleasant flavor to his glass on a market-day, and if it had not
been for the recurrence of half-yearly payments, Mr. Tulliver
would really have forgotten that there was a mortgage of two
thousand pounds on his very desirable freehold. That was
not altogether his own fault, since one of the thousand pounds
was his sister's fortune, which he had to pay on her marriage;
and a man who has neighbors that will go to law with him is
not likely to pay off his mortgages, especially if he enjoys the
good opinion of acquaintances who want to borrow a hundred
pounds on security too lofty to be represented by parchment.
Our friend Mr. Tulliver had a good-natured fibre in him, and
did not like to give harsh refusals even to his sister, who had
not only come into the world in that superfluous way charac-
teristic of sisters, creating a necessity for mortgages, but had
quite thrown herself away in marriage, and had crowned her
mistakes by having an eighth baby. On this point Mr. Tul-
liver was conscious of being a little weak ; but he apologized
to himself by saying that poor Gritty had been a good-looking
wench before she married Moss; he would sometimes say this
even with a slight trenmlousness in his voice. But this
morning he was in a mood more becoming a man of business,
and in the course of his ride along the Basset lanes, with their
deep ruts, — lying so far away from a market-town that the
labor of drawing produce and manure was enough to lake
away the best part of the profits on such poor land as that
parish was made of, — he got up a due amount of irritation
against Moss as a man without capital, who, if murrain and
blight were abroad, was sure to have his share of them, and
who, the more you tried to help him out of the mud, would
sink the further in. It would do him good rather than harm,'
now, if he were obliged to raise this three hundred pounds ; it
would make him look about him better, and not act so fool-
ishly about his wool this year as he did the last; in fact, Mr.
Tulliver had been too easy with his brother-in-law, and be-
cause he had let the interest run on for two years, Moss was
likely enough to think that he should never be troubled about
the principal. But Mr. Tulliver was determined not to ep-
courage such shuffling people any longer; and a ride along the
Basset lanes was not likely to enervate a man's resolution by
84 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
softening His temper. The deep-trodden hoof-marks, madt
in the muddiest days of winter, gave him a shake now and
then which suggested a rash but stimulating snarl at the
father of lawyers, who, whether by means of his hoof or
otherwise, had doubtless something to do with this state of the
roads; and the abundance of foul land arid neglected fences
that met his eye, though they made no part of his brother
Moss's farm, strongly contributed to his dissatisfaction with
that unlucky agriculturist. If this wasn't Moss's fallow, it
might have been; Basset was all alike; it was a beggarly
parish, in Mr. Tulliver's opinion, and his opinion was cer-
tainly not groundless. Basset had a poor soil, poor roads, a
poor non-resident landlord, a poor non-resident vicar, and
rather less than half a curate, also poor. If any one strongly
impressed with the power of the human mind to triumph over
circumstances will contend that the parishioners of Basset
might nevertheless have been a very superior class of people,
I have nothing to urge against that abstract proposition ; I
only know that, in point of fact, the Basset mind was in strict
keeping with its circumstances. The muddy lanes, green or
clayey, that seemed to the unaccustomed eye to lead nowhere
but into each other, did really lead, with patience, to a dis-
tant high-road ; but there were many f eet.in Basset which they
led more frequently to a centre of dissipation, spoken of for-
merly as the " Markis o1 Granby, " but among intimates as
"Dickison's." A large low room with a sanded floor; a cold
scent of tobacco, modified by undetected beer-dregs; Mr.
Dickison leaning against the door-post with a melancholy
pimpled face, looking as irrelevant to the daylight as a last
night's guttered candle, — all this may not seem a very seduc-
tive form of temptation ; but the majority of men in Basset
found it fatally alluring when encountered on their road
toward four o'clock on a wintry afternoon ; and if any wife in
Basset wished to indicate that her husband was not a pleasure-
seeking man, she could hardly do it more emphatically than
by saying that he didn't spend a shilling at Dickison's from
one Whitsuntide to another. Mrs. Moss had said so of tier
husband more than once, when her brother was in a mood to
find fault with him, as he certainly was to-day. And nothing
EOT AND GIRL. 85
could be less pacifying to Mr. Tulliver than the behavior of
the farmyard gate, which he no sooner attempted to push open
with his riding-stick than it acted as gates without the upper
hinge are known to do, to the peril of shins, whether equine
or human. He was about to get down and lead his horse
through the damp dirt of the hollow farmyard, shadowed
drearily by the large half-timbered buildings, up to the long
line of tumble-down dwelling-houses standing on a raised
causeway ; but the timely appearance of a cowboy saved him
that frustration of a plan he had determined on, — namely, not
to get down from his horse during this visit. If a man means
to be hard, let him keep in his saddle and speak from that
height, above the level of pleading eyes, and with the com-
mand of a distant horizon. Mrs. Moss heard the sound of
the horse's feet, and, when her brother rode up, was already
outside the kitchen door, with a half-weary smile on her face,
and a black-eyed baby in her arms. Mrs. Moss's face bore a
faded resemblance to her brother's; baby's little fat hand,
pressed against her, cheek, seemed to show more strikingly that
the cheek was faded.
"Brother, I'm glad to see you," she said, in an affectionate
tone. " I didn't look for you to-day. How do you do? n
"Oh, pretty well, Mrs. Moss, pretty well," answered the
brother, with cool deliberation, as if it were rather too for-
ward of her to ask that question. She knew at once that her
brother was not in a good humor; he never called her Mrs.
Moss except when he was angry, and when they were in com*
pany. But she thought it was in the order of nature that
people who were poorly off should be snubbed. Mrs. Moss
did not take her stand on the equality of the human race ; she
was a patient, prolific, loving-hearted woman.
"Your husband isn't in the house, I suppose?" added Mr.
Tulliver after a grave pause, during which four children had
ron out, like chickens whose mother has been suddenly in
eclipse behind the hen-coop.
"No," said Mrs. Moss, "but he's only in the potato-field
yonders. Georgy, run to the Far Close in a minute, and tell
father your uncle's come. You'll get down, brother, won't
yoo, and take something?"
16 THE MILL ON THE
"No, no; I can't get down. I must be going home again
directly," said Mr. Tulliver, looking at the distance.
"And how's Mrs. Tulliver and the children?" said Mrs.
Moss, humbly, not daring to press her invitation.
"Oh, pretty well. Tom's going to a new school at Mid-
summer,— a deal of expense to me. It's bad work for me,
lying out o* my money."
" I wish you'd be so good as let the children come and see
their cousins some day. My little uns want to see their cousin
Maggie so as never was. And me her godmother, and so fond of
her; there's nobody *ud make a bigger fuss with her, according
to what they've got. And I know she likes to come, for she's
a loving child, and how quick and clever she is, to be sure! "
If Mrs. Moss had been one of the most astute women in the
world, instead of being one of the simplest, she could Lave
thought of nothing more likely to propitiate her brother than
this praise of Maggie. He seldom found any one volunteering
praise of " the little wench " ; it was usually left entirely to
himself to insist on her merits. But Maggie always appeared
in the most amiable light at her aunt Moss's; it was her
Alsatia, where she was out of the reach of law, — if she upset
anything, dirtied her shoes, or tore her frock, these things
were matters of course at her aunt Moss's. In spite of him-
self, Mr. Tulliver's eyes got milder, and he did not look away
from his sister as he said, —
"Ay; she's fonder o' you than o* the other aunts, I think.
She takes after our family: not a bit of her mother's in her."
" Moss says she's just like what I used to be," said Mrs.
Moss, " though I was never so quick and fond o* the books.
But I think my Lizzy's like her; she's sharp. Come here,
Lizzy, my dear, and let your uncle see you ; he hardly knows
you, you grow so fast."
Lizzy, a black-eyed child of seven, looked very shy when
her mother drew her forward, for the small Mosses were much
in awe of their uncle from Dorlcote Mill. She was inferior
enough to Maggie in fire and strength of expression to make
the resemblance between the two entirely flattering to Mr,
Tulliver's fatherly love.
"Ay, they're a bit alike, " he said, looking kindly at the
BOY AND GIRL. 87
little figure in the soiled pinafore. " They both take after our
mother. You've got enough o* gells, Gritty," he added, in a
tone half compassionate, half reproachful.
" Four of 'em, bless 'em ! " said Mrs. Moss, with a sigh,
stroking Lizzy's hair on each side of her forehead; " as many
as there's boys. They've got a brother apiece."
"Ah, but they must turn out and fend for themselves,"
said Mr. Tulliver, feeling that his severity was relaxing, and
trying to brace it by throwing out a wholesome hint. " They
mustn't look to hanging on their brothers."
"No; but I hope their brothers 'ull love the poor things,
and remember they came o' one father and mother; the lads
'ull never be the poorer for that," said Mrs. Moss, flashing
out with hurried timidity, like a half-smothered fire.
Mr. Tulliver gave his horse a little stroke on the flank,
then checked it, and said angrily, "Stand still with you I"
much to the astonishment of that innocent animal.
"And the more there is of 'em, the more they must love
one another," Mrs. Moss went on, looking at her children
with a didactic purpose. But she turned toward her brother
again to say, " Not but what I hope your boy 'ull allays be
good to his sister, though there's but two of 'em, like you
and me, brother."
The arrow went straight to Mr. Tulliver's heart. He had
not a rapid imagination, but the thought of Maggie was very
near to him, and he was not long in seeing his relation to his
own sister side by side with Tom's relation to Maggie. Would
the little wench ever be poorly off, and Tom rather hard upon
her?
"Ay, ay, Gritty," said the miller, with a new softness in
his tone; "but I've allays done what I could for you," he
added, as if vindicating himself from a reproach.
" I'm not denying that, brother, and I'm noways ungrate*
ful," said poor Mrs. Moss, too fagged by toil and children to
have strength left for any pride. "But here's the father.
What a while you've been, Moss I "
" While, do you call it? " said Mr. Moss, feeling out ol
breath and injured. " I've been running all the way. Won't
you 'light, Mr. Tulliver?"
88 THE MILL Off THE FLOSS.
" Well, I'll just get down and have a bit o' talk with yon
in the garden, '* said Mr. Tulliver, thinking that he should be
more likely to show a due spirit of resolve if his sister were
not present.
He got down, and passed with Mr. Moss into the garden,
toward an old yew-tree arbor, while his sister stood tapping
her baby on the back and looking wistfully after them.
Their entrance into the yew-tree arbor surprised several
fowls that were recreating themselves by scratching deep
holes in the dusty ground, and at once took flight with much
pother and cackling. Mr. Tulliver sat down on the bench,
and tapping the ground curiously here and there with his
stick, as if he suspected some hollowness, opened the conver-
sation by ooserving, with something like a snarl in his tone, —
" Why, you've got wheat again in that Corner Close, I see;
and never a bit o' dressing on it. You'll do no good with it
this year."
Mr. Moss, who, when he married Miss Tulliver, had been
regarded as the buck of Basset, now wore a beard nearly a
week old, and had the depressed, unexpectant air of a ma-
chine-horse. He answered in a patient-grumbling tone,
" Why, poor farmers like me must do as they can ; they must
leave it to them as have got money to play with, to put half
as much into the ground as they mean to get out of it."
" I don't know who should have money to play with, if it
isn't them as can borrow money without paying interest,"
said Mr. Tulliver, who wished to get into a slight quarrel; it
was the most natural and easy introduction to calling in money.
"I know I'm behind with the interest," said Mr. Moss,
" but I was so unlucky wi' the wool last year ; and what with
the Missis being laid up so, things have gone awk'arder nor
usual."
"Ay," snarled Mr. Tulliver, "there's folks as things 'ull
allays goawk'ardwith; empty sacks 'ull never stand upright."
" Well, I don't know what fault you've got to find wi' me,
Mr. Tulliver," said Mr. Moss, deprecatingly; "I know there
isn't a day-laborer works harder."
"What's the nse o* that," said Mr. Tulliver, sharply,
" when a man marries, and's got no capital to work his farm
BOY AND GIRL. 89
but his wife's bit o* fortin? I was against it from the first;
but you'd neither of you listen to me. And I can't lie out o*
my money any longer, for I've got to pay five hundred o*
Mrs. Glegg's, and there'll be Tom an expense to me. I
should find myself short, even saying I'd got back all as is
my own. You must look about and see how you can pay me
the three hundred pound."
"Well, if that's what you mean," said Mr. Moss, looking
blankly before him, " we'd better be sold up, and ha' done
with it; I must part wi' every head o' stock I've got, to pay
you and the landlord too. "
Poor relations are undeniably irritating, — their existence is
so entirely uncalled for on our part, and they are almost
always very faulty people. Mr. Tulliver had succeeded in
getting quite as much irritated with Mr. Moss as he had de-
sired, and he was able to say angrily, rising from his seat, —
" Well, you must do as you can. / can't find money for
everybody else as well as myself. I must look to my own
business and my own family. I can't lie out o' my money
any longer. You must raise it as quick as you can. "
Mr. Tulliver walked abruptly out of the arbor as he uttered
the last sentence, and, without looking round at Mr. Moss,
went on to the kitchen door, where the eldest boy was hold-
ing his horse, and his sister was waiting in a state of wonder-
ing alarm, which was not without its alleviations, for baby
was making pleasant gurgling sounds, and performing a great
deal of finger practice on the faded face. Mrs. Moss had eight
children, but could never overcome her regret that the twins
had not lived. Mr. Moss thought their removal was not
without its consolations. " Won't you come in, brother? "
she said, looking anxiously at her husband, who was walk-
ing slowly up, while Mr. Tulliver had his foot already in the
stirrup.
"No, no; good-by," said he, turning his horse's head, and
riding away.
No man could feel more resolute till he got outside the yard
gate, and a little way along the deep-rutted lane; but before
he reached the next turning, which would take him out of
tight of the dilapidated farm-buildings, he appeared to b*
90 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
smitten by some sudden thought. He checked his horse, and
made it stand still in the same spot for two or three minutes,
during which he turned his head from side to side in a melan-
choly way, as if he were looking at some painful object on
more sides than one. Evidently, after his fit of promptitude,
Mr. Tulliver was relapsing into the sense that this is a puz-
zling world. He turned his horse, and rode slowly back, giv •
ing vent to the climax of feeling which had determined this
movement by saying aloud, as he struck his horse, " Poor little
wench! she'll have nobody but Tom, belike, when I'm gone."
Mr. Tulliver 's return into the yard was descried by several
yxmng Mosses, who immediately ran in with the exciting news
to their mother, so that Mrs. Moss was again on the door-step
When her brother rode up. She had been crying, but was
rocking baby to sleep in her arms now, and made no ostenta-
tious show of sorrow as her brother looked at her, but merely
said:
" The father's gone to the field again, if you want him,
brother."
"No, Gritty, no," said Mr. Tulliver, in a gentle tone.
"Don't you fret, — that's all, — I'll make a shift without the
money a bit, only you must be as clever and contriving as you
can."
Mrs. Moss's tears came again at this unexpected kindness,
and she could say nothing.
"Come, come! — the little wench shall come and see you.
I'll bring her and Tom some day before he goes to school.
You mustn't fret. I'll allays be a good brother to you."
"Thank you for that word, brother," said Mrs. Moss, dry-
ing her tears ; then turning to Lizzy, she said, " Run now, and
fetch the colored egg for cousin Maggie. " Lizzy ran in, and
quickly reappeared with a small paper parcel.
" It's boiled hard, brother, and colored with thrums, very
pretty ; it was done o' purpose for Maggie. Will you please
to carry it in your pocket? n
"Ay, ay," said Mr. Tulliver, putting it carefully in his
side pocket. " Good-by."
And so the respectable miller returned along the Basset lanes
rather more puzzled than before as to ways and means, but
BOY AND GIRL. 91
Btill with the sense of a danger escaped. It had come across
his mind that if he were hard upon his sister, it might some-
how tend to make Tom hard upon Maggie at some distant day,
when her father was no longer there to take her part; for
simple people, like our friend Mr. Tulliver, are apt to clothe
unimpeachable feelings in erroneous ideas, and this was his
confused way of explaining to himself that his love and
anxiety for " the little wench " had given him a new sensibility
toward his sister.
CHAPTER IX.
TO OARUM PIER.
WHILE the possible troubles of Maggie's future were occupy-
ing her father' s mind, she herself was tasting only the bitter-
ness of the present. Childhood has no forebodings; but then,
it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.
The fact was, the day had begun ill with Maggie. The
pleasure of having Lucy to look at, and the prospect of the
afternoon visit to Gamin Firs, where she would hear uncle
Pullet's musical box, had been marred as early as eleven
o'clock by the advent of the hair-dresser from St. Ogg's, who
had spoken in the severest terms of the condition in which he
had found her hair, holding up one jagged lock after another
and saying, " See here 1 tut, tut, tut ! " in a tone of mingled
disgust and pity, which to Maggie's imagination was equivalent
to the strongest expression of public opinion. Mr. Kappitj
the hair-dresser, with his well-anointed coronal locks tending
wavily upward, like the simulated pyramid of flame on a monu-
mental urn, seemed to her at that moment the most formi-
dable of her contemporaries, into whose street at St. Ogg's she
would carefully refrain from entering through the rest of her
life.
Moreover, the preparation for a visit being always a serious
affair in the Dodson family, Martha was enjoined to have Mrs.
Tulliver's room ready an hour earlier than usual, that the lay-
ing out of the best clothes might not be deferred till the last
•3 THE MILL ON THE FLOSB.
Bioment, as was sometimes the case in families of lax views,
where the ribbon-strings were never rolled up, where there
was little or no wrapping in silver paper, and where the sense
that the Sunday clothes could be got at quite easily produced
no shock to the mind. Already, at twelve o'clock, Mrs. Tul-
liver had on her visiting costume, with a protective apparatus
of brown holland, as if she had been a piece of satin furniture
in danger of flies; Maggie was frowning and twisting hex
shoulders, that she might if possible shrink away from the
prickliest of tuckers, while her mother was remonstrating,
"Don't, Maggie, my dear ; don't make yourself so ugly I" and
Tom's cheeks were looking particularly brilliant as a relief to
his best blue suit, which he wore with becoming calmness,
having, after a little wrangling, effected what was always the
onft point of interest to him in his toilet : he had transferred all
the contents of his every-day pockets to those actually in wear.
As for Lucy, she was just as pretty and neat as she had
been yesterday ; no accidents ever happened to her clothes,
and she was never uncomfortable in them, so that she looked
with wondering pity at Maggie, pouting and writhing under
the exasperating tucker. Maggie would certainly have torn
it off, if she had not been checked by the remembrance of her
recent humiliation about her hair; as it was, she confined her-
self to fretting and twisting, and behaving peevishly about
the card-houses which they were allowed to build till dinner,
as a suitable amusement for boys and girls in their best clothes.
Tom could build perfect pyramids of houses; but Maggie's
would never bear the laying on the roof. It was always so
with the things that Maggie made; and Tom had deduced the
conclusion that no girls could ever make anything. But it
happened that Lucy proved wonderfully clever at building;
she handled the cards so lightly, and moved so gently, that
Tom condescended to admire her houses as well as his own,
the more readily because she had asked him to teach her.
Maggie, too, would have admired Lucy's houses, and would
have given up her own unsuccessful building to contemplate
them, without ill temper, if her tucker had not made her peev-
ish, and if Tom had not inconsiderately laughed when her
houses fell, and told her she was "a stupid,"
BOY AND GIRL. M
"Don't laugh at me, Tom!" she burst out angrily; "I'm
Hot a stupid. I know a great many things you don't.1'
"Oh, I dare say, Miss Spitfire! I'd never be such a cross
thing as you, making faces like that. Lucy doesn't do so. J
Hke Lucy better than you; /wish Lucy was my sister."
"Then it's very wicked and cruel of you to wish so," said
Maggie, starting up hurriedly from her place on the floor, and
upsetting Tom's wonderful pagoda. She really did not mean
it, but the circumstantial evidence was against her, and Tom
turned white with anger, but said nothing; he would have
struck her, only he knew it was cowardly to strike a girl, and
Tom Tulliver was quite determined he would never do any-
thing cowardly.
Maggie stood in dismay and terror, while Tom got up from
the floor and walked away, pale, from the scattered ruins of
his pagoda, and Lucy looked on mutely, like a kitten pausing
from its lapping.
"Oh, Tom," said Maggie, at last, going half-way toward
him, "I didn't mean to knock it down, indeed, indeed I
didn't."
Tom took no notice of her, but took, instead, two or three
hard peas out of his pocket, and shot them with his thumb-
nail against the window, vaguely at first, but presently with
the distinct aim of hitting a superannuated blue-bottle which
was exposing its imbecility in the spring sunshine, clearly
against the views of Nature, who had provided Tom and the
peas for the speedy destruction of this weak individual.
Thus the morning had been made heavy to Maggie, and
Tom's persistent coldness to her all through their walk spoiled
the firesh air and sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look
at tha half-built bird's nest without caring to show it Maggie,
and peeled a willow switch for Lucy and himself, without
cffering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, " Maggie, shouldn't
you like one?" but Tom was deaf.
Still, the sight of the peacock opportunely spreading his
tail 0,1 the stackyard wall, just as they reached Garum .Firs,
was enough to divert the mind temporarily from personal
grievaicps. And this was only the beginning of beautiful
sights &t Gaium Firs. All the farmyard life was wonderful
34 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
there, — bantams, speckled and top-knotted; Friesland hens,
with their feathers all turned the wrong way ; Guinea-fowls that
flew and screamed and dropped their pretty spotted feathers;
pouter-pigeons and a tame magpie ; nay, a goat, and a won-
derful brindled dog, half mastiff, half bull -dog, as large as a
lion. Then there were white railings and white gates all
about, and glittering weathercocks of various design, and
garden-walks paved with pebbles in beautiful patterns, — noth-
ing was quite common at Garum Firs; and Tom thought thai
the unusual size of the toads there was simply due to the gen-
eral unusualness which characterized uncle Pullet's possession?
as a gentleman farmer. Toads who paid rent were naturally
leaner. As for the house, it was not less remarkable ; it had
a receding centre, and two wiugs with battlemented turrets,
and was covered with glittering white stucco.
Uncle Pullet had seen the expected party approaching from
the window, and made haste to unbar and unchain the front
door, kept always in this fortified condition from fear of
tramps, who might be supposed to know of the glass case of
stuffed birds in the hall, and to contemplate rushing in and
carrying it away on their heads. Aunt Pullet, too, appeared
at the doorway, and as soon as her sister was within hearing
said, "Stop the children, for God's sake! Bessy; don'tlet'em
come up the door-steps; Sally's bringing the old mat and the
duster, to rub their shoes."
Mrs. Pullet's front-door mats were by no means intended to
wipe shoes on ; the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty
work. Tom rebelled particularly against this shoe-wiping,
which he always considered in the light of an indignity to his
sex. He felt it as the beginning of the disagreeables incident
.to a visit at aunt Pullet's, where he had once been compelled
to sit with towels wrapped round his boots; a fact which may
serve to correct the too-hasty conclusion that a visit to Garum
Firs must have been a great treat to a young gentleman fond
of animals, — fond, that is, of throwing stones at them.
The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine compan-
ions; it was the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which
had very handsome carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare
bedroom, so that the ascent of these glossy steps might have
BOY AND GIRL. 95
served, in barbarous times, as a trial by ordeal from which
none but the most spotless virtue could have come off with un-
broken limbs. Sophy's weakness about these polished stairs
was always a subject of bitter remonstrance on Mrs. Glegg's
part; but Mrs. Tulliver ventured on no comment, only think-
ing to herself it was a mercy when she and the children were
safe on the landing.
" Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy, n said
Mrs. Pullet, in a pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her
cap.
" Has she, sister? " said Mrs. Tulliver, with an air of much
interest. " And how do you like it? "
" It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and
putting 'em in again," said Mrs. Pullet, drawing "a bunch of
keys from her pocket and looking at them earnestly, " but it
'ud be a pity for you to go away without seeing it. There's
no knowing what may happen."
Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious con-
sideration, which determined her to single out a particular key.
" I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister, "
said Mrs. Tulliver; "but I should like to see what sort of a
crown she's made you."
Mrs. Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one
wing of a very bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily
supposed she would find the new bonnet. Not at all. Such
a supposition could only have arisen from a too-superficial
acquaintance with the habits of the Dodson family. In this
wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was seeking something small enough to
be hidden among layers of Jinen, — it was a door-key.
" You must come with me into the best room," said Mrs.
Pullet.
"May the children come too, sister?" inquired Mrs. Tulli-
rer, who saw that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager.
"Well," said aunt Pullet, reflectively, "it'll perhaps be
safer for 'em to come; they'll be touching something if we
leave 'em behind."
So they went in procession along the bright and slippery
corridor, dimly lighted by the semi-lunar top of the window
which rose above the closed shutter; it was really c^iite sol*
96 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
emn. Aunt Pullet paused and unlocked a door which opened
on something still more solemn than the passage, — a darkened
loom, in which the outer light, entering feebly, showed what
looked like the corpses of furniture in white shrouds. Every
thing that was not shrouded stood with its legs upward.
Lucy laid hold of Maggie's frock, and Maggie's heart beat
rapidly.
Aunt Pullet half -opened the shutter and then unlocked the
wardrobe, with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite
in keeping with the funereal solemnity of the scene. The de-
licious scent of rose-leaves that issued from the wardrobe
made the process of taking out sheet after sheet of silver
paper quite pleasant to assist at, though the sight of the bon-
net at last was an anticlimax to Maggie, who would have
preferred something more strikingly preternatural. But few
things could have been more impressive to Mrs. Tulliver. She
Jooked all round it in silence for some moments, and then said
emphatically, " Well, sister, I'll never speak against the full
crowns again ! "
It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt
something was due to it.
" You'd like to see it on, sister?" she said sadly. "I'll
open the shutter a bit further."
"Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister," Baid
Mrs. Tulliver.
Mrs. Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp
with a jutting promontory of curls which was common to the
more mature and judicious women of those times, and placing
the bonnet on her head, turned slowly round, like a draper's
lay-figure, that Mrs. Tulliver might miss no point of view.
" I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon
on this left side, sister ; what do you think? " said Mrs. Pullet.
Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and
turned her head on one side. " Well, I think it's best as it
is; if you meddled with it, sister, you might repent."
"That's true," said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and
looking at it contemplatively.
" How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?"
said Mrs Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the
EOT AND
possibility of getting a humble imitation of this
made from a piece of silk she had at home.
Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and
then whispered, " Pullet pays for it ; he said I was to have
the best bonnet at Garum Church, let the next best be whose
it woukL"
She began slowly to adjust the trimmings, in preparation
for returning it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts
seemed to have taken a melancholy turn, for she shook her head.
"Ah," she said at last, "I may never wear it twice, sister:
who knows?"
"Don't talk o* that, sister," answered Mrs. Tulliver. wl
hope you'll have your health this summer."
" Ah I but there may come a death in the family, as there
did soon after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott
may go, and we can't think o* wearing crape less nor half a
year for him."
"That would be unlucky," said Mrs. Tulliver, entering
thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune decease.
" There's never so much pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the sec-
ond year, especially when the crowns are so chancy, — never
two summers alike."
"Ah, it's the way i* this world," said Mrs. Pullet, return-
ing the bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She main-
tained a silence characterized by head-shaking, until they had
all issued from the solemn chamber and were in her own room
again. Then, beginning to cry, she said, "Sister, if you
should never see that bonnet again till I'm dead and gone,
you'll remember I showed it you this day."
Mrs. Tulliver felt that she ought to be affected, but she was
a woman of sparse tears, stout and healthy ; she couldn't cry
so much as her sister Pullet did, and had often felt her defi-
ciency at funerals. Her effort to bring tears into her eyes
issued in an odd contraction of her face. Maggie, looking on
attentively, felt that there was some painful mystery about her
aunt's bonnet which she was considered too young to under-
stand; indignantly conscious, all the while, that she could
have understood that, as well as everything else, if she had
teen taken into confidence.
08 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
When they went down, uncle Pullet observed, with som«
acumen, that he reckoned the missis had been showing her
bonnet, — that was what had made them so long upstairs.
With Tom the interval had seemed still longer, for he had
been seated in irksome constraint on the edge of a sofa di-
rectly opposite his uncle Pullet, who regarded him with twin-
kling gray eyes, and occasionally addressed him as " Young
sir."
"Well, young sir, what do you learn at school?" was a
standing question with uncle Pullet; whereupon Tom always
looked sheepish, rubbed his hands across his face, and an-
swered, "I don't know." It was altogether so embarrassing
to be seated tete-a-tete with uncle Pullet, that Tom could not
even look at the prints on the walls, or the fly-cages, or the
wonderful flower-pots ; he saw nothing but his uncle's gaiters.
Not that Tom was in awe of his uncle's mental superiority;
indeed, he had made up his mind that he didn't want to be a
gentleman farmer, because he shouldn't like to be such a thin-
legged, silly fellow as his uncle Pullet, — a molly-coddle, in
fact. A boy's sheepishness is by no means a sign of over-
mastering reverence ; and while you are making encouraging
advances to him under the idea that he is overwhelmed by a
sense of your age and wisdom, ten to one he is thinking you
extremely queer. The only consolation I can suggest to you
is, that the Greek boys probably thought the same of Aris-
totle. It is only when you have mastered a restive horse, or
thrashed a drayman, or have got a gun in your hand, that
these shy juniors feel you to be a truly admirable and envi-
able character. At least, I am quite sure of Tom Tulliver's
sentiments on these points. In very tender years, when he
still wore a lace border under his outdoor cap, he was often
observed peeping through the bars of a gate and making min-
atory gestures with his small forefinger while he scolded the
sheep with an inarticulate burr, intended to strike terror into
their astonished minds ; indicating thus early that desire for
mastery over the inferior animals, wild and domestic, includ-
ing cockchafers, neighbors' dogs, and small sisters, which in
all ages has been an attribute of so much promise for the for-
tunes of our race. Now, Mr. Pullet never rode anything
BOY AND GIRL. 99
taller than a low pony, and was the least predatory of men, con*
sidering firearms dangerous, as apt to go off of themselves by
nobody's particular desire. So that Tom was not without
strong reasons when, in confidential talk with a chum, he had
described uncle Pullet as a nincompoop, taking care at the
same time to observe that he was a very "rich fellow."
The only alleviating circumstance in a tete-a-tete with uncle
Pullet was that he kept a variety of lozenges and peppermint-
drops about his person, and when at a loss for conversation,
he filled up the void by proposing a mutual solace of this kind.
"Do you like peppermints, young sir?" required only a
tacit answer when it was accompanied by a presentation of
the article in question.
The appearance of the little girls suggested to ancle Pullet
the further solace of small sweet-cakes, of which he also kept
a stock under lock and key for his own private eating on wet
days; but the three children had no sooner got the tempting
delicacy between their fingers, than aunt Pullet desired them
to abstain from eating it till the tray and the plates came,
since with those crisp cakes they would make the floor " all
over " crumbs. Lucy didn't mind that much, for the cake was
so pretty, she thought it was rather a pity to eat it ; but Tom,
watching his opportunity while the elders were talking, has-
tily stowed it in his mouth at two bites, and chewed it fur-
tively. As for Maggie, becoming fascinated, as usual, by a
print of Ulysses and Nausicaa, which uncle Pullet had bought
as a "pretty Scripture thing," she presently let fall her cake,
and in an unlucky movement crushed it beneath her foot, — a
source of so much agitation to aunt Pullet and conscious dis-
grace to Maggie, that she began to despair of hearing the
musical snuff-box to-day, till, after some reflection, it occurred
to her that Lucy was in high favor enough to venture on ask-
ing for a tune. So she whispered to Lucy ; and Lucy, who
always did what she was desired to do, went up quietly to her
uncle's knee, and blushing all over her neck while she fingered
her necklace, said, "Will you please play us a tune, uncle?"
Lucy thought it was by reason of some exceptional talent
in uncle Pullet that the snuff-box played such beautiful tunes,
and indeed tLd thing was viewed in that light by the majority
100 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
of his neighbors in Garum. Mr. Pullet had bought the box,
to begin with, and he understood winding it up, and knew
which tune it was going to play beforehand; altogether, the
possession of this unique " piece of music " was a proof that
Mr. Pullet's character was not of that entire nullity which
might otherwise have been attributed to it. But uncle Pullet,
when entreated to exhibit his accomplishment, never depreci-
ated it by a too-ready consent. " We'll see about it, " was the
answer he always gave, carefully abstaining from any sign of
compliance till a suitable number of minutes had passed.
Uncle Pullet had a programme for all great social occasions,
and in this way fenced himself in from much painful confu-
sion and perplexing freedom of will.
Perhaps the suspense did heighten Maggie's enjoyment
when the fairy tune began ; for the first time she quite forgot
that she had a load on her mind, that Tom was angry with
her; and by the time "Hush, ye pretty warbling choir," had
been played, her face wore that bright look of happiness,
while she sat immovable with her hands clasped, which some-
times comforted her mother with the sense that Maggie could
look pretty now and then, in spite of her brown skin. But
when the magic music ceased, she jumped up, and running
toward Tom, put her arm round his neck and said, " Oh, Tom,
isn't it pretty?"
Lest you should think it showed a revolting insensibility in
Tom that he felt any new anger toward Maggie for this un-
called-for and, to him, inexplicable caress, I must tell you
that he had his glass of cowslip wine in his hand, and that
she jerked him so as to make him spill half of it. He must
have been an extreme milksop not to say angrily, " Look there,
now ! " especially when his resentment was sanctioned, as it
was, by general disapprobation of Maggie's behavior.
"Why don't you sit still, Maggie? " her mother said peev-
ishly.
" Little gells mustn't come to see me if they behave in that
way," said aunt Pullet.
" Why, you're too rough, little miss," said uncle Pullet.
Poor Maggie sat down again, with the music all chased out
of her soul, and the seven small demons all in again.
DOT AND GIRL. 10J
Mrs. Tulliver, foreseeing nothing but misbehavior while
the children remained indoors, took an early opportunity of
suggesting that, now they were rested after their walk, they
might go and play out of doors ; and aunt Pullet gave permis-
sion, only enjoining them not to go off the paved walks in the
garden, and if they wanted to see the poultry fed, to view
them from a distance on the horse-block ; a restriction which
had been imposed ever since Tom had been found guilty of run-
ning after the peacock, with an illusory idea that fright would
make one of its feathers drop off.
Mrs. Tulliver's thoughts had been temporarily diverted
from the quarrel with Mrs. Glegg by millinery and maternal
*ares, but now the great theme of the bonnet was thrown into
perspective, and the children were out of the way, yesterday's
anxieties recurred.
"It weighs on my mind so as never was," she said, by way
or opening the subject, " sister Glegg's leaving the house in
that way. I'm sure I'd no wish t' offend a sister."
"Ah," said aunt Pullet, "there's no accounting for what
Jane 'ull do. I wouldn't speak of it out o' the family, if it
wasn't to Dr. Turnbull; but it's my belief Jane lives too low.
I've said so to Pullet often and often, and he knows it."
" Why, you said so last Monday was a week, when we came
away from drinking tea with Jem," said Mr. Pullet, beginning
to nurse his knee and shelter it with his pocket-handkerchief,
as was his way when the conversation took an interesting turn.
"Very like I did," said Mrs. Pullet, "for you remember
when I said things, better than I can remember myself. He's
got a wonderful memory, Pullet has," she continued, looking
pathetically at her sister. " I should be poorly off if he was
to have a stroke, for he always remembers when I've got to
take my doctor's stuff; and I'm taking three sorts now."
" There's the ' pills as before ' every other night, and the
new drops at eleven and four, and the 'fervescing mixture
' when agreeable,'" rehearsed Mr. Pullet, with a punctuation
determined by a lozenge on his tongue.
" Ah, perhaps it 'ud be better for sister Glegg if she'd go to
the doctor sometimes, instead o' chewing Turkey rhubarb
whenever there's anything the. matter with her," said Mrs.
102 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Tulliver, who naturally saw the wide subject of medicine
chiefly in relation to Mrs. Glegg.
"It's dreadful to think on," saidN aunt Pullet, raising hei
hands and letting them fall again, " people playing with their
own insides in that way ! And it's flying i' the face o' Provi-
dence ; for what are the doctors for, if we aren' t to call 'em
in? And when folks have got the money to pay for a doctor,
it isn't respectable, as I've told Jane many a time. I'm
ashamed of acquaintance knowing it."
"Well, we've no call to be ashamed," said Mr. Pullet, "for
Doctor Turnbull hasn't got such another patient as you i' this
parish, now old Mrs. Button's gone."
"Pullet keeps all my physic-bottles, did you know, Bessy?"
said Mrs. Pullet. "He won't have one sold. He says it's
nothing but right folks should see 'em when I'm gone. They
fill two o' the long store-room shelves a' ready; but," she
added, beginning to cry a little, "it's well if they ever fill
three. I may go before I've made up the dozen o' these last
sizes. The pill-boxes are in the closet in my room, — you'll
remember that, sister, — but there's nothing to show for the
boluses, if it isn't the bills."
"Don't talk o' your going, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver; "I
should have nobody to stand between me and sister Glegg if
you was gone. And there's nobody but you can get her tj
make it up with Mr. Tulliver, for sister Deane' s never o' my
side, and if she was, it' s not to be looked for as she can speak
like them as have got an independent fortin."
" Well, your husband is awk'ard, you know, Bessy, " said Mrs.
Pullet, good-naturedly ready to use her deep depression on
her sister's account as well as her own. "He's never be-
haved quite so pretty to our family as he should do, and the
children take after him, — the boy's very mischievous, and runs
away from his aunts and uncles, and the gell's rude and
brown. It's your bad luck, and I'm sorry for you, Bessy;
for you was allays my favorite sister, and we allays liked the
same patterns."
"I know Tulliver's hasty, and says odd things," said Mrs.
Tulliver, wiping away one small tear from the corner of her
e/e: " but I'm sure he's never been the man, since he married
BOY AND GIRL, 103
toe, to object to my making the friends o* my side O* the
family welcome to the house."
"/ don't want to make the worst of you, Bessy," said Mrs.
Pullet, compassionately, "for I doubt you'll have trouble
enough without that ; and your husband's got that poor sister
and her children hanging on him, — and so given to lawing,
they say. I doubt he'll leave you poorly off when he dies.
Not as I'd have it said out o' the family."
This view of her position was naturally far from cheering
to Mrs. Tulliver. Her imagination was not easily acted on,
but she could not help thinking that her case was a hard one,
since it appeared that other people thought it hard.
"I'm sure, sister, I can't help myself," she said, urged by
the fear lest her anticipated misfortunes might be held re-
tributive, to take a comprehensive review of her past conduct.
" There's no woman strives more for her children; and I'm
sure at scouring-time this Lady-day as I've had all the bed-
hangings taken down I did as much as the two gells put to-
gether; and there's this last elder-flower wine I've made — •
beautiful I I allays offer it along with the sherry, though sis-
ter Glegg will have it I'm so extravagant; and as for liking
to have my clothes tidy, and not go a fright about the house,
there's nobody in the parish can say anything against me in
respect o' backbiting and making mischief, for I don't wish
anybody any harm ; and nobody loses by sending me a pork-
pie, for my pies are fit to show with the best o' my neighbors' ;
and the linen's so in order as if I was to die to-morrow I
shouldn't be ashamed. A woman can do no more nor she
can."
"But it's all o' no use, you know, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet,
holding her head on one side, and fixing her eyes pathetically
on her sister, " if your husband makes away with his money,
Not but what if you was sold up, and other folks bought your
furniture, it's a comfort to think as you've kept it well
rubbed. And there's the linen, with your maiden mark on,
might go all over the country. It *ud be a sad pity for our
family." Mrs Pullet shook her head slowly.
"But what can I do, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver. "Mr,
Tul liver's not a man to be dictated to, — not if I was to go tt
104 THE MILL ON THE FLOS8.
the parson and get by heart what I should tell my husband
for the best. And I'm sure I don't pretend to know anything
about putting out money and all that. I could never see into
men's business as sister Glegg does."
" Well, you're like me in that, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet;
"and I think it 'ud be a deal more becoming o' Jane if she'd
have tL it pier-glass rubbed oftener, — there was ever so many
spots on it last week, — instead o' dictating to folks as have
more comings in than she ever had, and telling 'em what
they've to do with their money. But Jane and me were allays
contrairy j she would have striped things, and I like spots.
You like a spot too, Bessy; we allays hung together i' that."
"Yes, Sophy," said Mrs. Tulliver, "I remember our hav-
ing a blue ground with a white spot both alike, — I've got a
bit in a bed-quilt now; and if you would but go and see sister
Glegg, and persuade her to make it up with Tulliver, I should
take it very kind of you. You was allays a good sister to me."
" But the right thing 'ud be for Tulliver to go and make it
up with her himself, and say he was sorry for speaking so
rash. If he's borrowed money of her, he shouldn't be above
that, " said Mrs. Pullet, whose partiality did not blind her to
principles; she did not forget what was due to people of in-
dependent fortune.
"It's no use talking o' that," said poor Mrs. Tulliver,
almost peevishly. " If I was to go down on my bare knees
on the gravel to Tulliver, he'd never humble himself."
" Well, you can't expect me to persuade Jane to beg par-
don," said Mrs. Pullet. "Her temper's beyond everything;
it's well if it doesn't carry her off her mind, though there
never was any of our family went to a madhouse."
"I'm not thinking of her begging pardon," said Mrs. Tul-
liver. " But if she'd just take no notice, and not call her
money in; as it's not so much for one sister to ask of another;
time 'ud mend things, and Tulliver 'ud forget all about it,
and they'd be friends again."
Mrs. Tulliver, you perceive, was not aware of her hus-
band's irrevocable determination to pay in the five hundred
pounds ; at least such a determination exceeded her powers ol
telief.
BOY AND GIRL. 105
"Well, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, mournfully, "/don't
want to help you on to ruin. I won't be behindhand i* doing
you a good turn, if it is to be done. And I don't like it said
among acquaintance as we've got quarrels in the family. I
shall tell Jane that ; and I don't mind driving to Jane's to-
morrow, if Pullet doesn't mind. What do you say, Mr.
Pullet? » ,
"I've no objections," said Mr. Pullet, who was perfectlyy
contented with any course the quarrel might take, so that^Mr.
( Tulliver did not apply to him for money. Mr. Pullet was
nervous about [his investments, and did not see how a man
could have any security for his money unless he turned it into
land.
After a little further discussion as to whether it would not
be better for Mrs. Tulliver to accompany them on a visit to
sister Glegg, Mrs. Pullet, observing that it was tea-time,
turned to reach from a drawer a delicate damask napkin, which
she pinned before her in the fashion of an apron. The door
did, in fact, soon open, but instead of the tea-tray, Sally in-
troduced an object so startling that both Mrs. Pullet and Mrs.
Tulliver gave a scream, causing uncle Pullet to swallow his
lozenge— for the fifth time in his life, as he afterward noted.
CHAPTER X.
MAGG1B BEHAVES WORSE THAN 8HB EXPECTED.
THE startling object which thus made an epoch for uncle
Pullet was no other than little Lucy, with one side of her per-
son, from her small foot to her bonnet-crown, wet and discol-
ored with mud, holding out two tiny blackened hands, and
making a very piteous face. To account for this unprece-
dented apparition in aunt Pullet's parlor, we must return to
the moment when the three children went to play out of doors,
and the small demons who had taken possession of Maggie's
soul at an early period of the day had returned in all the
greater force after a temporary absence. All the disagreeablt
106 THE JCTLL ON THE FLOSS.
recollections of the morning were thick upon her, when Tom,
whose displeasure toward her had been considerably refreshed
by her foolish trick of causing him to upset his cowslip wine,
said, " Here, Lucy, you come along with me, " and walked oft
to the area where the toads were, as if there were no Maggie
in existence. Seeing this, Maggie lingered at a distance,
looking like a small Medusa with her snakes cropped. Lucy
was naturally pleased that cousin Tom was so good to her, and
it was very amusing to see him tickling a fat toad with a
piece of string when \h& toad was safe down the area, with an
iron grating over him. Still Lucy wished Maggie to enjoy the
spectacle also, especially as she would doubtless find a name
for the toad, and say what had been his past history j for Lucy
had a delighted semi-belief in Maggie's stories about the live
things they came upon by accident, — how Mrs. Earwig had
a wash at home, and one of her children had fallen into the
hot copper, for which reason she was running so fast to fetch
the doctor. Tom had a profound contempt for this nonsense
of Maggie's, smashing the earwig at once as a superfluous yet
easy means of proving the entire unreality of such a story ;
but Lucy, for the life of her, could not help fancying there
was something in it, and at all events thought it was very
pretty make-believe. So now the desire to know the history
of a very portly toad, added to her habitual affectionateness,
made her run back to Maggie and say, " Oh, there is such a
big, funny toad, Maggie I Do come and see! *
Maggie said nothing, but turned away from her with a
deeper frown. As long as Tom seemed to prefer Lucy to her,
Lucy made part of his unkindness. Maggie would have thought
a little while ago that she could never be cross with pretty
little Lucy, any more than she could be cruel to a little white
mouse ; but then, Tom had always been quite indifferent to
Lucy before, and it had been left to Maggie to pet and make
much of her. As it was, she was actually banning to think
that she should like to make Lucy cry by slipping o* pinching
her, especially as it might vex Tom, who*n it was of no use
to slap, even if she dared, because he didn't mind it. And if
Lucy hadn't been there, Maggie was sure he would bA»-e go*
friends with her sooner.
BOY AND GIRL. 107
Tickling a fat toad who is not highly sensitive is an amuse-
ment that it is possible to exhaust, and Tom by and by began
fco look round for some other mode of passing the time. But
in so prim a garden, where they were not to go off the paved
walks, there was not a great choice of sport. The only great
pleasure such a restriction suggested was the pleasure of
breaking it, and Tom began to meditate an insurrectionary
visit to the pond, about a field's length beyond the garden.
"I say, Lucy," he began, nodding his head up and down
with great significance, as he coiled up his string again,
'* what do you think I mean to do? "
"What, Tom?" said Lucy, with curiosity.
"I mean to go to the poud and look at the pike. You may
go with me if you like," said the young sultan.
" Oh, Tom, dare you ? " said Lucy. " Aunt said we mustn't
go out of the garden."
"Oh, I shall go out at the other end of the garden," said
Tom. " Nobody 'ull see us. Besides, I don't care if they
do, — I'll run off home."
"But / couldn't run," said Lucy, who had never before
been exposed to such severe temptation.
"Oh, never mind; they won't be cross with you," said
Tom. " You say I took you."
Tom walked along, and Lucy trotted by his side, timidly
enjoying the rare treat of doing something naughty, — excited
also by the mention of that celebrity, the pike, about which
she was quite uncertain whether it was a fish or a fowL
Maggie saw them leaving the garden, and could not resist the
impulse to follow. Anger and jealousy can no more bear to
lose sight of their objects than love, and that Tom and Lucy
should do or see anything of which she was ignorant would
have been an intolerable idea to Maggie. So she kept a few
yards behind them, unobserved by Tom, who was presently
absorbed in watching for the pike, — a highly interesting mon-
ster; he was said to be so very old, so very large, and to have
such a remarkable appetite. The pike, like other celebrities,
did not show when he was watched for, but Tom caught sight
of something in rapid movement in the water, which attracted
him to another spot on the brink of the pond.
108 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Here, Lucy I " he said in a loud whisper, " come herel
take care I keep on the grass ! — don't step where the cows have
been!" he added, pointing to a peninsula of dry grass, with
trodden mud on each side of it; for Tom's contemptuous con-
ception of a girl included the attribute of being unfit to walk
|n dirty places.
Lucy came carefully as she wav> bidden, and bent down to
look at what seemed a golden arrc .< -hewl dating through the
water. It was a water-snake, Tom told her; and Lucy at
last could see the serpentine wave of its hody> very much
wondering that a snake could swim. Maggie had drawn
nearer and nearer; she must see it too, though it was bitter to
her, like everything else, since Tom did not care about her
seeing it. At last she was close by Lucy; and Tom, who had
been aware of her approach, but would not notice it till he
was obliged, turned round and said, —
" Now, get away, Maggie ; there's no room for you on the
grass here. Nobody asked you to come."
There were passions at war in Maggie at that moment to
have made a tragedy, if tragedies were made by passion only ;
but the essential -i iilf=.0o$ which was present in the passion
was wanting to the action ; the utmost Maggie could do, with
a fierce thrust of her small brown arm, was to push poor little
pink-and-white Lucy iuto the cow-trodden mud.
Then Tom could not restrain himself, and gave Maggie two
smart slaps on the arm as he ran to pick up Lucy, who lay
crying helplessly. Maggie retreated to the roots of a tree a
few yards off, and looked on impenitently. Usually her re-
pentance came quickly after one rash deed, but now Tom and
^ucy had made her so miserable, she was glad to spoil their
happiness, — glad to make everybody uncomfortable. Why
should she be sorry? Tom was very slow \r *"*rgive her, how-
ever sorry she might have been.
"I shall tell mother, you know, Mis. Mag," said Tom,
loudly and emphatically, as soon as Lucy was up and ready
to walk away. It was not Tom's practice to "tell," but here
justice clearly demanded that Maggie should be visited with
the utmost punishment ; not that Tom had learned to put hin
riews in that abstract form; be never mentioned "justice,"
BOY AND GIRL. 109
and had no idea that his desire to punish might be called by
that fine name. Lucy was too entirely absorbed by the evil
that had befallen her, — the spoiling of her pretty best clothes,
and the discomfort of being wet and dirty, — to think much
of the cause, which was entirely mysterious to her. She
could never have guessed what she had done to make Maggie
angry with her ; but she felt that Maggie was very unkind and
disagreeable, and made no magnanimous entreaties to Tom
that he would not " tell, " only running along by his side and
crying piteously, while Maggie sat on the roots of the tree and
looked after them with her small Medusa face.
" Sally, " said Tom, when they reached the kitchen door,
and Sally looked at them in speechless amaze, with a piece of
bread-and-butter in her mouth and a toasting-fork in her hand,
— " Sally, tell mother it was Maggie pushed Lucy into the
mud."
" But Lors ha* massy, how did you get near such mud as
that?" said Sally, making a wry face, as she stooped down
and examined the corpus delicti.
Tom's imagination had not been rapid and capacious enough
to include this question among the foreseen consequences, but
it was no sooner put than he foresaw whither it tended, and
that Maggie would not be considered the only culprit in the
case. He walked quietly away from the kitchen door, leav-
ing Sally to that pleasure of guessing which active minds no-
toriously prefer to ready-made knowledge. '
Sally, as you are aware, lost no time in presenting Lucy at
the parlor door, for to have so dirty an object introduced into
the house at Garum Firs was too great a weight to be sus-
tained by a single mind.
" Goodness gracious ! " aunt Pullet exclaimed, after prelud-
ing by an inarticulate scream ; " keep her at the door, Sally I
Don't bring her off the oil-cloth, whatever you do."
"Why, she's tumbled into some nasty mud," said Mrs.
Tulliver, going up to Lucy to examine into the amount of
damage to clothes for which she felt herself responsible to her
sister Deane.
" If you please, 'um, it was Miss Maggie as pushed her in,"
said Sally; "Master Tom's been and said so, and they muafc
110 THE MILL ON THE FLOSa
ha* been to the pond, for it's only there they could ha* got
into such dirt. "
"There it is, Bessy; it's what I've been telling you," said
Mrs. Pullet, in a tone of prophetic sadness; "it's your chil-
dren,— there's no knowing what they'll come to."
Mis. Tulliver was mute, feeling herself a truly wretched
mother. As usual, the thought pressed upon her that people
would think she had done something wicked to deserve her
maternal troubles, while Mrs. Pullet began to give elaborate
directions to Sally how to guard the premises from serious
injury in ihe course of removing the dirt. Meantime tea was
to be brought in by the cook, and the two naughty children
were to have theirs in an ignominious manner in the kitchen.
Mrs. Tulliver went out to speak to these naughty children,
supposing them to be close at hand; but it was not until after
some search that she found Tom leaning with rather a hard-
ened, careless air against the white paling of the poultry -yard,
and lowering his piece of string on the other side as a means
of exasperating the turkey-cock.
" Tom, you naughty boy, where's your sister? " said Mrs.
Tulliver, in a distressed voice.
"I don't know," said Tom; his eagerness for justice on
Maggie had diminished since he had seen clearly that it could
hardly be brought about without the injustice of some blame
on his own conduct.
"Why, where did you leave her?" said the mother, look-
ing round.
" Sitting under the tree, against the pond, " said Tom, ap-
parently indifferent to everything but the string and the tur-
key-cock.
" Then go and fetch her in this minute, you naughty boy.
And how could you think o' going to the pond, and taking
your sister where there was dirt? You know she'll do mischief
if there's mischief to be done."
It was Mrs. Tulliver 's way, if she blamed Tom, to refer his
misdemeanor, somehow or other, to Maggie.
The idea of Maggie sitting alone by the pond roused an
habitual fear in Mrs. Tulliver 's mind, and she mounted the
horse-block to satisfy herself by a sight of that fatal child,
BOY AND GIRL, 111
while Tom walked — not very quickly — on his way toward
her.
"They'ie such children for the water, mine are," she said
aloud, without reflecting that there was no one to hear herj
"they'll be brought in dead and drownded some day. I wish
that river was far enough."
Eat when she not only failed to discern Maggie, but pres*
ently saw Tom returning from the pool alone, this hovering
fear entered and took complete possession of her, and she hur-
ried to meet him.
" Maggie's nowhere about the pond, mother," said Tom;
"she's gone away."
You may conceive the terrified search for Maggie, and the
difficulty of convincing her mother that she was not in the
pond. Mrs. Pullet observed that the child might come to a
worse end if she lived, there was no knowing ; and Mr. Pullet,
confused and overwhelmed by this revolutionary aspect of
things, — the tea deferred and the poultry alarmed by the un-
usual running to and fro, — took up his spud as an instrument
of search, and reached down a key to unlock the goose-pen, as
a likely place for Maggie to lie concealed in.
Tom, after a while, started the idea that Maggie was gone
home (without thinking it necessary to state that it was what
he should have done himself under the circumstances), and the
suggestion was seized as a comfort by his mother.
" Sister, for goodness' sake let 'em put the horse in the car-
riage ai- a take me home; we shall perhaps find her on the
road. Lucy can't walk in her dirty clothes," she said, look-
ing at that innocent victim, who was wrapped up in a shawl,
and sitting with naked feet on the sofa.
Aunt Pullet was quite willing to take the shortest means of
restoring her premises to order and quiet, and it was not long
before Mrs. Tulliver was in the chaise, looking anxiously at
the most distant point before her. What the father would
say if Maggie was lof^ was a question that predominated ovez
*very other.
112 THE MILL ON THE FLO8&
CHAPTER XL
MAGGIE TRIES TO BUN AWAY FROM HER SHADOW.
MAGGIE'S intentions, as usual, were on a larger scale than
,Tom had imagined. The resolution that gathered in he*
mind, after Tom and Lucy had walked away, was not so sim«
pie as that of going home. No ! she would run away and go
to the gypsies, and Tom should never see her any more. That
was by no means a new idea to Maggie ; she had been so often
told she was like a gypsy, and "half wild," that when she
was miserable it seemed to her the only way of escaping op-
probrium, and being entirely in harmony with circumstances^
would be to live in a little brown tent on the commons ; the
gypsies, she considered, would gladly receive her and pay her
much respect on account of h«r superior knowledge. She had
once mentioned her views on this point to Tom, and suggested
that he should stain his face brown, and they should run
away together; but Tom rejected the scheme with contempt,
observing that gypsies were thieves, and hardly got anything
to eat, and had nothing to drive but a donkey. To-day, how-
ever, Maggie thought her misery had reached a pitch at which
gypsydorn was her only refuge, and she rose from her seat on
the roots of the tree with the sense that this was a great crisis
in her life; she would run straight away till she came to
Dunlow Common, where there would certainly be- gypsies;
and cruel Tom, and the rest of her relations who found fault
with her, should never see her any more. She thought of
her father as she ran along, but she reconciled herself to the
idea of parting with him, by determining that she would se-
cretly send him a letter by a small gypsy, who would run
away without telling where she was, and just let him know
that she was well and happy, and always loved him very
much.
Maggie soon got out of breath with running, but by the time
Tom got to the pond again she was at the distance of three
long fields, and was on the edge of the lane leading to the
BOY AND GIRL.
highroad. She stopped to pant a little, reflecting that run-
ning away was not a pleasant thing until one had got quite to
the common where the gypsies were, but her resolution had
not abated ; she presently passed through the gate into the
lane, not knowing where it would lead her, for it was not this
way that they came from Dorlcote Mill to Garum Firs, and
she felt all the safer for that, because there was no chance of
her being overtaken. But she was soon aware, not without
trembling, that there were two men coming along the lane in
front of her ; she had not thought of meeting strangers, she
had been too much occupied with the idea of her friends corn-
ing after her. The formidable strangers were two shabby-
looking men with flushed faces, one of them carrying a bundle
on a stick over his shoulder; but to her surprise, while she
was dreading their disapprobation as a runaway, the man with
the bundle stopped, and in a half-whining, half -coaxing tone
asked her if she had a copper to give a poor man. Maggie
had a sixpence in her pocket, — her uncle Glegg's present, —
which she immediately drew out and gave this poor man with
a polite smile, hoping he would feel very kindly toward her
as a generous person. "That's the only money I've got,"
she said apologetically. " Thank you, little miss, " said the
man, in a less respectful and grateful tone than Maggie antici-
pated, and she even observed that he smiled and winked at
his companion. She walked on hurriedly, but was aware that
the two men were standing still, probably to look after
her, and she presently heard them laughing loudly. Suddenly
it occurred to her that they might think she was an idiot;
Tom had said that her cropped hair made her look like an
idiot, and it was too painful an idea to be readily forgotten.
Besides, she had no sleeves on; — only a cape and a bonnet.
It was clear that she was not likely to make a favorable im-
pression on passengers, and she thought she would turn into
the fields again, but not on the same side of the lane as before,
lest they should still be uncle Pullet's fields. She turned
through the first gate that was not locked, and felt a delight-
ful sense of privacy in creeping along by the hedgerows, after
her recent humiliating encounter. She was used to wandering
about the fields by herself, and was less timid there than on
8
114 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
the highroad. Sometimes she had to climb over high gates,
but that was a small evil ; she was getting out of reach ver^
fast, and she should probably soon come within sight of Dun-
low Common, or at least of some other common, for she had
heard her father say that you couldn't go very far without
coming to a common. She hoped so, for she was getting
rather tired and hungry, and until she reached the gypsies
there was no definite prospect of bread and butter. It was
still broad daylight, for aunt Pullet, retaining the early habits
of the Dodson family, took tea at half -past four by the sun,
and at five by the kitchen clock; so, though it was nearly an
hour since Maggie started, there was no gathering gloom on
the fields to remind her that the night would come. Still, it
seemed to her that she had been walking a very great distance
indeed, and it was really surprising that the common did not
come within sight. Hitherto she had been in the rich parish
of Garurn, where there was a great deal of pasture-land, and
she had only seen one laborer at a distance. That was for-
tunate in some respects, as laborers might be too ignorant to
understand the propriety of her wanting to go to Dunlow Com-
mon j yet it would have been better if she could have met
some one who would tell her the way without wanting to
know anything about her private business. At last, however,
the green fields came to an end, and Maggie found herself
looking through the bars of a gate into a lane with a wide
margin of grass on each side of it. She had never seen such
a wide lane before, and, without her knowing why, it gave
her the impression that the common could not be far off ; per-
haps it was because she saw a donkey with a log to his foot
feeding on the grassy margin, for she had seen a donkey with
that pitiable encumbrance on Dunlow Common when she had
been across it in her father's gig. She crept through the bars
of the gate and walked on with new spirit, though not with-
out haunting images of Apollyon, and a highwayman with a
pistol, and a blinking dwarf in yellow with a mouth from ear
to ear, and other miscellaneous dangers. For poor little Mag-
gie had at once the timidity of an active imagination and the
daring that comes from overmastering impulse. She had
rushed into the adventure of seeking her unknown kindred,
BOY A1SD GIRL. 115
the gypsies ; and now she was in this strange lane, she hardly
dared look on one side of her, lest she should see the diabolical
blacksmith in his leathern apron grinning at her with arms
akimbo. It was not without a leaping of the heart that she
caught sight of a small pair of bare legs sticking up, feet up-
permost, oy the side of a hillock; they seemed something hide-
ously preternatural, — a diabolical kind of fungus; for she was
too much agitated at the first glance to see the ragged clothes
and the dark shaggy head attached to them. It was a boy
asleep, and Maggie trotted along faster and more lightly, lest
she should wake him ; it did not occur to her that he was one
of her friends the gypsies, who in all probability would have
very genial manners. But the fact was so, for at the next
bend in the lane Maggie actually saw the little semicircular
black tent with the blue smoke rising before it, which was to
be her refuge from all the blighting obloquy that had pursued
her in civilized life. She even saw a tall female figure by the
column of smoke, doubtless the gypsy-mother, who provided
the tea and other groceries ; it was astonishing to herself that
she did not feel more delighted. But it was startling to find
the gypsies in a lane, after all, and not on a common ; indeed,
it was rather disappointing; for a mysterious illimitable com-
mon, where there were sand-pits to hide in, and one was out
of everybody's reach, had always made part of Maggie's pic-
ture of gypsy life. She went on, however, and thought with
some comfort that gypsies most likely knew nothing about
idiots, so there was no danger of their falling into the mistake
of setting her down at the first glance as an idiot. It was
plain she had attracted attention; for the tall figure, who
proved to be a young woman with a baby on her arm, walked
slowly to meet her. Maggie looked up in the new face rathei
tremblingly as it approached, and was reassured by the
thought that her aunt Pullet and the rest were right when
they called her a gypsy; for this face, with the bright dark
eyes and the long hair, was really something like what she
used to see in the glass before she cut her hair off.
"My little lady, where are you going to?" the gypsy said,
in a tone of coaxing deference.
It was delightful, and just what Maggie expected ; the gyp-
116 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
sies saw at once that she was a little lady, and were prepared
to treat her accordingly.
"Not any farther," said Maggie, feeliug as if she were say-
ing what she had rehearsed in a dream. " I'm come to stay
with you, please."
" That's pretty; come, then. Why, what a nice little lady
you are, to be sure ! " said the gypsy, taking her by the hand.
Maggie thought her very agreeable, but wished she had not
been so dirty.
There was quite a group round the fire when they reached
it. An old gypsy woman was seated on the ground nursing
her knees, and occasionally poking a skewer into the round
kettle that sent forth an odorous steam; two small shock-
headed children were lying prone and resting on their elbows
something like small sphinxes; and a placid donkey was
bending his head over a tall girl, who, lying on her back, was
scratching his nose and indulging him with a bite of excellent
stolea hay. The slanting sunlight fell kindly upon them, and
the scene was really very pretty and comfortable, Maggie
thought, only she hoped they would soon set out the tea-cups.
Everything would be quite charming when she had taught the
gypsies to use a washing-basin, and to feel an interest in
books. It was a little confusing, though, that the young
woman began to speak to the old one in a language which Mag-
gie did not understand, while the tall girl, who was feeding
the donkey, sat up and stared at her without offering any salu-
tation. At last the old woman said, —
" What! my pretty lady, are you come to stay with us?
Sit ye down and tell us where you come from."
It was just like a story ; Maggie liked to be called pretty
lady and treated in this way. She sat down and said, — •
" I'm come from home because I'm unhappy, and I mean to
be a gypsy. I'll live with you if you like, and I can teach
you a great many things."
•" Such a clever little lady," said the woman with the baby,
sitting down by Maggie, and allowing baby to crawl ; " and
such a pretty bonnet and frock," she added, taking off Mag-
gie's bonnet and looking at it while she made an observation
to the old woman, in the unknown language. The tall gm
BOY AND GIRL. 117
snatched the "bonnet and put it on her own head hind-fore-
most with a grin j but Maggie was determined not to show
any weakness on this subject, as if she were susceptible about
her bonnet.
"I don't want to wear a bonnet,'-' she said; "I'd rather
wear a red handkerchief, like yours " (looking at her friend by
her side). " My hair was quite long till yesterday, when I cut
it off ; but I dare say it will grow again very soon, " she added
apologetically, thinking it probable the gypsies had a strong
prejudice in favor of long hair. And Maggie had forgotten
even her hunger at that moment in the desire to conciliate gypsy
opinion.
" Oh, what a nice little lady! — and rich, I'm sure," said the
old woman. " Didn't you live in a beautiful house at home? "
" Yes, my home is pretty, and I'm very fond of the river,
where we go fishing, but I'm often very unhappy. I should
have liked to bring my books with me, but I came away in a
hurry, you know. But I can tell you almost everything there
is in my books, I've read them so many times, and that will
amuse you. And I can tell you something about Geography
too, — that's about the world we live in, — very useful and in-
teresting. Did you ever hear about Columbus? "
Maggie's eyes had begun to sparkle and her cheeks to flush,
— she was really beginning to instruct the gypsies, and gain-
ing great influence over them. The gypsies themselves were
not without amazement at this talk, though their attention
was divided by the contents of Maggie's pocket, which the
friend at her right hand had by this time emptied without at"
tracting her notice.
" Is that where you live, my little lady? " said the old wom-
an, at the mention of Columbus.
" Oh, no! " said Maggie, with some pity; " Columbus was a
very wonderful man, who found out half the world, and they
put chains on him and treated him very badly, you know ;
it's in my Catechism of Geography, but perhaps it's rather
too long to tell before tea — 1 want my tea so."
The last words burst from Maggie, in spite of herself, with
a sudden drop from patronizing instruction to simple peevish-
ness,
ri8 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Why, she's hungry, poor little lady," said the youngei
Woman. " Give her some o* the cold victual. You've been
walking a good way, I'll be bound, my dear. Where's your
home?"
"It's Dorlcote Mill, a good way off," said Maggie. "My
father is Mr. Tulliver, but we mustn't let him know where I
am, else he'll fetch me home again. Where does the queen
of the gypsies live? "
"What I do you want to go to her, my little lady?" said
the younger woman. The tall girl meanwhile was constantly
staring at Maggie and grinning. Her manners were certainly
not agreeable.
"No," said Maggie, "I'm only thinking that if she isn't a
very good queen you might be glad when she died, and you
could choose another. If I was a queen, I'd be a very good
queen, and kind to everybody."
" Here's a bit o' nice victual, then," said the old woman,
handing to Maggie a lump of dry bread, which she had taken
from a bag of scraps, and a piece of cold bacon.
"Thank you," said Maggie, looking at the food without
taking it; " but will you give me some bread-and-butter and
tea instead? I don't like bacon."
" We've got no tea nor butter," said the old woman, with
something like a scowl, as if she were getting tired of coaxing.
" Oh, a little bread and treacle would do, " said Maggie.
"We han't got no treacle," said the old woman, crossly,
whereupon there followed a sharp dialogue between the two
women in their unknown tongue, and one of the small sphinxes
snatched at the bread-and-bacon, and began to eat it. At
this moment the tall girl, who had gone a few yards off, came
back, and said something which produced a strong effect. The
old woman, seeming to forget Maggie's hunger, poked the
skewer into the pot with new vigor, and the younger crept
under the tent, and reached out some platters and spoons.
Maggie trembled a little, and was afraid the tears would come
into her eyes. Meanwhile the tall girl gave a shrill cry, and
presently came running up the boy whom Maggie had passed
as lie was sleeping,— a rough urchin about the age of Tom.
He stared at Maggie, and there ensued much incomprehensi-
BOY AND GIRL.
ble chattering. Sh<» felt very lonely, and was quite sure she
should begin to cry before long; the gypsies didn't seem to
mind her at all, and she felt quite weak among them. But
the springing tears were checked by new terror, when two
men came up, whose approach had been the cause of the sud-
den excitement. The elder of the two carried a bag, which
he flung down, addressing the women in a loud and scolding
tone, which they answered by a shower of treble sauciness;
while a black cur ran barking up to Maggie, and threw her
into a tremor that only found a new cause in the curses with
which the younger man called the dog off, and gave him a rap
with a great stick he held in his hand.
Maggie felt that it was impossible she should ever be queen
of these people, or ever communicate to them amusing and
useful knowledge.
Both the men now seemed to be inquiring about Maggie,
for they looked at her, and the tone of the conversation be-
came of that pacific kind which implies curiosity on one side
and the power of satisfying it on the other. At last the
younger woman said in her previous deferential, coaxing
tone, —
"This nice little lady's come to live with usj aren't you
glad? »
" Ay, very glad, " said the younger man, who was looking at
Maggie's silver thimbie and other small matters that had been
taken from her pocket. He returned them all except the
thimble to the younger woman, with some observation, and
she immediately restored them to Maggie's pocket, while the
men seated themselves, and began to attack the contents of
the kettle, — a stew of meat and potatoes, — which had been
taken off the fire and turned out into a yellow platter.
Maggie began to think that Tom must be right about the
gypsies ; they must certainly be thieves, unless the man meant
to return her thimble by and by. She would willingly have
given it to him, for she was not at all attached to her thimble;
but the idea that she was among thieves prevented her from
feeling any comfort in the revival of deference and attention
toward her; all thieves, except Robin Hood, were wicked
people. The women saw she was frightened.
120 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS,
"We've got nothing nice for a lady to eat," said the old
woman, in her coaxing tone. "And she's so hungry, sweet
little lady."
" Here, my dear, try if you can eat a bit o* this, " said the
younger woman, handing some of the stew on a brown dish
with an iron spoon to Maggie, who, remembering that the old
woman had seemed angry with her for not liking the bread-
and-bacon, dared not refuse the stew, though fear had chased
away her appetite. If her father would but come by in the
gig and take her up ! Or even if Jack the Giantkiller, or Mr.
Greatheart, or St. George who slew the dragon on the half-
pennies, would happen to pass that way ! But Maggie thought
with a sinking heart that these heroes were never seen in the
neighborhood of St. Ogg's; nothing very wonderful ever came
there.
Maggie Tulliver, you perceive, was by no means that well-
trained, well-informed young person that a small female of
eight or nine necessarily is in these days ; she had only been
to school a year at St. Ogg's, and had so few books that she
sometimes read the dictionary ; so that in travelling over her
small mind you would have found the most unexpected igno-
rance as well as unexpected knowledge. She could have in-
formed you that there was such a word as "polygamy," and
being also acquainted with "polysyllable," she had deduced
the conclusion that " poly " meant " many " ; but she had had
no idea that gypsies were not well supplied with groceries, and
her thoughts generally were the oddest mixture of clear-eyed
acumen and blind dreams.
Her ideas about the gypsies had undergone a rapid modifi*
cation in the last five minutes. From having considered them
very respectful companions, amenable to instruction, she had
begun to think that they meant perhaps to kill her as soon
as it was dark, and cut up her body for gradual cooking ; the
suspicion crossed her that the fierce-eyed old man was in fact
the Devil, who might drop that transparent disguise at any
moment, and turn either into the grinning blacksmith, or else
a fiery-eyed monster with dragon' s wings. It was no use trying
to eat the stew, and yet the thing she most dreaded was to offend
the gypsies, by betraying her extremely unfavorable opinion
BOY ATO> GTRU 121
of them ; and she wondered, with a keenness of interest that
no theologian could have exceeded, whether, if the Devil were
really present, he would know her thoughts.
** What 1 you don't like the smell of it, my dear, " said the
young woman, observing that Maggie did not even take a
spoonful of the stew. "Try a bit, come."
u No, thank you, " said Maggie, summoning all her force for
a desperate effort, and trying to smile in a friendly way. " I
haven't time, I think; it seems getting darker. I think I
must go home now, and come again another day, and then I
can bring you a basket with some jam -tarts and things."
Maggie rose from her seat as she threw out this illusory
prospect, devoutly hoping that Apollyon was gullible; but her
hope sank when the old gypsy-woman said, " Stop a bit, stop
a bit, little lady; we'll take you home, all safe, when we've
done supper; you shall ride home, like a lady."
Maggie sat down again, with little faith in this promise,
though she presently saw the tall girl putting a bridle on the
donkey, and throwing a couple of bags on his back.
"Now, then, little missis," said the younger man, rising,
and leading the donkey forward, "tell us where you live;
what's the name o* the place?"
"Dorlcote Mill is my home," said Maggie, eagerly. "My
father is Mr. Tulliver; he lives there."
" What! a big mill a little way this side o' St. Ogg's? "
" Yes, " said Maggie. " Is it far off? I think I should like
to walk there, if you please."
"No, no, it'll be getting dark, we must make haste. And
the donkey'll carry you as nice as can be; you'll see."
He lifted Maggie as he spoke, and set her on the donkey.
She felt relieved that it was not the old man who seemed to
be going with her, but she had only a trembling hope that she
was really going home.
" Here's your pretty bonnet," said the younger woman, put-
ting that recently despised but now welcome article of costume
on Maggie's head; "and you'll say we've been very good to
you, won't you? and what a nice little lady we said you was."
"Oh yes, thank you," said Maggie, "I'm very much obliged
to you. But I wish you'd go with me too." She thought
123 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
tnything was better than going with one of the dreadful men
alone; it would be more cheerful to be murdered by a largei
party.
"Ah, you're fondest o' me, aren't you?" said the woman.
"But I can't goj you'll go too fast for me."
It now appeared that the man also was to be seated on the
donkey, holding Maggie before him, and she was as incapable
of remonstrating against this arrangement as the donkey him-
self, though no nightmare had ever seemed to her more horri-
ble. When the woman had patted her on the back, and said
"Good-by," the donkey, at a strong hint from the man's
stick, set off at a rapid walk along the lane toward the point
Maggie had come from an hour ago, while the tall girl and
the rough urchin, also furnished with sticks, obligingly es-
corted them for the first hundred yards, with much screaming
and thwacking.
Not Leonore, in that preternatural midnight excursion with
her phantom lover, was more terrified than poor Maggie in
this entirely natural ride on a short-paced donkey, with a
gypsy behind her, who considered that he was earning half-a-
crown. The red light of the setting sun seemed to have a
portentous meaning, with which the alarming bray of the
second donkey with the log on its foot must surely have some
connection. Two low thatched cottages — the only houses
they passed in this lane — seemed to add to its dreariness ;
they had no windows to speak of, and the doors were closed ;
it was probable that they were inhabitated by witches, and it
was a relief to find that the donkey did not stop there.
At last — oh, sight of joy! — this lane, the longest in the
world, was coming to an end, was opening on a broad high-
road, where there was actually a coach passing! And there
was a finger-post at the corner, — she had surely seen that fin-
ger-post before, — "To St. Ogg's, 2 miles." The gypsy really
meant to take her home, then; he was probably a good man,
after all, and might have been rather hurt at the thought that
she didn't like coming with him alone. This idea became
stronger as she felt more and more certain that she knew the
road quite well, and she was considering how she might open
a conversation with the injured gypsy, and not only gratify
BOY AND GIRL. 123
his feelings but efface the impression of her cowardice, when,
as they reached a cross-road, Maggie caught sight of some one
coming on a white-faced horse.
"Oh, stop, stop!" she cried out. "There's my father!
Oh, father, father!"
The sudden joy was almost painful, and before her father
reached her, she was sobbing. Great was Mr. Tulliver's won-
der, for he had made a round from Basset, and had not yet
been home.
" Why, what's the meaning o* this? " he said, checking his
horse, while Maggie slipped from the donkey and ran to her
father's stirrup.
"The little miss lost herself, I reckon," said the gypsy.
" She'd come to our tent at the far end o' Dunlow Lane, and
I was bringing her where she said her home was. It's a good
way to come arter being on the tramp all day."
"Oh yes, father, he's been very good to bring me home,"
said Maggie, — " a very kind, good man ! "
" Here, then, my man, " said Mr. Tulliver, taking out five
shillings. " It's the best day's work you ever did. I couldn't
afford to lose the little wench; here, lift her up before me."
"Why, Maggie, how's this, how's this?" he said, as they
rode along, while she laid her head against her father and
sobbed. "How came you to be rambling about and lose
yourself? n
"Oh, father," sobbed Maggie, "I ran away because I was
so unhappy; Tom was so angry with me. I couldn't bear it. "
"Pooh, pooh," said Mr. Tulliver, soothingly, "you mustn't
think o* running away from father. What 'ud father do
without his little wench? "
"Oh no, I never will again, father — never."
Mr. Tulliver spoke his mind very strongly when he reached
home that evening; and the effect was seen in the remarkable
fact that Maggie never heard one reproach from her mother.,
or one taunt from Tom, about this foolish business of her run-
ning away to the gypsies. Maggie was rather awe-stricken
by this unusual treatment, and sometimes thought that her
conduct had been too wicked to be alluded to.
124 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
CHAPTER XIL
MB. AND MBS. GLEGQ AT HO11B.
Jx order to see Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at home, we must entet
the town of St. Ogg's, — that venerable town with the red«
fluted roofs and the broad warehouse gables, where the black
ships unlade themselves of their burthens from the far north,
and carry away, in exchange, the precious inland products,
the well -crushed cheese and the soft fleeces which my refined
readers have doubtless become acquainted with through the
medium of the best classic pastorals.
It is one of those old, old towns which impress one as a con-
tinuation and outgrowth of nature, as much as the nests of the
bower-birds or the winding galleries of the white ants ; a town
which carries the traces of its long growth and history like a
millennial tree, and has sprung up and developed in the same
spot between the river and the low hill from the time when
the Eoman legions turned their backs on it from the camp on
the hillside, and the long-haired sea-kings came up the river
and looked with fierce, eager eyes at the fatness of the land.
It is a town " familiar with forgotten years." The shadow of
the Saxon hero-king still walks there fitfully, reviewing the
scenes of his youth and love-time, and is met by the gloomier
shadow of the dreadful heathen Dane, who was stabbed in the
midst of his warriors by the sword of an invisible avenger,
and who rises on autumn evenings like a white mist from his
tumulus on the hill, and hovers in the court of the old hall by
the river-side, the spot where he was thus miraculously slain
in the days before the old hall was built. It was the Nor-
mans who began to build that fine old hall, which is, like the
town, telling of the thoughts and hands of widely sundered
generations ; but it is all so old that we look with loving par-
don at its inconsistencies, and are well content that they who
built the stone oriel, and they who built the Gothic faqade
and towers of finest small brickwork with the trefoil orna-
ment, and the windows and battlements defined with stone,
EOT AND GIRL. 125
iid not sacrilegiously pull down the ancient half-timbered
body with its oak-roofed banqueting-hall.
But older even than this old hall is perhaps the bit of wall
now built into the belfry of the parish church, and said to be
a remnant of the original chapel dedicated to St. Ogg, the
patron saint of this ancient town, of whose history I possess
several manuscript versions. I incline to the briefest, since,
if it should not be wholly true, it ia at least likely to contain
the least falsehood. " Ogg the son of Beorl," says my private
hagiographer, "was a boatman who gained a scanty living by
ferrying passengers across the river Floss. And it came to
pass, one evening when the winds were high, that there sat
moaning by the brink of the river a woman with a child in
her arms ; and she was clad in rags, and had a worn and with
ered look, and she craved to be rowed across the river. And
the men thereabout questioned her, and said, 'Wherefore dost
thou desire to cross the river? Tarry till the morning, and
take shelter here for the night; so shalt thou be wise and not
foolish. * Still she went on to mourn and crave. But Ogg the
son of Beorl came up and said, 'I will ferry thee across; it is
enough that thy heart needs it.1 And he ferried her across.
And it came to pass, when she stepped ashore, that her rags
were turned into robes of flowing white, and her face became
bright with exceeding beauty, and there was a glory around
it, so that she shed a light on the water like the moon in its
brightness. And she said, ' Ogg, the son of Beorl, thou art
blessed in that thou didst not question and wrangle with the
heart's need, but wast smitten with pity, and didst straight-
way relieve the same. And from henceforth whoso steps into
thy boat shall be in no peril from the storm ; and whenever it
puts forth to the rescue, it shall save the lives both of men
and beasts. ' And when the floods came, many were saved by
reason of that blessing on the boat. But when Ogg the son of
Beorl died, behold, in the parting of his soul, the boat loosed
itself from its moorings, aad was floated with the ebbing tide
in great swiftness to the ocean, and was seen no more. Yet
it was witnessed in the floods of aftertime, that at the coming
on of eventide, Ogg the eon of Beorl was always seen with his
boat upon the. wide-spreading waters,. and the Blessed Virgin
126 THE MILL ON THE FLOSb.
sat in the prow, shedding a light around as of the moon in its
brightness, so that the rowers in the gathering darkness took
heart and pulled anew."
This legend, one sees, reflects from a far-off time the visita-
tion of the floods, which, even when they left human life un-
touched, were widely fatal to the helpless cattle, and swept as
sudden death over all smaller living things. But the town
knew worse troubles even than the floods, — troubles of th«
civil wars, when it was a continual fighting-place, where first
Puritans thanked God for the blood of the Loyalists, and then
Loyalists thanked God for the blood of the Puritans. Many
honest citizens lost all their possessions for conscience* sake
in those times, and went forth beggared from their native
town. Doubtless there are many houses standing now on
which those honest citizens turned their backs in sorrow, — •
quaint-gabled houses looking on the river, jammed between
newer warehouses, and penetrated by surprising passages,
which turn and turn at sharp angles till they lead you out on
a inuddy strand overflowed continually by the rushing tide.
Everywhere the brick houses have a mellow look, and in Mrs.
Glegg's day there was no incongruous new-fashioned smart-
ness, no plate-glass in shop-windows, no fresh stucco-facing
or other fallacious attempt to make fine [old red St. Ogg's
wear the air of a town that sprang up yesterday. The shop-
windows were small and unpretending ; for the farmers' wives
and daughters who came to do their shopping on market-days
were not to be withdrawn from their regular well-known
shops; and the tradesmen had no wares intended for cus-
tomers who would go on their way and be seen no more. Ah !
even Mrs. Glegg's day seems far back in the past now, sepa-
rated from us by changes that widen the years. War and the
rumor of war had then died out from the minds of men, and
if they were ever thought of by the farmers in drab greatcoats,
who shook the grain out of their sample- bags and buzzed over
it in the full market-place, it was as a state of things that
belonged to a past golden age, when prices were high. Surely
the time was gone forever when the broad river could bring
up unwelcome ships; Eussia was only the place where the
liaseed came from, — the XBOC** the better, — making grist for
BOY AND GIRL. 127
the great vertical millstones with their scythe-like arms, roar-
ing and grinding and carefully sweeping as if an informing
soul were in them. The Catholics, bad harvests, and the
mysterious fluctuations of trade were the three evils mankind
had to fear ; even the floods had not been great of late years.
The mind of St. Ogg's did not look extensively before or after.
It inherited a long past without thinking of it, and had no
«jyes for the spirits that walk the streets. Since the centuries
when St. Ogg with his boat and the Virgin Mother at the prow
had been seen on the wide water, so many memories had been
left behind, and had gradually vanished like the receding hill-
tops! And the present time was like the level plain where
men lose their belief in volcanoes and earthquakes, thinking
to-morrow will be as yesterday, and the giant forces that used
to shake the earth are forever laid to sleep. The days were
gone when people could be greatly wrought upon by their
faith, still less change it; the Catholics were formidable be-
cause they would lay hold of government and property, and
bum men alive ; not because any sane and honest parishioner
of St. Ogg's could be brought to believe in the Pope. One
aged person remembered how a rude multitude had been
swayed when John Wesley preached in the cattle-market;
but for a long while it had not been expected of preachers that
they should shake the souls of men. An occasional burst of
fervor in Dissenting pulpits on the subject of infant baptism
was the only symptom of a zeal unsuited to sober times when
men had done with change. Protestantism sat at ease, un-
mindful of schisms, careless of proselytism : Dissent was an
inheritance along with a superior pew and a business connec-
tion; and Churchmanship only wondered contemptuously at
Dissent as a foolish habit that clung greatly to families in the
grocery and chandlering lines, though not incompatible with
prosperous wholesale dealing. But with the Catholic Ques-
tion had come a slight wind of controversy to break the calm:
the elderly rector had become occasionally historical and argu-
mentative; and Mr. Spray, the Independent minister, had be-
gun to preach political sermons, in which he distinguishec"!
with much subtlety between his fervent belief iu the right of
the Catholics to the franchise and his fervent belief in their
128 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
eternal perdition. Most of Mr. Spray's hearers,
were incapable of following his subtleties, and many old-fash-
ioned Dissenters were much pained by his " siding with tha
Catholics " ; while others thought he had better let politics
alone. Public spirit was not held in high esteem at St. Ogg's,
and men who busied themselves with political questions were
regarded with some suspicion, as dangerous characters ; they
were usually persons who had little or no business of their
own to manage, or, if they had, were likely enough to become
insolvent.
This was the general aspect of things at St. Ogg's in Mrs.
Glegg's day, and at that particular period in her family his
tory when she had had her quarrel with Mr. Tulliver. It was
a time when ignorauce was much more comfortable than at
present, and was received with all the honors in very good
society, without being obliged to dress itself in an elaborate
costume of knowledge j a time when cheap periodicals were
not, and when country surgeons never thought of asking their
female patients if they were fond of reading, but simply took
it for granted that they preferred gossip ; a time when ladies
in rich silk gowns wore large pockets, in which they carried a
mutton-bone to secure them against cramp. Mrs. Glegg car-
ried such a bone, which she had inherited from her grand-
mother with a brocaded gown that would stand up empty,
like a suit of armor, and a silver-headed walking-stick ; for
the Dodson family had been respectable for many generations.
Mrs. Glegg had both a front and a back parlor in her excel-
lent house at St. Ogg's, so that she had two points of view
from which she could observe the weakness of her fellow-
beings, and reinforce her thankfulness for her own exceptional
strength of mind. From her front windows she could look
down the Tofton Koad, leading out of St. Ogg's, and note the
growing tendency to " gadding about" in the wives of men not
retired from business, together with a practice of wearing
woven cotton stockings, which opened a dreary prospect for
the coming generation; and from her back windows she could
look down the pleasant garden and orchard which stretched to
the river, aud observe the folly of Mr. Glegg in spending his
time among "them flowers and vegetables,. n For Mr*
"BOY AND GIRL. 129
having retired from active business as a wool-stapler for the
purpose of enjoying himself through the rest of his life, had
found this last occupation EO much more severe than his busi-
ness, that he had been driven into amateur hard labor as a dis-
sipation, and habitually relaxed by doing the work of two ordi-
nary gardeners. The economizing of a gardener's wages might
perhaps have induced Mrs. Glegg to wink at this folly, if it
were possible for a healthy female mind even to simulate re-
spect for a husband's hobby. But it is well known that this
conjugal complacency belongs only to the weaker portion of
the sex, who are scarcely alive to the responsibilities of a wife
as a constituted check on her husband's pleasures, which are
hardly ever of a rational or commendable kind.
Mr. Glegg on his side, too, had a double source of mental
occupation, which gave every promise of being inexhaustible.
On the one hand, he surprised himself by his discoveries in
natural history, finding that his piece of garden-ground con-
tained wonderful caterpillars, slugs, and insects, which, so far
as he had heard, had never before attracted human observa-
tion ; and he noticed remarkable coincidences between these
zoological phenomena and the great events of that time, — as,
for example, that before the burning of York Minster there
had been mysterious serpentine marks on the leaves of the
rose-trees, together with an unusual prevalence of slugs, which
he had been puzzled to know the meaning of, until it flashed
upon him with this melancholy conflagration. (Mr. Glegg
had an unusual amount of mental activity, which, when dis-
engaged from the wool business, naturally made itself a path-
way in other directions.) And his second subject of medita™
tion was the " contrairiness " of the female mind, as typically
exhibited in Mrs. Glegg. That a creature made — in a genea-
logical sense — out of a man's rib, and in this particular case
maintained in the highest respectability without any trouble of
her own, should be normally in a state of contradiction tc the
blandest propositions and even to the most accommodating
concessions, was a mystery in the scheme of things to which
he had often in vain sought a clew in the early chapters of
Genesis. Mr. Glegg had chosen the eldest Miss Dodson as 8
handsome embodiment of female prudence and thrift, and ^
130 THE MILL ON THE FLOS&
ing himself of a money-getting, money-keeping turn, had cal
culated on much conjugal harmony. But in that curious com-
pound, the feminine character, it may easily happen that the
flavor is unpleasant in spite of excellent ingredients ; and a
fine systematic stinginess may be accompanied with a season-
ing that quite spoils its relish. Now, good Mr. Glegg himself
was stingy in the most amiable manner ; his neighbors called
him "near," which always means that the person in question
is a lovable skinflint. If you expressed a preference for
cheese-parings, Mr. Glegg would remember to save them foi
you, with a good-natured delight in gratifying your palate,
and he was given to pet all animals which required no appre-
ciable keep. There was no humbug or hypocrisy about Mr.
Glegg ; his eyes would have watered with true feeling over the
sale of a widow's furniture, which a five-pound note from hia
side pocket would have prevented; but a donation of five
pounds to a person " in a small way of life " would have seemed
to him a mad kind of lavishness rather than " charity, " which
had always presented itself to him as a contribution of small
aids, not a neutralizing of misfortune. And Mr. Glegg was
just as fond of saving other people's money as his own; he
would have ridden as far round to avoid a turnpike when his
expenses were to be paid for him, as when they were to come
out of his own pocket, and was quite zealous in trying to in-
duce indifferent acquaintances to adopt a cheap substitute for
blacking. This inalienable habit of'saving, as an end in itself,
belonged to the industrious men of business of a former gen-
eration, who made their fortunes slowly, almost as the track-
ing of the fox belongs to the harrier, — it constituted them a
" race, " which is nearly lost in these days of rapid money -get
ting, when lavishness comes close on the back of want. In
old-fashioned times an " independence " was hardly ever made
without a little miserliness as a condition, and you would have
found that quality in every provincial district, combined with
characters as various as the fruits from which we can extract
acid. The true Harpagons were always marked and excep-
tional characters j not so the worthy tax-payers, who, having
once pinched from real necessity, retained even in the midst
of their comfortable retirement^ with their wall-fruit and wine*
BOY AND GIRL 151
bins, the habit of regarding life as an ingenious process of nib-
bling out one's livelihood without leaving any perceptible de-
ficit, and who would have been as immediately prompted to
give up a newly taxed luxury when they had their clear five
hundred a year, as when they had only five hundred pounds of
capital. Mr. Glegg was one of these men, found so impracti-
cable by chancellors of the exchequer ; and knowing this, you
will be the better able to understand why he had not swerved
,from the conviction that he had made an eligible marriage, in
spite of the too-pungent seasoning that nature had given to
the eldest Miss Dodson's virtues. A man with an affectionate
disposition, who finds a wife to concur with his fundamental
idea of life, easily comes to persuade himself that no other
woman would have suited him so well, and does a little daily
snapping and quarrelling without any sense of alienation. Mr.
&legg, being of a reflective turn, and no longer occupied with
wool, had much wondering meditation on the peculiar consti-
tution of the female mind as unfolded to him in his domestic
fife; and yet he thought Mrs. Glegg's household ways a model
for her sex. It struck him as a pitiable irregularity in other
women if they did not roll up their table-napkins with the
same tightness and emphasis as Mrs. Glegg did, if their pastry
had a less leathery consistence, and their damson cheese a less
venerable hardness than hers ; nay, even the peculiar combi-
nation of grocery and drug-like odors in Mrs. Glegg's private
cupboard impressed him as the only right thing in the way of
cupboard smells. I am not sure that he would not have longed
for the quarrelling again, if it had ceased for an entire week ;
and it is certain that an acquiescent, mild wife would have
left his meditations comparatively jejune and barren of mys-
tery.
Mr. Glegg's unmistakable kind-heartedness was shown in
this, that it pained him more to see his wife at variance with
others, — even with Dolly, the servant, — than to be in a state
of cavil with her himself; and the quarrel between her and
Mr. Tulliver vexed him so much that it quite nullified the
pleasure he would otherwise have had in the state of his early
cabbages, as he walked in his garden before breakfast the next
morning. Still, he went in to breakfast with some slight hope
153 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
that, now Mrs. Glegg had " slept upon it," her anger might b«
subdued enough to give way to her usually strong sense of
family decorum. She had been used to boast that there had
never been any of those deadly quarrels among the Dodsons
which had disgraced other families ; that no Dodson had ever
been "cut off with a shilling," and no cousin of the Dodsons
disowned; as, indeed, why should they be? 'For they had no
cousins who had not money out at use, or some houses of their
own, at the very least.
There was one evening-cloud which had always disappeared
from Mrs. Glegg's brow when she sat at the breakfast-table.
It was her fuzzy front of curls ; for as she occupied herself in
household matters in the morning it would have been a mere
extravagance to put on anything so superfluous to the making
of leathery pastry as a fuzzy curled front. By half -past ten
decorum demanded the front; until then Mrs. Glegg could
economize it, and society would never be any the wiser. But
the absence of that cloud only left it more apparent that the
cloud of severity remained ; and Mr. Glegg, perceiving this,
as he sat down to his milk-porridge, which it was his old fru-
gal habit to stem his morning hunger with, prudently resolved
to leave the first remark to Mrs. Glegg, lest, to so delicate aa
article as a lady's temper, the slightest touch should do mis-
chief. People who seem to enjoy their ill temper have a way
of keeping it in fine condition by inflicting privations on them-
selves. That was Mrs. Glegg's way. She made her tea
weaker than usual this morning, and declined butter. It was
a hard case that a vigorous mood for quarrelling, so highly
capable of using any opportunity, should not meet with a sin-
gle remark from Mr. Glegg on which to exercise itself. But
by and by it appeared that his silence would answer the pur-
pose, for he heard himself apostrophized at last in that tone
peculiar to the wife of one's bosom.
" Well, Mr. Glegg! it's a poor return I get for making yon
the wife I've made you all these years. If this is the way
I'm to be treated, I'd better ha' known it before my poor
father died, and then, when I'd wanted a home, I should ha1
gone elsewhere, as the choice was offered me."
Mr. Glegg paused from his porridge and looked up, not with
BOY AND GIRL. 183
any new amazement, bat simply with that quiet, habitual
wonder with which we regard constant mysteries.
u Why, Mrs. G., what have I done now?"
" Done now, Mr. Glegg? done now ? — I'm sorry for you."
Not seeing his way to any pertinent answer, Mr. Glegg re-
verted to his porridge.
"There's husbands in the world," continued Mrs.- Glegg,
after a pause, " as *ud have known how to do something differ-
ent to siding with everybody else against their own, wives.
Perhaps I'm wrong and you can teach me better. But I've
allays heard as it's the husband's place to stand by the wife,
instead o' rejoicing and triumphing when folks insult her."
"Now, what call have you to say that?" said Mr. Glegg,
rather warmly, for though a kind man, he was not as meek as
Moses. " When did I rejoice or triumph over you?"
"There's ways o' doing things worse than speaking out
plain, Mr. Glegg. I'd sooner you'd tell me to my face as you
make light of me, than try to make out as everybody's in the
right but me, and come to your breakfast in the morning, as
I've hardly slept an hour this night, and sulk at me as if I
was the dirt under your feet."
"Sulk at you?" said Mr. Glegg, in a tone of angry face-
tiousness. "You're like a tipsy man as thinks everybody's
had too much but himself."
" Don't lower yourself with using coarse language to me, Mr.
Glegg! It makes you look very small, though you can't see
yourself," said Mrs. Glegg, in a tone of energetic compassion.
" A man in your place should set an example, and talk more
sensible."
'' "Yes; but will you listen to sense?" retorted Mr. Glegg,
sharply. " The best sense I can talk to you is what I said
last night, — as you're i' the wrong to think o' calling in your
money, when it's safe enough if you'd let it alone, all because
of a bit of a tiff, and I was in hopes you'd ha* altered your
mind this morning. But if you'd like to call it in, don't do
it in a hurry now, and breed more enmity in the family, but
wait till there's a pretty mortgage to be had without any trou-
ble. You'd have to set the lawyer to work now to find an
investment, and make no end o' expense."
184 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Mrs. Glegg felt there was really something in this, but sht
tossed her head and emitted a guttural interjection to indicate
that her silence was only an armistice, not a peace. And, in
fact, hostilities soon broke out again.
"I'll thank you for my cup o' tea, now, Mrs. G.,M said Mr.
Glegg, seeing that she did not proceed to give it him as usual,
when he had finished his porridge. She lifted the teapot with
a slight toss of the head, and said, —
"I'm glad to hear you'll tJia n k me, Mr. Glegg. It's little
thanks / get for what I do for folks i' this world. Though
there's never a woman o' your side o' the family, Mr. Glegg,
as is fit to stand up with me, and I'd say it if I was on my
dying bed. Not but what I've allays conducted myself civil
to yoar kin, and there isn't one of 'em can say the contrary,
though my equils they aren't, and nobody shall make me say
it."
"You'd better leave finding fault wi' my kin till you've left
off quarrelling with you own, Mrs. G.," said Mr. Glegg, with
angry sarcasm. " I'll trouble you for the milk-jug."
"That's as false a word as ever you spoke, Mr. Glegg," said
the lady, pouring out the milk with unusual profuseness, as
much as to say, if he wanted milk he should have it with a ven-
geance. "And you know it's, false. I'm not the woman to
quarrel with my own kin; you may, for I've known you do it."
" Why, what did you call it yesterday, then, leaving your
sister's house in a tantrum? "
" I'd no quarrel wi' my sister, Mr. Glegg, and it's false to
say it. Mr. Tulliver*s none o' my blood, and it was him
quarrelled with me, and drove me out o' the house. But per-
haps you'd have had me stay and be swore at, Mr. Glegg;
perhaps you was vexed not to hear more abuse and foul lan-
guage poured out upo' your own wife. But, let me tell you,
it's your disgrace."
"Did ever anybody hear the like i' this parish?" said Mr.
Glegg, getting hot. "A woman, with everything provided
for her, and allowed to keep her own money the same as if it
was settled on her, and with a gig new stuffed and lined at
no eud o' expense, and provided for when I die beyond any-
thing she could expect — to go on i' this way, biting and snap-
BOY AND GIRL. 185
ping like a mad dog 1 It's beyond everything, as God A'migJity
should ha' made women so." (These last words were uttered
in a tone of sorrowful agitation. Mr. Glegg pushed his tea
from him, and tapped the table with both his hands.)
" Well, Mr. Glegg, if those are your feelings, it's best they
should be known," said Mrs. Glegg, taking off her napkin,
and folding it in an excited manner. " But if you talk o* my
being provided for beyond what I could expect, I beg leave to
tell you as I'd a right to expect a many things as I don't find.
And as to my being like a mad dog, it's well if you* re not
cried shame on by the county for your treatment of me, for
it's what I can't bear, and I won't bear "
Here Mrs. Glegg' s voice intimated that she was going to
cry, and breaking off from speech, she rang the bell violently.
" Sally, " she said, rising from her chair, and speaking in
rather a choked voice, " light a fire up-stairs, and put the
blinds down. Mr. Glegg, you'll please to order what you'd
like for dinner. I shall have gruel."
Mrs. Glegg walked across the room to the small book-case,
and took down Baxter's " Saints' Everlasting Rest," which she
carried with her up-stairs. It was the book she was accus-
tomed to lay open before her on special occasions, — on wet
Sunday mornings, or when she heard of a death in the family,
or when, as in this case, her quarrel with Mr. Glegg had been
set an octave higher than usual.
But Mrs. Glegg carried something else up-stairs with her,
which, together with the " Saints' Best " and the gruel, may
have had some influence in gradually calming her feelings,
and making it possible for her to endure existence 011 the
ground-floor shortly before tea-time. This was, partly, Mr.
Glegg' s suggestion that she would do well to let her five hun-
dred lie still until a good investment turned up ; and, further,
his parenthetic hint at his handsome provision for her in case
of his death. Mr. Glegg, like all men of his stamp, was
extremely reticent about his will; and Mrs. Glegg, in her
gloomier moments, had forebodings that, like other husbands
of whom she had heard, he might cherish the mean project
of heightening her grief at his death by leaving her poorly off,
in which case she was firmly resolved that she would have
136 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
scarcely any weeper on her bonnet, and would cry no more
than if he had been a second husband. But if he had really
shown her any testamentary tenderness, it would be affecting
to think of him, poor man, when he was gone ; and even his
foolish fuss about the flowers and garden-stuff, and his insist-
ence on the subject of snails, would be touching when it was
once fairly at an end. To survive Mr. Glegg, and talk eulo-
gistically of him as a man who might have his weaknesses, but
who had done the right thing by her, notwithstanding his
numerous poor relations; to have sums of interest coming in
more frequently, and secrete it in various corners, baffling to
the most ingenious of thieves (for, to Mrs. Glegg' s mind,
banks and strong-boxes would have nullified the pleasure of
property; she might as well have taken her food in capsules);
finally, to be looked up to by her own family and the neigh-
borhood, so as no woman can ever hope to be who has not
the praeterite and present dignity comprised in being a
" widow well left, " — all this made a flattering and conciliatory
view of the future. So that when good Mr. Glegg, restored
to good humor by much hoeing, and moved by the sight of his
wife's empty chair, with her knitting rolled up in the corner,
went up-stairs to her, and observed that the bell had been
tolling for poor Mr. Morton, Mrs. Glegg answered magnani-
mously, quite as if she had been an uninjured woman: "Ah I
then, there'll be a good business for somebody to take to."
Baxter had been open at least eight hours by this time, for
it was nearly five o'clock; and if people are to quarrel often,
it follows as a corollary that their quarrels cannot be pro-
tracted beyond certain limits.
Mr. and Mrs. Glegg talked quite amicably about the Tul-
livers that evening. Mr. Glegg went the length of admitting
that Tulliver was a sad man for getting into hot water, and
was like enough to run through his property ; and Mrs. Glegg,
meeting this acknowledgment half-way, declared that it was
beneath her to take notice of such a man's conduct, and that,
for her sister's sake, she would let him keep the five hundred
a wnile longer, for when she put it out on a mortgage she
should only get four per cent.
BOY AND G11U* 137
CHAPTER XTT1.
MB. TULLIVEB FURTHER ENTANGLES THE 8KEOT OF LIYft
OWING to this new adjustment of Mrs. Glegg*s thoughts,
Mrs. Pullet found her task of mediation the next day surpris-
ingly easy. Mrs. Glegg, indeed checked her rather sharply
for thinking it would be necessary to tell her elder sister \vha\,
was the right mode of behavior in family matters. Mrs. Pul-
let's argument, that it would look ill in the neighborhood if
people should have it in their power to say that there was a
quarrel in the family, was particularly offensive. If the fam-
ily name never suffered except through Mrs. Glegg, Mrs. Pul-
let might lay her head on her pillow in perfect confidence.
"It's not to be expected, I suppose," observed Mrs. Glegg,
by way of winding up the subject, "as I shall go to the mill
again before Bessy comes to see me, or as I shall go and fall
down o* my knees to Mr. Tulliver, and ask his pardon for
showing him favors j but I shall bear no malice, and when
Mr. Tulliver speaks civil to me, I'll speak civil to him. No-
body has any call to tell me what's becoming."
Finding it unnecessary to plead for the Tullivers, it was
natural that aunt Pullet should relax a little in her anxiety
for them, and recur to the annoyance she had suffered yester-
day from the offspring of that apparently ill-fated house.
Mrs. Glegg heard a circumstantial narrative, to which Mr.
Pullet's remarkable memory furnished some items; and while
aunt Pullet pitied poor Bessy's bad luck with her children, and
expressed a half -formed project of paying for Maggie's being
sent to a distant boarding-school, which would not prevent her
being so brown, but might tend to subdue some other vices in
her, aunt Glegg blamed Bessy for her weakness, and appealed
to all witnesses who should be living when the Tulliver chil-
dren had turned out ill, that she, Mrs. Glegg, had always said
how it would be from the very first, observing that it was
wonderful to herself how all her words came true.
"Then I may call and tell Bessy you'll bear no malice, and
133 THE "iim.lt ON THE FLOS&
everything be as it was before?/' Mrs. Pullet said, just before
parting.
"Yes, you may, Sophy," said Mrs. Glegg; "you may tell
Mr. Tulliver, and Bessy too, as I'm not going to behave ill
because folks behave ill to me; I know it's my place, as the
eldest, to set an example in every respect, aud I do it. No-
tody can say different of me, if they'll keep to the truth."
Mrs. Glegg being in this state of satisfaction in her own
'.ofty magnanimity, I leave you to judge what effect was pro-
duced on her by the reception of a short letter from Mr. Tulli-
ver that very evening, after Mrs. Pullet's departure, inform-
ing her that she needn't trouble her mind about her five hun-
dred pounds, for it should be paid back to her in the course of
the next month at farthest, together with the interest due
thereon until the time of payment. And furthermore, that
Mr. Tulliver had no wish to behave uncivilly to Mrs. Glegg,
and she was welcome to his house whenever she liked to come,
but he desired no favors from her, either for himself 03 his
children.
It was poor Mrs. Tulliver who had hastened this catastro-
phe, entirely through that irrepressible hopefulness of hers
which led her to expect that similar causes may at any time
produce different results. It had very often occurred in her
experience that Mr. Tulliver had done something because other
people had said he was not able to do it, or had pitied him
for his supposed inability, or in any other way piqued his
pride j still, she thought to-day, if she told him when he came
in to tea that sister Pullet was gone to try and make every-
thing up with sister Glegg, so that he needn't think about
paying in the money, it would give a cheerful effect to tha
meal. Mr. Tulliver had never slackened in his resolve to rais<»
the money, but now he at once determined to write a letter tr
Mrs. Glegg, which should cut off all possibility of mistake,
Mrs. Pullet gone to beg and pray for him indeed! Mr. Tulli-
ver did not willingly write a letter, and found the rehAior
between spoken and written language, briefly known as sp«U
ing, one of the most puzzling things in this puzzling world
Nevertheless, like all fervid writing, the task was done U
less time than usual, and it the spelling differed from Mrs*
SOT AND GIRL. 139
Glegg's, — why, she belonged, like himself, to a generation
with whom spelling was a matter of private judgment.
Mrs. Glegg did not alter her will in consequence of this let-
ter, and cut off the Tulliver children from their sixth and sev-
enth share in her thousand pounds; for she had her principles.
No one must be able to say of her when she was dead that she
had not divided her money with perfect fairness among her
own kin. In the matter of wills, personal qualities were
subordinate to the great fundamental fact of blood; and to be
determined in the distribution of your property by caprice,
and not make your legacies bear a direct ratio to degrees of
kinship, was a prospective disgrace that would have embit-
tered her life. This had always been a principle in the Dod-
son family ; it was one form of that sense of honor and recti-
tude which was a proud tradition in such families, — a tradition
which has been the salt of our provincial society.
But though the letter could not shake Mrs. Glegg's princi-
ples, it made the family breach much more difficult to mend}
and as to the effect it produced on Mrs. Glegg's opinion of Mr.
Tulliver, she begged to be understood from that time forth that
she had nothing whatever to say about him j his state of mind,
apparently, was too corrupt for her to contemplate it for a
moment. It was not until the evening before Tom went to
school, at the beginning of August, that Mrs. Glegg paid a
visit to her sister Tulliver, sitting in her gig all the while, and
showing her displeasure by markedly abstaining from all
advice and criticism ; for, as she observed to her sister Deane,
" Bessy must bear the consequence o' having such a husband,
though I'm sorry for her," and Mrs. Deane agreed that 1
was pitiable.
That evening Tom observed to Maggie: "Ohmyi Magg>
aunt Glegg's beginning to come again; I'm glad I'm going to
school. You'll catch it all now I "
Maggie was already so full of sorrow at the thought of Tom's
going away from her, that this playful exultation of his
seemed very unkind, and she cried herself to sleep that night.
Mr. Tulliver's prompt procedure entailed on him further
promptitude in finding the convenient person who was desir-
ous of lending five hundred founds on bond. M It must be no
140 THE MILL ON TTTK FLOBR
client of Wakem's," he said to himself; and yet at the end of
a fortnight it turned out to the contrary; not because Mr.
Tulliver'a will was feeble, but because external fact was
stronger. "Wakem's client was the only convenient person to
be found. Mr. Tulliver had a destiny as well as CEdipus, and
in thia case he might plead, like (Edipus, that his deed was
inflicted on him rather than committed by him.
BOOK IL-SCHOOL-TIM&
CHAPTEB L
TOM'8 " FIB8T HAUT."
TOM TULLTTEB'S sufferings during the first quarter he wai
At King's Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev.
Walter Stalling, were rather severe. At Mr. Jacobs's acad«
emy life had not presented itself to him as a difficult problem ;
there were plenty of fellows to play with, and Tom being good
at all active games, — fighting especially, — had that precedence
among them which appeared to him inseparable from the
personality of Tom Tulliver. Mr. Jacobs himself, familiarly
known as Old Goggles, from his habit of wearing spectacles,
imposed no painful awe ; and if it was the property of snuffy
old hypocrites like him to write like copperplate and surround
their signatures with arabesques, to spell without forethought,
and to spout " my name is Norval n without bungling, Tom,
for his part, was glad he was not in danger of those mean ac-
complishments. He was not going to be a snuffy schoolmas-
ter, he, but a substantial man, like his father, who used to go
hunting when he was younger, and rode a capital black mare,
. -as pretty a bit of horse-flesh as ever you saw j Tom had
heard what her points were a hundred times. He meant to go
hunting too, and to be generally respected. When people
were grown up, he considered, nobody inquired about their
writing and spelling ; when he was a man, he should be mas-
ter of everything, and do just as he liked. It had been very
difficult for him to reconcile himself to the idea that his school-
time was to ba prolonged and that he was not to be brought up
to his father's business, which he had always thought extremely
pleasant ; for it was nothing but riding about, giving orders,
and going to market j and he thought that a clergyman would
142 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
give him a great many Scripture lessons, and probably make
him learn the Gospel and Epistle on a Sunday, .as well as the
Collect. But in the absence of specific information, it was
impossible for him to imagine that school and a schoolmaster
would be something entirely different from the academy of Mr.
Jacobs. So, not to be at a deficiency, in case of his finding
genial companions, he had taken care to carry with him a
small box of percussion-caps; not that there was anything
particular to be done with them, but they would serve to im-
press strange boys with a sense of his familiarity with guns.
Thus poor Tom, though he saw very clearly through Maggie's
illusions, was not without illusions of his own, which were
to be cruelly dissipated by his enlarged experience at King's
Lorton.
He had not been there a fortnight before it was evident to
him that life, complicated not only with the Latin grammar
but with a new standard of English pronunciation, was a very
difficult business, made all the more obscure by a thick mist
of bashfulness. Torn, as you have observed, was never an ex-
ception among boys for ease of address j but the difficulty of
enunciating a monosyllable in reply to Mr. or Mrs. Stelling
was so great, that he even dreaded to be asked at table whether
he would have more pudding. As to the percussion-caps, he
had almost resolved, in the bitterness of his heart, that he
would throw them into a neighboring pond ; for not only was
he the solitary pupil, but he began even to have a certain
scepticism about guns, and a general sense that his theory of
life was undermined. For Mr. Stelling thought nothing of
guns, or horses either, apparently ; and yet it was impossible
for Tom to despise Mr. Stelling as he had despised Old Gog-
gles. If there were anything that was not thoroughly gen-
uine about Mr. Stelling, it lay quite beyond Tom's power to
detect it ; it is only by a wide comparison of facts that the
wisest full-grown man can distinguish well-rolled barrels from
more supernal thunder.
Mr. Stelling was a well-sized, broad-chested man, not yet
thirty, with flaxen air standing erect, and large lightish-gray
eyes, which were always very wide open ; he had a sonorous
bass voice, and an air of defiant self-confidence inclining to
SCHOOL-TIME 143
brazenness. He had entered on his career with great vigor,
and intended to make a considerable impression on his fellow-
men. The Rev. Walter Stelling was not a man who would
remain among the " inferior clergy " all his life. He had a
true British determination to push his way in the world, — as
a schoolmaster, in the first place, for there were capital mas-
terships of grammar-schools to be had, and Mr. Stelling meant
to have one of them ; but as a preacher also, for he meant
always to preach in a striking manner, so as to have his con-
gregation swelled by admirers from neighboring parishes, and
to produce a great sensation whenever he took occasional duty
for a brother clergyman of minor gifts. The style of preach-
ing he had chosen was the extemporaneous, which was held lit-
tle short of the miraculous in rural parishes like King's Lor'
ton. .Some passages of Massillon and Bourdaloue, which he
knew by heart, were really very effective when rolled out in
Mr. Stelling's deepest tones; but as comparatively feeble ap-
peals of his own were delivered in the same loud and impres-
sive manner, they were often thought quite as striking by his
hearers. Mr. Stelling's doctrine was of no particular school j
if anything, it had a tinge of evangelicalism, for that was
" the telling thing " just then in the diocese to which King's
Lorton belonged. In short, Mr. Stelling was a man who
meant to rise in his profession, and to rise by merit, clearly,
since he had no interest beyond what might be promised by a
problematic relationship to a great lawyer who had not yet
become Lord Chancellor. A clergyman who has such vigorous
intentions naturally gets a little into debt at starting ; it is not
to be expected that he will live in the meagre style of a man
who means to be a poor curate all his life; and if the few hun-
dreds Mr. Timpson advanced toward his daughter's fortune
did not suffice for the purchase of handsome furniture, together
with a stock of wine, a grand piano, and the laying out of a
superior flower-garden, it followed in the most rigorous man-
ner, either that these things must be procmred by some other
means, or else that the Eev. Mr. Stelling must go without
them, which last alternative would be an absurd procrastina-
tion of the fruits of success, where success was certain. Mr.
Stelling was so broad-chested and resolute that he felt equal to
144 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
anything; he would become celebrated by shaking the con
sciences of his hearers, and he would by and by edit a Greek
play, and invent several new readings. He had not yet se-
lected the play, for having been married little more than two
years, his leisure time had been much occupied with atten-
tions to Mrs. Stelling j but he had told that fine woman what
he meant to do some day, and she felt great confidence in her
husband, as a man who understood everything of that sort.
But the immediate step to future success was to bring on
Tom Tulliver during this first half-year; for, by a singular
coincidence, there had been some negotiation concerning an*
other pupil from the same neighborhood, and it might further
a decision in Mr. Stelling's favor, if it were understood that
young Tulliver, who, Mr. Stelling observed in conjugal privacy,
was rather a rough cub, had made prodigious progress in a
short time. It was on this ground that he was severe with
Tom about his lessons ; he was clearly a boy whose powers
would never be developed through the medium of the Latin
grammar, without the application of some sternness. Not
that Mr. Stelling was a harsh-tempered or unkind man ; quite
the contrary. He was jocose with Tom at table, and corrected
his provincialisms and his deportment in the most playful
manner ; but poor Tom was only the more cowed and confused
by this double novelty, for he had never been used to jokes at
all like Mr. Stelling' s ; and for the first time in his life he had
a painful sense that he was all wrong somehow. When
Mr. Stelling said, as the roast-beef was being uncovered,
" Now, Tulliver ! which would you rather decline, roast-beef or
the Latin for it? " Tom, to whom in his coolest moments a
pun would have been a hard nut, was thrown into a state of
embarrassed alarm that made everything dim to him except
the feeling that he would rather not have anything to do with
Latin ; of course he answered, " Roast-beef, " whereupon there
followed much laughter and some practical joking with the
plates, from which Tom gathered that he had in some mysteri-
ous way refused beef, and, in fact, made himself appear " a
silly." If he could have seen a fellow-pupil undergo these
painful operations and survive them in good spirits, he might
sooner have taken them as a matter of course. But there are
8CHOOL-TTMR
>
expencive forms of education, either of whici
may procure for his son by sending him as solitary p
clergyman : one is the enjoyment of the reverend gent,
undivided neglect ; the other is the endurance of the re ,
gentleman's undivided attention. It was the latter priv .^e
for which Mr. Tulliver paid a high price in Tom's initiatory
months at King's Lorton.
That respectable miller and maltster had left Tom behind,
and driven homeward in a state of great mental satisfaction.
He considered that it was a happy moment for him when he
had thought of asking Kiley's advice about a tutor for Tom.
Mr. Stelling's eyes were so wide open, and he talked in such
an off-hand, matter-of-fact way, answering every difficult,
slow remark of Mr. Tulliver's with, " I see, my good sir, I
see " ; " To be sure, to be sure " j " You want your son to be a
man who will make his way in the world," — that Mr. Tulliver
was delighted to find in him a clergyman whose knowledge
was so applicable to the every-day affairs of this life. Except
Counsellor Wylde, whom he had heard at the last sessions,
Mr. Tulliver thought the Rev. Mr. Stelling was the shrewdest
fellow he had ever met with, — not unlike Wylde, iu fact; he
had the same way of sticking his thumbs in the anaholes of
his waistcoat. Mr. Tulliver was not by any means an excep-
tion in mistaking brazenness for shrewdness; most laymen
thought Stelling shrewd, and a man of remarkable powers gen-
erally ; it was chiefly by his clerical brethren that he was con-
sidered rather a dull fellow. But he told Mr. Tulliver several
stories about " Swing n and incendiarism, and asked his advice
about feeding pigs in so thoroughly secular and judicious a
manner, with so much polished glibness of tongue, that the
miller thought, here was the very thing he wanted for Tom.
He had no doubt this first-rate man was acquainted with every
branch of information, and knew exactly what Tom must learn
in order to become a match for the lawyers, which poor Mr.
Tulliver himself did not know, and so was necessarily thrown
for self-direction on this wide kind of inference. It is hardl/
fair to laugh at him, for I have known much more highly in-
structed persons than he make inferences quite as wide, and
not at all v^sc » « - •
1W
THE MILL ON THE FLO8&
As for Mrs. Tulliver, finding that Mrs. Stelling's views as
to the airing of linen and the frequent recurrence of hunger in
a growing boy entirely coincided with her own ; moreoever,
that Mrs. Stelling, though so young a woman, and only antici-
pating her second confinement, had gone through very nearly
the same experience as herself with regard to the behavior
and fundamental character of the monthly nurse, — she ex-
pressed great contentment to her husband, when they drove
away, at leaving Toiu with a woman who, in spite of her
youth, seemed quite sensible and motherly, and asked advice
as prettily as could be.
"They must be very well off, though," said Mrs. Tulliver,
" for everything's as nice as can be all over the house, and that
watered silk she had on cost a pretty penny. Sister Pullet
has got one like it."
"Ah," said Mr. Tulliver, "he's got some income besides the
curacy, I reckon. Perhaps hei father allows 'eni something.
There's Tom 'ull be another hundred to him, and not much
trouble either, by his own account; he says teaching comes
natural to him. That's wonderful, now," added Mr. Tulliver,
turning his head on one side, and giving his horse a medita-
tive tickling on the flank.
Perhaps it was because teaching came naturally to Mr.
Stelling, that he set about it with that uniformity of method
and independence of circumstances which distinguish the ac-
tions of animals understood to be under the immediate teach-
ing of nature. Mr. Broderip's amiable beaver, as that charm-
ing naturalist tells us, busied himself as earnestly in con-
structing a dam, in a room up three pair of stairs in London,
as if he had been laying his foundation in a stream or lake in
Upper Canada. It was " Binny's" function to build; the ab-
sence of water or of possible progeny was an accident for which
he was not accountable. With the same unerring instinct Mr.
Stelling set to work at his natural method of instilling the
Eton Grammar and Euclid into the mind of Tom Tulliver.
This, he considered, was the only basis of solid instruction ;
all otner means of education were mere charlatanism, and
could produce nothing better than smatterers. Fixed on thia
firm basis, a man might observe the display of various or
SCHOOL-TIME.
eial knowledge made by irregularly educated people with a
pitying smile ; all that sort of thing was very well, but it was
impossible these people could form sound opinions. In hold-
ing this conviction Mr. Stelling was not biassed, as some
tutors have been, by the excessive accuracy or extent of his own
scholarship; and as to his views about Euclid, no opinion
could have been freer from personal partiality. Mr. Stelling
was very far from being led astray by enthusiasm, either relig-
ious or intellectual ; on the other hand, he had no secret belief
that everything was humbug. He thought religion was a very
excellent thing, and Aristotle a great authority, and deaneries
and prebends useful institutions, and Great Britain the provi-
dential bulwark of Protestantism, and faith in the unseen
a great support to afflicted minds j he believed in all these
things, as a Swiss hotel-keeper believes in the beauty of the
scenery around him, and in the pleasure it gives to artistic vis-
itors. And in the same way Mr. Stelling believed in his
method of education; he had no doubt that he was doing the
very best, thing for Mr. Tulliver's boy. Of course, when the
miller talked of " mapping n and " summing " in a vague and
diffident manner, Mr. Stelling had set his mind at rest by
an assurance that he understood what was wanted ; for how
was it possible the good man could form any reasonable
judgment about the matter? Mr. Stelling's duty was to teach
the lad in the only right way, — indeed he knew no other;
he had not wasted his time in the acquirement of anything
abnormal.
He very soon set down poor Tom as a thoroughly stupid lad ;
for though by hard labor he could get particular declensions
into his brain, anything so abstract as the relation between
cases and terminations could by no means get such a lodgment
there as to enable him to recognize a chance genitive or dative.
This struck Mr. Stelling as something more than natural stu-
pidity; he suspected obstinacy, or at any rate indifference,
and lectured Tom severely on his want of thorough application.
"You feel no interest in what you're doing, sir," Mr. Stelling
would say, and the reproach was painfully true. Tom had
never found any difficulty in discerning a pointer from a set-
ter, when once he had been told the distinction, and his per-
148 THE MILL ON THE FLO88.
ceptive powers were not at all deficient. I fancy they were
quite as strong as those of the Eev. Mr. Stelling ; for Tom
could predict with accuracy what number of horses were can-
tering behind him, he could throw a stone right into the cen-
tre of a given ripple, he could guess to a fraction how many
lengths of his stick it would take to reach across the play-
ground, and could draw almost perfect squares on his slat*
without any measurement. But Mr. Stelling took no note of
these things ; he only observed that Tom's faculties failed him
before the abstractions hideously symbolized to him in the
pages of the Eton Grammar, and that he was in a state bor-
dering on idiocy with regard to the demonstration that two
given triangles must be equal, though he could discern with
great promptitude and certainty the fact that they tvere equal.
Whence Mr. Stelling concluded that Tom's brain, being pe-
culiarly impervious to etymology and demonstrations, was
peculiarly in need of being ploughed and harrowed by these
patent implements; it was his favorite metaphor, that the
classics and geometry constituted that culture of the mind
which prepared it for the reception of any subsequent crop.
I say nothing against Mr. Stelling's theory ; if we are to have
one regimen for all minds, his seems to me as good as any
other. I only know it turned out as uncomfortably for Tom
Tulliver as if he had been plied with cheese in order to rem-
edy a gastrio weakness which prevented him from digesting it.
It is astonishing what a different result one gets by changing
the metaphor ! Once call the brain an intellectual stomach,
and one's ingenious conception of the classics and geometry as
ploughs and harrows seems to settle nothing. But then it is
open to some one else to follow great authorities, and call the
mind a sheet of white paper or a mirror, in which case one's
knowledge of the digestive process becomes quite irrelevant,
It was doubtless an ingenious idea to call the camel the ship
of the desert, but it would hardly lead one far in training that
Useful beast. O Aristotle ! if you had had the advantage of
being " the freshest modern " instead of the greatest ancient,
would you not have mingled your praise of metaphorical
speech, as a sign of high intelligence, with a lamentation that
Intelligence so rarely shows itself in speech without metaphor,
SCHOOL-TIME, 149
—that we can so seldom declare what a thing is, except by
saying it is something else?
Tom Tulliver, being abundant in no form of speech, did not
use any metaphor to declare his views as to the nature of
Latin ; he never called it an instrument of torture ; and it was
not until he had got on some way in the next half-year, and
in the Delectus, that he was advanced enough to call it a
"bore" and "beastly stuff." At present, in relation to this
demand that he should learn Latin declensions and conjuga-
tions, Tom was in a state of as blank unimaginativeness con-
cerning the cause and tendency of his sufferings, as if he had
been an innocent shrewmouse imprisoned in the split trunk of
an ash-tree in order to cure lameness in cattle. It is doubtless
almost incredible to instructed minds of the present day that
a boy of twelve, not belonging strictly to " the masses, " who
are now understood to have the monopoly of mental darkness,
should have had no distinct idea how there came to be such a
thing as Latin on this earth ; yet so it was with Tom. It
would have taken a long while to make conceivable to him that
there ever existed a people who bought and sold sheep and
oxen, and transacted the every -day affairs of life, through the
medium of this language ; and still longer to make him under-
stand why he should be called upon to learn it, when its con-
nection with those affairs had become entirely latent. So far
as Tom had gained any acquaintance with the Romans at Mr.
Jacobs's academy, his knowledge was strictly correct, but it
went no farther than the fact that they were " in the New
Testament" ; and Mr. Stelling was not the man to enfeeble and
emasculate his pupil's mind by simplifying and explaining,
or to reduce the tonic effect of etymology by mixing it with
smattering, extraneous information, such as is given to girls.
Yet, strange to say, under this vigorous treatment Tom be*,
came more like a girl than he had ever been in his life before.
He haa a large share of pride, which had hitherto found itself
very comfortable in the world, despising Old Goggles, and re-
posing in the sense of unquestioned rights; but now this same
pride met with nothing but bruises and crushings. Tom was
too clear-sighted not to be aware that Mr. Stelling's standard
of things was quite different, was certainly something highei
160 THE MTLT. ON THIS FLOSa
in the eyea of the world than that of the people he had been
living amorist, and that, brought in contact with it, he, Tom
Tulliver, appeared uncouth and stupid; he \vas by no means
indifferent to this, and his pride got into an uneaay condition
which quite nullified his boyish self-satisfaction, and gave
him something of the girl's susceptibility. He was of a very
firm, not to say obstinate, disposition, but there was no brute-
like rebellion and recklessness in his nature; the human sen-
sibilities predominated, and if it had occurred to him that he
could enable himself to show some quickness at his lessons,
and so acquire Mr. Stelling's approbation, by standing on one
leg for an inconvenient length of time, or rapping his head
moderately against the wall, or any voluntary action of that
sort, he would certainly have tried it. But no; Tom had
never heard that these measures would brighten the under-
standing, or strengthen the verbal memory ; and he was not
given to hypothesis and experiment. It did occur to him that
he could perhaps get some help by praying for it ; but as the
prayers he said every evening were forms learned by heart, he
rather shrank from the novelty and irregularity of introducing
an extempore passage on a topic of petition for which he was
not aware of any precedent. But one day, when he had broken
down, for the fifth time, in the supines of the third conjuga-
tion, and Mr. Stelling, convinced that this must be careless-
ness, since it transcended the bounds of possible stupidity, had
lectured him very seriously, pointing out that if he failed to
seize the present golden opportunity of learning supines, he
would have to regret it when he became a man, — Tom, more
miserable than usual, determined to try his sole resource ; and
that evening, after his usual form of prayer for his parents and
" little sister " (he had begun to pray for Maggie when she
was a baby), and that he might be able always to keep God's
commandments, he added, in the same low whisper, "and
please to make me always remember my Latin." He paused
a little to consider how he should pray about Euclid — whether
he should ask to see what it meant, or whether there was any
other mental state which would be more applicable to the case.
But at last he added: " And make Mr. Stelling say I shaVt
do Euclid any more. Amen."
SCHOOL-TIME. 151
The fact that he got through his supines without mistake
the next day, encouraged him to persevere in this appendix to
his prayers, and neutralized any scepticism that might have
arisen from Mr. Stelling's continued demand for Euclid. But
his faith broke down under the apparent absence of all help
when he got into the irregular verbs. It seemed clear that
Tom's despair under the caprices of the present tense did not
constitute a nodus worthy of interference, and since this was
the climax of his difficulties, where was the use of praying for
help any longer? He made up his mind to this conclusion in
one of his dull, lonely evenings, which he spent in the study,
preparing his lessons for the morrow. His eyes were apt to
get dim over the page, though he hated crying, and was
ashamed of it; he couldn't help thinking with some affection
even of Spouncer, whom he used to fight and quarrel with ; he
would have felt at home with Spouncer, and in a condition of
superiority. And then the mill, and the river, and Yap prick-
ing up his ears, ready to obey the least sign when Tom said,
" Hoigh ! " would all come before him in a sort of calenture,
when his fingers played absently in his pocket with his great
knife and his coil of whipcord, and other relics of the past.
Tom, as I said, had never been so much like a girl in his life
before, and at that epoch of irregular verbs his spirit was fur-
ther depressed by a new means of mental development which
had been thought of for him out of school hours. Mrs. Stel-
ling had lately had her second baby, and as nothing could be
more salutary for a boy than to feel himself useful, Mrs. Stel-
ling considered she was doing Tom a service by setting him
to watch the little cherub Laura while the nurse was occupied
with the sickly baby. It was quite a pretty employment for
Tom to take little Laura out in the sunniest hour of the au-
tumn day; it would help to make him feel that Lorton Par-
sonage was a home for him, and that he was one of the family.
The little cherub Laura, not being an accomplished walker at
present, had a ribbon fastened round her waist, by which Tom
held her as if she had been a little dog during the minutes in
which she chose to walk; but as these were rare, he was for
the nost part carrying this fine child round and round the
garden, within sight of Mrs. Stelling's window, according to
152 THE MILL OH THE FLOSS.
orders. If any one considers this unfair and even oppressive
toward Tom, I beg him to consider that there are feminine
virtues which are with difficulty combined, even if they are
not incompatible. When the wife of a poor curate contrives,
under all her disadvantages, to dress extremely well, and to
have a style of coiffure which requires that her nurse shall oc-
casionally officiate as lady's-maid ; when, moreover, her din»
ner-parties and her drawing-room show that effort at elegance
and completeness of appointment to which ordinary women
might imagine a large income necessary, it would be unreason-
able to expect of her that she should employ a second nurse,
or even act as a nurse herself. Mr. Stelling knew better ; he
saw that his wife did wonders already, and was proud of her.
It was certainly not the best thing in the world for young Tul-
liver's gait to carry a heavy child, but he had plenty of exer-
cise in long walks with himself, and next half-year Mr. Stelling
would see about having a drilling-master. Among the many
means whereby Mr. Stelling intended to be more fortunate
than the bulk of his fellow-men, he had entirely given up that of
having his own way in his own house. What then ? He had
married "as kind a little soul as ever breathed," according to
Mr. Biley, who had been acquainted with Mrs. Stelling' s blond
ringlets and smiling demeanor throughout her maiden life, ana
on the strength of that knowledge would have been ready any
day to pronounce that whatever domestic differences might
arise in her married life must be entirely Mr. Stelling's fault.
If Tom had had a worse disposition, he would certainly have
hated the little cherub Laura, but he was too kind-hearted a
lad for that; there was too much in him of the fibre that turns
to true manliness, and to protecting pity for the weak. I am
afraid he hated Mrs. Stelling, and contracted a lasting dislike
to pale blond ringlets and broad plaits, as directly associated
with haughtiness of manner, and a frequent reference to other
people's "duty." But he couldn't help playing with little
Laura, and liking to amuse her; he even sacrificed his percus-
sion-caps for her sake, in despair of their ever serving a greatei
purpose, — thinking the small flash and bang would delight her,
and thereby drawing down on himself a rebuke from Mra,
Stelling for teaching her child to play with fire. Laura was a
•CHOOL-TIME. 163
lort of playfellow — and oh, how Tom longed for play fellows!
In his secret heart he yearned to have Maggie with him, and
was almost ready to dote on her exasperating acts of forgetful-
ness ; though, when he was at home, he always represented it
as a great favor on his part to let Maggie trot by his side on
his pleasure excursions.
And before this dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actu-
ally came. Mrs. Stelling had given a general invitation for
the little girl to come and stay with her brother ; so when Mr.
Tulliver drove over to King's Lorton late in October, Maggie
came too, with the sense that she was taking a great journey,
and beginning to see the world. It was Mr. Tulliver' s first
visit to see Tom, for the lad must learn not to think too much
about home.
"Well, my lad," he said to Tom, when Mr. Stelling had
left the room to announce the arrival to his wife, and Maggie
had begun to kiss Tom freely, "you look rarely I School
agrees with you."
Tom wished he had looked rather ill.
"I don't think I am well, father," said Tomj "I wish
you'd ask Mr. Stelling not to let me do Euclid; it brings on
the toothache, I think."
(The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever
been subject.)
"Euclid, my lad, — why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.
"Oh, I don't know; it's definitions, and axioms, and trian-
gles, and things. It's a book I've got to learn in — there's no
sense hi it."
"Go, go I "said Mr. Tulliver, reprovingly; "you mustn't
say so. You must learn what your master tells you. He
knows what it's right for you to learn."
"I'll help you now, Tom," said Maggie, with a little air of
patronizing consolation. "I'm come to stay ever so long, if
Mrs. Stelling asks me. I've brought my box and my pina*
fores, haven't I, father?"
" You he]p me, you silly little thing I" said Tom, in such
high spirits at this announcement that he quite enjoyed the
idea of confounding Maggie by showing her a page of Euclid.
"I should like to see you doing one of my lessons I Why,
164 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
I learn Latin, too! Girls never learn such things. They'r*
too silly."
"I know what Latin is very well," said Maggie, confident-
ly. " Latin's a language. There are Latin words in the Dic-
tionary. There's bonus, a gift."
"Now, you're just wrong there, Miss Maggie! " said Tom,
secretly astonished. "You think you're very wisel But.
'bonus* means ' good,' as it happens, — bonus, bona, bonum.*'
"Well, that's no reason why it shouldn't mean ' gift,' " said
Maggie, stoutly. " It may mean several things ; almost every
word does. There's 'lawn,' — it means the grass-plot, as
well as the stuff pocket-handkerchiefs are made of."
" Well done, little 'un," said Mr. Tulliver, laughing, while
Tom felt rather disgusted with Maggie's knowingness, though
beyond measure cheerful at the thought that she was going to
stay with him. Her conceit would soon be overawed by the
actual inspection of his books.
Mrs. Stelling, in her pressing invitation, did not mention a
longer time than a week for Maggie's stay ; but Mr. Stelling,
who took her between his knees, and asked her where she stole
her dark eyes from, insisted that she must stay a fortnight.
Maggie thought Mr. Stelling was a charming man, and Mr.
Tulliver was quite proud to leave his little wench where she
would have an opportunity of showing her cleverness to appre-
ciating strangers. So it was agreed that she shovild not be
fetched home till the end of the fortnight.
"Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie," said
Tom, as their father drove away. " What do you shake and
toss your head now for, you silly?" he continued; for though
her hair was now under a new dispensation, and was brushed
smoothly behind her ears, she seemed still in imagination to
be tossing it out of her eyes. " It makes you look as if you
were crazy."
"Oh, I can't help it," said Maggie, impatiently. "Don't
tease me, Tom. Oh, what books ! " she exclaimed, as she saw
the bookcases in the study. " How I should like to have as
many books as that! "
" Why, you couldn't read one of 'em," said Tom, trium-
phantly, " They're all Latin."
SCHOOL-TIME. 156
"No, they aren't," said Maggie. "I can read the back o£
this, — * History of the Decline and Fall of the Eoman Empire. ' "
" Well, what does that mean? You don't know," said Tom,
wagging his head.
"But 1 could soon find out," said Maggie, scornfully.
"Why, how?"
"I should look inside, and see what it was about."
" You'd better not, Miss Maggie," said Tom, seeing her hand
on the volume. " Mr. Stelling lets nobody touch his booka
without leave, and /shall catch it, if you take it out."
" Oh, very well. Let me see all your books, then, " said
Maggie, turning to throw her arms round Tom's neck, and rub
his cheek with her small round nose.
Tom, in the gladness of his heart at having dear old Maggie
to dispute with and crow over again, seized her round the
waist, and began to jump with her round the large library ta-
ble. Away they jumped with more and more vigor, till Mag-
gie's hair flew from behind her ears, and twirled about like an
animated mop. But the revolutions round the table became
more and more irregular in their sweep, till at last reaching
Mr. Stelling's reading-stand, they sent it thundering down
with its heavy lexicons to the floor. Happily it was the
ground-floor, and the study was a one-storied wing to the
house, so that the downfall made no alarming resonance,
though Tom stood dizzy and aghast for a few minutes, dread-
ing the appearance of Mr. or Mrs. Stelling.
"Oh, I say, Maggie," said Tom at last, lifting up the stand,
" we must keep quiet here, you know. If we break anything
Mrs. Stelling'll make us cry peccavi."
" What's that? " said Maggie.
"Oh, it's the Latin for a good scolding," said Tom, not
without some pride in his knowledge.
"Is she a cross woman?" said Maggie.
"I believe you! " said Tom, with an emphatic nod.
" I think all women are Grosser than men, " said Maggie.
** Aunt Glegg's a great deal Grosser than uncle Glegg, and
mother scolds me more than father does."
"Well, you'll be a woman some day," said Tom, "so
needn't talk."
156 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS,
"But 1 shall be a clever woman," said Maggie, with •
toss.
" Oh, I dare say, and a nasty conceited thing. Everybody'!!
hate you."
" But you oughtn't to hate me, Tom j it'll be very wicked
of you, for I shall be your sister."
" Yes, but if you're a nasty disagreeable thing I shall hate
you."
"Oh, but, Tom, you won't 1 I sha'n't be disagreeable. I
shall be very good to you, and I shall be good to everybody.
You won't hate me really, will you, Tom? "
"Oh, bother! never mind! Come, it's time for me to learn
my lessons. See here! what I've got to do," said Tom, draw-
ing Maggie toward him and showing her his theorem, while
she pushed her hair behind her ears, and prepared herself to
prove her capability of helping him in Euclid. She began to
read with full confidence in her own powers, but presently,
becoming quite bewildered, her face flushed with irritation.
It was unavoidable ; she must confess her incompetency, and
she was not fond of humiliation.
"It's nonsense I" she said, "and very ugly stuff; nobody
need want to make it out."
" Ah, there, now, Miss Maggie! " said Tom, drawing the book
away, and wagging his head at her, "you see you're not so
clever as you thought you were."
"Oh," said Maggie, pouting, "I dare say I could make it
out, if I'd learned what goes before, as you have."
" But that's what you just couldn't, Miss Wisdom," said
Tom. " For it's all the harder when you know what goes be-
fore ; for then you've got to say what definition 3 is, and what
axiom V. is. But get along with you now j I must go on with
this. Here's the Latiu Grammar. See what you can make
of that."
Maggie found the Latin Grammar quite soothing after her
mathematical mortification ; for she delighted in new words,
and quickly found that there was an English Key at the end,
which would make her very wise about Latin, at slight ex-
pense. She presently made up her mind to skip the rules in the
Syntax* the examples became so absorbing. Thege mysterious
SCHOOL-TIME. 157
sentences, snatched from an unknown context, — like strange
horns of beasts, and leaves of unknown plants, brought from
some far-off region, — gave boundless scope to her imagina-
tion, and were all the more fascinating because they were in a
peculiar tongue of their own, which she could learn to inter-
pret. It was really very interesting, the Latin Grammar that
Tom had said no girls could learn j and she was proud because
she found it interesting. The most fragmentary examples
were her favorites. Mors omnibus est communis would have
been jejune, only she liked to know the Latin; but the for-
tunate gentleman whom every one congratulated because he
had a son " endowed with such a disposition " afforded her a
great deal of pleasant conjecture, and she was quite lost in
the "thick grove penetrable by no star," when Tom called
out, —
''Now, then, Magsie, give us the Grammar!"
''Oh, Tom, it's such a pretty book!" she said, as she
jumped out of the large arm-chair to give it him ; " it's much
prettier than the Dictionary. I could learn Latin very soon.
I don't think it's at all hard."
. " Oh, I. know what you've been doing," said Tom; "you've
been reading the English at the end. Any donkey can do
that."
Tom seized the book and opened it with a determined and
business-like air, as much as to say that he had a lesson to
learn which no donkeys would find themselves equal to. Mag-
gie, rather piqued, turned to the bookcases to amuse herself
with puzzling out the titles.
Presently Tom called to her : " Here, Magsie, come and hear
if I can say this. Stand at that end of the table, where Mr.
Stelling sits when he hears me."
Maggie obeyed, and took the open book.
"Where do you begin, Tom?"
"Oh, I begin at l Appellatlva, arborum,9 because I say all
orer again what I've been learning this week."
Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines ; and Maggie
was beginning to forget her office of prompter in speculating
as to what mas could mean, which came twice over, when he
stuck fast at Sunt etiam volucrum.
158 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
•
"Don't tell me, Maggie; Sunt etlam volucrum — Sunt etiam
volucrum — ut ostrea, cetus "
"No," said Maggie, opening her mouth and shaking her
head.
"Sunt etlam vohicrum," said Tom, very slowly, as if the
next words might be expected to come sooner when he gave
them this strong hint that they were waited for.
"C, e, u," said Maggie, getting impatient.
" Oh, I know — hold your tongue, " said Tom. " Ceu passer,
himndo; Ferarum — ferarum " Tom took his pencil and
made several hard dots with it on his book-cover — "J "era-
rum "
"Oh dear, oh dear, Tom," said Maggie, "what a time you
are! Ut -"
" Ut ostrea *
"No, no," said Maggie, "ut tigris "
"Oh yes, now I can do," said Tom; "it was tigris, vulpes,
I'd forgotten: ut tigris vulpes; et Piscium."
With some further stammering and repetition, Tom got
through the next few lines.
" Now, then, " he said, " the next is what I've just learned
for to-morrow. Give me hold of the book a minute."
After some whispered gabbling, assisted by the beating of
his fist on the table, Tom returned the book.
" Mascula nomina in a," he began.
"No, Tom," said Maggie, "that doesn't come next. It's
Nomen non creskens genittivo "
" Creskens genittivo I " exclaimed Tom, with a derisive
laugh, for Tom had learned this omitted passage for his yes-
terday's lesson, and a young gentleman does not require an
intimate or extensive acquaintance with Latin before he can
feel the pitiable absurdity of a false quantity. " Creskens
genittivo I What a little silly you are, Maggie ! "
" Well, you needn't laugh, Tom, for you didn't remember
it at all. I'm sure it's spelt so; how was I to know?"
"Phee-e-e-h! I told you girls couldn't learn Latin. It's
Nomen non crescens genitivo. "
" Very well, then," said Maggie, pouting. " I can say that
as well as you can. And you don't mind your stops. For
SCHOOL-TIME. 159
you ought to stop twice as long at a semicolon as yon do at a
comma, and you make the longest stops where there ought to
be no stop at all."
**0h, well, don't chatter. Let me go on."
They were presently fetched to spend the rest of the even-
ing in the drawing-room, and Maggie became so animated
with Mr. Stelling, who, she felt sure, admired her cleverness,
that Tom was rather amazed and alarmed at her audacity.
.But she was suddenly subdued by Mr. Stelling's alluding to a
little girl of whom he had heard that she once ran away to the
gypsies.
" What a very odd little girl that must be I " said Mrs. Stel-
ling, meaning to be playful ; but a playfulness that turned on
her supposed oddity was not at all to Maggie's taste. She
feared that Mr. Stelling, after all, did not think much of her,
and went to bed in rather low spirits. Mrs. Stelling, she felt,
looked at her as if she thought her hair was very ugly because
it hung down straight behind.
Nevertheless it was a very happy fortnight to Maggie, this
visit to Tom. She was allowed to be in the study while he
had his lessons, and in her various readings got very deep
into the examples in the Latin Grammar. The astronomer
who hated women generally caused her so much puzzling
speculation that she one day asked Mr. Stelling if all astrono-
mers hated women, or whether it was only this particular as-
tronomer. But forestalling his answer, she said, —
" I suppose it's all astronomers ; because, you know, they
live up in high towers, and if the women came there they
might talk and hinder them from looking at the stars."
Mr. Stelling liked her prattle immensely, and they were on
the best terms. She told Tom she should like to go to school
to Mr. Stelling, as he did, and learn just the same things.
She knew she could do Euclid, for she had looked into it
again, and she saw what ABC meant; they were the names
of the lines.
" I'm sure you couldn't do it, now," said Tom; "and I'll
just ask Mr. Stelling if you could."
"I don't mind," said the little conceited minx, UJ'U ask
myself."
160 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Mr. Stelling, " she said, that same evening when they
were in the drawing-room, "couldn't I do Euclid, and all
Tom.' 3 lessons, if you were to teach me instead of him?"
"No, you couldn't," said Tom, indignantly. "Girls can't
do Euclid j can they, sir?"
"They can pick up a little of everything, I dare say," said
Mr. Stelling. " They've a great deal of superficial cleverness ;
but they couldn't go far into anything. They're quick and
shallow."
Tom, delighted with this verdict, telegraphed his triumph
by wagging his head at Maggie, behind Mr. Stelling' s chair.
As for Maggie, she had hardly ever been so mortified. She
had been so proud to be called " quick " all her little life, and
xiow it appeared that this quickness was the brand of inferi-
ority. It would have been better to be slow, like Tom.
"Ha, ha! Miss Maggie! " said Tom, when they were alone;
"you see it's not such a fine thing to be quick. You'll never
go far into anything, you know."
And Maggie was so oppressed by this dreadful destiny that
she had no spirit for a retort.
But when this small apparatus of shallow quickness was
fetched away in the gig by Luke, and the study was once
more quite lonely for Tom, he missed her grievously. He
had really been brighter, and had got through his lessons bet-
ter, since she had been there ; and she had asked Mr. Stelling
so many questions about the Koman Empire, and whether
there really ever was a man who said, in Latin, " I would not
buy it for a farthing or a rotten nut, " or whether that had
only been turned into Latin, that Tom had actually come to
a dim understanding of the fact that there had once been peo-
ple upon the earth who were so fortunate as to know Latin
without learning it through the medium of the Eton Gram-
mar. This luminous idea was a great addition to his histori-
cal acquirements during this half-year, which were otherwise
confined to an epitomized history of the Jews.
But the dreary half-year did come to an end. How gla<?
l.'om ^vas to see the last yellow leaves fluttering before the
cold wind! The dark afternoons and the first December snovf
to him far livelier Ihau the August sunshine j and.
SCHOOL TIME. 161
tbat he might make himself the surer about the flight of the
days that were carrying him homeward, he stuck twenty-one
sticks deep in a corner of the garden, whwi he was three weeks
from, the holidays, and pulled one up every day with a great
wrench, throwing it to a distance with a vigor of will which
would have carried it to limbo, if it had been in the nature of
sticks to travel so far.
But it was worth purchasing, even at the heavy price of
the Latin Grammar, the happiness of seeing the bright light
in the parlor at home, as the gig passed noiselessly over the
snow-covered bridge ; the happiness of passing from the cold
air to the warmth and the kisses and the smiles of that
familiar hearth, where the pattern of the rug and the grate
and the fire-irons were " first ideas " that it was no more pos-
sible to criticise than the solidity and extension of matter.
There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes
where we were born, where objects became dear to us before
we had known the labor of choice, and where the outer world
seemed only an extension of our own personality ; we accepted
and loved it as we accepted our own sense of existence and
our own limbs. Very commonplace, even ugly, that furniture
of our early home might look if it were put up to auction ; an
improved taste in upholstery scorns it; and is not the striving
after something better and better in our surroundings the
grand characteristic that distinguishes man from the brute, or,
to satisfy a scrupulous accuracy of definition, that distinguishes
the British man from the foreign brute? But heaven knows
where that striving might lead us, if our affections had not a
trick of twining round those old inferior things; if the loves
and sanctities of our life had no deep immovable roots in
memory. One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging
the confused leafage of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladden-
ing sight than the finest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the
softest undulating turf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference
to a nursery-gardener, or to any of those severely regulated
minds who are free from the weakness of any attachment
that does not rest on a demonstrable superiority of quali
ties. And there is no better reason for preferring this elder-
berry bush than that it stirs an early memory ; that it is uo
11
162 THE MILL ON THE FLOS8.
novelty in my life, speaking to me merely through, my present
sensibilities to form and color, but the long companion of my
existence, that wove itself into my joys when joys were vivid.
OHAPTEB EL
THB CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY*,
c IKB old Christmas, with the snowy hair and ruddy face,
had done his duty that year in the noblest fashion, and had
set off his rich gifts of warmth and color with all the height-
ening contrast of frost and snow.
Snow lay on the croft and river-bank in undulations softer
than the limbs of infancy ; it lay with the neatliest finished
border on every sloping roof, making the dark-red gables
stand out with a new depth of color; it weighed heavily on
the laurels and fir-trees, till it fell from them with a shud-
dering sound; it clothed the rough turnip-field with white*
ness, and made the sheep look like dark blotches ; the gates
were all blocked up with the sloping drifts, and here and there
a disregarded four-footed beast stood as if petrified " in un-
recumbent sadness " ; there was no gleam, no shadow, for the
heavens, too, were one still, pale cloud ; no sound or motion
in anything but the dark river that flowed and moaned like
an unresting sorrow. But old Christmas smiled as he laid
this cruel-seeming spell on the outdoor world, for he meant to
light up home with new brightness, to deepen all the richness
of indoor color, and give a keener edge of delight to the warm
fragrance of food ; he meant to prepare a sweet imprisonment
that woald strengthen the primitive fellowship of kindred,
and make the sunshine of familiar human faces as welcome as
the hidden day-star. His kindness fell but hardly on the
homeless, — fell but hardly on the homes where the hearth
•w-as not very warm, and where the food had little fragrance}
where the human faces had no sunshine in them, but rathei
the leaden, blank-eyed gaze of unexpectant want. But the
fine old season meant well ; and if he has not learned the se*
cret how to bless men impartially, it is because his fat&ej
flOHOOLTIME.
Time, with ever -unrelenting purpose, still hides that secret in
his own mighty, slow-beating heart.
And yet this Christmas day, in spite of Tom's fresh delight
in home, was not, he thought, somehow or other, quite so
happy as it had always been before. The red berries were
just as abundant on the holly, and he and Maggie had dressed
all the windows and mantelpieces and picture-frames on Christ-
[mas eve with as much taste as ever, wedding the thick-set
scarlet clusters with branches of the black-berried ivy. There1
had been singing under the windows after midnight, — super-
'natural singing, Maggie always felt, in spite of Tom's con-
temptuous insistence that the singers were old Patch, the par-
ish clerk, and the rest of th* church choir ; she trembled with
awe when their carolling broke iu upon her dreams, and the
image of men in fustian clothes was always thrust away by
the vision of angels resting on the parted cloud. The mid-
night chant had helped as usual to lift the morning above the
level of common days j and then there were the smell of hot
toast and ale from the kitchen, at the breakfast hour; the
favorite anthem, the green boughs, and the short sermon gave
the appropriate festal character to the church-going ; and aunt
and uncle Moss, with all their seven children, were looking
like so many reflectors of the bright parlor-fire, when the
church-goers came back, stamping the snow from their feet.
The plum-pudding was of the same handsome roundness as
ever, and came in with the symbolic blue flames around it, as
if it had been heroically snatched from the nether fires, into
which it had been thrown by dyspeptic Puritans ; the dessert
was as splendid as ever, with its golden oranges, brown nuts,
and the crystalline light and dark of apple-jelly and damson
cheese j in all these things Christmas was as it had always
been since Tom could remember; it was only distinguished, il
by anything, by superior sliding and snowballs.
Christmas was cheery, but not so Mr. Tulliver. He was
irate and defiant; and Tom, though he espoused his father's
quarrels and shared his father's sense of injury, was not with-
out some of the feeling that oppressed Maggie when Mr. Tul-
liver got louder and more angry in narration and assertion
with the increased leisure of dessert. The attention that Tom
fHE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
might have concentrated on his nnts and wine was distracted}
by a sense that there were rascally enemies in the world, and
that the business of grown-up life could hardly be conducted
without a good deal of quarrelling. Now, Tom was not fond
of quarrelling, unless it could soon be put an end to by a fair
stand-up fight with an adversary whom he had every chance
of thrashing; and his father's irritable talk made him uncom-
fortable, though he never accounted to himself for the feel*
ing, or conceived the notion that his father was faulty in thij
respect.
The particular embodiment of the evil principle now excit-
ing Mr. Tulliver's determined resistance was Mr. Pivart, who,
having lands higher up the Ripple, was taking measures for
their irrigation, which either were, or would be, or wer«»
bound to be (on the principle that water was water), an infringe-
ment on Mr. Tulliver's legitimate share of water-power. Dix,
who had a mill on the stream, was a feeble auxiliary of Old
Harry compared with Pivart. Dix had been brought to his
senses by arbitration, and Wakem'a advice had not carried
him far. No; Dix, Mr. Tulliver considered, had been as
good as nowhere in point of law ; and in the intensity of his
indignation against Pivart, his contempt for a baffled adver-
sary like Dix began to wear the air of a friendly attachment.
He had no male audience to-day except Mr. Moss, who knew
nothing, as he said, of the "natur' o* mills/' and could only
assent to Mr. Tulliver's arguments on the a priori ground of
family relationship and monetary obligation ; but Mr. Tulliver
did not talk with the futile intention of convincing his audi-
ence, he talked to relieve himself; while good Mr. Moss made
strong efforts to keep his eyes wide open, in spite of the sleepi*
ness which an unusually good dinner produced in his hard-
worked frame. Mrs. Moss, more alive to the subject, and
interested in everything that affected her brother, listened
and put in a word as often as maternal preoccupations allowed.
" Why, Pivart's a new name hereabout, brother, isn't it? "
she said; "he didn't own the land in father's time, nor youra
either, before I was married."
" New name? Yes, I should think it is a new name,** said
Mr. Tulliver, with angry emphasis. " Dorlcote Mill's been ia
8CHOOLTIME. 168
wr family a hundred year and better, and nobody ever heard
of a Pivart meddling with the river, till this fellow came and
bought Bincome's farm out of hand, before anybody else could
BO much as say 'snap.' But I'll Pivart him I" added Mr.
Tulliver, lifting his glass with a sense that he had defined his
resolution in an unmistakable manner.
"You won't be forced to go to law with him, I hope,
fcrother?" said Mrs. Moss, with some anxiety.
" I don't know what I shall be forced to; but I know what
I shall force hurt, to, with his dikes and erigations, if there's*
any law to be brought to bear o* the right side. I know well
enough who's at the bottom of it; he's got Wakem to back
him and egg him on. I know Wakem tells him the law can't
touch him for it, but there's folks can handle the law besides
Wakem. It takes a big raskil to beat him j but there's bigger
to be found, as know more o' th' ins and outs o' the law, else
how came Wakem to lose Bromley's suit for him?"
Mr. Tulliver was a strictly honest man, and proud of being
honest, but he considered that in law the ends of justice could
only be achieved by employing a stronger knave to frustrate
a weaker. Law was a sort of cock-fight* in which it was the
business of injured honesty to get a game bird with the best
pluck and the strongest spurs.
"Gore's no fool; you needn't tell me that,* he observed
presently, in a pugnacious tone, as if poor Gritty had been
urging that lawyer's capabilities; "but, you see, he isn't up
to the law as Wakem is. And water's a very particular thing;
you can't pick it up with a pitchfork. That's why it's been
nuts to Old Harry and the lawyers. It's plain enough what's
the rights aud the wrongs of water, if you look at it straight-
forrard; for a river's a river, and if you've got a mill, you
must have water to turn it j aud it's no use telling me Pivart's
erigation and nonsense won't stop my wheel j I know what
belongs to water better than that. Talk to me o' what th'
engineers say f I say it's common sense, as Pivart's dikes
must do me an injury. But if that's their engineering, I'll
put Tom to it by-and-by, and he shall see if he can't find a
bit more sense in th' engineering business than what that
comes to.*
166 THE MILL OR THE FLO88.
Tom, looking round with some anxiety a* this announce*
toent of his prospects, unthinkingly withdrew a small rattle
he was amusing baby Moss with, whereupon she, being a baby
that knew her own mind with remarkable clearness, instan-
taneously expressed her sentiments in a piercing yell, and
was not to be appeased even by the restoration of the rattle,
feeling apparently that the. original wrong of having it taken
from her remained in all its force. Mrs. Moss hurried away
with her into another room, and expressed to Mrs. Tulliver,
who accompanied her, the conviction that the dear child had
good reasons for crying; implying that if it was supposed to
be the rattle that baby clamored for, she was a misunderstood
baby. The thoroughly justifiable yell being quieted, Mrs.
Moss looked at her sister-in-law and said,—
" I'm sorry to see brother so put out about this water work."
"It's your brother's way, Mrs. Moss; I'd never anything
o' that sort before I was married," said Mrs. Tulliver, with a
half-implied reproach. She always spoke of her husband as
" your brother " to Mrs. Moss in any case when his line of con-
duct was not matter of pure admiration. Amiable Mrs. Tul-
liver, who was never angry in her life, had yet her mild share
of that spirit without which she could hardly have been at
once a Dodson and a woman. Being always on the defensive
toward her own sisters, it was natural that she should be
keenly conscious of her superiority, even as the weakest Dod-
son, over a husband's sister, who, besides being poorly off,
and inclined to "hang on" her brother, had the good-natured
submissiveness of a large, easy-tempered, untidy, prolific wo-
man, with affection enough in her not only for her own hus-
band and abundant children, but for any number of collateral
relations.
"I hope and pray he won't go to law," said Mrs. Moss,
"for there's never any knowing where that'll end. And the
right doesn't allays win. This Mr. Pivart's a rich man, by
what I can make out, and the rich mostly get things theii
own way."
"As to that," said Mrs. Tulliver, stroking her dress down,
"I've seen what riches are in my own family; for my sisters
have gob husbanda as can afford to do luetty much what they
SCHOOL-TIME. 167
Eke. But I think sometimes I shall be drove off my head
with the talk about this law and erigation; and my sisters
lay all the fault to me, for they don't know what it is to
marry a man like your brother; how should they? Sister
Pullet has her own way from morning till night."
"Well," said Mrs. Moss, " I don't think I should like my
husband if he hadn't got any wits of his own, and I had to
find head-piece for him. It's a deal easier to do what pleases
one's husband, than to be puzzling what else one should do."
" If people come to talk o* doing what pleases their hus-
bands," said Mrs. Tulliver, with a faint imitation of her sis-
ter Glegg, "I'm sure your brother might have waited a long
while before he'd have found a wife that 'ud have let him
have his say in everything, as I do. It's nothing but law
and erigation now, from when we first get up in the morning
till we go to bed at night; and I never contradict him; I only
say, 'Well, Mr. Tulliver, do as you like; but whativer you
do, don't go to law. ' n
Mrs. Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence
over her husband. No woman is ; she can always incline him
to do either what she wishes, or the reverse; and on the com-
posite impulses that were threatening to hurry Mr. Tulliver
intVlaw," Mrs. Tulliver's monotonous pleading had doubt-
less its share of force ; it might even be comparable to that
proverbial feather which has the credit or discredit of break-
ing the camel's back; though, on a strictly impartial view,
the blame ought rather to lie with the previous weight of
feathers which had already placed the back in such imminent
peril that an otherwise innocent feather could not settle on it
without mischief. Not that Mrs. Tulliver's feeble beseeching
could have had this feather's weight in virtue of her single
personality ; but whenever she departed from entire assent to
her husband, he saw in her the representative of the Dodson
family ; and it was a guiding principle with Mr. Tulliver to
let the Dodsons know that they were not to domineer over
him, or — more specifically — that a male Tulliver was far more
than equal to four female Dodsons, even though one of them
was Mrs. Glegg.
But not even a direct argument from that typical Dodson
168 THE MILL ON THE PLO8&
female herself against his going to law could have heightened
his disposition toward it 60 much as the mere thought of
Wakem, continually freshened by the sight of the too able
attorney on market-days. Wakem, to his certain knowledge,
was (metaphorically speaking) at the bottom of Pivart's irri-
gation ; Wakem had tried to make Dix stand out, and go to
law about the dam; it waa unquestionably Wakem who had
caused Mr. Tulliver to lose the suit about the right of road
and the bridge that made a thoroughfare of his land for every
vagabond who preferred an opportunity of damaging private
property to walking like an honest man along the highroad;
all lawyers were more or less rascals, but Wakem' s rascality
was of that peculiarly aggravated kind which placed itself in
opposition to that form of right embodied in Mr. Tulliver's
interests and opinions. And as an extra touch of bitterness,
the injured miller had recently, in borrowing the five hun-
dred pounds, been obliged to carry a little business to Wakem's
office on his own account. A hook-nosed glib fellow I as cool
as a cucumber, — always looking so sure of his game I .And it
was vexatious that Lawyer Gore was not more like him, but
was a bald, round-featured man, with bland manners and fat
hands ; a game-cock that you would be rash to bet upon against
Wakem. Gore was a sly fellow. His weakness did not lie
on the side of scrupulosity ; but the largest amount of wink-
ing, however significant, is not equivalent to seeing through a
stone wallj and confident as Mr. Tulliver was in his principle
that water was water, and in the direct inference that Pivart
had not a leg to stand on in this affair of irrigation, be had
an uncomfortable suspicion that Wakem had more law to show
against this (rationally) irrefragable inference than Gore could
show for it. But then, if they went to law, there was a
chance for Mr. Tulliver to employ Counsellor Wylde on his
Bide, instead of having that admirable bully against him; and
the prospect of seeing a witness of Wakem's made to perspire
and become confounded, as Mr. Tulliver's witness had once
been, was alluring to the love of retributive justice.
Much rumination had Mr. Tulliver on these puzzling sub-
jects during his rides on the gray horse; much turning of the
bead from aide to side, as the scales dipped alternately ; but
SCHOOL-TIME. 169
the probable result was still out of sight, only to be reached
through much hot argument and iteration in domestic and
social l:fe. That initial stage of the dispute which consisted
in the narration of the case and the enforcement of Mr. Tul-
liver's views concerning it throughout the entire circle of his
connections would necessarily take time j and at the beginning
of February, when Tom was going to school again, there were
scarcely any new items to be detected in his father's state-
ment of the case against Pivart, or any more specific indica-
tion of the measures he was bent on taking against that rash
contravener of the principle that water was water. Iteration,
like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress, and
Mr. Tulliver's heat was certainly more and more palpable.
If there had been no new evidence on any other point, there
had been new evidence that Pivart was as " thick as mud n
with Wakem,
" Father, n said Tom, one evening near the end of the holi-
days, " uncle Glegg says Lawyer Wakem is going to send his
son to Mr. Stelling. It isn't true, what they said about his
going to be sent to France. You won't like me to go to school
with Wakem's son, shall you? n
"It's no matter for that, my boy," said Mr. Tulliverj
"don't you learn anything bad of him, that's all. The lad's
a poor deformed creatur, and takes after his mother in the
face ; I think there isn't much of his father in him. It's a
sign Wakem thinks high o' Mr. Stelling, as he sends his son
to him, and Wakem knows meal from bran."
Mr. Tulliver in his heart was rather proud of the fact that
his son was to have the same advantages as Wakem's ; but
Tom was not at all easy on the point. It would have been
mnch clearer if the lawyer's son had not been deformed, foi
then Tom would have had the prospect of pitching into him
with all that freedom which is derived from a high mor&
tanction.
170 THE MILL ON THE FLOSd
i
CHAPTER ITL
TBS ITEW SCHOOLFELLOW.
IT was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went bad
to school ; a day quite in keeping with this severe phase of hip
destiny. If he had not carried in his pocket a parcel of sugar-
candy and a small Dutch doll for little Laura, there would
have been no ray of expected pleasure to enliven the general
gloom. But he liked to think hov Laura would put out her
lUps and her tiny hands for the bits of sugar-candy j and to
give the greater keenness to these pleasures of imagination,
he took out the parcel, made a small hole in the paper, and bit
off a crystal or two, which had so solacing an effect under the
confined prospect and damp odors of the gig-umbrella, that he
repeated the process more than once on his way.
"Well, Tulliver, we're glad to see you again,** said Mr.
Stelling, heartily. " Take off your wrappings and come into
the study till dinner. You'll find a bright fire there, and a
new companion."
Tom felt in an uncomfortable flutter as he took off his
woollen comforter and other wrappings. He had seen Philip
Wakem at St. Ogg's, but had always turned his eyes away
from him as quickly as possible. He would have disliked
having a deformed boy for his companion, even if Philip had
not been the son of a bad man. And Tom did not see how a
bad man's son could be very good. His own father was a
good man, and he would readily have fought any one who said
the contrary. He was in a state of mingled embarrassment
and defiance as he followed Mr. Stelling to the study.
" Here is a new companion for you to shake hands with,
Tulliver," said that gentleman on entering the study, —
" Master Philip Wakem. I shall leave you to make acquaint-
ance by yourselves. You already know something of each
other, I imagine; for you are neighbors at home."
Tom looked confused and awkward, while Philip rose and
glanced at him timidly. Tom did not like to go up and put
SCHOOL-TIME. 171
out his hand, and he was not prepared to say, a How do you
do? " on so short a notice.
Mr. Stelling wisely turned away, and closed the door be-
hind him j boys' shyness only wears off in the absence of their
elders.
Philip was at once too proud and too timid to walk toward
Tom. He thought, or rather felt, that Tom had an aversion
to looking at him j every one, almost, disliked looking at him .
and his deformity was more conspicuous when he walked. So
they remained without shaking hands or even speaking, while
Tom went to the fire and warmed himself, every now and
then casting furtive glances at Philip, who seemed to be draw-
ing absently first one object and then another on a piece of
paper he had before him. He had seated himself again, and
as he drew, was thinking what he could say to Tom, and try-
ing to overcome his own repugnance to making the first ad-
vances.
Tom began to look oftener and longer at Philip's face, for
he could see it without noticing the hump, and it was really
not a disagreeable face, — very old-looking, Tom thought. He
wondered how much older Philip was than himself. An
anatomist — even a mere physiognomist — would have seen that
the deformity of Philip's spine was not a congenital hump,
but the result of an accident in infancy ; but you do not expect
from Tom any acquaintance with such distinctions ; to him,
Philip was simply a humpback. He had a vague notion that
the deformity of Wakem's son had some relation to the law-
yer's rascality, of which he had so often heard his father talk
with hot emphasis ; and he felt, too, a half-admitted fear of
him as probably a spiteful fellow, who, not being able to fight
you, had cunning ways of doing you a mischief by the sly.
There was a humpbacked tailor in the neighborhood of Mr
Jacobs's academy, who was considered a very unamiable char-
acter, and was much hooted after by public-spirited boys
solely on the ground of his unsatisfactory moral qualities; so
that Tom was not without a basis of fact to go upon. Still,
no face could be more unlike that ugly tailor's than this mel-
ancholy boy's face, — the brown hair round it waved and
curled at the ends like a girl's; Tom thought that truly piti-
172 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
able. This Wakem was a pale, puny fellow, and it was quite
clear he would not be able to play at anything worth speaking
of; but he handled his pencil in an enviable manner, and was
apparently making one thing after another without any trou-
ble. What was he drawing? Tom was quite warm now, and
wanted something new to be going forward. It was certainly
mora agreeable to have an ill-natured humpback as a compan-
ion than to stand looking out of the study window at the rain,
and kicking his foot against the washboard in solitude; some-^
thing would happen every day, — "a quarrel or something";
and Tom thought he should rather like to show Philip that he
had better not try his spiteful tricks on him. He suddenly
walked across the hearth and looked over Philip's paper.
" Why, that's a donkey with panniers, and a spaniel, and
partridges in the corn! " he exclaimed, his tongue being com-
pletely loosed by surprise and admiration. " Oh my buttons !
I wish I could draw like that. I'm to learn drawing this
half} I wonder if I shall learn to make dogs and donkeys! "
"Oh, you can do them without learning," said Philip; "I
never learned drawing."
"Never learned?" said Tom, in amazement. "Why,
when I make dogs and horses, and those things, the heads
and the legs won't come right; though I can see how they
ought to be very well. I can make houses, and all sorts of
chimneys, — chimneys going all down the wall, — and- windows
in the roof, and all that. But I dare say I could do dogs and
horses if I was to try more," he added, reflecting that Philip
might falsely suppose that he was going to " knock under, " if
he were too frank about the imperfection of his accomplish-
ments.
r "Oh yes," said Philip, "it's very easy. You've only ta
Jook well at things, and draw them over and over again.
What you do wrong once, you can alter the next time."
" But haven't you been taught anything?" said Tom, be-
ginning to have a puzzled suspicion that Philip's crooked back
might be the source of remarkable faculties. "I thought
you'd been to school a long while."
" Yes, " said Philip, smiling ; " I've been taught Latin and
Greek and mathematics, and writing^and such things."
SCHOOL-TIME. 173
11 Oh, but I say, you don't like Latin, though, do you?"
said Tom, lowering his voice confidentially.
"Pretty well; I don't care much about it," said Philip.
"Ah, but perhaps you haven't got into the Propria qiM>
maribus," said Tom, nodding his head sideways, as much as
to say, "that was the testj it was easy talking till you came
to that."
Philip felt some bitter complacency in the promising stu-
pidity of this well-made, active-looking boy; but made polite
by his own extreme sensitiveness, as well as by his desire to
conciliate, he checked his inclination to laugh, and said
quietly,—.
"I've done with the grammar j I don't learn that any
more."
" Then you won't have the same lessons as I shall? " said
Tom, with a sense of disappointment.
"Koj but I dare say I can help you. I shall be very glad
to help you if I can."
Tom did not say " Thank you," for he was quite absorbed
in the thought that Wakem's son did not seem so spiteful a
fellow as might have been expected.
" I say," he said presently, " do you love your father? "
"Yes," said Philip, coloring deeply ; "don't you love
yours? "
"Oh yes— I only wanted to know," said Tom, rather
ashamed of himself, now he saw Philip coloring and looking
uncomfortable. He found much difficulty in adjusting his at-
titude of mind toward the son of Lawyer "Wakem, and it had
occurred to him that if Philip disliked his father, that fact
might go some way toward clearing up his perplexity.
" Shall you learn drawing now?" he said, by way of chang*
ing the subject.
"No," said Philip. "My father wishes me to give all 2nJ
time to other things now."
"Whatl Latin and Euclid, and those things?" said Tom.
"Yes," said Philip, who had left off using his pencil, and
was resting his head on one hand, while Tom was leaning for-
ward on both elbows, and looking with increasing admiration
at the dog and the donkey. fc
174 THE MLL ON THE FLOflft
"And you don't mind that?" said Tom, with strong curi-
osity.
"No; I like to know what everybody else knows. 1 can
study what I like by -and- by."
" I can't think why anybody should learn Latin,1* said Tom.
u It's no good."
* It's part of the education of a gentleman," said Philip.
"All gentlemen learn the same things."
" What! do you think Sir John Crake, the master of the
harriers, knows Latin? " said Tom, who had often though the
should like to resemble Sir John Crake.
" He learned it when he was a boy, of course," said Philip.
"But I dare say he's forgotten it."
"Oh, well, I can do that, then," said Tom, not with any
epigrammatic intention, but with serious satisfaction at the
idea that, as far as Latin was concerned, there was no hin-
drance to his resembling Sir John Crake. " Only you're obliged
to remember it while you're at school, else you've got to learn
ever so many lines of 'Speaker.' Mr. Stelling's very particu-
lar— did you know? He'll have you up ten times if you say
1 narn* for ' jam,' — he won't let you go a letter wrong, /can
tell you."
" Oh, I don't mind," said Philip, unable to choke a laugh;
" I can remember things easily. And there are some lessons
I'm very fond of. I'm very fond of Greek history, and
everything about the Greeks. I should liko to have been a
Greek and fought the Persians, and then have come home and
have written tragedies, or else have been listened to by every-
body for my wisdom, like Socrates, and have died a grand
death." (Philip, you perceive, was not without a wish to
impress the well-made barbarian with a sense of his mental
superiority. )
"Why, were the Greeks great fighters?" said Tom, who
saw a vista in this direction. " Is there anything like David
and Goliath and Samson in the Greek history? Those are
the only bits I like in the history of the Jews."
"Oh, there are very fine stories of that sort about the
Greeks, — about the heroes of early times who killed the wild
beasts, as Samson did. And in the Odyssey — that's a beau
SCHOOLTDDL 178
tifnl poem — there's a more wonderful giant than Goliath,—
Polypheme, who had only one eye in the middle of his fore-
head ; and Ulysses, a little fellow, but very wise and cunning,
got a red-hot pine-tree and stuck it into this one eye, and
made him roar like a thousand bulls."
" Oh, what fun I n said Tom, jumping away from the table,
and stamping first with one leg and then the other. " I say,
can you tell me all about those stories? Because I sha'n't
learn Greek, you know. Shall I? n he added, pausing in his
stamping with a sudden alarm, lest the contrary might be
possible. "Does every gentleman learn Greek? Will Mr.
Stelling make me begin with it, do yon think? "
"No, I should think not, very likely not," said Philip,
"But you may read those stories without knowing Greek.
I've got them in English."
"Oh, but I don't like reading; I'd sooner have yon tell
them me. But only the fighting ones, you know. My sister
Maggie is always wanting to tell me stories, but they're stupid
things. Girls' stories always are. Can yon tell a good many
fighting stories?"
"Oh yes," said Philip j "lots of them, besides the Greek
stories. I can tell you about Eichard Cceur-de-Lion and
Saladin, and about William Wallace and Eobert Bruce and
James Douglas, — I know no end."
" You're older than I am, aren't you? " said Tom.
"Why, how old are you ? I'm fifteen."
"I'm only going in fourteen," said Tom. "But I thrashed
all the fellows at Jacobs's — that's where I was before I came
here. And I beat 'em all at bandy and climbing. And I
wish Mr. Stelling would let us go fishing. / could show you
how to fish. You could fish, couldn't you? It's only stand-
ing, and sitting still, you know."
Tom, in his turn, wished to make the balance dip in his
favor. This hunchback must not suppose that his acquaint-
ance with fighting stories put him on a par with an actual
fighting hero, like Tom Tulliver. Philip winced under this
allusion to his unfitness for active sports, and he answered
almost peevishly, —
" I can't bear fishing. 1 think people look like fools sitting
t7« THE MItL ON THE FLOSS,
watching a line hour after hour, or else throwing and throw-
ing, and catching nothing."
"Ah, but you wouldn't say they looked like fools when
they landed a big pike, I can tell you," said Tom, who had
never caught anything that was "big" in his life, but whose
imagination was on the stretch with indignant real for the
honor of sport. Wakem's son, it was plain, had his disagree-
*able points, and must be kept in due check. Happily foi
the harmony of this first interview, they were now called to
dinner, and Philip was not allowed to develop farther his un-
sound views on the subject of fishing. But Tom said to him-
self, that was just what he should have expected from •
hunchback.
OHAPTEB IV.
"*HB YOUNG IDEA.*
THB alternations of feeling in that first dialogn* between
Tom and Philip continued to make their intercourse even af-
ter many weeks of schoolboy intimacy. Tom never quite lost
the feeling that Philip, being the son of a "rascal," was his
natural enemy; never thoroughly overcame his repulsion to
Philip's deformity. He was a boy who adhered tenaciously
to impressions once received; as with all minds in which mere
perception predominates over thought and Demotion, the ex-
ternal remained to him rigidly what it was in the first in-
stance. But then it was impossible not to like Philip's com*
.pany when he was in a good humor ; he could help one so well
in one's Latin exercises, which Tom regarded as a kind of
puzzle that could only be found out by a lucky [chance ; and
he could tell such wonderful fighting stories about Hal of the
Wynd, for example, and other heroes who were especial fa-
vorites with Tom, because they laid about them with heavy
strokes. He had small opinion of Saladin, whose cimeter
could cut a cushion in two in an instant; who wanted to cut
cushions? That was a stupid story, and he didn't care to
bear it again. But when Eobert Bruce, on the black pony,
BCHOOL-TTME. 177
rose In hig stirrups, and lifting his good battle-axe, cracked
at once the helmet and the skull of the too hasty knight at
Banuockburn, then Tom felt all the exaltation of sympathy,
and if he had had a cocoanut at hand, he would have cracked
it at once with the poker. Philip in his happier moods in-
dulged Tom to the top of his bent, heightening the crash and
bang and fury of every fight with all the artillery of epithets
and similes at his command. But he was not always in a
good humor or happy mood. The slight spurt of peevish sus-
ceptibility which had escaped him in their first interview was
a symptom of a perpetually recurring mental ailment, half of
it nervous irritability, half of it the heart-bitterness produced
by the sense of his deformity. In these fits of susceptibility
every glance seemed to him to be charged either with offensive
pity or with ill-repressed disgust; at the very least it was an
indifferent glance, and Philip felt indifference as a child of
the south feels the chill air of a northern spring. Poor Tom's
blundering patronage when they were out of doors together
would sometimes make him turn upon the well-meaning lad
quite savagely; and his eyes, usually sad and quiet, would
flash with anything but playful lightning. No wonder Tom
retained his suspicions of the humpback.
But Philip's self-taught skill in drawing was another link
between them ; for Tom found, to his disgust, that his new
drawing-master gave him no dogs and donkeys to draw, but
brooks and rustic bridges and ruins, all with a general soft-
ness of black-lead surface, indicating that nature, if anything,
was rather satiny; and as Tom's feeling for the picturesque
in landscape was at present quite latent, it is not surprising
that Mr. Goodrich' s productions seemed to him an uninterest-
ing form of art. Mr. Tulliver, having a vague intention
that Tom should be put to some business which included th<*
drawing out of plans and maps, had complained to Mr. Riley,
when he saw him at Mudport, that Tom seemed to be learn-
ing nothing of that sort ; whereupon that obliging adviser had
suggested that Tom should have drawing-lessons. Mr. Tul-
liver must not mind paying extra for drawing; let Tom be
made a good draughtsman, and he would be able to turn hia
pencil to any purpose. So it was ordered that Tom should
13
178 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
have drawing-lessons; and whom should Mr. Stalling have
selected as a master if not Mr. Goodrich, who was considered
quite at the head of his profession within a circuit of twelve
miles round King's Lorton? By which means Tom learned
to make an extremely fine point to his pencil, and to represent
landscape with a " broad generality, " which, doubtless from
a narrow tendency in his mind to details, he thought ex«
trsmely dull.
All this, you remember, happened in those dark ages when
there were no schools of design; before schoolmasters were
invariably men of scrupulous integrity, and before the clergy
were all men of enlarged minds and varied culture. In those
less favored days, it is no fable that there were other clergy-
men besides Mr. Stelling who had narrow intellects and large
wants, and whose income, by a logical confusion to which For-
tune, being a female as well as blindfold, is peculiarly liable,
was proportioned not to their wants but to their intellect, with
which income has clearly no inherent relation. The problem
these gentlemen had to solve was to readjust the proportion
between their wants and their income; and since wants are
not easily starved to death, the simpler method appeared to
be to raise their income. There was but one way of doing this ;
any of those low callings in which men are obliged to do good
work at a low price were forbidden to clergymen ; was it their
fault if their only resource was to turn out very poor work at
a high price? Besides, how should Mr. Stelling be expected
to know that education was a delicate and difficult business,
any more than an animal endowed with a power of boring a
hole through a rock should be expected to have wide views of
excavation? Mr. Stelling' s faculties had been early trained
to boring in a straight line, and he had no faculty to spare.
But among Tom's contemporaries, whose fathers cast their
sons on clerical instruction to find them ignorant after many
days, there were many far less Jucky than Tom Tulliver.
Education was almost entirely a matter of luck — usually of
ill-luck — in those distant days. The state of mind in which
you take a billiard-cue or a dice-box in your hand is one of
sober certainty compared with that of old-fashioned fathers,
like Mr. Tulliver, when they selected a school or a tutor for
SCHOOL-TIME. 179
their sons. Excellent men, who had been forced all their
lives to spell on an impromptu-phonetic system, and having
carried on a successful business in spite of this disadvantage,
had acquired money enough to give their sons a better start
in life than they had had themselves, must necessarily take
their chance as to the conscience and the competence of the
schoolmaster Whose circular fell in their way, and appeared to
promise so much more than they would ever have thought of
asking for, including the return of linen, fork, and spoon. It
was happy for them if some ambitious draper of their ac-
quaintance had not brought up his son to the Church, and if
that young gentleman, at the age of four-and-twenty, had not
closed his college dissipations by an imprudent marriage;
otherwise, these innocent fathers, desirous of doing the best
for their offspring, could only escape the draper's son by hap-
pening to be on the foundation of a grammar-school as yet un-
visited by commissioners, where two or three boys could have,
all to themselves, the advantages of a large and lofty build*
ing, together with a head-master, toothless, dim-eyed and deaf,
whose erudite indistinctness and inattention were engrossed
by them at the rate of three hundred pounds a-head, — a ripe
scholar, doubtless, when first appointed; but all ripeness
beneath the sun has a further stage less esteemed in the
market.
Tom Tulliver, then, compared with many other British
youths of his time who have since had to scramble through
life with some fragments of more or less relevant knowledge,
and a great deal of strictly relevant ignorance, was not so very
unlucky. Mr. Stelling was a broad-chested, healthy man,
with the bearing of a gentleman, a conviction that a growing
boy required a sufficiency of beef, and a certain hearty kind-
ness in him that made him like to see Tom looking well and
enjoying his dinner; not a man of refined conscience, or with
any deep sense of the infinite issues belonging to every-day
duties, not quite competent to his high offices; but incompe-
tent gentlemen must live, and without private fortune it is
difficult to see how they could all live genteelly if they had
nothing to do with education or government. Besides, it was
the fault of Tom's mental constitution that his faculties could
180 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
not be nourished on the sort of knowledge Mr. Stelling had to
communicate. A boy born with a deficient power of appre-
hending signs and abstractions must suffer the penalty of his
congenital deficiency, just as if he had been born with one
leg shorter than the other. A method of education sanctioned
by the long practice of our venerable ancestors was not to
give way before the exceptional dulness of a boy who was
merely living at the time then present. And Mr. Stelling
was convinced that a boy so stupid at signs and abstractions
must be stupid at everything else, even if that reverend gen-
tleman could have taught him everything else. It was the
practice of our venerable ancestors to apply that ingenious in-
strument the thumb-screw, and to tighten and tighten it in
order to elicit non-existent facts ; they had a fixed* opinion to
begin with, that the facts were existent, and what had they
to do but to tighten the thumb-screw? In like manner, Mr.
Stelling had a fixed opinion that all boys with any capacity
could learn what it was the only regular thing to teach ; if
they were slow, the thumb-screw must be tightened, — the ex-
ercises must be insisted on with increased severity, and a page
of Virgil be awarded as a penalty, to encourage and stimulate
a too languid inclination to Latin verse.
The thumb-screw was a little relaxed, however, during this
second half-year. Philip was so advanced in his studies,
and so apt, that Mr. Stelling could obtain credit by his facil-
ity, which required little help, much more easily than by the
troublesome process of overcoming Tom's dulness. Gentle-
men with broad chests and ambitious intentions do sometimes
disappoint their friends by failing to carry the world before
them. Perhaps it is that high achievements demand some
other unusual qualification besides an unusual desire for high
prizes ; perhaps it is that these stalwart gentlemen are rather
indolent, their divince particidum aurce being obstructed from
soaring by a too hearty appetite. Some reason or other there
was why Mr. Stelling deferred the execution of many spirited
projects, — why he did not begin the editing of his Greek
play, or any other work of scholarship, in his leisure hours,
but, after turning the key of his private study with much
resolution, sat down to one of Theodore Hook's novels. Tom
SCHOOL-TIME. 181
was gradually allowed to shuffle through his lessons with less
rigor, and having Philip to help him, he was able to make
some show of having applied his mind in a confused and
blundering way, without being cross-examined into a betrayal
that his mind had been entirely neutral in the matter. He
thought school much more bearable under this modification of
circumstances; and he went on contentedly enough, picking
up a promiscuous education chiefly from things that were not
intended as education at all. What was understood to be his
education was simply the practice of reading, writing, and
spelling, carried on by an elaborate appliance of unintelligible
ideas, and by much failure in the effort to learn by rote.
Nevertheless, there was a visible improvement in Tom un-
der this training ; perhaps because he was not a boy in the ab-
stract, existing solely to illustrate the evils of a mistaken edu-
cation, but a boy made of flesh and blood, with dispositions
not entirely at the mercy of circumstances.
There was a great improvement in his bearing, for example;
and some credit on this score was due to Mr. Poulter, the vil-
lage schoolmaster, who, being an old Peninsular soldier, was
employed to drill Tom, — a source of high mutual pleasure.
Mr. Poulter, who was understood by the company at the Black
Swan to have once struck terror into the hearts of the French,
was no longer personally formidable. He had rather a
shrunken appearance, and was tremulous in the mornings, not
from age, but from the extreme perversity of the King's Lor-
ton boys, which nothing but gin could enable him to sustain
with any firmness. Still, he carried himself with martial
erectness, had his clothes scrupulously brushed, and his
trousers tightly strapped ; and on the Wednesday and Satur-
day afternoons, when he came to Tom, he was always inspired
with gin and old memories, which gave him an exceptionally
spirited air, as of a superannuated charger who hears the
drum. The drilling-lessons were always protracted by epi-
sodes of warlike narrative, much more interesting to Tom
than Philip's stories out of the Iliad ; for there were no can-
non in the Iliad, and besides, Tom had felt some disgust on
learning that Hector and Achilles might possibly never have
existed. But the Duke of Wellington was really alive, and
182 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Bony had not been long dead; therefore Mr. Poulter's remi-
niscences of the Peninsular War were removed from all sus-
picion of being mythical. Mr. Poulter, it appeared, had been
a conspicuous figure at Talavera, and had contributed not a
little to the peculiar terror with which his regiment of infantry
was regarded by the enemy. On afternoons when his memory
was more stimulated than usual, he remembered that the
Duke of Wellington had (in strict privacy, lest jealousies
should be awakened) expressed his esteem for that fine fellow
Poulter. The very surgeon who attended him in the hospital
after he had received his gunshot-wound had been profoundly
impressed with the superiority of Mr. Poulter 's flesh, — no
other flesh would have healed in anything like the same time.
On less personal matters connected with the important warfare
in which he had been engaged, Mr. Poulter was more reticent,
only taking care not to give the weight of his authority to any
loose notions concerning military history. Any one who pre-
tended to a knowledge of what occurred at the siege of Bada-
jos was especially an object of silent pity to Mr. Poulter; he
wished that prating person had been run down, and had the
breath trampled out of him at the first go-off, as he himself
had, — he might talk about the siege Jof ^adajos then! Tom
did not escape irritating his drilling-master occasionally, by
his curiosity concerning other military matters than Mr.
Poulter' s personal experience.
"And General Wolfe, Mr. Poulter, — wasn't he a wonderful
fighter?" said Tom, who held the notion that all the martial
heroes commemorated on the public-house signs were engaged
in the war with Bony.
" Not at all ! n said Mr. Poulter, contemptuously. " Noth-
ing o' the sort! Heads up!" he added, in a tone of stern
command, which delighted Tom, and made him feel as if he
were a regiment in his own person.
"No, no!" Mr. Poulter would continue, on coming to a
pause in his discipline; "they'd better not talk to me about
General Wolfe. He did nothing but die of his wound; that's
a poor haction, I consider. Any other man 'ud have died o*
the wounds I've had. One of my sword-cuts *ud ha* killed 9
follow like General Wolfe,"
SCHOOL-TIME. 183
"Mr. Poulter," Tom would say, at any allusion to the sword,
* I wish you'd bring your sword and do the sword-exercise! "
For a long while Mr. Poulter only shook his head in a sig-
nificant manner at this request, and smiled patronizingly, aa
Jupiter may have done when Semele urged her too ambitious
request. But one afternoon, when a sudden shower of heavy
rain had detained Mr. Poulter twenty minutes longer than
usual at the Black Swan, the sword was brought, — just fol
Tom to look at.
" And this is the real sword you fought with in all the bat-
tles, Mr. Poulter?" said Tom, handling the hilt. "Has it
ever cut a Frenchman's head off?"
"Head off? Ah I and would, if he'd had three heads."
" But you had a gun and bayonet besides? " said Tom. " 1
should like the gun and bayonet best, because you could
shoot 'em first and spear 'em after. Bang I Ps-s-s-sl"
Tom gave the requisite pantomime to indicate the double en-
joyment of pulling the trigger and thrusting the spear.
"Ah, but the sword's the thing when you come to close
fighting," said Mr. Poulter, involuntarily falling in with
Tom's enthusiasm, and drawing the sword so suddenly that
Tom leaped back with much agility.
"Oh, but, Mr. Poulter, if you're going to do the exercise,"
said Tom, a little conscious that he had not stood his ground
as became an Englishman, " let me go and call Philip. He'll
like to see you, you know."
"What I the humpbacked lad?" said Mr. Poulter, con-
temptuously; "what's the use of his looking on?"
" Oh, but he knows a great deal about fighting," said Tom,
w and how they used to fight with bows and arrows, and bat-
tle-axes."
" Let him come, then. I'll show him something different
from his bows and arrows," said Mr. Poulter, coughing and
drawing himself up, while he gave a little preliminary play
to his wrist.
Tom ran in to Philip, who was enjoying his afternoon's
holiday at the piano, in the drawing-room, picking out tunes
for himself and singing them. He was supremely happy,
perched like an amorphous bundle on the high stool, with his
184 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
head thrown back, his eyes fixed on the opposite cornice, and
his lips wide open, sending forth, with all his might, im-
promptu syllables to a tune of Arne's which had hit his fancy.
"Come, Philip," said Tom, bursting in; "don't stay roar-
ing 'la la ' there ; come and see old Poulter do his sword-
exercise in the carriage-house ! "
The jar of this interruption, the discord of Tom's tones
^coming across the notes to which Philip was vibrating in soul
and body, would have been enough to unhinge his temper,
even if there had been no question of Poulter the drilling-
master j and Tom, in the hurry of seizing something to say to
prevent Mr. Poulter from thinking he was afraid of the sword
when he sprang away from it, had alighted on this proposi-
tion to fetch Philip, though he knew well enough that Philip
hated to hear him mention his drilling-lessons. Tom would
never have done so inconsiderate a thing except under the
severe stress of his personal pride.
Philip shuddered visibly as he paused from his music.
Then turning red, he said, with violent passion, —
"Get away, you lumbering idiot! Don't come bellowing
at me ; you're not fit to speak to anything but a cart-horse ! "
It was not the first time Philip had been made angry by
him, but Tom had never before been assailed with verbal mis-
siles that he understood so well.
" I'm fit to speak to something better than you, you poor-
spirited imp! " said Tom, lighting up immediately at Philip's
fire. " You know I won't hit you, because you're no better
than a girl. But I'm an honest man's son, and your father's
a rogue ; everybody says so I n
Tom flung out of the room, and slammed the door after him,
made strangely heedless by his anger; for to slam doors
within the hearing of Mrs. Stelling, who was probably not far
off, was an offence only to be wiped out by twenty lines of
Virgil. In fact, that lady did presently descend from her
room, in double wonder at the noise and the subsequent ces-
sation of Philip's music. She found him sitting in a heap on
the hassock, and crying bitterly.
" What's the matter, Wakem? what was t.hat poi«»e about?
Who slammed the door?"
SCHOOL TIME. 1M
Philip looked up, and hastily dried his eyes. "It was
Tulliver who came in — to ask me to go out with him."
" And what are you in trouble about? " said Mr. Stelling.
Philip was not her favorite of the two pupils; he was less
obliging than Tom, who was made useful in many ways.
Still, his father paid more than Mr. Tulliver did, and she
meant him to feel that she behaved exceedingly well to him.
Philip, however, met her advances toward a good understand-
jing very much as a caressed mollusk meets an invitation to
show himself out of his shell. Mrs. Stelling was not a lov-
ing, tender-hearted woman ; she was a woman whose skirt sat
well, who adjusted her waist and patted her curls with a pre-
occupied air when she inquired after your welfare. These
things, doubtless, represent a great social power, but it is not
the power of lovej and no other power could win Philip from
his personal reserve.
He said, in answer to her question, " My toothache came
on, and made me hysterical again."
This had been the fact once, and Philip was glad of the
recollection ; it was like an inspiration to enable him to excuse
his crying. He had to accept eau-de-Cologne and to refuse
creosote in consequence j but that was easy.
Meanwhile Tom, who had for the first time sent a poisoned
arrow into Philip's heart, had returned to the carriage -house,
where he found Mr. Poulter, with a fixed and earnest eye,
wasting the perfections of his sword-exercise on probably ob-
servant but inappreciative rats. But Mr. Poulter was a host
in himself; that is to say, he admired himself more than a
whole army of spectators could have admired him. He took
no notice of Tom's return, being too entirely absorbed in the
cut and thrust, — the solemn one, two, three, four; and Tom,
not without a slight feeling of alarm at Mr. Poulter's fixed
eye and hungry-looking sword, which seemed impatient for
something else to cut besides the air, admired the perform-
ance from as great a distance as possible. It was not until
Mr. Poulter paused and wiped the perspiration from his fore-
head, that Tom felt the full charm of the sword-exercise, and
wished it to be repeated.
"Mr. Poulter," said Torn,, when the sword was being finally
186 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
sheathed, "I wish you'd lend me your sword a little while to
"No no, young gentleman," said Mr. Poulter, shaking his
head decidedly ; " you might do yourself some mischief with
if
"No, I'm sure I wouldn't; I'm sure I'd take care and not
hurt myself. I shouldn't take it out of the sheath much, but
I could ground arms with it, and all that."
"No, no, it won't do, I tell you; it won't do," said Mr-
Poulter, preparing to depart. "What 'ud Mr. Stelling say
to me? "
"Oh, I say, do, Mr. Poulter! I'd give you my five-shilling
piece if you'd let me keep the sword a week. Look here! "
said Tom, reaching out the attractively large round of silver.
The young dog calculated the effect as well as if he had been
a philosopher.
"Well," said Mr. Poulter, with still deeper gravity, "you
must keep it out of sight, you know."
"Oh yes, I'll keep it under the bed," said Tom, eagerly,
"or else at the bottom of my large box."
" And let me see, now, whether you can draw it out of the
sheath without hurting yourself."
That process having been gone through more than once,
Mr. Poulter felt that he had acted with scrupulous conscien-
tiousness, and said, " Well, now, Master Tulliver, if I take
the crown-piece, it is to make sure as you'll do no mischief
with the sword."
" Oh no, indeed, Mr. Poulter, " said Tom, delightedly hand-
ing him the crown-piece, and grasping the sword, which, he
thought, might have been lighter with advantage.
" But if Mr. Stelling catches you carrying it in? " said Mr.
Poulter, pocketing the crown-piece provisionally while he
raised this new doubt.
" Oh, he always keeps in his upstairs study on Saturday
afternoons," said Tom, who disliked anything sneaking, but
was not disinclined to a little stratagem in a worthy cause.
So he carried off the sword in triumph mixed with dread —
dread that he might encounter Mr. or Mrs. Stelling— to his
bedroom, where, after some consideration, he hid it in the
SCHOOL-TIME. 18?
closet behind some hanging clothes. That night he fell asleep
in the thought that he would astonish Maggie with it when
she came, — tie it round his waist with his red comforter, and
make her believe that the sword was his own, and that he was
going to be a soldier. There was nobody but Maggie who
would be silly enough to believe him, or whom he dared al-
low to know he had a sword ; and Maggie was really coming
next week to see Tom, before she went to a boarding-school
with Lucy.
If you think a lad of thirteen would have been so childish,
you must be an exceptionally wise man, who,, although you
are devoted to a civil calling, requiring you to look bland rather
than formidable, yet never, since you had a beard, threw your-
self into a martial attitude, and frowned before the looking-
glass. It is doubtful whether our soldiers would be main-
tained if there were not pacific people at home who like to
fancy themselves soldiers. War, like other dramatic spec-
tacles, might possibly cease for want of a " public."
CHAPTEB V.
MAGGIE'S SECOND visrr.
THIS last breach between the two lads was not readily
mended, and for some time they spoke to each other no more
than was necessary. Their natural antipathy of temperament
made resentment an easy passage to hatred, and in Philip the
transition seemed to have begun j there was no malignity in
his disposition, but there was a susceptibility that made him
peculiarly liable to a strong sense of repulsion. The ox — we
may venture to assert it on the authority of a great classic — •
is not given to use his teeth as aa instrument of attack, and
Tom was an excellent bovine lad, who ran at questionable ob-
jects in a truly ingenious bovine manner j but he had blun-
dered on Philip's tenderest point, and had caused him as much
acute pain as if he had studied the means with the nicest pre-
cision and the most envenomed spite. Tom saw no reason
why they should not make up this quarrel as they had don«
188 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
toany others, "by behaving as if nothing had happened-, ten
though he had never before said to Philip that his father was
a rogue, this idea had so habitually made part of his feeling
as to the relation between himself and his dubious schoolfel-
low, who he could neither like nor dislike, that the mere ut-
terance did not make such an epoch to him as it did to Philip.
And he had a right to say so when Philip hectored over him,
and called him names. But perceiving that his first advances
toward amity were not met, he relapsed into his least favor-
able disposition toward Philip, and resolved never to appeal
to him either about drawing or exercises again. They were
only so far civil to each other as was necessary to prevent
their state of feud from being observed by Mr. Stelling, who
would have " put down " such nonsense with great vigor.
When Maggie came, however, she could not help looking
with growing interest at the new schoolfellow, although he
was the son of that wicked Lawyer Wakem, who made her
father so angry. She had arrived in the middle of school-
hours, and had sat by while Philip went through his lessons
with Mr. Stelling. Tom, some weeks ago, had sent her word
that Philip knew no end of stories, — not stupid stories like
hers j and she was convinced now from her own observation
that he must be very clever ; she hoped he would think her
rather clever too, when she came to talk to him. Maggie,
moreover, had rather a tenderness for deformed things; she
preferred the wry -necked lambs, because it seemed to her that
the lambs which were quite strong ac.d well made wouldn't
mind so much about being petted; and she was especially
fond of petting objects that would think it very delightful to
be petted by her. She loved Tom very dearly, but she often
wished that he cared more about her loving him.
"I think Philip Wakem seems a nice boy, Tom," she said,
when they went out of the study together into tha garden, to
pass the interval before dinner. "He couldn't choose his
father, you know ; and I've read of very bad men who had good
sons, as well as good parents who had bad children. And if
Philip is good, I think we ought to be the more sorry for him be-
cause his father is not a good man. You like him, don't you? "
"Oh, he's a queer fellow^" said Tom, curtly, "an4 toe's as
SCHOOL-TIME. 189
sulky as can be with me, because I told him his father was a
rogue. And I'd a right to tell him so, for it was true; and
he began it, with calling ine names. But you stop here by
yourself a bit, Magsie, will you? I've got something I want
to do upstairs."
"Can't I go too?" said Maggie, who in this first day of
meeting again loved Tom's shadow.
"No, it's something I'll tell you about by-and-by, not yet,*
said Tom, skipping away. I
In the afternoon the boys were at their books in the study,
preparing the morrow's lessons, that they might have a holi-
day in the evening in honor of Maggie's arrival. Tom was
hanging over his Latin grammar, moving his lips inaudibly
like a strict but impatient Catholic repeating his tale of
paternosters ; and Philip, at the other end of the room, was
busy with two volumes, with a look of contented diligence
that excited Maggie's curiosity ; he did not look at all as if he
were learning a lesson. She sat on a low stool at nearly a
right angle with the two boys, watching first one and then the
other ; and Philip, looking off his book once toward the fire-
place, caught the pair of questioning dark eyes fixed upon
him. He thought this sister of Tulliver's seemed a nice little
thing, quite unlike her brother; he wished he had a little
sister. What was it, he wondered, that made Maggie's dark
eyes remind him of the stories about princesses being turned
into animals? I think it was that her eyes were full of un-
satisfied intelligence, and unsatisfied, beseeching affection.
"I say, Magsie," said Tom at last, shutting his books and
putting them away with the energy and decision of a perfect
master in the art of leaving off, " I've done my lessons now.
Come upstairs with me."
u What is it? " said Maggie, when they were outside the
door, a slight suspicion crossing her mind as she remembered
Tom's preliminary visit upstairs. "It isn't a trick you're
going to play me, now? n
"No, no, Maggie," said Tom, in his most coaxing tonej
"it's something you'll like ever so."
He put his arm round her neck, and she put hers round hts
waist* and twined together in this way, they went upstairs.
190 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"I say, Magsie, you must not tell anybody, you know,"
•aid Tom, " else I shall get fifty lines."
"Is it alive?" said Maggie, whose imagination had settled
for the moment ou the idea that Tom kept a ferret clandes-
tinely.
" Oh, I sha'n't tell you," said he. "How you go into that
corner and hide your face, while I reach it out," he added, as
he locked the bedroom door behind them. " I'll tell you wheo
to turn round. You mustn't squeal out, you know."
" Oh, but if you frighten me, I shall," said Maggie, begin*
ning to look rather serious.
"You won't be frightened, you silly thing," said Tom.
" Go and hide your face, and mind you don't peep."
"Of course I sha'n't peep," said Maggie, disdainfully; and
she buried her face in the pillow like a person of strict honor.
But Tom looked round warily as he walked to the closet ;
then he stepped into the narrow space, and almost closed the
door. Maggie kept her face buried without the aid of prin-
ciple, for in that dream-suggestive attitude she had soon for-
gotten where she was, and her thoughts were busy with the
poor deformed boy, who was so clever, when Tom called out,
" Now then, Magsie ! "
Nothing but long meditation and preconcerted arrangement
of effects could have enabled Tom to present so striking a fig-
ure as he did to Maggie when she looked up. Dissatisfied
with the pacific aspect of a face which had no more than the
faintest hint of flaxen eyebrow, together with a pair of ami-
able blue-gray eyes and round pink cheeks that refused to
look formidable, let him frown as he would before the looking-
glass (Philip had once told him of a man who had a horseshoe
frown, and Tom had tried with all his frowning might to
make a horseshoe on his forehead), he had had recourse to
that unfailing source of the terrible, burnt cork, and had made
himself a pair of black eyebrows that met in a satisfactory
manner over his nose, and were matched by a less carefully
adjusted blackness about the chin. He had wound a red
handkerchief round his cloth cap to give it the air of a tur-
ban, and his red comforter across his breast as a scarf, — an
amount of red which, wit]) tfc* tremendous frown on bis brow.
SCHOOL-TIME. 191
and the decision with which he grasped the sword, as he hell
it with its point resting on the ground, would suffice to convey
an approximative idea of his fierce and bloodthirsty disposition.
Maggie looked bewildered for a moment, and Tom enjoyed
that moment keenly j but in the next she laughed, clapped
her hands together, and said, "Oh, Tom, you've made your-
self like Bluebeard at the show."
It was clear she had not been struck with the presence of
the sword, — it was not unsheathed. Her frivolous mind re-
quired a more direct appeal to its sense of the terrible, and
Tom prepared for his master-stroke. Frowning with a double
amount of intention, if not of corrugation, he (caiefully) drew
the sword from its sheath, and pointed it at Maggie.
"Oh, Tom, please don't!" exclaimed Maggie, in a tone of
suppressed dread, shrinking away from him into the opposite
corner. " I shall scream — I'm sure I shall! Oh, don't! J
wish I'd never come upstairs! "
The corners of Tom's mouth showed an inclination to a
srnile of complacency that was immediately checked as incon-
sistent with the severity of a great warrior. Slowly he let
down the scabbard on the floor, lest it should make too much
noise, and then said sternly, —
"I'm the Duke of Wellington! March!" stamping for-
ward with the right leg a little bent, and the sword still point-
ing toward Maggie, who, trembling, and with tear-filled eyes,
got upon the bed, as the only means of widening the space be
tween them.
Tom, happy in this spectator of his military performancei,
even though the spectator was only Maggie, proceeded, with
the utmost exertion of his force, to such an exhibition of the
cut and thrust as would necessarily be expected of the Duke
of "Wellington.
"Tom, I wiil not bear it, I will scream," said Maggie, at
the first movement of the sword. "You'll hurt yourself;
you'll cut your head off I"
"One — two," said Tom, resolutely, though at "two" his
wrist trembled a little. "Three" came more slowly, and
with it the sword swung downward, and Maggie gave a Ion J
shriek. The sword had fallen, with its edg» ora Tom'f fotf.
192 THE MILL ON THE FLOS&
and in a moment after he had fallen too. Maggie leaped
from the bed, still shrieking, and immediately there was a
rush of footsteps toward the room. Mr. Stelling, from his
upstairs study, was the first to enter. He found both the
children on the floor. Tom had fainted, and Maggie was
shaking him by the collar of his jacket, screaming, with wild
eyes. She thought he was dead, poor child! and yet she
shook him, as if that would bring him back to life. In another
minute she was sobbing with joy because Tom opened his eyes.
She couldn't sorrow yet that he had hurt his foot j it seemed
as if all happiness lay in his being alive.
CHAPTER VL
A LOVE SCENE.
POOR Tom bore his severe pain heroically, and was resolute
in not " telling " of Mr. Poulter more than was unavoidable ;
the five-shilling piece remained a secret even to Maggie. But
there was a terrible dread weighing on his mind, so terrible
that he dared not even ask the question which might bring the
fatal " yes " j he dared not ask the surgeon or Mr. Stelling,
" Shall I be lame, sir? " He mastered himself so as not to cry
out at the pain ; but when his foot had been dressed, and he
was left alone with Maggie seated by his bedside, the children
sobbed together, with their heads laid on the same pillow.
Tom was thinking of himself walking about on crutches, like
the wheelwright's son ; and Maggie, who did not guess what
was in his mind, sobbed for company. It had not occurred to
the surgeon or to Mr. S telling to anticipate this dread in Tom's
mind, and to reassure him by hopeful words. But Philip
watched the surgeon out of the house, and waylaid Mr. Stel-
ling to ask the very question that Tom had not dared to ask
for himself.
"I beg your pardon, sir, — but does Mr. Askern say Tullivei
will be lame? "
"Oh, no; oh, no," said Mr, Stelling, "not permanently j
only for a little while."
SCHOOL-TIME. 193
• Did he tell Tulliver so, sir, do you think?*
**No; nothing was said to him on the subject,*
" Then may I go and tell him, sir? "
" Yes, to be sure ; now you mention it, I dare say he may be
troubling about that. Go to his bedroom, but be very quiet at
present."
It had been Philip's first thought when he heard of the ac-
cident,— " Will Tulliver be lame? It will be very hard for
him if he is"; and Tom's hitherto unforgiven offences were
washed out by that pity. Philip felt that they were no longer
in a state of repulsion, but were being drawn into a common
current of suffering and sad privation. His imagination did
not dwell on the outward calamity and its future effect on
Tom's life, but it made vividly present to him the probable
state of Tom's feeling. Philip had only lived fourteen years,
but those years had, most of them, been steeped in the sense
of a lot irremediably hard.
" Mr. Askern says you'll soon be all right again, Tulliver,
did you know? " he said rather timidly, as he stepped gently
up to Tom's bed. " I've just been to ask Mr. Stelling, and
he says you'll walk as well as ever again by-and-by."
Tom looked up with that momentary stopping of the breath
which comes with a sudden joy ; then he gave a long sigh, and
turned his blue-gray eyes straight on Philip's face, as he had
not done for a fortnight or more. As for Maggie, this inti-
mation of a possibility she had not thought of before affected
her as a new trouble; the bare idea of Tom's being always
lame overpowered the assurance that such a misfortune
was not likely to befall him, and she clung to him and cried
afresh.
"Don't be a little silly, Magsie," said Tom, tenderly, feel*
ing very brave now. " I shall soon get well."
"Good-by, Tulliver," said Philip, putting out his small,
delicate hand, which Tom clasped immediately with his more
substantial fingers.
"I say," said Tom, "ask Mr. Stelling to let you come and
Bit with me sometimes, till I get up again, Wakemj and tell
me about Robert Bruce, you know."
After that, Philip spent all his time put of school-hours wftb
13
194 THE MILL OK THE FLOSS.
Tom and Maggie- Tom liked to hear fighting stories as much
as ever, but he insisted strongly on the fact that those great
fighters, who did so many wonderful things and came off un-
hurt, wore excellent armor from head to foot, which made
fighting easy work, he considered. He should not have hurt
his foot if he had had an iron shoe on. He listened with great
interest to a new story of Philip's about a man who had a
very bad wound in his foot, and cried out so dreadfully with
'the pain that his friends could bear with him no longer, but
put him ashore on a desert island, wiUj nothing but some won-
derful poisoned arrows to kill animals with for food.
" I didn't roar out a bit, you know, " Tom said, " and I dare
say my foot was as bad as his. It's cowardly to roar."
But Maggie would have it that when anything hurt you very
much, it was quite permissible to cry out, and it was cruel of
people not to bear it. She wanted to know if Philoctetes had
a sister, and why she didn't go with him on the desert island
and take care of him.
One day, soon after Philip had told this story, he and Mag-
gie were in the study alone together while Tom's foot was
being dressed. Philip was at his books, and Maggie, after
sauntering idly round the room, not caring to do anything in
particular, because she would soon go to Tom again, went and
leaned on the table near Philip to see what he was doing, for
they were quite old friends now, and perfectly at home with
each other.
" What are you reading about in Greek? " she said. " It's
poetry, I can see that, because the lines are so short."
" It's about Philoctetes, the lame man I was telling you of
yesterday," he answered, resting his head on his hand, and
locking at her as if he were not at all sorry to be interrupted.
Maggie, in her absent way, continued to lean forward, resting
on her arms and moving her feet about, while her dark eyes
got more and more fixed and vacant, as if she had quite for-
gotten Philip and his book.
"Maggie," said Philip, after a minute or two, still leaning
on his elbow and looking at her, " if you had had a brother
like me, do you think you should have loved him as well a»
Torn?"
SCHOOL-TIME. 193
i-Taggie started a little on being roused from her aeverie,
and said, " What? " Philip repeated his question.
"Oh, yes, better," she answered immediately. "No, not
better ; because I don't think I could love you better than Tom.
But I should be so sorry, — so sorry for you."
Philip colored} he had meant to imply, would she love him
as well in spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to
it so plainly, he winced under her pity. Maggie, young as she
was, felt her mistake. Hitherto she had instinctively behaved
as if she were quite unconscious of Philip's deformity ; her
own keen sensitiveness and experience under family criticism
sufficed to teach her this as well as if she had been directed by
the most finished breeding.
" But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and
sing," she added quickly. " I wish you were my brother. I'm
very fond of you. And you would stay at home with me when
Tom went out, and you would teach me everything; wouldn't
you, — Greek and everything?"
" But you'll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie, " said
Philip, " and then you'll forget all about me, and not care for
me any more. And then I shall see you when you're grown
up, and you'll hardly take any notice of me."
"Oh, no, I sha'n't forget you, I'm sure," said Maggie,
shaking her head very seriously. " I never forget anything,
and I think about everybody when I'm away from them. I
think about poor Yap; he's got a lump in his throat, and
Luke says he'll die. Only don't you tell Tom, because it will
vex him so. You never saw Yap; he's a queer little dog,— •
nobody cares about him but Tom and me."
" Do you care as much about me as you dp about Yap, Mag-
gie?" said Philip, smiling rather sadly.
" Oh, yes, I should think so, " said Maggie, laughing.
"I'm very fond ott/on," Maggie; I shall never forget yout"
said Philip, " and when I'm very unhappy, I shall always
think of you, and wish I had a sister with dark eyes, just lika
yours."
"Why do you like my eyes?" said Maggie, well pleased.
She had never heard any one but her father speak of her eyea
as if they had merit.
196 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"I don't know," said Philip. " They're not like any othel
eyes. They seem trying to speak, — trying to speak kindly.
I don't like other people to look at me much, but I like you to
look at me, Maggie."
" Why, I think you're fonder of me than Tom is," said Mag-
gie, rather sorrowfully. Then, wondering how she could con-
vince Philip that she could like him just as well, although he
was crooked, she said:
" Should you like me to kiss you, as I do Tom ? I will, if
you like."
"Yes, very muchj nobody kisses me."
Maggie put her arm round his neck and kissed him quite
earnestly.
" There now," she said, "I shall always remember you, and
kiss you when I see you again, if it's ever so long. But I'll
go now, because I think Mr. Askern's done with Tom's foot."
When their father came the second time, Maggie said to
him, "Oh, father, Philip Wakem is so very good to Tom; he
is such a clever boy, and I do love him. And you love him
too, Tom, don't you? Say you love him," she added entreat-
ingly.
Tom colored a little as he looked at his father, and said:
" I sha'n't be friends with him when I leave school, father ;
but we've made it up now, since my foot has been bad, and
he's taught me to play at draughts, and I can beat him."
"Well, well," said Mr. Tulliver, "if he's good to you, try
and make him amends, and be good to him. He's a poor
crooked creature, and takes after his dead mother. But don't
you be getting too thick with him ; he's got his father's blood
in him too. Ay, ay, the gray colt may chance to kick like his
black sire."
The jarring natures of the two boys effected what Mr. Tul-
liver's admonition alone might have failed to effect; in spite
of Philip's new kindness, and Tom's answering regard in this
time of his trouble, they never became close friends. When
Maggie was gone, and when Tom b}7-and-by began to walk about
as usual, the friendly warmth that had been kindled by pity
and gratitude died out by degrees, and left them in their old
relation to each other. Philip was often peevish and contemp*
SCHOOL-TIME. 19T
tuous; and Tom* s more specific and kindly impressions gradu-
ally melted into the old background of suspicion and dislike
toward him as a queer fellow, a humpback, and the son of a
rogue. If boys and men are to be welded together in the glow
of transient feeling, they must be made of metal that will mix,
else they inevitably fall asunder when the heat dies out.
CHAPTER TO.
THE GOLDEN1 GATES ABB PASSED.
So Tom went on even to the fifth half-year — till he
'turned sixteen — at King's Lorton, while Maggie was growing
with a rapidity which her aunts considered highly reprehensi-
ble, at Miss Firniss's boarding-school in the ancient town of
Laceham on the Floss, with cousin Lucy for her companion.
In her early letters to Tom she had always sent hbr love to
Philip, and asked many questions about him, which were ar-
swered by brief sentences about Tom's toothache, and a turf-
house which he was helping to build in the garden^, with other
items of that kind. She was pained to hear Tom say in the
holidays that Philip was as queer as ever again, and often
cross. They were no longer very good friends, she perceived ;
and when she reminded Tom that he ought always £o love
Philip for being so good to him when his foot was bad, ho
answered: "Well, it isn't my fault; 1 don't do anything to
him." She hardly ever saw Philip during the remainder of
their school-life ; in the Midsummer holidays he was always
away at the seaside, and at Christmas she could only meet
him at long intervals in the streets of St. Ogg's. When they
did meet, she remembered her promise to kiss him, but, as a
young lady who had been at a boarding-school, she knew now
that such a greeting was out of the question, and Philip would
not expect it. The promise was void, like so many other
sweet, illusory pr raises of our childhood; void as promises
made in Eden before the seasons vcere divided, and when thf
Btarry blossoms grew side by side with the ripening peach,—
198 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
impossible to be fulfilled when the golden gates had been
passed.
But when their father was actually engaged in the long-
threatened lawsuit, and Wakem, as the agent at once of Pivart
and Old Harry, was acting against him, even Maggie felt, with
some sadness, that they were not likely ever to have any inti-
macy with Philip again ; the very name of Wakem made her
father angry, and she had once heard him say that if that
crook-backed son lived to inherit his father's ill-gotten gains,
there would be a curse upon him. " Have as little to do with
him at school as you can, my lad," he said to Tom; and the
command was obeyed the more easily because Mr. Stelling by
this time had two additional pupils; for though this gentle-
man's rise in the world was not of that meteor-like rapidity
which the admirers of his extemporaneous eloquence had ex-
pected for a preacher whose voice demanded so wide a sphere,
he had yet enough of growing prosperity to enable him to in-
crease his expenditure in continued disproportion to his income.
As for Tom's school course, it went on with mill-like monot-
ony, his mind continuing to move with a slow, half-stifled
pulse in a medium uninteresting or unintelligible ideas. But
each vacation he brought home larger and larger drawings
with the satiny rendering of landscape, and water-colors in
vivid greens, together with manuscript books full of exercises
and problems, in which the handwriting was all the finer be-
cause he gave his whole mind to it. Each vacation he brought
home a new book or two, indicating his progress through dif-
ferent stages of history, Christian doctrine, and Latin litera-
ture ; and that passage was not entirely without result, besides
the possession of the books. Tom's tar and tongue had be-
come accustomed to a great many words and phrases which
are understood to be signs of an educated condition; and
though he had never really applied his mind to any one of his
lessons, the lessons had left a deposit of vague, fragmentary,
ineffectual noti ns. Mr. Tulliver, seeing signs of acquirement
beyond the reach of his own criticism, thought it was proba-
bly all right with Tom's education ; he observed, indeed, that
there were no maps, and not enough " summing "; but he made
no formal complaint to Mr* Stelling. It was a puzzling busi-
SCHOOL-TIME. 199
this schooling; and if he took Tom away, where could
he send him \vith better effect?
By the time Tom hacl reached his last quarter at King's
Lorton, the years had made striking changes in him since the
day we saw him returning from Mr. Jacobs's academy. He
was a tall youth now, carrying himself without the least awk-
wardness, and speaking without more shyness than was a be-
coming symptom of blended diffidence and pride; he wore his
tail-coat and his stand-up collars, and watched the down on
his lip with eager impatience, looking every day at his virgin
razor, with whijh he had provided himself in the last holi-
days. Philip had already left, — at the autumn quarter, —
that he might go to the south for the winter, for the sake of
his health ; and this change helped to give Tom the unsettled,
exultant feeling that usually belongs to the last months before
leaving school. This quarter, too, there was some hope of his
father's lawsuit being decided j that made the prospect of
home more entirely pleasurable. For Tom, who had gathered
his view of the case from his father's conversation, had no
doubt that Pivart would be beaten.
Tom had not heard anything from home for some weeks, —
a fact which did not surprise him, for his father and mother
were not apt to manifest their affection in unnecessary letters,
— when, to his great surprise, on the morning of a dark, cold
day near the end of November, he was told, soon after entering
the study at nine o'clock, that his sister was in the drawing-
room. It was Mrs. Stelling who had come into the study to
tell him, and she left him to enter the drawing-room alone.
Maggie, too, was tall now, with braided and coiled hair ; she
was almost as tall as Tom, though she was only thirteen ; and
she really looked older than he did at that moment. She had
thrown off her bonnet, her heavy braids were pushed back
from her forehead, as if it would not bear that extra load, and
her young face had a strangely worn look, as her eyes turned
anxiously toward the door. When Tom entered she did not
speak, but only went up to hhr< put her arms round his neck,
and kissed him earnestly. He was used to various moods of
hers, and felt no alarm at the unusual seriousness of her ereet«
ing.
200 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Why, how is it you're come so early this cold morning,
Maggie? Did you come in the gig? " said Tom, as she backed
toward the sofa, and drew him to her side.
"No, I came by the coach. I've walked from the turn-
pike."
" But how is it you're not at school? The holidays have
not begun yet? "
" Father wanted me at home, " said Maggie, with a slight
trembling of the lip. "I caine home three or four days
ago."
"Isn't my father well?" said Tom, rather anxiously.
"Not quite," said Maggie. "He's very unhappy, Tom.
The lawsuit is ended, and I came to tell you because I thought
it would be better for you to know it before you came home,
and I didn't like only to «end you a letter."
""Vy father hasn't lost? " said Tom, hastily, springing from
tht> sofa, and standing before Maggie with his hands suddenly
thrust in his pockets.
"Yes, dear Tom," said Maggie, looking up at him with
trembling.
Tom was silent a minute or two, with his eyes fixed on the
floor. Then he said :
" My father will have to pay a good deal of money, then? ''
"Yes," said Maggie, rather faintly.
" Well, it can't be helped," said Tom, bravely, not translat-
ing the loss of a large sum of money into any tangible results.
"But my father's very much vexed, I dare say?" he added,
looking at Maggie, and thinking that her agitated face was only
part of her girlish way of taking things.
"Yes," said Maggie, again faintly. Then, urged to fuller
speech by Tom's freedom from apprehension, she said loudly
and rapidly, as if the words would burst from her: "Oh,
Tom, he will lose the mill and the land and everything; he
will have nothing left."
Tom's eyes flashed out one look of surprise at her, before
he turned pale, and trembled visibly. He said nothing, but
sat down on the sofa again, looking vaguely out of the oppo-
site window.
Anxiety about the future had never entered Tom's mind,
SCHOOL-TIME. 201
His father had always ridden a good horse, kept a good house,
and had the cheerful, confident air of a man who has plenty of
property to fall back upon. Tom had never dreamed that his
father would " fail " ; that was a form of misfortune which he
had always heard spoken of as a deep disgrace, and disgrace
was an idea that he could not associate with any of his rela-
tions, least of all with his father. A proud sense of family
respectability was part of the very air Tom had been born and
brought up in. He knew there were people in St. Ogg's whc
made a show without money to support it, and he had always
heard such people spoken of by his own friends with contempt
and reprobation. He had a strong belief, which was a life-
long habit, and required no definite evidence to rest on, that
his father could spend a great deal of money if he chose ; and
since his education at Mr. Stelling's had given him a more ex-
pensive view of life, he had often thought that when he got
older he would make a figure in the world, with his horse and
, dogs and saddle, and other accoutrements of a fine young man,
and show himself equal to any of his contemporaries at St.
Ogg's, who might consider themselves a grade above him in
society, because their fathers were professional men, or had
large oil-mills. As to the prognostics and headshaking of his
aunts and uncles, they had never produced the least effect on
him, except to make him think that aunts and uncles were
disagreeable society ; he had heard them find fault in much
the same way as long as he could remember. His father knew
better than they did.
The down had come on Tom's lip, yet his thoughts and ex-
pectations had been hitherto only the reproduction, in changed
forms, of the boyish dreams in which he had lived three years
ago. He was awakened now with a violent shock.
Maggie was frightened at Tom's pale, trembling silence.'
There was something else to tell him, — something worse.
She threw her arms round him at last, and said, with a half
sob:
"Oh, Tom — dear, dear Tom, don't fret too much; try and
bear it vrelL"
Tom turned his cheek passively to meet her entreating
kisses, and there gathered a moisture in his eyes, which he
202 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
just rubbed away with his hand. The action seemed to rouse
him, for he shook himself and said : " I shall go home with
you, Maggie. Didn't my father say I was to go?"
"No, Tom, father didn't wish it," said Maggie, her anxiety
about his feeling helping her to master her agitation. What
would he do when she told him all? " But mother wants you
to come, — poor mother! — she cries so. Oh, Tom, it's very
dreadful at home."
Maggie's lips grew whiter, and she began to tremble almost
as Tom had done. The two poor things clung closer to each
other, both trembling, — the one at an unshapen fear, the other
at the image of a terrible certainty. When Maggie spoke, it
was hardly above a whisper.
" And — and — poor father "
Maggie could not utter it. But the suspense was intoler-
able to Tom. A vague idea of going to prison, as a conse-
quence of debt, was the shape his fears had begun to take.
"Where's my father?" he said impatiently. "Tell me,
Maggie."
"He's at home," said Maggie, finding it easier to reply to
that question. " But," she added, after a pause, " not himself
• — he fell off his horse. He has known nobody but me ever
since — he seems to have lost his senses. 0 father, father n
With these last words, Maggie's sobs burst forth with the
more violence for the previous struggle against them. Tom
felt that pressure of the heart which forbids tears; he had no
distinct vision of their troubles as Maggie had, whp had been
at home ; he only felt the crushing weight of what seemed un-
mitigated misfortune. He tightened his arm almost convul-
sively round Maggie as she sobbed, but his face looked rigid
and tearless, his eyes blank, — as if a black curtain of cloud
had suddenly fallen on his path.
But Maggie soon checked herself abruptly ; a single thought
had acted on her like a startling sound.
" We must set out, Tom, we must not stay. Fathei will
miss me; we must be at the turnpike at ten to meet the coach."
She said this with hasty decision, rubbing her eyes, and rising
to seize her bonnet.
Tom at once felt the same impulse, and rose too. '* Wait a
SCHOOL-TIME. 203
minute, Maggie," he said. "I must speak to Mr. Stelling,
and then we'll go."
He thought he must go to the study where the pupils were •
but on his way he met Mr. Stelling, who had heard from his
wife that Maggie appeared to be in trouble when she asked for
her brother, and now that he thought the brother and sister
had been alone long enough, was coming to inquire and offer
his sympathy.
"Please, sir, I must go home," Tom said abruptly, as he
met Mr. Stelling in the passage. " I must go back with my
sister directly. My father's lost his lawsuit — he's lost all his
property — and he's very ill."
Mr. Stelling felt like a kind-hearted man; he foresaw a
probable money loss for himself, but this had no appreciable
share in his feeling, while he looked with grave pity at the
brother and sister for whom youth and sorrow had begun to-
gether. When he knew how Maggie had come, and how eager
she was to get home again, he hurried their departure, only
whispering something to Mrs. Stelling, who had followed him,
and who immediately left the room.
Tom and Maggie were standing on the door-step, ready to
set out, when Mrs. Stelling came with a little basket, which
she hung on Maggie's arm, saying: "Do remember to eat
something on the way, dear." Maggie's heart went out toward
this woman whom she had never liked, and she kissed her
silently. It was the first sign within the poor child of that
new sense which is the gift of sorrow, — that susceptibility to
the bare offices of humanity which raises them into a bond of
loving fellowship, as to haggard men among the icebergs the
mere presence of an ordinary comrade stirs the deep fountains
of affection.
Mr. Stelling put his hand on Tom's shoulder and said:
"God bless you, my boy; let me know how you get on."
Then he pressed Maggie's hand; but there were no audible
good-byes. Tom had so often thought how joyful he should
be the day he left school " for good " I And now his school
years seemed like a holiday that had come to an end.
The two slight youthful figures soon grew indistinct on the
distant road, — were soon lost behind the projecting hedgerow.
204 THE MILL ON THE PLO6&
They had gone forth together into their new life of sorrow,
and they would never more see the sunshine undimmed by re-
membered cares. They had entered the thorny wilderness,
and the golden gates of their childhood had forever closed be*
hind
BOOK HI.-THE DOWKFAUL
CHAPTEB L
WHAT HAD HAPPENED AT BOMB.
WHEN Mr. Tulliver first knew the fact that the lawsuit was
decided against him, and that Pivart and Wakem were tri-
umphant, every one who happened to observe him at the time
thought that, for so confident and hot-tempered a man, he bore
the blow remarkably well. He thought so himself; he thought
he was going to show that if Wakem or anybody else consid-
ered him crushed, they would find themselves mistaken. He
could not refuse to see that the costs of this protracted suit
would take more than he possessed to pay them ; but he ap-
peared to himself to be full of expedients by which he could
ward off any results but such as were tolerable, and could
avoid the appearance of breaking down in the world. All the
obstinacy and defiance of his nature, driven out of their old
channel, found a vent for themselves in the immediate forma-
tion of plans by which he would meet his difficulties, and re-
main Mr. Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill in spite of them. There
was such a rush of projects in his brain, that it was no wonder
his face was flushed when he came away from his talk with
his attorney, Mr. Gore, and mounted his horse to ride home
from Lindum. There was Furley, who held the mortgage on
the land, — a reasonable fellow, who would see his own inter-
est, Mr. Tulliver was convinced, and who would be glad not
only to purchase the whole estate, including the mill and
homestead, but would accept Mr. Tulliver as tenant, and be
willing to advance money to be repaid with high interest out
of the profits of the business, which would be made over to
him, Mr. Tulliver only taking enough barely to maintain him-
•elf and his family. Who would neglect such a profitable
206 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
investment? Certainly not Furley, for Mr. Tulliver had de»
termined that Furley should meet his plans with the utmost
alacrity; and there are men whose brains have not yet been
dangerously heated by the loss of a lawsuit, who are apt to see
in their own interest or desires a motive for other men' s ac-
tions. There was no doubt (in the miller's mind) that Furley
would do just what was desirable ; and if he did — why, things
would not be so very much worse. Mr. Tulliver and his fam-
ily must live more meagrely and humbly, but it would only be
till the profits of the business had paid off Furley's advances,
and that might be while Mr. Tulliver had still a good many
years of life before him. It was clear that the costs of the
suit could be paid without his being obliged to turn out of his
old place, and look like a ruined man. It was certainly an
awkward moment in his affairs. There was that suretyship
for poor Eiley, who had died suddenly last April, and left his
friend saddled with a debt of two hundred and fifty pounds,
— a fact which had helped to make Mr. Tulliver' s banking
book less pleasant reading than a man might desire toward
Christmas. Well! he had never been one of those poor-spir-
ited sneaks who would refuse to give a helping hand to a fel-
low-traveller in this puzzling world. The really vexatious
business was the fact that some months ago the creditor who
had lent him the five hundred pounds to repay Mrs. Glegg
had become uneasy about his money (set on by Wakem, of
course), and Mr. Tulliver, still confident that he should gain
his suit, and finding it eminently inconvenient to raise the said
sum until that desirable issue had taken place, had rashly ac-
ceeded to the demand that he should give a bill of sale on his
household furniture and some other effects, as security in lieu
of the bond. It was all one, he had said to himself; he should
soon pay off the money, and there was no harm in giving that
security any more than another. But now the consequences of
this bill of sale occurred to him in a new light, and he remem-
bered that the time was close at hand when it would be en-
forced unless the money were repaid. Two months ago he
would have declared stoutly that he would never be beholden
to his wife's friends; but now he told himself as stoutly that
it was nothing but right and natural that Bessy should go to
THE DOWNFALL. 207
the Pullets and explain the thing to them ; they would hardly
let Bessy's furniture be sold, and it might be security to Pul-
iet if he advanced the money, — there would, after all, be no
gift or favor in the matter. Mr. Tulliver would never have
asked for anything from so poor-spirited a fellow for himself^
but Bessy might do so if she liked.
It is precisely the proudest and most obstinate men who are
the most liable to shift their position and contradict themselves
in this sudden manner; everything is easier to them than to
face the simple fact that they have been thoroughly defeated,
and must begin life anew. And Mr. Tulliver, you perceive,
though nothing more than a superior miller and maltster, was
as proud and obstinate ao if he had been a very lofty person-
age, in whom such dispositions might be a source of that con-
spicuous, far-echoing tragedy, which sweeps the stage in regal
robes, and makes the dullest chronicler sublime. The pride
and obstinacy of millers and other insignificant people, whom
you pass unnoticingly on the road every day, have their tragedy
too ; but it is of that unwept, hidden sort that goes on from
generation to generation, and leaves no record, — such tragedy,
perhaps, as lies in the conflicts of young souls, hungry for joy,
under a lot made suddenly hard to them, under the djeariness
of a home where the morning brings no promise with it, and
where the unexpectant discontent of worn and disappointed
parents weighs on the children like a damp, thick air, in
which all the functions of life are depressed ; or such tragedy
as lies in the slow or sudden death that follows on a bruised
passion, though it may be a death that finds only a parish
funeral. There are certain animals to which tenacity of posi-
tion is a law of life, — they can never flourish again, after a
single wrench : and there are certain human beings to whom
predominance is a law of life, — they can only sustain humili-
ation so long as they can refuse to believe in it, and, in their
o\rn conception, predominate still.
Mr. Tulliver was still predominating, in his own imagina-
tion, as he approached St. Ogg's, through which he had to
pass on his way homeward. But what was it that suggested
to him, as he saw the Laceharn coach entering the town, to
follow it to the coach-office, and get the clerk there to write a
208 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
letter, requiring Maggie to come home the very next day?
Mr. Tulliver's own hand shook too much under his excitement
for him to write himself, and he wanted the letter to be given
to the coachman to deliver at Miss Firniss's school in the
morning. There was a craving which he would not account
for to himself, to have Maggie near him, without delay, — she
must come back by the coach to-morrow.
To Mrs. Tulliver, when he got home, he would admit no
difficulties, and scolded down her burst of grief on hearing
that the lawsuit was lost, by angry assertions that there was
nothing to grieve about. He said nothing to her that night
about the bill of sale and the application to Mrs. Pullet, for
he had kept her in ignorance of the nature of that transaction,
and had explained the necessity for taking an inventory of the
goods as a matter connected with his will. The possession of
a wife conspicuously one's inferior in intellect is, like other
high privileges, attended with a few inconveniences, and,
among the rest, with the occasional necessity for using a little
deception.
The next day Mr. Tulliver was again on horseback in the
afternoon, on his way to Mr. Gore's office at St. Ogg's. Gore
was to have seen Furley in the morning, and to have sounded
him in relation to Mr. Tulliver's affairs. But he had not gone
half-way when he met a clerk from Mr. Gore's office, who was
bringing a letter to Mr. Tulliver. Mr. Gore had been pre-
vented by a sudden call of business from waiting at his office
to see Mr. Tulliver, according to appointment, but would be at
his office at eleven to-morrow morning, and meanwhile had
sent some important information by letter.
"Oh!" said Mr. Tulliver, taking the letter, but not opening
it. " Then tell Gore I'll see him to-morrow at eleven " ; and
he turned his horse.
The clerk, struck with Mr. Tulliver's glistening, excited
glance, looked after him for a few moments, and then rode
away. The reading of a letter was not the affair of an in-
stant to Mr. Tulliver; he took in the sense of a statement very
slowly through the medium of written or even printed charac-
ters ; so he had put the letter in his pocket, thinking he would
open it in his armchair at home. But by-and-by it occurred
THE DOWNFALL. 208
to him that there might be something in the letter Mrs. Tul*
liver must not know about, and if so, it would be better to
keep it out of her sight altogether. He stopped his horse,
took out the letter, aud read it. It was only a short letter;
the substance was, that Mr. Gore had ascertained, on secret
but sure authority, that Furley had been lately much straitened
for money, and had parted with his securities, — among the
rest, the mortgage on Mr. Tulliver's property, which he had
transferred to Wakem.
In half an hour after this Mr. Tulliver's own wagoner found
1 im lying by the roadside insensible, with an open letter near
LJm, and his gray horse snuffing uneasily about him.
When Maggie reached home that evening, in obedience to
ier father's call, he was no longer insensible. About an hour
before he had become conscious, and after vague, vacant looks
around him, had muttered something about "a letter," which
he presently repeated impatiently. At the instance of Mr.
Turnbull, the medical man, Gore's letter was brought and laid
on the bed, and the previous impatience seemed to be allayed.
The stricken man lay for some time with his eyes fixed on the
letter, as if he were trying to knit up his thoughts by its help,
But presently a new wave of memory seemed to have come
and swept the other away ; he turned his eyes from the letter
to the door, and after looking uneasily, as if striving to see
something his eyes were too dim for, he said, "The little
wench."
He repeated the words impatiently from time to time,
appearing entirely unconscious of everything except this one
importunate want, and giving no sign of knowing his wife or
any one else; and poor Mrs. Tulliver, her feeble faculties
almost paralyzed by this sudden accumulation of troubles,
went backward and forward to the gate to see if the Laceharo
coach were coming, though it was not yet time.
But it came at last, and set down the poor anxious girl, no
longer the " little wench, " except to her father's fond memory.
" Oh, mother, what is the matter? " Maggie said, with pale
tfps, as her mother came toward her crying. She didn't think
ier father was ill, because the letter had come at his dictation
from the office at St. Ogg'i.
14
WO THE MILL ON THE FLO8&
But Mr. Turnbull caine now to meet her; a medical man is
the good angel of the troubled house, and Maggie ran toward
the kind old friend, whom she remembered as long as she could
remember anything, with a trembling, questioning look.
"Don't alarm yourself too much, my dear," he said, taking
her hand. " Your father has had a sudden attack, and has
not quite recovered his memory. But he has been asking for
you, and it will do him good to see you. Keep as quiet as you
can; take off your things, and come upstairs with me."
Maggie obeyed, with that terrible beating of the heart which
makes existence seem simply a painful pulsation. The very
quietness with which Mr. Turnbull spoke had frightened her
susceptible imagination. Her father's eyes were still turned
uneasily toward the door when she entered and met the strange,
yearning, helpless look that had been seeking her in vain.
With a sudden flash and movement, he raised himself in th«
bed; she rushed toward him, and clasped him with agonized
kisses.
Poor child I it was very early for her to know one of those
supreme moments in life when all we have hoped or delighted
in, all we can dread or endure, falls away from our regard as
insignificant; is lost, like a trivial memory, in that simple,
primitive love which knits us to the beings who have been
nearest to us, in their times of helplessness or of anguish.
But that flash of recognition had been too great a strain on
the father's bruised, enfeebled powers. He sank back again
in renewed insensibility and rigidity, which lasted for many
hours, and was only broken by a flickering return of conscious-
ness, in which he took passively everything that was given to
him, and seemed to have a sort of infantine satisfaction in
Maggie's near presence, — such satisfaction as a baby has when
it is returned to the nurse's lap.
Mrs. Tulliver sent for her sisters, and there was much wail-
ing and lifting up of hands below stairs. Both uncles and
aunts saw that the ruin of Bessy and her family was as com-
plete as they had ever foreboded it, and there was a general
family sense that a judgment had fallen on Mr. Tulliver, which
it would be an impiety to counteract by too much kindness.
But Maggie heard little of this, scarcely ever leaving hex
THE DOWOTALL. 211
father's bedside, where she sat opposite him with her hand on
his. Mrs. Tulliver wanted to have Tom fetched home, and
seemed to be thinking more of her boy even than of her hus-
band ; but the aunts and uncles opposed this. Tom was bet-
ter at school, since Mr. Turnbull said there was no immediate
danger, he believed. But at the end of the second day, when
Maggie had become more accustomed to her father's fits of insen-
sibility, and to the expectation that he would revive from them,
the thought of Tom had become urgent with her too ; and when
her mother sate crying at night and saying, " My poor lad —
it's nothing but right he should come home," Maggie said,
"Let me go for him, and tell him, mother; I'll go to-morrow
morning if father doesn't know me and want me. It would
be so hard for Tom to come home and not know anything about
it beforehand."
And the next morning Maggie went, as we have seen. Sit-
ting on the coach on their way home, the brother and sister
talked to each other in sad, interrupted whispers.
" They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on
the land, Tom," said Maggie. "It was the letter with that
news in it that made father ill, they think."
" I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin
my father, " said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions
to a definite conclusion. " I'll make him feel for it when I'm
a man. Mind you never speak to Philip again."
" Oh, Tom ! " said Maggie, in a tone of sad remonstrance ;
but she had no spirit to dispute anything then, still less to vex
Tom by opposing him.
CHAPTER IL
i
MRS. TULMVER'S TERAPHIM, OB HOUSEHOLD GODS.
WHEN1 the coach set down Tom and Maggie, it was five
hours since she had started from home, and she was thinking
with some trembling that her father had perhaps missed her,
and asked for " the little wench " in vain. She thought of QQ
other change that might have happened.
t!2 THE MILL ON THE FLO88.
She hurried along the gravel-walk and entered the tons*
before Tom ; but in the entrance she was startled by a strong
smell of tobacco. The parlor door was ajar j that was where
the smell came from. It was very strange; could any visitor
be smoking at a time like this? Was her mother there? If
so, she must be told that Tom was come. Maggie, after this
pause of surprise, was only in the act of opening the door when
Tom came up, and they both looked into the parlor together.
There was a coarse, dingy man, of whose face Tom had some
vague recollection, sitting in his father's chair, smoking, with
a jug and glass beside him.
The truth flashed on Tom's mind in an instant. To " have
the bailiff in the house," and "to be sold up," were phrases
which he had been used to, even as a little boy j they were
part of the disgrace and misery of "failing," of losing all one's
money, and being ruined, — sinking into the condition of poor
working people. It seemed only natural this should happen,
since his father had lost all his property, and he thought of
no more special cause for this particular form of misfortune
than the loss of the lawsuit. But the immediate presence of
this disgrace was so much keener an experience to Tom than
the worst form of apprehension, that he felt at this moment
as if his real trouble had only just begun ; it was a touch on
the irritated nerve compared with its spontaneous dull aching.
"How do you do, sir? " said the man taking the pipe out of
his mouth, with rough, embarrassed civility. The two young
startled faces made him a little uncomfortable.
But Tom turned away hastily without speaking ; the sight
was too hateful. Maggie had not understood the appearance
of this stranger, as Tom had. She followed him, whispering :
" Who can it be, Tom? What is the matter? " Then, with a
sudden undefined dread lest this stranger might have some-
thing to do with a change in her father, she rushed upstairs,
checking herself at the bedroom door to throw off her bonnet,
and enter on tiptoe. All was silent there ; her father was lying,
heedless of every thing around him, with his eyes closed as when
she had left him. A servant was there, but not her mother.
" Where's my mother? " she whispered. The servant did
not know.
THE DOWNFALL. 213
Maggie hastened out, and said to Tom : u Father is lying
quiet; let us go and look for my mother. I wonder where
she is."
Mrs. Tulliver was not downstairs, not in any of the bed-
rooms. There was but one room below the attic which Maggie
had left unsearched ; it was the storeroom, where her mother
kept all her linen and all the precious " best things " that were
only unwrapped and brought out on special occasions. Tom,
preceding Maggie as they returned along the passage, opened
the door of this room, and immediately said, " Mother I "
Mrs. Tulliver was seated there with all her laid-up treas-
ures. One of the linen chests was open; the silver teapot was
unwrapped from its many folds of paper, and the best china
was laid out on the top of the closed linen-chest; spoons and
skewers and ladles were spread in rows on the shelves ; and
the poor woman was shaking her head and weeping, with a
bitter tension of the mouth, over the mark, " Elizabeth Dod-
son," on the corner of some tablecloths she held in her lap.
She dropped them, and started up as Tom spoke.
" Oh, my boy, my boy I " she said, clasping him round the
neck. " To think as I should live to see this day ! We're
ruined — everything's going to be sold up — to think as your
father should ha* married me to bring me to this! We've got
aothing — we shall be beggars — we must go to the work-
house —n
She kissed him, then seated herself again, and took another
tablecloth on her lap, unfolding it a little way to look at the
pattern, while the children stood by in mute wretchedness,
their minds quite filled for the moment with the words " beg-
gars " and " workhouse."
"To think o* these cloths as I spun myself," she went on,
lifting things out and turning them over with an excitement
all the more strange and piteous because the stout blond
woman was usually so passive, — if she had been ruffled before,
it was at the surface merely, — "and Job Haxey wove'em, and
brought the piece home on his back, as I remember standing
at the door and seeing him come, before I ever thought o1
marrying your father I And the pattern as I chose myself, and
bleached so beautiful, and I marked 'em ST as nobody ever sar
214 THE MILL ON THE FLOSa
such marking, — they must cut the cloth to get it out, for it's
a particular stitch. And they're all to be sold, and go into
strange people's houses, and perhaps be cut with the knives,
and wore out before I'm dead. You'll never have one of 'em,
my boy," she said, looking up at Tom with her eyes full of
tears, " and I meant 'em for you. I wanted you to have all
o' this pattern. Maggie could have had the large check— it
never shows so well when the dishes are on it."
Tom was touched to the quick, but there was an angry reac-
turn immediately. His face flushed as he said :
" But will my aunts let them be sold, mother? Do they
know about it? They'll never let your linen go, will they?
Haven't you sent to them? "
" Yes, I sent Luke directly they'd put the bailies in, and
your aunt Pullet's been — and, oh dear, oh dear, she cries so
and says your father's disgraced my family and made it the
talk o' the country ; and she'll buy the spotted cloths for her-
self, because she's never had so many as she wanted o' that
pattern, and they sha'n't go to strangers, but she's got more
checks a' ready nor she can do with." (Here Mrs. Tulliver
began to lay back the tablecloths in the chest, folding and
stroking them automatically.) " And your uncle Glegg's been
too, and he says things must be bought in for us to lie down
on, but he must talk to your aunt; and they're all coming to
consult. But 1 know they'll none of 'em take rny chany," she
added, turning toward the cups and saucers, "for they all
found fault with 'em when I bought 'em, 'cause o' the small
gold sprig all over 'em, between the flowers. But there's none
of 'em got better chany, not even your aunt Pullet herself;
and I bought it wi' my own money as I'd saved ever since I
was turned fifteen ; and the silver teapot, too, — your father
never paid for 'em. And to think as he should ha' married
me, and brought me to this."
Mrs. Tulliver burst out crying afresh, and she sobbed with
her handkerchief at her eyes a few moments, but then remov-
ing it, she said in a deprecating way, still half sobbing, as if
she were called upon to speak before she could command her
voice, —
"And I did say to him ti*nes and times, 'Whativer you do,
THE DOWNFALL,
don't go to law,1 and what more could I do? I've had to sit
by while my own fortin's been spent, and what should ha*
been my children's, too. You'll have niver a penny, my boy
—but it isn't your poor mother's fault."
She put out one arm toward Tom, looking up at him pite-
ously with her helpless, childish blue eyes. The poor lad
went to her and kissed her, and she clung to him. For the
first time Tom thought of his father with some reproach. His
natural inclination to blame, hitherto kept entirely in abey-
ance toward his father by the predisposition to think him
always right, simply on the ground that he was Tom Tulliver's
father, was turned into this new channel by his mother's
plaints ; and with his indignation against Wakem there began
to mingle some indignation of another sort. Perhaps his father
might have helped bringing them all down in the world, and
making people talk of them with contempt, but no one should
talk long of Tom Tulliver with contempt. The natural strength
and firmness of his nature was beginning to assert itself, urged
by the double stimulus of resentment against his aunts, and
the sense that he must behave like a man and take care of his
mother.
"Don't fret, mother," he said tenderly. "I shall soon be
able to get money; I'll get a situation of some sort."
" Bless you, my boy ! " said Mrs. Tulliver, a little soothed.
Then, looking round sadly, " But I shouldn't ha* minded so
much if we could ha' kept the things wi* my name on 'em."
Maggie had witnessed this scene with gathering anger. The
implied reproaches against her father — her father, who was
lying there in a sort of living death — neutralized all her pity
for griefs about tablecloths and china; and her anger on her
father's account was heightened by some egoistic resentment
at Tom's silent concurrence with her mother in shutting her
out from the common calamity. She had become almost in-
different to her mother's habitual depreciation of her, but she
was keenly alive to any sanction of it, however passive, that
she might suspect in Tom. Poor Maggie was by no means
made up of unalloyed devotedness, but put forth large claims
for herself where she loved strongly. She burst out at last in
an agitated, almost violent tone : " Mother, how can you talk
£16 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
so; as if you cared only for things with your name on, and not
for what has my father's name too; and to care about anything
but dear father himself! — when he's lying there, and may
never speak to us again. Tom, you ought to say so too ; you
ought not to let any one find fault with my father."
Maggie, almost choked with mingled grief and anger, left
ithe room, and took her old place on her father's bed. Her
heart went out to him with a stronger movement than ever, at
the thought that people would blame him. Maggie hated
blame; she had been blamed all her life, and nothing had
come of it but evil tempers. Her father had always defended
and excused her, and her loving remembrance of his tender-
ness was a force within her that would enable her to do or
bear anything for his sake.
Tom was a little shocked at Maggie's outburst, — telling him
as well as his mother what it was right to do! She ought to
have learned better than have those hectoring, assuming man-
ners, by this time. But he presently went into his father's
room, and the sight there touched him in a way that effaced
the slighter impressions of the previous hour. When Maggie
saw how he was moved, she went to him and put her arm
round his neck as he sat by the bed, and the two children for-
got everything else ia the sense that they had one father and
one sorrow.
CHAPTER IIL
THE FAMILY COUXCtU
I'' IT was at eleven o'clock the next morning that the aunts
and uncles came to hold their consultation. The fire was
lighted in the large parlor, and poor Mrs. Tulliver, with a
confused impression that it was a great occasion, like a fu-
neral, unbagged the bell-rope tassels, and unpinned the cur-
tains, adjusting them in proper folds, looking round and
shaking her head sadly at the polished tops and legs of the
tables, which sister Pullet herself couitl not accuse of insuffi •
cient brightness.
THE DOWNFALL, 21?
Mr. Deane was not coining, he was away on business ; but
Mrs. Deane appeared punctually in that handsome new gig
with the head to it, and the livery-servant driving it, which
had thrown so clear a light on several traits in her character
to some of her female friends in St. Ogg's. Mr. Deane had
been advancing in the world as rapidly as Mr. Tulliver had
been going down in it j and in Mrs. Deane's house the Dodsou
linen and plate were beginning to hold quite a subordinate po-
sition, as a mere supplement to the handsomer articles of the
same kind, purchased in recent years, — a change which had
caused an occasional coolness in the sisterly intercourse between
her and Mrs. Glegg, who felt that Susan was getting " like the
rest, " and there would soon be little of the true Dodson spirit
surviving except in herself, and, it might be hoped, in those
nephews who supported the Dodson name on the family land,
far away in the Wolds. People who live at a distance are
naturally less faulty than those immediately under our own
eyes; and it seems superfluous, when we consider the remote
geographical position of the Ethiopians, and how very little
the Greeks had to do with them, to inquire further why Homer
calls them "blameless."
Mrs. Deane was the first to arrive ; and when she had taken
her seat in the large parlor, Mrs. Tulliver came down to her
with her comely face a little distorted, nearly as it would have
been if she had been crying. She was not a woman who could
shed abundant tears, except in moments when the prospect
of losing her furniture became unusually vivid, but she felt
how unfitting it was to be quite calm under present circum-
stances.
" Oh, sister, what a world this is ! n she exclaimed as she en-
tered; "what trouble, oh dear! n
Mrs. Deane was a thin-lipped woman, who made small well-
tonsidered speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating them
afterward to her husband, and asking him if she had not
spoken very properly.
"Yes, sister," she said deliberately, "this is a changing
world, and we don't know to-day what may happen to-morrow.
But it's light to be prepared for all things, and if troubled
sent, to remember as it isn't sent without a cause. I'm. very
218 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
sorry for you as a sister, and if the doctor orders jelly for Mr
Tulliver, I hope you'll let me know. I'll send it willingly j
for it is but right he should have proper attendance while he's
ill."
"Thank you, Susan, n said Mrs. Tulliver, rather faintly,
withdrawing her fat hand from her sister's thin one. " But
there's been no talk o' jelly yet." Then after a moments"
pause she added, " There's a dozen o' cut jelly-glasses up-
stairs— I shall never put jelly into 'em no more."
Her voice was rather agitated as she uttered the last words,
but the sound of wheels diverted her thoughts. Mr. and Mrs.
Glegg were come, and were almost immediately followed by
Mr. and Mrs. Pullet.
Mrs. Pullet entered crying, as a compendious mode, at all
times, of expressing what were her views of life in general,
and what, in brief, were the opinions she held concerning the
particular case before her.
Mrs. Glegg had on her fuzziest front, and garments which
appeared to have had a recent resurrection from rather a creasy
form of burial ; a costume selected with the high moral pur-
pose of instilling perfect humility into Bessy and her children.
"Mrs. G., won't you come nearer the fire?" said her hus-
band, unwilling to take the more comfortable seat without
offering it to her.
" You see I've seated myself here, Mr. Glegg," returned this
superior woman; "you can roast yourself, if you like."
"Well, "said Mr. Glegg, seating himself good-humoredly,
"and how's the poor man upstairs?"
"Dr. Turnbull thought him a deal better this morning,"
said Mrs. Tulliver j " he took more notice, and spoke to me;
but he's never known Tom yet, — looks at the poor lad as if he
was a stranger, though he said something once about Tom and
the pony. The doctor says his memory's gone a long way
back, and he doesn't know Tom because he's thinking of him
when he was little. Eh dear, eh dear I "
" I doubt it's the water got on his brain," said aunt Pullet,
turning round from adjusting her cap in a melancholy way at
the pier-glass. " It's much if he ever gets up again ; and if
he does* he'll most like ^ be «hildJsh, as Mr. Carr was, poci
THE DOWNFALL. 219
man ! They fed him with a spoon as if he'd been a babby for
three year. He'd quite lost the use of his limbs ; but then
he'd got a Bath chair, and somebody to draw him; and that's
what you won't have, J doubt, Bessy."
" Sister Pullet," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "if I understand
right, we've come together this morning to advise and consult
about what's to be done in this disgrace as has fallen upon the
family, and not to talk o' people as don't belong to us. Mr.
Carr was none of our blood, nor noways connected with us, as
I've ever heared."
" Sister Glegg," said Mrs. Pullet, in a pleading tone, draw-
ing on her gloves again, and stroking the fingers in an agitated
manner, " if you've got anything disrespectful to say o* Mr.
Carr, I do beg of you as you won't say it to me. I know what
he was," she added, with a sigh ; " his breath was short to that
degree as you could hear him two rooms off."
"Sophy!" said Mrs. Glegg, with indignant disgust, "you
do talk o' people's complaints till it's quite undecent. But I
say again, as I said before, I didn't come away from home to
talk about acquaintances, whether they'd short breath or long.
If we aren't come together for one to hear what the other 'till
do to save a sister and her children from the parish, 1 ahal! go
back. One can't act without the other, I suppose j it isn't to
be expected as 1 should do everything."
"Well, Jane," said Mrs. Pullet, "I don't see as you've
been so very forrard at doing. So far as I know, this is the
first time as here you've been, since it's been known as the
bailiff's in the house j and I was here yesterday, and looked at
all Bessy's linen and things, and I told her I'd buy in the
spotted tablecloths. I couldn't speak fairer; for as for the
teapot as she doesn't want to go out o' the family, it stands to
sense I can't do with two silver teapots, not if it hadn't a
straight spout, but the spotted damask I was allays fond
on."
" I wish it could be managed so as my teapot and chany and
the best castors needn't be put up for sale, " said poor Mrs.
Tulliver, beseechingly, M and the sugar-tongs the first things
ever I bought."
u But that can't be helped, yon know," said Mr. Glegg. « If
120 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
one o the family chooses to buy 'em in, they can, but ont
thing must be bid for as well as another."
" And it isn't to be looked for, " said uncle Pullet, with un-
wonted independence of idea, " as your own family should pay
more for things nor they'll fetch. They may go for an old
song by auction."
"Oh dear, oh dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, "to think o' my
chany being sold i' that way, and I bought it when I was mar-
ried, just as you did yours, Jane and Sophy; and I know you
didn't like mine, because o' the sprig, but I was fond of it;
and there's never been a bit broke, for I've washed it myself;
and there's the tulips on the cups, and the roses, as anybody
might go and look at 'em for pleasure. You wouldn't like
your chany to go for an old song and be broke to pieces, though
yours has got no color in it, Jane, — it's all white and fluted,
and didn't cost so much as mine. And there's the castors,
sister Deane, I can't think but you'd like to have the castors,
for I've heard you say they're pretty."
" Well, I've no objection to buy some of the best things,"
said Mrs. Deane, rather loftily ; " we can do with extra things
in our house."
"Best things! " exclaimed Mrs. Glegg, with severity, which
had gathered intensity from her long silence. " It drives me
past patience to hear you all talking o' best things, and buy-
ing iu this, that, and the other, such as silver and chany.
You must bring your mind to your circumstances, Bessy, and
not be thinking o' silver and chany j but whether you shall
get so much as a flock-bed to lie on, and a blanket to cover
you, and a stool to sit on. You must remember, if you get
'em, it'll be because your friends have bought 'era for you,
for you're dependent upon them for everything; for your hus-
band lies there helpless, and hasn't got a penny i' the world
to call his own. And it's for your own good I say this,
for it's right you should feel what your state is, and what
disgrace your husband's brought on your own family, as
you've got to look to for everything, and be humble in your
mind."
Mrs. Glegg paused, for speaking with much energy for the
good of others is naturally exhausting. Mrs. Tulliver, always
THE DOWNFALL. 221
borne down by the family predominance of sister Jane, -who.
had made her wear the yoke of a younger sister in very tender
years, said pleadingly :
" I'm sure, sister, I've never asked anybody to do anything,
only buy things as it 'ud be a pleasure to 'em to have, so as
they mightn't go and be spoiled i' strange houses. I never
asked anybody to buy the things in for me and my children;
though there's the linen I spun, and I thought when Tom was
born, — I thought one o' the first things when he was lying i'
the cradle, as all the things I'd bought wi' my own money,
and been so careful of, 'ud go to him. But I've said nothing
as I wanted my sisters to pay their money for me. What nvj>
husband has done for his sister 's unknown, and we should ha1
been better off this day if it hadn't been as he's lent money
and never asked for it again."
"Come, come," said Mr. Glegg, kindly, "don't let us make
things too dark. What's done can't be undone. We shall
make a shift among us to buy what's sufficient for you;
though, as Mrs. G. says, they must be useful, plain things.
We mustn't be thinking o* what's unnecessary. A table, and
a chair or two, and kitchen things, and a good bed, and such-
like. Why, I've seen the day when I shouldn't ha' known
myself if I'd lain on sacking i'stead o' the floor. We get a
deal o' useless things about us, only because we've got the
money to spend."
" Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., " if you'll be kind enough to let
me speak, i'stead o' taking the words out o' my mouth, — I was
going to say, Bessy, as it's fine talking for you to say as you've
never asked us to buy anything for you ; let me tell you, you
ought to have asked us. Pray, how are you to be purvided
for, if your own family don't help you? You must go to the
parish, if they didn't. And you ought to know that, and
keep it in mind, and ask us humble to do what we can for you,
i'stead o' saying, and making a boast, as you've never asked
us for anything."
" You talked o' the Mosses, and what Mr. Tulliver's done
for 'em," said uncle Pullet, who became unusually suggestive
where advances of money were concerned. "Haven't tuey
been anear you? They ought to do something as well as othe?
122 THB HILL ON THE FLOS&
folks; and if he's lent 'em money, they ought to be made to
pay it back."
"Yes, to be sure," said Mrs. Deane; "I've been thinking
so. How is it Mr. and Mrs. Moss aren't here to meet us? It
is but right they should do their share."
" Oh, dear ! " said Mrs. Tulliver, " I never sent 'ein word
about Mr. Tulliver, and they live so backward among the lanes
at Basset, they niver hear anything only when Mr. Moss comes
to market. But I niver gave 'em a thought. I wonder Mag-
Igie didn't, though, for she was allays so fond of her aunt Moss."
" Why don't your children come in, Bessy?" said Mrs. Pul-
let, at the mention of Maggie. " They should hear what their
aunts and uncles have got to say; and Maggie, — when it's me
as have paid for half her schooling, she ought to think more of
her aunt Pullet than of aunt Mosses. I may go off sudden
when I get home to-day; there's no telling."
"If I'd had my way," said Mrs. Glegg, "the children 'ud
ha' been in the room from the first. It's time they knew who
they've to look to, and it's right as somebody should talk to
'em, and let 'em know their condition i' life, and what they're
come down to, and make 'em feel as they've got to suffer for
their father's faults."
"Well, I'll go and fetch 'em, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver,
resignedly. She was quite crushed now, and thought of the
treasures in the storeroom with no other feeling than blank
despair.
She went upstairs to fetch Tom and Maggie, who were both
in their father's room, and was on her way down again, when
the sight of the storeroom door suggested a new thought to
her. She went toward it, and left the children to go down by
themselves.
The aunts and uncles appeared to have been in warm dis-
cussion when the brother and sister entered, — both with
shrinking reluctance ; for though Tom, with a practical sagac-
ity which had been roused into activity by the strong stimu-
lus of the new emotions he had undergone since yesterday, had
been turning over in his mind a plan which he meant to pro-
pose to one of his aunts or uncles, he felt by no means ami-
sably toward them, and dreaded meeting them all at once as hd
THE DOWNFALL. 223
would have dreaded a large dose of concentrated physic, which
was but just endurable in small draughts. As for Maggie,
she was peculiarly depressed this morning ; she had been called
up, after brief rest, at three o'clock, and had that strange
dreamy weariness which comes from watching in a sick-rooin
through the chill hours of early twilight and breaking day, —
in which the outside daylight life seems to have no importance,
and to be a mere margin to the hours in the darkened chamber.
Their entrance interrupted the conversation. The shaking of
hands was a melancholy and silent ceremony, till uncle Pullet
observed, as Tom approached him:
" Well, young sir, we've been talking as we should want
your pen and ink ; you can write rarely now, after all your
schooling, I should think."
"Ay, ay," said uncle Glegg, with admonition which he
meant to be kind, " we must Jook to see the good of all this
schooling, as your father's sunk so much money in, now,—
• When land is gone and money's spent,
Then learning is most excellent. '
Now* s the time, Tom, to let us see the good o1 your learning.
Let us see whether you can do better than I can, as have made
my fortin without it. But I began wi' doing with little, you
see ; I could live on a basin o' porridge and a crust o' bread-
and-cheese. But I doubt high living and high learning 'ull
make it harder for you, young man, nor it was for me."
"But he must do it," interposed aunt Glegg, energetically,
" whether it's hard or no. He hasn't got to consider what's
hard ; he must consider as he isn't to trusten to his friends to
keep him in idleness and luxury ; he's got to bear the fruits of
his father's misconduct, and bring his mind to fare hard and
lo work hard. And he must be humble and grateful to his
aunts and uncles for what they're doing for his mother and
father, as must be turned out into the streets and go to the
workhouse if they didn't help 'em. And his sister, too," con-
tinued Mrs. Glegg, looking severely at Maggie, who had sat
down on the sofa by her aunt Deane, drawn to her by the
sense that she was Lucy's mother, " she must make up her
mind to be humble and work; for there'll be ao servants to
224 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
•wait on her any more, — she must remember that. She must
do the work o' the house, and she must respect and love her
aunts as have done so much for her, and saved their money to
leave to their nepheys and nieces."
Tom was still standing before the table in the centre of the
group. There was a heightened color in his face, and he was
very far from looking humbled, but he was preparing to say,
in a respectful tone, something he had previously meditated,
when the door opened and his mother re-entered.
Poor Mrs. Tulliver had in her hands a small tray, on which
she had placed her silver teapot, a specimen teacup and saucer,
the castors, and sugar-tongs.
" See here, sister, " she said, looking at Mrs. Deane, as she
set the tray on the table, " I thought, perhaps, if you looked
at the teapot again, — it's a good while since you saw it, — you
might like the pattern better; it makes beautiful tea, and
there's a stand and everything; you might use it for every
day, or else lay it by for Lucy when she goes to housekeeping.
I should be so loath for 'em to buy it at the Golden Lion,"
said the poor woman, her heart swelling, and the tears com-
ing,— "my teapot as I bought when I was married, and to
think of its being scratched, and set before the travellers and
folks, and my letters on it, — see here, E. D., — and everybody
to see 'em."
" Ah, dear, dear! " said aunt Pullet, shaking her head with
deep sadness, "it's very bad, — to think o' the family initials
going about everywhere, — it niver was so before; you're a
very unlucky sister, Bessy. But what's the use o' buying the
teapot, when there's the linen and spoons and everything to
go, and some of 'em with your full name, — and when it's got
that straight spout, too."
" As to disgrace o' the family," said Mrs. Glegg, " that can't
be helped wi' buying teapots. The disgrace is, for one o' the
family to ha' married a man as has brought her to beggary.
The disgrace is, as they're to be sold up. We can't hinder
the country from knowing that."
Maggie had started up from the sofa at the allusion to her
father, but Tom saw her action and flushed face in time to
prevent her from speaking. " Be quiet^ Maggie," be said au-
THE DOWNFALL. 225
thoritatively, pushing her aside. It was a remarkable mani-
festation of self-command and practical judgment in a lad of
fifteen, that when his aunt Glegg ceased, he began to speak in
a quiet and respectful manner, though with a good deal of
trembling in his voice; for his mother's words had cut him to
the quick.
"Then, aunt," he said, looking straight at Mrs. Glegg, "if
jrou think it's a disgrace to the family that we should be sold
up, wouldn't it be better to prevent it altogether? And if
you and my aunt Pullet," he continued, looking at the latter,
" think of leaving any money to me and Maggie, wouldn't it
be better to give it now, and pay the debt we're going to be
sold up for, and save my mother from parting with her furni-
ture? "
There was silence for a few moments, for every one, includ-
ing Maggie, was astonished at Tom's sudden manliness of tone.
Uncle Glegg was the first to speak.
" Ay, ay, young man, come now! You show some notion o'
things. But there's the interest, you must remember; your
aunts get five per cent on their money, and they'd lose that if
they advanced it; you haven't thought o' that."
" I could work aud pay that every year, " said Tom, promptly.
"I'd do anything to save my mother from parting with her
things."
" Well done! " said uncle Glegg, admiringly. He had been
drawing Tom out, rather than reflecting on the practicability
of his proposal. But he had produced the unfortunate result
of irritating his wife.
"Yes, Mr. Glegg ln said that lady, with angry sarcasm.
" It's pleasant work for you to be giving my money away, as
you've pretended to leave at my own disposal. And my
money, as was my own father's gift, and not yours, Mr.
Glegg; and I've saved it, and added to it myself, and had
more to put out almost every year, and it's to go and be sunk
in othei folks' furniture, and encourage 'em in luxury and ex-
travagance as they've no means of supporting; and I'm to
alter my will, or have a codicil made, and leave two or three
hundred less behind me when I die, — me as have allays done
right and been careful, and the eldest o' the family ; and my
15
226 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
money's to go and be squandered on them as have had the
same chance as me, only they've been wicked and wasteful.
Sister Pullet, you may do as you like, and you may let your
husband rob you back again o' the money he's given you, but
that isn't my sperrit."
"La, Jane, how fiery you are !" said Mrs. Pullet. "Fm
sure you'll have the blood in your head, and have to be cupped.
I'm sorry for Bessy and her children, — I'm sure I think of
'em o' nights dreadful, for I sleep very bad wi' this new medi-
cine,— but it's no use for me to think o' doing anything, if
you won't meet me half-way."
"Why, there's this to be considered," said Mr. Glegg.
"It's no use to pay off this debt and save the furniture, when
there's all the law debts behind, as 'ud take every shilling,
and more than could be made out o' land and stock, for I've
made that out from Lawyer Gore. We'd need save our money
to keep the poor man with, instead o' spending it on furniture
as he can neither eat nor drink. You will be so hasty, Jane,
as if I didn't know what was reasonable."
" Then speak accordingly, Mr. Glegg ! " said his wife, with
slow, loud emphasis, bending her head toward him signifi-
cantly.
Tom's countenance had fallen during this conversation, and
his lip quivered; but he was determined not to give way. He
would behave like a man. Maggie, on the contrary, after her
momentary delight in Tom's speech, had relapsed into her
state of trembling indignation. Her mother had been stand-
ing close by Tom's side, and had been clinging to his arm ever
since he had last spoken ; Maggie suddenly started up and stood
in front of them, her eyes flashing like the eyes of a young
lioness.
"Why do you come, then," she burst out, "talking and in-
terfering with us and scolding us, if you don't mean to do any-
thing to help my poor mother — your own sister, — if you've no
feeling for her when she's in trouble, and won't part with any-
thing, though you would never miss it, to save her from pain?
Keep away from us then, and don't come to find fault with my
father, — he was better than any of you; he was kind, — he
would have helped you, if you had been in trouble. Tojn and
THE DGWNTALL. 227
I don't ever want to have any of your money, if you -won't
help my mother. We'd rather not have it! We'll do with-
out you."
Maggie, having hurled her defiance at aunts and uncles in
this way, stood still, with her large dark eyes glaring at them,
as if she were ready to await all consequences.
Mrs. Tulliver was frightened ; there was something porten-
tous in this mad outbreak j she did not see how life could go
on after it. Tom was vexed ; it was no use to talk so. The
'aunts were silent with surprise for some moments. At length,
,in a case of aberration such as this, comment presented itself
as more expedient than any answer.
" You haven't seen the end o' your trouble wi' that child,
Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet; "she's beyond everything for bold-
ness and unthankfulness. It's dreadful. I might ha' let
alone paying for her schooling, for she's worse nor ever."
"It's no more than what I've allays said," followed Mrs.
Glegg. " Other folks may be surprised, but I'm not. I've
said over and over again, — years ago I've said, — 'Mark my
words ; that child 'ull come to no good ; there isn't a bit of
our family in her.' And as for her having so much school-
ing, I never thought well o' that. I'd my reasons when I said
/wouldn't pay anything toward it."
" Come, come, " said Mr. Glegg, " let's waste no more time
in talking, — let's go to business. Tom, now, get the pen and
ink "
While Mr. Glegg was speaking, a tall dark figure was seen
hurrying past the window.
"Why, there's Mrs. Moss," said'Mrs. Tulliver. "The bad
news must ha' reached her, then " j and she went out to open
the door, Maggie eagerly following her.
"That's fortunate," said Mrs. Glegg. "She can agree to
the list o' things to be bought in. It's but right she should
do her share when it's her own brother."
Mrs. Moss was in too much agitation to resist Mrs. Tulli-
ver's movement, as she drew her into the parlor automatically,
without reflecting that it was hardly kind to take her among
so many persons in the first painful moment of arrival. The
tall, worn, dark-haired woman was a strong contrast to the
228 THE MILL ON THE PLOSa
Dodson sisters as she entered in her shabby dress, wi > h«6
shawl -and bonnet looking as if they had been hastily huddled
on, and with that entire absence of self-consciousness which
belongs to keenly felt trouble. Maggie was clinging to her
arm ; and Mrs. Moss seemed to notice no one else except Tom,
whom she went straight up to and took by the hand.
"Oh, my dear children," she burst out, "you've no call to
think well o' me ; I'm a poor aunt to you, for I'm one o' them
as take all and give nothing. How's my poor brother? "
" Mr. Turnbull thinks he'll get better," said Maggie. " Sit
down, aunt Gritty. Don't fret."
"Oh, my sweet child, I feel torn i' two," said Mrs. Moss,
allowing Maggie to lead her to the sofa, but still not seeming
to notice the presence of the rest. " We've three hundred
pounds o' my brother's money, and now he wants it, and you
all want it, poor things ! — and yet we must be sold up to pay
it, and there's my poor children, — eight of 'em, and the little
un of all can't speak plain. And I feel as if I was a robber.
But I'm sure I'd no thought as my brother "
The poor woman was interrupted by a rising sob.
" Three hundred pounds! oh dear, dear," said Mrs. Tulliver,
who, when she had said that her husband had done " unknown *
things for his sister, had not had any particular sum in he>
mind, and felt a wife's irritation at having been kept in thi
dark.
"What madness, to be sure!" said Mrs. Glegg. "A man
with a family I He'd no right to lend his money i' that
way; and without security, I'll be bound, if the truth was
known."
Mrs. Glegg's voice had arrested Mrs. Moss's attention, and
looking up, she said :
" Yes, there icas security ; my husband gave a note for it.
We're not that sort o' people, neither of us, as 'ud rob my
brother's children ; and we looked to paying back the money,
when the times got a bit better."
"Well, but now," said Mr. Glegg, gently, " hasn't you.r hus-
band no way o' raising this money ? Because it 'ud be a little
fortin, like, for these folks, if we can do without Tulliver's
being made a bankrupt. Your husband's got stock ; it is but
THE DOWNFALL 229
right he should raise the money, as it seems to me, — not but
what I'm sorry for you, Mrs. Moss."
" Oh, sir, you don't know what bad luck my husband's had
with his stock. The farm's suffering so as never was for want
o' stock; and we've sold all the wheat, and we're behind
with our rent, — not but what we'd like to do what's right,
and I'd sit up and work half the night, if it 'ud be any good ;
but there's them poor children, — four of 'em such little
uns "
"Don't cry so, aunt; don't fret," whispered Maggie, who
had kept hold of Mrs. Moss's hand.
" Did Mr. Tulliver let you have the money all at once? " said
Mrs. Tulliver, still lost in the conception of things which haft
been " going on " without her knowledge.
" No ; at twice, " said Mrs. Moss, rubbing her eyes and mak-
ing an effort to restrain her tears. " The last was after my
bad illness four years ago, as everything went wrong, and
there was a new note made then. What with illness and bad
luck, I've been nothing but cumber all my life."
"Yes, Mrs. Moss," said Mrs. Glegg, with decision, "yours
is a very unlucky family; the more's the pity for my sister."
" I set off in the cart as soon as ever I heard o* what had
happened," said Mrs. Moss, looking at Mrs. Tulliver. "I
should never ha' stayed away all this while, if you'd thought
well to let me know. And it isn't as I'm thinking all about
ourselves, and nothing about my brother, only the money was
so on my mind, I couldn't help speaking about it. And my
husband and me desire to do the right thing, sir, " she added,
looking aV Mr. Glegg, "and we'll make shift and pay the
money, come what will, if that's all my brother's got to trust
to. We've been used to trouble, and don't look for much else.
It's only the thought o' my poor children pulls me i* two. "
"Why, there's this to be thought on, Mrs. Moss," said Mr.
Glegg, "and it's right to warn you, — if Tulliver's made a
bankrupt, and he's got a note-of-hand of your husband's for
three hundred pounds, you'll be obliged to pay it; th' assignees
'ull come on you for it."
"Oh dear, oh dear!" said Mrs. Tulliver, thinking of the
bankruptcy, and not of Mrs. Moss's concern in it. Poor Mrs.
230 THE MILL Orf THE FLOSS.
Moss herself listened in trembling submission, while Maggie
looked with bewildered distress at Tom to see if he showed any
signs of understanding this trouble, and caring about poor aunt
Moss. Tom was only looking thoughtful, with his eyes on the
tablecloth.
"And if he isn't made bankrupt," continued Mr. Glegg, " as
I said before, three hundred pounds 'ud be a little fortin for'
him, poor man. We don't know but what he may be partly
helpless, if he ever gets up again. I'm very sorry if it goes
hard with you, Mrs. Moss, but my opinion is, looking at it
one way, it'll be right for you to raise the money; and look-
ing at it th' other way, you'll be obliged to pay it. You won't
think ill o' me for speaking the truth."
"Uncle," said Tom, looking up suddenly from his medita-
tive view of the tablecloth, " I don't think it would be right
for my aunt Moss to pay the money if it would be against my
father's will for her to pay it; would it? "
Mr. Glegg looked surprised for a moment or two before he
said: "Why, no, perhaps not, Tom; but then he'd ha' de-
stroyed the note, you know. We must look for the note.
What makes you think it 'ud be against his will? "
" Why," said Tom, coloring, but trying to speak firmly, in
spite of a boyish tremor, " I remember quite well, before I
went to school to Mr. Stelling, my father said to me one night,
when we were sitting by the fire together, and no one else was
in the room "
Tom hesitated a little, and then went on.
" He said something to me about Maggie, and then he said :
'I've always been good to my sister, though she married against
my will, and I've lent Moss money; but I shall never think of
distressing him to pay it; I'd rather lose it. My children
must not mind being the poorer for that.' And now my
father's ill, and not able to speak for himself, I shouldn't lika
anything to be done contrary to what he said to me."
"Well, but then, my boy," said uncle Glegg, whose good
feeling led him to enter into Tom's wish, but who could not at
once shake off his habitual abhorrence of such recklessness ai
destroying securities, or alienating anything important enough
to make an appreciable difference in a man's property, "w»
THIS DOWNFALL.
should have to make away wif the note, you know, if we're
to guard against what may happen, supposing your father's
made bankrupt "
"Mr. Glegg," interrupted his wife, severely, "mind what
you're saying. You're putting yourself very forrard in other
folks's business. If you speak rash, don't say it was my
fault."
"That's such a thing as I never beared of before," said
uncle Pullet, who had been making haste with his lozenge in
order to express his amazement, — "making away with a
note I I should think anybody could set the constable on
you for it."
"Well, but, ' said Mrs. Tulliver, "if the note's worth all
that money, why can't we pay it away, and save my things
from going away? We've no call to meddle with your uncle
and aunt Moss, Tom, if you think your father 'ud be angry
when he gets well.*'
Mrs. Tulliver had not studied the question of exchange, and
was straining her mind after original ideas on the subject.
"Pooh, pooh, pooh! you women don't understand these
things," said uncle Glegg. "There's no way o' making it
safe for Mr. and Mrs. Moss but destroying the note."
"Then I hope you'll help me to do it, uncle," said Tom,
earnestly. " If my father shouldn't get well, I should be very
unhappy to think anything had been done against his will that
I could hinder. And I'm sure he meant me to remember what
he said that evening. I ought to obey my father's wish about
his property."
Ev^n Mrs. Glegg could not withhold her approval from
Tom's words; .she felt that the Dodson blood was certainly
speaking in him, though, if his father had been a Dodson,
there would never have been this wicked alienation of money.
Maggie would hardly have restrained herself from leaping on
Tom's neck, if her aunt Moss had not prevented her by her-
self rising and taking Tom's hand, while she said, with rather
a choked voice :
" You'll never be the poorer for this, my dear boy, if there's
a God above; and if the money's wanted for your father, Mosa
and xie 'ull pay it, the same as if there was ever such security.
THE MILL OK THE FLOSS.
We'll do as we'd be done byj for if my children have got no
other luck, they've got an honest father and mother."
"Well, "said Mr. Glegg, who had been meditating after
Tom's words, " we shouldn't be doing any wrong by the cred-
itors, supposing your father was bankrupt. I've been think-
ing o* that, for I've been a creditor myself, and seen no end o'
cheating. If he meant to give your aunt the money before
ever he got into this sad work o' lawing, it's the same as if
he'd made away with the note himself j for he'd made up his
mind to be that much poorer. But there's a deal o' things tc
be considered, young man, " Mr. Glegg added, looking admon-
ishingly at Tom, " when you come to money business, and you
may be taking one man's dinner away to make another man's
breakfast. You don't understand that, I doubt?"
"Yes, I do," said Tom, decidedly. "I know if I owe
money to one man, I've no right to give it to another. But
if my father had made up his mind to give my aunt the money
before he was in. debt, he had a right to do it."
"Well done, young man! I didn't think you'd been so
sharp," said uncle Glegg, with much candor. "But perhaps
your father did make away with the note. Let us go and see
if we can find it in the chest."
"It's in my father's room. Let us go too, aunt Gritty,"
whispered Maggie.
OHAPTEB IV.
A VANISHING GLEAM.
MB. TULLIVEB, even between the fits of spasmodic rigidity
which had recurred at intervals ever since he had been found
fallen from his horse, was usually in so apathetic a condition
that the exits and entrances into his room were not felt to
be of great importance. He had lain so still, with his eyes
closed, all this morning, that Maggie told her aunt Moss she
must not expect her father to take any notice of them.
They entered very quietly, and Mrs. Moss took her seat
near the head of the bed, while Maggie sat in her old place
*HE DOWNFALL. 233
OL tne bed, and put her hand on her father's without causing
any change in his face.
Mr. Glegg and Tom had also entered, treading softly, and
were busy selecting the key of the old oak chest from the
bunch which Tom had brought from his father's bureau.
They succeeded in opening the chest, — which stood opposite
the foot of Mr. Tulliver's bed, — and propping the lid with
the iron holder, without much noise.
"There's a tin box," whispered Mr. Glegg; " he'd most liks4
put a small thing like a note in there. Lift it out, Tom ; but
I'll just lift up these deeds, — they're the deeds o' the house
And mill, I suppose, — and see what there is under 'em."
Mr. Glegg had lifted out the parchments, and had fortu-
nately drawn back a little, when the iron holder gave way, and
the heavy lid fell with a loud bang that resounded over the
house.
Perhaps there was something in that sound more than the
mere fact of the strong vibration that produced the instan-
taneous effect on the frame of the prostrate man, and for the
time completely shook off the obstruction of paralysis. The
chest had belonged to his father and his father's father, and
it had always been rather a solemn business to visit it. All
long-known objects, even a mere window fastening or a par-
ticular door-latch, have sounds which are a sort of recognized
voice to us, — a voice that will thrill and awaken, when it has
been used to touch deep-lying fibres. In the same moment,
when all the eyes in the room were turned upon him, he
started up and looked at the chest, the parchments in Mr.
Glegg's hand, and Tom holding the tin box, with a glance of
perfect consciousness and recognition.
" What are you going to do with those deeds? n he said, in
his ordinary tone of sharp questioning whenever he was irri-
tated. "Come here, Tom. What do you do, going to my
chest?*
Tom obeyed, with some trembling ; it was the first time his
father had recognized him. But instead of saying anything
more to aim, his father continued to lo >k with a growing dis-
tinctness of suspicion at Mr. Glogg aud the deeds.
" What's been h opening, then? " he & d shi.' ;: Jy • " VTjat
234 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
are you meddling with my deeds for? Is Wakem laying hold
of everything? Why don't you tell me what you've beea
a-doing?" he added impatiently, as Mr. Glegg advanced to
the foot of the bed before speaking.
"No, no, friend Tulliver," said Mr. Glegg, in a soothing
tone. "Nobody's getting hold of anything as yet. We only
came to look and see what was in the chest. You've been ill,
you know, and we've had to look after things a bit. But
let's hope you'll soon be well enough to attend to everything
yourself. "
Mr. Tulliver looked round him meditatively, at Tom, at
Mr. Glegg, and at Maggie; then suddenly appearing aware
that some one was seated by his side at the head of the bed
he turned sharply round and saw his sister.
" Eh, Gritty 1 " he said, in the half -sad, affectionate tone in
which he had been wont to speak to her. "What I you're
there, are you? How could you manage to leave the chil-
dren?"
"Oh, brother!" said good Mrs. Moss, too impulsive to be
prudent, " I'm thankful I'm come now to see you yourself
again ; I thought you'd never know us any more."
" What! have I had a stroke? " said Mr. Tulliver, anxiously,
looking at Mr. Glegg.
" A fall from your horse — shook you a bit, — that's all, I
think," said Mr. Glegg. "But you'll soon get over it, let's
hope."
Mr. Tulliver fixed his eyes on the bed-clothes, and remained
silent for two or three minutes. A new shadow came over
his face. He looked up at Maggie first, and said in a lower
tone, " You got the letter, then, my wench? "
" Yes, father/' she said, kissing him with a full heart. She
felt as if her father were come back to her from the dead, and
her yearning to show him how she had always loved him
could be fulfilled.
" Where's your mother? " he said, so preoccupied that he
received the kiss as passively as some quiet animal might have
received it.
" She's downstairs with iny aunts, father. " Shall I fetcb
her?"
THE DOWNFALL 233
* Ay, ay ; poor Bessy ! n and his eyes turned toward Tom
M Maggie left the room.
" You'll have to take care of 'em both if I die, you know,
Tom. You'll be badly off, I doubt. But you must see and
pay everybody. And mind, — there's fifty pound o' Luke's
as I put into the business, — he gave it me a bit at a time, and
he's got nothing to show for it. You must pay him first thing. "
Uncle Glegg involuntarily shook his head, and looked more
concerned than ever, but Tom said firmly :
" Yes, father. And haven't you a note from my uncle Moss
for three hundred pounds? We came to look for that What
do you wish to be done about it, father? "
" Ahl I'm glad you thought o' that, my lad," said Mr. Tul-
liver. " I allays meant to be easy about that money, because
o' your aunt. You mustn't mind losing the money, if they
can't pay it, — and it's like enough they can't The note's in
that box, mindt I allays meant to be good to you, Gritty,"
said Mr. Tulliver, turning to his sister; "but you know you
aggravated me •when you would have Moss."
At this moment Maggie re-entered with her mother, who
came in much agitated by the news that her husband waa
quite himself again.
" Well, Bessy," he said, as she kissed him, "you must for-
give me if you're worse off than you ever expected to be. But
it's the fault o' the law, — it's none o' mine," he added
angrily. " It's the fault o' raskills. Tom, you mind this :
if ever you've got the chance, you make Wakem smart. If
you don't, you're a good-for-nothing son. You might horse-
whip him, but he'd set the law on you, — the law's made to
take care o' raskills. "
Mr. Tulliver was getting excited, and an alarming flush
was on his face. Mr. Glegg wanted to say something sooth-
ing, but he was prevented by Mr. Tulliver's speaking again
to his wife. " They'll make a shift to pay everything, Bessy,"
he said, "and yet leave you your furniture; and your sis-
ters'll do something for you — and Tom'll grow up — though
what he's to be I don't know — I've done what I could — I've
given him a education— and there's the little wench, sho'li
get married — but it's a poor tale — *
236 TEE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
The sanative effect of the strong vibration was exhausted,
and with the last words the poor man fell again, rigid and in-
sensible. Though this was only a recurrence of what had hap-
pened before, it struck all present as if it had been death, not
only from its contrast with the completeness of the revival, but
because his words had all had reference to the possibility that
his death was near. But with poor Tulliver death was not
to be a leap; it was to be a long descent under thickening
shadows.
Mr. Turnbull was sent for; but when he heard what had
passed, he said this complete restoration, though only tem-
porary, was a hopeful sign, proving that there was no perma-
nent lesion to prevent ultimate recovery.
Among the threads of the past which the stricken man had
gathered up, he had omitted the bill of sale; the flash of
memory had only lit up prominent ideas, and he sank into
forgetfulness again with half his humiliation unlearned.
But Tom was clear upon two points, — that his uncle Moss's
note must be destroyed ; and that Luke's money must be paid,
if in no other way, out of his own and Maggie's money now
in the savings bank. There were subjects, you perceive, on
which Tom was much quicker than on the niceties of classical
construction, or the relations of a mathematical demonstration.
CHAPTER V.
TOM APPLIES BIS KNIPB TO THB OTOTKB.
THE next day, at ten o'clock, Tom was on his way to St
Ogg's, to see his uncle Deane, who was to come home last
night, his aunt had said; and Tom had made up his mind
that his uncle Deane was the right person to ask for advice
about getting some employment. He was in a great way of
business; he had not the narrow notions of uncle Glegg; and
he had risen in the world on a scale of advancement which
accorded with Tom's ambition.
It was a dark, chill, misty morning, likely to end in rain,
THE DOWNFALL. 2S7
— one of those mornings when even happy people take refuga
in their hopes. And Tom was very unhappy ; he felt the hu-
miliation as well as the prospective hardships of his lot with
all the keenness of a proud nature; and with all his reso-
lute dutif ulness toward his father there mingled an irrepressi
ble indignation against him which gave misfortune the les?
endurable aspect of a wrong. Since these were the conse-
quences of going to law, his father was really blamable, as
his aunts and uncles had always said he was; and it was a
significant indication of Tom's character, that though he
thought his aunts ought to do something more for his mother,
he felt nothing like Maggie's violent resentment against them
for showing no eager tenderness and generosity. There were
no impulses in Tom that led him to expect what did not pre-
sent itself to him as a right to be demanded. Why should
people give away their money plentifully to those who had
not taken care of their own money? Tom saw some justice in
severity ; and all the more, because he had confidence in him-
self that he should never deserve that just severity. It was
very hard upon him that he should be put at this disadvan-
tage in life by his father's want of prudence; but he was not
going to complain and to find fault with people because they
did not make everything easy for him. He would ask no one
to help him, more than to give him work and pay him for it.
Poor Tom was not without his hopes to take refuge in under
the chill damp imprisonment of the December fog, which
seemed only like a part of his home troubles. At sixteen, the
mind that has the strongest affinity for fact cannot escape
illusion and self -flattery ; and Tom, in sketching his future,
had no other guide in arranging his facts than the suggestions
of his own brave self-reliance. Both Mr. Glegg and Mr
Deane, he knew, had been very poor once; he did not wani
to save money slowly and retire on a moderate fortune like
his uncle Glegg, but he would be like his uncle Deane, — get
a situation in some great house of business and rise fast. He
had scarcely seen anything of his uncle Deane for the last
three years, — the two families had been getting wider apart;
but for this very reason Tom was the more hopeful about ap-
plying to him. His uncle Gkggi he felt sure, would never
838 THE MILL ON THE FLO8&
encourage any spirited project, but he had a vague imposing
idea of the resources at his uncle Deane's command. He had
heard his father say, long ago, how Deane had made himself
BO valuable to Guest & Co. that they were glad enough to offer
him a share in the business; that was what Tom resolved he
would do. It was intolerable to think of being poor and
looked down upon all one's life. He would provide for his
mother and sister, and make every one say that he was a man
of high character. He leaped over the years in this way,
and, in the haste of strong purpose and strong desire, did not
see how they would be made up of slow days, hours, and
minutes.
By the time he had crossed the stone bridge over the Floss
and was entering St. Ogg's, he was thinking that he would
buy his father's mill and land again when he was rich enough,
and improve the house and live there; he should prefer it to
any smarter, newer place, and he could keep as many horses
and dogs as he liked.
Walking along the street with a firm, rapid step, at this
point in his reverie he was startled by some one who had
crossed without his notice, and who said to him in a rough,
familiar voice :
" Why, Master Tom, how's your father this morning? " It
was a publican of St. Ogg's, one of his father's customers.
Tcm disliked being spoken to just then; but he said civilly,
"He s still very ill, thank you."
" Ay, it's been a sore chance for you, young man, hasn't it,
— this lawsuit turning out against him?" said the publican,
\rith a confused, beery idea of being good-natured.
Tom reddened and passed on; he would have felt it like the
handling of a bruise, even if there had been the most polite
ana delicate reference to his position.
"That's Tulliver's son, "said the publican to a grocer stand-
ing on the adjacent door-step.
"Ah I" said the grocer, "I thought I knew his features.
He takes after his mother's family; she was a Dodson. He's
a fine, straight youth; what's he been brought up to?"
"Oh! to turn up his nose at his father's customers, and be
a fine gentleman, — not much else. I think."
THE DOWNFALL^ 239
Tom, roused from his dream of the future to a thorough
consciousness of the present, made all the greater haste to
reach the warehouse offices of Guest & Co., where he expected
to find his uncle Deane. But this was Mr. Deane' s morning
at the bank, a clerk told him, with some contempt for his
ignorance} Mr. Deane was not to be found in Kiver Street on
a Thursday morning. /
At the bank Tom was admitted into the private room
where his uncle was, immediately after sending in his name.
Mr. Deane was auditing accounts; but he looked up as
Tom entered, and putting out his hand, said, "Well, Tom,
nothing fresh the matter at home, I hope? How's your
father?"
**Much the same, thank you, uncle," said Tom, feeling ner-
vous. "But I want to speak to you, please, when you're at
liberty."
"Sit down, sit down," said Mr. Deane, relapsing into his
accounts, in which he and the managing-clerk remained so
absorbed for the next half -hour that Tom began to wonder
whether he should have to sit in this way till the bank closed,
— there seemed so little tendency toward a conclusion in the
quiet, monotonous procedure of these sleek, prosperous men
of business. Would his uncle give him a place in the bank?
It would be very dull, prosy work, he thought, writing there
forever to the loud ticking of a timepiece. He preferred
some other way of getting rich. But at last there was a
change ; his uncle took a pen and wrote something with a
flourish at the end.
"You'll just step up to Terry's now, Mr. Spence, wfll
you?" said Mr Deane, and the clock suddenly became les»
loud and deliberate in Tom's ears.
"Well, Tom," said Mr. Deane, when they were alone, turn-
ing his substantial person a little in his chair, and taking oufr
his snuff-box, "what's the business, my boy; what's the
business?" Mr. Deane, who had heard from his wife what
had passed the day before, thought Tom was come to appeal
to him for some means of averting the sale.
<%T nope you'll excuse ir>e for troubling you, uacle," said
Tom, coloring, but speaking Ji^a tone which, thougfc treinu-
240 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
lous, had a certain proud independence in it; "bat I thought
you were the best person to advise me what to do."
"Ah!w said Mr. Deane, reserving his pinch of snuff, and
looking at Tom with new attention, " let us hear."
" I want to get a situation, uncle, so that I may earn some
money," said Tom, who never fell into circumlocution.
"A situation?" said Mr. Deane, and then took his pinch of
snuff with elaborate justice to each nostril. Tom thought
snuff -taking a most provoking habit.
" Why, let me see, how old are you? " said Mr. Deane, aa
he threw himself backward again.
"Sixteen; I mean, I am going in seventeen," said Tom,
hoping his uncle noticed how much beard he had.
"Let me see; your father had some notion of making you
tin engineer, I think ?"
" But I don't think I could get any money at that for a long
while, could I?"
"That's true; but people don't get much money at any-
thing, my boy, when they're only sixteen. You've had a
good deal of schooling, however; I suppose you're pretty well
up in accounts, eh? You understand book-keeping? "
"No," said Tom, rather falteringly. "I was in Practice.
But Mr. Stelling says I write a good hand, uncle. That's my
writing," added Tom, laying on the table a copy of the list
he had made yesterday.
"Ah! that's good, that's good. But, you see, the best
hand in the world' 11 not get you a better place than a copy-
ing-clerk's, if you know nothing of book-keeping, — nothing of
accounts. And a copying-clerk's a cheap article. But what
have you been learning at school, then?"
Mr. Deane had not occupied himself with methods of edu-
cation, and had no precise conception of what went forward
in expensive schools.
" We learned Latin, " said Tom, pausing a little between
each item, as if he were turning over the books in his school-
desk to assist his memory, — "a good deal of Latin; and the
last year I did Themes, one week in Latin and one in English ;
and Greek and Eoman history; and Euclid; and I began
Algebra, but I left it off again; and we had one day every
THE DOWNFALL Ml
week for Arithmetic. Then I used to have drawing-lessons;
and there were several other books we either read or learned
out of, — English Poetry, and Hora9 Paulinse, and Blair's
Ehetoric, the last half."
Mr. Deane tapped his snuff-box again and screwed up his
mouth; he felt in the position of many estimable persona
when they had read tho New Tariff, and found how many
commodities were imported of which they knew nothing; like
a cautious man of business, he was not going to speak rashly
of a raw material in which he had had no experience. But
the presumption was, that if it had been good for anything,
so successful a man as himself would hardly have been igno-
rant of it. About Latin he had an opinion, and thought that
in case of another war, since people would no longer wear hair-
powder, it would be well to put a tax upon Latin, as a luxury
much run upon by the higher classes, and not telling at all on
the ship-owning department. But, for what he knew, the
Horse Paulinse might be something less neutral. On the
whole, this list of acquirements gave him a sort of repulsion
toward poor Tom.
"Well," he said at last, in rather a cold, sardonic tone,
"you've had three years at these things, — you must be pretty
strong in 'em. Hadn't you better take up some line where
they'll come in handy?"
Tom colored, and burst out» with new energy :
" I'd rather not have any employment of that sort, uncle.
I don't like Latin and those things. I don't know what I
could do with them unless I went as usher in a school; and I
don't know them well enough for that ; besides, I would as
soon carry a pair of panniers. I don't want to be that sort of
person. I should like to enter into some business where 1
can get on, — a manly business, where I should have to look
after things, and get credit for what I did. And I shall want
to keep my mother and sister."
"Ah, young gentleman," said Mr. Deane, with that ten-
dency to repress youthful hopes which stout and successful
men of fifty find one of tfeeir easiest duties, "that's soonei
said than done, — sooner said than done."
"But didn't you get on in that way, uncle?" said Tom, a
16
242 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
little irritated that Mr. Deane did not enter more rapidly inta
his views. " I mean, didn't you rise from one place to anothei
through your abilities and good conduct? "
"Ay, ay, sir," said Mr. Deane, spreading himself in his
chair a little, and entering with great readiness into a retro-
spect of his own career. " But I'll tell you how I got on. It
wasn't by getting astride a stick and thinking it would turn
into a horse if I sat on it long enough. I kept my eyes and
ears open, sir, and I wasn't too fond of my own back, and I
made my master's interest my own. Why, with only look-
ing into what went on in the mill, I found out how there was
a waste of five hundred a-year that might be hindered.
Why, sir, I hadn't more schooling to begin with than a char-
ity boy; but I saw pretty soon that I couldn't get on far
enough without mastering accounts, and I learned 'em be-
tween working hours, after I'd been unlading. Look here."
Mr. Deane opened a book and pointed to the page. " I write
a good hand enough, and I'll match anybody at all sorts of
reckoning by the head; and I got it all by hard work, and
paid for it out of my own earnings, — often out of my own din-
ner and supper. And I looked into the nature of all the things
we had to do with in the business, and picked up knowledge as
I went about my work, and turned it over in my head. Why,
I'm no mechanic, — I never pretended to be — but I've thought
of a thing or two that the mechanics never thought of, and
it's made a fine difference in our returns. And there isn't an
article shipped or unshipped at our wharf but I know the
quality of it. If I got places, sir, it was because I made
myself fit for 'em. If you want to slip into a round hole,'
you must make a ball of yourself; that's where it is."
Mr. Deane tapped his box again. He had been led on by
pure enthusiasm in his subject, and had really forgotten what
bearing this retrospective survey had on his listener. He had
found occasion for saying the same thing more than once be-
fore, and was not distinctly aware that he had not his port-
wine before him.
"Well, uncle," said Tom, with a slight complaint in his
tone, " that's what I should like to do. Can't /"get on ia the
same way?"
THE DOWNFALL. 243
"In the same way?" said Mr. Deane, eyeing Tom with
ipiiet deliberation. " There go two or three questions to that,
Master Tom. That depends on what sort of material you are,
to begin with, and whether you've been put into the right
mill. But I'll tell you what it is. Your poor father went
the wrong way to work in giving you an education. It wasn't
my business, and I didn't interfere; but it is as I thought it
would be. You've had a sort of learning that's all very well
for a young fellow like our Mr. Stephen Guest, who'll have
nothing to do but sign checks all his life, and may as well
have Latin inside his head as any other sort of stuffing."
"But, uncle," said Tom, earnestly, "I don't see why the
Latin need hinder me from getting on in business. I shall
soon forget it all; it makes no difference to me. I had to do
my lessons at school, but I always thought they'd never be of
any use to me afterward; I didn't care about them."
"Ay, ay, that's all very well," said [Mr. Deane; "but it
ioesn't alter what I was going to say. Your Latin and rig-
marole may soon dry off you, but you'll be but a bare stick
after that. Besides, it's whitened your hands and taken the
rough work out of you. And what do you know? Why, you
know nothing about book-keeping, to begin with, and not so
much of reckoning as a common shopman. You'll have to
begin at a low round of the ladder, let me tell you, if you
mean to get on in life. It's no use forgetting the education
your father's been paying for, if you don't give yourself a
new un."
Tom bit his lips hard; he felt as if the tears were rising^
and he would rather die than let them.
" You want me to help you to a situation," Mr. Deane went
on ; " well, I've no fault to find with that. I'm willing to do
something for you. But you youngsters nowadays think
you're to begin with living well and working easy; you've no
notion of running afoot before you get on horseback. Now,
you must remember what you are, — you're a lad of sixteen,
trained to nothing particular. There's heaps of your sort,
like so many pebbles, made to fit in nowhere. Well, you
might be apprenticed to some business, — a chemist's and drug-
gist's perhaps; year Latin might come in a bit there——"
244 THE MILL ON THE FLOSa
Tom was going to speak, but Mr. Deane put up his hand
and said:
" Stop! hear what I've got to say. You don't want to be a
'prentice, — I know, I know, — you want to make more haste,
and you don't want to stand behind a counter. But if you're
a copying-clerk, you'll have to stand behind a desk, and stara
at your ink and paper all day; there isn't much outlook
there, and you won't be much wiser at the end of the year
than at the beginning. The world isn't made of pen, ink,
and paper, and if you're to get on in the world, young man,
you must know what the world's made of. Now the best
chance for you 'ud be to have a place on a wharf, or in a
warehouse, where you'd learn the smell of things, but you
wouldn't like that, I'll be bound; you'd have to stand cold
and wet, and be shouldered about by rough fellows. You're
too fine a gentleman for that."
Mr. Deane paused and looked hard at Tom, who certainly
felt some inward struggle before he could reply.
" I would rather do what will be best for me in the end, sir ;
I would put up with what was disagreeable."
" Tkat's well, if you can carry it out. But you must re-
member it isn't only laying hold 01 a rope, you must go on
pulling. It's the mistake you lads make that have got noth-
ing either in your brains or your pocket, to think you've got a
better start in the world if you stick yourselves in a place
where you can keep your coats clean, and have the shop-
wenches take you for fine gentlemen. That wasn't the way 1
started, young man ; when I was sixteen, my jacket smelt 01
tar, and I wasn't afraid of handling cheeses. That's the rea-
son I can wear good broadcloth now, and have my legs under
the same table With the heads of the best firms in St. Ogg's."
Uncle Deane tapped his box, and seemed to expand a little
under his waistcoat and gold chain, as he squared his shoul-
ders in the chair.
" Is there any place at liberty that you know of now, uncle,
that I should do for? I should like to set to work at once,"
said Tom, with a slight tremor in his voice.
" Stop a bit, stop a bit; we mustn't be in too great a hurry.
You must bear in mind, if I put you in a place you're a bit
THE DOWNFALL. 243
young for, because you happen to be my nephew, I shall be
responsible for you. And there's no better reason, you know,
than your being my nephew ; because it remains to be seen
whether you're good for anything."
"I hope I shall never do you any discredit, uncle," said
Tom, hurt, as all boys are at the statement of the unpleasant
truth that people feel no ground for trusting them. " I care
about my own credit too much for that."
"Well done, Tom, well done! That's the right spirit, and
T never refuse to help anybody if they've a mind to do them-
selves justice. There's a young man of two-and-twenty I've
got my eye on now. I shall do what I can for that young
man; he's got some pith in him. But then, you see, he's
made good use of his time, — a first-rate calculator, — can tell
you the cubic contents of anything in no time, and put me up
the other day to a new market for Swedish bark ; he's uncom-
monly knowing in manufactures, that young fellow."
" I'd better set about learning book-keeping, hadn't I, un-
cle?" said Tom, anxious to prove his readiness to exert him-
self.
"Yes, yes, you can't do amiss there. But — Ah, Spence,
you're back again. Well, Tom, there's nothing more to be
said just now, I think, and I must go to business again.
Good-by. Remember me to your mother."
Mr. Deane put out his hand, with an air of friendly dis-
missal, and Tom had not courage to ask another question, es-
pecially in the presence of Mr. Spence. So he went out again
into the cold damp air. He had to call at his uncle Glegg's
about the money in the Savings Bank, and by the time he set
out again the mist had thickened, and he could not see very
far before him ; but going along River Street again, he was
startled, when he was within two yards of the projecting side
of a shop- window, by the words " Dorlcote Mill " in large letters
on a hand-bill, placed as if on purpose to stare at him. It
was the catalogue of the sale to take place the next week; it
was a reason for hurrying faster out of the town.
Poor Tom formed no visions of the distant future as he made
his way homeward; he only felt that the present was very
hard. It seemed a wrong toward him that his uncle Dearie
24« THE MTT.T, ON THE FTO68.
had no confidence in him, — did not see at once that £« y -eld
acquit himself well, which Tom himself was as certain ».f as
of the daylight. Apparently he, Tom Tulliver, was likely to
be held of small account in the world ; and for the first time
he felt a sinking of heart under the sense that he really was
very ignorant, and could do very little. Who was that envi-
able young man that could tell the cubic contents of things in
no time, and make suggestions about Swedish bark! Tom had
been used to be so entirely satisfied with himself, in spite of
his breaking down in a demonstration, and construing nunc
illas promite vires as " now promise those men " ; but now he
suddenly felt at a disadvantage, because he knew less than
some one else knew. There must be a world of things con-
nected with that Swedish bark, which, if he only knew them,
might have helped him to get on. It would have been much
easier to make a figure with a spirited horse and a new
saddle.
Two hours ago, as Tom was walking to St. Ogg's, he saw
the distant future before him as he might have seen a tempt-
ing stretch of smooth sandy beach beyond a belt of flinty
shingles; he was on the grassy bank then, and thought the
shingles might soon be passed. But now his feet were on the
sharp stones; the belt of shingles had widened, and the
stretch of sand had dwindled into narrowness.
" What did my uncle Deane say, Tom? " said Maggie, put-
ting her arm through Tom's as he was warming himself rather
drearily by the kitchen fire. " Did he say he would give you
a situation?"
" No, he didn't say that. He didn't quite promise me any-
thing ; he seemed to think I couldn't have a very good situa-
tion. I'm too young. "
" But didn't he speak kindly, Tom? »
"Kindly? Pooh! what's the use of talking about that? I
wouldn't care about his speaking kindly, if I could get a situ-
ation. But it's such a nuisance and bother; I've been at
school all this while learning Latin and things, — not a bit of
good to me, — and now my uncle says I must set about learn-
ing book-keeping and calculation, and those things. He
seems to make out I'm good for nothing."
THE DOWNFALL. S4T
Torn' a mouth twitched with a bitter expression as he looked
it the fire.
"Oh, what a pity we haven't got Dominie Sampson 1 " said
Maggie, who couldn't help mingling some gayety with their
sadness. " If he had taught me book-keeping by double entry
and after the Italian method, as he did Lucy Bertram, I could
teach you, Tom."
" You teach! Yes, I dare say. That's always the tone yon
take," said Tom.
"Dear Tom, I was only joking, * said Maggie, putting hei
cheek against his coat-sleeve.
"But it's always the same, Maggie," said Tom, with the
little frown he put on when he was about to be justifiably
severe. "You're always setting yourself up above me and
every one else, and I've wanted to tell you about it several
times. You ought not to have spoken as you did to my un-
cles and aunts; you should leave it to me to take care of my
mother and you, and not put yourself forward. You think
you know better than any one, but you're almost always
wrong. I can judge much better than you can."
Poor Tom ! he had just come from being lectured and made
to feel his inferiority ; the reaction of his strong, self -assert-
ing nature must take place somehow; and here was a case
in which he could justly show himself dominant. Maggie's
cheek flushed and her lip quivered with conflicting resentment
and affection, and a certain awe as well as admiration of
Tom's firmer and more effective character. She did not an-
swer immediately} very angry words rose to her lips, but
they were driven back again, and she said at last :
"You often think I'm conceited, Tom, when I don't mean
what I say at all in that way. I don't mean to put myself
above you; I know you behaved better than I did yesterday.
But you are always so harsh to me, Tom."
With the last words the resentment was rising again.
"No, I'm not harsh," said Tom, with severe decision.
"I'm always kind to you, and so I shall be; I shall always
take care of you. But you must mind what I say."
Their mother came in now, and Maggie rushed away, that
her burst of tears, which she felt must come, might not hap*
248 TEE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
pen till she was sate upstairs. T^ey were very bitten frars,
everybody in the world seemed so hard and unkind to Maggie;
there was no indulgence, no fondness, such as she imagined
when she fashioned the world afresh in her own thoughts.
In books there were people who were always agreeable or
tender, and delighted to do things that made one happy, and
'who did not show their kindness by finding fault. The world
'outside the books was not a happy one, Maggie felt; it seemed
to be a world where people behaved the best to those they did
not pretend to love, and that did not belong to them. And
if life had no love in it, what else was there for Maggie?
Nothing but poverty and the companionship of her mother's
narrow griefs, perhaps of her father's heart-cutting childish
dependence. There is no hopelessness so sad as that of early
youth, when the soul is made up of wants, and has no long
memories, so superadded life in the life of others ; though we
who look on think lightly of such premature despair, as if our
vision of the future lightened the blind sufferer's present.
Maggie, in her brown frock, with her eyes reddened and her
heavy hair pushed back, looking from the bed where her f athe?
lay to the dull walls of this sad chamber which was the centre
of her world, was a creature full of eager, passionate longings
for all that was beautiful and glad ; thirsty for all knowledge ;
with an ear straining after dreamy music that died away and
would not come near to her ; with a blind, unconscious yearn-
ing for something that would link together the wonderful im-
pressions of this mysterious life, and give her soul a sense of
home in it.
No wonder, when there is this contrast between the outvravd
•
'and t.b° inward, that painful collisions come of i*»
THE DOWNFALL. 249
OHAFTifiB YL
UT<» TO BKFUTB THB POPULAE PREJUDICE AGALHTST TH»
PRESENT OV A POCKET-KNIFE.
lar that dark time of December, the sale of the household
*urniture lasted beyond the middle of the second day. Mr.
yTulliver, who had begun, in his intervals of consciousness, to
manifest an irritability which often appeared to have as a di-
rect effect the recurrence of spasmodic rigidity and insensibil-
ity, had lain in this living death throughout the critical hours
•when the noise of the sale came nearest to his chamber. Mr.
Turnbull had decided that it would be a less risk to let him
remain where he was than to remove him to Luke's cottage,
— a plan which the good Luke had proposed to Mrs. Tulliver,
thinking it would be very bad if the master were " to waken
up " at the noise of the sale ; and the wife and children had
sat imprisoned in the silent chamber, watching the large pros-
trate figure on the bed, and trembling lest the blank face
should suddenly show some response to the sounds which fell
on their own ears with such obstinate, painful repetition.
But it was over at last, that time of importunate certainty
and eye-straining suspense. The sharp sound of a voice,
almost as metallic as the rap that followed it, had ceased ; the
tramping of footsteps on the gravel had died out. Mrs. Tul-
liver's blond face seemed aged ten years by the last thirty
hours; the poor woman's mind had been busy divining when
her favorite things were being knocked down by the terrible
hammer; her heart had been fluttering at the thought that
first one thing and then another had gone to be identified as
hers in the hateful publicity of the Golden Lion ; and all the
while she had to sit and make no sign of this inward agi-
tation. Such things bring lines in well-rounded faces, and
broaden the streaks of white among the hairs that once looked
as if they had been dipped in pure sunshine. Already, at
three o'clock, Kezia, the good-hearted, bad-tempered house-
maid, who regarded all people that came to the sale as her
personal enemies, the dirt on whose feet was of a peculiarly
250 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
vile quality, had begun to scrub and swill with an energy
much assisted by a continual low muttering against " folks as
came to buy up other folks's things," and made light of
" scrazing " the tops of mahogany tables over which better folks
than themselves had had to — suffer a waste of tissue through
evaporation. She was not scrubbing indiscriminately, for
there would be further dirt of the same atrocious kind made
by people who had still to fetch away their purchases; but
she was bent on bringing the parlor, where that " pipe-smok-
ing pig, " the bailiff, had sat, to such an appearance of scant
comfort as could be given to it by cleanliness and the few
articles of furniture bought in for the family. Her mistress
and the young folks should have their tea in it that night,
Kezia was determined.
It was between five and six o'clock, near the usual tea-time,
when she came upstairs and said that Master Tom was wanted.
The person who wanted him was in the kitchen, and in the
first moments, by the imperfect fire and candle light, Tom
had not even an indefinite sense of any acquaintance with the
rather broad-set but active figure, perhaps two years older
than himself, that looked at him with a pair of blue eyes set
in a disc of freckles, and pulled some curly red locks with a
strong intention of respect. A low-crowned oilskin-covered
hat, and a certain shiny deposit of dirt on the rest of the cos-
tume, as of tablets prepared for writing upon, suggested a
calling that had to do with boats; but this did not help Tom' a
memory.
"Sarvant, Mister Tom," said he of the red locks, with a
emile which seemed to break through a self-imposed air of
melancholy. "You don't know me again, I doubt," he went
on, as Tom continued to look at him inquiringly; "but I'd
like to talk to you by yourself a bit, please. "
"There's a fire i' the parlor, Master Tom," said Kezia,
who objected to leaving the kitchen in the crisis of toasting.
" Come this way, then, " said Tom, wondering if this young
fellow belonged to Guest & Co. 's Wharf, for his imagination
ran continually toward that particular spot ; and uncle Deane
might any time be sending for him to Bay that there was a
situation at liberty.
THE DOWNFALL. 251
The bright fire in the parlor was the only light that showed
the few chairs, the bureau, the carpetless floor, and the one
table — no, not the one table; there was a second table, in a
corner, with a large Bible and a few other books upon it. It
was this new strange bareness that Tom felt first, before he
thought of looking again at the face which was also lit up by
the fire, and which stole a half -shy, questioning glance at him
as the entirely strange voice said :
"Why! you don't remember Bob, then, as you gen the
pocket-knife to, Mr. Tom? "
The rough-handled pocket-knife was taken out in the sam3
moment, and the largest blade opened by way of irresistible
demonstration.
"What! Bob Jakin?" said Tom, not with any cordial de-
light, for he felt a little ashamed of that early intimacy sym-
bolized by the pocket-knife, and was not at all sure that Bob's
motives for recalling it were entirely admirable.
" Ay, ay, Bob Jakin, if Jakin it must be, 'cause there's so
many Bobs as you went arter the squerrils with, that day as
I plumped right down from the bough, and bruised my shins
a good uu — but I got the squerril tight for all that, an* a
scratter it was. An' this littlish blade's broke, you see, but I
wouldn't hev a new un put in, 'cause they might be cheatin'
me an' givin' me another knife istid, for there isn't such a
blade i' the country, — it's got used to my hand, like. An'
there was niver nobody else gen me nothin' but what I got by
my own sharpness, only you, Mr. Tom; if it wasn't Bill
Fawks as gen me the terrier pup istid o' drowndin' it, an' I
had to jaw him a good un afore he'd give it me."
Bob spoke with a sharp and rather treble volubility, and got
through his long speech with surprising despatch, giving the
blade of his knife an affectionate rub on his sleeve when he
had finished.
"Well, Bob," said Tom, with a slight air of patronage, the
foregoing reminiscences having disposed him to be as friendly
as was becoming, though there was no part of his acquaintance
with Bob that he remembered better than the cause of their
parting quarrel ; " is there anything I can do for you? "
" Why, 10, Mr. Ton," answered Bofy shutting up his knife
262 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
•with a click and returning it to his pocket, where he seemed
to be feeling for something else. " I shouldn't ha' come back
upon you now ye're i' trouble, an' folks say as the master, as I
used to frighten the birds for, an' he flogged me a bit for fun
when he catched me eatin' the turnip, as they say he'll niver
lift up his head no more, — I shouldn't ha' come now to ax
you to gi' me another knife 'cause you gen me one afore. If
a chap gives me one black eye, that's enough for me; I
sha'n't ax him for another afore I sarve him out; an' a good'
turn's worth as much as a bad un, anyhow. I shall niver
grow down'ards again, Mr. Tom, an' you war the little chap
as I liked the best when I war a little chap, for all you leath-
ered me, and wouldn't look at me again. There's Dick
Brumby, there, I could leather him as much as I'd a mind;
but lors! you get tired o' leatherin' a chap when you can
niver make him see what you want him to shy at. I'n seen
chaps as 'ud stand starin' at a bough till their eyes shot out,
afore they'd see as a bird's tail warn't a leaf. It's poor work
goin' wi; such raff. But you war allays a rare un at shying,
Mr. Tom, an' I could trusten to you for droppin* down wi*
your stick in the nick o' time at a runnin* rat, or a stoat, or
that, when I war a-beatin' the bushes."
Bob had drawn out a dirty canvas bag, and would perhaps
not have paused just then if Maggie had not entered the room
and darted a look of surprise and curiosity at him, whereupon
he pulled his red locks again with due respect. But the next
moment the sense of the altered room came upon Maggie with
a force that overpowered the thought of Bob's presence. Her
eyes had immediately glanced from him to the place where the
bookcase had hung ; there was nothing now but the oblong un-
faded space on the wall, and below it the small table with the
Bible and the few other books.
" Oh, Tom ! " she burst out, clasping her hands, " where are
the books? I thought my uucle Glegg said he would buy
them. Didn't he? Are those all they've left us?"
"I suppose so," said Tom, with a sort of desperate indiffer-
ence, " Why should they buy many books when they bought
BO little furniture?"
"Oh, but, Tom," said Maggie, her eyes filling with tears,
THE DOWNFALL. 253
as she rushed up to the table to see what books had been res-
cued. "Our dear old Pilgrim's Progress that you colored
with your little paints; and that picture of Pilgrim with a
mantle on, looking just like a turtle — oh dear! " Maggie went
on, half sobbing as she turned over the few books. " I thought
we should never part with that while we lived ; everything is
going away from us ; the end of our lives will have nothing in
it like the beginning! "
Maggie turned away from the table and threw herself into
a chair, with the big tears ready to roll down her cheeks,
quite blinded to the presence of Bob, who was looking at her
with the pursuant gaze of an intelligent dumb animal, with
perceptions more perfect than his comprehension.
"Well, Bob," said Tom, feeling that the subject of the
books was unseasonable, " I suppose you just came to see me
because we're in trouble? That was very good-natured of
you."
" I'll tell you how it is, Master Tom," said Bob, beginning
to untwist his canvas bag. '' You see, I'n been with a barge
this two 'ear; that's how I'n been gettin' my livin', — if it
wasn't when I was tentin' the furnace, between whiles, at
Torry's mill. But a fortni't ago I'd a rare bit o' luck, — I
allays thought I was a lucky chap, for I niver set a trap but
what I catched something; but this wasn't a trap, it was a
fire i' Torry's mill, an' I doused it, else it 'ud ha' set th' oil
alight, an' the genelman gen me ten suvreigns ; he gen me 'em
himself last week. An' he said first, I was a sperrited chap,
— but I knowed that afore, — but then he outs wi' the ten
suvreigns, an' that war summat new. Here they are, all but
one ! " Here Bob emptied the canvas bag on the table. " An'
•when I'd got 'em, my head was all of a boil like a kettle o'
broth, thinkin* what sort o' life I should take to, for there
rar a many trades I'd thought on; for as for the barge, I'm
clean tired out wi't, for it pulls the days out till they're as
long as pigs' chitterlings. An* I thought first I'd ha' ferrets
an' dogs, an' be a rat-catcher; aia' then I thought as I should
like a bigger way o' life, as I didn't know so well; for I'n
seen to the bottom o' rat-catching ; an' I thought, an' thought,
till at last I settled I'd be a packman, ~-fpr they're knowin'
854 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
fellers, the packmen are, — an* I'd carry the lightest things 1
could i* my pack; an* there' d be a use for a feller's tongue,
as is no use neither wi' rats nor barges. An' I should go
about the country far an* wide, an' come round the women
wi' my tongue, an* get my dinner hot at the public, — lors ! it
'ud be a lovely life! "
Bob paused, and then said, with defiant decision, as if reso*
lutely turning his back on that paradisaic picture :
" But I don't mind about it, not a chip! An* I'n changed
one o' the suvreigns to buy my mother a goose for dinner, an1
J'n bought a blue plush wescoat, an' a sealskin cap, — for if I
meant to be a packman, I'd do it respectable. But I don't
mind about it, not a chip! My yead isn't a turnip, an' I
shall p'r'aps have a chance o' dousing another fire afore long.
I'm a lucky chap. So I'll thank you to take the nine suv-
reigns, Mr. Tom, and set yoursen up with 'em somehow, if
it's true as the master's broke. They mayn't go fur enough,
but they'll help."
Tom was touched keenly enough to forget his pride and sus-
picion.
"You're a very kind fellow, Bob," he said, coloring, with
that little diffident tremor in his voice which gave a certain
charm even to Tom's pride and severity, "and I sha'n't for-
get you again, though I didn't know you this evening. But
I can't take the nine sovereigns ; I should be taking your little
fortune from you, and they wouldn't do me much good
either."
" Wouldn't they, Mr. Tom? " said Bob, regretfully. " Now
don't say so 'cause you think I want Jem. I aren't a poor
chap. My mother gets a good penn'orth wi' picking feathers
an' things; an' if she eats nothin' but bread-an'- water, it runs
*to f at. An' I'm such a lucky chap; an' I doubt you aren't
'quite so lucky, Mr. Tom, — th' old master isn't, anyhow, — an'
so you might take a slice o' my luck, an' no harm done. Lors !
I found a leg o' pork i' the river one day ; it had tumbled out
o* one o' them round-sterned Dutchmen, I'll be bound. Come,
think better on it, Mr. Ton, for old 'quinetance' sake, else I
shall think you bear me a grudge. "
Bob pushed the sovereigns forward, but before TSCJ could
THE DOWNFALL.
speak Maggie, clasping her hands, and looking penitently a*
Boh, said:
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Bob; I never thought yon were so good.
Why, I think you're the kindest person in the world I "
Bob had not been aware of the injurious opinion for which
Maggie was performing an inward act of penitence, but he
smiled with pleasure at this handsome eulogy, — especially
from a young lass who, as he informed his mother that even*
tog, had " such uncommon eyes, they looked somehow as they
made him feel nohow."
"Xo, indeed, Bob, I can't take them," said Tom; "but
don't think I feel your kindness less because I say no. I
don't want to take anything from anybody, but to work my
own way. And those sovereigns wouldn't help me much —
they wouldn't really — if I were to take them. Let me shake
hands with you instead."
Tom put out his pink palm, and Bob was not slow to placo
his hard, grimy hand within it.
"Let me put the sovereigns in the bag again," said Maggie j
"and you'll come and see us when you've bought your pack,
Bob."
"It's like as if I'd come out o' make believe, o' purpose to
show 'em you," said Bob, with an air of discontent, as Maggie
gave him the bag again, "a- taking 'em bach, i' this way. I
am a bit of a Do, you know j but it isn't that sort o' Do, — it's
on'y when a feller's a big rogue, or a big flat, I like to let him
in a bit, that's all."
"Now, don't you be up to any tricks, Bob," said Tom,
"else you'll get transported some day."
"No, no; not me, Mr. Tom," said Bob, with an air of
cheerful confidence. "There's no law again* flea-bites. If I
wasn't to take a fool in now and then, he'd n'ver get any
wiser. But, lors 1 hev a suvreign to buy you and . ss sum-
mat, on'y for a token — just to match my pocket-knife."
While Bob was speaking he laid down the sovereign, and
resolutely twisted up his bag again. Tom pushed back the
gold, and said, "No, indeed, Bob; thank you heartily, but 1
can't take it." And Ai ^gie, taking it between her fingers,
held '*• up to Bob a. ..'. suiu, more persuasively:
256 THE MTLL ON THE FLOSS.
"Not now, but perhaps another tune. If ever Tom or my
father wants help that you can give, we'll let you know;
won't we, Tom? That's what you would like, — to have us
always depend on you as a friend that we can go to, — isn't it,
Bob?"
"Yes, Miss, and thank you," said Bob, reluctantly taking
the money ; " that's what I'd like, anything as you like. An'
I wish you good-by, Miss, and good-luck, Mr. Tom, and
thank you for shaking hands wi* me, though you wouldn't
take the money."
Kezia's entrance, with very black looks, to inquire if she
shouldn't bring in the tea now, or whether the toast was to
get hardened to a brick, was a seasonable check ou Bob's
flux of words, and hastened his parting bow.
CHAPTER VIL
BOW A BEN TAKES TO STRATAGEM.
THE days passed, and Mr. Tulliver showed, at least to the
eyes of the medical man, stronger and stronger symptoms of a
gradual return to his normal condition; the paralytic obstruc-
tion was, little by little, losing its tenacity, and the mind was
rising from under it with fitful struggles, like a living creating
making its way from under a great snowdrift, that slides and
slides again, and shuts up the newly made opening.
Time would have seemed to creep to the watchers by the
bed, if it had only been measured by the doubtful, distant
hope which kept count of the moments within the chamber;
but it was measured for them by a fast-approaching dread
which made the nights come too quickly. While Mr. Tulliver
was slowly becoming himself again, his lot was hastening
toward its moment of most palpable change. The taxing-
masters had done their work like any respectable gunsmith
conscientiously preparing the musket, that, duly pointed by a
brave arm, will spoil a life or two. Allocaturs, filing of bills
in Chancery, decrees of sale, are legal chainshot or bomb-
THE DOWNFALL. 197
sheila that can never hit a solitary mark, hot moat fall with
widespread shattering. So deeply inherent is it in this life oi
ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably
diffusive ia human suffering, that even justice makes its vic-
tims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread
beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain.
By the beginning of the second week in January, the bills
were out advertising the sale, under a decree of Chancery, of
Mr. Tulliver's farming and other stock, to be followed by a
sale of the mill and land, held in the proper after-dinner houi
at the Golden Lion. The miller himself, unaware of the lapse
of time, fancied himself still in that first stage of his misfortunes
when expedients might be thought of ; and often in his conscious
hours talked in a feeble, disjointed manner of plans he would
carry out when he "got well." The wife and children were
cot without hope of an issue that would at least save Mr. Tui*
liver from leaving the old spot, and seeking an entirely strange
life. For uncle Deane had been induced to interest himseli
in this stage of the business. It would not, he acknowledged,
be a bad speculation for Guest & Co. to buy Dorlcote Mill, and
carry on the business, which was a good one, and might be in-
creased by the addition of steam power; in which case Tulli*
ver might be retained as manager. Still, Mr. Deane would
say nothing decided about the matter; the fact that Wakem
held the mortgage on the land might put it into his head to
bid for the whole estate, and further, to outbid the cautious
firm of Guest & Co., who did not carry on business on senti*
mental grounds. Mr. Deane was obliged to tell Mrs. Tulliver
something to that effect, when he rode over to the mill to in-
spect the books in company with Mrs. Glegg ; for she had ob-
served that " if Guest & Co. would only think about it, Mr.
Tulliver* s father and grandfather had been carrying on
Dorlcote Mill long before the oil-mill of that firm had been so
much as thought of."
Mr. Deane, in reply, doubted whether that was precisely
(the relation between the two mills which would determine
their value as investments. As for uncle Glegg, the thing
lay quite beyond his imagination ; the good-natured man felt
sincere pity for the Tulliver family, bu.t bis money was all
17
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
locked up in excellent mortgages, and he could ran no risk}
that would be unfair to his own relatives ; but he had made up
his mind that Tulliver should have some new flannel waistcoats
which he had himself renounced in favor of a more elastic
commodity, and that he would buy Mrs. Tulliver a pound of
tea now and then ; it would be a journey which his benevo-
lence delighted in beforehand, to carry the tea, and see her
pleasure on being assured it was the best black.
Still, it was clear that Mr. Deane was kindly disposed tow»
ard the Tullivers. One day he had brought Lucy, who was
come home ^for the Christmas holidays, and the little blond
angel-head had pressed itself against Maggie's darker cheek
with many kisses and some tears. These fair slim daughters
keep up a tender spot in the heart of many a respectable part-
ner in a respectable firm, and perhaps Lucy's anxious, pity-
ing questions about her poor cousins helped to make uncle
Deane more prompt in finding Tom a temporary place in the
warehouse, and in putting him in the way of getting evening
lessons in book-keeping and calculation.
That might have cheered the lad and fed his hopes a little,
if there had not come at the same time the much-dreaded blow
of finding that his father must be a bankrupt, after all} at
least, the creditors must be asked to take less than their due,
which to Tom's untechnical mind was the same thing as bank-
ruptcy. His father must not only be said to have " lost his
property," but to have "failed," — the word that carried the
worst obloquy to Tom's mind. For when the defendant's
claim for costs had been satisfied, there would remain the
friendly bill of Mr. Gore, and the deficiency at the bank, as
well as the other debts which would make the assets shrink
into unequivocal disproportion j "not more than ten or twelve
shillings in the pound," predicted Mr. Deane, in a decided
tone, tightening his lips ; and the words fell on Tom like &
scalding liquid, leaving a continual smart.
He was sadly in want of something to keep up his spirits A
little in the unpleasant newness of his position, — suddenly
transported from the easy carpeted ennui of study-hours at
Mr. Stelling's, and the busy idleness of castle-building in a
" last half " at school, to the companionship of sacks and hides,
THE DOWNFALL. 259
and bawling men thundering down heavy weights at his elbow.
The first step toward getting on in the world was a chill, dusty,
noisy affair, and implied going without one's tea in order to
stay in St. Ogg's and have an evening lesson from a one-armed
elderly clerk, in a room smelling strongly of bad tobacco.
Tom's young pink-aud-white face had its colors very much
deadened by the time he took off his hat at home, and sat
down with keen hunger to his supper. No wonder he was a
little cross if his mother or Maggie spoke to him.
But all this while Mrs. Tulliver was brooding over a scheme
by which she, and no one else, would avert the result most to
be dreaded, and prevent Wakem from entertaining the purpose
of bidding for the mill. Imagine a truly respectable and ami-
able hen, by some portentous anomaly, taking to reflection
and inventing combinations by which she might prevail on
Hodge not to wring her neck, or send her and her chicks to
market ; the result could hardly be other than much cackling
and fluttering. Mrs. Tulliver, seeing that everything had
gone tfrong, had begun to think she had been too passive in
life ; and that, if she had applied her mind to business, and
taken a strong resolution novr and then, it would have been
all the better for her and her family. Nobody, it appeared,
had thought; of going to speak to Wakem on this business of
the mill ; and yet, Mrs. Tulliver reflected, it would have been
quite the snovtest method of securing the right end. It would
have been of no use, to be sure, for Mr. Tulliver to go, — even
if he had been able and willing, — for he had been "going to
law against Wakem " and abusing him for the last ten years ;
Waken, was always likely to have a spite against him. And
now that Mrs. Tulliver had come to the conclusion that her
husband was very much in the wrong to bring her into this
trouble, she was inelined to think that his opinion of Wakem
was wrong too. To be sure, Wakem had " put the bailies in
the house, and sold them up " ; but she supposed he did that
to please the man that lent Mr. Tulliver the money, for a law-
yer had more folks to please than one, and he wasn't likely
to put Mr. Tulliver, who had gone to law with him, above
everybody else in the world. The attorney might be a very
reasonable man j why not ? He had married a Miss Clint, and
260 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
at the time Mrs. Tulliver had heard of that marriage, the sum-
mer when she wore her blue satin spencer, and had not yet
any thoughts of Mr. Tulliver, she knew no harm of Wakem.
And certainly toward herself, whom he knew to have been a
Miss Dodson, it was out of all possibility that he could enter-
tain anything but good-will, when it was once brought home
to his observation that she, for her part, had never wanted to
go to law, and indeed was at present disposed to take Mr..
Wakem' s view of all subjects rather than her husband's. In
fact, if that attorney saw a respectable matron like herself
disposed "to give him good words," why shouldn't he listen
to her representations? For she would put the matter clearly
before him, which had never been done yet. And he would
never go and bid for the mill on purpose to spite her, an inno-
cent woman, who thought it likely enough that she had danced
with him in their youth at Squire Darleigh's, for at those big
dances she had often and often danced with young men whose
names she had forgotten.
Mrs. Tulliver hid these reasonings in her own bosom; for
when she had thrown out a hint to Mr. Deane and Mr. Glegg
that she wouldn't mind going to speak to Wakem herself,
they had said, " No, no, no, " and " Pooh, pooh, " and " Let
Wakem alone," in the tone of men who were not likely to give
a candid attention to a more definite exposition of her project;
still less dared she mention the plan to Tom and Maggie, for
" the children were always so against everything their mother
said " ; and Tom, she observed, was almost as much set against
Wakem as his father was. But this unusual concentration of
thought naturally gave Mrs. Tulliver an unusual power of device
and determination ; and a day or two before the sale, to be
held at the Golden Lion, when there was no longer any time
to be lost, she carried out her plan by a stratagem. There
were pickles in question, a large stock of pickles and ketchup
which Mrs. Tulliver possessed, and which Mr. Hyndmarsh,
the grocer, would certainly purchase if she could transact the
business in a personal interview, so she would walk with
Tom to St. Ogg's that morning; and when Tom urged that
she might let the pickles be at present, — he didn't like her to
go about just yet, — she appeared so hurt at this conduct in hex
THE DOWNFALL 261
eon, contradicting her about pickles which she had made after
the family receipts inherited from his own grandmother, who
had died when his mother was a little girl, that he gave way,
and they walked together until she turned toward Danish
Street, where Mr. Hyndmarsh retailed his grocery, not far
from the offices of Mr. Wakem.
That gentleman was not yet come to his office; would Mrs.
Tulliver sit down by the fire in his private room and wait for
him? She had not long to wait before tha punctual attorney
entered, knitting his brow with an examining glance at the
stout blond woman who rose, curtsying deferentially, — a tall-
ish man, with an aquiline nose and abundant iron-gray hair.
You have never seen Mr. Wakem before, and are possibly
wondering whether he was really as eminent a rascal, and as
crafty, bitter an enemy of honest humanity in general, and of
Mr. Tulliver in particular, as he is represented to be in that
eidolon or portrait of him which we have seen to exist in the
miller's mind.
It is clear that the irascible miller was a man to interpret
any chance-shot that grazed him as an attempt on his own life,
and was liable to entanglements in this puzzling world, which,
due consideration had to his own infallibility, required the
hypothesis of a very active diabolical agency to explain them.
It is still possible to believe that the attorney was not more
guilty toward him than an ingenious machine, which performs
its work with much regularity, is guilty toward the rash man
who, venturing too near it, is caught up by some fly-wheel or
other, and suddenly converted into unexpected mince-meat.
But it is really impossible to decide this question by a
glance at his person; the lines and lights of the human
countenance are like other symbols, — not always easy to read
without a key. On an a priori view of Wakem's aquil* •*
nose, which offended Mr. Tulliver, there was not more ra-c •
ity than in the shape of his stiff shirt-collar, though this t >
along with his nose, might have become fraught with damna-
tory meaning when once the rascality was ascertained.
"Mrs. Tulliver, I think?" said Mr. Wakem.
"Yes, sir; Miss Elizabeth Dodson as was."
** Pray be seated. You have sonje business with me? "
262 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
'•Well, sir, yes," said Mrs. Tulliver, beginning to feel
alarmed at her own courage, now she was really in presence
of the formidable man, and reflecting that she had not settled
with herself how she should begin. Mr. Wakeni felt in his
waistcoat pockets, and looked at her in silence.
"I hope, sir," she began at last, — "I hope, sir, you're not
a-thinking as /bear you any ill-will because o* my husband's
losing his lawsuit, and the bailies being put in, and the linen
being sold, — oh dear! — for I wasn't brought up in that way,
I'm sure you remember my father, sir, for he was close friends
with Squire Darleigh, and we allays went to the dances there,
the Miss Dodsons, — nobody could be more looked on, — and
justly, for there was four of us, and you're quite aware as
Mrs. Glegg and Mrs. Deane are niy sisters. And as for going
to law and losing money, and having sales before you're dead,
I never saw anything o' that before I was married, nor for a
long while after. And I'm not to be answerable for my bad
luck i' marrying out o' my own family into one where the go-
ings-on was different. And as for being drawn in t' abuse
you as other folks abuse you, sir, that I niver was, and nobody
can say it of me."
Mrs. Tulliver shook her head a little, and looked at the
hem of her pocket-handkerchief.
"I've no doubt of what you say, Mrs. Tulliver," said Mr.
Wakem, with cold politeness. " But you have some question
to ask mo?"
" Well, sir, yes. But that's what I've said to myself,—
I've said you'd had some nat'ral feeling; and as for my hus*
band, as hasn't been himself for this two mouths, I'm not
a-defending him, in no way, for being so hot about th' eriga-
tion, — not but what there's worse men, for he never wronged
nobody of a shilling nor a penny, not willingly ; and as for
his fieriness and lawing, what could I do? And him struck
as if it was with death when he got the letter as said you'd
the hold upo' the land. But I can't believe but what you'll
behave as a gentleman."
"What does all this mean. Mrs. Tulliver?" said Mr. Wa-
kem, rather sharply. " What do you want to ask me? "
"Why, sir, if you' 11 be so good, "said Mrs. Tulliver, starting
THE DOWNYAta*. 263
a little, and speaking more hurriedly, — " if you'll be so good
not to buy the mill an* the land, — the land wouldn't so much
matter, only my husband 'ull be like mad at your having it."
Something like a new thought flashed across Mr. Wakem'fl
face as he said, " Who told you I meant to buy it? "
44 Why, sir, it's none o' my inventing, and I should never
ha' thought of it ; for my husband, as ought to know about
the law, he allays used to say as lawyers had never no call to
buy anything, — either lands or houses, — for they allays got
'em into their hands other ways. An' I should think that
'ud be the way with you, sir; and I niver said as you'd be
the man to do contrairy to that."
"Ah, well, who was it that did say so?" said Wakem,
opening his desk, and moving things about, with the accom-
paniment of an almost inaudible whistle.
" Why, sir, it was Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane, as have all
the management; and Mr. Deane thinks as Guest & Co. 'ud
buy the mill and let Mr. Tulliver work it for 'em, if you didn't
bid for it and raise the price. And it 'ud be such a thing for
my husband to stay where he is, if he could get his living j
for it was his father's before him, the mill was, and his
grandfather built it, though I wasn't fond o' the noise of it,
when first I was married, for there was no mills in our family,
— not the Dodsons', — and if I'd known as the mills had so
much to do with the law, it wouldn't have been me as 'ud have
been the first Dodson to marry one ; but I went into it blind-
fold, that I did, erigation and everything."
" What ! Guest & Co. would keep the mill in their own
hands, I suppose, and pay your husband wages? "
"Oh dear, sir, it's hard to think of," said poor Mrs. Tulli-
ver, a little tear making its way, " as my husband should take
wage. But it 'ud look more like what used to be, to stay at
the mill than to go anywhere else; and if you'll only think—
if you was to bid for the mill and buy it, my husband might
be struck worse than he was before, and niver get better again
as he's getting now."
" Well, but if I bought the rail1, and allowed your husband
to act as my manager in the same way, how then? " said Mr,
Wakem.
864 THE MILL ON THE FLOSi.
" Oh, sir, I doubt he could niver be got to do it, not if the
very mill stood still to beg and pray of him. For your name's
like poison to him, it' s so as never was ; and he looks upon it
&s you've been the ruin of him all along, ever since you set
the law on him about the road through the meadow, — that's
eight year ago, and he's been going on ever since — as I've
allays told him he was wrong " ,
"He's a pig-headed, foul-mouthed fool I" burst out MiJ
Wakem, forgetting himself.
"Oh dear, sirl" said Mrs. Tulliver, frightened at a result
60 different from the one she had fixed her mind on; "I
wouldn't wish to contradict you, but it's like enough he's
changed his mind with this illness, — he's forgot a many
things he used to talk about. And you wouldn't like to have
a corpse on your mind, if he was to die ; and they do say as
it's allays unlucky when Dorlcote Mill changes hands, and the
water might all run away, and then — not as I'm wishing you
any ill-luck, sir, for I forgot to tell you as I remember your
wedding as if it was yesterday; Mrs. Wakem was a Miss
Clint, I know that ; and my boy, as there isn't a nicer, hand-
somer^ straighter boy nowhere, went to school with your
son "
Mr. Wakem rose, opened the door, and called to one of his
clerks.
"You must excuse me for interrupting you, Mrs. Tulliver j
I have business that must be attended to ; and I think there is
nothing more necessary to be said."
" But if you would bear it in mind, sir, " said Mrs. Tulliver,
rising, "and not run against me and my children; and I'm
not denying Mr. Tulliver's been in the wrong, but he's been
punished enough, and there's worse men, for it's been giving
to other folks has been his fault. He's done nobody any
harm but himself and his family, — the more's the pity, — and
I go and iook at the bare shelves every day, and think where
all my things used to stand."
"Yes, yes, I'll bear it in mind," said Mr. Wakem, hastily,
looking toward the open door.
'* And if you'd please not to say as I've been to speak to
you, for my son *ud be very angry with me for demeaning
THE DOWNFALL. 2*5
myself, I know he would, and I've trouble enough without
being scolded by my children."
Poor Mrs. Tulliver's voice trembled a little, and she could
make no answer to the attorney's "good morning,** but curt-
sied and walked out in silence.
" Which day is it that Dorlcote Mill is to be sold? Where's
the bill?" said Mr. Wakem to his clerk when they we-*
alone.
"Next Friday is the day, — Friday at six o'clock."
* Oh, just run to Winship*s the auctioneer, and see if he 't
at home. I have some business for him ; ask him to come
up."
Although, when Mr. Wakem entered his office that morn-
ing, he had had no intention of purchasing Dorlcote Mill, his
mind was already made up. Mrs. Tulliver had suggested to
him several determining motives, and his mental glance was
very rapid; he was one of those men who can be prompt
without being rash, because their motives run in fixed tracks,
and they have no need to reconcile conflicting aims.
To suppose that Wakem had the same sort of inveterate
hatred toward Tulliver that Tulliver had toward him would
be like supposing that a pike and a roach can look at each
other from a similar point of view. The roach necessarily
abhors the mode in which the pike gets his living, and the
pike is likely to think nothing further even of the most indig-
nant roach than that he is excellent good eating; it could only
be when the roach choked him that the pike could entertain
a strong personal animosity. If Mr. Tulliver had ever serious-
ly injured or thwarted the attorney, Wakem would not have
refused him the distinction of being a special object of his
vindictiveness. But when Mr. Tulliver called Wakem a ras-
cal at the market dinner-table, the attorney's clients were not
a whit inclined to withdraw their business from Kim ; and if,
when Waken himself happened to be present, some jocose cat-
tle-feeder, stimulated by opportunity and brandy, made a
thrust at him by alluding to old ladies' wJls, he maintained
perfect sang froid, and knew quite well that the majority of
substantial men then present were perfectly contented with
the fact that " Waken was Wakem " j that is to say, a man
266 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
who always knew the stepping-stones that would carry him
through very muddy bits of practice. A man who had made
a large fortune, had a handsome house among the trees at
Tofton, and decidedly the finest stock of port-wine in the
neighborhood of St. Ogg's, was likely to feel himself on a
level with public opinion. And I am not sure that even hon-
est Mr. Tulliver himself, with his general view of law as a
cockpit, might not, under opposite circumstances, have seen a
fine appropriateness in the truth that " Wakem was Wakem " j
since I have understood from persons versed in history, that
mankind is not disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of
great victors when their victory is on the right side. Tulli-
ver, then, could be no obstruction to Wakem ; on the contrary,
he was a poor devil whom the lawyer had defeated several
times ; a hot-tempered fellow, who would always give you a
handle against him. Wakem's conscience was not uneasy be-
cause he had used a few tricks against the miller; why should
he hate that unsuccessful plaintiff, that pitiable, furious bull
entangled in the meshes of a net ?
Still, among the various excesses to which human nature is
subject, moralists have never numbered that of being too fond
of the people who openly revile us. The successful Yellow
candidate for the borough of Old Topping, perhaps, feels no
pursuant meditative hatred toward the Blue editor who con-
soles his subscribers with vituperative rhetoric against Yel-
low men who sell their country, and are the demons of private
life ; but he might not be sorry, if law and opportunity fa-
vored, to kick that Blue editor to a deeper shade of his favor-
ite color. Prosperous men take a little vengeance now and
then, as they take a diversion, when it comes easily in their
way, and is no hindrance to business; and such small unim-
passioned revenges have an enormous effect in life, running
through all degrees of pleasant infliction, blocking the fit men
out of places, and blackening characters in unpremeditated
talk. Still more, to see people who have been only insignifi-
cantly offensive to us reduced in life and humiliated, without
any special effort of ours, is apt to have a soothing, flattering
influence. Providence or some other prince of this world, it
appears, has undertaken the task of retribution for us; and
TTTE DOWNFALL. 267
really, by aii agreeable constitution of things, our enemies
somehow don't prosper.
Wakem was not without this parenthetic vindictivtness
toward the uncomplimentary miller; and now Mrs. Tulliver
had put the notion into his head, it presented itself to him as
a pleasure to do the very thing that would cause Mr. Tulliver
the most deadly mortification, — and a pleasure of a complex
kind, not made up of crude malice, but mingling with it the
xelish of self -approbation. To see an enemy humiliated gives
a certain contentment, but this is jejune compared with the
highly blent satisfaction of seeing him humiliated by your
benevolent action or concession on his behalf. That is a sort
of revenge which falls into the scale of virtue, and Wakem
was not without an intention of keeping that scale respectably
filled. He had once had the pleasure of putting an old enemy
of his into one of the St. Ogg's alms-houses, to the rebuilding
of which he had given a large subscription; and here was an
opportunity of providing for another by making him his own
servant. Such things give a completeness to prosperity, and
contribute elements of agreeable consciousness that are not
dreamed of by that short-sighted, overheated vindictivenesa
•which goes out of its way to wreak itself in direct injury.
And Tulliver, with his rough tongue filed by a sense of obli-
gation, would make a better servant than any chance-fellow
who was cap-in-hand for a situation Tulliver was known to
be a man of proud honesty, and Wakem was too acute not to
believe in the existence of honesty. He was given to observ-
ing individuals, not to judging of them according to maxims,
and no one knew better than he that all men were not like
himself. Besides, he intended to overlook the whole business
of land and mill pretty closely ; he was fond of these practical
rural matters. But there were good reasons for purchasing
Dorlcote Mill, quite apart from any benevolent vengeance
on the miller. It was really a capital investment; besides,
Guest & Co. were going to bid for it. Mr. Guest and Mr.
Wakem were on friendly dining terms, and the attorney liked
to predominate over a ship-owner and mill-owner who was a
little too loud in the town affairs as well as in his table-talk.
For Wakem was not a mere man of business; he was cou-
THE MILL ON THE PLO88.
eidered a pleasant fellow in the upper circles of St. Ogg's— •
chatted amusingly over his port-wine, did a little amateur
farming, and had certainly been an excellent husband and
father; at church, when he went there, he sat under the hand-
somest of mural monuments erected to the memory of his wife.
(Most men would have married again under his circumstances,
tut he was said to be more tender to his deformed son than
»most men were to their best-shapen offspring. Not that Mr.
Wakem had not other sons beside Philip ; but toward them
he held only a chiaroscuro parentage, and provided for them
in a grade of life duly beneath his own. In this fact, indeed,
thue lay the clenching motive to the purchase of Dorlcote
MilL While Mrs. Tulliver was talking, it had occurred to
the rapid-minded lawyer, among all the other circumstances
of the case, that this purchase would, in a few years to come,
furnish a highly suitable position for a certain favorite lad
whom he meant to bring on in the world.
These were the mental conditions on which Mrs. Tulliver
had undertaken to act persuasively, and had failed; a fact
which may receive some illustration from the remark of a
great philosopher, that fly-fishers fail in preparing their bait
BO as to make it alluring in the right quarter, for want of a
due acquaintance with the subjectivity of fishes.
OHAPTEB
DAYLIGHT ON THB WBBCK.
IT was a clear frosty January day on which Mr. TnlUver
"first came downstairs. The bright sun on the chestnut boughs
and the roofs opposite his window had made him impatiently
declare that he would be caged up no longer; he thought
everywhere would be more cheery under this sunshine than
his bedroom; for he knew nothing of the bareness below,
which made the flood of sunshine importunate, as if it had
an unfeeling pleasure in showing the empty places, and the
marks where well-known objects once had been. The impres-
THE DOWNFALL. 2C9
rion on Ms mind that it was but yesterday when he received
the letter from Mr. Gore was so continually implied in hia
talk, and the attempts to convey to him the idea that many
weeks had passed and much had happened since then had been
BO soon swept away by recurrent forgetfulness, that even Mr.
Turnbull had begun to despair of preparing him to meet the
facts by previous knowledge. The full sense of the present
could only be imparted gradually by new experience, — not by
mere words, which must remain weaker than the impressions
left by the old experience. This resolution to come down-
stairs was heard with trembling by the wife and children.
Mrs. Tulliver said Tom must not go to St. Ogg's at the usual
hour, he must wait and see his father downstairs; and Tom
complied, though with an intense inward shrinking from the
painful scene. The hearts of all three had been more deeply
dejected than ever during the last few days. For Guest &
Co. had not bought the mill; both mill and land had been
knocked down to Wakem, who had been over the premises,
and had laid before Mr. Deane and Mr. Glegg, in Mrs. Tulli-
ver's presence, his willingness to employ Mr. Tulliver, in case
of his recovery, as a manager of the business. This proposi-
tion had occasioned much family debating. Uncles and aunts
were almost unanimously of opinion that such an offer ought
not to be rejected when there was nothing in the way but a
feeling in Mr. Tulliver's mind, which, as neither aunts nor
uncles shared it, was regarded as entirely unreasonable and
childish, — indeed, as a transferring toward Wakem of that
indignation and hatred which Mr. Tulliver ought properly to
have directed against himself for his general quarrelsomeness,
and his special exhibition of it in going to law. Here was an
opportunity for Mr. Tulliver to provide for his wife and
daughter without any assistance from his wife's relations, and
without that too evident descent into pauperism which makes
it annoying to respectable people to meet the degraded mem-'
ber of the family by the wayside. Mr. Tulliver, Mrs. Glegg
considered, must be made to feel, when he came to his right
mind, that he could never humble himself enough ; for that
had come which she had always foreseen would come of hia
insolence in time past " to them as were the best friends Wd
270 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
got to look to." Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane were less stern in
their views, but they both of them thought Tulliver had done
enough harm by his hot-tempered crotchets, and ought to put
them out of the question when a livelihood was offered him ;
Wakem showed a right feeling about the matter, — h e had no
grudge against Tulliver. Tom had protested against entertain-
ing the proposition. He shouldn't like his father to be under
Wakem; he thought it would look mean-spirited; but hia
mother's main distress was the utter impossibility of ever
"turning Mr. Tulliver round about Wakem," or getting him
to hear reason; no, they would all have to go and live in a
pigsty on purpose to spite Wakem, who spoke " so as nobody
could be fairer." Indeed, Mrs. Tulliver's mind was reduced
to such confusion by living in this strange medium of unac-
countable sorrow, against which she continually appealed by
asking, "Oh dear, what have I done to deserve worse than
other women? " that Maggie began to suspect her poor moth-
er's wits were quite going.
"Tom," she said, when they were out of their father's
room together, " we must try to make father understand a lit-
tle of what has happened before he goes downstairs. But we
must get my mother away. She will say something that will
do harm. Ask Kezia to fetch her down, and keep her en-
gaged with something in the kitchen."
Kezia was equal to the task. Having declared her inten-
tion of staying till the master could get about again, " wage
or no wage," she had found a certain recompense in keeping
a strong hand over her mistress, scolding her for " moither-
ing " herself, and going about all day without changing her
2ap, and looking as if she was "mushed." Altogether, this
time of trouble was rather a Saturnalian time to Kezia; she
could scold her betters with unreproved freedom. On this
particular occasion there were drying clothes to be fetched in j
she wished to know if one pair of hands could do everything
in-doors and out, and observed that she should have thought
it would be good for Mrs. Tulliver to put on her bonnet, and
get a breath of fresh air by doing that needful piece of work.
i*oor Mrs. Tulliver went submissively downstairs; to be or-
dered about by a servant was the last remnant of her house'
THE DOWNFALL. 271
hold dignities, — she would soon have no servant to scold
her. Mr. Tulliver was resting in his chair a little after the
fatigue of dressing, and Maggie and Tom were seated near
him, when Luke entered to ask if he should help master down-
stairs.
"Ay, ay, Luke; stop a bit, sit down," said Mr. Tulliver
pointing his stick toward a chair, and looking at him with
that pursuant gaze which convalescent persons often have for
those who have tended them, reminding one of an infant gaz-
ing about after its nurse. For Luke had been a constant
night-watcher by his master's bed.
"How's the water now, eh, Luke?" said Mr. Tulliver.
"Dix hasn't been choking you up again, eh?"
"No, sir, it's all right."
" Ay, I thought not ; he won't be in a hurry at that again,
now Riley's been to settle him. That was what I said to
Riley yesterday — I said "
Mr. Tulliver leaned forward, resting his elbows on the arm-
chair, and looking on the ground as if in search of something,
striving after vanishing images like a man struggling against
a doze. Maggie looked at Tom in mute distress, their father's
mind was so far off the present, which would by-and-by thrust
itself on his wandering consciousness ! Tom was almost ready
to rush away, with that impatience of painful emotion which
makes one of the differences between youth and maiden, man
and woman.
" Father, " said Maggie, laying her hand on his, " don't you
remember that Mr. Eiley is dead? "
"Dead?" said Mr. Tulliver, sharply, looking in her face
with a strange, examining glance.
" Yes, he died of apoplexy nearly a year ago. I remember
hearing you say you had to pay money for him ; and he left
his daughters badly off; one of them is under-teacher at Miss
Firniss's, where I've been to school, you know."
" Ah? " said her father, doubtfully, still looking in her face.
But as soon as Tom began to speak he turned to look at /< im
with the same inquiring glances, as if he were rather surprised
at the presence of these two young people. Whenever his
mind was wandering in the far past, he fell into this oblivion
272 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
of their actual faces ; they were not those of the lad and th«
little wench who belonged to that past.
"It's a long while since you had the dispute with Dix,
father/' said Tom. "I remember your talking about it three
years ago, before I went to school at Mr. Stelling's. I've
been at school there three years; don't you remember?"
Mr. Tulliver threw himself backward again, losing the
childlike outward glance under a rush of new ideas, which
diverted him from external impressions.
" Ay, ay," he said, after a minute or two, " I've paid a deal
o* money — I was determined my son should have a good eddi'
cation; I'd none myself, and I've felt the miss of it. And
he'll want no other fortin, that's what I say — if Wakem was
to get the better of me again "
The thought of Wakem roused new vibrations, and after a
moment's pause he began to look at the coat he had on, and
to feel in his side-pocket. Then he turned to Tom, and said
in his old sharp way, " Where have they put Gore's letter?"
It was close at hand in a drawer, for he had often asked for
it before.
" You know what there is in the letter, father? " said Tom,
as he gave it to him.
"To be sure I do," said Mr. Tulliver, rather angrily.
" What o' that? If Furley can't take to the property, some-
body else can; there's plenty o' people in the world besides
Furley. But it's hindering — my not being well — go and tell
'em to get the horse in the gig, Luke ; I can get down to St.
Ogg's well enough — Gore's expecting me."
" No, dear father ! " Maggie burst out entreatingly ; " it's a
very long while since all that; you've been ill a great many
weeks, — more than two months; everything is changed."
Mr. Tulliver looked at them all three alternately with a
startled gaze ; the idea that much had happened of which he
knew nothing had often transiently arrested him before, but
it came upon him now with entire novelty.
"Yes, father," said Tom, in answer to the gaze. "You
needn't trouble your mind about business until you are quite
well; everything is settled about that for the present, — about
the mill and the land and the deota.-
THE DOWNFALL 273
"What's settled, then?" said his father, angrily.
"Don't you take on too much about it, sir," said Luke.
* You'd ha* paid iverybody if you could, — that's what I said
to Master Tom, — I said you'd ha' paid iverybody if you
could."
Good Luke felt, after the manner of contented hard-work-
ing men whose lives have been spent in servitude, that sense
of natural fitness in rank which made his master's downfall
a tragedy to him. He was urged, in his slow way, to say
something that would express his share in the family sorrow ;
and these words, which he had used over and over again to
Tom when he wanted to decline the full payment of his fifty
pounds out of the children's money, were the most ready to
his tongue. They were just the words to lay the most painful
hold on his master's bewildered mind.
"Paid everybody?" he said, with vehement agitation, his
face flushing, and his eye lighting up. " Why — what — have
they made me a bankrupt ? "
"Oh, father, dear father I" said Maggie, who thought that
terrible word really represented the fact; "bear it well,
because we love you; your children will always love you.
Tom will pay them all; he says he will, when he's a
man."
She felt her father beginning to tremble; his voice trembled
too, as he said, after a few moments :
"Ay, my little wench, but I shall never live twice o'er."
"But perhaps you will live to see me pay everybody,
father, " said Tom, speaking with a great effort.
"Ah, my lad," said Mr. Tulliver, shaking his head slowly,
^•but what's broke can never be whole again; it 'ud be your
doing, not mine." Then looking up at him, "You're only
sixteen; it's an up-hill fight for you, but you mustn't throw
it at your father; the raskills have been too many for him.
I've given you a good eddication, — that'll start you."
Something in his throat half choked the last words; the
flush, which had alarmed his children because it had so often
preceded a recurrence of paralysis, had subsided, and his face
looked pale and tremulous. Tom said nothing; he was still
struggling against his inclination to rush away. His father
18
274 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
remained quiet a minute or two, but his mind did not seem
to be wandering again.
"Have they sold me up, then?" he said more calmly, as if
he were possessed simply by the desire to know what had
happened.
"Everything is sold, father; but we don't know all about
the mill and the land yet," said Tom, anxious to ward off
any question leading to the fact that Wakem was the pur-
chaser.
" You must not be surprised to see the room look very bare
downstairs, father," said Maggie; " but there's your chair and
the bureau; they're not gone."
11 Let us go ; help me down, Luke, — I'll go and see every-
thing," said Mr. Tulliver, leaning on his stick, and stretching
out his other hand toward Luke.
"Ay, sir," said Luke, as he gave his arm to his master,
"you'll make up your mind to't a bit better when you've seen
ivery thing; you'll get used to't. That's what my mother
says about her shortness o' breath, — she says she's made
friends wi't now, though she fought again' it sore when it
just come on."
Maggie ran on before to see that all was right in the dreary
parlor, where the fire, dulled by the frosty sunshine, seemed
part of the general shabbiness. She turned her father's chair,
and pushed aside the table to make an easy way for him, and
then stood with a beating heart to see him enter and look
round for the first time. Tom advanced before him, carrying
the leg-rest, and stood beside Maggie on the hearth. Of those
two young hearts Tom's suffered the most unmixed pain, for
Maggie, with all her keen susceptibility, yet felt as if the sor*
row made larger room for her love to flow in, and gave breath-
ing-space to her passionate nature. No true boy feels that; he
would rather go and slay the Nemean lion, or perform any-
round of heroic labors, than endure perpetual appeals to his
pity, for evils over which he can make no conquest.
Mr. Tulliver paused just inside the door, resting on Luke,
and looking round him at all the bare places, which for him were
filled with the shadows or departed objects, — the daily com*
panions of his life. His faculties seemed to be renewing
THE DOWNFALL. 275
their strength from getting a footing on this demonstration of
the senses.
"Ah! " he said slowly, moving toward his chair, "they've
sold me up — they've sold me up."
Then seating himself, and laying down his stick, while
Luke left the room, he looked round again.
"They've left the big Bible," he said. "It's got every-
thing in, — when I was born and married; bring it me,
Tom."
The quarto Bible was laid open before him at the fly-leaf,
and while he was reading with slowly travelling eyes, Mrs.
Tulliver entered the room, but stood in mute surprise to find
her husband down already, and with the great Bible before
him.
" Ah, " he said, looking at a spot where his finger rested,
"my mother was Margaret Beaton; she died when she was
forty-seven, — hers wasn't a long-lived family; we're our
mother's children, Gritty and me are, — we shall go to our last
bed before long."
He seemed to be pausing over the record of his sister's birth
and marriage, as if it were suggesting new thoughts to him ;
then he suddenly looked up at Tom, and said, in a sharp tone
of alarm :
" They haven't come upo' Moss for the money as I lent him,
have they?"
"No, father," said Tom; "the note was burnt."
Mr. Tulliver turned his eyes on the page again, and pres-
ently said:
" Ah — Elizabeth Dodson — it's eighteen year since I married
her "
"Come next Lady day," said Mrs. Tulliver, going up to hit
side and looking at the page.
Her husband fixed his eyes earnestly on her face.
"Poor Bessy," he said, "you was a pretty lass then, — every-
body said so, — and I used to think you kept your good looks
rarely. But you're sorely aged; don't you bear me ill-will —
I meant to do well by you — we promised one another for bet«
ter or for worse —
"But I never thought it 'ud be so for worse as this," said
276 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
poor Mrs. Tulliver, with the strange, scared look that had
come over her of late ; " and my poor father gave me away—
and to come on so all at once "
"Oh, mother! " said Maggie, "don't talk in that way."
" No, I know you won't let your poor mother speak — that's
been the way all my life — your father never minded what I
said — it 'ud have been o' no use for me to beg and pray — and
it 'ud be no use now, not if I was to go down o' my hands and
knees "
"Don't say so, Bessy," said Mr. Tulliver, whose pride, in
these first moments of humiliation, was in abeyance to the
sense of some justice in his wife's reproach. " If there's any-
thing left as I could do to make you amends, I wouldn't say
you nay."
" Then we might stay here and get a living, and I might
keep among my own sisters, — and me been such a good wife to
you, and never crossed you from week's end to week's end —
and they all say so — they say it 'ud be nothing but right, only
you're so turned against Wakem."
" Mother," said Tom, severely, " this is not the time to talk
about that."
"Let her be," said Mr. Tulliver. "Say what you mean,
Bessy."
"Why, now the mill and the land's all Wakem' s, and he's
got everything in his hands, what's the use o' setting your
face against him, when he says you may stay here, and
speaks as fair as can be, and says you may manage the
business, and have thirty shilling a-week, and a horse to
ride about to market? And where have we got to put our
heads? We must go into one o' the cottages in the vil-
lage,— and me and my children brought down to that, — and
all because you must set your mind against folks till there's
no turning you."
Mr. Tulliver had sunk back in his chair, trembling.
" You may do as you like wi' me, Bessy," he said, in a low
voice; "I've been the bringing of you to poverty — this
world's too many for me — I'm nought but a bankrupt; it's no
ttse standing up for anything now."
"Father," said Tom, "I don't agree with my mother or my
THE DOWNFALL. 277
ancles, and I don't think you ought to submit to be under
Wakem. I get a pound a-week now, and you can find some-
thing else to do when you get well."
" Say no more, Tom, say no more; I've had enough for this
day. Give me a kiss, Bessy, and let us bear one another no
ill-will; we shall never be young again — this world's been too
many for me."
CHAPTEB IX.
AX ITEM ADDED TO THE FAMILY REGISTER,
THAT first moment of renunciation and submission was fol-
lowed by days of violent struggle in the miller's mind, as the
gradual access of bodily strength brought with it increasing
ability to embrace in one view all the conflicting conditions
under which he found himself. Feeble limbs easily resign
themselves to be tethered, and when we are subdued by sick-
ness it seems possible to us to fulfil pledges which the old
vigor comes back and breaks. There were times when poor
Tulliver thought the fulfilment of his promise to Bessy was
something quite too hard for human nature ; he had promised
her without knowing what she was going to say, — she might as
well have asked him to carry a ton weigLt on his back. But
again, there were many feelings arguing on her side, besides
the sense that life had been made hard to her by having mar-
ried him. He saw a possibility, by much pinching, of saving
money out of his salary toward paying a second dividend to
his creditors, and it would not be easy elsewhere to get a situ-
ation such as he could fill. He had led an easy life, ordering
much and working little, and had no aptitude for any new
business. He must perhaps take to day-labor, and his wife
must have help from her sisters, — a prospect doubly bitter to
him, now they had let all Bessy's precious things be sold, prob-
ably because they liked to set her against him, by making her
feel that he had brought her to that pass. He listened to
their admonitory talk, when they came to urge on him what
he was bound to do for poor Bessy's sake, with averted eyes,
278 THE MILL ON THE FLOSfc
that every now and then flashed on them furtively when theil
backs were turned. Nothing but the dread of needing theh
help could have made it an easier alternative to take their ad-
vice.
But the strongest influence of all was the love of the old
premises where he had run about when he was a boy, just as
Tom had done after him. The Tullivers had lived on this
spot for generations, and he had sat listening ou a low stool on
winter evenings while his father talked of the old half-tim-
bered mill that had been there before the last great floods
which damaged it so that his grandfather pulled it down and
built the new one. It was when he got able to walk about and
look at all the old objects that he felt the strain of his cling-
ing affection for the old home as part of his life, part of him-
self. He couldn't bear to think of himself living on any other
spot than this, where he knew the sound of every gate door,
and felt that the shape and color of every roof and weather-
stain and broken hillock was good, because his growing senses
had been fed on them. Our instructed vagrancy, which was
hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away early
to the tropics, and is at home with palms and banyans, — •
which is nourished on books of travel and stretches the theatre
of its imagination to the Zambesi, — can hardly get a dim no*
tion of what an old-fashioned man like Tulliver felt for this
spot, where all his memories centred, and where life seemed
like a familiar smooth-handled tool that the fingers clutch with
loving ease. And just now he was living in that freshened
memory of the far-off time which comes to us in the passive
hours of recovery from sickness.
" Ay, Luke, " he said one afternoon, as he stood looking over
the orchard gate, "I remember the day they planted those
apple-trees. My father was a huge man for planting, — it was
like a merry-making to him to get a cart full o* young trees ;
and I used to stand i* the cold with him, and follow him about
like a dog."
Then he turned round, and leaning against the gate-post,
looked at the opposite buildings.
"The old mill 'ud miss me, I think, Luke. There's a story
tfi when the mill changes hands, the river's angry} I've heard
THE DOWNFALL. 279
my father say it many a time. There's no telling whethei
there mayn't be summat in the story, for this is a puzzling
world, and Old Harry's got a finger in it — it's been too many
for me, I know."
" Ay, sir, " said Luke, with soothing sympathy, " what wi'
the rust on the wheat, an* the firin' o' the ricks an' that, as
I've seen i' my time, — things often looks comical; there's the
bacon fat wi' our last pig run away like butter, — it leaves
nought but a scratchin'."
" It's just as if it was yesterday, now," Mr. Tulliver went
on, " when my father began the malting. I remember, the
day they finished the malt-house, I thought summat great was
to come of it; for we'd a plurn-pudding that day and a bit of
a feast, and I said to my mother, — she was a fine dark-eyed
woman, my mother was, — the little wench 'ull be as like her
as two peas." Here Mr. Tulliver put his stick between his
legs, and took out his snuff-box, for the greater enjoyment of
this anecdote, which dropped from him in fragments, as if he
every other moment lost narration in vision. " I was a little
chap no higher much than my mother's knee,- -she was sore
fond of us children, Gritty and me, — and so I said to her,
' Mother,' I said, * shall we have plum-pudding every day be-
cause o' the malt-house? ' She used to tell me o' that till her
dying day. She was but a young woman when she died, my
mother was. But it's forty good year since they finished the
malt-house, and it isn't many days out of 'em all as I haven't
looked out into the yard there, the first thing in the morning,
«-all weathers, from year's end to year's end. I should go off
my head in a new place. I should be like as if I'd lost my
way. It's all hard, whichever way I look at it, — the harness
'ull gall me, but it 'ud be summat to draw along the old road,
instead of a new un."
"Ay, sir," said Luke, "you'd be a deal better here nor in
some new place. I can't abide new places my sen: things is
allays awk'ard, — narrow-wheeled waggins, belike, and the
stiles all another sort, an* oat-cake i' some places, tow'rt th*
head o' the Floss, there. It's poor work, changing your coun-
try-side."
"But I doubt, Luke, they'll be for getting rid o' Ben, and
280 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
making you do with a lad ; and I must help a bit wr* the mitt
You'll have a worse place."
"Ne'er mind, sir," said Luke, "I sha'n't plague mysen.
I'n been wi' you twenty year, an* you can't get twenty year
wi' whistlin' for 'em, no more nor you can make the trees
grow : you mun wait till God A'mighty sends 'em. I can't
(abide new victual nor new faces, /can't, — you niver know but
twhat they'll gripe you."
The walk was finished in silence after this, for Luke had
disburthened himself of thoughts to an extent that left his
conversational resources quite barren, and Mr. Tulliver had
relapsed from his recollections into a painful meditation on the
choice of hardships before him. Maggie noticed that he was
unusually absent that evening at tea; and afterward he sat
leaning forward in his chair, looking at the ground, moving
his lips, and shaking his head from time to time. Then he
looked hard at Mrs. Tulliver, who was knitting opposite him,
then at Maggie, who, as she bent over her sewing, was intensely
conscious of some drama going forward in her father's mind.
Suddenly he took up the poker and broke the large coal
fiercely.
" Dear heart, Mr. Tulliver, what can you be thinking of? "
said his wife, looking up in alarm; " it's very wasteful, break-
ing the coal, and we've got hardly any large coal left, and I
don't know where the rest is to come from."
" I don't think you're quite so well to-night, are you, fa-
ther?" said Maggie; "you seem uneasy."
" Why, how is it Tom doesu't come? " said Mr. Tulliver,
impatiently.
> "Dear heart I is it time? I must go and get his supper,"
\ said Mrs. Tulliver, laying down her knitting, and leaving the
room.
"It's nigh upon half -past eight," said Mr. Tulliver.
" He'll be here soon. Go, go and get the big Bible, and open
it at the beginning, where everything's set down. And get
the pen and ink."
Maggie obeyed, wondering ; but her father gave no further
orders, and only sat listening for Tom's footfall on the gravel,
apparently irritated by the wind, which had risen, and waa
THE DOWNFALL. 291
roaring so as to drown all other sounds. There was a strange
light in his eyes that rather frightened Maggie; she began to
wish that Tom would come, too.
"There he is, then," said Mr. Tulliver, in an excited way,
when the knock came at last. Maggie went to open the door,
but her mother came out of the kitchen hurriedly, saying,
"Stop a bit, Maggie; I'll open it."
Mrs. Tulliver had begun to be a little frightened at her boy,
but she was jealous of every office others did for him.
"Your supper's ready by the kitchen-fire, my boy," she
said, as he took off his hat and coat. " You shall have it by
yourself, just as you like, and I won't speak to you."
" I think my father wants Tom, mother," said Maggie; "he
must come into the parlor first."
Tom entered with his usual saddened evening face, but his
a/es fell immediately on the open Bible and the inkstand, and
he glanced with a look of anxious surprise at his father, who
was saying, —
"Come, come, you're late; I want you."
"Is there anything the matter, father?" said Tom.
"You sit down, all of you," said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily.
"And, Tom, sit down here; I've got something for you to
write i' the Bible."
They all three sat down, looking at him. He began to
speak slowly, looking first at his wife.
" I've made up my mind, Bessy, and I'll be as good as my
word to you. There'll be the same grave made for us to lie
down in, and we mustn't be bearing one another ill-will. I'll
stop in the old place, and I'll serve under Wakem, and I'll
serve him like an honest man ; there's no Tulliver but what's
honest, mind that, Tom," — here his voice rose, — " they'll have
it to throw up against me as I paid a dividend, but it wasn't
my fault; it was because there's raskills in the world.
They've been too many for me, and I must give in. I'll put
my neck in harness, — for you've a right to say as I've brought
you into trouble, Bessy, — and I'll serve him as honest as if he
was no raskill; I'm an honest man, though I shall never hold
my head up no more. I'm a tree as is broke — a tree as is
broke."
282 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
He paused, and looked on the ground. Then suddenly rais*
ing his head, he said, in a louder yet deeper tone :
"But I won't forgive him! I know what they say, he
never meant me any harm. That's the way Old Harry prop
up the raskills. He's been at the bottom of everything; but
he's a fine gentleman, — I know, I know. I shouldn't ha'
gone to law, they say. But who made it so as there was no
arbitrating and no justice to be got? It signifies nothing to
him, I know thatj he's one o' them fine gentlemen as get
jnoney by doing business for poorer folks, and when he's made
beggars of 'em he'll give 'em charity. I won't forgive him!
I wish he might be punished with shame till his own son 'ud
like to forget him. I wish he may do summat as they'd make
him work at the treadmill! But he won't, — he's too big a
raskill to let the law lay hold on him. And you mind this,
Tom, — you never forgive him neither, if you mean to be my
son. There'll maybe come a time when you may make him
feel ; it'll never come to me ; I'n got my head under the yoke.
Now write — write it i' the Bible. "
" Oh, father, what? " said Maggie, sinking down by his
knee, pale and trembling. "It's wicked to curse and bear
malice."
"It isn't wicked, I tell you," said her father, fiercely.
"It's wicked as the raskills should prosper; it's the Devil's
doing. Do as I tell you, Tom. Write."
"What am I to write?" said Tom, with gloomy submission.
" Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under
John Wakem, the man as had helped to ruin him, because I'd
promised my wife to make her what amends I could for her
trouble, and because I wanted to die in th' old place wher I
was born and my father was born. Put that i' the right
words — you know how — and then write, as I don't forgive
Wakem for all that; and for all I'll serve him honest, I wish
evil may befall him. Write that."
There was a dead silence as Tom's pen moved along the
paper ; Mrs. Tulliver looked scared, and Maggie trembled like
a leaf.
"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr, Tulliver.
Tom read aloud slowly
THE DOWNFALL. 283
"Now write — write as you'll remember what Wakem's done
to your father, and you' 11 make him and his feel it, if ever the
day comes. And sign your name Thomas Tulliver."
" Oh no, father, dear father ! " said Maggie, almost choked
with fear. " You shouldn't make Tom write that."
" Be quiet, Maggie I " said Tom. " I shall write it."
BOOK IV.— THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION
CHAPTER L
A VARIATION OF PBOTESTANTISM UXKNOWtf TO BOSSUE1.
JOURNEYING down the Rhone on a summer's day, you have
perhaps felt the sunshine made dreary by those ruined villages
which stud the banks in certain parts of its course, telling how
the swift river once rose, like an angry, destroying god, ^weep-
ing down the feeble generations whose breath is in their nostrils,
and making their dwellings a desolation. Strange contrast,
you may have thought, between the effect produced on us by
these dismal remnants of commonplace houses, which in their
best days were but the sign of a sordid life, belonging in all its
details to our own vulgar era, and the effect produced by those
ruins on the castled Rhine, which have crumbled and mellowed
into such harmony with the green and rocky steeps that they
seem to have a natural fitness, like the mountain-pine ; nay,
even in the day when they were built they must have had this
fitness, as if they had been raised by an earth-born race, who
had inherited from their mighty parent a sublime instinct of
form. And that was a day of romance I If those robber-
barons were somewhat grim and drunken ogres, they had a
certain grandeur of the wild beast in them, — they were forest
boars with tusks, tearing and rending, not the ordinary domes-
tic grunter ; they represented the demon forces forever in col-
lision with beauty, virtue, and the gentle uses of life ; they
made a fine contrast in the picture with the wandering min-
strel, the soft-lipped princess, the pious recluse, and the timid
Israelite. That was a time of color, when the sunlight fell on
glancing steel and floating banners ; a time of adventure and
fierce struggle,— nay, of living, religious art and religious ea«
THE VALLEY OP HUMILIATION. 285
fchusiasm; for were Dot cathedrals built in those days, and did
not great emperors leave their Western palaces to die before
the infidel strongholds in the sacred East? Therefore it is
that these Rhine castles thrill me with a sense of poetry ; they
belong to the grand historic life of humanity, and raise up for
me the vision of an echo. But these dead-tinted, hollow-eyed,
angular skeletons of villages on the Rhone oppress me with the
feeling that human life — very much of it — is a narrow, ugly}
grovelling existence, which even calamity does not elevate, but
rather tends to exhibit in all its bare vulgarity of conception .
and I have a cruel conviction that the lives these ruins are the
traces of were part of a gross sum of obscure vitality, that will
be swept into the same oblivion with the generations of ants
and beavers.
Perhaps something akin to this oppressive feeling may have
weighed upon you in watching this old-fashioned family life
on the banks of the Floss, which even sorrow hardly suffices
to lift above the level of the tragi-comic. It is a sordid life,
you say, this of the Tullivers and Dodsons, irradiated by no
sublime principles, no romantic visions, no active, self -renounc-
ing faith ; moved by none of those wild, uncontrollable pas-
sions which create the dark shadows of misery and crime j
without that primitive, rough simplicity of wants, that hard,
submissive, ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of what
nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life.
Here one has conventional worldly notions and habits without
instruction and without polish, surely the most prosaic form
of human life ; proud respectability in a gig of unfashionable
build ; worldliness without side-dishes. Observing these peo-
ple narrowly, even when the iron hand of misfortune has shak-
en them from their unquestioning hold on the world, one sees
little trace of religion, still less of a distinctively Christian
creed. Their belief in the Unseen, so far as it manifests
itself at all-, seems to be rather a pagan kind; their moral
notions, though held with strong tenacity, seem to have
no standard beyond hereditary custom. You could not live
among such people; you are stifled for want of an outlet
toward something beautiful, great, or noble ; you are irritated
with these dull men and women, as a kind pf population oui
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
of keeping with tho earth on which they live, — with this rich
plain where the great river flows forever onward, and links
the small pulse of the old English town with the beatings of
the world's mighty heart. A vigorous superstition, that lashea
its gods or lashes its own back, seems to be more congruous
with the mystery of the human lot, than the mental condition
of these emmet-like Dodsons and Tullivers.
I share with you this sense of oppressive narrowness j but it
is necessary that we should feel it, if we care to understand
how it acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie, — how it has
acted on young natures in many generations, that in the on-
ward tendency of human things have risen above the menta\
level of the generation before them, to which they have been
pevertheless tied by the strongest fibres of their hearts. The
suffering, whether of martyr or victim, which belongs to every
historical advance of mankind, is represented in this way in
every town, and by hundreds of obscure hearths j and we need
not shrink from this comparison of small things with great;
for does not science tell us that its highest striving is after
the ascertainment of a unity which shall bind the smallest
things with the greatest? In natural science, I have under-
stood, there is nothing petty to the mind that has a large
vision of relations, and to which every single object suggests
A vast sum of conditions. It is surely the same with the ob-
servation of human life.
Certainly the religious and moral ideas of the Dodsons and
Tullivers were of too specific a kind to be arrived at deduc-
tively, from the statement that they were part of the Protes-
tant population of Great Britain. Their theory of life had its
core of soundness, as all theories must have on which decent
and prosperous families have been reared and have flourished;
but it had the very slightest tincture of theology. If^ in the
maiden days of the Dodson sisters, their Bibles opened more
easily at some parts than others, it was because of dried tulip-
petals, which had been distributed quite impartially, without
preference for the historical, devotional, or doctrinal. Their
religion was of a simple, semi-pagan kind, but there was no
heresy in it, — if heresy properly means choice, — for they
fcnow there was any other religion, except that of
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 287
ehapel-goers, which appeared to run in families, like asthma.
How should they know? The vicar of their pleasant rural
parish was not a controversialist, but a good hand at whist,
and one who had a joke always ready for a blooming female
parishioner. The religion of the Dodsons consisted in rever-
ing whatever was customary and respectable : it was necessary
to be baptized, else one could not be buried in the church-yard,
and to take the sacrament before death, as a security against
more dimly understood perils j but it w, as of equal necessity to
have the proper pall-bearers and well-cured hams at one's fu-
neral, and to leave an unimpeachable will. A Dodson would
not be taxed with the omission of anything that was becoming,
or that belonged to that eternal fitness of things which was
plainly indicated in the practice of the most substantial parish-
ioners, and in the family traditions, — such as obedience to par-
ents, faithfulness to kindred, industry, rigid honesty, thrift,
the thorough scouring of wooden and copper utensils, the
hoarding of coins likely to disappear from the currency, the
production of first-rate commodities for the market, and the
general preference of whatever was home-made. The Dod-
sous were a very proud race, and their pride lay in the utter
frustration of all desire to tax them with a breach of tra-
ditional duty or propriety. A wholesome pride in many
respects, since it identified honor with perfect integrity,
thoroughness of work, and faithfulness to admitted rules ; and
society owes some worthy qualities in many of her members to
mothers of the Dodson class, who made their butter and their
fromenty well, and would have felt disgraced to make it other-
wise. To be honest and poor was never a Dodson motto, still
less to seem rich though being poor ; rather, the family badge
was to be honest and rich, and not only rich, but richer than
was supposed. To live respected, and have the proper bearers
at your funeral, was an achievement of the ends of existence
that would be entirely nullified if, on the reading of your will,
you sank in the opinion of your fellow-men, either by turning
out to be poorer than they expected, or by leaving your money
in a capricious manner, without strict regard to degrees of
kin. The right thing must always be done toward kindred.
The right thing was to correct them severely, if they
288 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
other than a credit to the family, buf, still not to alienate from
them the smallest rightful share in the family shoe-buckles
and other property. A conspicuous quality in the Dodson
character was its genuineness ; its vices and virtues alike were
phases of a proud honest egoism, which had a hearty dislike
to whatever made against its own credit and interest, and
would be frankly hard of speech to inconvenient "kin," but
would never forsake or ignore them, — would not let them want
bread, but only require them to eat it with bitter herbs.
The same sort of traditional belief ran. in the Tulliver veins
but it was carried in richer blood, having elements of generous
imprudence, warm affection, and hot-tempered rashness. Mr.
Tulliver's grandfather had been heard to say that he was de-
scended from one Ralph Tulliver, a wonderfully clever fellow,
who had ruined himself. It is likely enough that the clever
Ealph was a high liver, rode spirited horses, and was very
decidedly of his own opinion. On the other hand, nobody
had ever heard of [a Dodson who had ruined himself; it was
not the way of that family.
If such were the views of life on which the Dodsons and
Tullivers had been reared in the praiseworthy past of Pitt
and high prices, you will infer from what you already know
concerning the state of society in St. Ogg's, that there had
been no highly modifying influence to act on them in their
maturer life. It was still possible, even in that later time of
anti-Catholic preaching, for people to hold many pagan ideas,
and believe themselves good church-people, notwithstanding ;
BO we need hardly feel any surprise at the fact that Mr. Tulli-
ver, though a regular church-goer, recorded his vindictiveness
on the fly-leaf of his Bible. It was not that any harm could
be said concerning the vicar of that charming rural parish to
which Dorlcote Mill belonged ; he was a man of excellent fam-
ily, an irreproachable bachelor, of elegant pursuits, — had tak-
en honors, and held a fellowship. Mr. Tulliver regarded him
with dutiful respect, as he did everything else belonging to the
church-service ; but he considered that church was one thing
and common-sense another, and he wanted nobody to tell him
what common-sense was. Certain seeds which are required to
find a nidus fop themselves under unfavorable circumstances,
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 289
have been supplied by nature with an apparatus of hooks, so
that they will get a hold on very unreceptive surfaces. The
spiritual seed which had been scattered over Mr. Tulliver had
apparently been destitute of any corresponding provision, and
had slipped off to the winds again, from a total absence of
hooks.
CHAPTER IL
THE TOBK NEST 18 PIERCED BT THB THOB3TB.
THERE is something sustaining in the very agitation that ac-
companies the first shocks of trouble, just as an acute pain is
often a stimulus, and produces an excitement which is tran-
sient strength. It is in the slow, changed life that follows ; in
the time when sorrow has become stale, and has no longer an
emotive intensity that counteracts its pain ; in the time when
day follows day in dull, unexpectant sameness, and trial is a
dreary routine, — it is then that despair threatens; it is then
that the peremptory hunger of the soul is felt, and eye and ear
are strained after some unlearned secret of our existence, which
shall give to endurance the nature of satisfaction.
This time of utmost need was come to Maggie, with her
short span of thirteen yeare. To the usual precocity of the
girl, she added that early experience of struggle, of conflict
between the inward impulse and outward fact, which is the
lot of every imaginative and passionate nature ; and the years
since she hammered the nails into her wooden Fetish among
the worm-eaten shelves of the attic had been filled with so
eager a life in the triple world of Reality, Books, and Waking
Dreams, that Maggie was strangely old for her years in every-
thing except in her entire want of that prudence and self-com-
mand which were the qualities that made Tom manly in the
midst of his intellectual boyishness. And now her lot was
beginning to have a still, sad monotony, which threw her more
than ever on her inward self. Her father was able to attend
to business again, his affairs were settled, and he was acting
as Wakem's manager on the old spot- Tom went to and fig
19
290 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
every morning and evening, and became more and more silent
in the short intervals at home; what was there to say? One
day was like another; and Tom's interest in life, driven back
and crushed on every other side, was concentrating itself into
the one channel of ambitious resistance to misfortune. The
peculiarities of his father and mother were very irksome to
him, now they were laid bare of all the softening accompani-
ments of an easy, prosperous home ; for Tom had very clear,
prosaic eyes, not apt to be dimmed by mists of feeling or imag-
ination. Poor Mrs. Tulliver, it seemed, would never recovei
her old self, her placid household activity; how could she>
The objects among which her mind had moved complacently
were all gone, — all the little hopes and schemes and specula-
tions, all the pleasant little cares about her treasures which
had made the world quite comprehensible to her for a quarter
of a century, since she had made her first purchase of the
sugar-tongs, had been suddenly snatched away from her, and
she remained bewildered in this empty life. Why that should
have happened to her which had not happened to other women
remained an insoluble question by which she expressed her
perpetual ruminating comparison of the past with the present.
It was piteous to see the comely woman getting thinner and
more worn under a bodily as well as mental restlessness, which
made her often wander about the empty house after her work
was done, until Maggie, becoming alarmed about her, would
seek her, and bring her down by telling her how it vexed Tom
that she was injuring her health by never sitting down and
resting herself. Yet amidst this helpless imbecility there was
a touching trait of humble, self-devoting maternity, which
made Maggie feel tenderly toward her poor mother amidst all
the little wearing griefs caused by her mental feebleness.
She -w ould let Maggie do none of the work that was heaviest
and most soiling to the hands, and was quite peevish when
Maggie attempted to relieve her from her grate-brushing and
scouring : " Let it alone, my dear ; .your hands 'ull get as hard
as hard," she would say; " it's your mother's place to do that.
I can't do the sewing — my eyes fail me." And she would still
brush and carefully tend Maggie's hair, which she had become
reconciled to, in spite of ita refusal to curl, now it was §0. long
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATIOTT. 291
and massy. Maggie was not her pet child, and, in general,
would have been much better if she had been quite different;
yet the womanly heart, so bruised in its small personal de-
sires, found a future to rest on in the life of this young thing,
and the mother pleased herself with wearing out her own
hands to save the hands that had so much more life in them.
But the constant presence of her mother's regretful bewil-
derment was less painful to Maggie than that of her father's
sullen, incommunicative depression. As long as the paralysis'*
was upon him, and it seemed as if he might always be in a
childlike condition of dependence, — as long as he was still
'only half awakened to his trouble, — Maggie had felt the strong
tide of pitying love almost as an inspiration, a new power, that
would make the most difficult life easy for his sake; but now,
instead of childlike dependence, there had come a taciturn,
hard concentration of purpose, in strange contrast with his old
vehement communicativeness and high spirit; and this lasted
from day to day, and from week to week, the dull eye never
brightening with any eagerness or any joy. It is something
cruelly incomprehensible to youthful natures, this sombre
sameness in middle-aged and elderly people, whose life has
resulted in disappointment and discontent, to whose faces a
smile becomes so strange that the sad lines all about the lips
and brow seem to take no notice of it, and it hurries away
again for want of a welcome. " Why will they not kindle up
and be glad sometimes? " thinks young elasticity. " It would
be so easy if they only liked to do it." And these leaden
' clouds that never part are apt to create impatience even in the
filial affection that streams forth in nothing but tenderness
and pity in the time of more obvious affliction.
Mr. Tulliver lingered nowhere away from home ; he hurried
away from market, he refused all invitations to stay and chat,
as in old times, in the houses where he called on business. He
could not be reconciled with his lot. There was no attitude
in which his pride did not feel its bruises ; and in all behavior
toward him, whether kind or cold, he detected an allusion to
the change in his circumstances. Even the days on which
Wakem came to ride round the land and inquire into the busi-
ness were not so black to him as those market-days on which
292 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
he had met several creditors who had accepted a composition
from him. To save something toward the repayment of those
creditors was the object toward which he was now bending all
his thoughts and efforts ; and under the influence of this all-
compelling demand of his nature, the somewhat profuse man,
who hated to be stinted or to stint any one else in his own
house, was gradually metamorphosed into the keen-eyed
grudger of morsels. Mrs. Tulliver could not economize enough
to satisfy him, in their food and firing; and he would eat
nothing himself but what was of the coarsest quality. Tom,
though depressed and strongly repelled by his father's sullen-
ness, and the dreariness of home, entered thoroughly into his
father's feelings about paying the creditors ; and the poor lad
brought his first quarter's money, with a delicious sense of
achievement, and gave it to hii father to put into the tin box
which held the savings. The little store of sovereigns in the
tin box seemed to be the only sight that brought a faint beam
of pleasure into the miller's eyes, — faint and transient, for ii
was soon dispelled by the thought that the time would be long —
perhaps longer than his life, — before the narrow savings could
remove the hateful incubus of debt. A deficit of more than
five hundred pounds, with the accumulating interest, seemed
a deep pit to fill with the savings from thirty shillings a- week,
even when Tom' s probable savings were to be added. On this
one point there was entire community of feeling in the four
widely differing beings who sat round the djdng fire of sticks,
which made a cheap warmth for them on the verge of bed-
time. Mrs. Tulliver carried the proud integrity of the Dod- *
sons in her blood, and had been brought up to think that to
wrong people of their money, which was another phrase for
debt, was a sort of moral pillory; it would have been wicked-
ness, to her mind, to have run counter to her husband's desire
to " do the right thing, " and retrieve his name. She had a
confused, dreamy notion that, if the creditors were all paid,
her plate and linen ought to come back to her ; but she had an
inbred perception that while people owed money they were
unable to pay, they couldn't rightly call anything their own.
She murmured a little that Mr. Tulliver so peremptorily re-
fused to receive anything in repayment from Mr. and Mrs,
THE VALLEY OF HOULIATIOH. 293
Moss ; but to all his requirements of household economy sh«
was submissive to the point of denying herself the cheapest
indulgences of mere flavor ; her only rebellion was to smuggle
into the kitchen something that would make rather a better
supper than usual for Tom.
These nariow notions about deht, held by the old-fashioned
Tullivers, may perhaps excite a smile on the faces of many
readers in these days of wide commercial views and wide phi-
losophy, according to which everything rights itself without
any trouble of ours. The fact that my tradesman is out of
pocket by me is to be looked at through the serene certainty
that somebody else's tradesman is in pocket by somebody else;
and since there must be bad debts in the world, why, it is
mere egoism not to like that we in particular should make
them instead of our fellow-citizens. I am telling the history
of very simple people, who had never had any illuminating
doubts as to personal integrity and honor.
Under all this grim melancholy and narrowing concentra-
tion of desire, Mr. Tulliver retained the feeling toward his
" little wench " which made her presence a need to him, though
it would not suffice to cheer him. She was still the desire of
his eyes ; but the sweet spring of fatherly love was now min-
gled with bitterness, like everything else. When Maggie laid
down her work at night, it was her habit to get a low stool
and sit by her father's knee, leaning her cheek against it.
How she wished he would stroke her head, or give some sign
that he was soothed by the sense that he had a daughter who
loved him ! But now she got no answer to her little caresses,
either from her father or from Tom, — the two idols of her life.
Tom was weary and abstracted in the short intervals when hs
was at home, and her father was bitterly preoccupied with th»
thought that the girl was growing up, was shooting up into a
woman; and how was she to do well in life? She had a poor
chance for marrying, down in the world as they were. And
he hated the thought of her marrying poorly, as her aunt Grit-
ty had done; that would be a thing to make him turn in his
grave, — the little wench so pulled down by children and toil,
«»s her aunt Moss was. When uncultured minds, confined to a
narrow range of personal experience, are under the pressure of
294 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
continued misfortune, their inward life is apt to become a per*
petually repeated round of sad and bitter thoughts ; the same
words, the same scenes, are revolved over and over again, the
same mood accompanies them ; the end of the year finds them
as much what they were at the beginning as if they were ma-
chines set to a recurrent series of movements.
1 The sameness of the days was broken by few visitors. Un-
cles and aunts paid only short visits now; of course, they
could not stay to meals, and the constraint caused by Mr. Tul-
liver's savage silence, which seemed to add to the hollow reso-
nance of the bare, uncarpeted room when the aunts were talk-
ing, heightened the unpleasantness of these family visits on
all sides, and tended to make them rare. As for other ac-
quaintances, there is a chill air surrounding those who are
down in the world, and people are glad to get away from
them, as from a cold room; human beings, mere men and
women, without furniture, without anything to offer you, who
have ceased to count as anybody, present an embarrassing
negation of reasons for wishing to see them, or of subjects on
which to converse with them. At that distant day, there
was a dreary isolation in the civilized Christian society of
these realms for families that had dropped below their origi-
nal level, unless they belonged to a sectarian church, which
gets some warmth of brotherhood by walling in the sacred fire.
CHAPTER III.
A VOICE FROM THE PAST.
Osns afternoon, when the chestnuts were coming ir»to flower,'
Maggie had brought her chair outside the front door, and was
seated there with a book on her knees. Her dark eyes had
wandered from the book, but they did not ieem to be enjoying
the sunshine which pierced the screen of jasmine on the pro-
jecting porch at her right, and thrsw leafy shadows on her
pale round cheek; they seemed rather to be searching for
something thi* ^as uot disclosed by the sunshine. It had
THE VALLEY OP HUMILIATION. 295
been a more miserable day than usual; her father, after a
visit of Wakem's, had had a paroxysm of rage, in which for
some trifling fault he had beaten the boy who served in the
mill. Once before, since his illness, he had had a similar
paroxysm, in which he had beaten his horse, and the scene
had left a lasting terror in Maggie's mind. The thought had
risen, that some time or other he might beat her mother if she
happened to speak in her feeble way at the wrong moment.
'The keenest of all dread with her was lest her father should
add to his present misfortune the wretchedness of doing some-
thing irretrievably disgraceful. The battered school-book of
Tom's which she held on her knees could give her no forti-
tude under the pressure of that dread; and again and again
her eyes had rilled with tears, as they wandered vaguely, see-
ing neither the chestnut-trees, nor the distant horizon, but
only future scenes of home-sorrow.
Suddenly she was roused by the sound of the opening gate
and of footsteps on the gravel. It was not Tom who was en-
tering, but a man in a sealskin cap and a blue plush waistcoat,
carrying a pack on his back, and followed closely by a bull-
terrier of brindled coat and defiant aspect.
" Oh, Bob, it's you! " said Maggie, starting up with a smile
of pleased recognition, for there had been no abundance of
kind acts to efface the recollection of Bob's generosity; "I'm
so glad to see you."
" Thank you, Miss, " said Bob, lifting his cap and showing
a delighted face, but immediately relieving himself of some
accompanying embarrassment by looking down at his dog, and
saying in a tone of disgust, " Get out wr* you, you thunderin*
sawney ! "
" My brother is not at home yet, Bob," said Maggie; "he is
always at St. Ogg's in the daytime."
" Well, Miss," said Bob, " I should be glad to see Mr. Tom,
but that isn't just what I'm come for, — look here! "
Bob was in the act of depositing his pack on the door-step,
and with it a row of small books fastened together with string.
Apparently, however, they were not the object to which ha
wished to call Maggie's attention, but rather something which
he had carried under his arm, wrapped in a red handkerchief.
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"See here!" he said again, laying the red parcel on th«
Others and unfolding it; "you won't think I'm a-makin' too
free, Hiss, I hope, bat I lighted on these books, and I thought
they might make up to you a bit for them as you've lost; for
I beared you speak o' picture, — an' as for picture, look here! "
The opening of the red handkerchief had disclosed a super-
annuated **' Keepsake " and six or seven numbers of a " Portrait
Gallery," in royal octavo; and the emphatic request to look.-
referred to a portrait of George the Fourth in all the majesty'
of his depressed cranium and voluminous neckcloth.
* There's all aorta o' genelmen here," Bob went on, turning
over the leaves with some excitement, " wi' all sorts o' nose —
an' some bald an' some wi' wigs, — Parlament genelmen, I
reckon. An' here," he added, opening the "Keepsake," —
*hert?» ladies for you, some wi' curly hair and some wi'
smooth, an' some a-smiling wi' their heads o* one side, an'
some as if they were goin' to cry, — look here, — a-sittin' on
the ground out o' door, dressed like the ladies I'n seen get out
o' the carriages at the balls in th' Old Hall there. My eyes !
I wonder what the chaps wear as go a-courtin* 'em! I sot up
till *he cl ck was gone twelve last night, a-lookin' at 'em, — I
did, — tall they stared at me out o' the picture as if they'd
know when I spoke to 'em. But, lore! I shouldn't know
what to say to 'em. They'll be more fittin' company for you,
Miss; and the man at the book-stall, he said they banged
iverything for picture; he said they was a fust-rate article."
"And you've bought them for me, Bob?" said Maggie,
deeply touched by this simple kindness. " How very, very
good of you! But I'm afraid you gave a great deal of money
for them,"
"Not me!" said Bob. "Fd ha' gev three times the
money if they'll make up to you a bit for them as was sold
away from you, Miss. For I'n niver forgot how you looked
when you fretted about the botks bein' gone: it's stuck by me
as if it was a pictur hingin' before me. An' when I see'd the
book open upo* the stall, wi' the lady lookin' out of it wi' eyes
a bit like your'n when you was frettin', — you'll excuse my
takin' the liberty, Miss, — I thought I'd make free to buy it for
you, an' then I bought the books full o' genelmeu to match;
THB VALLEY OP HUMILIATION.
•n* then " — here Bob took tip the small stringed packet of
books — " I thought you might like a bit more print as well as
the picture, an' I got these for a sayso, — they're cram-full o*
print, an' I thought they'd do no harm comin' along wr* these
bettermost books. An9 1 hope yon won't say me nay, an' taQ
me as you won't have 'em, like Mr. Tom did wi' the BUT-
reigns."
"2s~o, indeed, Bob,9 said Maggie, "I'm very thankful to
you for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom.
I don' t think any one ever did such a kind thing for me before.
I haven't many friends who care for me."
" Her a dog, Miss I — they're better friends nor any Chris-
tian," said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had
taken np with the intention of harrying away ; for he felt con-
siderable shyness in talking to a young lass lifca llaggw^
tVmghj as he usually said of frimwlf, " his tongue overrun
him " when he began to speak. " I can't give you Mumps,
'cause he'd break his heart to go away from me — eh, Mumps,
what do you say, you riff-raff? " (Mumps declined to express
himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement
of his tail.) " But I'd get you a pup, Miss, an* welcome.*
"No, thank you, Bob. TTe have a yard dog, and I mayn't
keep a dog of my own."
" Eh, that's a pity; else there's a pup, — if you didn't mind
about it not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the
Punch show, — an uncommon sensible bitch; she means more
sense wi' her bark nor hylf tfu> chaps *^an put into their talk
from breakfast to sundown. There's one chap carries pots,—
a poor, low trade as any on the road, — he says, ' Why, Toby's
nought but a mongrel ; there's nought to look at in her.' But
I says to him, 4 Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrelf
There wasn't much pickin' o* your feyther an' mother, to look
at you.' Xot but I like a bit o' breed myself, but I can't
abide to see one cur grinnin* at another. I wish you gocd-
evenin', Miss," said Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again,
under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an un-
disciplined manner.
a Won't you come in the evening some time, and see my
brother, Bob? " said Maggie.
298 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Yes, Miss, thank you — another time. You'll give my
duty to him, if you please. Eh, he's a fine growed chap, Mr.
Tom is; he took to growin' i* the legs, an' /didn't."
The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick hav-
ing somehow gone wrong.
"You don't call Mumps a cur, I suppose?" said Maggie,
divining that any interest she showed in Mumps would be
gratifying to his master.
"No, Miss, a fine way off that," said Bob, with pitying
smile ; " Mumps is as fine a cross as you'll see anywhere along
the Floss, an' I'n been up it wi' the barge times enow. Why,
the gentry stops to look at him; but you won't catch Mumps
a-looking at the gentry much, — he minds his own business, he
does."
The expression of Mumps's face, which seemed to be tol-
erating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was
strongly confirmatory of this high praise.
" He looks dreadfully surly," said Maggie. "Would he let
me pat him?"
" Ay, that would be, and thank you. He knows his com-
pany, Mumps does. He isn't a dog as 'ull be caught wi' gin-
gerbread; he'd smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the gin-
gerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him by th' hour together,
when I'm walking i' lone places, and if I'n done a bit o' mis-
chief, I allays tell him. I'n got no secrets but what Mumps
knows 'em. He knows about my big thumb, he does."
"Your big thumb — what's that, Bob?" said Maggie.
"That's what it is, Miss," said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a
singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man
and the monkey. " It tells i' measuring out the flannel, you
see. I carry flannel, 'cause it's light for my pack, an' it's
dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb tells. I clap my thumb
at the end o' the yard and cut o' the hither side of it, and the
old women aren't up to't."
"But, Bob," said Maggie, looking serious, "that's cheating j
I don't like to hear you say that."
"Don't you, Miss?" said Bob, regretfully. "Then I'm
sorry I said it. But I'm §o used to talking to Mumps, an' he
doesn't mind a bit o' cheating, wheu it's them skinflint wo*
THE VALLEY OP HUMILIATION. 299
men, as haggle an' baggie, an' 'ud like to get their flannel for
nothing, an' 'ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out
on't. I niver cheat anybody as doesn't want to cheat me,
Miss, — lors, I'm a honest chap, I am; only I must hev a bit
o' sport, an' now I don't go wi* th' ferrets, I'n got no varmint
to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good-
evening, Miss."
" Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me
the books. And come again to see Tom."
" Yes, Miss, " said Bob, moving on a few steps ; then turn-
ing half round he said, "I'll leave off that trick wi' my big
thumb, if you don't think well on me for it, Miss; but it 7ud
be a pity, it would. I couldn't find another trick so good, —
an* what 'ud be the use o' havin* a big thumb? It might as
well ha' been narrow."
Maggie, thus exalted into Bob's directing Madonna, laughed
in spite of herself; at which her worshipper's blue eyes twin-
kled too, and under these favoring auspices he touched his
cap and walked away.
The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke's
grand dirge over them ; they live still in that far-off worship
paid by many a youth and man to the woman of whom he
never dreams that he shall touch so much as her little finger
or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the pack on his back, had
as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed maiden as if he
had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name as he
pricked on to the fight.
That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie's
face, and perhaps only made the returning gloom deeper by
contrast. She was too dispirited even to like answering ques-1
iions about Bob's present of books, and she carried them away,
to her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself
on her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She
leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that
the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers.
Maggie's sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had
deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the
favorite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have done
their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing her,
800 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered no
smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight the
poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her. There
was no music for her any more, — no piano, no harmonized
voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their passionate
cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration through
her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left
her now but her little collection of school-books, which she
turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and
they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often
wished for books with more in them ; everything she learned
there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped im-
mediately. And now — without the indirect charm of school-
emulation — Te'le'maque was mere bran ; so were the hard, dry
questions on Christian Doctrine ; there was no flavor in them,
no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been
contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all
Scott's novels and all Byron's poems! — then, perhaps, she
might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to
her actual daily life. And yet they were hardly what she
wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no
dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some expla-
nation of this hard, real life, — the unhappy -look ing father,
seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered
mother ; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the
more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure ; the need
of some tender, demonstrative love ; the cruel sense that Tom
didn't mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no
onger playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant
filings that had come to her more than to others, — she wanted
-some key that would enable her to understand, and in under-
standing, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her
young heart. If she had been taught " real learning and wis-
dom, such as great men knew, " she thought she should have
held the secrets of life ; if she had only books, that she might
learn for herself what wise men knew ! Saints and martyrs
had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets. She
knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as a gen-
eral result of Her teaching, tliat they, were a temporary pro*
THE VALLEY OP HUMILIATION. 301
vision against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at
Smithfield.
In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had
forgotten Tom's school-books, which had been sent home in
his trunk. But she found the stock unaccountably shrunk
down to the few old ones which had been well thumbed, — the
Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus, a torn Eutropius,
the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich's Logic, and the exasperating
Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a con-
siderable step in masculine wisdom, — in that knowledge which
made men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the
yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed ; a certain
mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in
which she seemed to see herselt honored for her surprising at-
tainments. And. so the poor child, with her soul's hunger and
her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-
rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours
with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and
feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understand-
ing was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies.
For a week or two she went on resolutely enough, though with
an occasional sinking of heart, as if she had set out toward
the Promised Land alone, and found it a thirsty, trackless,
uncertain journey. In the severity of her early resolution,
she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off
her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to
the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the water-fowl
rustled forth on its anxious, awkward flight, — with a startled
sense that the relation between Aldrich and this living world
,vas extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened
as the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and
faster on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the
window with her book, her eyes would fix themselves blankly
on the outdoor sunshine ; then they would fill with tears, and
sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies
would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she
fainted under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred
toward her father and mother, who were so unlike what she
would have them to be; toward Tom, who checked her, and
802 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
met her thought or feeling always by some thwarting differ
ence, — would flow out over her affections and conscience like
a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not
difficult for her to become a demon. • Then her brain would
be busy with wild romances of a flight from, home in search of
something less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great
man — Walter Scott, perhaps — and tell him how wretched and
how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her.
But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps en-
ter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat still
without noticing him, would say complainingly, "Come, am I
to fetch my slippers myself? " The voice pierced through
Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides her
own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and
forsaking it.
This afternoon, the sight of Bob's cheerful freckled face had
given her discontent a new direction. She thought it was
part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her
the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, — that
she had to endure this wide, hopeless yearning for that some-
thing, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this
earth. She wished she could have been like Bob, with his
easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had something to
do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose, and
disregard everything else. Poor child ! as she leaned her head
against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and
tighter, and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in
her trouble as if she had been the only girl in the civilized
world of that day who had come [out of her school-life with a
soul untrained for inevitable struggles, with no other part of
her inherited share in the hard- won treasures of thought which
generations of painful toil have laid up for the race of men,
than shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history,
with much futile information about Saxon and other kings of
doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge
of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, govern-
ing the habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelinga
of submission and dependence, becomes religion, — as lonely
in her trouble as if every other girl besides herself had been
THE VALLEY OP HUMILIATION. 303
cherished and watched over by elder minds, not forgetful oi
their own early time, when need was keen and impulse strong.
At last Maggie's eyes glanced down on the books that lay
on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn
over listlessly the leaves of the "Portrait Gallery," but she
soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied
together with string. "Beauties of the Spectator," "Rasse-
las," "Economy of Human Life," "Gregory's Letters," — she
knew the sort of matter that was inside all these j the " Chris-
tian Year," — that seemed to be a hymn-book, and she laid
it down again; but Thomas a Kempis? — the name had come
across her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which,
every one knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name
that strays solitary in the memory. She took up the little,
old, clumsy book with some curiosity; it had the corners
turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever
quiet, had made at certain passages strong pen-and-ink marks,
long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf,
and read where the quiet hand pointed : " Know that the love
of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.
... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or
there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never be
quiet nor free from care ; for in everything somewhat will be
wanting, and in every place there will be some that will cross
thee. . . . Both above and below, which way soever thou dost
turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross ; and every-
where of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have
inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown. ... If thou
desire to mount unto this height, thou must set out coura-
geously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up
and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to thyself, and
unto all private and earthly good. On this sin, that a man
inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth, whatsoever
is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being once over-
come and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and
tranquillity. ... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison
of them that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted,
BO grievously afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised.
Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the more heavy suffer
804 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
ings of others, that thou mayest the easier bear thy little ad-
versities. And if they seem not little unto thee, beware lest
thy impatience be the cause thereof. . . . Blessed are those
ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and listen
not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears
which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly,
but unto the Truth, which teacheth inwardly."
A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she
read, as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of
solemn music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir
while hers was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark
to another, where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly con-
scious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen while a
low voice said :
" Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place
of thy rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all
earthly things are to be looked on as they forward thy journey
thither. All things pass away, and thou together with them.
Beware thou cleave not unto them, lest thou be entangled and
perish. ... If a man should give all his substance, yet it is
as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they
but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet
far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent
devotion, yet is there much wanting ; to wit, one thing, which
is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left
all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain
nothing of self-love. ... I have often said unto thee, and
now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and
thou shalt enjoy much inward peace. . . . Then shall all vain
imaginations, evil perturbations, and superfluous cares fly
away ; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate
love shall die."
Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back,
as if to see a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a
secret of life that would enable her to renounce all other se-
crets ; here was a sublime height to be reached without the
help of outward things ; here was insight, and strength, and
conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul,
where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed
THE VALLEY OP HUMILIATION. 306
through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a prob-
lem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from
fixing her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the cen-
tral necessity of the universe ; and for the first time she saw
the possibility of shifting the position from which she looked
at the gratification of her own desires, — of taking her stand
'out of herself, and looking at her own life as an insignificant
part of a divinely guided whole. She read on and on in the
old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the invisible
Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength j re-
turning to it after she had been called away, and reading till
the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry
of an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat
in the deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation
and entire devotedness ; and in the ardor of first discovery, re-
nunciation seemed to her the entrance into that satisfaction
which she had so long been craving in vain. She had not
perceived — how could she until she had lived longer? — the in-
most truth of the old monk's outpourings, that renunciation
remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie was
still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had
found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and sys-
tems, of mysticism or quietism ; but this voice out of the far-
off middle ages was the direct communication of a human soul's
belief and experience, and came to Maggie as an unquestioned
message.
I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned
book, for which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall,
works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters into sweet-
ness ; while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued,
leave all things as they were before. It was written down by
a hand that waited for the heart's prompting; it is the chron-
icle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph,
not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who
are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it re-
mains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human
consolations ; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and
suffered and renounced, — in the cloister, perhaps, with serge
gown and tonsured head, with tnugh chanting and long fasts,
20
BOO THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
and with a fashion of speech different from ours, — but undo*
the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate
desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weari-
ness.
In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt
to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being
the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are
not only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always pre-
supposed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched
with a light and graceful irony. But then good society has
its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six
weeks deep, its opera and its fae'ry ball-rooms ; rides off its
ennui on thoroughbred horses ; lounges at the club j has to
keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Fara-
day, and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met
in the best houses, — how should it have time or need for belief
and emphasis? But good society, floated on gossamer wings
of light irony, is of very expensive production; requiring
nothing less than a wide and arduous national life condensed
in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines,
sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under
more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over
sheep walks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the
clayey or chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary.
This wide national life is based entirely on emphasis, — the
emphasis of want, which urges it into all the activities neces-
sary for the maintenance of good society and light irony ; it
spends its heavy years often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion,,
amidst family discord unsoftened by long corridors. Under
such circumstances, there are many among its myriads of souls
who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this
unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to uuspecu-
lative minds, — just as you inquire into the stuffing of your
couch when anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and
perfect French springs excite no question. Some have an em-
phatic belief in alcohol, and seek their ekstasis or outside
standing-ground in gin ; but the rest require something that
good society calls " enthusiasm, " — something that will present
motives in an entire absence of high prizes ; something that
TflB VALLEY OP HUMLIATIO11. 307
will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache
with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; some-
thing, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes
resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not our-
selves. Now and then that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-
echoing voice that comes from an experience springing out of
the deepest need ; aud it was by being brought within the long
lingering vibrations of such a voice that Maggie, with her girl's
face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and a hope that helped
her through years of loneliness, making out a faith for herself
without the aid of established authorities and appointed
guides ; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing.
From what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she
threw some exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and im-
petuosity, even into her self-renunciation; her own life was
still a drama for her, in which she demanded of herself that
her part should be played with intensity. And so it came to
pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by being exces-
sive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a
flight, and came down with her poor little half -fledged wings
dabbled in the mud. For example, she not only determined
to work at plain sewing, that she might contribute something
toward the fund in the tin box, but she went, in the first in-
stance, in her zeal of self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen
shop in St. egg's, instead of getting it in a more quiet and in-
direct way; and could see nothing but what was entirely
wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in Tom's reproof of her
for this unnecessary act. "I don't like my sister to do such
things," said Tom; "I'll take care that the debts are paid,
iwithout your lowering yourself in that way." Surely there
'was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness
and self-assertion of that little speech ; but Maggie held it as
dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom' s rebuke
its one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she
used to think, in her long night-watchings, — to her who had
always loved him so ; and then she strove to be contented with
that hardness, and to require nothing. That is the path we
all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism, — the
path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palin-branchw
308 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
grow, rather titan the steep highway of tolerance, just allow
auce, and self 'blame, where there are no leafy honors to ba
gathered and worn.
The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich — that wrinkled
fruit of the tree of knowledge— had been all laid by ; for Mag-
gie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the
thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the,
books with a sort of triumph that she had risen above the need
of them ; and if they had been her own, she would have burned'
them, believing that she would never repent. She read bo
eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas
a Kempis, and the " Christian Year " (no longer rejected as a
"hymn-book"), that they filled her mind with a continual
stream of rhythmic memories ; and she was too ardently learn-
ing to see all nature and life in the light of her new faith, to
need any other material for her mind to work on, as she sat
with her well-plied needle, making shirts and other compli-
cated stitchings, falsely called " plain," — by no means plain to
Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had a capabil-
ity of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of men-
tal wandering.
Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight
any one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward
life of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of im-
prisoned passions, yet shone out in her face with a tender soft
light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the gradually
enriched color and outline of her blossoming youth. Her
mother felt the change in her with a sort of puzzled wonder
that Maggie should be "growing up so good " ; it was amazing
that this once " contrairy " child was become so submissive, so
backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up
from her work and find her mother's eyes fixed upon her; they
were watching and waiting for the large young glance, as ii
her elder frame got some needful warmth from it. Tha
mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, — the only bit
of furniture now on which she could bestow her anxiety and
pride ; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to have
DO personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mothej
about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black lock*
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 309
plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the
pitiable fashion of those antiquated times.
" Let your mother have that bit o' pleasure, my dear," said
Mrs. Tulliver j " I'd trouble enough with your hair once."
So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother,
and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain deco-
ration, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks, stead-
ily refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs.
Tulliver liked to call the father's attention to Maggie's hair
and other unexpected virtues, but he had a brusk reply to
give.
" I knew well enough what she'd be, before now, — it's noth-
ing new to me. But it's a pity she isn't made o* commoner
stuff; she'll be thrown away, I doubt, — there'll be nobody to
marry her as is fit for her."
And Maggie's graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He
sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said
something timidly when they were alone together about trou-
ble being turned into a blessing. He took it all as part of his
daughter's goodness, which madeliis misfortunes the sadder
to him because they damaged her chance in life. In a mind
charged with an eager purpose and an unsatisfied vindictive-
ness, there is no room for new feelings; Mr. Tulliver did not
want spiritual consolation — he wanted to shake off the degra-
dation of debt, and to have his revenge.
BOOK V.-WHEAT AND TARES
CHAPTEE L
XK THE BED DEEPS.
THB tamily sitting-room was a long room with a window at
each end; one looking toward the croft and along tl?<* Kipple
to the banks of the Floss, the other into the mill-yard, Mag-
gie was sitting with her work against the latter window when
she saw Mr. Wakem entering the yard, as usual, on his fine
black horse; but not alone, as usual. Some one vas with
him, — a figure in a cloak, on a handsome pony. Maggie had
hardly time to feel that it was Philip come back, befo'Q they
were in front of the window, and he was raising his hat to
her; while his father, catching the movement by a side-glance,
looked sharply round at them both.
Maggie hurried away from the window and carried her work
upstairs j for Mr. Wakem sometimes came in and inspected
the books, and Maggie felt that the meeting with Philip would
be robbed of all pleasure in the presence of the two fathers.
Some day, perhaps, she could see him when they could just
shake hands, and she could tell him that she remembered bis
goodness to Tom, and the things he had said to her i» the o?4
days, though they could never be friends any more. It was
not at all agitating to Maggie to see Philip again ; she retained
her childish gratitude and pity toward him, and remembered
his cleverness ; and in the early weeks of her loneliness she
had continually recalled the image of him among the people
who had been kind to her in life, often wishing she had him
for a brother and a teacher, as they had fancied it might have
been, in their talk together. But that sort of wishing had
been banished along with other dreams that savored of seeking
WHEAT AND TARES, 311
her own will; and she thought, besides, that Philip might be
altered by his life abroad, — he might have become worldly,
and really not care about her saying anything to him now.
And yet his face was wonderfully little altered, — it was only
a larger, more inanly copy of the pale, email-featured boy's
face, with the gray eyes, and the boyish waving brown hairj
there was the old deformity to awaken the old pity ; and after
all her meditations, Maggie felt that she really should like to
eay a few words to him. He might still be melancholy, as he
always used to be, and like her to look at him kindly. She
wondered if he remembered how he used to like her eyesj
with that thought Maggie glanced toward the square looking-
glass which was condemned to hang with its face toward the
wall, and she half started from her seat to reach it down; but
she checked herself and snatched up her work, trying to re-
press the rising wishes by forcing her memory to recall
snatches of hymns, until she saw Philip and his father return,
ing along the road, and she could go down again.
It was far on in June now, and Maggie was inclined to
lengthen the daily walk which was her one indulgence ; but this
day and the following she was so busy with work which must
be finished that she never went beyond the gate, and satisfied
her need of the open air by sitting out of doors. One of her
frequent walks, when she was not obliged to go to St. Ogg's,
was to a spot that lay beyond what was called the "Hill," —
an insignificant rise of ground crowned by trees, lying along
the side of the road which ran by the gates of Dorlcote Mill.
Insignificant I call it, because in height it was hardly more
than a bank; but there may come moments when Nature
makes a mere bank a means toward a fateful result ; and that
is why I ask you to imagine this high bank crowned with
trees, making an uneven wall for some quarter of a mile along
the left side of Dorlcote Mill and the pleasant fields behind it,
bounded by the murmuring Ripple. Just where this line of
bank sloped down again to the level, a by-road turned off and
led to the other side of the rise, where it was broken into very
capricious hollows and mounds by the working of an exhausted
dtone-quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows
were now clothed with brambles and trees, and here and there
312 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
by a stretch of grass which a few sheep kept close-nibbled. In
her childish days Maggie held this place, called the Bed
Deeps, in very great awe, and needed all her confidence in
Tom's bravery to reconcile her to an excursion thither, — vis-
ions of robbers and fierce animals haunting every hollow. But
now it had the charm for her which any broken ground, any
mimic rock and ravine, have for the eyes that rest habitually
ton the level j especially in summer, when she could sit on &
grassy hollow under the shadow of a branching ash, stooping
aslant from the steep above her, and listen to the hum of in-
sects, like tiniest bells on the garment of Silence, or see the
sunlight piercing the distant boughs, as if to chase and drive
home the truant heavenly blue of the wild hyacinths. In this
June time, too, the dog-roses were in their glory, and that was
an additional reason why Maggie should direct her walk to the
Eed Deeps, rather than to any other spot, on the first day she
was free to wander at her will, — a pleasure she loved so well,
that sometimes, in her ardors of renunciation, she thought she
ought to deny herself the frequent indulgence in it.
You may see her now, as she walks down the favorite turn-
ing and enters the Deeps by a narrow path through a group
of Scotch firs, her tall figure and old lavender gown visible
through an hereditary black silk shawl of some wide-meshed
net-like material; and now she is sure of being unseen she
takes off her bonnet and ties it over her arm. One would cer-
tainly suppose her to be farther on in life than her seventeenth
year — perhaps because of the slow resigned sadness of the
glance from which all search and unrest seem to have departed;
perhaps because her broad-chested figure has the mould of
early womanhood. Youth and health have withstood well the
involuntary and voluntary hardships of her lot, and the nights
in which she has lain on the hard floor for a penance have left
no obvious trace ; the eyes are liquid, the brown cheek is firm
and round, the full lips are red. With her dark coloring and
jet crown surmounting her tall figure, she seems to have a sort
of kinship with the grand Scotch firs, at which she is looking
up as if she loved them well. Yet one has a sense of uneasi-
ness in looking at her, — a sense of opposing elements, of which
a fierce collision is imminent; surely there is a hushed expres-
WHEAT AND TAKBSL 313
sion, such as one often sees in older faces under borderless
caps, out of keeping with the resistant youth, which one ex-
pects to flash out in a sudden, passionate glance, that will dis-
sipate all the quietude, like a damp fire leaping out again when
all seemed safe.
But Maggie herself was not uneasy at this moment. She
was calmly enjoying the free air, while she looked up at the
old fir-trees, and thought that those broken ends of branches
were the records of past storms, which had only made the red
stems soar higher. But while her eyes were still turned up-
ward, she became conscious of a moving shadow cast by the
evening sun on the grassy path before her, and looked down
with a startled gesture to see Philip Wakem, who first raised
his hat, and then, blushing deeply, came forward to her and
put out his hand. Maggie, too, colored with surprise, which
soon gave way to pleasure. She put out her hand and looked
down at the deformed figure before her with frank eyes, filled
for the moment with nothing but the memory of her child's
feelings, — a memory that was always strong in her. She was
the first to speak.
" You startled me, " she said, smiling faintly ; " I never meet
any one here. How came you to be walking here? Did you
come to meet me ? "
It was impossible not to perceive that Maggie felt herself a
child again.
" Yes, I did, " said Philip, still embarrassed ; " I wished to
see you very much. I watched a long while yesterday on the
bank near your house to see if you would come out, but you
never came. Then I watched again to-day, and when I saw the
way you took, I kept you in sight and came down the bank,
behind there. I hope you will not be displeased with me."
" No, " said Maggie, with simple seriousness, walking on as
if she meant Philip to accompany her, " I'm very glad you
came, for I wished very much to have an opportunity of speak-
ing to you. I've never forgotten how good you were long ago
to Tom, and me too; but I was not sure that you would re-
member us so well. Tom and I have had a great deal of
trouble since then, and I think tit at makes one think more of
what happened before the trouble came."
314 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" I can't believe that you have thought of me so much as 1
have thought of you, " said Philip, timidly. " Do you know,
when I was away, I made a picture of you as you looked that
morning in the study -when you said you would not forget me."
Philip drew a large miniature-case from his pocket, and
opened it. Maggie saw her old self leaning on a table, with
her black locks hanging down behind her ears, looking into
.space with strange, dreamy eyes. It was a water-color sketch,
of real merit as a portrait.
" Oh dear," said Maggie, smiling, and flushed with pleasure,
" what a queer little girl I was ! I remember myself with my
hair in that way, in that pink frock. I really was like a gypsy.
I dare say I am. now, " she added, after a little pause ; " am 1
like what you expected me to be? "
The words might have been those of a coquette, but the full,
bright glance Maggie turned on Philip was not that of a co-
quette. She really did hope he liked her face as it was now,
but it was simply the rising again of her innate delight in ad-
miration and love. Philip met her eyes and looked at her in
silence for a long moment, before he said quietly, "No, Mag«
gie."
The light died out a little from Maggie's face, and there
was a slight trembling of the lip. Her eyelids fell lower, but
she did not turn away her head, and Philip continued to look
at her. Then he said slowly :
" You are very much more beautiful than I thought you
would be."
"Am I?" said Maggie, the pleasure returning in a deeper
flush. She turned her face away from him and took some
steps, looking straight before her in silence, as if she were
adjusting her consciousness to this new idea. Girls are so ac-
customed to think of dress as the main ground of vanity, that,
in abstaining from the looking-glass, Maggie had thought more
of abandoning all care for adornment than of renouncing the
contemplation of her face. Comparing herself with elegant,
wealthy young ladies, it had not occurred to her that she could
produce any effect with her person. Philip seemed to like the
silence well. He walked by her side, watching her face, as if
that sight left no room for any other wish. They had passed
WHEAT AND TARES. Slfl
from among the fir-trees, and had now come to a green hollo*
almost surrounded by an amphitheatre of the pale pink dog-
roses. But as the light about them had brightened, Maggie's
face had lost its glow. She stood still when they were in the
hollows, and looking at Philip again, she said in a serious, sad
voice :
" I wish we could have been friends, — I mean, if it would
have been good and right for us. But that is the trial I have
to bear in everything ; I may not keep anything I used to love
when I was little. The old books went; and Tom is different,
and my father. It is like death. I must part with every-
thing I cared for when I was a child. And I must part with
you; we must never take any notice of each other again.
That was what I wanted to speak to you for. I wanted to
let you know that Tom and I can't do as we like about
euch things, and that if I behave as if I had forgotten all
about you, it is not out of envy or pride — or — or any bad
feeling. "
Maggie spoke with more and more sorrowful gentleness as
she went on, and her eyes began to fill with tears. The deep-
ening expression of pain on Philip's face gave him a stronger
resemblance to his boyish self, and made the deformity appeal
more strongly to her pity.
" I know; I see all that you mean," he said, in a voice that
had become feebler from discouragement ; " I know what there
is to keep us apart on both sides. But it is not right, Maggie,
—don't you be angry with me, I am so used to call you Mag-
gie in my thoughts, — it is not right to sacrifice everything to
other people's unreasonable feelings. I would give up a great
deal for my father ; but I would not give up a friendship or —
or an attachment of any sort, in obedience to any wish of his
that I didn't recognize as right."
"I don't know," said Maggie, musingly. "Often, when I
have been angry and discontented, it has seemed to me that I
was not bound to give up anything ; and I have gone on think-
ing till it has seemed to me that I could think away all my
duty. But no good has ever come of that; it was an evil
state of mind. I'm quite sure that whatever I might do, I
should wish in the end that I had gone without anything for
316 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
myself, rather than have made my father's life harder t*
him."
" But would it make his life harder if we were to see each
other sometimes? " said Philip. He was going to say some-
thing else, but checked himself.
" Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't like it. Don't ask me why, or
anything about it, " said Maggie, in a distressed tone. " My
father feels so strongly about some things. He is not at all
happy."
" No more am I, " said Philip, impetuously ; " I am not
happy."
"Why?" said Maggie, gently. "At least — I ought not to
ask — but I'm very, very sorry."
Philip turned to walk on, as if he had not patience to stand
still any longer, and they went out of the hollow, winding
amongst the trees and bushes in silence. After that last word
of Philip's, Maggie could not bear to insist immediately on
their parting.
"I've been a great deal happier," she said at last, timidly,
" since I have given up thinking about what is easy and
pleasant, and being discontented because I couldn't have
my own will. Our life is determined for us ; and it makes
the mind very free when we give up wishing, and only think
of bearing what is laid upon us, and doing what is given us
to do."
"But I can't give up wishing," said Philip, impatiently.
" It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing
while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we
feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.
How can we ever be satisfied without them until our feelings
are deadened? I delight in fine pictures; I long to be able to
paint such. I strive and strive, and cap't produce what I
want. That is pain to me, and always u-ill be pain, until my
faculties lose their keenness, like aged eyes. Then there are
many other things I long for, " — here Philip hesitated a little,
and then said, — "things that other men have, and that will
always be denied me. My life will have nothing great or
beautiful in it ; I would rather not have lived. "
"Oh, Philip," said Maggie, "I wish you didn't feel so."
WHEAT AND TARES. 317
Bnt her heart began to beat with something of Philip's discon*
tent.
" Well, then, " said he, turning quickly round and fixing his
gray eyes entreatingly on her face, " I should be contented to
live, if you would let me see you sometimes." Then, checked
by a fear which her face suggested, he looked away again and
said more calmly, " I have no friend to whom I can tell every-
thing, no one who cares enough about me ; and if I could only
see you now and then, and you would let me talk to you a lit •
tie, and show me that you cared for me, and that we may al-
ways be friends in heart, and help each other, then I might
come to be glad of life."
" But how can I see you, Philip? n said Maggie, falteringly.
(Could she really do him good? It would be very hard to say
" good-by " this day, and not speak to him again. Here was
a new interest to vary the days ; it was so much easier to re-
nounce the interest before it came.)
"If you would let me see you here sometimes, — walk with
you here, — I would be contented if it were only once or twice
in a month. That could injure no one's happiness, and it
would sweeten my life. Besides," Philip went on, with all
the inventive astuteness of love at one-and-twenty, " if there
is any enmity between those who belong to us, we ought all
the more to try and quench it by our friendship ; I mean, that
by our influence on both sides we might bring about a healing
of the wounds that have been made in the past, if I could
know everything about them. And I don't believe there is
any enmity in my own father's mind ; I think he has proved
the contrary."
Maggie shook her head slowly, and was silent, under eon*
flicting thoughts. It seemed to her inclination, that to see
Philip now and then, and keep up the bond of friendship with
him, was something not only innocent, but good; perhaps she
might really help him to find contentment as she had found it
The voice that said this made sweet music to Maggie; but
athwart it there came an urgent, monotonous warning from an-
other voice which she had been learning to obey, — the warning
that such interviews implied secrecy ; implied doing something
ahe would dread to be discovered in, something that» if discov-
518 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
ered, must cause anger and pain; and that the admission ol
anything so near doubleness would act as a spiritual blight.
Yet the music woud swell out again, like chimes borne onward
by a recurrent breeze, persuading her that the wrong lay all in
the faults and weaknesses of others, and that there was such a
thing as futile sacrifice for one to the injury of another. It
was very cruel for Philip that he should be shrunk from, be-
cause of an unjustifiable vindictiveness toward his father, —
poor Philip, whom some people would shrink from only be-
cause he was deformed. The idea that he might become her
lover, or that her meeting him could cause disapproval in that
light, had not occurred to her ; and Philip saw the absence ot
this idea clearly enough, saw it with a certain pang, although
it made her consent to his request the less unlikely. There
was bitterness to him in the perception that Maggie was almost
as frank and unconstrained toward him as when she was a
child.
" I can't say either yes or no, " she said at last, turning
round and walking toward the way she comej "I must wait,
lest I should decide wrongly. I must seek for guidance."
" May I come again, then, to-morrow, or the next day, o*
next week?"
"I think I had better write," said Maggie, faltering again.
" I have to go to St. Ogg's sometimes, and I can put the letter
in the post."
"Oh no," said Philip, eagerly; "that would not be so
well. My father might see the letter — and — he has not
any enmity, I believe, but h& views things differently from
me j he thinks a great deal about wealth and position. Pray
let me come here once more. Tell me when it shall be; or
if you can't tell me, I will come as often as I can till I do
see you."
" I think it must be so, then, " said Maggie, " for I can't be
quite certain of coming here any particular evening."
Maggie felt a great relief in adjourning the decision. She
was free now to enjoy the minutes of companionship; she
almost thought she might linger a little ; the next time they
met she should have to pain Philip by telling him hw deter-
mination,
WHEAT AND TARES. 319
*I can't help thinking, " she said, looking smilingly at Mm,
After a few moments of silence, " how strange it is that we
should have met and talked to each other, just as if it had
been only yesterday when we parted at Lorton. And yet we
must both be very much altered in those five years, — I think
it is five years. How was it you seemed to have a sort of feel-
ing that I was the same Maggie? I was not quite so sure that
you would be the same j I know you are so clever, and you
must have seen and learnt so much to fill your mind ; I was not
quite sure you would care about me now."
" I have never had any doubt that you would be the same,
whenever I might see you," said Philip, — "I mean, the same
in everything that made me like you better than any one else.
I don't want to explain that; I don't think any of the strong-
est effects our natures are susceptible of can ever be explained.
We can neither detect the process by which they are arrived
at, nor the mode in which they act on us. The greatest of
painters only once painted a mysteriously divine child; he
couldn't have told how he did it, and we can't tell why we
feel it to be divine. I think there are stores laid up in our
human nature that our understandings can make no complete
inventory of. Certain strains of music affect me so strangely ^
I can never hear them without their changing my whole atti-
tude of mind for a time, and if the effect vould last, I might
be capable of heroisms."
"Ah! I know what you mean about music; /feel so," said
Maggie, clasping her hands with her old impetuosity. " At
^east, " she added, in a saddened tone, " I used to feel so when
I had any music ; I never have any now except the organ at
church."
" And you long for it, Maggie? n said Philip, looking at her
with affectionate pity. " Ah, you can have very little that is
beautiful in your life. Have you many books? You were so
fond of them when you were a little girl. "
They were come back to the hollow, round which the dog-
roses grew, and they both paused under the charm of the fae'ry
evening light, reflected from the pale pink clusters.
" Xo, I have given up books," said Maggie, qu;et^» " except
ft vwjr, very few,"
320 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Philip had already taken from hia pocket a small volume,
and was looking at the back as he said :
u Ah, this is the second volume, I see, else you might have
liked to take it home with you. I put it in my pocket because
I am studying a scene for a picture."
Maggie had looked at the back too, and saw the title ; it
revived an old impression with overmastering force.
" ' The Pirate,' " she said, taking the book from Philip's
hands. "Oh, I began that once; I read to where Minna is
walking with Cleveland, and I could never get to read the rest.
I went on with it in my own head, and I made several endings;
but they were all unhappy. I could never make a happy end-
ing out of that beginning. Poor Minna! I wonder what is
the real end. For a long while I couldn't get my mind away
from the Shetland Isles, — I used to feel the wind blowing on
me from the rough sea."
Maggie spoke rapidly, with glistening eyes.
"Take that volume home with you, Maggie," said Philip,
watching her with delight. " I don't want it now. I shall
make a picture of you instead, — you, among the Scotch firs
and the slanting shadows."
Maggie had not heard a word he had said ; she was absorbed
in a page at which she had opened. But suddenly she closed
the book, and gave it back to Philip, shaking her head with a
backward movement, as if to say " avaunt " to floating visions.
"Do keep it, Maggie," said Philip, entreatingly j "it will
give you pleasure."
"No, thank you," said Maggie, putting it aside with her
hand and walking on. " It would make me in love with this
world again, as I used to be ; it would make me long to see
and know many things ; it would make me long for a full life. "
" But you will not always be shut up in your present lot ;
why should you starve your mind in that way? It is narrow
asceticism; I don't like to see you persisting in it, Maggie.
Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure. "
" But not for me, not for me, " said Maggie, walking more
hurriedly; "because I should want too much. I must wait;
this life will not last long. "
"Don't hurry away frsm me without saying '
WHEAT AND TARES. 321
Maggie," said Philip, as they reached the group of Scotch firs,
and she continued still to walk along without speaking. " I
must not go any farther, I think, must I?"
"Oh no, I forgot; good-by," said Maggie, pausing, and
putting out her hand to him. The action brought her feeling
back in a strong current to Philip ; and after they had stood
looking at each other in silence for a few moments, with their
hands clasped, she said, withdrawing her hand :
" I'm very grateful to you for thinking of me all those years.
It is very sweet to have people love us. What a wonderful,
beautiful thing it seems that God should have made your heart
so that you could care about a queer little girl whom you only
knew for a few weeks ! I remember saying to you that I
thought you cared for me more that Tom did."
"Ah, Maggie," said Philip, almost fretfully, "you would
never love me so well as you love your brother. n
" Perhaps not, " said Maggie, simply ; " but then, you know,
the first think I ever remember in my life is standing with
Tom by the side of the Floss, while he held my hand; every-
thing before that is dark to me. But I shall never forget you,
though we must keep apart."
. "Don't say so, Maggie," said Philip. "If I kept that lit-
tle girl in my mind for five years, didn't I earn some part in
her? She ought not to take herself quite away from me."
"Not if I were free," said Maggie; "but I am not, I must
submit. " She hesitated a moment, and then added, "And I
wanted to say to you, that you had better not take more notice
of my brother than just bowing to him. He once told me not
to speak to you again, and he doesn't change his mind — Oh
dear, the sun is set. I am too long away. Good-by." She
gave him her hand once more.
"I shall come here as often as I can till I see you again,
Maggie. Have some feeling for me as well as for others."
"Yes, yes, I have," said Maggie, hurrying away, and
quickly disappearing behind the last fir-tree ; though Philip'3
gaze after her remained immovable for minutes as if he saw
her still.
Maggie went home, with an inward conflict already begun j
Philip went home to do nothing but remember an4 tope.
31
322 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
You can hardly help blaming him severely. He was four on
five years older than Maggie, and had a full consciousness of hia
feeling toward her to aid him in foreseeing the character his
contemplated interviews with her would bear in the opinion of
a third person. But you must not suppose that he was capable
of a gross selfishness, or that he could have been satisfied with-
out persuading himself that he was seeking to infuse some
happiness into Maggie's life, — seeking this even more than any
direct ends for himself. He could give her sympathy; he
could give her help. There was not the slightest promise of
love toward him in her manner ; it was nothing more than the
sweet girlish tenderness she had shown him when she was
twelve. Perhaps she would never love him ; perhaps no wo-
man ever could love him. Well, then, he would endure that;
he should at least have the happiness of seeing her, of feeling
some nearness to her. And he clutched passionately the pos-
sibility that she might love him; perhaps the feeling would
grow, if she could come to associate him with that watchful
tenderness which her nature would be so keenly alive to. If
any woman could love him, surely Maggie was that woman ;
there was such wealth of love in her, and there was no one to
claim it all. Then, the pity of it, that a mind like hers should
be withering in its very youth, like a young forest-tree, for
want of the light and space it was formed to flourish in!
Could he not hinder that, by persuading her out of her system
of privation? He would be her guardian angel j he would do
anything, bear anything, for her sake — except not seeing her.
CHAPTEB IL
AUNT GLEGO LEABNS THE BREADTH OP BOB*S THUMB.
WHILE Maggie's life-struggles had lain almost entirely
within her own soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and
the slain shadows forever rising again, Tom was engaged in a
dustier, noisier warfare, grappling with more substantial ob-
stacles, and gaining more defiaite conquests. So it i&§ beep
WHEAT AND TARES. 323
since the days of Hecuba, and of Hector, Tamer of horses; in«
side the gates, the women with streaming hair and uplifted
hands offering prayers, watching the world's combat from afar,
filling their long, empty days with memories and fears j out-
side, the men, in fierce struggle with things divine and human,
quenching memory in the stronger light of purpose, losing the
sense of dread and even of wounds in the hurrying ardor of
action.
From what you have seen of Tom, I think he is not a youth
of whom you would prophesy failure in anything he had thor-
oughly wished; the wagers are likely to be on his side, not-
withstanding his small success in the classics. For Tom had
never desired success in this field of enterprise ; and for get-
ting a fine flourishing growth of stupidity there is nothing like
pouring out on a mind a good amount of subjects in which it
feels no interest. But now Tom's strong will bound together
hia integrity, his pride, his family regrets, and his personal
ambition, and made them one force, concentrating his efforts
and surmounting discouragements. His uncle Deane, who
watched him closely, soon began to conceive hopes of him, and
to be rather proud that he had brought into the employment of
the firm a nephew who appeared to be made of such good com-
mercial stuff. The real kindness of placing him in the ware-
house first was soon evident to Tom, in the hints his uncle
began to throw out, that after a time he might perhaps be
trusted to travel at certain seasons, and buy in for the firm
various vulgar commodities with which I need not shock re-
fined ears in this place ; and it was doubtless with a view to
this result that Mr. Deane, when he expected to take his wine
alone, would tell Tom to step in and sit with him an hour, and
would pass that hour in much lecturing and catechising con-
cerning articles of export and import, with an occasional ex-
cursus of more indirect utility on the relative advantages to
the merchants of St. Ogg's of having goods brought in their
own and in foreign bottoms, — a subject on which Mr. Deane,
as a ship-owner, naturally threw off a few sparks when he got
warmed with talk and wine. Already, in the second year,
Tom's salary was raised ; but all, except the price of his din-
ner and clothes, went home into the tin box ; and he shunned
824 THE MILL ON THE FLOSa
comradeship, lest it should lead him into expenses in spite of
himself. Not that Tom was moulded on the spoony type of
the Industrious Apprentice; he had a very strong appetite
for pleasure, — "would have liked to be a Tamer of horses and
to make a distinguished figure in all neighboring eyes, dis»
pensing treats and benefits to others with well-judged liberal-
ity, and being pronounced one of the finest young fellows of
those parts ; naj', he determined to achieve these things soonei
or later ; but his practical shrewdness told him that the means
to such achievements could only lie for him in present absti-
nence and self-denial} there were certain milestones to be
passed, and one of the first was the payment of his father's
debts. Having made up his mind on that point, he strode
along without swerving, contracting some rather saturnine
sternness, as a young man is likely to do who has a premature
call upon him for self-reliance. Tom felt intensely that com-
mon cause with his father which springs from family pride,
and was bent on being irreproachable as a son ; but his grow-
ing experience caused him to pass much silent criticism on the
rashness and imprudence of his father's past conduct; theif
dispositions were not in sympathy, and Tom's face showed lit-
tle radiance during his few home hours. Maggie had an awe
of him, against which she struggled as something unfair to
her consciousness of wider thoughts and deeper motives ; but
it was of no use to struggle. A character at unity with itself
— that performs what it intends, subdues every counteracting
impulse, and has no visions beyond the distinctly possible— ia
strong by its very negations.
You may imagine that Tom's more and more obvious unlike-
ness to his father was well fitted to conciliate the matemaf
aunts and uncles; and Mr. Deane's favorable reports and pre-
dictions to Mr. Glegg concerning Tom's qualifications for busi-
ness began to be discussed amongst them with various accept-
ance. He was likely, it appeared, to do the family credit
without causing it any expense and trouble. Mrs. Pullet had
always thought it strange if Tom's excellent complexion, so
entirely that of the Dodsons, did not argue a certainty that he
would turn out well ; his juvenile errors of running down the
peacock, and general disrespect to his aunts, only indicating a
WHEAT AND T.\RE8. 325
tinge of Tulliver blood which he had doubtless outgrown. Mr.
Glegg, who had contracted a cautious liking for Tom ever since
his spirited and sensible behavior when the execution was in
the house, was now warming into a resolution to further his
prospects actively, — some time, when an opportunity offered
of doing so La a prudent manner, without ultimate loss ; but
Mrs. Glegg observed that she was not given to speak without
book, as some people were; that those who said least were
most likely to find their words made good; and that when the
right moment came, it would be seen who could do something
•better than talk. Uncle Pullet, after silent meditation for a
period of several lozenges, came distinctly to the conclusion,
that when a young man was likely to do well, it was better
not to meddle with him.
Tom, meanwhile, had shown no disposition to rely on any
one but himself, though, with a natural sensitiveness toward
all indications of favorable opinion, he was glad to see his
uncle Glegg look in on him sometim&s in a friendly way dur-
ing business hours, and glad to be iiivited to dine at his house,
though he usually preferred declining on the ground that he
was not sure of being punctual. But about a year ago, some-
thing had occurred which induced Tom to test his uncle Glegg's
friendly disposition.
Bob Jakin, who rarely returned from one of his rounds
without seeing Tom and Maggie, awaited him on the bridge as
he was coming home from St. Ogg's one evening, that they
might have a little private talk. He took the liberty of ask-
ing if Mr. Tom had ever thought of making money by trading
a bit on his own account. Trading, how? Tom wished to
know. Why, by sending out a bit of a cargo to foreign ports ;
because Bob had a particular friend who had offered to do a
little business for him in that way in Laceham goods, and
would be glad to serve Mr. Tom on the same footing. Tom
was interested at once, and begged for full explanation, won-
dering he had not thought of this plan before. He was so
well pleased with the prospect of a speculation that might
change the slow process of addition into multiplication, that
he at once determined to mention the matter to his father, and
get his consent to appropriate some of the savings in the tia
826 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
box to the purchase of a small cargo. He would rather not
have consulted his father, but he had just paid his last quar-
ter's money into the tin box, and there was no other resource.
All the savings were there ; for Mr. Tulliver would not con-
sent to put the money out at interest lest he should lose it.
Since he had speculated in the purchase of some corn, and had
lost by it, he could not be easy without keeping the money
under his eye.
Tom approached the subject carefully, as he was seated on
the hearth with his father that evening, and Mr. Tulliver lis-
tened, leaning forward in his arm-chair and looking up in
Tom's face with a sceptical glance. His first impulse was to
give a positive refusal, but he was in some awe of Tom's wish-
es, and since he had had the sense of being an " unlucky n
father, he had lost some of his old peremptoriness and deter-
mination to be master. He took the key of the bureau from
his pocket, got out the key of the large chest, and fetched
down the tin box, — slowly, as if he were trying to defer the
moment of a painful parting. Then he seated himself against
the table, and opened the box with that little padlock-key
which he fingered in his waistcoat pocket in all vacant mo-
ments. There they were, the dingy bank-notes and the bright
sovereigns, and he counted them out on the table — only a hun-
dred and sixteen pounds in two years, after all the pinching.
" How much do you want, then? " he said, speaking as if
the words burnt his lips.
" Suppose I begin with the thirty-six pounds, father? " said
Tom.
Mr. Tulliver separated this sum from the rest, and keeping
his hand over it, said :
"It's as much as I can save out o' my pay in a year."
"Yes, father; it is such slow work, saving out of the little
money we get. And in this way we might double our sav-
ings."
"Ay, my lad," said the father, keeping his hand on the
money, " but you might lose it, — you might lose a year o' my
life, — and I haven't got many."
Tom vras silent.
* And you know I wouldn't pay a dividend with the first
WHEAT AND TARES. 327
hundred, because I wanted to see it all in a lump, — and when
I see it, I'm sure on't. If you trust to luck, it's sure to be
against me. It's Old Harry's got the luck in his hands; and
if I lose one year, I shall never pick it up again; death 'ull
o'ertake me."
Mr. Tulliver's voice trembled, and Tom was silent for a few
minutes before he said :
"I'll give it up, father, since you object to it so strongly."
But, unwilling to abandon the scheme altogether, he deter-
mined to ask his uncle Glegg to venture twenty pounds, on ''
condition of receiving five per cent, of the profits. That was
really a very small thing to ask. So when Bob called the next
day at the wharf to know the decision, Tom proposed that they
should go together to his uncle Glegg's to open the business;
for his diffident pride clung to him, and made him feel that
Bobs' tongue would relieve him from some embarrassment.
Mr. Glegg, at the pleasant hour of four in the afternoon of
a hot August day, was naturally counting his wall-fruit to as-
sure himself that the sum total had not varied since yesterday.
To him entered Tom, in what appeared to Mr. Glegg very
questionable companionship, — that of a man with a pack on
his back, — for Bob was equipped for a new journey, — and of
a huge brindled bull-terrier, who walked with a slow, swaying
movement from side to side, and glanced from under his eye-
lids with a surly indifference which might after all be a cover
to the most offensive designs. Mr. Glegg's spectacles, which
had been assisting him in counting the fruit, made these sus-
picious details alarmingly evident to him.
" Heigh ! heigh ! keep that dog back, -will you? " he shout-
ed, snatching up a stake and holding it before him as a shield
when the visitors were within three yards of him.
" Get out wi' you, Mumps," said Bob, with a kick. " He's
as quiet as a lamb, sir," — an observation which Mumps cor-
roborated by a low growl as he retreated behind his master's
legs.
" Why, what ever does this mean, Tom? " said Mr. Glegg,
" Have you brought information about the scoundrels as cut my
trees? " If Bob came in the character of " information," Mr.
Glegg saw reasons for tolerating some irregularity.
328 THE MILL ON THE FLOSa
"No, sir," said Tom; "I came to speak to you about a lit
tie matter of business of my own."
"Ay — well; but what has this dog got to do with it?" said
the old gentleman, getting mild again.
"It's my dog, sir," said the ready Bob. "An* it's me as
put Mr. Tom up to the bit o' business; for Mr. Tom's been a
friend o* mine iver since I was a little chap ; fust thing iver I
did was frightenin' the birds for th' old master. An' if a lifc
o* luck turns up, I'm allays thinkin' if I can let Mr. Tom have
a pull at it. An' it's a downright roarin' shame, as when he's
got the chance o' making a bit o' money wi' sending goods out,
—ten or twelve per zent clear, when freight an' commission's
paid, — as he shouldn't lay hold o' the chance for want o' mon-
ey. An' when there's the Laceham goods, — lorst they're
made o' purpose for folks as want to send out a little carguy ;
light, an* take up no room, — you may pack twenty pound so
as you can't see the passill; an* they're manifacturs as please
fools, so I reckon they aren't like to want a market. An* I'd
go to Laceham an' buy in the goods for Mr. Tom along wi'
my own. An' there's the shupercargo o' the bit of a vessel as
is goin' to take 'e<n out. I know him partic'lar; he's a solid
man, an' got a family i* the town here. Salt, his name is, —
an* a' briny chap he is too, — an' if you don't believe me, I can
take you to him."
Uncle Glegg stood open-mouthed with astonishment at this
unembarrassed loquacity, with which his understanding could
'hardly keep pace. He looked at Bob, first over his spectacles,
then through them, then over them again ; while Tom, doubt-
ful of his uncle's impression, began to wish he had not brought
this singular Aaron, or mouthpiece. Bob's talk appeared less
seemly, now some one besides himself was listening to it.
" You seem to be a knowing fellow," said Mr. Glegg, at last.
"Ay, sir, you say true," returned Bob, nodding his head
aside; "I think my head's all alive inside like an old cheese,
for I'm so full o* plans, one knocks another over. If I hadn't
Mumps to talk to, I should get top-heavy an* tumble in a fit.
I suppose it's because I niver went to school much. That's
•what I jaw my old mother for. I says, ' You should ha1 sent
me to school a bit more,' I says, ' an' then I could ha* read i'
WHEAT AND TARES. 829
the books like fun, an* kep* my head cool an* empty.' Lora,
she's fine an* comior'ble now, my old mother is; she ates her
baked meat an* taters as often as she likes. For I'm gettin*
so full o' money, I must hev a wife to spend it for me. But
it's bothering a wife is, — and Mumps mightn't like her."
Uncle Glegg, who regarded himself as a jocose man since he
had retired from business, was beginning to find Bob amusing,
but he had still a disapproving observation to make, which
kept his face serious.
" Ah, " he said, " I should think you're at a loss for ways o'
spending your money, else you wouldn't keep that big dog, to
eat as much as two Christians. It's shameful — shameful! "
But he spoke more in sorrow than in anger, and quickly
added :
" But, come now, let's hear more about this business, Tom.
I suppose you want a little sum to make a venture with. But
where's all your own money? You don't spend it all — eh? "
" No, sir," said Tom, coloring; " but my father is unwilling
to risk it, and I don't like to press him. If I could get twen-
ty or thirty pounds to begin with, I could pay five per cent for
it, and then I could gradually make a little capital of my own,
and do without a loan."
"Ay — ay," said Mr. Glegg, in an approving tone; "that's
not a bad notion, and I won't say as I wouldn't be your man.
But it 'ull be as well for me to see this Salt, as you talk on.
And then — here's this friend o' yours offers to buy the goods
for you. Perhaps you've got somebody to stand surety for
you if the money's put into your hands? " added the cautious
old gentleman, looking over his spectacles at Bob.
"I don't think that's necessary, uncle," said Tom. "At
least, I mean it would not be necessary for me, because I know
Bob well ; but perhaps it would be right for you to have some
security."
" You get your percentage out o' the purchase, I suppose? *
said Mr. Glegg, looking at Bob.
"No, sir," said Bob, rather indignantly; "I didn't offer to
^et a apple for Mr. Tom, o' purpose to hev a bite out of it my-
rielf. When I play folks tricks, there'll be more fun in 'era
nor that."
330 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Well, but it's nothing but right you should have a smat
percentage," said Mr. Glegg. "I've no opinion o' transac-
tions where folks do things for nothing. It allays looks bad."
" Well, then," said Bob, whose keenness saw at once whafi
was implied, " I'll tell you what I get by't, an' it's money in
my pocket in the end, — I make myself look big, wi' makin' a
bigger purchase. That's what I'm thinking on. Lors I I'm
a 'cute chap, — I am."
"Mr. Glegg, Mr. Glegg! " said a severe voice from the open
parlor window, " pray are you coming in to tea, or are you
going to stand talking with packmen till you get murdered in
the open daylight? "
"Murdered?" said Mr. Glegg} "what* s the woman talk-
ing of? Here's your nephey Tom come about a bit o' busi-
ness."
" Murdered, — yes, — it isn't many 'sizes ago since a packman
murdered a young woman in a lone place, and stole her thim-
ble, and threw her body into a ditch."
"Nay, nay," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly, "you're thinking
o' the man wi' no legs, as drove a dog-cart."
" Well, it's the same thing, Mr. Glegg, only you're fond o'
contradicting what I say; and if my nephey's come about
business, it 'ud be more fitting if you'd bring him into the
house, and let his aunt know about it, instead o' whispering
in corners, in that plotting, underminding way."
" Well, well," said Mr. Glegg, "we'll come in now."
"You needn't stay here," said the lady to Bob, in a loud
voice, adapted to the moral, not the physical, distance between
them. " We don't want anything. I don't deal wi' packmen.
Mind you shut the gate after you."
" Stop a bit; not so fast," said Mr. Glegg; "I haven't done
with this young man yet. Come in, Tom; come in," he add-
ed, stepping in at the French window.
"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., in a fatal tone, "if you're
going to let that man and his dog in on my carpet, before my
very face, be so good as to let me know. A wife's got a right
to ask that, I hope."
"Don't you be uneasy, mum," said Bob, touching his cap.
He saw at once that Mrs. Glegg was a bit of game worth run*
WHEAT AOT) TARES. 333
fcing down, and longed to be at the sport; " we'll stay out upo'
the gravel here,— Mumps and me will. Mumps knows hia com-
pauy, — he does. I might hish at him by th' hour together,
before he'd fly at a real gentlewoman like you. It's wonder-
ful how he knows which is the good-looking ladies ; and'spar-
tic'lar fond of 'em when they've good shapes. Lors! " added
Bob, laying down his pack on the gravel, " it's a thousand pit-
ies such a lady as you shouldn't deal with a packman, i' stead
o' goin' into these newfangled shops, where there's half-a-
dozen fine gents wi' their chins propped up wi' a stiff stock,
a-looking like bottles wi' ornamental stoppers, an' all got to
get their dinner out of a bit o' calico; it Stan's to reason you
must pay three times the price you pay a packman, as is the
nat'ral way o' gettin' goods, — an' pays no rent, an' isn't forced
to throttle himself till the lies are squeezed out on him, wheth-
er he will or no. But lors ! mum, }"ou know what it is better
nor I do, — you can see through them shopmen, I'll be bound."
"Yes, I reckon I can, and through the packmen too," ob-
served Mrs. Glegg, intending to imply that Bob's flattery had
produced no effect on her ; while her husband, standing behind
her with his hands in his pockets and legs apart, winked and
smiled with conjugal delight at the probability of hia wife's
being circumvented.
"Ay, to be sure, mum,*' said Bob. "Why, you must ha'
dealt wi' no end o' packmen when you war a young lass — be-
fore the master here had the luck to set eyes on you. I know
where you lived, I do, — seen th' house many a time, — close
upon Squire Darleigh's, — a stone house wi' steps "
"Ah, that it had," said Mrs. Glegg, pouring out the tea.
" You know something o' my family, then? Are you akin to
that packman with a squint in his eye, as used to bring th'
Irish linen? "
"Look you there now I" said Bob, evasively. "Didn't I
know as you'd remember the best bargains you've made in
your life was made wi' packmen? Why, you see even a
squintin' packman's better nor a shopman as can see straight.
Lors! if I'd had the luck to call at the stone house wi' my
pack, as lies here," — stooping and thumping the bundle em-
phatically with his fist,-^' W»* th' handsome young lasses all
832 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS
stannin* out on the stone steps, it 'ud ha' been summat likt
openin' a pack, that would. It's on'y the poor houses now as
a packman calls on, if it isn't fop the sake o' the sarvant-
maids. They're paltry times, these are. Why, mum, look at
the printed cottons now, an* what they was when you wora
'em, — why, you wouldn't put such a thing on now, I can see.
It must be first-rate quality, the manifactur as you'd buy,—
summat as 'ud wear as well as your own faitures."
"Yes, better quality nor any you're like to carry; you've
got nothing first-rate but brazenness, I'll be bound," said Mrs.
Glegg, with a triumphant sense of her insurmountable sagac-
ity. " Mr. Glegg, are you going ever to sit down to your tea?
Tom, there's a cup for you."
"You speak true there, mum," said Bob. "My pack isn't
for ladies like you. The time's gone by for that. Bargains
picked up dirt cheap I A bit o' damage here an' there, as can
be cut out, or else niver seen i' the weariu', but not fit to offer
to rich folks as can pay for the look o' things as nobody sees.
I'm not the man as 'ud offer t' open my pack to you, mum;
no, no; I'm a imperent chap, as you say, — these times makea
folks imperent, — but I'm not up to the mark o' that."
"Why, what goods do you carry in your pack?" said
Mrs. Glegg. "Fine-colored things, I suppose, — shawls an'
that?"
"All sorts, mum, all sorts," said Bob, — thumping his bun-
dle; "but let us say no more about that, if you please. I'm
here upo* Mr. Tom's business, an' I'm not the man to take
up the time wi' my own."
" And pray, what is this business as is to be kept from me? *
said Mrs. Glegg, who, solicited by a double curiosity, was
obliged to let the one-half wait.
"A little plan o' nephey Tom's here," said good-natured
Mr. Glegg ; " and not altogether a bad 'un, I think. A little
plan for making money ; that's the right sort o' plan for young
folks as have got their fortin to make, eh, Jane?"
" But I hope it isn't a plan where he expects iverything to
be done for him by his friends ; that' s what the young folks
think of mostly nowadays. And pray, what has this packman
got to do wi' what eoca on ;n our family? Can't you speak
WHEAT AND TARES. 833
for yourself, Tom, and let your aunt know things, as a nephey
should?"
" This is Bob Jakin, aunt," said Tom, bridling the irritation
that aunt Glegg's voice always produced. "I've known him
ever since we were little boys. He's a very good fellow, and
always ready to do me a kindness. And he has had some ex-
perience in sending goods out, — a small part of a cargo as a
private speculation; and he thinks if I could begin to do a lit-
tle in the same way, I might make some money. / large in-
terest is got in that way."
" Large interest? " said aunt Glegg, with eagerness j "and
what do you call large interest? n
"Ten or twelve per cent* Bob says, after expenses are
paid."
u Then why wasn't I let to know o' such things before, Mr.
Glegg?" said Mrs. Glegg, turning to her husband, with a deep
grating tone of reproach. " Haven't you allays told me as
there was no getting more nor five per cent? n
"Pooh, pooh, nonsense, my good woman," said Mr. Glegg.
"You couldn't go into trade, could you? You can't get more
than five per cent with security."
" But lean turn a bit o' money for you, an* welcome, mum,"
said Bob, "if you'd like to risk it, — not as there's any risk to
speak on. But if you'd a mind to lend a bit o' money to Mr.
Tom, he'd pay you six or seven per zent, an1 get a trifle for
himself as well; an* a good-natur'd lady like you 'ud like the
feel o* the money better if your nephey took part on it."
"What do you say, Mrs. G.?" said Mr. Glegg. "I've a
notion, rhen I've made a bit more inquiry, as I shall perhaps
start Torn here with a bit of a nest-egg, — he'll pay me int'rest,
you know., — an' if you've got some little sums lyin* idle
twisted up in a stockin' toe, or that
"Mr. Glegg, it's beyond iverything! You'll go and give
information to the tramps next, as they may come and rob
me."
" Well, well, as I was say in', if you like to join me wi*
twenty pounds, you can — I'll make it fifty. That'll be a
pretty good nest-egg, eh, Tom? "
"You're not counting on me, Mr. Glegg, I hope," said his
834 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
wife. "You could do fine things wi' my money, I don* I
doubt"
"Very well," said Mr. Glegg, rather snappishly, "then
we'll do without you. I shall go with you to see this Salt,"
he added, turning to Bob.
"And now, I suppose, you'll go all the other way, Mr.
Glegg," said Mrs. G., "and want to shut me out o' my own
nephey's business. I never said I wouldn't put money into
it, — I don't say as it shall be twenty pounds, though you're
BO ready to say it for me, — but he'll see some day as his aunt's
in the right not to risk the money she's saved for him till it's
proved as it won't be lost."
"Ay, thafs a pleasant sort o' risk, that is," said Mr. Glegg,
indiscreetly winking at Tom, who couldn't avoid smiling.
But Bob stemmed the injured lady's outburst.
"Ay, mum," he said admiringly, "you know what's what
— you do. An' it's nothing but fair. You see how the first
bit of a job answers, an' then you'll come down handsome.
Lors, it's a fine thing.to hev good kin. I got my bit of a nest-
egg, as the master calls it, all by my own sharpness, — ten
suvreigns it was, — wi' dousing the fire at lorry's mill, an' it's
growed an' growed by a bit an' a bit, till I'n got a matter o'
thirty pound to lay out, besides niakin' my mother comf or' ble.
I should get more, on'y I'm such a soft wi' the women, — 1
can't help lettin' 'em hev such good bargains. There's this
bundle, now," thumping it lustily, "any other chap 'ud make
a pretty penny out on it. But me! — lors, I shall sell 'em for
pretty near what I paid for 'em."
" Have you got a bit of good net, now? " said Mrs. Glegg,
in a patronizing tone, moving from the tea-table, and folding
her napkin.
"Eh, mum, not what you'd think it worth your while to
look at. I'd scorn to show it you. It 'ud be an insult to
you."
"But let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, still patronizing. "If
they're damaged goods, they're like enough to be a bit the
better quality."
"No, mum. I know my place," said Bob, lifting up his
pack and shouldering it. " I'm not going t' exDose the low-
WHEAT AND TARES 3311
ness o' my trade to a lady like you. Packs is come down i*
the world; it 'ud cut you to th' heart to see the difference.
I'm at your sarvice, sir, when you've a mind to go and see
Salt."
"All in good time,** said Mr. Glegg, really unwilling to
cut short the dialogue. "Are yon wanted at the wharfs
Tom?"
"No, sir; I left Stowe in my place."
" Come, put down your pack, and let me see," said Mrs.
Glegg, drawing a chair to the window, and seating herself
with much dignity.
"Don't you ask it, mum," said Bob, entreatingly.
"Make no more words," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "but do
as I tell you."
" Eh, mum, I'm loth, that I am," said Bob, slcwly depositing
his pack ou the step, and beginning to untie it with unwilling
fingers. " But what you order shall be done " (much fumbling
iu pauses between the sentences) . " It's not as you'll buy a
single thing on me, — I'd be sorry for you to do it, — for think
o' them poor women up i' the villages there, as niver stir a
hundred yards from home, — it 'ud be a pity for anybody to
buy up their bargains. Lors, it's as good as a junketing to
'em when they see me wi' my pack, an' I shall niver pick up
such bargains for 'em again. Least ways, I've no time now,
for I'm off to Laceham. See here now," Bob went on, be-
coming rapid again, and holding up a scarlet woollen kerchief
with an embroidered wreath in the corner ; " here's a thing to
make a lass's mouth water, an' on'y two shillin' — an' why?
Why, 'cause there's a bit of a moth-hole i' this plain end.
Lors, I think the moths an' the mildew was sent by Provi-
dence o' purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for the good-look-
in' women as han't got much money. If it hadu't been foi
the moths, now, every hankicher on 'em 'ud ha* gone to the
rich, handsome ladies, like you, mum, at five shillin' apiece,
—not a farthin' less; but what does the moth do? Why, it
nibbles off three shillin' o' the price i' no time ; an* then a
packman like me can carry 't to the poor lasses as live under
the dark thack, to make a hit of a blaze for 'em. Lors, it's
as good as a fire, to look at such a hankicher 1 "
536 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS
Bob held it at a distance for admiration, but Mrs. Glegg
Mid sharply :
" Yes, but nobody wants a fire tMs time o* year. Put these
colored things by; let me look at your nets, if you've got 'em."
" Eh, mum, I told you how it 'ud be, " said Bob, flinging
aside the colored things with an air of desperation. " I knowed
it 'ud turn again' you to look at such paltry articles as I carry.
Here's a piece o' figured muslin now, what's the use o* you
lookin' at it? You might as well look at poor folks's victual,
mum ; it 'ud on'y take away your appetite. There's a yard i'
the middle on't as the pattern's all missed, --lors, why, it's a
muslin as the Princess Victoree might ha* wore; but," added
Bob, flinging it behind him on to the turf, as if to save Mrs.
Glegg's eyes, " it'll be bought up by the huckster's wife at
Fibb's End, — that's where it'll go — ten shillin* for the whole
lot — ten yards, countin* the damaged un — five-an' -twenty shil-
lin' 'ud ha* been the price, not a penny less. But I'll say no
more, mum; it's nothing to you, a piece o' muslin like that;
you can afford to pay three times the money for a thing as
isn't half so good. It's nets you talked on ; well, P^e got a
piece as 'ull serve you to make fun on "
"Bring me that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "It's*- buffj
I'm partial to buff."
u Eh, but a damaged thing, " said Bob, in a tone of depre-
cating disgust. " You'd do nothing with it, mum ; you'd give
it to the cook, I know you would, an* it 'ud be a pity, — she'd
look too much like a lady in it; it's UP becoming for servants."
"Fetch it, and let me see you measure it," said Mrs.
Glegg, authoritatively.
Bob obeyed with ostentatious reluctance.
" See what there is over measure I " he said, holding forth
the extra half-yard, while Mrs. Glegg was busy examining the
damaged yard, and throwing her head back to see how far the
fault would be lost on a distant view.
" I'll give you six shilling for it," she said, throwing it down
with the air of a person who mentions an ultimatum.
" Didn't I tell you now, mum, as it 'ud hurt your feelings
to look at my pack? That damaged bit's turned your stoinajli
now; I see it has," said Bob, wrapping the muslin tip with the
WHEAT AND TARES. 837
utmost quickness, and apparently about to fasten up his pack.
" YoVre used to seein* a different sort o' article carried by
packmen, when you lived at the stone house. Packs is come
down i' the world ; I told you that : my goods are for common
folks. Mrs. Pepper 'ull give me ten shillin' for that muslin,
an* be sorry as I didn't ask her more. Such articles answer
i' the wearin', — they keep their color till the threads melt
away i' the wash-tub, an' that won't be while I'm a young
un.r
"Well, seven shilling," said Mrs. Glegg.
"Put it out o' your mind, mum, now do," said Bob.
" Here's a bit o' net, then, for you to look at before I tie up
my pack, just for you to see what my trade's come to, — spotted
and sprigged, you see, beautiful but yallow, — 's been lyin' by
an' got the wrong color. I could niver ha* bought such net,
if it hadn't been yallow. Lors, it's took me a deal o* study
to know the vally o' such articles; when I begun to carry a
pack, I was as ignirant as a pig; net or calico was all the same
to me. I thought them things the most vally as was the thick-
est. I was took in dreadful, for I'm a straightforrard chap,
• — up to no tricks, mum. I can on'y say my nose is my own,
for if I went beyond, I should lose myself pretty quick. An'
I gev five-an'-eightpence for that piece o' net, — if I was to tell
y' anything else I should be tellin' you fibs, — an' five-an'-eight-
pence I shall ask for it, not a penny more, for it's a woman's
article, an' I like to 'commodate the women. Five-an'-eight-
pence for six yards, — as cheap as if it was only the dirt on it
as was paid for."
"I don't mind having three yards of it," said Mrs. Glegg.
"Why, there's but six altogether," said Bob. "No, mum,
it isn' t worth your while ; you can go to the shop to-morrow
an' get the same pattern ready whitened. It's on'y three
times the money; what's that to a lady like you? " He gave
an emphatic tie to his bundle.
" Come, lay me out that muslin, " said Mrs. Glegg. " Here's
eight shilling for it."
" You will be jokin'," said Bob, looking up with a laughing
face ; " I see'd you was a pleasant lady when I fust come to the
winder, "
22
838 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Well, put it me out, " said Mrs. Glegg, peremptorily.
" But if I let you have it for ten shilling inum, you'll be so
good as not tell nobody. I should be a laughin' -stock j the
trade *ud hoot me, if they knowed it. I'm obliged to make
believe as I ask more nor I do for my goods, else they'd find
out I was a flat. I'm glad you don't insist upo' buyin' the
net, for then I should ha' lost my two best bargains for Mrs.
Pepper o' Fibb's End, an* she's a rare customer."
"Let me look at the net again," said Mrs. Glegg, yearning
after the cheap spots and sprigs, now they were vanishing.
"Well, I can't deny you, mum," said Bob, handing it out,
" Eh I see what a pattern now ! Real Laceham goods. Now,
this is the sort o* article I'm recommendin* Mr. Tom to send
out. Lors, it's a fine thing for anybody as has got a bit o'
money; these Laceham goods 'ud make it breed like mag-
gits. If I was a lady wi' a bit o' money ! — why, I know one as
put thirty pound into them goods, — a lady wi' a cork leg, but
as sharp, — you wouldn't catch her runnin' her head into a
sack; she'd see her way clear out o' anything afore she'd be
in a hurry to start. Well, she let out thirty pound to a young
man in the drapering line, and he laid it out i' Laceham goods,
an' a shupercargo o' my acquinetance (not Salt) took 'em out,
an' she got her eight per zent fust go off; an' now you can't
hold her but she must be sendin' out carguies wi' every ship,
till she's gettin' as rich as a Jew. Bucks her name is, she
doesn't live i' this town. Now then, mum, if you'll please tc
give me the net "
" Here's fifteen shilling, then, for the two," said Mrs. Glegg.
"But it's a shameful price."
"Nay, mum, you'll niver say that when you're upo' your
knees i' church i' five years' time. I'm makin' you a present
o' th' articles ; I am, indeed. That eightpence shaves off my
profit as clean as a razor. Now then, sir," continued Bob,
shouldering his pack, "if you please, I'll be glad to go and
see about makin' Mr. Tom's fortin. Eh, I wish I'd got an-
other twenty pound to lay out mi/sen ; I shouldn't stay to say
my Catechism afore I knowed what to do wi't."
" Stop a bit, Mr. Glegg, " said the lady, as her husband took
his hat, "you never will give me the chance o' speaking.
WHEAT AND TARES. 339
You'll go away now, and finish everything about this business,
and come back and tell me it's too late for me to speak. As if
I wasn't my nephey's own aunt, and th' head o' the family
on his mother's side I and laid by guineas, all full weight
for him, as he'll know who to respect when I'm laid in my
coffin."
"Well, Mrs. G., say what you mean," said Mr. G., hastily.
" Well, then, I desire as nothing may be done without my
knowing. I don't say as I sha'n't venture twenty pounds, il
you make out as everything's right and safe. And if I do,
Tom," concluded Mrs. Glegg, turning impressively to her
nephew, "I hope you'll allays bear it in mind and be grateful
for such an aunt. I mean you to pay me interest, you know;
I don't approve o* giving; we niver looked for that in my
family."
"Thank you, aunt," said Tom, rather proudly. "I prefer
having the money only lent to me."
"Very well; that's the Dodson sperrit," said Mrs. Glegg,
rising to get her knitting with the sense that any further re-
mark after this would be bathos.
Salt — that eminently "briny chap" — having been discov-
ered in a cloud of tobacco-smoke at the Anchor Tavern, Mr.
Glegg commenced inquiries which turned out satisfactorily
enough to warrant the advance of the " nest-egg, " to which
aunt Glegg contributed twenty pounds ; and in this modest be-
ginning you see the ground of a fact which might otherwise
surprise you; namely, Tom's accumulation of a fund, un-
known to his father, that promised in no very long time to
meet the more tardy process of saving, and quite cover the
deficit. When once his attention had been turned to this
source of gain, Torn determined to make the most of it, and
lost no opportunity of obtaining information and extending his
small enterprises In not telling his father, he was influenced
by that strange mixture of opposite feelings which often gives
equal truth to those who blame an action and those who ad-
mire it, — partly, it was that disinclination to confidence which
is seen between near kindred, that family repulsion which
spoils the most sacred relations of our lives ; partly, it was the
desire to surprise his father with a great joy. He did not see
140 THE MILL ON THE FL08&
that it would have been better to soothe the interval with 4
new hope, and prevent the delirium of a too sudden elation.
At the time of Maggie's first meeting with Philip, Tom had
already nearly a hundred and fifty pounds of his own capital ;
and while they were walking by the evening light in the Red
Deeps, he, by the same evening light, was riding into Lace-
ham, proud of being on his first journey on behalf of Guest &
Co., and revolving in his mind all the chances that by the end
of another year he should have doubled his gains, lifted off the
obloquy of debt from his father's name, and perhaps — ior he
should be twenty-one — have got a new -start for himself, on a
higher platform of employment. Did he not deserve it? He
was quite sure that he did.
CHAPTER
THE WAVERING BALANCE.
I SAID that Maggie went home that evening from the Red
Deeps with a mental conflict already begun. You have seen
clearly enough, in her interview with Philip, what that conflict
was. Here suddenly was an opening in the rocky wall which
shut in the narrow valley of humiliation, where all her pros-
pect was the remote, unfathoined sky; and some of the niem-
ory-haiinting earthly delights were no longer out of her reach.
She might have books, converse, affection ; she might hear
tidings of the world from which her mind had not yet lost its
sense of exile ; and it would be a kindness to Philip too, who
was pitiable, — clearly not happy. And perhaps here was an
opportunity indicated for making her mind more worthy of its
highest service; perhaps the noblest, completest devoutness
could hardly exist without some width of knowledge ; must she
always live in this resigned imprisonment? It was so blame-
less, so good a thing that there should be friendship between
her and Philip ; the motives that forbade it were so unreason-
able, so unchristian ! But the severe monotonous warning came
again and again, — that she was losing the simplicity and clear*
WHEAT AND TARES. 341
ness of her life by admitting a ground of concealment j and
that, by forsaking the simple rule of renunciation, she was
throwing herself under the seductive guidance of illimitable
wants. She thought she had won strength to obey the warn-
ing before she allowed herself the next week to turn her steps
in the evening to the Eed Deeps. But while she was resolved
to say an affectionate farewell to Philip, how she looked for-
ward to that evening walk in the still, fleckered shade of the
hollows, away from all that was harsh and unlovely ; to the
affectionate, admiring looks that would meet her ; to the sense
•of comradeship that childish memories would give to wiser,
older talk ; to the certainty that Philip would care to hear
everything she said, which no one else cared for 1 It was a
half -hour that it would be very hard to turn her back upon,
with the sense that there would be no other like it. Yet she
said what she meant to say ; she looked firm as well as sad.
" Philip, I have made up my mind ; it is right that we should
give each other up, in everything but memory. I could not
see you without concealment — stay, I know what you are going
to say, — it is other people's wrong feelings that make conceal-
ment necessary ; but concealment is bad, however it may be
caused. I feel that it would be bad for me, for us both. And
then, if our secret were discovered, there would be nothing but
misery, — dreadful anger; and then we must part after all,
and it would be harder, when we were used to seeing each
other."
Philip's face had flushed, and there was a momentary eager-
ness of expression, as if he had been about to resist this deci-
sion with all his might. But he controlled himself, and said,
with assumed calmness, " Well, Maggie, if we must part, let
us try and forget it for one half -hour j let us talk together a
little while, for the last time."
He took her hand, and Maggie felt no reason to withdraw
it ; his quietness made her all the more sure she had given him
great pain, and she wanted to show him how unwillingly she
had given it. They walked together hand in hand in silence.
"Let us sit down in the hollow," said Philip, "where we
stood the last time. See how the dog-roses have strewed the
ground, and spread their opal petals over it."
842 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
They sat down at the roots of the slanting ash.
" I've begun my picture of you among the Scotch firs, Mag*
gie," said Philip, " so you must let me study your face a lit-
tle, while you stay, — since I am not to see it again. Please
turn your head this way. "
This was said in an entreating voice, and it would have been
very hard of Maggie to refuse. The full, lustrous face, with
the bright black coronet, looked down like that of a divinity
well pleased to be worshipped, on the pale-hued, small-featured
face that was turned up to it.
" I shall be sitting for my second portrait, then, " she said,
smiling. " Will it be larger than the other? "
"Oh yes, much larger. It is an oil-painting. You will
look like a tall Hamadryad, dark and strong and noble, just
issued from one of the fir-trees, when the stems are casting
their afternoon shadows on the grass. "
" You seem to think more of painting than of anything now,
Philip?"
" Perhaps I do, " said Philip, rather sadly j " but I think of
too many things, — sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great
harvest from any one of them. I'm cursed with susceptibility
in every direction, and effective faculty in none. I care for
painting and music ; I care for classic literature, and mediaeval
literature, and modern literature j I flutter all ways, and fly
in none. "
"But surely that is a happiness to have so many tastes, —
to enjoy so many beautiful things, when they are within your
reach," said Maggie, musingly. "It always seemed tome a
sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent, — almost
like a carrier-pigeon."
" It might be a happiness to have many tastes if I were like
other men, " said Philip, bitterly. " I might get some power
and distinction by mere mediocrity, as they do ; at least I
should get those middling satisfactions which make men con-
tented to do without great ones. I might think society at St.
Ogg's agreeable then. But nothing could make life worth the
purchase-money of pain to me, but some faculty that would
lift me above the dead level of provincial existence. Yes,
there 13 one thing, — a passion answers as well as a f acuity. "
WHEAT AND TAKER 343
Maggie did not hear the last words; she was struggling
against the consciousness that Philip's words had set her own
discontent vibrating again as it used to do.
" I understand what you mean," she said, "though I know
so much less than you do. I used to think I could never bear
life if it kept on being the same every day, and I must always
be doing things of no consequence, and never know anything
greater. But, dear Philip, I think we are only like children,
that some one who is wiser is taking care of. la it not right
to resign ourselves entirely, whatever may be denied us? I
have found great peace in that for the last two or three years,
even joy in subduing my own will."
" Yes, Maggie, " said Philip, vehemently ; " and you are shut-
ting yourself up in a narrow, self -delusive fanaticism, which
is only a way of escaping pain by starving into dulness all the
highest powers of your nature. Joy and peace are not resig-
nation j resignation is the willing endurance of a pain that is
not allayed, that you don' t expect to be allayed. Stupefaction
is not resignation ; and it is stupefaction to remain in igno-
rance,— to shut up all the avenues by which the life of your
fellow-men might become known to you. I am not resigned ; I
am not sure that life is long enough to learn that lesson. You
are not resigned; you are only trying to stupefy yourself."
Maggie's lips trembled; she felt there was some truth in
what Philip said, and yet there was a deeper consciousness
that, for any immediate application it had to her conduct, it
was no better than falsity. Her double impression corre-
sponded to the double impulse of the speaker. Philip serious-
ly believed what he said, but he said it with vehemence be-
cause it made an argument against the resolution that opposed
his wishes. But Maggie's face, made more childlike by the
gathering tears, touched him with a tenderer, less egoistic
feeling. He took her hand and said gently :
"Don't let us think of such things in this short half -hour,
Maggie. -Let us only care about being together. We shall be
friends in spite of separation. We shall always think of each
other. I shall be glad to live as long as you are alive, because
I shall think there may always come a time when I can — when
will let me help you in some way."
344 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" What a dear, good brother you would have been, Philip,"
said Maggie, smiling through the haze of tears. " I think you
would have made as much fuss about me, and been as pleased
for me to love you, as would have satisfied even me. You
would have loved me well enough to bear with me, and forgive
^me everything. That was what I always longed that Tom
should do. I was never satisfied with a little of anything,
That is why it is better for me to do without earthly happi-
ness altogether. I never felt that I had enough music, — I
wanted more instruments playing together j I wanted voices to
be fuller and deeper. Do you ever sing now, Philip?" she
added abruptly, as if she had forgotten what went before.
"Yes," he said, "every day, almost. But my voice is only
middling, like everything else in me."
"Oh, sing me something, — just one song. I may listen to
that before I go, — something you used to sing at Lorton on a
Saturday afternoon, when we had the drawing-room all to our-
selves, and I put my apron over my head to listen."
"/know," said Philip; and Maggie buried her face in her
hands while he sang sotto voce, " Love in her eyes sits play-
ing," and then said, "That's it, isn't it?"
" Oh no, I won't stay," said Maggie, starting up. " It will
only haunt me. Let us walk, Philip. I must go home. "
She moved away, so that he was obliged to rise and follow
her.
"Maggie," he said, in a tone of remonstrance, "don't per-
sist in this wilful, senseless privation. It makes me wretched
to see you benumbing and cramping your nature in this way.
You were so full of life when you were a child ; I thought
you would be a brilliant woman, — all wit and bright imagina-
tion. And it flashes out in your face still, until you draw
that veil of dull quiescence over it."
" Why do you speak so bitterly to me, Philip? " said Mag-
gie.
" Because I foresee it will not end well ; you can never carry
on this self-torture."
"I shall have strength given me," said Maggie, tremu-
lously.
"No, you will not, Maggie; no one has strength given to do
WHEAT AND TARES. 845
what is unnatural. It is mere cowardice to seek safety in
negations. No character becomes strong in that way. You
will be thrown into the world some day, and then every
rational satisfaction of your nature that you deny now will
assault you like a savage appetite."
Maggie started and paused, looking at Philip with alarm in
her face.
"Philip, how dare you shake me in this way? You are a
tempter."
"No, I am not; but love gives insight, Maggie, and insight
often gives foreboding. Listen to me, — let me supply you
with books; do let me see you sometimes, — be your brother
and teacher, as you said at Lorton. It is less wrong that you
should see me than that you should be committing this long
suicide."
Maggie felt unable to speak. She shook her head and
walked on in silence, till they came to the end of the Scotch
firs, and she put out her hand in sign of parting.
" Do you banish me from this place forever, then, Maggie?
Surely I may come and walk in it sometimes? If I meet you
by chance, there is no concealment in that? "
It is the moment when our resolution seems about to be-
come irrevocable — when the fatal iron gates are about to close
upon us — that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear
reasoning and firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry
that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat
that we love better than victory.
Maggie felt her heart leap at this subterfuge of Philip* s,
and there passed over her face that almost imperceptible shock
which accompanies any relief. He saw it, and they parted
in silence.
Philip's sense of the situation was too complete for him not
to be visited with glancing fears lest he had been intervening
too presumptuously in the action of Maggie's conscience, per-
haps for a selfish end. But no! — he persuaded himself his
end was not selfish. He had little hope that Maggie would
ever return the strong feeling he had for her ; and it must be
better for Maggie's future life, when these petty family ob-
stacles to her freedom had disappeared, that the present
346 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
should not be entirely sacrificed, and that she should hav«
some opportunity of culture, — some interchange with a mind
above the vulgar level of those she was now condemned to live
with. If we only look far enough off for the consequence of
our actions, we can always find some point in the combination
of results by which those actions can be justified; by adopt-
ing the point of view of a Providence who arranges results,
or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find it possible
to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is most
agreeable to us in the present moment. And it was in this
way that Philip justified his subtle efforts to overcome Mag-
gie's true prompting against a concealment that would intro-
duce doubleness into her own mind, and might cause new
misery to those who had the primary natural claim on her.
But there was a surplus of passion in him that made him half
independent of justifying motives. His longing to see Mag-
gie, and make an element in her life, had in it some of that
savage impulse to snatch an offered joy which springs from a
life in which the mental and bodily constitution have made
pain predominate. He had not his full share in the common
good of men; he could not even pass muster with the insigni-
ficant, but must be singled out for pity, and excepted from
what was a matter of course with others. Even to Maggie he
was an exception ; it was clear that the thought of his being
her lover had never entered her mind.
Do not think too hardly of Philip. Ugly and deformed
people have great need of unusual virtues, because they are
likely to be extremely uncomfortable without them; but the
theory that unusual virtues spring by a direct consequence
out of personal disadvantages, as animals get thicker wool in
severe climates, is perhaps a little overstrained. The tempta-
tions of beauty are much dwelt upon, but I fancy they only
bear the same relation to those of ugliness, as the temptation
to excess at a feast, where the delights are varied for eye and
ear as well as palate, bears to the temptations that assail the
desperation of hunger. Does not the Hunger Tower stand as
the type of the utmost trial to what is human in us?
Philip had never been soothed by that mother's love which
flows out to us in the greater abundance because our need is
WHEAT AND TARES. 347
greater, which clings to us the more tenderly because we are
the less likely to be winners in the game of life; and the sense
of his father's affection and indulgence toward him was marred
by the keener perception of his father's faults. Kept aloof
from all practical life as Philip had been, and by nature half
feminine in sensitiveness, he had some of the woman's intoler
ant repulsion toward worldliness and the deliberate pursuit of
sensual enjoyment ; and this one strong natural tie in his life,
— his relation as a son, — was like an aching limb to him.
Perhaps there is inevitably something morbid in a human
being who is in any way unfavorably excepted from ordinary
conditions, until the good force has had time to triumph; and
it has rarely had time for that at two-and-twenty. That
force was present in Philip in much strength, but the sun
himself looks feeble through the morning mists.
CHAPTER IV.
ANOTHER LOVE-SCENTS.
EABLT in the following April, nearly a year after that du-
bious parting you have just witnessed, you may, if you like,
again see Maggie entering the Red Deeps through the group
of Scotch firs. But it is early afternoon and not evening, and
the edge of sharpness in the spring air makes her draw her
large shawl close about her and trip along rather quickly ;
though she looks round, as usual, that she may take in the
sight of her beloved trees. There is a more eager, inquiring
look in her eyes than there was last June, and a smile is hov-
ering about her lips, as if some playful speech were awaiting
the right hearer. The hearer was not long in appearing.
"Take back your Corinne," said Maggie, drawing a book
from under her shawl. "You were right in telling me she
would do me no good ; but you were wrong in thinking I should
wish to be like her."
"Wouldn't you really like to be a tenth Muse, then, Mag-
gie? " said Philip, looking up in her face as we look at a first
S48 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
parting in the clouds that promises us a bright heaven onoe
more.
" Not at all, " said Maggie, laughing. " The Muses were
uncomfortable goddesses, I think, — obliged always to carry
rolls and musical instruments about with them. If I carried
a harp in this climate, you know, I must have a green baize
cover for it; and I should be sure to leave it behind me by
mistake."
" You agree with me in not liking Corinne, then? "
"I didn't finish the book," said Maggie. "As soon as I
came to the blond-haired young lady reading in the park, I
shut it up, and determined to read no further. I foresaw
that that light-complexioned girl would win away all the love
from Corinne and make her miserable. I'm determined to
read no more books where the blond-haired women carry away
all the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice against
them. If you could give me some story, now, where the dark
woman triumphs, it would restore the balance. I want to
avenge Kebecca and Flora Maclvor and Minna, and all the
rest of the dark unhappy ones. Since you are my tutor, you
ought to preserve my mind from prejudices; you are always
arguing against prejudices."
" Well, perhaps you will avenge the dark women in your
own person, and carry away all the love from your cousin
Lucy. She is sure to have some handsome young man of St.
Ogg' s at her feet now ; and you have only to shine upon him,
• — your fair little cousin will be quite quenched in your beams."
" Philip, that is not pretty of you, to apply my nonsense to
anything real," said Maggie, looking hurt. "As if I, with
my old gowns and want of all accomplishments, could be
a rival of dear little Lucy, — who knows and does all sorts of
charming things, and is ten times prettier than I am, — even
if I were odious and base enough to wish to be her rival.
Besides, I never go to aunt Deane's when any one is there; it
is only because dear Lucy is good, and loves me, that she
comes to see me, and will have me go to see her sometimes."
" Maggie," said Philip, with surprise, " it is not like you to
take playfulness literally. You must have been in St. Ogg's
this morning, and brought away a slight infection of dulness."
WHEAT AND TARE& 349
"Well," said Maggie, smiling, "if you meant that for a
joke, it was a poor one; but I thought it wa* a very good re-
proof. I thought you wanted to remind me that I am vain,
and wish every one to admire me most. But it isn't for that
that I'm jealous for the dark women, — not because I'm dark
myself; it's because I always care the most about the un-
happy people. If the blond girl were forsaken, I should like
her best. I always take the side of the rejected lover in thet
stories."
" Then you would never have the heart to reject one your-
self, should you, Maggie?" said Philip, flushing a little.
"I don't know," said Maggie, hesitatingly. Then with a
bright smile, " I think perhaps I could if he were very con-
ceited ; and yet, if he got extremely humiliated afterward, I
should relent."
"I've often wondered, Maggie," Philip said, with some
effort, " whether you wouldn't really be more likely to love a
man that other women were not likely to love."
"That would depend on what they didn't like him for,"
said Maggie, laughing. "He might be very disagreeable.
He might look at me through an eye-glass stuck in his eye,
making a hideous face, as young Torry does. I should think
other women are not fond of that ; but I never felt any pity
for young Torry. I've never any pity for conceited people,
because I think they carry their comfort about with them."
" But suppose, Maggie, — suppose it was a man who was not
conceited, who felt he had nothing to be conceited about ; who
had been marked from childhood for a peculiar kind of suffer-
ing, and to whom you were the day-star of his life ; who loved
you, worshipped you, so entirely that he felt it happiness
enough for him if you would let him see you at rare mo-
ments "
Philip paused with a pang of dread lest his confession
should cut short this very happiness, — a pang of the same
dread that had kept his love mute through long months. A
rush of self -consciousness told him that he was besotted to
have said all this. Maggie's manner this morning had been
as unconstrained and indifferent as ever.
Bui she was not looking indifferent now. Struck with &•
350 THE MTT.T. ON THE FLOSS,
unusual emotion in Philip's tone, she had turned quicklj to
look at him ; and as he went on speaking, a great change came
over her face, — a flush and slight spasm of the features.
as we see in people who hear some news that will require them
to readjust their conceptions of the past. She was quite si-
lent, and walking on toward the trunk of a fallen tree, she
sat down, as if she had no strength to spare for her muscles.
She was trembling.
'• Maggie," said Philip, getting more and more alarmed in
every fresh moment of silence, " I was a fool to say it; forget
that I've said it. I shall be contented if things can be as they
were."
The distress with which he spoke urged Maggie to say some-
thing. "I am so surprised, Philip; I had not thought of it."
And the effort to say this brought the tears down too.
"Has it made you hate me, Maggie?" said Philip, impetu-
ously. " Do you think I'm a presumptuous fool? "
" Oh, Philip ! " said Maggie, " how can you think I hare
such feelings? As if I were not grateful for any love. But
— but I had never thought of your being my lover. It seemed
so far off — like a dream — only like one of the stories one im-
agines— that I should ever have a lover."
u Then can you bear to think of me as your lover, Mag-
gie?" said Philip, seating himself by her, and taking her
hand, in the elation of a sudden hope. " Do you love me? "
Maggie turned rather pale; this direct question seemed not
easy to answer. But her eyes met Philip's, which were in
this moment liquid and beautiful with beseeching love. She
spoke with hesitation, yet with sweet, simple, girlish tender-
ness.
"I think I could hardly love any one better; there is noth-
ing but what I love you for." She paused a little while, and
then added : " But it win be better for us not to say any more
about it^ won't it, dear Philip? You know we couldn't even
be friends, if our friendship were discovered. I have never
felt that I was right in giving way about seeing you, though
it has been so precious to me in some ways; and now the fear
comes upon me strongly again, that it will lead to eviL"
" Ifcit so aril has come, Maggie; and if you had been gtuded
WHEAT AND TARES. 851
67 tliat fear before, you would only have lived through another
dreary, benumbing year, instead of reviving into your real
self."
Maggie shook her head. " It has been very sweety I know,
—all the talking together, and the books, and the feeling that
I had the walk to look forward to, when I could tell you the
thoughts that had come into my head while I was away from
you. But [it has made me restless; it has made me think a
great deal about the world; and I have impatient thoughts
again, — I get weary of my home j and then it cuts me to the
heart afterward, that I should ever have felt weary of my fa-
ther and mother. I think what you call being benumbed was
better — better for me — for then my selfish desires were be-
numbed."
Philip had risen again, and was walking backward and for-
ward impatiently.
"Xo, Maggie, you have wrong ideas of self -conquest, as
I've often told you. What you call self-conquest — blinding
and deafening yourself to all but one train of impressions — is
only the culture of monomania in a nature like yours. n
He had spoken with some irritation, but now he sat down
by her again and took her hand.
"Don't think of the past now, Maggie; think only of our
love. If you can really cling to me with all your heart, every
obstacle will be overcome in time ; we need only wait. I can
live on hope. Look at me, Maggie ; tell me again it is pos-
sible for you to love me. Don't look away from me to that
cloven treej it is a bad omen."
She turned her large dark glance upon him with a sad
smile.
" Come, Maggie, say one kind word, 01 else you were better
to me at Lorton. You asked me if I should like you to kiss
me, — don't you remember? — and you promised to kiss me
when you met me again. You never kept the promise-*
The recollection of that childish time came as a sweet relief
4 > Maggie. It made the present moment less strange to her.
She kissed him almost as simply and quietly as she had done
when she was twelve years old. Philip's eyes flashed witij
delight* but h|a nejt words were words of discontent*
082 THE HILL ON THE FLOS&
w You don't seem happy enough, Maggie; you are forcing
yourself to say you love me, out of pity."
"No, Philip," said Maggie, shaking her head, in her old
childish way; "I'm telling you the truth. It is all new and
strange to mej but I don't think I could love any one better
than I love you. I should like always to live with you — to
make you happy. I have always been happy when I have
been with you. There is only one thing I will not do for your
sake; I will never do anything to wound my father. You
must never ask that from me."
"No, Maggie, I will ask nothing; I will bear everything;
I'll wait another year only for a kiss, if you will only give me
the first place in your heart."
"No," said Maggie, smiling, "I won't make you wait so
long as that." But then, looking serious again, she added,
as she rose from her seat, —
" But what would your own father say, Philip? Oh, it is
quite impossible we can ever be more than friends, — brother
and sister in secret, as we have been. Let us give up think-
ing of everything else."
"No, Maggie, I can't give you up, — unless you are deceiv-
ing me ; unless you really only care for me as if I were your
brother. Tell me the truth."
" Indeed I do, Philip. What happiness have I ever had so
great as being with you, — since I was a little girl, — the days
Tom was good to me? And your mind is a sort of world to
me; you can tell me all I want to know. I think I should
never be tired of being with you."
They were walking hand in hand, looking at each other;
Maggie, indeed, was hurrying along, for she felt it time to be
gone. But the sense that their parting was near made her
more anxious lest she should have unintentionally left some
painful impression on Philip's mind. It was one of those
dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and decep-
tive; when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leases
floodmarks which are never reached again.
They stopped to part among the Scotch firs.
"Then my life will be filled with hope, Maggie, and 1
•hall be happier than other men, in spite of all? We d*
WHEAT AND TARES. 353
belong to each other — for always — whether we are apart or
together? "
"Yes, Philip; I should like never to part} I should like to
make your life very happy."
"I am waiting for something else. I wonder whether it
will come."
Maggie smiled, with glistening tears, and then stooped her
tall head to kiss the pale face that was full of pleading, timid
love, — like a woman's.
She had a moment of real happiness then, — a moment of
belief that, if there were sacrifice in this love, it was all the
richer and more satisfying.
She turned away and hurried home, feeling that in the hour
since she had trodden this road before, a new era had begun
for her. The tissue of vague dreams must now get narrower
and narrower, and all the threads of thought and emotion be
gradually absorbed in the woof of her actual daily life.
CHAPTER y.
THB CLOVEN TREE.
SECRETS are rarely betrayed or discovered according to any
programme our fear has sketched out. Fear is almost always
daunted by terrible dramatic scenes, which recur in spite of the
best-argued probabilities against them; and during a year that
Maggie had had the burthen of concealment on her mind, the
possibility of discovery had continually presented itself under
the form of a sudden meeting with her father or Tom when
she was walking with Philip in the Bed Deeps. She was
aware that this was not one of the most likely events j but it
was the scene that most completely symbolized her inward
dread. Those slight indirect suggestions which are dependent
on apparently trivial coincidences and incalculable states of
mind, are the favorite machinery of "Fact, but are uot tb*
•tuff in which Imagination is apt to work.
Certainly one of the persons about whom Maggie's f«»art
23
864 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
were furtherest from troubling themselves was her aunt Pol-
let, on whom, seeing that she did not live in St. Ogg's, and
was neither sharp-eyed nor sharp-tempered, it would surely
have been quite whimsical of them to fix rather than on aunt
Glegg. And yet the channel of fatality — the pathway of the
lightning — was no other than aunt Pullet. She did not live
at St. Ogg's, but the road from Garum Firs lay by the Eed
Deeps, at the end opposite that by which Maggie entered.
The day after Maggie's last meeting with Philip, being a
Sunday on which Mr. Pullet was bound to appear in funeral hat-
band and scarf at St. Ogg's church, Mrs. Pullet made this the
occasion of dining with sister Glegg, and taking tea with poor
sister Tulliver. Sunday was the one day in the week on which
Tom was at home in the afternoon ; and to-day the brighter
spirits he had been in of late had flowed over in unusually
cheerful open chat with his father, and in the invitation,
"Come, Magsie, you come tool" when he strolled out with
his mother in the garden to see the advancing cherry-blos-
soms. He had been better pleased with Maggie since she
had been less odd and ascetic ; he was even getting rather
proud of her; several persons had remarked in his hearing
that his sister was a very fine girl. To-day there was a pe-
culiar brightness in her face, due in reality to an undercur-
rent of excitement, which had as much doubt and pain as
pleasure in it j but it might pass for a sign of happiness.
"You look very well, my dear," said aunt Pullet, shaking
her head sadly, as they sat round the tea-table. "I niver
thought your girl 'ud be so good-looking, Bessy. But you
must wear pink, my dear; that blue thing as your aunt Glegy
gave you turns you into a crowflower. Jane never was tasty.
Why don't you wear that gown o* mine? n
" It is eo pretty and so smart, aunt. I think it's too showy
for me, — at least for my other clothes, that I must wear
with it"
" To be sure, it 'ud be unbecoming if it wasn't well knows
you' ve got them belonging to you as can afford to give you
such things when they've done with 'em themselves. It
stands to reason I must give my own niece clothes now and
then,— such things as 1 buy every year, and nevgr
WHEAT AND TARES. 355
thing out. And as for Lucy, there's no giving to her, for
she's got everything o' the choicest; sister Deane may well
hold her head up, — though she looks dreadful yallow, poor
thing — I doubt this liver complaint 'ull carry her off. That's
what this new vicar, this Dr. Kenn, said in the funeral ser-
mon to-day."
"Ah, he's a wonderful preacher, by all account, — isn't he,
Sophy?" said Mrs. Tulliver.
" Why, Lucy had got a collar on this blessed day, " contin-
ued Mrs. Pullet, with her eyes fixed in a ruminating manner,
" as I don't say I haven't got as good, but I must look out my
best to match it."
"Miss Lucy's called the bell o' St. Ogg's, they say; that's
a cur'ous word," observed Mr. Pullet, on whom the mysteries
of etymology sometimes fell with an oppressive weight.
"Pooh!" said Mr. Tulliver, jealous for Maggie, "she's a
small thing, not much of a figure. But fine feathers make
fine birds. I see nothing to admire so much in those dimin-
utive women; they look silly by the side o' the men, — out o'
proportion. When I chose my wife, I chose her the right
size, — neither too little nor too big."
The poor wife, with her withered beauty, smiled compla-
cently.
" But the men aren't all big," said uncle Pullet, not without
some self-ref erence ; " a young fellow may be good-looking and
yet not be a six-foot, like Master Tom here."
"Ah, it's poor talking about littleness and bigness, — any-
body may think it's a mercy they're straight," said aunt Pul-
let. "There's that mismade son o' Lawyer Wakem's, I saw
him at church to-day. Dear, dear! to think o' the property
he's like to have; and they say he's very queer and lonely,
doesn't like much company. I shouldn't wonder if he goes
out of his mind; for we never come along the road but he's
a-scrambling out o' the trees and brambles at the Red Deeps. "
This wide statement, by which Mrs. Pullet represented the
fact that she had twice seen Philip at the spot indicated, pro-
duced an effect on Maggie which was all the stronger because
Tom sate opposite her, and she was intensely anxious to look
indifferent. At Philip's name she had blushed, and the blush
566 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
deepened every instant from consciousness, until the mention
of the Red Deeps made her feel as if the whole secret were
betrayed, and she dared not even hold her tea-spoon lest she
should show how she trembled. She sat with her hands
clasped under the table, not daring to look round. Happily,
her father was seated on the same side with herself, beyond
her uncle Pullet, and could not see her face without stooping
forward. Her mother's voice brought the first relief, turning
the conversation ; for Mrs. Tulliver was always alarmed when
the name of Wakem was mentioned in her husband's presence.
Gradually Maggie recovered composure enough to look up;
her eyes met Tom's, but he turned away his head immedi-
ately ; and she went to bed that night wondering if he had
gathered any suspicion from her confusion. Perhaps not;
perhaps he would think it was only her alarm at her aunt's
mention of Wakem before her father ; that was the interpre-
tation her mother had put on it. To her father, Wakem was
like a disfiguring disease, of which he was obliged to endure
the consciousness, but was exasperated to have the existence
recognized by others ; and no amount of sensitiveness in her
about her father could be surprising, Maggie thought.
But Tom was too keen-sighted to rest satisfied with such an
interpretation; he had seen clearly enough that there was
something distinct from anxiety about her father in Maggie's
excessive confusion. In trying to recall all the details that
could give shape to his suspicions, he remembered only lately
hearing his mother scold Maggie for walking in the Red
Deeps when the ground was wet, and bringing home shoes
clogged with red soil ; still Tom, retaining all his old repul-
sion for Philip's deformity, shrank from attributing to his
sister the probability of feeling more than a friendly interest
in such an unfortunate exception to the common run of men.
Tom's was a nature which had a sort of superstitious repug-
nance to everything exceptional. A love for a deformed man
would be odious in any woman, in a sister intolerable. But
if she had been carrying on any kind of intercourse whatever
with Philip, a stop must be put to it at once ; she was dis-
obeying her father's strongest feelings and her brother's ex-
press commands, besides compromising herself by secret meet'
WHEAT AND TARES. SOT
ings. He left home the next morning in that watchful state
of mind which turns the most ordinary course of things into
pregnant coincidences.
That afternoon, about half-past three o'clock, Tom was
standing on the wharf, talking with Bob Jakin about the
probability of the good ship Adelaide coming in, in a day or
two, with results highly important to both of them.
" Eh, " said Bob, parenthetically, as he looked over the fields
on the other side of the river, " there goes that crooked young
Wakem. I know him or his shadder as far off as I can see
'em; I'm allays lighting on him o' that side the river."
A sudden thought seemed to have darted through Tom's
mind. " I must go, Bob," he said j " I've something to attend
to, " hurrying off to the warehouse, where he left notice for
some one to take his place; he was called away home on per-
emptory business.
The swiftest pace and the shortest road took him to the
gate, and he was pausing to open it deliberately, that he
might walk into the house with an appearance of perfect
composure, when Maggie came out at the front door in bonnet
and shawl. His conjecture was fulfilled, and he waited for
her at the gate. She started violently when she saw him.
" Tom, how is it you are come home? Is there anything
the matter? " Maggie spoke in a low, tremulous voice.
"I'm come to walk with you to the Red Deeps, and meet
Philip Wakem," said Tom, the central fold in his brow, which
had become habitual with him, deepening as he spoke.
Maggie stood helpless, pale and cold. By some means,
then, Tom knew everything. At last she said, "I'm not
going, " and turned round.
" Yes, you are; but I want to speak to you first. Where
is my father? "
" Out on horseback."
" And my mother? "
" In the yard, I think, with the poultry.*
" I can go in, then, without her seeing me? n
They walked in together, and Tom, entering the parlor, said
to Maggie, " Come in here."
She obeyed, and he closed the door behind her.
853 THE MILL ON THE PLOS8.
"Now, Maggie, tell me this instant everything that haa
passed between you and Philip Wakem."
"Does my father know anything?" said Maggie, still trem-
bling,
" No," said Tom, indignantly. " But he shall know, if yon
attempt to use deceit toward me any further."
"I don't wish to use deceit," said Maggie, flushing into re-)
sentment at hearing this word applied to her conduct.
"Tell me the whole truth, then,"
"Perhaps you know it."
" Never mind whether I know it or not. Tell me exactly
what has happened, or my father shall know everything."
"I tell it for my fathers sake, then."
u Yes, it becomes you to profess affection for your father,
wnen you have despised his strongest feelings."
" You never do wrong, Tom, " said Maggie, tauntingly.
"Not if I know it," answered Tom, with proud sincerity.
" But I have nothing to say to you beyond this : tell me what
has passed between you and Philip Wakein. When did you
first meet him in the Red Deeps? "
"A year ago," said Maggie, quietly. Tom's severity gave
her a certain fund of defiance, and kept her sense of error in
abeyance. " You need ask me no more questions. We have
been friendly a year. We have met and walked together
often. He has lent me books."
"Is that all?" said Tom, looking straight at her with his
frown.
Maggie paused a moment ; then, determined to make an end
of Tom's right to accuse her of deceit, she said haughtily:
"No, not quite all. On Saturday he told me that he loved
me. I didn't think of it before then; I had only thought of
him as an old friend."
"And you encouraged him?" said Tom, with an expression
of disgust.
"I told him that I loved him too."
Tom was silent a few moments, looking on the ground and
frowning, with his hands in his pockets. At last he looked
up and said coldly, —
" Now, then, Maggie, there are but two courses for you to
WHEAT AND TARB& 359
take, — either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on my
father's Bible, that you will never have another meeting or
speak another word in private with Philip Wakem, or you re-
fuse, and I tell my father everything; and this month, when
by my exertions he might be made happy once more, you will
cause him the blow of knowing that you are a disobedient, de-
ceitful daughter, who throws away her own respectability by
clandestine meetings with the son of a man that has helped to
ruin her father. Choose ! " Tom ended with cold decision,
going up to the large Bible, drawing it forward, and opening
it at the fly-leaf, where the writing was.
It was a crushing alternative. to Maggie.
"Tom," she said, urged out of pride into pleading, "don't
ask me that. I will promise you to give up all intercourse
with Philip, if you will let me see him once, or even only
write to him and explain everything, — to give it up as long
as it would ever cause any pain to my father. I feel some-
thing for Philip too. He is not happy."
"I don't wish to hear anything of your feelings; I have
said exactly what I mean. Choose, and quickly, lest my
mother should come in."
" If I give you my word, that will be as strong a bond to
*ne as if I laid my hand on the Bible. I don't require that
to bind me."
"Do what /require," said Tom. "I can't trust you, Mag-
gie. There is no consistency in you. Put your hand on this
Bible, and say, ' I renounce all private speech and intercourse
with Philip Wakem from this time forth.' Else you will
bring shame on us all, and grief on my father ; and what is
the use of my exerting myself and giving up everything els«
for the sake of paying my father's debts, if you are to bring
madness and vexation on him, just when he might be easy
and hold up his head once more? "
"Oh, Tom, will the debts be paid soon?* said Maggie,
«lasping her hands, with a sudden flash of joy across her
wretchedness.
"If things turn out as I expect," said Tom. "But, "he
added, his voice trembling with indignation, "\»hile I have
been contriving and working that my father maj have some
860 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
peace of mind before he dies, — working for the respectability
of our family, — you have done all you can to destroy both."
Maggie felt a deep movement of compunction; for the mo-
ment, her mind ceased to contend against what she felt to be
cruel and unreasonable, and in her self-blame she justified her
brother.
" Tom, M she said in a low voice, " it was wrong of me ; but
I was so lonely, and I was sorry for Philip. And I think
enmity and hatred are wicked."
" Nonsense ! " said Tom. " Your duty was clear enougn.
Say no more; but promise, in the words I told you."
"I must speak to Philip once more."
"You will go with me now and speak to him."
" I give you my word not to meet him or write to him again
without your knowledge. That is the only thing I will say.
J will put my hand on the Bible if you like. "
" Say it, then."
Maggie laid her hand on the page of manuscript and re-
peated the promise. Tom closed the book, and said, " Now
let us go."
Not a word was spoken as they walked along. Maggie was
suffering in anticipation of what Philip was about to suffer,
and dreading the galling words that would fall on. him from
Tom's lips ; but she felt it was in vain to attempt anything
but submission. Tom had his terrible clutch on her con-
science and her deepest dread ; she writhed under the demon-
strable truth of the character he had given to her conduct, and
yet her whole soul rebelled against it as unfair from its incom-
pleteness. He, meanwhile, felt the impetus of his indigna-
tion diverted toward Philip. He did not know how much of
an old boyish repulsion and of mere personal pride and ani-
mosity was concerned in the bitter severity of the words by
which he meant to do the duty of a son and a brother. Tom
was not given to inquire subtly into his own motives any more
than into other matters of an intangible kind ; he was quite
sure that his own motives as well as actions were good, else
he would have had nothing to do with them.
Maggie's only hope was that something might, for the first
time, have prevented Philip from coming. Then there would
WHEAT AND TARES. 861
I
be delay, — then she might get Tom's permission to write to
him. Her heart beat with double violence when they got un-
der the Scotch firs. It was the last moment of suspense, she
thought; Philip always met her soon after she got beyond
them. But they passed across the more open green space,
and entered the narrow bushy path by the mound. Another
turning, and they came so close upon him that both Tom and
Philip stopped suddenly within a yard of each other. There
was a moment's silence, in which Philip darted a look of in-
quiry at Maggie's face. He saw an answer there, in the pale,
parted lips, and the terrified tension of the large eyes. Her
imagination, always rushing extravagantly beyond an immedi-
ate impression, saw her tall, strong brother grasping the feeble
Philip bodily, crushing him and trampling on him.
" Do you call this acting the part of a man and a gentle-
man, sir?" Tom said, in a voice of harsh scorn, as soon as
Philip's eyes were turned on him again.
" What do you mean? " answered Philip, haughtily.
" Mean? Stand farther from me, lest I should lay hands on
you, and I'll tell you what I mean. I mean, taking advantage
of a young girl's foolishness and ignorance to get her to have
secret meetings with you. I mean, daring to trifle with the
respectability of a family that has a good and honest name to
support."
"I deny that," interrupted Philip, impetuously. "I could
never trifle with anything that affected your sister's happi-
ness. She is dearer to me than she is to you ; I honor her
more than you can ever honor her ; I would give up my life
to her."
"Don't talk high-flown nonsense to me, sir! Do you mean
to pretend that you didn't know it would be injurious to her
to meet you here week after week? Do you pretend you had
any right to make professions of love to her, even if you had
been a fit husband for her, when neither her father nor your
father would over consent to a marriage between you? And
you, — you to try and worm yourself into the affections of a
handsome girl who is not eighteen, and has been shut out
from the world by her father's misfortunes! That's your
t rooked notion of honor, is it? I call it base treachery} I call
362 THE MILL ON THE FLOSa
it taking advantage of circumstances to win what's too good
for you, — what you'd never get by fair means."
" It is manly of you to talk in this way to me, " said Philip,
bitterly, his whole frame shaken by violent emotions. " Giants
have an immemorial right to stupidity and insolent abuse.
You are incapable even of understanding what I feel for your
sister. I feel so much for her that I could even desire to b«
at friendship with you."
"I should be very sorry to understand your feelings," said
Tom, with scorching contempt. " What I wish is that you
should understand me, — that I shall take care of my sister,
and that if you dare to make the least attempt to come near
her, or to write to her, or to keep the slightest hold on her
mind, your puny, miserable body, that ought to have put some
modesty into your mind, shall not protect you. I'll thrash
you ; I'll hold you up to public scorn. Who wouldn't laugh
at the idea of your turning lover to a fine girl? "
"Tom, I will not bear it; I w«ill listen no longer," Maggie
burst out, in a convulsed voice.
" Stay, Maggie ! " said Philip, making a strong effort to
speak. Then looking at Tom, " You have dragged your sis-
ter here, I suppose, that she may stand by while you threaten
and insult me. These naturally seemed to you the right means
to influence me. But you are mistaken. Let your sister
speak. If she says she is bound to give me up, I shall abide
by her wishes to the slightest word."
"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, implor-
ingly. "Tom threatens to tell my father, and he couldn't
bear it; I have promised, I have vowed solemnly, that we
will not have any intercourse without my brother's knowl-
edge."
" It is enough, Maggie. I shall not change ; but I wish you
uo hold yourself entirely free. But trust me ; remember that
I can never seek for anything but good to what belongs to
you."
"Yes," said Tom, exasperated by this attitude of Philip's,
" you can talk of seeking good for her and what belongs to her
now; did you seek her good before? "
" I did, — at some risk, perhaps. But I wished her to have
WHEAT AND TARES. 363
a frfcnd for life, — who would cherish her, who would do her
more justice than a coarse and narrow-minded brother, that
she has always lavished her affections on."
" Yes, my way of befriending her is different from yours ;
and I'll tell you what is my way. I'll save her from disobey-
ing and disgracing her father; I'll save her from throwing
herself away on you, — from making herself a laughing-stock,
— from being flouted by a man like your father, because she's
not good enough for his son. You know well enough what
sort of justice and cherishing you were preparing for her.
I'm not to be imposed upon by fine words; I can see what
actions mean. Come away, Maggie."
He seized Maggie's right wrist as he spoke, and she put out
her left hand. Philip clasped it an instant, with one eager
look, and then hurried away.
Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He
was still holding her wrist tightly, as if he were compelling
a culprit from the scene of action. At last Maggie, with a
violent snatch, drew her hand away, and her pent-up, long-
gathered irritation burst into utterance.
"Don't suppose that I think you are right, Tom, or that I
bow to your will. I despise the feelings you have shown in
speaking to Philip; I detest your insulting, unmanly allusions
to his deformity. You have been reproaching other people all
your life; you have been always sure you yourself are right.
It is because you have not a mind large enough to see that
there is anything better than your own conduct and your own
petty aims."
"Certainly," said Tom, coolly. "I don't see that your
conduct is better, or your aims either. If your conduct, and
Philip Wakem's conduct, has been right, why are you ashamed
of its being known? Answer me that. I know what I have
aimed at in my conduct, and I've succeeded; pray, what good
has your conduct brought to you or any one else?"
"I don't want to defend myself," said Maggie, still with
vehemence: "I know I've been wrong, — often, continually.
But yet, sometimes when I have done wrong, it has been be*
cause 1 have feelings that you would be the better for, if you
had them. If you were in fault ever, if you had done any-
564 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
thing very -wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it brought
youj I should not want punishment to be heaped on you.
But you have always enjoyed punishing me ; you have always
been hard and cruel to me; even when I was a little girl, and
alwayu loved you better than any one else in the world, you
w "* let me go crying to bed without forgiving me. You
have no pity ; you have no sense of your own imperfection and
your ovn s'ns. It is a sin to be hard; it is not fitting for a
mortal, for a Christian. You are nothing but a Pharisee.
You thank God for nothing but your own virtues; you think
they are great enough to win you everything else. You have
not even a vision of feelings by the side of which your shining
virtues are mere darkness I "
" Well, " said Tom, with cold scorn, " if your feelings are
so much better than mine, let me see you show them in some
other way than by conduct that's likely to disgrace us all, —
than by ridiculous flights first into one extreme and then into
another. Pray, how have you shown your love, that you
talk of, either to me or my father? By disobeying and de-
ceiving us. I have a different way of showing my affection."
" Because you are a man, Tom, and have power, and can do
something in the world."
" Then, if you can do nothing, submit to those that can."
u So I will submit to what I acknowledge and feel to be
right. I will submit even to what is unreasonable from my
father, but I will not submit to it from you. You boast of
your virtues as if they purchased you a right to be cruel and
unmanly, as you've been to-day. Don't suppose I would give
ftp Philip Wakem in obedience to you. The deformity you
insult would make me cling to him and care for him the
[more."
"Very well; that is your view of things," said Tom, more
coldly than ever ; " you need say no more to show me what a
wide distance there is between us. Let us remember that in
future, and be silent."
Tom went back to St. Ogg's, to fulfil an appointment with
his uncle Deane, and receive directions about a journey on
which he was to set out the next morning.
Maggie went up to her owe room to pour out all that ia«
WflfiAT AND TARES. 869
rilgnant remonstrance, against which Tom's mind was close
barred, in bitter tears. Then, when the first burst of unsat-
isfied anger was gone by, came the recollection of that quiet
time before the pleasure which had ended in to-day's misery
had perturbed the clearness and simplicity of her life. She
used to think in that time that she had made great conqneste,
and won a lasting stand on serene heights above worldly temp-
tations and conflict. And here she was down again ia the
thick of a hot strife with her own and others' passions. Life
was not so short, then, and perfect rest was not so near as she
had dreamed when she was two years younger. There was
more struggle for her, perhaps more falling. If she had felt
that she was entirely wrong, and that Tom had been entirely
right, she could sooner have recovered more inward harmony;
but now her penitence and submission were constantly ob-
structed by resentment that would present itself to her no
otherwise than as a just indignation. Her heart bled for
Philip; she went on recalling the insults that had been flung
at him with so vivid a conception of what he had felt under
them, that it was almost like a sharp bodily pain to her, mak*
ing her beat the floor with her foot, and tighten her fingers on
her palm.
And yet, how was it that she was now and then conscious
of a certain dim background of relief in the forced separation
from Philip? Surely it was only because the sense of a deliv-
erance from concealment was welcome at any cost.
CHAPTER VL
THB HARD-WON TRIUMPH.
THKEB weeks later, when Dorlcote Mill was at its prettiest
moment in all the year, — the great chestnuts in blossom, and
the grass all deep and daisied, — Tom Tulliver came home to
it earlier than usual in the evening, and as he passed over the
bridge, he looked with the old deep-rooted affection afc the re-
spectable red brick house, which always seemed cheerful and
366 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
inviting outside, let the rooms be as bare and the hearts as sad
as they might inside. There is a very pleasant light in Tom's
blue-gray eyes as he glances at the house-windows j that fold
in his brow never disappears, but it is not unbecoming; it
seems to imply a strength of will that may possibly be with-
out harshness, when the eyes and mouth have their gentlest
expression. His firm step becomes quicker, and the corners
of his mouth rebel against the compression which is meant
to forbid a smile.
The eyes in the parlor were not turned toward the bridge
just then, and the group there was sitting in unexpectant
silence, — Mr. Tulliver in his arm-chair, tired with a long ride,
and ruminating with a worn look, fixed chiefly on Maggie,
who was bending over her sewing while her mother was mak-
ing the tea.
They all looked up with surprise when they heard the well-
known foot.
"Why, what's up now, Tom?" said his father. "You're
a bit earlier than usual."
" Oh, there was nothing more for me to do, so I came away.
Well, mother!"
Tom went up to his mother and kissed her, a sign of un-
usual good-humor with him. Hardly a word or look had
passed between him and Maggie in all the three weeks ; but
his usual incommunicativeness at home prevented this from
being noticeable to their parents.
"Father," said Tom, when they had finished tea, "do you
know exactly how much money there is in the tin box? "
" Only a hundred and ninety -three pound, " said Mr. Tul-
liver. "You've brought less o' late; but young fellows like
to have their own way with their money. Though I didn't
do as I liked before I was of age." He spoke with rather
timid discontent.
"Are you quite sure that's the sum, father?" said Tom.
" I wish you would take the trouble to fetch the tin box down.
I think you have perhaps made a mistake."
" How should I make a mistake? " said his father, sharply.
" I've counted it often enough ; but I can fetch it, if you won't
believe me."
WHEAT AND TARES. 367
It was always an incident Mr. Tulliver liked, in his gloomy
life, to fetch tie tin box and count the money.
"Don't go out of the room, mother," said Tom, as he saw
her moving when his father was gone upstairs.
'•'And isn't Maggie to go?" said Mrs. Tulliver j "because
somebody must take away the things." i
" Just as she likes, " said Tom, indifferently.
That was a cutting word to Maggie. Her heart had leaped
with the sudden conviction that Tom was going to tell their
father the debts could be paid j and Tom would have let her
be absent when that news was told! But she carried away
the tray and came back immediately. The feeling of injury
on her own behalf could not predominate at that moment.
Tom drew to the corner of the table near his father when
the tin box was set down and opened, and the red evening
light falling on them made conspicuous the worn, sour gloom
of the dark-eyed father and the suppressed joy in the face of
the fair-complexioned son. The mother and Maggie sat at
the other end of the table, the one in blank patience, the other
in palpitating expectation.
Mr. Tulliver counted out the money, setting it in order on
the table, and then said, glancing sharply at Tom :
"There now! you see I was right enough."
He paused, looking at the money with bitter despondency.
"There's more nor three hundred wanting; it'll be a fine
while before I can save that. Losing that forty-two pound
wi' the corn was a sore job. This world's been too many for
me. It's took four year to lay this by; it's much if I'm
above ground for another four year. I must trusten to you
to pay 'em," he went on, with a trembling voice, "if you keep
i' the same mind now you're coming o* age. But you're like
enough to bury me first."
He looked up in Tom's face with a querulous desire for
some assurance.
"No, father," said Tom, speaking with energetic decision,
though there was tremor discernible in his voice too, "you
will live to see the debts all paid. You shall pay them with
your own hand."
His tone implied something more than mere hopefulness 01
S68 THE MILL OX THE FLOSS.
resolution. A slight electric shock seemed to pass through
Mr. Tulliver, and he kept his eves fixed on Tom with a look
of eager inquiry, whild Maggie, unable to restrain herself,
rushed to her father's side and knelt down by him. Tom was
silent a little while before he went on.
* A good while ago, my uncle Glegg lent me a little money
to trade with, and that has answered. I have three hundred
and twenty pounds in the bank.*
His mother's arms were round his neck as soon as the last
words were uttered, and she said, half crying:
"Oh, my boy, I knew you'd make iverything right again,
when you got a man."
But his father was silent j the flood of emotion hemmed in
all power of speech. Both Tom and Maggie were struck with
fear lest the shook of joy might even be fatal. But the
blessed relief of tears came. The broad chest heaved, the
muscles of the face gave way, and the gray-haired man
burst into loud sobs. The fit of weeping gradually subsided,
and he sat quiet, recovering the regularity of his breath-
Ing. At last he looked up at his wife and said, in a gentle-
tone:
* Bessy, you must come and kiss me now — the lad has made
you amends. You'll see a bit o* comfort again, belike."
When she had kissed him, and he had held her hand a
minute, his thoughts went back to the money.
"I wish you'd brought me the money to look at, Tom," he
said, fingering the sovereigns on the table ; " I should ha* felt
surer."
"You shall see it to-morrow, father," said Tom. "My
uncle Deane has appointed the creditors to meet to-morrow
at the Golden Lion, and he has ordered a dinner for them at
two o'clock. My uncle Glegg and he will both be there. It
was advertised in the ' Messenger* on Saturday."
"Then Wakem knows on'tl" said Mr. Tulliver, his eye
kindling with triumphant fire. " Ah ! " he went on, with a
long-drawn guttural enunciation, taking out his snuff-box, the
only luxury he had left himself, and tapping it with some-
thing oi his old air of defiance. "I'll get from under hi-s
thumb now, though I mutt leave the old mill. I thought I
WHEAT AND TARES. 369
could ha' held out to die here — but I can't We've got a
glass o' nothing in the house, have we, Bessy ?"
" Yes, " said Mrs. Tulliver, drawing out her much-reduced
bunch of keys, " there's some brandy sister Deane brought me
when I was ill."
, " Get it me, then ; get it me. I feel a bit weak."
" Tom, my lad, " he said, in a stronger voice, when he had
taken some brandy-and-water, " you shall make a speech to 'em.
I'll tell 'em it's you as got the best part o' the money.
They'll see I'm honest at last, and ha' got an honest son.
Ah! Wakem 'ud be fine and glad to have a son like mine, — a
fine straight fellow, — i'stead o' that poor crooked creatur!
You'll prosper i' the world, my lad; you'll maybe see the day
when Wakem and his son 'ull be a round or two below you.
You'll like enough be ta'en into partnership, as your uncle
Deane was before you, — you're in the right way for' t; and
then there's nothing to hinder your getting rich. And if ever
you're rich enough — mind this — try and get th' old mill
again."
Mr. Tulliver threw himself back in his chair; his mind,
which had so long been the home of nothing but bitter dis-
content and foreboding, suddenly filled, by the magic of joy,
with visions of good fortune. But some subtle influence pre-
vented him from foreseeing the good fortune as happening to
himself.
" Shake hands wi* me, my lad, " he said, suddenly putting
out his hand. " It's a great thing when a man can be proud
as he's got a good son. I've had that luck."
Tom never lived to taste another moment so delicious as
that; and Maggie couldn't help forgetting her own griev-
ances. Tom was good ; and in the sweet humility that springs
in us all in moments of true admiration and gratitude, she felt
that the faults he had to pardon in her had never been re-
deemed, as his faults were. She felt no jealousy this evening
that, for the first time, she seemed to be thrown into the
background in her father's mind.
There was much more talk before bedtime. Mr. Tulliver
naturally wanted to hear all the particulars of Tom's trading
adventures, and he listened wi+h growing excitement and de-
24
670 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
light. He was curious to know what had been said on every
occasion; if possible, what had been thought; and Bob Ja-
kin's part in the business threw him into peculiar outbursts
of sympathy with the triumphant knowingness of that remark-
able packman. Bob's juvenile history, so far as it had come
under Mr. Tulliver's knowledge, was recalled with that sense
of astonishing promise it displayed, which is observable in all
reminiscences of the childhood of great men.
It was well that there was this interest of narrative to keep
under the vague but fierce sense of triumph over Wakem,
which would otherwise have been the channel his joy would
have rushed into with dangerous force. Even as it was, that
feeling from time to time gave threats of its ultimate mastery,
in sudden bursts of irrelevant exclamation.
It was long before Mr. Tulliver got to sleep that night; and
the sleep, when it came, was filled with vivid dreams. At
half -past five o'clock in the morning, when Mrs. Tulliver was
already rising, he alarmed her by starting up with a sort of
smothered shout, and looking round in a bewildered way at
the walls of the bedroom.
"What's the matter, Mr. Tulliver?" said his wife. He
looked at her, still with a puzzled expression, and said at
last:
"Ah! — I was dreaming — did I make a noise? — I thought
I'd got hold of him."
CHAPTER VIL
A DAY OP RECKONING.
MB. TTJLLIVER was an essentially sober man, — able to take
his glass and not averse to it, but never exceeding the bounds
of moderation. He had naturally an active Hotspur tempera-
ment, which did not crave liquid fire to set it aglow ; his im-
petuosity was usually equal to an exciting occasion without
any such reinforcements; and his desire for the brandy-and-
water implied that the too sudden joy had fallen with a dan-
gerous shock on a frame depressed by four years of gloom and
WHEAT AND TARES. 371
unaccustomed hard fare. But that first doubtful tottering mo-
ment passed, he seemed to gather strength with his gathering
excitement; and the next day, when he was seated at table
with his creditors, his eye kindling and his cheek flushed with
the consciousness that he was about to make an honorable fig-
ure once more, he looked more like the proud, confident, warm-
hearted, and warm-tempered Tulliver of old times than might
have seemed possible to any one who had met him a week be*
fore, riding along as had been his wont for the last four years
since the sense of failure and debt had been upon him, — with
his head hanging down, casting brief, unwilling looks on those
who forced themselves on his notice. He made his speech,
asserting his honest principles with his old confident eager-
ness, alluding to the rascals and the luck that had been against
him, but that he had triumphed over, to some extent, by
hard efforts and the aid of a good son; and winding up
with the story of how Tom had got the best part of the need-
ful money. But the streak of irritation and hostile triumph
seemed to melt for a little while into purer fatherly pride and
pleasure, when, Tom's health having been proposed, and uncle
Deane having taken occasion to say a few words of eulogy on
his general character and conduct, Tom himself got up and
made the single speech of his life. It could hardly have
been briefer. He thanked the gentlemen for the honor
they had done him. He was glad that he had been able
to help his father in proving his integrity and regaining
his honest name; and, for his own part, he hoped he should
never undo that work and disgrace that name. But the ap-
plause that followed was so great, and Tom looked so
gentlemanly as well as tall and straight, that Mr. Tulliver
remarked, in an explanatory manner, to his friends on his
right and left, that he had spent a deal of money on his
son's education.
The party broke up in very sober fashion at five o'clock.
Tom remained in St. egg's to attend to some business, and
Mr. Tulliver mounted his horse to go home, and describe the
memorable things that had been said and done, to "poor
Bessy and the little wench." The air of excitement that hung
about him was but faintly due to good cheer or any stimulus
872 THE MTT.T. ON THE FLOS&
bat the potent wine of triumphant joy. He did not chocs*
any back street to-day, but rode slowly, with uplifted head
and free glances, along the principal street all the way to the
bridge. Why did he not happen to meet \Yakem? The want
of that coincidence vexed him, and set his mind at work in an
irritating way. Perhaps Wakem was gone out of town to-da}-
on purpose to avoid seeing or hearing anything of an honor-
able action which might well cause him some unpleasaiiS
twinges. If Wakeni were to meet him then, Mr. Tulliver
would look straight at him, and the rascal would perhaps be
forsaken a little by his cool, domineering impudence. He
would know by and by that an honest man was not going to
serve hint any longer, and lend his honesty to fill a pocket al-
ready over-full of dishonest gains. Perhaps the luck was be-
ginning to turn; perhaps the Devil didn't always hold the best
cards in this world.
Simmering in this way, Mr. Tulliver approached the yard-
gates of Dorlcote MiH, near enough to see a well-known figure
coming out of them on a fine black horse. They met about
fifty yards from the gates, between the great chestnuts and
elms and the high bank.
"Tulliver," said Wakem, abruptly, in a haughtier tone than
usual, "what a fool's trick you did, — spreading those hard
lumps on that Far Close 1 I told you how it would be; but
you men never learn to farm with any method."
"Oh!" said Tulliver, suddenly boiling up; "get somebody
else to farm for you, then, as'll ask you to teach him."
"You have been drinking, I suppose," said Wakem, really
believing that this was the meaning of Tulliver's flushed face
and sparkling eyes.
"No, Pve not been drinking," said Tulliver; "I want no
drinking to help me make up my mind as Pll serve no longer
under a scoundrel."
" Very well I you may leave my premises to-morrow, then ;
bold your insolent tongue and let me pass." {Tulliver was
backing his horse across the road to hem Wakem in.)
"Xo, I gJia'n't let you pass," said Tulliver, getting fiercer.
" I shall tell you what I think of you first You're too big |
raskill to get hanged— you're— —•*
WHEAT AND TARES. 373
"Let me pass, you ignorant brute, or I'll ride over you."
Mr. Tulliver, spurring his horse and raising his whip, made
a rush forward; and Wakem' s horse, rearing and staggering
backward, threw his rider from the saddle and sent him side-
ways on the ground. Wakem had had the presence of mind
to loose the bridle at once, and as the horse only staggered a
few paces and then stood still, he might have risen and re-
mounted without more inconvenience than a bruise and a
shake. But before he could rise, Tulliver was off his horse
too. The sight of the long-hated predominant man down,
and In his power, threw him into a frenzy of triumphant ven-
geance, which seemed to give him preternatural agility and
strength. He rushed on Wakem, who was in the act of try-
ing to recover his feet, grasped him by the left arm so as to
press Wakem's whole weight on the right arm, which rested
on the ground, and flogged him fiercely across the back with
his riding-whip. "Wakem shouted for help, but no help came,
until a woman's scream was heard, and the cry of "Father,
father!"
Suddenly, Wakem felt, something had arrested Mr. Tulli-
ver's arm ; for the flogging ceased, and the grasp on his own
arm was relaxed.
" Get away with you — go ! n said Tulliver, angrily. But
it was not to Wakem that he spoke. Slowly the lawyer rose,
and, as he turned his head, saw that Tulliver's arms were
being held by a girl, rather by the fear of hurting the girl
that clung to him with all her young might.
"Oh, Luke — mother — come and help Mr. Wakem!" Mag-
gie cried, as she heard the longed-for footsteps.
"Help me on to that low horse," said Wakem to Luke,
" then I shall perhaps manage j though — conf Gun** it — I thint
this arm is sprained."
With some difficulty, Wakem was heaved on to Tulliver's
horse. Then he turned toward the miller and said, with
white rage, " Your 11 suffer for this, sir. Your daughter is a
witness thac you've assaulted me."
"I don't care," said Mr. Tulliver, in a thick, fierce voice;
* go and show your back, and tell 'em I thrashed you. Tel]
'em I've made things a bit more even i' the world."
874 THE MILL ON THE FLOS3.
"Bide my horse home with me," said Wakem to Luke,
"By the Tofton Ferry, not through the town."
" Father, come in ! " said Maggie, imploringly. Then, see-
ing that Wakem had ridden off, and that no further violence
was possible, she slackened her hold and burst into hysteric
sobs, while poor Mrs. Tulliver stood by in silence, quivering
with fear. But Maggie became conscious that as she was
slackening her hold her father was beginning to grasp he:
and lean on her. The surprise checked her sobs.
" I feel ill — f aintish, " he said. " Help me in, Bessy — I'm
giddy — I've a pain i' the head."
He walked in slowly, propped by his wife and daughter,
and tottered into his arm-chair. The almost purple flush had
given way to paleness, and his hand was cold.
"Hadn't we better send for the doctor?" said Mrs. Tul-
liver.
He seemed to be too faint and suffering to hear her; but
presently, when she said to Maggie, " Go and seek for some-
body to fetch the doctor, " he looked up at her with full com-
prehension, and said, "Doctor? No — no doctor. It's my
head, that's all. Help me to bed."
Sad ending to the day that had risen on them all like a
beginning of better times I But mingled seed must bear a
mingled crop.
In half an hour after his father had lain down Tom came
home. Bob Jakin was with him, come to congratulate " the
old master, " not without some excusable pride that he had
had his share in bringing about Mr. Tom's good luck; and Tom
had thought his father would like nothing better, as a finish
to the day, than a talk with Bob. But now Tom could only
spend the evening in gloomy expectation of the unpleasant
consequences that must follow on this mad outbreak of his
father's long-smothered hate. After the painful news had
been told, he sat in silence; he had not spirit or inclination
to tell his mother and sister anything about the dinner; they
hardly cared to ask it. Apparently the mingled thread in the
web of their life was so curiously twisted together that there
could be no joy without a sorrow coming close upon it. Tom
*ras dejected by the thought that his exemplary effort must
WHEAT AND TARES. 875
always be baffled by the wrong-doing of others ; Maggie was
living through, over and over again, the agony of the moment
in which she had rushed to throw herself on her father's arm,
with a vague, shuddering foreboding of wretched scenes to
come. Not one of the three felt any particular alarm about
Mr. Tulliver's health; the symptoms did not recall his former
dangerous attack, and it seemed only a necessary consequence
that his violent passion and effort of strength, after many
hours of unusual excitement, should have made him feel ill.
Eest would probably cure him.
Tom, tired out by his active day, fell asleep soon, and slept
soundly ; it seemed to him as if he had only just come to bed,
when he waked to see his mother standing by him in the gray
light of early morning.
"My boy, you must get up this minute; I've sent for the
doctor, and your father wants you and Maggie to come to
him."
" Is he worse, mother? "
" He's been very ill all night with his head, but he doesn't
say it's worse; he only said suddenly, ' Bessy, fetch the boy
and girl. Tell 'em to make haste. ' "
Maggie and Tom threw on their clothes hastily in the chill
gray light, and reached their father's room almost at the same
moment. He was watching for them with an expression of
pain on his brow, but with sharpened, anxious consciousness
in his eyes. Mrs. Tulliver stood at the foot of the bed, fright-
ened and trembling, looking worn and aged from disturbed
rest. Maggie was at the bedside first, but her father's glance
was toward Tom. who came and stood next to her.
"Tom, my lad, it's come upon me as I sha'n't get up again.
This world's been too many for me, my lad, but you've done
what you could to make things a bit even. Shake hands wi'
me again, my lad, before I go away from you."
The father and son clasped hands and looked at each other
an instant. Then Tom said, trying to speak firmly,—
" Have you any wish, father — that I can fulfil, when *
"Ay, my lad — you'll try and get the old mill back."
"Yes, father."
"And there's your mother — YOU' 11 try and make bet
376 THE MILL OX THE FLOSS.
amends, all you can, for my bad luck — and there's the little
wench —
The father turned his eyes on Maggie with a still more
eager look, while she, with a bursting heart, sank on her
knees, to be closer to the dear, time-worn face which had
been present with her through long years, as the sign of her
deepest love and hardest trial.
" You must take care of her, Tom — don't you fret, my
wench — there'll come somebody as'll love you and take your
part — and you must be good to her, my lad. I was good to
my sister. Kiss me, Maggie. — Come, Bessy. — You'll manage
to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your mother and me can
lie together."
He looked away from them all when he had said this, and
lay silent for some minutes, while they stood watching him,
not daring to move. The morning light was growing clearer
for them, and they could see the heaviness gathering in his
face, and the dulness in his eyes. But at last he looked tow-
ard Torn and said, —
"I had my turn — I beat him. That was nothing but fair
I never wanted anything but what was fair."
"But, father, dear father," said Maggie, an unspeakable
anxiety predominating over her grief, " you forgive him — you
forgive every one now? "
He did not move his eyes to look at her, but he said, — •
"No, my wench. I don't forgive him. What's forgiving
to do? I can't love a raskill "
His voice had become thicker ; but he wanted to say more,
and moved his lips again and again, struggling in vain to
speak. At length the words forced their way.
"Does God forgive raskills? — but if He does, He won't be
hard wi' me."
His hands moved uneasily, as if he wanted them to remove
some obstruction that weighed upon him. Two or three times
there fell from him some broken words, —
"This world's — too many — honest man — puzzling "
Soon they merged into mere mutterings; the eyes had
ceased to discern; and then came the final silence.
But not of death. For an hour or more the chest heaved,
WHEAT AND TARES. 377
tne loud, hard breathing continued, getting gradually slower,
as the cold dews gathered on the brow.
At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly
lighted soul had forever ceased to be vexed with the painful
riddle of this world.
Help was come now; Luke and his wife were there, and
Mr. Turubull had arrived, too late for everything but u> say,
"This is death."
Tom and Maggie went downstairs together into the room
where their father's place was empty. Their eyes turned to
the same spot, and Maggie spoke, —
"Tom, forgive me — let us always love each other "j and
they clung and wept together.
BOOK VL-THE GREAT TEMPTAllO*
CHAPTKK L
A DUCT IN PAHADWB.
THE weU-furnislied drawing-room, with the open grand
piano, and the pleasant outlook down a sloping garden to a
boat-house by the side of the Floss, is Mr. Deane's. The neat
little lady in mourning, whose light-brown ringlets are falling
over the colored embroidery with which her fingers are busy,
is of course Lucy Deane j and the fine young man who is lean-
ing down from his chair to snap the scissors in the extremely
abbreviated face of the " King Charles " lying on the young
lady's feet is no other than Mr. Stephen Guest, whose dia-
mond ring, attar of roses, and air of nonchalant leisure, at
twelve o'clock in the day, are the graceful and odoriferous re-
sult of the largest oil-mill and the most extensive wharf in St.
Ogg's. There is an apparent triviality in the action with the
scissors, but your discernment perceives at once that there is
a design in it which make* it eminently worthy of a large-
headed, long-limbed young man; for you see that Lucy wants
the scissors, and is compelled, reluctant as she may be, to
shake her ringlets back, raise her soft hazel eyes, smile play-
fully down on the face that is so very nearly on a level with
her knee, and holding out her little shell-pink palm, to say, —
" My scissors, please, if you can renounce the great pleasure
of persecuting my poor Minny."
The foolish scissors have slipped too far over the knuckles,
it seems, and Hercules holds out his entrapped fingeis hope-
lessly.
"Confound the scissors! The oval lies the wrong way
Please draw them off for me."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION.
"Draw them off with your other hand," says Miss Lucy,
roguishly
"Oh, but that's my left hand; I'm not left-handed."
Lucy laughs, and the scissors are drawn off with gentle
touches from tiny tips, which naturally dispose Mr. Stephen
for a repetition da capo. Accordingly, he watches for the
release of the scissors, that he may get them into his posses-
sion again.
"No, no, "said Lucy, sticking them in her band, "you shall
not have my scissors again, — you have strained them already.
Now don't set Minny growling again. Sit up and behavfi
properly, and then I will tell you some news."
" What is that? " said Stephen, throwing himself back an<?
hanging his right arm over the corner of his chair. He might
have been sitting for his portrait, which would have repre-
sented a rather striking young man of five-and-twenty, with a
square forehead, short dark-brown hair, standing erect, with a
alight wave at the end, like a thick crop of corn, and a half-
ardent, half -sarcastic glance from under his well-marked hori-
zontal eyebrows. " Is it very important news? "
"Yes, very. Guess."
"You are going to change Minny 's diet, and give him three
ratafias soaked in a dessertspoonful of cream daily?"
" Quite wrong."
" Well, then, Dr. Kenn has been preaching against buckram,
and you ladies have all been sending him a round-robin, say-
ing, * This is a hard doctrine; who can bear it?' "
"For shame! " said Lucy, adjusting her little mouth grave
ly. " It is rather dull of you not to guess my news, because
it is about something I mentioned to you not very long ago. "
) " But you have mentioned many things to me not long ago.
Does your feminine tyranny require that when you say the
thing you mean is one of several things, I should know it im-
mediately by that mark?"
"Yes, I know you think I am silly."
"I think you are perfectly charming."
" And my silliness is part of my charm? "
"I didn't say that."
* But I fcnow you like women to be rather insipid. Philip
380 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Wakem betrayed you ; he said so one day when you were not
here."
" Oh, I know Phil is fierce on that point ; he makes it quite
a personal matter. I think he must be love-sick for some un-
known lady, — some exalted Beatrice whom he met abroad."
" By the by," said Lucy, pausing in her work, "it has just
occurred to me that I never found out whether my cousin
Maggie will object to see Philip, as her brother does. Tom
will not enter a room where Philip is, if he knows it ; perhaps
Maggie may be the same, and then we sha'n't be able to sing
our glees, shall we?"
" What! is your cousin coming to stay with you? " said Ste-
phen, with a look of slight annoyance!
" Yes ; that was my news, which you have forgotten. She's
going to leave her situation, where she has been nearly two
years, poor thing, — ever since her father's death; and she will
stay with me a month or two, — many months, I hope."
"And am I bound to be pleased at that news?"
" Oh no, not at all, " said Lucy, with a little air of pique.
" 1 am pleased, but that, of course, is no reason why you
should be pleased. There is no girl in the world I love so
well as my cousin Maggie."
" And you will be inseparable, I suppose, when she comes.
There will be no possibility of a tete-a-tete with you any more,
unless you can find an admirer for her, who will pair off with
her occasionally. What is the ground of dislike to Philip?
He might have been a resource."
"It is a family quarrel with Philip's father. There were
very painful circumstances, I believe. I never quite under-
stood them, or knew them all. My uncle Tulliver was unfor-
tunate and lost all his property, and I think he considered Mr.
Wakem was somehow the cause of it. Mr. Wakem bought
Dorlcote Mill, my uncle's old place, where he always lived.
You must remember my uncle Tulliver, don't you?"
"No," eaid Stephen, with rather supercilious indifference.
" I've always known the name, and I dare say I knew the man
by sight, apart from his name. I know half the names and
faces in the neighborhood in that detached, disjointed way."
" He was a very hot-tempered man, I remember,
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 381
was a little girl and used to go to see my cousins, he often
frightened me by talking as if he were angry. Papa told me
there was a dreadful quarrel, the very day before my uncle's
death, between him and Mr. Wakem, but it was hushed up.
That was when you were in London. Papa says my uncle was
quite mistaken in many ways ; his mind had become embit-
tered. But Tom and Maggie must naturally feel it very pain-
ful to be reminded of these things. They have had so much,
so very much trouble. Maggie was at school with me six yeaie
ago, when she was fetched away because of her father's mis'
fortunes, and she has hardly had any pleasure since, I think.
She has been in a dreary situation in a school since uncle's
death, because she is determined to be independent, and not
live with aunt Pullet ; and I could hardly wish her to come to
me then, because dear mamma was ill, and everything was so
sad. That is why I want her to come to me now, and have a
long, long holiday."
"Very sweet and angelic of you," said Stephen, looking at
her with an admiring smile ; " and all the more so if she has
the conversational qualities of her mother."
" Poor aunty ! You are cruel to ridicule her. She is very
valuable to me, I know. She manages the house beautifully,
— much better than any stranger would, — and she was a great
comfort to me in mamma's illness."
" Yes, but in point of companionship one would prefer that
she should be represented by her brandy-cherries and cream,
cakes. I think with a shudder that her daughter will always
be present in person, and have no agreeable proxies of that
kind, — a fat, blond girl, with round blue eyes, who will stare
at us silently."
" Oh yes ! " exclaimed Lucy, laughing wickedly, and clap-
ping her hands, " that is just my cousin Maggie. You must
have seen her ! "
"No, indeed; I'm only guessing what Mrs. Tulliver's
daughter must be ; and then if she is to banish Philip, our only
apology for a tenor, that will be an additional bore."
" But I hope that may not be. I think I will ask you to
call on Philip and tell him Maggie is coming to-morrow. He
ia quite aware of Tom's feeling, and always keens out- of bis
382 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
way; BO lie will understand, if you tell him, tliat I asked yon
to warn him not to come until I write to ask him. "
" I think you had better write a pretty note for me to take;
Phil is so sensitive, you know, the least thing might frighten
him off coming at all, and we had hard work to get him. I
can never induce him to come to the parkj he doesn't like my
sisters, I think. It is only your faery touch that can lay hia
ruffled feathers."
Stephen mastered the little hand that was straying toward
the table, and touched it lightly with his lips. Little Lucy
felt very proud and happy. She and Stephen were in that
stage of courtship which makes the most exquisite moment of
youth, the freshest blossom-time of passion, — when each is
sure of the other's love, but no formal declaration has been
made, and all is mutual divination, exalting the most trivial
word, the lightest gesture, into thrills delicate and delicious
as wafted jasmine scent. The explicitness of an engagement
wears off this finest edge of susceptibility; it is jasmine gath-
ered and presented in a large bouquet.
" But it is really odd that you should have hit so exactly on
Maggie's appearance and manners," said the cunning Lucy,
moving to reach her desk, " because she might have been like
her brother, you know j and Tom has not round eyes j and he
is as far as possible from staring at people."
" Oh, I suppose he is like the father ; he seems to be as
proud as Lucifer. Not a brilliant companion, though, I should
think."
M I like Tom. He gave me my Minny when I lost Lolo ; and
papa is very fond of him : he says Tom has excellent princi-
ples. It was through him that his father was able to pay all
his debts before he died."
"Oh, ah; I've heard about that. I heard your father and
mine talking about it a little while ago, after dinner, in one of
their interminable discussions about business. They think of
doing something for young Tulliver; he saved them from a
considerable loss by riding home in some marvellous way, like
Turpin, to bring them news about the stoppage of a bank,
or something of that sort. But I was rather drowsy at the
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 383
Stephen rose from his seat, and sauntered to the piano, hum-
ming in falsetto, " Graceful Contort, " as he turned over the
volume of " The Creation, " which stood open on the desk.
" Come and sing this, " he said, when he saw Lucy rising.
"What, ' Graceful Consort' ? I don't think it suits your
voice."
"Never mindj it exactly suits my feeling, which, Philip
will have it, is the grand element of good singing. I notice
men with indifferent voices are usually of that opinion."
" Philip burst into one of his invectives against * The Crea*
tion ' the other day, " said Lucy, seating herself at the piano.
" He says it has a sort of sugared complacency and flattering
make-believe in it, as if it were written for the birthday fete
of a German Grand-Duke."
" Oh, pooh ! He is the fallen Adam with a soured temper.
We are Adam and Eve unf alien, in Paradise. Now, then, —
the recitative, for the sake of the moral. You will sing the
whole duty of woman, — * And from obedience grows my pride
and happiness.' "
" Oh no, I shall not respect an Adam who drags the tempo,
as you will, " said Lucy, beginning to play the duet.
Surely the only courtship unshaken by doubts and fears
must be that in which the lovers can sing together. The sense
of mutual fitness that springs from the two deep notes fulfill-
ing expectation just at the right moment between the notes of
the silvery soprano, from the perfect accord of descending
thirds and fifths, from the preconcerted loving chase of a
fugue, is likely enough to supersede any immediate demand
for less impassioned forms of agreement. The contralto will
not care to catechise the bass ; the tenor will foresee no em-
barrassing dearth of remark in evenings spent with the lovely
soprano. In the provinces, too, where music was so scarce in
that remote time, how could the musical people avoid falling
in love with each other? Even political principle must have
been in danger of relaxation under such circumstances ; and
the violin, faithful to rotten boroughs, must have been tempted
to fraternize in a demoralizing way with a reforming violin-
cello. In this case, the linnet-throated soprano and the fall-
toned hflps sine inc.—
384 THE MILL ON THE FLOS&
** With thee delight Is ever new,
Witb tbee is life Incessant bliss,**
believed what they sang all the more because they sang it.
"Now for KaphaeF s great song," said Lucy, when they had
finished the duet. " You do the * heavy beasts ' to perfection."
"That sounds complimentary," said Stephen, looking at his
watch. "By Jove, it's nearly half- past one! Well, I can.
just sing this." |
Stephen delivered with admirable ease the deep notes repre-
senting the tread of the heavy beasts; but when a singer
has an audience of two, there is room for divided sentiments.
Minny's mistress was charmed; but Minny, who had in-
trenched himself, trembling, in his basket as soon as the mu-
sic began, found this thunder so little to his taste that he
leaped out and scampered under the remotest chiffonnier, as
the most eligible place in which a small dog could await the
crack of doom.
"Adieu, "graceful consort,'" said Stephen, buttoning his
coat across when he had done singing, and smiling down from,
his tall height, with the air of rather a patronizing lover, at
the little lady on the music-stool. " My bliss is not incessant,
for I must gallop home. I promised to be there at lunch."
"You will not be able to call on Philip, then? It is of no
consequence; I have said everything in my note."
" You will be engaged with your cousin to-morrow, I sup-
pose?"
" Yes, we are going to have a little family-party. My cou-
sin Tom will dine with us ; and poor aunty will have her two
children together for the first time. It will be very pretty ;
I think a great deal about it."
" But I may come the next day? "
"Oh yes I Come and be introduced to my cousin Maggie;
though you can hardly be said not to have seen her, you have
described her so well."
"Good-bye, then." And there was that slight pressure of
the hands, and momentary meeting of the eyes, which will
often leave a little lady with a slight flush and smile on her
face that do not subside immediately when the door is closed,
sud with &a iflpliqa^nrt to walk up and down tbo room rather
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 385
than to seat herself quietly at her embroidery, or other rational
and improving occupation. At least this was the effect on
Lucy j a.ad you will not, I hope, consider it an indication of
vanity predominating over more tender impulses, that she just
glanced in the chimney-glass as her walk brought her near it.
The desire to know that one has not looked an absolute fright
during a few hours of conversation may be construed as lying
within the bounds of a laudable benevolent consideration for
others. And Lucy had so much of this benevolence in her
nature that I am inclined to think her small egoisms were im-
pregnated with it, just as there are people not altogether un-
known to you whose small benevolences have a predominant
and somewhat rank odor of egoism. Even now, that she is
walking up and down with a little triumphant flutter of her
girlish heart at the sense that she is loved by the person of
chief consequence in her small world, you may see in her ha-
zel eyes an ever-present sunny benignity, in which the momen-
tary harmless flashes of personal vanity are quite lost ; and if
she is happy in thinking of her lover, it is because the thought
of him mingles readily with all the gentle affections and good-
natured offices with which she fills her peaceful days. Even
now, her mind, with that instantaneous alternation which makes
two currents of feeling or imagination seem simultaneous, is
glancing continually from Stephen to the preparations she has
only half finished in Maggie's room. Cousin Maggie should
be treated as well as the grandest lady- visitor, — nay, better,
for she should have Lucy's best prints and drawings in her
bedroom, and the very finest bouquet of spring flowers on her
table. Maggie would enjoy all that, she was so fond of pretty
things I And there was poor aunt Tulliver, that no one made
any account of, she was to be surprised with the present of a
cap of superlative quality, and to have her health drunk in a
gratifying manner, for which Lucy was going to lay a plot
with her father this evening. Clearly, she had not time to
indulge in long reveries about her own happy love-affairs.
With this thought she walked toward the door, but paused
there,
"What's the matter, then, Minny?" she said, stooping in
answer to some whimpering of that small OjUadruped, and lift'
mi
386 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
ing his glossy head against her pink cheek. " Did you think
I was going without you? Come, then, let us go and see Sin-
bad."
Sinbad was Lucy's chestnut horse, that she always fed with
her own hand when he was turned out in the paddock. She
was fond of feeding dependent creatures, and knew the private
tastes of all the animals about the house, delighting in the lit-
tle rippling sounds of her canaries when their beaks were busy
with fresh seed, and in the small nibbling pleasures of certain
animals which, lest she should appear too trivial, I will here
call " the more familiar rodents. "
Was not Stephen Guest right in his decided opinion that
this slim maiden of eighteen was quite the sort of wife a man
would not be likely to repent of marrying, — a woman who was
loving and thoughtful for other women, not giving them Judas-
kisses with eyes askance on their welcome defects, but with
real care and vision for their half -hidden pains and mortifica-
tions, with long ruminating enjoyment of little pleasures pre-
pared for them? Perhaps the emphasis of his admiration did
not fall precisely on this rarest quality in her; perhaps he ap-
proved his own choice of her chiefly because she did not strike
him as a remarkable rarity. A man likes his wife to be pret-
ty ; well, Lucy was pretty, but not to a maddening extent. A
man likes his wife to be accomplished, gentle, affectionate,
and not stupid ; and Lucy had all these qualifications. Ste
phen was not surprised to find himself in love with her, and
was conscious of excellent judgment in preferring her to Miss
Leyburn, the daughter of the county member, although Lucy
was only the daughter of his father's subordinate partner ; be
sides, he had had to defy and overcome a slight unwillingness
and disappointment in his father and sisters, — a circumstance
which gives a young man an agreeable consciousness of his own
dignity. Stephen was aware that he had sense and independ-
ence enough to choose the wife who was likely to make him
happy, unbiassed by any indirect considerations. He meant
to choose Lucy; she was a little darling, and exactly the sort
of woman he had always most admired.
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 88t
CHAPTER IL
FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
" HE is very clever, Maggie," said Lucy. She was kneeling
on a footstool at Maggie's feet, after placing that dark lady in
the large crimson-velvet chair. " I feel sure you will like
.Mm. I hope you will."
" I shall be very difficult to please, " said Maggie, smiling,
and holding up one of Lucy's long curls, that the sunlight
might shine through it. " A gentleman who thinks he is good
enough for Lucy must expect to be sharply criticised."
"Indeed, he's a great deal too good for me. And some-
times, when he is away, I almost think it can't really be that
he loves me. But I can never doubt it when he is with me,
though I couldn't bear any one but you to know that I feel in
that way, Maggie."
" Oh, then, if I disapprove of him you can give him up,
since you are not engaged, " said Maggie, with playful gravity.
" I would rather not be engaged. When people are engaged,
they begin to think of being married soon," said Lucy, too
thoroughly preoccupied to notice Maggie's joke ; " and I should
like everything to go on for a long while just as it is. Some-
times I am quite frightened lest Stephen should say that he
has spoken to papa ; and from something that fell from papa
the other day, I feel sure he and Mr. Guest are expecting
that. And Stephen's sisters are very civil to me now. At
first, I think they didn't like his paying me attention; and
that was natural. It does seem out of keeping that I should
ever live in a great place like the Park House, such a little
insignificant thing as I am."
" But people are not expected to be large in proportion to
the houses they live in, like snails, " said Maggie, laughing.
"Pray, are Mr. Guest's sisters giantesses?"
" Oh no; and not handsome, — that is, not Tery," said Lucy,
half-penitent at this uncharitable remark. "But ha is — aft
leaat he is generally considered verv handsome."
388 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Though you are unable to share that opinion? n
"Oh, I don't know," said Lucy, blushing pink over brow
and neck. " It is a bad plan to raise expectation ; you will
perhaps be disappointed. But I have prepared a charming
surprise for him ; I shall have a glorious laugh against him.
I shall not tell you what it is, though."
Lucy rose from her knees and went to a little distance, hold-
ing her pretty head on one side, as if she had been arranging
Maggie for a portrait, and wished to judge of the general
effect.
"Stand up a moment, Maggie."
"What is your pleasure now?" said Maggie, smiling lan-
guidly as she rose from her chair and looked down on her slight,
aerial cousin, whose figure was quite subordinate to her fault-
less drapery of silk and crape.
Lucy kept her contemplative attitude a moment or two hi
silence, and then aaid, —
" I can't think what witchery it is in you, Maggie, that
makes you look best in shabby clothes j though you really must
have a new dress now. But do you know, last night I was
trying to fancy you in a handsome, fashionable dress, and do
what I would, that old limp merino would come back as the
only right thing for you. I wonder if Marie Antoinette looked
all the grander when her gown was darned at the elbows.
Now, if / were to put anything shabby on, I should be quite
unnoticeable. I should be a mere rag."
" Oh, quite, " said Maggie, with mock gravity. " You would
be liable to be swept out of the room with the cobwebs and
carpet-dust, and to find yourself under the grate, like Cinder-
ella. Mayn't I sit down now? "
" Yes, now you may, " said Lucy, laughing. Then, with an
air of serious reflection, unfastening her large jet brooch, " But
you must change brooches, Maggie ; that little butterfly looks
silly on you."
" But won't that mar the charming effect of my consistent
shabbiness? " said Maggie, seating herself submissively, while
Lucy knelt again and unfastened the contemptible butterfly.
" I wish my mother were of your opinion, for she was fretting
last night because this is my best frock- I've been saving my
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 389
money to pay for some lessons; I shall never get a better situ-
ation without more accomplishments."
Maggie gave a little sigh.
"Now, don't put on that sad look again," said Lucy, pin-
ning the large brooch below Maggie's fine throat. " You're
forgetting that you've left that dreary schoolroom behind you,
and have no little girls' clothes to mend. "
"Yes," said Maggie. "It is with me as I used to think it
would be with the poor uneasy white bear I saw at the show.
I thought he must have got so stupid with the habit of turning
backward and forward in that narrow space that he would
keep doing it if they set him, free. One gets a bad habit of
being unhappy."
" But I shall put you under a discipline of pleasure that will
make you lose that bad habit, " said Lucy, sticking the black
butterfly absently in her own collar, while her eyes met Mag-
gie's affectionately.
" You dear, tiny thing, " said Maggie, in one of her bursts
of loving admiration, " you enjoy other people's happiness so
much, I believe you would do without any of your own. I
wish I were like you."
"I've never been tried in that way," said Lucy. "I've
always been so happy. I don't know whether I could bear
much trouble ; I never had any but poor mamma's death. You
have been tried, Maggie; and I'm sure you feel for other peo-
ple quite as much as I do."
"No, Lucy, "said Maggie, shaking her head slowly, "I don't
enjoy their happiness as you do, else I should be more content-
ed. I do feel for them when they are in trouble; I don't
think I -sould ever bear to make any one wnhappy ; and yet I
often hate myself, because I get angry sometimes at the sight
of happy people. I think I get worse as I get older, more self-
ish. That seems very dreadful."
" Now, Maggie ! " said Lucy, in a tone of remonstrance, " I
don't believe a word of that. It is all a gloomy fancy, just
because you are depressed by a dull, wearisome life."
" Well, perhaps it is, " said Maggie, resolutely clearing away
the clouds from her face with a bright smile, and throwing
herself backward in her chair. " Perhaps it comes from tha
390 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
school diet, — watery rice-pudding spiced with Pinnock. Let
us hope it will give way before my mother's custards and this
charming Geoffrey Crayon."
Maggie took up the " Sketch Book, " which lay by her on
the table.
" Do I look fit to be seen with this little brooch? " said Lucy,
going to survey the effect in the chimney-glass.
" Oh no, Mr. Guest will be obliged to go out of the room
again if he sees you in it. Pray make haste and put another
on."
Lucy hurried out of the room, but Maggie did not take the
opportunity of opening her book; she let it fall on her knees,
while her eyes wandered to the window, where she could see
the sunshine falling on the rich clumps of spring flowers and
on the long hedge of laurels, and beyond, the silvery breadth
of the dear old Floss, that at this distance seemed to be sleep-
ing in a morning holiday. The sweet fresh garden-scent came
through the open window, and the birds were busy flitting and
alighting, gurgling and singing. Yet Maggie's eyes began to
fill with tears. The sight of the old scenes had made the rush
of memories so painful that even yesterday she had only been
able to rejoice in her mother's restored comfort and Tom's
brotherly friendliness as we rejoice in good news of friends at
a distance, rather than in the presence of a happiness which
we share. Memory and imagination urged upon her a sense
of privation too keen, to let her taste what was offered in the
transient present. Her future, she thought, was likely to be
worse than her past, for after her years of contented renunci-
ation, she had slipped back into desire and longing ; she found
joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder; she
found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned
for, and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate.
The sound of the opening door roused her, atd hastily wiping
away her tears, she began to turn ove*. the leares of her
book.
" There is one pleasure, I know, Maggie, that your deepest
dismalness will never resist, " said Lucy, beginning to speak
as soon as she entered the room. " That is music, and I mean
you to have quite a riotous feast of it. I mean you to get uy
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. Stl
your playing again, which used to be so muck bettor
dine, when we were at Laceham. "
" You would have laughed to see me playing the little girls'
tunes over and over to them, when I took them to practise,"
said Maggie, "just for the sake of fingering the dear keys
again. But I don't know whether I could play anything more
difficult now tiiaii * Begone, dull care! ' "
" I know what a wild state of joy you used to be in when (
the glee-ruen came round," said Lucy, taking up her embroid-
ery ; " and we might have all those old glees that you used to
love so, if I were certain that you don't feel exactly as Tom
does about some things."
" I should have thought there was nothing you might be
more certain of," said Maggie, smiling.
" I ought rather to have said, one particular thing. Because
if you feel just as he does about that, we shall want our third
voice. St. Ogg's is so miserably provided with musical gen-
tlemen. There are really only Stephen and Philip Wakem
who have any knowledge of music, so as to be able to sing a
part."
Lucy had looked up from her work as she uttered the last
sentence, and saw that there was a change in Maggie's face.
" Does it hurt you to hear the name mentioned, Maggie? If
it does, I will not speak of him again. I know Tom will not
see him if he can avoid it."
" I don't feel at all as Tom does on that subject," said Mag-
gie, rising and going to the window as if she wanted to see
more of the landscape. " I've always liked Philip Wakem
ever since I was a little girl, and saw him at Lorton. He was
so good when Tom hurt his foot."
" Oh, I'm so glad! " said Lucy. " Then you won't mind his
coming sometimes, and we can have much more music than
we could without him. I'm very fond of poor Philip, only I
wish he were not so morbid about his deformity. I suppose it
is his deformity that makes him so sad, and sometimes bitter.
It is certainly very piteous to see his poor little crooked body
and pale face among great, strong people."
" But, Lucy " said Maggie, trying to arrest the prattling
gtream.
992 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Ah, there is the door-bell. That must be Stephen," Lucy
went on, not noticing Maggie's faint effort to speak. " One of
the things I most admire in Stephen is that he makes a greater
friend of Philip than any one."
It was too late for Maggie to speak now; the drawing-room
door was opening, and Minny was already growling in a small
way at the entrance of a tall gentleman, who went up to Lucy
and took her hand with a half-polite, half -tender glance and
tone of inquiry, which seemed to indicate that he was uncon-
scious of any other presence.
"Let me introduce you to my cousin, Miss Tulliver," said
Lucy, turning with wicked enjoyment toward Maggie, who
now approached from the farther window. " This is Mr. Ste-
phen Guest."
For one instant Stephen could not conceal his astonishment
at the sight of this tall, dark-eyed nymph with her jet-black
coronet of hair ; the next, Maggie felt herself, for the first time
in her life, receiving the tribute of a very deep blush and a
very deep bow from a person toward whom she herself was
conscious of timidity. This new experience was very agree-
able to her, so agreeable that it almost effaced her previous
emotion about Philip. There was a new brightness in her
eyes, and a very becoming flush on her cheek, as she seated
herself.
" I hope you perceive what a striking likeness you drew the
day before yesterday," said Lucy, with a pretty laugh of tri-
umph. She enjoyed her lover's confusion ; the advantage was
usually on his side.
" This designing cousin of yours quite deceived me, Miss
Tulliver," said Stephen, seating himself by Lucy, and stoop-
ing to play with Minny, only looking at Maggie furtively.
" She said you had light hair and blue eyes."
"Nay, it was you who said so," remonstrated Lucy. "I
>nly refrained from destroying your confidence in your own
second- sight."
"I wish I could always err in the same way," said Stephen,
"and find reality so much more beautiful than my preconcep
lions."
"Now you have proved yourself equal to the occasion," said
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 393
Maggie, " and said what it was incumbent on you to say under
the circumstances."
She flashed a slightly defiant look at him ; it was clear to
her that he had been drawing a satirical portrait of her be-
forehand. Lucy had said he was inclined to be satirical, and
Maggie had mentally supplied the addition, " and rather con-
ceited."
"An alarming amount of devil there," was Stephen's first
thought. The second, when she had bent over her work, was,
" I wish she would look at me again." The next was to an-
swer, —
" I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have their turn
to be true. A man is occasionally grateful when he says
4 Thank you.' It's rather hard upon him that he must use
the same words with which all the world declines a disagree-
able invitation, don't you think so, Miss Tulliver? n
"No," said Maggie, looking at him with her direct glance;
" if we use common words on a great occasion, they are the
more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particu-
lar meaning, like old banners, or every-day clothes, hung up
in a sacred place."
" Then my compliment ought to be eloquent," said Stephen,
really not quite knowing what he said while Maggie looked at
<him, " seeing that the words were so far beneath the occasion."
" No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of
3&diff erence, " said Maggie, flushing a little.
6i Lucy was rather alarmed ; she thought Stephen and Maggie
were not going to like each other. She had always feared lest
Maggie should appear too odd and clever to please that critical
gentleman. " Why, dear Maggie," she interposed, " you have
always pretended that you are too fond of being admired; and
now, I think, you are angry because some one ventures to ad-
mire you."
" Not at all, " said Maggie ; " I like too well to feel that I am
admired, but compliments never make me feel that."
" I will never pay you a compliment again, Miss Tnlliver,"
said Stephen.
" Thank you ; that will be a proof of respect. "
Poor Maggie! She was so unused to society that she could
594 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
take nothing as a matter of course, and had never in hei life
spoken from the lips merely, so that she must necessarily ap-
pear absurd to more experienced ladies, from the excessive
feeling she was apt to throw into very trivial incidents. But
she was even conscious herself of a little absurdity in this in-
stance. It was true she had a theoretic objection to compli-
ments, and had once said impatiently to Philip that she
didn't see why women were to be told with a simper that they
were beautiful, any more than old men were to be told that
they were venerable; still, to be so irritated by a common
practice in the case of a stranger like Mr. Stephen Guest, and
to care about his having spoken slightingly of her before he
had seen her, was certainly unreasonable, and as soon as she
was silent she began to be ashamed of herself. It did not
occur to her that her irritation was due to the pleasanter emo-
tion which preceded it, just as when we are satisfied with a
sense of glowing warmth an innocent drop of cold water may
fall upon us as a sudden smart.
Stephen was too well bred not to seem unaware that the
previous conversation could have been felt embarrassing, and
at once began to talk of impersonal matters, asking Lucy if
she knew when the bazaar was at length to take place, so that
there might be some hope of seeing her rain the influence of
her eyes on objects more grateful than those worsted flowers
that were growing under her fingers.
"Some day next month, I believe," said Lucy. "But your
sisters are doing more for it than I am j they are to have the
largest stall."
" Ah yes ; but they carry on their manufactures in their own
sitting-room, where I don't intrude on them. I see you are
not addicted to the fashionable vice of fancy-work, Miss Tul«
liver," said Stephen, looking at Maggie's plain hemming.
"No," said Maggie, "I can do nothing more difficult or
more elegant than shirt-making."
** And your plain sewing is so beautiful, Maggie, " said Lucy,
" that I think I shall beg a few specimens of you to show aa
fancy-work. Your exquisite sewing is quite a mystery to me,
you used to dislike that sort of work so much in old days."
" It is a mystery easily explained, dear," said Maggie, loot
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 393
fag tip quietly. " Plain sewing was the only thing I could get
money by, so I was obliged to try and do it well."
Lucy, good and simple as she was, could not help blushing
a little. She did not quite like that Stephen should know
that; Maggie need not have mentioned it. Perhaps there was
some pride in the confession, — the pride of poverty that w;ll,
not be ashamed of itself. But if Maggie had been the queen
of coquettes she could hardly have invented a means of giving
greater piquancy to her beauty in Stephen's eyes; I am not
sure that the quiet admission of plain sewing and poverty
would have done alone, but assisted by the beauty, they made
Maggie more unlike other women even than she had seemed at
first.
"But I can knit, Lucy," Maggie went on, "if that will be
of any use for your bazaar. "
"Oh yes, of infinite use. I shall set you to work with
scarlet wool to-morrow. But your sister is the most enviable
person, " continued Lucy, turning to Stephen, "to have the tal-
ent of modelling. She is doing a wonderful bust of Dr. Kenn
entirely from memory."
" Why, if she can remember to put the eyes very near to-
gether, and the corners of the mouth very far apart, the like-
ness can hardly fail to be striking in St. Ogg's."
"Now that is very wicked of you," said Lucy, looking rather
hurt. " I didn't think you woula speak disrespectfully of Dr.
Kenn."
"I say anything disrespectful of Dr. Kenn? Heaven for-
bid ! But I am not bound to respect a libellous bust of him.
1 think Kenn one of the finest fellows in the world. I don't
care much about the tall candlesticks he has put on the com-
munion-table, and I shouldn't like to spoil my temper by get'
ting up to early prayers every morning. But he's the onlj
man I ever knew personally who seems to me to have anything
of the real apostle in him, — a man who has eight hundred a-
year and is contented with deal furniture and boiled beef be-
cause he gives away two-thirds of his income. That was a
very fine thing of him, — taking into his house that poor lad
Grattan, who shot his mother jy accident. He sacrifices more
time than a less busy man could spare, to save the poor fellow
396 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
from getting into a morbid state of mind about it. He takes
the lad out with him constantly, I see."
"That is beautiful," said Maggie, who had let her work fall,
and was listening with keen interest. " I never knew any one
who did such things."
"And one admires that sort of action in Kenn all the more,"
said Stephen, " because his manners in general are rather cold
and severe. There's nothing sugary and maudlin about him.5'
"Oh, I think he's a perfect character I" said Lucy, witl»
pretty enthusiasm.
"No; there I can't agree with you," said Stephen, shaking
his head with sarcastic gravity.
" Now, what fault can you point out in him? *
"He's an Anglican."
"Well, those are the right views, I think," said Lucy,
gravely.
"That settles the question in the abstract," said Stephen,
" but not from a parliamentary point of view. He has set the
Dissenters and the Church people by the ears ; and a rising
senator like myself, of whose services the country is very
much in need, will find it inconvenient when he puts up for
the honor of representing St. Ogg's in Parliament."
" Do you really think of that? " said Lucy, her eyes bright-
ening with a proud pleasure that made her neglect the argu-
mentative interests of Anglicanism.
" Decidedly, whenever old Mr. Leyburn's public spirit and
gout induce him to give way. My father's heart is set on it;
and gifts like mine, you know" — here Stephen drew him-
self up, and rubbed his large white hands over his hair with
playfuj self -admiration — "gifts like mine involve great re-
sponsibilities. Don't you think so, Miss Tulliver?"
" Yes," said Maggie, smiling, but not looking up j " so much
fluency and self-possession should not be wasted entirely on
private occasions."
" Ah, I see how much penetration you have," said Stephen.
" You have discovered already that I am talkative and impu-
dent. Now superficial people never discern that^ owing to my
manner, I suppose."
" She doesn't look at me when 1 talk of myself," he thought,
THE GREAT .TEMPTATION. 391
irhile his listeners were laughing. " I must try other sub-
jects."
Did Lucy intend to be present at the meeting of the Book
Club next week? was the next question. Then followed the
recommendation to choose Southey's " Life of Cowper," unless
she were inclined to be philosophical, and startle the ladies of
St. Ogg's by voting for one of the Bridgewater Treatises. Of
course Lucy wished to know what these alarmingly learned
books were ; and as it is always pleasant to improve the minds
of ladies by talking to them at ease on subjects of which they
know nothing, Stephen became quite brilliant in an account of
Buckland's Treatise, which he had just been reading. He
was rewarded by seeing Maggie let her work fall, and gradu-
ally get so absorbed in his wonderful geological story that she
sat looking at him, leaning forward with crossed arms, and
with an entire absence of self-consciousness, as if he had been
the snuffiest of old professors, and she a downy-lipped alum-
nus. He was so fascinated by the clear, large gaze that at
last he forgot to look away from it occasionally toward Lucy j
but she, sweet child, was only rejoicing that Stephen was
proving to Maggie how clever he was, and that they would cer-
tainly be good friends after all.
" I will bring you the book, shall I, Miss Tulliver ? " said
Stephen, when he found the stream of his recollections run-
ning rather shallow. *' There are many illustrations in it that
you will like to see."
"Oh, thank you," said Maggie, blushing with returning
self-consciousness at this direct address, and taking up her
work again.
" No, no," Lucy interposed. " I must forbid your plunging
Maggie in books. I shall never get her away from them ; and
I want her to have delicious do-nothing days, filled with boat-
ing and chatting and riding and driving j that is the holiday
she needs. "
"Apropos I n said Stephen, looking at his watch. "Shall
we go out for a row on the river now? The tide will suit for
us to go the Tofton way, and we can walk back."
That was a delightful proposition to Maggie, for it was years
since she had been on the river. When she was gone to put
898 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
on her oonnet, Lucy lingered to give an order to the servant,
and took the opportunity of telling Stephen that Maggie had
no objection to seeing Philip, so that it was a pity she had
sent that note the day before yesterday. But she would write
another to-morrow and invite him.
"I'll call and beat him up to-morrow," said Stephen, "and
bring him with me in the evening, shall I? My sisters will
want to call on you when I tell them your cousin is with you.
I must leave the field clear for them in the morning."
" Oh yes, pray bring him," said Lucy. " And you will like
Maggie, sha'n't you?" she added, in a beseeching tone.
"Isn't she a dear, noble-looking creature?"
" Too tall, " said Stephen, smiling down upon her, " and a
little too fiery. She is not my type of woman, you know."
Gentlemen, you are aware, are apt to impart these impru-
dent confidenceoto ladies concerning their unfavorable opinion
of sister fair ones. That is why so many women have the
advantage of knowing that they are secretly repulsive to men
who have self-denymgly made ardent love to them. And
hardly anything could be more distinctively characteristic of
Lucy than that she both implicitly believed what Stephen
said, and was determined that Maggie should not know it.
But you, who have a higher logic than the verbal to guide you,
have already foreseen, as the direct sequence to that unfavor-
able opinion of Stephen's, that he walked down to the boat-
house calculating, by the aid of a vivid imagination, that Mag-
gie must give him her hand at least twice in consequence of
this pleasant boating plan, and that a gentleman who wishes
ladies to look at him is advantageously situated when he is
rowing them in a boat. What then? Had he fallen in love
with this surprising daughter of Mrs. Tulliver at first sight?
Certainly not. Such passions are never heard of in real life.
Besides, he was in love already, and half-engaged to the dear-
est little creature in the world j and he was not a man to make
a fool of himself in any way. But when one is five-and-
twenty, one has not chalk-stones at one's finger-ends that the
touch of 'a handsome girl should be entirely indifferent. It
toa.3 perfectly natural and safe to admire beauty and enjoy
looking at it, — at least under such circumstances as the pres-
THE GREAT TEMPTATTOff. 399
ent. And there was really something very interesting about
this girl, with her poverty and troubles; it was gratifying to
see the friendship between the two cousins. Generally, Ste-
phen admitted, he was not fond of women who had any pecu-
liarity of character, but here the peculiarity seemed really of
a superior kind ; and provided one is not obliged to marry such
women, why, they certainly make a variety in social inter-
course.
Maggie did not fulfil Stephen's hope by looking at him dur-
ing the first quarter of an hour; her eyes were too full of the
old banks that she knew so well. She felt lonely, cut off from
Philip, — the only person who had ever seemed to love her
devotedly, as she had always longed to be loved. But pres-
ently the rhythmic movement of the oars attracted her, and
she thought she should like to learn how to row. This roused
her from her reverie, and she asked if she might take an oar.
It appeared that she required much teaching, and she became
ambitious. The exercise brought the warm blood into her
cheeks, and r ade her inclined to take her lesson merrily.
" I shall not be satisfied until I can manage both oars, and
row you and Lucy, " she said, looking very bright as she stepped
out of the boat. Maggie, we know, was apt to forget the
thing she was doing, and she had chosen an inopportune mo-
ment for her remark ; her foot slipped, but happily Mr. Ste-
phen Guest held her hand, and kept her up with a firm grasp.
" You have not hurt yourself at all, I hope? " he said, bend*
ing to look in her face with anxiety. It was very charming to
be taken care of in that kind, graceful manner by some one
taller and stronger than one's self. Maggie had never felt
just in the same way before.
When they reached home again, they found uncle and aunt
Pullet seated with Mrs. Tulliver in the drawing-room, and
Stephen hurried away, asking leave to come qgain in the even-
ing.
" And pray bring with you the volume of Purcell that yon
took away," said Lucy. "I want Maggie to hear your best
songs."
Aunt Pullet, under the certainty that Maggie would be in-
vited to go out with Lucy, probably to Park House^ was much
400 THE MILL Off THE FLOSS.
shocked at the shabbiness of her clothes, which, when wit«
nessed by the higher society of St. Ogg's, would be a discredit
to the family, that demanded a strong and prompt remedy ;
and the consultation as to what would be most suitable to this
end from among the superfluities of Mrs. Pullet's wardrobe
was one that Lucy as well as Mrs. Tulliver entered into with
some zeal. Maggie must really have an evening dress as soon,
,as possible, and she was about the same height as aunt Pullet.
" But she's so much broader across the shoulders than I am,
it's very ill-convenient," said Mrs. Pullet, "else she might'
wear that beautiful black brocade o* mine without any altera-
tion j and her arms are beyond everything," added Mrs. Pul-
let, sorrowfully, as she lifted Maggie's large round arm.
"She'd never get my sleeves on."
"Oh, never mind that, aunt; send us the dress," said Lucy.
"I don't mean Maggie to have long sleeves, and I have abun-
dance of black lace for trimming. Her arms will look beauti-
ful."
"Maggie's arms are a pretty shape," said Mrs. Tulliver.
"They're like mine used to be, only mine was never brown j I
wish she'd had our family skin."
" Nonsense, aunty ! " said Lucy, patting her aunt Tulliver's
shoulder, "you don't understand those things. A painter
would think Maggie's complexion beautiful."
" Maybe, my dear, " said Mrs. Tulliver, submissively. " You'
know better than I do. Only when I was young a brown1
skin wasn't thought well on among respectable folks."
"No," said uncle Pullet, who took intense interest in the
ladies' conversation as he sucked his lozenges. "Though
there was a song about the ' Nut-brown Maid ' too ; I think
she was crazy, — crazy Kate, — but I can't justly remember." •
"Oh dear, dear!" said Maggie, laughing, but impatient;'
u I think that will be the end of my brown skin, if it is alwayg
to be talked about so much."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 401
CHAPTER IIL
CONFIDENTIAL MOMENTS.
WEEK Maggie went up to her bedroom that night, it ap»
peared that she was not at all inclined to undress. She set
down her candle on the first table that presented itself, and
began to walk up and down her room, which was a large one,
with a firm, regular, and rather rapid step, which showed
that the exercise was the instinctive vent of strong excitement.
Her eyes and cheeks had an almost feverish brilliancy ; her
head was thrown backward, and her hands were clasped with
the palms outward, and with that tension of the arms which is
apt to accompany mental absorption.
Had anything remarkable happened?
Nothing that you are not likely to consider in the highest
degree unimportant. She had been hearing some fine music
sung by a fine bass voice, — but then it was sung in a provin-
cial, amateur fashion, such as would have left a critical ear
much to desire. And she was conscious of having been looked
at a great deal, in rather a furtive manner, from beneath a
pair of well-marked horizontal eyebrows, with a glance that
seemed somehow to have caught the vibratory influence of the
voice. Such things could have had no perceptible effect on a
thoroughly well-educated young lady, with a perfectly balanced
mind, who had had all the advantages of fortune, training, and
refined society. But if Maggie had been that young lady, you
would probably have known nothing about her : her life would
have had so few vicissitudes that it could hardly have been
written ; for the happiest women, like the happiest nations,
have no history.
In poor Maggie's highly-strung, hungry nature, — just come
away from a third-rate schoolroom, with all its jarring sounds
and petty round of tasks, — these apparently trivial causes had
the effect of rousing and exalting her imagination in a way
that was mysterious to herself. It was not that she thought
distinctly of Mr. Stephen Guest. 0* dwelt on the indications
402 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
that he looked at her with admiration; it was rather that she
felt the half -remote presence of a world of love and beauty
and delight, made up of vague, mingled images from all the
poetry and romance she had ever read, or had ever woven in
her dreamy reveries. Her mind glanced back once or twice to
the time when she had courted privation, when she had thought
all longing, all impatience was subdued ; but that condition
seemed irrecoverably gone, and she recoiled from the remem-
brance of it. No prayer, no striving now, would bring back
that negative peace ; the battle of her life, it seemed, was not
to be decided in that short and easy way, — by perfect renunci-
ation at the very threshold of her youth. The music was vi-
brating in her still, — Purcell's music, with its wild passion and
fancy, — and she could not stay in the recollection of that bare,
lonely past. She was in her brighter aerial world again,
when a little tap came at the door ; of course it was her cousin,
who entered in ample white dressing-gown,
"Why, Maggie, you naughty child, haven't you begun to
undress?" said Lucy, in astonishment. "I promised not to
come and talk to you, because I thought you must be tired.
But here you are, looking as if you were ready to dress for
a ball. Come, come, get on your dressing-gown and unplait
your hair."
" Well, you are not very forward, " retorted Maggie, hastily
reaching her own pink cotton gown, and looking at Lucy's
light- brown hair brushed back in curly disorder.
" Oh, I have not much to do. I shall sit down and talk to
you till I see you are really on the way to bed."
While Maggie stood and unplaited her long black hair over
her pink drapery, Lucy sat down near the toilette-table, watch-
ing her with affectionate eyes, and head a little aside, like a
pretty spaniel. If it appears to you at all incredible that
young ladies should be led on to talk confidentially in a situa-
tion of this kind, I will beg you to remember that human life
furnishes many exceptional cases.
" You really have enjoyed the music to-night, haven't you
Maggie?"
" Oh yes, that is what prevented me from feeling sleepy. I
think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 403
have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my
limbs, and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without
effort, when I am filled with music. At other times one is
conscious of carrying a weight."
"And Stephen has a splendid voice, hasn't he?"
" Well, perhaps we are neither of us judges of that," said
Maggie, laughing, as si e seated herself and tossed her long
hair back. " You are not impartial, and / think any barrel*
organ splendid."
" But tell me what you think of him, now. Tell me exactly;
good and bad too."
" Oh, I think you should humiliate him a little. A lover
should not be so much at ease, and so self-confident. He ought
to tremble more."
"Nonsense, Maggie! As if anyone could tremble at me!
You think he is conceited, I see that. But you don't dislike
him, do you?"
"Dislike him! No. Am I in the habit of seeing such
charming people, that I should be very difficult to please?
Besides, how could I dislike any one that promised to make
you happy, my dear thing! " Maggie pinched Lucy's dimpled
chin.
" We shall have more music to-morrow evening, " said Lucy,
looking happy already, " for Stephen will bring Philip Wakem
with him."
" Oh, Lucy, I can't see him, " said Maggie, turning pale.
"At least, I could not see him without Tom's leave."
"Is Tom such a tyrant as that?" said Lucy, surprised.
"I'll take the responsibility, then, — tell him it was my fault."
"But, dear," said Maggie, falteringly, "I promised Tom
very solemnly, before my father's death, — I promised him I
would not speak to Philip without his knowledge and consent.
And I have a great dread of opening the subject with Tom, —
of getting into a quarrel with him again."
" But I never heard of anything so strange and unreason-
able. What harm can poor Philip have done? May I speak
to Tom about it? "
"Oh no, pray don't, dear," said Maggie. "I'll go to him
myself to-morrow, and tell him that you wish Philip to come.
404 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS
I've thought before of asking him to absolve me from my
promise, but I've not had the courage to determine on it."
" They were both silent for some moments, and then Lucy
said, —
" Maggie, you have secrets from me, and I have none from
you."
Maggie looked meditatively away from Lucy. Then she
turned to her and said, " I should like to tell you about Philip. ,
But, Lucy, you must not betray that you know it to any one,
— least of all to Philip himself, or to Mr. Stephen Guest. "
The narrative lasted long, for Maggie had never before
known the relief of such an outpouring; she had never before
told Lucy anything of her inmost life; and the sweet face bent
toward her with sympathetic interest, and the little hand
pressing hers, encouraged her to speak on. On two points
only she was not expansive. She did not betray fully what
still rankled in her mind as Tom's great offence, — the insults
he had heaped on Philip. Angry as the remembrance still
made her, she could not bear that any one else should know it
at all, both for Tom's sake and Philip's. And she could not
bear to tell Lucy of the last scene between her father and
Wakem, though it was this scene which she had ever since felt
to be a new barrier between herself and Philip. She merely
said, she saw now that Tom was, on the whole, right in regard-
ing any prospect of love and marriage between her and Philip
as put out of the question by the relation of the two families.
Of course Philip's father would never consent.
"There, Lucy, you have had my story," said Maggie, smil-
ing, with the tears in her eyes. "You see I am like Sir
Andrew Aguecheek. /was adored once."
"Ah, now I see how it is you know Shakespeare and every-
thing, and have learned so much since you left school ; which
always seemed to me witchcraft before, — part of your general
uncanniness," said Lucy.
She mused a little with her eyes downward, and then added,
looking at Maggie, " It is very beautiful that you should love
Philip ; I never thought such a happiness would befall him.
And in my opinion, you ought not to give him up. There art
obstacles now; but they may be done away with in time."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 405
Maggie shook her head.
"Yes, yes," persisted Lucy; "I can't help being hopeful
about it. There is something romantic in it, — out of the
common way, — just what everything that happens to you ought
to be. And Philip will adore you like a husband in a fairy
tale. Oh, I shall puzzle my small brain to contrive some plot
that will bring everybody into the right mind, so that you
may marry Philip when I marry — somebody else. Wouldn't
that be a pretty ending to all my poor, poor Maggie' s troubles? "
Maggie tried to smile, but shivered, as if she felt a sudden
chill.
"Ah, dear, you are cold," said Lucy. "You must go to
bed; and so must I. I dare not think what time it is."
They kissed each other, and Lucy went away, possessed of
a confidence which had a strong influence over her subsequent
impressions. Maggie had been thoroughly sincere ; her nature
had never found it easy to be otherwise. But confidences are
sometimes blinding, even when they are sincere.
CHAPTER IV.
BKOTHEB AND SISTER.
MAGGIE was obliged to go to Tom's lodgings in the middle
of the day, when he would be coming in to dinner, else she
would not have found him at home. He was not lodging with
entire strangers. Our friend Bob Jakin had, with Mumps's
tacit consent, taken not only a wife about eight months ago,
fiut also one of those queer old houses, pierced with surprising
passages, by the water-side, where, as he observed, his wife
and mother could keep themselves out of mischief by letting
out two "pleasure-boats," in which he had invested some of
his savings, and by taking in a lodger for the parlor and
spare bedroom. Under these circumstances, what could be
better for the interests of all parties, sanitary considerations
apart, than that the lodger should be Mr. Tom f
It was Bob's wife who opened the door to Maggie. She
406 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
was a tiny woman, with the general physiognomy of a Dutci.
doll, looking, in comparison with Bob' s mother, who filled up
the passage in the rear, very much like one of those human
figures which the artist finds conveniently standing near a
colossal statue to show the proportions. The tiny woman
curtsied and looked up at Maggie with some awe as soon as
she had opened the door ; but the words, " Is my brother at
home?" which Maggie uttered smilingly, made her turn round
with sudden excitement, and say, —
"Eh, mother, mother — tell Bob! — it's Miss Maggie! Come
in, Miss, for goodness do, " she went on, opening a side door,
and endeavoring to flatten her person against the wall to
make the utmost space for the visitor.
Sad recollections crowded on Maggie as she entered the
small parlor, which was now all that poor Tom had to call by
the name of " home, " — that name which had once, so many
yea*s ago, meant for both of them the same sum of dear
familiar objects. But everything was not strange to her in
this new room; the first thing her eyes dwelt on was the large
old Bible, and the sight was not likely to disperse the old
memories. She stood without speaking.
"If you please to take the privilege o' sitting down, Miss,"
said Mrs. Jakin, rubbing her apron over a perfectly clean
chair, and then lifting up the corner of that garment and hold-
ing it to her face with an air of embarrassment, as she looked
wonderingly at Maggie.
"Bob is at home, then?" said Maggie, recovering herself,
and smiling at the bashful Dutch doll.
" Yes, Miss ; but I think he must be washing and dressing
himself; I'll go and see," said Mrs. Jakin, disappearing.
But she presently came back walking with new courage a
little way behind her husband, who showed the brilliancy of
his blue eyes and regular white teeth in the doorway, bowing
respectfully.
" How do you do, Bob? " said Maggie, coming forward and
putting out her hand to him ; " I always meant to pay your
wife a visit, and I shall come another day on purpose for
that, if she will let me. But I was obliged to come to-day to
speak to my brother,"
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 407
" He'll be in before long, Miss. He's doin* finely, Mr. Tom
is; he'll be one o' the first men hereabouts, — you'll see that."
" Well, Bob, I'm sure he'll be indebted to you, whatever
he becomes ; he said so himself only the other night, when he
was talking of you."
" Eh, Miss, that's his way o' takin* it. But I think the
more on't when he says a thing, because his tongue doesn't
overshoot him as mine does. Lors! I'm no better nor a tilted
bottle, I ar'n't, — I can't stop mysen when once I begin. But
you look rarely, Miss ; it does me good to see you. What do
you say now, Prissy?" — here Bob turned to his wife, — "Isn't
it all come true as I said? Though there isn't many sorts o'
goods as I can't over-praise when I set my tongue to't."
Mrs. Bob's small nose seemed to be following the example
of her eyes in turning up reverentially toward Maggie, but she
was able now to smile and curtsy, and say, " I'd looked forrard
like aenything to seein' you, Miss, for my husband's tongue' a
been runnin' on you, like as if he was light-headed, iver since
first he come a-courtin' on me."
" Well, well, " said Bob, looking rather silly. " Go an' see
after the taters, else Mr. Tom 'ull have to wait for *em."
"I hope Mumps is friendly with Mrs. Jakin, Bob," said
Maggie, smiling. " I remember you used to say he wouldn't
like your marrying."
"Eh, Miss," said Bob, "he made up his mind to't when he
see'd what a little un she was. He pretends not to see her
mostly, or else to think as she isn't full-growed. But about
Mr. Tom, Miss," said Bob, speaking lower and looking seri-
ous, "he's as close as a iron biler, he is; but I'm a 'cutish
chap, an' when I've left off carrying my pack, an* am at a
loose end, I've got more brains nor I know what to do wi', an'
I'm forced to busy myself wi' other folks's insides. An* it
worrets me as Mr. Tom'll sit by himself so glumpish, a-knit-
tin' his brow, an' a-lookin' at the fire of a night. He should
be a bit livelier now, a fine young fellow like him. My wife
says, when she goes in sometimes, an' he takes no notice of
her, he sits lookin' into the fire, and frownin* as if he waf
watchin' folks at work in it."
" He thinks so much about business, " said Maggie.
408 THE MILL OK THE FLOSS.
"Ay, "said Bob, speaking lower j "but do you think it's
nothin' else, Miss? He's close, Mr. Tom is; but I'm a 'cute
chap, I am, an' I thought tow'rt last Christmas as I'd found
out a soft place in him. It was about a little black spaniel —
a rare bit o' breed — as he made a fuss to get. But since then
summat's come over him, as he's set his teeth again' things
more nor iver, for all he's had such good luck. An' I wanted
to tell you. Miss, 'cause I thought you might work it out of
him a bit, now you're come. He's a deal too lonely, and
doesn't go into company enough."
"I'm afraid I have very little power over him, Bob,"
said Maggie, a good deal moved by Bob's suggestion. It
was a totally new idea to her mind that Tom could have
his love troubles. Poor fellow ! — and in love with Lucy too !
But it was perhaps a mere fancy of Bob's too officious brain.
The present of the dog meant nothing more than cousinship
and gratitude. But Bob had already said, "Here's Mr.
Tom, " and the outer door was opening.
"There's no time to spare, Tom," said Maggie, as soon as
Bob left the room. " I must tell you at once what. I came
about, else I shall be hindering you from taking your dinner."
Tom stood with his back against the chimney-piece, and
Maggie was seated opposite the light. He noticed that she
was tremulous, and he had a presentiment of the subject she
was going to speak about. The presentiment made his voice
colder and harder as he said, " What is it? "
This tone roused a spirit of resistance in Maggie, and she
put her request in quite a different form from the one she had
predetermined on. She rose from her seat, and looking
straight at Tom, said, —
" I want you to absolve me from my promise about Philip
Wakem. Or rather, I promised you not to see him without
telling you. I am come to tell you that I wish to see him."
" Very well, " said Tom, still more coldly.
But Maggie had hardly finished speaking in that chill, de-
fiant manner, before she repented, and felt the dread of alien-
ation from her brother.
" Not for myself, dear Tom. Don't be angry. I shouldn't
have asked it, only that Philip, you know, is a friend of Lucy'Sj
THE GflEAT TEMPTATION. 409
and slie wishes him to come, has invited him to come this even-
ing} and I told her I couldn't see him without telling you.
I shall only see him in the presence of other people. There
will never be anything secret between us again. "
Tom looked away from Maggie, knitting his brow more
strongly for a little while. Then he turned to her and said,
slowly and emphatically, —
" You know what is my feeling on that subject, Maggie.
There is no need for my repeating anything I said a year ago.
While my father was living, I felt bound to use the utmost
power over you, to prevent you from disgracing him as well as
yourself, and all of us. But now I must leave you to your
own choice. You wish to be independent ; you told me so
after my father's death. My opinion is not changed. If you
think of Philip Wakem as a lover again, you must give up
me."
" I don't wish it, dear Tom, at least as things are ; I see
that it would lead to misery. But I shall soon go away to
another situation, and I should like to be friends with him
again while I am here. Lucy wishes it."
The severity of Tom's face relaxed a little.
"I shouldn't mind your seeing him occasionally at my
uncle's — I don't want you to make a fuss on the subject. But
I have no confidence in you, Maggie. You would be led away
to do anything."
That was a cruel word. Maggie's lip began to tremble.
"Why will you say that, Tom? It is very hard of you.
Have I not done and borne everything as well as I could?
And I kept my word to you — when — when My life has not
been a happy one, any more than yours."
She was obliged to be childish; the tears would come.
When Maggie was not angry, she was as dependent on kind
or cold words as a daisy on the sunshine or the cloud ; the
need of being loved would always subdue her, as, in old days,
it subdued her in the worm-eaten attic. The brother's good-
ness came uppermost at this appeal, but it could only show
itself in Tom's fashion. He put his hand gently on her arm,
and said, in the tone of a kind pedagogue, —
" Now listen to me, Maggie. I'll tell you what I
410 THE MILL ON TfiE -FLO8&
You're always in extremes; you have no judgment and self-
command j and yet you think you know best, and will not sub-
mit to be guided. You know I didn't wish you to take a situ-
ation. My aunt Pullet was willing to give you a good home,
and you might have lived respectably amongst your relations,
until I could have provided a home for you with my mother.
And that is what I should like to do. I wished my sister to
be a lady, and I always have taken care of you, as my father
desired, until you were well married. But your ideas and
mine never accord, and you will not give way. Yet you might
have sense enough to see that a brother, who goes out into the
world and mixes with men, necessarily knows better what is
right and respectable for his sister than she can know herself.
You think I am not kind; but my kindness can only be di-
rected by what I believe to be good for you."
" Yes, I know, dear Tom, " said Maggie, still half-sobbing,
but trying to control her tears. " I know you would do a
great deal for me; I know how you work, and don't spare
yourself. I am grateful to you. But, indeed, you can't
quite judge for me ; our natures are very different. You don't
know how differently things affect me from what they do you."
"Yes, I do know; I know it too well. I know how differ-
ently you must feel about all that affects our family, and your
own dignity as a young woman, before you could think of re-
ceiving secret addresses from Philip Wakem. If it was not
disgusting to me in every other way, I should object to my sis-
ter's name being associated for a moment with that of a young
man whose father must hate the very thought of us all, and
would spurn you. With any one but you, I should think it
quite certain that what you witnessed just before my father's
death would secure you from ever thinking again of Philip
Wakem as a lover. But I don't feel certain of it with you;
T never feel certain about anything with you. At one time
you take pleasure in a sort of perverse self-denial, and at an-
other you have not resolution to resist a thing that you know
to be wrong."
There was a terrible cutting truth in Tom's words, — that
hard rind of truth which is discerned by unimaginative, un-
sympathetic minds. Maggie always writhed under this judg-
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 411
ment of Tom's; she rebelled and was humiliated in the same
moment; it seemed as if he held a glass before her to show
her her own folly and weakness, as if he were a prophetic
voice predicting her future fallings; and yet, all the while,
she judged him in return; she said inwardly that he was nar-
row and unjust, that he was below feeling those mental need?
which were often the source of the wrong-doing or absurdity
that made her life a planless riddle to him.
She did not answer directly; her heart was too full, and
she sat down, leaning her arm on the table. It was no usf
trying to make Tom feel that she was near to him. He always
repelled her. Her feeling under his words was complicated
by the allusion to the last scene between her father and
Wakem; and at length that painful, solemn memory sur-
mounted the immediate grievance. No ! She did not think
of such things with frivolous indifference, and Tom must not
accuse her of that. She looked up at him with a grave, ear-
nest gaze and said, —
" I can't make you think better of me, Tom, by anything I
can say. But I am not so shut out from all your feelings as
you believe me to be. I see as well as you do that from our
position with regard to Philip's father — not on other grounds
— it would be unreasonable, it would be wrong, for us to enter-
tain the idea of marriage ; and I have given up thinking of
him as a lover. I am telling you the truth, and you have no
right to disbelieve me ; I have kept my word to you, and you
have never detected me in a falsehood. I should not only not
encourage, I should carefully avoid, any intercourse with
Philip on any other footing than of quiet friendship. You
may think that I am unable to keep my resolutions ; but at
least you ought not to treat me with hard contempt on the
ground of faults that I have not committed yet."
" Well, Maggie, " said Tom, softening under this appeal, " I
don't want to overstrain matters. I think, all things consid-
ered, it will be best for you to see Philip Wakem, if Lucy
wishes him to come to the house. I believe what you say,—
at least you believe it yourself, I know ; I can only warn you.
I wish to be as good a brother to you as you will let me."
There was a little tremor ia Tom's voice as he uttered the
412 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
last words, and Maggie's ready affection came back with as
sudden a glow as when they were children, and bit their cake
together as a sacrament of conciliation. She rose and laid her
hand on Tom's shoulder.
" Dear Tom, I know you mean to be good. I know you
have had a great deal to bear, and have done a great deal. I
should like to be a comfort to you, not to vex you. You don't
think I'm altogether naughty, now, do you? "
Tom smiled at the eager face ; his smiles were very pleasant'
to see when they did come, for the gray eyes could be tender
underneath the frown.
"No, Maggie."
" I may turn out better than you expect."
" I hope you will. "
" And may I come some day and make tea for you, and see
this extremely small wife of Bob's again?"
"Yes; but trot away now, for I've no more time to spare,"
said Tom, looking at his watch.
"Not to give me a kiss?"
Tom bent to kiss her cheek, and then said, —
"There! Be a good girl. I've got a great deal to think of
to-day. I'm going to have a long consultation with my uncle
Deane this afternoon."
" You'll come to aunt Glegg's to-morrow? We're going all
to dine early, that we may go there to tea. You inust come ;
Lucy told me to say so."
"Oh, pooh! I've plenty else to do," said Tom, pulling his
bell violently, and bringing down the small bell-rope.
"I'm frightened; I shall run away," said Maggie, making
a laughing retreat; while Tom, with masculine philosophy,
flung the bell-rope to the farther end of the room ; not very
far either,— a touch of human experience which I flatter my-
self will come home to the bosoms of not a few substantial or
distinguished men who were once at an early stage of their
rise in the world, and were cherishine; very large hope? in rery
small lodgings*
THE GREAT TEMPTATIOH. 413
CHAPTER V.
SHOWING THAT TOM HAD OPENED THE OYSTER.
now we've settled this Newcastle business, Tom,"
said Mr. Deane, that same afternoon, as they were seated in
the private room at the Bank together, " there's another mat-
ter I want to talk to you about. Since you're likely to have
rather a smoky, unpleasant time of it at Newcastle for the
next few weeks, you'll want a good prospect of some sort to
keep up your spirits."
Tom waited less nervously than he had done on a former
occasion in this apartment, while his uncle took out his snuff-
box and gratified each nostril with deliberate impartiality.
" You see, Tom, " said Mr. Deane at last, throwing himself
backward, " the world goes on at a smarter pace now than it
did when I was a.young fellow. Why, sir, forty years ago,
when I was much such a strapping youngster as you, a man
expected to pull between the shafts the best part of his life,
before he got the whip in his hand. The looms went slowish,
and fashions didn't alter quite so fast; I'd a best suit that
lasted me six years. Everything was on a lower scale, sir,
• — in point of expenditure, I mean. It's this steam, you see,
that has made the difference ; it drives on every wheel double
pace, and the wheel of fortune along with 'em, as our Mr.
Stephen Guest said at the anniversary dinner ^(he hits these
things off wonderfully, considering he's seen nothing of busi-
ness). I don't find fault with the change, as some people do.
Trade, sir, opens a man's eyes; and if the population is to
get thicker upon the ground, as it's doing, the world must use
its wits at inventions of one sort or other. I know I've done
my share as an ordinary man of business. Somebody has said
it's a fine thing to make two ears of corn grow where only one
grew before; but, sir, it's a fine thing, too, to further the
exchange of commodities, and brmg the grains of corn to the
mouths that are hungry. And that's our line ot business;
and I consider it as honorable a position as a man can hold, to
be connected with it."
414 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Tom knew that the affair his uncle had to speak of was not
urgent; Mr. Deane was too shrewd and practical a man to al-
low either his reminiscences or his snuff to impede the progress
of trade. Indeed, for the last month or two, there had been
hints thrown out to Tom which enabled him to guess that he
was going to hear some proposition for his own benefit. With
the beginning of the last speech he had stretched out his legs,
thrust his hands in his pockets, and prepared himself for some
introductory diffuseness, tending to show that Mr. Deane had
succeeded by his own merit, and that what he had to say to
young men in general was, that if they didn't succeed too it
was because of their own demerit. He was rather surprised,
then, when his uncle put a direct question to him.
"Let me see, — it's going on for seven years now since you
applied to me for a situation, eh, Tom?"
"Yes, sir; I'm three-and-twenty now," said Tom.
" Ah, it's as well not to say that, though ; for you'd pass for
a good deal older, and age tells well in business. I remem-
ber your coming very well; I remember I saw there was some
pluck in you, and that was what made me give you encourage-
ment. And I'm happy to say I was right; I'm not often de-
ceived. I was naturally a little shy at pushing my nephew,
but I'm happy to say you've done me credit, sir; and if I'd
had a son o' my own, I shouldn't have been sorry to see him
like you."
Mr. Deane tapped his box and opened it again, repeating in
a tone of some feeling, " No, I shouldn't have been sorry to
see him like you."
"I'm very glad I've given you satisfaction, sir; I've done
my best," said Tom, in his proud, independent way.
" Yes, Tom, you've given me satisfaction. I don't speak
of your conduct as a son ; though that weighs with me in my
opinion of you. But what I have to do with, as a partner in
our firm, is the qualities you've shown as a man o' business.
Ours is a fine business, — a splendid concern, sir, — and there's
no reason why it shouldn't go on growing; there's a growing
capital, and growing outlets for it; but there's another thing
that's wanted for the prosperity of every concern, large or
l, and that's men to conduct it, — men of the right habits;
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 415
none o* your flashy fellows, but such as are to be depended on.
Now this is what Mr. Guest and I see clear enough. Three
years ago we took Gell into the concern ; we gave him a share
in the oil-mill. And why ? Why, because Gell was a fellow
whose services were worth a premium. So it will always be,
sir. So it was with me. And though Gell is pretty near ten
years older than you, there are other points in your favor."
Torn was getting a little nervous as Mr. Deane went on
speaking; he was conscious of something he had in his mind
to say, which might not be agreeable to his uncle, simply be-
cause it was a new suggestion rather than an acceptance of
the proposition he foresaw.
"It stands to reason," Mr. Deane went on, when he had
finished his new pinch, " that your being my nephew weighs
in your favor; but I don't deny that if you'd been no relation
of mine at all, your conduct in that affair of Pelley's bank
would have led Mr. Guest and myself to make some acknowl-
edgment of the service you've been to us; and, backed by your
general conduct and business ability, it has made us determine
on giving you a share in the business, — a share whicb we shall
be glad to increase as the years go on. We think that'll be
better, on all grounds, than raising your salary. It'll give
you more importance, and prepare you better for taking some
of the anxiety off my shoulders by and by. I'm equal to a
good deal o' work at present, thank God; but I'm getting
older, — there's no denying that. I told Mr. Guest I would
open the subject to you; and when you come back from this
northern business, we can go into particulars. This is a great
stride for a young fellow of three -and-twenty, but I'm bound
to say you've deserved it."
"I'm very grateful to Mr. Guest and you, sir; of course I
feel the most indebted to you, who first took me into the
business, and have taken a good deal of pains with me
since."
Tom spoke with a slight tremor, and paused after he had
said this.
" Yes, yes," said Mr. Deane. "I don't spare pains when I
see they'll be of any use. I gave myself some trouble with
Gel!, else he wouldn't have been what he is,"
*16 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"But there's one thing I should like to mention to you,
ancle. I've never spoken to you of it before. If you remem-
ber, at the time my father's property was sold, there was
some thought of your firm buying the Mill; I know you
thought it would be a very good investment, especially if
steam were applied."
"To be sure, to be sure. But Wakem outbid us; he'd made
up liia mind to that. He's rather fond of carrying everything
ever other people's heads."
"Perhaps it's of no use my mentioning it at present," Tom
went on, " but I wish you to know what I have in my mind
about the Mill. I've a strong feeling about it. It was my
father's dying wish that I should try and get it back again
whenever I could; it was in his family for five generations. I
promised my father; and besides that, I'm attached to the
place. I shall never like any other so well. And if it should
ever suit your views to buy it for the firm, I should have a
better chance of fulfilling my father's wish. I shouldn't have
liked to mention the thing to you, only you've been kind
enough to say my services have been of some value. And I'd
give up a much greater chance in life for the sake of having
the Mill again, — I mean having it in my own hands, and
gradually working off the price."
Mr. Deane had listened attentively, and now looked thought-
ful.
"I see, I see," he said, after a while; "the thing would be
possible if there were any chance of Wakem's parting with
the property. But that I don't see. He's put that young
Jetsome in the place ; and he had his reasons when he bought
it, I'll be bound."
" He's a loose fish, that young Jetsome, " said Tom. " He's
taking to drinking, and they say he's letting the business go
down. Luke told me about it, — our old miller. He says he
sha'n't stay unless there's an alteration. I was thinking, if
things went on that way, Wakem might be more willing to
part with the Mill. Luke says he's getting very sour about
the way things are going on."
" Well, I'll turn it over, Tom. I must inquire into the mat-
ter, and $o into it with Mr, Guest. But, you see, it's rather
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 417
striking out a new branch, and putting you to that, instead of
keeping you where you are, which was what we'd wanted."
" I should be able to manage more than the Mill when things
were once set properly going, sir. I want to have plenty of
work. There's nothing else I care about much."
There was something rather sad in that speech from a young
man of three-and-twenty, even in uncle Deane's business-
loving ears.
"Pooh, pooh! you'll be having a wife to care about one of
these days, if you get on at this pace in the world. But as to
this Mill, we mustn't reckon on our chickens too early. How-
ever, I promise you to bear it in mind, and when you come
back we'll talk of it again. I am going to dinner now. Come
and breakfast with us to-morrow morning, and say good-byf
to your mother and sister before you start."
CHAPTER VL
ILLUSTRATING THE LAWS OF ATTRACTION.
IT is evident to you now that Maggie had arrived at a mo-
ment in her life which must be considered by all prudent per-
sons as a great opportunity for a young woman. Launched
into the higher society of St. Ogg's, with a striking person,
which had the advantage of being quite unfamiliar to the ma-
jority of beholders, and with such moderate assistance of cos-
tume as you have seen foreshadowed in Lucy's anxious colloquy
with aunt Pullet, Maggie was certainly at a new starting-point
in life. At Lucy's first evening party, young Torry fatigued
his facial muscles more than usual in order that " the dark-
eyed girl there in the corner " might see him in all the addi-
tional style conferred by his eyeglass; and several young ladies
went home intending to have short sleeves with black lace,
and to plait their hair in a broad coronet at the back of their
head,— "That cousin of Miss Deane's looked so very well."
In fact, poor Maggie, with all her inward consciousness of a
painful past and her presentiment of a trgublpus future, waj
27
418 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
on the way to become an object of some envy, — a topic of dis«
eussion in the newly established billiard-room, and between
fair friends who had no secrets from each other on the subject
of trimmings. The Miss Guests, who associated chiefly on
terms of condescension with the families of St. Ogg's, and
were the glass of fashion there, took some exception to Mag-
gie's manners. She had a way of not assenting at once to the
observations current in good society, and of saying that she
didn't know whether those observations were true or not, which
gave her an air of gaucherie, and impeded the even flow oi
conversation ; but it is a fact capable of an amiable interpreta-
tion that ladies are not the worst disposed toward a new ac-
quaintance of their own sex because she has points of inferior-
ity. And Maggie was so entirely without those pretty airs of
coquetry which have the traditional reputation of driving gen-
tlemen to despair that she won some feminine pity for being
so ineffective in spite of her beauty. She had not had many
advantages, poor thing! and it must be admitted there was no
pretension about her ; her abruptness and unevenness of man-
ner were plainly the result of her secluded and lowly circum-
stances. It was only a wonder that there was no tinge of
vulgarity about her, considering what the rest of poor Lucy's
relations were — an allusion which always made the Miss Guests
shudder a little. It was not agreeable to think of any connec-
tion by marriage with such people as the Gleggs and the Pul-
lets ; but it was of no use to contradict Stephen when once he
had set his mind on anything, and certainly there was no pos-
sible objection to Lucy in herself, — no one could help liking
her. She would naturally desire that the Miss Guests should
behave kindly to this cousin of whom she was so fond, aud
Stephen would make a great fuss if they were deficient in
civility. Under these circumstances the invitations to Park
House were not wanting ; and elsewhere, also, Miss Deane was
too popular and too distinguished a member of society in St.
Ogg's for any attention toward her to be neglected.
Thus Maggie was introduced for the first time to the young
lady's life, and knew what it was to get up in the morning
without any imperative reason for doing one thing more than
another. This new sense of leisure and unchecked enjoyment
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 419
amidst the soft-breathing airs and garden-scents of advancing
spring — amidst the new abundance of music, and lingering
strolls in the sunshine, and the delicious dreaminess of gliding
on the river — could hardly be without some intoxicating effect
ou her, after her years of privation ; and even in the first week
Maggie began to be less haunted by her sad memories and an-
ticipations. Life was certainly very pleasant just now; it was
becoming very pleasant to dress in the evening, and to feel
that she was one of the beautiful things of this spring-time.
And there were admiring eyes always awaiting her now; she
was no longer an unheeded person, liable to be chid, from
whom attention was continually claimed, and on whom no one
felt bound to confer any. It was pleasant, too, when Stephen
and Lucy were gone out riding, to sit down at the piano alone,
and find that the old fitness between her fingers and the keys
remained, and revived, like a sympathetic kinship not to be
worn out by separation ; to get the tunes she had heard the
evening before, and repeat them again and again until she
had found out a way of producing them so as to make them a
more pregnant, passionate language to her. The mere con-
cord of octaves was a delight to Maggie, and she would often
take up a book of studies rather than any melody, that she
might taste more keenly by abstraction the more primitive
sensation of intervals. Not that her enjoyment of music was
of the kind that indicates a great specific talent ; it was rather
that her sensibility to the supreme excitement of music was
only one form of that passionate sensibility which, belonged
to her whole nature, and made her faults and virtues all merge
in each other ; made her affections sometimes an impatient
demand, but also prevented her vanity from taking the form of
mere feminine coquetry and device, and gave it the poetry of
ambition. But you have known Maggie a long while, and
need to be told, not her characteristics, but her history, which
is a thing hardly to be predicted even from the completest
knowledge of characteristics. For the tragedy of our lives is
not created entirely from within. "Character," says Nova-
lis, in one of his questionable aphorisms, — "character is des-
tiny." But not the whole of our destiny. Hamlet, Prince
of Denmark, was speculative aud irresolute* and we have a
420 THE MILL OX THE FLOSS.
great tragedy in consequence. But if his father had lived to
a good old age, and his uncle had died an early death, we
can conceive Hamlet's having married Ophelia, and got
through life with a reputation of sanity, notwithstanding
many soliloquies, and some moody sarcasms toward the fair
daughter of Polonius, to say nothing of the frankest incivility
to his father-in-law.
Maggie's destiny, then, is at present hidden, and we must
wait for it to reveal itself like the course of an unmapped
river ; we only know that the river is full and rapid, and that
for all rivers there is the same final home. Under the charm
of her new pleasures, Maggie herself was ceasing to think,
with her eager prefiguring imagination, of her future lot ; and
her anxiety about her first interview with Philip was losing
its predominance; perhaps, unconsciously to herself, she was
not sorry that the interview had been deferred.
For Philip had not come the evening he was expected, and
Mr. Stephen Guest brought word that he was gone to the
coast, — probably, he thought, on a sketching expedition; but
it was not certain when he would return. It was just like
Philip, to go off in that way without telling any one. It was
not until the twelfth day that he returned, to find both Lucy's
notes awaiting him ; he had left before he knew of Maggie's
arrival.
Perhaps one had need be nineteen again to be quite con-
vinced of the feelings that were crowded for Maggie into those
twelve days ; of the length to which they were stretched for
her by the novelty of her experience in them, and the varying
attitudes of her mind. The early days of an acquaintance,
almost always have this importance for us, and fill up a larger'
space in our memory than longer subsequent periods, which
have been less filled with discovery and new impressions.'
There were not many hours in those ten days in which Mr.
Stephen Guest was not seated by Lucy's side, or standing near
her at the piano, or accompanying her on some outdoor ex-
cursion ; his attentions were clearly becoming more assiduous,
and that was what every one had expected. Lucy was very
happy, all the happier because Stephen's society seemed to
have become much more interesting and amusing since Mag-
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 421
gie had been there. Playful discussions— sometimes serious
ones — were going forward, in which both Stephen and Maggie
revealed themselves, to the admiration of the gentle, unobtru-
sive Lucyj and it more than once crossed her mind what a
charming quartet they should have through life when Maggie
married Philip. Is it an inexplicable thing that a girl should
enjoy her lover's society the more for the presence of a third
person, and be without the slightest spasm of jealousy that
the third person had the conversation habitually directed to
her? Not when that girl is as tranquil-hearted as Lucy, thor-
oughly possessed with a belief that she knows the state of her
companions' affections, and not prone to the feelings which
.shake such a belief in the absence of positive evidence against
it. Besides, it was Lucy by whom Stephen sat, to whom he
gave his arm, to whom he appealed as the person sure to agree
with him ; and every day there was the same tender politeness
toward her, the same consciousness of her wants and care
to supply them. Was there really the same? It seemed to
Lucy that there was more ; and it was no wonder that the real
significance of the change escaped her. It was a subtle act of
conscience in Stephen that even he himself was not aware of.
His personal attentions to Maggie were comparatively slight,
and there had even sprung up an apparent distance between
them, that prevented the renewal of that faint resemblance to
gallantry into which he had fallen the first day in the boat.
If Stephen came in when Lucy was out of the room, if Lucy
left them together, they never spoke to each other; Stephen,
perhaps, seemed to be examining books or music, and Maggie
bent her head assiduously over her work. Each was oppres-
sively conscious of the other's presence, even to the finger-
ends. Yet each looked and longed for the same thing to hap-
pen the next day. Neither of them had begun to reflect on
the matter, or silently to ask, "To what does all this tend?"
Maggie only felt that life was revealing something quite
new to her ; and she was absorbed in the direct, immediate ex-
perience, without any energy left for taking account of it and
reasoning about it. Stephen wilfully abstained from self-
questioning, and would not admit to himself that he felt an
influence which was to have any determining effect on his con-
422 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
duct. And when Lucy came into the room again, they were
once more unconstrained; Maggie could contradict Stephen,
and laugh at him, and he could recommend to her considera-
tion the example of that most charming heroine, Miss Sophia
Western, who had a great " respect for the understandings of
men." Maggie could look at Stephen, which, for some rea-
son or other, she always avoided when they were alone ; and
he could even ask her to play his accompaniment for him,
since Lucy's fingers were so busy with that bazaar-work, and
lecture her on hurrying the tempo, which was certainly Mag-
gie's weak point.
One day — it was the day of Philip's return — Lucy had
formed a sudden engagement to spend the evening with Mrs.
Kenn, whose delicate state of health, threatening to become
confirmed illness through an attack of bronchitis, obliged her
to resign her functions at the coining bazaar into the hands of
other ladies, of whom she wished Lucy to be one. The en-
gagement had been formed in Stephen's presence, and he had
heard Lucy promise to dine early and call at six o'clock for
Miss Torry, who brought Mrs. Kenn's request.
" Here is another of the moral results of this idiotic bazaar, "
Stephen burst forth, as soon as Miss Torry had left the room,
— " taking young ladies from the duties of the domestic hearth
into scenes of dissipation among urn-rugs and embroidered
reticules! I should like to know what is the proper function
of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at
home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out. If this
goes on much longer, the bonds of society will be dissolved."
" Well, it will not go on much longer, " said Lucy, laughing,
'for the bazaar is to take place on Monday week."
" Thank Heaven ! " said Stephen. " Kenn himself said the
other day that he didn't like this plan of making vanity do
the work of charity; but just as the British public is not rea-
sonable enough to bear direct taxation, so St. Ogg's has not
got force of motive enough to build and endow schools without
calling in the force of folly."
"Did he say so?" said little Lucy, her hazel eyes opening
wide with anxiety. " I never heard him say anything of that
kind; I thought he approved of what we were doing."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 423
"I'm sure lie approves you," said Stephen, smiling at her
affectionately; "your conduct in going out to-night looks
vicious, I own, but I know there is benevolence at the bottom
of it."
"Oh, you think too well of me," said Lucy, shaking her
head, with a pretty blush, and there the subject ended. But
it was tacitly understood that Stephen would not come in the
evening ; and on the strength of that tacit understanding he
made his morning visit the longer, not saying good-bye until
after four.
Maggie was seated in the drawing-room, alone, shortly after
dinner, with Minny on her lap, having left her uncle to his
wine and his nap, and her mother to the compromise between
knitting and nodding, which, when there was no company,
she always carried on in the dining-room till tea-time. Mag-
gie was stooping to caress the tiny silken pet, and comforting
him for his mistress's absence, when the sound of a footstep
on the gravel made her look up, and she saw Mr. Stephen
Guest walking up the garden, as if he had come straight from
the river. It was very unusual to see him so soon after din-
ner! He often complained that their dinner-hour was late at
Park House. Nevertheless, there he was, in his black dress j
he had evidently been home, and must have come again by
the river. Maggie felt her cheeks glowing and her heart beat'
ing ; it was natural she should be nervous, for she was not ac-
customed to receive visitors alone. He had seen her look up
through the open window, and raised his hat as he walked
toward it, to enter that way instead of by the door. He
blusl.ed too, and certainly looked as foolish as a young man
of some wit and self-possession can be expected to look, as he
walked in with a roll of music in his hand, and said, with an
air of hesitating improvisation, —
" You are surprised to see me again, Miss Tulliver ; I ought
to apologize for coming upon you by surprise, but I wanted to
come into the town, and I got our man to row me; so I
thought I would bring these things from the ' Maid of Artois '
for your cousin ; I forgot them this morning. Will you give
them to her? "
" Yes, " said Maggie, who had risen confusedly with Miiwv
424 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
in her arms, and now; not quite knowing what else to do, sat
down again.
Stephen laid down his hat, with the music, which rolled on
the floor, and sat down in the chair close by her. He had
never done so before, and both he and Maggie were quite aware
that it was an entirely new position.
" Well, you pampered minion ! " said Stephen, leaning to
pull the long curly ears that drooped over Maggie's arm. It
was not a suggestive remark, and as the speaker did not fol-
low it up by further development, it naturally left the conver-
sation at a standstill. It seemed to Stephen like some action
in a dream that he was obliged to do, and wonder at himself
all the while, — to go on stroking Minny's head. Yet it was
very pleasant; he only wished he dared look at Maggie, and
that she would look at him, — let him have one long look into
those deep, strange eyes of hers, and then he would be satis-
fied and quite reasonable after that. He thought it was be-
coming a sort of monomania with him, to want that long look
from Maggie; and he was racking his invention continually to
find out some means by which he could have it without its ap-
pearing singular and entailing subsequent embarrassment. As
ior Maggie, she had no distinct thought, only the sense of a
presence like that of a closely hovering broad-winged bird in
the darkness, for she was unable to look up, and saw nothing
but Minny's black wavy coat.
But this must end some time, perhaps it ended very soon,
and only seemed long, as a minute's dream does. Stephen at
last sat upright sideways in his chair, leaning one hand and
arm over the back and looking at Maggie. What should he
say?
" We shall have a splendid sunset, I think ; sha'n't you go
out and see it?"
" I don't know, " said Maggie. Then courageously raising
her eyes and looking out of the window, " if I'm not playing
cribbage with my uncle."
A pause; during which Minny is stroked again, but has
sufficient insight not to be grateful for it, to growl rather.
"Do you like sitting alone?"
A rather arch look came over Maggie's face, and, jusfc
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 425
glancing at Stephen, she said, " Would it be quite civil to
say ' yes ' ? "
" It was rather a dangerous question for an intruder to ask, "
said Stephen, delighted with that glance, and getting deter-
mined to stay for another. " But you will have more than
half an hour to yourself after I am gone," he added, taking
out his watch. " I know Mr. Deane never comes in till half-
past seven." (
Another pause, during which Maggie looked steadily out of
the window, till by a great effort she moved her head to look
down at Minny's back again, and said, —
" I wish Lucy had not been obliged to go out. "We lose
our music. "
"We shall have a new voice to-morrow night," said
Stephen. " Will you tell your cousin that our friend Philip
Wakem is come back? I saw him as I went home."
Maggie gave a little start, — it seemed hardly more than a
vibration that passed from head to foot in an instant. But
the new images summoned by Philip's name dispersed half
the oppressive spell she had been under. She rose from her
chair with a sudden resolution, and laying Minny on his cush-
ion, went to reach Lucy's large work- basket from its corner.
Stephen was vexed and disappointed ; he thought perhaps Mag-
gie didn't like the name of Wakem to be mentioned to her in
that abrupt way, for he now recalled what Lucy had told him
of the family quarrel. It was of no use to stay any longer.
Maggie was seating herself at the table with her work, and
looking chill and proud ; and he — he looked like a simpleton
for having come. A gratuitous, entirely superfluous visit of
that sort was sure to make a man disagreeable and ridiculous.
Of course it was palpable to Maggie's thinking that he had
dined hastily in his own room for the sake of setting off again
and finding her alone.
A boyish state of mind for an accomplished young gentle-
man of five-and-twenty, not without legal knowledge! But a
reference to history, perhaps, may make it not incredible.
At this moment Maggie's ball of knitting-wool rolled along
the ground, and she started up to reach it. Stephen rose too,
and picking up the ball, met her with a vexed, complaining
426 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
look that gave his eyes quite a new expression to Maggie,
whose own eyes met them as he presented the ball to her.
" Good-bye, " said Stephen, in a tone that had the same be«
seeching discontent as his eyes. He dared not put out hia
hand ; he thrust both hands into his tail-pockets as he spoke.
Maggie thought she had perhaps been rude.
" Won't you stay ? " she said timidly, not looking away, for
that would have seemed rude again.
"No, thank you," said Stephen, looking still into the half-
unwilling, half -fascinated eyes, as a thirsty man looks toward
the track of the distant brook. " The boat is waiting for me.
You'll tell your cousin?"
"Yes." "
" That I brought the music, I mean? "
"Yes."
"And that Philip is come back? "
"Yes." (Maggie did not notice Philip's name this time.)
"Won't you come out a little way into the garden?" said
Stephen, in a still gentler tone ; but the next moment he was
vexed that she did not say " No, " for she moved away now
toward the open window, and he was obliged to take his hat
and walk by her side. But he thought of something to make
him amends.
" Do take my arm, " he said, in a low tone, as if it were a
secret.
There is something strangely winning to most women in that
offer of the firm arm ; the help is not wanted physically at
that moment, but the sense of help, the presence of strength
that is outside them and yet theirs, meets a continual want of
the imagination. Either on that ground or some other, Mag-
gie took the arm. And they walked together round the grass-
plot and under the drooping green of the laburnums, in the
same dim, dreamy state as they had been in a quarter of an
hour before; only that Stephen had had the look he longed
for, without yet perceiving in himself the symptoms of return-
ing reasonableness, and Maggie had darting thoughts across
the dimness, — how came he to be there? Why had she come
out? Not a word was spoken. If it had been, each would
have been less intensely conscious of the other.
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 427
"Take care of this step," said Stephen at last.
"Oh, I will go in now," said Maggie, feeling that the step
had come like a rescue. " Good-evening."
In an instant she had withdrawn her arm, and was running
back to the house. She did not reflect that this sudden action
would only add to the embarrassing recollections of the last
half -hour. She had no thought left for that. She only threw
herself into the low arm-chair, and burst into tears.
"Oh, Philip, Philip, I wish we were together again — so
quietly — in the Eed Deeps."
Stephen looked after her a moment, then went on to the
boat, and was soon landed at the wharf. He spent the even-
ing in the billiard-room, smoking one cigar after another, and
losing " lives " at pool. But he would not leave off. He was
determined not to think, — not to admit any more distinct re-
membrance than was urged upon him by the perpetual presence
of Maggie. He was looking at her, and she was on his arm.
But there came the necessity of walking home in the cool
starlight, and with it the necessity of cursing his own folly,
and bitterly determining that he would never trust himself
alone with Maggie again. It was all madness ; he was in love,
thoroughly attached to Lucy, and engaged, — engaged as
strongly as an honorable man need be. He wished he had
never seen this Maggie Tulliver, to be thrown into a fever by
her in this way ; she would make a sweet, strange, tioublesome,
adorable wife to some man or other, but he would never have
chosen her himself. Did she feel as he did? He hoped she did
— not. He ought not to have gone. He would master himself
in future. He would make himself disagreeable to her, quar-
rel with her perhaps. Quarrel with her? Was it possible to
quarrel with a creature who had such eyes, — defying and depre-
cating, contradicting and clinging, imperious and beseeching, —
full of delicious opposites? To see such a creature subdued
by love for one would be a lot worth having — to another man.
There was a muttered exclamation which ended this inward
soliloquy, as Stephen threw away the end of his last cigar,
and thrusting his hands into his pockets, stalked along at a
quieter pace through, the shrubbery. It was not of a bene«
factory kind
128 THE MILL ON THE PLOSa
CHAPTER VU.
PHILIP RE-ENTERS.
THE next morning was very wet, — the sort of morning o»
which male neighbors who have no imperative occupation at
home are likely to pay their fair friends an illimitable visit.
The rain, which has been endurable enough for the walk or
ride one way, is sure to become so heavy, and at the same
time so certain to clear up by and by, that nothing but an
open quarrel can abbreviate the visit; latent detestation will
not do at all. And if people happen to be lovers, what can be
so delightful, in England, as a rainy morning? English sun-
shine is dubious ; bonnets are never quite secure ; and if you
sit down on the grass, it may lead to catarrhs. But the rain
is to be depended on. You gallop through it in a mackintosh,
and presently find yourself in the seat you like best, — a little
above or a little below the one on which your goddess sits (it
is the same thing to the metaphysical mind, and that is the
reason why women are at once worshipped and looked down
upon), with a satisfactory confidence that there will be no
lady-callers.
"Stephen will come earlier this morning, I know," said
Lucy; "he always does when it's rainy."
Maggie made no answer. She was angry with Stephen ; she
began to think she should dislike him ; and if it had not been
for the rain, she would have gone to her aunt Glegg's this
morning, and so have avoided him altogether. As it was, she
must find some reason for remaining out of the room with her
mother.
But Stephen did not come earlier, and there was another
visitor — a nearer neighbor — who preceded him. When Philip
entered the room, he was going merely to bow to Maggie, feel-
ing that their acquaintance was a secret which he was bound
not to betray ; but when she advanced toward him and put out
her hand, he guessed at once that Lucy had been taken into
her confidence. It was a moment of some agitation to both,
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 42S
though Philip had spent many hours in preparing for it; but
like all persons who have passed through life with little ex-
pectation of sympathy, he seldom lost his self-control, and
shrank with the most sensitive pride from any noticeable be-
trayal of emotion. A little extra paleness, a little tension of
the nostril when he spoke, and the voice pitched in rather a
higher key, that to strangers would seem expressive of cold
indifference, were all the signs Philip usually gave of an in-
ward drama that was not without its fierceness. But Maggie,
who had little more power of concealing the impressions made
«ipon her than if she had been constructed of musical strings,
felt her eyes getting larger with tears as they took each
other's hands in silence. They were not painful tears; they
had rather something of the same origin as the tears women
and children shed when they have found some protection to
cling to and look back on the threatened danger. For Philip,
who a little while ago was associated continually in Maggie's
mind with the sense that Tom might reproach her with some
justice, had now, in this short space, become a sort of out-
ward conscience to her, that she might fly to for rescue and
strength. Her tranquil, tender affection for Philip, with its
root deep down in her childhood, and its memories of long
quiet talk confirming by distinct successive impressions the
first instinctive bias, — the fact that in him the appeal was
more strongly to her pity and womanly devotedness than
to her vanity or other egoistic excitability of her nature, —
seemed now to make a sort of sacred place, a sanctuary where
she could find refuge from an alluring influence which the best
part of herself must resist; which must bring horrible tumult
within, wretchedness without. This new sense of her rela*
tion to Philip nullified the anxious scruples she would other-
wise have felt, lest she should overstep the limit of intercourse
with him that Tom would sanction ; and she put out her hand
to him, and felt the tears in her eyes without any conscious-
ness of an inward check. The scene was just what Lucy ex-
pected, and her kind heart delighted in bringing Philip and
Maggie together again ; though, even with all her regard for
Philip, she could not resist the impression that her cousin
Tom had some excuse for feeling shocked at the physical ia-
430 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
eongruity "between the two, — a prosaic person like cousin Ton\
•who didn't like poetry and fairy tales. But she began to
speak as soon as possible, to set them at ease.
" This was very good and virtuous of you, " she said, in her
pretty treble, like the low conversational notes of little birds,
ft to come so soon after your arrival. And as it is, I think I
will pardon you for running away in an inopportune manner,
and giving your friends no notice. Come and sit down here,"
she went on, placing the chair that would suit him best, " and
you shall find yourself treated mercifully."
"You will never govern well, Miss Deane," said Philip, as
he seated himself, " because no one will ever believe in your
severity. People will always encourage themselves in misde-
meanors by the certainty that you will be indulgent."
Lucy gave some playful contradiction, but Philip did not
hear what it was, for he had naturally turned toward Maggie,
and she was looking at him with that open, affectionate scru-
tiny which we give to a friend from whom we have been long
separated. What a moment their parting had been! And
Philip felt as if he were only in the morrow of it. He felt
this so keenly, — with such intense, detailed remembrance,
with such passionate revival of all that had been said and
looked in their last conversation, — that with that jealousy and
distrust which in diffident natures is almost inevitably linked
with a strong feeling, he thought he read in Maggie's glance
and manner the evidence of a change. The very fact that he
feared and half expected it would be sure to make this thought
rush in, in the absence of positive proof to the contrary.
" I am having a great holiday, am I not? " said Maggie.
* Lucy is like a fairy godmother ; she has turned me from a
drudge into a princess in no time. I do nothing but indulge
myself all day long, and she always finds out what I want be-
fore I know it myself."
"I am sure she is the happier for having you, then," said
Philip. "You must be better than a whole menagerie of
pets to her. And you look well. You are benefiting by the
change. "
Artificial conversation of this sort went on a little while,
till Lucy, determined to put an end to it, exclaimed, with a
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 431
good imitation of annoyance, that she had forgotten some*
thing, and was quickly out of the room.
In a moment Maggie and Philip leaned forward, and the
hands were clasped again, with a look of sad contentment,
like that of friends who meet in the memory of recent sorrow.
"I told my brother I wished to see you, Philip; I asked
him to release me from my promise, and he consented." i
Maggie, in her impulsiveness, wanted Philip to know at
once the position they must hold toward each other; but she
. checked herself. The things that had happened since he had
spoken of his love for her were so painful that she shrank
from being the first to allude to them. It seemed almost like
an injury toward Philip even to mention her brother, — her
brother, who had insulted him. But he was thinking too en-
tirely of her to be sensitive on any other point at that moment.
" Then we can at least be friends, Maggie? There is noth-
ing to hinder that now?"
" Will not your father object? " said Maggie, withdrawing
her hand.
" L should not give you up on any ground but your own
wish, Maggie," said Philip, coloring. "There are points on
which I should always resist my father, as I used to tell you.
That is one."
" Then there is nothing to hinder our being friends, Philip,
— seeing each other and talking to each other while I am here ;
I shall soon go away again. I mean to go very soon, to a
new situation."
"Is that inevitable, Maggie?"
"Yes; I must not stay here long. It would unfit me for
the life I must begin again at last. I can't live in depend-
ence,— I can't live with my brother, though he is very good
to me. He would like to provide for me ; but that would be
intolerable to aie."
Philip was silent a few moments, and then said, in that
high, feeble voice which with him indicated the resolute sup-
pression of emotion, —
" Is there no other alternative, Maggie? Is that life, away
from those who love you, the only one you will allow yourself
to look forward to? "
432 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Yes, Philip," she said, looking at him pleadingly as il
she entreated him to believe that she was compelled to this
course. "At least, as things are; I don't know what may be
in years to come. But I begin to think there can never come
much happiness to me from loving; I have always had so
much pain mingled with it. I wish I could make myself a
I world outside it, as men do."
"Now you are returning to your old thought in a new
form, Maggie, — the thought I used to combat," said Philip,
with a slight tinge of bitterness. " You want to find out a
mode of renunciation that will be an escape from pain. I tell
you again, there is no such escape possible except by pervert-
ing or mutilating one's nature. What would become of me,
if I tried to escape from pain? Scorn and cynicism would be
my only opium ; unless I could fall into some kind of con-
ceited madness, and fancy myself a favorite of Heaven be-
cause I am not a favorite with men."
The bitterness had taken on some impetuosity as Philip
•went on speaking; the words were evidently an outlet fop
some immediate feeling of his own, as well as an answer to
Maggie. There was a pain pressing on him at that moment.
He shrank with proud delicacy from the faintest allusion to
the words of love, of plighted love that had passed between
them. It would have seemed to him like reminding Maggie
of a promise ; it would have had for him something of the
baseness of compulsion. He could not dwell on the fact that
he himself had not changed ; for that too would have had the
air of an appeal. His love for Maggie was stamped, even
more than the rest of his experience, with the exaggerated
sense that he was an exception, — that she, that every one,
saw him in the light of an exception.
But Maggie was conscience-stricken.
"Yes, Philip," she said, with her childish contrition when
he used to chide her, " you are right, I know. I do always
think too much of my own feelings, and not enough of others',
— not enough of yours. I had need have you always to find
fault with me and teach me ; so many things have come true
that you used to tell me."
Maggie was resting her elbow on the table, leaning her head
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 433
on her hand and looking at Philip with half-penitent depend-
ent affection, as she said this; while he was returning her
gaze with an expression that, to her consciousness, gradually
became less vague, — became charged with a specific recollec-
tion. Had his mind flown back to something that she now
remembered, — something about a lover of Lucy's? It was a
thought that made her shudder ; it gave new definiteness tc
her present position, and to the tendency of what had hap
pened the evening before. She moved her arm from the table,
urged to change her position by that positive physical oppres-
sion at the heart that sometimes accompanies a sudden mental
pang.
" What is the matter, Maggie? Has something happened? "
Philip said, in inexpressible anxiety, his imagination being
only too ready to weave everything that was fatal to them
both.
" No, nothing, " said Maggie, rousing her latent will. Philip
must not have that odious thought in his mind; she would
banish it from her own. "Nothing," she repeated, "except
in my own mind. You used to say I should feel the effect of
my starved life, as you called it; and I do. 1 am too eager
in my enjoyment of music and all luxuries, now they are come
to me."
She took up her work and occupied herself resolutely, while
Philip watched her, really in doubt whether she had anything
more than this general allusion in her mind. It was quite
in Maggie's character to be agitated by vague self-reproach.
But soon there came a violent well-known ring at the door-beH
resounding through the house.
" Oh, what a startling announcement ! " said Maggie, quite
mistress of herself, though not without some inward flutter.
"I wonder where Lucy is."
Lucy had not been deaf to the signal, and after an interval
iong enough for a few solicitous but not hurried inquiries, she
herself ushered Stephen in.
"Well, old fellow," he said, going straight up to Philip
and shaking him heartily by the hand, bowing to Maggie in
passing, "it's glorious to have you back again; only I wish
you'd conduct yourself a little less like a sparrow with a resi-
28
434 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
dence on the house-top, and not go in and out constantly with*
out letting the servants know. This is about the twentieth
time I've had to scamper up those countless stairs to that
painting-room of yours, all to no purpose, because your people
thought you were at home. Such incidents embitter friend-
ship."
"I've so few visitors, it seems hardly worth while to leave
notice of my exit and entrances, " said Philip, feeling rather
oppressed just then by Stephen's bright strong presence and
strong voice.
"Are you quite well this morning, Miss Tulliver?" said
Stephen, turning to Maggie with stiff politeness, and putting
out his hand with the air of fulfilling a social duty.
Maggie gave the tips of her fingers, and said, " Quite well,
thank you, "in a tone of proud indifference. Philip's eyes
were watching them keenly j but Lucy was used to seeing va-
riations in their manner to each other, and only thought with
regret that there was some natural antipathy which every now
and then surmounted their mutual good-will. " Maggie is
not the sort of woman Stephen admires, and she is irritated
by something in him which she interprets as conceit, " was
the silent observation that accounted for everything to guile-
less Lucy. Stephen and Maggie had no sooner completed this
studied greeting than each felt hurt by the other's coldness.
And Stephen, while rattling on in questions to Philip about
his recent sketching expedition, was thinking all the more
about Maggie because he was not drawing her into the con-
versation as he had invariably done before. " Maggie and
Philip are not looking happy, " thought Lucy ; " this first in-
terview has been saddening to them."
" I think we people who have not been galloping, " she said
to Stephen, " are all a little damped by the rain. Let us have
some music. We ought to take advantage of having Philip
and you together. Give us the duet in ' Masaniello ' j Maggie
has not heard that, and I know it will suit her."
"Come, then," said Stephen, going toward the piano, and
giving a foretaste of the tune in his deep " brum-brum, " very
pleasant to hear.
"You, please, Philip, — you play the accompaniment," said
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 435
Lucy, " and then I can go on with my work. You will like
to play, sha'n'tyou?" she added, with a pretty, inquiring
look, anxious, as usual, lest she should 'have proposed what
was not pleasant to another ; but with yearnings toward her
unfinished embroidery.
Philip had brightened at the proposition, for there is no
feeling, perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that
does not find relief in music, — that does not make a man sing
or play the better ; and Philip had an abundance of pent-up
feeling at this moment, as complex as any trio or quartet that
was ever meant to express love and jealousy and resignation
and fierce suspicion, all at the same time.
"Oh, yes," he said, seating himself at the piano, "it is a
way of eking out one' s imperfect life and being three people
at once, — to sing and make the piano sing, and hear them
both all the while, — or else to sing and paint."
" Ah, there you are an enviable fellow. I can do nothing
with my hands," said Stephen. "That has generally been
observed -in men of great administrative capacity, I believe, —
a tendency to predominance of the reflective powers in me!
Haven't you observed that, Miss Tulliver?"
Stephen had fallen by mistake into his habit of playful ap-
peal to Maggie, and she could not repress the answering flush
and epigram.
"I have observed a tendency to predominance," she said,
smiling ; and Philip at that moment devoutly hoped that she
found the tendency disagreeable.
" Come, come, " said Lucy ; " music, music ! We will dis-
cuss each other's qualities another time."
Maggie always tried in vain to go on with her work when
music began. She tried harder than ever to-day; for the
thought that Stephen knew how much she cared for his sing-
ing was one that no longer roused a merely playful resistance ;
and she knew, too, that it was his habit always to stand so
that he could look at her. But it was of no use ; she soon
threw her work down, and all her intentions were lost in the
vague state of emotion produced by the inspiring duet, — emo-
tion that seemed to make her at once strong and weak; strong
for all enjoyment, weak for all resistance. When the strain
436 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
passed into the minor, she half started from her seat with thj
sudden thrill of that change. Poor Maggie! She looked
very beautiful when her soul was being played on in this way
by the inexorable power of sound. You might have seen the
slightest perceptible quivering through her whole frame as she
leaned a little forward, clasping her hands as if to steady her-
self; while her eyes dilated and brightened into that wide-
open, childish expression of wondering delight which always
came back iu her happiest moments. Lucy, who at other
times had always been at the piano when Maggie was looking
in this way, could not resist the impulse to steal up to her
and kiss her. Philip, too, caught a glimpse of her now and
then round the open book on the desk, and felt that he had
never before seen her under so strong an influence.
"More, morel" said Lucy, when the duet had been en-
cored. " Something spirited again. Maggie always says she
likes a great rush of sound."
" It must be ' Let us take the road,' then," said Stephen, —
" so suitable for a wet morning. But are you prepared to
abandon the most sacred duties of life, and come and sing
with us?"
"Oh yes," said Lucy, laughing. "If you will look out the
' Beggar's Opera ' from the large canterbury. It has a dingy
cover."
" That is a great clue, considering there are about a score
covers here of rival dinginess," said Stephen, drawing out the
canterbury.
" Oh, play something the while, Philip, " said Lucy, notic-
ing that his fingers were wandering over the keys. " What is
that you are falling into? — something delicious that I don't
know."
" Don't you know that? " said Philip, bringing out the tune
more definitely. " It's from the ' Sonnambula ' — 'Ah ! perche
non posso odiarti.' I don't know the opera, but it appears the
tenor is telling the heroine that he shall always love her
though she may forsake him. You've heard me sing it to tka
English words, * I love thee still.' '
It was not quite unintentionally that Philip had wandered
into this song, which might be an indirect expression to Mag
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 437
gie of what he could not prevail on himself to say to her di-
rectly. Her ears had been open to what he was saying, and
when he began to sing, she understood the plaintive passion
of the music. That pleading tenor had no very fine qualities
as a voice, but it was not quite new to her; it had sung to her
by snatches, in a subdued way, among the grassy walks and
hollows, and underneath the leaning ash-tree in the Ked
Deeps. There seemed to be some reproach in the words ; did
Philip mean that? She wished she had assured him more dis-
tinctly in their conversation that she desired not to renew the
hope of love between them, only because it clashed with her
inevitable circumstances. She was touched, not thrilled by
the song j it suggested distinct memories and thoughts, and
brought quiet regret in the place of excitement.
"That's the way with you tenors," said Stephen, who was
waiting with music in his hand while Philip finished the song.
" You demoralize the fair sex oy warbling your sentimental
love and constancy under all sorts of vile treatment. Nothing
short of having your heads served up in a dish like that me-
diaeval tenor or troubadour, would prevent you from express-
ing your entire resignatiom. I must administer an antidote,
while Miss Deane prepares to tear herself away from her
bobbins."
Stephen rolled out, with saucy energy,—
"Shall I, wasting In despair.
Die because a woman's lair?**
and seemed to make all the air in the room alive with a new
influence. Lucy, always proud of what Stephen did, went
toward the piano with laughing, admiring looks at him; and
Maggie, in spite of her resistance to the spirit of the song and
to the singer, was taken hold of and shaken by the invisible
influence, — was borne along by a wave too strong for her.
But, angrily resolved not to betray herself, she seized her
work, and went on making false stitches and pricking her fin-
gers with much perseverance, not looking up or taking notice
of what was going forward, until all the three voices united in
" Let us take the road."
I am afraid there would have been a subtle, stealing grati-
438 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
fication in her mind if she had known how entirely this saucy,
defiant Stephen was occupied with her; how he was passing
rapidly from a determination to treat her with ostentatious in*
difference to an irritating desire for some sign of inclination
from her, — some interchange of subdued word or look with
her. It was not long before he found an opportunity, when
they had passed to the music of " The Tempest. " Maggie,
feeling the need of a footstool, was walking across the room
to get one, when Stephen, who was not singing just then, and
was conscious of all her movements, guessed her want, and
flew to anticipate her, lifting the footstool with an entreating
look at her, which made it impossible not to return a glance
of gratitude. And then, to have the footstool placed carefully
by a too self-confident personage, — not any self-confident per-
sonage, but one in particular, who suddenly looks humble
and anxious, and lingers, bending still, to ask if there is not
some draught in that position between the window and the
fireplace, and if he may not be allowed to move the work-table
for her, — these things will summon a little of the too ready,
traitorous tenderness into a woman's eyes, compelled as she
is in her girlish time to learn her life-lessons in very trivial
language. And to Maggie such things had not been everyday
incidents, but were a new element in her life, and found her
keen appetite for homage quite fresh. That tone of gentle
solicitude obliged her to look at the face that was bent toward
her, and to say, "No, thank you"; and nothing could prevent
that mutual glance from being delicious to both, as it had been
the evening before.
It was but an ordinary act of politeness in Stephen; it
had hardly taken two minutes ; and Lucy, who was singing,
scarcely noticed it. But to Philip's mind, filled already with
a vague anxiety that was likely to find a definite ground for
itself in any trivial incident, this sudden eagerness in Stephen,
and the change in Maggie's face, which was plainly reflecting
a beam from his, seemed so strong a contrast with the pre-
vious overwrought signs of indifference, as to be charged with
painful meaning. Stephen's voice, pouring in again, jarred
upon his nervous susceptibility as if it had been the clang of
sheet 'iron, and he felt inclined to make the piano shriek in
THE GREAT TEMPTATION 439
ntter discord. He had really seen no communicable ground
for suspecting any unusual feeling between Stephen and Mag-
gie; his own reason told him so, and he wanted to go home at
once that he might reflect coolly on these false images, till he
had convinced himself of their nullity. But then, again, he
wanted to stay as long as Stephen stayed, — always to be pres-
ent when Stephen was present with Maggie. It seemed to
poor Philip so natural, nay, inevitable, that any man who was
near Maggie should fall in love with her ! There was no prom-
ise of happiness for her if she were beguiled into loving Stephen
Guest; and this thought emboldened Philip to view his own
love for her in the light of a less unequal offering. He was
beginning to play very falsely under this deafening inward
tumult, and Lucy was looking at him in astonishment, when
Mrs. Tulliver's entrance to summon them to lunch came as an
excuse for abruptly breaking off the music.
" Ah, Mr. Philip ! " said Mr. Deane, when they entered the
dining-room, "I've not seen you for a long while. Your
father's not at home, I think, is he? I went after him to
the office the other day, ?nd they said he n^as out of town."
" He' s been to Mudport on business for several days, " said
Philip; " but he's come back now."
"As fond of his farming hobby as ^ver, eh?"
"I believe so," said Philip, rather wondering at this sud-
den interest in his father's pursuits.
"Ah!" said Mr. Deane, "he's got some land in his own
hands on this side the river as well as the other, I think?"
"Yes, he has."
" Ah ! " continued Mr. Deane, as he dispensed the pigeon-
pie, "he must find farming a heavy item, — an expensive
hobby. I never had a hobby myself, never would give in to
that. And the worst of all hobbies are those that people
think they can get money at. They shoot their money down
like corn out of a sack then."
Lucy felt a little nervous under her father's apparently gra-
tuitous criticism of Mr. Wakem's expenditure. But it ceased
there, and Mr. Deane became unusually silent and meditative
during his luncheon. Lucy, accustomed to watch all indica-
tions in her father, and having reasons, which had recently
440 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
become strong, for an extra interest in what referred to thi
Wakems, felt an unusual curiosity to know what had prompted
her father's questions. His subsequent silence made her sus-
pect there, had been some special reason for them in his mind.
With this idea in her head, she resorted to her usual plan
when she wanted to tell or ask her father anything particular:
she found a reason for her aunt Tulliver to leaving the din-
ing-room after dinner, and seated herself on a small stool at5
her father's knee. Mr. Deane, under those circumstances.
considered that he tasted some of the most agreeable moments
his merits had purchased him in life, notwithstanding that
Lucy, disliking to have her hair powdered with snuff, usually
began by mastering his snuff-box on such occasions.
"You don't want to go to sleep yet, papa, do you?" she
said, as she brought up her stool and opened the large fingers
that clutched the snuff-box.
"Not yet," said Mr. Deane, glancing at the reward of merit
in the decanter. " But what do you want? " he added, pinch-
ing the dimpled chin fondly, — "to coax some more sovereigns
out of my pocket for your bazaar? Eh? "
" No, I have no base motives at all to-day. I only want to
talk, not to beg. I want to know what made you ask Philip
Wakem about his father's farming to-day, papa? It seemed
rather odd, because you never hardly say anything to him
about his father; and why should you care about Mr. Wakem' s
losing money by his hobby?"
" Something to do with business, " said Mr. Deane, waving
*iis hands, as if to repel intrusion into that mystery.
" But, papa, you always say Mr. Wakem has brought Philip
up like a girl ; how came you to think you should get any
business knowledge out of him? Those abrupt questions
sounded rather oddly. Philip thought them queer."
"Nonsense, child!" said Mr. Deane, willing to justify his
social demeanor, with which he had taken some pains in his
upward progress. "There's a report that Wakem's mill and
farm on the other side of the river — Dorlcote Mill, your uncle
Tulliver' s, you know — isn't answering so well as it did. I
wanted to see if your friend Philip would let anything out
about his father's being tired of farming."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 441
"Why? Would you buy the mill, papa, if he would part
with it? " said Lucy, eagerly. " Oh, tell me everything; here,
you shall have 3* our snuff-box if you'll tell me. Because
Maggie says all their hearts are set on Tom's getting back the
mill some time. It was one of the last things her father said
to Tom, that he must get back the mill."
"Hush, you little puss," said Mr. Deane, availing himself
of the restored snu.ff-box. " You must not say a word about
this thing; do you hear? There's very little chance of their
getting the mill, or of anybody's getting it out of Wakem's
hands. And if he knew that we wanted it with a view to the
Tullivers* getting it again, he'd be the less likely to part with
it. It's natural, after what happened. He behaved well
enough to Tulliver before; but a horsewhipping is not likely
to be paid for with sugar-plums."
"Now, papa," said Lucy, with a little air of solemnity,
" will you trust me? You must not ask me all my reasons for
what I'm going to say, but I have very strong reasons. And
I'm very cautious; I am, indeed."
"Well, let us hear."
" Why, I believe, if you will let me take Philip Wakem
into our confidence, — let me tell him all about your wish to
buy, and what it' s for ; that my cousins wish to have it, and
why they wish to have it, — I believe Philip would help to
bring it about. I know he would desire to do it."
" I don't see how that can be, child," said Mr. Deane, look-
ing puzzled. " Why should he care? " — then, with a sudden
penetrating look at his daughter, "You don't think the poor
lad's fond of you, and so you can make him do what you
like?" (Mr. Deane felt quite safe about his daughter's af-
fections.)
"No, papa; he cares very little about me, — not so much as
I care about him. But I have a reason for being quite sure of
what I say. Don't you ask me. And if you ever guess, don't
tell me. Only give me leave to do as I think fit about it."
Lucy rose from her stool to seat herself on her father's
knee, and kissed him with that last request.
" Are you sure you won't do mischief, now? " he said, look-
ing at her with delight.
442 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Yes, papa, quite sure. I'm very wise; I've got all you'i
business talents. Didn't you admire my accompt-book, now,
when I showed it you? "
" Well, well, if this youngster will keep his counsel, there
won't be much harm done. And to tell the truth, I think
there's not much chance for us any other way. Now, let me
go off to sleep."
CHAPTER VIII.
WAKEM IN A NEW LIGHT.
BEFORE three days had passed after the conversation you
have just overheard between Lucy and her father, she had
contrived to have a private interview with Philip during a
visit of Maggie's to her aunt Glegg. For a day and a night
Philip turned over in his mind with restless agitation all that
Lucy had told him in that interview, till he had thoroughly
resolved on a course of action. He thought he saw before
him now a possibility of altering his position with respect to
Maggie, and removing at least one obstacle between them.
He laid his plan and calculated all his moves with the fervid
deliberation of a chess-player in the days of his first ardor, and
was amazed himself at his sudden genius as a tactician. His
plan was as bold as it was thoroughly calculated. Having
watched for a moment when his father had nothing more
urgent on his hands than the newspaper, he went behind him^
laid a hand on his shoulder, and said,—
" Father, will you come up into my sanctum, and look at
my new sketches? I've arranged them now."
" I'm getting terribly stiff in the joints, Phil, for climbing
those stairs of yours," said Wakem, looking kindly at his son
as he laid down his paper. " But come along, then."
" This is a nice place for you, isn't it, Phil? — a capital light
that from the roof, eh?" was, as usual, the first thing he said
on entering the painting-room. He liked to remind himself
and his son too that his fatherly indulgence had provided
the accommodation. He had been a good father. Emily
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 443
would have nothing to reproach him with there, if she came
back again from her grave.
" Come, come, " he said, putting his double eye-glass over
his nose, and seating himself to take a general view while he
rested, "you've got a famous show here. Upon my word, I
don't see that your things aren't as good as that London ar-
tist's— what's his name — that Ley burn gave so much money
for."
Philip shook his head and smiled. He had seated himself!
on his painting- stool, and had taken a lead pencil in his hand,
with which he was making strong marks to counteract the
sense of tremulousness. He watched his father get up, and
walk slowly round, good-naturedly dwelling on the pictures
much longer than his amount of genuine taste for landscape
would have prompted, till he stopped before a stand on which
two pictures were placed, — one much larger than the other,
the smaller one in a leather case.
" Bless me! what have you here? " said Wakem, startled by
a sudden transition from landscape to portrait. " I thought
you'd left off figures. Who are these? "
" They are the same person, " said Philip, with calm prompt-
ness, "at different ages."
" And what person ? " said Wakem, sharply fixing his eyes
with a growing look of suspicion on the larger picture.
" Miss Tulliver. The small one is something like what she
was when I was at school with her brother at King' s Lorton ;
the larger one is not quite so good a likeness of what she was
when I came from abroad."
Wakem turned round fiercely, with a flushed face, letting
his eye-glass fall, and looking at his son with a savage ex-
pression for a moment, as if he was ready to strike that dar«
ing feebleness from the stool. But he threw himself into the
armchair again, and thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets,
still looking angrily at his son, however. Philip did not
return the look, but sat quietly watching the point of his
pencil.
" And do you mean to say, then, that you have had any ac-
quaintance with her since you came from abroad? " said
Wakem, at last, with that vain effort which rage always makes
444 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
to throw as much punishment as it desires to inflict into wordi
and tones, since blows are forbidden.
" Yes ; I saw a great deal of her for a whole year before her
father's death. We met often in that thicket — the Red
Deeps — near Dorlcote Mill. I love her dearly ; I shall never
love any other woman. I have thought of her ever since she
was a little girl."
" Go on, sir ! And you have corresponded with her all this
while?"
" No. I never told her I loved her till just before we parted,
and she promised her brother not to see me again or to corre-
spond with me. I am not sure that she loves me or would
consent to marry me. But if she would consent, — if she did
love me well enough, — I should marry her."
" And this is the return you make me for all the indulgences
I've heaped on you? " said Wakem, getting white, and begin-
ning to tremble under an enraged sense of impotence before
Philip's calm defiance and concentration of purpose.
"No, father," said Philip, looking up at him for the first
time; " I don't regard it as a return. You have been an in-
dulgent father to me ; but I have always felt that it was be-
cause you had an affectionate wish to give me as much happi-
ness as my unfortunate lot would admit of, not that it was a
debt you expected me to pay by sacrificing all my chances of
happiness to satisfy feelings of yours which I can never share."
"I think most sons would share their father's feelings in
this case," said Wakem, bitterly. "The girl's father was an
ignorant mad brute, who was within an inch of murdering
toe. The whole town knows it. And the brother is just as
insolent, only in a cooler way. He forbade her seeing you,
you say ; he'll break every bone in your body, for your greater
happiness, if you don't take care. But you seem to have
made up your mind ; you have counted the consequences, I
suppose. Of course you are independent of me; you can
marry this girl to-morrow, if you like; you are a man of five-
and-twenty, — you can go your way, and I can go mine. We
need have no more to do with each other."
Wakem rose and walked toward the door, but something
held him back, and instead of leaving the room, he walked u?
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 445
and down it. Philip was slow to reply, and when he spoke,
his tone had a more incisive quietness and clearness than
ever.
"No; I can't marry Miss Tulliver, even if she would have
me, if I have only my own resources to maintain her with.
I have been brought up to no profession. I can't offer her
poverty as well as deformity."
"Ah, there is a reason for your clinging to me, doubtless,"
said Wakem, still bitterly, though Philip's last words had
given him a pang; they had stirred a feeling which had been
a habit for a quarter of a century. He threw himself into
the chair again.
"I expected all this," said Philip. "I know these scenes
are often happening between father and son. If I were like
other men of my age, I might answer your angry words by still
angrier; we might part; 1 should marry the woman I love,
and have a chance of being as happy as the rest. But if it
will be a satisfaction to you to annihilate the very object of
everything you've done for me, you have an advantage over
most fathers; you can completely deprive me of the only thing
that would make my life worth having."
Philip paused, but his father was silent.
" You know best what satisfaction you would have, beyond
that of gratifying a ridiculous rancor worthy only of wander*
ing savages."
" Eidiculous rancor I " Wakem burst out. ** What do you
mean? Damn it! is a man to be horsewhipped by a boor and
love him for it? Besides, there's that cold, proud devil of a
son, who said a word to me I shall not forget when we had
the settling. He would be as pleasant a mark for a bullet as
I know, if he were worth the expense."
"I don't mean your resentment toward them," said Philip,
who had his reasons for some sympathy with this view of Tom,
" though a f eeling of revenge is not worth much, that you
should care to keep it. I mean your extending the enmity to
a helpless girl, who has too much sense and goodness to share
their narrow prejudices. Shd has never entered into the fam-
ily quarrels."
a What does that signify? We don't ask what a
446 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
does; we ask whom she belongs to. It's altogether a degrad-
ing thing to you, to think of marrying old Tulliver' s daughter. "
For the first time in the dialogue, Philip lost some of his
self-control, and colored with anger.
" Miss Tulliver, " he said, with bitter incisiveness, " has the
only grounds of rank that anything but vulgar folly can sup-
pose to belong to the middle class ; she is thoroughly refined,
and her friends, whatever else they may be, are respected for
irreproachable honor and integrity. All St. Ogg's, I fancy,
would pronounce her to be more than my equal."
Wakem darted a glance of fierce question at his son ; but
Philip was not looking at him, and with a certain penitent
consciousness went on, in a few moments, as if in amplifica-
tion of his last words, —
" Find a single person in St. Ogg's who will not tell you
that a beautiful creature like her would be throwing herself
fway on a pitiable object like me."
" Not she ! " said Wakem, rising again, and forgetting every-
thing else in a burst of resentful pride, half fatherly, half per-
sonal. " It would be a deuced fine match for her. It's all
stuff about an accidental deformity, when a girl's really at-
tached to a man."
" But girls are not apt to get attached under those circum«
stances, " said Philip.
"Well, then," said Wakem, rather brutally, trying to re-
cover his previous position, "if she doesn't care for you, you
might have spared yourself the trouble of talking to me about
her, and you might have spared me the trouble of refusing my
consent to what was never likely to happen."
Wakem strode to the door, and without looking round
'again, banged it after him.
Philip was not without confidence that his father would be
ultimately wrought upon as he had expected, by what had
passed; but the scene had jarred upon his nerves, which were
as sensitive as a woman's. He determined not to go down to
dinner ; he couldn't meet his father again that day. It was
Wakem's habit, when he had no company at home, to go out
in the evening, often as early as half-past seven ; and as it
was far oa in the afternoon *ow, Philip locked up his room
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 447
and went out for a long ramble, thinking he would not return
until his father was out of the house again. He got into a
boat, and went down the river to a favorite village, where he
dined, and lingered till it was late enough for hi*"i to return.
He had never had any sort of quarrel with his father before,
and had a sickening fear that this contest, just begun, might
goon for weeks; and what might not happen iv- that time?
He would not allow himself to define what that involuntary
question meant. But if he could once be in the position of
Maggie's accepted, acknowledged lover, there wou*d be less
room for vague dread. He went up to his painting-room
again, and threw himself with a sense of fatigue into the
armchair, looking round absently at the views of w<rter and
rock that were ranged around, till he fell into a doze, in
which he fancied Maggie was slipping down a glistening,
green, slimy channel of a waterfall, and he was lootvng on
helpless, till he was awakened by what seemed a smdden,
awful crash.
It was the opening of the door, and he could hardly have
dozed more than a few moments, for there was no perceptible
change in the evening light. It was his father who entered;
and when Philip moved to vacate the chair for him, he said, —
" Sit still. I'd rather walk about."
He stalked up and down the room once or twice, and then,
standing opposite Philip with his hands thrust in his side
pockets, he said, as if continuing a conversation that had not
been broken off, —
" But this girl seems to have been fond of you, Phil, else
she wouldn't have met you in that way."
Philip's heart was beating rapidly, and a transient flush
passed over his face like a gleam. It was not quite easy to
speak at once.
" She liked me at King's Lorton, when she was a little girl,
because I used to sit with her brother a great deal when he
had hurt his foot. She had kept that in her memory, and
thought of me as a friend of a long while ago. She didn't
think of me as a lover when she met me."
" Well, but you made love to her at last. What did she s*yr
then? " said Wakem, walking about again,
THE MILL ON THB FLO88.
" She said she did love me then."
* Confound it, then ; what else do you want? Is she a jilt? *
"She was very young then/' said Philip, hesitatingly.
" I'm afraid she hardly knew what she felt. I'm afraid out
long separation, and the idea .that events must always divide
us, may have made a difference."
«* But she' s in the town. I' ve seen her at church. Haven'^
you spoken to her since you came back? "
" Yes, at Mr. Deane's. But I couldn't renew my proposals
to her on several grounds. One obstacle would be removed
if you would give your consent, — if you would be willing to
think of her as a daughter-in-law."
Wakem was silent a little while, pausing before Maggie's
picture.
" She's not the sort of woman your mother was, though,
Phil," he said, at last. "I saw her at church, — she's hand-
somer than this, — deuced fine eyes and fine figure, I saw} but
rather dangerous and unmanageable, eh?"
" She's very tender and affectionate, and so simple, — with-
out the airs and petty contrivances other women have."
" Ah? " said Wakem. Then looking round at his son, " But
your mother looked gentler; she had that brown wavy hair
and gray eyes, like yours. You can't remember her very well.
It was a thousand pities I'd no likeness of her."
" Then, shouldn't you be glad for me to have the same sort
of happiness, father, to sweeten my life for me? There can
never be another tie so strong to you as that which began
eight-and-twenty years ago, when you married my mother,
and you have been tightening it ever since."
" Ah, Phil, you're the only fellow that knows the best of
me," said Wakem, giving his hand to his son. "We must
keep together if we can. And now, what ani I to do? You
must come downstairs and tell me. Am I to go and call on
this dark-eyed damsel?"
The barrier once thrown down in this way, Philip could
talk freely to his father of their entire relation with the Tul-
Hvers, — of the desire to get the mill and land back into the
family, ani of its transfer to Guest & Co. as an intermediate
step. He could venture now to be persuasive and urgent,
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 449
and his father yielded with more readiness than he had cal-
culated on.
"/don't care about the mill," he said at last, with a sort
of angry compliance. " I've had an infernal deal of bother
lately about the mill. Let them pay me for my improve-
ments, that's all. But there's one thing you needn't ask me.
I shall have no direct transactions with young Tulliver. If
you like to swallow him for his sister's sake, you may; but
I've no sauce that will make him go down."
I leave you to imagine the agreeable feelings with which
Philip went to Mr. Deane the next day, to say that Mr.
Wakem was ready to open the negotiations, and Lucy's pretty
triumph as she appealed to her father whether she had not
proved her great business abilities. Mr. Deane was rather
puzzled, and suspected that there had been something " going
on " among the young people to which he wanted a clew. But
to men of Mr. Deane's stamp, what goes on among the young
people is as extraneous to the real business of life as what
goes on among the birds and butterflies, until it can be shown
to have a malign bearing on monetary affairs. And in this
case the bearing appeared to be entirely propitious.
CHAPTER IX.
OHABTTT IN FULL-DRESS.
THE culmination of Maggie's career as an admired member
of society in St. Ogg's was certainly the day of the bazaar,
when her simple noble beauty, clad in a white muslin of some
soft-floating kind, which I suspect must have come from the
stores of aunt Pullet's wardrobe, appeared with marked dis-
tinction among the more adorned and conventional women
around her. We perhaps never detect how much of our social
demeanor is made up of artificial airs until we see a person
who is at once beautiful and simple ; without the beauty, we
are apt to call simplicity awkwardness. The Miss Guests
were much too well-bred to have any of the grimaces and
29
460 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
affected tones that belong to pretentious vulgarity j but theii
stall being next to the one where Maggie sat, it seemed newly
obvious to-day that Miss Guest held her chin too high, and that
Miss Laura spoke and moved continually with a view to effect.
All well-dressed St. Ogg'sand its neighborhood were there j
and it would have been worth while to come even from a dis-
tance, to see the fine old hall, with its open roof and «arved
oaken rafters, and great oaken folding-doors, and light shed
down from a height on the many-colored show beneath; a
very quaint place, with broad faded stripes painted on the
walls, and here and there a show of heraldic animals of a
bristly, long-snouted character, the cherished emblems of a
noble family once the seigniors of this now civic halL A
grand arch, cut in the upper wall at one end, surmounted an
oaken orchestra, vrith an open room behind it, where hot-
house plants and stalls for refreshments were disposed; an
agreeable resort for gentlemen disposed to loiter, and yet to
exchange the occasional crush down below for a more com-
modious point of view. In fact, the perfect fitness of this
ancient building for an admirable modern purpose, that made
charity truly elegant, and led through vanity up to the supply
of a deficit, was so striking that hardly a person entered the
room without exchanging the remark more than once. Near
the great arch over the orchestra was the stone oriel with
painted glass, which was one of the venerable inconsistencies
of the old hall ; and it was close by this that Lucy had her
stall, for the convenience of certain large plain articles which
she had taken charge of for Mrs. Kenn. Maggie had begged
to sit at the open end of the stall, and to have the sale of these
articles rather than of bead-mats and other elaborate products
of which she had but a dim understanding. But it soon ap-
peared that the gentlemen's dressing-gowns, which were among
her commodities, were objects of such general attention and
inquiry, and excited so troublesome a curiosity as to their
lining and comparative merits, together with a determination
to test them by trying on, as to make her post a very con-
spicuous one. The ladies who had commodities of their own
to sell, and did not want dressing-gowns, saw at once the
frivolity and bad taste of this masculine preference for good*
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 451
which any tailor could furnish ; and it is possible that the em-
phatic notice of various kinds which was drawn toward Miss
Tulliver on this public occasion, threw a very strong and un-
mistakable light on her subsequent conduct in many minds
then present. Not that anger, on account of spurned beauty
can dwell in the celestial breasts of charitable ladies, but
rather that the errors of persons who have once been much
admired necessarily take a deeper tinge from the mere force
of contrast; and also, that to-day Maggie's conspicuous posi-
tion, for the first time, made evident certain characteristics
which were subsequently felt to have an explanatory bearing.
There was something rather bold in Miss Tulliver's direct
gaze, and something uudefinably coarse in the style of her
beauty, which placed her, in the opinion of all feminine judges,
far below her cousin Miss Deane; for the ladies of St. Ogg's
had now completely ceded to Lucy their hypothetic claims on
the admiration of Mr. Stephen Guest.
As for dear little Lucy herself, her late benevolent triumph
about the Mill, and all the affectionate projects she was cher-
ishing for Maggie and Philip, helped to give her the highest
spirits to-day, and she felt nothing but pleasure in the evidence
of Maggie's attractiveness. It is true, she was looking very
charming herself, and Stephen was paying her the utmost
attention on this public occasion; jealously buying up the
articles he had seen under her fingers in the process of mak-
ing, and gayly helping her to cajole the male customers into
the purchase of the most effeminate futilities. He chose to
lay aside his hat and wear a scarlet fez of her embroidering ;
but by superficial observers this was necessarily liable to be
interpreted less as a compliment to Lucy than as a mark of
coxcombry. " Guest is a great coxcomb, " young Torry ob-
served; "but then he is a privileged person in St. Ogg's — he
carries all before him; if another fellow did such things,
everybody would say he made a fool of himself."
And Stephen purchased absolutely nothing from Maggie,
until Lucy said, in rather a vexed undertone, —
"See, now; all the things of Maggie's knitting will be
gone, and you will not have bought oue. There are those d«'
liciously soft warm things for the wrists, — do buy them."
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Oh no, " said Stephen, " they must be intended for imagina«
tive persons, who can chill themselves on this warm day by
thinking of the frosty Caucasus. Stern reason is my forte, you
know. You must get Philip to buy those. By the way, why
doesn't he come? "
" He never likes going where there are many people, though
I enjoined him to come. He said he would buy up any of my
goods that the rest of the world rejected. But now, do go and
buy something of Maggie."
"No, no; see, she has got a customer; there is old Wakem
himself just coming up."
Lucy's eyes turned with anxious interest toward Maggie to
see how she went through this first interview, since a sadly
memorable time, with a man toward whom she must have so
strange a mixture of feelings ; but she was pleased to notice
that Wakem had tact enough to enter at once into talk about
the bazaar wares, and appear interested in purchasing, smil-
ing now and then kindly at Maggie, and not calling on her to
speak much, as if he observed that she was rather pale and
tremulous.
" Why, Wakem is making himself particularly amiable to
your cousin, " said Stephen, in an undertone to Lucy ; "is it
pure magnanimity? You talked of a family quarreL"
"Oh, that will soon be quite healed, I hope," said Lucy,
becoming a little indiscreet in her satisfaction, and speaking
with an air of significance. But Stephen did not appear to
notice this, and as some lady-purchasers came up, he lounged
on toward Maggie's end, handling trifles and standing aloof
until Wakem, who had taken out his purse, had finished his
•transactions.
" My son came with me, " he overheard Wakem saying, " but
he has vanished into some other part of the building, and has
left all these charitable gallantries to me. I hope you'll re-
proach him for his shabby conduct."
She returned his smile and bow without speaking, and he
turned away, only then observing Stephen, and nodding to
him. Maggie, conscious that Stephen was still there, busied
herself with counting money, and avoided looking up. She
had been well pleased that he had devoted himself to Lucy
THE GREAT TEMPTATION 453
to-day, and had not come near her. They had begun the
morning with an indifferent salutation, and both had rejoiced
in being aloof from each other, like a patient who has actually
done without his opium, in spite of former failures in resolu-
tion. And during the last few days they had even been mak-
ing up their minds to failures, looking to the outward events
that must soon come to separate them, as a reason for dispens-
ing with self-conquest in detail.
Stephen moved step by step as if he were being unwillingly
dragged, until he had got round the open end of the stall, and
was half hidden by a screen of draperies. Maggie went on
counting her money till she suddenly heard a deep gentle voice
saying, "Aren't you very tired? Do let me bring you some-
thing,— some fruit or jelly, mayn't I? "
The unexpected tones shook her like a sudden accidental
vibration of a harp close by her.
" Oh no, thank you," she said faintly, and only half looking
up for an instant.
" You look so pale, " Stephen insisted, in a more entreating
tone. " I'm sure you're exhausted. I must disobey you, and
bring something."
"No, indeed, I couldn't take it.*
"Are you angry with me? What have I done? Do look
at me."
"Pray, go away," said Maggie, looking at him helplessly,
her eyes glancing immediately from him to the opposite corner
of the orchestra, which was half hidden by the folds of the old
faded green curtain. Maggie had no sooner uttered this en-
treaty than she was wretched at the admission it implied ; but
Stephen turned away at once, and following her upward glance,
he saw Philip Wakem seated in the half-hidden corner, so that
he could command little more than that angle of the hall in
which Maggie sat. An entirely new thought occurred to
Stephen, and linking itself with what he had observed of
Wakem's manner, and with Lucy's reply to his observation,
it convinced him that there had been some former relation be-
tween Philip and Maggie beyond that childish one of which
he had heard. More than one impulse made him immediately
leave the hall and go upstairs to the refreshment-room, where,
454 THE MILL OIT THE FLOSS.
walking up to Philip, he sat down behind him, and put bis
hand on his shoulder.
"Are you studying for a portrait, Phil," he said, "or for a
sketch of that oriel window? By George, it makes a capital
bit from this dark corner, with the curtain just marking it off."
"I have been studying expression/' said Philip, curtly.
"What! MissTulliver's? It's rather of the savage-moody
order to-day, I think, — something of the fallen princess serv-
ing behind a counter. Her cousin sent me to her with a civil
offer to get her some refreshment, but I have been snubbed,
as usual. There's a natural antipathy between us, I suppose;
I have seldom the honor to please her."
"What a hypocrite you are! " said Philip, flushing angrily.
"What! because experience must have told me that I'm
universally pleasing? I admit the law, but there's some dis-
turbing force here."
"I am going," said Philip, rising abruptly.
"So am I — to get a breath of fresh air; this place gets
oppressive. I think I have done suit and service long
enough."
The two friends walked downstairs together without speak-
ing. Philip turned through the outer door into the courtyard ;
but Stephen, saying, " Oh, by the by, I must call in here, "
went on along the passage to one of the rooms at the other
end of the building, which were appropriated to the town
library. He had the room all to himself, and a man requires
nothing less than this when he wants to dash his cap on the
table, throw himself astride a chair, and stare at a high brick
wall with a frown which would not have been beneath the
occasion if he had been slaying "the giant Python." The
conduct that issues from a moral conflict has often so close a?
resemblance to vice that the distinction escapes all outward
judgments founded on a mere comparison of actions. It is
clear to you, I hope, that Stephen was not a hypocrite,—
capable of deliberate doubleness for a selfish end ; and yet his
fluctuations between the indulgence of a feeling and the syste-
matic concealment of it might have made a good case in sup-
port of Philip's accusation.
Meanwhile, Maggie sat M he* stall cold and trembliag, with
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 465
that painful sensation in the eyes which comes from resolutely
repressed tears. Washer lifo to be always like this, — always
wringing some new source of inward strife? She heard con-
fusedly the busy, indifferent voices around her, and wished
her mind could flow into that easy babbling current. It was
at this moment that Dr. Kenn, who had quite lately corie
into the hall, and was now walking down the middle with his1
hands behind him, taking i, general view, fixed his eyes on
Maggie for the first time, and was struck with the expression
of pain on her beautiful face. She was sitting quite still, for
the stream of customers had lessened at this late hour in the
afternoon ; the gentlemen had chiefly chosen the middle of J he
day, and Maggie's stall was looking rather bare. This, with
her absent, pained expression, finished the contrast between
her and her companions, who were all bright, eager, and busy.
He was strongly arrested. Her face had naturally drawn his
attention as a new and striking one at church, and he had
been introduced to her during a short call on business at Mr.
Deane's, but he had never spoken more than three words to
her. He walked toward her now, and Maggie, perceiving
some one approaching, roused herself to look up and be pre-
pared to speak. She felt a childlike, instinctive relief from
the sense of uneasiness in this exertion, when she saw it was
Dr. Kenn's face that was looking at her ; that plain, middle-
aged face, with a grave, penetrating kindness in it, seeming
to tell of a human being who had reached a firm, safe strand,
but was looking with helpful, pity toward the strugglers still
tossed by the waves, had an effect on Maggie at this moment
which was afterward remembered by her as if it had been a
promise. The middle-aged, who have lived through their
strongest emotions, but are yet in the time when memory is
still half passionate and not merely contemplative, should
surely be a sort of natural priesthood, whom life has dis-
ciplined and consecrated to be the refuge and rescue of early
stumblers and victims of self -despair. Most of us, at some
moment in our young lives, would have welcomed a priest ot
that natural order in any sort of canonicals or uncanonicals,
but had to scramble upward into all the difficulties oi nineteen
entirely without such aid, as Maggio did.
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" You find your office rather a fatiguing one, I fear, Mist
Tulliver," said Dr. Kenn.
"It is, rather," said Maggie, simply, not being accustomed
to simper amiable denials of obvious f a<
" But I can tell Mrs. Kenn that you have disposed of hex
goods very quickly," he added; "she will be very much
obliged to you."
"Oh, I have done nothing; the gentlemen came very faifc!
to buy the dressing-gowns and embroidered waistcoats, but I
think any of the other ladies would have sold more; I didn't
know what to say about them."
Dr. Kenn smiled. " I hope I'm going to have you as a
permanent parishioner now, Miss Tulliver; ami? You have
been at a distance from us hitherto."
" I have been a teacher in a school, and I'm going into an-
other situation of the same kind very soon."
" Ah? I was hoping you would remain among your friends,
who are all in this neighborhood, I believe."
"Oh, / must go," said Maggie, earnestly, looking at Dr.
Kenn with au expression of reliance, as if she had told him
her his ory in those three words. It was one of those moments
of implicit revelation which will sometimes happen even be-
tween people who meet quite transiently, — on a mile's journey,
perhaps, or when resting by the wayside. There is always
this possibility of a word or look from a stranger to keep alive
the sense of human brotherhood.
Dr. Kern's ear and eye took in all the signs that this brief
confidence of Maggie's was charged with meaning.
"I understand," he said; "you feel it right to go. But
that will not prevent our meeting again, I hope; it will not
prevent my knowing you better, if I can be of any service to
you."
He put out his band and pressed hers kindly before be
turned away.
"She has some trouble or other at heart," he thought
•Poor child 1 she looks as if she mig'it turn out to be one of
• The soul's by nanr pi..hed too blgb.
B sa&Jtl e pi ~»ed too lov.'
There's something woaderf ally honest in th se beautiful eyes,*
THE GREAT TEMPTATI05.
It may be surprising that Maggie, among whose many im«
perfections an excessive delight iu admiration and acknowl-
edged supremacy were not absent now, any more than when
she was instructing the gypsies with a view toward achieving
a royal position among them, was not more elated on a day
when she had had the tribute of BO many looks and smiles,
together with that satisfactory consciousness which had neces-
sarily come from being taken before Lucy's cheval-glass, and
made to look at the full length of her tall beauty, crowned by
the night of her massy hair. Maggie had smiled at herself
then, and for the moment had forgotten everything in the sense
of her own beauty. If that state of mind could have lasted,
her choice would have been to have Stephen Guest at her feet
offering her a life filled with all luxuries, with daily incense
of adoration near and distant, and with all possibilities of cul-
ture at her command. But there were things in her stronger
than vanity, — passion and affection, and long, deep memories
of early discipline and effort, of early claims on her love and
pity; and the stream of vanity was soon swept along and
mingled imperceptibly with that wider current which was as
its highest force to-day, under the double urgency of the events
and inward impulses brought by the last week.
Philip had not spoken to her himself about the removal of
obstacles between them on his father's side, — he shrank from
that ; but he had told everything to Lucy, with the hope that
Maggie, being informed through her, might give him some
encouraging sign that their being brought thus much nearer
to each other was a happiness to her. The rush of conflicting
feelings was too great for Maggie to say much when Lucy,
with a face breathing playful joy, like one of Correggio'p
cherubs, poured forth her triumphant revelation; and Lucy
could hardly be surprised that she could do little more than
cry with gladness at the thought of her father's wish being
fulfilled, and of Tom's getting the Mill again in reward for
all his hard striving. The details of preparation for tha
bazaar had then come to usurp Lucy's attention for the next
few days, and nothing had been said by the cousins on subjects
that were likely to rouse deeper feelings. Philip had been to
fie house more than once, but Maggie had had no private ooji-
458 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
versatiou with him, and thus she had been left to fight bet
inward battle without interference.
But when the bazaar was fairly ended, and the cousins were
alone again, resting together at home, Lucy said, —
" You must give up going to stay with your aunt Moss the
day after to-morrow, Maggie ; write a note to her, and tell her
you have put it off at my request, and I'll send the man with
it. She won't be displeased ; you'll have plenty of time to
go by-and-by ; and I don't want you to go out of the way just
now."
" Yes, indeed I must go, dear j I can't put it off. I wouldn't
leave aunt Gritty out for the world. And I shall have very
little time, for I'm going away to a new situation on the 25th
of June."
"Maggie! " said Lucy, almost white with astonishment
"I didn't tell you, dear," said Maggie, making a great effort
to command herself, " because you've been so busy. But some
time ago I wrote to our old governess, Miss Firniss, to ask her
to let me know if she met with any situation that I could fill,
and the other day I had a letter from her telling me that I could
take three orphan pupils of hers to the coast during the holi-
days, and then make trial of a situation with her as teacher.
I wrote yesterday to accept the offer."
Lucy felt so hurt that for some moments she was uable to
speak.
" Maggie, " she said at last, tl how could you be so unkind
to me — not to tell me — to take such a step — and now I n She
hesitated a little, and then added, " And Philip? I thought
everything was going to be so happy. Oh, Maggie, what is
the reason? Give it up; let me write. There is nothing now
to keep you and Philip apart."
"Yes," said Maggie, faintly. "There is Tom's feeling.
He said I must give him up if I married Philip. And I know
he will not change — at least not for a long while — unless
something happened to soften him."
" But I will talk to him ; he's coming back this week. And
this good news about the Mill will soften him. And I'll talk
to him about Philip. Tom's always very compliant to mej I
don't think he's so obstinate."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 459
"But I must go," said Maggie, in a distressed voice. "I
must leave some time to pass. Don't press me to stay, dear
Lucy."
Lucy was silent for two or three minutes, looking away and
ruminating. At length she knelt down by her cousin, and
looking up in her face with anxious seriousness, said, —
" Maggie, is it that you don't love Philip well enough to
marry him? Tell me — trust me."
Maggie held Lucy's hands tightly in silence a little while
Her own hands were quite cold. But when she spoke, her
voice was quite clear and distinct.
"Yes, Lucy, I would choose to marry him. I think it
would be the best and highest lot for me, — to make his life
happy. He loved me first. No one else could be quite what
he is to me. But I can't divide myself from my brother for
life. I must go away, and wait. Pray don't speak to me
again about it."
Lucy obeyed in pain and wonder. The next word she said
was, —
" Well, dear Maggie, at least you will go to the dance at
Park House to-morrow, and have some music and brightness,
before you go to pay these doll dutiful visits. Ah I here come
aunty and the tea."
CHAPTER X
THIS SPELL SEEMS BROKEN.
THE suite of rooms opening into each other at Park House
looked duly brilliant with lights and flowers and the personal
splendors of sixteen couples, with attendant parents and
guardians. The focus of brilliancy was the long drawing-
room, where the dancing weDt forward, under the inspiration
of the grand piano j the library, into which it opened at one
end, had the more sober illumination of maturity, with caps
and cards ; and at the other end the pretty sitting-room, with
a conservatory attached, was left as au occasional cool retreat.
Lucy, who had laid aside her black for the first time, and had
460 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
her pretty slimness set off by an abundant dress of white
crape, was the acknowledged queen of the occasion; for this
was one of the Miss Guests' thoroughly condescending parties,
including no member of any aristocracy higher than that of
St. Ogg's, and stretching to the extreme limits of commercial
and professional gentility.
Maggie at first refused to dance, saying that she had for-
'gotten all the figures — it was so many years since she had
danced at school; and she was glad to have that excuse, for it
is ill dancing with a heavy heart. But at length the music
wrought in her young limbs, and the longing came; even
though it was the horrible young Tony, who walked up a
second time to try and persuade her. She warned him that
she could not dance anything but a country-dance j but he, of
course, was willing to wait for that high felicity, meaning only
to be complimentary when he assured her at several intervals
that it was a " great bore " that she couldn't waltz, he would
have liked so much to waltz with her. But at last it was the
turn of the good old-fashioned dance which has the least of
vanity and the most of merriment in it, and Maggie quite for-
got her troublous life in a childlike enjoyment of that half-
rustic rhythm which seems to banish pretentious etiquette.
She felt quite charitably toward young Torry, as his Hand
bore her along and held her up in the dance ; her eyes and
cheeks had that fire of young joy in them which will flame out
if it can find the least breath to fan it; and her simple black
dress, with its bit of black lace, seemed like the dim setting
of a jewel.
Stephen had not yet asked her to dance; had not yet paid
her more than a passing civility. Since yesterday, that inward
vision of her which perpetually made part of his conscious-
ness, had been half screened by the image of Philip Wakem,
which came across it like a blot ; there was some attachment
between her and Philip; at least there was an attachment on
his side, which made her feel in some bondage. Here, then,
Stephen told himself, was another claim of honor which called
on him to resist the attraction that was continually threaten-
ing to overpower him. He told himself so ; and yet he had
once or twice felt a certain savage resistance, and at another
THE GHEAT TEMJTATION. 461
moment a shuddering repugnance, to this intrusion of Philip's
image, which almost made it a new incitement to rush toward
Maggie and claim her for himself. Nevertheless, he had done
what he meant to do this evening, — he had kept aloof from
her; he had hardly looked at her; and he had been gayly as-
siduous to Lucy. But now his eyes were devouring Maggie ;
he felt inclined to kick young Torry out of the dance, and take
his place. Then he wanted the dance to end that he might
get rid of his partner. The possibility that he too should
dance with Maggie, and have her hand in his so long, was be-
ginning to possess him like a thirst. But even now their
hands were meeting in the dance, — were meeting still to the
very end of it, though they were far off each other.
Stephen hardly knew what happened, or in what automatic
way he got through the duties of politeness in the interval,
until he was free and saw Maggie seated alone again, at the
farther end of the room. He made his way toward her round
the couples that were forming for the waltz; and when Maggie
became conscious that she was the person he sought, she felt,
in spite of all the thoughts that had gone before, a glowing
gladness at heart. Her eyes and cheeks were still brightened
with her childlike enthusiasm in the dance; her whole frame
was set to joy and tenderness ; even the coming pain could not
seem bitter, — she was ready to welcome it as a part of life,
for life at this moment seemed a keen, vibrating consciousness
poised above pleasure or pain. This one, this last night, she
might expand unrestrainedly in the warmth of the present,
without those chill, eating thoughts of the past and the future.
" They're going to waltz again," said Stephen, bending to
speak to her, with that glance and tone of subdued tenderness
which young dreams create to themselves in the summer woods
when low, cooing voices fill the air. Such glances and tones
bring the breath of poetry with them into a room that is half
stifling with glaring gas and hard flirtation.
" They are going to waltz again. It is rather dizzy work
to look on, and the room is very warm ; shall we walk about
a little?"
He took her hand and placed it within his arm, and they
walked on into the sitting-room, where the tables were strewn
462 THE MILL ON THB FLOSa
with engravings for the accommodation of visitors who would
not want to look at them. But no visitors were here at this
moment. They passed on into the conservatory.
" How strange and unreal the trees and flowers look with
the lights among them ! " said Maggie, in a low voice. " They
look as if they belonged to an enchanted land, and would
never fade away; I could fancy they were all made of jewels."
She was looking at the tier of geraniums as she spoke, and
Stephen made no answer; but he was looking at her; and does
not a supreme poet blend light and sound into one, calling
darkness mute, and light eloquent? Something strangely
powerful there was in the light of Stephen's long gaze, for it
made Maggie's face turn toward it and look upward at it,
slowly, like a flower at the ascending brightness. And they
walked unsteadily on, without feeling that they were walking;
without feeling anything but that long, grave, mutual gaze
which has the solemnity belonging to all deep human passion.
The hovering thought that they must and would renounce each
other made this moment of mute confession more intense in
its rapture.
But they had reached the end of the conservatory, and were
obliged to pause and turn. The change of movement brought
a new consciousness to Maggie ; she blushed deeply, turned
away her head, and drew her arm from Stephen's, going up
to some flowers to smell them. Stephen stood motionless, and
still pale.
" Oh, may I get this rose?" said Maggie, making a great
effort to say something, and dissipate the burning sense of
irretrievable confession. "I think I am quite wicked with
roses ; I like to gather them and smell them till they have no
scent left."
Stephen was mute ; he was incapable of putting a sentence
together, and Maggie bent her arm a little upward toward the
large half -opened rose that had attracted her. Who has not
felt the beauty of a woman's arm? The unspeakable sugges-
tions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled elbow, and all the
varied gently lessening curves, down to the delicate wrist,
with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm soft-
ness. A woman's arm touched the soul of a great sculptor two
THE GREAT TEMPTATIOH. 463
thousand years ago, so that he wrought an image of it for th«
Parthenon which moves us still as it clasps lovingly the time-
worn marble of a headless trunk. Maggie's was such an arm
as that, and it had the warm tints of life.
A mad impulse seized on Stephen ; he darted toward the
arm, and showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist.
But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and
glared at him like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with
rage and humiliation.
" How dare you? n She spoke in a deeply shaken, half-
smothered voice. " What right have I given you to insult
me?"
She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw
herself on the sofa, panting and trembling.
A horrible punishment was come upon her for the sin of
allowing a moment's happiness that was treachery to Lucy, to
Philip, to her own better soul. That momentary happiness
had been smitten with a blight, a leprosy; Stephen thought
more lightly of her than he did of Lucy.
As for Stephen, he leaned back against the framework of
the conservatory, dizzy with the conflict of passions, — love,
rage, and confused despair; despair at his want of self-mas-
tery, and despair that he had offended Maggie.
The last feeling surmounted every other; to be by her side
again and entreat forgiveness was the only thing that had the
force of a motive for him, and she had not been seated more
than a few minutes when he came and stood humbly before
her. But Maggie's bitter rage was unspent,
"Leave me to myself, if you please," she said, with impeto*
ous haughtiness, " and for the future avoid me."
Stephen turned away, and walked backward and forward at
the other end of the room. There was the dire necessity of
going back into the dancing-room again, and he was begin-
ning to be conscious of that. They had been absent so short
a time, that when he went in again the waltz was not ended.
Maggie, too, was not long before she re-entered. All* the
pride of her nature was stung into activity ; the hateful weak-
ness which had dragged her within reach of this wound to her
self-respect had at least wrought its own cure. The thoughts
164 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
and temptations of the last month should all be flung away into
an unvisited chamber of memory. There was nothing to al-
lure her now ; duty would be easy, and all the old calm pur-
poses would reign peacefully once more. She re-entered the
drawing-room still with some excited brightness in her face,
but with a sense of proud self-command that defied anything
(to agitate her. She refused to dance again, but she talked
quite readily and calmly with every one who addressed her.
And when they got home that night, she kissed Lucy with a
free heart, almost exulting in this scorching moment, which
had delivered her from the possibility of another word or look
that would have the stamp of treachery toward that gentle,
unsuspicious sister.
The next morning Maggie did not set off to Basset quite so
soon as she had expected. Her mother was to accompany her
in the carriage, and household business could not be despatched
hastily by Mrs. Tulliver. So Maggie, who had been in a
hurry to prepare herself, had to sit waiting, equipped for the
drive, in the garden. Lucy was busy in the house wrapping
up some bazaar presents for the younger ones at Basset, and
when there was a loud ring at the door-bell, Maggie felt some
alarm lest Lucy should bring out Stephen to her ; it was sure
to be Stephen.
But presently the visitor came out into the garden alone,
and seated himself by her on the garden -chair. It was not
Stephen.
" We can just catch the tips of the Scotch firs, Maggie, from
this seat, " said Philip.
They had taken each other's hands in silence, but Maggie
had looked at him with a more complete revival of the old
childlike affectionate smile than he had seen before, and he
felt encouraged.
" Yes, " she said, " I often look at them, and wish I could
see the low sunlight on the stems again. But I have never
been that way but once, — to the churchyard with my mother."
""I have been there, I go there, continually," said Philip.
"I have nothing but the past to live upon."
A keen remembrance and keen pity impelled Maggie to put
her hand in Philip's. They had so often walked hand in haad(
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 465
rtl remember all the spots," she said, — "just where you
told me of particular things, beautiful stories that I had never
heard of before."
"You will go there again soon, won't you, Maggie?" said
Philip, getting timid. " The Mill will soon be your brother's
home again."
"Yes; but I shall not be there," said Maggie. "I shall
only hear of that happiness. I am going away again ; Lucy
has not told you, perhaps?"
" Then the future will never join on to the past again, Mag-
gie? That book is quite closed? "
The gray eyes that had so often looked up at her with en-
treating worship, looked up at her now, with a last struggling
ray of hope in them, and Maggie met them with her large
sincere gaze.
"That book never will be closed, Philip," she said, wii,h
grave sadness ; " I desire no future that will break the ties of
the past. But the tie to my brother is one of the strongest.
I can do nothing willingly that will divide me always from
him."
" Is that the only reason that would keep ns apart forever,
Maggie? " said Philip, with a desperate determination to have
a definite answer.
" The only reason," said Maggie, with calm decision. And
she believed it. At that moment she felt as if the enchanted
cup had been dashed to the ground. The reactionary excite-
ment that gave her a proud self-mastery had not subsided,
and she looked at the future with a sense of calm choice.
They sat hand in hand without looking at each other or
ispeaking for a few minutes ; in Maggie's mind the first scenes
of love and parting were more present than the actual moment,
and she was looking at Philip in the Red Deeps.
Philip felt that he ought to have been thoroughly happy in
that answer of hers ; she was as open and transparent as a
rock-pool. Why was he not thoroughly happy? Jealousy
is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that
would detect the subtlest fold of the heart
466 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS
CHAPTER XL
IN THE LANE.
MAGGIE had been four days at her aunt Moss's, giving the
early June sunshine quite a new brightness in the care*
dimmed eyes of that affectionate woman, and making an epoch
for her cousins great and small, who were learning her words
and actions by heart, as if she had been a transient avatar of
perfect wisdom and beauty.
She was standing on the causeway with her aunt and a
group of cousins feeding the chickens, at that quiet moment
in the life of the farmyard before the afternoon milking- time.
The great buildings round the hollow yard were as dreary and
tumbledown as ever, but over the old garden -wall the strag-
gling rose-bushes were beginning to toss their summer weight,
and the gray wood and old bricks of the house, on its higher
level, had a look of sleepy age in the broad afternoon sun-
light, that suited the quiescent time. Maggie, with her bon-
net over her arm, was smiling down at the hatch, of small
fluffy chickens, when her aunt exclaimed, —
"Goodness me! who is that gentleman coming in at the
gate? "
It was a gentleman on a tall bay horse j and the flanks and
neck of the horse were streaked black with fast riding. Mag-
gie felt a beating at head and heart, horrible as the sudden
leaping to life of a savage enemy who had feigned death.
" Who is it, my dear? " said Mrs. Moss, seeing in Maggie'^
lace the evidence that she knew.
"It is Mr. Stephen Guest," said Maggie, rather faintly.
M My cousin Lucy's — a gentleman who is very intimate at my
cousin's."
Stephen was already close to them, had jumped off his
horse, and now raised his hat as he advanced.
"Hold the horse, Willy," said Mrs. Moss to the twelve-
year-old boy.
"No, thank you," said Stephen, pulling at the horse's im-
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 467
patiently tossing head. " I must be going again immediately.
I have a message to deliver to you, Miss Tulliver, on private
business. May I take the liberty of asking you to walk a
few yards with me? "
He had a half -jaded, half -irritated look, such as a man gets
when he has been dogged by some care or annoyance that
makes his bed and his dinner of little use to him. He spoke
almost abruptly, as if his errand were too pressing for him to
trouble himself about what would be thought by Mrs. Moss of
his visit and request. Good Mrs. Moss, rather nervous in the
presence of this apparently haughty gentleman, was inwardly
wondering whether she would be doing right or wrong to in-
vite him again to leave his horse and walk in, when Maggie,
feeling all the embarrassment of the situation, and unable to
say anything, put on her bonnet, and turned to walk toward
the gate.
Stephen turned too, and walked by her side, leading his
horse.
Not a word was spoken till they were out in the lane, and
had walked four or five yards, when Maggie, who had been
looking straight before her all the while, turned again to walk
back, saying, with haughty resentment, —
" There is no need for me to go any farther. I don't know
whether you consider it gentlemanly and delicate conduct to
place me in a position that forced me to come out with you,
or whether you wished to insult me still further by thrusting
an interview upon me in this way."
" Of course you are angry with me for coming, " said
Stephen, bitterly. " Of course it is of no consequence what a
man has to suffer; it is only your woman's dignity that you
care about."
Maggie gave a slight start, such as might have come from
the slightest possible electric shock.
" As if it were not enough that I'm entangled in this way ;
that I'm mad with love for you; that I resist the strongest
passion a man can feel, because I try to be true to other
claims; but you must treat me as if I were a coarse brute,
who would willingly offend you. And when, if I had my own
choice, I should ask you to take my hand and my fortune and
468 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
my whole life, and do what you liked with them ! I know I
forgot myself. I took an unwarrantable liberty. I hate my-
self for having done it. But I repented immediately; I've
been repenting ever since. You ought not to think it unpar-
donable ; a man who loves with his whole soul, as I do you,
is liable to be mastered by his feelings for a moment ; but you
know — you must believe — that the worst pain I could have
is to have pained you; that I would give the world to recall
the error."
Maggie dared not speak, dared not turn her head. The
strength that had come from resentment was all gone, and her
lips were quivering visibly. She could not trust herself to
utter the full forgiveness that rose in answer to that confession.
They were come nearly in front of the gate again, and she
paused, trembling.
" You must not say these things ; I must not hear them, "
she said, looking down in misery, as Stephen came in front of
her, to prevent her from going farther toward the gate. " I'm
very sorry for any pain you have to go through ; but it is of
no use to speak."
" Yes, it is of use, " said Stephen, impetuously. " It would
be of use if you would treat me with some sort of pity and
consideration, instead of doing me vile injustice in your mind.
I could bear everything more quietly if I knew you didn't hate
me for an insolent coxcomb. Look at me ; see what a hunted
devil I am; I've been riding thirty miles every day to get
away from the thought of you. "
Maggie did not — dared not — look. She had already seen
the harassed face. But she said gently, — •
"I don't think any evil of you."
"Then, dearest, look at me," said Stephen, in deepest,
tenderest tones of entreaty. " Don't go away from me yet.
Give me a moment's happiness; make me feel you've forgiven
me."
"Yes, I do forgive you," said Maggie, shaken by those
tones, and all the more frightened at herself. " But pray let
me go in again. Pray go away."
A great tear fell from under her lowered eyelids.
"I can't go away from you; I can't leave you," said
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 469
Stephen, with still more passionate pleading. " I shall come
back again if you send me away with this coldness; I can't
answer for myself. But if you will go with me only a little
way I can live on that. You see plainly enough that your
anger has only made me ten times more unreasonable."
Maggie turned. But Tancred, the bay horse, began to
make such spirited remonstrances against this frequent change
of direction, that Stephen, catching sight of Willy Moss peep-
ing through the gate, called out, " Here ! just come and hold
my horse for five minutes."
" Oh, no, " said Maggie, hurriedly, " my aunt will think it
so strange."
"Xever mind," Stephen answered impatiently; "they
don't know the people at St. Ogg's. Lead him up and down
just here for five minutes," he added to Willy, who was now
close to them; and then he turned to Maggie's side, and they
walked on. It was clear that she must go on now.
" Take my arm, " said Stephen, entreatingly ; and she took
it, feeling all the while as if she were sliding downward in a
nightmare.
" There is no end to this misery, n she began, struggling to
repel the influence by speech. "It is wicked — base — ever
allowing a word or look that Lucy — that others might not
have seen. Think of Lucy."
"I do think of her— bless her. If I didn't " Stephen
had laid his hand on Maggie's that rested on his arm, and
they both felt it difficult to speak.
"And I have other ties," Maggie went on, at last, with a
desperate effort, "even if Lucy did not exist."
"You are engaged to Philip Wakem?" said Stephen, hast-
ily. " Is it so? "
"I consider myself engaged to him; I don't mean to marry,
any one else."
Stephen was silent again until they had turned out of the
sun into a side lane, all grassy and sheltered. Then he burst
out impetuously, —
" It is unnatural, it is horrible. Maggie, if you loved me
*s I love you, we should throw everything else to the winds
for the sake of belonging to each other. We should break all
4TO THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
these mistaken ties that were made in blindness, and determine
to marry each other."
" I would rather die than fall into that temptation, " said
Maggie, with deep, slow distinctness, all the gathered spiritual
force of painful years coming to her aid in this extremity.
She drew her arm from his as she spoke.
" Tell me, then, that you don't care for me," he said, almost
violently. "Tell me that you love some one else better."
It darted through Maggie's mind that here was a mode ef
releasing herself from outward struggle, — to tell Stephen that
her whole heart was Philip's. But her lips would not utter
that, and she was silent.
" If you do love me, dearest, " said Stephen, gently, taking
up her hand again and laying it within his arm, " it is better
— it is right that we should marry each other. We can't help
the pain it will give. It is come upon us without our seeking;
it is natural ; it has taken hold of me in spite of every effort
I have made to resist it. God knows, I've been trying to be
faithful to tacit engagements, and I've only made things worse ;
I'd better have given way at first."
Maggie was silent. If it were not wrong — if she were once
convinced of that, and need no longer beat and struggle against
this current, soft and yet strong as the summer stream !
"Say * yes/ dearest," said Stephen, leaning to lookentreat-
ingly in her face. " Wh at could we care about in the whole
world beside, if we belonged to each other? "
Her breath was on his face, his lips were very near hers,
but there was a great dread dwelling in his love for her.
Her lips and eyelids quivered ; she opened her eyes full on
his for an instant, like a lovely wild animal timid and strug-
gling under caresses, and then turned sharp round toward
home again.
"And after all," he went on, in an impatient tone, trying
to defeat his own scruples as well as hers, " I am breaking no
positive engagement; if Lucy's affections had been withdrawn
from me and given to some one else, I should have felt no
right to assert a claim on her. If you are not absolutely
pledged to Philip, we are neither of us bound."
"You don't believe that; it is not your real feeling," said
THE GREAT TEMPTATION.
Maggie, earnestly. " You feel, as I do, that the real tie lies
in the feelings and expectations we have raised in other minds.
Else all pledges might be broken, when there was no outward
penalty. There would be no such thing as faithfulness."
Stephen was silent; he could not pursue that argument;
the opposite conviction had wrought in him too strongly
through his previous time of struggle. But it soon presented
itself in a new form.
" The pledge can't be fulfilled," he said, with impetuous
insistence. " It is unnatural ; we can only pretend to give
ourselves to any one else. There is wrong in that too; there
may be misery in it for them as well as for us. Maggie, you
must see that; you do see that."
He was looking eagerly at her face for the least sign of
compliance; his large, firm, gentle grasp was on her hand.
She was silent for a few moments, with her eyes fixed on the
ground ; then she drew a deep breath, and said, looking up at
him with solemn sadness, —
"Oh, it is difficult, — life is very difficult! It seems right
to me sometimes that we should follow our strongest feeling ;
but then, such feelings continually come across the ties that
all our former life has made for us, — the ties that have made
others dependent on us, — and would cut them in two. If life
were quite easy and simple, as it might have been in Para-
dise, and we could always see that one being first toward
whom — I mean, if life did not make duties for us before love
comes, love would be a sign that two people ought to belong
to each other. But I see — I feel it is not so now ; there are
things we must renounce in life ; some of us must resign love.
Many things are difficult and dark to me; but I see one thing
quite clearly, — that I must not, cannot, seek my own happi-
ness by sacrificing others. Love is natural ; but surely pity
and faithfulness and memory are natural too. And they would
live in me still, and punish me if I did not obey them. I
should be haunted by the suffering I had caused. Our love
would be poisoned. Don't urge me; help me, — help me, be~
cause I love you."
Maggie had become more and more earnest as she went on;
her face had become flushed, and her eyes fuller and fuller of
*T2 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
appealing love. Stephen had the fibre of nobleness in him
that vibrated to her appeal; but in the same moment — how
could it be otherwise? — that pleading beauty gained new
power over him.
"Dearest," he said, in scarcely more than a whisper, while
his arm stole round her, "I'll do, I'll bear anything you wish.
But — one kiss — one — the last — before we part."
i One kiss, and then a long look, until Maggie said tremu-
lously, "Let me go, — let me make haste back."
She hurried along, and not another word was spoken.
Stephen stood still and beckoned when they came within
sight of Willy and the horse, and Maggie went on through
the gate. Mrs. Moss was standing alone at the door of the
old porch ; she had sent all the cousins in, with kind thought-
fulness. It might be a joyful thing that Maggie had a rich
and handsome lover, but she would naturally feel embarrassed
at coming in again ; and it might not be joyful. In either
case Mrs. Moss waited anxiously to receive Maggie by herself.
The speaking face told plainly enough that, if there was joy,
it was of a very agitating, dubious sort.
"Sit down here a bit, my dear." She drew Maggie into
the porch, and sat down on the bench by her ; there was no
privacy in the house.
"Oh, aunt Gritty, I'm very wretched I I wish I could
have died when I was fifteen. It seemed so easy to give
things up then; it is so hard now."
The poor child threw her arms round her aunt's neck, and
fell into long, deep sobs.
CHAPTER XH.
A FAMILY PARTY.
MAGGIE left her good aunt Gritty at the end of the week,
and went to Garum Firs to pay her visit to aunt Pullet ac-
cording to agreement. In the mean time very unexpected
things had happened, and there was to be a family party at
Garum to discuss and celebrate a change in the fortunes of the
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 473
Tullivers, which was likely finally to carry away the shadow
of their demerits like the last limb of an eclipse, and cause
their hitherto obscured virtues to shine forth in full-rounded
splendor. It is pleasant to know that a new ministry just
come into office are not the only fellow-men who enjoy a period
of high appreciation and full-blown eulogy ; in many respec-
table families throughout this realm, relatives becoming cred-
itable meet with a similar cordiality of recognition, which in
its fine freedom from the coercion of any antecedents, sug-
gests the hopeful possibility that we may some day without
any notice find ourselves in full millennium, with cockatrices
who have ceased to bite, and wolves that no longer show their
teeth with any but the blandest intentions.
Lucy came so early as to have the start even of aunt Glegg ;
for she longed to have some undisturbed talk with Maggie
about the wonderful news. It seemed, did it not? said Lucy,
with her prettiest air of wisdom, as if everything, even other
people's misfortunes (poor creatures!) were conspiring now to
make poor dear aunt Tulliver, and cousin Tom, and naughty
Maggie too, if she were not obstinately bent on the contrary, as
happy as they deserved to be after all their troubles. To think
that the very day — the very day — after Tom had come back
from Newcastle, that unfortunate young Jetsome, whom Mr.
Wakem had placed at the Mill, had been pitched off his horse
in a drunken fit, and was lying at St. Ogg's [in a dangerous
state, so that Wakem had signified his wish that the new pur-
chasers should enter on the premises at once ! It was very
dreadful for that unhappy young man, but it did seem as if
the misfortune had happened then, rather than at any other
time, in order that cousin Tom might all the sooner have the
fit reward of his exemplary conduct, — papa thought so very
highly of him. Aunt Tulliver must certainly go to the Mill
now, and keep house for Tom ; that was rather a loss to Lucy
in the matter of household comfort} but then, to think of poor
aunty being in her old place again, and gradually getting com-
forts about her there !
On this last point Lucy had her cunning projects, and when
she and Maggie had made their dangerous way down the
bright stairs into the handsome parlor, where the very sun-
474 THE MILL OX TTTE FLOSS.
beams seemed cleaner than elsewhere, she directed her ma-
noeuvres, as any other great tactician would have done, against
the weaker side of the enemy.
" Aunt Pullet, " she said, seating herself on the sofa, and
caressingly adjusting that lady's floating cap-string, " I want
you to make up your mind what linen and things you will
give Tom toward housekeeping; because you are always so*1
generous, — you give such nice things, you know; and if you
set the example, aunt Glegg will follow."
"That she never can, my dear," said Mrs. Pullet, with un-
usual vigor, "for she hasn't got the linen to follow suit wi'
mine, I can tell you. She'd niver the taste, not if she'd spend
the money. Big checks and live things, like stags and foxes,
all her table-linen is, — not a spot nor a diamond among 'em.
But it's poor work dividing one's linen before one dies, — 1
niver thought to ha* done that, Bessy," Mrs. Pullet con-
tinued, shaking her head and looking at her sister Tulliver,
" when you and me chose the double diamout, the first flax
iver we'd spun, and the Lord knows where yours is gone."
"I'd no choice, I'm sure, sister," said poor Mrs. Tulliver,
accustomed to consider herself in the light of an accused per-
son. " I'm sure it was no wish o' mine, iver, as I should lie
awake o' nights thinking o' my best bleached linen all over
the country."
"Take a peppermint, Mrs. Tulliver," said uncle Pullet,
feeling that he was offering a cheap and wholesome form of
comfort, which he was recommending by example.
"Oh, but, aunt Pullet," said Lucy, "you've so much beau-
tiful linen. And suppose you had had daughters ! Then you
must have divided it when they were married."
" Well, I don't say as I won't do it," said Mrs. Pullet,
"for now Tom's so lucky, it's nothing but right his friends
should look on him and help him. There's the tablecloths I
bought at your sale, Bessy ; it was nothing but good natur'
o' me to buy 'em, for they've been lying in the chest ever
since. But I'm not going to give Maggie any more o' my
Indy muslin and things, if she's to go into service again,
when she might stay and keep me company, and do my sew
ing for me, if she wasn't wanted at her brother's."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 475
" Going into service " was the expression by which the Bod-
son mind represented to itself the position of teacher or gov-
erness; and Maggie's return to that menial condition, now
circumstances offered her more eligible prospects, was likely
to be a sore point with all her relatives, besides Lucy. Mag-
gie in her crude form, with her hair down her back, and alto-
gether in a state of dubious promise, was a most undesirable,
niece ; but now she was capable of being at once ornamental
and useful. The subject was revived in aunt and uncle)
Glegg's presence, over the tea and muffins.
"Hegh, hegh!" said Mr. Glegg, good-naturedly patting^
Maggie on the back, "nonsense, nonsense I Don't let us hear/
of you taking a place again, Maggie. Why, you must ha*
picked up half-a-dozen sweethearts at the bazaar; isn't there
one of 'em the right sort of article? Come, now?"
" Mr. Glegg, " said his wife, with that shade of increased
politeness in her severity which she always put on with her
erisper fronts, "you'll excuse me, but you're far too light for
a man of your years. It's respect and duty to her aunts, and
the rest of her kin as are so good to her, should have kept my
niece from fixing about going away again without consulting
us ; not sweethearts, if I'm to use such a word, though it was
never heared in -my family."
" Why, what did they call us, when we went to see 'em,
then, eh, neighbor Pullet? They thought us sweet enough
then, " said Mr. Glegg, winking pleasantly ; while Mr. Pullet,
at the suggestion of sweetness, took a little more sugar.
"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., "if you're going to be undeli-
cate, let me know."
"La, Jane, your husband's only joking," said Mrs. Pullet;
"let him joke while he's got health and strength. There's:
poor Mr. Tilt got his mouth drawn all o* one side, and
couldn't laugh if he was to try."
"I'll trouble you for the muffineer, !>hen, Mr. Glegg," said
Mrs. G., "if I may be so bold to interrupt your joking.
Though it's other people must see the joke in a niece's put-
ting a slight on her mother's eldest sister, as is the head o'
the family ; and only coming in and out on short visits, all the
time she's been in the town, and, then settling to go away
476 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
without my knowledge, — as I'd laid caps out on purpose fof
her to make 'em up for me, — and me as have divided my
money so equal "
"Sister," Mrs. Tulliver broke in anxiously, "I'm sure
Maggie never thought o' going away without staying at your
house as well as the others. Not as it's my wish she should
go away at all, but quite contrairy. I'm sure I'm innocent.
I've said over and over again, * My dear, you've no call to go
away.' But there's ten days or a fortnight Maggie'll hart)
before she's fixed to go; she can stay at your house just as
well, and I'll step in when I can, and so will Lucy."
"Bessy," said Mrs. Glegg, "if you'd exercise a little more
thought, you might know I should hardly think it was worth
while to unpin a bed, and go to all that trouble now, just at
the end o' the time, when our house isn't above a quarter of
an hour's walk from Mr. Deane's. She can come the first
thing in the morning, and go back the last at night, and be
thankful she's got a good aunt so close to her to come and sit
with. I know /should, when I was her age."
" La, Jane," said Mrs. Pullet, " it 'ud do your beds good to
have somebody to sleep in 'em. There's that striped room
smells dreadful mouldy, and the glass mildewed like anything.
I'm sure I thought I should be struck with death when you
took me in."
" Oh, there is Tom I " exclaimed Lucy, clapping her hands.
" He's come on Sindbad, as I told him. I was afraid he was
not going to keep his promise."
Maggie jumped up to kiss Tom as he entered, with strong
feeling, at this first meeting since the prospect of returning
to the Mill had been opened to him ; and she kept his hand,
leading him to the chair by her side. To have no cloud be-
tween herself and Tom was still a perpetual yearning in her,
that had its root deeper than all change. He smiled at her
very kindly this evening, and said, " Well, Magsie, how's
aunt Moss?"
* Come, come, sir," said Mr. Glegg, putting out his hand.
" Why, you're such a big man, yon carry all before you, it
seems. You're come into your luck a good deal earlier than
us old folks didj but I wish you joy, \ wish you joy, You'U
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 477
get the Mill all for your own again some day, I'll be bound.
You won't stop half-way up the hill."
" But I hope he'll bear in mind as it's his mother's family
as he owes it to," said Mrs. Glegg. " If he hadn't had them
to take after, he'd ha' been poorly off. There was never any
failures, nor lawing, nor wastefulness in our famDy, nor dying
without wills "
"No, nor sudden deaths," said aunt Pullet; "allays the
doctor called in. But Tom had the Dodson skin; I said that'
from the first. And I don't know what you mean to do, sister
Glegg, but I mean to give him a tablecloth of all my three
biggest sizes but one, besides sheets. I don't say what more
I shall do ; but that I shall do, and if I should die to-morrow,
Mr. Pullet, you'll bear it in mind, — though you'll be blunder-
ing with the keys, and never remember as that on the third
shelf o* the left-hand wardrobe, behind the night-caps with
the broad ties, — not the narrow-frilled uns, — is the key o*
the drawer in the Blue Boom, where the key o' the Blue
Closet is. You'll make a mistake, and I shall niver be worthy
to know it. You've a memory for my pills and draughts,
wonderful, — I'll allays say that of you, — but you're lost among
the keys." This gloomy prospect of the confusion that would
ensue on her decease was very affecting to Mrs. Pullet.
"You carry it too far, Sophy, — that locking in and out,"
said Mrs. Glegg, in a tone of some disgust at this folly. " You
go beyond your own family. There's nobody can say I don't
lockup; but I do what's reasonable, and no more. And as
for the linen, I shall look out what's serviceable, to make a
present of to my nephey ; I've got cloth as has never been
whitened, better worth having than other people's fine hoi-
land; and I hope he'll lie down in it and think of his aunt."
Tom thanked Mr. Glegg, but evaded any promise to medi-
tate nightly on her virtues; and Mrs. Glegg effected a diver-
sion for him by asking about Mr. Deane's intentions concern-
ing steam.
Lucy had had her far-sighted views in begging Tom to come
on Sindbad. It appeared, when it was time to go home, that
the man-servant was to ride the horse, and cousin Tom was to
drive home his mother and £ucy . ". YOU must sit by yourself,
178 THE MILL OK THE FLOSS.
aunty," said that contriving young lady, "because I must sit
by Tom; I've a great deal to say to him."
In the eagerness of her affectionate anxiety for Maggie,
Lucy could not persuade herself to defer a conversation about
her with Tom, who, she thought, with such a cup of joy be-
fore him as this rapid fulfilment of his wish about the Mill,
must become pliant and flexible. Her nature supplied her
with no key to Tom's; and she was puzzled as well as pained
to notice the unpleasant change on his countenance when she
gave him the history of the way in which Philip had used
his influence with his father. She had counted on this reve-
lation as a great stroke of policy, which was to turn Tom's
heart toward Philip at once, and, besides that, prove that the
elder Wakem was ready to receive Maggie with all the honors
of a daughter-in-law. Kothing was wanted, then, but for
dear Tom, who always had that pleasant smile when he looked
at cousin Lucy, to turn completely round, say the opposite of
what he had always said before, and declare that he, for his
part, was delighted that all the old grievances should be
healed, and that Maggie should have Philip with all suitable
despatch; in cousin Lucy's opinion nothing could be easier.
But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative
qualities that create severity, — strength of will, conscious rec-
titude of purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect,
great power of self-control, and a disposition to exert control
over others, — prejudices come as the natural food of tenden-
cies which can get no sustenance out of that complex, frag-
mentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth.
Let a prejudice be bequeathed, carried in the air, adopted by-
hearsay, caught in through the eye, — however it may come,
these minds will give it a habitation ; it is something to assert
strongly and bravely, something to fill up the void of spon-
taneous ideas, something to impose on others with the author-
ity of conscious right; it is at once a staff and a baton. Every
prejudice that will answer these purposes is self-evident. Our
good, upright Tom Tulliver's mind was of this class ; his in-
ward criticism of his father's faults did not prevent him from
adopting his father's prejudice; it was a prejudice against a
of lax principle and lax life, and it was a meeting-poinfc
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 479
for aH the disappointed feelings of family and personal pride.
Other feelings added their force to produce Tom's bitter re-
pugnance to Philip, and to Maggie's union with him; and
notwithstanding Lucy's power over her strong-willed cousin,
she got nothing but a cold refusal ever to sanction such a mar-
riage; " but of course Maggie could do as she liked, — she had
declared her determination to be independent. For Tom's
part, he held himself bound by his duty to his father's mem-
ory, aud by every manly feeling, never to consent to any rela-
tion with the \Yakems."
Thus, all that Lucy had effected by her zealous mediation
was to fill Tom's mind with the expectation that Maggie's
perverse resolve to go into a situation again would presently
metamorphose itself, as her resolves were apt to do, into some-
thing equally perverse, but entirely different, — a marriage
with Philip Wakem.
CHAPTER XTTI.
BORCT5 ALONO BY THE TIBS.
IN less than a week Maggie was at St. Ogg's again, — out'
wardly in much the same position as when her visit there had
just begun. It was easy for her to fill her mornings apart
from Lucy without any obvious effort; for she had her prom-
ised visits to pay to her aunt Glegg, and it was natural that
she should give her mother more than usual of her companion-
ship in these last weeks, especially as there were preparations
to be thought of for Tom's housekeeping. But Lucy would
hear of no pretext for her remaining away in the evenings;
she must always come from aunt Glegg's before dinner, —
"else what shall I have of you?" said Lucy, with a tearful
pout that could not be resisted. And Mr. Stephen Guest had
unaccountably taken to dining at Mr. Deane's as often as pos-
sible, instead of avoiding that, as he used to do. At first he
began his mornings with a resolution that he would not dine
thc-re, not even go hi the evening, till Maggie was away. He
had even devised a plan of starting off on a journey in this
ISO THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
agreeable June weather j the headaches which he had con-
stantly been alleging as a ground for stupidity and silence
were a sufficient ostensible motive. But the journey was not
taken, and by the fourth morning no distinct resolution was
formed about the evenings ; they were only foreseen as timea
when Maggie would still be present for a little while, — when
one more touch, one more glance, might be snatched. For
why not? There was nothing to conceal between them ; they
knew, they had confessed their love, and they had renounced
each other j they were going to part. Honor and conscience
were going to divide them; Maggie, with that appeal from
her inmost soul, had decided it ; but surely they might cast a
lingering look at each other across the gulf, before they turned
away never to look again till that strange light had forever
faded out of their eyes.
Maggie, all this time, moved about with a quiescence" and
even torpor of manner, so contrasted with her usual fitful
brightness and ardor, that Lucy would have had to seek some
other cause for such a change, if she had not been convinced
that the position in which Maggie stood between Philip and
her brother, and the prospect of her self-imposed wearisome
banishment, were quite enough to account for a large amount
of depression. But under this torpor there was a fierce battle
of emotions, such as Maggie in all her life of struggle had
nevsr known or foreboded ; it seemed to her as if all the worst
evil in her had lain in ambush till now, and had suddenly
started tip full-armed, with hideous, overpowering strength!
There were moments in which a cruel selfishness seemed to
be getting possession of her; why should not Lucy, why
should not Philip, suffer? She had had to suffer through
many years of her life ; and who had renounced anything for
her? And when something like that fulness of existence —
love, wealth, ease, refinement, all that her nature craved —
was brought within her reach, why was she to forego it, that
another might have it, — another, who perhaps needed it less?
But amidst all this new passionate tumult there were tha old
voices making themselves heard with rising power, till, from
time to time, the tumult seemed quelled. Was that existence
which tempted her the full existence she dreamed? Where,
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 481
then, would be all the memories of early striving; all th«
deep pity for another's pain, which had been nurtured in her
through years of affection and hardship ; all the divine pre-
sentiment of something higher than mere personal enjoyment,
which had made the sacredness of life? She might as well
hope to enjoy walking by maiming her feet, as hope to enjoy
an existence in which she set out by maiming the faith and
sympathy that were the best organs of her soul. And then,
if pain were so hard to her, what was it to others? "Ah,
Godl preserve me from inflicting — give me strength to bear
it." How had she sunk into this struggle with a temptation
that she would once have thought herself as secure from as
from deliberate crime? When was that first hateful moment
in which she had been conscious of a feeling that clashed with
her truth, affection, and gratitude, and had not shaken it from
her with horror, as if it had been a loathsome thing? And
yet, since this strange, sweet, subduing influence did not,
should not, conquer her, — since it was to remain simply her
own suffering, — her mind was meeting Stephen's in that
thought of his, that they might still snatch moments of mute
confession before the parting came. For was not he suffering
too? She saw it daily — saw it in the sickened look of fatigue
with which, as soon as he was not compelled to exert himself,
he relapsed into indifference toward everything but the possi-
bility of watching her. Could she refuse sometimes to answer
that beseeching look which she felt to be following her like a
low murmur of love and pain? She refuted it less and less,
till at last the evening for them both was sometimes made of
a moment's mutual gaze; they thought of it till it came, and
when it had come, they thought of nothing else. One othei
thing Stephen seemed now and then to care for, and that was
to sing; it was away of speaking to Maggie. Perhaps he
was not distinctly conscious that he was impelled to it by a
secret longing — running counter to all his self-confessed re-
solves— to deepen the hold he had on her. Watch your own
speech, and notice how it is guided by your less conscious
purposes, and you will understand that contradiction in
Stephen.
Philip Wakem was a less frequent visitor, bat he came
SL
482 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS
occasionally in the evening, and it happened that he was there
when Lucy said, as they sat out on the lawn, near sunset, —
" Now Maggie's tale of visits to aunt Glegg is completed, I
mean that we shall go out boating every day until she goes.
She has not had half enough boating because of these tiresome
visits, and she likes it better than anything. Don't you,
Maggie?"
" Better than any sort of locomotion, I hope you mean, "
said Philip, smiling at Maggie, who was lolling backward in
a low garden-chair ; " else she will be selling her soul to thai
ghostly boatman who haunts the Floss, only for the sake of
being drifted in a boat forever."
" Should you like to be her boatman? " said Lucy. " Be-
cause, if you would, you can come with us and take an oar.
If the Floss were but a quiet lake instead of a river, we
should be independent of any gentleman, for Maggie can row
splendidly. As it is, we are reduced to ask services of knights
and squires, who do not seem to offer them with great alacrity."
She looked playful reproach at Stephen, who was saunter-
ing up and down, and was just singing in pianissimo falsetto,—
"The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine.**
He took no notice, but still kept aloof; he had done so fre-
quently during Philip's recent visits.
"You don't seem inclined for boating," said Lucy, when he
came to sit down by her on the bench. " Doesn't rowing suit
you now?"
"Oh, I hate a large party in a boat," he said, almost irrita-
bly. " I'll come when you have no one else."
Lucy colored, fearing that Philip would be hurt ; it was quite
a new thing for Stephen to speak in that way ; but he had cer-
tainly not been well of late. Philip colored too, but less from
a feeling of personal offence than from a vague suspicion that
Stephen's moodiness had some relation to Maggie, who had
started up from her chair as he spoke, and had walked toward
the hedge of laurels to look at the descending sunlight on the
river.
" As Miss Deane didn't know she was excluding others by
inviting me," said Philip, "I am bound to resign."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 483
"Nc, indeed, you shall not," said Lucy, much vexed. "1
particularly wish for your company to-morrow. The tide will
suit at half -past ten j it will be a delicious time for a couple of
hours to row to Luckreth and walk back, before the sun gets
too hot. And how can you object to four people in a boat? "
she added, looking at Stephen.
" I don't object to the people, but the number, " said Stephen,
who had recovered himself, and was rather ashamed of his
rudeness. " If I voted for a fourth at all, of course it would
be you, Phil. But we won't divide the pleasure of escorting
the ladies; we'll take it alternately. I'll go the next day."
This incident had the effect of drawing PhUip's attention
with freshened solicitude toward Stephen and Maggie; but
when they re-entered the house, music was proposed, and
Mrs. Tulliver and Mr. Deane being occupied with cribbage,
Maggie sat apart near the table where the books and work
were placed, doing nothing, however, but listening abstract-
edly to the music. Stephen presently turned to a duet which
he insisted that Lucy and Philip should sing; he had often
done the same thing before j but this evening Philip thought
he divined some double intention in every word and look of
Stephen's, and watched him keenly, angry with himself all
the while for this clinging suspicion. For had not Maggie
virtually denied any ground for his doubts on her side? And
she was truth itself ; it was impossible not to believe her word
and glance when they had last spoken together in the garden.
Stephen might be strongly fascinated by her (what was more
natural?), but Philip felt himself rather base for intruding on
what must be his friend's painful secret. Still he watched.
Stephen, moving away from the piano, sauntered slowly to-
ward the table near which Maggie sat, and turned over the
newspapers, apparently in mere idleness. Then he seated
himself with his back to the piano, dragging a newspaper
under his elbow, and thrusting his hand through his hair, as
if he had been attracted by some bit of local news in the
" Laceham Courier. " He was in reality looking at Maggie,
who had not taken the slightest notice of his approach. She
had always additional strength of resistance when Philip was
present, just as we can restrain our speech better in a spot
484 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
that we feel to be hallowed. But at last she heard the worcl
" dearest " uttered in the softest tone of pained entreaty, like
that of a patient who asks for something that ought to have
been given without asking. She had never heard that word
since the moments in the lane at Basset, when it had come
from Stephen again and again, almost as involuntarily as if
it had been an inarticulate cry. Philip could hear no word,
but he had moved to the opposite side of the piano, and could
see Maggie start and blush, raise her eyes an instant toward
Stephen's face, but immediately look apprehensively toward
himself. It was not evident to her that Philip had observed
her ; but a pang of shame, under the sense of this concealment,
made her move from her chair and walk to her mother's side
to watch the game at cribbage.
Philip went home soon after in a state of hideous doubt
mingled with wretched certainty. It was impossible for him
now to resist the conviction that there was some mutual con-
sciousness between Stephen and Maggie ; and f or half the
night his irritable, susceptible nerves were pressed upon almost
to frenzy by that one wretched fact; he could attempt no ex-
planation that would reconcile it with her words and actions.
When, at last, the need for belief in Maggie rose to its habit-
ual predominance, he was not long in imagining the truth, —
she was struggling, she was banishing herself; this was the
clue to all he had seen since his return. But athwart that be-
lief there came other possibilities that would not be driven
out of sight. His imagination wrought out the who]e story:
Stephen was madly in love with her; he must have told her
so; she had rejected him, and was hurrying away. But
would he give her up, knowing — Philip felt the fact with
heart-crushing despair — that she was made half helpless by
her feeling toward him?
When the morning came, Philip was too ill to think of keep-
ing his engagement to go in the boat. In his present agita-
tion he could decide on nothing ; he could only alternate be-
tween contradictory intentions. First, he thought he must
have an interview with Maggie, and entreat her to confide in
him; then, again, he distrusted his own interference. Had
he not been thrusting himself on Maggie all along? She had
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 484
altered words long ago in her young ignorance ; it was enough
co make her hate him that these should be continually present
with her as a bond. And had he any right to ask her for a
revelation of feelings which she had evidently intended to
withhold from him? He would not trust himself to see her,
till he had assured himself that he could act from pure anxiety
for her, and not from egoistic irritation. He wrote a brief
note to Stephen, and sent it early by the servant, saying that
he was not well enough to fulfil his engagement to Miss Deane.
Would Stephen take his excuse, and fill his place?
Lucy had arranged a charming plan, which had made her
quite content with Stephen's refusal to go in the boat. She
discovered that her father was to drive to Lindum this morn-
ing at ten ; Lindum was the very place she wanted to go to,
to make purchases, — important purchases, which must by no
means be put off to another opportunity ; and aunt Tulliver
must go too, because she was concerned in some of the pur-
chases.
" You will have your row in the boat just the same, you
know, " she said to Maggie when they went out of the break-
fast-room and upstairs together; " Philip will be here at half-
past ten, and it is a delicious morning. Now don't say a word
against it, you dear dolorous thing. What is the use of my
being a fairy godmother, if you set your face against all the
wonders I work for you? Don't think of awful cousin Tom;
you may disobey him a little."
Maggie did not persist in objecting. She was almost glad
of the plan, for perhaps it would bring her some strength and
calmness to be alone with Philip again ; it was like revisiting
the scene of a quieter life, in which the very struggles were
repose, compared with the daily tumult of the present. She
prepared herself for the boat, and at half-past ten sat waiting
in the drawing-room.
• The ring of the door-bell was punctual, and she was think-
ing with half-sad, affectionate pleasure of the surprise Philip
would have in finding that he was to be with her alone, when
she distinguished a firm, rapid step across the hall, that was
certainly not Philip's ; the door opened, and Stephen Guest
entered.
THE MILL ON THE FLO8S.
In the first moment they were both too much agitated to
speak j for Stephen had learned from the servant that the
others were gone out. Maggie had started up and sat down
again, with her heart beating violently ; and Stephen, throw-
ing down his cap and gloves, came and sat by her in silence.
She thought Philip would be coming soon ; and with great effort
—for she trembled visibly — she rose to go to a distant chair.
" He is not coming, " said Stephen, in a low tone. " I am
going in the boat."
"Oh, we can't go," said Maggie, sinking into her chair
again. " Lucy did not expect — she would be hurt. Why is
not Philip come? "
" He is not well; he asked me to come instead."
"Lucy is gone to Liudum," said Maggie, taking off her
bonnet with hurried, trembling fingers. " We must not go."
" Very well, " said Stephen, dreamily, looking at her, as he
rested his arm on the back of his chair. " Then we'll stay
here."
He was looking into her deep, deep eyes, far off and mys-
tevious as the starlit blackness, and yet very near, and timidly
loving. Maggie sat perfectly still — perhaps for moments,
perhaps for minutes — until the helpless trembling had ceased,
and there was a warm glow on her cheek.
" The man is waiting; he has taken the cushions, " she said.
" Will you go and tell him? "
" What shall I tell him? " said Stephen, almost in a whisper.
He was looking at the lips now.
Maggie made no answer.
"Let us go," Stephen murmured entreatingly, rising, and
taking her hand to raise her too. " We shall not be long
together."
And they went. Maggie felt that she was being led down
the garden among the roses, being helped with firm, tender
care into the boat, having the cushion and cloak arranged for
her feet, and her parasol opened for her (which she had for-
gotten), all by this stronger presence that seemed to bear her
along without any act of her own will, like the added self
which comes with the sudden exalting influence of a strong
tonic, and she felt nothing, else. Memory was excluded.
TUB GREAT TEMPTATION. 487
They glided rapidly along, Stephen rowing, helped by th«
backward-flowing tide, past the Tofton trees and houses; on
between the silent sunny fields and pastures, which seemed
filled with a natural joy that had no reproach for theirs. The
breath of the young, unwearied day, the delicious rhythmic
dip of the oars, the fragmentary song of a passing bird heard
now and then, as if it were only the overflowing of brimful
gladness, the sweet solitude of a twofold consciousness that
was mingled into one by that grave, untiring gaze which need
not be averted, — what else could there be in their minds for
the first hour? Some low, subdued, languid exclamation of
love came from Stephen from time to time, as he went on
rowing idly, half automatically; otherwise they spoke no
word; for what could words have been but an inlet to
thought? and thought did not belong to that enchanted haze
in which they were enveloped, — it belonged to the past and
the future that lay outside the haze. Maggie was only dimly
conscious of the banks, as they passed them, and dwelt with
no recognition on the villages ; she knew there were several to
be passed before they reached Luckreth, where they always
stopped and left the boat. At all times she was so liable to
fits of absence, that she was likely enough to let her way-
marks pass unnoticed.
But at last Stephen, who had been rowing more and more
idly, ceased to row, laid down the oars, folded his arms, and
looked down on the water as if watching the pace at which
the boat glided without his help. This sudden change roused
Maggie. She looked at the far-stretching fields, at the banks
close by, and felt that they were entirely strange to her. A
terrible alarm took possession of her.
" Oh, have we passed Luckreth, where we were to stop? "
she exclaimed, looking back to see if the place were out of
sight. No village was to be seen. She turned around again,
with a look of distressed questioning at Stephen.
He went on watching the water, and said, in a strange,
dreamy, absent tone, " Yes, a long way."
" Oh, what shall I do? " cried Maggie, in any agony. " We
shall not get home for hours, and Lucy, — 0 God, help me! "
She clasped her hands and broke into a sob, like a fright-
*88 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
toed child; she thought of nothing but of meeting Lucy, and
teeing her look of pained surprise and doubt, perhaps of just
Upbraiding.
Stephen moved and sat near her, and gently drew down the
Clasped hands.
" Maggie, n he said, in a deep tone of slow decision, "let us
never go home again, till no one can part us, — till we are
married. "
The unusual tone, the startling words, arrested Maggie's
sob, and she sat quite still, wondering; as if Stephen might
have seen some possibilities that would alter everything, and
annul the wretched facts.
" See, Maggie, how everything has come without our seek-
ing,— in spite of all our efforts. We never thought of being
alone together again ; it has all been done by others. See how
the tide is carrying us out, away from all those unnatural
bonds that we have been trying to make faster round us, and
trying in vain. It will carry us on to Torby, and we can land
there, and get same carriage, and hurry on to York and then
to Scotland, — and never pause a moment till we are bound to
each other, so that only death can part us. It is the only
right thing, dearest; it is the only way of escaping from this
wretched entanglement. Everything has concurred to point
it out to us. We have contrived nothing, we have thought of
nothing ourselves."
Stephen spoke with deep, earnest pleading. Maggie lis-
tened, passing from her startled wonderment to the yearning
after that belief that the tide was doing it all, that she might
glide along with the swift, silent stream, and not struggle any
more. But across that stealing influence came the tenible
shadow of past thoughts; and the suddeii horror lest now, at
last, the moment of fatal intoxication was close upon her,
called up feelings of angry resistance toward Stephen.
" Let me go! " she said, in an agitated tone, flashing an in-
dignant look at him, and trying to get her hands free. " You
have wanted to deprive me of any choice. You knew we were
come too far; you have dared to take advantage of my thought-
lessness. It is unmanly to bring me into such a position. "
Stung by this reproach, he released her hands, moved back
TEE GREAT TEMPT ATTOW 489
to his former place, and folded his arms, in a sort of despera-
tion at the difficulty Maggie's words had made present to him,
If she would not consent to go on, he must curse himself for
the embarrassment he had led her into. But the reproach was
the unendurable thing ; the one thing worse than parting with
her was, that she should feel he had acted unworthily toward
her. At last he said, in a tone of suppressed rage, —
" I didn't notice that we had passed Luckreth till we had
got to the next village ; and then it came into my mind that
we would go on. I can't justify it; I ought to have told you.
It is enough to make you hate me, since you don't love me
well enough to make everything else indifferent to you, as I
do you. Shall I stop the boat and try to get you out here?
I'll tell Lucy that I was mad, and that you hate me; and you
shall be clear of me forever. No one can blame you, because
I have behaved unpardonably to you."
Maggie was paralyzed; it was easier to resist Stephen's
pleading than this picture he had called up of himself suffer-
ing while she was vindicated ; easier even to turn away from
his look of tenderness than from this look of angry misery,
that seemed to place her in selfish isolation from him. He
had called up a state of feeling in which the reasons which
had acted on her conscience seemed to be transmitted into mere
self-regard. The indignant fire in her eyes was quenched,
and she began to look at him with timid distress. She had
reproached him for being hurried into irrevocable trespass, —
she, who had been so weak herself.
" As if I shouldn't feel what happened to you — just the
same," she said, with reproach of another kind, — the reproach
of love, asking for more trust. This yielding to the idea of
Stephen's suffering was more fatal than the other yielding,
because it was less distinguishable from that sense of others'
claims which was the moral basis of her resistance.
He felt all the relenting in her look and tone ; it was heaven
opening again. He moved to her side, and took her hand,
leaning his elbow on the back of the boat, and saying nothing.
He dreaded to utter another word, he dreaded to make another
movement, that might provoke another reproach or denial
from her. Life hung on her consent; everything else wa»
490 THE MILL ON THE FLOS9.
hopeless, confused, sickening misery. They glided along in
this way, both resting in that silence as in a haven, both
dreading lest their feelings should be divided again, — till they
became aware that the clouds had gathered, and that the
slightest perceptible freshening of the breeze was growing and
growing, so that the whole character of the day was altered.
"You will be chill, Maggie, in this thin dress. Let me
raise the cloak over your shoulders. Get up an instant,
dearest."
Maggie obeyed ; there was an unspeakable charm in being
told what to do, and having everything decided for her. She sat
down again covered with the cloak, and Stephen took to his oars
again, making haste; for they must try to get to Torby as fast
as they could. Maggie was hardly conscious of having said
or done anything decisive. All yielding is attended with a
less vivid consciousness than resistance ; it is the partial sleep
of thought; it is the submergence of our own personality by
another. Every influence tended to lull her into acquiescence.
That dreamy gliding in the boat which had lasted for four
hours, and had brought some weariness and exhaustion ; the
recoil of her fatigued sensations from the impracticable diffi-
culty of getting out of the boat at this unknown distance from
home, and walking for long miles, — all helped to bring her
into more complete subjection to that strong, mysterious charm
which made a last parting from Stephen seem the death of all
joy, and made the thought of wounding him like the first
touch of the torturing iron before which resolution shrank.
And then there was the present happiness of being with him,
which was enough to absorb all her languid energy.
Presently Stephen observed a vessel coming after them.
Several vessels, among them the steamer to Mudport, had
passed them with the early tide, but for the last hour they had
seen none. He looked more and more eagerly at this vessel,
as if a new thought had come into his mind along with it, and
then he looked at Maggie hesitatingly.
" Maggie, dearest, " he said at last, " if this vessel should be
going to Mudport, or to any convenient place on the coast
northward, it would be our best plan to get them to take us
on board. You are fatigued, and it may soon rainj it may be
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 491
a wretched business, getting to Torby in this boat. It's only
a trading vessel, but I dare say you can be made tolerably com-
fortable. We'll take the cushions out of the boat. It is really
our best plan. They'll be glad enough to take us. I've got
plenty of money about me. I can pay them well. "
Maggie's heart began to beat with reawakened alarm at this
new proposition ; but she was silent, — one course seemed as
difficult as another.
Stephen hailed the vessel. It was a Butch vessel going to
Mudport, the English mate informed him, and, if this wind
held, would be there in less than two days.
"We had got out too far with our boat," said Stephen.
" I was trying to make for Torby. But I'm afraid of the
weather; and this lady — my wife — will be exhausted with
fatigue and hunger. Take us on board — will you? — and haul
up the boat. I'll pay you well."
Maggie, now really faint and trembling with fear, waa
taken on board, making an interesting object of contempla-
tion to admiring Dutchmen. The mate feared the lady would
have a poor time of it on board, for they had no accommoda-
tion for such entirely unlooked-for passengers, — no private
cabin larger than an old-fashioned church-pew. But at least
they had Butch cleanliness, which makes all other inconveni-
ences tolerable; and the boat cushions were spread into a
couch for Maggie on the poop with all alacrity. But to pace
up and down the deck leaning on Stephen — being upheld by
his strength — was the first change that she needed; then came
food, and then quiet reclining on the cushions, with the sense
that no new resolution could be taken that day. Everything
must wait till to-morrow. Stephen sat beside her with he r
hand in his ; they could only speak to each other in low tones;
only look at each other now and then, for it would take a long
while to dull the curiosity of the five men on board, and re-
duce these handsome young strangers to that minor degree of
interest which belongs, in a sailor's regard, to all objects
nearer than the horizon. But Stephen was triumphantly
happy. Every other thought or care was thrown into tin-
marked perspective by the certainty that Maggie must be his.
The leap had been takes DPW: he had been tortured by scru-
493 THE MILL ON THE FLOSa
pies, he had fought fiercely with overmastering inclination,
he had hesitated ; but repentance was impossible. He mur-
mured forth in fragmentary sentences his happiness, his ado-
ration, his tenderness, his belief that their life together must
be heaven, that her presence with him would give rapture to
every common day; that to satisfy her lightest wish was
dearer to him than all other bliss ; that everything was easy
for her sake, except to part with her; and now they nevei
would partj he would belong to her forever, and all that war
his was hers, — had no value for him except as it was hers.
Such things, uttered in low, broken tones by the one voice
that has first stirred the fibre of young passion, have only a
feeble effect — on experienced minds at a distance from them.
To poor Maggie they were very near; they were like nectar
held close to thirsty lips; there was, there must be, then, a
life for mortals here below which was not hard and chill, — in
which affection would no longer be self-sacrifice. Stephen's
passionate words made the vision of such a life more fully
present to her than it had ever been before ; and the vision
for the time excluded all realities, — all except the returning
sun-gleams which broke out on the waters as the evening ap-
proached, and mingled with the visionary sunlight of promised
happiness; all except the hand that pressed hers, and the
voice that spoke to her, and the eyes that looked at her with
grave, unspeakable love.
There was to be no rain, after all; the clouds rolled off to
the horizon again, making the great purple rampart and long
purple isles of that wondrous land which reveals itself to us
when the sun goes down, — the land that the evening star
watches over. Maggie was to sleep all night on the poop; it
'was better than going below ; and she was covered with the
warmest wrappings the ship could furnish. It was still early,
when the fatigues of the day brought on a drowsy longing for
perfect rest, and she laid down her head, looking at the faint,
dying flush in the west, where the one golden lamp was get-
ting brighter and brighter. Then she looked up at Stephen,
who was still seated by her, hanging over her as he leaned his
arm against the vessel's side. Behind all the delicious vi-
•ions of these last hours, which had flowed over her like a soft
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 493
stream, and made her entirely passive, there was the dim
consciousness that the condition was a transient one, and that
the morrow must bring back the old life of struggle; that there
were thoughts which would presently avenge themselves for
this oblivion. But now nothing was distinct to her; she was
being lulled to sleep with that soft stream still flowing over
her, with those delicious visions melting and fading like the
Irondrous aerial land of the west.
CHAPTER XIV.
WAKING.
WHEN Maggie was gone to sleep, Stephen, weary too with
his unaccustomed amount of rowing, and with the intense in*
ward life of the last twelve hours, but too restless to sleep,
walked and lounged about the deck with his cigar far on into
midnight, not seeing the dark water, hardly conscious there
were stars, living only in the near and distant future. At last
fatigue conquered restlessness, and he rolled himself up in a
piece of tarpaulin on the deck near Maggie's feet.
She had fallen asleep before nine, and had been sleeping for
six hours before the faintest hint of a midsummer daybreak
was discernible. She awoke from that vivid dreaming which
makes the margin of our deeper rest. She was in a boat on
the wide water with Stephen, and in the gathering darkness
something like a star appeared, that grew and grew till they
saw it was the Virgin seated in St. Ogg's boat, and it came
nearer and nearer, till they saw the Virgin was Lucy and the
boatman was Philip, — no, not Philip, but her brother, who
rowed past without looking at her; and she rose to stretch out
her arms and call to him, and their own boat turned over with
the movement, and they began to sink, till with one spasm of
dread she seemed to awake, and find she was a child again in
the parlor at evening twilight, and Tom was not really angry.
From the soothed sense of that false waking she passed to the
real waking, — to the plash of water against the vessel, and
the sound of a footstep on the deck, and the awful starlit sky.
494 THE MILL OK THE FLOSS.
There was a moment of utter bewilderment before her mind
could get disentangled from the confused web of dreams ; but
soon the whole terrible truth urged itself upon her. Stephen
was not by her now ; she was alone with her own memory and
her own dread. The irrevocable wrong that must blot her life
had been committed; she had brought sorrow into the lives of
others, — into the lives that were knit up with hers by trust
and love. The feeling of a few short weeks had hurried her
into the sins her nature had most recoiled from, — breach of
faith and cruel selfishness ; she had rent the ties that had
given meaning to duty, and had made herself an outlawed
soul, with no guide but the wayward choice of her own pas-
sion. And where would that lead her? Where had it led
her now? She had said she would rather die than fall into
that temptation. She felt it now, — now that the consequences
of such a fall had come before the outward act was completed.
There was at least this fruit from all her years of striving
after the highest and best, — that her soul, though betrayed,
beguiled, ensnared, could never deliberately consent to a
choice of the lower. And a choice of what? O God! not a
choice of joy, but of conscious cruelty and hardness; for could
she ever cease to see before her Lucy and Philip, with their
murdered trust and hopes? Her life with Stephen could have
no sacredness; she must forever sink and wander vaguely,
driven by uncertain impulse; for she had let go the clue of
life, — that clue which once in the far-off years her young
need had clutched so strongly. She had renounced all de-
lights then, before she knew them, before they had come
"witnin her reach. Philip had been right when he told her
ihat she knew nothing of renunciation; she had thought it
«ras quiet ecstasy; she saw it face to face now, — that sad, pa-
tient, loving strength which holds the clue of life, — and saw
that the thorns were forever pressing on its brow. The yes-
terday, which could never be revoked, — if she could have
changed it now for any length of inward silent endurance, she
would have bowed beneath that cross with a sense of rest.
Daybreak came and the reddening eastern light, while her
past life was grasping her in this way, with that tightening
clutch which comes in the last moments of possible rescue.
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 495
She could see Stephen now lying on the deck still fast asleep,
and with the sight of him there came a wave of anguish that
found its way in a long-suppressed sob. The worst bitterness
of parting — the thought that urged the sharpest inward cry
for help — was the pain it must give to him. But surmount-
ing everything was the horror at her own possible failure, the
dread lest her conscience should be benumbed again, and not
rise to energy till it was too late. Too late ! it was too late
already not to have caused misery ; too late for everything,
perhaps, but to rush away from the last act of baseness, — the
tasting of joys that were wrung from crushed hearts.
The sun was rising now, and Maggie started up with the
sense that a day of resistance was beginning for her. Her
eyelashes were still wet with tears, as, with her shawl over
her head, she sat looking at the slowly rounding sun. Some-
thing roused Stephen too, and getting up from his hard bed,
'he cams to sit beside her. The sharp instinct of anxious love
saw something to give him alarm in the very first glance. He
had a hovering dread of some resistance in Maggie's nature
that he would be unable to overcome. He had the uneasy
consciousness that he had robbed her of perfect freedom yes-
terday ; there was too much native honor in him, for him not
to feel that, if her will should recoil, his conduct would have
been odious, and she would have a right to reproach him.
But Maggie did not feel that right; she was too conscious
of fatal weakness in herself, too full of the tenderness that
comes with the foreseen need for inflicting a wound. She let
him take her hand when he came to sit down beside her, and
smiled at him, only with rather a sad glance ; she could say
nothing to pain him till the moment of possible parting was
nearer. And so they drank their cup of coffee together, and
walked about the deck, and heard the captain's assurance that
they should be in at Mudport by five o'clock, each with an
inward burthen; but in him it was an undefined fear, which
he trusted to the coming hours to dissipate ; in her it was a
definite resolve on which she was trying silently to tighten
her hold. Stephen was continually, through the morning, ex-
pressing bis anxiety at the fatigue and discomfort she was
suffering, and alluded to landing and to the change *f motion
496 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
and repose she would have in a carriage, wanting to assure hiiA.
self more completely by presupposing that everything would
be as he had arranged it. For a long while Maggie contented
herself with assuring him that she had had a good night's
rest, and that she didn't mind about being on the vessel, — it
was not like being on the open sea, it was only a little less
pleasant than being in a boat on the Floss. But a suppressed
resolve will betray itself in the eyes, and Stephen became
more and more uneasy as the day advanced, under the sense
that Maggie had entirely lost her passiveness. He longed,
but did not dare, to speak of their marriage, of where they
would go after it, and the steps he would take to inform his
father, and the rest, of what had happened. He longed to
assure himself of a tacit assent from her. But each time he
looked at her, he gathered a stronger dread of the new, quiet
sadness with which she met his eyes. And they were more,
and more silent.
" Here we are in sight of Mudport, " he said at last. " Now,
dearest," he added, turning toward her with a look that was
half beseeching, " the worst part of your fatigue is over. On
the land we can command swiftness. In another hour and a
half we shall be in a chaise together, and that will seem rest
to you after this."
Maggie felt it was time to speak ; it would only be unkind
now to assent by silence. She spoke in the lowest tone, as he
had done, but with distinct decision.
"We shall not be together; we shall have parted."
The blood rushed to Stephen's face.
" We shall not, " he said. " I'll die first. "
It was as he had dreaded — there was a struggle coming.
But neither of them dared to say another word till the boat
was let down, and they were taken to the landing-place.
Here there was a cluster of gazers and passengers awaiting
the departure of the steamboat to St. Ogg's. Maggie had a
dim sense, when she had landed, and Stephen was hurrying
her along on his arm, that some one had advanced toward her
from that cluster as if he were coming to speak to her. But
she was hurried along, and was indifferent to everything but
the coming trial.
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 497
A porter guided them to the nearest inn and posting-house,
and Stephen gave the order for the chaise as they passei
through the yard. Maggie took no notice of this, and only
said, " Ask them to show us into a room where we can sit
down."
When they entered, Maggie did not sit down, and Stephen,
whose face had a desperate determination in it, was about to
ring the bell, when she said, in a firm voice, —
"I'm not going; we must part here."
"Maggie," he said, turning round toward her, and speak-
ing in the tones of a man who feels a process of torture be-
ginning, " do you mean to kill me? What is the use of it
now? The whole thing is done."
"No, it is not done," said Maggie. "Too much is done, —
more than we can ever remove the trace of. But I will go no
farther. Don't try to prevail with me again. I couldn't
choose yesterday."
What was he to do? He dared not go near her; her anger
might leap out, and make a new barrier. He walked back-
ward and forward in maddening perplexity.
" Maggie, " he said at last, pausing before her, and speaking
in a tone of imploring wretchedness, " have some pity — hear
me — forgive me for what I did yesterday. I will obey you
now; I will do nothing without your full consent. But don't
blight our lives forever by a rash perversity that can answer
no good purpose to any one, that can only create new evils.
Sit down, dearest; wait — think what you are going to do.
Don't treat me as if you couldn't trust me."
He had chosen the most effective appeal; but Maggie's wih
vas fixed unswervingly on the coming wrench. She had made
ap her mind to suffer.
" We must not wait, " she said, in a low but distinct voice ;
" we must part at once."
"We can't part, Maggie," said Stephen, more impetuously.
"I can't bear it. What is the use of inflicting that misery on
me? The blow — whatever it may have been — has been
struck now. Will it help any one else that you should drive
me mad? "
"I will not begin any future, even for you," said Maggie,
32
498 THE MILL ON'THE FLOSS.
tremulously, " with a deliberate consent to what ought not to
have been. What I told you at Basset I feel now ; I would
rather have died than fall into this temptation. It would
have been better if we had parted forever then. But we
must part now."
" We will not part, " Stephen burst out, instinctively plac-
ing his back against the door, forgetting everything he had
said a few moments before; "I will not endure it. You'll
make me desperate; I sha'n't know what I do."
Maggie trembled. She felt that the parting could not be
effected suddenly. She must rely on a slower appeal to Ste-
phen's better self ; she must be prepared for a harder task
than that of rushing away while resolution was fresh. She
sat down. Stephen, watching her with that look of despera-
tion which had come over him like a lurid light, approached
slowly from the door, seated himself close beside her, and
grasped her hand. Her heart beat like the heart of a fright-
ened bird; but this direct opposition helped her. She felt
her determination growing stronger.
"Remember what you felt weeks ago," she began, with be-
seeching earnestness; "remember what we both felt, — that
we owed ourselves to others, and must conquer every in-
clination which could make us false to that debt. We have
failed to keep our resolutions; but the wrong remains the
same."
"No, it does not remain the same," said Stephen. "We
have proved that it was impossible to keep our resolutions.
We have proved that the feeling which draws us toward each
other is too strong to be overcome. That natural law sur-
mounts every other; we can't help what it clashes with."
" It is not so, Stephen ; I'm quite sure that is wrong. I
have tried to think it again and again ; but I see, if we judged
in that way, there would be a warrant for all treachery and
cruelty; we should justify breaking the most sacred ties that
can ever be formed on earth. If the past is not to bind us,
where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclina-
tion of the moment."
<£ But there are ties that can't be kept by mere resolution,"
said Stephen, starting up and walking about again. " What
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 499
la outward faithfulness? Would they have thanked us foi
anything so hollow as constancy without love?"
Maggie did not answer immediately. She was undergoing
an inward as well as an outward contest. At last she said,
with a passionate assertion of her conviction, as much against
herself as against him, —
"That seems right — at first j but when I look further, I'm
sure it is not right. Faithfulness and constancy mean some-
thing else besides doing what is easiest and pleasaatest to
ourselves. They mean renouncing whatever is opposed to the
reliance others have in us, — whatever would cause misery to
those whom the course of our lives has made dependent on us.
If we — if I had been better, nobler, those claims would have
been so strongly present with me, — I should have felt them
pressing on my heart so continually, just as they do now in
the moments when my conscience is awake, — that the oppo-
site feeling would never have grown in me, as it has done ;
it would have been quenched at once, I should have prayed
for help so earnestly, I should have rushed away as we rush
from hideous danger. I feel no excuse for myself, none. I
should never have failed toward Lucy and Philip as I have
done, if I had not been weak, selfish, and hard, — able to think
of their pain without a pain to myself that would have de-
stroyed all temptation. Oh, what is Lucy feeling now? She
believed in me — she loved me — she was so good to me. Think
of her "
Maggie's voice was getting choked as she uttered these last
words.
"I can't think of her," said Stephen, stamping as if with
pain. " I can think of nothing but you, Maggie. You de«
mand of a man what is impossible. I felt that once ; but I
cau't go back to it now. And where is the use of your think-
ing of it, except to torture me? You can't save them from
pain now ; you can only tear yourself from me, and make my
life worthless to me. And even if we could go back, and both
fulfil our engagements, — if that were possible now, — it would
be hateful, horrible, to think of your ever being Philip's wife,
— of your ever being the wife of a man you didn't love. We
have both been rescued from a mistake."
500 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
A deep flush came over Maggie's face, and she couldn't
speak. Stephen saw this. He sat down again, taking her
hand in his, and looking at her with passionate entreaty.
"Maggie I DearestI If you love me, you are mine. Who
can have so great a claim on you as I have? My life is bound
up in your love. There is nothing in the past that can annul
our right to each other j it is the firat time we have either <rf
us loved with our whole heart and soul."
Maggie was still silent for a little while, looking down.1
Stephen was in a flutter of new hope; he was going to tri-
umph. But she raised her eyes and met his with a glance
that was filled with the anguish of regret, not with yielding.
" No, not with my whole heart and soul, Stephen, " she said
with timid resolution. "I have never consented to it with
my whole mind. There are memories, and affections, and
longings after perfect goodness, that have such a strong hold
on me ; they would never quit me for long ; they would come
back and be pain to me — repentance. I couldn't live in peace
if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself and God.
I have caused sorrow already — I know — I feel it; but I have
never deliberately consented to it ; I have never said, ' They
shall suffer, that I may have joy.' It has never been my will
to marry you ; if you were to win consent from the momentary
triumph of my feeling for you, you would not have my whole
soul. If I could wake back again into the time before yester-
day, I would choose to be true to my calmer affections, and
live without the joy of love."
Stephen loosed her hand, and rising impatiently, walked up
and down the room in suppressed rage.
" Good God! " he burst out at last, " what a miserable thing
a woman's love is to a man's! I could commit crimes for
you, — and you can balance and choose in that way. But you
don't love me; if you had a tithe of the feeling for me that I
have for you, it would be impossible to you to think for a
moment of sacrificing me. But it weighs nothing with you
that you are robbing me of my life's happiness."
Maggie pressed her fingers together almost convulsively aa
she held them clasped on her lap. A great terror was upon
her, as if she were ever and anon seeing where she stood by
THE GREAT TEMPT ATIOH. 60 1
great flashes of lightning, and then again stretched forth her
hands in the darkness.
"No, I don't sacrifice you — I couldn't sacrifice you," she
said, as soon as she could speak again; " but I can't believe
in a good for you, that I feel, that we both feel, is a wrong
toward others. We can't choose happiness either for our-
selves or for another; we can't tell where that will lie. We
can only choose whether we will indulge ourselves in the
present moment, or whether we will renounce that, for the
sake of obeying the divine voice within us, — for the sake of
being true to all the motives that sanctify our lives. I know
this belief is hard; it has slipped away from me again and
again; but I have felt that if I let it go forever, I should
have no light through the darkness of this life."
" But, Maggie," said Stephen, seating himself by her again,
"is it possible you don't see that what happened yesterday
nas altered the whole position of things? What infatuation
is it, what obstinate prepossession, that blinds you to that?
It is too late to say what we might have done or what we
ought to have done. Admitting the very worst view of what
has been done, it is a fact we must act on now ; our position
is altered ; the right course is no longer what it was before.
We must accept our own actions and start afresh from them.
'Suppose we had been married yesterday? It is nearly the
same thing. The effect on others would not have been differ-
ent. It would only have made this difference to ourselves,"
Stephen added bitterly, " that you might have acknowledged
then that your tie to me was stronger than to others."
Again a deep flush came over Maggie's face, and she was
silent. Stephen thought again that he was beginning to pre-
vail,— he had never yet believed that he should not prevail;
there are possibilities which our minds shrink from too com*
pletely ftr us to fear them.
"Dearest," he said, in his deepest, tenderest tone, leaning
toward her, and putting his arm round her, "you are mine
now, — the world believes it; duty must spring out of that
now. In a few hours you will be legally mine, and those
who had claims on us will submit, — they will see that there
was a force which declared against their claims."
602 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Maggie's eyes opened wide in one terrified look at the fac«
that was close to hers, and she started up, pale again.
"Oh, I can't do it," she said, in a voice almost of agony;
" Stephen, don't ask me — don't urge me. I can't argue any
longer, — I don't know what is wise; but my heart will not let
me do it. I see, — I feel their trouble now ; it is as if it were
branded on my mind. I have suffered, and had no one to pity
me; and now I have made others suffer. It would never leave
me; it would embitter your love to me. I do care for Philip —
in a different way ; I remember all we said to each other ; I know
how he thought of me as the one promise of his life. He was
given to me that I might make his lot less hard; and I have
forsaken him. And Lucy — she has been deceived, — she who
trusted me more than any one. I cannot marry you ; I cannot
take a good for myself that has been wrung out of their misery.
It is not the force that ought to rule us, — this that we feel
for each other; it would rend me away from all that my past
life has made dear and holy to me. I can't set out on a fresh
life, and forget that; I must go back to it, and cling to it, else
I shall feel as if there were nothing firm beneath my feet. "
" Good God, Maggie ! " said Stephen, rising too and grasp-
ing her arm, " you rave. How can you go back without mar-
rying me? You don't know what will be said, dearest. You
see nothing as it really is."
" Yes, I do. But they will believe me. I will confess every-
thing. Lucy will believe me — she will forgive you, and — and
— oh, some good will come by clinging to the right. Dear,
dear Stephen, let me go! — don't drag me into deeper remorse.
My whole soul has never consented; it does not consent now."
Stephen let go her arm, and sank back on his chair, half-
stunned by despairing rage. He was silent a few moments,
not looking at her; while her eyes were turned toward him
yearningly, in alarm at this sudden change. At last he said,
still without looking at her, —
"Go, then, — leave me; don't torture me any longer — I
can't bear it."
Involuntarily she leaned toward him and put out her hand
to touch his. But he shrank from it as if it had been burning
iron, and said again, —
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 503
"Leave me."
Maggie was not conscious of a decision as she turned away
from that gloomy averted face, and walked out of the room ;
it was like an automatic action that fulfils a forgotten inten-
tion. What came after? A sense of stairs descended as if in
a dream, of flagstones, of a chaise and horses standing, then
a, street, and a turning into another street where a stage-coach
was standing, taking in passengers, and the darting thought
that that coach would take her away, perhaps toward home.
But she could ask nothing yet; she only got into the coach.
Home — where her mother and brother were, Philip, Lucy,
the scene of her very cares and trials — was the haven toward
which her mind tended ; the sanctuary where sacred relics lay,
where she would be rescued from more falling. The thought
of Stephen was like a horrible throbbing pain, which yet, as
such pains do, seemed to urge all other thoughts into activity.
But among her thoughts, what others would say and think
of her conduct was hardly present. Love and deep pity and
remorseful anguish left no room for that.
The coach was taking her to York, farther away from home ;
but she did not learn that until she was set down in the old
city at midnight. It was no matter; she could sleep there,
and start home the next day. She had her purse in her
pocket, with all her money in it, — a bank-note and a sover-
eign ; she had kept it in her pocket from forgetfulness, after
going out to make purchases the day before yesterday.
Did she lie down in the gloomy bedroom of the old inn that
night with her will bent unwaveringly on the path of penitent
sacrifice? The great struggles of life are not so easy as that;
the great problems of life are not so clear. In the darkness
of that night she saw Stephen's face turned toward her in
passionate, reproachful misery; she lived through again all
the tremulous delights of his presence with her that made ex-
istence an easy floating in a stream of joy, instead of a quiet
resolved endurance and effort. The love she had renounced
came back upon her with a cruel charm ; she felt herself open-
ing her arms to receive it once more; and then it seemed to
slip away and fade and vanish, leaving only the dying sound
of a deep, thrilling voice that said. " Gone, forever gone."
BOOK VIL-THE FINAL RESCUE.
CHAPTER I.
THE RETURN TO THE HILL.
BETWEEN- four and five o'clock on the afternoon of the fifth
day from that on which Stephen and Maggie had left St.
Ogg's, Tom Tulliver was standing on the gravel walk outside
the old house at Dorlcote Mill. He was master there now;
he had half fulfilled his father's dying wish, and by years of
steady self-government and energetic work he had brought
himslf near to the attainment of more than the old respecta-
bility which had been the proud inheritance of the Dodsons
and Tullivers.
But Tom's face, as he stood in the hot, still sunshine of
that summer afternoon, had no gladness, no triumph in it.
His mouth wore its bitterest expression, his severe brow its
hardest and deepest fold, as he drew down his hat farther
over his eyes to shelter them from the sun, and thrusting his
hands deep into his pockets, began to walk up and down the
gravel. No news of his sister had been heard since Bob Jakin
had come back in the steamer from Mudport, and put an end
to all improbable suppositions of an accident on the water by
Stating that he had seen her land from a vessel with Mr. Ste-
phen Guest. Would the next news be that she was married^
— or what? Probably that she was not married; Tom's mind
was set to the expectation of the worst that could happen, —
not death, but disgrace.
As he was walking with his back toward the entrance gate,
and his face toward the rushing mill-stream, a tall, dark-eyed
figure, that we know well, approached the gate, and paused to
look at him with a fast-beating heart. Her brothe' was the
human being of whom she had been most afraid from her
THE FINAL RESCUE. 605
childhood upward ; afraid with that fear which springs in us
when we love one who is inexorable, unbending, unmodifiable,
with a miiid that we can never mould ourselves upon, and yet
that we cannot endure to alienate from us. That deep-rooted
fear was shaking Maggie now ; but her mind was unswerv-
ingly bent on returning to her brother, as the natural refuge
that had been given her. In her deep humiliation under the
retrospect of her own weakness, — in her anguish at the hi jury
she had inflicted, — she almost desired to endure the severity
of Tom's reproof, to submit in patient silence to that harsh,
disapproving judgment against which she had so often re-
belled; it seemed no more than just to her now, — who was
weaker than she was? She craved that outward help to her
better purpose which would come from complete, submissive
confession; from being in the presence of those whose looks
and words would be a reflection of her own conscience.
Maggie had been kept on her bed at York for a day with
that prostrating headache which was likely to follow on the
terrible strain of the previous day and night. There was an
expression of physical pain still about her brow and eyes, and
her whole appearance, with her dress so long unchanged, was
worn and distressed. She lifted the latch of the gate and
walked in slowly. Tom did not hear the gate ; he was just
then close upon the roaring dam; but he presently turned,
and lifting up his eyes, saw the figure whose worn look and
loneliness seemed to him a confirmation of his worst conjec-
tures. He paused, trembling and white with disgust and
indignation.
Maggie paused too, three yards before him. She felt th*
hatred in his face, felt it rushing through her fibres; but she
must speak.
" Tom," she began faintly, "I am come back to you, — I am
come back home — for refuge — to tell you everything."
"You will find no home with me," he answered, with trem-
ulous rage. " You have disgraced us all. You have disgraced
my father's name. You have been a curse to your best friends.
You have been base, deceitful ; no motives are strong enough
to restrain you. I wash my hands of you forever. You don't
Belong to me."
606 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Their mother had come to the door now. She stood para*
iyzed by the double shock of seeing Maggie and hearing Tom' a
words.
"Tom," said Maggie, with more courage, "I am perhaps
not so guilty as you believe me to be. I never meant to give
•way to my feelings. I struggled against them. I was carried
too far in the boat to come back on Tuesday. I came back as
soon as I could."
"I can't believe in you any more," said Tom, gradually
passing from the tremulous excitement of the first moment to
cold inflexibility. " You have been carrying on a clandestine
relation with Stephen Guest, — as you did before with another.
He went to see you at my aunt Moss's; you walked alone with
him in the lanes ; you must have behaved as no modest girl
would have done to her cousin's lover, else that could never
have happened. The people at Luckreth saw you pass ; you
passed all the other places ; you knew what you were doing.
You have been using Philip Wakem as a screen to deceive
Lucy, — the kindest friend you ever had. Go and see the
return you have made her. She's ill; unable to speak. My
mother can't go near her, lest she should remind her of
you."
Maggie was half stunned, — too heavily pressed upon by her
anguish even to discern any difference between her actual guilt
and her brother's accusations, still less to vindicate herself.
"Tom, "she said, crushing her hands together under her
cloak, in the effort to speak again, " whatever I have done, I
repent it bitterly. I want to make amends. I will endure
anything. I want to be kept from doing wrong again. "
"What will keep you?" said Tom, with cruel bitterness,
"Not religion; not your natural feelings of gratitude and
honor. And he — he would deserve to be shot, if it were
not But you are ten times worse than he is. I loathe
your character and your conduct. You struggled with your
feelings, you say. Yes I / have had feelings to struggle
with ; but I conquered them. I have had a harder life than
yon have had; but I have found my comfort in doing my
duty. But I will sanction no such character as yours ; the
world shall know that / fee! the difference between right and
THE FINAL RESCUE. 607
wrong. If you are in want, I will provide for you; let my
mother know. But you shall not come under my roof. It
is enough that I have to bear the thought of your disgrace;
the sight of you is hateful to me."
Slowly Maggie was turning away with despair in her heart.
But the poor frightened mother's love leaped out now, stronger
than all dread.
" My child I I'll go with you. You've got a mother."
Oh, the sweet rest of that embrace to the heart-strickenj
Maggie! More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of!
simple human pity that will not forsake us.
Tom turned and walked into the house.
"Come in, my child," Mrs. Tulliver whispered. "He'll
let you stay and sleep in my bed. He won't deny that if I
ask him."
"Ko, mother," said Maggie, in a low tone, like a moan.
"I will never go in."
" Then wait for me outside. I'll get ready and come with
you."
When his mother appeared with her bonnet on, Tom came
out to her in the passage, and put money into her hands.
"My house is yours, mother, always," he said. "You will
come and let me know everything you want; you will come
back to me."
Poor Mrs. Tulliver took the money, too frightened to say
anything. The only thing clear to her was the mother's in-
stinct that she would go with her unhappy child.
Maggie was waiting outside the gate; she took her moth-
er's hand, and they walked a little way in silence.
" Mother," said Maggie, at last, " we will go to Luke's cot
tage. Luke will take me in. He was very good to me when
i was a little girl."
" He's got no room for us, my dear, now j Ms wife's got so
many children. I don't know where to go, if it isn't to one
o* your aunts; and I hardly durst," said poor Mrs. Tulliver,
quite destitute of mental resources in this extremity.
Maggie was silent a little while, and then said, —
" Let us go to Bob Jakin's, mother; his wife will have
for us, if they have no other lodger."
508 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
So they went on their way to St. Ogg's, to tha old house by
the river-side.
Bob himself was at home, with a heaviness at heart which
resisted even the new joy and pride of possessing a two-
months' -old baby, quite the liveliest of its age that had ever
been born to prince or packman. He would perhaps not so
thoroughly have understood all the dubiousness of Maggie's
appearance with Mr. Stephen Guest on the quay at Mudport
if he had not witnessed the effect it produced on Tom when
he went to report it; and siuce then, the circumstances which
in any case gave a disastrous character to her elopement had
passed beyond the more polite circles of St. Ogg's, and had
become matter of common talk, accessible to the grooms and
errand-boys. So that when he opened the door and saw
Maggie standing before him in her sorrow and weariness, he
had no questions to ask except one which he dared only ask
himself, — where was Mr. Stephen Guest? Bob, for his part,
hoped he might be in the warmest department of an asylum
understood to exist in the other world for gentlemen who are
likely to be in fallen circumstances there.
The lodgings were vacant, and both Mrs. Jakiu the larger
and Mrs. Jakin the less were commanded to make all things
comfortable for " the old Missis and the young Miss " ; alas
that she was still " Miss ! " The ingenious Bob was sorely
perplexed as to how this result could have come about j how
Mr. Stephen Guest could have gone away from her, or could
have let her go away from him, when he had the chance of
keeping her with him. But he was silent, and would not
allow his wife to ask him a question ; would not present him-
self in the room, lest it should appear like intrusion and a
wish to pry; having the same chivalry toward dark-eyed
Maggie as in the days when he had bought her the memorable
present of books.
But after a day or two Mrs. Tulliver was gone to the Mill
again for a few hours to see to Tom's household matters.
Maggie had wished this ; after the first violent outburst of
feeling which came as soon as she had no longer any active
purpose to fulfil, she was less in need of her mother's pres-
ence; she even desired to to» alone with her grief. But she
THE FINAL RESCUE. 509
had been solitary only a little while in the old sitting-room
that looked on the river, when there came a tap at the door,
and turning round her sad face as she said " Come in, " she
saw Bob enter, with the baby in his arms and Mumps at his
heels.
" We'll go back, if it disturbs you, Miss," said Bob.
"Xo," said Maggie, in a low voice, wishing she could
smile.
Bob, closing the door behind him, came and stood before
her.
" You see, we've got a little tin, Miss, and I wanted you to
look at it, and take it in your arms, if you'd be so good. For
we made free to name it after you, and it'ud be better for your
takin' a bit o' notice on it."
Maggie could not speak, but she put out her arms to receive
the tiny baby, while Mumps snuffed at it anxiously, to ascer-
tain that this transference was all right. Maggie's heart had
swelled at this action and speech of Bob's; she knew well
enough that it was a way he had chosen to show his sympathy
and respect.
"Sit down, Bob," she said presently, and he sat down in
silence, finding his tongue unmanageable in quite a new fash-
ion, refusing to say what he wanted it to say.
" Bob," she said, after a few moments, looking down at the
baby, and holding it anxiously, as if she feared it might slip
from her mind and her fingers, " I have a favor to ask of
you."
" Don't you speak so, Miss," sa'd Bob, grasping the skin of
Mumps's neck ; " if there's anything I can do for you, I should
look upon it as a day's earnings."
" I want you to go to Dr. Kenn's, and ask to speak to him,
and tell him that I am here, and should be very grateful if he
would come to me while my mother is away. She will not
come back till evening."
"Eh, Miss, I'd do it in a minute,— it is but a step,— but
Dr. Kenn's wife lies dead; she's to be buried to-morrow; died
the day I come from Mudport. It's all the more pity she
should ha' died just now, if you want him. I hardly like tc
go a-nigh him yet." - -
MO THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Oh no, Bob," said Maggie, "we must let it be, — till aftei
ft few days, perhaps, when you hear that he is going about
again. But perhaps he may be going out of town — to a dis-
tance," she added, with a new sense of despondency at this
idea.
"Not he, Miss," said Bob. "Be?U none go away. He
tsn't one o' them gentlefolks as go to cry at watering-places
when their wives die j he's got summat else to do. He looks
tine and sharp after the parish, he does. He christened the
little un ; an* he was at me to know what I did of a Sun-
day, as I didn't come to church. But I told him I was upo'
the travel three parts o' the Sundays, — an* then I'm so used
to bein* on my legs, I can't sit so long on end, — ' an' lors,
sir,' says I, 'a packman can do wi* a small 'lowance o'
church j it tastes strong,' says I j ' there's no call to lay it on
thick.' Eh, Miss, how good the little un is wi' you! It's
like as if it knowed you; it partly does, I'll be bound, — like
the birds know the mornin'."
Bob's tongue was now evidently loosed from its unwonted
bondage, and might even be in danger of doing more work
than was required of it. But the subjects on which he longed
to be informed were so steep and difficult of approach, that
his tongue was likely to run on along the level rather than to
carry him on that unbeaten road. He felt this, and was si-
lent again for a little while, ruminating much on the possible
forms in which he might put a question. At last he said, in
a more timid voice than usual, —
"Will you give me leave to ask you only one thing,
Miss?"
Maggie was rather startled, but she answered, " Yes, Bob,
If it is about myself — not about any one else."
c. « Well, Miss, it's this. Do you owe anybody a grudge? *
" No, not any one, " said Maggie, looking up at him inquir-
ingly. "Why?"
"Oh, lors, Miss," said Bob, pinching Mumps' s neck harder
than ever. "I wish you did, an' 'ud tell me; I'd leather him
till I couldn't see — I would — an' the Justice might, do what
be liked to me arter."
"Oh, Bob," said Maggie, smiling faintly, "you're fe
THE FINAL RESCUE. 611
good friend to me. " But I shouldn't like to punish any one,
even if they'd done me wrong; Fve done wrong myself too
often."
This view of things was puzzling to Bob, and threw more
obscurity than ever over what could possibly have happened
between Stephen and Maggie. But further questions would
have been too intrusive, even if he could have framed them
suitably, and he was obliged to carry baby away again to aa
expectant mother.
"Happen you'd like Mumps for company, Miss," he said
when he had taken the baby again. "He's rare company,
Mumps is ; he knows ivery thing, an' makes no bother abouii
it. If I tell him, he'll lie before you an* watch you, as still,
— just as he watches my pack. You'd better let me leave him
a bit; he'll get fond on you. Lors, it's a fine thing to hev a
dumb brute fond on you; it'll stick to you, an' make no jaw."
"Yes, do leave him, please," said Maggie. "I think I
should like to have Mumps for a friend."
"Mumps, lie down there," said Bob, pointing to a place
in front of Maggie, " and niver do you stir till you're spoke
to."
Mumps lay down at once, and made no sign of restlessness
when his master left the room.
CHAPTER IL
•T. OGG'S PASSES JUDGMENT.
If was soon known throughout St. Ogg's that Miss Tulliver
was come back; she had not, then, eloped in order to be mar-
ried to Mr. Stephen Guest,— at all events, Mr. Stephen Guest
nad not married her ; which came to the same thing, so far aa
ner culpability was concerned. We judge others according to
results; how else? — not knowing the process by which results
are arrived at. If Miss Tulliver, after a few months of well-
chosen travel, had returned as Mrs. Stephen Guest, with a
post-marital trousseaut and all the advantages possessed even
612 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
by the most unwelcome wife of an only son, public opinion,
which at St. Ogg's, as elsewhere, always knew what to think,
•would have judged in strict consistency with those results.
Public opinion, in these cases, is always of the feminine gen-
der,— not the world, but the world's wife; and she would
have seen that two handsome young people — the gentleman
of quite the first family in St. Ogg's — having found them-
selves in a false position, had been led into a course which,
to say the least of it, was highly injudicious, and productive
of sad pain and disappointment, especially to that sweet young
thing, Miss Deane. Mr. Stephen Guest had certainly not
behaved well; but then, young men were liable to those
sudden infatuated attachments ; and bad as it might seem in
Mrs. Stephen Guest to admit the faintest advances from her
cousin's lover (indeed it had been said that she was actually
engaged to young Wakem, — old Wakem himself had men-
tioned it), still, she was very young, — " and a deformed young
man, you know ! — and young Guest so very fascinating ; and,
they say, he positively worships her (to be sure, that can't
last!), and he rah away with her in the boat quite against her
will, and what could she do? She couldn't come back then ;
no one would have spoken to her; and how very well that
maize-colored satinette becomes her complexion! It seems
as if the folds in front were quite come in ; several of her
dresses are made so, — they say he thinks nothing too hand-
some to buy for her. Poor Miss Deane I She is very piti-
able; but then there was no positive engagement; and the
air at the coast will do her good. After all, if young Guest
felt no more for her than that, it was better for her not to
marry him. What a wonderful marriage for a girl like Miss
Tulliver, — quite romantic? Why, young Guest will put up
for the borough at the next election. Nothing like commerce
nowadays! That young Wakem nearly went out of his mind;
he always was rather queer; but he's gone abroad again to be
out of the way, — quite the best thing for a deformed young
inan. Miss Unit declares she will never visit Mr. and Mrs.
Stephen Guest, — such nonsense! pretending to be better than
other people. Society couldn't be carried on if we inquired
into private conduct in that way, — and Christianity tells us to
THE FINAL RESCUE. 513
think n« evil, — and my belief is, that Miss Unit had no cardi
sent her."
But the results, we know, were not of a kind to warrant
this extenuation of the past. Maggie had returned without a
trousseau, without a husband, — in that degraded and outcast
condition to which error is well known to lead; and the world's
wife, with that fine instinct which is given her for the preser-
vation of Society, saw at once that Miss Tulliver' s conduct
had been of the most aggravated kind. Could anything be
more detestable? A girl so much indebted to her friends —
whose mother as well as herself had received so much kindness
from the Deanes — to lay the design of winning a young man's
affections away from her own cousin, who had behaved like a
sister to her I Winning his affections? That was not the
phrase for such a girl as Miss Tulliver; it would have been
more correct to say that she had been actuated by mere un-
womanly boldness and unbridled passion. There was always
something questionable about her. That connection with
young Wakem, which, they said, had been carried on for
years, looked very ill, — disgusting, in fact I' But with a girl
of that disposition! To the world's wife there had always
been something in Miss Tulliver's very physique that a refined
instinct felt to be prophetic of harm. As for poor Mr. Stephen
Guest, he was rather pitiable than otherwise; a young man
of five-and-twenty is not to be too severely judged in these
cases, — he is really very much at the mercy of a designing,
bold girl. And it was clear that he had given way in spite
of himself: he had shaken her off as soon as he could; indeed,
their having parted so soon looked very black indeed — for her.
To be sure, he had written a letter, laying all the blame en
himself, and telling the story in a romantic fashion so as to
try and make her appear quite innocent; of course he would
do that! But the refined instinct of the world's wife was cot
to be deceived ; providentially ! — else what would become of
Society ? Why, her own brother had turned her from his door ;
he had seen enough, you might be sure, before he would do
that, A truly respectable young man, Mr. Tom Tulliver,
quite likely to rise in the world! His sister's disgrace wat
naturally a heavy blow to him. It was to be hoped that sh«
S3
6H THE MILL OK THE FLOSS.
would go out of the neighborhood, — to America, or anywhere,
— so as to purify the air of St. Ogg's from the stain of herpres«
ence, extremely dangerous to daughters there ! No good could
happen to her ; it was only to be hoped she would repent, and
that God would have mercy on her : He had not the care of
society on His hands, as the world's wife had.
It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure
itself of these inspirations ; indeed, it was a whole week before
Stephen's letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding
that he was gone across to Holland, — had drawn upon the
agent at Mudport for money, — was incapable of any resolu-
tion at present.
Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more
agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was
being taken of her conduct by the world of St. Ogg's; anxiety
about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard,
driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity.
If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would
have seemed to her that they had dond their worst j that she
could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the
words she had heard from her brother's lips. Across all her
anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again
and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery
and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever
recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a mo-
ment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too en-
tirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another
influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence j
and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was some-
thing to guarantee her from more falling ; her own weakness
haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made
no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure
refuge.
But she was not without practical intentions ; the love of
independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for
her not to remember that she must get her bread ; and when
other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning
to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her
lodging at Bob's. She meant to persuade her mother to retuio
THE FINAL RESCUE. 515
to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again j and some-
how or other she would maintain herself at St. Ogg's. Dr.
Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remem-
bered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the
momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he
was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expecta-
tion for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her
mother called every day at Mr. Deane's to learn how Lucy
was; the report was always sad, — nothing had yet roused her
from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first
shock. But of Philip, Mrs. Tulliver had learned nothing;
naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about
what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned
courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know
everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs.
Tulliver' s absence, though he had said nothing of what had
passed on the occasion.
As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet.
She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see
Dr. Kenn ; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does
not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time
she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless
her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the un-
pleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared
at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed be-
yond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob's
dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at
her ; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously,
afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came
full on Mrs. and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her fam-
ily; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little
aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie,
but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No won-
der they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very
fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass
a group ef gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the
billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry
step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with
that air of nonchalance which he might have bestowed on a
016 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
friendly barmaid. Maggie's pride was too intense for bet
not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow ; and
for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she
would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was
felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was
at the Rectory now ; there, perhaps, she would find something
else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice 't
the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-cor-
mer can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more
needful for the righteous to bestow.
She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr.
Kenn' s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which
he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of
his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away
with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr. Kenu
said, placing a chair for Maggie, —
"I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliverj you have antici-
pated me ; I am glad you did."
Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she
had done at the bazaar, and said, " I want to tell you every-
thing." But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and
all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would
have its vent before she could say more.
"Do tell me everything," Dr. Kenn said, with quiet kind-
ness in his grave, firm voice. " Think of me as one to whom
a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to
help you."
In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first,
but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief
in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that
must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before,
Dr. Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of
Stephen's letter, and he had believed them at once, without
the confirmation of Maggie's statement. That involuntary
plaint of hers, " OA, I must go," had remained with him as
the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict.
Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made
her come back to her mother and brother, which made her
cling to all the memories of the £ast. When she had ended,
THE FINAL RESCUE. BIT
Dr. Kenn was silent for some minutes ; there was a difficulty
on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth
with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again,
and said, looking at Maggie, —
" Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, — to remain
where all tho ties of your life have been formed, — is a true
prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution
and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent,
watching over its children to the last ; never abandoning them
until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought
to represent the feeling of the community, so that every par-
ish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood
under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and
Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, — they can hardly be
said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except
in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the nar-
row communities of schismatics ; and if I were nofc supported
by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the
full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human
needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fel-
lowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own
flock. At present everything seems tending toward the re-
laxation of ties, — toward the substitution of wayward choice
for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the
past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true
light on this point, Miss Tulliver ; and I have said all this
that you may know what my wish about you — what my ad-
vice to you — would be, if they sprang from my own feeling
and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. "
Dr. Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire ab-
sence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was some-
thing almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If
Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering
in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and
frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure
that there would be some effective help in his words. He
went on.
" Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents
you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that
61S THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
will probably be formed concerning your conduct, — conception!
which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evi-
dence to disprove them."
" Oh, I do, — I begin to see," said Maggie, unable to repress
this utterance of her recent pain. " I know I shall be in-
sulted • I shall be thought worse than I am. "
"You perhaps do not yet know," said Dr. Kenn, with a
touch of more personal pity, "that a letter is come which
ought to satisfy every on« who has known anything of you,
that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the
right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult."
"Oh, where is he?" said poor Maggie, with a flush and
tremor that no presence could have hindered.
" He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his
father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope
the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a
beneficial effect on her."
Dr. Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on.
" That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false im-
pressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss
Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but
my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that
there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the pain-
ful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most
incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are pre-
cisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because
they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here
will be attended not only with much pain, but with many ob-
structions. For this reason — and for this only — I ask you to
consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take
a situation at a distance, according to your former intention.
I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you."
" Oh, if I could but stop here ! " said Maggie. " I have no
heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. 1
should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I
have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse
myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some
way to Lucy — to others; I could convince them that I'm
Borry . And, " she added, with some of the old proud fire flash
THE FINAL RESCUE. 519
ing out, " I will not go away because people say false things
of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away
at last, because — because others wish it, I will not go now."
"Well," said Dr. Kenn, after some consideration, "if you
determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the in-
fluence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and counte-
nance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest.
I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace
of mind and welfare."
" The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable
me to get my bread and be independent," said Maggie. "I
shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am."
" I must think over the subject maturely, " said Dr. Kenn,
" and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the gen-
eral feeling. I shall come to see you ; I shall bear you con-
stantly in mind."
When Maggie had left him, Dr. Kenn stood ruminating
with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet,
under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of
Stephen's letter, which he had read, and the actual relations
of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the
idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as
the least evil ; and the impossibility of their proximity in St.
Ogg's on any other supposition, until after years of separation,
threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie's
stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the com-
prehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and
lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into
•'}hat state of Maggie's heart and conscience which made the
3onsent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience
must not be tampered with ; the principle on which she had
acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences.
His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a
responsibility to be lightly incurred ; the possible issue either
of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and
Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a nevr
feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable
because each immediate step was clogged with evil.
The great problem of the shifting relation between passion
520 THE MILL Otf THE FLOSS.
and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending
itj the question whether the moment has come in which a
man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that
will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion
against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which
we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists
have become a byword of reproach ; but their perverted spirit
of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which
eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, — the truth, that
moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they
are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the
special circumstances that mark the individual lot.
All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repug-
nance to the men of maxims ; because such people early dis-
cern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be
embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas
of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspi-
rations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And
the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds
that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general
rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-
made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience,
discrimination, impartiality, — without any care to assure
themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a
hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and
intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all
that is human.
CHAPTER IIL
SHOWING THAT OLD ACQUAINTANCES ARE CAPABLE O? SU»
PRISING US.
Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her
news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As
long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs. Glegg had half
closed her shutters and drawn dowu her blinds. She felt as-
sured that Maggie was drowned; ihat was far more probable
than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to
TH35 FINAL RESCUE. B21
wound the family honor in the tenderest point. When at
last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and
gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence,
she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the
worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not
to stand by your " kin " as long as there was a shred of honor
attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by?
Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that won Id
force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the
Dodsons; and though Mrs. Glegg had always augured ill ol
Maggie's future at a time when other people were perhaps less
clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for
her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and
to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer
world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace.
The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs. Glegg*s experi-
ence ; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons
before ; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude
and personal strength of character found a common channel
along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in
her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quar-
relled with Mr. Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into
compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of
Maggie as Mr. Deane himself was; and fuming against her
sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for ad-
vice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter's
"Saints' Best" from morning till night, deny ing herself to all
visitors, till Mr. Glegg brought from Mr. Deane the news of
Stephen's letter. Then Mrs. Glegg felt that she had adequate
fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to
meet all comers. While Mrs. Pullet could do nothing but
shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died,
0r any number of funerals had happened rather than this,
which had never happened before, so that there was no know-
ing how to act, and Mrs. Pullet could never enter St. egg's
again, because "acquaintances" knew of it all, Mrs. Glegg
only hoped that Mrs. "Wooll, or any one else, would come to
her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would
know what to say to that ill-advised person!
522 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the
more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her pres-
ent position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed
only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him.
Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and
the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he
had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his
own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that
Maggie's nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly
marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency.
He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the
thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every
one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature,
and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight
deposit of polish ; if you are inclined to be severe on his sever-
ity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with
those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a
repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from
their early childish love in the time when they had clasped
tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a
common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he
had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dod-
son family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own ;
a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clan-
ship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs.
Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, — she was
not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, — but
punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not
to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own
family, who might wish to show that their own kin were better.
" Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, "
said poor Mrs. Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, " as
\ didn't go to her before; she said it wasn't for her to come
to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; having she
allays was, and hard to please, — oh dear! — but she's said the
kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child.
For she says, for all she's been so set again* having one extry
in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and put-
ting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her
THE FINAL RESCUE. 523
house, if you'll go to her dutiful, and she* 11 uphold you against
folks as say harm of you when they' ve no call. And I told her
I thought you couldn't bear to see anybody but me, you were
90 beat down with trouble; but she said, */ won't throw ill
words at her; there's them out o' th' family 'ull be ready
enough to do that. But I'll give her good advice; an' she
must be humble.' If s wonderful o' Jane; for I'm sure she
used to throw everything I did wrong at me, — if it was the
raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativei
it was."
" Oh, mother," said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought
of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear,
"tell her I'm very grateful; I'll go to see her as soon as I
can; but I can't see any one just yet, except Dr. Kenn. I've
been to him, — he will advise me, and help me to get some
occupation. I can't live with any one, or be dependent on
them, tell aunt Glegg ; I must get my own bread. But did
you hear nothing of Philip — Philip Wakem? Have you
never seen any one that has mentioned him?"
"No, my dear; but I've been to Lucy's, and I saw your
ancle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she
took notice o' Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doc-
tor thinks she's on the turn to be better. What a world this
is, — what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning,
and it's gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when
the luck seemed on the turn." This was the first lamentation
that Mrs. Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had
been revived by the interview with sister Glegg.
" My poor, poor mother ! " Maggie burst out, cut to the
heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round
her mother's neck; "I was always naughty and troublescrn:
to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn't
been for me."
"Eh, my dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, leaning toward the
warm young cheek; " I must put up wi' my children, — I shall
never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must
be fond on it. There's nothing else much to be fond on, for
my furnitur* went long ago. And you'd got to be very good
once; I can't think how it's turned out the wrong way sol "
524 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard
nothing of Philip ; anxiety about him was becoming her pre-
dominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire
about him of Dr. Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did
not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakeni was
made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disap-
pointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he
was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the ca'
tastrophe to his son's hopes after he had done violence to hia
own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously
mentioned this concession in St. Ogg's; and he was almost
fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question
about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it
would have been known through the calling in of the medical
man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a
little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her
imagination began to live more and more persistently in what
Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her?
At Jast Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, di-
rected in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of
her ^wn name, — a hand in which her name had been written
loi>g ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her
mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation,
hurried upstairs that she might read the letter iu solitude.
She read it with a throbbing brow.
"MAGGIE, — I believe in you; I know you never meant to
deceive me ; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all.
J believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your
ipwn nature. The night after I last parted from you I suf-
rfered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were
not free; that there was another whose presence had a power
over you which mine never possessed; but through all the
suggestions — almost murderous suggestions — of rage and jeal-
ousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness.
I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said;
that you had rejected him ; that you struggled to renounce him,
for Lucy's sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that
was not fatal for you; and that dread shut out the
THE FTNTAL RESCUE. 626
thought ot resignation. I foresaw that he would not relin-
quish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the
strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from
one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, di-
vided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of
.the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your
nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But
perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist
does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with
love ; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands ; he
would never believe that it could bear for another all the
meaning and the beauty it bears for him.
"I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was
filled with selfish passion ; I was shattered by a night of con-
scious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been re-
signed even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be
resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to
me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give
a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, — the prom-
ise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the
divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want?
" But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what
came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was cer-
tain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to
him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your mar-
riage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was
wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than youi
love for him.
" I will not tell you what I went through in that interval,
3 it even in its utmost agony — even in those terrible throea
that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish
desire — my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide,
without the aid of any other motive, In the midst of my^
egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow
across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the
world in which you still lived and might need me ; it was part
of the faith I had vowed to you, — to wait and endure. Mag-
gie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, —
that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have
entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief be-
cause of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in
the sense of privation ; I never expected happiness ; arid in
knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what
reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what
light, what color is to my eyes, what music is to the inward
ear ; you hare raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness.
The new life I have found in caring for your joy and sorrow
more than for what is directly my own, has transformed the
spirit of rebellious murmuring into that willing endurance
which is the birth of strong sympathy. I think nothing but
such complete and intense love could have initiated me into
that enlarged life which grows and grows by appropriating the
life of others; for before, I was always dragged back from
it by ever-present painful self -consciousness. I even think
sometimes that this gift of transferred life which has come
to me in loving you, may be a new power to me.
" Then, dear one, in spite of all, you have been the blessing
of my life. Let no self-reproach weigh on you because of me.
It is I who should rather reproach myself for having urged
my feelings upon you, and hurried you into words that you
have felt as fetters. Tou meant to be true to those words j
you have been true. I can measure your sacrifice by what I
have known in only one half-hour of your presence with me,
when I dreamed that you might love me best. But, Maggie,
I have no just claim on you for more than affectionate remem-
brance.
" For some time I have shrunk from writing to you, because
I have shrunk even from the appearance of wishing to thrust
myself before you, and so repeating my original error. But
you will not misconstrue me. I know that we must keep
apart for a long while ; cruel tongues would force us apart, if
nothing else did. But I shall not go away. The placp where
you are is the one where my mind must live, wherever I
might travel. And remember that I am unchangeably yours,
— yours not with selfish wishes, but with a devotion that ex-
cludes such wishes.
"God comfort you, my loving, large-souled Maggie. If
THE FINAL RESCUE. B27
avery one else has misconceived you, remember that you have
never been doubted by him whose heart recognized you ten
years ago.
" Do not believe any one who says I am ill, because I am
not seen out of doors. I have only had nervous headaches, —
no worse than I have sometimes had them before. But the
overpowering heat inclines me to be perfectly quiescent in the
daytime. I am strong enough to obey any word which shall
tell me that I can serve you by word or deed.
" Yours to the last,
THILIP WAKEM."
As Maggie knelt by the bed sobbing, with that letter pressed
under her, her feelings again and again gathered themselves
in a whispered cry, always in the same words, —
" 0 God. is there any happiness in love that could make mo
forget their pain? "
CHAPTER IV.
MAGGIE AND LUCY.
BY the end of the week Dr. Kenn had made up his mind
that there was only one way in which he could secure to Mag-
gie a suitable living at St. Ogg's. Even with his twenty
years' experience as a parish priest, he was aghast at the
obstinate continuance of imputations against her in the face of
evidence. Hitherto he had been rather more adored and ap-
pealed to than was quite agreeable to him ; but now, in at-
tempting to open the ears of women to reason, and their con-
sciences to justice, on behalf of Maggie Tulliver, he suddenly
found himself as powerless as he was aware he would have
been if he had attempted to influence the shape of bonnets.
Dr. Kenn could not be contradicted; he was listened to in
silence ; but when he left the room, a comparison of opinions
among his hearers yielded much the same result as before.
Miss Tulliver had undeniably acted in a blamable manner,
even Dr. Kenn did not deny that; how, then, could he think
BO lightly of hei as to put that favorable interpretation on
B28 THE MILL ON THE FLOS&
everything she had done? Even on the supposition that re-
quired the utmost stretch of belief, — namely, that none of the
things said about Miss Tulliver were true, — still, since they
had been said about her, they had cast an odor round her
which must cause her to be shrunk from by every woman who
had to take care of her own reputation — and of Society. To
.have taken Maggie by the hand and said, " I will not believe
unproved evil of you; my lips shall not utter it j my ears shall
be closed against it j I, too, am an erring mortal, liable toi
stumble, apt to come short of my most earnest efforts ; your'
lot has been harder than mine, your temptation greater ; let
us help each other to stand and walk without more falling," —
to have done this would have demanded courage, deep pity,
self-knowledge, generous trust ; would have demanded a mind
that tasted no piquancy in evil-speaking, that felt no self-ex-
altation in condemning, that cheated itself with no large words
into the belief that life can have any moral end, any high re-
ligion, which excludes the striving after perfect truth, justice,
and love toward the individual men and women who come
across our own path. The ladies of St. Ogg's were not be-
guiled by any wide speculative conceptions; but they had
their favorite abstraction, called Society, which served to
make their consciences perfectly easy in doing what satisfied
their own egoism, — thinking and speaking the worst of Mag-
gie Tulliver, and turning their backs upon her. It was nab
urally disappointing to Dr. Kenn, after two years of super-
fluous incense from his feminine parishioners, to find them
suddenly maintaining their views in opposition to his ; but
then they maintained them in opposition to a higher Author-
ity, which they had venerated longer. That Authority had
furnished a very explicit answer to persons who might inquire
where their social duties began, and might be inclined to take
wide views as to the starting-point. The answer had not
turned on the ultimate good of Society, but on " a certain man "
who was found in trouble by the wayside.
Not that St. Ogg's was empty of women with some tender-
ness of heart and conscience ; probably it had as fair a propor-
tion of human goodness in it as any other small trading town
of that day. But until every good man is brave, we must ex<
THE FINAL RESCUE. 829
pect to find many good women timid, — too timid even to be-
lieve in the correctness of their own best promptings, when
these would place them in a minority. And the men at St.
Ogg's were not all brave, by any means; some of them were
even fond of scandal, and to an extent that might have given
their conversation an effeminate character, if it had not been
distinguished by masculine jokes, and by an occasional shrug
of the shoulders at the mutual hatred of women. It was the
general feeling of the masculine mind at St. Ogg's that women
were not to be interfered with in their treatment of each other.
And thus every direction in which Dr. Kenn had turned, in
the hope of procuring some kind recognition and some employ-
ment for Maggie, proved a disappointment to him. Mrs.
James Torry could not think of taking Maggie as a nursery
governess, even temporarily, — a young woman about whom
" such things had been said," and about whom " gentlemen
joked " ; and Miss Kirke, who had a spinal complaint, and
wanted a reader and companion, felt quite sure that Maggie's
mind must be of a quality with which she, for her part, could
not risk any contact. Why did not Miss Tulliver accept the
shelter offered her by her aunt Glegg? It did not become a
girl like her to refuse it. Or else, why did she not go out of
the neighborhood, and get a situation where she was not known?
(It was not, apparently, of so much importance that she
should carry her dangerous tendencies into strange families
unknown at St. Ogg's.) She must be very bold and hardened
to wish to stay in a parish where she was so much stared at
and whispered about.
Dr. Kenn, having great natural firmness, began, in the
v'presence of this opposition, as every firm man would hav«>
done, to contract a certain strength of determination over and
above what would have been called forth by the end in view.
He himself wanted a daily governess for his younger children;
and though he had hesitated in the first instance to offer this
position to Maggie, the resolution to protest with the utmost
force of his personal and priestly character against her being
crushed and driven away by slander, was now decisive. Mag-
gie gratefully accepted an employment that gave her duties as
well as a support; her days would be filled now, and solitary
34
B30 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
evenings would be a welcome rest. She no longer needed the
sacrifice her mother made in staying with her, and Mrs. Tul-
liver was persuaded to go back to the Mill.
But now it began to be discovered that Dr. Kenn, exem-
plary as he had hitherto appeared, had his crotchets, possibly
his weaknesses. The masculine mind of St. Ogg*s smiled
pleasantly, and did not wonder that Kenn liked to see a fine
pair of eyes daily, or that he was inclined to take so lenient
a view of the past; the feminine mind, regarded at that period
as less powerful, took a more melancholy view of the case.
If Dr. Kenn should be beguiled into marrying that Miss Tul-
liverl It was not safe to be too confident, even about the best
of men ; an apostle had fallen, and wept bitterly afterward ;
and though Peter's denial was not a close precedent, his re-
pentance was likely to be.
Maggie had not taken her daily walks to the Rectory for
many weeks, before the dreadful possibility of her some time
or ether becoming the Rector's wife had been talked of so
often in confidence, that ladies were beginning to discuss how
they should behave to her in that position. For Dr. Kenn,
it had been understood, had sat in the schoolroom half an hom
one morning, when Miss Tulliver was giving her lessons,—,
nay, he had sat there every morning; he had once walked
home with her, — he almost always walked home with her,—
and if not, he went to see her in the evening. What an artfu,
creature she was I What a mother for those children ! It wa»
enough to make poor Mrs. Keun turn in her grave, that they
should be put under the care of this girl only a few weeks
after her death. Would he be so lost to propriety as to marry,
her before the year was out? The masculine mind was sar»
castic, and thought not.
The Miss Guests saw an alleviation to the sorrow of wit-
nessing a folly in their Rector ; at least their brother would
be safe; and their knowledge of Stephen's tenacity wasaton-
stant ground of alarm to them, lest he should come back and
marry Maggie. They were not among those who disbelieved
their brother's letter; but they had no confidence in Maggie's
adherence to her renunciation of him ; they suspected that she
fcad shrunk rather from the elopement than from the marriage,
THE FINAL RESCUE. 531
aid that she lingered in St. Ogg*s, relying on his return to
her. They had always thought her disagreeable ; they now
thought her artful and proud j having quite as good grounds
for that judgment as you and I probably have for many strong
opinions of the same kind. Formerly they had not altogether
delighted in the contemplated match with Lucy, but now
their dread of a marriage between Stephen and Maggie added
its momentum to their genuine pity and indignation on behalf
of the gentle forsaken girl, in making them desire that he
should return to her. As soon as Lucy was able to leave
home, she was to seek relief from the oppressive heat of this
August by going to the coast with the Miss Guests; and it
was in their plans that Stephen should be induced to join them.
On the very first hint of gossip concerning Maggie and Dr.
Kenn, the report was conveyed in Miss Guest's letter to her
brother.
Maggie had frequent tidings through her mother, or aunt
Glegg, or Dr. Kenn, of Lucy's gradual progress toward recov-
ery, and her thoughts tended continually toward her uncle
Deane's house; she hungered for an interview with Lucy, if
it were only for five minutes, to utter a word of penitence, to
be assured by Lucy's own eyes and lips that she did not be-
lieve in the willing treachery of those whom she had loved
and trusted. But she knew that even if her uncle's indigna-
tion had not closed his house against her, the agitation of
such an interview would have been forbidden to Lucy. Only
to have seen her without speaking would have been some re-
lief; for Maggie was haunted by a face cruel in its very gen-
tleness ; a face that had been turned on hers with glad, sweet
looks of trust and love from the twilight time of memory ;
changed now to a sad and weary face by a first heart-stroke.
And as the days passed on, that pale image became more and
more distinct; the picture grew and grew into more speaking
definiteness under the avenging hand of remorse; the soft
hazel eyes, in their look of pain, were bent forever on Mag-
gie, and pierced her the more because she could see no anger
H them. But Lucy was not yet able to go to church, or any
place where Maggie could see her; and even the hope of that
departed, when the news was told her by a,unt Glegg, that
632 THE THTLTj ON THE FL08&
Lucy was really going away in a few days to Scarborough witli
the Miss Guests, who had been heard to say that they ex-
pected their brother to meet them there.
Only those who have known what hardest inward conflict
is, can know what Maggie felt as she sat in her loneliness the
evening after hearing that news from Mrs. Glegg, — only those
who have known what it is to dread their own selfish desires
as the watching mother would dread the sleeping-potion thato
•was to still her own pain.
She eat without candle in the twilight, with the window
Vide open toward the river; the sense of oppressive heat add-
ing itself undistinguishably to the burthen of her lot. Seated
on a chair against the window, with her arm on the window-
sill, she was looking blankly at the flowing r\v<jr, swift with
the backward-rushing tide, struggling to see still the sweet
face in its unreproaching sadness, that seemed now from mo-
ment to moment to sink away and be hidden behind a form
*hat thrust itself betw.een, and made darkness. Hearing the
Joor open, she thought Mrs. Jakin was coming in wHh her
supper, as usual ; and with that repugnance to trivial speech
•which comes with languor and wretchedness, she shrank from
turning round and saying she wanted nothing; good little Mrs.
Jakin would be sure to make some well-meant remarks. But
the next moment, without her having discerned the sound of
a footstep, she felt a light hand on her shoulder, and heard a
voice close to her saying, " Maggie! "
The face was there, — changed, but all the sweeter; the
hazel eyes were there, with their heart-piercing tenderness.
" Maggie ! n the soft voice said. " Lucy ! " answered a voice
with a sharp ring of anguish in it ; and Lucy threw her arms
/ound Maggie's neck, and leaned her pale cheek against the
burning brow.
u I stole out," said Lucy, almost in a whisper, while she sat
down close to Maggie and held her hand, " when papa and the
rest were away. Alice is come with me. I asked her to help
me. But I must only stay a little while, because it is so late."
It was easier to say that at first than to say anything elae.
They sat looking at each other. It seemed as if the inter
new must end without more speech, for speech was very diffr
THE FINAL RESCUE. 533
<nlt. .£<*ch felt that there would be something scorching in
the words that would recall the irretrievable wrong. But
soon, as Maggie looked, every distinct thought began to be
overflowed by a wave of loving penitence, and words burst
forth with a sob.
- God bless you for coming, Lucy."
The sobs came thick on each other after that.
•* Maggie, dear, be comforted," said Lucy now, putting her
cheek against Maggie's again. "Don't grieve." And she
sat still, hoping to soothe Maggie with that gentle caress.
"I didn't mean to deceive you, Lucy," said Maggie, as
soon as she could speak. " It always made me wretched that
I felt what I didn't like you to know. It was because I
thought it would all be conquered, and you might never see
anything to wound you."
" I know, dear," said Lucy. " I know you never meant to
make me unhappy. It is a trouble that has come on us all ;
you have more to bear than I have — and you gave him up,
when — you did what it must have been very hard to do."
They were silent again a little while, sitting with clasped
hands, and cheeks leaned together.
"Lucy," Maggie began again, "he struggled too. H«
wanted to be true to you. He will come back to you. For*
give him — he will be happy then "
These words were wrung forth from Maggie's deepest soul,
with an effort like the convulsed clutch of a drowning man.
Lucy trembled and was silent.
A gentle knock came at the door. It was Alice, the maid,
who entered and said, —
" I daren't stay any longer, Miss Deane. They'll find it
out, and there'll be such anger at your coming out so late."
Lucy rose and said, "Very well, Alice, — in a minute."
"I'm to go away on Friday, Maggie," she added, when
Alice had closed the door again. " When I come back, and
am strong, they will let me do as I like. I shall come to you
when I please then."
"Lucy," said Maggie, with another great effort, "I pray to
God continually that I may never be the cause of sorrow to
you any more."
534 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
She pressed the little hand that she held between hers, and
looked up into the face that was bent over hers. Lucy never
forgot that look.
"Maggie," she said, in a low voice, that had the solemnity
of confession in it, "you are better than I am. I can't "
She broke off there, and said no more. But they clasped
each other again in a last embrace.
CHAPTER V.
THB LAST CONFLICT.
TIT the second week of September, Maggie was again sitting
in her lonely room, battling with the old shadowy enemies
that were forever slain and rising again. It was past mid-
night, and the rain was beating heavily against the window,
driven with fitful force by the rushing, loud-moaning wind.
For the day after Lucy's visit there had been a sudden change
in the weather; the heat and drought had given way to cold
variable winds, and heavy falls of rain at intervals ; and she
had been forbidden to risk the contemplated journey until the
weather should become more settled. In the counties higher
up the Floss the rains had been continuous, and the comple-
tion of the harvest had been arrested. And now, for the last
two days, the rains on this lower course of the river had been
incessant, so that the old men had shaken their heads and
talked of sixty years ago, when the same sort of weather, hap-
pening about the equinox, brought on the great floods, which
swept the bridge away, and reduced the town to great misery.
But the younger generation, who had seen several small floods,
thought lightly of these sombre recollections and forebodings ;
and Bob Jakin, naturally prone to take a hopeful view of his
own luck, laughed at his mother when she regretted their
having taken a house by the riverside, observing that but for
that they would have had no boats, which were the most lucky
of possessions in case of a flood that obliged them to go to a
distance for food.
THE FINAL RESCUE. 635
But the careless and the fearful were alike sleeping in their
beds now. There was hope that the rain would abate by the
morrow j threatenings of a worse kind, from sudden thaws
after falls of snow, had often passed off, in the experience of
the younger ones ; and at the very worst, the banks would be
sure to break lower down the river when the tide came in with
violence, and so the waters would be carried off, without caus-
ing more than temporary inconvenience, and losses that would
be felt only by the poorer sort, whom charity would relieve.
All were in their beds now, for it was past midnight ; all
except some solitary watchers such as Maggie. She was
seated in her little parlor toward the river, with one candle,
that left everything dim in the room except a letter which
lay before her on the table. That letter, which had come to
her to-day, was one of the causes that had kept her up far on
into the fcight, unconscious how the hours were going, care-
less of seeking rest, with no image of rest coming across her
mind, except of that far, far off rest from which there would
be no more waking for her into this struggling earthly life.
Two days before Maggie received that letter, she had been
to the Eectory for the last time. The heavy rain would have
prevented her from going since ; but there was another reason.
Dr. Kenn, at first enlightened only by a few hints as to the
new turn which gossip and slander had taken in relation to
Maggie, had recently been made more fully aware of it by an
earnest remon stance from one of his male parishioners against
the indiscretion of persisting in the attempt to overcome the
prevalent feeling in the parish by a course of resistance. Dr.
Kenn, having a conscience void of offence in the matter, was
still inclined to persevere, — was still averse to give way be-
fore a public sentiment that was odious and contemptible ; but
he was finally wrought upon by the consideration of the pecul-
iar responsibility attached to his office, of avoiding the ap-
pearance of evil, — an "appearance" that is always dependent
on the average quality of surrounding minds. Where these
minds are low and gross, the area of that "appearance" is
proportionately widened. Perhaps he was in danger of acting
from obstinacy ; perhaps it was his duty to succumb. Con-
scientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the
536 THE MILL ON THE PLOS3.
most painful course j and to recede was always painful to Dr.
Kenn. He made up his mind that he must advise Maggie to
go away from St. Ogg's for a time j and he performed that
difficult task with as much delicacy as he could, only stating
in vague terms that he found his attempt to countenance her
stay was a source of discord between himself and his parish'
loners, that was likely to obstruct his usefulness as a clergy-
man. He begged her to allow him to write to a clerical
friend of his, who might possibly take her into his own family
as governess ; and, if not, would probably know of some other
available position for a young woman in whose welfare Dr.
Kenu felt a strong interest.
Poor Maggie listened with a trembling lip; she could say
nothing but a faint " Thank you, I shall be grateful " j and
she walked back to her lodgings, through the driving rain,
with a new sense of desolation. She must be a lonely wan-
derer j she must go out among fresh faces, that would look
at her wonderingly, because the days did not seem joyful to
her ; she must begin a new life, in which she would have to
rouse herself to receive new impressions ; and she was so un-
speakably, sickeningly weary 1 There was no home, no help
for the erring; even those who pitied were constrained to
hardness. But ought she to complain? Ought she to shrink
in this way from the long penance of life, which was all the
possibility she had of lightening the load to some other suf-
ferers, and so changing that passionate error into a new force
of unselfish human love? All the next day she sat in her
lonely room, with a window darkened by the cloud and the
driving rain, thinking of that future, and wrestling for pa-
tience ; for what repose could poor Maggie ever win except by
^wrestling?
And on the third day — this day of which she had just sat
out the close — the letter had come which was lying on the
table before her.
The letter was from Stephen. He was come back from
Holland; he was at Mudport again, unknown to any of his
friends, and had written to her from that place, enclosing the
letter to a person whom he trusted in St. Ogg's. From be-
ginning to end it was a passionate cry of reproach ; an appeal
THE FINAL RESCUE. 087
Against her useless sacrifice of him, of herself, against that
perverted notion of right which led her to crush all his hopes,
for the sake of a mere idea, and not any substantial good, —
his hopes, whom she loved, and who loved her with that sin-
gle overpowering passion, that worship, which a man never
gives to a woman more than once in his life.
" They have written to me that you are to marry Kenn.
As if I should believe that I Perhaps they have told you
some such fables about me. Perhaps they tell you I've been
'travelling.' My body has been dragged about somewhere}
l?ut / have never travelled from the hideous place where you
left me ; where I started up from the stupor of helpless rage
to find you gone.
"Maggie! whose pain can have been like mine? Whose
injury is like mine? Who besides me has met that long look
of love that has burnt itself into my soul, so that no other
image can come there? Maggie, call me back to you! Call
me back to life and goodness ! I am banished from both now.
I have no motives; I am indifferent to everything. Two
months have only deepened the certainty that I can never care
for life without you. Write me one word; say ' Cornel ' In
two days I should be with you. Maggie, have you forgotten
what it was to be together, — to be within reach of a look, to
be within hearing of each other's voice? "
When Maggie first read this letter she felt as if her real
temptation had only just begun. At the entrance of the chill
dark cavern, we turn with unworn courage from the warm
light ; but how, when we have trodden far in the damp dark-
ness, and have begun to be faint and weary ; how, if there is
a sudden opening above us, and we are invited back again to
the life-nourishing day? The leap of natural longing from
under the pressure of pain is so strong, that all less imme-
diate motives are likely to be forgotten — till the pain has been
escaped from.
For hours Maggie felt as if her struggle had been in vain.
For hours every other thought that she strove to summon was
thrust aside by the image of Stephen waiting for the single
word that would bring him to her. She did not read the let-
ter 5 she heard him uttering it^ and the voice shook her with
C38 THE MILL GN THE FLOSS.
its old strange power. All the day before she had been filled
•with the vision of a lonely future through which she must
carry the burthen, of regret, upheld only by clinging faith.
And here, close within her reach, urging itself upon her even
as a claim, was another future, in which hard endurance and
effort were to be exchanged for easy, delicious leaning on
another's loving strength! And yet that promise of joy in
the place of sadness did not make the dire force of the temp-
tation to Maggie. It was Stephen's tone of misery, it was
the doubt in the justice of Ler own resolve, that made the bal-
ance tremble, and made her once start from her seat to reach
the pen and paper, and write " Come ! "
But close upon that decisive act, her mind recoiled ; and
the sense of contradiction with her past self in her moments of
strength and clearness came upon her like a pang of conscious
degradation. No, she must wait ; she must pray ; the light
that had forsaken her would come again; she should feel
again what she had felt when she had fled away, under an in-
spiration strong enough to conquer agony, — to conquer love;
she should feel again what she had felt when Lucy stood by
her, when Philip's letter had stirred all the fibres that bound
her to the calmer past.
She sat quite still, far on into the night, with no impulse
to change her attitude, without active force enough even for
the mental act of prayer; only waiting for the light that
would surely come again. It came with the memories that no
passion could long quench ; the long past came back to her,
and with it the fountains of self-renouncing pity and affection,
of faithfulness and resolve. The words that were marked by
the quiet hand in the little old book that she had long ago
learned by heart, rushed even to her lips, and found a vent
for themselves in a low murmur that was quite lost in the
loud driving of the rain against the window and the loud
moan and roar of the wind. " I have received the Cross, I
have received it from Thy hand ; I will bear it, and bear it
till death, as Thou hast laid it upon me."
But soon other words rose that could find no utterance but
hi a sob, — "Forgive me, Stephen 1 It will pass away. You
come back to her."
THE FINAL RESCUE. 539
She took up the letter, held it to the candle, and let it bum
slowly on the hearth. To-morrow she would write to him the
last word of parting.
"I will bear it, and bear it till death. But how long it will
be before death comes 1 I am so young, so healthy. How
shall I have patience and strength? Am I to struggle and
fall and repent again? Has life other trials as hard for me
still?"
With that cry of self -despair, Maggie fell on her knees
against the table, and buried her sorrow-stricken face. Her
soul went out to the Unseen Pity that would be with her to
the end. Surely there was something being taught her by
this experience of great need; and she must be learning a
secret of human tenderness aud long-suffering, that the less
erring could hardly know? " O.God, if my life is to be long,
let me live to bless and comfort "
At that moment Maggie felt a startling sensation of sud-
den cold about her knees and feet; it was water flowing under
her. She started up ; the stream was flowing under the door
that led into the passage. She was not bewildered for an in-
stant; she knew it was the flood!
The tumult of emotion she had been enduring for the last
twelve hours seemed to have left a great calm in her; with-
out screaming, she hurried with the candle upstairs to Bob
Jakin's bedroom. The door was ajar; she went in and shook
him by the shoulder.
" Bob, the flood is come! it is in the house! let us see if we
can make the boats safe."
She lighted his candle, while the poor wife, snatching uf
her baby, burst into screams; and then she hurried down
again to see if the waters were rising fast. There was a step
down into the room at the door leading from the staircase ;
she saw that the water was already on a level with the step.
While she was looking, something came with a tremendous
crash against the window, and sent the leaded panes and the
old wooden framework inward in shivers, the water pouring
in after it.
" It is the boat! » cried Maggie. MBob> come down to get
tOid boats'"
$40 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
And without a moment's shudder of fear, she plunged
through the water, which was rising fast to her knees, and by
the glimmering light of the candle she had left on the stairs,
she mounted on to the window-sill, and crept into the boat,
which was left with the prow lodging and protruding through
the window. Bob was not long* after her, hurrying without
shoes or stockings, but with the lanthorn in his hand.
"Why, they're both here, — both the boats, " said Bob, as
he got into the one where Maggie was. " It's wonderful this
fastening isn't broke too, as well as the mooring. "
In the excitement of getting into the other boat, unfasten-
ing it, and mastering an oar, Bob was not struck with the dan-
ger Maggie incurred. "\Ve are not apt to fear for the fearless,
when we are companions in their danger, and Bob's mind was
absorbed in possible expedients for the safety of the helpless
indoors. The fact that Maggie had been up, had waked him,
and had taken the lead in activity, gave Bob a vague impres-
sion of her as one who would help to protect, not need to be
protected. She too had got possession of an oar, and had
pushed off, so as to release the boat from the overhanging
window-frame.
"The water's rising so fast," said Bob, "I doubt it'll be in
at the chambers before long, — th' house is so low. I've more
mind to get Prissy and the child and tho mother into the boat,
if I could, and trusten to the water, — forth* old house is none
eo safe. And if I let go the boat — but you" he exclaimed,
suddenly lifting the light of his lanthorn on Maggie, as she
stood in the rain with the oar in her hand and her black aair
streaming.
Maggie had no time to answer, for a new tidal current swept
along the line of the houses, and drove both the boats out on
to the wide water, with a force that carried them far past the
meeting current of the river.
In the first moments Maggie felt nothing, thought of noth-
ing, but that she had suddenly passed away from that life
which she had been dreading; it was the transition of death,
without its agony, — and she was alone in the darkness with
God.
Tlie whole thing had been so rapid, so dreamlike, that the
THE FINAL RESCUE. 541
threads of ordinary association were broken; she sank down
on the seat clutching the oar mechanically, and for a long
while had no distinct conception of her position. The first
thing that waked her to fuller consciousness was the cessation
of the rain, and a perception that the darkness was divided
by the faintest light, which parted the overhanging gloom
from the immeasurable watery level below. She was driven ont
upon the flood, — that awful visitation of God which her father
used to talk of; which had made the nightmare of her childish
dreams. And with that thought there rushed in the vision of
the old home, and Tom, and her mother, — they had all lis-
tened together.
"0 God, where am I? Which is the way home?" she
cried out, in the dim loneliness.
What was happening to them at the Mill? The flood had
once nearly destroyed it. They might be in danger, in dis-
tress,— her mother and her brother, alone there, beyond reach
of help! Her whole soul was strained now on that thought;
and she saw the long-loved faces looking for help into the
darkness, and finding none.
She was floating in smooth water now, — perhaps far on the
oveiflooded fields. There was no sense of present danger to
check the outgoing of her mind to the old home; and she
strained her eyes against the curtain of gloom that she might
seize the first sight of her whereabout, — that she might catch
some faint suggestion of the spot toward which all her anxieties
tended.
Oh, how welcome, the widening of that dismal watery level,
the gradual uplifting of the cloudy firmament, the slowly de-
nning blackness of objects above the glassy dark ! Yes, she
must be out on the fields ; those were the tops of hedgerow
trees. Which way did the river lie? Looking behind her,
she saw the lines of black trees ; looking before her, there
were none ; then the river lay before her. She seized an oar
and began to paddle the boat forward with the energy of
wakening hope ; the dawning seemed to advance more swiftly,
now she was in action ; and she could soon see the poor dumb
beasts crowding piteously on a mound where they had taken
refuge. Onward she paddled and rowed by turns in the
542 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
growing twilight j her wet clothes clung round her, and hat
streaming hair was dashed about by the wind, but she was
hardly conscious of any bodily sensations, — except a sensation
of strength, inspired by mighty emotion. Along with the
sense of danger and possible rescue for those long-remembered
beings at the old home, there was an undefined sense of recon-
cilement with her brother; what quarrel, what harshness,
.what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a
great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is
gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal
needs? Vaguely Maggie felt this, in the strong resurgent love
toward her brother that swept away all the later impressions
of hard, cruel offence and misunderstanding, and left only the
deep, underlying, unshakable memories of early union.
But now there was a large dark mass in the distance, and
near to her Maggie could discern the current of the river.
The dark mass must be — yes, it was — St. Ogg's. Ah, now
she knew which way to look for the first glimpse of the well-
known trees — the gray willows, the now yellowing chestnuts
— and above them the old roof I But there was no color, no
shape yet} all was faint and dim. More and more strongly
the energies seemed to come and put themselves forth, as L£
her life were a stored-up force that was being spent in this
hour, unneeded for any future.
She must get her boat into the current of the Floss, else shf
would never be able to pass the Ripple and approach thg
house ; this was the thought that occurred to her, as she im-
agined with more and more vividness the state of things roun<J
the old home. But then she might be carried very far down,
and be unable to guide her boat out of the current again.
For the first time distinct ideas of danger began to press upon
her j but there was no choice of courses, no room for hesita-
tion, and she floated into the current. Swiftly she went now
without effort; more and more clearly in the lessening distance
and the growing light she began to discern the objects that she
knew must be the well-known trees and roofs ; nay, she was
not far off a rushing, muddy current that must be the strange-
ly altered Ripple.
Great God! there were floating masses in tt> that might
THE FINAL RESCUE. MS
dash against her boat as she passed, and cause her to perish
too soon. What were those masses?
For the first time Maggie's heart began to beat in an agony
of dread. She sat helpless, dimly conscious that she was be-
ing floated along, more intensely conscious of the anticipated
clash. But the horror was transient ; it passed away before the
oncoming warehouses of St. Ogg's. She had passed the mouth
of the Ripple, then ; now, she must use all her skill and power
to manage the boat and get it if possible out of the current.
She could see now that the bridge was broken down ; she could
see the masts of a stranded vessel far out over the watery field.
But no boats were to be seen moving on the river, — such as
had been laid hands on were employed in the flooded streets.
With new resolution, Maggie seized her oar, and stood tip
again to paddle ; but the now ebbing tide added to the swift-
ness of the river, and she was carried along beyond the bridge.
She could hear shouts from the windows overlooking the river,
as if the people there were calling to her. It was not till she
had passed on nearly to Tof ton that she could get the boat
clear of the current. Then with one yearning look toward her
uncle Deane's houce that lay farther down the river, she took
to both her oars and rowed with all her might across the
watery fields, back toward the Mill. Color was beginning to
awake now, and as she approached the Dorlcote fields, she
could discern the tints of the trees, could see the old Scotch
firs far to the right, and the home chestnuts, — oh, how deep
they lay in the water, — deeper than the trees on this side the
hill! And the roof of the "Mill — where was it? Those heavy
fragments hurrying down the Ripple, — what had they meant?
But it was not the house, — the house stood firm; drowned up
to the first story, but still firm,— or was it broken in at the
end toward the Mill?
With panting joy that she was there at last,— joy that over-
came all distress, — Maggie neared the front of the house. At
first she heard no sound; she saw no object moving. Her
boat was on a level with the upstairs window. She called out
in a loud, piercing voice, —
"Tom, where are you? Mother, where are you? Here it
Maggie I"
544 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS
Soon, from the window of the attin in the central gable, ibi
heard Tom's voice, —
" Who is it? Hare you brought a boat? *
"It is I, Tom, — Maggie. Where is mother? "
" She is not here ; she went to Garum the day before yester-
day. I'll come down to the lower window."
"Alone, Maggie?" said Tom, in a voice of deep astonish-
ment, as he opened the middle window, on a level with the boat.
" Yes, Tom ; God has taken care of me, to bring me to you.
Get in quickly. Is there no one else? "
"No," said Tom, stepping into the boat; "I fear the man is
drowned ; he was carried down the Ripple, I think, when part
of the Mill fell with the crash of trees and stones against it:
I've shouted again and again, and there has been no answer.
Give me the oars, Maggie."
It was not till Tom had pushed oft and they were on the
wide water, — he face to face with Maggie, — that the full mean-
ing of what had happened rushed upon his mind. It came
with so overpowering a force, — it was such a new revelation
to his spirit, of the depths in life that had lain beyond his
vision, which he had fancied so keen and clear, — that he was
unable to ask a question. They sat mutely gazing at each
other, — Maggie with eyes of intense life looking out from a
weary, beaten face; Tom pale, with a certain awe and humili-
ation. Thought was busy though the lips were silent; and
though he could ask no question, he guessed a story of almost
miraculous, divinely protected effort. But at last a mist gath-
ered over the blue-gray eyes, and the lips found a word they
could utter, — the old childish "Magsie!"
Maggie could make no answer but a long, deep sob of that
mysterious, wondrous happiness that is one with pain.
As soon as she could speak, she said, " We will go to Lucy,
Tom ; we'll go and see if she is safe, and then we can help the
rests*
Tom rowed with untired vigor, and with a different speeA
from poor Maggie's. The boat was soon in the current of the
river again, and soon they would be at Tofton.
•' Park House stands high up out of the flood," said Maggie,
Perhaps they have got Lucy there."
THE FINAL RESCUE. 545
Nothing else was said ; a new danger was being carried tow-
ard them by the river. Some wooden machinery had just
given way on one of the wharves, and huge fragments were
being floated along. The sun was rising now, and the wide
area of watery desolation was spread out in dreadful clearness
around them j in dreadful clearness floated onward the hurry-
ing, threatening masses. A large company in a boat that was
working its way along under the Tofton houses observed their
danger, and shouted, " Get out of the current! **
But that could not be done at once ; and Tom, looking be-
fore him, saw death rushing on them. Huge fragments, cling-
ing together in fatal fellowship, made one wide mass across
the stream*
" It is coming, Maggie! " Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice,
loosing the oars, and clasping her.
The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water,
and the huge mass was hurrying on in hideous triumph.
But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a black speck on
the golden water.
The boat reappeared, but brother and sister had gone down
in an embrace never to be parted ; living through again in one
supreme moment the days when they had clasped their little
hands in love, and roamed the daisied fields together.
CONCLUSION.
NATOTUS repairs her ravages, — repairs them with her
shine, and with human labor. The desolation wrought by that
flood had left little visible trace on the face of the earth, five
years after. The fifth autumn was rich in golden cornstacks,
rising in thick clusters among the distant hedgerows; the
wharves and warehouses on the Floss were busy again, with
echoes of eager voices, with hopeful lading and unlading.
And every man and woman mentioned in this history was
still living, except those whose end we know.
Nature repairs her ravages, but not all. The uptorn trees
are not rooted again ; the parted hills aie left scarred , if there
THE MILL ON THE FL08&
is a new growth, the trees are not the same as the old, and the
hills underneath, their green vesture bear the marks of the
past rending. To the eyes that have dwelt on the past, there
is no thorough repair.
Dorlcote Mill was rebuilt. And Dorlcote churchyard —
where the brick grave that held a father whom we know, was
found with the stone laid prostrate upon it after the flood —
had recovered all its grassy order and decent quiet.
Eear that brick grave there was a tomb erected, very soon
after the flood, for two bodies that were found in close em-
brace ; and it was visited at different moments by two men
who both felt that their keenest joy and keenest sorrow were
forever buried there.
One of them visited the tomb again with a sweet face beside
him ; but that was years after.
The other was always solitary. His great companionship
was among the trees, of the Bed Deeps, where the buried joy
seemed still to hover, like a revisiting spirit.
The tomb bore the names of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, and
below the names it was written, —
* In their death they were oot divided.*
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